Bits Bucket for March 19, 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
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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It’s time to bomb Iran.
I just received an e-mail from Mama Bush, asking for me to send her $250 “because we need Jeb” and this will encourage him to run.
Well Mama, if your first son hadn’t bombed Iraq, I might be inclined. But I am afraid your second son will bomb Iran. We can’t afford another idiot son in the white house surrounded by war mongering dicks.
Of course, we can’t afford a power mad Hillary either……so I hope one side or the other puts up a better alternative!
Why bother with either?
If you vote, you have no right to complain - George Carlin
So don’t vote. One less vote is one less example these statists point to for saying they have your consent.
Remember, none of them campaigned with the promise to implement the NDAA, the Patriot Act and TSA. If they did, none of them would be in office.
So do they truly legislate for the people. NO! They legislate for big government and represent statism as a philosophy, not you, not me.
Remember the words of former Attorney General John Ashcroft: to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies, and pause to America’s friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.
Those government programs exist to keep up safe. If you have nothing to hide, then you have no reason to worry about it. We are living in a very dangerous time, and now is not the time to go running your mouth with that alarmist nonsense.
If you want to send a message to the statists, vote for non statist candidates. If you don’t vote they’ll just assume that you are apathetic and not care that you didn’t vote.
+1. Just don’t be a vegetable and vote for HillaryJeb.
Those government programs exist to keep up safe. If you have nothing to hide, then you have no reason to worry about it. We are living in a very dangerous time, and now is not the time to go running your mouth with that alarmist nonsense.
So I await your reply here with your login name and passwords to all your social networks, e-mail, bank accounts and brokerage accounts because you obviously have nothing to hide.
Of course, we can’t afford a power mad Hillary either……so I hope one side or the other puts up a better alternative!
Why should they? Fully 95% of the electorate are stupid and will vote for whatever oligarcy-annointed candidate the Republicrat duopoly puts up, including HillaryJeb.
It’s called the illusion of choice, also known as the false dichotomy of American politics.
1st Never allow a viable third party to materialize
2nd Hijack/subvert the leadership of the two primary parties
3rd Polarize to the hilt & get each side despising each other so that ultimately nothing gets done. And all that vitriol is enthusiastically taken up by the left/right constituents.
4th Sit back and watch your bank account swell as your paid off puppets do your bidding.
8 years of freedom destroying policies from GW helps bring on 8 more years of freedom destroying policies from Obama. Now it’s time to bring on Jeb, cuz your sheep still don’t get the game you’re playing. Muah ha ha ha!!
I’d love to get that letter. I would tell Mama Bush exactly what I thought of her progeny, and tell them all to go blow Sheldon Adelson if they want $250.
” We can’t afford another idiot son in the white house surrounded by war mongering dicks.”
Well that’s whats on the menu. You can chose from the left side or the right.
It’s time to bomb Iran.
When it comes to bombs, it is better to give than to receive. Bibi will bomb Iran, if Obama makes a bad deal. There will be no holocaust on his watch. Now, if Obama ends enrichment by the Iranians all the world will rejoice, including Saudi Arabia and Israel but don’t hold your breath.
Ahead of Deal, Top Intel Organization Plays Down Iran’s Sponsorship of Terrorism
Sunday night, Stephen Hayes noted (via Twitter) a Times of Israel article that the 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Communities delivered annually by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to a Senate committee had “removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of terrorism threats” after having been included in prior years.
For each of at least the past four years, the report from Clapper has featured a section early in the document entitled “Terrorism.” In the 2015 report, that section spans pages 4 and 5 of the report and is completely silent about both Iran and Hezbollah. Other sections of the report mention Iran as a cyber threat and talk about Iran’s nuclear program as a potential threat, but even when discussing specific threats country by country, the section dedicated to Iran (four paragraphs on page 14) does not mention terrorism as a reason that nation is an “ongoing threat” to the United States. The open sentence reads:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/ahead-deal-top-intel-organization-plays-down-irans-sponsorship-terrorism_888589.html
“It’s time to bomb Iran.”
What, bombing Afganistan, Iraq and Syria (with lots of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen on the side) along with an incipient war brewing in Ukraine that we eagerly egged on isn’t enough for you?
Dan, if you are so hot for another war we can’t win, why don’t you move to Isreal and join the IDF? I’m sure Bibi would love to have you.
Depends on what is meant by “win.” It seems to me that the definition of “win” is shifting closer to what Grant and Sherman would have done if they had modern technology.
“Dan, if you are so hot for another war we can’t win, why don’t you move to Isreal and join the IDF? I’m sure Bibi would love to have you.”
Good point, but remember that the IDF has sat on the fence while other nations have committed their soldiers in Afganistan, Iraq and Syria.
It’s not just ISIS. This is a sectarian war:
‘Yet for all Mahmoud’s passionate sense of injustice, his belief that the government is irredeemably anti-Sunni is only part of the story. Sunni and Shia have both used mass violence against one another’s communities in the past 50 years, but the Sunni have most often been the perpetrators. The explosive growth of sectarian killings in 2012 to 2014, when 31,414 civilians were killed according to Iraqi Body Count, very much reflects the growth of Isis.’
‘The group carried out massacres of Shias and Yazidis as a matter of policy, and then broadcast videos of the murders. Isis bombers targeted bus queues, funerals, religious processions and anywhere else where Shia gathered and could be killed. The obvious motive was anti-Shia and a desire to destabilise the government, but there was also a carefully calculated policy at work of provoking Shia into retaliation against Sunni.’
‘Isis knew that this would leave the Sunni with no alternative but to fight and die alongside them.’
http://www.unz.com/pcockburn/life-under-isis-sunnis-face-an-even-bleaker-future-in-iraq-if-the-militants-reign-of-terror-is-finally-defeated/
A former infantryman myself I was shocked at the swift Tutsi massacre, but I was not willing to see the U.S. jump into an ethnic conflict and spend away our infrastructure budget, our environmental budget, etc., and commit vast sums to the military industrial complex. Someone could become a medical doctor with what we spend for a couple of flight hours on an F22 or F35 aircraft. It’s beyond incredible, IMHO.
“…spend away our infrastructure budget, our environmental budget, etc., and commit vast sums to the military industrial complex.”
Doesn’t that pretty much summarize the period since spring 2003, or am I missing your point?
Bibi will bomb Iran, if Obama makes a bad deal.
Wrong. Bibi counts on the neo-cons to fight his wars for him. All he has to do is wait till HillaryJeb is installed in office, and then he’ll dictate his marching orders while humming “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
“Kristol Meth”
Ok, now, that’s just too funny right there, I don’t care who y’are.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/03/18/from-tel-aviv-to-turtle-bay-israel-palestinians-un-resolution/
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/03/18/cotton-obama-should-worry-about-iran-not-letters/
If you don’t support our friend and ally Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, then you are not a patriotic American.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/18/benjamin-netanyahu-win-forces-obama-to-re-evaluate/
Obama = One Big Ass Mistake America.
World bows to Iran’s hegemony
http://www.blazingcatfur.ca/2015/03/05/spengler-world-bows-to-irans-hegemony/
Obama should just resign from office now and move back to Africa.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kristol-netanyahus-victory-and-obamas-defeat_890382.html
It’s time to take the gloves off Bibi, no more mister nice guy, America’s got your back.
I remember when Reagan took on the Israeli lobby back in the 1980s. The NYT of all places reported that 60% of all political money given to the Democrats and 40% of all Republican money came from Jewish donors. I do not know if or how much that has changed over the years. However, I think the Democrats are between a rock and hard place on this one, defy Obama and risk black votes or defy the Israeli lobby and risk losing Jewish political money. I think if there is going to be an override of a veto the most likely one would be if Obama vetoes the bill to force him to submit any deal with Iran to Congress.
Jewish donors ??????
You are hilarious this morning.
I thought you did NOT support boots on the ground? Now you are buying the propaganda that just taking out the nuclear facilities won’t work? Hahaha they’ve got you twisted.
Here are your choices:
1. Let Iran get nukes and also the ability to spread them to others
2. Destroy their nuclear capability as often as necessary via Bombs
3. Boots on the ground
Looks like most here choose 1 and want to stick their heads in the sand.
My cat knocked over the bong and in the bongwater stain on the carpet I saw the face of Jesus, so then I prayed and hit the bong a few more times. And then I went on the World Net Daily website and clicked on all the articles linked below.
Jesus wants America to bomb Iran, it’s the Christian thing to do.
What would Chairman Mao do?
#WWCMD
‘Here are your choices’
We have gotten so far from our ‘choices’. Preemptive war is illegal, according to international laws the US helped set up and signed on to. One would think that after Iraq that would have become obvious. Yet here we have the exact same people pushing it. The problem is, we never had the rule of law be applied. Otherwise the people responsible for the slaughter in Iraq would be in jail. The preemptive defense didn’t work for the Germans or the Japanese.
Yesterday a poster was talking about racism and unarmed black men with the police. What should protect these men? The constitution and all the laws that flow from it. There isn’t a special constitution for black men. This is why we should insist that our government enforce all of the laws regarding rights and the use of force. But we have gone so far away from the rule of law. Remember when the guy who shot the California police was on the run? The police pulled over a truck that wasn’t even the right make or model, in daylight, and fired 20 shots into it. The rules of engagement, like the name of the movies about Waco, what happened to those rules?
There isn’t anything new under the sun when it comes to the use of force. We are in a dangerous place when people casually talk about bombing this place, or torturing these people, or killing with drones. Collective punishment is a crime. How would we feel if the police or feds burned or bombed neighborhoods in Ferguson? But it happens in Gaza. And the rule of law that should apply is blocked by the US with its veto power in the UN.
