Bits Bucket for July 12, 2015
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Real estate agents in Australia, Britain and Canada are bracing for a surge of new interest in their already hot property markets, with early signs that wealthy Chinese investors are seeking a safe haven from the turmoil in Shanghai’s stock markets.
Sydney agent Michael Pallier said in the past week alone he has sold two new apartments and shown a A$13.8m (US$10.3m) house in the harbourside city to Chinese buyers looking for an alternative to stocks.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/12/chinas-rich-seek-shelter-from-stock-market-storm-in-foreign-property
Everyone needs a bolt hole.
In reality a greater number of Chinese lost fortunes and will not be buying real estate in the forseeable future. In addition, the locals are getting fed up with being priced out of their homelands by strange foreigners with strange customs.
How many millions of chinese are wiped out and don’t realize it yet?
The made grab for cash is on. Liquidate.
Nonsense. Rich Chinese have the exact opposite problem. They don’t know what to do with all of their cash. They are already liquid, so no need to liquidate. It’s called a trade surplus, and they are on the receiving end of it.
“Strange foreigners with strange customs…” Try Dim Sum - ever have chicken feet?
Yes, tastes like chicken feet.
Right. I had it twice. The second time I had it was with a Chinese girlfriend and her Chinese friends. My girlfriend saw me grab for one of the chicken feet with a chop stick and she said “No! No!” She thought I would be grossed out. But she did not know I had it before.
It’s just peculiar. But not as peculiar as Sow’s ears.
It’s just peculiar.
It’s the texture that’s odd, IMO—but I’ve always been put off by skin and fat even in other parts of the chick. The flavor seemed pretty good to me, spiced up right.
Not chick, chicken!!
Not chicken, crow!!!
I recommend crow feet for anyone who thinks the Chinese stock market is in the clear at this point.
I hope ABQ Dan likes Chinse-style crow’s feet, since he also thinks that Chinese women are the most attractive ones. Time for his GF to get cooking.
Everyone needs a bolt hole.
Especially when you’ve embezzled or otherwise fraudulently come into large sums of money. Who was it that said, “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime”?
Greece is hanging by a thread in the euro zone with nerves “bare” ahead of a two-meeting marathon today of euro zone finance ministers and leaders in Brussels.
Following a bad-tempered, nine-hour session on Saturday, euro finance ministers reconvened this morning in a final attempt to close differences of opinion on whether the EU should open talks with Greece on a third loans programme worth about €80 billion.
As the meeting began, EU officials said agreement was unlikely ahead of a euro leaders’ summit at 4pm. A full EU summit scheduled for 6pm today was cancelled.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/eu-summit-cancelled-as-greek-bailout-talks-resume-1.2282104
Greece drama is over. Extend pretend kick can.
Telling a lie or many many lies in the service of the greater good is not only acceptable but encouraged.
could be worse you could be Zimbabwean.
Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans have invaded the streets of the country’s main towns and cities in the last few months, selling everything from second-hand tights and socks to peanut butter and pumpkins. Some have lost their jobs in a worsening economic squeeze that the Mugabe government blames on western sanctions. Others are officially employed but haven’t been paid for months. Many are university graduates.
As opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says, Zimbabwe has become a “nation of vendors”.
There have always been street traders in Zimbabwe but this is on a scale never previously seen: men and women crammed tightly – but politely – next to each other, right outside shops that are themselves struggling to remain in business.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/world/harare-street-vendors-hurt-in-government-clampdown-1-3828274
Things should be great there. They racial cleansed and brutally murdered all whites in their country…
An ex-colleague of mine (whom I haven’t heard from in 12 years) is from Zimbabwe. White. His dad owned several hundred acres of land, which he sold on the cheap right before Mugabe took over.
That much I do know.
What happened to the family? I presume they fled and ended up in the U.K. Dual passports.
Sorry - dual citizenship
What asset class do you like?
Other than cash
There is nothing better than cash when asset prices are falling.
Food, food is definitely good; now is only I had more space to store it
Too bulky and perishable. Think physical depreciation (like houses or Chinese high rise apartment buildings…).
Canned tuna is not a bad option for portfolio diversification, though…
ag is tanking so it aint food
Financial depreciation on top of physical depreciation is double-bad (homeowners take note!)…
Not to be a smart ass but …
My favorite asset class is my good-paying job.
Not sufficiently diversified for my taste…
My job:
Is a good-paying union job, located in a non-right right-to-work state, is of such a nature whereby it can not be transferred to somewhere else, is easy to do, and is located five miles from home (which allows me commute every day by bicycle), and my boss is generally clueless as to what I do (and this puts me in the position of strength).
My favorite asset class. It wasn’t always so, but now it is.
True that.
The best thing that I about what you said is the boss being clueless sort. In Engineering this is easily possible. What with the bosses concentrating on being 6sigma, green belt, black belt.
“6sigma”
Six Sigma transformed the company I work for into Comedy Central.
It used to be I created value for the company, now I create numbers. These numbers I create are supposed to represent value but in fact they only represent what I need them to represent - and what my boss needs them to represent.
And this fact - that numbers need to represent what my boss needs them to represent - has created a massive power shift: If I decide to not create the numbers that my boss needs me to create then my boss (and not I) takes the hit. This makes for a very interesting dynamic.
Seriously, Combo. An income is hard to replace with investment gains. A job. But most people in America depend in some way on the redistribution of wealth. I saw one estimate that 57% of us depend on the IRS to rob others and redistribute in some form.
“Seriously, Combo. An income is hard to replace with investment gains.”
Plus one.
“But most people in America depend in some way on the redistribution of wealth.”
As do I: In my case this wealth redistribution is done voluntarily - by willing customers - but I suffer no illusions that if these willing customers did not have money then they wouldn’t be customers and then my cushy job would come to an end.
Let me rephrase that: “redistribution of wealth at the wrong end of a gun barrel.”
Voluntarily redistribution of wealth is capitalism.
“Voluntarily redistribution of wealth is capitalism.”
Whatever the source, my customers have to have money else I wouldn’t have a job.
It’s best if one person has all the money, and someday, Jesus willing, we’ll get there.
If I could just get an overdue raise maybe I could afford to rent a house in my neighborhood in OC.
You are a single person, why would you rent a house or anything other than a one bedroom, especially if trying to hoarde cash?
Because I do have junk I accumulated over the years. Two leather sofas (not junk), a Copenhagen bed, and it would be nice to have a place for my sisters to visit. My current place has a bathroom in the bedroom.
And because I want to have a place where I can have an emergency power generator and store dried food and water. Maybe plant a small vegetable garden. I like the idea of urban survivalism.
Yes. Urban survivalism equates to having an extra bedroom for the occasional visitor.
Just don’t buy into the meme on HGTV. Who knows - they may soon be pimping the need for three couches.
I got rid of everything but a what I could fit in a suitcase, backpack, and guitar case last time I moved. It felt awesome. I’ll probably do it again in a few months.
What do you sit on at your new place, Russ? The suitcase?
I lived for a while in house with nothing but camping furniture. It’s surprisingly comfortable and convenient.
Bought household stuff that I’ll sell when I go.
Embarrassing but I paid $1200 for a fancy Danish frame and another $800 for a mattress back in 1997.
My bed in OC? It’s a $23 air mattress from Target and very comfortable.
Can’t decide if my favorite asset class is my stupendous good looks, or my sparkling wit & intelligence.
I have the same problem but I also wonder if it my best asset might be modesty.
You have much to be modest about (oh, SNAP!).
Chinese stock ETFs still trading
ft dot com
ETFs used to prop up Chinese stock market
Chris Flood
Exchange traded funds linked to China’s equity market underwent extreme stress testing last week after trading was halted on more than half of companies listed on the country’s two main stock exchanges.
ETFs tracking Chinese stocks had a record weekly inflow of $13.5bn, according to figures from EPFR, the data provider. This led one broker to suggest the authorities in Beijing were using ETFs as part of the barrage of support measures aimed at stabilising the equity market.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch said the concentration of inflows into locally listed A-share ETFs “signal market support measures rather than private sector demand”.
Chinese equity ETFs listed outside the mainland were able to continue trading despite authorities in Beijing introducing measures to try and stem the stock market rout, which saw more than $3tn wiped off the value of companies.
“Although there have been suspensions in underlying stocks, our ETFs referencing China A-shares continue to trade robustly,” said Marco Montanari, head of passive asset management in Asia at Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management.
…
If renewed Grexit fears roil (tank) international markets, I wonder how Chinese bagholders are going to feel about not being able to sell the stocks that have been effectively locked down.
Since they won’t have any idea of the value of said stocks, as no sales means no comp prices, I don’t see why they would even care.
Unless they needed to get their money out again some day for some reason, that is…
I like Bitcoin. But have very little of it. My second best asset class, I have sold off all but 100 shares of my former company stock. The batch I have left is what I bought for $2 per share and it is selling at $40.
Hey Bill - you have any thoughts on a good fund for someone in their 80s? They don’t need any income. I looked through vanguard funds ….
Thx in advance.
If they don’t need income I assume they can be aggressive. But being in their 80s the time horizon on any good annual gain is going to be ten years.
So I would look for beaten down sectors because at their age they need to take advantage of market cycles. The gold mining funds have been beaten down the most and have the most to gain. Look into VPGMX. If they were in their 60s I would say some index fund such as VTIAX, the international fund with 5,000 companies it invests in. Or the Vanguard Tax Managed Capital Appreciation Fund VTCLX, which edges out Vanguard’s S&P 500 index fund in performance over long periods.
They don’t have a long-enough time-horizon to ride out swings in the markets, so they shouldn’t really be invested in anything aggressive.
Normally, I would say that someone in their 80s should be primarily in bonds; however, with the Fed-created bond-pricing insanity afoot today, I have no idea where they should be invested.
Prime, I agree. But Ibbots was saying they do not need income.
If you are in bonds you do need income.
If you don’t need income but cannot take the risk then I assume you just want a savings account.
TreasuryDirect.gov two year notes yield 0.625 with no up front expense. Better than Vanguard short term funds.
If you are in bonds you do need income.
No, bonds may be selected more for stability-of-value rather than for income; in that case, the income is an undesirable attribute, and presumably just gets re-invested in more bonds.
(ARCC) almost a 10% div
If they’re in their 80s and don’t need the income, I’d stick it in a MM account or 1 year CDs. Low risk, low cost, easy, can ride the rates up, if they ever actually climb, and good position if we have deflation.
Thanks guys, all good input, really appreciate it.
