Bits Bucket for May 23, 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.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Region VIII
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20150523_053958-kY2uDbx6.jpg
A field of pot plants?
That doesn’t look like Florida.
Greets from lush, green, rainy San Diego.
http://picpaste.com/pics/20150523_082349-oI6TIvo5.1432394860.jpg
Did the rain dent the drought?
Every little drop helped
By Karla Peterson
6:10 p.m. May 21, 2015
Last week’s rains didn’t exactly create rivers and waterfalls in the region, but in low-lying areas like the Old Mission Dam in Mission Trails Regional Park, the welcome water supply to the San Diego River is keeping that part of the county green for now. — Peggy Peattie
With record rainfall coming at an unexpected time, San Diego made some weather history this month. So what is our drought-survival forecast now? The same as it ever was, with scattered reasons to be temporarily cheerful.
“I tell you what, I’m not complaining at all,” said Burnet Wohlford, who grows citrus and avocados throughout the county. “It’s been a huge help. I always think of every raindrop as a penny, and this has saved a lot of pennies.”
First, the factoid deluge. Thanks to the two storms that drenched Southern California earlier this month (and not including the rain we might be getting today), San Diego’s rainfall is at 88 percent of normal for the year. We are having our wettest May in 94 years. At 2.35 inches and counting, it has rained more this month than it did in January, February, March and April, combined.
…
Region VIII
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20150523_103133-PDMLYftT.jpg
buy low, sell high!
Default:
Failure to make the mortgage payment within a specified period of time. For first mortgages or first trust deeds, if a payment has still not been made within 30 days of the due date, the loan is considered to be in default.
People who live paycheck to paycheck with no savings are living with a high risk of default.
Americans Low Savings Rate A Bad Sign for Good Economy
By Andrew L Yarrow,
The Fiscal Times
April 26, 2015
We’re supposed to be enjoying an economic recovery since the Great Recession of 2008-2009 – yet many economists have questioned whether the last five years have been much of a “recovery.” Judging from the mood of the American people and their personal financial habits, it hardly feels like one.
Although the economy has been on the upswing, people haven’t been saving. While the overall savings rate ticked up between 2009 and 2012, it has fallen since then. Forty-four percent of Americans are either in debt, have no savings at all, or have only enough savings to tide them over for up to three months if they lose their jobs, according to an Assets and Opportunity report last year.
A recent Bankrate report found that nearly half of Americans are saving no more than 5 percent of their income, while one in five (or 18 percent) is saving literally nothing at all. A quarter of middle class households (those earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually) are saving about 15 percent of their income to fund their retirement or an emergency savings account, the study also found.
Why can’t Americans, whose savings rates have fallen over the last 35 years and save far less of their incomes than most Europeans, Japanese, or Chinese, save even during a supposed recovery?
Despite headlines about relatively healthy GDP growth of about 2.2 percent and falling unemployment, the sad reality behind these positive economic statistics is that wages haven’t risen for most Americans since 2000. While headlines decry Europe’s sclerotic economy, where average wage growth has lagged behind America’s since the 1970s, averages deceive. If one subtracts the spectacular income gains of the top 1 percent in the United States, wage growth among the bottom 99 percent has been less than in France, a country plagued by and derided as a stagnant economy, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
At the same time that wages and personal savings have stagnated or fallen, fewer and fewer American workers are offered employer-provided pension plans that provide some economic security in retirement. That leaves Social Security, which 22 percent of married retirees and 47 percent of those who are single rely on for at least 90 percent of their income.
…
Everything is fine. And if one of the economic metrics goes south and blows up the equation (divide by zero, heh heh), we’ll just adjust that right out.
There are very good reasons why the prices on certain items in the grocery store (like milk) don’t really seem to change.
Does it feel like we are living in a science fiction novel?
Doubleplus good!
Control the narrative.
Forward!
“Forty-four percent of Americans are either in debt, have no savings at all, or have only enough savings to tide them over for up to three months if they lose their jobs, according to an Assets and Opportunity report last year.”
Similar to Romney’s 47%.
Effective age:
An appraiser’s estimate of the physical condition of a building. The actual age of a building may be shorter or longer than its effective age.
Will the shanty be standing in 30 years?
What about all the recently built empty high rise housing towers in China?
Here’s my prediction: In thirty years, many will go the way of Pruitt Igo.
You are obsessed with your wrong predictions about China.
Big picture:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2015-05/23/content_20798263.htm
AB Dan, if you’ll be kind enough to post your address, I’d like to send you the perfect fashion accessory for one as enthralled with China as you are. Heck, you can wear it when you post, as long as you promise not to have, er, sexual sensations.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/China-Chinese-PLA-Soldier-Red-Army-Green-Cap-Mao-Hat-/140881000874?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&var=&hash=item20cd2979aa
It is not love but an ability to look past prejudices and see what really is going on. Mao was the biggest mass murderer in the history of the world but it does not change the reality of the economic progress made by China. Knowing your enemy or potential enemy is important, how much did we underestimate Japan including their pilots and planes just prior to WWII?
‘how much did we underestimate Japan including their pilots and planes just prior to WWII’
Dan-istory.
Really Ben, did we not underestimate Japan? Do we not say things like the Japanese pilots were too nearsighted to fly? Did we not get our butts kicked during the early part of the war due to the Zero out flying our planes?
Next you’ll be telling us it was a “surprise attack”.
“It wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, and it ain’t over now.” — Blutto, “Animal House.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep-xgd_eETE
It is your blog, but I can assure you few people have talked to more WWII veterans of the Pacific theatre than I have from Navy personnel that I know from Coronado, CA to Navajo Code talkers, I have met in New Mexico and Arizona or read more books on the subject. But I do not see the point of debating this. I think we seriously underestimated Japan apparently you do not, I am willing to leave it at that.
” I can assure you few people have talked to more WWII veterans of the Pacific theatre than I have”
That’s rather delusional.
‘I think we seriously underestimated Japan’
You’re talking about the sanitized TV version of that war.
‘On November 25, 1941 Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto sent a radio message to the group of Japanese warships that would attack Pearl Harbor on December 7. Newly released naval records prove that from November 17 to 25 the United States Navy intercepted eighty-three messages that Yamamoto sent to his carriers. Part of the November 25 message read: “…the task force, keeping its movements strictly secret and maintaining close guard against submarines and aircraft, shall advance into Hawaiian waters, and upon the very opening of hostilities shall attack the main force of the United States fleet in Hawaii and deal it a mortal blow…”
‘When Thomas Dewey was running for president against Roosevelt in 1944 he found out about America’s ability to intercept Japan’s radio messages, and thought this knowledge would enable him to defeat the popular FDR. In the fall of that year, Dewey planned a series of speeches charging FDR with foreknowledge of the attack. Ultimately, General George Marshall, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, persuaded Dewey not to make the speeches. Japan’s naval leaders did not realize America had cracked their codes, and Dewey’s speeches could have sacrificed America’s code-breaking advantage. So, Dewey said nothing, and in November FDR was elected president for the fourth time.’
‘According to Stinnett, the answers to the mysteries of Pearl Harbor can be found in the extraordinary number of documents he was able to attain through Freedom of Information Act requests. Cable after cable of decryptions, scores of military messages that America was intercepting, clearly showed that Japanese ships were preparing for war and heading straight for Hawaii. Stinnett, an author, journalist, and World War II veteran, spent sixteen years delving into the National Archives. He poured over more than 200,000 documents, and conducted dozens of interviews.’
‘In White House meetings the strong feeling was that America needed a call to action. This is not what the public wanted, though. Eighty to ninety percent of the American people wanted nothing to do with Europe’s war. So, according to Stinnett, Roosevelt provoked Japan to attack us, let it happen at Pearl Harbor, and thus galvanized the country to war. Many who came into contact with Roosevelt during that time hinted that FDR wasn’t being forthright about his intentions in Europe.’
‘After the attack, on the Sunday evening of December 7, 1941, Roosevelt had a brief meeting in the White House with Edward R. Murrow, the famed journalist, and William Donovan, the founder of the Office of Strategic Services. Later Donovan told an assistant that he believed FDR welcomed the attack and didn’t seem surprised. The only thing Roosevelt seemed to care about, Donovan felt, was if the public would now support a declaration of war.’
‘According to Day Of Deceit, in October 1940 FDR adopted a specific strategy to incite Japan to commit an overt act of war. Part of the strategy was to move America’s Pacific fleet out of California and anchor it in Pearl Harbor. Admiral James Richardson, the commander of the Pacific fleet, strongly opposed keeping the ships in harm’s way in Hawaii. He expressed this to Roosevelt, and so the President relieved him of his command. Later Richardson quoted Roosevelt as saying: “Sooner or later the Japanese will commit an overt act against the United States and the nation will be willing to enter the war.”
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408
Most people have what is probably a natural desire to avoid these things in history. It’s a lot easier to believe that John Wayne and hollywood conquered “evil”. I can tell you this, if the US citizens knew what we know now on December 8th, 1941, Roosevelt would have been strung up on the White House lawn.
I can tell you this, if the US citizens knew what we know now on December 8th, 1941, Roosevelt would have been strung up on the White House lawn.
Actually, I agree with that statement.
He knew that the Japanese would attack, however I am sure he was stunned by how effective the attack was, thus it supports my view that we seriously underestimated Japan. I don’t think anyone would have wanted almost the entire fleet being destroyed. He did not need that to enter into the war.
That’s rather delusional.
How many people do you know that have actually talked to a Code Talker? Most people have the knowledge of Bluto.
‘If any fortuitous events occurred during the bleak early weeks and months in the war with Japan that ultimately worked to the advantage of the United States the following three circumstances would have to be at the top of the list. These three crucial events all happened within the first six months of the conflict and led in no uncertain terms to the war’s eventual outcome.’
‘The first of these lucky happenings occurred on the very day the Japanese attacked the U. S. fleet at Pearl Harbor America’s carriers were at sea and thus escaped destruction.’
‘The second turn of fate happened when the battleships that were attacked and sunk at anchor in port settled in relatively shallow water there-by making future salvage operations possible. Had they been sunk while operating at sea they could have never been refloated and repaired.’
http://www.saipanstewart.com/essays/fate.html
I read a lot about the Flying Tigers. They had great success against the Japanese. One little known question about them is, why did the navy/air corp let their very best pilots leave service to join this mercenary group?
‘The group comprise three fighter squadrons of around 30 aircraft each. It trained in Burma before the American entry into World War II with the mission of defending China against Japanese forces. The group of volunteers were officially members of the Chinese Air Force. The members of the group had contracts with salaries ranging from $250 a month for a mechanic to $750 for a squadron commander, roughly three times what they had been making in the U.S. forces. While it accepted some civilian volunteers for its headquarters and ground crew, the AVG recruited most of its staff from the U.S. military.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers
The Flying Tigers used the P-40s against the Zeros. They were told to not even try to dog fight against the Zeros, dive on them and run away using their heavy weight as an advantage in terms of speed and ability to turn they stood no chance against the zero. Unfortunately, those lessons were not passed on to the pilots at Pearl Harbor who thought they actually stood a chance in real dog fight with the Japanese.
