Bits Bucket for February 16, 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.
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Name:Ben Jones
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Is anyone aware of any economic studies on how many American households are getting priced out of their retirement savings by the Fed’s obsession with creating two percent annual inflation?
They should buy stawks.
what else you should think about is what impact are these folks who are broke and helpless having on your life? A happy population is best for everyone.
“A happy population is best for everyone.”
That YouTube clip yesterday of the belligerent woman in a McDonald’s restaurant was worth watching. She’ll never be happy, and worse yet, she has discovered “how it works.”
It sounds like watching that YouTube clip made you happy.
Back in the day they had non lethal devices designed to handle such witches, shrews and scolds,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scold%27s_bridle
Speaking of witches and shrews….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11416603/Woman-stalks-couple-who-outbid-her-for-a-house.html
“It sounds like watching that YouTube clip made you happy.”
Happy? Not even close. Frustrated? Yes, because a compassionate society has its hands tied. Either you escalate the situation resulting in jail, or she eats for free and gets her money returned. Like I said, she has discovered “how it works.”
what else you should think about is what impact are these folks who are broke and helpless having on your life?
I’m financially assisting my sister’s family, who are victims both of the Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs “recovery” and their own financial irresponsibility earlier in their lives. When the Great Reset arrives, family is going to be the only safety net for most.
“I’m financially assisting my sister’s family…”
There’s a fine line between “helping or enabling.” I wouldn’t count on any rewards though; might happen, but likely not.
Trust me, there were conditions attached. I did not want to see them lose their place, and they were struggling. They’re a lot more fiscally responsible now than they were earlier, so I think they’ve learned from their mistakes.
There’s a fine line between “helping or enabling.”
Too true—and that line is sometimes difficult to locate.
(speaking from experience…)
RKH,
I learned a long time ago from mistakes. Stopped discussing my finances with my relatives ten years ago. I never ever told my relatives my net worth, for one. But ten years ago I did mention my income. Learned from that too. It’s partly why I’m going to buy a brand new low end economy car in the next 18 months and keep my net worth invisible.
My parents taught me thrift and to appreciate the simple things. They were the most down-to-earth people I knew in my life. They were realists, who taught me responsibility and my dad taught me hard work and persistence. Just utterly amazing that a sibling did not catch that part about saving money though.
All good points. Bottom line for me, though, family comes first. It isn’t your mistakes that define you, it’s what you do afterwards, and in that regard I made the judgement that they deserve my assistance. Won’t go into details, but they’ve been there for other family members in their time of need, and I was grateful to be there for them. They are good people and those are the kind I don’t mind helping get through the rough times.
That’s the whole idea. The Wall Street-Federal Reserve looting syndicate wants to force would-be savers into Wall Street’s rigged casino, where they can be fleeced at will.
I recall the Fed having an inflation mandate and an employment mandate.
At what point did herding sheep for sheering in Wall Street’s gambling casino get added to the Fed’s mandate?
Probably about the same time that pensions fell on the chopping block in favor of 401K.
The unwritten Fed mandate since it’s secret inception in 1913, the only one that matters, is robbing the 99% to enrich the .1%.
Tax the productive to pay for the lazy and the corrupt.
Bingo.
All they have to do is to have a requirement to sit in class 15- 20 hours a week and learn English and Math, pass the tests for their EBT card. I’ll bet 1/2 will quit very quickly.
You don’t get it NYCdj; in todays economy, people are paid to stay out of the productive economy and their participation is limited to consumption.
Venturing off the welfare plantation with some type of private enterprise such as selling single cigarettes can get you strangled to death.
The incarceration of vast numbers of poor people has the same effect.
Venturing off the welfare plantation with some type of private enterprise such as selling single cigarettes can get you strangled to death.
Keep in mind than unless you’re a single mom with a bunch of sprogs you don’t get a whole lot of government cheese; like Section 8, Medicaid or WIC. There’s a reason why so many people file for SSDI; and the average payout is about $800 a month.
“There’s a reason why so many people file for SSDI; and the average payout is about $800 a month.”
Since the 2008 crash lots of unsophisticated men in their fifties ran-out their unemployment and successfully climbed aboard the SSDI gravy train leaving them free to work under the table. I have friends that pulled it off in their forties!
Wealth is not an indicator of productivity. Profit seekers vs. rent seekers — an important distinction. There’s too much rent seeking going on. Tax the rent seekers and put ‘em out of business!
Tax the rent seekers and put ‘em out of business!
How would you differentiate between the two in the tax code?
Is anyone aware of any economic studies on how many American households are getting priced out of their retirement savings by the Fed’s obsession with creating two percent annual inflation?
What do you mean by “priced out of their retirement savings” ?
Fixed income pensions don’t increase by 2% a year. After 36 years of 2% annual inflation, the value of a fixed payment stream is cut in half.
This isn’t rocket science. Are you really as dumb as your posts suggest, or is that just an act?
Gee, thanks for the content-free insult. You’re right. It isn’t science. It’s writing. Your use of the term of “priced out” is very unusual.
“Priced out” is commonly used to refer to the real estate market. For example, residents of cities with extremely high average home prices, such as Newport Beach, Calif., would be said to be priced out of the market if they could not afford even an entry-level home. The options available to someone who is priced out of a real estate market would include buying in a different area, waiting for the supply of housing to increase enough to lower housing prices or getting a higher-paying job that would allow them to afford a property.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/priced-out.asp
When you wrote about people getting priced out of their own savings, it was unclear what you were talking about.
“When you wrote about people getting priced out of their own savings, it was unclear what you were talking about.”
Yet you had no problem figuring it out.
Which gets to my point: Why are you playing dumb while posting here?
