July 26, 2015

Bits Bucket for July 26, 2015

Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.




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305 Comments »

Comment by Goon
2015-07-26 04:04:08

Article for Social Justice Warriors™

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/23/moment-changed-me-diets-plus-size-body

And yes, I probably would tap that, she has a cute face and no tattoos

Comment by rms
2015-07-26 06:01:31

And she wouldn’t cheat while you’re out for your mountain walks.

 
Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 06:21:14

The opinions and lyrics expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of phony scandals.

Frank Zappa – Big Leg Emma Lyrics

There’s a big dilemma
About my big leg emma, uh-huh, oh yeah
There’s a big dilemma
About my big leg emma, uh-huh, oh yeah
She was my steady date
Until she put on weight

Frank Zappa - 1967 - Absolutely Free - Big Leg Emma - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-i78Hpv6hk - 194k -

 
Comment by Jingle Male
2015-07-26 06:54:38

I guess this belongs on the HBB, thanks to Lionel Richie!

“She’s a brick house. Mighty might just lettin’ it all hang out. She’s a brick house. The lady’s stacked and that’s a fact, ain’t holding nothing back……”

 
Comment by rms
2015-07-26 06:55:00

I see Kelly Brook is losing the battle; when the beau breaks. Hehe.

 
Comment by ComfortableClass
2015-07-26 07:34:24

While it is absolutely correct that people’s perceptions of what is easily achievable and can be expected in the realm of physique is vastly distorted by the media and the Internet, this woman is tremendously obese. You don’t need to be fat, you just don’t need to be, but losing weight is hard. It is worth it though. I feel very bad for people who struggle with it and the depression shame and sadness that comes with it.

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 07:56:42

” no tattoos”

Are you sure about that? That swimsuit covers a lot of flesh, enough for a full-sized tattoo of Guernica.

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:03:31

Queen’s ode to fat-bottomed girls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTeJwLVWUr8

Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 09:27:11

Hadn’t heard that song in years, looked up the lyrics and I never picked up on “Now I got mortgages and homes”

Hey, listen here
Now I got mortgages and homes
And I got stiffness in the bones
Ain’t no beauty queens in this locality (I tell you)
Oh, but I still get my pleasure
Still get my greatest treasure
Heap big woman you done made a big man of me (now get this)

QUEEN LYRICS - Fat Bottomed Girls - A-Z Lyrics
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/queen/fatbottomedgirls.html -

 
 
Comment by Muggy
2015-07-26 09:51:10

My colleague (38 and single) has a rule:

Tattoos or kids, but not both.

 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 12:58:27

You go for that low hanging fruit.

 
 
Comment by Combotechie
2015-07-26 04:37:00

Good morning, everyone!

(Now that I got that out of the way, here’s this:)

This Time Around, Entire Countries Will be Going Bust

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-25/time-around-entire-countries-will-be-going-bust

Comment by azdude
2015-07-26 06:32:08

Inflation will run amuck before any country with a printing press goes under.

As long as you can service the debt your not bankrupt.

Suppress rates so the party can continue!

Savers need to sacrafice their interest so more food stamp checks can go out!

 
Comment by scdave
2015-07-26 07:25:56

This Time Around ??

This time ?? Are we not seeing it play out right now….

We are seeing the culmination of irresponsible government borrowing and promises that can’t possibly be fulfilled…We are seeing it with the small players first…Greece Etc…In our own country, its the municipalities….Meredith Whitney was right…She was just early….

And I might add, this property inflation on display throughout our country is fueling fresh tax revenue into the municipal coffers…That was likely part of the plan with the FED & banks also…

 
 
Comment by Combotechie
2015-07-26 04:45:13

Jokes that write themselves …

“How Arctic ice has made fools of all those poor warmists”

“Two events last week brought yet further twists to one of the longest-running farces of our modern world. One was the revelation by the European Space Agency that in 2013 and 2014, after years when the volume of Arctic ice had been diminishing, it increased again by as much as 33 per cent. The other was that Canadian scientists studying the effect of climate change on Arctic ice from an icebreaker had to suspend their research, when their vessel was called to the aid of other ships trapped in the thickest summer ice seen in Hudson Bay for 20 years.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11763272/How-Arctic-ice-has-made-fools-of-all-those-poor-warmists.html

Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 06:38:25

It’s global dude. It’s 43 degree Celsius in Doha.

Comment by Jingle Male
2015-07-26 07:01:24

That equals 110′F for the rest of us. Seems like sort of a cooling trend for Qatar!

 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 07:02:59

Where are the HURRICANES???

Al Gore promised CAT 5 hurricanes ALL SEASON long.

 
 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 07:53:40

The writer of your “article” (actually an opinion piece, there is a difference) is a world-class denialist, denying not only global warming, but also the dangers of cigarette smoke and asbestos. And he believes in intelligent design over evolution. And he has no apparent scientific training whatsoever.

He has taken a stance which runs counter to the scientific consensus on a number of issues, including global warming, the link between passive smoking and cancer,[2] and the dangers posed by asbestos.

Booker has repeatedly claimed that white asbestos is “chemically identical to talcum powder” and poses a “non-existent” risk to human health

wikipedia

Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 08:08:03

I’d like to give him a line of white asbestos and see if he’d snort it.

 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 13:36:54

He sings the song of the loon, and the loons must flock to him.

 
 
 
Comment by palmetto
Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 06:29:07

Trump Melvin’ed the Des Moines Register:

I am tired of mostly white, highly edumcated people telling us who should be in the race.

Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 06:48:43

Testify!

I mean, really, the Des Moines Register’s editorial board gets up on its hind legs and calls for The Don to withdraw from the race and then arrogantly expects to receive press credentials to cover his rally? That’s highly educated? Geez.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 10:52:17

editorial board….expects to receive press credentials…That’s highly educated?

Editorial boards don’t cover rallies. Trump is a clown. Keep cheering him on please. Many Repubs don’t quite understand his damage. I hope he wins the nomination.

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Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 11:28:56

‘Many Repubs don’t quite understand his damage’

Weren’t you praising Eisenhower the other day?

‘How Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico’

‘Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America’s southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.’

‘President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents – less than one-tenth of today’s force. The operation is still highly praised among veterans of the Border Patrol.’

‘Years later, the late Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower’s first attorney general, said in an interview with this writer that the president had a sense of urgency about illegal immigration when he took office.

America “was faced with a breakdown in law enforcement on a very large scale,” Mr. Brownell said. “When I say large scale, I mean hundreds of thousands were coming in from Mexico [every year] without restraint.”

‘Although an on-and-off guest-worker program for Mexicans was operating at the time, farmers and ranchers in the Southwest had become dependent on an additional low-cost, docile, illegal labor force of up to 3 million, mostly Mexican, laborers.’

‘According to the Handbook of Texas Online, published by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association, this illegal workforce had a severe impact on the wages of ordinary working Americans. The Handbook Online reports that a study by the President’s Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas in 1950 found that cotton growers in the Rio Grande Valley, where most illegal aliens in Texas worked, paid wages that were “approximately half” the farm wages paid elsewhere in the state.’

‘Profits from illegal labor led to the kind of corruption that apparently worried Eisenhower. Joseph White, a retired 21-year veteran of the Border Patrol, says that in the early 1950s, some senior US officials overseeing immigration enforcement “had friends among the ranchers,” and agents “did not dare” arrest their illegal workers.’

‘Walt Edwards, who joined the Border Patrol in 1951, tells a similar story. He says: “When we caught illegal aliens on farms and ranches, the farmer or rancher would often call and complain [to officials in El Paso]. And depending on how politically connected they were, there would be political intervention. That is how we got into this mess we are in now.”

‘Bill Chambers, who worked for a combined 33 years for the Border Patrol and the then-called US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), says politically powerful people are still fueling the flow of illegals.’

‘During the 1950s, however, this “Good Old Boy” system changed under Eisenhower – if only for about 10 years.’

‘In 1954, Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph “Jumpin’ Joe” Swing, a former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the new INS commissioner.’

‘Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General Swing’s close connections to the president shielded him – and the Border Patrol – from meddling by powerful political and corporate interests.’

‘Then on June 17, 1954, what was called “Operation Wetback” began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.’

‘By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, and eastward to Texas. By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily.’

‘Unlike today, Mexicans caught in the roundup were not simply released at the border, where they could easily reenter the US. To discourage their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens deep within Mexico before being set free.’

‘Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south.’

‘General Swing’s fast-moving campaign soon secured America’s borders – an accomplishment no other president has since equaled. Illegal migration had dropped 95 percent by the late 1950s.’

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html

 
Comment by taxpers
2015-07-26 11:33:47

Mines and drones don’t need pensions

 
Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 11:55:59

‘President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents – less than one-tenth of today’s force.’

And we have Homeland Security now. How much do we spend to record every electronic communication in the world? To photograph the front and back of every piece of mail?

“Oh, but their civil rights!”

What civil rights does someone who is here illegally have? And notice the government doesn’t mind trampling the constitution when it comes to the NSA.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 14:29:50

“What civil rights does someone who is here illegally have?”

Quite a few, apparently, if they manage to land in California. For instance, the roads are now crowded with illegal immigrant drivers.

Most new CA driver’s licenses go to undocumented immigrants
DMV leaders say licenses make roads safer
UPDATED 8:11 AM PDT Jul 20, 2015
By Tom Miller

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —In a testament to how well California’s new Safe and Responsible Driver Act is working, the Department of Motor Vehicles said more than half of new driver’s licenses issued in the first six months of 2015 went to undocumented immigrants.

The DMV said since January when it implemented the Safe and Responsible Driver Act, about 397,000 driver’s licenses have been issued to undocumented applicants, which is 52 percent of the total 759,000 original driver’s licenses distributed.

Esmeralda Lazcano, 21, is among those still hoping to get her license. Her parents brought her to Sacramento from Mexico when she was just 2 years old.

