The Housing Bubble

Hope and change everyone!

Now go out and buy $500,000 starter homes.

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Top 2 U.S. Jobs by Number Employed: Salespersons and Cashiers
Cybercast News Service | March 25, 2015 - 3:04 PM | Rudy Takala

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Wednesday that retail sales clerk and cashier were the two largest occupations in the United States in May 2014, with their numbers increasing slightly since 2013.

In its annual report on wages and occupational employment, the BLS found that 4.6 million Americans worked in retail sales while 3.4 million more worked as cashiers, making up almost six percent of total U.S. employment.

Is obamacare too big to fail?

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Obamacare flying machine begins a death spiral
The Washington Times | 03/26/2015 | Sean Parnell

Premiums are rising rapidly and the young and healthy are bailing out

The Supreme Court decision in King v. Burwell, the case challenging the Obama administration’s decision to award tax credits for health insurance sold through federally established exchanges, could turn on the question of whether a ruling that ends the tax credits on federal exchanges might cause something known as a “death spiral” in health insurance markets.

A death spiral generally occurs when insurers are forced to raise premiums sharply to pay promised benefits. Higher premiums cause many of the healthiest policyholders, who already pay far more in premiums than they receive in benefits, to drop coverage.

According to the Manhattan Institute, premiums climbed by 41 percent on average from 2013 to 2014, and premiums are likely to rise sharply again after two insurance company bailout programs included in Obamacare expire in 2017.

Opinion: Make these stock portfolio moves before the next bear market
Mar 26, 2015 - Shutterstock.com - MarkD. Cook

My own belief is that a coming horrible correction is going to result in a 35%-50% decline over more than two years. How do you prepare for and survive such a bear market?

There are a several strategies that fit different scenarios and time frames. The fact we have gone a historically long time without a 20% correction is a main consideration. Ask yourself this question, can you handle a 20% correction? If not, reduce your holdings to an acceptable level and maintain cash to buy at the 20% decline level.

A third strategy is to reduce your long holdings in a systematic program. A way to avert losing all your gains and going into the minus is to reduce holdings 33% immediately, not next week. A pullback of 10% triggers another 33% reduction which can be enacted with carefully placed stops. If the market rises 5% upward, take an additional 33% off your long holdings. Whichever way the market moves will reduce your risk and place your holdings down to 33% of your current status.

Let’s Count the Mistakes:

1. Buying a house with a “roommate.”
2. Buying a house in the ghetto in hopes it “gentrifies.”
3. Buying a house as an “investment” - because to live within 20 miles of NYC doesn’t mean sh*t.
4. Buying a house you couldn’t afford but hoping for future appreciation to make it worth it.
5. Renting the place out at a loss.

Stuck With a House That Can’t Be Sold
The Atlantic - Gillian B. White - 03/26/2015

When you ask 29-year-old Anthony Walker about the home he owns, his response is a chorus of resigned sighs. It’s not quite the reaction you’d expect from one of the few in his generation who has managed to achieve homeowner status. But the property Walker co-owns with a good friend and former roommate is deeply underwater. That means that since he purchased the property, the value has slipped so much that the house is worth less than total mortgage debt taken out to buy it. As time passes, he’s growing increasingly doubtful that he’ll ever see the property value back in the black.

It’s a predicament that more and more owners of less expensive starter properties are facing. Homes that were bought for a “reasonable” price at the top of the market are now floundering in negative equity and according to Svenja Gudell, the director of economic research at the real-estate data firm Zillow, there’s a good chance that such properties will never be worth the mortgage debt owed on them. “In the lowest third of the housing market, not only are you more likely to be underwater, but homeowners tend to be very deeply underwater,” says Gudell. “It will take a really long time to lift some of those homeowners out of negative equity. And some of them will never reach positive equity.”