We have opened ourselves up to madness by ignoring the rule of law. These wars of aggression are a part of it. Proxie wars too. It’s not legal to arm some “militants” to kill in the name of regime change. But the US does it all the time. And it’s a complete disaster with all sorts of negative consequences, yet we’ll listen to the murderous politicians tell us we need even more killing. I don’t know what if anything can be done in our tattered system. But I do know the solution is to live by the rule of law.
My boss is a Jewish carpenter, and the boss says it’s time to bomb Iran.
It does start at the top with leadership.
When you have a leader that just ignores laws he doesn’t like, makes up laws he wishes he had, negotiates treaties by executive decrees, uses the IRS to go after political enemies, delays enforce whole sections of laws that he pushed for due to possible effects of elections, etc…
Other “smaller” leaders get the signal the law is what they say it is. Disagree? Then I will send the local IRS after you.
‘Other “smaller” leaders get the signal the law is what they say it is’
We see it all the time. The recent Iran letter thing. Senators saying, ‘the constitution says this’… Here’s the thing; you don’t get to pick and chose when the constitution is to be applied. By you I mean anybody. I don’t care how many people voted for you or what office you hold. Once we allow selective use of law and force, it’s pretty much all over. Now we even have the bill of rights openly breached by our government. It wasn’t that long ago no politician would have dared to do this. But our system is broken; as long as the “two parties” agree on breaking a law, out the window it goes. Then everybody stands around and wonders, ‘how did things get so F-d up?’
Here’s an example; the attorney general tells congress he didn’t go after wall street execs because it may harm the financial system. Mr AG, that isn’t your call. We have a system to determine these things and you don’t have the power to decide what laws you enforce on that basis.
I agree with everything you said Ben, except I think we cannot allow Iran to get nukes. I think that screws the world over way worse than anything else on the horizon. I don’t care if the rest of the dysfunctional world won’t go along and have some kind of vote to make it legal.
I’d feel the same about any other crazy dictatorship. Not war though and not against the Iranian people who I like, just strike on the possible nuke plants.
I agree with everything you said Ben, except I think we cannot allow Iran to get nukes.
In other words:
“I 100% totally believe in The Constitution, respecting nations’ sovereignty and International Law….. (except sometimes)”.
We cannot allow Iran to get nukes?
Obama will be out in less than two years. Netanyahu just got reelected to another full term. The American people have had just about enough bullying and threats from these tinpot raghead dictators over there. It’s unfortunate that some Iranian civilians will probably die, but it’s time to stop playing games.
McCain is a Jewish carpenter?
OK, so we have an exception to the rule of law. Who gets to make that call? And it’s just in this one teeny-tiny instance. Interesting that all sorts of exceptions occur willy-nilly these days.
We’re already past it. We’ve gone too far. Like I said, somehow ‘regime change’ needs only to be evoked (by the right person, of course) and the entire body of international law goes away. How much more lawless can it be? Habeas corpus is gone. Fourth amendment, gone. We are talking about Magna Carta levels of progress being wiped away in the past 2 or 3 decades.
I don’t think we should allow the USA to have nuclear weapons.
“I don’t think we should allow the USA to have nuclear weapons.”
Look at it from the perspective of other countries: We are the only nation that has ever dropped a nuke on a city. I can understand why they also want to have nukes. I’d prefer that they not have any, but I can understand why they want them. If I were then I’d want them too.
“…we cannot allow Iran to get nukes.”
Who is this “we”?
Does this “we” include the IDF and the Eurozone?
Given that those two are on the geographic front lines to this, how about we hear from those two on the amount of taxpayer monies they’re willing to front before we go all in?
The new nuclear age
A quarter of a century after the end of the cold war, the world faces a growing threat of nuclear conflict
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21645729-quarter-century-after-end-cold-war-world-faces-growing-threat-nuclear
Hey fence sitters, how much more proof do you need?
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/ben-carson-warns-muslim-alliance-could-destroy-u-s/
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/u-s-tied-anti-bibi-group-vows-we-are-here-to-stay/
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/israel-closer-than-ever-to-decision-on-hitting-iran/
http://www.wnd.com/wnd_video/obama-tried-to-blame-bush-for-the-rise-of-isis/
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/lone-jewish-capitol-hill-gop-er-obama-owes-bibi-apology/
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/looming-for-israel-rage-of-satan/
Still not convinced? Obama is anti-semitic.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/mark-levin-obama-is-anti-semitic/
Anybody who still supports Obama after reading that should just pack their bags and leave the country. America doesn’t need you, America doesn’t want you, so take your communism and anti-semitism and GTFO!
I hear there are already American volunteers fighting ISIS, so why aren’t you over there right now? Or are you one of those chickenhawk cheerleaders who drives around with a flag hanging out your window and thinks that makes you a hero?
Not everybody can go over there to fight Iran and ISIS. Although I am of age to enlist, my efforts are better spent staying here and rallying the base. If I go over there that’s just one more person fighting for our freedoms, but if I can stay here and motivate two, three, or several others to go fight Iran and ISIS, we will win the war sooner.
You go girl. Shake those chicken sh*t pom-poms.
Thanks for protecting the chosen people I mean the true gods pets.
It is just as true today as it was a century ago when World War I started: we have to fight them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here. What is it going to take to convince you? Mushroom cloud over Manhattan? ISIS kidnapping your children from the school playground?
“Although I am of age to enlist, my efforts are better spent staying here and rallying the base. ”
Oh, I get it. You’re a coward.
“Although I am of age to enlist, my efforts are better spent staying here and rallying the base.”
Oh, I get it now. You’re basically a coward.
I am a leader of men, I am an articulate motivater. I can do much, much more with this computer keyboard than I ever will with a gun and a uniform.
Do you remember when we launched the liberation of Iraq twelve years ago this week? There were over half a million people marching in New York City to protest the liberators.
But thanks to the efforts of people like me, the American people unanimously got on board to support the liberation of Iraq. And now that Saddam Hussein has met the end of his days swinging from a rope, never again will America be threatened with Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
And now it’s Iran’s turn.
Holy Jeebus, you guys don’t get km’s sarcasm and bitter humor?
Are you fookin’ serious?
People don’t even get sarcasm and humor anymore. We are so scrude.
That’s not funny palmetto, not funny at all.
“Oh, I get it now. You’re basically a coward.”
No, you don’t get it. He’s satirizing the hypocrites who want war but want someone else to be the boots on the ground.
Do you remember when we launched the liberation of Iraq twelve years ago this week? There were over half a million people marching in New York City to protest the liberators.
I remember the glorious liberation. And just as Dick Cheney prophesized, our soldiers were given a hero’s welcome when we rode into the newly freed Baghdad.
http://cdn.timesofisrael.com/uploads/2014/08/France-Paris-Liberati_Horo-1.jpg
“Holy Jeebus, you guys don’t get km’s sarcasm and bitter humor?”
If this is Boots on the Ground mocking the war mongers, it’s better just to mock them outright. Sarcasm is hard to detect when it’s written.
“Sarcasm is hard to detect when it’s written.”
Only for Americans.
“Holy Jeebus, you guys don’t get km’s sarcasm and bitter humor?”
I’m still stuck at he quit his job as a defense contractor and sells pot . too funny
If you don’t get Kristol Meth, then you’re seriously handicapped.
What makes you think it was ” quit?”
Folks, Kristol is a paid Internet shill - yes, they do exist.
Kristol is a paid Internet shill -
No way. Half the peeps don’t even get what he’s doing.
“It’s time to bomb Iran.”
The Soros emergency dispatch team should be able to prevent this aggression. Think people…Think!
#HumanShields
I’ll see you here at the Armed Forces Career Center:
http://oi61.tinypic.com/2euorxh.jpg
As this blog’s staunchest advocate of preemptive war, it’s time to put your money where your big fat mouth is and put your boots on the ground. What are you waiting for?
“I’ll see you here at the Armed Forces Career Center”
Where’s the marquee poster of the hottie hugging a sailor…you know…with knickers and heels, one leg bent at the knee?
“It’s time to bomb Iran.”
In the name of Sweet Baby Jesus.
Dallas, TX Sale Prices Plunge 10% QoQ And 9% MoM As Oil Bust Spreads
http://www.zillow.com/dallas-tx/home-values/
Vienna, VA(DC Metro) Sale Prices Dive 6% YoY As Housing Correction Ramps Up
http://www.zillow.com/vienna-va/home-values/
Mortgage applications dropping despite lower rates.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102513705
Interesting view from a Chinese government think tank:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2015-03/19/content_19855581.htm
Production and inventory up up up! Fuel prices down down down!
“Ohio Oil Production Increases”
http://bakken.com/news/id/235116/despite-falling-prices-ohio-oil-production-increases/
The fracking aye!
“Houston Home Sales Fall On Oil Price Drop”
http://news.investors.com/business-inside-real-estate/031215-743178-hoston-home-sales-fall-on-oil-price-drop.htm
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Oil-Prices-Will-Recover-Market-Fundamentals-Are-Working.html
Key excerpt from oil price article:
There is no doubt in my mind that some of the “narrative” coming from Wall Street analysts is purposely meant to drive down the price of oil. More than 90% of the NYMEX futures contracts are now held by non-commercial “speculators”. Many of them are now “short” oil, hoping the price of WTI will fall. Once Wall Street gets oil prices as low as they can, they will suddenly change their tone and point out that demand for oil is going up and supplies are falling. I have seen this happen several times in my 35+ years in the industry. What’s happening now is not new.
BTW, I listened to T Boone Pickens this morning. He is really starting to sound his age. A couple of years ago, he seemed much more “with it”.
Wall Street analysts is purposely meant to drive down the price of oil.
Why does anyone need to a narrative to “drive” oil prices? I thought that Obama could drop oil prices all by his lonesome, simply by pushing his magic “smite oil price” button.
