Bits Bucket for April 30, 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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O.k., I’m terrified again. A house down the street from me was listed over the weekend and is already pending. Most of these little beach houses were built in the 50’s and 60’s… this one was built in 1935 and has window air units.
Just think about how terrified you’d be if you paid a 250% premium for a depreciating asset.
It would be very demoralizing to be a bubble watcher and live in SoCal right now. Prices shot right back up and at least two years until there’ll be a bargain in sight, if then.
It’s been “no bargains for at least two years” since at least 2000.
Well in areas close to the beach yes. In the IE by 2004 you were screwed and they put a floor in somewhere around 09-10 in any area that was actually livable. Some slumlords might have gotten bargains here and there in places like MoVal.
Yes it would.
Housing Analyst are you ones of those bitter millennial renters that can’t afford to buy a home in Southern California? Oh i forgot you live in your grannies basement playing video games all day.
Young home buyers face tough market in Southern California
Young home buyers have few affordable homes to choose from in SoCal, says new @zillow report
If you’re a 20- or early-30-something and want to buy a house in Southern California, well, just be thankful you don’t live in Honolulu.
That tropical paradise is the only housing market among the 96 largest in the U.S. where a smaller share of homes for sale are affordable to millennial buyers than in Los Angeles and Orange counties, according to a new report from Zillow.
The real estate website crunched its own millions of listings and income data for households headed by someone age 23 to 34. The website found that the typical millennial household could “afford” — defined as spending 30% of income or less — the monthly payments on just 26% of homes that were on the market in the first quarter. Nationwide, the figure was 70%.
“L.A. is just one of those areas where income growth has not been very strong and yet housing price growth has been fast,” said Skylar Olsen, a senior economist at Zillow. “L.A. almost always comes in at the top of the list for un-affordability.”
In this case, L.A. scored lower even than several pricier housing markets, including San Francisco. That’s in part because incomes here are lower, Olsen said, and in part because there may be less diversity in housing stock, with fewer lower-cost options on the market.
The challenges of buying in Southern California, Olsen said, also make it harder to rent, because many people who might be able to buy a house in other markets are still leasing already-sparse apartments here. As more 20-somethings move into the job market and out of their parents’ homes, those ranks of renters may swell further.
“Your rental market is experiencing a lot of pressure,” she said.
A release valve, of sorts, exists to the east. Zillow found that 53% of listings in the Inland Empire are affordable to millennials, still below the national average but twice as many as in L.A. But that comes with trade-offs, Olsen notes, trade-offs that young buyers may not find appealing.
“You pay more in transportation costs, gas and time,” she said. “Time is valuable. That’s time you could spend relaxing, or earning money.”
Another option for those who simply must own their house is to move out of Southern California altogether. In some markets, such as Pittsburgh, Buffalo and St. Louis, more than 80% of listings are affordable to millennial buyers, Zillow found.
A tropical paradise, though, they are not.
http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-young-home-buyers-face-tough-market-in-southern-california-20150429-story.html
“A tropical paradise, though, they are not.”
Wha…..? SoCal is not either. More like a desert oasis and that may be gone after one more year of drought.
I think I’m living in a degenerate gamblers empty skull, rent free.
Santa Clara, CA Sale Prices Crater Plummet 10% As Sellers Slash Statewide
http://www.zillow.com/santa-clara-ca/home-values/
Anywhere South of Ventura is a pit, a crowded, pit of mini malls and roads clogged with cars. Smart money left in the 90’s. Now you have just immigrants moving in. Last time I was in So OC I was amazed how it has been taken over by Middle East money.
Everyone is uptight and angry from sitting in traffic. It is like a 3rd world capital city. Not a good quality of life or a place to raise a family. Kids cant even ride bikes there any more. Time to make the 101 a toll rd and keep them away.
‘Everyone is uptight and angry from sitting in traffic. It is like a 3rd world capital city. Not a good quality of life or a place to raise a family. Kids cant even ride bikes there any more. Time to make the 101 a toll rd and keep them away.’
California is great to visit for the hiking. Living there, well, I don’t have a suitcase of money to make it happen. The beautiful thing is that each of us can find our own oil city. To some, California is the greatest oil city possibility they will ever know. For others, it is just another location for one of their several homes. I just don’t care for the congestion in the cities and the live and die in LA pace of things.
True, So OC looks like any other metro-plex strip mall world from DFW to Suburbs outside Chicago until you get to the beach. I will say though, due to better emissions you can at least see the mountains near Pasadena again.
So cal is much different than a lot of areas of CA.
Yosemite
Santa Barbara
San Luis Obispo
Carmel
Monterey
Marin
Napa … are all gems and nothing like So Cal.
I grew up in the OC in the 70’s when it hurt to take a deep breath in the summer if you were inland.
San Diego air is experiencing a favorable trend.
Air Quality Report by American Lung Association Shows San Diego Air is Improving
The San Diego and Imperial counties also did not make the list for top 10 most polluted cities for any pollutant in the new report.
By Samantha Tatro
A new report out Wednesday shows by most standards, San Diego air is improving, step by step. NBC 7’s Vanessa Herrera has the details. (Published Wednesday, Apr 29, 2015)
Updated at 7:15 PM PDT on Wednesday, Apr 29, 2015
San Diego’s air is getting a little better, year by year.
For the first time, San Diego did not make the nation’s list of top 25 Most Polluted Cities in an air quality report released Wednesday by the American Lung Association.
The San Diego and Imperial counties also did not make the list for top 10 most polluted cities for any pollutant in the new report.
Debra Kelley with the American Lung Association said the report means San Diego’s air has been improving in recent years.
“For the first time ever we are not on the list of the nation’s top 25 dirtiest cities, so that’s great,” Kelley said. “For the first time ever, we did not get an F in particle pollution.”
…
So Cal prices are way up. Getting time to become a locust.
You need a buyer first.
Remember….. I can ask $50k for my 10 year old Chevy truck but where is the buyer at that price?
So it is with housing.
Townhouse near me sold… they paid around $500K in 2008, just sold for $470K a few weeks ago. 3bd/3.5bath
Buy it for $3500/month or rent it for $2000.
That decision is easy.
California needs to build 100,000 more homes each year than it does now to ease housing costs, report says
California Housing Demand Craters 13% YoY; Inventory Balloons As Foreclosures Ramp
http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/State/State_Turnover_AllHomes.csv
or send the illegals back home and free up tons of rental properties.
“California needs to build 100,000 more homes each year than it does now to ease housing costs, report says”
Feeding the trolls, but…
We are starting from a deficit in CA, which started in earnest in the 90’s when we added 4MM in population, but only added 1MM housing units.
The estimate to keep up with population growth (which is approximately 400k per year) is to build 200-225k housing units per year. The last time hit that number was in 2006…the peak of construction. Since then, we have been running far fewer (the low was about 35k).
So I agree that we need to build more…BUT building 100k per more per year will not “ease” housing costs. We would just be treading water in terms of new housing demand, and the shortage that was built up over the past 25 years would still be causing problems.
Considering;
-Population growth is the lowest in US history per 2010 Census
-25 Million excess empty houses; 4.4 million of which are in CA
There is no deficit in housing.
Once all the come-lately investors in California housing try to cash out, there will be no more shortage.
“…they paid around $500K in 2008…”
Probably didn’t even pay off the “financed” sales commission. Losers!
http://www.drudgereport.com
A summary of what you can learn on this website:
Black people are all violent criminals
Climate change is not real
Hillary Clinton is a liar
Barack Obama is a muslim and a communist
Israel is America’s 51st state
Grow up.
I’m sorry but you can’t refute any of it. That’s what passes for a “conservative” platform nowadays. Whether you like it or not, it rallies the base.
There’s also plenty of links to stories about:
government fraud waste and abuse
The moral depravity of celebrities
The hypocrisy of the elite
IRS overreaching or scandal
Law enforcement over reaching or abuse
The surveillance state
Illegal aliens
Climate change has always been real.
Plus ca chose, plus ca meme chose.
To be fair, the “progressive” platform could be summarized as follows:
Call somebody racist
Call anybody who denies being racist a racist
“Climate change has always been real.”
Especially in pre-historic, pre-industrial times, when temperatures and sea levels varied by a large factor of any level of variation that has occurred or will happen since the advent of industrialization.
“Call somebody racist
Call anybody who denies being racist a racist”
That’s racis’
Drudge Report has broken the liberal stranglehold on the media and they give prominent coverage to stories the MSM consigns to the memory hole. Do they “rally the base” with inflammatory stories? Sure. But on the whole Matt Drudge has done a tremendous job of breaking through the oligarch-owned media’s journalist omerta when it comes to covering taboo subjects.
“Especially in pre-historic, pre-industrial times, when…”
…giant reptiles ruled a world full of pines and ferns, and the few mammals were scurrying proto-rats.
So we should fit right in, unlike most of our current fruits, veggies, and farm animals.
The Drudge Report is *safe* conservatism, it worships the state and it hates libertarians.
“Climate change has always been real.”
“Especially in pre-historic, pre-industrial times, when temperatures and sea levels varied by a large factor of any level of variation that has occurred or will happen since the advent of industrialization.”
Fantastic post.
giant reptiles ruled a world full of pines and ferns, and the few mammals were scurrying proto-rats.
Sounds like Hillary’s Democratic Convention.
Sounds like Hillary’s Democratic Convention ??