Walker bought his home in 2007. The two-bedroom, two-bath condo is in a renovated building in East Orange, New Jersey, which borders Newark. Though the neighborhood isn’t the most polished, Walker says that they were already constrained by price because they were close to New York City, which is less than 20 miles away. “The budget restrictions forced us into neighborhoods that were probably fringe, transition-zone neighborhoods at best,” Walker says. “There were several new townhouse communities, condos, or residential buildings that were going up within a mile radius of where we were looking to buy. So in some respects we thought that the neighborhood was transitioning to be more like neighboring West Orange and Orange than Newark.”

Walker, like most Americans in 2007, figured he was making a sound investment in real estate that would surely appreciate during his lifetime. Even if he chose to move, he thought, his condo might provide some financial benefit down the line.

But then the housing bust hit. The neighborhood improvements stalled and Walker watched the value of his investment plummet. “That transition that we thought was going to happen didn’t. I think it’s partly because of the financial crisis. Some of the developments in the area got either put on hold or shelved,” he says. “I would say that our mortgage is somewhere around $210,000 today. And I would guess that the property is worth $125,000. So we’re still 40 percent underwater.”

A recent report from Zillow suggests that in some areas, negative equity is actually deepening. According to the report, despite home values climbing 6 percent in 2014, negative equity deepened in 21 of the top 50 metropolitan areas during the last quarter of 2014. Homes that are built in areas that were hit hard by the crisis—Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tampa—are especially vulnerable to stagnant and deepening negative-equity issues. So are homes that were built during the sprawl phase—when homebuilders headed to the fringes of metropolitan areas to build. Now, as my colleague Alana Semuels has reported, homes remain vacant, abandoned, or foreclosed, and some owners are so upside-down on their mortgages that selling isn’t a viable option.

Walker and his fellow owner moved out of the property around 2010 but they quickly realized that selling would only cement their losses. So for the past few years, they’ve rented it out, at a loss. They’re hoping a recent interest-rate reduction will help them break even on outgoing mortgage payments and incoming rent. But even if he continues to rent the property for less than his monthly payments, Walker realizes he’s one of the fortunate ones. The poor performance of the property, while disheartening, isn’t financially devastating for him. He and his roommate are able to subsidize their mortgage with rental income, and still carry on their day-to-day lives elsewhere.

Who wants to bet a steak dinner on:

1. The German pilot who deliberately crashed his full plane into the Alps was a recent convert to islam?

2. This gas work was done by unlicensed and untrained “plumbers” - just dreamers looking for some obama amnesty?

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Fire rages after explosion, collapse at East Village apartment building
WABC-TV | March 26, 2015

EAST VILLAGE (WABC) — There was an explosion and collapse at an apartment building in Manhattan Thursday, and a seven-alarm fire raged in the aftermath.

It is believed the explosion happened inside a restaurant on the first floor, called Sushi Park, and Mayor Bill de Blasio said the preliminary investigation points to gas and plumbing work inside. Con Ed was at the building earlier in the afternoon, around 2 p.m., for something unrelated. De Blasio said the building did not pass preliminary inspection, and work could not proceed. But there were no gas leaks detected at that time.

In a statement Thursday night, Con Ed said it had been at the scene to evaluate work the building plumber was doing at 121 2nd Avenue for a gas service upgrade.

“The work failed our inspection for several reasons, including insufficient spacing for the installation of the meter in the basement. We had no reports of gas odors in the area prior to the fire and explosion. A survey conducted yesterday of the gas mains on the block found no leaks.”

When I type LOLZ in the browser of my new phone it prompts to auto-correct to Lola, LOLZ

He’ll be able to spend more time now on his treadmill…

Now if we could only get McInsane to retire.

—————–

Harry Reid Says He Won’t Seek Re-Election
NY Times | 3/27/2015 | Carl Hulse

WASHINGTON — Senator Harry Reid, the tough tactician who has led Senate Democrats since 2005, will not seek re-election next year, bringing an end to a three-decade congressional career that culminated with his push of President Obama’s ambitious agenda against fierce Republican resistance.

“I understand this place,” Mr. Reid said. “I have quite a bit of power as minority leader.”