I hope you’re wrong, but when I see that the Koch Brothers are dancing the Contango, it makes me nervous.
Another key excerpt and related to the first:
Oil Storage: At the end of February, the EIA reported that working oil storage capacity in the U.S. was 40% empty. The most talked about storage location – Cushing, Oklahoma – still has about 20 million barrels of working capacity remaining. As the tanks at Cushing approach capacity, the storage fees go up and oil will be directed elsewhere. There are many pipelines that take oil out of Cushing, so the oil is not “stranded” there. Oil will not start overflowing the tanks in central Oklahoma or anywhere else.
And so the price of oil will continue to drop until excess is wrung out of the system. Oil is just one of the bellwethers of the entire system of overproduction of everything.
“At the end of February, the EIA reported that working oil storage capacity in the U.S. was 40% empty.”
In other words, the glass is 60% fill and rapidly approaching 100%.
Silver Spring, MD Prices Sink 7% YoY As Inventory Billows 87%; Foreclosures Skyrocket
http://www.movoto.com/silver-spring-md/market-trends/
“Realtor In Irondequoit Has Been Charged With Stealing Nearly $40,000″
http://www.13wham.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/police-realtor-stole-36k-customers-21053.shtml
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/regional-pv-module-prices-vary-by-as-much-as-0.16-w
Obama’s war on Putin had done permanent damage to the oil shale industry and ironically will mean that over a five year horizon consumers will have paid more for gasoline than if the war had never happened:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/major-us-energy-company-filed-032700892.html
It takes a powerful delusion to believe that naturally collapsing prices will lead to consumers paying more.
it’s doublespeak. black is white, white is black.l low prices are higher prices. the higher prices you were paying were actually you paying lower prices… didn’t you know..
Meanwhile, I’m about to head over to Costco to fill up at the lowest pump price in weeks!
Did the Fed just signal no rate hikes this year? (Trying to figure out why the market partied like it’s 1999 on the announcement.)
how does the fed control the fed funds rate?
Party on Garth!
Opinion: This is what a tech bubble looks like
By Jeff Reeves
MarketWatch.Com
Published: Mar 19, 2015 6:01 a.m. ET
How to avoid dead unicorns in your tech investments
Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
There’s a bubble in tech stocks, and venture capitalist Bill Gurley says lots of unicorns will die this year. Do you have unicorns in your portfolio?
About a week ago, at a shareholder meeting for Apple Inc. AAPL, +0.18% two separate wingnuts asked the tech giant whether it would be purchasing electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors TSLA, +0.25% .
This, my friends, is what a tech bubble looks like.
I won’t spend any more time on how ludicrous this buyout idea is. I already wrote a whole column last month about going after Tesla would be a gigantic waste of money that would result in a measly 1% revenue bump for the smartphone giant despite a roughly $30 billion price tag on the deal.
…
In 5 years, crabApple will cease to exist.
fApple
“In 5 years, crabApple will cease to exist.”
While I would never buy their iPhones, the current crop of users are fanatically loyal, and “tsk, tsk” my $80 Android phone.
They telegraphed slow increases (not being impatient).
Did the Fed just signal no rate hikes this year?’
Entitlement promises that can’t be kept without inflation, and yet no inflation or really no wage inflation.
The Information age isn’t playing by the same old rules.
Just saw on Bloomberg GS is buying up the energy bonds of the shale oil companies. They have made the most bearish calls on oil on the street. Interesting strategy, bad mouth oil thereby dropping the value of the bonds and then snap them up cheap. Want to guess where they really think oil is heading? It is good to do God’s work.
“Interesting strategy, bad mouth oil thereby dropping the value of the bonds and then snap them up cheap.”
SOP
So far their forecast appears to be right on target, as oil is off another 2%+ just this morning so far.
And Brent is still hanging around $55 which is $10 above its low and the eia predicts falling production in most fields in April.
All disequilibrium conditions eventually collapse.
Is it time to start undebting?
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-undebtors-sworn-enemies-of-vampires.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+google%2FRzFQ+%28oftwominds%29
“Those who refuse debt, regardless of the sacrifice, are starving the parasitic, exploitive machine; those with debt are feeding it.”
And there it is.
That’s right.
It’s a lonely war, but we are doing our part.
It’s a matter of self-preservation really.
What we do matters little… it’s what we can get many others to do that matters.
Yes a deadbeat is just like Rosa Parks.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mallory-heiney-writes-in-the-washington-post-she-isnt-paying-back-her-student-debt-2015-3
Yes, and all those deadbeat drillers that are already defaulting on their loans.
Why should the deadbeats pay back student loans? Stupid people will elect Wall Street annointed corporate statists who will tax the productive so their bankster patrons won’t end up holding the bag on $1.3 trillion in student loans. Deadbeat Girl knows the zombie hordes who fell for hope ‘n change or the even worse GOP alternatives will still be around in 2016, they’ll still be stupid, and they’ll still vote for Wall Street water carriers like HillaryJeb. So why on earth would she pay her own bills? That’s what taxpayers are for.
“Conversely, when the Committee wishes to increase the Fed Funds Rate, they will instruct the Desk Manager to sell government securities, thereby taking the money they earn on the proceeds of those sales out of circulation and reducing the money supply. When supply is taken away and everything else remains constant, price (or in this case interest rates) will normally rise.”
Doesn’t the FED basically need to keep buying treasuries as govt debt matures every year?
With like 2 trillion in excess reserves it seems there is a lot of money available for banks to loan each other.
Throwback Thursday
“Suzanne researched this!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20n-cD8ERgs - 370k -
HER: What?! …the rattlesnake twitch!
HIM: …manly resolve folds like a sheet.
Balz shrivel from grapes into raisins…
LOLZ!
More Throwback Thursday
Lending Tree Stanley Johnson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV_YAeXOSiw - 284k -
Napolitano Says ‘We Don’t Have To Listen To This Crap’ As Students Protest Potential UC Tuition Hikes
March 18, 2015 9:18 PM
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – University of California President Janet Napolitano remarked to a fellow regent that they “didn’t have to listen to this crap” as protesters denounced potential tuition hikes during a meeting Wednesday in San Francisco.
Napolitano was sitting next UC regent Chairman Bruce Varner as a group of about two dozen protesters shouted loudly, denouncing potential tuition hikes when she made the remark, which she may not have known was being recorded.
As the protests began, the cameras stayed on the regents. There was some confusion over what to do. That’s when Napolitano leans over to Varner and said, “Let’s just break. Let’s go, let’s go. We don’t have to listen to this crap.” Her hot mic caught the comment.
Kristian Kim was one of the students protesting the 5% tuition increases every year for five years. “It’s an insult to have her as the president of UC,” said Kim.
To make their point loud and clear, a group of the protesters, including Kim, pulled their clothes off down to their underwear during the demonstration, revealing the words “Student Debt” written on their bodies.
“I don’t know where she’s coming from, but I’m assuming she’s never had to deal with these issues personally. So I can understand why there would be a disconnect there,” Kim said after learning about the “crap” comment.”
Shortly after Napolitano’s remark, the regents left the room and continued their meeting later.
The comment was a different tone from Napolitano at the very same meeting. “They want to be sure that their voices are being heard and I want to commit to them that their voices are being heard,” she said.
Governor Jerry Brown and Napolitano said they were finding common ground during talks on the university system’s budget. The pair are the only members of a committee charged with recommending changes in how the university system operates and spends its money.
Protesters suspect the meetings were scheduled during a busy week of midterms, but they say they won’t stop protesting until their message is heard.
sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/…/ - 428k -
There is no doubt that sacrifices will have to be made, given the situation Generation Greed has left us in. Sorry kids.
But someone should start pointing out the difference between the deal now available and the deal Napolitano’s generation, and perhaps even Napolitano herself, back in the day.
She is a graduate of Santa Clara University.
Born in 1957, she is on the cusp of the generations that have been worse off than those who came before, and I’m not sure where she falls. Were the students at Santa Clara forced to borrow, rather than having tuition so low they could pay it off with part time and summer jobs, in 1975? Did that change pre-date her arrival?
It certainly happened later, along with more and more cuts in state support.
“protesting the 5% tuition increases every year for five years”
Maybe they will just have to take 2 free years of JC before they head off to Berkeley.
JC in California has been free for all practical purposes for decades
The late Boomers like her made out like bandits. Her school’s was practically free by today’s standards.
Of course we made out like bandits. I split firewood 40 hours a week while going to college in the 70s. It was like taking candy from a baby!
Bahahahahahaha … these dumb-ass student pukes study their asses off in high school so as to get high grade point averages so they can enter California’s U.C. system and then they piss and moan because the U.C. system is taking them to the cleaners?
Bahahahahaha … how about just saying no?
Reminds me of these guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ
The university OWNS these student pukes because the university KNOWS that these stupid student pukes have too much time and effort invested in just getting to be accepted by the university so once they are accepted the university can do whatever they want with these stupid student pukes.
And so they do.
Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
These kids should really be protesting to get government OUT of higher education.
As in making student loans discharable in bankruptcy
As in no more government guarantees to student loans.
As in college must live within their means.
But, unfortunately, students have been brainwashed into thinking that every problem can be solved by bigger and bigger government, with more and more regulations and higher an higher taxes…
Funny how those Euro-socialists can provide higher ed for free, and they spend a fraction per student than we do.
Americans are too corrupt, stupid and incompetent to have affordable healthcare or education.
Are you saying that homogeneous white Christian nations that actual enforce tough immigration laws is a good thing?
Europe is about as christian as the easter bunny.