Ah….Another Hilary hater…Little bit scared eh Adan ?? It goes right up your rectum the thought that a “WOMAN” would preside as President over you doesn’t it ?? Likely right up there with being governed by a black man…Not to worry Adan…Rasmusson will soothe your fears…
If you are not bothered by Hillary’s obvious corruption and are willing to vote for her due to her old ovaries, you are just the type of person the globalists are looking for. However, do not complain about growing inequity in this country since you will have voted for it.
To be fair, the “progressive” platform could be summarized as follows:
Call somebody racist
Call anybody who denies being racist a racist
This itself is a Drudge meme.
If you are not bothered by Hillary’s obvious corruption and are willing to vote for her due to her old ovaries, you are just the type of person the globalists are looking for.
Hillary may be a globalist. The good news is that she’s not a socialist like Obama.
Hillary is the best candidate the GOP has. The big banks will continue to run the show with her at the helm.
Rand 2016!!
“Climate change has always been real.”
Yes, winter is colder than summer.
No brains, no headaches.
However, do not complain about growing inequity in this country since you will have voted for it.
If you voted for Reagan. The early 80’s is the turning point of when America embraced the failed-false religion of Trickle-down “economics”.
And the growing wealth inequality has increased under every president since then - including Obama. Why would it not? Of course it will continue. Because failed Trickle-Down is embedded in the structure of the American economy and a president alone cannot fix our mess without a pro-active, supportive Congress.
The problem is we moved away from supply side economics unlike china. We see in Brazil the results of your type of economics.
We see in Brazil the results of your type of economics.
Is it this? Brazil =
China = 
Brazil achieves a Happy Planet Index Score of 52.9 and ranks #21 of all the countries analysed.
Brazil’s HPI score reflects a relatively high life expectancy, relatively high levels of experienced well-being, and a moderately high ecological footprint.
China achieves a Happy Planet Index Score of 44.7 and ranks #60 of all the countries analysed.
China’s HPI score reflects a relatively high life expectancy, low levels of experienced well-being, and a moderate ecological footprint.
happyplanetindex dot org
Hillary may be a globalist.
Hillary Clinton admits that the CFR runs the U.S. Department of State
Sorry…
youtube.com/watch?v=-6TXcQpgC9Q
A completely subject left wing site. I would like to see Pew polled the Brazilians after this year and the decline of the economy. Brazil is moving from slow growth and declining standard of living over the last few years to an outright contraction. Yes, that is Brazilian economics and what I predicted five years ago.
http://www.happyplanetindex.org/
A completely subject left wing site.
Nope. I’ve posted from 3 sources - at least 2 academic level and international studies saying the Chinese are not happy.
that is Brazilian economics and what I predicted five years ago.
Wow. You’re good. A monkey flipping a coin 5 years ago could have “predicted” Brazil would have a recession “someday” after almost 15 years of economic growth.
Well done.
A monkey flipping a coin 5 years ago could have “predicted” Brazil would have a recession “someday” after almost 15 years of economic growth.
China has had 36 years without a recession but you are right by flipping that coin you might have been able to predict it too. Brazil essentially stopped growing three years ago and does not look like it ever will return to even 7% growth. As I said about China, I care about the economics because it impacts the world and I posted on economics which at least ties into a Housing blog.
just the type of person the globalists are looking for.
Globalists are looking for China pushers and apologists Adan.
Globalists Call on China to Set, Dictate and “Own the New World Order”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/20601-with-western-help-chinese-communists-build-new-world-order
…In 2009, billionaire financier and establishment powerbroker George Soros called for the communist regime ruling mainland China to “own” what he referred to as the “New World Order.”
In 2015, it has become clear that Beijing is stepping up to the plate as its agents infiltrate the full architecture of existing “global governance” institutions, even while adding their own totalitarian-minded tentacles to it. And despite the effort to portray near-bankrupt Western governments as helpless and confused spectators in the whole process, the globalist European and American establishment’s fingerprints are all over the rise of the Chinese Communist autocrats, and the accompanying decline of the West.
…When it comes to “global economic governance,” the communist regime has been even bolder. For years, Beijing has been lobbying for a “de-Americanized” so-called “New World Order” in which it would have, among other powers, far more influence over institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. More than a few supposed U.S. allies, and even the Obama administration, have jumped onboard the bandwagon to give the totalitarian regime, along with the Kremlin, a greater leadership role at the IMF at U.S. expense. The only obstacle now is a U.S. Congress that refuses to sign off on the scheme, but is under major globalist pressure to submit.
Top Communist Chinese officials and central bankers have long been pushing for the IMF to unveil a truly planetary currency to replace the U.S. dollar as the global reserve.
I agree with parts of that article but disagree vehemently with others. Yes China is pushing its currency to displace the dollar, I have talked about it numerous times and the left on this board has disputed it. But the globalists are primarily the U.S. and British Bankers and they are very upset that China is creating its own world wide banking system and acting as an alternative to them.
China has had 36 years without a recession
You really like pushing Communist countries don’t you? China is not a “free-market” Country. China is a top-down government controlled perversion of free-markets that is parasitically killing actual free-market countries. You’re acting like you are a free-market man is a joke.
Bad Soros paid poster
You’re projecting. You are carrying Soros’ water on China Adan. From the article I posted above:
“…In 2009, billionaire financier and establishment powerbroker George Soros called for the communist regime ruling mainland China to “own” what he referred to as the “New World Order.”
In 2015, it has become clear that Beijing is stepping up to the plate as its agents infiltrate the full architecture of existing “global governance” institutions, even while adding their own totalitarian-minded tentacles to it. “
I get the feeling ABQDan went to school to learn how to argue ( JD) But for some reason no one hires him to do so on their behalf, so he argues on here to stay in shape.
Problem is he is just another FoxBot with Hannity talking points. Not an independent thinker.
Namaste
Actually, I have an in-house position and since I give good legal advice that is followed, I often do have time on my hands. But you are somewhat correct, I do like to argue to stay in practice and this blog does help me to do that, because there are a lot of intelligent people on this blog. But then there is Lola who does waste my time.
I do like to argue to stay in practice
You are not good at for anyone paying attention Adan. And you try to put things past people because you think you are smarter than them which you’re not.
Like yesterday’s calling the Great Recessions of 2008 a “Cyclical Recession” with your goal of lessening Obama’s role of leading USA out of it, when in fact the Great Recession was a much more rare and serious recession caused by a global financial crisis - much more grave than a “Cyclical Recession”. And you know it Adan.
I agree with parts of that article but disagree vehemently with others.
Well, I guess if you disagree “vehemently” we have to believe you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOnRHAyXqYY
We can argue about recessions, Reagan faced much more than a “cyclical recession” he faced stagflation which according to the Philips curve was “unpossible”. The fact that Obama’s recession was mostly cyclical was proven by the fact that it ended in the Summer of 2009 without any significant policy of Obama taking effect. Reagan did not whine, he worked with a primarily Democratic Congress throughout his presidency, he just fixed things through compromise. Obama was offered many reasonable compromises he certainly should have been able to push through Bolles/ Simpson or the even more favorable compromise for liberals offered by Boehner but instead he refused any legitimate compromise and the economy suffered. Obama just was not up to the task of being president. Reagan would have loved to have had the congress Obama had.
The fact that Obama’s recession was mostly cyclical
You should learn English and some economics. The Great Recession was mostly caused by a financial crisis of too-easy money and lessening of financial regulations which had not happened before ever to that extent. If something had not happened before it cannot be labeled “cyclical”. A cyclical recession mostly refers to the business cycle.
Reagan did not whine
Reagan whined all the time - about non-existent “welfare queens” about big government (which he grew more) about unions etc etc.
Obama just was not up to the task of being president
That’s why he’ll only be elected twice.
That’s why he’ll only be elected twice.
So was W. So that is evidence of competency?
OK the link coming is not from a liberal source but it is dead on correct.
Not everyone, but Conservatism is a disease just like Liberalism.
UDC Law Students Can Defer An Exam If Providing Legal Assistance In Baltimore
http://www.law.udc.edu/news/229051/UDC-Law-Students-Can-Defer-An-Exam-If-Providing-Legal-Assistance-In-Baltimore.htm
Need some advice from fellow bloggers. Been renting for 23 years and just had to move from one house down the street to another house because the owner wants to sell. For the first time in 23 years, I am concerned about getting my security deposit back and of course it’s because a Realtard is involved as the landlord lives in a different state. The Realtor told me I “had to” have the house painted and replace the rugs before I left. I told her to go scratch. I rented the place for 4 years and before that, the landlords daughter and family lived in the place for 6 years. So the rugs and paint are now 10 years old and of course have normal wear and tear. Anybody have any thoughts on if I should be responsible for replacing the rugs and painting?? The lease doesn’t say anything of the sort. Thoughts and ideas if I have to fight this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
If its normal wear and tear, tell them to pound sand.
At which point they will probably keep your deposit. Which you will have to go to court to try to get back. Only you can decide if its worth the hassle.
Me, Id walk, and let them try see how much painting contractors cost. Except in this case, they already know, because they are trying to get you to do it for free.
No matter what, fully document the consition of the place when you leave, with videos/photos.
Ive been renting off an on for a long time, with zero problems getting my deposits back……..until recently. Like the rest of US business, they aren’t seeing any growth in sales, so they are trying to make money off dinging their customers with a multitude of charges/fees/penalties.
First ask the actual owner to give your deposit back.
Small claims court.
In Arizona, everything is done by statute. Read up and be ready to go to small claims. Everything must be communicated in writing or the court will deem it hearsay. Send via certified mail w/ return receipt, meeting the date requirements.