It’s even worse with annuities. Few, if any, have COLAs
By the want, here’s a little advice. The rule of 72 is only good for rough estimates.
The estimate is reasonable at low percentage rates. For instance, at 2% annual inflation, the value of $1,000,000 after 36 (72/2) years is $1,000,000*(1-0.02)^36 = $483,213, reasonably close to the Rule of 72 estimate of $500,000.
The exact number of years it would take for 2% annual inflation to cut the value of $1,000,000 in half is given by solving
$1,000,000*(1-0.02)^x = $500,000, which has solution
x = log(0.5)/log(0.98) = 34.3 years.
This is a good reason to postpone retirement until a few years beyond the full eligibility for social security. That is, not to tap into the 401k distributions until just before age 70 and a half (RMD).
I wonder about people I read from time to time who retire in their 40s. Do they really retire? Or just transition from a career they don’t like (and call that “work”) to a career they do like, such as being their own boss, produce at their own pace, etc? Do they downsize their income? Do they get lost in the dust by not letting their investments grow over time?
One thing I’m starting to worry about is that my traditional 401k balance is growing a lot, and all of the distributions will be taxable income at ordinary rates. While I cannot do a thing about the federal level, I’m starting to look ahead at what would happen in a scenario of taking distributions in California versus Arizona.
Today if I started distributions and I was 59 and a half, and decided to redistribute my entire 401k in one year, I would be paying $38,000 more to taxes if I was a California resident versus Arizona resident.
I can imagine 12 years from now it would be perhaps $80,000. That’s huge.
Even if I disobey the bad California victimless crime laws and be a resident, I could not disobey its taxes. That is enough to keep me tied to Phoenix. Why not Vegas instead? Being that Nevada has zero state income tax and Arizona a 3.4% tax? I like the metropolitan Phoenix area, which is large enough to have the nice features I like of a city.
Caveat: You will need to invest in staying healthy enough through age 70 for this plan to make sense. Luck will also play a role.
True Dat.
Which is why I think it’s appropriate for Coca Cola commercials to show young healthy looking people drinking Coca Cola (or you can substitute Pepsi). People older than 40 should not be eating / drinking junk. Drink water instead.
I’m starting to look ahead at what would happen in a scenario of taking distributions in California versus Arizona.
Take them in Wyoming. No state income tax.
Wyoming gets brutally cold in the winter time. It’s also a sparsely populated state without a large metro area with the cultural amenities one only finds in a large metro. According to census.gov, the entire state population is under 600k.
Cheyenne is about 90 minutes from Denver.
And Wyoming is very gun friendly. Many people feel that the low population is a plus, not a minus. And unlike say Arizona, the sons of Aztlan have a small presence in the Cowboy state (93% white) and the Free Sh!t Army is relatively small too. I’d say that Wyoming comes closest to the libertarian ideal of all the states.
“I’d say that Wyoming comes closest to the libertarian ideal of all the states.”
Maybe, but it’s still colder than a witch’s tit in a tin bra in the wintertime.
Also, unlike other states without a state income tax, property taxes in Wyoming are low.
Wyoming has a growing meth problem. Mainly corn-fed white boys, FYI. Factor that into your future plans.
does meth make you bullet proof?
Wyoming has a growing meth problem.
Who doesn’t? But I’ll bet that the crime rates in Cheyenne or Laramie are way lower than Phoenix.
Maybe, but it’s still colder than a witch’s tit in a tin bra in the wintertime.
It’s not as bad as you think. For me the dealbreaker is the wind, it’s always blowing in Laramie and Cheyenne.
That’s because Colorado sucks so bad under our current Bolshevik governor Hickenlooper, that we’re pulling in all the air from Laramie and Cheyenne. At least that’s my working theory.
Or Nevada. Or New Hampshire. Out of the three, I’d say New Hampshire. I don’t care about the cold weather or hot weather (Southern Nevada) as much as that I do it’s all rural.
There’s 14 years between now and when I’m 70 and I don’t want to be in a rural area alone when I’m 70. Though I eat an extremist healthy diet (and I’m an extremist in many ways) I have no guarantees that I’m going to be like Jack LaLanne far in the future. I prefer being in a large metro area with lots of good doctors. A former doctor of mine told me Phoenix has excellent specialists in my area of need. Which is another reason why I like being in Phoenix.
The zero income tax is another good thing about those three states (excludes Arizona) and I would even consider Dallas and Houston if it weren’t for Texas being so far away from my native state, California.
3.4% Arizona state income tax on my 401k, combined with my Roth 401k and Roth IRA and Arizona municipal bonds (they are like Roths) are a good mixture. My effective state income tax will be far less than 3.4%.
I haven’t encountered any racial issues in Arizona. I dated interracial there. It seems where I lived in three areas of Phoenix the whites are dominant.
FWIW you don’t have to be 59 1/2 to withdraw 401K money without penalty, it can be done if you retire the year you turn 55…though from what I’ve heard some companies screw that up if you retire before your birthday….anyway I bailed a week after I turned 55 and have been living on 401K funds since then and they are taxed like any other income, it will easily last until 59.5 and then I can withdraw IRA money without penalty if I need to (cashed out my pension and rolled the money into an IRA)
Yeah, but Arizona will run out of water.
California already is.
The new question in investing one must explicitly consider is, “How would the central bank intervene in the market, and on whose behalf?”
Region VIII
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20150214_121729_988-pc0GlJAm.jpg
What could possibly go wrong with the insane amount of leverage and reckless speculation the Fed capture of markets and politicians has created?