Now is a great time to pick up physical precious metals, during the Great Chinese Forced Liquidation Sale to Pay for Margin Calls. These prices aren’t going to last in an era where central bank money-printing is going to debase all currencies.
You’ve made a very good point.
All my points are by definition very good. But thank you.
There goes that characteristic modesty from Sammy again.
I still have my mining ETFs and my hoard of physical. When raising cash I sell off my stocks for now. Have few stocks to sell so I am cutting my housing cost in half this summer.
Not so keen on the miners, since they will get dumped along with every other stock when the margin call liquidations begin. Happened in 2008, will happen when this Ponzi market implodes, too (Sep/Oct is my guess, maybe sooner). PALDF is looking good at these prices…one of only two North American platinum group metals (PGM) producers, selling at a massive discount to its intrinsic value, IMHO. It’ll either go bust or be a ten-bagger, I’m thinking. Not investing advice, just a considered opinion.
If you want to hear from on the ground in China (Shenzen), here is an 8 minute video. Winston is a Westerner living and working in China. He talks for a briefly about the Shenzen stock markets.
https://youtu.be/oToe7oW9SmI
“Realtors Kept ‘Sex Club’ Past Secret, Couple Says”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/07/09/realtors-kept-sex-club-past-secret-couple-says.htm
Typical.
“Sleep in a Concrete Sewer Pipe at this Austrian Hotel”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/10/29/sleep_in_a_concrete_sewer_pipe_at_this_austrian_hotel.html
Sacramento Housing Market Snapshot halfway through the year:
SFR Sales up 22% YoY
SFR Inventory down 10% YoY
There is a lot of demand in the SFR rental market. Five houses turned over in the last 12 months (3 residents purchased homes, 1 transferred and 1 rented a larger home). In all cases, new leases were in place before the current resident left and the new resident took occupancy just a few days thereafter. Having 99.5% occupancy for the last few years is a beautiful thing. The average term of tenancy has been 3.6 years.
Buying houses in 2008-2010 is the best investment I ever made.
Well…. not really. Not at all.
Sacramento, CA Housing Demand Falls 8% YoY; Down Every Year Since 2009
http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/City/City_Turnover_AllHomes.csv
Senior, your link doesn’t work and even if it did, Zillow does not measure listings and sales volumes.
It works quite well and it does indeed measure demand my friend.
Click on it senior. Your senior moment is quite apparent to everyone here…..
Garbage data again, I see.
Senior garbage. That is all HA has…..
Refute it. You won’t because you can’t.
That buying span was a bit early, Male.
$1,000,000 in equity and $10,000/year to the good my friend. $16,000/year when I finish my refinancing in two weeks. It seems you missed the boat…..
Your boat sank and you’re underwater my friend.
Grexit on your minds today?
Would a Grexit spell the end of the global financial economy?
Marketwatch dot com
Opinion: Would Grexit be a disaster? Probably not, says history
By Brett Arends
Published: July 11, 2015 2:34 p.m. ET
Greece might boost its economy if it defaulted on its debt and left the eurozone
If Greece rejected the international “bailout” terms, defaulted on its debts and dropped out of the eurozone, would it really face economic devastation, collapse and disaster?
The International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and most economic “news” reports about the crisis say so.
But history says something completely different.
Contrary to what you may have read, lots of countries have been in a similar bind to that faced by the Greeks. And those that chose the so-called nuclear option of devaluation and default did just fine.
Great Britain saw a “V-shaped” economic recovery after it dropped out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, the forerunner to the euro, in 1992. Real economic output expanded by 14% over the next five years, IMF records show.
The East Asian “Tiger” economies boomed after dropping their pegs to the U.S. dollar and letting their currencies plunge in 1997-1998. Ditto Russia after it defaulted and devalued in 1998. Ditto Argentina after it defaulted and devalued in 2001-2002.
Those countries saw huge gains in real, inflation-adjusted output per person in the years following the alleged “nuclear” option of devaluation or default. The International Monetary Fund’s own data reveal that from 1998 to 2003, Russia’s output per person soared by more than 40%. So did Argentina’s from 2002 to 2007. So much for “disaster” and “collapse.”
Even the U.S. has been through this. In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt outraged bankers by abandoning the gold standard and devaluing the dollar by 70%.
Over the next five years, gross domestic product expanded by around 40% (at constant prices).
…
I agree. Grexit would be better.
Better for the Greek people in the long run but worse in the short run; also worse (short- and long-term) for financiers who get stiffed…
No.
Why is it always on yours?
It is one of the big issues currently facing the the world economy., with ramifications that go far beyond Greece.
You keep talking about how Charlie Brown is going to kick that football. Greece is going to be the same as it ever was. More lending more printing more lies. A lot of saber rattling by creditors then extending the terms.
Lucy always pulls it away and it seems more familiar than ever.
Kind of like rebar saferty caps instead of 2x lumber across the top of the reinforcing dowels. Delaying the prudent corrective action and taking the easy way out simply blows a larger hole.in your body.
There is a reckoning coming. Get out of debt now.
Pangolin:
If Greece is going to be as it always has, then it will go back to the Drachma. The Euro is an infant that has done nothing but throw temper tantrums since it got here.
China, Spain, Italy, Portugall, Puerto Rico and Greece are on my mind.
Same here! These are all great litmus test cases for the future of TBTF economic governance.
How do you know this?
While I hope you are correct, I think you are naïve.
I don’t claim to know as much as some posters on this board claim to know. It’s the extreme uncertainty of the situation which fascinates me, as there seem to be more countries in need of bailouts nowadays than there are available assets to bail them out.
there seem to be more countries in need of bailouts nowadays than there are available assets to bail them out.
It doesn’t take real assets to bail them out, though, does it? Seems the central banks can just print up some cash, essentially amortizing the bailout across the entire stock of cash-holders.
“Seems the central banks can just print up some cash, essentially amortizing the bailout across the entire stock of cash-holders.”
It’s not an amortization; it is a dilution and a wealth transfer.
Which simply drives demand lower.
it is a dilution and a wealth transfer.
Oh, completely agreed! I didn’t mean amortization in the finance sense, but in the more general “spreading across” sense.
“spreading”
Yes, as in ‘privatize profits, socialize losses’.
Yes, as in ‘privatize profits, socialize losses’.
Yep! I initially typed “socialized” rather than “amortized” in that sentence, in fact!
Which simply drives demand lower.
Arguably, by reducing the purchasing-power of the dollar, this actually makes housing prices go up (e.g. due to the same value being priced in weaker dollars), thus contributing to the misperception of change-in-value, and supporting the bubble mentality.
Like one of our more prolific writers stated so eloquently;
I can ask $50k for my run down 10 year old Chevy pickup but where is the buyer at that price?
So it is with any depreciating asset like houses.
“How do you know this?”
You read. That’s how.
Insufficient response.
Again, how are they litmus tests? You are assuming they are transparent and honest in their dealings. I don’t make that assumption. Money printing and socialist programs are not exactly honest endeavors to begin with.
Additionally, it appears you assume their media to be more forthright than ours (granted, that’s not hard to achieve).
I stand by my question.
“You are assuming they are transparent and honest in their dealings. I don’t make that assumption.”
You make plenty of assumptions about my beliefs, with no basis.
Yep….There are a number of countries that are possibly standing in line…If Greece gets cut lose, thats one thing but if they write down the debt, who is going to step up next ??
Hmmm….
—————
Investors rush to sell unbuilt properties
ft.com - Jul 10, 2015 - UK BUSINESS & ECONOMY
Epidemic of ‘flat-flipping’ amid fears of London glut
Is a Brave New World upon China’s stock market?
Did you ever see rats jumping off a sinking ship?
theGuardian
Chinese economy
China’s rich seek shelter from stock market storm in foreign property
Australia, Britain and Canada brace for surge in interest after signs Chinese buyers are seeking safe-haven property markets in wake of stock market volatility
Sydney real estate
A Sydney real estate agent (right) escorts a potential buyer from Shanghai during an inspection of a property for sale in the Sydney suburb of Vaucluse on 11 July.
Photograph: David Gray/Reuters
Reuters
Sunday 12 July 2015 00.22 EDT
Last modified on Sunday 12 July 2015
Real estate agents in Australia, Britain and Canada are bracing for a surge of new interest in their already hot property markets, with early signs that wealthy Chinese investors are seeking a safe haven from the turmoil in Shanghai’s stock markets.
Sydney agent Michael Pallier said in the past week alone he has sold two new apartments and shown a A$13.8m (US$10.3m) house in the harbourside city to Chinese buyers looking for an alternative to stocks.
“A lot of high-net-worth individuals had already taken money out of the stock market because it was getting just too hot,” Pallier, the principal of Sydney Sotheby’s International Realty, said. “There’s a huge amount of cash sitting in China and I think you’ll find a lot of that comes to the Australian property market.”
…
I thought there could be two results from the Chinese stock market crash. 1 would be that Chinese would flee the stock market and continue to flood the property market. 2 would be that since so much of the Chinese stock market was on margin, that Chinese would be forced to sell foreign properties to raise money to meet margin calls. Probably more former than latter.
Since the Chinese government is working frantically to hide losses and restore share prices, it is not clear at this point whether foreign property sales to cover margin calls will become necessary.
Given the fact housing demand in the US is at 20 year lows, whatever dumb.borrowed.chinese.money does simply drives demand even lower.
“I thought there could be two results from the Chinese stock market crash. 1 would be that Chinese would flee the stock market and continue to flood the property market. 2 would be that since so much of the Chinese stock market was on margin, that Chinese would be forced to sell foreign properties to raise money to meet margin calls. Probably more former than latter.”
When a borrowed money market (stocks, real estate, whatever) crashes the crash takes a lot of money with it, leaving behind lots of debts. Vast quantities of money gets destroyed because:
1. Values of assets (as determined by prices) gets destroyed, and
2. The values of the debts that backed the destroyed assets also gets destroyed.
This destruction of money in one borrowed-money market (in this case stocks) leaves little money left over to support other borrowed-money markets (such as real estate), and it also leaves little money left over to support jobs that are associated - directly or indirectly - with borrowed money.
At root the value of a borrowed-money speculative market is determined by prices, and - at root - prices in such a market are determined by vast hordes of people who are caught up in a frenzy, caught up in a buying panic.
What follows a panic buying market is a panic selling market; What prices did in the run-up to “create value” will in turn end up destroying the very values it created by experiencing a run-down.
And since the run-up of prices was powered by and backed by the creation of lots of debt, what will be left after the price is run down will be lots of debt - lots of debt that is left with very little value backing it.
And this means that not only does the declining values of assets screw the holders of the assets it is also means the value of the debt screws the holders of the debts.
