Bits Bucket for April 4, 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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Is it a safe bet that the dollar will weaken and Wall Street will party Monday on the realization that no Fed rate hikes are imminent?
Are Fed rate hikes no longer imminent?
Which guarantees a rising dollar and further falling prices Jingle_Fraud.
*THINK*
but somehow credit card rates will rise 2% next year..
I want my house to go up in value some more so I can buy some more stuff from you guys.
Only for folks who maintain a revolving credit card balance…
Culturebox
Arts, entertainment, and more.
Oct. 8 2014 9:33 AM
All Your Life, Charlie Brown. All Your Life.
The complete history of Lucy’s pulling the football away.
By Eric Schulmiller
Everyone has their favorite telltale signs of the approaching autumn: Mother Nature maxing out the hue and saturation sliders on her favorite arboreal subjects. The chill in the air that makes cardigans strain for the attention of their mustachioed owners. The unfortunate intrusion of pumpkin flavoring into our daily beverages. On the comics pages for years, one sign of fall loomed above all others. I’m speaking, of course, of the annual Saga of the Swipe: Lucy, Charlie Brown, and that infernal football.
This sacred autumnal drama, repeated nearly every September or October for over 50 years, has become our collectively-acknowledged paradigm for the uneasy tension between trust and betrayal, hope and despair.
…
Was it ever imminent?
The Puppetmaster has spoken: Auntie Janet will obey and put rate hikes on hold. Wait and see.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-03/here-we-go-goldman-declares-right-policy-would-be-put-hikes-hold-now
Stock rally dead ahead!
Region VIII
Sector 9.
You are BROKE
And thirsty.
Lack of water will undoubtedly raise the cali home prices by 10′% this week.
Only renters get to ride first chair at Winter Park
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20150404_070010-ZgXZ6g9M.jpg
People with mortgages can never go here because they are BROKE (and if you are in California you don’t have any snow, because your region sucks)
And renters can enjoy a bottle of Dominus over a weekend. It goes smooth with no buzz.
Haters gonna hate, and ainters gonna aint
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20150404_113447-MrpTz44Z.jpg
Region VIII
Awesome!
Boston Bombing: Marky Mark to Produce Film Celebrating Martial Law Takeover of Watertown
Upcoming motion picture likely to justify evisceration of Fourth Amendment
by Adan Salazar | Infowars.com | April 3, 2015
Musician turned actor Mark Wahlberg and CBS Films are set to make a movie commemorating the events following the Boston Marathon bombing, including the subsequent martial law-style lockdown of the Watertown suburb.
The script will reportedly be based on first-hand accounts from Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, who spearheaded local law enforcement efforts and press conferences amid the protracted siege.
Following the alleged detonation of pressure cooker bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon, a massive manhunt for the responsible parties ensued, culminating in the unprecedented lockdown of an entire American suburb.
Former Congressman Ron Paul encapsulated the harrowing events perfectly, asserting police actions that day “should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself”:
627 comments
derp • 7 hours ago
Marky Mark, same douchbag that refused to shake Charlton Heston’s hand on Hollywood Set due to Heston’s 2nd Amendment Beliefs. Same douchbag seeking pardon for his felonious violent assault so he can become reserve deputy and carry firearm anywhere in USA. What a hypocrite fascist douchbag poser.
infowars.com/boston-bombing-marky-mark-to-produce-film-celebrating-martial-law-takeover-of-watertown/
Wahlberg and Ferrill in that movie, The Other Guys, what a funny show.
+1 for Infowars links
Most of the alleged conservative media are big fat hypocrites when it comes to badge licking and uniform fetishism
It’s almost like they have daddy issues or closeted gay feelings they refuse to acknowledge
There is nothing “small government” or “lower taxes” about what happened in Watertown
Watertown was a trial balloon, as was the Chris Dorner manhunt in Southern California
King Obama has almost 22 months left in office, and when he launches Go Time it’s gonna make Sandy Hook look like amateur hour
Picture the Reichstag on fire, but with 10,000 screaming children locked inside
“it’s gonna make Sandy Hook look like amateur hour”
It already did look like amateur hour.
How’s go time gonna affect the marijuana business? Make hay while the sun is shining.
I’d hate republicans too if I owned part of a business that was likely going to be wiped out with the stroke of a pen if a republican president was elected.
LOL
In near future Marijuana will be produced and sold by likes of phillip morris. Yeah right republican president will kill that?
War is all you gonna get. Learn to be happy with that.
Philip Morris?
Don’t make me laugh. Only clueless olds or out-of-staters would pay for that. Some of the most brain dead, burnt out stoners I know can grow the most killer sh*t you can imagine.
Won’t Sheldon Adelson have something to say?
“Watertown was a trial balloon, as was the Chris Dorner manhunt in Southern California”
What about the apartheid shakedown police states many of our local communitites have become, like Ferguson? Those aren’t trial balloons, those are up-and-running operations.
And often supported and defended by those who claim to be anti-statist, if you’re looking for hypocrisy.