“The group of volunteers were officially members of the Chinese Air Force.”
China employed American mercenaries long before they signed up AlbqDan.
Dan… U duck, weave and backpedal from your own statements that only Rental_Fraud can outdo.
Albuquerquedan still hasn’t learned how to use quotation marks. If you’re going to quote people, at least do it right.
Excerpt and this is how you handle a labor shortage not by bringing in low IQ immigrants unless your goal is to destroy a country, which is George Soros’ goal:
BEIJING — Rising wages may have cut the cost advantage of China’s products, but a group of Standard Chartered economists on Friday predicted even higher productivity to come.
Wage rises and labor shortages are evident in the Pearl River Delta in South China, according to a report released by the bank on Friday. The country’s manufacturing base accounts for 27 percent of foreign trade.
Standard Chartered surveyed nearly 300 manufacturers in the region in February and March and 85 percent said the labor shortage is not getting better. They expect wages to rise by around than 8.4 percent this year.
Narrowing profit margins, financing difficulties, uncertainties over future orders and an increasingly volatile yuan are all threatening these companies’ survival, but instead of sounding alarms Standard Chartered said the manufacturing sector is changing for the better: “The dwindling labor supply and other challenges could be seen as a catalyst for productivity gains as China moves up the manufacturing chain.”
Forty five percent of those surveyed said investing in automation is the first strategy they would use to tackle rising labor costs. Guangdong Province has already announced goals to replace humans with robots to address rising labor costs in the delta. Other provinces have similar initiatives.
China is expected to have more robots operating in production plants than any other country by 2017, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). Positive results have already been seen, with 67 percent of the companies surveyed saying productivity gains have exceeded wage growth.
“You are obsessed with your wrong predictions about China.”
Talking to yourself again, I see.
Seven per cent plus growth in 2014, while you were predicting a collapse and the same thing happening this year. Keep predicting a collapse and maybe like a broken clock you will be right within twenty years.
There’s no way to know at this point if a prediction made about the future is correct. You’ll have to wait to find out.
“There’s no way to know at this point…”
Not really, provided you are willing to continually adjust your predictions to fit new facts that emerge.
Witness the fate of centrally planned high rise housing projects over the course of a few decades:
Pruitt-Igoe Implosion
Notice how Mr Market goes into a drunken rage every time Aunt Janet threatens to take away his bottle? Makes you wonder what he’d do if she ever actually carried out the threat.
HUFFPOST
The Blog
The Punch Bowl Economy
Apr 29, 2015 | Updated Apr 29, 2015
Charles Kolb Fmr. Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy (1990-1992)
William McChesney Martin was the ninth chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board from 1951 until 1970. He is perhaps most famous for his October 1955 quip to the effect that the role of the Federal Reserve is “to take away the punch bowl just when the party gets going.” In other words, don’t overstimulate the economy through ill-advised monetary policy.
Investors are repeatedly warned that they cannot — and should not — try to time the market when it comes to buying and selling stocks. At the same time, if Mr. Martin is correct, then the Fed’s role is, essentially, to time the market — or at least to help shape it through its monetary-policy decisions.
If the Fed holds interest rates too high for too long, it can slow economic growth and trigger a recession. It did precisely this, intentionally and to good effect, in the early 1980s to tame exceedingly high inflation rates. If the Fed holds interest rates too low for too long, it can trigger asset bubbles (as investors pile into assets offering higher returns) and inflation.
…
Inflation could still end up forcing Yellen’s hand.
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/05/22/atlanta-fed-sticky-cpi-soars-hottest-inflation-since-july-2008/
Inflation will have to really get out of hand before central bankers raise rates non trivially. A return to historical rates will trigger a cascade of debt defaults around the globe, both private and public debt.
Defaults are already cropping up in China without any rate hikes.
Defaults are natural in any economy. Some companies succeed and some fail.
Yep, the underlying Chinese economy looks very sound to me….
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-22/glimpse-endgame-how-chinas-formerly-richest-man-crashed-his-own-stock-when-he-tried-
He personally owned 80% of the company and I am sure his friends and family probably owned a substantial portion, his manipulations ended up burning him, so what? It is a lot like the Hunt brothers in silver in the early 80s over here. Except that impacted a lot more innocent victims.
China’s Cut-Rate Credit Rankings Raise Alarms as Defaults Loom
8:01 AM PST
May 10, 2015
Few were surprised when China’s Anhui province unveiled plans in April for a 25.8 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) debt sale, part of the ruling Communist Party’s widely publicized effort to jumpstart a municipal bond market.
The deal was shocking, though, for market insiders because of what they found in the fine print: Anhui will pay just 50,000 yuan for a credit rating on the bonds. That fee, from Beijing-based Golden Credit Rating International Co., is a fraction of the 250,000-yuan price floor that rival China Lianhe Credit Rating Co. says was agreed by major ratings companies under the guidance of the central bank about eight years ago.
Golden Credit, a state-owned company that started issuing debt rankings in 2012, says it isn’t concerned with profits and low prices are part of its “social responsibility.”
For industry critics, however, lower fees reflect an intensifying fight for business among Chinese ratings companies that threatens to erode their credibility. Standard & Poor’s, the world’s biggest ratings firm, charged the state of Texas about 20 times more to assess a December debt sale than what Anhui agreed to pay Golden Credit.
“There’s vicious competition,” said Yang Feng, an analyst in Beijing at Citic Securities Co., China’s biggest brokerage. “Some graders compete by charging low prices and granting inflated rankings, which hurt the ratings’ trustworthiness.”
…
‘his manipulations ended up burning him, so what?’
‘In a similar wealth decline, Hong Kong property and electronics magnate Pan Sutong has lost more than $11 billion this week as shares of two listed companies, Goldin Financial and Goldin Property, both closed down more than 40 percent.’
‘Pan owns around 65 percent of Goldin Property and more than 70 percent of Goldin Financial, according to filings. His fortune was listed at more than $28 billion, making him Hong Kong’s second-richest man.’
‘That means that the two men have lost more in one day that the total net worth of Carl Icahn , Steve Ballmer or Michael Dell .’
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-richest-man-loses-15-153449538.html
I’ll take it as a sign of the times that such events don’t freak people out.
Asia Stocks to Watch
News and commentary about the Asian stocks you need to know about today
May 19, 2015, 9:07 A.M. ET
Yingli’s Possible Bankruptcy: Not An Isolated Case, Says Wolfe Research
By Shuli Ren
Chinese solar company Yingli Green Energy (YGE) said in a filing with the SEC that “there is substantial doubt as to our ability as to our ability to continue as a going concern,” raising investor concerns that Yingli will go bankrupt.
Earlier this morning, I wrote a blog quoting RBC Capital Markets that Yingli is an isolated case: “Yingli Doubts Its Ability To “Continue”: Not An Industry Problem, Says RBC“.
Wolfe Research‘s Gordon Johnson, a renowned solar bear on Barron’s, emailed me this morning and disagreed with RBC’s take. Johnson switched from Axiom Capital to Wolfe Research recently but his bear sentiments stayed. Here is Johnson:
…
When $13 trillion in central bank money-printing catches up with us, compounded by out-of-control spending and unpayable debts and liabilities courtesy of the votes-for-entitlementments crowd, it’s going to be ugly. Consider yourselves warned.
https://capitalisteric.wordpress.com/2015/05/22/so-were-in-for-an-economic-collapse-now-what/
+1 Colorado…A significant rate hike right now would send any number of countries into turmoil…
It’s always something:
1. If we don’t fight them over there, we will have to fight them here.
2. We have to bailout the banks to save us from depression.
3. Jailing bankers will lead to turmoil in capital markets.
4. So on and on….
Thanks for playing your part.
A rate hike to nominal and historic levels of 8-12% would result in an economy acceleration like we’ve never seen.
You truly are delusional, HA.
Interest rates that high would blow up the federal budget, thus they will never happen.
Higher rates would be good for retirees and pension funds however, and also encourage savings (which is exactly what the PTB doesn’t want right now).
More end of the world ultimatums and lies my friend.
There is only one way out. Dramatically lower and more affordable prices and higher interest rates.
You’re I’ll prepared for that reality.
Higher rates would be good for retirees and pension funds however, and also encourage savings (which is exactly what the PTB doesn’t want right now).
The planet is awash in savings. There’s so much savings that people don’t know what to do with it.
The planet is awash in savings.
No, the planet is awash in _liquidity_. There is a difference. The real savings from decades of productive work is having to compete with a whole sea of liquidity created overnight out of thin air by the central banks.
“…having to compete…”
The liquidity is winning.
The liquidity is winning.
Yes, of course it is…
“There’s so much savings that people don’t know what to do with it.”
^Says the blind man.
“Americans Low Savings Rate A Bad Sign for Good Economy”
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/04/26/Americans-Low-Savings-Rate-Bad-Sign-Good-Economy
Bulletin: China, US, Europe are all broke.
They can just change the inflation formula around and fix the glitch. For Christ’s sake housing has shot up dramatically. Based on that inflation should be running 10-15 percent plus.
Rents are also up a lot, and reportedly fifty percent of consumption for many households. Put that in your consumption basket and smoke it.
Housing, education and medical are through the roof. But why worry about some pesky truths, right? It’s a fraud organization with only goal of propping up the government and banks.
“Housing, education and medical are through the roof.”
Don’t forget transportation, e.g., all those 4-door diesel pick-up trucks that cost north of $60k.
This kind of article is amusing. Here are a couple of excerpts:
The headline CPI still looks benign, inching up 0.1% in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
…
To shed more light on this phenomenon, the Atlanta Fed releases a “sticky-price consumer price index,” the “Sticky CPI,” which consists of a weighted basket of items that change price relatively slowly. And in April, annualized, it soared 3.50%, the sharpest increase since July 2008! “Core Sticky CPI ex-shelter” soared 3.83%, the highest since August 2008.
If core inflation happens to be below plain old CPI in a given month, these people usually say that core CPI is BS statistic made up to distract people. Now they’ve found something Core Sticky CPI ex-shelter, which none of their readers have ever heard of before. Yet they want people get all frightened of it.
Markets
Street, Fed making this big mistake: Jim Paulsen
Fred Imbert
Thursday, 21 May 2015 | 1:02 PM ETCNBC.com
Wall Street investors and the Federal Reserve are both dismissing the possibility of the U.S. economy “overheating,” Jim Paulsen said Thursday.
“Overheating is not about growing fast; it’s about demand growing faster than weak supply,” Well Capital Management’s chief investment strategist said in a CNBC “Squawk on the Street” interview. “We can grow at 2 percent supply-side, but I think that Wall Street is making a big mistake, including the Fed, in assuming that we can’t overheat because we’re growing so slowly.”