And this double whammy - the destruction of the value of the assets PLUS the destruction of the value of the debts that are backed by the value of the assets - means that an awful lot of money will end up being destroyed.
Yes a mania.
History has show manias don’t end well.
2 would be that since so much of the Chinese stock market was on margin, that Chinese would be forced to sell foreign properties to raise money to meet margin calls.
Or 3) With their new foreign passport or green card equivalent in hand, they don’t cover those calls and flee to their new safe house in a country that does not extradite to China.
Wanna bet they also have more than enough cash stashed in the safe haven’s banks to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives? I’m talking about the big fish, not the wannabees.
How many of those big fish in that situation are there? 10,000? Is that enough for anyone to care about their effect on the propert markets in Canada and the U.S.? I doubt it?
There are over one million Chinese that have wealth over $1.6 million and that number increases everyday even with large numbers leaving every day.
Okay, ten percent maybe have some type of US visa or green card that would allow them to stay? Is 100K enough to impact housing nationwide ? Even in Ca?
There are over one million Chinese that have wealth over $1.6 million
Those are small fish. 1.6m only buys a so-so house in Palo Alto; and they have nothing left in the bank.
It’s gotta be 10 mil or more. Also most of their wealth is tied to stocks or real estates, I don’t think most can liquidate that easily.
There are over one million Chinese that have wealth over $1.6 million
And there are over one billion Chinese just a generation removed from when fanatical Red Guards were rampaging against “capitalist roaders” and sending them to re-education camps. When the deeply corrupt CCP crashes the economy, the destitute masses may unleash a virilent form of class warfare.
“There are over one million Chinese that have wealth over $1.6 million…”
Before or after the recent 30% haircut in the stock market?
Downtown Los Angeles has 96 new building projects, mostly Chinese and S Korean Investment. It astounds me, that my circle of influence are thrilled with American jobs gains being created, what are the long term implications?
Add to that the Adaptive Use Ordnance (old buildings turning into loft apts), getting the homeless into apts and helping them get jobs, and I’m happy to see the renaissance. Gentrification is a wonderful thing.
In Simi Valley, Chinese Investment bought the last major parcel of available land, and is building SFHs, a Senior complex, and Townhomes. I find the Chinese Investment action in Simi, a sign of the magnitude of us losing our country.
As if 4.4 million excess empty and defaulted houses in CA aren’t enough.
what are the long term implications?
The Asian investors are going to lose their shirts and some white dudes will take those properties off their hands at a huge discount.
But in the mean time, lots of employment options for me. OTOH, a Chinese presence in a major thriving metropolitan city (NYC of course is a bigger financial district) might be worth some pain, for later gains. DTLA is coming back.
I still find it ironic that the US sent its money offshore, and then the offshore people decided that they better invest their gains in the US stock and housing markets.
War with China is coming. When it erupts, Chinese “investors” would do well to remember what this country did to the Japanese after Pearl Harbor.
War with China is coming.
I hope not. The ChiComs have nukes and missiles.
What would be worse for China:
A typhoon slamming into its shores, or a near-term resumption of the stock market rout?
Market Pulse
1.1 million evacuated as typhoon slams into China
By MarketWatch
Published: July 11, 2015 2:17 p.m. ET
Carrying winds up to 100 mph, Typhoon Chan-Hom slammed the China coast south of Shanghai Saturday, forcing evacuation of 1.1 million people, the Associated Press reported. Zhejiang province, where the storm came ashore,has received about a month’s rain in less than 24 hours, AP said. No deaths or injuries had been reported by Saturday evening.
…
“…forcing evacuation of 1.1 million people…”
Gotta wonder if they wait around for “the man” a la ninth ward, or do they arrange for their own means of survival?
The CCP has lost the mandate of heaven. Except in AB Dan’s adoring eyes.
China stock market manipulators and short-sellers:
BEWARE!
ft dot com
Beijing steps up hunt for ‘manipulators’
Charles Clover in Beijing
Chinese security forces have stepped up the hunt for shadowy market manipulators and short sellers in the wake of the stock plunge of the past month, part of an effort by Beijing to revive its volatile equity markets.
Meng Qingfeng, vice-minister of public security, said the special task force he leads has found “evidence” of “trade firms involved in illegal manipulations”, according to an account by Xinhua on Sunday. Mr Meng made the comments on Friday, China’s state news service reported.
The ministry could not be reached on Sunday for further comment on the targets of their investigations, but market participants will not fail to register the implied threat. Finding culprits for the recent share rout has become a political priority for Beijing, which is anxious to deflect public anger and blame that might otherwise settle on the government.
“They are clearly looking for villains,” said Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism. “They clearly want to be able to point to somebody, a vicious black hand behind all of this, an enemy they can go after.”
At the same time, he added, the amount of short selling possible in the Chinese stock market was very limited. “It’s hardly likely on any grand scale. You look at the short selling capacity and there is nothing there to indicate that there is any substantial short selling.”
Instead, he said, the investigation appeared to be an attempt to intimidate financial market participants. “It’s highly worrying. There seems to be an effort to bully investors not to sell”, Mr Howie said.
After days of precipitous declines, Chinese stocks dutifully rose on Thursday and Friday following a series of stern warnings and state interventions. However, more than 1,400 companies remained suspended from trading, leading to doubts about the sustainability of any rebound.
Mr Meng on Thursday visited the China Securities Regulatory Commission, saying he will investigate evidence of “malicious” short selling, while the regulator said it would “strictly punish” market manipulators.
The CSRC, which is also part of the ad hoc task force battling the stock slide, said on Friday that it defined ”malicious short selling” as “cross-market, cross-maturity market manipulation,” suggesting that authorities may be focused on traders active in both the futures and cash equities markets. Futures linked to China’s stock market also trade in Singapore.
Last Wednesday, the Security Ministry launched an investigation into more than 10 institutions and individuals over suspicion of “maliciously” shorting blue-chips, China Securities Journal reported on its website on Thursday.
…
Does it seem to others like the Chinese government has declared war on the free market?
+infinity. The real question in my mind is whether the stock-market investors in China are so naive that they will fail to recognize that their so-called markets are not actually markets anymore.
Will the presence or absence of free market principles matter to them one iota, so long as the values of their stock and real estate investments keep going up?
My guess is probably not, since they apparently like casinos even more than we do here in the US.
So what will happen when the trading ban on those with >5% holdings lifts? Most of them will be waiting at the exits trying to panic first. The resulting stampede will dwarf the losses so far.
In my mind, the questions to ponder are:
1. Will the small investor be allowed to get out whole?
2. Who takes the actual loss of non-repayment of the margin debt?
3. What will happen to the debt that was obtained by companies that pledged their rising stocks? Will they take over the companies?
This could get delayed for over 6 months but after that watch out.
“1. Will the small investor be allowed to get out whole?”
I dunno. How did the lower class passengers fare when the Titanic sank?
How did the lower class passengers fare when the Titanic sank?
Oh, the steerage? They were locked-in… literally!
The Chinese Constitution clearly states that war will be waged against any and all forms of capitalism whenever possible. So why is anyone surprised by this?
The worst possible kind of war on capitalism would be fascism posing as free-market economics.
The Chinese have already spelled out what they intend to do to us in “Unrestricted Warfare” (published in 1996). Now their capabilities are even more advanced, while our military has been worn out by Afghanistan and Iraq, and the weakening of capability and cohesion by the comissars of political correctness.
http://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf
China’s meddling shows how to destroy the market
By Barry Ritholtz, Bloomberg View
Posted: 07/10/15, 3:48 PM EDT | Updated: 1 day ago
A market, by definition, is a place where buyers and sellers can come together to exchange goods and services. That involves buying and selling those goods. Once you eliminate that free trading, you no longer have a market.
Then there is China, where the authorities have suspended the sale of half of the A share stocks. “Investors with stakes exceeding 5 percent must maintain their positions,” the China Securities Regulatory Commission said.
Throughout history, rules and regulations have slowly evolved to markets. Indeed, a certain level of regulation is desirable to ensure fair dealings, transparency and efficiency. By removing the ability to freely sell shares, the Shanghai Stock Exchange no longer qualifies as a market. I don’t know what it is, but if forced to come up with a name, the pursuit of accuracy would suggest calling it a government bureaucracy.
Lest you forgot, China remains a centrally planned autocratic regime ruled by the Communist Party. Niceties such as liquidity and free trading are deviant concepts. Pity Xiao Gang, the chairman of head of China Securities Regulatory Commission. The Wall Street Journal said he had”the toughest job in China.”
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Let me suggest to Xiao that he might learn from the mistakes the West made in its recent crises.
During the dotcom bubble, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan failed to do anything to reduce the speculative excesses. Day trading, excessive leverage, mediocre listing requirements all worked to allow a huge bubble.
After years of gains, the Nasdaq Composite Index doubled in 6 months — October 1999 to March 2000 — before its historic collapse of almost 80 percent.
It may be too late for Xiao to learn much from those errors. He has allowed the use of speculative leverage to run amok in China, leading to the inflation of its historic bubble. Greenspan doubled down on his mistakes, slashing rates after the crash, which contributed to bubbles in real estate, credit and commodities. Perhaps Xiao might find that lesson useful.
During the subsequent financial crisis — which had many causes — the Securities and Exchange Commission sided with panicked bankers, implementing bans on short selling. That action subsequently spread around the world.
Ultimately, this kind of action removes a source of buying in a rout. Short sellers are typically the first to buy during a crash. Why? They have no risk in making the buy, as they are closing out an existing position. Thus, they act as a floor under a falling market.
The strongest collapse in U.S. equities took place after the SEC banned short selling in September 2008.
Consider the long buyer in a market selloff: They are catching the falling knife or anvil. They risk being early, and the trade is a money loser. Short sellers suffer no such disadvantage. Indeed, it is not much of a stretch to suggest that every short sale is a future buy.
How ineffective are prohibitions of short-selling? Recall the ban in the 1930s — despite that, the Dow eventually fell 80 percent from its highs.
If stopping short sales does not prevent the occasional market collapse, consider these actual consequences of stopping sales altogether:
1) Causes markets to suffer a loss of integrity;
2) Selling halts are blatant market manipulations;
3) Are likely to cause a huge increase in volatility;
4) Ultimately creates a huge air pocket, leading to an even bigger crash when trading resumes after the six-month ban ends.
China’s state-run Xinhua News reported that “police had visited the China Securities Regulatory Commission to investigate “malicious short selling.” I thought U.S. and European bans on short-selling were counterproductive and short- sighted, I can’t wait to see the result of these moves.