Nineteen years later, Lazcano said she’s never truly felt like a Californian.

“We want to work and want to drive, but we’re scared that the cops are going to pull us over, so we just ask for another ride or just walk,” Lazcano said.

Undocumented immigrants are required to show the same documents as everyone else in order to get a license — proof of identity and California residency.

For Lazcano, it’s a step forward in achieving her goal of ultimately becoming a citizen.

“With this open now, it feels like I have more opportunities in life now,” Lazcano said. “I’m thinking about going to college now, better work.”

From January through June, undocumented immigrants attempted the written knowledge test 1,116,000 times. The 436,000 who passed went on to take the driving test.

A total of 397,000 passed both, and DMV leaders believe it’s making the roads safer.

“Everybody who gets a license knows the rules of the road a lot better, and we believe that they will be safer drivers,” DMV Deputy Director Armando Botello said.

Applying also requires a leap of faith that government officials won’t use immigration status against an applicant.

“We’re in sort of a new era in California,” said California Latino Legislative Caucus Spokesperson Roger Salazar. “We don’t have to be fearful. We can come out of the shadows, to be responsible citizens and I think that’s a good thing for everybody,”

 
 
 
 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 08:04:47

“Trump Melvin’ed the Des Moines Register”

You do have to wonder how he would govern as president if he banishes newspapers for criticizing him on the campaign trail.

That’s the part of his personality that reminds me of Nixon, that thin-skinned vindictiveness. Along with his ‘I speak for the silent majority’ schtick.

Comment by WPA
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 08:49:54

Wow, I didn’t even realize that Trump also has a secret plan to end the war (with ISIS as opposed to Viet Nam). They missed his thin-skinned vindictiveness though, and I think that’s the key common element. That’s what brought Nixon down, doing dirty tricks in a campaign he was a shoe-in to win.

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Comment by WPA
2015-07-26 09:05:22

You’re right. I bet Trump has an Enemies List.

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 09:19:27

“I bet Trump has an Enemies List.”

Anyone who criticizes him, apparently. He almost makes Nixon look easy-going.

 
 
Comment by rms
2015-07-26 17:30:48

Meet America’s next first lady. :)
http://picpaste.com/MelaniaTrump.jpg

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Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 08:20:25

Sorry, Scott Walker already has the Nixon thing all sewn up.

BTW, HuffPo called. You’re needed over there. Entertainment section.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 09:20:01

There certainly is room for more than one latter-day Nixon in U.S. politics!

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Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 08:23:34

You do have to wonder how he would govern as president if he banishes newspapers for criticizing him on the campaign trail.

You mean like what Omaba’s been doing?

 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 13:41:47

He’s a fascist. Luckily anybody that isn’t a loon won’t vote for him. Unluckily, that makes Hillary president.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:06:41

Not cool. Sure, the oligarch-owned media is biased and has an agenda. But intolerance for critical opinions is not a good sign in a presidential candidate.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 08:45:20

Trump is gonna be Trump, which has the double-edged benefits of guaranteed political damage to his opponents, plus a virtual certainty of enough eventual self-inflicted damage to eliminate his own chances.

 
Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 08:54:42

What would be the point? The Des Moines Register already gave their critical opinion and called for him to drop out. This was a rally, not a debate. Rallies are about support. The only real purpose for the Des Moines Register to show up would be to poke fun at his supporters. That’s not critical opinion.

He did the right thing here. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that having people around who give you a hard time is utter foolishness. Contrary to popular belief, there’s nothing character building about it, just more misery. If you’re throwing a party, you should be able to say who attends. I have an old injury as a result of an “accident” caused by a jerkoff classmate when I wuz a pup, which wouldn’t have happened if one of my parental units hadn’t demanded that I “be tolerant” and invite them to the party.

Lol, back in the day, it wasn’t “for the children”. It was “for the parents”.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 11:32:02

Des Moines Register, following the standard media SOP, would scour the crowd for the sorriest speciman they could find, then bait them into some choice (ignorant) quotes that they would then trumpet as being representative of all Trump supporters. Maybe banning them was a good call, given their predictable agenda.

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Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 13:44:43

A loon is a loon, no matter how looney.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by palmetto
Comment by taxpers
2015-07-26 06:53:53

Fatherless + godless = dangerous
2 dads is hard to call

Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 13:47:22

If your sky wizard were real, it would be impossible to be godless.

 
 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 06:58:52

The house of cards is going to tumble when the sleeping giant awakens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLr8ZvgURg0

Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 07:36:49

Very good, thanks for posting.

Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 10:38:32

You are welcome. Several juicy tidbits. He acknowledges the role of Central Banks in this imperialism and endless manufactured phony war on terror. His speech is very positive though. “I am absolutely certain that Central Banks are evil.”

“There aren’t enough guns to kill us all, and Halliburton can’t build jails fast enough to keep us down…. I think we’re at a turning point. We’re at the very beginning of a historic tidal shift in power, restoring the Constitution.”

Bottom-up communication networks. Blog, blog, blog! “Your government is stupid.” Don’t forget that. I was a federal employee and I know that. I also keep stressing: DO NOT TAKE OUT LOANS. Vacate the banks.

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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 11:39:14

I wonder how many of these self-described former intelligence professionals selling doom have any bona fides whatsoever.

Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 12:11:31

Listen to Robert Steele. He is not spelling doom whatsoever. He is positive.

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Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 13:12:29

Very positive. I’m impressed. And it’s not all feelgood unicorns and roses, either.

It is the MSM and the sjw’s that tell us we’re powerless, that we have to bend over and take it. Hence many people feel despair, when they don’t have to and can actually do something about it, even in their own small sphere of influence.

 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 13:50:24

Stop borrowing. Get others to stop. We can crash the banks in a matter of months. It’s that simple.

 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 15:46:54

“Stop borrowing. Get others to stop”

Exactly. First rule: Stop borrowing. Second rule, slash your expenses, yes you can find room to slash. Third rule: Communicate - spread the word, “Get others to stop!” The government is inept. Government is stupid. A lumbering oaf and we at the bottom are quick and nimble. Fourth: Act locally - innovate with decentralized technology out of the sphere of government.

 
 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:08:14

The more time these kids spend in the indoctrination centers formerly known as schools, the more morally debased and unfit to function in society they will become.

Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 15:00:45

Good morning, sunshine.

 
 
 
Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 06:14:44

What does San Francisco have in common with Hong Kong and New Delhi? Public urination! But not to worry, they’re on it. Pee-proof paint. Now that’s what I call innovation.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/25/us/san-francisco-pee-proof-paint/

Comment by azdude
2015-07-26 06:29:17

the homeless population down there is simply staggering. Lots of mentally ill folks hiding out in the brush too.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:10:26

San Francisco is infested and overrun with the worst kind of liberals, which is a form of disassociative (from reality) mental illness. Let the good lib-tards enjoy the “paradise” they have created with their sanctuary-city, tolerate all forms of lunacy and debauchery liberal la-la land.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 10:59:03

San Francisco is infested and overrun with ….. mental illness.

Liberalism=mental illness is a trite Limbaugh talking point. However, many far-right “conservatives” actually are mentally ill according to definitions.

Conservatism as a Mental Illness
Republican pols have recently exhibited 10 telltale signs of

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-entertainment/201206/conservatism-mental-illnessmental illness.

Signs of psychopathology can also be seen among their political bedfellows, conservative politicians, especially when you consider a wide range of illness indicators. In his award-winning 2005 book, Dr. James Whitney Hicks discusses 50 signs of mental illness (link is external) including denial, delusion, hallucination, disordered thinking, anger, anti-social behavior, sexual preoccupation, grandiosity, general oddness, and paranoia. Now I’m no clinician, but in my (admittedly biased brown) eyes it seems that prominent Republicans have evidenced each of these ten telltale signs of mental illness over the past year:

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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 11:33:05

Normall, self-respecting people don’t go into politics.

 
 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 13:51:52

That’s what freedom is.

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Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 15:02:20

Raymond:

You can’t accuse everone who disagrees with you of being mentallyl ill. I mean really.

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Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 15:04:23

Or however you spell that.

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:13:26

I didn’t “accuse” them of being mentally ill. I merely diagnosed them. Happily, liberalism is a treatable condition, given enough brushes with reality over time.

 
 
 
Comment by Bluto
2015-07-26 12:29:38

True, and in the meantime the City and County of S.F. has a budget of $9 BILLION but can’t get a handle on things despite this being more than the budgets of several states. Very sad to see, I’m a native and the city ran pretty smoothly when I was a kid…it was a LOT of fun growing up there and affordable to boot back in the day.
(I moved away 20 years ago)

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/A-city-with-an-8-96-billion-budget-should-be-6311442.php

Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 18:04:07

I get treated pretty good as a member of the upper class. I keep to the north, though, and out of the tenderloin.

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Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 06:31:57

I predict housing will go up another 10% due to this phenomena.

 
Comment by Combotechie
2015-07-26 07:05:30

“Pee-proof paint.”

Let’s go one step further:

Paint the wall with a metallic-based paint and then electrify it.

Comment by Jingle Male
2015-07-26 08:10:05

Shocking idea. Simply shocking, I tell you.

 
 
Comment by Jingle Male
2015-07-26 07:08:34

So everyone will no longer have to pee?

I think a better solution would be to have small urinals installed in strategic places: alleys, parking structures, etc. The problem still exists. The paint solution just means people having to go pee will now come away with wet shoes smelling like urine.

Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 07:31:00

Pass a law requiring businesses and private residencies to open their restrooms for anyone in need.

#1 & #2 are basic human rights, damn it!

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:12:13

Require lib-tards to hang rainbow flags outside their homes signifying anyone may use the facilities or diddle the man of the house, or what passes for one.

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Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 08:12:23

People will just pee straight on the sidewalk or street, once they learn it bounces off the wall.

Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 13:18:10

I’m not sure what the dogs will do when they get hosed down with their own urine, but I bet their owners will be..um.. pissed off?