Paulsen made his remarks a day after the central bank released the minutes from its April meeting, which indicated that “a few” Fed Open Market Committee members believe the U.S. economy can handle higher rates by June.
“Many participants, however, thought it unlikely that the data available in June would provide sufficient confirmation that the conditions for raising the target range for the federal funds rate had been satisfied, although they generally did not rule out this possibility,” the minutes said.
Paulsen added that, while the path of least resistance for U.S. equities is currently higher, “the window for a ‘Goldilocks’ sustained rally is pretty narrow on Wall Street.”
“It seems to me that, with the United States closing in on full employment, if you don’t recover with margins at maximum levels, there’s no recourse for earnings, but if you do recover economically and bounce, you’re going to aggravate costs, [and] push interest rate pressures,” he said.
…
“, you’re going to aggravate costs, [and] push interest rate pressures,” he said.”
Is that a genteel way of saying people would make more money and earn more interest on their savings?
Economist says Fed policies could lead to disaster
Alex Rosenberg | @CNBCAlex
Thursday, 21 May 2015 | 10:36 AM ETCNBC.com
The Federal Reserve’s extended easy-money policies are creating serious risks that could turn a future economic slump into a catastrophe, warns Stephen King, chief economist at HSBC.
To be sure, many of the dire predictions about the Federal Reserve’s asset-purchasing and low-interest-rate policies over the last few years have not borne out; high inflation has not resulted, the Fed was able to exit their quantitative easing program without incident, and unemployment has indeed fallen dramatically. But King says the real risk actually lies in the future.
“The U.S. has had six years of recovery. And normally after six years, there have been plenty of opportunities to rebuild the kind of policy ammunition that policymakers rely upon during subsequent recessions. And normally, you would have higher interest rates, big improvements in the fiscal position, perhaps stabilization and even reduction in government debt. And this time around, none of that has actually happened,” King said Wednesday in an interview with CNBC’s “Trading Nation.”
…
Buttonwood
Reversal of fortune
Investors are caught between weak growth and central-bank policy
May 23rd 2015 | From the print edition
Timekeeper
About turn
FOR a while, it seemed that two market trends were inexorable. The euro was falling towards parity with the dollar and yields on German ten-year government bonds were on their way to zero. Both reversed in April (see chart).
The shift was so dramatic that it seems likely investors were caught napping. Dhaval Joshi of BCA, a research group, says that the European Central Bank’s bond-buying created a degree of “groupthink” among investors, with everyone convinced that yields were headed lower. When the trend changed, there was a stampede for the exits.
…
A stopped clock is right twice a day.
Don’t worry about stopped clock predictions that may never come to pass. Buy stocks and bonds, as both always go up, in the long run (at least they have since the early 1980s, when Stockman was Ronald Reagan’s budget director).
Stockman: Stocks and bonds will ‘crash soon’
Amanda Diaz | @CNBCDiaz
Friday, 22 May 2015 | 8:45 AM ETCNBC.com
David Stockman has a stark warning for the world: Stocks and bonds are on the verge of a catastrophic collapse.
On CNBC’s “Futures Now” Thursday, the former OMB Director said that excessive monetary policy has forced central banks all over the world into a corner, and as a result, “the markets are going to be in for a huge, nasty morning after as people begin to look at where we really are.”
Stockman questioned the real strength of the economy, noting that despite the fact that the U.S. is in the midst of one of the “longest expansion or recovery periods we’ve had in the post-war period,” we’re currently in month 78 of zero interest rates. By his logic, the market has become far too dependent on the Fed.
“We saw that Wednesday when the market had another spasm upward on the suggestion that the Fed won’t raise interest rates after all,” said Stockman. The S&P 500 hit an all-time intraday high Wednesday after Fed minutes revealed that a rate hike next month is off the table. “The market seems to want to keep chopping up all of it on the basis that maybe the Fed will give them one more month of reprieve.”
But according to Stockman, all this is creating is “a coiled spring that is going to break loose one of these days and there is going to be some pretty drastic and even violent adjustment.”
If history is any indication, Stockman expects a crash to happen very soon. “We seem to have them every eight years,” he said. “We had one in 2000 and everyone said, ‘This time was different.’ Then we saw a massive catastrophic decline. Eight years later, we had the same thing,” added Stockman. “Now we’ve had the weakest recovery in post-war history and what has happened? The Fed has simply reflated the bubble to an even more gigantic proportion.”
And it’s not just stocks that are in trouble. Stockman sees some troubling signs in the bond market. “It’s not possible that the interest rate on the 10-year German bond should be 70 basis points when it was 5 just a few weeks ago—or even that the U.S. Treasurys should be trading at 2 percent on the 10-year when we have taxes and inflation.”
To Stockman, the message is clear, “everything is totally distorted and there is a day of reckoning coming down the pike.”
Of course, Stockman has made similar calls in the past, which have yet to come to fruition.
…
getting closer to paying people to take out a mortgage:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3090885/Two-year-fixed-rate-mortgages-race-1-Yorkshire-Building-Society-launches-best-buy-deal.html
From China Daily looks like HP will be turning over its technology to China and the U.S. military is worried IBM has turned over too much already:
Hewlett-Packard Co, the United States-based tech giant, said on Friday that it was confident of clinching more government procurement deals in China after setting up a joint venture with Tsinghua University in Beijing.
HP sold 51 percent of the stake in the Hangzhou-based H3C Technologies Co Ltd to Unisplendour Corp Ltd for at least $2.5 billion. Unisplendour is an information technology arm indirectly controlled by Tsinghua University. The new H3C will also include HP’s server, storage and service units in China.
It is the first time that a major US tech firm has ceded control of a fully-owned subsidiary to a local player to win government-backed deals in China, where concerns over information security have kept most of the overseas providers out of the game.
Bill Veghte, executive vice-president and general manager of HP’s Enterprise Group, said he is optimistic that the joint venture will receive more business opportunities in many sectors, including government-backed ones.
“It marks the next chapter of our operation in China. We are creating the next-generation IT infrastructure provider. Tsinghua is the right partner,” Veghte said.
Zhao Weiguo, chairman and president of Tsinghua Unigroup, the parent of Unisplendour, said the company’s State-owned status was an advantage when closing the purchase with HP.
“Our enterprise strategy is in line with the national strategy and this gives us an edge when pursuing a top position in IT market,” he said.
The new joint venture will become the second-largest enterprise hardware provider in China after Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, according to research firm International Data Corp. Enterprise hardware includes servers, storage and network equipment.
HP’s decision of moving its own server, storage and technology support teams in China into the new H3C has surprised many industry insiders.
Gene Cao, a senior researcher at market research firm Forrester Research Inc, said HP is showing its commitment to the Chinese government that the company is ready to share the profits in China with local players.
“Unisplendour’s strong State background attracted HP the most. Teaming up with a local vendor will help HP avoid restrictions on overseas IT providers. However, it still has to be willing to give a part of the earnings to its local partner,” Cao said.
H3C was a profitable company before the change of hands. Its operating profit last year was about $300 million.
Hu Xiangdong, research director at IDC, said: “After the Tsinghua investment, H3C has officially become a local player, which is a big advantage in the network equipment market where most of the orders come from the government.”
Kitty Fok, head of IDC China, said the HP-Unisplendour joint venture is opening a new option for other overseas players who are worried that the tighter controls over IT products will hurt their China business.
Government officials are paying more attention to information security after whistleblower Edward Snowden unveiled details of a massive surveillance project orchestrated by the US government.
John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems Inc, said last week that orders from China fell by 20 percent during the quarter ended on April 25 because of security tensions between Washington and Beijing. Cisco was the sixth-largest IT hardware vendor in China by the end of last year, according to IDC.
Mistrust on information security issues is also hurting Chinese enterprises’ operations in the US.
A US Navy spokesman said IBM Corp’s servers used in the Navy are likely to be replaced because of security concerns after Lenovo Group Ltd acquired the server unit from IBM
The criminal “too big to jail” banking syndicate continues to flout the law with no fear of actual consequences, i.e. CEOs going to prison.
http://www.businessinsider.com/5-global-banks-just-proved-that-no-one-can-stop-wall-street-from-breaking-the-law-2015-5
It’s actually quite beautiful, isn’t it?
A work of art.
While most of the attention has been focused on the gains of ISIS in Anbar, the Syrian gains last week were almost as important after a bloody battle in which almost 200 Syrians died, they gained a world historical site and more important to them, a number of oil fields (future revenue) and a gas field critical to Assad’s electrical grid.
The entire Middle East is FUBARed.
http://weaponsman.com/?p=22761
The inevitable end-state of all votes-for-entitlements socialist/”center-right” kleptocracies, once they run out of other people’s money. Watch and learn, Comrad Pelosi supporters.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greek-hospitals-cannot-afford-painkillers-scissors-or-sheets-as-budget-cuts-bite-10271819.html
It does not end there as Brazil continues to unravel, high inflation while the economy shrinks, I am going to start calling the Brazilian President, Ms. Carter:
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/brazil-plans-2264-billion-in-budget-cuts–update-20150522-00697
“Coates, who has visited Rio de Janeiro six times as part of an IOC delegation, called the preparations “the worst I have experienced” and “worse than Athens.”
“In 2014, Paes said the sailing venue, Guanabara Bay, would not be clean in time for 2016. Lars Grael, who medalled for Brazil in the 1988 and 1996 Olympics, said that he had seen mattresses, car tires, submerged sofas, dog carcasses and even human corpses floating in the bay.”
http://circanews.com/news/rio-2016-olympics-preparations
“… once they run out of other people’s money.”
Not a problem. Once one pile of OPM has been exhausted then one merely moves on over to another pile of OPM and begins to exhaust that one.
‘2012 Defense Intelligence Agency document: West will facilitate rise of Islamic State “in order to isolate the Syrian regime”
‘Astoundingly, the newly declassified report states that for “THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…”.
‘The DIA report, formerly classified “SECRET//NOFORN” and dated August 12, 2012, was circulated widely among various government agencies, including CENTCOM, the CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA, State Dept., and many others.’
‘The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.’
http://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/
No “smaller government” or “lower taxes” happening here, LOLZ
‘Forensic evidence, video evidence, as well as recent admissions of high-level officials involved (see former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford’s admissions here and here), have since proven the State Department and CIA’s material support of ISIS terrorists on the Syrian battlefield going back to at least 2012 and 2013 (for a clear example of “forensic evidence”: see UK-based Conflict Armament Research’s report which traced the origins of Croatian anti-tank rockets recovered from ISIS fighters back to a Saudi/CIA joint program via identifiable serial numbers).’
‘The newly released DIA report makes the following summary points concerning “ISI” (in 2012 “Islamic State in Iraq,”) and the soon to emerge ISIS: A Sunni “Islamic State” could be devastating to “unifying Iraq” and could lead to “the renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena.” (see last non-redacted line in full PDF view.)’
So they knew it would lead to this death and destruction in Iraq and went ahead anyway.