…
Terry Savage
Nationally recognized expert on personal finance, the economy and markets
China Fears Free Markets
Posted: 07/08/2015 9:50 am EDT
Updated: 07/08/2015 10:59 am EDT
Can you see a stock market crash coming? It turns out it’s a lot easier to see one either in hindsight or from a distance than when you’re inside a stock market bubble. American investors found that out in 1987 and again in the market crash of 2008-2009. Other global investors have always known that a huge U.S. market decline would impact their stock markets negatively.
But China has been living in its own bubble. And now that stock market bubble has popped decisively, causing huge losses for the Chinese investors (it is almost impossible for foreigners to participate) who used margin accounts to leverage their speculation. In the past year the Chinese stock market had created $6.5 trillion in new wealth!
The Chinese Crack-Up
But that was before a dramatic crash that has taken place over the past five weeks. During that period, the Shanghai Composite index has lost 24 percent of its value. And the Chinese “small-cap” index, the Shenzen Composite, has lost more than 30 percent.
…
theGuardian
Economics
Economics viewpoint
China’s stock market turbulence is over? Don’t count on it
Larry Elliott
The extraordinary recent boom-bust trading pattern appears to have been halted, but China’s growth model has to change and become less reliant on investment
An investor covers her face in a stock exchange hall in Nantong, Jiangsu province, China, during the recent week of turbulence.
One investor shows the strain in a stock exchange hall in Nantong, Jiangsu province, during the recent week of turbulence.
Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty
Sunday 12 July 2015 10.37 EDT
Last modified on Sunday 12 July 2015 11.19 EDT
The numbers are mind-boggling. Ten days of falls on the Shanghai stock exchange resulted in losses that exceeded the GDP of Mexico. And 12 million Chinese citizens who opened share-trading accounts in May were nursing potentially ruinous losses. Margin trading – speculating on the stock exchange with borrowed money – increased five-fold in a year to 2.3tn yuan (£230bn).
While Europe’s focus has been the crisis in Greece, the Chinese stock market has been gripped by panic. The value of shares went up by 150% in little more than a year, then fell by 50% in just a few weeks.
Fearful that China in 2015 could find itself in the history books along with Dutch tulips, the South Sea Bubble and the Wall Street Crash, the government in Beijing stepped in to halt the rout. It cut interest rates. It banned large shareholders from selling stock. It used public money to buy equities. It allowed trading in more than half the quoted companies to be halted.
And, in the short term at least, it seems to have done the trick. Share prices rose at their fastest pace in more than seven years in the final two days of last week.
Panic over, then? That’s certainly what some China experts believe. They argue that the impact of the boom-bust in shares will have negligible impact on the real economy. Capital Economics, for example, notes that the rise in share prices did not lead to higher consumer spending, so why should the fall in share prices lead to lower consumer spending, particularly since most of the losers are high-net-worth individuals who can afford to take the hit?
Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg, says the stock market plays little role in funding investment in China. This, he adds, is just one of the “usual panics and manias to which young financial markets are even more prone than established ones”.
This optimistic assessment could well be correct. After all, the US suffered many boom-busts in the 19th century and they failed to arrest an upward trend that turned an agrarian economy in 1800 into the world’s biggest industrial power by the outbreak of the first world war.
Keynes once wrote: “Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.” China, if the optimists are right, is not a casino and the speculation is froth.
…
Great Article.
Lots of points to ponder liberals.
You are about to reap what you have sowed…
————
Obama’s killing the Left: Let’s help him.
The American Thinker | July 12, 2015 | Clarice Feldman
I have enormous respect for Victor Davis Hanson and read with great interest his account this week that the people are getting fed up with the liberal elites.
Amid all this leftish high-fiving about court decisions and executive orders, we forget political and electoral reality. Barack Obama has done more to destroy liberal political power in the Congress and in the statehouses than any Democratic politician since the 1920s. His executive orders and neglect of enforcing existing law have green-lighted the executive power of the next Republican president in a way that Richard Nixon could hardly imagine. He has discredited the idea of a disinterested media to such a degree that its biased audits of the next future Republican administration will be seen as laughable.
Europe and the United States are seeing glimpses of the ultimate leftist trajectory — a mixture of Greece and Detroit, de facto non-enforcement of the law, the Iranian nuke deal, a new McCarthyism, and race, class, and gender hatred — and are becoming afraid and perhaps appalled. A growing number of people sense that 21st century leftist elites are not pragmatic working people, but a privileged sect that callously experiments with other people’s lives on the understanding that they are insulated and immune from the inevitable disasters that follow from their own ideas.
And there is plenty of evidence to support his view. For example, 70% of the people who voted for Obama’s re-election now regret doing so, according to a YouGov poll, and the astounding response Donald Trump is getting suggests that it is not just name recognition and “nativism” in play.
From the outset of this administration it has been clear that “diversity” (which to Obama means advancing the careers of every one of his cronies at the expense of non-Hispanic whites and males) over competence has been a major goal. And each week we see how much that harms national needs and shatters national unity.
Federal tax dollars are being withheld from school systems that do not conduct gender identity classes and educators are taking this to be an order to sexualize our children already bombarded by twerking, rap culture, and other execrable behavior.
The bill also calls for “victim-centered policies” that ensure victims’ and witnesses’ privacy as well as other support during an investigation.
Recall, if you will, the effect of “victim centered policies” in the Duke Lacrosse Case and the
University of Virginia made-up rape story. These policies uniformly deprive young males of any reasonable due process protections. Eventually, claims by these young men will foster a new source of law firm revenue and bankrupt those colleges that comply with these misbegotten policies.
On the other hand, as we criminalize normal adolescent behavior which in fact we encourage in elementary-school classrooms, if you live in one of the left-wing enclaves which claim the high moral mantle of “sanctuary cities” and commit a crime you will not be held accountable and deported. And if you do this in the super left-wing city of San Francisco, the sheriff will even connive to spring you so you can take a privately-owned gun stolen from an FBI agent who carelessly left it in his car and use it to shoot dead a beautiful young woman walking with her father.
This week we learned that former IRS apparatchik Lois Lerner was illegally conspiring to jail Obama opponents:
The FBI and Justice Department worked with Lois Lerner and the IRS to concoct some reason to put President Obama’s opponents in jail before his reelection, and this abuse resulted in the FBI’s illegally obtaining the IRS files of innocent Americans,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. The conservative watchdog group uncovered an IRS document that shows how the agency furnished the FBI with 21 computer disks bearing 1.25 million pages from some 113,000 tax records. This transfer included the improper disclosure of “confidential taxpayer information,” which is covered by two laws that carry criminal penalties: Internal Revenue Code Section 6103 and the federal Privacy Act. Given Team Obama’s Chinese-style stonewalling, congressional investigators are unlikely to solve this mystery. They also lack police power to do much about it.
We also learned that Lerner was quite obviously working with the ironically named Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB) and Obama supporters elsewhere to stifle opposition:
These interconnections matter because they reveal that the use of tax and campaign laws to limit political speech was part of a larger and systematic Democratic campaign. Speaking at the University of Wisconsin in 2010, President Obama sent his own political message to investigators.
How did we get into the subject of party politics again? I thought this was an economics blog, not the last refuge for disenchanted political hacks.
LMAO.
So Greece isn’t about politics?
That country’s current economic condition was determined long ago. To pretend that any of what I happening now is “news” or “significant” is laughable.
Greece is a non-player. A statistical nothing.
Want to talk economics? Consider the United States, which is seeing its Constitution trashed and federal overreach to the extent that its economy is teetering on stagnation.
It’s interesting that nearly all of your dozens of posts are about Greece and China, Professor Bear.
Rarely anything on the United States.
Why is that?
Buyer’s remorse? A need to deflect attention away from our own economy?
Why is that?
Buyer’s remorse? A need to deflect attention away from our own economy?
Both. If he talks about the U.S. he might have to admit Obama failed. If he has Utah relatives he is eating a lot of crow this days both on housing and Obama.
The extent to which he was pimping Obama here in 2008 and 2009 (which was frequently, via numerous linked articles fawning over Little Lord Flauntleroy) led me to that conclusion.
Utah is interesting, isn’t it? I wonder if the liberals definition of “diversity” is large enough to support both Mormon religion and polygamy.
I doubt it.
After all, it seemingly isn’t even broad enough to support the concept of state’s rights.
(And get this - any liberal reader right now thinks I’m thinking Confederate flag. Guess what? I’m not. I’m thinking Arizona and illegal immigration).
I have no apologies to offer anyone who is insufficiently perceptive to recognize the relevance of what is presentlly happening in China to the United States.
“If he has Utah relatives he is eating a lot of crow this days both on housing and Obama.”
Quite the contrary.
For example, my FIL shared the fascinating information with me that the value of their home, which they bought around 2000 before the Housing Bubble more than doubled its ‘value’, has returned close to what they paid for it.
And my MIL, whose husband (i.e. my FIL) serves on a Utah State Republican Party committee, shared with me her suspicion that Donald Trump is secretly working in league with the Democrats to help them to a 2016 win.
All told, my economics conversations on this trip have been insightful and entertaining.
“The extent to which he was pimping Obama here in 2008 and 2009 (which was frequently, via numerous linked articles fawning over Little Lord Flauntleroy) led me to that conclusion.”
You are either a liar, insane, or suffering from amnesia.
Can’t say which…
The US economy is a million times brighter nearing the close of Obama’s second term than it was when he ran for President to begin with.
“You are either a liar, insane, or suffering from amnesia.
Can’t say which…”
I’m not any of those.
And you know it.
Utah is interesting, isn’t it? I wonder if the liberals definition of “diversity” is large enough to support both Mormon religion and polygamy.
The Mormon religion rejected polygamy a long time ago. Very few Utahans support it.
“So Greece isn’t about politics?”
It is about politics and economics, indeed.
However, it isn’t about stupid American two-party politics, which gets real old in a hurry, especially when people cut and paste here from the Drudge Report and similar news outlets aimed at morons.
MacBeth:
Cut it out. Stop trying to attack all the known Californians already. The Grexit is OBVIOSLY an economic issue.
Please excuse all typos. Thanks in advance.
It’s interesting that you, MacBeth, just said that the economy in the US is caused by politics, so it’s OK to talk about US politics on this blog. On the other hand, the politics in Greece was caused by economics, so it’s NOT OK to talk about the economy of Greece. How does that even make any sense?
I didn’t set out to attack Californians…but if that’s what I did, it’s rather telling, isn’t it? Telling to ME, that is.