A) Michael Brown attacked the cop
B) Eric Garner was murdered
C) Al and Jesse need to get PAID
D) All of the above
E) Local police need mine-resistant vehicles when dealing with ‘those’ people
F) Police shakedown states are OK provided they’re locally-controlled
G) Constitutional protections are only for some citizens, not others, the others will just abuse them
“The whole Good Cop / Bad Cop question can be disposed of much more decisively. We need not enumerate what proportion of cops appears to be good or listen to someone’s anecdote about his uncle Charlie, an allegedly good cop.
We need only consider the following:
(1) A cop’s job is to enforce the laws, all of them;
(2) Many of the laws are manifestly unjust, and some are even cruel and wicked;
(3) Therefore every cop has to agree to act as an enforcer for laws that are manifestly unjust or even cruel and wicked.
There are no good cops.”
— Robert Higgs
how long can the economy keep running on overpriced stocks and homes?
“This sucker could go down” — George W. Bush
We’re many months into an oil prices being cut in half Black Swan with no effect on either. We need panic enough to have people start accepting lowball offers. Right now, not happening.
Black Swan?
Things that double overnight do not fall down the next day?
Did anyone expect oil to be cut in half late last year?
AlbuquerqueDan predicted it — did he not?
Adan did at least imply it. He warned that the doubling of oil was due to massive overbuilding, which soaks up more energy demand than a few dozen million scooters. He implied that the incredible building of overcapacity in everything in Asia was not sustainable, as it was based on the largest credit expansion on earth, ever, and rife with corruption and waste. Also, copper, steel and etc. It was him, wasn’t it? Nobody else here thought there was a huge mania that would fall, right?
“It was him, wasn’t it? Nobody else here thought there was a huge mania that would fall, right?”
Oh right…I’m almost certain I recall him predicting the prices of copper, iron, oil, dry bulk shipping and Chinese housing would all drop off a cliff pretty much in synch.
As long as Mr Yelling will print moar.
“The Fed believes that if interest rates are low, investors will seek out higher returns by piling into stocks or even real estate. As these asset prices rose, the investors would feel wealthier and so go out and spend more money… which in turn would drive the economy towards growth (70% of US GDP stems from consumer spending).”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-03/central-planners-have-bet-financial-system-unproven-theories
So some people have to work to produce stuff while we basically get currency for free from rising artificial asset prices?
Something seems off here.
The part that didn’t quite work: “investors [who] feel wealthier” so far have been mediocre job creators. Without full employment there’s been little pressure to raise wages — until recently, anyway.
If you think wages are going to magically double or triple to meet grossly inflated prices, you’re fooling yourself.
“Something seems off here.”
Some of what is off involves WHAT people will buy with their wealth-inspired spending and just WHERE this stuff that they buy is manufactured.
Buying stuff will create jobs somewhere, but not necessarily here.
As a general observation it seems that most of what we NEED (food, housing, utilities and such) is produced and made available locally, but most of what we WANT is made somewhere else.
So if a person’s or a family’s financial situation places them in a position to buy not only what they need but also what they want then this added money that is put into the system for wants will tend to leave the country and end up somewhere else.
So if you are a country that depends on the people of the U.S. spending lots of money for wants then you will be prosperous if there is lots of money made available for these wants (borrowed or otherwise) and you will suffer if this available money dries up.
The music behind “musical chairs” is being played faster and faster. And in this game, most people win a lot on paper that is not realized. And the music will stop and though there are very many players there are so few chairs. Lots of people will lose.
Got cash?
+1. A minimum three-month supply of essential food, water, medical and hygiene supplies, barterable items, and the means to defend your stash wouldn’t go amiss, either.
Also make sure that NO ONE knows about your stash and make it look like you too have nothing socked away. Because if word gets out you might end up getting robbed by a mob that outguns you. And don’t barter, that that lets potential raiders know you have stuff and makes you a target.
“Something seems off here.”
Like no anticipated day of reckoning when the deliberately-inflated asset price bubble collapses?
Please schedule the Day of Reckoning soon, preferably in the next couple of months.
Water Subsidies and Shortages in the American West
October 28, 2013
Ryan McMaken
The Los Angeles Times reports that the West is running out of water. Articles about water shortages are a perennial feature of local newspaper coverage in the American West, but the Los Angeles Times is right. The West really doesn’t have enough water to maintain the status quo.
It’s not global warming or suburban sprawl that is the primary source of the problem. Indeed, the West is no more dry now than it has been at various times through the centuries for which we have a little knowledge about the climatic conditions here. And suburban and urban residents use only a fraction of the water consumed in the West.
To find a clue about the real source of the problem, we need only look to the Times article itself:
Thanks to reservoirs large and small, scores of dams including colossi like Hoover and Glen Canyon, more than 1,000 miles of aqueducts and countless pumps, siphons, tunnels and diversions, the West had been thoroughly re-rivered and re-engineered.
Rain doesn’t fall much in the West, so to get water, the people need to go to the water in the rivers, or the water in the rivers needs to be shipped to the people. That’s where all those aqueducts and tunnels and diversions come in.
