The Housing Bubble

Not going to tell him anything…Going to let him crash and burn all by his lonesome…

You’ll both end up in the same place.

If you are going to end up bankrupt you should do it big.

america deserves another eight years of bush

“…with the same coterie of neo-con and Wall Street grifters…”

Difficult to rid society of these warmonger parasites.

Okay I’ll bite.

Hillary’s motto: america deserves another eight years of bush

American Exceptionalism

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-05/american-economy-has-a-weight-problem-as-costs-of-obesity-mount

This simple device inserted in an out-patient procedure could be a human-health game-changer if the result numbers are correct. It would probably cost 5K in the USA and a grand to have done in Mexico.

“When this hits the market, there’s not going to be just 10,000 to 15,000 people having it,” …“There’s going to be hundreds of thousands. Millions per year.”

The Invention That Could End Obesity

http://www.buzzfeed.com/joeloliphint/the-invention-that-could-end-obesity#.nnMJJVAnV

A Michigan surgeon invented an apparatus that he believes tricks the brain into thinking the stomach is full. His Full Sense Device could be a lifesaver for millions of obese Americans and raises questions about how hunger — our most basic human impulse — even works.

america deserves another eight years of bush

And it will get it whether Hillary or Jeb wins.

No mention of Greenspan, Fannie Mae, Carter era laws mandating investment in minority communities?

Unfortunately, can’t call it a “supporting role” Adan….Just like Paulson, they all reacted to a situation that by all accounts at the time would have sent the entire world into a depression…The likes of which we will never know because it was averted…

With that said, I am no fan of many of the policies…The thought that someone can live in their house without paying their mortgage for years is criminal as far as I am concerned but here we are….

My point is, Bush did it…He ushered the whole mess in from wars to the housing debacle and then dumped it in Americas lap and headed back to Crawford…WORST American President in history, hands down…

How do Bush do it on housing? I see Bush doing it by supporting the Fed policies and not forcing Fannie Mae to stop pushing banks to make loans in low income areas and buying up all the loans they did. I see Bush doing it by not seeking a repeal of the reinvestment act passed by Carter. But then I look at Obama and I see worse policies, he is not even trying to get Fannie Mae to cut back he is trying to get them to push more bad policies. It is not Barney Frank standing in the way of reform, it is actively pushing bad policies.

As far as the war even the NYT was pushing for the war in Iraq and where was the opposition by the Democrats to the entry in the war? Democrats only opposed the war after it became unpopular. By that time, Iraq was already broken and just withdrawing in a security vacuum raised real issues, ISIS in another form already existed and Iran was waiting to enter the security vacuum. The world is seeing the problems that a collapsing Iraq creates right now and this is just starting to play out. We needed an operation in Iraq that removed Saddam Hussein and installed another Sunni strong man, what we got was the naïve view that Democracy was possible in Iraq but that was a bipartisan screw-up not just Bush.

“No mention of Greenspan, Fannie Mae, Carter era laws mandating investment in minority communities?”

Feel good policy, but in reality an economic embryo with a 10-yr gestation period. Parasites!

Carter era laws mandating investment in minority communities

Mandated loans to minorities were not a major factor in the bubble because their numbers were too low to greatly affect the bubble.

“Most of the people with bad loans (during the bubble) turn out to be middle class and high income folks, with very few poor people involved.”

Robert Samuelson: Challenging what we know about the housing bubble

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-challenging-what-we-know-about-the-housing-bubble/2015/02/01/660c16f6-a89c-11e4-a06b-9df2002b86a0_story.html

……the bulk of mortgage lending and losses — measured by dollar volume — occurred among middle-class and high-income borrowers. In 2006, the poorest 30 percent of borrowers accounted for only 17 percent of new mortgage debt. This seems too small to explain the financial crisis that actually happened.

It is not that shoddy, misleading and fraudulent merchandising didn’t occur. It did. But it wasn’t confined to the poor and was caused, at least in part, by a larger delusion that was the bubble’s root source.

Bush, Cheney & Rumsfeld are friggen Liars Adan so don’t ask why the Dem’s may have voted for it…Just ask Colin Powell…

where was the opposition by the Democrats to the entry in the war?

You don’t remember the history of the run-up to the Iraq War? The Democrats, the press and Americans were being bamboozled by a multi-year, deceptive Bush Administration propaganda campaign. It worked.

Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday by two nonprofit journalism groups.

“In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003,” reads an overview of the examination, conducted by the Center for Public Integrity and its affiliated group, the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

According to the study, Bush and seven top officials — including Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice — made 935 false statements about Iraq during those two years.

So they voted for it based on the word of Bush without looking for supporting documentation? To show someone lied you need to show that not only they were wrong but the knew what they were saying was wrong. If the democrats voted for war just on Bush’s word then it is worse, it means they are too stupid to hold office and you cannot fix stupid so they should never hold office.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an intelligence service that got it right. Part of that was Saddam Hussein was deliberately trying to convince Iran he had nuclear weapons and an active chemicals weapons program to deter them from invasion and the intelligence programs from many nations picked up on his claims. Another problem is a double agent for Iran had many other intelligence agencies believing that Hussein had an active program. Combine that with the fact that he once had an active program and used it aggressively against both the Kurds and the Iranians, the claims had some plausibility.

In 2006, the poorest 30 percent of borrowers accounted for only 17 percent of new mortgage debt. This seems too small to explain the financial crisis that actually happened.

Too small? You do not know how markets move. I do not believe a 1% oversupply of oil can cause a 50%+ drop in oil prices without manipulation but certainly, I would believe that 5% in extra supply could cause such a move, we just do not have that. The efforts to increase home ownership by just a few percentage points was certainly enough to cause a bubble. These marginal buyers were all that was needed to start the stampede, particularly since they were getting 100% financed and would pay any price for a house since they were stupid as a brick. Add in a 2000 dollar flat screen TV and they would pay $50,000 more for the house. This drove up the comps and forced the middle class to pay more and they bought because they did not want “to get priced out”.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an intelligence service that got it right ??

Big pile of BS Adan…They got it right…They got it they way Bush & Cheney wanted it…

“Bush WORST American President in history, hands down…”

+1

Big pile of BS Adan…They got it right…They got it they way Bush & Cheney wanted it…

I am talking about foreign intelligence services, show me the one that got it right.

In 2006, the poorest 30 percent of borrowers accounted for only 17 percent of new mortgage debt.

Yes, “too small” a number to say mandated loans to minorities was a major cause of the housing bubble.

And based on demographics I’d even guess it’s very possible that over half of those loans to the “poorest 30% of borrowers accounting for only 17% of new mortgage debts in 2006 were given to poorer white folks.

This drove up the comps and forced the middle class to pay more and they bought because they did not want “to get priced out”.

Of the hood?

‘there does not appear to be an intelligence service that got it right’

Jeebus, such ignorance of history.

‘The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which existed from September 2002 to June 2003, was a Pentagon unit created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, and headed by Feith, as charged by then-United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to supply senior George W. Bush administration officials with raw intelligence (unvetted by intelligence analysts, see Stovepiping) pertaining to Iraq.[1] A similar unit, called the Iranian Directorate, was created several years later, in 2006, to deal with intelligence on Iran.[2]‘

‘In an interview with the Scottish Sunday Herald, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Larry C. Johnson said the OSP was “dangerous for US national security and a threat to world peace. [The OSP] lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam. It’s a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality. They take bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignore anything contrary. They should be eliminated.”[3]

‘Seymour Hersh writes that, according to an unnamed Pentagon adviser, “[OSP] was created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, wanted to be true—that Saddam Hussein had close ties to Al Qaeda, and that Iraq had an enormous arsenal of chemical, biological, and possibly even nuclear weapons (WMD) that threatened the region and, potentially, the United States. [...] ‘The agency [CIA] was out to disprove linkage between Iraq and terrorism,’ the Pentagon adviser told me. ‘That’s what drove them. If you’ve ever worked with intelligence data, you can see the ingrained views at C.I.A. that color the way it sees data.’ The goal of Special Plans, he said, was ‘to put the data under the microscope to reveal what the intelligence community can’t see.’”[4]

‘These allegations are supported by an annex to the first part of Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq published in July 2004. The review, which was highly critical of the CIA’s Iraq intelligence generally but found its judgments were right on the lack of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship, suggests that the OSP, if connected to an “Iraqi intelligence cell” also headed by Douglas Feith which is described in the annex, sought to discredit and cast doubt on CIA analysis in an effort to establish a connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorism. In one instance, in response to a cautious CIA report, “Iraq and al-Qa’eda: A Murky Relationship”, the annex relates that “one of the individuals working for the [intelligence cell led by Feith] stated that the June [2002] report, ‘…should be read for content only – and CIA’s interpretation ought to be ignored.’”[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans

Many of the minority buyers did not buy in the hood. I remember reading a number of stories of black buyers fleeing hoods because of Hispanic gangbangers targeting them and then moving to middle class white neighborhoods due to 80/20 financing and with teaser rates.