No, Greece isn’t the major economic story that some on this board insist that it is. Sorry.
A much bigger story is the failure of our politicians in THIS country. Our shitt* economy and non-constitutional policies is a much bigger story than any crap out of Athens.
“I thought this was an economics blog”
Check the url. It reads housingbubbleblog.com.
You cut and paste ad infinitum from Marketwatch.com to feed your economics appetite, but “economics” is not the stated subject.
Banana cuts and pastes from his sources to feed his political appetite.
Calling him out for politics while you post away on “economics” is like the pot calling the kettle black.
+ 1,000.
And I would agree that I am no better.
Some people only want to speak politics when their politicians aren’t embarrassing.
Go back and examine Prof’s HBB posts from late 2008/early 2009. Endless posts about Obama and the election. Many articles came straight from The Economist.
I’ve seen alot of backpedalling here. Now I’m observing the new trend of diversion.
What gives?
How about discussing falling US GDP and falling US housing prices.
Politics, economics and housing all influence each other.
No back-peddling. Strange question you ask. I might ask you the same question. Have you always posted about housing? No politics or economics-driven posts?
All my articles are relevant to American housing, although perhaps not immediately so. I expect readers of my posts to fill in the economic logic.
If this is too mentally challenging for you, I have a suggestion:
Joshua Tree Extension
Again, why no U.S.-centered articles from you on housing?
I guess nothing is happening in the United States that affects the housing market, eh?
I find that very curious.
Macbeth, If you have read my posts over the years, then you know I have posted exhaustively on U.S. housing issues, from back at the time when Wall Street trolls posted here to deny their involvement in subprime lending.
The housing bubble was initially only one topic on Ben’s economics blog. There used to be like a few topics. Money and Metals was one, also the housing bubble, and then some others that I can’t remember right now. Like stocks or some such. That’s why you still see so much talk about non-housing-related economics here.
I thought this was an economics blog, not the last refuge for disenchanted political hacks.
Politics has a direct bearing on housing and economics more generally. Federal government meddling in the housing market led very directly to millions of loans being made to people who were manifestly not creditworthy to sign a mortgage, and put taxpayers on the hook to cover the banksters’ losses when those deals went south. 95% of ‘Muricans have dutifully bent over for a corrupt and venal Oligopoly election after election, installing its Republicrat errand boys in office, though now the sheeple are finally, belatedly starting to question the soundness of continuing to vote for the crony capitalist status quo. So politics and economics are intrinsically intertwined.
Well said.
What I wish someone here would do is post noteworthy articles about derivatives, and our government’s role in backing them.
(I’d do it, but time is very limited and will continue to remain so from now to ????)
Hugely important. If we’re going to talk Greece, it’s not their economy that matters, per se. It’s about any effects Greece has on the derivatives markets that matters.
And that’s largely a political decision. Why? Because, quite frankly, what Greece has proven thus far is that no one there (or in the EU) gives a sh@t about sound economy policy.
“…no one there (or in the EU) gives a sh@t about sound economy policy.”
Now we are starting to see eye to eye!
We don’t care in THIS country, either.
And that’s much bigger news than anything Greece.
The Bits bucket was not part of Ben’s original Thread…In fact, I recall that we use to have a Saturday thread that was “Local Observations”…Ben created the Bits to allow wide latitude of discussion so we would stay on subject in the other thread discussions…
Exactly. Yet, some people want to censor others.
“Diversity” has its limits…and is especially prevalent when it doesn’t complement one’s own belief system.
Oh Beth:
You were the one trying to censor Prof because he mentions the economic relevance of global financial crises on this blog. Prof was just trying to discourage political partisanship on a blog that was never intended for that purpose or anything even close. Politics is one thing, but partisanship is different.
It’s pointless to try to educate paid trolls.
Yes, I’m dealing with one on another blog. Called me a tea partier because I’m giving him/her trouble - a ploy straight out of the ol’ playbook!
More of what obama and democrats will reap..
————————-
Guest Post: A Coming Era Of Civil Disobedience?
ZeroHedge - 7/12/2015
The Oklahoma Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, has ordered a monument of the Ten Commandments removed from the Capitol.
Gov. Mary Fallin has refused. And Oklahoma lawmakers instead have filed legislation to let voters cut out of their constitution the specific article the justices invoked. Some legislators want the justices impeached.
Fallin’s action seems a harbinger of what is to come in America — an era of civil disobedience like the 1960s, where court orders are defied and laws ignored in the name of conscience and a higher law.
U.S. Supreme Court decisions have been defied, and those who defied them lionized by modernity. Thomas Jefferson freed all imprisoned under the sedition act, including those convicted in court trials presided over by Supreme Court justices. Jefferson then declared the law dead.
Some Americans want to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman, who, defying the Dred Scott decision and fugitive slave acts, led slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
In the civil rights era, defying laws mandating segregation and ignoring court orders banning demonstrations became badges of honor.
Rosa Parks is a heroine because she refused to give up her seat on a Birmingham bus, despite the laws segregating public transit that relegated blacks to the “back of the bus.”
In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King, defending civil disobedience, cited Augustine — “an unjust law is no law at all” — and Aquinas who defined an unjust law as “a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”
But the pizza lady who said her Christian beliefs would not permit her to cater a same-sex wedding was declared a bigot. And the LGBT crowd, crowing over its Supreme Court triumph, is writing legislation to make it a violation of federal civil rights law for that lady to refuse to cater that wedding.
But are people who celebrate the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village as the Mount Sinai moment of their movement really standing on solid ground to demand that we all respect the Obergefell decision as holy writ?
And for those who, when young, rejected the views, values and laws of Eisenhower’s America, what makes them think that dissenting Americans in this post-Christian and anti-Christian era will accept their laws, beliefs, values?
Why should they?
“Diversity” has its limits, doesn’t it?
And not just among conservatives, but among liberals, too. The latter’s sense of “diversity” is just as limiting as those of the former.
What they don’t realize is that it will soon be their turn to discover how small-minded they really are.
They are as prone to attempt to dictate to others as anyone else.
It soon will be the 1950s all over again. Demands for sameness in thought, in beliefs in action. But this time, it might be l liberals keeping everyone under their thumb.
They sure are intent on making that happen.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/07/09/paybacks-a-bitch-rural-wisdom-and-the-gathering-storm/
The furor over the Confederate flag, think I, has little to do with the Confederate flag, which is a pretext, an uninvolved bystander. Rather it is about a seething anger in the United States that we must not mention. It is the anger of people who see everything they are and believe under attack by people they aren’t and do not want to be—their heritage, their religion, their values and way of life all mocked and even made criminal.
The talking heads inside Washington’s beltway, in editorial suites in New York, do not know of this anger. They do not talk to people in Joe’s Bar in Chicago or in barbecue joints in Wheeling. They are cloistered, smug, sure of themselves. And they are asking for it.
We are dealing with things visceral, not rational. Confusing the two is dangerous. Hatreds can boil over as syllogisms cannot.
Meh. Racism and homophobia are under attack from the modern world, and they’re going to mostly lose, because Big Biz isn’t on their side any more, nor is most of the population. Some can call for rebellion, but then where will their SSD checks come from? Same with secession.
Since when is “diversity” limited to gays, blacks and women?
How about “diversity of thought” or “diversity of opinion”?
“How about “diversity of thought” or “diversity of opinion”?”
You can think whatever you like, hold any opinion you want.
You can think whatever you like, hold any opinion you want.
Sure, but in spite of the explicit guarantees in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, if you voice unpopular opinions or viewpoints, you can be fired, persecuted, and subject to being bankrupted by fines and legal fees. Sweet land of liberty, my ass.
+1,000
Where in the Constitution does it say that you cannot be fired for voicing unpopular opinions?
And how is someone “persecuted, and subject to being bankrupted by fines and legal fees” for voicing unpopular opinions?
Gov. Mary Fallin has refused. And Oklahoma lawmakers instead have filed legislation to let voters cut out of their constitution the specific article the justices invoked. Some legislators want the justices impeached.
Fallin’s action seems a harbinger of what is to come in America — an era of civil disobedience like the 1960s, where court orders are defied and laws ignored in the name of conscience and a higher law.
I don’t think that it’s generally called civil disobedience when a governor does it.
Sure, but in spite of the explicit guarantees in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, if you voice unpopular opinions or viewpoints, you can be fired, persecuted, and subject to being bankrupted by fines and legal fees. Sweet land of liberty, my ass.
The purpose of the Bill of Rights is supposed to be to limit what the government does, not private employers. It’s interesting that you appear not to understand that.
Thanks for this.
Trouble is brewing. A line has been crossed. Liberals now actively seek to stomp out their opponents’ belief systems and way of life.
They no longer seek to fight on behalf of the oppressed, but seek to oppress others instead.
Dangerous stuff. A powder keg that dogmatic liberals seem intent to light.
Yes if you’re belief system is to persecute gays, minorities, other religions, atheists, agnostics, and well anyone else that doesn’t share your narrow beliefs than yes.
Liberals are fine with people practicing their religion, in fact the ACLU often takes cases protecting religion. They are fine with you not liking all of those groups above, but if you start persecuting others than yes you should be shut down.
Putting religious artifacts at the state capital tells everyone else that they will be treated as second class citizens. Removing these artifacts tells everyone you will be treated equally.
I swear media outlets read this board.
Greece = Detroit. Where was that equated first? Here, as far as I know.
It was three years ago that NeoCons = Progressives popped up here on the HBB. At the time, there was some derision here. No longer. Now, the equivalency appears to be accepted as matter-of-fact.
What’s next? Stay tuned.
I am not fed up with liberal elites. I am fed up with the endless wars and the lust for starting new ones by the Neo conservative/”progressive” coalition. This should frighten every American who likes green trees, green grass, blue skies, and Liberty.
+ 1000
I am fed up with both.
