Bits Bucket for May 29, 2015
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Are you gonna buy the China dip?
Further price gains are certain once prices and fundamentals decouple.
Ft dot com
Foreigners pile in as China stocks stumble
Josh Noble in Hong Kong
Foreign investors have been piling into Chinese stocks at a record pace just as the world’s best-performing market shows warning signs of a reversal of fortunes.
Chinese equity funds took in $4.6bn from overseas investors in the past week, according to data from EPFR released on Friday, more than double the previous high set in the second quarter of 2008. At that time, Chinese stocks were in the middle of a long and painful downturn after the popping of the 2007 stock market bubble.
China allocations within pan-Asian and global emerging market funds have also risen to a record high, EPFR data show.
The release came just hours after a dramatic tumble in Chinese shares. The Shanghai market sank 6.5 per cent on Thursday, its second-biggest daily fall this year, while the Shenzhen index dropped 5.5 per cent.
Thursday’s slide halted a seven-day winning streak for the Shanghai market, during which time it had gained more than 14 per cent and reached its highest level since 2008.
On Friday, both markets experienced choppy trading, with the Shanghai Composite dropping as much as 4 per cent in the opening minutes, before closing down 0.2 per cent. The Shenzhen index rose 1.3 per cent, having lost as much as 4.2 per cent earlier in the day.
The ChiNext — a tech and healthcare start-up board — finished 3.2 per cent higher.
“With valuations divorced from economic fundamentals, the heightened volatility we have seen is likely to continue,” said Kevin Ferriter of Capital Economics in a report.
…
Do you think some of the stock gains are gonna trickle down to all the broke @ss people some day?
They are buying the USA with their funny money. Smart move, cheaper than bombs.
USA spends $2 trillion in Iraq. Dumb move.
Need to Know
A ‘tidal wave’ of money is headed to China, so jump in now
By Shawn Langlois
Published: May 29, 2015 7:56 a.m. ET
Critical intelligence before the U.S. market opens
Getty
China bungee jumping.
…
Not to suggest this could ever happen again, but the last time the Shanghai market climbed as steeply and quickly as in the recent run-up immediately preceded a crash that wiped out 2/3 of the market’s value over 12 months.
Is a Grexit still a near-term possibility?
IMF’s Lagarde considers Greek exit a possibility
By MarketWatch
Published: May 29, 2015 2:49 a.m. ET
FRANKFURT–The managing director of the International Monetary Fund considers a Greek exit from the eurozone a possibility, but such a step probably wouldn’t mean the end of the euro, she told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
A Greek exit wouldn’t be “a walk in the park,” but probably doesn’t spell the end of the eurozone, the paper quoted Christine Lagarde as saying ahead of an interview to be published Friday.
Ms. Lagarde also contradicted recent statements out of Greece indicating the country and its creditors are close to an agreement on funding.
“It’s very unlikely that we’ll reach a comprehensive solution in the coming days,” Ms. Lagarde said. Ms. Lagarde is attending the Group of Seven meeting Thursday in Dresden, Germany.
…
“Probably wouldn’t mean the end of the euro”?
“Probably doesn’t spell the end of the eurozone”?
Not the strongest of assurances. You’d think she’d be scoffing at the idea of a Grexit taking down the whole shebang, at least in public comments.
The thing here is it’s all an “experiment”. You cannot predict how people will/would react to a full blown exit.
The stealth Greek bank run is accelerating. Anyone who trusts government assurances that there will be no “bail-in” (legalized theft of deposits) is a fool.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/greek-bank-deposits-bleeding-worsens-in-april
More on Greeks pulling their deposits and trying to put their money where the government can’t steal it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11637688/Greek-capital-flight-hits-record-as-ultimatum-talk-grows.html
See Cyprus.
We wonder about whether the individuals at the Fed will raise interest rates (aside: we talk about logical constructs - government, corporations, Fed - as though they are large physical things which take action. In reality it’s an individual or a small group that act under the veil/guise of the construct. Kind of like the Wizard of Oz. Yes, the construct can direct the action of thousands or millions of people. But the brain is one or a few people). I came across this tidbit:
“JPMorgan Chase reckons [gradually rising interest rates] might add a fifth to its profits by 2017″
If Jamie wants it - and it’s not clear that he does - but if he does, that will carry a lot of weight with Janet.
It’s hard for bankers to follow their traditional business model of borrowing short and lending long in the current low-rate environment, as rate hikes could quickly sink the asset side of their balance sheets.
Not to fear… in that event the government arrives with truckloads of cash.
Every tenth of a basis point increase adds 50 dollars to the monthly house payment for average size/cost house.
That’s what I heard said last week.
So a whole percentage point will add $500 to the monthly nut? Only if the average mortgage is 600K.
In some parts of California that may be the case.
If only…
A tenth of a basis point is 0.001% per year, or $0.08 per month of additional interest on a $100,000 loan.
They must have been talking about a tenth of a percent, which would be $8 per month of additional interest on the same loan amount.
Perversely though, if you increase the interest cost, the principal part of the payment goes down.
$100k at 4%
1st Months’ P&I at 4% = $477.42 ($333.33 interest + $144.08 Principal)
$100k at 5%
1st Months’ P&I at 5% = $536.82 ($416.67 interest + $120.15 Principal)
If you have to borrow for 15 or 30 years, it’s not affordable nor can you afford it.
At what point will communities with high murder rates clamor for more police protection?