Once again prices are set at the margin and when you have an influx of new buyers you do not need many to get the price to take off.

I am talking about foreign intelligence services

Tony Blair & Bush are bedfellows Adan…

I am talking about foreign intelligence services, show me the one that got it right.

Many were close to getting it “right”. (Or as close as most spying and intelligence work can be right. But the Bush administration cherrypicked and lied by omission.

Hussein’s Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/05/AR2007040502263.html

“a key Pentagon office — run by then-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith — had inappropriately written intelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connections between al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.

The report, in a passage previously marked secret, said Feith’s office had asserted in a briefing given to Cheney’s chief of staff in September 2002 that the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda was “mature” and “symbiotic,” marked by shared interests and evidenced by cooperation across 10 categories, including training, financing and logistics.

Instead, the report said, the CIA had concluded in June 2002 that there were few substantiated contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi officials and had said that it lacked evidence of a long-term relationship like the ones Iraq had forged with other terrorist groups.

“Overall, the reporting provides no conclusive signs of cooperation on specific terrorist operations,” that CIA report said, adding that discussions on the issue were “necessarily speculative.”

The CIA had separately concluded that reports of Iraqi training on weapons of mass destruction were “episodic, sketchy, or not corroborated in other channels,” the inspector general’s report said. It quoted an August 2002 CIA report describing the relationship as more closely resembling “two organizations trying to feel out or exploit each other” rather than cooperating operationally.

The CIA was not alone, the defense report emphasized. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had concluded that year that “available reporting is not firm enough to demonstrate an ongoing relationship” between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda, it said.

I said any intelligence agency, China or Russia would work quite fine.

Ben, are you saying that the Democrats did not have access to CIA reports?

Bush WORST American President in history, hands down…”

Until Obama came in and made him look like a genius in comparison.

when you have an influx of new buyers you do not need many to get the price to take off.

According to the FED/Congress reports, the vast majority of buyers were white, even the CRA buyers. So your “mandating investment in minority communities” was not much a factor at all in the bubble.

Loans to Minorities Did Not Cause Housing Crisis, Study Finds

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/02/loans-to-minorities-did-not-cause-housing-crisis-study-finds.php

….In his new study on racial-ethnic lending patterns, Jourdain-Earl finds that Federal Reserve data show that 84 percent of mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 2004 and 2009 had been made to whites, with 8 percent going to Hispanics and 5 percent to African-Americans.

For loans to comply with CRA, 68 percent went to whites, 15 percent to Hispanics and 12 percent to African-Americans—hardly enough volume from minorities to cause the housing crisis.

Anybody that was paying attention knew what Cheney was up to. In this day and time we should always question the warmongers (especially neocons), as they have shown there is no emotional scare-tactic they won’t use, and use bald-faced lies to do it. And we can’t trust the MSM to find the truth, because Iraq proved they were in on this horrible crime.

Talk about cherry picking, the issue that drove the Iraq war was not whether there was a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq but whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs. He had already showed continued hostility to the U.S. by trying to blow up President Bush in Kuwait. BTW, the relationship being described between Iraq and Al Qaeda is very much like the relationship that existed between Al Qaeda and Iran. In the Middle East the saying the enemy of your enemy is your friend is taken quite seriously. One month a Sunni tribe in Iraq might be working with Isis, and the next month they will work with Kurds against ISIS, the next month they are fighting with the Shiite militias against the Kurds and it goes on and on.

No that was crucial. They were using September 11th as an emotional tool to push the invasion. IMO, there is no more sicker person than one that would exploit September 11th for a phoney war.

but whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs.

That issue too was cherry-picked:

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction
Salon exclusive: Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

http://www.salon.com/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/

On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam’s inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

On April 23, 2006, CBS’s “60 Minutes” interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam’s foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. “We continued to validate him the whole way through,” said Drumheller. “The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.”

Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller’s account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri’s intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.

Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war.

+1,000 Ben Jones

I remember winter/spring of 2002-2003 as some of the worst memories about America of my lifetime

It’s a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality. They take bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignore anything contrary. They should be eliminated.”[3]

This is shameful but it does not support the narrative of a lie which was the original premise. To lie, you must knowingly give someone false information. If you actually believe your information and ignore the better information because of your ideology, it does not make you a liar, it makes you a MSNBC viewer or a Rush listener.

If you actually believe your information and ignore the better information because of your ideology, it does not make you a liar,

But does it make Bush a liar if he didn’t care if he believed the information or not?

“The president had no interest in the intelligence,” said the CIA officer. The other officer said, “Bush didn’t give a f#ck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up.”
Sidney Blumenthal Sep 6, 2007

But does it make Bush a liar if he didn’t care if he believed the information or not?

It would make him reckless but only if he knew something was false can you say he lied.

Bush and Cheney intentionally and with great forethought conflated 911 and Iraq, to the point where, to this day, there are Fox News watching chimpanzees who think Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.

Have we already forgotten that Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall?

What is too painful to remember you soon forget. That information is very painful for liberal Democrats.

It was the Nation Building schemes that turned a retaliatory military mission in Afghanistan into a money sucking debacle.

You can trace the origins to the cease fire in Tora Bora that allowed Osama Bin Laden escape into Pakistan. It was a combination of “compassionate conservatism”, political correctness and I am sure big money pushing for infrastructure projects in that hell hole. We should have killed that SOB and got the hell out of there.

There was also no reason to invade Iraq at that time, we had the no fly zones and Saddam Hussein was still keeping the crazy Islamists in check.

So, did our intelligence just suck? Was it embellished purposely to support the push for the invasion? Why was there so much bipartisan support at the time? Did the big infrastructure companies pay off all of those supporters? Was it the military complex wanting to use our stuff so they could order and build more stuff? Or did we really think that the people of Iraq would see us as liberators? If so, how could we be so naïve, so arrogant?

Now for the punch line:

The results - Not diminishing the absolute horrors our soldiers faced both in death and disfigurement, the 65,000 souls lost in Iraq and the enormous amounts of money spent; I think the absolute worst consequence was the election of a post-American, anti-constitution, pro-islamist African Marxist President.

No amount of Bush Derangement Syndrome is worth the end of our great Republic via Fundamental Transformation.

‘the 65,000 souls lost in Iraq ‘

I read it was much higher. Oh, you’re not counting Iraqi’s, who didn’t have a damn thing to do with September 11th and had no more to do with putting Saddam in charge than you do about Obama. The CIA put Saddam in power.

“I think the absolute worst consequence was the election of a post-American, anti-constitution, pro-islamist African Marxist President.”

Oh, look, another mouth-breather.

“We are constantly learning new stuff about the housing bubble — and some of the new stuff contradicts the old. This is obviously important, because the bubble led to the 2008-2009 financial crisis and Great Recession. What we don’t understand may one day come back to bite us.”

He sure found religion. Can’t say that I can recall Samuelson warn on the Housing Bubble during the epic runup.

“Oh, you’re not counting Iraqi’s”

Most of the Iraqi’s were killed by Muslim insurgents, our armed forces are not comprised of a bunch of murderers contrary to unpopular belief.

Did you miss this part of my statement or do you just believe that any non-progressive/non-communist is pro war?

“There was also no reason to invade Iraq at that time, we had the no fly zones and Saddam Hussein was still keeping the crazy Islamists in check.”

Housing had started in many areas, including CA, before Bush ??

Bush put it on steroids with Ben B’s help…In some ways, I think he did it so people would look the other way so he could go play his war games with the US Military…

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDsQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freerepublic.com%2Ffocus%2Fnews%2F2242531%2Fposts&ei=HbX9VLn8CYGyoQSNxIGYBQ&usg=AFQjCNGqHn2X_gNjhw0kDqu6iS9n1LgUSw&sig2=OTf4enFOvCR2QlMkbvwtLA&bvm=bv.87611401,d.cGU

Dave - you gotta go back much farther than Bush ??