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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:26:49

I have a small dog that can’t seem to wait until the bigger dogs get done marking their territory before he has to sneak in and mark over it. As a result, he gets his head pissed on a lot. There’s a moral there, somewhere.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-26 06:34:16

Priced-out America:

Detailing how soaring rent and house prices — and flat wages — have made virtually every big city less affordable

With lists of the Top 10 cities for fastest-growing rents and home prices, and the Top 30 most expensive cities for renters and home buyers.

Could it be possible that the average American living in a city has actually gotten poorer during the current economic recovery? It may sound crazy, but it’s not — because housing prices have skyrocketed recently while wages have barely budged.

I spent the past week digging deeply into recent changes in the housing costs and incomes for people in the largest cities in the country, and what I found was depressing. Since 2011, it’s gotten less affordable to rent a home in 94% of the nation’s 50 biggest cities, and less affordable to buy a house in 80% of them — even when you factor in wage growth.

And housing has not just gotten less affordable; things have gotten much worse: Averaged across the nation’s 50 biggest cities, since 2011, rent has grown four times faster than incomes, and home prices have shot up more than five times faster than pay.

According to reams of data I crunched from Zillow (for housing prices) and the U.S. government (for wages), here is the overall change in city dwellers’ financial status during the last four years:

Yes, the additional money being spent on rent (nearly $3,200 a year) has single-handedly wiped out the extra $2,200 a year from your beefed-up paycheck since 2011 — and by the time taxes are taken out, many people will see the rent increase amount to double their actual take-home pay bump. And with the average house purchase up $57,600 in four years, most new homebuyers are seeing their mortgage swallow the pay raise they got during that span. The consequences are obvious: many people wound up with less money to spend on everything else, like food, clothes and travel, or had to dip into their savings, or perhaps go into debt. For some, they could no longer afford to pay the rent and had to move to a lousier apartment, or another city. For many, the dream of buying a house was put off.

The problem is considerably worse in several cities, especially, strangely enough, in places where the economy is booming. I’ll get to a breakdown of each of the 50 biggest cities, from New York to Arlington — along with top 10 lists of the cities with the fastest-growing rent and house prices, and top 30 lists of the most expensive places to rent and buy a home— in a bit. But I found no region is immune from this crisis. Here’s a closer look, starting with the place going through the worst mess of all: California.

Yikes. San Francisco (average house: more than $1 million) leads the nation in rent growth (up 64% in four years, to $4,252), cross-Bay Oakland leads in home price surge (up 67%, to $532,400) and San Jose lands in the top 6 in both categories. The Bay Area is a nightmare, and it’s even spreading to nearby Sacramento — a traditionally much cheaper area now 7th in home price growth with home values growing 42 times faster than local wages.

And many other cities aren’t in much better shape, from Texas and the Southwest to the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest:

These are generally desirable cities, especially for millennials, and each is in the top 10 for either home price or rent growth (or both, in the case of Denver). Austin has seen rent grow 17 times faster than wages. Seattle has “stop the yuppification” signs posted around town as its residents fear becoming the “next San Francisco” for housing costs. Portland, proud of its distinctly weird culture, was recently named by Governing Magazine to be the most gentrified city of the country over the last decade-plus.

https://medium.com/@MikeRosenberg/priced-out-america-e7a117f2c61d

Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 06:41:24

Import illegal money and drive away honest money. San Francisco perfectly represents the corrupt satate of ‘murika.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
 
Comment by In Colorado
2015-07-26 10:17:27

San Francisco perfectly represents the corrupt satate of ‘murika.

Meanwhile, our prez goes on an African tour, pizzing off the locals with his sanctimonious moralizing. I’m surprised he didn’t take Bruce Jenner on the tour, to show those Africans how morally superior the USA is.

 
 
Comment by rms
2015-07-26 07:09:10

Nothing but millennial despair and empty promises of a stable future.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 11:05:21

soaring rent and house prices 

Inflation.

— and flat wages — 

“Hidden” inflation.

“More buying power” Right.

Comment by tj
2015-07-26 12:16:00

there’s more to ‘buying power’ that just dollars. dollars are only part of the equation, comrade. but you don’t know these things, so you just babble on like an incoherent parrot.

Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-26 13:36:35

Lola,

You still don’t understand the definition of inflation.

*Learn* it.

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Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-26 06:38:47

The Fed’s Independence Is Under Attack Despite an Economic Rebound

Yellen squares off against Congress over who controls the central bank

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen isn’t feeling a lot of love. She’s under attack from both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. She’s fending off a House of Representatives subpoena regarding a leak of economic data. And Americans in a Gallup Poll last November ranked the Fed second-to-last among 13 federal agencies for performance, just ahead of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Most recently, House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling told Yellen during her semiannual testimony on monetary policy on July 15 that the Fed’s guidance has been “somewhat amorphous, opaque, and improvisational.”

What’s surprising is that animosity toward the Fed is so strong now, considering that the unemployment rate is down to 5.3 percent, consumer prices are up just 0.1 percent over the past year, and the Fed is winding down the stimulus it began during the financial crisis. Much of the recent criticism is focused on its role as a bank regulator, not as a steward of the economy. Some is partisan. Either way, the dissatisfaction feeds into a general mistrust that could gradually undermine the Fed’s independence in setting monetary policy—i.e., raising and lowering interest rates to modulate growth. “The rancor on this is a huge issue,” says Columbia University economist Frederic Mishkin, a former member of the Fed’s Board of Governors.

It’s been understood since the 1970s that independent central banks produce more stable growth, partly because they don’t overstimulate the economy to please politicians. Members of Congress taking aim at the Fed say they intend to preserve its independence; they just want it to stick to a plan and explain itself. The Fed “continues to communicate monetary policy by picking words out of a thesaurus,” says J.W. Verret, a George Mason University School of Law professor who helped craft a Fed transparency bill introduced this year by Republican Representatives Scott Garrett of New Jersey and Bill Huizenga of Michigan.

Yellen and her allies in academia argue that obliging the Fed to obey a monetary policy rule—even one it set for itself—would reduce the bank’s flexibility and increase the risk of mistakes. Republicans often cite a rule created by Stanford University and Hoover Institution economist John Taylor that prescribes rates according to the level of inflation and whether the economy is operating above or below its capacity. While the Taylor rule is a useful tool for deliberations, “it would be insane” to make it binding, says Mark Gertler, a New York University economist. Advocates of a Taylor-like rule say Fed policymakers could deviate from it as long as they explained their reasoning to Congress. That doesn’t reassure Gertler, who says the Fed could come under intense pressure to stick to the rule even if the bank concluded it was no longer appropriate. “Congress is a thoroughly political institution, and you want to keep monetary policy as far away as possible from that institution,” he says.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-23/yellen-fed-s-independence-under-attack-despite-economic-rebound

Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 07:00:41

Oh she’s the victim now……

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 07:52:30

Hopefully the Fed’s political foray into reverse Robin Hood wealth redistribution through deliberate asset price inflation will come back to bite them.

Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 07:59:11

‘Some members of Greece’s leftist government wanted to raid central bank reserves and hack taxpayer accounts to prepare a return to the drachma, according to reports. It is not clear how seriously the plans, attributed to former Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, were considered by the government and both ministers were sacked earlier this month. However the reports have been seized on by opposition parties who have demanded an explanation.’

‘Varoufakis, an outspoken academic economist who became deeply unpopular with other European finance ministers during his five months in office, stood down earlier this month to facilitate bailout talks. He has been a strident opponent of the deal ever since.’

‘Under the plan, which the report said went back to before Tsipras was elected in January, transactions through the parallel system would have been nominated in euros but could easily change into drachmas overnight, he was quoted as saying.’

‘In an interview with Sunday’s edition of the RealNews daily, Panagiotis Lafazanis, the hardline former energy minister who lost his job after rebelling over the bailout plans, said he had urged the government to tap the reserves of the Bank of Greece in defiance of the European Central Bank.’

‘Lafazanis, leader of a hardline faction in the ruling Syriza party that has argued for a return to the drachma, said the move would have allowed pensions and public sector wages to be paid if Greece were forced out of the euro.’

“The main reason for that was for the Greek economy and Greek people to survive, which is the utmost duty every government has under the constitution,” he said.’

‘However he denied a report in the Financial Times that he wanted Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stouranaras to be arrested if he had opposed a move to empty the central bank vaults. In comments to the semi-official Athens News Agency, he called the report a mixture of “lies, fantasy, fear-mongering, speculation and old-fashioned anti-communism”.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greek-pm-tsipras-under-pressure-141355344.html

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 08:15:38

Nice example of how political activism by central bankers can provoke political retaliation by disaffected groups.

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Comment by azdude
2015-07-26 08:42:18

If interest rates go up stocks will crash as companies have to refinance debt at higher rates thus eroding phony earnings they are currently reporting.

Do you think uncle FED wants a stock market crash?

Who the hell is dumb enough to buy amzn at these ridiculous valuations?

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 08:47:52

I think you nailed the reason interest rates aren’t going up any time soon.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 09:35:54

How Janet Yellen Is Orchestrating Her Own ‘Big Crisis’ Moment
Submitted by Secular Investor on 07/25/2015 17:22 -0400

Janet Yellen seems to be absolutely obsessed with increasing the benchmark interest rates in the USA as she desperately tries to put her stamp on her legislature as Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve. Even though the American economy definitely isn’t as strong as she thinks it is – the increases in employment are mainly due to part-time jobs which aren’t even sufficient to cover the costs of life – Yellen is determined to increase the interest rate which has been at a historical low since the Global Financial Crisis erupted (see next image).

 
Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 11:18:49

‘dumb enough to buy amzn at these ridiculous valuations’

It just occurred to me; who has the longest track record at delivering envelopes and boxes at a loss? The US Postal Service! Let’s take this thing public. An IPO for the masses, we’ll all be rich!