Comment by phony scandals
2015-03-19 06:10:04
Napolitano Says ‘We Don’t Have To Listen To This Crap’ As Students Protest Potential UC Tuition Hikes
sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/03/18/napolitano-says-we-dont-have-to-listen-to-this-crap-as-students-protest-potential-uc-tuition-hikes/
Others pointed out that she makes $1.29 per student per semester. She isn’t very high paid given the sheer number of students.
Also the whole hike threat has something to do with holding onto government funding that is potentially being cut? The school currently gets 11% of it’s money from government sources?
I’m parroting rebuttals from another site I read, after seeing all the facts it doesn’t seem like such a big deal.
Maybe Kristol can tweak the numbers:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/18/anatomy-of-a-collapsing-climate-paradigm/
Wow, the pseudo-science in that article was so bad I just SMH and LOL…
How are you able to judge what is serious science?
“How are you able to judge what is serious science?”
Ivbina Dummkopf, Einstein’s Swiss Patent Office boss, 1901
So now you and WPA are Einstein!
Sorry, two idiots do not make a genius.
Note the lack of references to peer-reviewed academic journals in just about any climate denier “science” article. Just sayin’.
e·pis·te·mol·o·gy
iˌpistəˈmäləjē/
noun
Philosophy
noun: epistemology
the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
Excerpt from Watts Up article:
Why is the paradigm collapsing?
•There has been no increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature since the late 20th century.
•Every measure of pre-industrial carbon dioxide, not derived from Antarctic ice cores, indicates a higher and more variable atmospheric concentration.
•The total lack of predictive skill in AGW climate models.
•An ever-growing body of observation-based studies indicating that the climate sensitivity is in the range of 0.5 to 2.5°C with a best estimate of 1.5 to 2°C, and is very unlikely to be more than 2°C.
•Clear evidence that the dogmatic insistence of scientific unanimity is at best highly contrived and at worst fraudulent.
Even Russia recognizes the climate is changing.
“According to a report on climate change and its consequences in Russia published by the state meteorological service Roshydromet in July 2014, the country is facing a future of unprecedented and unpredictable cycles of drought and flooding.
“Russia remains a region of the world where warming of the climate in the 21st century will significantly exceed average global warming,” the report warned.”
Reuters
Even Russia recognizes the climate is changing.
As does the Pentagon. Climate Change: “It’s in the bag.”
“Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning,”
Climate change threatens national security, Pentagon says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/10/13/climate-change-threatens-national-security-pentagon-says/
Drastic weather, rising seas and changing storm patterns could become “threat multipliers” for the United States, vastly complicating security challenges faced by American forces, the Pentagon said in a new report on the impact of climate change released Monday.
The report, described as a “climate change adaptation roadmap,” included a foreword from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in which he urged the nation’s military’s planners to grapple now with the implications of a warming planet, even as scientists are “converging toward consensus on future climate projections.”
“Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning,” Hagel said. “Our armed forces must prepare for a future with a wide spectrum of possible threats, weighing risks and probabilities to ensure that we will continue to keep our country secure.
Why is the paradigm collapsing?
Because of science. You are slowly losing your battle.
“Republican opposition to climate science, the biggest impediment to discussing policies to reduce carbon emissions, is weakening.”
Republicans Evolve on Climate Change
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-23/republicans-evolve-on-climate-change
For years, Republicans have skirted the issue. Less noted, but equally important, is that they’re also evolving on it. Within the party, the fight has moved on from whether climate change is real to whether human activity is causing it, as the scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates. Republicans have been reluctant to accept the evidence, because that would require doing something about it, which would lead to — and this is crux of the issue — new laws and regulations that interfere with the free market.
Climate Change
When science conflicts with ideology, ideology often wins, and not just with Republicans. Many Democrats oppose genetically modified food even though the science is overwhelmingly against them. But Republican opposition to climate science, the biggest impediment to discussing policies to reduce carbon emissions, is weakening.
Republican opposition to climate science, the biggest impediment to discussing policies to reduce carbon emissions, is weakening.
Big surprise…..Republicans are also warming upto O’care and any other so-called “lefty” programs and propaganda.
There are no Republicans…only Democrats-lite.
“The dogmatice insistence of scientific unanimity is at best highly contrived and at worst fraudulent.”
I bet the next time you have to go to the hospital, you won’t have any trouble with them practicing the findings of medical science. It’s funny how the anti-science crowd doesn’t have the fortitude to practice what they preach and go die under a rock.
Interesting article about Cyclone Pam and weather implications. It’s like the Jeff Goldblum character in Jurassic Park: Life finds a way.
“Suppose this comes true - what are the implications? A strong El Nino would result in above average rainfall in the entire Pacific West. It would also relieve the more serious drought conditions now occurring in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
If you believe in any of this you might consider one of the following:
-Buy flood insurance if you live in California.
-Buy lift tickets and rent lodges at the West Coast ski resorts now - tons of snow next winter will cause prices to soar.
-Buy Vail stock.
-Buy cheap/dry farmland in California - it might pop with the rain.
-Buy lake front property on Lake Mead (today the water is hundreds of yards away).
- Buy the stock of Brazilian hydroelectric companies that today have no water to make juice.
-Short coffee beans - (The Brazilian crop will be bumper next year).
-Sell insurance company stocks who underwrite homeowners in California.
-Municipalities in West Coast flood prone areas should make some preparations. These changes will happen in a matter of months.
Okay, that stuff is a bit over the top. My point is that many things will change if the rains return to California and Brazil. We shall know soon enough if a significant new weather patterns is in the offing. But assume that this does play out as the meteorologists are now forecasting. What this means is that a big storm in the Pacific, at just the right time and place, can knock global weather into a new loop. Pam was a random event that may have significant and lasting results. The butterfly flapped its wings, there will be broad, unforeseen consequences.
If science can’t predict random events that alter weather patterns in significant ways on a month-to-month basis how can those same scientists predict, with such precision, what will happen in fifty-years?”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-17/pam-was-so-big-she
The Zero Hedge author must not live in the western U.S. The major climate problem in the West is not lack of rain, it’s lack of snow. Water supply for cities and farms are all built on the presumption of a healthy snowpack every winter. Slowly melting snow keeps rivers high through the summer; rain alone in winter cannot do that.
there will be broad, unforeseen consequences
Burger King, sesame seeds and cicadas.
Silicon Valley - Peter Gregory’s Process
Local weather is too complex and variable to predict more than a few days in the future. The most predictable result of global warming will be rising sea levels due to melting polar ice. So sell that Florida condo now.
Why is the paradigm collapsing?
Because President Obama guarantees it Adan. Our twice elected President, Barack Obama says the Repub paradigm on climate-change will collapse. The POTUS Barack Hussein Obama knows it and you know President Obama is right too. (Obama)
Obama guarantees GOP will change on climate
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/235856-obama-guarantee-gop-will-flip-on-climate-change
President Obama said that the Republican Party will be forced to change its views on climate change in a new interview with Vice News.
“I guarantee that the Republican Party will have to change its approach to climate change because voters will insist upon it,” he said in the interview, released Monday.
“There have been times in history where Democrats have been unreasonable, there have been times when Republicans have led the way, but right now, on a lot of the issues that young people care about, it’s not both sides arguing and creating gridlock. You’ve got one side that is denying the facts.”
This might explain something. Makes more sense than Gores crap
http://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLTelNRf8MIXXlw-fAiNHlJQpcUeDe1TAH&v=5MvAnECkaME
This also
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R26PXRrgds&list=PLTelNRf8MIXXlw-fAiNHlJQpcUeDe1TAH&index=8
Nudge->Shove->Shoot
You will accept the “science” or suffer the consequenses
#ClimateFascism
Let’s apply Occam’s razor to the question of climate change. We seem to have two possibilities:
1) There is a worldwide conspiracy of scientists of all types, in all sorts of institutions, including in countries that are hostile to western interests, that are all secret lefties who love government control and are willing to lie about climate change in order to further their secret conspiracy to achieve state control.
OR
2) Climate change is real, and there is a small group of very wealthy companies and individuals who may lose lots of money if we start doing something about it. Therefore, they have chosen to fund a relatively few willing scientists to produce information favorable to their financial interests. (Which, by the way, we have already seen occur quite recently in nearly identical fashion when big tobacco tried to fight the science that tobacco was harmful.)
Which would Occam choose?
3) Follow the money. >95% of the money goes to feed researchers who support the Global Warming Theory.
I find it interesting that I don’t read anywhere that the global credit expansion coincided with the biggest leap in consumption of oil/coal/gas in human history, and that it was all largely wasted on things unnecessary and unsustainable. Not the least of these wasteful activities were the multi billion dollar Green initiatives, which make some fantastically rich at the expense of everyone else. That’s what politicians are often about around the world, not scientific curiosity or well being of the populace.
Follow the money. It’s usually shrouded in Big Lies with bright flashing slogans of Truth on top, and it has a large flock of sheep in train.
Follow the money. It’s usually shrouded in Big Lies with bright flashing slogans of Truth on top
Follow the money from BigOil/Koch. Most all goes to propaganda and not science. Why? Why do the deniers not spend money on science? Because their science is too bad to spend money on.
Follow the BigOil/Koch money. It’s usually shrouded in Big Lies with bright flashing slogans of Truth on top
Oil money is tiny compared to the streams of cash from our own government supporting the agenda. Less than 5% I have read in more than one place. You are not objective, just a mocking bird.
Oil money is tiny compared to the streams of cash from our own government
Bull. The money is huge and most all is spent on propaganda and not science. This below does not even include BigOil/Koch direct corporate money. Your bias clouds your understanding of reality. You are not objective. You parrot.
Conservative groups spend up to $1bn a year to fight action on climate change
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/20/conservative-groups-1bn-against-climate-change
“They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real. They hire people to go on TV and say climate change is not real….It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this. This is a large-scale political effort.””