Okay if the guy is going to keep your deposit why would you pay the last months rent? (Would he ding your credit? Do you care?)
Don’t some state like Texas have triple damages for withholding of security deposits?
Wouldn’t the realtor want things as honky dory as possible so they could start showing the place as soon as possible? Would he want you showing up at the first couple of open houses to inform potential buyers of all of the problems with the house that you know about from having lived in it for 4 yrs?
Depends where you live, if you live in the desert southwest where it’s not gonna rain for a while, drill some holes in the roof. They won’t know until it rains next fall!
J/k, kinda.
Like others said, document with pictures, learn the state rules, and go to small claims.
the landlord is responsible for maintain his rental property. unless they can prove willful damage.
In CA no you don’t have to replace or repaint normal wear and tear if you have rented the place for more than 2 years. But they try anyway figuring you won’t take them to court.
Heck , with the laws about squatters now, you might be able to sit in the house for a while , until they pay you to get out.
Nolo Press has some excellent books on tenants rights, well worth it, also some good articled at their site.
(FWIW they also have others on buying and selling and they are great too)
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/renters-rights
One in five olds dies broke:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102623047
A nation of broke @ss loosers
By the time the Fed gets done destroying the value of the dollar, most pensioners will probably die of hunger despite having billions in Bernanke Bux.
I’d have thought it’d be a lot higher than 1 in 5 dying broke. More like 50% plus. From the same article regarding the topic of the Middle Class and whether they have 401ks or are otherwise benefiting from the stock market pump:
“Last fall, a Harris poll conducted for Wells Fargo found that a third of respondents between ages 25 and 75—with a household median income of $63,000—weren’t contributing anything to a 401(k), an IRA or other retirement savings account. Half of those over age 50 said they won’t even have enough money to “survive” on in retirement.”
A third ain’t contributing, but 2/3 are. The middle class does have 401ks or other things that are benefitting from the stock market.
You need to look up how much they’re contributing to their 401(k). Here’s one of the statistics on the situation.
Last year, the typical 55- to 64-year-old household had just $111,000 saved in their 401(k)s and IRAs, which would translate into just $500 a month in retirement income, according to a report from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research that analyzed recent Federal Reserve data.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/18/retirement/retirement-savings-income-inequality/index.html
I don’t doubt there’s a huge problem with them not being prepared for retirement. But they did benefit from the recent stock runup. Better to have $110K in there now than the $55K it was a few years ago.
If the money is in stocks and if the price of stocks is “on a permanently high plateau”.
$500 a month, on top of $2,000 or so in SS could look like enough to make a retirement decision. Then if the $500 goes away significantly, it could prove to be a bad decision.
Making long term decision based on inflated “bubble wealth” is a dangerous trap. On approaching retirement, stocks might not be the best idea. There isn’t anything Blue Chip anymore.
BTW, if the Fed wasn’t robbing savers blind with ZIRP, that $500 a month would be more like $1,000.
BTW, if the Fed wasn’t robbing savers blind with ZIRP, that $500 a month would be more like $1,000.
You’re assuming that they have their money all in bonds, while Oliver assumes that they’re all in stocks.
Yes
You can always retire in Latin America or some other 3rd world country and live like a king .
You can always retire in Latin America or some other 3rd world country and live like a king .
Not really. Creature comforts: nice cars, iToys, nice clothes, quality food actually cost about the same. Sure, you will be better off than most of the natives, but that doesn’t really say a whole lot.
Or imagine you live in SA like Lola.
The kidz are not alright:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2015/04/29/the-catch-22-many-millennial-parents-face/?tid=HP_business?tid=HP_business
America has reached a demographic tipping point, the only people having kidz are the religious, immigrants, the poors, and the wealthy. Over half of American adults are now single. And there is no “pent-up demand for $500,000 starter homes. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
Everyone is still having kids same as ever, just a little later in life for some. The problem is not too few kids.
Aging ovaries and a finite number of eggs say otherwise.
Egg freezing as a government entitlement?
Wrong.
Great Recession takes toll on US fertility
Wall Street Journal, April 28 2015, 10:40
THAT the Great Recession of 2007-09 made Americans have fewer kids is no surprise, but a new study shows how big the toll was.
Birth rates for US women in their 20s dropped more than 15% between 2007 and 2012, just before and after the recession, the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy research group, said in a new analysis of data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released Tuesday.
Among Hispanic 20-somethings, the birth rate dropped 26%. Non-Hispanic blacks? 14%. By contrast, non-Hispanic white 20-somethings saw an 11% decline.
All told, American 20-somethings had children in 2012 at a pace that would lead to 948 births per 1,000 women over their lifetimes, meaning fewer than one child per woman — the “slowest pace of any generation of young women in US history,” the institute said.
Put simply, millennials could end up having smaller families than Generation Xers — and partly due to the recession.
Past downturns, most notably the Great Depression, temporarily depressed the nation’s fertility rate.
In some cases, women who postponed childbearing simply made up for lost time later; in especially bad recessions, many women may simply end up with smaller families.
Six years after the recession ended, a rebound in US fertility has yet to show up in the numbers. For every 1,000 US women of childbearing age — 15-44 — there were just 62.5 births in 2013, down from 63 births in 2012 and a new record low, data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention show.
…
Just taking a little longer, talk to me in 10 years. Sure there’s a little decline from tight money but the small change is all hype. Not really significant. Similar to another topic often hyped here.
What incentive do “nice guys” have to wife up women who ignored them when they were young and cavorted with bad boys instead?
The unintelligent are breeding like rabits, while the intelligent are an endangered species. For evidence of our descent into IDIOCRACY you need look no further than the last two elections, where 95% of the electorate self-identified as imbeciles by voting for Obama, McCain, or Romney.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icmRCixQrx8&spfreload=10
Barron’s
Why Byron Wien is worried about slowing population growth
Published: Apr 29, 2015 4:12 p.m. ET
By Byron Wien
Bloomberg
Byron Wien: We need to focus on the implications of modest population growth on economic expansion.
We were all lucky to be born at the right time. Over the past fifty years, world gross domestic product growth has been averaging 3.6%, driven by employment increases and productivity improvements in roughly equal proportions. An exhaustive and important study by the McKinsey Global Institute concludes that over the next 50 years population growth will decline to 0.3% annually. If productivity continues to contribute 1.8%, overall growth will decline to 2.1%, a rate 40% less than during the past half-century. The implications of this slowdown on global changes in the standard of living and investment opportunities could be enormous.
The developing world can improve its growth potential by adopting operational practices and technology used by the advanced countries (that is, by catching up), but the United States, Europe and Japan will continue to depend heavily on innovation to approach anything like their historical rate of growth. Those subscribing to Mohamed El-Erian’s concept of “the new normal” or Harvard Professor Alvin Hansen’s “secular stagnation” may turn out to be right, but for reasons somewhat different than they originally thought. I have been worried about a lack of demand causing a slowdown in growth. I had not thought that the main problem might be that there aren’t enough people out there to do the buying.
…
Hence the “savings glut”.
In DFW for a meeting.
Have I mentioned before how much I hate coming to DFW?
As usual, got tp experience the efficiency of the Texas Highway Department:
Three mile long traffic backup during the evening rush, US 75 South closed down to a single lane……for six guys with picks and shovels working a SINGLE pothole.
Another miles long backup at 9pm on I-635, once again, four lanes choked down to a single lane. Only activity was a few guys working on am off ramp.
Nice to see nothing has changed……
Please stop by Dealy Plaza and send us a picture from the grassy knoll!
Or get some good Texas barbecue to reward yourself for putting up with it.
Or get some good Texas barbecue to reward yourself for putting up with it.
People from Kansas City don’t usually find Texas barbecue that “rewarding“.
A perfect place for people who hate mass transit and taxes. I’m sure lots of people there have the same reaction to coming to NYC.
One thing that is happening is that people actually have been moving to the places that suit them. Lots of them in fact moving to DFW or NYC, depending on what they want.
Who hates mass transit? People with issues that’s who.
In any case Dfw has the largest light rail system, by length, in the US. 7th by ridership. It isn’t NYC subway, or Bart, but it is not accurate to say Dallas hates mass transit.
Like someone said, traffic is a bear at time (not for me since I commute ~1 mile to work) and locals have discovered the usefulness of rail.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DART_Light_Rail
“Have I mentioned before how much I hate coming to DFW?”
Dallas? Try some bird watching. Enjoy!
Are corporations havn one big @ss party with shareholder equity?
My brother in San Diego jar sold his house in less than a week, pretty much got his (inflated) asking price. He was happy.
Now all he has to do is find and buy a new house.
From elation to depression in one swoop.
Riddle me this, AB Dan: if everything is so hunky dory in China, why are authorities suddenly banning large public gatherings?
http://news.yahoo.com/festivals-large-gatherings-canceled-beijing-105456773.html
Your story answers that question, should China use less draconian methods, yes but it is still evolving:
“Chinese officials also have been promising tighter crowd controls after a New Year’s Eve stampede killed 36 people along Shanghai’s famed Bund riverfront due to inadequate policing “.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/business/finance/Chinese-investors-may-hit-153m/shdaily.shtml
15.3 million out of 1.357 billion … the 1.1%.
Economy crashing, stock market soaring. How will it end?
“China stocks rose to fresh seven-year highs on Thursday, with weaker-than-expected factory activity data reinforcing expectations of fresh government stimulus.