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 11:37:33

Janet Yellen seems to be absolutely obsessed with increasing the benchmark interest rates in the USA as she desperately tries to put her stamp on her legislature as Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve.

That may be the impression she’s trying to cultivate, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Yellen and her minions keep talking up a rate increase, but then always find a convenient pretext to defer it for just a few more months…and a few more…because Janet & her co-conspirators know that the instant they raise rates, the Ponzi markets implode. So unless Goldman Sachs goes massively short and then signals Janet it’s time for the Great Muppet Slaughter of 2015 to commence, she won’t be raising rates any time soon.

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 12:13:44

Nice example of how political activism by central bankers can provoke political retaliation by disaffected groups.

Agreed. The heedlessness of the Oligopoly’s captured political elites to the traditions, concerns, and aspirations of ordinary Americans, and its continued pushing of agendas deeply offensive and upsetting to people holding more traditional values, is giving rise to the current wave of anti-establishment anger and alienation. This is a dangerous trend if the center can’t hold because it depends on the likes of Boehner and Reid who are so compromised and sold out to the .1% that they command no moral authority or respect whatsoever with the 99%.

http://projects.aljazeera.com/2015/07/hate-groups/

 
Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-26 14:46:43

The heedlessness of the Oligopoly’s captured political elites to the traditions, concerns, and aspirations of ordinary Americans, and its continued pushing of agendas deeply offensive and upsetting to people holding more traditional values, is giving rise to the current wave of anti-establishment anger and alienation.

Which agendas would those be?

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:15:22

Please tell me you live in a group home and have a minder to look out for you.

 
Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-26 15:56:20

So you have no answer.

 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:28:43

Hopefully the Fed’s political foray into reverse Robin Hood wealth redistribution through deliberate asset price inflation will come back to bite them.

“The Creature from Jekyll Island” should be required reading in high school civics classes (if they still exist). The Fed was created by the Oligopoly for one purpose and one purpose only: enable a corrupt .1% in the financial sector to amass all wealth and power into its own greedy hands. Fortunately, the Oligopoly and its MSM propaganda outlets has been completely successful in conditioning and dumbing down 95% of the sheeple to bend over for its errand boys using simpleton-focused slogans like “Hope and change we can believe in.”

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:15:54

The same oligarchs that control Yellen the Felon also control the Republicrat duopoly. Ignore the Kabuki theater. Once Ron Paul left Congress (and once 95% of ‘Muricans rejected his candidacy in their preference for bending over for their Oligopoly lords and masters) any possibility of reining in the Wall Street-Federal Reserve Looting Syndicate left with him.

 
Comment by Overbanked
2015-07-26 09:55:10

If the House, the Senate, and the President disagree with Fed policy, are they powerless to pass legislation to counter it, e.g. a tax cut, a tax increase, additional spending, etc?

 
 
Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 06:46:12

‘Forward’

At Anti-Bullying Conference, Middle Schoolers Learn About Lesbian Strap-On Anal Sex, Fake Testicles

Iowa Safe Schools, an activist group out of Des Moines, hosted the conference

by Daily Caller | July 26, 2015

In rural, small-town Iowa, a group of parents and community leaders is seeking to prevent students from the local taxpayer-funded middle school and high school from attending future versions of an anti–bullying conference for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens.

The last one — in April — left many of the denizens of Humboldt, Iowa up in arms, reports Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV.

Iowa Safe Schools, an activist group out of Des Moines, hosted the conference.

It was quite something.

Among the nearly two dozen speakers, “only two” addressed bullying, one attendee estimated, according to EAGnews.org.

The rest of the sessions involved issues such as “how to pleasure their gay partners.”

Middle school girls from Humboldt (pop.: 4,690) had the opportunity to learn “how to sew fake testicles into their underwear in order to pass themselves off as boys.”

One speaker wore a dress made out of condoms to which could be “used as needed.” Another speaker raised the important middle-school issue of using the Internet to locate an orgy.

A father from Des Moines whose daughter attended the conference described the girl’s experience.

“She thought she was attending this conference to learn how students can be supportive of their homosexual peers,” he explained, according to EAGnews.

“When she got there, it wasn’t really on bullying; it was basically a sexual education class for same-sex couples,” the mad dad said. “It was crude. One presenter told students who asked whether anal sex hurt that, as a lesbian, it really depended on how big the device is that their partner straps on.”

The main, featured speaker, drag performer Miss Coco Peru, cussed a lot and encouraged attendees to vandalize the property of critics.

Peru also sang a song. It went: “People suck. They don’t give a fuck about you. People thrive on smashing our pride to the ground. People that suck, fuck you.”

Still another speaker discussed “how pleasurable it is for gay couples to eat each other’s behinds” and how using flavored oils can improve the taste, notes EAGnews.

Thousands of middle schoolers and high schoolers from the region attended the April event.

Humboldt, Iowa school district superintendent Greg Darling said the funding for students in the district to attend the conference was provided by a student-run organization.

He said he could do nothing to prevent the club which sponsored attendance at the event from fundraising for it next year or sending local students.

“We support all clubs in the school that meet the polices and procedures,” Darling told WHO-TV. “We are an equal opportunity school and do not discriminate against anyone. We strive to have a positive learning environment in the district but we do not support any group of individuals who uses profanity in presentations.”

Nate Monson, executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, said parents who worry about middle school kids hearing about anal sex with strap-ons and analingus are “disgusting.”

“It’s incredibly frustrating that adults are being the problem and being the bully,” Monson told the Des Moines NBC affiliate. “We can do better in Iowa.”

Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 08:24:51

So it’s an extra-curricular, not-funded-by-taxes event whose attendance is totally voluntary, but

” a group of parents and community leaders is seeking to prevent students from the local taxpayer-funded middle school and high school from attending future versions”

Why? Because attending a taxpayer-funded school allows that school to control your out-of-school activities? Sounds like the worst kind of 1984 thought control. Fascism hiding behind family values, as it so often does.

Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 10:15:40

Take your liberal BS and shove it.

Anti-Bullying and students needing a safe, supportive atmosphere to learn, which is how Iowa Safe Schools clearly bills itself and drag performer Miss Coco Peru singing “People suck. They don’t give a fuck about you. People thrive on smashing our pride to the ground. People that suck, fuck you.” or 7th grade kids hearing about anal sex with strap-ons and analingus ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!

The content of these Anti-Bullying Conferences had damn well be spelled out loud and clear by the school or the executive director of Iowa Safe Schools to the parents of any middle school kid before they should be able to attend.

The article was very clear that the funding for students in the district to attend the conference was provided by a student-run organization.

It was also clear that at least one student thought she was attending this conference to learn how students can be supportive of their homosexual peers.

It was also clear that Nate Monson, executive director of Iowa Safe Schools, said parents who worry about middle school kids hearing about anal sex with strap-ons and analingus are “disgusting.”

About Iowa Safe Schools

The mission of Iowa Safe Schools is to: a) improve school climate in order to increase the personal safety, mental health, and student learning of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and allied (LGBTA) and all other students; b) increase awareness and understanding among current and future educators, school administrators, and key community agents of inequities regarding the safety of LGBTA students and their family member(s) in schools and communities throughout Iowa. Iowa Safe Schools also seeks to empower these key actors with effective, research-based tools and strategies to combat intolerance and safety inequities.

Our History

All students need a safe, supportive atmosphere in which they can learn, including students that are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). Unfortunately, bullying, harassment, and discrimination against LGBT students occurs often in our schools. As these students face verbal and physical harassment; educators, policy makers, parents, and other students are hampered by the lack of quality information and resources to protect LGBT students.

However, over the past several years, Iowa has made significant progress in helping create safer schools for LGBT students. Iowa became the 10th state in the nation to pass a comprehensive Safe Schools Law that protects ALL students in 2007. Including the Safe Schools Law was the extension of the Civil Rights law which protects LGBT school staff members from discrimination. Governor Culver, Lt. Governor Judge, and legislative leaders all made historic passage of these laws a reality.

But, work remains to be done to protect all students from bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Laws are only good if enforcement and education follows.

After years lobbying in the Iowa Legislature to pass this important bill, Governor Culver and Lt. Governor Judge made it a priority in their first two months in office to pass. With their help and that of floor managers State Representative Roger Wendt and State Senator Mike Connolly – the Safe Schools Law became a reality. The bipartisan vote on SF 61 made protecting students in schools not only an ethical, professional, and moral obligation – but a legal one.

But, work remains to be done to protect all students from bullying, harassment, and discrimination. Laws are only good if enforcement and education follows.

http://www.iowasafeschools.org/index.php/about-iowa-safe-schools - 24k -

Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 11:15:12

I agree the whole thing sounds kind of crazy, hence I’m dubious it hasn’t been way blown way out of proportion or mischaracterized. It is the Daily Caller, after all.

But you still can’t ban students from attending an extra-curricular event just because they attend pubic schools. You do understand that part, right? Freedom, and stuff.

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Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 12:39:36

“You do understand that part, right? Freedom, and stuff.”

Absolutely, I am completely against “First Amendment Zones”

I am not saying ban any kid from anything, I am saying the school superintendent Greg Darling or someone from Iowa Safe Schools (which appears to be a front name for a whacko group judging by the quote from Nate Monson, executive director of Iowa Safe Schools) needs to be damn sure the parents of these middle school kids knows exactly what the topics and speakers will be at their “Anti-Bullying Conference”.

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 13:03:30

Meh. Here it is from a less sensationalist news source. It was an event for adults and teens. All the naughty stuff came up in a Q and A session. Big whoop. There’s no mention of the drag queen and her song, are we sure about those details?

Sounds like small-town hen clucking, from the same people who don’t want sex ed in the schools.

http://www.weareiowa.com/news/student-lgbtq-conference-was-inappropriate

 
Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 16:17:21

You’re right.

I found a different article than the one you found and the quote they have from Nate Monson in the Daily Caller article about what was “disgusting” is not that at all.