TIME
U.S. Crime
Baltimore Sees Worst Month for Homicides in 15 Years
Josh Sanburn @joshsanburn
May 28, 2015
Colin Campbell—AP
Baltimore police pick up a pair of shoes after a double shooting on May 24, 2015. One month after riots erupted in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, homicides and shootings are up.
The spike coincides with a decrease in arrests
Thirty-eight people have been killed in Baltimore so far this month, making it the deadliest in 15 years for a city still recovering from the protests surrounding the death of Freddie Gray.
On Thursday, a woman and a young boy were shot and killed, becoming the 37th and 38th homicide victims this month, surpassing a record set in November 1999 when 36 people were killed.
While homicides tend to spike during the summer months, the increase in murders has coincided with an overall decrease in arrests made by the Baltimore Police Department.
According to the Associated Press, arrests in May are down 56% compared with last year, and it appears that officers are increasingly reluctant to detain suspects after six officers were indicted in the case of Freddie Gray, a black Baltimore man who died on April 19 in police custody.
…
Baltimore police union: Cops more afraid of going to jail than getting shot
By Colin Campbell
The Baltimore Sun
The president of the Baltimore police union on Thursday said that criminals have become “empowered” following the recent unrest and that, with six officers charged in Freddie Gray’s death, city police are more “afraid” of being arrested than shot on duty.
Gray, 25, died a week after suffering a severed spinal cord and other injuries in police custody. His death led to more than a week of protests and later rioting, that prompted a citywide curfew and the deployment of the National Guard.
“The criminals are taking advantage of the situation in Baltimore since the unrest,” said Gene Ryan, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 3. “Criminals feel empowered now. There is no respect. Police are under siege in every quarter. They are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty.”
…
Let Baltimore stew in its own juice.
http://clashdaily.com/2015/05/adam-12-shrugged-let-them-reap-their-cloward-piven-chaos-in-baltimore/
LOLZ
Never let a crisis go to waste
My sister lives in Baltimore and she wants me to bring my family down there to visit and see her new house sometime this summer. I don’t know quite how to tell her I want to wait and see how things pan out down there before committing to bringing my children in to that environment even just for a visit. She’s the type who might get offended over something like that. lol
“At what point will communities with high murder rates clamor for more police protection?”
They already want more police protection. Instead, they get occupying militarized forces that enforce shakedown operations against the entire community.
‘Police are under siege in every quarter. They are more afraid of going to jail for doing their jobs properly than they are of getting shot on duty’
Where’s WPA on this, to extoll the virtues of collectivist solutions? Like the other day, when he was bashing septic tanks because they detract from the glory of public sewer systems. This is your chance WPA, tell us about how the collectivist security system is superior.
Why do I always picture WPA as a she?
I picture WPA as a eunuch. As a all so-called “male” collectivists.
Who do I vote for to have:
less cops
less gov
less military
less gov spending
but,
better: schools, roads, trains, airports, parks, rivers, air, hospitals, border security,
I am so confused.
That candidate hasn’t been born yet.
I don’t blame those cops in Baltimore. Why should they do their job when the city keeps taking away their perks, like the right to sever a man’s spine while he’s locked up in your van?
You guys need to move out of suburbia, and try dealing with some of these big city cops on a regular basis.
It’s only a matter of time before white suburbians start getting the “Freddie Gray” treatment. Their marching orders say “Take control of the situation”. If they think you (by their definition) are keeping that from happening, azz kickings will be administered fortwith.
They are obviously (in my experience) being trained to incite reactions from people, so they have an excuse to kick their asses and arrest them.
This attitude isn’t limited to “on duty’ cops, BTW.
As long as the sheeple continue to vote for candidates who trample on the Constitution, abusive and unaccountable cops are going to be a fact of life.
I know a guy who was camping at the lake on a holiday weekend in a very large group which included an off-duty cop. The cop was drunk and challenging people. The guy beat the living tar out of the cop late that night, and almost drowned him after the fact. Women and children screaming and crying, a real ugly scene.
The cop left with his peeps in the middle of the night. The guy thought for sure he was in serious trouble, but oddly nothing came of it. The cop had serious facial injuries. I think the fact that there were so many witnesses to the cop’s poor behavior was the determining factor.
Not to excuse cops who break the law, but if you blame all cops for the crimes of a few bad actors, you will lose the benefits of law enforcement services.
“It is quite literally the case that if the US government had a $3 trillion program to put people to work digging holes with tablespoons and filling them back up with teaspoons, it would compute out as a 17% gain in GDP compared to current levels.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/the-austerity-howlers-strike-again-more-rubbish-from-bloomberg/
Doesn’t the same logic underpin the miracle of perpetual China GDP growth of around about seven percent?
Let’s just ignore all statistics like GDP growth and rely on our own personal observations of Applebee’s is doing.
from David Stockman’s Wikipedia page:
Fiscal legacy
President Jimmy Carter’s last fiscal year budget ended with a $79.0 billion budget deficit (and a national debt of $907,701,000,000 [8] as of September 30, 1980), ending during the period of David Stockman’s and Ronald Reagan’s first year in office, on October 1, 1981.[9] The gross federal national debt had just increased to $1.0 trillion during October 1981 ($998 billion on 30 September 1981, up from $907.7 billion during the last full fiscal year of the Carter administration[8]).
