Bits Bucket for February 2, 2015
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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“The Bitcoin price is down over 5% this Sunday, as it appears that we are returning to a long term down-trend which has been in place, and holding fairly steady in its path, since the summer of 2014.”
Another mania headed for a dirt nap. At this pace, Bitcoins should return to their natural intrinsic value by summer.
Since 1980 the US Dollar nearly 50% of its purchasing power and you pick on bitcoin? Many people bought bitcoin for $10 or less per coin and it’s at $225 right now.
Amazing. And you have so much faith on the USD.
Let’s go back further.
$20 in USD in 1959 is equivalent to $162.71 today. So it is 12% of its purchasing power compared to 55 years ago.
I cannot even use the analogy “pot calling the kettle black” in this.
I suspect you can wave at $10 on the way by, but don’t expect the train to stop at the station. There are no boundaries or constraints between $1,000 and zero.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t pimp the dollar as a great long term store of wealth. It is the best bet in town lately though. It’s doing better than my barrel of 1955 silver coins and the stack of copper bars in my foundry shop.
Wait. The USD is doing better than your barrel of 1955 silver coins? I guess those were bought last year.
Go back to 1955 when they were minted. A barrel of them would be a small fortune today. Not the USD.
“I guess those were bought last year.”
That would be a wrong guess. My long strategy may not play out in my best used by date. It could, but we’ll see. Shorter term, fantasia coins are the thinnest of ethers. Beware a Wiley Coyote moment. Just say’in.
The Bitcoin price is down over 5% this Sunday…
I assume that this is measurement of the value of a Bitcoin in US dollars. If the dollar is continually losing value, Bitcoins are losing value at a faster rate.
5% faster. Good catch, Mike!
‘$20 in USD in 1959 is equivalent to $162.71 today. So it is 12% of its purchasing power compared to 55 years ago.’
Bill, you are comparing nominal values. What do pre-1965 silver coins buy vs. their face value?
The things is, inflation is what we have here. I was an elementary school kid when I had a passbook savings account. I remember going to the bank and seeing my account incrementally go up an astounding amount for a kid each period, all because interest rates were probably around 9% back then. Man, if I had only had some idea back then about compounding interest.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
“If you see something, say something” Department of Homeland Security ad popping up on my HBB this AM.
I am getting a picture of a young woman at the beach in a skimpy bathing suit.
Maybe mine is somehow a blanketing of the Phoenix area because of the superbowl. Started a day or two ago.
My picture: Interception near the goal line.
I have real-estate ads.
ad for the economist magazine and ad for some nonsense called ‘bentley park’ built by ryan homes
i clicked on the link to see where this is and it’s somewhere in maryland. townhouses start from the $420’s up to single family houses starting from the $580’s
http://www.bentleyparkmd.com/
because what all the kidz need are $500,000 starter homes
“If you see something, say something”
Slogan right out of the drab gray Soviet Union.
When will DHS through the Education department ask their children to report on their own parents’ “suspicious” activities?
This group pays students to spy on professors:
http://www.amchainitiative.org/
Is it time yet for the stock market to rally on the realization the Fed won’t hike rates this year? (That’s a prediction, folks.)
I have some overpriced assets I would like to unload on some smart investors.
Bulletin ISM manufacturing index falls to worst level in a year
Project Syndicate Get email alerts
Opinion: What the market hacks fail to grasp about anemic growth
Published: Feb 2, 2015 9:46 a.m. ET
Roubini’s unconventional truth: World has too much supply, and not enough demand
By Nouriel Roubini
Bloomberg
NEW YORK (Project Syndicate) — Who would have thought that six years after the global financial crisis, most advanced economies would still be swimming in an alphabet soup — ZIRP, QE, CE, FG, NDR, and U-FX Int — of unconventional monetary policies? No central bank had considered any of these measures (zero interest rate policy, quantitative easing, credit easing, forward guidance, negative deposit rate, and unlimited foreign exchange intervention) before 2008. Today, they have become a staple of policy makers’ toolkits.
This assortment of “Austrian” economists, radical monetarists, gold bugs, and bitcoin fanatics has repeatedly warned that such a massive increase in global liquidity would lead to hyperinflation, the U.S. dollar’s collapse, sky-high gold prices, and the eventual demise of fiat currencies at the hands of digital cryptocurrency counterparts.
Indeed, just in the last year and a half, the European Central Bank adopted its own version of FG, then moved to ZIRP, and then embraced CE, before deciding to try NDR. In January, it fully adopted QE.
Indeed, by now the Fed, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the ECB, and a variety of smaller advanced economies’ central banks, such as the Swiss National Bank, have all relied on such unconventional policies.
One result of this global monetary-policy activism has been a rebellion among pseudo-economists and market hacks in recent years. This assortment of “Austrian” economists, radical monetarists, gold bugs, and bitcoin fanatics has repeatedly warned that such a massive increase in global liquidity would lead to hyperinflation, the U.S. dollar’s collapse, sky-high gold prices, and the eventual demise of fiat currencies at the hands of digital cryptocurrency counterparts.
None of these dire predictions has been borne out by events.
Inflation is low and falling in almost all advanced economies; indeed, all advanced-economy central banks are failing to achieve their mandate — explicit or implicit — of 2% inflation, and some are struggling to avoid deflation.
Moreover, the value of the dollar has been soaring against the yen (USDJPY, -0.26%), euro (EURUSD, +0.57%), and most emerging-market currencies. Gold prices (GCH5, -0.30%) since the fall of 2013 have tumbled from $1,900 per ounce to around $1,200. And bitcoin was the world’s worst-performing currency in 2014, its value falling by almost 60%.
To be sure, most of the doomsayers have barely any knowledge of basic economics. But that has not stopped their views from informing the public debate. So it is worth asking why their predictions have been so spectacularly wrong.
The root of their error lies in their confusion of cause and effect. The reason why central banks have increasingly embraced unconventional monetary policies is that the post-2008 recovery has been extremely anemic. Such policies have been needed to counter the deflationary pressures caused by the need for painful deleveraging in the wake of large buildups of public and private debt.
In most advanced economies, for example, there is still a very large output gap, with output and demand well below potential; thus, firms have limited pricing power. There is considerable slack in labor markets as well: Too many unemployed workers are chasing too few available jobs, while trade and globalization, together with labor-saving technological innovations, are increasingly squeezing workers’ jobs and incomes, placing a further drag on demand.