+1000
‘Elaine: Ugh, I hate people.Jerry: Yeah, they’re the worst. ‘
The stipulations that Greece must accept within 24 hours to stay in the Eurozone (what is the United States has to abide by these conditions)?:
fully comply with the medium-term primary surplus target of 3.5 percent of GDP by 2018, according to a yearly schedule to be agreed with the institutions;
carry out ambitious pension reforms and specific policies to fully compensate for the fiscal impact of the Constitutional Court ruling on the 2012 pension reform and to implement the zero deficit clause;
adopt more ambitious product market reforms with a clear timetable for implementation of all OECD toolkit I recommendations, including Sunday trade, sales periods, over-the-counter pharmaceutical products, pharmacy ownership, milk, bakeries. On the follow-up of the OECD toolkit II, manufacturing needs to be included in the prior action;
on energy markets, the privatization of the electricity transmission network operator (ADMIE) must proceed, unless replacement measures can be found that have equivalent effect, as agreed by the institutions;
on labor markets, undertake rigorous reviews of collective bargaining, industrial action and collective dismissals in line with the timetable and the approach suggested by the institutions. Any changes should be based on international and European best practices, and should not involve a return to past policy settings which are not compatible with the goals of promoting sustainable and inclusive growth;
fully implement the relevant provisions of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, in particular to make the Fiscal Council fully operational;
adopt the necessary steps to strengthen the financial sector, including decisive action on non-performing loans, transposition of BRRD and measures to strengthen governance of the HFSF and the banks;
develop a significantly scaled up privatization program with improved governance. A working group with the institutions shall provide proposals for better implementation mechanisms;
amend or compensate for legislation adopted during 2015 which have not been agreed with the institutions and run counter to the program commitments;
implement the key remaining elements from the December 2014 state of play of the fifth review of the second economic adjustment program.”
And not a peep from the MSM.
But wait - there is a confederate flag on a car over there!!!!
—————-
The true toll of sanctuary policies
The Waterbury American-Republican | July 12, 2015 | Hans von Spakovsky
Of course, these statistics reflect the criminal histories of aliens who were in prison. Unfortunately, in fiscal year 2013, the Obama administration released more than 36,000 convicted criminal aliens awaiting the outcome of deportation hearings upon an unsuspecting public, and another 30,558 in fiscal year 2014, according to the House Judiciary Committee.
The offenses for which they were convicted involved “dangerous drugs, assault and domestic violence, stolen vehicles, robbery, sex offenses, sexual assault, kidnapping, voluntary manslaughter, and even homicide.” As the House Judiciary Committee outlined, more than a quarter of these aliens “were so called ‘level 1s’ according to the administration — the worst of the worst.” And in 2013 alone, the administration didn’t even bring removal proceedings against an additional 68,000 criminal aliens convicted of everything from homicide to sexual assault.
If the more than 134,000 aliens released by the administration in just the past two years follow the pattern of those aliens studied by the GAO in 2005, they will commit hundreds of thousands of more crimes, victimizing countless innocent Americans in crimes that could have been prevented.
How many Americans have to be assaulted, injured, raped or killed, or have their homes, cars and personal property burglarized, stolen or damaged, before the federal government and local governments like San Francisco will finally do what is necessary to lock up criminal aliens who are a danger to the safety and lives of the public?
Trump misunderestimated. Jeb! is governor over 7 sanctuary counties in Florida.
Trump should go after Jeb. But can the state do anything on Fed immigration law? Especially after the recent SC ruling against Arizona?
Trump DID go after JEB! in Phoenix yesterday, big time. And that’s not all. He went after Shrub, McCain, Obama, Kerry, NBC, ESPN, PGA, Univision (that one was priceless) and the MSM, big time. Called ‘em out for what they are, dishonest.
By the time he was done, it was like he had left a line of limp, effete pansies naked from the waist down.
He “pantsed” some folks!
Oh, man, I forgot the best one, Macy’s. He described a phone conversation with the CEO, Terry Lundgren. Priceless. What a limp dork of a CEO. Well, Macy’s hasn’t been doing so well, looks like Trump just gave ‘em an assist down the drain.
Looks like the first casualty of The Donald’s truth-telling will be Marco Rubio, like most of the occupants of the Establishment GOP clown car presidential candidates a neo-con stooge, Wall Street fluffer, and Constitution trampler salivating at the post-government “service” payola he stands to pick up from his bankster masters. Now his campaign (of course he has his own billionaire backer) is sinking into the low single digits….LMAO. Buh bye, you loser.
http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2015/07/11/reuters-trump-bush-locked-in-dead-heat-rubio-sinks-to-tenth-place/
Couldn’t agree more. Boo Boo Boobio.
His speech is all over Youtube. McCain mention got a huge BOOOO right at the beginning.
Trump’s real significance is that he’s waking up the sheeple. While the Oligopoly has been able to count on 95% of the electorate dutifully bending over for them and installing their pliant creatures election after election, that lock on the zombies may not be as assured going forward.
http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2015/07/11/nyt-donald-trump-defiantly-rallies-a-new-silent-majority/
The Oligopoly’s mouthpieces are getting worried about The Donald waking up The Sheeple whose obedient readiness to bend over for Soros and Goldman Sachs puppets has been assured.
Lol, anything that ruffles little Lindsey’s warmongering feathers is OK by me.
http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2015/07/12/graham-trump-is-wrecking-ball-to-republicans/
This is what I was talking about yesterday. A serious issue getting eliminated.
‘Graham told CNN he is “very worried” about where the Republicans are headed as a party. “I don’t think this is the way to get the Latino vote,” Graham said. “If we do not reject this way of thinking clearly, without any ambiguity, we will have lost our way. If we don’t reject it, we’ve lost the moral authority, in my view, to govern this country.”
I’ve mentioned this before. When I first came to Arizona in 2003, a referendum came up about not giving state aid to illegal immigrants. Every single state-wide office holder came out strongly against it. It passed in a landslide. Then it emerged it had passed by a wide margin amongst Mexican-Americans. Seems they weren’t keen on unemployment, lower wages and human trafficking either. Graham is full of it. Notice how he frames it; we can’t even talk about illegal immigration. I’ll say this, the issue isn’t going away because the problems will continue and possibly get worse. Have your amnesty. What about next year and the year after that?
I’ll say this, the issue isn’t going away because the problems will continue and possibly get worse ??
I agree…
‘Graham told CNN he is “very worried” about where the Republicans are headed as a party
Good time according to Graham:
1. Afghani war
2. Iraqi war
3. Patriot act & surveillance society
4. Bank bailout
5. Abu Gharib and Guantanamo
I’ll say this, the issue isn’t going away because the problems will continue and possibly get worse
Of course not. Now that the gay & obamacare issues are practically over, Government will import more illegals and ask for more power to “solve” it.
Trump should go after Jeb. But can the state do anything on Fed immigration law? Especially after the recent SC ruling against Arizona?
No, the state can’t do anything about federal law. How about this? If the some cities and counties in Florida voted to be sanctuary cities, is there anything that Governor Jeb could have done about that? Does Trump even know the answer to that question?
Incidentally, anyone have a list of all the felons that Bill Clinton pardoned/released on his last day in office?
It’d be fascinating to see what became of them. Where are they now? Any of them land on Wall Street? In government?
The Donald gave a 70-minute speech, without a single promise of more “free” sh!t (courtesy of taxpayers). Impressive.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/07/12/stucky-hops-aboard-the-trump-train/
Well, he kind of did. There was the part about “we’re gonna take care of everyone, sorry, Conservatives”.
Not sure what that meant, exactly, but from what he said about Social Security (no privatization, as opposed to JEB! wanting to privatize it) I gather he’s looking to take care of US citizens who genuinely need it. And some do. I don’t consider myself a socialist, but I do believe I have an obligation to some of my fellow citizens who are genuinely having a rough time. Of course, this should be my choice and not foisted on selfish hoarders. Then again, I don’t think selfish hoarders have any problem using public roadways.
Give people good, stable jobs and most don’t mind helping those less fortunate.
oops. Here we go again with the short term memory types saying “Pay up or die” to me - it happens every 6 months or so (the span of their memories). I always respond with this:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2012/02/laurence-m-vance/pay-up-or-die/
‘8. Do not drive on any paved road, highway, and interstate or drive on any bridge.
It is not the job of government to construct roads, highways, interstates, or bridges. And it is a myth that there would be no roads and bridges if the government did not construct them. In early American, most roads and bridges were privately owned and some of them are privately owned today. See Thomas DiLorenzo’s “The Role of Private Transportation in America’s 19th-Century “Internal Improvements” Debate” and Walter Block’s The Privatization of Roads & Highways.’
Well, go live in Early America. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Didja take a shower today? Maybe you went down to the nearest river and washed off, maybe brought some clothes along and rinsed them out and slapped them on the rocks.
No one’s telling you to pay up or die, don’t be such a drama queen.
You are the one who has the utopian ideal of government. I’m not.
Not sure what that meant, exactly, but from what he said about Social Security (no privatization, as opposed to JEB! wanting to privatize it) I gather he’s looking to take care of US citizens who genuinely need it. And some do.
Jeb’s oligarch masters are salivating at the prospect of an unfettered looting binge of social security, the last great untapped pool of wealth for Wall Street to steal. We do have a “general welfare” clause of the Constitution, and the massive larceny and swindles by the Wall Street-Federal Reserve crime syndicate shows why we need a government that is accountable to the public and looks out for the public interest. Of course, when 95% of your electorate votes for Wall Street water carriers, they’re pretty much just saying no to responsive and accountable governance.
What I like most about Trump is that he clearly is interested in the production of wealth.
And when wealth is produced, one can afford to be charitable.
As Ben and others have stated, you can’t have unfettered immigration, legal or illegal, and a welfare state. Doesn’t work.
I live in an area that has a heavy population of illegals. They are prodigious reproducers. I see the fruits of their loins every day, while running errands, shopping, going to the post office, whatever. Birthright citizenship. What’s going to happen when these kids age out of the system and their parents are no longer receiving cash for kidz? What jobs are they going to have? Especially if cash for kidz gets cut off, which it eventually will. That will eliminate the income stream for those who get the idea to reproduce as a source of income. Then what? Farm labor? Much of that will have been mechanized. Assuming they even want those jobs, which many don’t.
Maybe Uber.
I have posted statistics here before - not that anyone would wish to read them. But they do point out a couple of things. 1) Many of American’s “warning signs” like wealth inequality, previous health care coverage issues, etc. are merely an artifact of a high level of immigration from Mexico and other locations. The people born here have been here for generations are doing quite well, thank you. But the first generation immigrants from Mexico and from other countries with low GDP per capita - not so much. 2) By the second generation all of these statistics improve and by the third generation it is hard to measure a difference between these immigrant families and every other American. 3) Will it be different with this generation? Possibly. A) We don’t have same low skill jobs we used have in say in the 1920’s to get them onto the escalator. B) Also there has never been a generation like this that has had everything handed to them. How does that impact motivation? C) It used to be hip to make it in the middle class and act nice and dress nice. Now it is hip to be a ghetto gangster. If you don’t think this really matters take a look at Jamaica. When I used to go down there the kids had it hard but they had a drive to be better and there was almost no crime. Now with the introduction of rap music to Jamaica they are killing each other in broad daylight. Cultural adaptation. You can draw your own conclusions.