In an America without the massive coercive power of the federal government, the population centers in the West would generally be near the water sources where irrigation and drinking water would be cheaper and easier to use. When powerful interest groups own land far away from water sources, on the other hand, there is no “solution” so impractical that billions of taxpayer dollars can’t make it happen. The politicians will simply see to it that the water is moved where the lobbyists tell them it should have been in the first place. The result is that farmers will grow water-thirsty crops in central Arizona and central California where water must be transported over mountains and across hundreds of miles of arid landscape.
Water shortages occur in the West not because too many people are flushing their toilets too often, but because agriculture, heavily subsidized through cheap water made possible by the federal government, continues to grow crops in places that would never support agriculture on a similar scale in a free market. Indeed, agriculture uses well over 80 percent of all the water used in Western states, and most of that water is stored, pumped, and diverted using dams, pumps, and aqueducts paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.
As a result, growers don’t have to face the real-life costs of transporting water to their farms. They only need consider the subsidized price, which is far below what it would be in a private market. Consequently, water usage for growers across the West is much greater than what it would be were there a functioning market for water in the region.
While there are some historical cases of locally-funded major water projects, such as the original Los Angeles Aqueduct, the management of water resources in the West has been dominated by the federal government’s Bureau of Reclamation. Although created in 1902, the Bureau exploded in size and importance during the Great Depression as a part of the New Deal. From Hoover Dam to countless smaller dams and diversion projects, the Bureau became an influential bureaucracy with immense power in the West.
Naturally, the fact that taxpayers pay for all this does not mean that the taxpayers control the water. The most important resource in the West is in fact mostly controlled by Congress and the Bureau of Reclamation, and indirectly by growers and other special interests. Water is distributed in the West not by markets and market prices, but by the political process.
In an arid place like the West, the political control of water translates to the political control of entire sectors of the economy. Writing in 2004, economist William Anderson noted:
No private firm would distribute a precious commodity like water in a desert in the way that the Bureau of Reclamation has done it. While the subsidized farms in the West are private, the federal government owns the main input that is needed for their crops: water. Thus, the term “private enterprise” here is meaningless, since the farms are wards of the state.
The fact that many farms are “wards of the state” as Anderson calls them, does not trouble the more influential growers much, as agricultural interests remain extremely influential in Western states, and they indirectly control most of the water.
What is the justification for such a situation? The virtues of subsidized water are sung using the usual arguments for corporatism and crony capitalism. We’re told that what’s good for the Western farmer is good for America. It’s a matter of national security. Local economies will collapse without agriculture. Subsidized water “creates jobs.” It’s a way of life that must be preserved. And so on.
The political support behind the growers’ continued use of the vast majority of the water resources to grow cotton and pecans in a brutally-hot parched desert is a classic case of politicians supporting what is seen over what cannot be seen.
The hundreds of billions of dollars spent over the years to get water to growers and other politically well-connected interests could have been spent on other things. What other things? We’ll never know now, but the Central Arizona Project, which pumps water up 3,000 vertical feet and moves it across 160 miles of desert from the Colorado River to central Arizona at a cost of at least $4.7 billion, would probably not be one of them. Most of that is paid for by people who will never live in Arizona.
Although the special interest groups don’t see it this way, the fact remains that the development of the West, dictated by water, has been dominated by the federal government and its friends for at least 75 years. It props up industries unsuited to the realities of the Western deserts, while populations rely more and more on a diminishing resource controlled by an aging infrastructure of taxpayer-funded boondoggles. Is it any surprise that the West now faces some serious water problems? In spite of this, there is one thing we can know for sure: we’ll be told that the federal government is our best hope for solving the problem.
http://mises.org/library/water-subsidies-and-shortages-american-west
not because too many people are flushing their toilets too often, but because agriculture, heavily subsidized through cheap water ??
Yep…They use 80% of the water but are “exempt” from the mandatory 25% statewide reduction in water use…Go figure…
I wonder how many pools would go fallow if they raised the price of water?
if they raised the price of water ??
They have raised the cost of water on everyone except the biggest user….My water bill has doubled in the last 4 years…My sewer fee has tripled…
the only way people will conserve is to raise the price. you need to take less showers.
Raise the price on whom ??
anyone who is an end user of the water. just like gas, the more it costs the less people use.
“My water bill has doubled in the last 4 years…My sewer fee has tripled…”
Hows that medicine tasting?
They have raised the cost of water on everyone except the biggest user….My water bill has doubled in the last 4 years…My sewer fee has tripled…
I’ll bet Larry Ellison’s private golf course in Palm Springs is exempt from the restrictions. So every time you stare at that unflushed mud snake in your toilet while you wait for the 4-6 PM water ration to come online, just remember that Larry and his friends are unaffected by the drought.
If you have to take a dump, do it at the office. Just do it early or you might find a mud snake waiting for you there too.
anyone who is an end user of the water. just like gas ??
Tell that to the Ag industry…
CA Ag gets first claim on water, with water droplets for the 37 million residents.
Either you bring the water to L.A., or you bring L.A. to the water.
The farmers in California must compete on price with produce from Mexico. This is only possible if they are allowed to hire illegal Mexican labor, have access to gratuitous Mexican-style subsidies for water and business loans, and are compensated by the government when farmland is converted into residential housing, thereby pushing the farmers further into the desert.