Simply put, we live in a world in which there is too much supply and too little demand. The result is persistent disinflationary, if not deflationary, pressure, despite aggressive monetary easing.
…
Deflation is the end result of aggressive monetary easing.
Big move today on Wall Street. Are traders waking up to the likelihood the Fed won’t hike rates until after 2015?
Love to see Pete Caroll getting his as the goat finally. I like watching history like when Reggie Bush has his Heisman earned under Caroll’s watch taken away.
Worst play call ever.
“Worst play call ever.”
EVER
“Worst play call ever.”
“EVER”
“Worst” and “ever” don’t do it justice. That play call calls for new words to be invented.
Craptacular time suck play call.
This is one from Fiona Sawyer:
Craptacular
Something so appallingly shithouse as to be worthy of special recognition.
———————————————————————
Recent updates to Oxford Dictionaries
We’ve also added several slang words and senses, including time suck and new senses of thing, crazy, and slash.
We finally agree on something.
Whether you agree with the truth about housing has no bearing on it Rental_Fraud.
True. OTOH we’ll have to hear about how great Brady is because he’s got 4 rings, even though No. 4 was a gift from Seattle.
NE fought well for their yardage, many first downs against Seattle’s spectacular defense. Brady earned his keep.
Nobody does it like Tom Brady. Nobody.
*Disclaimer- Not a fan of any AFC team.
“Nobody does it like Tom Brady. Nobody.”
And supermodel(s) bearing his children!
Ex-IMF head on trial for “pimping” following earlier accusations that he sexually assaulted a maid in his New York hotel. Note that US taxpayers are forced to cover at least a quarter of the IMF’s budget, which presumably includes the “entertainment” expenses of the likes of DSK and his fellow .1%ers.
http://news.yahoo.com/ex-imf-chief-strauss-kahn-goes-trial-pimping-031954986.html
Ben and others…New research and conclusions offered on what happened in the housing bubble…
“Third, the bulk of mortgage lending and losses — measured by dollar volume — occurred among middle-class and high-income borrowers”
http://link.washingtonpost.com/5483d0d93b35d046478bdbf728ez5.xam/VM9UCsPo_XyS326LA07a6
Did they add bailouts, harp, hamp, liberated equity, years of free rent without a mortgage payment, no tax liability for forgiven loan income, etc. into the concept of losses?
I don’t know…You ask them…
You’re the realtor, I’m asking you.
realtors are liars
ALL shilling is local!
A letter to the editor:
‘The Jan. 25-27 front-page series “Dashed dreams: The plight of the black middle class” highlighted a core inequity in the housing bubble: African Americans, Africans and citizens of Caribbean descent were coaxed at very higher percentages into subprime loans.’
‘Much of the series focused on Prince George’s County’s Fairwood subdivision, where from 2007 to 2010 we endured the worst of the national crisis. But it missed the fact that the vast majority of current Fairwood residents are no longer underwater in their mortgages.’
‘…five years later, this is not the story of Fairwood. Half-empty blocks and vacant houses have refilled, and we are a growing, prospering community again.’
‘Although our houses lost significant value, many have sold in recent years for $100,000 more than they did at the worst of the crisis. Our recovery may not approach Reston’s, but it is significant nonetheless.’
‘As grateful as my neighbors and I are that The Post exposed the crookedness of the housing bubble and the severe impact it had on good people, it painted an inaccurate picture of our community. Several thousand Fairwood residents lived through it, helped those we could and successfully reached the other side of the crisis’
For all the talk years ago about not seeing a house as an investment, this guy still clearly does.
Minority Homeownership Initiatives
HUD is an avid supporter of increased minority homeownership. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity carefully monitors the programs of other HUD offices, as well as the work of GSEs (government sponsored enterprises) to ensure that policies are being followed to progress toward an increase in numbers of minority homeowners.
…
Is this why Obama thinks it OK to step up cost bias ?
“The study attributes the employment gap mainly to hiring discrimination, high incarceration rates for black people, and African Americans’ lack of inherited wealth from past generations due to a long history of discrimination. Less inherited wealth results in low homeownership rates and high deficits among African Americans: While a college-educated white American has an average net worth of $75,000, a college-educated black American has a net worth of less than $17,500.”
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2014/06/25/3452887/education-race-gap/
and a college educated black American has more kids to pay for so that accounts for the difference…….ya think?
were coaxed at very higher percentages into subprime loans.’
Does the internet mean anything to these people? I believe it was the lack of computer literacy and Google search skills that were at the root of this, not Race.
More likely that they were mostly debt virgins, and got all orgasmic at being allowed to buy something they couldn’t actually afford, with assurances that the debt would make them rich.
true but it all goes back to google. they had no clue how to use it and find out for themselves.
that’s how i found this blog, a 2 family/finished basement 80 year old plaster wall house down the street was listed for $329,000 and it had multiple bidders up to $374,500 it barely penciled out at $329,000…..The only way that price made sense was to rent the basement as an illegal 3rd apartment…. so i searched google for answers
They are successful because they are still paying their underwater mortgages. Awesome.
Warmist Warming Monday
Even in 2015, the public doesn’t trust scientists
“America risks drifting into a new Age of Ignorance. Even as science makes unparalleled advances in genomics to oceanography, science deniers are on the march — and they’re winning hearts and minds more successfully than the academic experts whose work they deride and undermine.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/30/even-in-2015-the-public-doesnt-trust-scientists/
See also:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/us/why-republicans-keep-telling-everyone-theyre-not-scientists.html
Forward
Possibly because it’s a fraud. Not everybody will join up just because you insult them.
It is kind of insulting to call it a fraud, though, isn’t it?
You are right V. One should consider carefully before insulting their abuser.
Or not.
Yes, but there was also this the other day:
Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds
WASHINGTON — An overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future.
In a finding that could have implications for the 2016 presidential campaign, the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They were less likely to vote for candidates who questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming.
Among Republicans, 48 percent say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports fighting climate change, a result that Jon A. Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University and an author of the survey, called “the most powerful finding” in the poll. Many Republican candidates question the science of climate change or do not publicly address the issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/us/politics/most-americans-support-government-action-on-climate-change-poll-finds.html?_r=0
I smell fear….