By 30 September 1985, four and a half years into the Reagan administration and shortly after Stockman’s resignation from the OMB during August 1985, the gross federal debt was $1.8 trillion.[10] Stockman’s OMB work within the administration during 1981 until August 1985 was dedicated to negotiating with the Senate and House about the next fiscal year’s budget, executed later during the autumn of 1985, which resulted in the national debt becoming $2.1 trillion at fiscal year end 30 September 1986.[11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stockman
Or spend $3 Trillion to pay people to fix our crappy roads, leaking sewers, and crumbling bridges. It’s too cute to argue that digging and re-filling ditches is the same thing as spending on infrastructure, but that’s the kind of argument we get all the time from “fiscal conservatives”.”
Thank you Dman, music to my ears.
What happened to the obama $1 trillion “shovel ready” stimulus?
Why was NONE OF THIS FIXED???
Oh - it all went into union goon pensions.
How about the $1 trillion bailout of GM - that went into union goon pensions too.
Hmmmm - seems to be a pattern here.
The $1 trillion bailout of GM!? I believe that’s a number you pulled out of the George W. Bush Iraq war checkbook.
“What happened to the obama $1 trillion “shovel ready” stimulus?”
I had all but forgotten about the $800 billion-plus Porkulus spending (nudge nudge wink wink Obama supporter payback) package.
The Reason That Shovel Ready Stimulus Didn’t Work Is That There Wasn’t Any Stimulus
Tim Worstall
11/01/2013
Those with long memories will recall that the way out of the economic difficulties back a few years was to be that we had a fiscal stimulus. The US was going to borrow a whole bunch of money and invest it in those shovel ready infrastructure projects that simply littered the country side. This would pull us up out of recession pretty darn sharpish and all would be well.
No, really, this was what was going to happen:
As President Obama urges Congress to pass the $800 billion-plus stimulus package, one of his favorite selling points is the thousands of projects nationwide that he calls “shovel ready” — meaning planning is complete, approvals are secured and people could be put to work right away once funding is in place.
The stimulus bill states that for a project to be considered shovel-ready, it must be ready to begin in 90 days. The has a list of almost 19,000 such projects, adding up to almost $150 billion.
I quote at such length as this really was what was touted as the way out of the then current problems.
FT Alphaville has a nice little chart today showing what actually happened:
Err, yes. The government gears up to massively boost infrastructure spending, borrows $800 billion to go do infrastructure spending and infrastructure spending falls through the floor at the same time.
My conclusion would be rather simple: government’s just not the way to get the job done.
http://www.forbes.com/…/ - 98k -
There was never an intent to spend $800 billion on infrastructure. Infrastructure spending was only about $100 billion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009
“There was never an intent to spend $800 billion on infrastructure. Infrastructure spending was only about $100 billion.”
No doubt, the intent was to payback Obaama’s financial supporters.
Solyndra ‘Green’ Executives: $100,000+ In Obama Donations And 20+ White House Trips
How glorious, watching investigative reporters on primetime news meticulously dissect the $535 million Obama-Solyndra connection while co-anchors squeeze in comprehensive charts and detailed explanations on where all of the taxpayer’s stimulus money went since Obama needs another ‘this-will-fix-it’ $300 billion; oops, now $400 billion; hold it, ok, $450 billion.
sadhillnews.com/…een-executives-100000-in-obama-donations-and-20-white-house-trips - 215k -
GREEN SCAM: 80% of Green Energy Loans Went to Obama
Donors – 19 Companies Went Bust (Video)
Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, June 2, 2012, 11:20 AM
80% of Green Energy loans went to Obama donors.
The FOX News analyst says 70% in the video but actually 80% of DOE dollars went to Obama backers. 19 of these green energy companies went bust.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/…/ - 200k -
Comment by phony scandals
2015-05-29 16:18:45
Solyndra ‘Green’ Executives: $100,000+ In Obama Donations And 20+ White House Trips
sadhillnews.com/2011/09/08/solyndra-green-executives-100000-in-obama-donations-and-20-white-house-trips
GREEN SCAM: 80% of Green Energy Loans Went to Obama
Donors – 19 Companies Went Bust (Video)
thegatewaypundit.com/2012/06/green-scam-80-of-green-energy-loans-went-to-obama-donors-19-companies-went-bust-video/
What happened to the obama $1 trillion “shovel ready” stimulus?
It went to Wall Street welfare queens.
Obama stimulus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k4JS4M-DHs - 208k -
Great to see that fat lard Hastert finally getting his comeuppance. Can’t wait to find out why he was paying hush money, and to whom.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/29/jaw-dropping-dennis-hastert-indictment-stirs-deeper-mystery/
Wouldn’t you think the guy would know about the laws on currency transactions? Seeing as how he was Speaker of the House and all. But I guess he was too busy supporting Bush’s wars and other BS.
Anyway, I guess his golden years are going to be hell. Unless he pulls a Ken Lay.
+1
10.4, They are all fat egomaniacs. Even USC sissy-boy Lindsay Graham thinks the country is just going to love him.
At least 1/2 term Governor Palin was easy on the eyes (just turn the sound down).
Maybe this will encourage more “individual A” types to come forth with allegations of “misconduct” against politicians, Graham included.
Ah, morning in America! Gotta love it.
Lots of “misconduct” on Capitol Hill, LOLZ!
Hey, Speaker, leave those kidz alone!
Hastert’s weird phone call on C-Span in 2014. The caller identified himself as “Bruce”, LOLZ
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/243418-dennis-hastert%27s-weird-2014-CSPAN-call
He was just showing them some wrestling holds.
And “mentoring” and “providing guidance”, LOLZ.