You can’t generalize with housing rj…Its local or regional…Yes, housing (for example) in Silicon Valley has been on a steady clime for 40 years…But, in other locations not so much so…That is, until Bush wanted Tomato pickers to own houses also…

Falling 30% in 2009 and another 30% in 2001 is a “steady climb” only when using liars math.

Very small changes in homeownership rates cause very large movements in housing prices. Look at the small overall movement in housing ownership from 1994-2005. Now, look at the ownership by blacks and Hispanics during that time period many using the reinvestment act generated loan programs, there is your cause:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_States

look at the ownership by blacks and Hispanics during that time period .

A black family buying a house in a working-class neighborhood is not substantially affecting a 600K house in the burbs. It doesn’t work that way and the housing market is not the oil market.

Conclusion: Loans to Minorities Did Not Cause Housing Crisis

Sources:
Studies by The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, The Fed, and economists Manuel Adelino of Duke University, Antoinette Schoar of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Felipe Severino of Dartmouth College, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research

A black family buying a house in a working-class neighborhood is not substantially affecting a 600K house in the burbs

The whole realtor spiel is that you move up the property ladder, the paying of obscene prices for that working class home enabled and encouraged many working class people to buy that 600k house in the burbs. When houses are moving up, “you want to buy the biggest house you can afford” whether you need the space or not.

Of course the CRA loans were a factor in the housing bubble. But they were not the main factor or even a main factor in the opinion of many experts.

When houses are moving up, “you want to buy the biggest house you can afford”

And a main conclusion of that latest report I posted is that the “bubble mentality greed” was hugely important in everybody going nuts for houses. It was a mania that fed on itself. The CRA stuff was part of the mania but too small of a portion to be a major cause imo and the opinion of many others.

The CRA stuff was part of the mania

It was the catalyst. As soon as Wall Street discovered it could make obscene profits on CRA related subprime mortgages we were off to the races.

It was the catalyst.

Not the catalyst. It was a catalyst for a small section of the mania.

The vast majority of the volume of loans “Securitized” were to the middle and upper classes.

What’s new AnklePants?

The vast majority of the volume of loans “Securitized” were to the middle and upper classes

After the genie was let out of the bottle, but subprime loans were invented to meet the CRA requirements, it was the catalyst for the bubble and the people buying houses under the program started the rapid appreciation in prices that began the inflation of the bubble.

It was like Beanie babies, had there not been an actual shortage at one time the mania would never had gotten started. Had the subprime mortgages not been invented to meet the requirements of the CRA and the pressure that Fannie and Freddie were putting on financial institutions to make loans to minorities, the bubble would not have started. Once the mania started in homes it took a life of its own and the rising prices with little down provided all the incentive to speculate particularly since people could not afford their lifestyles due to declining manufacturing in the U.S. due to globalization. The fact that these subprime mortgages were so profitable led to banks actually steering people into them when they could have qualified for conventional mortgages. Of course, as houses rose people became even more desperate to get into homes and their incomes would no longer allow them to qualify, thus liar loans were born.

I may be wrong and you guys can take me to the wood shed on this one - but CRA combined with the Clinton and Gramm take down of Glass Steagle just poured gas on a part of the economy susceptible to the con. First Carter then we had Reagan’s tax plans then Clinton and the repeal of Glass Steagle - the very thing that was instituted post Depression to keep this mess from happening again. Boil, Boil Toil and trouble……

Sorry RJ, I just posted on Glass-Steagall/Clinton…didn’t see that you had already posted.

RW - no harm no foul….. I am learning alot here on HBB - any commentary is always welcome - and the folks here are quick!!!
What do you think? Clinton and Gramm repealing Glass Steagle. I have always thought it was a very bad idea from the start.

Not just a bad idea, but how it came about was very sketchy indeed. Travelers and Citicorp merged in contravention of the G-S Act.

Once that happened, rather than put the hurt on Citi and making them unwind or break off Travelers, the government changed the law to make the acquisition legal.

All brokered by Robert Rubin (former Treasury Secretary and new exec at Citi).

No thanks

You have no idea what you’re missing.

Actually, I do; and I’ll pass.

The scary thing about McDonalds food is your farts smell the same as your meal.

and there’s always Cheetos too.

HA your concept of a balanced diet is one big mac in each hand. They would weigh the same so perhaps it does meet a definition.

I fail to see the problem. A Big Mac is comprised of 4 of 5 food groups (meat, grains, dairy and vegetable.) I hit the 5th(fruit) and get two apple pies for a dollar.