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/02/15/stock-market-leverage-intoxicates-politicians/
The sudden bloodletting that leveraged currency speculators experienced when the Swiss National Bank yanked the cap on the franc should have been a warning: central-bank promises that everything is under control are meaningless. And because of leverage, innumerable trading accounts blew up in a matter of moments.
Leverage acts like a powerful drug. It creates buying pressure and inflates asset prices further on the way up. But when asset prices sink, leverage begets forced selling, which drives down asset prices further, which begets more forced selling….
And stock-market leverage, encouraged by the Fed’s monetary policies that make nearly free money available to all sorts of speculators, has ballooned.
Janet Yellen can’t wiggle into a pair of #6 junior jeans and show us some thigh gap, but I’d bet that she can find a $trillion under pressure.
Find it? She’ll just print it. Ready in a jiffy for any bankster with gambling losses or on a hot speculative spree.
By the way, RMS, I’m a highly visual person, and what you just did to me…well, that’s just plain wrong.
+1, that hurt my brain.
I’ll help you out here, Raymond. Maybe RMS meant to type “#16 mom jeans”. That should be easier on your mind’s eye.
Now I’m picturing Obama in his mom jeans on his infamous bicycle ride. Not helping….
Oh, well. I tried.
“#6 junior jeans”
What are “#6 junior jeans?” Teen girls junior sizes are odd-numbered.
And you know this how?
She probably knows that because she used to be a teenage girl.
Are you sure?
You remind me of the famous cartoon, now over 20 years old.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/comic-riffs/StandingArt/STEINERinternetdogs.jpg?uuid=Cn7v6vmREeKOhMVnMaIC-w
I know this because I own a junior size 5 dress (snug). But I’m pretty sure I couldn’t fit into a size 5 jeans or even a size 7. Though not a mom, I have a mom-jeans body, as do most women.
^lol
“What are “#6 junior jeans?” Teen girls junior sizes are odd-numbered.”
You probably nailed it. My daughter has to buy jeans with the legs un-hemmed because her inseam is longer than most, and the waist is probably a #5. My wife fits in her jeans too, but she has to roll-up the legs.
The Ukraine ceasefire announcement gave the markets a jolt of hopium. Looks like the celebrations were premature.
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-battle-rages-for-town-where-ukraine-rebels-reject-ceasefire-2015-2
Any wagers on how long it takes the new Greek government to fold, so “extend and pretend” (and our Ponzi markets) can go on for a few more months?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/16/eurozone-greece-germany-schaeuble-idUSL5N0VQ0G320150216
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-16/hsbc-bank-secret-origins-laundering-worlds-drug-money
Contrary to popular opinion, it is not “demand” from the world’s population which creates the mind destroying drug trade. Rather, it is the world financial oligarchy, looking for massive profits and the destruction of the minds of the population it is determined to dominate, which organized the drug trade. The case of HSBC underscores that point. Serving as the central bank of this global apparatus, is HSBC.
“Contrary to popular opinion, it is not “demand” from the world’s population which creates the mind destroying drug trade.”
Allow me correct this statement for you:
“Contrary to popular opinion, it is not JUST “demand” from the world’s population which creates the mind destroying drug trade.”
Thanks for posting, Ray K. Just finished reading it. Mind-blowing. And it also confirms a theory I’ve had for a while now, which is that it is British based finance that is running the show.
You’re welcome, Palmy. I’m not so sure we ever got fully out from under the British oligarchical empire.
Hah! We’re on the same page here, I’ve always felt that the US never really did win “independence” from Britain and has, in a way, always remained part of its colonial empire, so to speak, in which Britain does its dirty work while hiding behind the very large skirts of the US.
Well, the chickens are coming home to roost in Europistan.
Well, the chickens are coming home to roost in Europistan.
Apparently the Spaniards haven’t forgotten about Islam’s gentle hand, and when times were bubbly they brought their guest workers from South America and not northern Africa or the middle east.
Now you know why Kate and William are always smiling.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
Back before the internet an old “crazy” white man used to tell me stories about how the queen of England was the worlds biggest drug lord.
Fast forward 20 years and I kinda now see what he mean’t.
Head on over to wikipedia and search for “First Opium War”:
“In the 17th and 18th centuries, the demand for Chinese goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) in the European market created a trade imbalance because the market for Western goods in China was virtually non-existent; China was largely self-sufficient and Europeans were not allowed access to China’s interior. European silver flowed into China when the Canton System, instituted in the mid-17th century, confined the sea trade to Canton and to the Chinese merchants of Thirteen Hongs. The British East India Company (E.I.C.) had a matching monopoly of British trade. E.I.C. began to auction opium grown on its plantations in India to independent foreign traders in exchange for silver. The opium was then transported to the China coast and sold to Chinese middlemen who retailed the drug inside China. This reverse flow of silver and the increasing numbers of opium addicts alarmed Chinese officials.”
Rand Paul’s Know-Nothing Fed Bashing
Feb 9, 2015 11:34 AM EST
By Noah Smith
See if you can spot the errors in Senator Rand Paul’s push to audit the Federal Reserve, which he laid out Friday in Des Moines:
“Anybody here want to audit the Fed?” Paul asked from the stage. “Anybody feel that the Fed’s out to get us?” …
“They’d be bankrupt, they’d be insolvent,” he said. “Liabilities are $4.5 trillion; their assets are $57 billion. Do the math. They are leveraged 80-1. They are leveraged three times greater than Lehman Brothers was when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. Why do we give ’em a pass? Because they’ve got a printing press, and they can print up some more money.”
In an earlier version of this post, I mistakenly took Paul to task for referring to “$57 trillion” in Fed assets, which he hadn’t done (he referred to “$57 billion.”) I am now correcting that error, with apologies. I also removed an erroneous assessment of Paul’s definition of bankruptcy, which hinged on my use of “trillion” instead of “billion.”