Interesting, though, that “Bruce” didn’t come forward with his demands sooner than 2010.
““Bruce” didn’t come forward with his demands sooner than 2010″
It’s my understanding Hastert didn’t become rich until he left congress and became a lobbyist. At which point he could afford to pay someone $3.5 million cash. It says a lot about how our system works.
It also says a lot about “Bruce”, who apparently was playing a long game and carefully watching his “investment” grow, lol.
Maybe he can get a job on CNBC and teach the folks a thing or two about “market timing”.
Isn’t blackmailing someone illegal? I’ll shed no tears for Hastert but I find it odd that the person who pays off the blackmailer ends up in more trouble than the person doing the blackmailing.
You have to read the indictment. Hastert is not indicted for having been blackmailed, he’s being indicted for circumventing bank transaction reporting through “structuring”, and then lying to the FBI about why he was making these withdrawals.
I just read an interesting blog post elsewhere that says that if you are ever being blackmailed, or considering blackmailing someone else, retain an attorney, because there are ways to legally structure settlements and keep everything more or less quiet. Part of the deal is that the silence of the blackmailer is legally assured by the settlement.
Hastert should not have tried to go this alone. He must have considered the “misconduct” so bad that he didn’t feel he could go to an attorney. If he’d retained legal counsel in the first place, this probably never would have seen the light of day.
Again, this is the sort of thing you’d expect a member of Congress to know, and is a measure of how stoopit some or even many of them are. And yet we give them power over our lives.
Yup, when you’re a criminal in trouble, you’d Better Call Saul!
The latest:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dennis-hastert-indictment-fed-say-cover-was-related-sexual-misconduct-n366776
SHOCKER!!!!!!!
Hastert should not have tried to go this alone. He must have considered the “misconduct” so bad that he didn’t feel he could go to an attorney. If he’d retained legal counsel in the first place, this probably never would have seen the light of day.
Maybe he got practice buggering high school students before going on to bugger taxpayers as a “public servant” and lobbyist.
How the Fed levitated these Ponzi markets with free printing-press gambling money.
http://www.businessinsider.com/byron-wien-latest-commentary-may-29-2015-5
RAND PAUL
DOUCHE BAG
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-28/everyone-s-attacking-rand-paul-and-he-couldn-t-be-happer
He is still kind of douchey. I guess he has to be in order to break out of that pack of dumb-asses.
Lindsay Graham?
Bobby Jindal?? Is Bobby his real name?
He always reminds me of a mocha Gilligan when he talks.
I’d like to see a Rand Paul/Bernie Sanders national reconciliation ticket. That would scare the s- out of the ptb.
Rand Paul would just dilute Bernie Sanders. If you want to “stick to the man” and be “anti-establishment” Sanders is the genuine article. Paul is Libertarian Lite. He waffles a lot.
But you’ve got to admit it would be a beautiful end run around the status quo.
“Eggo” Paul. Me likey.
Best of a bad bunch, at least at first glance. I hope he pans out because if he doesn’t I’m going to have to vote for a write in candidate or something.
+1.
Looks like our Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs economic “recovery” that benefits only the .1% in the financial sector isn’t pushing up green shoots quite like they said it was.
http://www.businessinsider.com/q1-gdp-second-estimate-may-29-2015-5
But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty’s figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty’s forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.
George Orwell, “1984″
I think that was 1983, actually.
Must have been the weather again. Damn snow keeps slowing down the economy!
I guess there go those interest rate increases. Push them out another 6 months.
Long-term bonds, the deflationist’s best friend?
I guess there go those interest rate increases. Push them out another 6 months.
As Creedence Clearwater Revival used to sing “someday never comes”
“Manana…manana…”
-Jante´ Yelleno
And we all think the elderly age gracefully. Not in Florida!
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-ap-florida-man-arrested-for-slashing-tires-over-bingo-20150529-story.html
Did you “sell in May and go away”?
Oh bugger… how will the porcine beauticians figure out how to gussy up this sow?
MarketWatch dot Com
Market Pulse
U.S. corporate profits sink 5.9%, biggest drop since 2008
By Jeffry Bartash
Published: May 29, 2015 8:30 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Adjusted pretax corporate profits fell 5.9% in the first quarter and declined for the second quarter in a row for the first time since the middle of the 2007-2009 recession, the U.S. government reported Friday. By the same measure, profits had fallen by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Adjusted profits decreased by $125.5 billion in the first quarter to mark the biggest drop in seven years, the Commerce Department said Friday. Profits had fallen by $30.4 billion in the final three months of 2014. Profit figures are adjusted for depreciation and the value of inventories.
…
Cereal choice may determine your politics.
Are you a rice crispie or a wheatie?
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21601812-or-rather-what-you-grow-eat-you-are-what-you-eat
There is that word again!!!
The Canadian housing bubble has just hit the pin!
————————
Canada GDP unexpectedly shrinks in first quarter
Market Watch | May 29, 2015 | By Paul Vieira
OTTAWA–The Canadian economy shrank in the first quarter, posting its worst three-month performance in the post-crisis era, as business investment plunged in response to the decline in crude prices.
Canada’s gross domestic product declined 0.6% on an annualized basis in the first quarter, to 1.762 trillion Canadian dollars ($1.416 trillion), Statistics Canada said Friday. Market expectations were for 0.3% advance in the January-to-March period, according to a report from Royal Bank of Canada.
Hey Canada!