NAFTA, meet consequences.
“we’ll be told that the federal government is our best hope for solving the problem.”
My stocks went up this week thanks to corporate america borrowing money at zero and investing in their own companies so they can cash out options and get some more bonuses. Even though revenues have went nowhere earnings / share has went up cause there are less shares in circulation. I now have some money to go to walmart and buy some stuff.
It happened to my stocks as well. I needed to hold my nose in order to compel myself to buy them, but now I, too, get to share in the wealth effects of rate hike postponement.
Visual evidence of the CA housing crash
http://evilleeye.com/news-commentary/tribune-reporting-collapse-of-north-oakland-longfellow-neighborhood-house/
it looked like the house had a lean to the left doesn’t it? Was HA the shady contractor involved?
This was a flip and the contractor was Tim Peterson, Bubba was just a local homeless guy allowed to stay in the house as a watchman. Peterson amazingly offered to fix the house next door that was seriously damaged by the collapse. My high regard for flippers has only increased…
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/04/03/contractor-collapsed-oakland-house-accident-waiting-to-happen-cal-osha-violations/
Where was the “city” for 5 weeks while this obvious unbraced disaster waiting to happen was sitting there?
“Next door neighbor Michael Davies says work stopped on the house and it was left off the ground for the last five weeks.”
“The collapse partially crushed part of Davies’ home, causing it to be red-tagged by the city.”
Code Enforcement & Community Preservation Program
Service
The Redevelopment Agency, Community Preservation, and Building Division of the City of Emeryville assist to enforce the Emeryville Municipal Code as it applies to property maintenance, property nuisances, and other issues in residential and commercial zoning districts.
The majority of reported problems are resolved on the initial contact by the Community Preservation Officer and Building Inspection Staff. Administrative penalties may be assessed to those who fail to comply with the municipal code.
http://www.ci.emeryville.ca.us/587/Code-Enforcement-Community-Preservation - 61k -
Building Division
Mission Statement
“We help the people of Emeryville develop and realize their vision for the built environment”
As part of the Planning and Building Department, the Building Division has primary responsibility for administering the laws, regulations, and requirements that pertain to the physical development of the city.
ca-emeryville.civicplus.com/index.aspx?NID=315 - 65k -
No shear wall(s) or lateral bracing, but “up to code.” LOLZ!
Yup, Bubba took out the shear walls in the front and back. It was an act of shear stupidity.
Look a little closer…Those are new studs…This was a reconstruction project…The shear was not installed yet…And because of shear, we do not use let-in bracing anymore…Just fire blocks…
didnt they use to nail metal straps at an angle across the studs to help with shear? I think the old school way was to carve out shots in the studs and use wood.
didnt they use to nail metal straps at an angle across the studs to help with shear ??
Yes but not anymore…
2 BR 1 BA 1144 sq ft, Zillow estimate $510,000 … Poor Bubba!
check out the Google street view, Bubba’s washing his car. House next door’s getting renovated too. Looks like the neighborhood is getting housing bubble fever… https://goo.gl/maps/UgTMf
Isn’t Oakland just a bit of an outlier — like inner-city Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC, etc etc etc?
That is changing fast as S.F. becomes unaffordable for all but the wealthy, many S.F. economic refugees are moving there to live and work. It has had a reputation for a high crime rate for many years. The weather is MUCH better than S.F. and FWIW when I worked in downtown Oakland for a few years in the ’90’s I liked it much better than I expected and had no problems aside from one auto break in. There are some REALLY nice neighborhoods up in the hills but crime remains a serious problem even up there. (burglaries, home invasions, robberies, etc)
Having attended UCB, I know quite a bit about Oakland.
One thing you might be missing is the link between the crime cycle and the business cycle. Gentrification can reverse quickly during economic hard times, as those who can afford to get out move to nicer areas bought on discount.
Whatever pal, your question implied you knew little about Oakland but actually you “know quite a bit” huh?? also it is VERY special you attended UCB.
Wake up, sheeple, and start acting like citizens of the Republic.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-03/peter-thiel-blasts-american-political-system-not-democracy-or-constitutional-republi
Democracy in America is dead, according to Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.
“It’s not clear we’re living in anything resembling a democracy,” he told a crowd Tuesday at George Mason University. “We’re living in a republic that’s modified by a judicial system, that’s been largely superseded by these agencies that drive the decision-making.”
“Calling our society a democracy is very misleading,” Thiel went on. “We’re not a republic; we’re not a constitutional republic. We live in a state that’s dominated by these technocratic agencies.”
Thiel says that organizations like the Federal Reserve have been allowed to roam too far. Calling government agencies “deeply sclerotic and deeply nonfunctioning,” Thiel pointed to the Energy Department’s failed investments in Solyndra as a case study in bureaucratic mismanagement and executive overreach.
The incredible power behind the acronym end agencies is far more a violation of our liberties than the 535 members of Congress. Yet those agencies are unelected and this is a big reason why your vote will never matter.