You can draw your own conclusions.
Your conclusion is that rap music led to a big increase in crime? Is there any good reason to think that there was any causation there?
THE IMAGE
Thunder comes resounding out of the earth:
The image of ENTHUSIASM.
Thus the ancient kings made music
In order to honor merit,
And offered it with splendor
To the Supreme Deity,
Inviting their ancestors to be present.
When, at the beginning of summer, thunder—electrical energy—comes rushing forth from the earth again, and the first thunderstorm refreshes nature, a prolonged state of tension is resolved. Joy and relief make themselves felt. So too, music has power to ease tension within the heart and to loosen the grip of obscure emotions. The enthusiasm of the heart expresses itself involuntarily in a burst of song, in dance and rhythmic movement of the body. From immemorial times the inspiring effect of the invisible sound that moves all hearts, and draws them together, has mystified mankind.
Rulers have made use of this natural taste for music; they elevated and regulated it. Music was looked upon as something serious and holy, designed to purify the feelings of men. It fell to music to glorify the virtues of heroes and thus to construct a bridge to the world of the unseen. In the temple men drew near to God with music and pantomimes (out of this later the theater developed). Religious feeling for the Creator of the world was united with the most sacred of human feelings, that of reverence for the ancestors. The ancestors were invited to these divine services as guests of the Ruler of Heaven and as representatives of humanity in the higher regions. This uniting of the human past with the Divinity in solemn moments of religious inspiration established the bond between God and man. The ruler who revered the Divinity in revering his ancestors became thereby the Son of Heaven, in whom the heavenly and the earthly world met in mystical
contact.
These ideas are the final summation of Chinese culture. Confucius has said of the great sacrifice at which these rites were performed: “He who could wholly comprehend this sacrifice could rule the world as though it were spinning on his hand.”
See also Yayue.
These thing have been understood since the bronze age. How is it that we have forgotten? My question to you is in whose hand are we now spinning?
There is not a single redeeming thing about today’s rap music. I lived near Detroit back in the 1980s and used to listen to rap music back then - a lot of it was actually very good - and it didn’t talk about neggas, hoes, and all of the stuff in there today.
When you hear NPR extolling the virtues of modern rap (as it seems to do every week or so), you know something is seriously wrong with this country.
Is he going to cut the billions spent on corp welfare!? right on!!
Alcoa and Boeing, can make it on their own! No more, too big too fail!
I still like Rand Paul, he will destroy Trump in a debate.
Rand Paul means well, but he’s just a little too much of weasel for me. I swear, I think I glimpsed a white stripe down his back in this video.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/08/05/rand_paul_runs_as_dreamer_confronts_rep_steve_king.html
he is just “picking his battles”
seems smart.
I still like Rand Paul, he will destroy Trump in a debate.
It will be interesting in a debate with ten guys on stage. If the debate is an hour and a half, that works out to be 9 minutes or less for each guy, broken up in one or two minute segments.
theGuardian
China
China’s stock market crash is a problem for the whole world
Isabel Hilton
Europe is currently preoccupied by Greece, but soon we may all be feeling the trauma of China’s small investors
Chinese small investors
‘International investors have called the recovery a dead cat bounce, and the leadership’s reputation with its own people has suffered a serious blow.’
Photograph: Imaginechina/Corbis
Friday 10 July 2015 13.37 EDT
Last modified on Sunday 12 July 2015 00.37 EDT
The Chinese stock market crash came to a juddering halt yesterday, after a nailbiting three weeks that left investors $3tn poorer. The halt came after an escalating series of interventions that culminated in the suspension of trading in more than half the listed companies and strict instructions not to sell that were issued to anyone the government controlled or could influence. It was an extraordinary reaction and left the market with a sense of a drama interrupted, not completed.
As the weekend approached, investors and regulators were taking stock of the damage: the market is still 70% up on a year ago and the sky did not fall in. But international analysts have called the recovery a dead cat bounce – and the leadership’s reputation with its own people for sound management, along with the promise for international investors that the government was on track for overdue economic reforms, has suffered a serious blow.
As the crisis at home escalated, both Li Keqiang, China’s premier, and Xi Jinping, the president and Communist party general secretary, were engaged in a more familiar role: promoting Chinese loans and investment abroad, backed by 30 years of double-digit growth. Li was obliged to take charge of the crisis on 3 July, on his return from a week-long visit to Europe; by the time Xi arrived in Russia for the seventh Brics summit on Thursday, the crash was the talk of the trading floors.
The two Chinese leaders promise their citizens wise stewardship and rising prosperity in return for political quiescence, but suddenly they have the appearance of vulnerability. Official media have resolutely ignored the drama, and the words “panic” and “stock market crash” were scrubbed from the internet. But China’s 90 million small investors have been left bruised by the reversal of a bull market that the government itself engineered 12 months before.
Official pronouncements blamed the public’s “irrational” behaviour. Some media blamed foreigners. In reality, the authorities were paying the price of a year-long rush into the markets that the official media had encouraged with the promise of steadily rising returns – with 20m new accounts opened in the spring. This was an officially inspired bubble – trade rules were relaxed, allowing investors to buy shares with more borrowed money and open multiple accounts – and the burst was overdue.
…
” official media had encouraged with the promise of steadily rising returns – with 20m new accounts opened in the spring. This was an officially inspired bubble – trade rules were relaxed, allowing investors to buy shares with more borrowed money and open multiple accounts”
There’s that high IQ central planning at work.
Mountain View, CA Housing Prices Fall 6%
http://www.movoto.com/mountain-view-ca/market-trends/
PPSF up 22%?? Seems questionable, alright—just like every time you pick a really small geographic sample, and then try to generalize from it.
It is the falling transaction price that is important here. $/sq ft will fall as demand plummets and transaction prices continue to crater.
Crater.
Hunger here in the USA is always in the news…The Churches and “Food Banks” Have to know what is happening to all the food they pass out ..They don’t care ,it makes them feel so good to do it….The so called hungry, They store it ,trade it,then go down to the supermarket frozen food section to check out the french fry selection, while wearing spandex pants….ha
I kind of think this fixation on hunger and homelessness is a big scam. In many cases it is pretense to try to make others admire you for altruism. Just like the ADA is a huge scam and I bet over half the people on disability are scammers.
I bet over half the people on disability are scammers ??
I agree…The bar for granting a SS disability has been so liberalized its a bastion of abuse…
food stamps:
40.2% white
25.7% black
10.3% Hispanic
2.1% Asian
1.2% Natives
12.8 race unknown
Now compare that to the population breakdown…
Nah, they never do. Math is too hard.
63.7 % Non-Hispanic White
12.2 % Non-Hispanic Black or African American
4.7 % Non-Hispanic Asian
0.7 % Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native
0.2 % Non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
0.2 % Non-Hispanic some other race
1.9 % Non-Hispanic two or more races
16.4 % Hispanic or Latino
Now draw your own conclusions.
Whites are lazy and game the system. Hispanics are hard workers. The only bums in SLO are white.
sounds like the white people will lose out when they cut the colored folks freebies. ( $160 mo)
Jail $45k yr.
stop spending my money
The American Dental Association?
I kind of think this fixation on hunger and homelessness is a big scam. In many cases it is pretense to try to make others admire you for altruism. Just like the ADA is a huge scam and I bet over half the people on disability are scammers.
Want to stop hunger? Pay off all your debts and save money.
I noticed most of the “needy” people parked at our local food bank drive nicer cars than I do.
If you dare, wheel through the ghetto areas of any city and check out the bumper to bumper SubPrimeAuto Eurotrash.
I noticed most of the “needy” people parked at our local food bank drive nicer cars than I do.
Food banks generally do not require you to prove need. I know of people with solid incomes who “shop” at food banks.
Hunger here in the USA is always in the news…The Churches and “Food Banks” Have to know what is happening to all the food they pass out ..They don’t care ,it makes them feel so good to do it….The so called hungry, They store it ,trade it,then go down to the supermarket frozen food section to check out the french fry selection, while wearing spandex pants….ha
It’s not really in the news that much. Results of sporting competition in the news every day.
And what dies this mean, the so-called hungry? Is no one hungry?
Obama Won’t Let Some Mass Graves Stop the TPP
Workmen walk among coffins in a mass grave of unidentified Rohingya remains found at a traffickers camp in Malaysia. (Reuters/Olivia Harris)
By George Zornick
July 10, 2015
Malaysia is home to many “outsourcing companies” that are, in reality, professional slaving operations: foreign workers, often refugees fleeing desperate situations in nearby countries like Burma, are recruited to the country with the promise of legitimate work but then subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. The State Department and international human rights groups have routinely concluded the Malaysian government does very little to inhibit the traffickers’ operation.
Instead, the Obama administration appears to have chosen another path that has shocked the human-rights community: It will simply reclassify Malaysia. Reuters has reported that when the Trafficking in Persons report comes out next week, Malaysia will no longer be a Tier 3 country.
http://www.thenation.com/article/obama-wont-let-some-mass-graves-stop-tpp/ - 76k -
Obama Won’t Let Some Mass Graves Stop the TPP
What corporations want, corporations get. They won, it won’t be long until countries stop pretending they are democratic and they stop holding elections, and instead simply allow corporations to do the governing. And the hold outs will be punished, trade will be withheld, access to the international banking system will be denied.
Whenever I try to talk about this stuff with people, they look at me like I’m crazy and accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist. Basically, If you notice that the corporatist agenda is kind of selfish, then you’re nuts.
Boston Metro Housing Prices Fall 7%
http://www.zillow.com/ma/home-values/
Wow, check out that sales price graph for all of MA! This spring certainly does appear to show a break from the prior trend of six years of up-and-to-the-right!
http://www.breitbart.com/news/apnewsbreak-diplomats-iran-nuke-deal-expected-sunday/
How goes the war soldier?
https://goo.gl/yRCqOC
Does this mean further oil price drops dead ahead?
What, no commentary to go along with the link? Why so quiet all the sudden?
Bad news for people who hate good news:
Denmark just ran entirely on wind energy for one day
Denmark capitalized on an unusually windy day Thursday. Their wind turbines produced enough power not only to cover the whole country’s needs, but to also lend some to other European countries. By nightfall, they had made 140 percent of the power they used, giving the excess to Germany, Norway, and Sweden. And get this — turbines weren’t even running at full capacity, Quartz reports.