In my December 2013 predictions, I predicted the spill over and there is no way anyone that was supporting them would not know that it would not result in the destabilization of Iraq. The only question now is why did they want to destabilize Iraq?
The only question now is why did they want to destabilize Iraq?
Because they kicked our troops out and didn’t let us keep our bases there—which was our intended long-game.
“So they knew it would lead to this death and destruction in Iraq and went ahead anyway.”
The real tragedy of this story - while reading about it I accidentally spilt my coffee into my lap and burned myself.
From Yesterday;
Comment by X-GSfixr
2015-05-22 09:26:58
Just a basic inquiry to the brain trust:
When were the “best” houses made in the USA?
Quality of materials and construction, efficient layout, decent insulation, wiring, etc. vs. the negatives:
Rehab costs (asbestos and lead paint removal issues, other things that haven’t occurred to me).
Just looking for opinions, and why?
Easy answer….The best homes are made today…I have rehabbed many older homes including a half dozen historical homes.(100+ years old)…A properly constructed home today is the strongest, environmentally friendly and most energy efficient home ever…
Rare occasion that you get one correct.
To clarify, most residential structures pre ww2 were balloon framed. Throwing money at these ratholes is throwing good money after bad. Post ww2 to roughly 1960 arent near as problematic structurally with dimensional lumber and plywood but the E and H systems are worn to junk status so get your wallet out. A 1970s to current shack in the $35/sq ft range is worth looking at.
Rare occasion that you get one correct.
I guess there’s still hopes for some sad pandas?
“A properly constructed home today is the strongest, environmentally friendly and most energy efficient home ever…”
They sure are ugly, though. At all price points.
They sure are ugly, though. At all price points ??
Not necessarily…Maybe in high cost area’s like mine but check out this builder;
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0CE4QoAIwAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.schumacherhomes.com%2Flocations%2Fakron-oh%2F&ei=ma5gVfnpB8rkoASIwoDoAg&usg=AFQjCNHoMV6XgVKdJKtU56Q3HiBi58q-og&sig2=ZNP-0P03MFqsIF6ShDYW3w
For mass production, Toll brothers also does some decent stuff depending on where…
All $60/sq ft stuff right there.
Can anyone recommend good architects who work with Arts & Crafts (new-build) homes? I’m looking at having a house built, but don’t want a soulless tract house of the sort that litter our Murican landscape.
What about the houses built between 2000 and 2008? Does anybody have any first hand knowledge about them? With so many thousands of homes being built by so many apprentice carpenters, and who knows how much Chinese drywall, I don’t know if I would want one.
The document shows that as early as 2012, U.S. intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.’
It seems reasonable, I was seeing it rise by then although I could not have labeled it as ISIL. It also seems to be continuing. Why are we only conducting a handful of airstrikes each day, are we really trying to hurt them or not? Somewhere between a ground invasion and allowing ISIL to take over the area, is a reasonable strategy. A concerted air campaign might be it but it would have to be at least ten times per day what we are doing now.
“… the report envisions the terror group as a U.S. strategic asset.”
I like it. I especially like the term “strategic asset”; This is the term I like to use when describing a realtor.
As for the term ‘terror group”, well , you’ll have to ask the buyers about what that term means; They’ll be able to supply you with a multitude of first-person accounts.
If you ask people in Iraq who is behind ISIS, they will almost all say the US. Turns out they were right. I wonder if Drudge will link to this?
Drudge, what a fraud he is.
Another neocon pipe-dream unravels:
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/19/john_kerry_admits_defeat_the_ukraine_story_the_media_wont_tell_and_why_u_s_retreat_is_a_good_thing/
Whatever us (or obama) touches turns into $hit.
The $ is right someone got their hands on the Ukrainian gold just like they got their hands on the Libyan gold, it has probably helped them to make a lot of money manipulating gold or at least help them to avoid a big lost.
Treasury bonds pay close to zero. Dead money.
CDs pay close to zero. Dead money.
Stock market is mostly sideways in 2015. Dead money.
Housing market, except for a few “hot” cities distorted by foreign capital, is flat or rolling over. Dead money.
Cash sits in cash accounts. There’s no place to invest to get a decent return. It’s a Savings Glut world.
Get to work, mr chairman! LOL
I think you meant Mrs. Chairwoman…
It’s a natural consequence of quantitative easing.
QE was the right response in 2009. Commercial paper, short term credit lines, etc. were shut off. There was no liquidity and commerce stopped. The world was liquidity starved. Now we’ve gone to other extreme: we are drowning in excess liquidity. Record cash held by the uber wealthy. Record cash held by corporations. Record cash on bank balance sheets.
Since all this money just sits doing nothing, the velocity of money continues to spiral downward:
http://urbansurvival.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/image18.png
Prices my friend prices.
Bring Back the WPA
Sorry, I cannot agree with you. QE has laid the foundation for a disaster, which we have been experiencing, but like gravity, the force is so weak we hardly notice the bad part(s).
The Fed wrote a monthly note for 40 B to purchase Treasury Stocks which the government used to pay for it’s ongoing poor spending habits; the Fed recorded the Treasury Stocks on their balance sheet offsetting their Note. Result - continuance of poor spending habits - nothing else. No attempt to rebuild roads, etc.
The Fed wrote a monthly note for 45 B to purchase MBS from nine banks. The banks now had cash instead of defaulting mortgages. It didn’t change the banks leverage, but did put pressure on them to loan the cash out to cover the .25% interest they had to pay the Fed. The only people capable of taking such large loans were the large stock market handlers - who have leveraged the market into the stratosphere.
We haven’t had inflation because the M1 ran so slow even turtles were passing it. No one realized that by continuing to allow government inefficiencies and by piling up cash in a small number of piles, we were not doing anything to promote the speed of money - this made the Fed look good though. By increasing the speed of money you put pressure on it’s availability which causes inflation.
My grandson can practise voodoo economics - this is not rocket science - why are so many intellectuals making so many mistakes ?
Many on this board have scorned HA, but he is right. We have to let the markets do their own correcting so that prices can find their equilibrium.
And that is the weak force. Equilibrium has been lost in so many areas and we are facing more distorted areas every day.
How can it all be fixed ?
‘Many on this board have scorned HA, but he is right.’
I have no stake in the direction of this disaster. Either way, I’ve got a pile cash. The enraged see the handwriting on the wall…..
“No attempt to rebuild roads, etc.”
No attempt to rebuild cities. (See a few posts I made below on that topic from earlier today…)
I have no stake in the direction of this disaster. Either way, I’ve got a pile cash.
That _IS_ a stake in the direction of this disaster: a pile of cash is only worth something at the end of this disaster if the end result is not severe dollar-devaluation.
A pile of cash will be worthless and a depreciating asset like a house will?
You’re dreaming.
I did not state an opinion that that WOULD be the outcome. I merely pointed out that there was a potential outcome where a stack-o-cash _is_ affected. For the record, I have chosen to bias my risks in the same direction, so clearly I don’t think that that is the high-probability outcome.
It’s a natural consequence of quantitative easing.
+infinity. It is sitting useless in bank accounts because the Fed has chased it out of more productive asset classes. Most of those funds should at a minimum be invested in Treasuries, the “risk free” class, but there is no point in going through the trouble of transferring it and rolling it over at current yields.
“It is sitting useless in bank accounts because the Fed has chased it out of more productive asset classes.”
My elderly father recently expressed concern about how much money he has sitting in checking accounts. He is eager to move it into more productive investments like those his personal financial advisers have recently promoted, such as U.S. stock and long-term bond funds.
It’s hard to explain to an eighty+ year old man that we are nearing the end of a three-decades year long super-cycle in stocks and bonds which is quite likely to morph into a crash episode that lasts over a decade (last similar episode was 1966-1984; check out the drop in Shiller’s trailing-earnings PE ratio on stocks over that period).
Recovery Summer VII
DEFINITION of ‘Money Zero Maturity - MZM’
A measure of the liquid money supply within an economy. MZM represents all money in M2 less the time deposits, plus all money market funds.
INVESTOPEDIA EXPLAINS ‘Money Zero Maturity - MZM’
MZM has become one of the preferred measures of money supply because it better represents money readily available within the economy for spending and consumption. This measurement derives its name from its mixture of all the liquid and zero maturity money found within the three “M’s.”
Current MZM money velocity is by far at the lowest level going back to 1959.
QE = FAIL.
Interesting. If you click on the max view for this it’s similar:
30-Year Treasury Constant Maturity Rate
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/DGS30
Where did all that money go?
“…it’s similar:”
Same signal, different time series.
“Where did all that money go?”
Pouring all that money into Treasurys and MBS helps explain those recent record-low long-term Treasury yields.
Here’s a simplistic explanation, which nonetheless may still capture the salient details:
1) Since Alan Greenspan took over at the Fed, there has been a persistent policy bias towards cleaning up asset price crashes with liquidity floods.
2) QE1, QE2 and QE3 were this policy bias on steroids.
3) The utility of this approach has reached its limits with the recent advent of negative bond yields in the wake of euroQE.
Where we go from here is anyone’s guess, but I have the feeling that the utility of a unidirectional response to mop up asset-price collapses with ever-larger hair-of-the-dog monetary stimulus has ended, as investors are habituated to bailouts and accordingly fully invested.
Fire safety rule number 1:
NEVER POUR GASOLINE ONTO A FIRE.
12:27 pm ET
May 15, 2015
Fed
New Fed Bill Is Like ‘Shutting Down the Fire Department to Encourage Fire Safety,’ Bernanke Says
By David Harrison
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke struck back at a bipartisan Senate bill designed to rein in the central bank’s emergency-lending powers.
In a post Friday on his Brookings Institution blog, Bernanke called the proposal from Sens. David Vitter (R., La.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) “roughly equivalent to shutting down the fire department to encourage fire safety.”
“The bill would further restrict the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending powers in a financial crisis,” he wrote. “That would be a mistake, one that would imprudently limit the Fed’s ability to protect the economy in a financial panic.”
…
I didn’t see anyone holding a skateboard on those “No More Hesitation” targets.
Olympia cop shoots assault, shoplifting suspects
KING Staff, KING5.com 7:46 a.m. PDT May 22, 2015
OLYMPIA, Wash. — Authorities say two men who were shot by a police officer investigating a report of an attempt to steal beer from an Olympia grocery store are expected to survive.
Police say the incident started before 1 a.m. at a Safeway in west Olympia near Capitol High School. The two men allegedly stole beer from the store before throwing it back at a clerk and running away.
About 20 minutes later an officer recognized the men based on a description of the suspects given by the victim that included race, clothing, tattoos, approximate ages and height. About two minutes after that, the officer reported firing shots.
Olympia Police Chief Ronnie Roberts said the suspects were not armed with firearms, but the responding officer said over the radio that he was assaulted with a skateboard.
http://www.king5.com/story/news/2015/05/21/olympia-police-shooting/27702201/ - 114k -
Too bad OlyGal isn’t around to offer comment…
Yup, miss her.