It looks like the dollar’s days as the world’s reserve currency are numbered, thanks to the deranged money-printing and currency debasement by the Federal Reserve.
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-targets-dollar-2015-4
Why would you reserve a currency that even yellen says is not a store of value? Isn’t it mainly to have some cash on hand to buy oil and for central banks that have to buy dollars for currency pegging?
Even most americans dont save any dollars and now hope their houses do the savings for them.
Ever increasing debt is not saving dude.
One man’s debt-funded home purchase at 10% above last year’s market value is another man’s home equity wealth gain.
Given China’s meteoric rise in total debt it’s safe to assume that they are printing faster than we are.
No…see the article I just posted below.
How much dollar-denominated debt does China owe at this point?
China’s One Trillion Reasons to Prevent Yuan Tumbling
by Fion LiYe Xie
5:26 PM PST
February 15, 2015
The Yuan fell 0.1 percent, the most in two weeks, to 6.2471 a dollar on Monday in Shanghai as the foreign-exchange regulator highlighted concerns over capital outflows.
Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) — China, like much of the world, is beefing up monetary stimulus to boost its economy. Yet, unlike its peers, it probably won’t let its currency depreciate to help.
Sustained weakness in the yuan would make it more expensive to repay the $1.1 trillion of debt the Bank for International Settlements estimates is owed by Chinese companies. As a result, China has to offset interest-rate cuts and other easing measures with steps to curb the yuan’s 3 percent slide from its peak about a year ago.
The quandary has made the yuan one of only two major currencies that forecasters surveyed by Bloomberg expect to strengthen versus the dollar this year, the other being Mexico’s peso. Any gains would risk blunting China’s stimulus and hurt an economy that’s already slowing by making exports less competitive just after they suffered a surprise drop.
“It’s a dilemma,” Claudia Calich, a money manager in London at M&G Ltd., which oversees about $1 billion of emerging-market assets, said Friday by phone. “They can’t afford to let the yuan depreciate quickly because of the concerns about dollar debt. The authorities will perhaps slowly guide the yuan lower, but not in one go. It’s quite a delicate balance.”
…
ST. PETERSBURG — More than a few homeowners in the Tampa Bay area may be in for a shock when they open their next flood insurance policy renewal.
It’s doubtful anyone will be driven from their home this year by the rising premiums, as many people feared might happen with earlier reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program. But a large number of coastal residents will feel the pinch.
The federal government’s effort to make the deeply indebted flood program solvent means annual cost hikes ranging from 10 percent for primary homes up to 37 percent for many second homes and commercial buildings, factoring in both premiums and extra fees.
The first round of premium increases went into effect Wednesday for new and renewed policies.
The brunt of the hikes will be borne by older properties in coastal zones that don’t stand up to today’s flood safety code, which the government had subsidized for decades by offering rates that don’t reflect their true risk of peril.
Tampa Bay has the highest concentration of these properties in the nation — older single-family homes near the waterfront, 1960s-era beach vacation homes, mom-and-pop motels and even modest starter homes tucked away in low-lying inland areas.
Residents and real estate agents breathed a sigh of relief last year when Congress stepped in to slow the surge in premiums, at least for primary homes, but close observers say the financial blow only has been delayed.
http://tbo.com/Local/CommunityNews/on-the-rise-flood-insurance-premiums-20150404/?page=1
I thought DHS was out of money.
Are They Arming for Riots Across America? Homeland Stockpiling “Less Lethal Specialty Munitions”
by Mac Slavo | SHTFPlan.com | April 4, 2015
One of the biggest stories for years in the alternative media was the mysterious and foreboding purchase by Homeland Security of more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.
Now, a new Homeland Security purchase order listed on FedBizOpps also raises an eyebrow or two, given the heated and divided political and social climate at hand. Just look at what happened in Ferguson…
A request for “less lethal specialty munitions” for use by Homeland Security dated March 23, 2015 reads:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intends to solicit responses to Request for Information (RFI) 20082225-JTC for Less Lethal Specialty Munitions (LLSM) for use by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). CBP is interested in incorporating commercial and industry practices that support this type of procurement. To accomplish this, CBP intends to make industry a partner in all facets of the acquisition process, specifically by considering existing market capabilities, strengths and weaknesses for the acquisition of this commodity.
Over the course of 9 pages (PDF), the technical requirements call for an arsenal of specialized weaponry for training and deployment against crowds.
On top of a wide range of gas and chemical grenades, rubber bullets and other riot rounds, the purchase calls for “controlled noise and light distraction devices,” including flash bangs which set off a 175 dB sound with 6 – 8 million candelas light bursts in 10 milliseconds.
So why are the Feds prepping to take on crowds?