“It shows that a world powered 100 percent by renewable energy is no fantasy,” European Wind Energy Association spokesman Oliver Joy told The Guardian.
http://theweek.com/speedreads/565989/denmark-just-ran-entirely-wind-energy-day
I like the idea of powering the US with geothermal from Yellowstone. I realize it would mean the sacrifice of a wonderful national park, but what’s the greatest good? It would keep much of the rest of the country from getting fracked to death and it would bleed off the subterranean pressure and reduce the threat of massive volcanic activity.
no need, we have wind in ND, and sun all over the west.
Energy efficiency would solve the problems, but fools have a 30 yr old refrigerator in their hot garages for that extra cake come birthday time.
“no need, we have wind in ND, and sun all over the west”
And North Dakota is 4.5 times larger than Denmark. And waaaay less populated.
And the sun doesn’t shine at night, and the wind is non-dispatchable non-baseload power, which means that 1) you can’t tell it when to turn on or off, and 2) it doesn’t run 24/7.
So if you have windpower, you actually have to have backup plants to give you power when the wind isn’t blowing. That’s far more expensive than what we have today.
And our electrical grid doesn’t store any energy, so when wind and solar start dumping into the grid and the supply exceeds demand, you have to dial back other plants that were already running. And then dial them back up again when the wind dies down. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I’m all for alternative forms of energy, but you need to educate yourself on the realities of it all and the greater implications that they have on our electrical grid stability and reliability.
LOL! when is peak energy use? what are batteries? If you lived in Maine, yes, I too would be scared of solar.
LOL@Lola
How’s the housing market in the gayborhood?
Get ready to surrender more privacy and liberty so the taxman can asset-strip the productive more effectively.
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/07/12/new-global-taxman-to-wage-war-on-informal-economy/
“This should be comforting news, for if there’s one thing we’ve learnt in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, it is that banks and governments can always be trusted to look after the people’s money.”
We already have a global taxman. It’s called the IRS.
How much public money has been wasted on endless, inconclusive summits and meetings to decide the fate of Greece?
http://www.businessinsider.com/europe-is-bracing-itself-for-its-most-fateful-day-in-years-2015-7
Gotta wonder… what is the per-diem is for a diplomat?
Is the can-kicking since 2008 finally running out of road?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-12/eurogroup-fails-reach-deal-gives-greece-24-hours-accept-draconian-terms
Sometimes it looks grim, but good things are possible.
I agree.
Do African Americans know they should also be pissed off at African Africans?
Ending the Slavery Blame-Game
By HENRY LOUIS GATES Jr.APRIL 22, 2010
While we are all familiar with the role played by the United States and the European colonial powers like Britain, France, Holland, Portugal and Spain, there is very little discussion of the role Africans themselves played. And that role, it turns out, was a considerable one, especially for the slave-trading kingdoms of western and central Africa. These included the Akan of the kingdom of Asante in what is now Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin), the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern Angola and the Kongo of today’s Congo, among several others.
For centuries, Europeans in Africa kept close to their military and trading posts on the coast. Exploration of the interior, home to the bulk of Africans sold into bondage at the height of the slave trade, came only during the colonial conquests, which is why Henry Morton Stanley’s pursuit of Dr. David Livingstone in 1871 made for such compelling press: he was going where no (white) man had gone before.
How did slaves make it to these coastal forts? The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.
Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in “Roots.” The truth, however, is much more complex: slavery was a business, highly organized and lucrative for European buyers and African sellers alike.
The African role in the slave trade was fully understood and openly acknowledged by many African-Americans even before the Civil War. For Frederick Douglass, it was an argument against repatriation schemes for the freed slaves. “The savage chiefs of the western coasts of Africa, who for ages have been accustomed to selling their captives into bondage and pocketing the ready cash for them, will not more readily accept our moral and economical ideas than the slave traders of Maryland and Virginia,” he warned. “We are, therefore, less inclined to go to Africa to work against the slave trade than to stay here to work against it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/opinion/23gates.html -
Self pity still brings home the bacon for native Americans.
“The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves.” —Barbara Corcoran
Looks like mutti is fed up with Greece. She is hell bent on kicking Tsipras where it hurts. Time will tell how it unfolds although I am a big believer that they will kick the can one more time.
Nancy Graham is upset with the Trumpster. Probably because the Donald didn’t get the message that we have a 1 party system in this country.
Graham on Trump: He came in like a ‘wrecking ball’
By Eric Bradner, CNN
Updated 10:10 AM ET, Sun July 12, 2015
(CNN)Sen. Lindsey Graham says Donald Trump is a “wrecking ball” who has put the Republican Party’s future on the line with his controversial remarks about Mexican immigrants.
“I think he’s hijacked the debate. I think he’s a wrecking ball for the future of the Republican Party with the Hispanic community and we need to push back,” Graham said in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday.
“This is a defining moment for the Republican Party. We need to reject this,” he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/12/politics/donald-trump-lindsey-graham-wrecking-ball/ - 241k -
Testify, Patrick Buchanan. Had he been elected President, he would’ve brought the neo-con adventurism to a screeching halt, stood up for the Constitution, and cracked down on the Wall Street-Federal Reserve looting syndicate. Instead the sheeple voted for Tweedle Dee over Tweedle Dum, and the rest is history.
http://buchanan.org/blog/a-coming-era-of-civil-disobedience-16239
If elected, he most likely would have been dealt with, just like JFK and RFK were, because they upset too many big players in the establishment.
That’s why Jebillary will win the next election.
“Offended” flea market shopper calls cops over confederate merchandise.
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/offended-flea-market-shopper-calls-911-over-confederate-merchandise/
SFBay
The list of terms proposed to Greece - I thought Greece was a sovereign country - do they want to impose clothes washing standards too ?
Germany, who holds the majority of the Greek debt, has received 100% debt forgiveness twice within the last 80 years - and in today’s dollars for a lot more than Greece owes each time.
Goldman Sachs should be footing Greece’s bill for incompetence in their financial engineering of Greece’s entry into the EU.
Greece wanting to borrow money from it’s creditors to repay it’s interest payments to them is a joke.
What is really sad is the way the EU has been winning the propaganda defence. Painting one instance as representative of it overall is neither a fact or what is really happening.
I suggest Greece tells the Germans to either forget about their debt or Greece will leave the EU, set up it’s own Drachma which served them well for 2600 years, and Greece will declare their debt finished.
Tsipras will first attempt to agree to the terms of the troika as best he can manage (with some small demands) in the next 24 hours and if successful he will attempt a purge of anyone in the government that stands in his way.
Not what I would do or what should be done but in history people matter and in this case Tsipras matters. It is what he will do. The question is will he succeed? He has miscalculated before.
And Patrick its nice to see your posts. I do enjoy them and you know in my heart agree with them.
I think a reasonable allocation into Bitcoin would be 1% to 5% of your assets. For gold, silver, and PGMs, from 5% to 10% of your assets. For cash and government securities, about 30%.
late post: “The Case for owning Bitcoin from a Crypto Currency Skeptic:
http://debtcrash.report/entry/the-case-for-owning-bitcoin-from-a-crypto-currency-skeptic
So why am I, a self proclaimed bitcoin skeptic, putting up a post on why bitcoin has a place in a modern portfolio? No I have not changed my mind on bitcoin. There is still significant evidence that it was created by those who do not have economic freedom in mind. That said researching and writing my last piece on the commonly held belief among financial commentators and advisers that the correct allocation to precious metals is 0% forced me to take a second look at bitcoin. An absolute claim like, you should not own ANY precious metals, rubbed me the wrong way, but because of my research into bitcoin I had no exposure to the crypto-currency. If there is anything I hate it’s a hypocrite, so lets take a look at the pro’s and cons, risks and rewards of putting some money into bitcoin.
Among alternative financial commentators there are two very distinct groups, those who believe in and love bitcoin, and those who don’t, and never the twain shall meet. I am part of the latter but humility and knowing that I don’t know or understand everything has pushed me into taking this second look.
No matter how much evidence you put in front of a bitcoin believer their faith will not bend. To one I laid out how it was very likely that the NSA had been involved in the creation of bitcoin which makes it very suspect. He actually thought that the government had been involved in its creation but felt that they no longer had control of it. Similar to the development of the internet by the department of defense, the government didn’t know the implications of their crypto-currency creation and once society got a hold of that technology they had no control over it. He felt that like the internet, bitcoin would eventually change the world and take over commerce.
I put the chances of a monetary takeover by bitcoin at slim to none, but as we have outlined, our monetary system is very sick and headed toward failure. Something will have to replace it, and while that could be any number of options, bitcoin does have a lot of aspects going for it that could see it used at least in some capacity if there is a monetary meltdown. The possibility of bitcoin being a fallback as a result of a crisis is evidenced by the statements made by the Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis who essentially said that Greece will resort to using bitcoin if they were forced out of the Euro.
There were clear upward reactions in bitcoin price during the most recent crisis in Greece as well as during the Russian Ruble crisis last year and the Cyprus bail-in before that. It would be foolish to ignore these recent trends and the reaction of people to gravitate to bitcoin during crisis.
The slight possibility of bitcoin being one of the fallback currencies in a crisis makes having some exposure to the crypto-currency logical. The bitcoin market is relatively small. The total value of bitcoin at current price stands at around $3 billion, and even once all the bitcoin have been mined, at current prices, they would be valued at a little over $5 billion. If bitcoin were ever adopted by even a small economy, let alone if it took over world commerce, the value of bitcoin would skyrocket, and this brings me to the risk side of the equation. Even a very small allocation to bitcoin of say .05-.5% of a portfolio would be sufficient to make you very well off if it were ever adopted on a large scale. So depending on the size of your portfolio the risk you would have to take to be protected by bitcoin would likely be measured in hundreds of dollars, not thousands.
Now for the risk of not getting some exposure to bitcoin. Let’s say that you make all the right calls. You say that the monetary system is doomed and will fail, and it does. In preparation for this failure you stock up on gold and cash. In response to the crisis the government bans both cash and gold, and despite your best efforts the government manages to confiscate both. Your preparations do little to protect your family. Though the government sets up a new monetary system, bitcoin takes on a much larger role in the economy and increases in value significantly. It is certainly possible, as I have outlined, that the government could effectively ban the use of bitcoin as well, but how would you feel if you made all the right predictions on the economy crashing, but did not buy the one thing that offered the most protection. I would have difficult time dealing with making all the right calls except how to protect my wealth and family.
I will not pretend that I have now become a bitcoin convert but I do believe a small exposure makes sense. Bitcoin has gone through its first bubble phase and has dropped significantly, but it has stabilized nicely. These prices seem reasonable for an entry point to start to get some exposure.
Full disclosure: I will be purchasing relatively small amounts of bitcoin using the Debtcrash Purchase Program and coinbase.
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