I’m about 60 miles to the north, but my brother lives in that area. It’s the state capitol, and has an unusually high proportion of FSAers, drifters, and homeless, even for western WA. It doesn’t help that Evergreen College is there either (hippie/liberal/greenie, basket-weaving degrees, etc).
A skateboard is easily a deadly weapon if it connects squarely with your head. Life lessons: don’t assault police officers. Don’t steal a whole case of beer from a store and then throw it at the cashier. Don’t be out causing trouble when you should be at home asleep in bed. And actions have consequences.
But somehow, all of this is the fault of the police, according to local protesters . . . if we could just disarm them, then this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.
“…if we could just disarm them, then this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.”
U.S.
In Baltimore, Arrests Down and Crime Up
Police hesitant, frustrated since Freddie Gray’s death in custody sparked unrest, chief says
By Scott Calvert
Updated May 20, 2015 7:00 p.m. ET
BALTIMORE—The number of arrests has fallen here since Freddie Gray’s death put the police department under intense scrutiny, while violent crime has increased in a neighborhood rocked by riots hours after Mr. Gray’s funeral, police officials said Wednesday.
“It’s a time of uncertainty for us as a police organization, as police officers as a whole,” said Police Commissioner Anthony Batts.
Mr. Batts praised officers for getting guns off the street and making what he called good arrests, but he said recent events have taken a toll on officers. “Some are frustrated, some are probably trying to figure out what they want to do,” he said.
Gene Ryan, president of the Baltimore police union, said a jump in violent crime in West Baltimore, where Mr. Gray was arrested April 12 and where rioting broke out after his April 27 funeral, was the fault of “a criminal element” taking advantage of heightened tensions.
“Police are not responsible for the systemic issues of poverty that have plagued our communities,” Mr. Ryan said, adding that officers need help from elected officials, church and civic leaders and community members.
Referring to the drop in arrests, Mr. Ryan said, “These numbers do fluctuate and at this time there is no information that would allow me to speak to a correlation.”
In the three weeks after Mr. Gray’s death on April 19 from injuries suffered in police custody, officers made 1,453 arrests—a decrease of more than 40% from the same periods in 2013 and 2014, police data show.
The period included the two days last month when police arrested more than 200 people amid widespread looting and rock-throwing at officers.
Arrests in Baltimore generally had been trending downward in 2015, with a 22% drop in the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2014. The decrease, however, has been significantly steeper since Mr. Gray’s death.
At the same time, Mr. Batts said, violent crime in the Western District is “dramatically” outpacing other areas of the city, with 19 homicides and 51 shootings this year.
He said officers answering calls there are routinely surrounded by hostile crowds, many with cameras. “We’re going to have to bring the temperature down,” he said.
Bobby Cross, a longtime resident of West Baltimore’s Penn North neighborhood, said he believes criminal charges brought against six officers in Mr. Gray’s death—including second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and false imprisonment—have made police hesitant to act.
“They’re holding back because they’re scared of jeopardizing their future as police,” Mr. Cross said.
…
If you’re in the Seattle area, your local economy is dominated by companies like Boeing, Microsoft and Amazon, which are part of a different FSA.
Opinion Commentary
The Lawbreakers of Baltimore—and Ferguson
The racial diversity of local government doesn’t matter when people want to seize on an excuse to commit crimes.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake at an April 20 news conference about the death of Freddie Gray. Photo: Kevin Richardson/Associated Press
By Jason L. Riley
April 28, 2015 7:17 p.m. ET
The racial makeup of city leaders, the police department and other municipal workers in Ferguson, Mo., played a central role in the media coverage and analysis of Michael Brown’s death, which is worth remembering as history repeats itself in Baltimore.
The Justice Department’s Ferguson report noted that although the city’s population was 67% black, just four of its 54 police officers fit that description. Moreover, “the Municipal Judge, Court Clerk, Prosecuting Attorney, and all assistant court clerks are white,” said the report. “While a diverse police department does not guarantee a constitutional one, it is nonetheless critically important for law enforcement agencies, and the Ferguson Police Department in particular, to strive for broad diversity among officers and civilian staff.”
Broad diversity is not a problem in Baltimore, where 63% of residents and 40% of police officers are black. The current police commissioner is also black, and he isn’t the first one. The mayor is black, as was her predecessor and as is a majority of the city council. Yet none of this “critically important” diversity seems to have mattered after 25-year-old Freddie Gray died earlier this month in police custody under circumstances that are still being investigated.
Some black Baltimoreans have responded by hitting the streets, robbing drugstores, minimarts and check-cashing establishments and setting fires. If you don’t see the connection, it’s because there isn’t one. Like Brown’s death, Gray’s is being used as a convenient excuse for lawbreaking. If the Ferguson protesters were responding to a majority-black town being oppressively run by a white minority—which is the implicit argument of the Justice Department and the explicit argument of the liberal commentariat—what explains Baltimore?
Tensions between the police and low-income black communities stem from high crime rates in those areas. The sharp rise in violent crime in our inner cities, which dates to the 1970s and 1980s, happened to coincide with an increase in the number of black leaders in many of those very same cities. What can be said of Baltimore is also true of Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., where black mayors and police chiefs and aldermen and school superintendents have held sway for decades.
Chicago’s population is 32% black, along with 26% of its police force, but it remains one of the most violent big cities in the country. There were more than 400 homicides in the Second City last year and some 300 of the victims were black, the Chicago Tribune reports. That’s more than double the number of black deaths at the hands of police in the entire country in a given year, according to FBI data.
Might the bigger problem be racial disparities in antisocial behavior, not the composition of law-enforcement agencies?
It was encouraging to hear a few Baltimore officials say as much Monday night as they watched their city burn. “I’m a lifelong resident of Baltimore, and too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs who, in a very senseless way, are trying to tear down what so many have fought for,” said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
…
The local police need more armored vehicles, grenade launchers, and bayonets.
Also camouflage fatigues…
Police
Why Do Some St. Louis County Cops Wear Military-Style Camouflage Uniforms?
By Ray Downs Mon., Feb. 10 2014 at 8:00 AM
St. Louis County police arrest a protester.
Ever see St. Louis County cops in camouflage military fatigues on the street and wonder why they’re dressed like they’re going to Iraq instead of Creve Coeur?
That’s the county’s Tactical Operations Unit — the SWAT team — and Sergeant Matthew Pleviak tells Daily RFT that the camouflage is worn so the SWAT cops can “blend in with the environment.”
Blend in with the environment of Creve Coeur?
“If you go to any subdivison, there’s grass and trees and bushes,” Pleviak explains.
SWAT teams wearing military camouflage is not new. It’s been done since at least after the Vietnam War when a few Special Weapons and Tactics teams in police departments around the country began wearing fatigues as opposed to all-black or blue uniforms during raids or standoffs.
What is new — or at least newer — is that SWAT teams like the St. Louis County’s Tactical Operations Unit are also used during more mundane situations, such as arresting Monsanto protesters for allegedly blocking the driveway of the company’s campus.
…
Our vermin count just dropped by two.
When the Republicrats are falling all over themselves to pass a new trade bill, rest assured, it’s a win for the oligarchs and a race to the bottom for the American worker.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/boehner-praises-trade-bill-passage_953464.html
Of course Americans vastly overestimate the size of the LGBT population because that is what is being fed to them.
Political correctness, it’s what’s for dinner.
Americans Vastly Overestimate Size of LGBT Population
They think that nearly 25 percent is LGBT. The real figure is less than 4 percent.
Ben Brody
May 22, 2015 10:12 AM EDT
Same-sex marriage is one of the fastest-moving social issues in U.S. history, having become legal in state after state as Americans cheer it in ever-growing numbers. But one thing is slightly off-kilter: Americans seem to have absolutely no idea just how many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are out there.
In fact, they think that 23 percent of Americans, or almost one in four, are LGBT, a Gallup survey released Thursday revealed. That’s way off: The polling organization most recently found that less than 4 percent self-identify that way.
A third of people surveyed believed that LGBT made up more than 25 percent of the population. Just 9 percent of those in the survey correctly stated that they thought the group made up less than 5 percent of the population.
http://www.bloomberg.com/…/americans-vastly-overestimate-size-of-lgbt-population - 123k -
Here’s one that would have tripped you up, phony!
“Americans estimate that blacks make up one third of the population, even though they actually represent a relatively stable 13 percent”
Another nice job of race-baiting Oddie.
But then again on this blog you are the master baiter.
Family secret: What the left won’t tell you about black crime
Exclusive Washington Times Daily Briefing (May 15, 2015)
Washington Times
…
The late William Stuntz, a Harvard law professor, addressed this history in his 2011 book, “The Collapse of American Criminal Justice.” “The lenient turn of the mid-twentieth century was, in part, the product of judges, prosecutors and politicians who saw criminal punishment as too harsh a remedy for ghetto violence,” wrote Mr. Stuntz. “The Supreme Court’s expansion of criminal defendants’ legal rights in the 1960s and after flowed from the Justices’ perception that poor and black defendants were being victimized by a system run by white government officials. Even the rise of harsh drug laws was in large measure the product of reformers’ efforts to limit the awful costs illegal drug markets impose on poor city neighborhoods. Each of these changes flowed, in large measure, from the decisions of men who saw themselves as reformers. But their reforms showed an uncanny ability to take bad situations and make them worse.”
Crime rates rose by 139 percent during the 1960s, and the murder rate doubled. Cities couldn’t hire cops fast enough. “The number of police per 1,000 people was up twice the rate of the population growth, and yet clearance rates for crimes dropped 31 percent and conviction rates were down 6 percent,” wrote Lucas A. Powe Jr. in “The Warren Court and American Politics,” his history of the Warren Court. “During the last weeks of his [1968] presidential campaign, Nixon had a favorite line in his standard speech. ‘In the past 45 minutes this is what happened in America. There has been one murder, two rapes, forty-five major crimes of violence, countless robberies and auto thefts.’”
As remains the case today, blacks in the past were overrepresented among those arrested and imprisoned. In urban areas in 1967, blacks were 17 times more likely than whites to be arrested for robbery. In 1980 blacks comprised about one-eighth of the population but were half of all those arrested for murder, rape and robbery, according to FBI data. And they were between one-fourth and one-third of all those arrested for crimes such as burglary, auto theft and aggravated assault.
…
Does Uncle Sam derive some kind of political benefit from maintaining ghetto Hell holes in every large U.S. city, or is this merely a reflection of failed governance?
How Detroit became America’s Warzone
That’s a very fascinating overview of America’s first ghost city, from the perspective of a couple of Russian photojournalists. Especially intriguing were sophisticated insights on the ravages of globalization from the lips of homeless black men who probably lack even a high school education.
Also noteworthy:
- America’s first ghost city emerged in the age of globalization from the outsourcing of Detroit’s automotive industry to other countries following a period of decline from many decades of prominence as an industrial leader.