Just goes to show. Never, ever depend on the United States to consume your energy. Even though we’re right next door and consume massive quantities of the very same product you produce so well.
Hell, we don’t even want to build a pipeline.
We’d rather have a flotilla of massive oil tankers sitting out in the Middle East, where not only can we waste Big Money from a pure efficiency play via high transport/logistics cost, but we can waste billions protecting the tankers.
Yeah, we could build a pipeline, but it’d be bad for the environment. Plus, Warren Buffett wouldn’t like it.
From the Economist article:
“THAT orientals and occidentals think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past two decades suggest Westerners have a more individualistic, analytic and abstract mental life than do East Asians. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain this.”
What an idiotic premise…one that could only be cooked up by pointy-headed academe types.
In actuality, could the differences in how people think be attributed to ancestory - to why those who settled in the West settled there to begin with? That maybe - just maybe - that Westerners are more individualistic because those that settled there first left their native lands because they wanted the individuality that the New World promised?
And that such attitudes are naturally passed down through the generations?
Nah - the differences are due to the foods we eat!
What idiocy.
The Economist appears to be hitting yet another new low. What was an interesting, thoughtful publication 30 years ago now is crap, chock full of mindless prattle.
Every modern human who left the African rain forest left their native land. The Asians moved the furthest away.
In actuality, could the differences in how people think be attributed to ancestory - to why those who settled in the West settled there to begin with? That maybe - just maybe - that Westerners are more individualistic because those that settled there first left their native lands because they wanted the individuality that the New World promised?
When people talk about The West, that includes much of Europe. In other words, it includes people who chose to stay in Europe.
And when the Europeans finally got to the Americas, who did they meet there?
A bunch of Asians who had already moved there a long time ago.
Money quote from a Texas meteorologist on Texas flooding:
“Science does not say that climate change is CAUSING the extreme rain and drought we’re seeing across the U.S. today and in recent years,” said Katharine Hayhoe, director of Texas Tech University’s Climate Science Center. “Just like steroids make a baseball player stronger, climate change EXACERBATES many of our weather extremes, making many of them, on average, worse than they would have been naturally.”
Scientists have consistently said climate change will bring more weather extremes. Extreme flooding in Texas. Extreme drought on the west coast. Extreme polar cold eastern U.S. in winter. Record typhoons in the Pacific. Global temperature record in 2014, 2015 on track to beat it.
How much more proof do the climate change doubters need?
Yes - because we never had bad floods, droughts, tornadoes and hurricanes before global warming.
And the ONLY solution is bigger and bigger government, more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes…
Do you recommend greenhouse gas taxes to stanch global warming?
How the recent floods compare to Houston’s other catastrophic rainstorms
Matt Levin | May 27, 2015 | Updated: May 27, 2015
Texas has been hit with dozens of major floods throughout the years, which have caused hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage.
Texas has been hit with dozens of major floods throughout the years, which have caused hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage. Keep clicking to see the most catastrophic floods in Texas’ history, since 1913.
During a classic El Nino year in 1913, heavy rains drenched Texas. In this photo, taken during the December 1913 floods, kids wade in feet-high water on St. Mary’s Street at Houston Streets. The last tens days in November 1913 saw heavy rains that laid the foundation for flooding during the first five days of December. Rainfall totals measured 20 to 25 inches, causing 180 drownings.
The Thrall Flood in 1921 drenched San Antonio due to a tropical storm that formed in the Bay of Campeche. In this photo from Sept. 21, 1921, soldiers float in a boat down St. Mary’s Street. During 36 hours, the amount of rainfall stood at 39.7 inches, which drowned 51 people.
As a result of the Sept. 9-10, 1921 flood, the city decided to build the Olmos Dam to deter flash flooding.
In 1935, exceptional floods occurred in May on Seco Creek, in June on the Colorado and Nueces Rivers and their tributaries, and in December on Buffalo Bayou. This photo shows a washed out downtown Houston after Buffalo Bayou flooding in December 1935.
A flood in May 1949 marked the worst flood in Fort Worth’s history, due to the Clear Fork of the Trinity River breaking its levees and spilling into the city.
An estimated 11 inches of rain fell on Clear Fork on May 17, 1949, causing the levees to break. Property damages exceeded $10 million, and 10 people were killed.
Rainfalls were similar between the recent rainstorms and Hurricane Ike, although the latter had recorded rainfalls topping out at 15 to 18 inches in some areas, according to the National Weather Service. However, some local bayous actually experienced higher crests this weekend than during Hurricane Ike, weather.com noted.
Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 smashed both of those events. The storm left parts of Harris County under more than 35 inches of water. The Houston Chronicle wrote afterwards: “Only Tropical Storm Claudette stands as Allison’s liquid rival. In July 1979, Claudette dumped 43 inches on Alvin in one day.”
How much more proof do the climate change doubters need?
No amount of proof will be enough.
No amount of proof will be enough.
And the ONLY solution will be:
bigger and bigger government, more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes…
“How much more proof do the climate change doubters need?”
LOTS.
And not the cherry-picked propaganda items that
Environ-nut fanatics cite as “proof”.
Proof is irrelevant when your mind is made up.
Let’s wait and see what the sea levels are in 20 years, then we’ll know.
See what Al Gore predicted 20 years ago for global warming.
NONE of it has come to pass.
Answer of progressives?
We still need bigger and bigger government, more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes.