The flash HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) showed that China’s factory activity in April contracted at its fastest pace in a year, suggesting that economic conditions are still deteriorating.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/23/markets-china-stocks-close-idUSZZN2RFQ0020150423
Crashing? You can repeat it over and over but the economy is not crashing, that is why the people of China are so happy, they are getting close to a ten percent increase in their incomes year after year, what is not to like? 7% may not be 10% growth but it is great growth.
Consider the word “contraction”. It’s a credit balloon.
that is why the people of China are so happy
Your “truthieness” is again apparent. The Chinese are not “happy” and happiness does not simply boil down to your worshiping of economic “growth”. According to studies by many institutions, the Chinese are not happy-campers at all.
China is unhappy
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/07/china-is-unhappy/
…. By any measure, China has experienced tremendous economic growth since 1978. Living standards have improved markedly as has China’s performance across a wide range of social indicators — poverty reduction, school enrollment rates, life expectancy. And yet, Li and Raine’s research shows a negative correlation between happiness and economic growth in China. Chinese are less happy than northwest Europeans, Mexicans, Thais and other Southeast Asians.
Li and Raine also found that China’s happiness has declined over time.
The article speaks for itself and is current.
Whether the Chinese are happy with their love life does not impact me.
Whether Chinese are happy about their love life does not impact me. The article speaks for itself and I accurately stated it.
I think I lost three messages sorry if they eventually pop up. I could not care less about whether the Chinese are satisfied with their love lives. You can hardly be said to be trying to mislead anyone when you include a link to the entire article. Finally, the article speaks for itself and clearly was confined to whether they are happy with the economic situation and was current unlike your article. Once again it is you that is being misleading by accusing me of being misleading.
I could not care less about whether the Chinese are satisfied with their love lives. You can hardly be said to be trying to mislead anyone
There. You are misleading again right there. There are many factors that the Chinese are unhappy about according to studies, but you try to mislead that they are only unhappy with their “love life”.
Bad lawyer.
The factor that my link addressed and is of importance to this blog is whether they are happy about the economics of the country and are confident going forward, this will impact the GDP. You want to change the subject to other factors since China is booming and Brazil is declining and it is the direct result of Brazil favoring demand side economics over China’s supply side economics. Bad Soros paid poster.
The factor that my link addressed and is of importance to this blog is whether they are happy…..
The factor that is important to this blog is knowing that you are misleading and tricky and deal in slight-of-hand deception Adan. But you do it badly.
And you are simplistic. For example, you’re constant harping on economic growth numbers as if they are the end all to everything including happiness. They are not.
For example: With America’s Trickle-Down failure most all of our economic “growth” goes to only the top 1% so who cares if we are “growing” if most the benefits don’t get passed around.
And Brazil having a “downturn” is not as big of a deal as it would have been 15 years ago because in those 15 years, Brazil has brought almost 50 million out of poverty and mostly ended starvation hunger. Brazil shared the wealth much better than most developing countries the past 15 years. And that drives you nuts.
Is that an unusual action for a totalitarian communist state to take?
The Chinese love capitalism more than Americans, are overall happy but do have concerns about government corruption but there is no revolt brewing, if that was the implication of your post:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/10/chinas-government-may-be-communist-but-its-people-embrace-capitalism/
The Chinese love capitalism more than Americans,
That would be the perfect propaganda the globalists would want to push. It would be in their script.
“In 2015, it has become clear that Beijing is stepping up to the plate as its agents infiltrate the full architecture of existing “global governance” institutions, even while adding their own totalitarian-minded tentacles to it. And despite the effort to portray near-bankrupt Western governments as helpless and confused spectators in the whole process, the globalist European and American establishment’s fingerprints are all over the rise of the Chinese Communist autocrats, and the accompanying decline of the West.
Thenewamerican dot com
Excerpt from article that will soon post:
A broad majority of Chinese (89%) think things are going well with their economy, making them the happiest on this measure compared with all other 43 countries surveyed this year. And they believe things will only get better. Eight-in-ten say the economy will continue to improve over the next 12 months. And 85% think the younger generation will be better off financially than their parents. This optimism stands in stark contrast to findings in Europe and the U.S., where widespread majorities believe their children will be worse off going forward.
Maybe people who do not work 14 hour days have too much time to bitch and moan.
That’s the product of what you call globalism. Western one percenters shipped a lot of jobs and a lot happiness to China.
Yes they did. Then, the Chinese refused to play by the globalists’ rules and started to compete against them and refused to lower their savings rate.
A broad majority of Chinese (89%) think things are going well with their economy
The Chinese are “happy” about their economy only. On most all of life’s most important aspects, the Chinese are not happy at all. China is a depressing country.
Switzerland tops 2015 World Happiness Report; Japan is ranked in 46th place (China took 84th spot.)
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/04/24/world/offbeat-world/top-world-happy-index-switzerland-scandinavia/#.VUJyPGbkcfp
NEW YORK – Switzerland is the happiest country in the world, closely followed by Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Canada, according to a global ranking of happiness unveiled in New York on Thursday.
Japan ranked 46th, one place above South Korea. China took 84th spot.
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Sachs%20Writing/2012/World%20Happiness%20Report.pdf
Why did the Orioles and White Sox play ball in a stadium closed to the public?
Answer me that.
“Riddle me this, AB Dan: if everything is so hunky dory in China, why are authorities suddenly banning large public gatherings?”
Now you’ve gone and done it. Thanks a pantload.
Chuck Fina.
Less people are likely to get shot at small gatherings.
Less people are likely to get shot at small gatherings.
You are getting China confused with Chicago. They both do start with Ch so I guess that is confusing.
THE TED OFFENSIVE
Don’t be a thug: My 8 rules for success
Exclusive: Ted Nugent counters ‘our embarrassing president’s’ social-justice rhetoric
http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/dont-be-a-thug-my-8-rules-for-success/
World Net Daily is a Christian Zionist website.
gotta keep your mind open…..even if you have no religion to worship
Christian Zionism is anti-semitic, because it treats Jewish people like they are pets or mascots, just tools to he herded together into Israel so that Christian Zionists can selfishly hasten their own Rapture.
You should read those 8 rules. They should be taught in every school 1st period K-12. Someone asked a while back about what “morals” should be taught in schools. Here’s a good start.
(Except the one about staying away from drugs might cut down on your customer base).
You can’t teach morals in school. That would be like having church in school.
Empathy - if that’s what you mean by morals - are innate and can be encouraged/cultivated by modeling good behavior without any reference whatsoever to “God” or other mythology.
What does that mean, “good behavior”? Isn’t that a concept from those so-called mythologies?
blue…you know ive said this for years and it will come true
WE NEED A WAR ON EBONICS…..there is really only one way to end all this….it’s behavior and functional illiteracy that is the overwhelming problem..not race or politics.
World Net Daily is a Christian Zionist website.
They publish Ted Nugent. That’s enough to put them on the disregard list.
Wango Tango!
Is my baby alive?
Why should we care what a washed up 2nd rate rock star thinks?
Well, he’s a chickenhawk draftdodger who calls for nuking Iraq, and he’s fathered multiple children outside of his multiple marriages. So he’s a natural to teach us morality.
Those that can’t do, teach.
“Democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders is running for President, and unlike Hillary or Fauxahontus, he has a long track record of standing up for the middle and working classes against crony capitalism. Testify, Bernie!
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/29/bernie-sanders-i-am-running-for-president.html
“This is a rigged economy, which works for the rich and the powerful, and is not working for ordinary Americans. … You know, this country just does not belong to a handful of billionaires.”
Dennis Kucinich already said and did that. And then his district got re-mapped out of Congress.
If Sanders starts getting traction, expect him to go down in flames (literally) like Paul Wellstone. You heard it here first.
When 95% of your electorate are vegetables, true independents like Bernie Sanders or Ron Paul don’t have a hope in hell of getting elected, even though they’re speaking truth to power.
Dennis Kucinich already said and did that. And then his district got re-mapped out of Congress.
To take care of Bernie the PTB will merge hippy, organic Vermont with the libertarian leaning New Hampshire to create a new state that can be dominated by the Republicrat duopoly.
China’s ‘Rent-a-Foreigner’ industry is booming
Business Insider By Natasha Bertrand
April 28, 2015 5:16 PM
Foreigners are being hired to pose as celebrities by Chinese real estate developers to help agents sell property in “ghost towns” by making them appear more animated and worldly, according to a new mini-documentary released by the New York Times.
“There are many places in China, especially in remote places, where the houses are really overvalued,” a real estate agent from the outskirts of Chongqing told the New York Times. “But there is this trick: make it international.”
(Screengrab/New York Times) These two foreigners were hired by a specialty firm in China to pose as British guards outside of an empty development to make it look more “international.”
The client can pick and choose who they want to pose at their event, down to the foreigners’ nationalities and skin colors.
“Now, it is true that the price of white people is expensive,” the same agent told Borenstein. “But it makes the place feel classier.”
If a client can’t afford a white foreigner, he or she is advised to go with a black actor instead who have “a very open personality, yet are quite cheap.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-rent-foreigner-industry-booming-211600882.html
Here’s the original article and the mini-documentary, definitely worth watching. The scruffy louts playing the British guards are straight out of a Monty Python sketch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/opinion/rent-a-foreigner-in-china.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-regionv&_r=1
Yeah, I saw that. I wonder how long those of European ancestry who are tired of teaching English will be able to ride that train?