Ketchup is a vegetable too, right?

I think so.

I buy the big gallon jugs of Heinz Ketchup at Costco for when I bake up a full bag of seasoned curly fries when I want a healthy snack.

A Big Mac is comprised of 4 of 5 food groups (meat, grains, dairy and vegetable.)

I think you should get a beer with that and then you will be hitting the food groups that matter, sugar, salt, fat and alcohol.

There’s a reason why Mickey D’s is losing market share while higher end burger eateries like 5 Guys or Smashburger are gaining.

Speaking of which, I’m not a fan of 5 Guys, but Smashburger is OK if you’re in the mood. Have you tried Larkburger yet? There’s one in Boulder and I have to say I’m impressed with everything I’ve tried there for the price.

I tried 5 guys once. Failed to see what all the hype was about. Free peanuts on the way in? Meh- who would want to fill up on peanuts before eating a massive meal of burgers and fries? Does not go together. My burger? The meat was too big, overcooked, the toppings sparse. The fries? WAAAAAYYYYY too much, and greasy and salty beyond words. I don’t need a grocery bag full of greasy fries which could feed a small army. The price was indicative of BIG, too. I prefer In-n-Out.

Actually, I agree I do not see the hype over Five Guys. I went to one in Flagstaff and could not believe how mediocre it was. I like peanuts but it does not make up for the hamburger.

TBoom

BTW, through AirBNB, you might find a local who is more than happy to have a roommate for 1 night per week for less than $100 for that night. You could probably negotiate a better deal if it’s on a consistent basis.

If Bill in LA has the master swimmer’s body that he says he does, I’m sure he could find a “roommate” willing to *coughcough* house him for free.

“If Bill in LA has the master swimmer’s body that he says he does, I’m sure he could find a “roommate” willing to *coughcough* house him for free.”

Except that doesn’t really matter that much to women. His attractive bank account, investments, and gold collection, amongst other things, would go much further. He’d be like a bloody walrus in a sea of great white sharks. Sorry, I’m cynical.

Guillotine, you are right. This is because it’s California. In Arizona, outside the Scottsdale / Paradise Valley areas, the women are,,,

REAL!

They are more impressed with looks than money. But then I’m no spring chicken. Got the bod but I look in my 40s.

Yeah, I don’t think commutes qualify for the Federal reimbursement (which I believe is tax free).

It appears that the company is willing to pay for his commute. Everything in life is negotiable, I was just telling him what the Feds would pay if they were paying mileage since asking for that sounds reasonable if it is a short term job assignment.

Your post implied that the government pays per mile for car commuting. I had to correct the record.

Why couldn’t you have said “the gov pays 57.5 cents per mile for official travel, maybe you can use that as a starting point to negotiate your commute.”

Not like you’re in the habit of short posts, you know.

Not like you’re in the habit of short posts, you know.

I think if you go through the posts today and every day that I do post, you will see short posts, medium posts and long posts by me. It depends on the subject matter.

Yes, but the $0.50 per mile for his commute to my understanding would be taxable income to him.

$0.575 reimbursement for business travel is not taxable.

I threw out 0.50. My boss said something like maybe .55

No word today. The boss still on business travel. Gave me extra time to continue my awesome project with open source.

Actually, it is still round one…..just postponed.

Let’s get some input from our very own.

Lola?

Do you usually get two nights for that?

Husbands freely dump their older wives

I would think most husbands don’t freely dump their older wives. Divorce is hard. The rich husbands might because “they can”.

I read 2/3s of divorces are instigated by the women. I wonder if that applies to wives freely dumping their older husbands too. (But probably not for the same reasons that a rich guy might freely dump his “older” wife.)

Feminism = Marxist redistribution of male resources

http://www.petition2congress.com/1788/unfair-child-support-laws/view/2

“Today, women are free to exploit their sexuality when they are young”
————————————————————–

And that may be the problem. A woman’s job is not to get a man; any female can do that. A woman’s job is to KEEP a man.

Or to quote the late great Patrice Oneal:

“when have you EVER had to talk your way into some dick?”

We’d get calls from ConEd (pension) asking to speak to my grandfather to confirm his liveliness every year starting in his late 80’s. He died at 102.

Very little innovation or miracle cures.