- By contrast, China’s many ghost cities are stillborn.
Detroit just moved to the suburbs after the 67 riots, along with most of the new factories. The neighborhoods have become more and more hollowed out ever since. Judging by the number of out of state plates I see, there are still people coming here to work. But most of the new jobs are supplier related, and more high tech. When I was a kid, everyone’s dad and his uncle worked for a car company. Now I can only think of a couple people I know who have relatives that work for one of the big three.
“Detroit just moved to the suburbs after the 67 riots, along with most of the new factories.”
The same story applies to many of the other cities on the Wikipedia list. The population didn’t just vanish into the ether; rather those with the means to escape did so, leaving behind the urban planning equivalent of a black hole (no racist pun intended).
Oregon has a law that an attendant must operate the gasoline pump at the filling station. Can’t off-shore that task.
Can’t off-shore that task.
Last jobs in America: government-mandated tasks. At least until we allow guest-worker visas to do those jobs too.
So does NJ. And NJ has the cheapest fuel around.
ShanghaiDaily dot com
China Focus: Empty compound renews discussions about China’s “ghost cities”
May 22,2015
HEFEI, May 22 (Xinhua) — A magnificent compound stands in eerie silence. Dust rests on the tightly closed doors of empty booths and grass covers unfinished sections of an expansive market.
This huge shell of a trade center in east China’s Anhui Province has, once again, brought the notorious subject of China’s “ghost cities” under the spotlight.
Last week, a Beijing Times article reported that the Daxiong Huadong Food and Farm Product Market, which sprawls more than 2,000 mu (133 hectares) in Chuzhou City, had been dropped by developers due to a lack of investment.
Touted as the biggest of its kind, today the failed project, which was launched in 2009 with expected investment of some 2 billion yuan (322.8 million U.S. dollars), displays nothing but an air of desertion.
The bleak complex is divided into four sections. The C section, complete with some 100 booths, was planned as a tea market, but only two booths are open, eking out an existence among the empty rows. Three people, later identified as the owners of a tea booth, were passing the time playing mahjong.
“The owner rented the booth to us free of charge for two years,” one said, “but there are barely any customers.”
“There used to be more than 100 management staff here, but now there is just one dustman,” said another.
An official with the local publicity department told Xinhua that the giant rural market, had failed as it was too remote and transportation links were insufficient to support a complex of this size.
“We are now in negotiations with new investors, and hopefully they will help push the project forward,” said another official, who requested anonymity.
Many are at a loss as to why ghost cities continue to crop up, as they were seen as the result of the ambitious urbanization drive of previous years.
Zhu Min, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in April that China’s property market had a vacant area of about 1 billion square meters. An IMF report said that there was an oversupply of residential property in small Chinese cities, particularly in the northeast.
GHOST TOWNS
Governments, in the past, had relied too heavily on the real estate sector and large construction projects to boost the local economy.
There are several ghost cities in Yingkou City, in northeast China’s Liaoning Province.
Meng, a resident, said one such large complex, called Huahaicheng City, near the train station has remained an “empty palace” since its units were put on the market five years ago.
“You barely see a soul there,” Meng said of the deluxe project, which sprawls across more than 100,000 square meters.
Thousand of kilometers away in Fangchenggang City, in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, scores of high rises have shot up in the city center, but most remain empty.
A local taxi driver, from northeast China, told Xinhua that he bought a house in Fangchenggang for investment two years ago, but could not resell it because the market was flooded with property. He later had to work in the city to cover the house loan repayments.
“Even as a taxi driver, business is hard because although the city is big and there are not many people,” he said.
…
Michael Brown shooting
Ferguson ablaze after Michael Brown verdict: ‘This is a war zone now’
Paul Lewis and Jon Swaine in Ferguson
Tuesday 25 November 2014 05.27 EST
Grand jury’s ruling in the Michael Brown case sparks scenes of frenzied looting, violence and burning in Missouri and across the US
Ferguson, Missouri, is the scene of violent protests after the grand jury decision
Fires were raging when a man with a scarf wrapped around his face walked out of the smoke and looked around him in disbelief. “All they had to do was give us justice and look at this,” he said. “This a war zone now.”
Chaos broke out on Ferguson’s West Florissant Avenue after it was announced that Darren Wilson, a white police officer, would not be charged for shooting dead Michael Brown, a 18-year-old African-American, earlier this year.
“It feels like someone took a pitchfork, stuck it in a fire and put it right in my stomach and then twisted it,” the man in the bandana said of the grand jury’s decision.
Outside Papa John’s Pizza, a man in a military-style balaclava scuffled with a woman who was trying to stop him from breaking in. Six men climbed out of the broken window of the next building, a tax office. Across the road, people were emptying Fashions R Boutique. Thick black smoke billowing from three blazing auto parts garages blurred the silhouettes of looters.
…
War Zone: Baltimore Erupts Into Violence, Chaos as #BlackLivesMatter Riots Rage
The Associated Press
by Matthew Boyle
25 Apr 2015
BALTIMORE, Maryland
BALTIMORE, Maryland — Racial protests supposed to be peaceful quickly turned into violent riots on Saturday evening, closing down the city of Baltimore for some time—and creating a panic for thousands of people as just 50 miles away elites in Washington partied with President Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Personally, I wasn’t supposed to be on the job tonight as a reporter. After a long news week and as several of my contemporaries lived high on the hog down in D.C. at the so-called “Nerd Prom,” me and my brother left D.C. to go see our Boston Red Sox play the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards I hate the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—it represents everything I think is wrong with Washington, making celebrities out of news media and politicians—and given the fact I grew up just outside Boston I figured seeing the Red Sox play in Baltimore would be a great reprieve from the political culture. Boy was I wrong.
…
Protests in Baltimore
It’s chaos
Apr 28th 2015, 4:19 by D.K. | BALTIMORE
Timekeeper
WHAT is happening tonight in Baltimore is perhaps best described not as a riot but as anarchy. Though there are police lines, there are few protesters or people fighting the police or hurling stones. Indeed, where the police are lined up, the people standing around are mostly taking photos on their phones. Drive a few blocks in any direction, though, and suddenly it feels lawless. Groups of young men, boys really, wearing bandanas and hoodies, stand on street corners next to derelict buildings, staring at anyone passing, and occasionally throwing projectiles at cars. Young women hurry home carrying bags of stolen loot: food, clothes, and bottles of beer and liquor. On the occasional street here and there cars burn freely. Shops, of which there are not many in this abandoned corner of the inner city, are ravaged, their windows smashed, their shelves picked over. Cars hurtle through red lights at high speed, music blaring, boys leaning out of the windows. And everywhere the intense smell of smoke and the buzz of helicopters overhead.
Tonight’s events began, as riots so often have in American history, as a protest. A week ago Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died in hospital, a week after he collapsed into a coma after being arrested and aggressively bundled into a police van in West Baltimore. Six police officers have been suspended. Today, at Mr Gray’s funeral, 2,000 people gathered in West Baltimore to hear eulogies to the young man. Hundreds of teenagers marched out of high school in protest at police brutality; within hours, a police cruiser had been set on fire. By late afternoon a branch of CVS, a drug store, had been looted and was alight and hundreds of riot cops were massing in West Baltimore. By 8pm, when darkness set, the fires and looting were spreading. Larry Hogan, Maryland’s new Republican governor, soon signed a state-of-emergency declaration. By 11pm the National Guard was being deployed and the city announced a curfew for all residents.
…
How to prevent riots
Fixing America’s inner cities
The problems of places like West Baltimore require a focus on safety and schools, not race
May 9th 2015 | From the print edition
Timekeeper
AS BALTIMOREANS sweep up broken glass and haggle with insurers over fire-gutted shops, many are wondering why the city exploded into riots last month, and how to stop it happening again. The proximate cause of the mayhem is clear: it erupted after Freddie Gray, an African-American man, died in police custody. Young black men in Baltimore, as in many other American cities, are fed up with being manhandled by cops. Most demonstrated peacefully, but some seized the opportunity to steal, smash and burn.
Such destruction solves nothing—cities like Detroit and Newark have never truly recovered from the riots of the 1960s. But people in the poorest parts of Baltimore have good cause to be upset. In Sandtown-Winchester, the centre of the riots, less than half of adults have jobs and the murder rate, at 129 per 100,000, is worse than that of Honduras, the most homicidal nation on Earth. If Sandtown were a country, the State Department would advise you not to go there.
What is striking about Baltimore’s slums is that they are islands of dystopia in a sea of middle-class comfort. A few minutes’ drive from a world-class university and posh waterfront oyster bars is a place where houses are practically worthless and shopkeepers cower behind bulletproof glass. Sandtown’s population is 97% black, but its troubles cannot glibly be blamed on white oppression. Baltimore has a black mayor, a black police chief and a black state’s attorney, who swiftly indicted six police officers for the death of Mr Gray on charges including second-degree murder.
Black America’s problems, like America’s, are unevenly spread. Many African-Americans live white-picket-fence lives, but some cluster in districts of utter dysfunction, especially in cities where old industries have vanished. According to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank, 45% of poor African-American children live in areas where 30% or more of their neighbours are poor. Only 12% of poor white children live amid such concentrated poverty.
…
You can’t have it both ways.
Baltimore’s riots
Why rioting makes things worse
Angry youths burn their own neighbourhood
May 2nd 2015 | BALTIMORE | From the print edition
Timekeeper
Where will you buy your groceries tomorrow?
OUTSIDE a gutted pharmacy in West Baltimore, William Tyler, a 41-year-old youth worker, illustrates the dilemma of policing in his city. Speaking about Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old who died on April 19th after being arrested by Baltimore’s police, he complains that: “None of these polices ever go to jail, they don’t get fired. Police is nothing but gangs too.” Yet looking at the building behind him, burnt out by riots that followed Mr Gray’s funeral, he adds, “and look at this store! This is where my mom gets her medicine. The police just stood right there and watched it happen. This weren’t the time for protocol. This were the time to go, go, go!”
…
Got Ebonics?
Does an excess of local shadow inventory create ripe conditions for rioting?
Chicago’s gun violence
What’s in a name?
Controversy erupts over Spike Lee’s new film
May 23rd 2015 | CHICAGO | From the print edition
Timekeeper
Still doing the right thing, he’s sure
MORE than a quarter of a century has passed since Spike Lee made “Do the Right Thing”—a film about racial tensions exploding into violence in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a mostly African-American district of New York. At the time, some (white) critics warned that blacks would riot after seeing it. In another contentious film, “Bamboozled”, Mr Lee, who is black, poured scorn on racism in the entertainment industry and the way blacks are portrayed in the media. He frequently comes up with examples of anti-black bias in Hollywood, or laments the gentrification of black neighbourhoods.