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/02/02/chaos-fear-panic-descend-on-eus-hallowed-halls-of-power/
Hope and Change
Obama sending Congress $4T budget replete with new spending, taxes
“As part of his budget, Obama is proposing a six-year, $478 billion public-works program for highway, bridge and transit upgrades, with half of it to be financed with a one-time, 14 percent tax on U.S. companies’ overseas profits.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/02/obama-sending-congress-4t-budget-replete-with-new-spending-taxes/
A “one-time” tax? yeah right, LOLZ
Forward
Anyone remember the obama trillion dollar stimulus for shovel ready infrastructure projects?
It all went to public union pensions and to stop any layoffs of public union goons.
As long as you keep your government hands off my crop subsidies and my cost-plus government contracts then it’s all good
Forward
here in NYC they had 2500 paid full time OJT training vouchers and 90% of it went to the parks dept which is 86% minority. the rest went to get your CDL license for Fresh Direct truck drivers, airport ramp agents, security guards and no money left over for upgrading computer skills or to get network certified…..(hint white people)
Anyone remember the obama trillion dollar stimulus for shovel ready infrastructure projects?
It all went to public union pensions and to stop any layoffs of public union goons.
They actually did pave a bunch of roads in my neck of the woods with some of that money.
Wouldn’t this lead to an immediate reincorporation in a tax haven country?
Hey, corporations are people. People who are US citizens pay tax on income anywhere in the world.
If we had a decent tarrif structure, reincorporation in another country might turn a profit for the Treasury.
How would that work, if the factory, goods and money is already offshore?
This is a Drudge Report link about some kerfuffle between King Obama and the Governor of Amerikwa’s 51st state
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-open-loathing-between-barack-obama-and-benjamin-netanyahu-just-got-worse-10015845.html
And remember kidz, if America needs to borrow another trillion dollars to fight a war just to make the Rapture happen five minutes sooner, it will all be worth it
Forward
There are 57 states according to obama
54 states when you count Israel, Gaza Strip, West Bank, and Golan Heights
57 is just Christian Zionist wishful thinking to also include Lebanon, Sinai Peninsula, and Syria too
Time to go dump that tea in the harbor, shake off the yoke of tyranny, and borrow a few trillion more dollars to make it happen, right?
How Israel Erased Palestine Off The Map with USA 39th President Jimmy Carter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyUPXAHXyJ0
How far back in history do you want to go?
There was no Palestine “State” or Palestine “people” before 1947. It was either jewish land or muslim (arab) land. After 1947, Jordan annexed “Palestine” to include the West Bank. Funny - no one demonstrated back then about this illegal “occupation”…
—————–
UN partition and the 1948 Palestine War
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly, voting 33 to 13 in favour with 10 abstentions, adopted a resolution, Resolution 181 (II), recommended a partition with Economic Union of Mandatory Palestine to follow the termination of the British Mandate. The plan was to partition Palestine into Independent Arab state alongside a Jewish States, and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem.Jerusalem was to encompass Bethlehem. Zionist leaders (including the Jewish Agency), accepted the plan, while Palestinian Arab leaders rejected it and all independent Muslim and Arab states voted against it.Almost immediately, sectarian violence erupted and spread, killing hundreds of Arabs, Jews and British over the ensuing months.
The rapid evolution of events precipitated into a Civil War. For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv was usually on the defensive while occasionally retaliating. Arab volunteers of the Arab Liberation Army entered Palestine to fight with the Palestinians, but the April–May offensive of Yishuv forces defeated the Arab forces and Arab Palestinian society collapsed. Some 700,000 Palestinians caught up in the turmoil fled or were driven from their homes.
Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the area allocated to the Palestinian Arabs and the international zone of Jerusalem were occupied by Israel and the neighboring Arab states in accordance with the terms of the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Jordan retained possession of about 21% of the former Mandate territory. Jerusalem was divided, with Jordan taking the eastern parts, including the Old City, and Israel taking the western parts. In addition, Syria held on to small slivers of the former Mandate territory to the south and east of the Sea of Galilee, which had been allocated in the UN partition plan to the Jewish state.
On the same day that the State of Israel was announced, the Arab League announced that it would set up a single Arab civil administration throughout Palestine, and launched an attack on the new Israeli state.
The presence of a large number of immigrants and refugees from the now dissolved Mandate of Palestine fueled the regional ambitions of King Abdullah I, who sought control over what had been the British Jerusalem and Samaria districts on the west bank of Jordan River. Towards this goal the king granted Jordanian citizenship to all Arab holders of the Palestinian Mandate identity documents in February 1949, and outlawed the terms “Palestinian” and “Transjordanian” from official usage, changing the country’s name from the Emirate of Trans-Jordan to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine
only bigger and bigger government, more and more regulations, and higher and higher taxes can solve this
except in this situation, it’s not israeli taxpayer shekels paying for it, it’s american taxpayer dollars paying for it
this must be another one of those countless ‘exceptions’ to shrinking the size of government to where you can drown it in the bathtub, and no less hypocritical that the countless ‘exceptions’ to king obama’s obamacare
forward
How far back do you want to go? How about 6 months?
Israel Is Stealing and Murdering Its Way Through Palestine — Paul Craig Roberts.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/07/29/israel-stealing-murdering-way-palestine-paul-craig-roberts/
Jimmy Carter unveils truth about Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvtC_qzHVM4
Collapsing Homeownership Proves Folly Of Federal Housing Policies
Last quarter’s rate marks the lowest since the third quarter of 1994. By no coincidence, this happens to be the same time President Clinton launched his “National Homeownership Strategy.” His goal was to boost homeownership among low-income or uncreditworthy minorities and close their “mortgage gap” with whites. But to do that, he had to reduce lending standards.
He accomplished this by, among other things, ordering private banks regulated by the Community Reinvestment Act to adopt more “flexible” underwriting criteria, while pressuring HUD-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to cut down payment and credit requirements on loans they bought from mortgage originators.