Nonetheless, I stand by my contention that Paul is mistaken in several important ways.
Paul’s main error was in his calculation of the Fed’s leverage. Leverage is the ratio of debt to equity. Paul is treating the Fed’s $57 billion of assets — whatever those are — as the central bank’s equity. But it’s not.
When the central bank buys assets, it pays for them (mostly) by giving the seller some reserves at the Fed — basically a checking account. Those reserves are what Paul is referring to when he talks about the Fed’s “liabilities.”
But when the Fed buys assets, on the day it buys them, the value of those assets must equal the value of the reserves the bank swaps for the assets. So the Fed’s “equity,” calculated as total assets minus total liabilities, would then be zero. That would make its leverage ratio not 80-to-1, as Paul contends, but infinite. But that doesn’t make sense.
Paul wants to define “leverage” as the ratio of liabilities to assets. But if that were the case, then the only bank that could have leverage greater than 1 would be a bank with liabilities greater than assets — in other words, a bankrupt bank. Paul is saying that any bank that uses leverage is automatically bankrupt. That just isn’t true.
A subtler error is in Paul’s definition of the Fed’s “liabilities.” Those are the Fed reserve accounts that I mentioned before. Nowadays the Fed pays a tiny bit of interest on those accounts, but for most of history it didn’t, so let’s ignore that little bit of interest for now. What would it mean for the Fed to “pay back” those debts? Suppose a private bank went to the Fed and demanded money in exchange for its Fed reserves. Nothing would happen. Why? Because Fed reserves are what we use as money. The Fed doesn’t “print up some money” to pay off its liabilities, like Paul alleges. The so-called liabilities are the money it already printed up.
So Paul’s call to audit the Fed isn’t based on an understanding of finance. It’s based on emotion.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-09/rand-paul-s-know-nothing-fed-audit-demand
I can well understand why an oligarch media outlet would be terrified of the potential consequences on our Ponzi markets of auditing the Fed.
This is just his attempt to justify Elizabeth Warren’s, Fauxahontas .1% bought out by the banks, pro oligarch, pro-banker, vote against auditing.
Such a docile little sheep. I bet his hero is Brian Williams.
‘Those are the Fed reserve accounts that I mentioned before. Nowadays the Fed pays a tiny bit of interest on those accounts, but for most of history it didn’t, so let’s ignore that little bit of interest for now.’
Now that’s some blah on top of blah. Hey Bloomberg dude; we just want to know what these people are doing.
Ben, I’m sure the self-described “most transparent administration in our history” shares your interest in fully disclosing what the Fed and its Wall Street accomplices are up to.
Oh, wait….
Ben Jones: Hey Bloomberg dude; we just want to know what these people are doing.
YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
“we just want to know what these people are doing.”
Likely just the first step in what we want.
Wow. I had no idea Rand Paul was so clueless. Either that or he’s just pandering to his base.
We, on the other hand, are sadly aware of how clueless you are.
What is wrong in auditing the Fed? Why jump to conclusions based on a poorly written piece of propaganda?
The Fed’s fierce resistance to being audited, coupled with the oligarch-owned media closing ranks to inform the proles that such an audit is unnecessary, might reasonably be viewed as a red flag. What are they trying so hard to hide?
The guy doesn’t say that say that auditing the Fed is a bad idea. He merely criticizes the reasons given for an audit by Senator Paul, who wants to be president. His article doesn’t preclude the possibility that their may be other, valid reasons for an audit.
MightyMike: The guy doesn’t say that say that auditing the Fed is a bad idea. He merely criticizes the reasons given for an audit by Senator Paul…
Of course, Paul’s reasons for auditing the Fed are baseless. Therefore, auditing the Fed would just be a waste of time and money.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Frankly, I’m a little surprised they’re protesting this much. That attracts attention - what are they trying to hide? Typically, as the FIRE sector has done with regulation, they’ll make no public statement and just work entirely behind the scenes to strangle/misdirect the effort.
This goes out to you, MightyMike.
Education on the value of freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights should be a prerequisite for being a citizen of any nation. If we can’t think for ourselves, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power. If citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us.
Carl Edward Sagan (9 Nov ‘34 – 20 Dec ‘96)
If citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us.
A big part is left out of this. You’ve noticed yourself how the Greek people have lately been out in the streets protesting, demonstrating, etc. in large groups. Meanwhile, here in America, people consume the news alone and yell at their televisions or their smartphones. Getting things changed requires getting out of the house and working together with fellow citizens. Americans are not lacking in opinions.
I’m not sure you and I want to change things in the same way.
Even if this were true, so what? Better to just do nothing as is currently happening?
Some audit is better than no audit.
The government already has authority to do a real audit of the Fed’s books from an accounting point of view. What Congress wants is not an audit, they want to go on a fishing expedition and hold public hearings and create a circus in front of the press. Just like they did with Benghazi.
‘Congress wants to go on a fishing expedition and hold public hearings and create a circus in front of the press’
I don’t see a serious reasoning why there shouldn’t be a public third party audit in your statement. This isn’t politics; it’s transparency and oversight. What if I was running a department and fought tooth and nail to keep from being audited? Everyone would know something was wrong. But somehow, these bankers can get away with it. The central bank doesn’t get a say in this, just like I shouldn’t get to say my department can’t get audited. It’s not my call or theirs. If this entity is really there for the benefit of the country, our elected representatives will decide if they are to be audited.
Fishing expedition? You’re just parroting the party line that the oligarchs want you to parrot. Or blinded by partisan politics. So what, let them fish. All it will expose is corruption.