He has already confounded the new Republican majority this year by holding Democrats united against a proposal to gut the Obama administration’s immigration policies as well as a human-trafficking measure Democrats objected to over an anti-abortion provision.

“I want to be able to go out at the top of my game,” said Mr. Reid, who used a sports metaphor about athletes who try to hang on too long. “I don’t want to be a 42-year-old trying to become a designated hitter.”

The Hard-Earned Truth About Recreational Real Estate
Peter Churchouse - The Asia Hard Assets Report - March 27, 2015

The images showed a stunning piece of property. A gorgeous chalet set amongst the trees and snow of a mountain resort in western Canada. A very seductive piece of real estate.

I commented that he and his wife must rattle around in there like peas in a pod given how big the property was.

“Yep, we do, now that the kids have grown and are off doing their own thing.”

“Expensive to run?” I queried.

“Very” came back the reply, instantly. “In fact I could take two months holiday each year in some of the best resorts in the world with the cash that I pay just to manage this place.”

“Do you have any plans for the property? I asked.

“Absolutely. We’re trying to sell the place… It’s been on the market for nearly a year. No serious buyers yet.”

I hear this story repeated constantly from friends and acquaintances all over the world.

Worst of all, the property cannot produce a decent reliable rental income stream.

And this all comes just as retirement is hitting home and that regular paycheck is fading.

In my opinion, recreational real estate is often not an investment at all. It is an expensive consumption item.

To my younger readers, the ones in their 30s who may now have a little cash in the bank, please ignore recreational real estate. Forget about it.

goog and aapl can make bad deals all day and their stocks keep climbing?

deworsify= no problem

Remember - Bigger and bigger government with more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes (fees) are the answer to our problems.

Especially when there are public union goon pensions to pay.

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Fleece Force: How Police And Courts Around Ferguson Bully Residents And Collect Millions
Huffington Post | 3/26/15 | Ryan Reilly & Mariah Stewart

Scott, a senior at Alabama A&M University, had lived in Pasadena Hills during high school. Her father, a former St. Louis County police officer, works for Walgreens. Her mother is the principal of a local elementary school. Last summer, when Scott was home visiting her family, a notice was placed on her car.

Parking had never been an issue in her quiet, suburban community. Pasadena Hills is small, with a population of less than 1,000. But the municipality had recently passed an ordinance requiring those parking overnight to display a $10 residential parking sticker on their vehicles. The notice ordered Scott to come to City Hall to obtain the sticker.

- snip -

“They sent me a letter and said there would be a warrant out for my arrest if I didn’t come back for this,” Scott told The Huffington Post of her court appearance. “For $10. For parking in front of my house.”

Such experiences are not uncommon in St. Louis County. According to a scathing report from the U.S. Department of Justice released this month, authorities in nearby Ferguson routinely abused the rights of residents, who were viewed “less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.” Attorney General Eric Holder said the Ferguson Police Department had essentially served as a “collection agency,” with officers competing to see who could issue the largest number of citations.

Yvonne Fulsom was one of those who had to wait until the bitter end. She had come to the court to make a $25 payment on a $1,000 debt to the city because she let her pitbull urinate in her own yard without a leash. At that rate, she would have to appear in court on the designated night every month for more than three years to pay off the full amount. Miss a night, and she could face arrest.

The threat of incarceration is a brutally effective tool for ensuring that municipal court payments are prioritized in a poor person’s monthly budget. Ferguson was using arrest warrants “almost exclusively for the purpose of compelling payment through the threat of incarceration,” according to the Justice Department report. The practice is common across St. Louis County.

Excerpt from China Daily file it under hope is not a strategy:

MELBOURNE — A Chinese investor will be hoping that luck comes his way after paying 8,888,888 Australian dollars ($6.96 million) for a three-level office tower in Melbourne.

In Chinese culture, eight is thought of as a lucky number, signifying wealth.