The requested equipment includes:
Hand Delivered Pyrotechnic Canisters, including
Smoke Canister for Training (Reduced Toxicity)
Continuous Discharge Large Smoke Canister (Operations)
Continuous Discharge CS Canister
Orange Colored Smoke Canister
Green Colored Smoke Canister
Pocket Tactical Smoke Canister
Pocket Tactical CS Canister
Three Part Sub-Munitions CS Canister
Non-Burning Internal Canister OC Grenade
Non-Pyrotechnic Indoor/Outdoor Use
Flameless Expulsion Grenade (OC)
Flameless Expulsion Grenade (CS)
Flameless Expulsion Grenade (Inert)
Hand Delivered Rubber Ball Grenades
Rubber Ball Grenade
Rubber Ball Grenade (CS)
40mm Launched Specialty Impact Munitions
40mm Direct Impact Sponge Cartridge
40mm Direct Impact Sponge Cartridge (OC)
40mm Direct Impact Sponge Cartridge (Marking)
40mm Direct Impact Sponge Cartridge (Inert)
40mm Sponge Training Rounds
Crowd Management Projectile Cartridges
40mm Smokeless Powder Blast (OC)
40mm Smokeless Powder Blast (CS)
40mm Long Range Canister (CS)
40mm Long Range Canister (Smoke)
40mm Cartridge Four Part Sub-Munitions (CS)
40mm Cartridge Four Part Sub-Munitions (Smoke)
40mm Aerial Warning Munitions (100 Meters)
40mm Aerial Warning Munitions (200 Meters)
40mm Aerial Warning Munitions (300 Meters)
40mm Aerial Warning Munitions OC (100 Meters)
40mm Aerial Warning Munitions OC (200 Meters)
40mm Aerial Warning Munitions OC (300 Meters)
Controlled Noise And Light Distraction Devices
Distraction Device Compact
Distraction Device
Distraction Device Reloadable Steel Body
Distraction Device Reload
Command Initiated Distraction Device Reload
Distraction Device Training Fuse
Distraction Device Training Body
Multiple Detonation Distraction Device
Low Profile Distraction Device
Command Initiator
Ferret Rounds
40mm Ferret Round (OC Powder)
40mm Ferret Round (OC Liquid)
40mm Ferret Round (CS Powder)
40mm Ferret Round (CS Liquid)
40mm Ferret Round (Inert Powder)
The ferret rounds are designed to penetrate barriers and deliver debilitating or disrupting chemicals:
“The projectile shall be designed to penetrate barriers of glass, particle board, and interior walls. Upon impact of the barrier, the nose cone will rupture and instantaneously deliver the OC liquid on the other side of the barrier. “
The collection of equipment provides a diverse range of toys with which authorities could push back crowds and potentially intimidate free speech as well.
Are there more riots coming? Is widespread civil unrest only a matter of time? Is it related to martial law exercises like Jade Helm 15?
What do the Feds know that we don’t?
http://www.shtfplan.com/…ca-homeland-stockpiling-less-lethal-specialty-munitions_04032015 - 219k -
50 guys with muzzle loading rifles could take out much of the US electric grid if they worked together, DHS, XYZ,& PDQ agencies notwithstanding. Mylar balloons…
“This diversion of the $2 trillion gain in business debt outstanding since 2007 to financial engineering is owing to the near zero after-tax cost of corporate debt. The latter has caused the enslavement of the C-suite to the instant gratification of rising share prices and stock options value in the Fed’s Wall Street casino.”
“So the central banks just keep printing, thereby inflating the asset bubbles world-wide. What ultimately stops today’s new style central bank credit cycle, therefore, is bursting financial bubbles.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/meet-the-new-recession-cycle-its-triggered-by-bursting-bubbles-not-surging-inflation/
So bursting bubbles are the new recessions?
Global Warming: Follow the Money
by Henry Payne February 25, 2015 4:00 AM
In truth, the overwhelming majority of climate-research funding comes from the federal government and left-wing foundations. And while the energy industry funds both sides of the climate debate, the government/foundation monies go only toward research that advances the warming regulatory agenda. With a clear public-policy outcome in mind, the government/foundation gravy train is a much greater threat to scientific integrity.
“It is a despicable, reprehensible attack on a man of great personal integrity,” says Myron Ebell, the director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who questioned why media organizations were singling out Soon over research funding.
Indeed, experts in the research community say that it is much more difficult for some of the top climate scientists — Soon, Roger Pielke Jr., the CATO Institute’s Patrick Michaels, MIT’s now-retired Richard Lindzen — to get funding for their work because they do not embrace the global-warming fearmongering favored by the government-funded climate establishment.
“Soon’s integrity in the scientific community shines out,” says Ebell. “He has foregone his own career advancement to advance scientific truth. If he had only mouthed establishment platitudes, he could’ve been named to head a big university [research center] like Michael Mann.”
Mann is the controversial director of Pennsylvania State’s Earth System Science Center. He was at the center of the 2009 Climategate scandal, in which e-mails were uncovered from climatologists discussing how to skew scientific evidence and blackball experts who don’t agree with them.
Mann is typical of pro-warming scientists who have taken millions from government agencies. The federal government — which will gain unprecedented regulatory power if climate legislation is passed — has funded scientific research to the tune of $32.5 billion since 1989, according the Science and Public Policy Institute. That is an amount that dwarfs research contributions from oil companies and utilities, which have historically funded both sides of the debate.
Mann, for example, has received some $6 million, mostly in government grants — according to a study by The American Spectator — including $500,000 in federal stimulus money while he was under investigation for his Climategate e-mails.