What he said was if parents wouldn’t let there L or G (I can’t keep all the letters straight) go to the seminars, that would be “disgusting”.

So since they are misleading at best on that, I wouldn’t defend anything else they said because I can’t believe any of it.

 
 
 
 
Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-26 10:34:08

Lola? Liberace? Comments?

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 11:14:56

Lola? Liberace? Comments?

My comment is a question.

Why are you so obsessed with transsexuals and anal sex?

I understand that some people like both but you are weirdly creepy.

Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-26 11:34:02

Good morning Lola.

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Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 12:12:39

Good morning Lola.

LolaLover,
Why are you so obsessed with homosexuals, transsexuals and anal sex?

You know, there is something creepy about you. And your obsession with me. June 10 I think I came on here after a couple months and you were still obsessing about me. You have serious mental issues imo.

Off all the posters on this board, you are the scariest. Not in that you’d be scary without a gun. You’re probably a little creepy punk weakling. Or fat. You’re the scariest in that you are really weird in your obsessions and your inner hostility that comes out in a tourrettes fashion usually involving a homosexual theme. Did you not go in your natural direction an you are frustrated?

I feel sorry for you but I do not respect you in the least. You are an angry loser in this game of life.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 12:19:26

Why are you so obsessed with transsexuals and anal sex?

comrade, i guess you don’t see that you’re the only one bringing these things up.

 
Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-26 12:44:50

Life is good. Why so angry Lola?

 
Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-26 14:54:06

Lola is a song about a transvestite. Someone introduced the name as a topic to this blog quite a few years ago. It wasn’t Rio.

 
Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 15:12:31

Rio:

He is just trolling you. He calls you Lola, and Oxide is “Donk”. Inch by Inch gets messed with too, along with Jingle and Rental Frauds. He does this to everyone who says that house prices are different here, etc.

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:17:29

Yeah, I don’t get the whole “Lola” thing. Seems kind of grade-school to me.

 
 
Comment by ComfortableClass
2015-07-26 12:23:55

How’d the trip to the Kansas QuickieMart while packing the .357 go?

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Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 12:30:55

How’d the trip to the Kansas QuickieMart while packing the .357 go?

LOL. I haven’t done it yet. But I will just for the heck of it. Why not? Everyone needs to pack heat going to QuickTrip.

(I’ve been around guns my whole life - have awards- but this type of stuff is strange.)

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 06:54:31

‘Emphasizing the importance of Millennial voters in upcoming elections, progressive activists spoke to a nearly empty auditorium at the College Democrats of America annual conference on Friday. Despite offering a full day of activities, speakers like Julian Castro, and campaigning advice from top political operatives, the College Democrats of America were barely able to fill the first couple rows with young attendees.’

‘Donna Brazile, Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee and frequent television political commentator, began an unscheduled appearance by thanking “all those who work so hard to ensure that all of our young people, all of our College Democrats, are involved, active, and engaged in the national Democratic Party.”

‘Brazile encouraged the members of the sparse audience to seek public office while pointing to an empty chair on stage. “I want you to start thinking about filling this seat,” said Brazile, who said she has been active in politics since childhood and looked forward to the contributions of the next generation.’

“I didn’t come here with any talking points, I don’t have a speech, I don’t have a candidate yet, but I do have an empty chair,” said Brazile.’

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6693

Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 06:58:51

Wow, I guess they generated some real excitement. Become a bureaucrat or politician. I think France is ahead of us on that career path.

 
Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 07:04:05

Heh, Julian Castro. Now THAT’S a hot ticket. Who’d want to miss that?

Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 07:08:13

Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice I won’t be fooled again.

Parade another nice looking/speaking empty suit……who’s the genius behind this? Begala? Axletoad?

 
 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 07:06:33

Ask any 20 something year old if Social Security will be around for them.

Or why they can’t get a job with a four year degree and straight As.

And why student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy.

And why a nothing special house in an most NE areas has $20,000 in property taxes.

Good starting point for…

Bigger and bigger government with more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes can solve all of our problems.

Comment by beetlejuice
2015-07-26 07:15:43

Every 20 year old I know can’t wait to go to war with Iran and expand patriot act even further.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:20:05

Our public school system is doing a fine job of churning out semi-literate mindless drones incapable of critical thought, fit only for bending over and grabbing their ankles for the Oligopoly. Citizen! Assume the position!

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Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 07:18:50

Wait a minute. There is a response to this laughing at Democrats.

Clown car!

It’s been repeated quite a bit lately. Clown car! What to do about illegal immigration, jobs, trade with China?

Clown car!

It just sounds so funny. You can’t get the images of guys running around with big floppy shoes, getting out of a car and getting in the car out of your head!

What were we talking about?

 
Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 07:46:04

What what the do.

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Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 15:17:53

Ben, you’re getting off topic again.

Clown. Car.

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Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-26 10:11:14

Ask any 20 something year old if Social Security will be around for them.

I’ll have try this some time, but my guess is that 20 somethings don’t spend much time thinking about retirement. On the other end of the age spectrum, there are probably people receiving Social Security now who at one time didn’t think that it would be there for them.

Or why they can’t get a job with a four year degree and straight As.

Some might blame themselves for choosing the wrong major. Others will say that the economy is not doing well.

And why student loans can’t be discharged in bankruptcy.

Very few probably know the answer to this question. I think that that provision was enacted to prevent people from declaring bankruptcy on the day that they graduated.

And why a nothing special house in an most NE areas has $20,000 in property taxes.

If they can’t get good jobs, property taxes on houses in nice suburbs are something that they’re not concerned about.

 
 
 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 07:00:04

When will the people will finally revolt against their progressive and socialist overlords?

—————–

Venezuela could run out of beer by next month
Fusion | July 24, 2015 | by Manuel Rueda

Venezuela could stop making beer by August, as local breweries run out of ingredients needed to produce the country’s most popular alcoholic drink. A brewery shutdown would reduce the country’s beer supply by a terrifying 80 percent, according to industry leaders.

Local breweries say they are down to their final batches of barley, malt and other imported products needed to make beer, thanks to Venezuela’s strict currency controls that have made it almost impossible to purchase supplies. The industry, which is calling the situation an “unprecedented crisis,” is already some $200 million in arrears to suppliers around the world.

“Beer shortages will essentially force our sector to go broke; beer accounts for 70 percent of our sales,” Fray Roa, a spokesman for Venezuela’s National Association of Liquor Store Owners.

Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 08:33:53

Running out of beer may be the tipping point.

Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 09:43:53

I dunno - when the progressives and socialist couldn’t deliver toilet paper - there was hardly a whimper…

Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 10:26:40

They’ve got leaves, but beer doesn’t grow on trees.

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Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 07:06:03

answer) 30 seconds

question) What is the life expectancy of a lamp in the room with Hillary Clinton when she is handed the latest favorable/unfavorable ratings?

by Lydia Saad
1 day ago

PRINCETON, N.J. — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ favorable rating among Americans has doubled since Gallup’s initial reading in March, rising to 24% from 12% as he has become better known. Hillary Clinton’s rating has slipped to 43% from 48% in April. At the same time, Clinton’s unfavorable rating increased to 46%, tilting her image negative and producing her worst net favorable score since December 2007.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/184346/sanders-surges-clinton-sags-favorability.aspx -

Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 07:33:43

Barry Sanders has the most charisma of all the candidates - but he is no Ron Paul. He fills a vacuum that this election needs. But he will be hammered down by his own rehash of big government meddling when the fireworks stop going off. People will wake up to the fact that he will gladly take over command of what really is a bigger police state.

Donald Trump so far has the biggest chances on the Republican side, but his own lunacy will defeat him for similar reasons. The real solution to the illegal alien problem is not to close the borders, but to abolish all entitlement programs. Some of my ancestors came across the Bering Strait thousands of years ago. Some came from Europe, but we are all a nation of aliens.

The presidential campaign for 2012 was more exciting for libertarians (by far) than this current campaign. Rand is certainly not exciting. His 2012 endorsement of Romney immediately lost me.

I did not vote in the midterm 2014 and I think the outlook for voters wanting libertarianism is even less than it was four years ago, so I will more easily avoid the temptation to vote in 2016. I felt great by not voting in 2014 and I want to be strong in 2016 to avoid the punishment.

George Carlin said “If you vote you have no right to complain.” Your guy won and he screwed up. You have no right to complain. But if you don’t vote your guy did not screw up. My conscience was clear in 2014. My congressional representative screwed up big time voting for the surveillance state, more spending, more MIC. But I did not vote for her. I have the right to complain.

Comment by palmetto
2015-07-26 07:43:38

Barry Sanders

Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 08:30:21

Ah, thanks.

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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:24:50

George Carlin left us way too early. He knew the score. Stupid, amoral electorates give us the kind of political cesspool we have for governance, because that’s what 95% of the sheeple voted for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxsQ7jJJcEA

Comment by azdude
2015-07-26 09:18:53

how much cash will wall street give the trumpster?

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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:20:36

If Trump is still in the race after October, and it’s clear that his run is more than just a publicity stunt, I’m going to send him a donation. Does he need it? No. But it’s the most tangible way of showing support and commitment. The only way non-Oligopoly backed candidates can possibly have an impact is if ordinary people step up and put their money where their mouth is.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 16:38:26

Even though I am not personally hoping and praying for a Trump presidency, I may send him a donation if only for the sake of doing my part to throw a wrench into the oligarchy’s foreordained choices.

 
 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 09:59:54

I can never get enough of that video. Though some of the reasons I do not vote goes further - my realization that voting is immoral.

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Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 11:21:59

George Carlin left us way too early.

George Carlin speal of the “rich are a club and you’re not in it” showed that he was for the needed massive redistribution of wealth back to the middle class.

Massive wealth inequality is America’s biggest injustice. Next is racism imo.

(After that it’s too few daytime baseball games.)

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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 11:44:49

George Carlin speal of the “rich are a club and you’re not in it” showed that he was for the needed massive redistribution of wealth back to the middle class.