Another corrupt socialist cesspool running out of other people’s money. Watch and learn, California.
http://www.businessinsider.com/venezuelas-imploding-economy-has-hit-a-new-low-2015-4
Ron Paul: the real war on the middle class.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/ron-paul/politicians-hate-the-productive/
‘Muricans who continue to vote for Wall Street’s Republicrat duopoly, aka corporate statism, always seem shocked when their jobs get outsourced to cheap foreign labor. Hey idiots, this is what you voted for.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2915904/it-outsourcing/fury-rises-at-disney-over-use-of-foreign-workers.html
It’s interesting to watch outsourcing move up the career ladder, taking all those jobs whose holders were sure that foreigners could never do. Sure they can wash our cars and cook our food, but they’ll never take my (fill in the blank here) job, it’s too (fill in the blank here).
STEM jobs are actually some of the easiest to outsource/offshore/H1b.
The only security is being able to walk across the street and get hired for the same or more money. If you have that you have a very secure job.
STEM workers are becoming a dime a dozen. We’re churning out huge numbers of STEM grads now in this country, with plenty of STEM grads overseas.
And, yes, STEM jobs are easy to outsource.
Law is next. Also very easy to outsource.
“The 14th Amendment, King told the panel, “did not contemplate that anyone who would sneak into the United States and have a baby would have automatic citizenship conferred on them.” Added King, “I’d suggest it’s our job here in this Congress to decide who will be citizens, not someone in a foreign country that can sneak into the United States and have a baby and then go home with the birth certificate.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/house-republicans-try-to-gut-a-key-constitutional-principle/2015/04/29/a365c4c4-eeb6-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html?tid=HP_opinion?tid=HP_opinion
Glad this is all being done now after 20 million are already here.
Make it retroactive by at least 20 years. That’ll get some attention.
As I said before on this blog the drafters of the 14th amendment never intended it to apply to people that owed allegiance to another government so the people just sneaking across the border to drop a baby would not create citizenship for that baby. It is why in the 1920s, it took a law to make Native Americans citizens almost 50 years after the amendment.
My memory’s a bit hazy here, but I seem to recall that the 14th amendment had something to do with protecting the children of former slaves. In that respect, it made sense.
The gross misinterpretation of the amendment has allowed colonizers to splat out progeny and get paid for it.
dan you are a lawyer…..what if the child is born an American citizen but the illegal parents are not allowed to stay here……so they have a choice give the child up for adoption or let the child live with relatives or go back home, and then at 18 the now adult can sponsor the parents.
Yes, that is all true. It is why with the present interpretation of the 14th amendment, they are considered anchor babies.
So according to the globalists and their puppets in the present judiciary it took a law to make Native Americans in this country despite living her thousands of years before the founding of the nation but illegals that just pop out a baby on our soil confer citizenship on that baby?
From Wikipedia:
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, also known as the Snyder Act, was proposed by Representative Homer P. Snyder (R) of New York and granted full U.S. citizenship to America’s indigenous peoples, called “Indians” in this Act. (The Fourteenth Amendment already defined as citizens any person born in the U.S., but only if “subject to the jurisdiction thereof”; this latter clause excluded anyone who already had citizenship in a foreign power such as a tribal nation.) The act was signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge on June 2, 1924.[1][2][3] It was enacted partially in recognition of the thousands of Indians who served in the armed forces during World War I.
should be: law to make Native Americans citizens despite living here
So according to the globalists and their puppets
I love it when adamant China pushers deride “globalists”.
It really “ups” their credibility on their other pet issues.
China is following very nationalistic policies just like Russia and that is why they are both denounced on a regular basis in the US MSM controlled by the globalists. If you could do more than post liberal “talking points” you would figure that out.
Comrad Pelosi’s permanent Democrat supermajority isn’t going to build itself, you know.
“The 14th Amendment, King told the panel, “did not contemplate…
This is good. I don’t want amendments that contemplate.
By supporting Obama you show that you do not want presidents that contemplate.
My preference would be for the government to just do what the people want. The American people are polled on a regular basis, so it’s easy to determine their preferences. Thus it would be unnecessary for presidents to do much contemplation.
I only voted Obama because I thought that I was he was better than the alternatives. His performance in office has been rather unimpressive, but things would have been worse with McCain or Romney. Thus there are plenty of things about his administration which are worthy of criticism. However, when his most vocal critics rant about thing birth certificates, socialism or teleprompters, it’s fun to point out their nonsense.
Rev. Al Sharpton, other leaders to meet with mayor to discuss plans to support Baltimore
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-civil-rights-leaders-summit-20150430-story.html
(FYI Washington Post reporting another prisoner riding in the van with Freddie Gray alleges that Freddie was trying to injure himself inside the van, but never mind that, cuz Al Sharpton needs to get PAID)
The Al Sharpton shakedown machine swings into action at the first whiff of civil unrest.
http://peakoil.com/production/the-u-s-production-decline-has-begun
http://eaglefordshale.com/news/texas-drilling-permits-down-50/
Excerpt from link:
Deferred completions (drilled uncompleted wells) are not discretionary for most companies. Producers entered into long-term rig contracts assuming at least $90 oil prices. Lower prices result in substantially reduced cash flows. Capital is only available to fulfill contractual drilling commitments, basic costs of doing business, and to complete the best wells that come closest to breaking even at present oil prices.
Much of the new capital from junk bonds and share offerings is being used to pay overhead and interest expense, and to pay down debt to avoid triggering loan covenant thresholds.Hedges help soften the blow of low oil prices for some companies but not enough to carry on business as usual when it comes to well completions.
The decrease in well completions provides additional evidence that the true break-even price for tight oil plays is between $75 and $85 per barrel. The Eagle Ford Shale is the most attractive play with a break-even price of about $75 per barrel. Well completions averaged 312 per month from January through September 2014 when WTI averaged $100 per barrel (Figure 2). When oil prices dropped below $90 per barrel in October, November well completions fell to 214. As prices fell further, 169 new producing wells were added in December and only 118 in January
George Soros - the megaspeculator and oligarch who plucked Obama from well-deserved obscurity and groomed him to be a presidential candidate, and who is now backing Hillary Clinton (surprise surprise) - may owe as much as $7 billion in taxes. Of course the chance of him ever paying that amount is about the same odds as Obama campaign “bundler” Jon Corzine ever serving a day in prison for ripping off MF Global account-holders to the tune of $1.6 billion.
Keep on voting for that crony capitalism, retards.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-30/billionaire-hypocrisy-soros-may-owe-7-billion-taxes
The IRS will put him on a payment plan, $100 a year.
As I proposed here some time ago, George Soros, Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson, and the Koch brothers should have a poker game with a $1,000,000,000 buy-in, and let the winner pick the next president.
Interesting to see that he second quarterly report by a big staffing firm the other day was disappointing. Shareholders are scattering now.
I think staffing peaked over a year ago. I could see myself that direct hire jobs with bennies are not as bad anymore relative to what paltry hourly rates recruiters pay. That showed me staffing is saturated.
The stock price went exuberant still over the last six months. Until today. I am glad I took most of the gains and have only about ten percent of the shares I had two years ago.
Market cycles always happen. In every asset class.
JPM/Chase has sent a blizzard of paper our way in a flailing attempt to rectify a $50 mistake due to misreading a figure on my wife’s deposit slip, which resulted in $50 incorrectly credited to our account. After five phone calls, we still haven’t cleared up the problem. This striking degree of ineptitude proves that the government isn’t the only place where incompetence is found.
If it’s a $50 credit to your account, I’d just ignore the whole thing and let them fix it, or not. If it’s still there in a few months, it’s yours.
Here is a healthy sign that the U.S. economy is back on track.
Higher interest rates are soon to follow!
Market Pulse
Chicago PMI back in positive territory for April
Published: Apr 30, 2015 9:49 a.m. ET
By Steve Goldstein
D.C. bureau chief
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Chicago PMI jumped in April to a reading of 52.3 from 46.3 in March, to return above the 50-mark signaling expansion. A double-digit gain in the new orders component led to the advance. “The bounce back in activity at the start of Q2 is consistent with a resumption of normal activity following the poor weather and port strikes earlier in the year. In percentage terms, the April jump is similar to last year, although the level of activity is lower overall,” said MNI Indicators Chief Economist Philip Uglow in a statement. The Chicago PMI is the last of the regional indicators before the Institute for Supply Management’s national gauge, which is due for release on Friday.
It seems as though traders and speculators are not too excited about the prospect of higher interest rates…especially gold speculators.
Howard Gold’s No-Nonsense Investing
Opinion: This longtime stock bull is now concerned about earnings and rising rates
Published: Apr 30, 2015 6:01 a.m. ET
With U.S. stocks, bigger is no longer better
By Howard Gold
Columnist
No sooner did the three major U.S. equity indexes approach new all-time highs last week than reality intervened and stocks sold off.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA, -0.51%), S&P 500 (SPX, -0.57%), and Nasdaq Composite (COMP, -0.72%) have been stuck in narrow trading bands for the last six months. Every time the bulls appear to be winning, share prices retreat again.
…
On Wednesday the Commerce Department reported GDP grew just 0.2% in the first three months of 2015, at the low end of economists’ estimates.
That was due mostly to bad weather and weak exports because of the strong dollar. It followed several disappointing releases, starting with the March jobs report, that showed a much softer economy than Wall Street is anticipating.
…
Meanwhile, the Federal Open Market Committee concluded its meeting Wednesday with a statement that cited “transitory factors” for the economy’s recent weakness, but left open the possibility of stronger growth and a higher federal funds rate later this year.
But the strong dollar, weak earnings, and the prospect of rising rates have turned one longtime bull on U.S. stocks more cautious.