Despite claims that they are watchdogs of the establishment, media outlets such as the Times have ignored the government’s oversized role in directing research. And they have ignored millions in contributions from left-wing foundations — contributions that, like government grants, seek to tip the scales to one side of the debate.
Last summer, a minority staff report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works gave details on a “Billionaire’s Club” — a shadowy network of charitable foundations that distribute billions to advance climate alarmism. Shadowy nonprofits such as the Energy Foundation and Tides Foundation distributed billions to far-left green groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, which in turn send staff to the EPA who then direct federal grants back to the same green groups. It is incestuous. It is opaque. Major media ignored the report.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/414359/global-warming-follow-money-henry-payne
And the other side has no vested interest whatsoever. They’re just good citizens who care about our well being.
Everyone seems to care only about our well-being, and they all want to make their living pushing said well-being on us. Isn’t it great?
If you like your brown cloud, you can keep your brown cloud.
Good point. I didn’t have a brown cloud, but I did have acid rain. That was settled with a much smaller crowd of well paid do-gooders.
“If you like your brown cloud, you can keep your brown cloud.”
I hate to interrupt this blank blanking secession but this brown cloud you speak of so often, is this the one hanging over Denver in the state you brag about? If so was the picture taken before or after legalization?
Every news report you’ll ever need on the economy in one clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN2iVe8_Ato&spfreload=10
Bahahahahahahahahahahahaha …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization#/media/File:NYUGDPFinancialShare.jpg
Would you gamble your hard-earned dollars buying the S&P500 for an anticipated return of 2%?
Wouldn’t it be more prudential to just hide your money under a mattress?
Goldman: Here’s Where U.S. Investors Should Put Their Money for the Rest of the Year
4:03 AM PDT
April 2, 2015
Goldman Sachs Chief U.S. Equity Strategist David Kostin is out with his latest U.S. quarterly chartbook, which looks back on Q1 and offers some guidance for the rest of the year.
In terms of the U.S. market, Goldman is encouraging investors to look at indices other than the S&P 500, which isn’t expected to have much more upside by the end of the year.
“We expect the S&P 500 will reach 2100 by year-end, representing a 2% price gain from the current level. Given limited S&P 500 upside, we recommend investors buy the Nasdaq 100, which trades at a modest P/E premium to the S&P 500 (18x vs. 17x) despite having much higher expected EPS growth (14% vs. 5%),” said Goldman.
…
“Would you gamble your hard-earned dollars buying the S&P500 for an anticipated return of 2%?”
No! I would turn over ALL of my money to a Professional Money Manager who would promise to (somehow) earn for me a hefty return (in this ongoing less-than-hefty return environment) AFTER he subtracts (from the top) some hefty fees for himself.
I would make sure my Professional Money Manager puts all of my hard-earned money into American Funds’ “Growth Fund of America” for the following reason:
“The Growth Fund of America’s Class A shares come with a 5.75% front-end load, along with total ongoing fund expenses of 0.71%.”
http://theconservativeincomeinvestor.com/2013/12/12/should-you-hire-a-financial-advisor/
“…come with a 5.75% front-end load…”
Got moral hazard?
Wiki says:
“With over $1 trillion in assets under management (as of November 2010), American Funds is the third largest behind Fidelity and The Vanguard Group.”
Interesting fact: American funds are “SOLD”, and Vanguard funds are “BOUGHT”.
And both funds suck up large chunks of investor’s money.
I saw this and thought of the Suzanne researched this commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20n-cD8ERgs - 350k -
So I decided to make this Public Service announcement.
3 ways to mess up a home mortgage closing
By Holden Lewis • Bankrate.com
Want a lender to delay or even cancel your mortgage closing? Then change your “borrower circumstances” between the day you apply for and the day you close a home loan.
“Any change in circumstance could affect and delay a borrower’s closing on a transaction,” says David Adamo, CEO of Luxury Mortgage of Stamford, Connecticut.
Following are three things borrowers can do to mess up their next mortgage closing.
If you want to implode your impending mortgage, get a new credit card or auto loan.
Charge up credit cards
Change jobs
Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/3-ways-to-mess-up-a-home-mortgage-closing.aspx#ixzz3WMfbzRNb
Follow us: @Bankrate on Twitter | Bankrate on Facebook
Will the printing press save China’s economy?
China’s Swaps Cap Biggest Weekly Drop in Year as Market Expands
7:58 PM PDT
April 2, 2015
China’s one-year interest-rate swap completed the biggest weekly drop in almost a year as the government prepares measures to expand the money market.
Premier Li Keqiang said this week that social security funds will be allowed to buy certificates of deposit on the interbank market and municipal bonds. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expects a new system to insure banks’ deposits in May will require the central bank to cut rates that lenders use to borrow from one another to near those on deposits. The People’s Bank of China is set to remove the cap on interest rates paid on cash parked with lenders.
The cost of one-year swaps, the fixed payment to receive the floating seven-day repurchase rate, declined 30 basis points this week to 3.28 percent in Shanghai, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the biggest five-day drop since April 18. It fell four basis points, or 0.04 percentage point, Friday.