Nice try, Corky, but Carlin never called for “redistribution” which is classic lefty double-speak for forced theft from the productive to give to the social parasites and layabouts comprising their voting bloc. Carlin correctly pointed out than an oligarchy has captured America’s political class, because the vast majority of voters are stupid. Same point I’ve made a time or two.

 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 12:06:40

+1 RKH. Carlin being against big corporations does not mean he was for big government. Lola keeps trying to promote his religion of statism.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 12:18:34

“lefty double-speak for forced theft from the productive to give to the social parasites and layabouts comprising their voting bloc.”
Koch Brother’s Propaganda manual Chapter 5, Section IV

Lola keeps trying to promote his religion of statism.

Wake up drones. Massive wealth has already been redistributed from the middle-class to the very few the past 40 years. What country and reality do you live in? Do you know the story of the USA? You don’t. You parrot jive.

There were no billionaires in today’s dollars in 1776. The founders are rolling in their graves. One of their main points was AGAINST an hereditary aristocracy. (Today’s USA)

You fools are carrying water for unAmerican ideals.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 12:31:16

There were no billionaires in today’s dollars in 1776

what in gawd’s name ever made your weak mind think there would be?

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 12:33:14

There were no billionaires in today’s dollars in 1776

do you know why you make such lame comparisons? because you understand nothing.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 12:42:32

you understand nothing.

That is one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received.

You are a poet tj. Thank you.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 13:02:09

There were no billionaires in today’s dollars in 1776

you still don’t understand the idiocy of that statement, do you comrade?

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 14:01:53

tj, ‘I know the answer you have to guess it’ is a game for children, and is one of several reasons so many of us think you are, well, underage. You really need to drop it.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 14:17:14

i don’t ‘need’ to do anything odd-alpha.

you are the old ‘alphasloth’ aren’t you? why did you disappear and then come back with this handle that’s completely new? you never came out and identified yourself with this new moniker like so many others do. it’s almost like you were trying to hide it. i wonder why?

 
Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-26 14:39:45

AlphaSlob, Lola, Oddball… It’s all the same lies.

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 14:43:57

Ooo…kay. tj, are you taking your meds?

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 14:51:58

you are alphasloth whether i’m on my meds or not, right?

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 15:06:59

I don’t know. I’m unsure of your mental state, although it’s starting to seem like there’s more of a problem than simple childishness.

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:09:44

Wake up drones. Massive wealth has already been redistributed from the middle-class to the very few the past 40 years. What country and reality do you live in? Do you know the story of the USA? You don’t. You parrot jive.

Rio, you seem to have moments of lucidity, and when you do, you’re one of the better posters on this board. Concur that the middle class is being decimated and a rigged game is allowing the rich to get richer while everyone else falls further behind. Those facts are inescapable. But as long as the sheeple allow a corrupt and venal oligarchy to subvert and capture our political process, the inequality will only get worse. Forced “redistribution” (is there any other kind?) is not the answer. Getting to people to wake up and take back our political system, treating crony capitalism like the influence peddling and corruption that it is, and having checks and balances that safeguard the public interest should be the desired end state.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 15:10:03

you don’t know if you used to post as alphsloth or not?

you want some of my meds?

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 15:14:55

“you want some of my meds?”

Maybe. Seems like some good stuff.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 15:19:20

if you didn’t post as alphasloth, say so. it isn’t so hard.

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 15:29:53

I know the answer you have to guess it.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 15:33:09

what reason would you have not to deny it, if you knew it weren’t true.. (you being alphasloth)?

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 16:09:16

fun?

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 16:23:32

sure, i suppose if you think looking like you’re hiding something is fun.

there might be a better reason though. maybe you’re afraid if you deny it you’ll get outed as a liar.

 
 
 
Comment by WPA
2015-07-26 08:27:00

Barry Sanders has the most charisma

I don’t know about his charisma but he was one excellent running back. Too bad he couldn’t have played for a better team.

Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 09:00:50

“I don’t know about his charisma but he was one excellent running back.”

+1

And a good man from a good family

Sanders’ humility makes him distinctive
By M.B. Roberts
Special to ESPN.com

Think of Barry Sanders as a coin.

“Heads” is the record-setting running back who was described as electrifying, explosive, mesmerizing and unstoppable.

“Tails” is the quiet, humble, religious, man who doesn’t like attention, treasures his privacy and does his own laundry.

Flip a coin. You got either a terrific player or a nice guy.

Sanders was born on July 16, 1968 in Wichita, Kan. He grew up in a small house with two brothers and eight sisters. Showing off was not tolerated, especially by his father William, an old-fashioned disciplinarian who once worked shooting cows in the head on a slaughtering line.

Most of the time, his father worked as a roofer. Young Barry often worked with him during the sweltering, tar-bubbling Kansas summers.

“It was just like being in a sauna,” Sanders said. “There’s no shade and there’s no relief from the heat. But the toughest part was working with my dad. He’d tell you to go get him a screwdriver and you’d bring him one, and then he’d go into this tirade. He’d start yelling, ‘I didn’t tell you to bring me a Phillips head! I wanted a flathead!’”

Despite the outbursts, Sanders said the experience was good for him.

“I don’t know many kids who get the chance to spend a day with their father working,” he said. “And I learned a trade, so if I ever blew out my knee, I had something to fall back on.”

Sanders only reluctantly attended the Heisman Trophy presentation (live, via satellite, as his team was playing Texas Tech in Japan). Before he won, he said he thought another nominee, Southern Cal quarterback Rodney Peete, deserved the award.

Pat Jones, his coach at Oklahoma State, said Sanders didn’t mind winning the Heisman, he just didn’t want to talk about it.

Sanders on the field was a slick, fast, showman. The moment play stopped, though, he became quiet and gentlemanly. He handed his touchdown ball to the nearest official. He didn’t trash talk or dance in the end zone. He learned this approach from his parents.

“They are get-up early, hard-working, go-do-your-job people,” Sanders said. “They don’t want anything from anybody. They want to take care of their own. That was exactly my approach to football. I wasn’t necessarily looking for fame and fortune. I tried to make sure I upheld my end. I took care of business and then went home.”

After games, he returned to his modest-by-millionaire standards ($180,000) home in Rochester Hills, a Detroit suburb. Sanders, who left $20.9 million in salary and bonus money on the table when he retired with four years left on his contract, also turned down millions in endorsement opportunities.

“It probably was not wise if you want to live by the Business 101 textbook,” he said, “but I value my privacy over endorsements.”

In November 2000, Sanders married Detroit television reporter Lauren Campbell. Nine months later, they had a son, Nigel. Sanders sold his home in Rochester Hills and in 2003 the family moved to a larger house in Southfield, another Detroit suburb.

espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016456.html - 14k -

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Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 09:07:22

Bernie Sanders, even as an avowed socialist, has vastly more moral authority than Hillary Clinton (retch). I hope more D voters will realize voting for corruption and crony capitalism is ultimately not in their best interest, despite their habit of doing so.

 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 09:41:12

Yeah. Only the older staunch Democrap blind sheep follow Hillary, due to their faith in the State.

One thing we can agree upon is that people want some sort of change. With Bernie, it is not really a good change, but people are desperate for something different. It does not make sense to me since it would accelerate us down the road to serfdom.

The spotlight is on the people who are voting. The spotlight avoids the people in the shadows - the growing ranks of non-voters. I think it’s safe to say that there is probably a huge bloc of non-voters who cannot stand Sanders and are a larger number than the ones who are hypnotized by him.

NOTA is the only admirable candidate with character and the right solution to our problems. Voluntary interactions, relationships, and associations are the best ways to progress. Always have been, always will be.

All it takes is to expect the same voluntary association and peace from strangers as the way you treat your family, friends, and colleagues at work: Without aggression. Stop voting. Voting is immoral.

http://libertyhangout.org/2015/03/voting-is-immoral-and-not-your-right/

“A vote is not just an opinion, but rather a promise of force.”

“When you elect a politician into office, you are giving them the power to collect tax dollars, the power to write new laws, and the power to wage war. When an individual takes your property without your voluntary permission, it is called theft. When an individual uses violent force against people they disagree with, it is called assault. And when an individual kills someone who has never attacked them, it is called murder. Therefore electing men we call “politicians” to do this for us is just as immoral and wrong. We are all equal under natural law, citizens and politicians alike. They are not exempt from following the principles of non-aggression.”

 
Comment by Neuromance
2015-07-26 11:31:52

Selfish Hoarder: One thing we can agree upon is that people want some sort of change. With Bernie, it is not really a good change, but people are desperate for something different. It does not make sense to me since it would accelerate us down the road to serfdom.

We do seem to be seeing an increasing volatility. I think this is the result of the big donors interests being increasingly at odds with the voters.

The voters want some kind of change but they keep running between Kang and Kodos.

With donor control of the primary system though, the candidates are thoroughly vetted as in any overtly oligarchic system (for example, Iran and Egypt - candidates are allowed to stand for relatively free elections, but those candidates are selected by the oligarchs).

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 12:22:46

It does not make sense to me since it would accelerate us down the road to serfdom.

Yea. HealthCare, higher wages and higher taxes on the rich to levels of prior decades is down the road to serfdom.

Good grief. USA is a propaganda state.

 
Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 12:32:06

“donor control of the primary system”

But, but the alternative is…socialism! (We’re told.)

That’s why it’s so important to demonize certain words, as a preemptive defense against progress.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 07:36:13

Chattanooga Marine Veteran’s Direct Address to Mr. Obama …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gBDDwywaVk - 292k -

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:34:04

Obama will view the YouTube video, see the error of his ways, be overcome with shame and remorse, and repent forthwith.

Or not.

 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 09:45:19

Will he end in up in jail and be blamed for a dead ambassador and an embassy up in flames?

Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-26 10:34:56

I doubt it. What would the charge be?

Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 11:15:34

I dunno either - ask this guy:

Benghazi scapegoat remains in prison for film
By Shaun Waterman - The Washington Times - Monday, May 13, 2013

The man who made the anti-Islam film that Obama administration officials erroneously blamed for the Benghazi, Libya, terror attacks remains in federal prison eight months later, serving a yearlong sentence for probation violations committed as a result of his involvement with the video.

Mark Basseley Youssef, who made the film “Innocence of the Muslims” under the pseudonym Sam Bacile, was sentenced in November after pleading guilty to four violations of a supervised release order, which included lying to his probation officer, using aliases, and using the Internet, according to court records.

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Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 07:51:22

June 4, 2006

Which City/Region Is Ground Zero Of The Housing Bubble

One reader wants to hear your vote for the housing bubble ‘ground zero.’ “Which city/region has bragging rights to being the ground central of the bubble? I claim Sacramento, CA.”

“And this juicy tid-bit as anectodal evidence: just down the street from me there are actually 7 houses in a cul-de-sac are now for sale! TOP THAT!!”

One responded, “Give me the addresses please…I want to Suzanne it.”

Comments:

‘Pinal & Maricopa county - Phoenix Arizona. No ifs or buts about it. Queen Creek in Pinal county is already getting slaughtered. Much more to come. I expect prices down 40-50% within the next 3 years.’

‘Agreed. Phoenix is my ground zero. Florida pretty close though. Actually with that Charolette County condo news of a 98% sales drop YoY, maybe it has gotten ahead.’

‘I totally agree with Queen Creek being bubble central. I over heard someone in the hall at work a couple of weeks ago, “bought two houses in Queen Creek to flip, can’t sell, can’t rent” Ha Ha’

‘I’m in Chandler, AZ the amount of ‘for sale’ signs is staggeing. I’m predicting 30-40% price decreases within 18 months.’

‘I have to admit that Phoenix and Florida look pretty bad. I think all the coastal California outliers (cities within 6 hrs from the coast) are in serious trouble: Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

However, if there is one measurement in which Sacramento leads the country it is the rapidly declining new home market. Beazer called the Sacramento market the “toughest” housing market in the country. Sacramento leads the nation in cancellations. Apparently all the major homebuilders are walking away from land deals. Housing starts are down 55% and new home sales have plunged an astounding 59% from the prior year. Prices are flat or declining.’

‘Vancouver is Ground Zero in Canada.’

‘Also Spain is supposed to be bad. And rumors of the market crashing in Portugal??’

‘And Ireland! Median home price is approximately $358,000! Ok, I’m Irish, so I can say this: Those dudes should lay off the sauce before they make an offer.’

‘Well if we are going international isn’t Shanghai the biggest bubble period?’

‘Vancouver ? No way. Calgary is. House prices up 50% in the last year. At least Vancouver has some semblance of not enough land. Calgary has land for farther than the eye can see.’

‘1) Miami / San Diego (a tie in my book)
2) Las Vegas
3) Phoenix’

‘A lesser known disaster blowing them both out of contention - My home state (Alabama) - Orange Beach/Gulf Shores.’

‘Condos sold last month - 45
Number for sale - 3500′

‘More than a 7 year supply. And they are starting new projects weekly. The agents are spinning their little hearts out.’

‘Now they are trying to get a new 200+ condo project going in downtown Mobile by the water-front, price to be determined - but probably in the $500k-$1mil range.’

‘I’d rank:’

‘Arizona/Florida tying with Arizona ahead by a possible nose.
Las Vegas
San Diego/Boston.’

‘But what about Boise, Austin, Seattle, San Jose. There are just so many bubble cities it’s impossible to keep them all in your head.’

http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=802#comment-2464781

Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 08:00:29

“‘Pinal & Maricopa county - Phoenix Arizona. No ifs or buts about it. Queen Creek in Pinal county is already getting slaughtered. Much more to come. I expect prices down 40-50% within the next 3 years.’”

I recall driving in a new neighborhood in Queen Creek in 2007 or 2008. There were houses still being finished. Big behemoths. Bricked columns near the entry to the street implied it would be gated. But it is so far away from even the Chandler ‘Price Corridor” where high tech jobs were. It all did not seem right. It reminded me of what I saw in 1990 in my small town in California at the peak.

A colleague bought a house in Queen Creek. But his job was transferred to California and he had to sell at a big loss. Now he rents an apartment in Santa Ana.

It was an ugly speculative era for Phoenix metro. Far different mentality than the year 1999. I miss the culture of Arizonans of the late 1990s. When houses were places to live, and not speculate / overdevelop/rape the earth.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 08:06:23

Good times, Ben! Thanks for the”Back to the Future” post.

Comment by Robert Cote
2006-06-03 16:03:46

No Top Ten is complete without Las Vegas, Phoenix, Miami, Sacramento and San Diego. Each will have different accidents and there will be 2 dozen different excuses for why they stumble.

Reply to this comment
Comment by GetStucco
2006-06-03 17:07:12

“Each will have different accidents and there will be 2 dozen different excuses for why they stumble.”

That’s right — don’t forget that all real estate markets are local.

Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 08:27:11

‘just down the street from me there are actually 7 houses in a cul-de-sac are now for sale’

But there’s a shortage of houses. Even though we are all living in a house of some sort now, there’s not enough to go around. Everybody wants to live everywhere. There are no build-able lots! There are no construction workers! They’ve all disappeared.

Scarcity and urgency are the oldest gimmicks in the books. These houses all magically appeared for sale when the prospect for future profits went away.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:35:13

I have this vague recollection that this blog had something to do with housing bubbles. Hmmm….

Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 08:48:47

That’s OK because complacency tells us something. Complacency when national prices just hit an all time high, when second house purchases just hit an all time high, when subprime loans are rolling out daily.

‘Condotels have recently become popular with investors and second home regular visitors to the islands because of the ease of management and ability to use the unit whenever the owner wants to use it.’

‘Condotels are condominiums with zoning which allows them to do short term overnight rentals. There is usually a hotel pool management company which runs the front desk, obtains reservations and turnover of the rooms.’

‘Most are located in Waikiki, with prices ranging from $69,000 to $8,300,000.’

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/27550066/are-condotels-a-sound-real-estate-investment

Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 08:54:02

“[Condotel] is serviced condominiums that can also be rented out as a hotel [rooms],” said Chan. Each tower will have studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom panoramic suites, ranging from 500 square-feet to 2,000 square-feet in size.’

“It’ll be a good second home,” said Chan.’

‘Their prices start from 275,000 Singaporean Dollars for each suite.
Their target customers are Indonesians, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Chinese, people from the Middle East, Americans and Europeans. “Most of the advanced countries in the world have temperate climate,” said Chain. “They’ll love the hot weather here. And it’s also a chance for them to see the sun and the sand.”

‘The regent of Bintan, H. Ansar Ahmad, also welcomed the arrival of The Haven Bintan. “I, on behalf of the local government and the people of Bintan, welcome the arrival of The Haven,” said the regent. “We hope this project will also attract other investors to come to Bintan.”

http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/features/haven-bintan-jewel-south-china-sea/

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Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 08:57:48

‘A recent study by property consultant Cushman & Wakefield has found that the absorption rate of condominium hotels or “condotels” in Bali is expected to decline this year on the back of a significant increase in supply.’

‘Arief Rahardjo, Cushman & Wakefield’s head of research said that within the next three years, the island would see around 8,000 units of new condotels, in addition to the total of 5,000 units as of June 2014.’

‘Data from the firm released on Wednesday showed that in 2011, the rate of condotel sales reached around 95 percent before they slowed to an average of 90 percent over the past years.’

‘Arief said the hotel occupancy rate in Bali, including condotels, had been decreasing to an average of 70 percent as of 2013. Data from the firm shows that the occupancy level reached more than 80 percent in 2010. “The occupancy rate is decreasing particularly because of the increasing number of new hotels entering the market, creating tighter competition,” Arief said.’

‘Prices offered for the marketed projects start from around Rp 30 million (US$2,567) per square meter to $6,000 per square meter.’

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/07/18/condotel-sales-bali-ease-amid-increase-supply.html

 
Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 09:08:50

‘John Dinwiddie and Diane Brown own a house with twin engines. It began its life as a Delta barge, later became a floating hot dog and beer stand, and finally a marina fuel dock, before being converted to use as a house — yes, an actual house, albeit one that’s tethered to a slip at the Berkeley Marina.’

‘The floating home — which cost $250,000, with bedroom, kitchen and swanky bath — sits atop what is essentially a floating box made of concrete and fiberglass. The whole setup may strike some as “kind of cuckoo,” Brown jokes. But it makes solid sense for her and the hundreds of other homeowners who live, often affordably, in dockside floating homes like this one or aboard their powerboats or sailboats in marinas throughout the Bay Area.’

http://triblive.com/business/headlines/8674257-74/floating-marina-homes#ixzz3h0wx4b8u

 
Comment by Ben Jones
2015-07-26 09:11:39

‘How would you like to have a ritzy, waterfront condo in every port? If money’s no problem and you’re not prone to seasickness, the 43,524-ton World residential cruise ship may be just the ticket.’

‘That ticket for one of its 165 luxurious shipboard condos, by the way, can cost from $1 million to $13 million. First, though, you’ll have to prove your net worth exceeds $10 million. Then add another 10 to 15 percent of the purchase price for annual maintenance and other fees based on your apartment size.’

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/travel/sc-trav-0414-strip-floating-condo-20150408-story.html

The date on this is April 8, 2015

 
Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-26 10:38:44

$50k worth of rotting depreciating materials sitting on a corroding garbage scow or sitting on worthless dirt.

A distinction without a difference.

 
 
 
 
Comment by scdave
2015-07-26 08:37:18

Gee’s Ben…Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane…Wow, so many of those posters are no longer here unfortunately…Robert Cote being one of them…I think he was a retired or active municipal planner or at least he had a high degree of knowledge in that area…

Comment by Professor Bear
 
 
Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 15:48:40

I thought it was San Francisco.