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/013015-737305-collapsing-homeownership-proves-folly-of-federal-housing-policies.htm
“Collapsing Homeownership Proves Folly Of Federal Housing Policies”
Housing Demand Plummets To 20 Year Lows
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fqSztKilps8/VFlPKlr52JI/AAAAAAAAhKU/v5oS41S-y0s/s1600/MBANov52014.PNG
What is it about this sobering metric that enrages so many?
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20150202_113626_343-nmCIKgde.jpg
That looks delicous Potsy. Was it?
Scripting a narrative
The top link on the Weekly Standard website is an article about Iran titled “Beyond Sanctions”
When it comes to “shrinking the size of government to where you can drown it in the bathtub” America’s alleged conservatives always always always find an exception that allows to borrow another trillion dollars to go fight another war that could make the Rapture happen five minutes sooner
Forward
See also video link on the Weekly Standard titled “Scott Walker: ‘We Have to Be Prepared to Put Boots On the Ground’ to Fight ISIS”
American taxpayers and voters, you need to always always always always always remember the bravery and sacrifice of the Israeli Defense Forces for putting their “boots on the ground” and fighting shoulder to shoulder with America in the first Iraq, Afghanistan, and second Iraq wars
America couldn’t have done it without you
Just Beautiful.
Thank you
Top article on the Washington Times website titled “Former Obama strategist accused of illegally funding campaign against Netanyahu”
This makes me so angry angry angry, borrowing a trillion dollars for the war isn’t enough, we need to borrow TEN TRILLION DOLLARS and go drain that swamp in the Middle East for once and for all
It doesn’t matter if America has ten million military coming home with post traumatic stress disorder, limbs blown off by IEDs, and heroin addictions to replace the Oxycontin they can no longer afford
No price is too great for this, if we could make the Rapture happen just thirty seconds sooner, it will all be worth it
Sigh, forward
Some other Washington Times links titled:
“Obama lacks strategy to stop Islamic State expansion”
“Lindsey Graham calls for 10K U.S. ‘boots on the ground’ to battle Islamic State”
“Israel faces war by other means, subtitled The International Criminal Court would become a tool in the hands of the Palestinians”
Hey America, are you just gonna sit there like Neville Chamberlain and let them bully our 51st state like that?
Because it’s time to borrow borrow borrow to shrink that size of government and spend spend spend to drown it in the bathtub with another trillion dollar war
And all you Tea Children need to enlist enlist enlist for the new war
Forward
Roubini on the global crisis of demand. Well said.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-the-market-hacks-fail-to-grasp-about-anemic-growth-2015-02-02?page=1
Inequality in the U.S. and other countries and global trade imbalances were covered over by soaring debts. The unraveling of this has left a demand crisis in its wake.
Thank you. As an old school Keynesian I’ve been pounding that drum here. When you have an excess of labor supply and low wages, it creates a shortage of demand. You can’t fix a demand shortage by loading up banks with cash reserves, QE and ZIRP. The only way to increase demand is to put the excess labor to work so they have money to spend, boosting demand. Obama’s $478 billion infrastructure program is a step in the right direction.
“a shortage of demand.”
Using a string of words like that tells me you you didn’t do so well at your “old school”.
It’s possible that he’s just been out of school for a long time. An economics professor might say something like “a level of aggregate demand insufficient to achieve full employment”.
Interesting comments as I have no problem finding the phrase “shortage of demand” in economics textbooks. Galbraith used the phrase as well. Now, if you’re a neo-classissist, you believe a shortage of demand, aggregate or otherwise, is impossible and you’ve probably struck it from your vocabulary.
hmmm… Gregory Mankiw’s Principle of Economics and Intro To Econ by Alan Stockman right here on my shelf. No mention of “shortage of demand”.
Your agenda driven phrase is no more founded in a textbook than it is in reality.
but shortage of demand or excess supply is clearly what we have now. There aren’t enough consumers with money to purchase the goods the world can produce. Either way it’s down the deflationary rabbit hole we go.
http://content.railbirds.com/user_content/images/70392/8311/161823_c.png
Half a backpedal. Do the entire 360 degrees.
Except that at the time of the WPA the U.S. was the world’s biggest creditor, with low debts.
Now we already have sky high public and private debts. So we’re screwed. We can’t do it.
Back then, moreover, people on public projects didn’t make so much more than everyone else. Back then, you didn’t have Generation Greed demanding that any additional spending go to them and not to infrastructure they won’t be around to use.
Republicans: It’s not 1980.
Democrats: It’s not 1933.
More debt to disguise the reality of our circumstances, whether for tax cuts or more public spending, won’t work anymore. The future has already been sold.
Debt is the big screwover.
Now we already have sky high public and private debts. So we’re screwed. We can’t do it.
At the same time people all over the world are willing to lend us money at very low interest rates.
At the same time people all over the world are willing to lend us money at very low interest rates.
There has been some banter here about how the FedGov is going to “take a cut” from our savings and other electronic accounts.
But if they do that, no one will buy our paper anymore and we will be treated like a third world pariah, with capital fleeing the country at warp speed. And unlike say Iceland, we would fold without access to that money.
The money flows freely into the country because we are considered the safe haven of last resort. If the Feds start snatching money from savings accounts, etc. our currency will become worthless overnight, so confiscating it would do no good to pay the bills.
And the Banking Clan won’t allow it anyway. Anyone remember how fast The Clintons’ plan to ransack 401ks and IRAs got shot down?
“Bring Back the WPA”
The WPA did not include retirement benefits at age 55 or younger, and wages higher than 4/5 of Americans, and lots of money for lawyers and consultants.
Would we could get rid of all the crap that piled up since then!
You’d be surprised how small of an increment in the federal tax rates it would take to balance the budget plus raise the $483 billion for Obama’s infrastructure projects.
I agree it ain’t 1933. My nickname is a little bit sarcastic, I don’t actually advocate the government hiring hordes of unskilled laborers with shovels; but I do believe government funded public reconstruction projects are sorely needed right now.
Tell us what is so urgent about “government funded public reconstruction projects”.
And Otrauma’s Infrastructure Shovel Ready dollars are where exactly?
Utter insanity this stuff. Keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is INSANITY!!!
So all the roads, bridges and water systems in Chicago are in tip top shape? Because we’ve got plenty of roads in Michigan that could use some work. Just send us your infrastructure money and well put it to good use. Or are you one of those people who thinks that our infrastructure is built by invisible elves who work for free, and would rather see our tax dollars go to bankers instead of construction workers? I know all those laid off oil workers would appreciate the jobs.