Because I just made another 20 year prediction…
(Hint: 40 years ago they were predicting global cooling. I still remember articles on how glaciers were going to swallow NYC and we all would have to move to Texas and Florida to have a climate like New England. And guess what was the solution for this back then from the left…)
Does the Media Hold Anyone to a Lower Ethical Standard than the Clintons?
National Review | 5/29/2015 | Jonah Goldberg
I bring this up because every time there’s a new revelation about the unseemly practices of the Clintons, every time a new trough of documents or fresh disclosures come to light, scads of news outlets and Clinton spinners insist that “there’s no smoking gun” proving beyond all doubt that Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation did anything wrong.
The guy who set the bar so low that it’s basically stuck in the mud was ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. In a now-infamous interview with Peter Schweizer, author of the investigatory exposé Clinton Cash, Stephanopoulos grilled Schweizer about his partisan conflicts of interest.
Despite Stephanopoulos’s hostile tone, it was perfectly proper to note that Schweizer worked for George W. Bush as a speechwriter for a few months. The irony, of course, was that Stephanopoulos worked in a far higher position, for far longer, for the Clintons — which Stephanopoulos did not mention. Nor did he disclose the fact that he was a donor to the very Clinton Foundation that was the focus of Schweizer’s book.
Since that story broke, thanks to the Washington Free Beacon, Stephanopoulos has apologized at least three times for his actions.
What he hasn’t apologized for is his yeoman’s work making a smoking gun the new burden of proof.
When the State Department released a sliver of a fraction of the e-mails Hillary Clinton hadn’t already deleted from her private stealth server, the Daily Beast ran a story with the headline “Sorry, GOP, There’s No Smoking Gun In Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Emails.” Ah yes, because the relevant news is whatever’s bad for Republicans.
This week, the International Business Times reported that then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton approved a huge spike in arms sales to repressive countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, and that weapons contractors paid Bill Clinton huge sums for speeches at around the same time the State Department was approving their arms deals. Slate noted that “the IBT piece doesn’t reveal any smoking-gun evidence of a corrupt quid-pro-quo transaction.”
Now, obviously, if there is no smoking-gun proof of wrongdoing, the press should report that. But it might also note that many politicians and public figures have been prosecuted — and convicted — without the benefit of a smoking gun. Just ask former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell or, for that matter, Martha Stewart. The lack of a smoking gun in Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate” scandal hardly deterred the media mob.
Only in the Clintonverse could the lack of a smoking gun be touted as proof of innocence.
Another article from the National Review. Yes, it’s a real “problem” when the media doesn’t constantly follow every right wing conspiracy theory about the Clintons. But isn’t that what Fox News is for?
…and what about the impending invasion of Texas? This is big, BIG news, and the liberal media is COMPLETELY ignoring it, as they will when the Wal Mart concentration camps are filled.
Kansas burns/goes into the crapper, while the Republican Neros fiddle….
If the Republicans don’t pass a budget by today or tomorrow, furloughs of state employees start on Sunday
The “waste, fraud and abuse” flag was thrown four months ago, but other than putting limits on what poor people can spend their welfare and food stamp money on, (no lobster or Carnival Cruises for you, Yolanda)………… nada, nothing, zero “waste” identified and eliminated.
An attempt was made to pass a bill raising cigarette and sales taxes, and reinstating some of the taxes on businesses and the 1%ers that were eliminated in 2012. No dice.
Later, a “stripped down” tax increase bill was offered.
“Stripped Down” = Keep the tax cuts/freebies on businesses and 1%ers as is. Raise the cigarette and state sales tax.
Watching these a-holes squirm on their own pikes gives me an ideal of how Vlad the Impaler must have felt.
Only tax increases can save Kansas…
Got it.
A functional government is going to cost “X”
You are either going to pay for it, or you are not. I find it tiresome having to continue to explain this.
If you don’t pay the freight, you end up looking like Mexico, or Somalia, or something uniquely American in between.
Republicans promised that the state economy would flourish with essentially zero taxes on the LLC’s, small business, 1%ers etc. (AKA “Trickle Down economics). Hasn’t happened.
They have had five years to investigate and identify all of this “waste, fraud and abuse” that is supposedly happening. The only budgets that have “waste fraud and abuse” only seem to be the AFDC and food stamp budgets, and the school budgets.
Instead of reconsidering their plan/scheme, the Republican answer is always to blame Obama and/or Democrats/socialists for watering down the plan, and we just need to get rid of all of the Democrats/Socialists, and “double-down” on their plan.
Kansas has doubled down. It ain’t working.
We had a pretty nice state for a long time. Good schools, good roads, even the Driver’s License and Tag offices functioned pretty well.
Now we have schools closing early/starting late due to no money, roads not being fixed (not just repair, but sweeping up the crap that accumulates in the center medians.
For supposedly being an equal opportunity hater, you sure spend a lot of time defending Republican schemes, er policies.
Only tax increases can save Kansas…
If problems in Kansas were caused by tax cuts, it would seem reasonable to consider tax increases as a solution.
You can’t use logic on a foxnews zealot. They only understand rage and fear.
Liberals/Progressives: More money and higher taxes is the ONLY answer!
—————
America’s Dysfunctional Universities Are Overdue for Significant Downsizing
National Review | 05/29/2015 | Michael Barone
American colleges and universities, long thought to be the glory of the nation, are in more than a little trouble. I’ve written before of their shameful practices — the racial quotas and preferences at selective schools (Harvard is being sued by Asian-American organizations), the kangaroo courts that try students accused of rape and sexual assault without legal representation or presumption of innocence, and speech codes that make campuses the least rather than the most free venues in American society.