Richard Bernstein, CEO and chief investment officer of Richard Bernstein Advisors, a New York-based investment firm with more than $3 billion under management, is well-known for his tenure as bearish chief investment strategist for Merrill Lynch in the 2000s. He left Merrill in 2009, started his own firm, and became bullish on America.
In fact, Bernstein was one of the earliest and most outspoken bulls on U.S. stocks. When I interviewed him in 2011 and 2012, he declared U.S. stocks were in a secular bull market while emerging markets were so over. It was a truly contrarian call, since so many big-name investors hated America and loved the BRICs, but it was spot on.
Bernstein’s ardor toward U.S. equities has cooled a bit lately, however, and he’s put some of his clients’ money elsewhere — like another early U.S. bull, Jack Ablin of BMO Private Bank, whom we profiled here in February.
In a recent interview, Bernstein said he still thinks the U.S. is in a secular bull market, but he’s concerned about the strong U.S. dollar, weak earnings, and higher rates.
…
Currencies
Dollar rises off lows on early glimpse of a second-quarter rebound
Published: Apr 30, 2015 10:08 a.m. ET
By Joseph Adinolfi
News editor
Barbara Kollmeyer
Markets reporter
Hiroyuki Kachi
U.S. wages grew at a faster-than-expected clip in the first quarter.
The U.S. dollar rose off its lows against the euro Thursday after signs of rising wages and falling unemployment offered a glimpse of a second-quarter rebound, lending credibility to the Federal Reserve’s argument that the first quarter’s slowdown was largely due to transitory factors.
The dollar shot higher against the Japanese yen and British pound after the reports, as investors bet the strong data enhance the likelihood that Fed policy makers could vote to raise interest rates at their June policy meeting.
In an updated policy statement, released Wednesday, Fed policy makers implied that an interest-rate increase in June remained a possibility.
The dollar (USDJPY, +0.41%) traded as high as ¥119.54 after the data, its highest level against the yen in four sessions, from ¥119.05 late Wednesday in New York. The pound (GBPUSD, -0.48%) weakened to $1.5364, compared with $1.5428 Wednesday.
The yen had strengthened against the dollar earlier in the global day after the Bank of Japan left monetary policy unchanged.
The euro (EURUSD, +0.38%) fell to $1.1128 from a session-high of $1.1256, which also was the shared currency’s highest level since late February. It traded at $1.1117 late Wednesday.
The employment cost index, a closely watched measure of wage inflation, climbed 0.7% in the first quarter, beating economists’ expectations for a 0.6% gain, according to a survey conducted by MarketWatch.
According to the Department of Labor, jobless claims fell to a seasonally adjusted 262,000 last week, the lowest number in 15 years.
Earlier in the session, the euro held its ground after a gauge of eurozone inflation showed no growth in April, up from negative 0.1% in March, and German jobless claims fell by a smaller-than expected 8,000.
In other currency trading, the New Zealand dollar softened after policy makers from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand decided to keep rates on hold. It (USDNZD, +0.70%) fell to (NZDJPY, -0.58%) 75.85 cents, from 76.87 cents before the announcement.
Graeme Wheeler, the governor of New Zealand’s central bank, said in a statement that the New Zealand dollar remains unjustifiably overvalued.
The WSJ Dollar Index (BUXX, +0.28%) a measure of the dollar’s strength against a basket of major currencies, rose 0.4% to 85.55.
…
Is today’s stock market selloff a mere taste of what’s to come when and if the Fed ever follows through with long-heralded plans to raise interest rates off the zero bound?
Bring it!!!
2% Inflation Rate Target Is Questioned as Fed Policy Panel Prepares to Meet
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
APRIL 28, 2015
WASHINGTON — The cardinal rule of central banking, in the United States and in most other industrial nations, is that annual inflation should run around 2 percent.
But as the Federal Reserve prepares to start raising its benchmark interest rate later this year to keep future inflation from exceeding that pace, it is facing persistent questions about the wisdom of the rule and the possible benefits of significantly increasing its target.
Higher inflation could disrupt economic activity, but it also would enhance the Fed’s power to stimulate the economy during recessions. And some experts say the struggles of the Fed and other central banks to provide enough stimulus since the Great Recession suggest they could use more room for maneuvering.
“Most developed countries’ central banks have experienced difficulty in providing sufficient monetary stimulus to spur a robust recovery in their economies,” Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said in a recent speech in London. “This may imply that inflation targets have been set too low.”
As the Fed’s policy-making committee concludes a two-day meeting in Washington on Wednesday, officials were expected to discuss how much longer the central bank should hold its benchmark rate near zero, as it had done since December 2008. Officials had planned to start raising rates between June and September, but growth has fallen short of the Fed’s expectations this year, which could delay the liftoff.
Inflation has mostly remained well below the 2 percent target since the global economic downturn. The Fed’s preferred measure, published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, rose just 1.4 percent during the 12 months ending in February.
But Fed officials want to start raising rates in anticipation of stronger growth and faster inflation. William C. Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said last week that “hopefully” the Fed would make its first move this year.
There is little prospect that any major central bank will raise its inflation target in the foreseeable future. Two percent is a global standard and the official line — in Japanese, German and English — is that it was carefully chosen, and that the stability of the target is a virtue in its own right.
There is also considerable political opposition to higher inflation. Some conservative economists and politicians argue that central banks should aim to keep inflation well below 2 percent.
But the broaching of the inflation targeting issue by Mr. Rosengren and other prominent officials — including Olivier Blanchard, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund — suggests an emerging willingness among policy makers to revisit an issue that for more than a generation has been treated as all but written in stone.
The case for raising the 2 percent target rests on the counterintuitive idea that moderate inflation is a good thing, helping to grease the wheels of commerce and prevent an outright fall in prices. This is widely accepted by economists. It is the reason that central banks aim for a modest inflation rate, rather than keeping prices at the same level from year to year. The question is, How much?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/29/business/economy/2-inflation-rate-target-is-questioned-as-fed-policy-panel-prepares-to-meet.html
“…the possible benefits of significantly increasing its target.”
AARP members on fixed income pensions are going to love that idea!
P.S. In times of high inflation, it’s the transfer of wealth from old folks with lots of dollar-denominated savings into the hands of young workers which provides economic stimulus.
Due low CD yield for almost a decade now, old people are in stocks and they own houses, they will do much better in a high inflation environment than many believe. Unless wages keep up with the inflation, highly unlikely it will mean the young will remain renters and the old will be homeowners. Plus they receive social security automatic COLAs so their income may come closer to keeping up with inflation than the young.
Project Syndicate
Opinion: Economic policy is turned inside out
Published: Apr 30, 2015 10:22 a.m. ET
Financial engineering blows bubbles, when structural reforms are needed, says Stephen Roach
By Stephen S. Roach
Columnist
Bloomberg
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (Project Syndicate) — The world economy is in the grips of a dangerous delusion. As the great boom that began in the 1990s gave way to an even greater bust, policy makers resorted to the timeworn tricks of financial engineering in an effort to recapture the magic.
In doing so, they turned an unbalanced global economy into the Petri dish of the greatest experiment in the modern history of economic policy. They were convinced that it was a controlled experiment. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The rise and fall of post-World War II Japan heralded what was to come. The growth miracle of an ascendant Japanese economy was premised on an unsustainable suppression of the yen. When Europe and the United States challenged this mercantilist approach with the 1985 Plaza Accord, the Bank of Japan countered with aggressive monetary easing that fueled massive asset and credit bubbles.
The rest is history. The bubbles burst, quickly bringing down Japan’s unbalanced economy. With productivity having deteriorated considerably — a symptom that had been obscured by the bubbles — Japan was unable to engineer a meaningful recovery. In fact, it still struggles with imbalances today, owing to its inability or unwillingness to embrace badly needed structural reforms — the so-called “third arrow” of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic recovery strategy, known as “Abenomics.”
Despite the abject failure of Japan’s approach, the rest of the world remains committed to using monetary policy to cure structural ailments. The die was cast in the form of a seminal 2002 paper by Federal Reserve staff economists, which became the blueprint for America’s macroeconomic stabilization policy under Fed Chairs Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.
The paper’s central premise was that Japan’s monetary and fiscal authorities had erred mainly by acting too timidly. Bubbles and structural imbalances were not seen as the problem. Instead, the paper’s authors argued that Japan’s “lost decades” of anemic growth and deflation could have been avoided had policy makers shifted to stimulus more quickly and with far greater force.
If only it were that simple. In fact, the focus on speed and force — the essence of what U.S. economic policy makers now call the “big bazooka” — has prompted an insidious mutation of the Japanese disease. The liquidity injections of quantitative easing (QE) have shifted monetary-policy transmission channels away from interest rates to asset and currency markets. That is considered necessary, of course, because central banks have already pushed benchmark policy rates to the once-dreaded “zero bound.”
But fear not, claim advocates of unconventional monetary policy. What central banks cannot achieve with traditional tools can now be accomplished through the circuitous channels of wealth effects in asset markets or with the competitive edge gained from currency depreciation.
This is where delusion arises. Not only have wealth and currency effects failed to spur meaningful recovery in post-crisis economies; they have also spawned new destabilizing imbalances that threaten to keep the global economy trapped in a continuous series of crises.
Consider the U.S. — the poster child of the new prescription for recovery. Although the Fed expanded its balance sheet from less than $1 trillion in late 2008 to $4.5 trillion by the fall of 2014, nominal gross domestic product increased by only $2.7 trillion. The remaining $900 billion spilled over into financial markets, helping to spur a trebling of the U.S. equity market (SPX, -0.71%). Meanwhile, the real economy eked out a decidedly subpar recovery, with real GDP growth holding to a 2.3% trajectory — fully two percentage points below the 4.3% norm of past cycles.