Scripting a narrative
Articles on Breitbart website titled:
“Obama won’t call terror fight a war on radical Islam”
“Video: ISIS allegedly beheads second Japanese hostage”
“Pro-Israel groups target Dem Senators on Iran”
Because when it’s time to “shrink the size of government to where you can drown it in the bathtub” allegedly conservative teabagger hypocrites always take a page from Dick Cheney that “deficits don’t matter”
And when your son comes home in pieces in a body bag, tell yourself that giving some “settler” a new home on the West Bank made it all worth it
William Kristol is laughing at you
Sigh, loosers
it’s a religious war. Jewish and social conservative Christians against Muslims.
The leaders are cowards to avoid saying that.
exactly bill been saying that for years so why are they harming innocent citizens? that’s terrorism
I just marvel at god’s joke on mankind to get all 3 religions fighting over the same piece of property
Real…
I get that you want to dramatize everything.. but… any chance that you could get off the name calling “tea bagger” and “rapture” kicks for a little while?
I like having conversations but the ranting just gets tiresome… I think your target audience here, even the conservative ones, are adult enough to recognize that there are some crazies. But it would be nice to just skip the third grade stuff and increase the overall discourse here for a while.. Really, I’m just asking for a reprieve.. Maybe we can pick up name calling next week? But maybe this week we can talk like adults???
I hope so. I’m really asking and trying to be polite.
You got it
Forward
1971 – New Ice Age Coming – It’s Already Getting Colder (L.A. Times, October 24, 1971)
1971 – Another Ice Age? Pollution Blocking Sunlight (The Day, November 1, 1971)
1971 – Air Pollution Could Bring An Ice Age (Harlan Daily Enterprise, November 4, 1971)
1972 – Air pollution may cause ice age (Free-Lance Star, February 3, 1972 – Scientist Says New ice Age Coming (The Ledger, February 13, 1972 – Science: Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, November 13, 1972)
1973 – The Ice Age Cometh (The Saturday Review, March 24, 1973)
1973 – Weather-watchers think another ice age may be on the way (The Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 1973)
1974 – New evidence indicates ice age here (Eugene Register-Guard, May 29, 1974)
1974 – Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, June 24, 1974)
1974 – 2 Scientists Think ‘Little’ Ice Age Near (The Hartford Courant, August 11, 1974)
1974 – Ice Age, worse food crisis seen (The Chicago Tribune, October 30,
1974 – Scientists Fear Smog Could Cause Ice Age (Milwaukee Journal, December 5, 1974)
1975 – Climate Changes Called Ominous (The New York Times, January 19, 1975)
1975 – Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities (Science News, March 1, 1975
1971 - Sticky Fingers
1971 - Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
1971 - Led Zeppelin IV
1971 - Hunky Dory
1972 - Exile on Main Street
1972 - Transformer
1972 - Grateful Dead Europe ‘72
1972 - Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
1973 - Houses of the Holy
1973 - A Wizard, a True Star
1973 - Band on the Run
1974 - It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll
1974 - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
1975 - Wish You Were Here
1975 - Physical Graffiti
1975 - Blood on the Tracks
Nature proves Al Gore wrong again
Anthony Watts / December 16, 2013
Gore’s “ice free Arctic” prediction from five years ago, falsified by nature itself
The great bloviator has been pwned again, by the actions of nature itself. In Germany, five years ago this past Saturday, Al Gore claimed that the ““Entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years” .
gore_2008_icefree-2013
Also, in Gore’s Dec. 10, 2007 “Earth has a fever” speech, Gore referred to a prediction by U.S. climate scientist Wieslaw Maslowski that the Arctic’s summer ice could “completely disappear” by 2013 due to global warming caused by carbon emissions.
In 2005, the United Nations Environment Programme predicted that climate change would create 50 million climate refugees by 2010. These people, it was said, would flee a range of disasters including sea level rise, increases in the numbers and severity of hurricanes, and disruption to food production.
The UNEP even provided a handy map. The map shows us the places most at risk including the very sensitive low lying islands of the Pacific and Caribbean.
It so happens that just a few of these islands and other places most at risk have since had censuses, so it should be possible for us now to get some idea of the devastating impact climate change is having on their populations. Let’s have a look at the evidence:
Bahamas:
Nassau, The Bahamas – The 2010 national statistics recorded that the population growth increased to 353,658 persons in The Bahamas. The population change figure increased by 50,047 persons during the last 10 years.
St Lucia:
The island-nation of Saint Lucia recorded an overall household population increase of 5 percent from May 2001 to May 2010 based on estimates derived from a complete enumeration of the population of Saint Lucia during the conduct of the recently completed 2010 Population and Housing Census.
After Asian Correspondent posted the story on April 11th, it was picked up by news outlets around the world such as Investor News, American Spectator and was cited in the Australian newspaper. It was also a report on Fox News.
Since that story appeared, the “handy map” he cites in his original story, which has this URL:
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/fifty-million-climate-refugees-by-2010
…seems to be gone down the memory hole. This is what you get now, note my yellow highlight:
Only one small problem there UN people, a little annoyance called Google cache, which has that page archived here.
It pulls up this page that had been removed, with the 50 million refugees title, but the map is missing. Click to enlarge.
Fear not dear readers, because as astoundingly smart as those UN people think they are, they forgot one very important yet tiny detail. The map links to a hi-resolution version of the “climate refugee map” and if you delete the page above and the map it contains, you also have to delete the hi-res image it links to.
http://maps.grida.no/library/files/storage/11kap9climat.png
Ooops.
I’m always happy to help the UN in times of “need”, sooooo I’ve recovered it and saved it here on WUWT, because that image link is likely to go down the memory hole on Monday.
Here’s the map at web resolution as it would have appeared in the disappeared web page above.
UNEP map, Emmanuelle Bournay
And here it is in full sized hi-resolution glory, suitable for printing, slides, or coffee mugs…wherever it might be appropriate to show the folly of these boneheads. Click the link for the hi-res image:
11kap9climat.png 3012 x 1699 pixels PNG (577K)
And there you have it folks, another bogus climate claim rubbished by reality, followed by an inept cover up attempt.