In following these policies, the burgeoning phalanxes of university and college administrators must systematically lie, insisting against all the evidence that they are racially nondiscriminatory, devoted to due process, and upholders of free speech. The resulting intellectual corruption would have been understood by George Orwell.
American colleges, dating back to Harvard’s founding in 1636, have been modeled on the residential colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. The idea is that students live on or near (sometimes breathtakingly beautiful) campuses, where they can learn from and interact with inspired teachers.
American graduate universities, dating back to Johns Hopkins’s founding in 1876, have been built on the German professional model. Students are taught by scholars whose Ph.D. theses represent original scholarship, expanding the frontiers of knowledge and learning.
That model still works very well in math and the hard sciences. In these disciplines it’s rightly claimed that American universities are, as The Economist recently put it in a cover story, “the gold standard” of the world. But not so much in some of the mushier social sciences and humanities. “Just as the American model is spreading around the world,” The Economist goes on, “it is struggling at home.”
But now the assumption is that adult-aged students must be coddled like children. They are provided with cadres of counselors, so-called “trigger warnings” against supposedly disturbing course material, and kangaroo courts to minutely regulate their sexual behavior.
A glut of Ph.D.s and an ever-increasing army of administrators have produced downward pressure on faculty pay. Universities increasingly hire Ph.D.s as underpaid adjuncts, with low wages and no job security.
The last half-century has seen a huge increase in the percentage of Americans who go to college and a huge increase in government aid to them. The assumption was that if college is good for some, it’s good for everyone. But not everyone is suited for college: Witness the increasing ranks of debt-laden non-graduates.
As Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com has written convincingly, the higher education bubble is now bursting. Colleges are closing; college applications and graduate-program enrollments are declining; universities are facing lawsuits challenging the verdicts of their kangaroo courts.
Naturally, administrators seek more money. But the money pumped into these institutions is more the problem than the solution.
Gee, all those returning veterans from WWII and Korea had something called the “GI Bill”. From 1945 to 1975, college, technical training and living expenses while in school were paid by the government.
1945 to 1975…….gee, you don’t suppose that the GI Bill had anything to do with the USA’s almost total dominance in science, manufacturing during that period?
From 1975 on, the old GI Bill went away, and became more like a 401K plan.
Hmmmmm, what also happened in/around 1975? The US started it’s slide into mediocrity.
All I know is that without a student loan program, I wouldn’t have been able to go to school. And believe me, the government has received many multiples of more tax dollars from me than they would have received if I hadn’t.
Republicans bitch about “thugs”, then bitch about spending any money for people to turn themselves into something other than thugs.
The GI Bill made a huge difference to my family, because of it my father and his brothers were able to attend college after WW2 despite being very poor dust bowl refugees…and ended up as an engineer, a chemist, and a professor.
BTW your date for the change in educational benefits is not quite right, it took place December 1976
(I joined the Navy in early ‘76 and was under the old program when I was discharged in ‘79 and went back to school)
That fact that Europe and Japan were leveled after WWII might have had something to do with our rise to superpower status.
The MOOC revolution is already overturning the traditional model of course content delivery through real time in person didactic lecture format. Soon enough, there will be an academic Hunger Games competition over what university can most cheaply deliver MOOC content for the masses who need to set foot on campus or visit a live professor during office hours. May the odds be ever in your favor.
‘Hope’ poster creator says he’s run out of hope for Obama
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/28/politics/barack-obama-shepard-fairey-hope-2008/index.html
Shepard Fairey says he’s run out of hope for President Barack Obama.
Fairey is a street artist who is behind the designs for the clothing line OBEY, was featured in the Banksy documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop” and is most known for designing Obama’s famous “Hope” poster.
But he’s full on board for Ms. Hillary. Pfft, Whatev…
Share your Santorum hope with us… or your hope for any in the GOP clown car of candidates. I bet there are more GOP candidates than Duggars at this point.
Fairey learned a lesson you never will.
Oh, brother…
Yeah, how to take a picture from AP News and copy it!!! LOL
Seems something has been going on in the markets - earlier down near 160 on the Dow - now down 60.
This on the heels of a bleak GDP report, consumer confidence tanking and the Chicago PMI down (great posts P Bear).
As has been noted in recent articles - there are no more markets anymore - just Fed manipulation!!!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-29/here-we-go-again-latest-greece-will-make-payment-headline-sends-stocks-surging
If you are walking the financial district in NY. Look out for falling objects!! Another Banker jumping!
http://nypost.com/2015/05/28/man-falls-to-death-outside-luxury-building/
“I’ll bet Parkinson is next”
“Put a fiver on it?”
“C’mon Parkey……”
“Don’t be silly, Parkey……..”
http://tinyurl.com/obx2p7p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yge311sFhC8
“Another Banker jumping!”
Too bad he didn’t land on a lawyer.
Anyone have a copy of the game program?
It’s getting real tough keeping track of the players without a scorecard (and the names written in pencil)
http://tinyurl.com/p5lm9eu
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-socal-headquarters-20150529-story.html
crater
Roughly 8,000 Chinese students were expelled from US colleges and universities last year, predominantly for bad grades and cheating, according to a new report from WholeRen Education.
“Chinese students used to be considered top-notch but over the past five years their image has changed completely — wealthy kids who cheat,” Chen Hang, chief development officer at WholeRen, told The Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time blog.