The building, located at 415-417 Collins Street in Melbourne, was expected to sell for around $5 million, but the buyer had to fight off 50 other bids from interested buyers.

The bidding for the office tower commenced at just over $3.1 million, and drew interest from 12 separate bidders and a 200 crowd of onlookers - but it was an unnamed Chinese investor who won the auction with the “lucky” bid

How can the FED be a net seller of treasuries to lower the fed funds rate when they need to buy most of the 7 -8 trillion in treasuries that mature every year?

the real problem seems to be an addiction to spending money that someone really doesn’t have.

Link to excerpt: http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2015-03/27/content_19927967.htm

BTW, rig count comes out today, I expect another drop. It is not really the numbers that are key right now it is the location. More and more, the rigs are coming out of the “sweet spots”. To stay alive companies have been in field drilling in sweet spots. They have been decreasing the spacing between their best wells. This is like shooting fish in a barrel, and the wells have been producing copious amounts of oil. This has caused some interference with the existing wells but to survive they are willing to do it. However, all this means given the sharp decline rate of all the wells, when the decline in U.S. production begins it will be very hard to reverse. The best spots will be drilled out and we will have to drill two or more wells to replace the one year decline of one older well. Perhaps the reason drillers have been so reluctant to let crews go in North Dakota and other difficult to recruit drillers locations.

Rand Paul Reverses Stance on Defense Spending by Trying to Increase It

Mar 26, 2015, 2:57 PM ET

By ARLETTE SAENZ

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul revealed a new stance on defense spending when he introduced an amendment to the budget that would increase defense spending by $190 billion over the next two years.

This increase in defense spending runs counter to the budget the Republican introduced in 2011, just months after joining the Senate. That plan, which failed in the Senate, would have slashed defense spending from $553 billion in 2011 to $542 billion in 2016.

Paul’s new amendment failed in the Senate today with only four senators supporting the measure.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rand-paul-reverses-stance-defense-spending-increase/story?id=29929283

And remember - when democrats are in the White House there is no differences in the political parties.

They are all the same. No differences. And nothing can be done to fix Washington.

Now, this budget is not perfect. There is still plenty of work to do.

BUT IT IS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.

Something we have NOT seen in 6 years.

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Republicans pass budgets in both House and Senate, trim $5.1 trillion in spending
Hotair | 03/27/2015 | Ed Morrissey

Remember when a disagreement between Republicans on the budget was “cataclysmic” for GOP claims to governance? Democrats last passed a normal budget resolution six years ago, but Republicans went all of seven days before both chambers finally passed budget resolutions. Our long national nightmare, at least as envisioned by Politico, is over:

The Senate passed a Republican-authored budget plan early on Friday that seeks $5.1 trillion in domestic spending cuts over 10 years while boosting military funding.

The 52-46 vote on the non-binding budget resolution put Congress on a path to complete its first full budget in six years. It came at the end of a marathon 18-hour session that saw approval of dozens of amendments ranging from Iran sanctions to carbon emissions and immigration policies.

The House passed its budget resolution on Wednesday after a similar process of debate and amendment. Some journalists might be unfamiliar with this process after six years of Democratic Party grandstanding under the cataclysmic leadership of Harry Reid, but this is called “regular order” budgeting. Reid’s decision to abandon that process was what led to several years of budgeting by brinksmanship, “fiscal cliffs,” debt-ceiling standoffs, and the like.

In addition to aiming to eliminate deficits within 10 years, both documents seek to ease the path for a repeal or replacement of President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law.

The budget resolutions themselves still have a lot of room for criticism, of course. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul both opposed the final budget resolution in the Senate because it did not cut enough spending over the next ten years, and conservatives had hoped to roll back more of the encroachment in federal governance that has grown over the last generation. The conference committee will not help in that regard, as it will operate on the two budget resolutions to close the gap for the final conference reports.