Thanks to the reality of census numbers, followed by the UN’s handling of this, we can now safely say that the claim is “climate refugees” is total fantasy. Be sure to leave comments on any website that makes this claim, and link to this and the Asian Correspondent website.
wattsupwiththat.com/…/ - 547k -
By Laura Barron-Lopez - 01/20/15 09:14 PM EST
President Obama declared climate change the greatest threat to the future during his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
“And no challenge — no challenge — poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” Obama said.
“And no challenge — no challenge — poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change,” Obama said.
Especially because the ONLY solution requires a massive increase in government, a massive increase in regulations and a massive increase in taxes.
It is the gift the keeps on giving for democrats/progressives/liberals…
And you gotta listen to Exile with HD - the chatter in the background while the songs are being made is just unreal - seems the glimmer twins had quite an entourage back in the day!!!
Do you realize that being wrong is a vital part of science, and is just as important as being right?
OK, so the climate scientists were wrong about the new ice age. Does this mean we use a very broad brush and condemn all of science to the dung heap?
warmists gonna warm
“warmists gonna warm”
I’m partial to the Disco Chillers.
Chilling Possibilities
deniers gonna deny
Remember, it’s important that they are wrong.
I’ll throw you a bone Bring Back.
Al Gore’s predictions of Polar bears doing the backstroke in Miami by 2013 was closer to right than the Seahawks OC was about throwing the ball from the 1 yard line on second down last night.
LOL. There’s nothing wrong with being well-intentioned skepticism about climate change. While I think the evidence on the ground is quite good that man’s climbing CO2 output is changing the weather, the evidence is not yet so overwhelming that it’s blatantly obvious. I get that.
The change in global weather is picking up pace. Within a few years the water crises, damage to agriculture, coastal inundation, droughts and floods, will all worsen and more skeptics will be satisfied that this climate change thing with CO2 is the real deal.
“…this climate change thing with CO2 is the real deal.” Except that it can’t be the real deal. The whole thing is based on a premise that mocks basic thermodynamics. That is why “scientists” never explain it. Any explanation is an emotional attack, like yours above.
Let’s have fun with science. Take two jars. Fill one with 250 ppm CO2 (equal to the pre-industrial level) and the other with 400 ppm (today’s level). Set both in the sun for an hour. Take the temperature of both, then report back with your findings.
You are so very close to the key without having a clue about thermodynamics it is amazing. You make the same mistake that Arrhenius made when he came up with the greenhouse idea in the first place. He demonstrated it with a sheet of glass over a box. He had no clue how much CO2 was in the box.
The earth is not in a glass jar.
Conduction, convection, radiation. If you do not understand these transport mechanisms, you can believe the glass jar thing, which unfortunately in your suggested experiment, would not show what you think it would show. A much more interesting experiment is two glass jars, one with water in it, at night under a clear sky. It would give some insight if one was thoughtful.
Arrhenius was a lunatic. One of his other themes was Eugenics, which I find disturbing in the extreme. Hitler kind of liked his ideas about it though, as did some in the US. You can learn this history if you try. Wikipedia is revisionist, but other sources are still available.
Consider that you have been lied to, in a big way, and for the usual reasons.
The jar is merely an analogy. The physics is sound: Sunlight hits the Earth; warm soil and water emit longwave radiation; CO2 and other greenhouse gases prevent outgoing longwave radiation from leaving Earth; the trapped heat warms the oceans, land and air. Satellite measurements have confirmed a decline in OLR since 1970, which is exactly what rising CO2 is expected to cause. OLR goes down, retained heat goes up.
You don’t got it. There is no sheet of glass over the earth.
Does this mean we use a very broad brush and condemn all of science to the dung heap?
Obviously not; but it does suggest that a certain level of skepticism is appropriate until the scientific discourse has gone the distance, and in the process produced models that seem to predict reality fairly well.
Why mortgage debt threatens boomers’ retirements
Published: Feb 2, 2015 12:02 p.m. ET
Retiring with housing debt can put your nest egg at risk
Could your dream house create a retirement nightmare?
By Glenn Ruffenach
A new study finds that, by many measures, debt levels among Americans age 55 and older continue to climb, putting millions of families—and their homes—at risk.
The report, “Debt of the Elderly and Near Elderly, 1992-2013,” comes from the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C. On the positive side, total debt payments as a percentage of income within this group fell to 10% in 2013, from 11.4% in 2010. At the same time, average debt decreased, to $73,211 from $80,465.
Overall, though, more older Americans find themselves in debt. The percentage of American households where the head of household was age 55 or older that had financial liabilities increased to 65.4% in 2013 from 63.4% in 2010. In 1992, the level was 53.8%.
What’s more, the percentage of these families with debt payments greater than 40% of income—a traditional signal of excessive liability—increased to 9.2% in 2013 from 8.5% in 2010.
Some lower-income borrowers will be able to cut mortgage payments, as a decline in interest rates and a reduction in federal loan fees open the door for them to refinance.
The upshot: The “percentages of families whose debt payments are excessive relative to their incomes are at or near their highest levels since 1992,” the report states. “Consequently, even more near-elderly and elderly families are likely to find themselves at risk for severe changes in lifestyle after retirement than past generations.”
The biggest factor in pushing debt levels higher is housing obligations—that is, mortgages or home equity debt, as opposed to credit-card debt. In 2013, almost four in 10 families (39%) where the head of the household was age 55 or older had housing debt—up from 24% in 1992.
Most worrisome, fully 42% of households age 65 to 74 had housing debt in 2013, compared with just 18% in 1992. Among households age 75 and older, 20% had housing debt in 2013, up from 10% in 1992.
For many families, those numbers could translate into “either a forced sale [of a primary residence] or limited ability to use any housing equity for funding retirement,” the study states.
By contrast, the percentages of older families with credit-card debt has grown relatively slowly in the past two decades: from 31% in 1992 to 35% in 2013.
Looking ahead, the financial challenges for large numbers of households age 55 and older remain considerable, the report concludes. “This level of debt, along with asset values still recovering from the 2008 recession, will add to the difficulty for many people of this age to save for a retirement that will not run short of money.”
…
a nation of broke @ss loosers
“a nation of broke @ss loosers”
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for broke @ss loosers
Look at the S-I-Z-E of that place! How can anyone expect to retire in something like that?