…
Why U.S. stocks are near highs even as fund investors flee
Published: Apr 30, 2015 8:21 a.m. ET
U.S. equities see eighth week of fund outflows
Money keeps flowing out of U.S. stocks into international ones.
By Wallace Witkowski
Reporter
Thanks to stubborn fund managers and record corporate buybacks, U.S. stocks remain near all-time highs even as money continues to trickle out of U.S. shares and into international equities.
For the eighth week in a row, long-term mutual funds saw more money flowing out of U.S. stocks and into international stocks, according to the Investment Company Institute. Even so, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA, -0.68%) the S&P 500 index (SPX, -0.69%) and the Nasdaq Composite Index (COMP, -0.95%) are all less than 2% off their records and are all up for the year to date.
Meanwhile, European stocks (SXXP, -0.47%) are up close to 16% this year.
For the week ended April 22, U.S. stocks saw $3.4 billion in net outflows from long-term mutual funds, while international stocks saw $6.53 billion in inflows, the ICI estimated. For the year to date, net outflows for U.S. stocks are $13.79 billion, while inflows for international stocks are $41.12 billion.
Those figures, however, don’t count exchange-traded funds. In April alone, mutual funds and ETFs that focus on international stocks saw $31.8 billion in net inflows, while U.S.-focused funds and ETFs shed $15.4 billion, according to TrimTabs Investment Research.
…
Crushing.Housing.Losses.
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/real_deals/2015/04/denver-county-residential-property-values-soar.html
Oh my….
Denver, CO Sale Prices Plummet 14% YoY; Inventory Ramps Up On Rising Foreclosures
http://www.zillow.com/denver-co-80218/home-values/
Senator Tom Cotton rallies the base:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/29/sen-tom-cotton-calls-iranian-official-zarif-cowardly-in-tweetstorm/
No “smaller government” or “lower taxes” happening here
Keep you cotton picking hands off Tom.
Who pays for the ground invasion of Iran that Tom Cotton is advocating?
I think he wants to put it on layaway in the great American tradition.
I think he wants to put it on layaway in the great American tradition.
Public debt:
The tradition began by Ronald Reagan by breaking tradition.
REAGONOMICS……Government receipts flattened thanks in part to the large, permanent tax cuts that served as one of the top accomplishments of President Ronald Reagan’s first term. Spending jumped on both defense and social programs. Deficits exploded, breaking with the US tradition of only running large deficits during wartime.
The Long Story of U.S. Debt, From 1790 to 2011, in 1 Little Chart
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/the-long-story-of-us-debt-from-1790-to-2011-in-1-little-chart/265185/
And he won the cold war doing and restored the economy with a record setting recovery and he did this all with 1.5 trillion dollars of debt, what has Obama done with his 9 trillion dollars of new debt?
what has Obama done with his 9 trillion dollars of new debt?
Reagan wins because Reagan tripled the debt while Obama just doubled it.
“Deficits (under Reagan) exploded, breaking with the US tradition of only running large deficits during wartime.”
Yes, I do not think you could have an intelligent response. Obama has bankrupted the nation and has nothing to show for it. He will not pass the next president a modernized military like Reagan, a restored industrial base or even the ability to cut the military due to reduced threats.
He will not pass the next president a modernized military like Reagan,
The average US Defense spending per capita under Obama is much higher than under Reagan. And Democrats didn’t pass along 2 wars for Reagan to finish.
a restored industrial base
Reagan could restore an industrial base because the USA still had one. However, Supply-side and Trickle-Down ruined USA’s industrial base well before Obama took office.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/08/28/defense-spending-in-the-u-s-in-four-charts/
From a liberal source such a pathetic recovery:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/stagnant-economy-spells-trouble-democrats-091500272.html
So what do you think R.J.?
http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-mayor-unveils-initial-fiscal-reforms-192343772–business.html
Comment by Blue Skye
2015-04-29 15:53:52
Carl,
I am pretty sure there is a lot less power delivered from the ethanol than from gasoline. My engine doesn’t cough or knock on it, but I don’t think it drives as far.
The old 454 in my Airstream won’t run on anything but high octane. Got any motorhead advice on that?
Yes, you need more ethanol per unit of air to get your mixture correct compared to gasoline. But as someone with complete control over my boost and timing I can use more boost and about 6 more degrees of timing to take advantage of the higher octane and increased charge cooling due to ethanol. For me it’s a lot more power. On a normal flex fuel vehicle it’s probably not being taken full advantage of, and on anything else that can’t adapt to it, you’re just running really lean.
GSFixer has more experience than me with the old iron, but if your 454’s appetite for octane has changed over time I’d guess you have some carbon buildup in the combustion chamber. If it’s always needed it I’m not surprised. I like the old stuff, but chamber design has come a long way in the last 40 years. If you really want to run cheaper gas try backing off the timing a couple more degrees. Of course you lose some power doing that.
It has been octane hungry since ‘84 when it was built, according to the previous owner. It doesn’t knock on regular, but it won’t go over 35 mph.
That doesn’t make sense to me because I doubt an 84 RV setup had the ability to detect knock and pull timing, but so be it. If you wanted to run E85 all the time you could take advantage of it in your tuning, but since it can be difficult to find sometimes I wouldn’t want to do that with an RV. I think you need to just keep it tuned up and run premium if needed and enjoy it as-is :-).
If I owned one and the lack of power was driving me crazy and I had money to burn I’d consider converting to fuel injection and supercharging it, but it would probably make more sense to upgrade to a newer model instead. Even the modern small block V8s make WAY better power than an 84 454.
The lack of power only drove me crazy until I got to the next gas station. It’s fine on premium. It is all old school, no electronic adjustments. I am not likely to repower. Someone suggested all I needed to do was put new heads on. I could do that myself but don’t believe it will let me run regular.
Carl,
I tricked out my drafting chair into a low rider. It’s still top heavy at 52″ tall but I got 6″ chrome casters, a 4 foot round chromed foot rest and I mounted a bucket seat on it in lieu of the regular seat and back.
Cheetoos holder on board?
That’s right….. And another on the right side for grass-fed Krispy Kremes.
Speaking of top heavy I’ve got a friend with a Briggs powered bar stool he likes to take to the track to get a laugh out of everybody between passes. Drove it once. A little scary. I think I’ll stick to modified Rascals.
Here’s what I’m thinking…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy5rkw4SeP4
Here’s what I’m thinking…
70MPH Mobility Scooter in the SNOW
My mother has one, and drives like that in the house. She’s taken chunks off the edges of the kitchen’s Formica countertops, and I don’t know how the hell I’m going to fix that before we leave.
Crazy Glue.
Crazy Glue.
I wish. It’s worse than that. I stopped into a rental/flip that’s being done up the block to ask them if they had a counter top they were getting rid of. They said sure, but it wasn’t the same. Tough to match 37 year old Formica (harvest gold-ish). I’ll think of something.
Only in Florryduh!
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/Naked-paranoids-begging-police-to-save-them-6232828.php
Boom-flakka-flakka-flakka.
“FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — One man ran naked through a Florida neighborhood, tried to have sex with a tree and told police he was the mythical god Thor. Another ran nude down a busy city street in broad daylight, convinced a pack of German shepherds was pursuing him.”
Just. wow.
Iron Ore Heads Toward Its Next Cliff
The recent rally in iron ore prices is built on shaky foundations.
As China comes off a stimulus-fueled construction boom, iron-ore demand is suffering. Here, a Chinese steel plant is seen. Photo: CHINA DAILY/REUTERS
By Liam Denning
April 29, 2015 12:09 p.m. ET
One of the crueller aspects of a hangover is how you can occasionally fool yourself into thinking you have recovered even though many hours of crushing misery remain. The 2.1 billion-metric-tons-a-year iron-ore market is actually dealing with two related hangovers.
First is the slowdown in China, the economy that consumes about 60% of iron ore and is coming off a stimulus-fuelled construction boom. Second is the massive expansion in supply predicated on China’s fascination with building never abating.
…
Oops…
“Five years after Rio de Janeiro became the first South American city to be awarded the Olympics, preparations for the 2016 Games have been damned by a senior International Olympic Committee official as the “worst ever”.”
“with just over two years until the first athletics events in the Estádio Olímpico João Havelange, where the roof fell in last year, there are concerns that the Games will suffer a similar fate.”
“Work has not begun at Deodoro, a complex of eight temporary Olympics sports venues, and is well behind on the course that will host golf’s return to the Games for the first time in more than a century. Water pollution remains a concern for sailing and other sports.”
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/apr/29/rio-2016-olympic-preparations-worst-ever-ioc
Whatever were they thinking?
“with just over two years until the first athletics events in the Estádio Olímpico João
The Olympics are not 2 years from now. The Olympics are next summer. Why pull out articles that are a year old? Trying to be tricky like Adan? Whatever were you thinking? Here’s the new deal-from this year.
IOC chief ‘very satisfied’ with progress for Rio 2016 Olympics…“I am very satisfied,” Bach told reporters in Copacabana on Tuesday.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/ioc-chief-very-satisfied-with-progress-for-rio-2016-olympics/article23178983/
There you go. Not tricky, just mistaken.
One of the Koch brothers is losing his grip on climate denial… he’s starting to crack…
“For the record, Koch says this of climate change: “You can plausibly say that CO2 has contributed” to the planet’s warming, but he sees “no evidence” to support “this theory that it’s going to be catastrophic.”"