Mr Lee’s latest project is ruffling feathers even before filming starts in the next few days, but this time it is blacks who are annoyed. He is working on a movie with the working title “Chiraq”, which will focus on black-on-black violence on the South Side of Chicago, one of the poorest, most violent parts of the city. A Chicago-based rapper, Louis Johnson (aka King Louie), claims that he came up with the name Chiraq a few years ago, conjuring up images of a war zone. It was tossed around on social-media channels, printed on T-shirts, acquired its own Twitter hashtag, #Chiraq, and was taken up by other rappers such as Tavares Taylor (Lil Reese), who rapped in “Traffic”: “Where I’m from? This Chiraq, you get left as tragic.”
Yet as soon as “Chiraq” became more popular, a social-media campaign (with hashtag #AntiChiraq) started to reject it. “People who live on the South Side don’t like the term, which they feel further stigmatises their neighbourhoods,” says William Burns, an alderman on the South Side. He is urging the state of Illinois to withhold a $3m tax break for Mr Lee’s project, arguing that, to qualify for the credit, a film has to make a “positive economic contribution” to Illinois, and that this one is not looking as if it will.
Chekitan Dev, a marketing expert at Cornell University, agrees that in the short term “Chiraq” may do some damage to the city. Yet in the longer run, he says, Mr Lee may be doing a service by shining a spotlight on the South Side. In the 1970s and 1980s, scores of films were made about violent crime in New York, which was then as broke as Chicago is today. These films probably helped the city in the long term, by focusing the minds of policymakers on bringing down crime rates.
…
Can you imagine Europe letting its cities go to waste like this?
The trespasses of Chicago’s urban explorers
July 7, 2014
Check out the ugly, beautiful images of rustbelt ruin taken by Chicago urban explorers.
POLITICS
Chicago on road to bankruptcy, Gov. Rauner warns
By Stacey Baca
Friday, March 06, 2015
CHICAGO (WLS) –
Gov. Bruce Rauner says the city of Chicago is on the road to bankruptcy.
Rauner says the city is “going down the drain” financially, and voters must consider the city’s financial state when they go to the polls on April 7.
While Mayor Rahm Emanuel was in full campaign mode on Friday - shaking hands and greeting voters at a South Side CTA stop - the governor was at an unrelated event in Kendall County, where he weighed in on the state of the city.
“Chicago is sliding into bankruptcy. They can’t pay their pensions. They can’t pay their bills. The debt has been going up for years,” Rauner said.
While the mayor and his opponent, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, debate the mayor’s decision to close Chicago Public Schools and whether or not to keep red light cameras, the governor says it’s time for voters to consider the city’s finances.
“Who is financially sophisticated to deal with the issues? Who is ready to ready to stand up and fight for the taxpayers in the city and take on some of these government union power issues?” Rauner said.
…
In fairness to Motown, it isn’t the only American city with abandoned building issues.
Forgotten Cleveland: Eerie Photos of Abandoned Buildings by Seph Lawless
By Stephanie Valera
Published Jun 23 2014 03:38 PM EDT
An abandoned building. Photographer Seph Lawless has documented the modern ruins and decaying, abandoned buildings in Cleveland, East Cleveland and the northern Ohio area. (Seph Lawless)
Most travel photographers aim to capture cities with with beautiful images of sun-drenched landscapes or majestic skylines. Photographer Seph Lawless (a pseudonym) prefers to explore the darker corners of cities and document the “poor, abandoned and forgotten” places of America. The slideshow above collects his photos of abandoned schools, asylums, hospitals and houses from Cleveland, East Cleveland and northern Ohio, weathered structures and decaying buildings that have been reclaimed by nature.
“I was drawn to the [beauty] of these ruins, very similar to people’s fascination of Ancient Greece,” Lawless told Weather.com. “The earliest journal entry I wrote was: ‘To find beauty in the most grotesque things is a gift’.” The quote has become a slogan of sorts for the underground urban exploration community, according to Lawless.
But beyond a personal fascination with urban decay and ruins, Lawless feels a duty to share these images of derelict and neglected neighborhoods.
…
The ugly beauty of urban exploration
They capture stunning images amid rust belt ruin. But are urban explorers also urban exploiters?
By Edward McClelland
Urban explorer Eric Holubow documented Saint Laurence Catholic Church’s interior, including many frescoes, before the building’s demolition.
Saint Laurence Catholic Church, which began its life at 71st and Dorchester as a monument to God, is ending it as a monument to white flight. Built in 1911 for the Irish of the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, the church began to empty out in the 1950s, and was finally deconsecrated in 2002; the mostly Protestant blacks who had moved into the neighborhood couldn’t provide the members or the money to keep it open.
Now Saint Laurence’s faithful consist of scrappers and graffiti taggers. The stunning Romanesque building is also a magnet for urban explorers, who infiltrate abandoned churches, hospitals, schools, theaters, and factories, photograph the remains, and post the pictures online. This pursuit is particularly midwestern, made possible by the factory closings of the 1980s and the blight that followed. In addition to Chicago, the other “urbex” hubs are Detroit and Gary, places where fabulous manufacturing wealth paid for Gothic or art deco landmarks that were left to rot when the manufacturing disappeared. A cross between housebreakers and historians, urban explorers have their own guidebook (Access All Areas by the late Ninjalicious), their own publication (the zine Infiltration), and their own online hubs (Chicago Urban Explorers on Facebook and Chicagoland Urbex Photography on meetup.com). Of course, the activity is discouraged by building owners and is the scourge of security guards, which is all part of the thrill. But poking around crumbling architecture can prove fatal. In 2012, for instance, a 16-year-old north-side boy, Jose Morales, was killed when he fell through a ceiling at the old Ravenswood Hospital.
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Abandoned Philadelphia
What Would YOU Do With 40,000 (or 50,000) Vacant Properties?
Are you tired of looking at the abandoned houses on your block? Sick of seeing so many vacant houses in the neighborhood? Well, so are we. And we want to do something about it. Something other than let them sit there deteriorating and destroying neighborhoods until the City finally gets around to selling them to speculators at the Sheriff sale. We know that can take years.
We want to turn these properties over to homeowners and others who will invest in them, rebuild, and ultimately renew and strengthen the fabric of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods. We need your help!
We are calling on all of you who have not given up on Philadelphia to join us in identifying and publicizing those properties you most want to see turned over. Post addresses and pictures of these eyesores and neighborhood-destroyers. We will take it from there.
…
The photos of abandoned areas of American cities make me think what this country needs is an internal Marshall Plan to rebuild our great urban centers. What we have instead is an external focus on globalization, plus massive investment in better weapons to kill brown people in other countries.
Are any of the prospective presidential candidates up to fixing our problems instead of worsening them?
P.S. Another selling point:
Restoring America’s northeastern urban centers to livable conditions would go far to solving our affordable housing problems.
The problem apparently stems from a lack of political vision and will, as there is hardly a lack of manpower available for the Rebuild America program.
6:00 am ET
Apr 29, 2015
Economics
As Much as a Third of Discouraged Workers Might Return
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
CONNECT
A new IMF working paper finds widespread undermployment is still a problem for the U.S. job market. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
There is still plenty of room for improvement in the U.S. job market despite recent strides, according to a new working paper from the International Monetary Fund.
The debate over how much “slack” or unused capacity remains in the job market is crucial for Federal Reserve officials as they decide when to start raising short-term interest rates from near zero. If there is little slack, policy makers will want to raise rates soon to make sure the economy doesn’t overheat and cause inflation to take off. But if there still are many people available for work if offered, officials can wait longer before lifting borrowing costs.
The IMF paper suggests Fed officials can take their time.
“Labor market slack remains, although it has closed considerably over the course of the recovery,” write Ravi Balakrishnan, Mai Dao, Juan Solé and Jeremy Zook. “This slack goes beyond that signaled by the unemployment rate, and takes account of the labor force participation rate being below trend and many employees working part time involuntarily.”
The U.S. jobless rate was 5.5% in March, but a broader gauge of underemployment that includes workers who have part-time jobs but would like full-time work was 10.9%, the Labor Department reported.
The labor force participation rate—the share of adult civilians holding jobs or looking for work—was 62.7% last month, matching its lowest level in 36 years. The paper finds that between a quarter and a third of the post-2007 decline in participation, will likely be reversed. However, the long-term decline, due in part to demographic factors such as an aging population, will eventually resume, the research suggests.
…
Shrinking cities in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Main article: Shrinking cities
The following municipalities in the United States have lost at least 20 percent of their population, from a peak of over 100,000, since 1950. In all but a few cases, the surrounding metropolitan areas and urban areas (including the shrinking metropolitan areas) have increased in population.
…
A patchwork of cities across the northern United States, because of their vibrant industrial economies, were referred to collectively as “the Foundry of the Nation”.[1] These are also referred to as the Manufacturing Belt or the Factory Belt. This includes most of the cities of the Midwest out to the Mississippi River, and many of those in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states, particularly those away from the Eastern Seaboard. After World War II, the cities in the area among the nation’s 100 largest in the middle-20th century had population that had fallen most by the century’s end.[2]
At the center lies an area stretching from northern Indiana and southern Michigan in the west to Upstate New York in the east, where local tax revenues still rely more heavily on manufacturing than on any other sector (by far the largest contiguous area of the U.S. where this is the case).[3]
…
“…where local tax revenues still rely more heavily on manufacturing than on any other sector…”
Could local taxes have killed the Rust Belt manufacturing sector?
Taxation policy guidelines:
- If it moves, tax it.
- If it stops moving, subsidize it.
- If it dies, bail it out and turn it into a zombie.
Isn’t it amazing that despite these huge population declines, there is very little shadow inventory associated with housing in any of these formerly great cities?
City 1950 population % decline from peak
Akron, Ohio 264,605 34.50%
Albany, New York 134,995 27.50%
Baltimore, Maryland 949,708 34.60%
Birmingham, Alabama 340,887 37.70%
Boston, Massachusetts 801,444 22.90%
Buffalo, New York 580,132 53.40%
Camden, New Jersey 124,555 37.90%
Canton, Ohio 116,912 37.60%
Chicago, Illinois 3,620,962 25.60%
Cincinnati, Ohio 503,998 41.10%
Cleveland, Ohio 914,808 56.60%
Dayton, Ohio 243,872 46.10%
Detroit, Michigan 1,849,568 61.40%
Erie, Pennsylvania 130,803 26.50%
Flint, Michigan 163,413 48%
Gary, Indiana 133,911 55%
Hammond, Indiana 87,595 27.60%
Hartford, Connecticut 177,397 30.10%
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 637,392 19.80%
Minneapolis, Minnesota 521,718 26.70%
Newark, New Jersey 438,776 37.30%
New Haven, Connecticut 164,443 21.10%
New Orleans, Louisiana 570,445 38.80%
Niagara Falls, New York 90,872 51%
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 2,071,605 26.30%
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 676,806 54.80%
Providence, Rhode Island 248,674 29.60%
Reading, Pennsylvania 109,320 20.80%
Rochester, New York 332,488 36.70%
Scranton, Pennsylvania 125,536 46.90%
South Bend, Indiana 115,911 23.60%
St. Louis, Missouri 856,796 62.70%
Syracuse, New York 220,583 34.20%
Toledo, Ohio 303,616 25.20%
Trenton, New Jersey 128,009 33.70%
Utica, New York 100,489 38.80%
Wilmington, Delaware 110,356 37%
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 76,826 52.40%
Youngstown, Ohio 168,330 60.60%
If you tally up the total population decline for the cities on that list since 1950, it adds up to 7.4 million.