An entire demographic thought they were entitled. Now it’s all uphill with nothing but losses ahead of them.
Wasn’t it this demographic that thought a house is an investment and overpaid by 300%?
The homeownership rate hasn’t bottomed
Yahoo Finance - Shawna Ohm - 2/2/2015
There’s almost nothing more central to the American dream than owning a home, but the homeownership rate has been in near-steady decline from its peak of 69.4% in 2004. And we may not be done yet.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Fannie Mae’s Chief Economist Douglas Duncan said, ““It wouldn’t surprise me if it dropped another percentage point.” And what’s more, Duncan said, he’s happy with a homeownership rate around 64%.
Duncan pointed out that Baby Boomer homeownership peaked in the 80 percentile range. Now Generation X is in its home buying prime, but, compared to Boomers and Millennials, Gen X is a small portion of the population. “Even if they have a high homeownership rate on a weighted average you’re going to see some decline in that [overall] rate.”
Then there’s the Millennials. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (and even still) you know Millennials have been slow to enter the housing market for a variety of reasons. A lag in first-time homebuyers is one of the most common laments amongst economists, policy makers and just about everyone else.
“They say, we eventually want to own a home, but we’re not sure what the hurry is,” Duncan said. For them, “Renting is OK, it makes me flexible if I need to change jobs.” Millennials are keenly aware that there’s a long payback period with a mortgage and, considering that Millennials are more likely to change jobs frequently, signing up for that kind of commitment may not always make sense. “They’re more conservative going into this, so we may see [their homeownership rate] lower for longer.”
The Obama administration has been pushing to create easier access to homeownership in the wake of the financial crisis. Following the housing meltdown, lenders tightened credit standards making getting a home loan difficult for anyone without near-perfect credit. That’s now changing.
It’s led some critics to say the White House is fueling another housing bubble. Loans like Fannie Mae’s new loan-to-value mortgage allow Americans to buy homes with as little as 3% down. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Fannie Mae Chief Credit Officer Edward Pinto wrote, “Government programs to make mortgages more widely available to low- and moderate-income families have consistently offered overleveraged, high-risk loans that set up too many homeowners to fail.” That would theoretically leave everyone else on the hook for those government-backed risky loans.
Because I got a phone and a pen.
And piling more debt on the future US taxpayers than all previous administrations COMBINED and to include inflation was NOT enough spending…($8 Trillion and counting)
———————
Obama says he won’t accept budget that doesn’t raise spending
The Washington Times | January 2, 2015 | Stephen Dinan
President Obama said Monday he will reject any budget from Congress that doesn’t boost spending on both defense and his own domestic priorities…
“America can’t afford being short-sighted and I’m not going to allow it,” the president said while speaking at the Homeland Security Department as he released his $4 trillion budget for fiscal 2016.
His budget calls for boosting discretionary spending by more than 6 percent, and raising taxes to pay for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_times
Is there ANYTHING in the article or my comments that are untrue?
Or are you such a liberal/progressive hack that you use their tried/true tactics or trying to discredit the source of true information like a Bill Clinton with another charge of rape of sexual harassment while in office?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Standard
Obama wants to raise taxes on the money that American companies have stashed overseas. I don’t have any problem with that. I pay my taxes, and they should too.
They do pay their taxes.
They pay the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world.
There may be a cause and effect there…
If they don’t want to use that money to invest in this country or pay their workers more, then tax it until they do. Somehow capitalism in this country has come to mean that businesses should do everything they can to increase executive bonuses.
Dman - it is obvious you have never run a business or even worked in the private sector.
Money doesn’t magically fall off trees for small/medium/large businesses like it does for government.
People work hard for their money - and when government tries to take more of it, people do change their behaviors.
Now see if you can predict what would happen if obama had a super-majority in the house (like he did) and a filibuster proof senate (like he did) and this bill came into law…
dman is a govermentarain at best
EAT THE RICH !
2b, its obvious that you care more about the privileges of multinational corporations than you do about this country. We need regulations because the business world is teeming with people who don’t give a damn about anything but their pocketbook, and we need taxes because we have to pay for roads and weapons systems and tax breaks for trust fund babies and oil companies. Maybe it offends you that GE and Apple and Exxon actually have to contribute towards those expenses, but don’t pretend that these giant corporations would invest that money here if they could, because even loyalty to America is meaningless to these people if there isn’t profit in it.
I will repeat myself.
America has the HIGHEST corporate tax rate in the industrialized world.
How is that working out?
Still not high enough for the liberals/progressives…
Except they don’t pay the highest effective tax rate
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/01/news/economy/corporate-tax-rate/
Effective tax rate is average to other industrial countries.
If you separate out multinationals as a group they pay far less than the average business with many hugely profitable companies paying zero taxes.
Once the TPP get’s passed it won’t matter anyway. Corporations will have taken the reigns of power completely.
I’m a VP for a multinational. I’m on the boards of two multinational corps worth over 12 billion dollars each.
About all we do is talk about taxes. It doesn’t matter one whit what the tax rate is or where it is, we will still avoid it or minimize it.
Get it 2Banana? No one cares if it’s the highest or the lowest - the least amount is all anyone is going to pay and that’s what happens.
Lol. Highest rates…like the rates matter. Geez.
Mmm, China. Breathe deep. Cougha-cougha. Gag.
article about disagreement between real journalists and not real journalists
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/01/29/yes-drudge-report-is-still-the-mac-daddy/
andrew breitbart was murdered by the obama administration
and sharyl attkisson is next
forward
Tom Brady is a part of the 1% - who is protesting him?
It is all going to pay off debt and to higher and higher obamacare costs…
———————
Americans are failing to pump gas-price savings back into the economy
Wall Street Journal | 31 January 2015 | Robin Sidel and Nick Timiraos
Americans are taking the money they are saving at the gas pump and socking it away, a sign of consumers’ persistent caution even when presented with an unexpected windfall.
This newfound commitment to frugality was illustrated this past week when the nation’s biggest payment-card companies said they aren’t seeing evidence consumers are putting their gasoline savings toward discretionary items like travel, home renovations and electronics.