If the Fed had nothing to hide, then why would an audit matter so much to them?
I’d personally be interested to learn whether the Fed’s internal discussions include activities that lie outside of its legal mandate, such as corralling investors into buying more stocks by making safer investments seem less attractive.
Would that possibly be part of the subject of an audit?
The collusion between the Fed and its favored banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs is of greater interest to me, as well as their role in propping up insolvent European banks with printing-press QE infusions.
I believe your example, of colluding on bailout plans with the likes of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, would also lie outside of the scope of either their employment or their price stability mandates, but I’d be interested to hear the counterargument.
A link in the article goes to a chart that shows inflation/deflation since 1800, along with a line showing the cumulative change in prices, with 1800 as a baseline. It looks like there were wild spikes in inflation and deflation throughout our history, both before and after the Fed was established in 1913, with consistent inflation not starting until around 1940. Prices however stayed pretty constant until about 1940, when they began a slow consistent rise, that greatly increased around 1970. That certainly dovetails with the history of gold and silver standards in the US.
Here’s the link.
http://www.whatamimissinghere.com/archives/39943/inflation-in-the-united-states-since-1800
Another neo-con adventure gone wrong.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/on-the-middle-east/2015/feb/16/uk-envoy-if-libya-fails-it-could-be-somalia-on-the-mediterranean
Mission accomplished, John McCain.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11415529/How-Isil-spread-to-Libya-and-now-has-Europe-in-its-sights.html
Maybe banks should spend more on security and less on reckless speculation and obscene salaries and stock options for their CEOs and top officers.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/the-1-billion-bank-heist-cyber-gang-steals-from-100-institutions-in-unprecedented-robbery-10048003.html
Oh to be the 1% in the morning……
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/16/bankrupt-radioshack-wants-to-reward-execs-with-bon.aspx
The CEO Bankruptcy Bonus
Firms Sidestep Rule Limiting Rewards for Executives
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903703604576584480750545602
A long time ago Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak was a TV weatherman. He recently tweeted: “Weather isn’t climate. Weather can be colder but climate warming. Climate is warming whether the weather is…um, uh…” @patsajak
Pat Sajak is not a real meteorologist. However, the game show producers are working on educating Pat: https://twitter.com/gregladen/status/468809879537590273/photo/1
There were people skiing in tanktops and t-shirts this weekend at Monarch
See above picpaste link showing how little snow there is above treeline in the mountains in the background
Roger that. Here’s a live cam shot of the east side of the California Sierras near Mammoth at 7350 feet elevation: http://www.dot.ca.gov/research/its/d09/mammoth/preset3.jpg
By Jaclyn ReissGlobe Staff February 16, 2015
Ever heard of thundersnow? Well, The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore seems to be an expert — and he was caught on camera growing increasingly excited as he saw six separate instances in Plymouth during this weekend’s storm.
The Weather Channel posted this clip to YouTube so others could enjoy Cantore’s thundersnow experience.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/…/GCbvYsQ0rLKwisWGIfZxtM/story.html -
I need to go scrape about 6 inches of global warming off the car soon
I need to go scrape about 6 inches of global warming off the car soon
If it got warm enough to end snow in Denver, we’d be hosed.
Comment by phony scandals
2015-02-16 09:52:02
Meteorologist pumped up over ‘thundersnow’ in Mass.
bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/15/meteorologist-pumped-over-thundersnow/GCbvYsQ0rLKwisWGIfZxtM/story.html
“Here’s a live cam shot of the east side of the California Sierras near Mammoth at 7350 feet elevation.”
Yipes! Looks like the month of June.
By Standards Of Immigration Hawks, All 2016 GOP Contenders Support ‘Amnesty’
by Daily Caller | JAMIE WEINSTEIN | February 16, 2015
Anyone who has ever used the term “Shamnesty” — or, more likely, “SHAMNESTY!!!!” — is going to hate the likely 2016 GOP presidential field. All of it.
The immigration reform debate centers around many issues, but probably none is more explosive than what should be done about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. The loudest critics of comprehensive immigration reform in the Republican Party demand that there be no “amnesty,” which they define as any pathway to normalizing the immigration statuses of America’s illegal population, no matter whether those illegals would be forced to pay a financial penalty or even prevented from gaining citizenship.
Yet, despite the issue garnering so much ink, the reality is every major candidate supports an immigration policy that includes an “amnesty,” at least as defined by the GOP’s most ardent and vocal immigration hawks.
Much has been made of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s support for a pathway to citizenship for most of the illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. But conservative grassroots stalwarts like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz also envision some type of normalization for illegals living in the country.
Tucker Carlson is kind of a dweeb but the Daily Caller is some good reading sometimes
More libertarian than the Sharia conservatives at some other websites
I just looked on the Drudge Report for the first time in a few days and it is mostly fear-mongering about ISIS and anti-semitism
American taxpayers and voters are being played like suckers and fools
Where does ISIS get those nice black uniforms and ski masks?
Not to mention the nice flags.
They must have an account with…
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Baltic Dry Index (shipping volume) - a REAL economic indicator, as opposed to unicorns-and-rainbows BLS data - plumbing new lows as our non-recovery “recovery” continues apace.
http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BDIY:IND
It hit a record low last week. I suppose the recent move by traders to hoard millions of barrels of oil at sea doesn’t help a dry bulk shipping index.
Shipping Measure Collapses to Record Amid Lack of Coal to China
by Naomi Christie
5:20 AM PST
February 11, 2015
(Bloomberg) — A measure of shipping costs for commodities collapsed to a record as China curbs coal buying at a time when the largest-ever fleet is competing to haul cargoes.