“Interbank liquidity tightness has eased recently thanks to the comfort signs sent by the government to bring more funds into the market,” said Huang Yanhong, an analyst at Bank of Nanjing Co. in Jiangsu province. “The central bank will continue to keep money rates reasonably low.”
The seven-day repo rate, a gauge of interbank funding availability, declined 52 basis points this week to 3.40 percent, a weighted average compiled by the National Interbank Funding Center shows. It fell for a fifth week, the longest streak since 2010, and dropped 17 basis points Friday.
The People’s Bank of China injected a net 5 billion yuan ($807 million) into the financial system in the last four days, adding funds through open-market operations for a second week, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
…
What’s up in the repo market, and is the situation international in scope?
Markets
Pressure in Repo Market Spreads
Stresses amplify price swings in government bonds
ENLARGE
By Katy Burne
April 2, 2015 6:23 p.m. ET
A shortage of high-quality bonds is disrupting the $2.6 trillion U.S. market for short-term loans known as repurchase agreements, or “repos,” creating bottlenecks for a key source of liquidity in the financial system and sending ripples through short-term debt markets.
Stresses in the repo market are amplifying price swings in government bonds and related debt markets at a time when many investors are reshuffling their portfolios around new interest-rate expectations, following a period of low volatility, traders and analysts said.
Although traders said the impact so far has been manageable, the broad concern is that scarcity in repos will pressure rates and could complicate efforts by the Federal Reserve to lift interest rates when the time comes.
Problems in the repo markets have been the subject of discussions at the U.S. Treasury, people familiar with the matter said. Since there is typically a strong relationship between repos and overall bond markets, the shifts can influence trading in everything from U.S. Treasurys to commercial paper, short-term IOUs taken on by companies.
“The less repo, the less liquidity in bond and other markets,” said Josh Galper, managing principal at consultancy and research firm Finadium LLC.
…
Paid $2.839/gal at Costco last night — and note that an additional $0.77/gal for the CA global warming tax and other taxes is layered on to the underlying real price of gasoline. Life is good at Costco gas pumps!
Drivers get global warming fee, plus tax
By Dan McSwain
5 p.m. Jan. 6, 2015
In this photo taken Nov. 12, 2014, Lydia Holland fills up at a gas station in Sacramento, Calif. The United States and China can look to California as an example of the costs and challenges of fighting global warming, since the state has imposed some of the world’s toughest air quality standards as it moves to lower emissions. The state has created a “cap-and-trade” system to impose extra costs on businesses that emit pollutants. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
California’s sales tax on gasoline has long provoked grumbling from consumers and watchdog groups.
Sales tax is calculated from the full retail price of gas, a figure that includes state and federal excise taxes. That makes the sales levy, at least in part, a tax on taxes.
The state’s new “cap-and-trade” fee, which is designed to combat global warming, is no different.
Commentary: More Dan McSwain columns about Business
Retailers pay the fee when distributors load tanker trucks, then the state requires gas station owners to collect sales taxes based on the full pump price.
“They are not calling it a tax, and these guys (wholesalers) are adding it to the cost of the fuel, so you are paying a tax on a tax,” said Max Castillo, owner of Aten Express, a convenience store and gas station in Imperial. “California is the leader of the nation in paying taxes.”
The new fee took effect on New Year’s Day, adding about 10 cents per gallon to the wholesale cost of gasoline and 12 cents for diesel.
Most consumers didn’t notice, because crude oil costs have been falling, taking pump prices with them. My local Costco was charging $2.36 a gallon for regular a day before and after the new fee took effect.
But the fee was certainly passed along to retailers, many of whom must refill their station tanks every day or two, Castillo said.
In California, the average pump price includes 76.87 cents per gallon in fees and taxes, according to the American Petroleum Institute, which tracks such costs nationwide.
…
So, does the global warming fee go to pay government worker’s pensions?
Dunno.
But I do know one thing: Money is fungible.
And another: There are no actual expenses associated with global warming. If anyone disagrees with this assertion, please itemize the costs.
It would at least let me get some ripe tomatoes put up before the frost.
$2.19 at our Costco this morning. Down from 2.22 last weekend.
r u one of those cheap folk who drive 20 miles to save 2 cents / gallon?
Pumps were packed at local costco as I drove by. People sit in line 15 minutes to save 50 cents.
It’s called planning $hithousePoet.
Now back to the data;
Oxnard, CA Sale Prices Crater 7% YoY; Excess Housing Inventory Balloons
http://www.zillow.com/oxnard-ca/home-values/
You have been posting that rubbish for years as people have made a boatload of money by buying low and selling high.
So basically your data is sh@T .
you need to become a stock picker.
Poet,
Take it up with Zillow, NAR and MLS…
Katy, TX List Prices Dive 6% As Oil Bust Spreads
http://www.zillow.com/katy-tx/home-values/
Citizen Four
https://thoughtmaybe.com/citizenfour/
My goodness.
Las Vegas y-o-y inventory has gone vertical
and there’s zombies, too (repost).
The zombie thing was fake, right?
Real. The guy was out of his mind on drugs.
phony scandals