Conservative groups may have spent up to $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change, according to the first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort.
The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative billionaires, often working through secretive funding networks. They have displaced corporations as the prime supporters of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations which have worked to block action on climate change. Such financial support has hardened conservative opposition to climate policy, ultimately dooming any chances of action from Congress to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, the study found.
The argument for divesting from fossil fuels is becoming overwhelming
Read more
“I call it the climate-change counter movement,” said the author of the study, Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle. “It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this. This is a large-scale political effort.”
Yes you have a loud screechy voice, without a thread of understanding what you campaign for. You cannot explain anything and have no interest in doing so. Cut and paste away mocking bird.
You cannot explain anything and have no interest
Yea sure. Says the one who’s bias prohibits him from comprehending years and years of simple blog posts. Why would your biases allow you to comprehend science?
—-You hear what you want to hear and disregard the rest—
I am just a poor boy.
Though my story’s seldom told,
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles,
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.
Admit it, it’s an exact replay of the tobacco health controversy. All the arguments you are making now are the exact same ones made then, all the current supposed controversies are the same type as were ginned up then.
And how did that turn out? It turned out that the scientists of the world were right, and the far fewer scientists, who were proven to have been funded by big tobacco to lie and obfuscate, were wrong, and knew it at the time. Same as now.
Worldwide science has not been hijacked.
“Worldwide science has not been hijacked.”
That’s wishful thinking. If one is curious, one can dig into what these guys publish and what critics publish. The critics uncover fraud and contradiction here and there, which does not get answered in a logical way. The proponents make statements that to me as a scientist in another field often sound moronic, if not outright illogical. When I look at data posted on the NOAA site and the conclusions drawn from that data I am shocked. If one digs for the fundamental explanation of how this thing supposedly works, one finds gaping hollowness. Go back and the foundation blocks of the “theory” have been discredited, but because they got the right answer, they are still heroes of the movement. If one goes all the way back to the start of this, the “scientist” was clearly insane and as wrong as wrong can be about how things work.
You can have your slogan that science has not been hijacked. I just want to see what’s under the veil. No one of our comrades here or my friends elsewhere who bluster on about how things are true has even a shred of a fragment of understanding about how it supposedly works. I consider that there is no logical basis. So I am not believing. Oh, and I have been fooled plenty of times.
The critics uncover fraud and contradiction here and there,
One of these critics? (The usual suspects)
The Heartland Institute, one of the leading Climate Truther think-tanks, put together a poster (PDF) of “58 experts [who] don’t believe global warming is a crisis.”
But a review of those “experts” by The Daily Beast found that only three of the 58 actually have any credentials in climatology or atmospheric science. (16 are conservative political pundits, 11 are meteorologists, six are conservative economists, and the rest a hodgepodge.)
Billions of dollars, in fact, spent to create an entire industry of scientists, publicists, think tanks, and legislative organizations……The result has been an avalanche of bullshit. ….
…For decades, the fossil-fuel industry has been underwriting a huge, successful campaign to lie about climate change. Like the tobacco industry before it, energy companies have created a body of pseudoscience, created by paid lackeys, and successfully co-opted the mainstream of the Republican Party to their “point of view.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/23/armageddon-for-climate-change-deniers.html
Oddfellow, I think there was a similar (to the tobacco) scam by breakfast cereal purveyors way back, but I didn’t really pay attention to either of those.
When people come to a debate or an inquiry armed only with insults and slogans, it doesn’t lead to any useful discovery.
DHS released another 30,000 criminal aliens onto streets
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Federal immigration officers released another 30,000 immigrants with criminal records last year, following the 36,000 it released in 2013, the government announced Wednesday — though it promised to take steps to cut down on the problem.
Those released from custody are generally supposed to be monitored, and Ms. Saldana vowed to stiffen those procedures to try to ensure those that are released are not able to commit new crimes.
ICE didn’t release a breakdown of criminal offenses of the new 30,000 on Wednesday, but among the 36,000 released in 2013 were 193 homicide convictions, 426 sexual assault convictions, 303 kidnapping convictions and 16,070 convictions for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/18/dhs-released-another-30000-criminal-aliens-streets/#ixzz3Uq0kHNOH
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Phony, did I miss your scathing send-up of disgraced Rep. Aaron Schock’s disastrous narcissistic fling as congressman? The guy was redecorating his office to look like something from Downtown Abbey, for crissake, when he wasn’t having his personal photographer shoot pictures of him surfing.
Please direct me to, or re-post, your blast on that one. I bet it was great!
If a conservative rips off the government, it’s a taxpayer revolt. If a liberal does it, it’s because they want free sh*t. PS has a two-tiered value system that applies different standards to white guys in suits and uniforms, and everybody else.
2banana took care of it for me.
Comment by 2banana
2015-03-17 13:21:08
Wait - wait - what???
A politician does something unethical in office and resigns?
Huh?
Oh wait - he is not a democrat.
That’s it? You’ll let 2banana take care of it? You? The scandal-monger extraordinaire takes a breather on that perfect example of congressional corruption?
Why, it’s almost like you’re really a GOP concern troll, feigning disgust with both parties, while actually supporting one of them wholeheartedly, and attempting to steer our opinion in that direction.
In fact, I’m willing to put ten to one odds on that being the case. Will you accept the bet?
I don’t bet with known welshers.
Welch´er
n. 1. See Welsher.
Noun 1. welcher - someone who swindles you by not repaying a debt or wager
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Welcher - 61k -
Will you accept the bet?
“Will you accept the bet?”
You pay off the last bet you lost and then I will let you know if I will accept any more bets with you.
Your $1,000.00 check is payable to…
Ben Jones
PO Box 5914
Peoria, AZ 85385-5914
“Why, it’s almost like you’re really a GOP concern troll, feigning disgust with both parties, while actually supporting one of them wholeheartedly, and attempting to steer our opinion in that direction.”
The sad part is, the only people who read his posts are the ones who already agree with him.
Welch´er
n. 1. See Welsher.
Noun 1. welcher - someone who swindles you by not repaying a debt or wager
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Welcher - 61k -
Go ask your manager if you can take this bet.
Nice deflection there Oddie, any news in on that 67 year old that the neighbors said was an upstanding guy for 20 years and you laid 10 - 1 odds that he was a drug dealer yet?
We are well past the time allotment for your proof.
Your $1,000.00 check is payable to…
Ben Jones
PO Box 5914
Peoria, AZ 85385-5914
Neighbors shocked by violent home invasion
Homeowner, two intruders shot; 1 dead
Last updated: October 23. 2014 8:50AM -
By Sarah Willets - swillets@civitasmedia.com
LUMBERTON —Neighbors of a man and wife severely injured during a home invasion on Monday night say they never expected Kenneth and Judy Byrd would be the victims of such a violent crime.
“They’re real friendly, help you anyway they can, do anything for you,” said a woman who has lived near the Byrds on Yedda Road for about 20 years.
robesonian.com/news/news/50535312/Neighbors-shocked-by-violent-home-invasion - 150k -
Wasn’t that me? I forget.
“Wasn’t that me? I forget.”
No it was Oddfellow’s wager, you just jumped in.
Welch´er
n. 1. See Welsher.
Noun 1. welcher - someone who swindles you by not repaying a debt or wager
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Welcher - 61k -
Shillow
“Proof” from comments ain’t gonna cut it.
Nice deflection there Oddie, any news in on that 67 year old that the neighbors
Nice deflection there Phonie.
Deflect, Obfuscate and Bamboozle
Attorneys At Law (for sad pandas)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6vPRaIrvqU - 365k -
You gotta live in ILLANNOY to truly understand how fetid this flea bitten cesspool is.
Not sure why Aaron Shock is being brought up under a post about illegal immigration, but I’ll chalk it up to the my team is better syndrome. This is common for Illinois. AND BOTH parties do it. Oh noes!
Chicago couple found guilty in grant scam case with ties to Obama friend Whitaker
“A federal jury Wednesday found a Chicago couple guilty on all counts in a state grant scam trial that featured testimony about power, money and sex and saw a high-profile ruling that one of President Barack Obama’s golfing buddies was a hostile witness.
The seven-man, five-woman jury deliberated for about five hours on the fate of Leon and Karin Dingle, who faced conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering charges. Prosecutors contended that the Dingles helped themselves to $3.36 million in state grant funds that were supposed to fight AIDS, flu and cancer in minority communities and misrepresented or concealed where the money went.”
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82322751/
“ICE didn’t release a breakdown of criminal offenses of the new 30,000 on Wednesday, but among the 36,000 released in 2013 were 193 homicide convictions, 426 sexual assault convictions, 303 kidnapping convictions and 16,070 convictions for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
Most sane Americans would ask why criminal illegal aliens are granted greater leniency than actual citizens? Or better yet…WTF? Who in Government is watching out for Americans? Jeh Johnson? Obama? I mean, someone throw me a bone here!
#ProgressivismIsAMentalDisorder
Had to get this thread back on the original subject.
#NiceTry
” Who in Government is watching out for Americans? Jeh Johnson? Obama? I mean, someone throw me a bone here!”
The reason 36,000 criminal aliens were released in 2013 that included 193 homicide convictions, 426 sexual assault convictions, 303 kidnapping convictions and 16,070 convictions for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol to go along with the another 30,000 criminal aliens released onto our streets in 2014 was clearly the fault of…
“Rep. Aaron Schock’s disastrous narcissistic fling as congressman?”
Forward!
Almost been 1 year in Northern VA! All the debt from my prior failing employer paid off. Ahhh so nice! Except, then came the RIF notice from work. Merger and the new company isn’t very good. Lots of jobs in my field though, so that’s nice.