Whatever became of the housing units the 7.4 million former citizens of Rust Belt cities inhabited?
Massive urban sprawl. Leaving the oldest and most dilapidated homes and buildings to the poorest and least educated.
It happened to my grandma’s home where she grew up in North St. Louis from the late 1800s. I can’t forget the mortification on her face upon seeing a photo of the old place in the newspaper after it burned down and was condemned for demolition.
I recall a similar fate played out for the home in Detroit where Mitt Romney grew up.
This is the story of Detroit’s demise writ small:
‘Vacant House Tour ‘ showcases Wilkinsburg’s historical housing stock
May 2, 2015 12:00 AM
This home at 831 Rebecca Ave. in Wilkinsburg is one of several that will be featured on the Wilkinsburg Vacant Home Tour from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.
By Oksana Grytsenko / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
When engineer Vernon Covell bought a red-brick, two-story house at 816 South Ave. in Wilkinsburg in 1906, he set about making it a home with the same passion as he used when he designed bridges. He installed electricity in the house, and noted in his diary expenses for plumbing, paint brushes and colorful caladium bulbs for his yard.
Now, a century later, 816 South Ave. needs a new champion.
A group of borough residents and officials say the house, which fell into disrepair after Mr. Covell’s granddaughter couldn’t maintain it, can be rescued. It’s one of five houses on the first Vacant Home Tour, a free walking excursion designed to attract people who might buy and renovate abandoned buildings in Wilkinsburg, The tour is scheduled for 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.
“The house still has good walls. It has a potential to be somebody’s home,” said Anne Elise Morris, president of the Wilkinsburg Historical Society, who will be a guide during the tour.
The house’s story is typical for Wilkinsburg, a borough of nearly 16,000 people. Founded in the late 19th century and originally part of Pittsburgh, Wilkinsburg was once known as “The Holy City” for its many churches. Its decline beginning in the 1980s has led to a sharp drop in population and an increase in abandoned buildings. About 19 percent of its houses and 40 percent of its shops are vacant.
…
The Price Pimps are fatigued.
There is a big difference between price and value dude.Why overpay when the value is not there?
As long as a company is in business it can hide the real value that would can result if a liquidation occurred. Keep the doors open long enough for management to bleed off the equity, good ol kmart and sears.
Borrow to make money and it keeps you in the game.
Hold onto every dollar you’ve got and stay out of debt. You’ll thank me later.
“Borrow to make money…”
Famous last words.
Remind me again why “they” hate us for our freedoms.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/how-the-dea-harasses-amtrak-passengers/393230/
Masumi he said - sometime, when the team is up against it — and the breaks are beating the boys — tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Emperor…
95th time lucky for University of Tokyo baseball team
10 hours ago
The University of Tokyo players leave the ground in joy after putting an end…
TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese university baseball team finally ended its 94-game losing streak on Saturday, winning for the first time in five years.
The University of Tokyo beat Hosei University 6-4 at Jingu Stadium in its first victory since Oct. 2, 2010.
”We’re finally out of the tunnel,” manager Kazushi Hamada said.
The school is Japan’s premier university, and produces many of the country’s top politicians, lawyers, and doctors.
But unlike rivals in the Tokyo Big 6 Baseball League, the University of Tokyo does not offer sports scholarships or scout high school players. Since World War II, the team has never finished in the top half of the six-team league.
Two seasons ago, the university team hired former Yomiuri Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Masumi Kuwata in a bid to turn around its fortunes.
Here’ s a little slice of life:
The Pohlman Family’s Amazing Story
“In 2008 when the housing market crashed, my family lost everything.”
Four minutes about an obviously well-off family losing everything (father was a builder); they end up living in the national forest in Flagstaff, Az.
That sounds just like the story Hillary Clinton told.
PS said: That sounds just like the story Hillary Clinton told.
I didn’t hear her, but she doesn’t give a damn about anyone else outside of her and hubby’s crime syndicate, and I’m sure most if not all of them are expendable.
It kills me when I hear women support her just because she’s a woman. How stupid.
I’m guessing four out of four of the women in my nuclear family will vote for Hillary merely because she is a woman.
I try to talk to any woman who mentions HC about her crimes and misdemeanors. A feminist who supports her cheating, rapist husband. Despicable.
“…her cheating, rapist husband.”
I knew Slick liked to cheat, but I didn’t realize he was a criminal.
Allegedly very rapey
I just picked this article out of many search results:
Bill Clinton: A Long History of Alleged Rape and Sexual Assault
but I didn’t realize he was a criminal.
Lying under oath was definitely a crime.
crushing.housing.losses.
McKinney, TX List Prices Crater 13% YoY As Oil Boom Goes Bust
http://www.movoto.com/mckinney-tx/market-trends/
Saudi Arabia is out of bullets.
Even a stupid poet could see that oil is a good buy right now
How can that be with a massive global supply, falling demand and cratering prices?
It could easily become a much better buy before the price goes back to Peak Oil prediction levels.
Ya gotta wonder which country will win the game of oil pumping chicken. Or will the game end in a head-on collision with no survivors?
Market Extra
The global oil glut will grow even bigger
Published: May 13, 2015 11:02 a.m. ET
Senior oil analyst at the IEA warns of further oversupply
By Myra P. Saefong
Markets/commodities reporter
The latest data compiled by the International Energy Agency show that the world’s oil supply glut will only get worse.
“It’s an incredibly interesting chapter of the book we might have just opened,” Matt Parry, senior oil analyst at the IEA told MarketWatch in an email, referring to the IEA’s monthly oil report.
The report from the Paris-based agency, released early Wednesday, said there is a global battle for market share between the members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC oil producers. Output from both groups shows no sign of a slowdown despite an oversupply of crude oil in the world market that’s contributed to a plunge in prices from a peak around $106 a barrel last summer.
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Isn’t the Eurozone about due for another Grexit panic like the one we saw earlier this year? I’m missing my strong dollar and $2-$3 range gasoline prices.
ft dot com
May 22, 2015 1:48 pm
Eurozone says no Greek deal without IMF
Peter Spiegel in Brussels, Alex Barker in Riga and Stefan Wagstyl in Berlin
A Greek and an EU flag wave in front of the ancient temple of Parthenon atop the Acropolis hill in Athens
©AFP
European leaders have told Greece there will be no deal to release desperately needed bailout aid without approval from the more hardline International Monetary Fund, setting up a stand-off that could leave cash-strapped Athens without funds well into June.
The message, delivered by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to Alexis Tsipras, her Greek counterpart, at a private meeting in Riga, Latvia’s capital, as well as by lower-level European officials to their Greek interlocutors, comes as the IMF has been weighing whether to withhold its €3.6bn portion of the €7.2bn bailout tranche Athens needs to avoid default.
Eurozone and Greek negotiators have been pushing to complete a deal by the end of the month to free up bailout funds before the first in a series of loan repayments owed the IMF totalling €1.5bn falls due June 5. But securing IMF approval for a bailout deal significantly complicates that timeline.
IMF officials believe Mr Tsipras’s government has reversed many of the economic reforms the IMF had agreed with previous Greek governments and do not feel Athens will be able to hit budget targets that would allow its growing debt pile to be reduced quickly.
IMF staff have told their board they would not disburse aid without a “comprehensive” deal that started to lower debt levels. They also want EU assurances that Greece will be able to pay its bills for the next 12 months, a demand that could require eurozone governments to commit to another bailout programme.
“It has to be a comprehensive approach, not a quick and dirty job,” Christine Lagarde, IMF chief, said at an event in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
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Advisor Network 5/18/2015 @ 6:23PM 1,512 views
A Greek Default Could Be Closer Than We Think
Mike Patton
Contributor
Greece is a country on the verge of default. In a matter of a few months the world may well witness a Greek default of significant proportion. In this article we’ll clarify Greece’s position and explore the potential fallout if the country fails to repay its debt.
Greek Debt: An Overview
Most of the world is aware that Greece is mired in debt. Since the financial crisis emerged in 2008, the country’s financial stability has been tenuous at best. From early May to mid-September 2015, Greece’s required debt repayment is greater than 300 billion euros. Unfortunately, this is considerably more than its GDP. In fact, Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 177.10. Given its rising debt and weakening economic activity, many believe Greece is headed toward an inevitable default. If this materializes, what might happen? Before we get into the details, let’s look briefly at the Greek economy.
The Greek Economy
Greece is facing difficult times. With unemployment over 25%, inflation at a negative 2.1%, and GDP hovering near zero, the outlook is bleak. When you incorporate its debt obligation, you have a recipe for economic calamity. Looking at the items above, Greece’s high unemployment rate requires little explanation. After all, it’s hard to propel an economy when 25% of its labor force is out of work. The second item, the negative inflation rate, may require some discussion. Since inflation is a measure of the change in the level of prices, a negative rate indicates that prices are falling. Although this may be perceived as good for the consumer, if it persists, deflation would result. During deflationary periods, consumers tend to hold off on major purchases and wait for a lower price. This reduces economic activity and causes GDP to fall, which can become a self-perpetuating cycle. If this happens, it can be very difficult to escape. For evidence, just look at Japan during the 1990s and 2000s. With Greece’s GDP straddling zero a recession is another distinct possibility. Given the myriad of issues facing Greece, more serious consequences could very well be lurking.
The Consequences of a Greek Default
What might happen if Greece were to default on its debt? In recent times, depositors have been pulling money out of Greek banks. If Greece were to implement some sort of restriction on depositors’ withdrawals, there would be a very loud outcry. Hence, civil unrest is one concern. Beyond that is the issue of systemic risk. In other words, banks and others who have invested in Greek bonds would be negatively affected in a default. Even though Greece is a small country, a default would still send shock waves throughout the global financial system. A Greek exodus from the Eurozone is also possible. Finally, interest rates in Greece would spike as investors demand a higher return for the additional risk.
Greece is attempting to restructure its debt…again and is in need of a capital infusion. If banks restrict depositor withdrawals mass panic and civil unrest would ensue. The greatest risk will occur around July and August as Greece is required to repay 6.7 billion euros to the European Central Bank (ECB). If it fails to repay the ECB or the International Monetary Fund (IMF ), Greek interest rates will spike, anarchy could follow, and this historic part of the world could become a hotspot for chaos and crisis. Let’s hope the Greek government and the ECB are able to find a solution. At this point it’s hard to see how. In this authors view, a Greek default is a near certainty. Therefore, it would be wise to position your investments in such a way as to minimize exposure to this part of the global financial system.
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