Roxanne

You don’t have to put on the red light
Our carbon tax will save you
You don’t have to sell your body to the night

House Dem Warns Climate Change Will Force Millions Of Poor Women To Engage In ‘Transactional Sex’

March 26, 2015 2:21 PM

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., proposed a resolution Wednesday that warns climate change and ensuing natural disasters will force millions of vulnerable and poverty-stricken women to engage in “transactional sex” in order to provide their families with adequate food and water

Lee’s resolution concluded by urging Congress to acknowledge the “disparate impacts of climate change on women,” and should use “gender-sensitive frameworks in developing policies to address climate change.”

washington.cbslocal.com/…/ - 432k -

Jeremy Siegel: Why I’m feeling much better about stocks

“But now, he’s more comfortable with the Fed’s more tempered stance on rates. “I think the Fed gets it; mostly gets it. I thought they were being way too aggressive in their projections of interest rates. And they have come down on that.”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102540697

Looks the PPT is starting to show its face again?

“If you like your ’savings’ on gasoline, you can’t keep your savings on gasoline.”

————

It’s Official: Americans Spent All Their “Gas Savings” On Obamacare
ZeroHedge - 03/27/2015

Last quarter, when we showed what was “The Reason For The “Surge” In Q3 GDP”, some were shocked to learn that in the quarter in which US GDP posted a 5% surge, it was none other than Obamacare - a mandatory tax according to the Supreme Court which has the benefit of flowing through the US income statement - which contributed the bulk of this upside.

We are happy, and we use the term loosely, that history has just repeated itself, and now that the final number is available, what we wrote a month ago in “Here Is What Americans Spent Their “Gas Savings” On” has just been confirmed, and as the chart below shows, in the final revision of Q4 GDP, while virtually every other category of household spending was largely unchanged or revised lower, it was Healthcare, of which Obamacare was the biggest contributor on the margin, which saw an unprecedented surge in total spending, from $1.858 trillion to $1.871.9 trillion just between the second and final GDP revisions: a bump of $13.9 billion, without which Q3 GDP would have grown well below 2%!

Man……already 2-Ban has harshed my mellow…….

Here’s a link from my buddies at Dassault Falcon to get it back

http://tinyurl.com/prf63nj

Cool airplanes, cool video…..what’s not to like?

Is the U.S. economy in a slump which nobody is admitting?

Fewer people working means less gasoline consumption.

No matter what the “official” unemployment rates say…

Kind of tracks with the real “labor participation rate” doesn’t it?

——————

Gasoline use at lowest rate in three decades
University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) | 3/25/2015 | Michael Sivak

Average fuel consumption by American drivers is at its lowest level in at least 30 years, says a University of Michigan researcher…

“Despite population growth of 8 percent, the absolute amount of fuel consumed by light-duty vehicles decreased by 11 percent during the period 2004—the year of maximum consumption—through 2013,” said Sivak, a research professor at UMTRI and director of the Sustainable Worldwide Transportation research consortium…

Sivak said that although economic factors likely contributed to declining rates of vehicle ownership and distance driven, other societal changes such as increased telecommuting, use of public transportation and urbanization of the population, along with changes in the age composition of drivers, have influenced the need for personal transportation…

Is the horrible stock market making you feel more bullish than ever?

The US Housing Bubble In One Chart: Home Prices Outpace Wage Growth

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/26/2015

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-26/us-housing-bubble-one-chart-home-prices-outpace-wage-growth-131

when does an assets underlying value really matter?

Kerry Warns US Ambassadors They Will Be Dealing With ‘Climate Refugees’ In Not-Too-Distant Future

March 26, 2015 11:02 AM

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Secretary of State John Kerry warns U.S. ambassadors that they will be dealing with “climate refugees” in the not-too-distant future.

Kerry told U.S. ambassadors at the Global Chiefs of Mission Conference in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday about the threat climate change poses around the world.

“There’ll be climate refugees that all of you will be coping with at some point, if not now, in the not-too-distant future,” Kerry said.

The secretary of state warned that there could potentially be 500-year long droughts.