The Baltic Dry Index, covering freight for everything from iron ore to grains, slid 0.5 percent to 553 points, according to data on Wednesday from the Baltic Exchange, a London-based publisher of rates on more than 50 trade routes. That was 1 point below the previous record in July and August, 1986.
China’s economy, which uses almost half the world’s coal and iron ore cargoes, will expand this year at the slowest pace since 1990, economists’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg show. Rates declined for all except one of the ship types tracked by the Baltic Exchange. The capacity of the global fleet of dry-bulk ships expanded 60 percent in the past five years, according to IHS Maritime data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Too many vessels were ordered,” said Jeffrey Landsberg, the managing director of Commodore Research, a New York-based adviser to ship owners. “But as we saw last year and extending into this year, Chinese coal imports are nowhere near the level that was expected.”
China’s coal-cargo imports fell 10 percent to 238.8 million metric tons in 2014, having risen 16 percent a year earlier, according to Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker. Owners increased orders for new ships in 2013 in anticipation of that year’s demand growth persisting, according to Landsberg.
Record Fleet
The capacity of the global dry bulk fleet is the biggest ever, at 761 million deadweight tons, according to Clarkson.
All except one of the vessel classes tracked by the Baltic Exchange declined on Wednesday. Capesizes fell 1.2 percent to $5,731 a day while Handysizes, the smallest monitored, slid 2.7 percent to $4,237. The only size to gain was Panamaxes, the biggest to navigate the Panama Canal. Rates for those climbed 5.2 percent.
…
While the current decline in shipping rates means they are unlikely to fall much further, it’s possible freight costs could extend their decline should Chinese steel production slow, said Erik Nikolai Stavseth, an analyst at Arctic Securities ASA in Oslo. The nation’s mills buy about two thirds of the world’s iron ore cargoes.
“It’s the worst ever, but there’s very limited downside from here,” Stavseth said by phone Wednesday. “You do have massive uncertainty on China and the pace at which they’re moving forward. If steel production in China peaks then dry bulk is in for a tough time.”
CHS offers a cogent analysis, as always, of how Greece could be the catalyst of the collapse of the Eurozone’s McMansion House of cards.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2015/02/greece-and-eurolands-crumbling.html
All the gimmicks lenders press on borrowers to maintain the artifice that the loan is being serviced are financial frauds.
Sometimes the best way to summarize a complex situation is with an analogy. The Greek debt crisis, for example, is very much like the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-08.
As you might recall, service workers earning $25,000 annually got $500,000 mortgages to buy McMansions in subprime’s go-go days. The applicant fudged a bit here and there on income and creditworthiness, and lenders reaping huge profits from originating and selling mortgages were delighted to ignore prudent underwriting standards and stamp “low-risk” on the mortgage because it was quickly sold to credulous investors.
The bank made its money in transaction and origination fees, and passed the risk of default on to investors who accepted the fraud that the loan was low-risk.
The loan was fundamentally imprudent and risky because the borrower was not qualified for a loan of such magnitude. But since the risk was distributed to others, the banks ignored the 100% probability of eventual default and skimmed the profits upfront.
Greece was the subprime borrower, and its membership in the euro gave the banks permission to enter the credit rating of Germany on Greece’s loan application. Though anyone with the slightest knowledge of Greece’s economy knew it did not qualify for loans of such magnitude, lenders were happy to offer the loans at interest rates close to those of Greece’s northern neighbors, and then sell them as low-risk sovereign debt investments.
In effect, the banks were free-riding the magical-thinking belief that membership in the euro transformed risky borrowers into creditworthy borrowers.
When is someone gonna finally take a loss?
If a default is ever declared, some financial institution will have to pay out big on the credit default swaps it sold as “insurance” against that eventuality. Such a payout would likely set in motion a chain reaction that would threaten the collapse of the massive, $700 trillion derivatives pyramid, and TPTB cannot allow that to happen at any cost. So to answer your question, cans will continue to be kicked down the road until the inevitable financial reckoning day can no longer be deferred. Sometime after the next election, would be my guess.
When… All these central banker yahoos are baby boomer age, correct? So if they are selfish, they will let the ponzi fall right after they retire to their self-sufficient estate in Patagonia (or whatever) at age 68-70. Or, if they want to inflict the least damage, they will wait 15-20 years, after much of the baby boomer generation is no longer around, and the only people taking Medicare or SS dollars are Gen X.
Looks like the MSM recognizes the retail “investing” herd is starting to get spooked, and is trying to keep them calm long enough for Da Boyz to pull their money before the panicked stampede for the exits.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/stocks-are-near-a-bubble-but-dont-panic-yet-2015-02-13?link=MW_latest_news
Could “extend and pretend” finally be entering the end game? The new Greek administration has the public solidly on its side, which will limit its manuever room for making any concessions to the Troika.
http://www.businessinsider.com/greece-eurogroup-meeting-troika-bailout-varoufakis-16-jan-2015-2
Feels great to have a paid day off President’s day.
Have you stashed more cash in honor of Lincoln enacting the fascist Reconstruction Act?
You will thank me for reminding you to stash cash.