They learned from their ponzi parents laundering $$. (pun intended)
Your daily missive from ILLANNOY -
Adds background on Democrats’ budget, details from Rauner press conference, comments from Senate president’s spokeswoman)
CHICAGO, May 29 (Reuters) - Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner said on Friday that he will reject a fiscal 2016 budget from the Democratic-controlled legislature if it is not balanced, but he held out the possibility that compromises could be reached over the next two days.
Democratic state lawmakers have been voting down key elements of the Republican governor’s so-called turnaround agenda, including reforms to workers’ compensation and a local property tax freeze. Meanwhile, Democrats have put together their own spending plan for the fiscal year, which begins July 1, and have been passing various bills for the $36.3 billion general funds budget, which they acknowledge has a $3 billion revenue shortfall.
“I cannot sign a fake budget, a phony budget, an out-of-balance budget,” the Republican governor told reporters in the state capital of Springfield. “The people of Illinois deserve better.”
After meeting with legislative leaders earlier on Friday, Rauner said Democrats were now interested in his reform agenda. He said they have until the end of the legislative session at midnight on Sunday to demonstrate their sincerity. The governor added he will not call lawmakers back for a special session this summer, but will be available to meet with them at any time or place.
Rauner repeatedly said he was willing to compromise and that he has backed away from some items on his turnaround agenda. He declined to discuss what he hoped to get from the Democrats, saying he will not negotiate through the media.
Democratic Senate President John Cullerton “restated his commitment to work with the governor on reforms,” according to Rikeesha Phelon, Cullerton’s spokeswoman. She added even though the Senate rejected the reforms, the two sides can continue to work “on a turnaround agenda that works for middle-class families.”
A spokesman for Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan was not immediately available for comment.
Madigan on Monday called the budget Rauner proposed in February “reckless,” because it relies in part on savings from the governor’s proposal to freeze state worker pensions and reduce retirement benefits earned in the future. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that public sector workers have iron-clad protection in the state constitution against pension cuts. (Reporting by Karen Pierog; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Steve Orlofsky)
but then there is this……
ILLINOIS GOVERNOR SAYS DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATIVE LEADERS ARE NOW INTERESTED IN HIS REFORM AGENDA
Reuters 5/29/2015 2:51 PM ET
Print Article
ILLINOIS GOVERNOR SAYS DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATIVE LEADERS ARE NOW INTERESTED IN HIS REFORM AGENDA
All this is, is nothing more than a classic Joe Pesci moment in Good Fella’s - the classic scene where he is grunting while moving his hands back and forth cause no one know what the hell is going on.
DRONES:
gov regulate them
or
free market work it out ?
Only free market solution is to allow people to shoot them if they don’t like them around their property… which would be awesome!
More from ILLANNOY….
Can you say Penn State? What a dirt ball this guy is!!!!
NEWS
Ex-House Speaker Hastert paid to conceal sexual misconduct: sources
Richard A. Serrano and Timothy M. Phelps
Indicted former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was paying an individual from his past to conceal sexual misconduct, two law enforcement officials said Friday. The actions date to Hastert’s time as a Yorkville, Ill., high school wrestling coach and teacher, the official said.
Ante up, taxpayers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-cash-strapped-ukraine-inches-toward-crucial-debt-deal-2015-5
Will there be a major freak-out when the Fed hikes rates, thanks to a new generation of traders who never went through a tightening cycle?
Twitter has #AdviceforYoungTraders who’ve never seen a Fed rate hike
Published: May 29, 2015 3:42 p.m. ET
By Ellie Ismailidou
Markets reporter
“Never play macho man with the market,” always “identify your risk tolerance,” and most of all, “if you’re afraid — don’t do it. If you’re doing it — don’t be afraid.”
…
Things are getting ugly in Spain, as the 99% who have not benefited from Mario Draghi lavishing free printing-press gambling money on the financial elite and their political water-carriers are turning more and more restless and anti-establishment.
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/05/28/its-getting-ugly-in-spain/
I’ve never understood people who feel a need to stir things up just for the sake of stirring things up. Not a great fan of the Islamic religion, but think its adherents who aren’t harming anyone have the right to be left in peace. Insulting another religion’s holy figures is freedom of expression and should be a protected right, but that doesn’t make it morally right.
These rabble-rousers are running a serious risk of provoking the kind of response that is more likely to hurt people who have nothing to do with their protest, like our troops in harm’s way in the Middle East.
http://live.abc15.com/Event/Phoenix_Prophet_Muhammad_cartoon_contest_Latest_updates_from_event_rally_law_enforcement
REPORT: A 29-year-old investment banker died after leaping from his Financial District apartment building
Business Insider By Julia La Roche
13 hours ago
The New York Post is reporting that a 29-year-old investment banker died after leaping from his luxury apartment building in Manhattan’s Financial District on Thursday morning.
The NYPD confirmed that the incident happened about 10:40 a.m. at 1 West Street. The NYPD did not release the person’s name, age, or place of employment.
According to The Post, the man jumped from the 24th floor of the Ocean Luxury Residences. He was decapitated after hitting the guardrail by the northbound Battery Park Underpass and landed near a woman’s black SUV.
Witnesses told The Post that tourists snapped pictures on their cellphones of the gruesome aftermath.
In the past year or so, there’s been a spate of suicides among financial-services employees. As a result, financial firms have been trying to do more to improve the lifestyles of their employees, especially younger ones.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/report-29-old-investment-banker-135800338.html
phony scandals