Medical research is really a separate issue from the way that health care is paid for.

Where Do New Drugs Come From? U.S. Biotechs Lead the Way
Melly Alazraki - Nov 30th 2010 - Daily Finance

“New companies are essential for the discovery of innovative drugs,” Kneller told DailyFinance. “But it probably is not easy to create an environment that is supportive for science based entrepreneurship, and even in the U.S. this environment should not be taken for granted.”

Diminished early­-stage venture capital for new companies, poor prospects for initial public offerings, diminished immigration of sci­entists and science students into the U.S., and moves towards patent ‘reform’ in the U.S. “all raise questions about the future of this ‘US model’ of innovation that relies so much on new companies.”

Nothing in that snippet mentions anything about health care finance. also, if you looked into it, you’d probably find that a large portion of all medical research is funded by the taxpayer.

Do you really believe that no medical research is done in the EU or Japan? Quite a bit is done there. And the overwhelming majority of medical care does not involve cutting edge “miracle cures”.

Oh now I see the problem. You are unable to differentiate between doctors and hospitals. Let me help you. One is a big building with windows and beds. The other is a person with no free time and lots of education.

If you were to look into it, you’d probably find that American doctor make a lot more than those in comparable countries. And it you’d have great difficulty identifying the health benefits that get from paying so much more.

If you look into it, you’d find the average American doctor pays a lot more for their own education. You’d also find things like socialist countries owning and running hospitals and having public health options. You’d also find a lot of doctors LEAVING many countries to move here to be NURSES because the pay for nurses here is better than for doctors there.

I WANT my doctors making more money here. I don’t want them to think about having to iron shirts, or mow their lawn, or worry about if their car needs to go to the mechanic. I want them to drive a mercedes benz, have a gardner, and a maid. Why? So they can focus on spending their time fixing sick people at the hospital and doing the amazing job that they do.

Most of all I don’t want them moving to Finland or Costa Rica because it doesn’t really matter and the lifestyle is better somewhere else. You keep pissing off these doctors with bad laws like the ACA (prohibits new doctor groups from grouping together to form hospitals.. WTF!?!), and reducing medicare compensation, and they are going to tell the gen pop to shove it up their rear ends.

So when does Obama blow up the satellites to hide the truth?

http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/

Please, flat temperatures since 1998.

Ah, but only land surface temperatures, and only up until 2013. The record-breaking warmth of 2014 ended the so-called hiatus. And 2015 will likely break the 2014 record.

When ocean temperatures and land temperatures are considered together, there has been no pause. The total energy budget of Earth has been going up along with CO2 concentration. Natural cycles in ocean circulation sometimes adds to, and sometimes subtracts from, the land surface temps; thus, surface temps do not go up in a straight line. It’s a staircase.
( http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000165/full )

The record-breaking warmth of 2014 ended the so-called hiatus

Hardly, it was within the margin of error less than 50% chance it was a record. We still are 2 degrees Celsius less than the normal warming in an interglacial period. Had we spent trillions in the 1980s to reduce co2 emissions the CAGW crowd would be doing victory laps claiming global warming had stopped due to their intervention. Perhaps it was the plan. I find it amazing how the AGW crowd still is saying if we spend trillions to fight AGW we can keep global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, hell that is when it normally stops so are we really doing anything other than redistributing wealth? All the computer models are wrong and we should be warming by more than what was recorded last year every year and not just every 15+ years if they were correct.

It’s a staircase.

Not what they were claiming just a few years ago. I was the only one on this board talking about ocean cycles. Most of the board was denying there was even a pause. Now, flat periods are normal, Great Britain will see more snow, not will not see any snow, and the record cold winters in the East are a result of global warming, but the science is settled it has been so for decades.

If the link works the Time, National Geographic and Vanity Fair covers are a hoot.

10 Predictions vs Reality and the Winter 2014-2015 Hype

September 11th, 2014 | wt360

Let’s start with a “HOT” topic, pun intended, on some Climate Change predictions that have proven to be laughably wrong, then we’ll get to a review of the media hysteria on this coming Winter. I’m already feeling some heat from those that take Climate Change as settled science but that sounds like Climate Religion to me if you’re not willing to have a debate on science. For the record, I am a God fearing Christian who also happens to have a strong academic/scientific background and life-long profession in weather forecasting and I don’t get any money from the government, big oil or democrats or republicans. And I’ve planted a few hundred trees in my yard, love nature and firmly believe we should be good stewards of the planet. That said…

PREDICTION 1: June 1988 NASA’s Jim Hansen says before Congress “That the West Side Highway in New York City will be underwater in 20-40 years.”