Landlord of the townhouse I rent said the 2nd year rate would go up 3%. Now that it’s near time for renew he says “I must consult with Realtors to find the proper market value of the rate increase.” Yay, the neighbors all ask $350/month more than what I’m paying. I don’t want to pay that much.
I hope it craters soon! Lots of inventory both rental and forsale but it’s all still expensive. I can tell the prices are all pushed to a floor, because a 4000sqft SFH isn’t twice as expensive as a 1900sqft townhouse in rent.
Tell your landlord to ask a Realtor how much is the market value of a tenant that always pays on time and causes little to no damage to his property.
Then ask for a 5% rent decrease.
This sounds like a real plan!
I just rented a shack not far from you. Landlord listed it at $1500/month. Went and looked at it, told him it wasn’t worth it, he wants to discuss…. I offered him $1200 and he took it.
Why be a fool about money?
Yes, the problem here is one of the majority not able…nay, not willing, to negotiate. Most just accept the fate written for them and sign on the line below.
Tell your landlord to ask a Realtor how much is the market value of a tenant that always pays on time and causes little to no damage to his property.
What is this, 1975? That doesn’t work anymore. Commercial complexes will thumb their noses at you, and an individual LL will simply find a renter at $350/month more. After a year the LL still come out ahead even if the place is empty for a couple months.
Well - it is obvious you have never been a landlord or knows anyone in the businesa
Exactly.
Eh, never underestimate landlords and realtor advice.
Plus, human greed.
There is another place for rent around the corner that is actually 100% identical. It’s at 350/mo more. It might have a deck, and might have a 3rd bathroom.
Remember…. you can ask $40k for your 10 year old Honda Civic but where is the buyer at that price?
I hate to agree with HA…if your landlord is experienced, he will place a value on a good tenant.
In my last rental, I was paying about 20-25% below market for at least a year or two.
When I moved out, the LL raised the rent for the next guy by about 30%, and rented the house in 1 day.
Although I wouldn’t be snarky (as the prior posters suggest). I would simply be matter of fact. Remind him that you have done your best to NOT call him for small problems, and always paid on time…would he give you any consideration for being a good tenant?
Of course, if you’ve been a pain in the *ss, you won’t have much of an argument…
With 25 million excess empty houses in inventory, It doesn’t much matter what type of tenant landlords get.
Hint: You paid market value for your rental, and then some.
Yep. I replaced a full toilet on my time (2hrs on a Saturday). LL who is a new mother was ecstatic she didn’t have to deal with it. Didn’t even have to forward any receipts to get it back.
This absolutely works. We’ve done it the last two years. Our LL knows, and we do too, what her last tenant did to the place, and what she has now.
Sign #81 pointing to the housing collapse:
http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/19/mr-t-to-star-in-home-renovation-series
It sounds like he’s going to be dealing with home repair, not flipping. I can imagine Mr. T getting tough with a kitchen sink. That sounds like a weird enough concept that I might just watch it.
True. But many simple repairs become much much more.
#ClubberLang
Reminded of this on talk radio here in Region V Chicago this morning:
Given all that has unfolded the last 8 months or so - Ferguson, NYC, yesterday at UVA…..
Good advice from Chris Rock “How not to get your a$$ kicked by the police”
A classic….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0mtxXEGE8
‘The Nonprofit Behind Billions in Mortgage Aid Is a Mess’
Looks like there was some profit here and there.
More housing fraud on a national scale. Imagine that.
“Hoping to deliver relief to Americans pounded by the financial crisis, the government has poured billions of dollars into a sort of Red Cross for homeowners.
NeighborWorks America, a nonprofit chartered by Congress, distributes much of that money to counseling groups that dispense mortgage advice and sometimes financial aid.”
If the Congress charted and funds this organization, isn’t it actually a GSE? What is the effective difference between a GSE and a ‘nonprofit’?
chartered
Housing people housing.
Seattle, WA Sale Prices Crater 8% YoY As Price Declines Gain Traction On West Coast
http://www.zillow.com/seattle-wa-98115/home-values/
“FEMA won’t give money to states that don’t plan for climate change
Climate deniers like Rick Scott just may be forced to reconsider their anti-science opinions ”
Makes sense to me. If you build your house in a flood plain, don’t expect government assistance when your home is washed away. Similarly, if your state doesn’t take protective measures against the damaging impacts of climate change, don’t look to the Feds for a bailout.
Being an ostrich with your head in the sand has its price.
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/18/fema_wont_give_money_to_states_that_dont_plan_for_climate_change/
Hmmm…Sounds like Fascism to me.
#GotFreedom?
You have to wonder about people who become filled with glee when another American has something forcibly taken away from them strictly for ideological reasons.
#HowFarWe’veFallen
You’re right, Rick Scott’s unwritten order to all Florida government workers to never use the words “climate change” or “global warming” in official correspondence smacks of fascism.
What if an evangelical president directed FEMA to withhold money from states that permit abortions or gay marriage?
#OstrichMyAss
#NudgeShoveShoot
What if an evangelical president directed FEMA to withhold money from states that permit abortions or gay marriage on floodplains?
I’m not seeing the logic of your point. FEMA’s policy is no disaster aid if you don’t take steps towards disaster preparedness in areas where there are known disaster threats. This is common sense. It’s the conservative “personal responsibility” thing: if Florida wants to ignore climate change, don’t go looking for federal assistance when Miami is 3 feet underwater.
Florida will be the center of the storm when sea levels rise, and hurricanes will bring massive inland flooding. But if Rick Scott is around you can be sure that he’ll be asking for a handout from Washington to pay for the clean up, and asking the rest of the country to subsidize the states flood insurance.
“Florida will be the center of the storm when sea levels rise, and hurricanes will bring massive inland flooding.”
You keep smoking that Global Warming crack pipe and I will know if there is ever a real problem besides the need for a carbon tax when the filthy rich political donors of both parties who live on Jupiter Island, Palm Beach Island the Intracoastal Waterway and .1% Golf communities leave.
President Obama’s host in Palm Beach Gardens has top credentials
6:50 p.m. Tuesday, April 10, 2012 | Filed in: News
Hansel Emory Tookes II, host of a $10,000-a-plate luncheon on Tuesday for President Obama at his home in the Frenchman’s Reserve golf enclave, is largely unknown to those outside his circle - even to many Democratic leaders in Palm Beach County.
But he is well-known to the Democratic National Committee. Welcome to the world of high-end fundraising.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/…/president-obamas-host-in-palm-beach-gardens-has-to/nN2zs/ - 284k -
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Politicians enjoy winter in South Florida – for raising money
March 16, 2014|By Anthony Man, Sun Sentinel
It’s the height of season, and not just for snowbirds enjoying Florida while it’s still cold up north. In the political world, it’s the season for raising money.
“This is high hunting season in the fundraising business,” said Mark Foley, a Palm Beach County Republican who served 12 years in Congress. “Why do they rob banks? They go where the money is. No question this is fertile ground.”
Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties are attractive for raising political cash because they’re home to so many deep-pocketed Democratic and Republican donors. But this time of year brings even more part-time, deep-pocketed contributors, and candidates are hoping to persuade them to open their checkbooks.
Since he’ll be in Miami anyway for the Thursday event, Obama is also appearing at a second fundraiser, to benefit the Democratic National Committee. It’s at the home of Lili Estefan and Lorenzo Luaces. Estefan, a Cuban-American model and television host, is the niece of music producer Emilio Estefan and singer Gloria Estefan.
Donald Trump, the real estate developer and reality TV host, and Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, partnered with Florida business executives and lobbyists for the event at the swankiest of swank locations: the Trump-owned Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach.
One downside of a controversial financial benefactor like Trump is the possibility of negative publicity. George Sheldon, one of the Democrats seeking his party’s nomination to challenge Bondi, said her association with Trump shows she “seems to care more about raising money for her campaign than preserving the public trust in the Office of the Attorney General.”
With control of the U.S. Senate up for grabs in November, there’s lots of South Florida fundraising on behalf of Senate candidates from other states, said Anita Mitchell, chairwoman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. That’s also true of the Democrats. On Tuesday, supporters of U.S. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., are gathering at the Riverside Hotel in Fort Lauderdale for a “hot coffee and dessert” fundraising reception.
articles.sun-sentinel.com/…315_1_president-barack-obama-south-florida-coral-gables - 40k -
“If you build your house in a flood plain, don’t expect government assistance when your home is washed away.”
But they do get assistance.
“Similarly, if your state doesn’t take protective measures against the damaging impacts of climate change, don’t look to the Feds for a bailout.”
But New Orleans did get assistance, despite allowing its floodwalls to rot.
Poll: Americans more likely to say Barack Obama successful
50% say success, 47% say failure
52% favorability
Obama needs to send a thank you card to Ben Bernanke.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/poll-obama-successful-116218.html#ixzz3Uqd1vVYY
Who cares?
Not about that rapidly depreciating shack you paid a grossly inflated price for.
Huntington Beach, CA Sale Prices Collapse 28% YoY; Foreclosures Blanketing State
http://www.zillow.com/huntington-beach-ca-92646/home-values/
Stupidity quantified.
More very good economic news.
“Oil Prices Tumble Amid Record Inventories”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-prices-resume-their-fall-1426760586
Falling prices of all kinds is exactly what the economy needs to accelerate.
‘The Federal Reserve was in a tough spot: The February U.S. unemployment rate of 5.5 percent is right where the Fed had been saying inflation would likely start to accelerate. Yet inflation remains even lower than the Fed wants it to be. So on Wednesday, the Fed simply moved the goalposts.’
‘It now says unemployment could fall as low as 5 percent to 5.2 percent before inflation pressures would probably start to build. That’s down from its previous range of 5.2 percent to 5.5 percent.’
“With the stroke of a pen, rather than being at the top end of full employment … we’re farther away,” said Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics.’