“It is a national security threat, it is a health threat, it’s an environmental threat, it’s an economic threat,” Kerry said. “We’re spending billions upon billions — $110 billion last year on the damages that occurred because of the increased level of major weather events around the world; droughts that are 500-year droughts, not 100-year droughts; places that have less and less water; food that is less produced where it used to be.”

Kerry stated that we have a responsibility to respond to climate change.

“Ninety-seven percent of all the scientists for 20 years tell us unequivocally that this is happening and happening now, and humans are causing it, and we have a responsibility to respond to it,” he said.

Kerry returned to Switzerland on Thursday to help close a potential nuclear deal with Iran.

The 4 Categories of Climate Deniers

(1) Flat-Earthers, who deny the existence of manmade climate change

(2) Born-Again Flat-Earthers, who do the same, but who had admitted climate change exists back before President Obama took office

(3) Do-Nothings, who sort of admit the reality of climate change but oppose actually taking any steps to prevent it

(4) Dodgers, who have avoided saying whether they believe climate change is happening, and who also don’t want to take any steps to alleviate it.

Bush, Paul, Cruz are (1)
Christie is (3)
Huckabee, Rubio are (2)
Jindal, Walker are (4)

http://grist.org/politics/meet-the-climate-deniers-who-want-to-be-president/

Other than payday lenders who use kneecaps as collateral, who wins by shutting down legitimate payday lenders?

Is it more effective to raise oil prices by cutting supply or by bombing your neighbors?

LOLZ

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/thenow/tinder-hacker-is-duping-straight-men-into-flirting-with-one-another

One article which allows us to debate Obama’s spiking of the U.S. dollar or at least not making any attempt to stop it, Obama’s refusal to cut corporate tax rates to make the U.S. competitive, Obama’s overseeing of the U.S. losing its dominance in currency and the state of both China’s and Canada’s economy:

(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2015-03-26 10:24
Counter:

Canada is seeking Chinese investors for over 300 projects, an investment forum held in Shanghai heard yesterday.

The projects in a list compiled by Consider Canada City Alliance covers opportunities in food, biotech, information technology, services, renewable energy and natural resources in 11 Canadian cities from Vancouver in the west to Halifax in the east.

“We have a competitive corporate tax, a strong financial system, stable inflation, and a well educated labor force,” Craig Wright, senior vice president and chief economist at Royal Bank of Canada, said during the Canada Investment and Innovation Forum where the list was released.

The combined federal-provincial corporate income tax rate in Canada has been cut from 42.4 percent in 2000 to 26.3 percent in 2014, or 13 percentage points below that of the US, according to an official document.

Wright also highlighted that “a weakening Canadian dollar against the yuan has made it more profitable for Chinese investors go to Canada.”

Participants at the forum held a business-to-business meeting for potential investors to talk with Canadian businesses directly.

“We have seen more Chinese investment flow into value-added industries like high-tech and services in Canada,” Wright said.

ICBC Canada, a yuan clearing bank, was officially launched in Toronto on Monday, becoming the first yuan trading center in the Western hemisphere to boost bilateral trade and investment.

U.S. Home Prices Are Surging 13 Times Faster Than Wages

You can blame investors for that

by Victoria Stilwell
12:01 AM EDT
March 26, 2015

In many markets, the housing recovery has “largely been driven over the last two years by buyers who are not as constrained by incomes — namely the institutional investors coming in and buying up properties as rentals, and international buyers coming in and buying, often with cash,” Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac and author of the report, said in an interview.

For demand from traditional buyers to improve, “either wages are going to need to go up or prices are going to need to at least flatten out and wait for wages to catch up,” he said. “You might say the third alternative is interest rates go down so you give people more buying power with their wages, but interest rates are about as low as they can go.”

The trend illustrates the limited impact of the Federal Reserve’s decision to include mortgage-backed securities in its unprecedented asset-buying program. The Fed bought more than $1 trillion of those securities to prop up the housing market after it collapsed and helped trigger the worst recession in the post-World War II era.