[ http://goo.gl/PzhdDG ]
Like an alcoholic who moves from “I don’t have a problem” to “I drink too much but I’m managing it.” A first cautious step towards recovery and acceptance of rational science.
…and a few days ago Trump called Obama an “African American.” (no longer a Kenyan)
baby steps with those who have blind faith…
He is just starting to listen to the same scientists I listen to, who have said for more than 25 years that man has a role but it is a minor role in the warming since 1880.
Bloomberg TV’s Alix Steel *was* really hawt, then she cut her hair short and now she looks like a man
Oil prices up by another 2% today. Yawn. Maybe the bears will have a decent rig report tomorrow since we are already far below the number of rigs to maintain production.
http://news.yahoo.com/oil-prices-rise-further-114503726.html
But I thought Biden said we were winning? Get out a map and look how close Ramadi is to Baghdad:
http://www.iraqinews.com/features/ramadi-suffers-shortage-of-fuel-and-gas-after-isis-seized-ramadi-gas-plant-says-anbar-council/
Free Sh!tters are refusing to pay back their student loans from (worthless) for-profit universities because, surprise surprise, they can’t get jobs with useless degrees in the Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs economic “recovery.” So of course that entitles them to be deadbeats, er, “debt strikers,” and of course Obama or Hillary or Jeb in their benevolence will declare $1.2 trillion in student loans “forgiven” (meaning, transferred to middle class taxpayers) since they can’t have their bankster puppetmasters left holding the bag on all those uncollectable loans.
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-student-loan-debt-striker-has-applied-to-300-jobs-and-still-is-unemployed-2015-4
Corinthian Colleges, a massive for-profit college network, is closing its remaining campuses, meaning 16,000 students have uncertain futures since they won’t necessarily be able to transfer their credits to another school.
But the closure could ultimately help current students, according to an organizer with the Corinthian 100, a group of graduates who have asked the Department of Education to cancel their student loan debt.
“I think it means that debt strikers have helped shut down a predatory institution … and that’s a pretty big deal,” Corinthian 100 organizer Ann Larson told us.
Latonya Suggs, a former student at an online program of Everest College, a Corinthian school, called her education experience a “scam” and said she’s happy nobody else will enroll in these colleges.
Free Sh!tters are refusing to pay back their student loans from (worthless) for-profit universities because, surprise surprise, they can’t get jobs with useless degrees
How could a “free sh!tter” not “refuse” to pay back a student loan if he could not get a job?
But they are not “free sh!tters”. They took out massive debt to attempt to become productive workers. They bought the con job of the current American economic lie.
the Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs economic “recovery.”
Whether you like him or not, Obama didn’t cause America’s economic structural mess. This is decades in the making. The USA economy was hallowed out by the Fed-Goldman Sachs’ “free-market” trickle-down tripe long before Obama. And any time Obama tried to attempt to address the structure, he was called a Commie or some other nonsense that defies reality.
And any time Obama tried to attempt to address the structure, he was called a Commie or some other nonsense that defies reality.
Are you completely delusional? Who presided over the bailout of Wall Street? Obama hasn’t lifted a finger to rein in the Fed’s deranged money-printing and limitless “stimulus” to the financial sector and Wall Street. Our national debt has ballooned to $18 trillion on his watch. Wealth inequality has never been greater. So how exactly has he tried to “address the structure”?
Who presided over the bailout of Wall Street?
Hank Paulson, The Fed and Bush began it months before Obama.
Our national debt has ballooned to $18 trillion on his watch.
Recession, BushTaxCutsForTheRich, 2 wars. It was in the bag.
how exactly has he tried to “address the structure”?
The ACA, trying to eliminate TheBushTaxCutsForTheRich etc.
Are you completely delusional?
No. Revisit history. But are you?
‘it months before Obama’
And then all those crooks were rounded up and put away.
I’m so sick of this crap.
And then all those crooks were rounded up and put away.
I’m so sick of this crap.
I agree with that. - one of Obama’s greatest failures.
He has many Lola.
“failures”
No, you are wrong on that. Not a failure at all. He didn’t try to do that so he did not fail. A failed do-right he is not.
Odd, I don’t remember O trying to address the structure. I don’t remember him being called a commie. I do remember him being Wall Street’s bitch.
I don’t remember (Obama) being called a commie.
Right.
“Wall Street’s bitch”
more right.
Odd, I don’t remember O trying to address the structure.
It’s odd that your memory is selective. If this is not Obama addressing America’s economic structure, (As where did Republican Theodore Roosevelt) nothing would be to you.
Obama Strikes Populist Chord With Speech on G.O.P. Turf
OSAWATOMIE, Kan. — Laying out a populist argument…President Obama ventured into the conservative heartland on Tuesday to deliver his most pointed appeal yet for a strong governmental role through tax and regulation to level the economic playing field.
“This country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share and when everyone plays by the same rules,” Mr. Obama said in an address that sought to tie his economic differences with Republicans into an overarching message.
Infusing his speech with the moralistic language that has emerged in the Occupy protests around the nation, Mr. Obama warned that growing income inequality meant that the United States was undermining its middle class and, “gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can make it if you try.”
“This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class,”
….Mr. Obama purposefully chose this hardscrabble town of 4,500 people, about 50 miles south of Kansas City, Kan., where Theodore Roosevelt once laid out the progressive platform he called “the New Nationalism” to put forth his case for a payroll tax cut and his broader arguments against the Republican economic agenda in what his aides hoped would be viewed as a defining speech.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/us/politics/obama-strikes-populist-chord-with-speech-in-heartland.html?_r=0
He’s Wall Street’s BitchBoy Lola. Just like the asswipe before him.
Jon Stewart calls out neo-con propagandist masquerading as a real journalist Judith Miller on her shilling for Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al to push the nation into the invasion of Iraq in 2003 - considered by many to be the greatest strategic blunder in US history.
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/30/jon_stewart_smacks_down_judith_miller_you_drove_us_into_the_devastating_iraq_war/
That’s interesting. Many people might say that greatest strategic blunder in Japan’s history was the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, when we talk about it we usually talk in terms of blunder.
I meant to write that we usually don’t call it a blunder.
It was a tactical success and a strategic blunder.
Anyone lurking from Northwest Georgia (Cartersville or Rome)?
Q: Can a .1 percenter lead the Democrats? A: Yes, when 95% of the electorate are stupid, a majority can easily be bamboozled by a snake oil peddler like Hillary.
http://townhall.com/columnists/emmetttyrrell/2015/04/30/can-a-onepercenter-lead-the-democrats-n1992247?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
Can a .1 percenter lead the Democrats?
Yes.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy did a fine job fighting for the poor and middle-class. (But Hillary is no JFK.)
when 95% of the electorate are stupid
That is statistically and mathematically unpossible.
Being a 99 percenter and voting for crony capitalist water carriers such as Obama, McCain, Romney, or HillaryJeb is prima facie evidence of stupidity.
Being a 99 percenter and voting for crony capitalist water carriers such as Obama, McCain, Romney, or HillaryJeb is prima facie evidence of stupidity.
A 99 percenter voting Democrat is much less stupid than voting Republican.
See:
Citizens United, TaxCutsForTheRich while starting 2 was etc.
Anecdotal observation I made today. I used to recreational ride my bicycle about 4 years around my area. Have not really rode that route since then, maybe once a year I drive the roads on a leisure drive. Took a drive today along the 20 mile+ route I used to bike. I saw a lot of land being cleared, trees cut down w/stumps left, etc. in places that in prior years were just wooded lots. In other words, it is looking like lately, perhaps 2015 is the major awakening, that developers and banks have decided now is the time to build. I mean, the sites being developed almost are like mushrooms popping up out of nowhere in these wooded areas I had gotten used to seeing on my bike rides. I do not think it is some kind of pent up pressure for housing, but what do I know. A building lot was developed across the road from my apartment building this winter. They erected a house in about 2 months. The front yard and driveway are yet to be put in place and there is a for sale sign posted for it. In other words, the house was built on spec. I live in the Portland, ME area.
Just wondering if these are signs of irrational speculative market development. Money has to find a home. Truly, is the belief that real estate is a no-brainer to invest in if the money can not find returns in anything else?
Seeing the same situation every morning on my daily commute route. It’s as though someone rang a bell to alert the builders that the time is ripe for rolling out the next wave of spec homes.
The area I live in has had a rash of development this past year. On one road I drive to work, it has been feral for about a mile, with woods on both sides of the road. Now, a climbing gym is being built there. Land has been cleared in adjacent lots. Tree stumps all over the place. The area looks like a non-descript typical pine state Maine stretch. Only thing is the road is a feeder to the turnpike from a state highway. Very strange. Some kind of bell has been rang. Of course, the town loves the added tax-base. But, the traffic will get that much worse. Plus, this area is priced for Boston money it seems IMHO. I am amazed how many nice cars and SUVs are in this area. This is not the appalachia portion of Maine.
Three financial hurricanes headed our way.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/04/28/three-hurricanes-headed-our-way-no-where-to-hide/
Stay out of debt, or unthinkable for players, get out of debt.
Hugs for Thugs
Recently heard on NPR: “Thug” is code for the “N” word unless a black person uses it, in which case it means something else that makes it OK for them to say it.
It’s racis’ of me to post this article, cause I’m white and the title has the word ‘Thug’ in it.
The Racially Charged Meaning Behind The Word ‘Thug’
April 30, 2015 5:25 PM ET
P.S. “Thug” is OK for white folks to say provided you say “jack-booted” first.