‘There are no clear guidelines for what the full employment rate is. In the late 1990s, the Fed chose not to raise rates even as the unemployment rate fell. It eventually touched 3.9 percent without igniting inflation.’
‘It “does move around a bit and is unobservable,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “It is a genuine puzzle.”
Obviously, the unemployment rate is not really a Fed mandate.
Reducing Americans to serfdom is the Fed’s mandate. From Rep. Jim Trafficant’s epic “We’re bankrupt” speech to Congress in 1993:
http://www.afn.org/~govern/bankruptcy.html
Gold and silver were such a powerful money during the founding of the united states of America, that the founding fathers declared that only gold or silver coins can be “money” in America. Since gold and silver coinage were heavy and inconvenient for a lot of transactions, they were stored in banks and a claim check was issued as a money substitute. People traded their coupons as money, or “currency.” Currency is not money, but a money substitute. Redeemable currency must promise to pay a dollar equivalent in gold or silver money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) make no such promises, and are not “money.” A Federal Reserve Note is a debt obligation of the federal United States government, not “money?’ The federal United States government and the U.S. Congress were not and have never been authorized by the Constitution for the united states of America to issue currency of any kind, but only lawful money, -gold and silver coin.
Inflation is an invisible form of taxation that irresponsible governments inflict on their citizens. The Federal Reserve Bank who controls the supply and movement of FRNs has everybody fooled. They have access to an unlimited supply of FRNs, paying only for the printing costs of what they need. FRNs are nothing more than promissory notes for U.S. Treasury securities (T-Bills) - a promise to pay the debt to the Federal Reserve Bank.
There is never a good time to raise rates. Especially when elections are coming and you owe your job to the incumbent who appointed you
Everybody keeps obsessing about how a rate rise will influence the stock market, but it’s the housing market that’s more sensitive to higher rates. The NAR will tell people to hurry up and buy before rates go higher, but housing prices alway fall as rates go higher. Wasn’t it the expectation of higher rates that popped the bubble last time?
http://www.realtytrac.com/news/foreclosure-trends/february-2014-foreclosure-market-report/
‘“Given that August 2006 was the peak of the housing bubble, this eight-and-a-half year low in foreclosure activity is a significant milestone and a sign that nationwide foreclosure activity is on track to return to historic norms this year — and is possibly even headed below historic norms given the skinny-jeans-tight lending standards over the past five years,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. ‘
And queue up HA’s comment about his imaginary foreclosure moratoriums…
^frrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaud
San Francisco And Los Angeles Foreclosures Skyrocket 35% YoY
http://www.realtytrac.com/images/reportimages/foreclosure_trends_20_largest_metros_jan_2015.png
How many more months will you be trotting out January’s year-on-year data?
The article I presented was from the same source, but from yesterday.
Note that California isn’t mentioned once (in terms of either higher, or lower rates of foreclosure).
That right Rental_Fraud. They haven’t risen or falling from their elevated level.
So one has to ask; How much did you overpay for that depreciating shack. $300k? 400k?
Per RealtyTrac, CA’s foreclosure rate is 1 out of every 1,190 housing units (0.084%).
The US as a whole is 1 out of every 1,295 housing units (0.077%).
The foreclosure rate in CA is very close to that of the US as a whole.
http://www.realtytrac.com/statsandtrends/foreclosuretrends
And SF County’s foreclosure rate is 1 out of 4,298
And LA County’s foreclosure rate is 1 out of 1,253
Vs. the US as a whole at 1 out of 1,295.
In other words, SF and LA’s foreclosure rates are not elevated.
http://www.realtytrac.com/statsandtrends/foreclosuretrends/ca
Per RealtyTrac, SF and LA’s foreclosure rate is up 35%.
San Francisco And Los Angeles Foreclosures Skyrocket 35% YoY
http://www.realtytrac.com/images/reportimages/foreclosure_trends_20_largest_metros
Your BS link is broken…it’s old news, RealtyTrac must have taken it down.
It doesn’t change anything Rental_Fraud. And neither does your frauding.
It doesn’t change anything
Your lying ?
Data Lola data. Stick with the data.
Data? You are the boy who cries wolf with bad data HA.
Man up Lola.
Bremerton, WA List Prices Dive 15% YoY; Sellers Slash As Foreclosures Ramp Up
http://www.zillow.com/bremerton-wa-98310/home-values/
Dudes, did the housing market crash today?
Don’t look now, but deflationary psychology has set in to create a self-fulfilling prophesy of further price declines in China’s housing market.
And ABQDan’s frequently touted 7% China GDP growth forecast is in peril as a result.
China housing prices continue to fall in February
Published: Mar 17, 2015 10:26 p.m. ET
By Esther Fung
SHANGHAI–The average price of new homes in 70 Chinese cities continued to fall in February as sluggish demand for homes stemming from the Lunar New Year holiday and concerns about further price cuts kept homebuyers away.
On a year-on-year basis, the decline in home prices continued to widen in February for the sixth straight month. The index first showed a year-on-year fall in September.
A persistent decline in housing sales in the first two months this year, following a downturn in 2014, has compelled policymakers to introduce further accommodative policy moves. The central bank lowered benchmark interest rates in late February, the second cut after a reduction in November, and also reduced the amount of money banks have to set aside as reserves.
Many Chinese cities are still saddled with high inventory levels of homes, and concerns over rising debt of property developers and local governments are weighing on the health of the sector.
On a month-over-month basis, prices in February slipped 0.43%, unchanged from the 0.43% fall in January, but widening from December’s 0.40% decline, according to calculations by The Wall Street Journal.
On a year-over-year basis, the average price of new homes declined by 5.7% in February, compared with a 5.1% decrease in January and 4.3% fall in December.
Excluding public housing, private-sector home prices fell in 69 of 70 cities in February from a year earlier, unchanged from the 69 cities that posted declines in January, according to National Bureau of Statistics data on Wednesday. On a month-over-month basis, home prices fell in 66 of 70 cities in February, up from January’s 64.
Premier Li Keqiang said Sunday that China has ample tools to “intensify fine-tuning measures to assure market confidence under current economic conditions,” signaling that Beijing would be willing to lend support to keep its economy humming.
Authorities are likely also keeping an eye on the property market, with the real-estate sector estimated to account for nearly one quarter of gross domestic product when construction, cement, steel, chemicals, furniture and related industries are factored in.
“The property market will have to switch to boosting the economy from being a drag in order to hit the 7% GDP growth target this year,” said ING economist Tim Condon.
…
Dem Suggests Kids Should Be Drug-Tested Before They Can Inherit From Their Parents
People receiving food stamps have to pass drug tests or meet work requirements to receive taxpayer dollars
by Rachel Stoltzfoos | The Daily Caller | March 19, 2015
Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez offered a baffling defense of the death tax Wednesday during a hearing examining the sometimes unbearable burden it places on family farms and businesses.
People receiving food stamps have to pass drug tests or meet work requirements to receive taxpayer dollars, Sanchez reasoned, so it’s only fair that those “lucky” enough to inherit wealth should have to do something to earn it or, in this case, pay a tax.
“Why is that [a single mother] should be drug tested, which is an unrelated requirement to receive food assistance, to make sure that her family has enough to eat,” she asked. “And people who are lucky enough to inherit millions of dollars are literally required to do nothing to get the federal tax benefit with their inheritance?”
Sanchez acknowledged that Americans should value hard work, but bemoaned the “paradox” that occurs when they want to work hard so they can accumulate wealth to live off of in retirement and pass on to their children.
“We don’t believe in an aristocracy, or that it’s a good societal thing for dynasties to hoard their wealth and leave the rest to fight over the crumbs,” she said. “That’s just not how this country was founded.”
comments
Dragon Slayer • 41 minutes ago
Hmm, legalization of marijuana, then a law saying if you are on a drug you lose your inheritance to the government. You can not make this sh#t up.
Comment by phony scandals
2015-03-19 11:04:31
Dem Suggests Kids Should Be Drug-Tested Before They Can Inherit From Their Parents
dailycaller.com/2015/03/18/dem-says-kids-should-be-drug-tested-before-they-can-inherit-from-their-parents/
That’s one that Oxy and Polly have not yet come up with. Of course! Impose drug testing as a qualifier for inheriting the family farm!
Anything to grasp family money and stick it into the general fund. So that they, as rule drafters and policy proposers, may dispose of it as they wish. From the exalted perch of their superior judgment, and all. Since they are soooo much better than we are at knowing what to do with our cash.
It’s not as if they admit anything we have is “ours”.
Looks like Cape Coral, FL is booming again. 200K and below 176 listings 102 pending as of today.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/33904/type-single-family-home/price-na-200000/sby-2
Are you sure about that?
Cape Coral, FL Housing Demand Down Every Year Since 2010
http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/City/City_Turnover_AllHomes.csv
Figures, it was ground zero for the housing bubble last time around and Florida has had for property bubbles going waaay back. Here is some info on “Jeff of Cape Coral”, he was a poster child for a short while back when Bubble 1.0 popped.
http://lordingtheland.blogspot.com/2007/08/saga-of-jeff.html
Cratering.Housing.
Now that China’s housing market has started it’s epic crash, the Chinese stock market is booming. All that crooked communist money has to go somewhere before it eventually ends up in the sewer.
San Francisco, CA Sellers Slash List Prices 18% As Foreclosures Balloon
http://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca-94117/home-values/
how many shirly temples did you make today?
Hillary, the best Secretary of State that (foreign) money can buy.
http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clintons-money-problems-keep-getting-worse-2015-3
“There’s a rumour going around the Honolulu suburb of Waimanalo that President Barack Obama — or at the very least someone closely linked to him — has bought the house where “Magnum P.I.” was filmed.”