With the economy improving and home prices climbing, central bankers seem to have achieved at least part of their goal. However, investors have reaped much of the benefits of rising prices, while meaningful wage growth — and with it the ability of many Americans to buy homes — has yet to materialize. That’s been one reason housing has posted such inconsistent progress over the past two years, even with mortgage rates near historical lows.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-26/u-s-home-prices-are-surging-13-times-faster-than-wages

Fed Tries to Figure Out How to Raise Interest Rates by a 1/4 of 1%

New York Fed have been asking traders, financial firms, and even other central bankers

by Mark Thornton | Mises Wire | March 27, 2015

Its been over 6 years of ultra low interest rates referred to as ZIRP, or zero interest rate policy. We have been told to expect a normalization of interest rates soon, but now we are told that the Fed, specifically the New York Federal Reserve Bank is trying to figure out how to do that.

For the millions of people who have suffered through an economics course the answer should be obvious, but for the Fed, things are not as clear as in the past.

It turns out that officials from the New York Fed have been asking traders, financial firms, and even other central bankers how they can increase the Federal Funds Rate by 1/4 of 1% without bringing the world financial system to its knees.

According to a Reuters report:

The trouble is that the federal funds market, the intra-bank trading pool traditionally used by the Fed to meet its policy goals, has shrunk to about a quarter of its pre-crisis size after more than six years of unprecedented monetary stimulus.

“There is a lot more uncertainty in the mechanical features of the outlook than people admit to,” said Joseph Abate, a money-market strategist at Barclays Capital.

The Fed wants to avoid a scenario in which yields don’t rise enough after it lifts the fed funds rate because banks, flush with $2.5 trillion of reserves parked at the central bank, don’t need short-term funding.

The central bank also risks being drawn so deeply into money markets that it destabilizes things.

That’s why the New York Fed, already under political pressure due to regulatory missteps, is taking every precaution it can to protect its credibility and that of the central bank. It wants to make sure that when the central bank decrees higher rates, yields will actually rise.

In addition to the dangers of associated with the mechanics of Fed-distorted credit market, Fed officials are also worried about a higher US dollar which might hurt exports and endanger foreign currencies, especially in emerging markets. Oh, what a tangled web the Fed has woven.

A little dated but interesting comparison between India and China:

http://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/china.india/economy

More from the prison-industrial complex: prison guards forced inmates to have gladiator matches. Naturally the Sheriffs’ Union is covering up for these “public servants.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/san-francisco-prison-guards-allegedly-forced-inmates-into-game-of-thrones-fight-club-10140175.html

Rick Santelli tells off Yellen the Felon after she admits that “Cash [expecially after central banker debasement] is not a store of value.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-27/santelli-stunned-janet-yellen-admits-cash-not-store-value

Let’s kick off the weekend right (mute the intro and play the album)

Operation Ivy - Energy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59hHWeB893Y

Plano, TX Sale Price Gains Evaporate YoY; Plunge 11% QoQ

http://www.zillow.com/plano-tx-75093/home-values/

“This is what you’ll get, when you mess with us” — Radiohead, circa 1997

Ben Jones, may the Lord bless America

It’s getting really complicated, really really fast

Trey Gowdy: Hillary Clinton Wiped Email Server Clean

Reuters

Posted: 03/27/2015 6:31 pm EDT Updated: 42 minutes ago

WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) - The Republican chairman of a U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks said on Friday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had failed to respond to the panel’s subpoena for documents in the case.

Representative Trey Gowdy said Clinton had not provided a single new document and had wiped clean a server she used for emails while she was the top U.S. diplomat.

“We learned today, from her attorney, Secretary Clinton unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean and permanently delete all emails from her personal server,” Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said in a statement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/trey-gowdy-clinton-email-server_n_6958872.html - 295k -

It doesn’t matter where interest rates are if you don’t have cash to spend or credit to get a loan.

Everyone Must Check In

phony scandals

crater