Michael T. Snyder
Independent research, macro, economy
Why The Price Of Oil Is More Likely To Fall To $20 Rather Than Rise To $80
Feb. 16, 2015 3:36 AM ET
This is just the beginning of the oil crisis. Over the past couple of weeks, the price of U.S. oil has rallied back above 50 dollars a barrel. In fact, as I write this, it is sitting at $52.93. But this rally will not last. In fact, analysts at the big banks are warning that we could soon see U.S. oil hit the $20 mark. The reason for this is that the production of oil globally is still way above the current level of demand. Things have gotten so bad that millions of barrels of oil are being stored at sea as companies wait for the price of oil to go back up. But the price is not going to go back up any time soon. Even though rigs are being shut down in the United States at the fastest pace since the last financial crisis, oil production continues to go up. In fact, last week more oil was produced in the U.S. than at any time since the 1970s. This is really bad news for the economy, because the price of oil is already at a catastrophically low level for the global financial system. If the price of oil stays at this level for the rest of the year, we are going to see a whole bunch of energy companies fail, billions of dollars of debt issued by energy companies could go bad, and trillions of dollars of derivatives related to the energy industry could implode. In other words, this is a recipe for a financial meltdown, and the longer the price of oil stays at this level (or lower), the more damage it is going to do.
The way things stand, there is simply just way too much oil sitting out there. And anyone that has taken Economics 101 knows that when supply far exceeds demand, prices go down…
At this point so much oil has already been stored up that companies are running out of places to put it all. Just consider the words of Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn…
Why The Price Of Oil Is More Likely To Fall To $20 Rather Than Rise To $80
Gas seems to have hit a ceiling of 1.99 along my commute route.
I am reading a book titled “In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel” by Adam Rovner that discusses movements in the 19th and 20th centuries to establish an alternate homeland to Israel in Grand Island, NY, Tasmania, Angola, Kenya, Madagascar, and Surinam
The Holocaust could have been prevented, Israel could have never been founded, ISIS would have never existed, and then there wouldn’t be any Drudge Report links to click on about it
Imagine that
Preventing the Holocaust would have required convincing 5 or 6 million people to pack up and move to a new homeland. Does the book discuss how that could have been achieved?
I haven’t finished reading the book yet
The book specifically does not discuss Zionism with the aim of establishing Israel as a homeland, just some of the more significant alternate proposals that never happened
I though the problem was that nobody wanted to take them.
That’s why colonies like Angola, Kenya, etc. are on that list. Just like Palestine, they were ruled from faraway imperial capitals, so the local population wouldn’t have a say about immigration.
This is an interesting bit of history of the period:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference
” Does the book discuss how that could have been achieved?”
Gas a few thousand of them?
While I can understand the practical reasons why “homelands” like Madagascar might have solved some problems, or avoided creating them, you can’t underestimate the role of historical memory and, if you so believe, divine providence in designating Israel as the chosen land for the Chosen People. I don’t think Angola or Grand Island or wherever would have inspired quite the same passion and sacrifices as were shown by the early Zionists who built and founded the State of Israel against great odds. That isn’t to say I agree with everything they do or have done, but I can certainly understand their unique perspective on things.
Europe is becoming a more hostile place for Jews, due in large part to the globalists importation of millions of Muslims hostile to western civilization and Jews in particular. Diversity is our strength….
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11416302/Ten-hours-walking-in-Paris-as-a-Jew.html
An online video of a kippa-clad Jewish reporter walking through the streets of Paris and receiving insults has been viewed over 100,000 times within the space of 24 hours.
In “Ten hours of walking in Paris as a Jew”, Zvika Klein, a reporter for Israeli news website NRG, dons a kippah, or yarmulke, in front of the Eiffel Tower before wandering around the French capital secretly filmed by a colleague and protected by a nearby “bodyguard”.
While he sparked little reaction in the city centre, he claimed to receive “hateful stares, belligerent remarks, and hostile body language” in suburban areas with a high Muslim population that were “at times like walking in downtown Ramallah”.
In one filmed sequence, a group of suburban youths can be heard saying: “Arsehole. He’s gonna get fxxxxx from the front and back. You’re going to get screwed around here brother.”
Still remember reading “Exodus” back in HS. Kind of colored my view of the whole Israeli-Arab conflict for quite a while afterward. Leon Uris is a very talented writer and I tend to support the underdog, as long as they are worth supporting.
Ah, poor Russian oligarchs with their stolen fortunes are finding out their rubles don’t go as far in Spain as they used to.
http://news.yahoo.com/ruble-tumble-busts-russian-buying-boom-spain-075847919.html;_ylt=AwrBJSACM.JUNCMAkNnQtDMD
Grrrrrrrrrrr!
I NEED A GOOD KREIGHTOR RAGE PIC TO MAKE MY PRES DAY!!!!
I”M SO ENRAGED!!!!!!!!
Don’t have that, but here’s a partial donkey for the other popular collection:
Two Legged Donkey
I’ll let you say it.
It’s a debt donkey foreclosure.
Looks like the UK political parties are as sold out to the banksters as ours are.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tax-dodging-bankers-and-dodgy-donors-add-to-camerons-woes-2015-02-13?link=MW_latest_news
How much house can I get for $1 million? - Bankrate.com
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/million-dollar-homes-1.aspx - 62k - Cached - Similar pages
What does a $1 million home look like?
Pentagon Deploys Boots on the Ground for ISIS War
Relentless propaganda produces support for war on ISIS
by Kurt Nimmo | Infowars.com | February 16, 2015
U.S. troops are headed to Kuwait as ISIS propaganda war heats up.
Congressman Ryan Zinke: Military footprint will be larger than Obama indicates.
Stars and Stripes reports more than 4,000 Fort Carson soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team left Colorado for Kuwait last week.
The deployment reveals the Pentagon plans to use tanks and armored vehicles in the war against ISIS, the terrorist army it trained at a secret base in Jordan.
“The unit is Fort Carson’s heaviest force, armed with M1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. Many of its soldiers are veterans of one or more of the brigade’s four combat tours in Iraq,” Stars and Stripes reports.
On Thursday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said U.S. troops will not see combat in Syria and Iraq.
“You have to get the Iraqis and ultimately the Syrian moderate opposition groups up so they can fight the fight on the ground,” she said. “There has to be a fight on the ground. You can’t do this by air. Everybody acknowledges that.”