Three-acre waterfront estate?
My God Mr. President it’s Oceanfront!
Don’t you or your golf buddy do it or you will be doomed!
Global warming is melting Antarctica’s ice! Sea levels are rising!
No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change!
Honolulu Rumour: Obama Just Bought ‘Magnum P.I.’ House For $8.7 Million
The Huffington Post Canada | By Daniel Tencer
Posted: 03/19/2015 1:06 pm EDT Updated: 5 hours ago
There’s a rumour going around the Honolulu suburb of Waimanalo that President Barack Obama — or at the very least someone closely linked to him — has bought the house where “Magnum P.I.” was filmed.
The three-acre waterfront estate with an 11,000-square-foot mansion — known as “Pahonu” in real life and “Robin’s Nest” in the hit 1980s detective show — went on sale last year, TMZ reported, though unfortunately sans the red Ferrari in which Magnum was seen zooming around the property’s driveways.
According to Fox affiliate KHON, the property was purchased on Monday by Waimanalo Paradise LLC, a company set up last month by Chicago lawyer Seth Madorsky, a major Obama donor. The property was then sold again to another LLC, this one based in Colorado, ABC affiliate KITV reports.
The deed and mortgage were signed by an executive assistant at a Chicago-based private equity firm run by longtime Obama friend and Hawaii golf partner Marty Nesbitt, KHON reported.
That’s about all the hard evidence there is linking Obama to the property, but in the beachfront community where the house is located, many are taking it as a given Obama is moving in. And some aren’t happy about it.
“He’s going to be protected by the Secret Service all the time, there will be all kinds of traffic woes,” local resident Uncle Nawai told KITV.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/03/19/obama-magnum-pi-house_n_6903040.html - 317k -
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Sale of ‘Magnum P.I.’ home may be tied to President Obama
By Gina Mangieri Published: March 17, 2015, 5:51 pm
Listing agent Mary Worrall sold the home for $8.7 million on behalf of the same ohana that had owned it since the 1930s when it was built.
She said everyone in the transaction had to sign confidentiality agreements, so nothing further could be disclosed about who is buying it and what plans are for the house.
Always Investigating reviewed the deed and mortgage and found the buyer is an LLC called Waimanalo Paradise, set up just last month, whose mailing address and contact is Obama donor and Chicago lawyer Seth Madorsky.
The deed and the mortgage are signed by a person with the same name, Judy Grimanis, as an executive assistant at a Chicago-based private capital firm run by Obama’s longtime friend and frequent Hawaii golf and travel partner Marty Nesbitt. It is also the same name of a person who worked for companies owned by Penny Pritzker, a prominent Obama fundraiser and current U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
The mortgage is held by yet another LLC set up last month, this one called Hoaloha Holdings.
The mortgage is nearly a million dollars more than the sale price, a $9.5 million note, so it would appear some major renovations could be in store for the aging property.
No comment yet from the seller or those associated with the Waimanalo Paradise or Hoaloha Holdings LLCs, nor from the White House about the First Family’s connections, if any.
That was a great spread, IIRC. It was on a cliff, I think, and there were steps down to the “tidal pool”, a protected area where they swam. So they should be safe through the near term global warming.
I’ll be surprised if they really buy there, figured they’d follow the money to New York City like the Clintons. Of course, Hawaii is a bit easier to go home to than Arkansas.
should I buy some more stocks cause janet yelen is gonna keep rates low for the rest of my life? Do they want me chasing yield in facebook so the politicians get some fat donations in 2016?
Forever stamps.
CharlieBrownLucyFootball
“When you BORROW in US Dollars you are effectively SHORTING the US Dollar. So when the US Dollar rallies… you have to cover your SHORT or you blow up.”
“The US Dollar took down Oil, commodities, even emerging market currencies. Stocks will be next. The first REAL sign that the 2008 Crash was coming occurred when the US Dollar began to skyrocket in the summer of 2008.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-19/central-banks-will-not-be-able-control
who is gonna buy all these treasuries if the fed sells treasuries to take cash out of the system to raise the fed funds rate?
Haven’t they been buying most of the treasuries?
Maybe we should set up another agency to buy treasuries from the fed?
Don’t give the federal employees on here any new ideas on how to increase their do-nothing numbers, please.
The Fed is a private, bank-owned corporation, not part of the federal government. Stop feeding the strawman.
Is it safe to assume the Greek debt crisis is behind us now?
To the idiots who voted for the Republicrat duopoly’s Wall Street-captured candidates: don’t complain about paying for yet another housing bubble-related bailout. This is what you voted for.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-19/fanniefreddie-would-need-another-bailout-if-conditions-deteriorate
Region IV
Costco gas barely above $3/gallon again, punitive CA gas tax notwithstanding. Thanks Barry, thanks Vlad!
States with the highest gas prices
Thomas C. Frohlich, Alexander Kent and Mark Lieberman, 24/7 Wall St. 7:02 a.m. EDT March 15, 2015
Gas prices in every state are higher than they were one month ago. While the nationwide average price of $2.45 per gallon is far lower than levels one year ago, it has risen steadily for over a month, the longest string of consecutive daily increases in more than two years. The average price of gasoline in California rose by nearly a dollar in the past month to $3.39 per gallon, by far the largest increase and the highest gas price nationwide.
Based on statewide average prices of regular gasoline as of March 9 from AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 10 states with the highest gas prices. Avery Ash, a spokesman for AAA, explained that gas prices rise around this time every year primarily due to seasonal maintenance and production shifts. However, he added, both price levels and price spikes vary widely from year to year and between states.
Last year, prices increased in the spring due to refinery issues in the Midwest. This year, the bulk of the increases have been on the West Coast, especially in California. According to Ash, high regional gas prices this year can be attributed to increasing crude oil costs, routine refinery maintenance, and unexpected production issues.
Since the price of crude makes up the bulk of the cost of gasoline, rising crude oil prices accounted for most of the increases in the price of gas across the nation. The distance the gasoline needs to travel from crude oil production centers explains to a large degree the price of gasoline in a given state.
The majority of refineries are located in the Midwest and around the Gulf Coast. According to Ash, transporting fuel “from the Gulf Coast through pipeline up to the northeast requires additional transportation costs,” and this can lead to “some challenging supply distribution dynamics for the Northeast, especially during the storm season.”
Four of the 10 states with the highest gas prices are located in the northeastern United States. Hawaii, the state with the second highest average cost of gasoline, is also located a great distance from oil refineries.
In addition to a state’s location and the associated transportation costs, state gasoline taxes also have an impact on gas prices. With the exception of Alaska, drivers in all of the 10 states with the highest gas prices paid much higher total gasoline state taxes and fees than the average national gas tax rate of 29.89 cents per gallon. In addition, all drivers pay a federal excise of 18.4 cents per gallon.
To identify the states with the highest gasoline prices, 24/7 Wall St. examined the 10 states with the highest statewide average prices per gallon of regular gasoline on March 9 from AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. We also reviewed the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 2013 Refinery Capacity Report, which breaks out production capacity and the number of operable refineries by state. Capacity figures cited are from January 2014 and reflect the number of barrels of oil that operating refineries can reasonably be expected to produce in a calendar day. Also from the EIA, we reviewed figures on total oil production by state for 2013. We looked at gas taxes per state from the American Petroleum Institute, which are current as of January 2014. Annual 2013 unemployment rates came from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data on roads, vehicle miles, and gasoline consumption came from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Additionally, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, we looked at regional price parity as a proxy for cost of living.
These are the states with the highest gasoline prices.
1. California
> Price per gallon: $3.43
> Operable refineries, 2014: 18 (3rd highest)
> Refining capacity (barrels per day): 1,876,171 (3rd highest)
> Total state and federal tax per gallon: 63.79 cents (2nd highest)
California currently has the nation’s highest price of gas, at $3.43 per gallon. Prices have skyrocketed in the state recently, up by more than 80 cents per gallon from one month ago. California is home to 18 refineries, by far the most compared to other states with expensive gasoline. The cost of crude is the largest component of gas prices. And while close proximity to refining operations often helps lower gasoline prices, this has not been the case in California. The explosion at an ExxonMobil refinery located outside Los Angeles at the end of last month accounts for much of the recent price spikes in California and the surrounding region. To make matters worse, California gasoline must meet a range of specifications not required outside of the state. As a result, it has been relatively difficult for California’s gas sellers to make up for lost supply from the explosion by importing from other sources. Gas taxes are also especially high in the state. Drivers paid 45.39 cents per gallon in state taxes and fees as of the beginning of this year, the second highest state gas tax rate nationwide.
…
The New York Times
Fears of Greek Debt Default Overshadow European Union Gathering
By ANDREW HIGGINS and JAMES KANTER
March 19, 2015
BRUSSELS — A day before nearly $2 billion in debt becomes due for repayment by Greece’s nearly bankrupt government, European leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday for a long-planned summit meeting now overshadowed by the mounting risk of a Greek default and revived fears about the future of Europe’s common currency.
In keeping with the European Union’s preference for orderly procedure rather than confronting crises as they happen, however, Greece’s desperate financial situation did not figure on the official agenda for the two-day gathering. Instead, leaders focused on long-stalled but recently revived plans to reduce dependency on Russian gas; the conflict in Ukraine; and the spreading chaos in Libya.
All the same, Greece’s travails and the threat these pose to Europe’s common currency, quickly muscled their way onto center stage, with leaders on both the left and right voicing concern about the failure of an agreement reached on Feb. 20 between Greece and its creditors to calm, never mind end, the long-running Greek crisis.
France’s Socialist president, François Hollande, siding with Germany and other countries that insist Greece must honor the pledges made in February, said Thursday’s summit meeting would emphasize “to one and all the respect of commitments.”
…