REALITY: We’re 23 years into this prediction and sea levels have risen 2.5″ since then…only about 10 feet to go before the West Side Highway goes underwater. At the current pace we’re about 1,200 years away. For the record the sea-level rose 390 feet over the past 20,000 years as 2,000 foot thick glaciers that covered most of the Northern Hemisphere melted. wt360 offices in Bethlehem, PA were under a 1,000 feet of ice - good thing it melted. Notice graph bottom right for New York City sea levels - 2.5″ rise at best over the past 23 years. Fewer relics of the Ice Age - a slowing of sea level rise but just changing the Y-axis scale (top right) can make the trend look very alarming even though it’s a 1/10th of an inch rise per year.

Prediction #2: 12 October 2007 Al Gore said with apocalyptic certainty while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, “The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff; ‘It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now!” We all can point to thousands of media stories on this topic so Al has some company on this scientific propaganda.

Reality: It’s now 7 years later and what do we have? 76% bigger ice coverage and thickness than just two years ago, 35% BIGGER than 2007 when Gore spoke from the pulpit. We won’t discuss that Antarctica (South Pole) reached all-time record levels this year, oh by the way those all time records only go back to the 1979 satellite era when we had accurate information so we know very little about how big or small it actually got thousands of years ago. Let’s move to the North Pole where the sea ice is actually 76% bigger and thicker than just two years ago, yes still below average but growing.

Prediction #3: Hurricanes numbers are increasing and getting stronger. This claim has been made by so many we’ve lost track…Al Gore, Dr. Mann from Penn State (guy behind the Climate Gate Scandal), etc. etc. When a politician gets on a cherry picker and his Power Point slide show says Hurricanes are going to get much more frequent and much stronger be afraid…very afraid!

Reality: The scary truth is Global and Atlantic basin hurricane activity and intensity has been plummeting for years and now at 50 year lows globally and 30 year lows in the Atlantic. The Atlantic basin is now in the longest stretch without a U.S. major land falling hurricane - 9 years and that’s based on records

Prediction #4: Snow and frost will disappear. Same group as point 3 but there are hundreds of scientists who made this claim over the past 20 years. More heat waves, no snow in the winter… Climate models… over 20 times more precise than the UN IPCC global models. In no other country do we have more precise calculations of climate consequences. They should form the basis for political planning” Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, September 2, 2008.

Reality: As soon as the 30-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) cycle started it’s cold phase in 2007 we’ve seen a wholesale change in the severity of cold/snowy Winters the past 7 years. Cold Pacific Ocean - cold snowy planet with 4 of the past 7 winters the snowiest on record based on NOAA/NASA measurements that started in the late 1960s. Wait until the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) cycle enters it’s cold phase in a few years - it’s still warm but already peaked and getting colder. Won’t even talk about the Sun’s role as it enters it’s 300 year minimum in the next few years. Last time all 3 lined up in the cold phase together was the 1600-1700s aka the Little Ice Age.

Prediction #6 Global temperatures will be +0.8C to +1.8C above average by 2014 made by 74 IPCC UN Climate Models in 2005 - just 9 years ago and they were completely and utterly wrong and not one predicted the continued 17 years pause in global temperatures.

Reality: They all get F and time to go back to the drawing board to figure out why! Last year July, all 90 IPCC climate models were completely wrong as the global temperature remained flat for 16 straight years - not one predicted the pause with the current temp below the 100% guarantee it won’t be this temp. We are so let’s go back and figure out why all the UN and academic climate models got it wrong.

http://www.weathertrends360.com/…redictions-vs-Reality-and-the-Winter-2014-2015-Hype-2008 - 77k -

Comment by phony scandals
2015-03-09 16:14:27

10 Predictions vs Reality and the Winter 2014-2015 Hype
weathertrends360.com/Blog/Post/10-Predictions-vs-Reality-and-the-Winter-2014-2015-Hype-2008

Your tax dollars at work:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/obamas-top-campaign-strategists-use-taxpayer-money-to-attempt-to-oust-israeli-prime-minister-netanyahu/