Instead, people are more often putting the money aside for a rainy day or using it to pay down debt. That more Americans are saving their bounty at the pump comes as a surprise, because the personal savings rate, after rising during and after the recession, has declined steadily over the past two years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_street_journal
I have a phone and a pen.
Laws are for the little people.
1.7 million jobs that American didn’t get.
It is all OK - as these are all new democrat voters.
Hope and change. Forward.
—————
Federal Government Issued Nearly 5.5 Million Work Permits to Foreign Nationals Since 2009
national review - 2/2/2015
More than 5.46 million foreign nationals received work permits from the federal government since 2009, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies. Data uncovered from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency reveal that approximately 982,000 work permits were given to illegal immigrants and other foreign nationals unqualified for admission, most of whom crossed the border without inspection. USCIS is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for issuing work permits and processing applications related to President Obama’s executive action on immigration. On Tuesday, the Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill that funds DHS, while blocking funding that would allow USCIS to implement the president’s executive action.
The remarkable number of work permits granted by the federal government to law-breaking aliens better explains how all net jobs growth since 2007 has gone to immigrants. The government issued approximately 1.7 million work permits since 2009 to aliens whose status was not known, not recorded, or not disclosed by USCIS, according to the report. The report says employment is not authorized by law for approximately 1.2 million immigrants who collected work permits while having a temporary visa status.
Crater.
Public unions - it is for the children we can’t fire poor teachers!
Now shut up, sit down and pay your taxes. Who cares if you son/daughter can read? Public unions are the largest political money supporters of democrats…so all is good!
—————-
Teacher keeps job despite ‘unsatisfactory’ rating 6 years in a row (NYC)
New York Post | February 1, 2015 | Susan Edelman and Amber Jamieson
Six strikes and she’s not out.
The city Department of Education has failed to fire a teacher rated “unsatisfactory” for six consecutive years. Ann Legra, 44, a first-grade teacher at PS 173 in Washington Heights, racked up “six years of failing her students,” the city argued in a 16-day termination hearing.
Hearing officer Eugene Ginsberg upheld charges of Legra’s “inability to supervise students,” excessive lateness and absence and poor lesson planning in the 2012-2013 school year.
He imposed only a 45-day suspension without pay. Legra keeps her $84,500-a-year salary, but is now assigned to a pool of 1,400 teachers who serve as substitutes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_york_post
What about the CEO who is driving Radio Shack into bankruptcy? Between that teacher and him, who has done the most damage?
You can always NOT shop at Radio Shack.
Try not paying your property taxes.
It is a monopoly of the public unions, by the public unions and for the public unions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class
interesting changes from 1984 to 2014
Indeed.
My oldest sister is working class. She took honors classes in high school and was the first to graduate college. Another sister also has a business degree and is lower middle class - both today’s standards. The third sister is middle class (no four year college degree but equivalent in correspondence schools and her health care industry - a go getter from the start in the 70s) and so am I. But we both rent one bedroom apartments in Cali. That sister has always been in middle class. I started out lower middle class in 1984.
FBI Official: We Need to “Keep Fear Alive” to Justify Terror Budget
Former assistant director admits federal agency contrives terror threat for increased funding
by Paul Joseph Watson | February 2, 2015
Appearing in a documentary about how the FBI entraps and provocateurs terror suspects, former FBI assistant director Thomas Fuentes admits that the federal agency needs to “keep fear alive” in order to justify budget increases.
The documentary, entitled The Newburgh Sting, tells the story of how the feds convinced four poverty-stricken New York men to become involved in an informant-led terror plot.
After defending the FBI’s role in manufacturing the plot, Fuentes brazenly admits that the agency deliberately works to bolster terrorism fears in order to obtain increased funding.
“If you’re submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for an intelligence agency, you’re not going to submit the proposal that ‘We won the war on terror and everything’s great,’ cause the first thing that’s gonna happen is your budget’s gonna be cut in half,” states Fuentes. “You know, it’s my opposite of Jesse Jackson’s ‘Keep Hope Alive’—it’s ‘Keep Fear Alive.’ Keep it alive.”
“In the context of an interview about a case in which a paid FBI informant is alleged to have offered destitute men a quarter of a million dollars to execute an attack, a former assistant director of the FBI admits it’s in the bureau’s best interest to inflate the supposed terror threat. That’s remarkably candid, and profoundly disturbing,” reports Privacy SOS.
The FBI routinely contrives the very terror plots it then takes the credit for busting, leading many to accuse the agency of fueling a domestic war on terror that wouldn’t otherwise exist. As the New York Times reported in 2012, the vast majority of domestic terror plots in recent years were “facilitated by the F.B.I.”
The most recent example concerned the case of Christopher Lee Cornell, who allegedly planned to detonate pipe bombs and then fire on fleeing lawmakers and employees at the U.S. Capitol. However, it quickly emerged that Cornell was never capable of coordinating or funding such a conspiracy on his own and was set up by the FBI.
“The agency does not disrupt planned domestic terror attacks but rather creates them, then publicly praises itself for stopping its own plots,” wrote Glenn Greenwald in response to the story.
Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71
Comment by phony scandals
2015-02-02 17:17:44
FBI Official: We Need to “Keep Fear Alive” to Justify Terror Budget
infowars.com/fbi-official-we-need-to-keep-fear-alive-to-justify-terror-budget/
phony scandals
It’s been a while since I’ve been here (I got downsized—the job was one that allowed for a lot of internet time in between mandatory duties.) It will probably be a while before I visit again (small children don’t allow for much internet time.) But one of my high school classmates just got hit hard by the fallout from the housing bubble in a sideways fashion.
You see, the problem with needing a whole lot of housing stock is that substandard work is going to creep in. She’s been dealing with increasingly worsening health issues for years now, and a couple of months ago she discovered her whole house was infested with toxic mold. We live in a dry climate; it’s one heck of a trick to build a house in which the walls are perpetually damp. You’ll note that the house was built by a plumber (!) and not anyone with assets of any sort, just someone “looking to flip a house.”
I ask the consideration of the people of this site to not be nasty to her or her choices; I’ve been following her saga of poor health for some time and this is one nasty blow for her. It’s not the sort of thing anyone would expect here because, as I said, we’re in a dry climate—and one in severe drought for the last five years, no less. And now they’re basically homeless and without possessions due to somebody else’s greed.