In November, the last moderate rebel groups fighting against the al-Assad government surrendered to al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda spawned terror group aligned with the Islamic State.
In January 3,000 Free Syria Army fighters defected to ISIS.
Sensationalistic media coverage of alleged ISIS atrocities has resulted in wide support in the United States for military intervention in Syria and Iraq.
“84 percent of Americans consider the Islamic State and international terrorism the most critical threats to American security,” Forbes reports despite the fact the group has not attacked the United States and most domestic attacks foiled are orchestrated by the FBI.
This New York Times “Where are the hardest places to live in the U.S?” map is chock full of info and makes you wonder…
http://tinyurl.com/k6pu35t
Some of these places we mentioned are surprisingly healthy places - in a chessboard pattern. Maricopa County in Arizona has a 32% obesity rate, which is still lower than most places in the USA. Orange County is 27%. San Mateo is 24% (large Asian population in S.F.). Unemployment rate in Maricopa County is 7.1%, which is lower than Orange County. Orange County, San Mateo County, and Marin county have three of the longest life expectancies (above age 82) while agriculture counties inland are lower.
Of course a lot of factors come into play: race, income, proximity to clean air, affordability of health care (the more income you have, the better health care, the more time and money you spend on fitness), education (educated people are more aware and interested in nutrition).
The Confederacy looks about as expected.
http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2015/02/squatters-invade-foreclosed-crap.html
http://nypost.com/2015/02/15/squatters-returning-to-nyc-renting-out-abandoned-apartments/
Is Obamacare turning toxic for the Dems? I hope so.
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2015-02-16-US–Health%20Overhaul-Penalties/id-b1c64dfc3f7946adba5dcd09c2ec5ff4
Watch out where the Warmists go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow.
Is Your Computer Hard Drive Hiding an NSA Spy Program?
Majority of the world’s computers now spy for the NSA
by Kurt Nimmo | Infowars.com | February 16, 2015
According to Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based security software maker, the NSA has managed to insert spying software on most computer hard drives.
The program is hidden on hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, Reuters reports.
Kaspersky did not pinpoint the country responsible for the software, but said it is closely related to Stuxnet, the cyber weapon developed by the Americans and the Israelis, with help from the Germans and the British.
Stuxnet was used to sabotage Iran’s effort to enrich uranium for its nuclear program.
However, in addition to setting back Iran’s nuclear program, the sophisticated malware engineered by the U.S. and Israel at the Dimona complex in the Negev desert was exploited to push for restrictive cybersecurity measures in the United States.
A former NSA employee told the news agency the NSA values the hard drive spy program as much as Stuxnet.
Kaspersky said its research discovered the program on personal computers in 30 countries. Most of the infections were on computers in Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria.
Although Kaspersky said the targets include government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists, it is not unreasonable to conclude it is used to spy on American citizens engaged in political activity the establishment considers threatening.
In July of last year journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed the NSA has targeted a number of political activists for surveillance.
“I have long viewed this as one of the most important stories in the Snowden archive because it puts a face on the NSA’s surveillance overreach and illustrates, yet again — that domestic spying abuses usually target minorities, marginalized groups, and dissidents,” Greenwald said.
Low down payments make a comeback
By Mark Fahey
CNNMoney (New York)
February 16, 2015: 8:45 PM ET
Borrowers who have steady income and good credit, but not much money in the bank, will find that it recently became easier to buy a home.
Down payment requirements, which rose after the subprime mortgage crisis, are easing again as lenders and mortgage backers try to draw in new buyers.
“It’s one of the things that’s inhibiting first-time homebuyers,” said Rob Chrane, president of Down Payment Resource. “There are a lot more people who can qualify for a home that don’t realize that they can.”
FHA cuts insurance costs
The Federal Housing Administration has long backed loans for borrowers with lower credit scores and with down payments as low as 3.5%, but until this year it also required hefty insurance payments.
FHA monthly insurance premiums dropped dramatically at the beginning of 2015. The change, from 1.35% to only 0.85%, will make FHA loans a better choice for some borrowers after years of prohibitively high premiums, said Anthony Hsieh, chief executive officer of loanDepot, one of the largest FHA lenders in the country.
“We’re starting to get back to what’s reasonable,” said Hsieh. “The crisis has shaken the market so much that there is no doubt there was an overreaction.”
Fannie and Freddie
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee more than half the country’s mortgages. At the end of 2014, the two government-backed companies announced plans to slash minimum down payments from 5% to 3%.
The new program from Fannie Mae went into effect in December, and the one from Freddie Mac will begin in March. Both are only for first-time homebuyers, and the Freddie Mac program is restricted to low-income borrowers.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/16/real_estate/low-down-payment-mortgages/index.html
China’s home-price slide accelerating.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-new-home-prices-fall-in-january-2015-02-16-214854317?link=MW_latest_news
The Grexit (Greek Exit) explained - in 60 seconds
16 February 2015 Last updated at 10:08 GMT
Both the EU and Greece say the country should remain in the eurozone, but creditors are resisting pressure from the new Greek government to write off massive debts.
As a result, the future of Greece’s bailout is in doubt and the country faces a possible exit from the euro, the so-called “Grexit”.
BBC News explains the issue in 60 seconds.
Feral “youts” running wild in California. Comrade Pelosi, discipline your voters!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2956425/Footage-teens-running-rampage-chugging-alcohol-California-grocery-store.html
Breaking news: Obama is not the Antichrist.
The Fix
This is the best Obama correction you will read this weekend
By Team Fix February 15
BREAKING: President Obama is not the Antichrist.