 
 
Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 08:03:25

Woman gets life after her teen hit man killed wrong target

Associated Press
By MEG KINNARD
July 24, 2015 11:38 AM

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina woman was sentenced to life in prison Thursday, more than two years after prosecutors say she hired a teen to kill a man, and he killed the wrong man by mistake.

A judge sentenced Karlita Desean Phillips of Greenwood after a jury found her guilty of accessory before the fact of murder and soliciting a minor to commit a felony, according to prosecutor David Stumbo.

Authorities have said that Phillips, 41, hired a 17-year-old to kill her estranged husband in March 2013, but the teen killed her husband’s brother, 31-year-old Jamil Phillips, by mistake.

Jamil Phillips was ambushed as he slid his key into the door of his home in Abbeville, investigators say

Stumbo said Karlita Phillips was motivated in part by life insurance payouts due to her at her husband’s death. Dale Phillips Jr. had a life insurance policy through work that would have paid Karlita Phillips $500,000 at his death, prosecutors said.

Through her own employer, Karlita Phillips took out an additional $25,000 life insurance policy on her husband several months after separating from him, and several months before the shooting.

The teen, who is awaiting trial for murder in Phillips’ death, was sentenced to 45 years in prison earlier this year for killing another man in an unrelated case. At trial, he testified he and Karlita Phillips were in a sexual relationship and that she agreed to pay him $13,000 to kill her estranged husband.

Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 13:34:08

Teen hit men are so unreliable. They should have use Angie’s List.

Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 15:51:38

tee hee

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 16:39:57

Never use a hit man who happens to also be your paramour!

 
 
 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 08:10:50

Have China’s recent economic woes proven contagious?

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 09:28:12

Aussie Dollar Tests Long-Term Trendline As China Contagion Spreads
Tyler Durden’s picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/24/2015 21:50 -0400

Last week, we asked “Is Australia the next Greece?” It appears, judging bu the collapse in the Aussie Dollar, that some - if not all - are starting to believe it’s possible after last night’s 15-month low in China Manufacturing PMI. As UBS previously noted, China’s real GDP growth cycles have become an increasingly important driver of Australia’s nominal GDP growth this last decade. With iron ore and coal prices plumbing new record lows, a Chinese (real) economy firing on perhaps 1 cyclinder, and equity investors reeling from China’s collapse; perhaps the situation facing Australia is more like Greece than many want to admit.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 09:40:04

ft dot com > World > Asia-Pacific >
China
EM Squared
July 13, 2015 10:23 am
China’s A shares: contagion danger
Dan Bogler

The turmoil on China’s stock markets threatens to spread to the property sector

The farce that the Chinese equity market has turned into has been well documented, though one rich irony is perhaps worth repeating: that the government’s attempts to rescue the market are what precipitated its failure.

As Medley Global Advisors, a macro research service owned by the FT, has pointed out, while share prices were already falling ahead of the July 4 weekend package of intervention measures, there were no liquidity problems evident at that point. Buy and sell orders were going through normally and margin calls were working.

It was only after Beijing ordered — or encouraged — the mass suspension of individual stocks, banned short selling (or indeed any selling by state-owned firms or large holders), raised margin requirements, pumped in central bank funds and started bullying brokerages that the markets froze. This kind of manipulation may work in the very short term, but it is hard to believe that China’s bubbling share prices will not continue to fall as soon as they are once more allowed to do so.

The next question to ask is, does this matter? There are good reasons to think it does not. Equities still play a rather small role in the mainland financial system. The stock market is worth about a third of GDP, compared with over 100 per cent in most developed economies. And less than 15 per cent of household financial assets are invested in shares, according to HSBC. That means domestic consumption depends more on income growth than changes in household wealth, while most companies still finance themselves through bank loans despite a rash of IPOs.

It is also the case that, despite dropping by around a quarter over the past month, the Shanghai Composite is still up 85 per cent or so over one year and the junior Shenzhen market by more.

Despite all that, Beijing is worried for good reasons. The first is about the impact on sentiment at a time when the economy is already slowing and deflation is threatening to turn into a real problem. And although the markets are still up strongly year-to-date, the volume of stock purchases increased dramatically towards the end of the bull run, so many individual investors are already sitting on losses and — to the extent that they borrowed to buy shares — may be in financial difficulty.

It is this risk of financial contagion that is the real concern of the authorities. Over the past three months, Chinese interbank assets increased by 5tn renminbi ($800bn) and while no one knows with certainty where that money went — a problem in itself — it is reasonable to assume that a fair proportion went into margin financing for equity purchases. Chinese firms, especially state-owned ones, have long been buying shares, their own and others, and often borrowed to do so. Financial brokerages do so too and, clearly, households joined the party this year.

That means a sudden implosion of a securities firm or a state enterprise cannot be ruled out. And perhaps the riskiest sector of all is also the biggest, MGA warns: real estate. Chinese property companies are among the biggest borrowers, both on the mainland and externally, and will surely be facing far tighter financing conditions from now on. And there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of retail investors mortgaging their house to invest in the stock market and now having to sell their property to meet margin calls.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 09:44:08

Emerging market currencies crash on Fed fears and China slump
Brazil faces a ‘perfect storm’ as the country as the country slides deeper into recession, the politics go haywire and the Fed prepares to raise rates
Christ the Redeemer statue, Brazil
Brazil’s real plummeted to a 12-year low of 3.34 to the dollar
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
9:48PM BST 24 Jul 2015

The currencies of Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Turkey have all crashed to multi-year lows as investors flee emerging markets and commodity prices crumble.

The drastic moves came as fears of imminent monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve combined with shockingly weak figures from China, which stoked fears that the country may be sliding into a deeper downturn and sent tremors through East Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The Caixin/Markit manufacturing survey for China fell to a 15-month low of 48.2 in July, with a sharp drop in new export orders. Danske Bank said the slide “pours cold water” on hopes of a quick recovery from the slump seen earlier this year.

Brazil’s real plummeted to a 12-year low of 3.34 to the dollar, reflecting the country’s heavy reliance on exports of iron ore and other raw materials to China.

The devaluation tightens the noose on Brazilian companies saddled with $188bn in dollar debt taken out during the glory days of the commodity boom. The oil group Petrobras alone raised $52bn on the US bond markets.

Mexico’s peso hit a record low of 16.24 against the dollar. The country’s foreign exchange commission is mulling emergency action to defend the currency, despite the extreme reluctance of the Mexican authorities to meddle with market forces.

Colombia’s peso collapsed 5.2pc to a historic low on Friday, a huge move in a single day. Similar dramas played out in Chile and a string of countries deemed vulnerable to the combined spill-overs from China and the US. The MSCI index of emerging market equities fell to 1.8pc to 36.92 and may soon test four-year lows.

Bernd Berg, from Societe Generale, said Brazil faces a “perfect storm” as the economy slides into deeper recession and corruption scandals spread. New worries about political risk may soon push the real to 3.60, a once unthinkable level.

There is mounting concern that President Dilma Rousseff could be impeached for her failure to stop pervasive malfeasance at Petrobras.

Brazil’s travails come just as the US nears full employment and the Fed prepares to raise interest rates for the first time in eight years. issuing what amounts to a “margin call” for emerging markets that have borrowed $4.5 trillion in dollars.

Mr Berg said Brazil’s debt may be cut to junk status over coming months. This would be a humiliating blow for a country that thought it had escaped the endless cycle of debt booms and populist misrule, and saw itself as a pillar of a new BRICS-led global order.

In South Africa, the rand plummeted to a record low of 12.68 to the dollar on Friday despite moves by the central bank to defend the currency. It raised rates a quarter point to 6pc on Thursday.

South Africa is one of a growing number of emerging market states that has lost its room to manoeuvre and is being forced to tighten monetary policy into the downturn, compounding the effects of the commodity slump.

Such countries cannot ease policy or resort to stimulus to cushion the blow because this would risk capital flight - and potentially a classic rush for exits. Such synchronized “pro-cyclical” tightening is hazardous for the world as a whole since the emerging markets now make up roughly half global GDP and – until this year - four-fifths of extra growth.

Stephen Jen, from SLJ Macro Partners, said China’s downturn is proving to be “hard on the outside, soft on the inside”. It may be manageable for China itself as the country shifts from heavy industry to service-led growth, but it is brutal for those countries that have been feeding on the Chinese construction boom.

“China can handle the soft landing; it is the other countries that rely on China’s growth that we worry about,” he said.

Growth in emerging markets – excluding China – has fallen to 0.1pc. These countries are on the brink of recession. They are now being hit on two fronts at once since the Fed shows no signs so far of backing away from a rate rise in September, probably the first of many.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 13:20:18

Brazil’s real plummeted to a 12-year low of 3.34 to the dollar, reflecting the country’s heavy reliance on exports of iron ore and other raw materials to China.

It is a major issue and it is real. But unlike most Brazilians, I have US dollar assets too and gold is almost at an all time high in Brazil.

My house is worth less in US dollars this year but it still throws off over a couple grand a month in “free” rent.

Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Nothing lasts forever. Including upturns and downturns.

 
 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 09:50:53

Emerging Currencies Drop to Record Low as China Saps Commodities
by Natasha Doff and Zahra Hankir
July 23, 2015 — 10:48 PM PDT
Updated on July 24, 2015 — 1:55 PM PDT

Emerging-market currencies deepened their slump to a record low as a surprise slowdown in Chinese manufacturing threatened to exacerbate a rout in global commodity prices.

Brazil’s real led the decline, dropping to the weakest level against the dollar in 12 years on mounting concern that the country’s credit rating will be cut. South Africa’s rand fell 1.3 percent as gold tumbled. The lira slid for a third day as Turkey stepped up its fight against Islamic State militants. The Bloomberg Commodity Index sank to the lowest since 2002. A gauge of 20 developing-nation currencies retreated 0.5 percent.

China’s preliminary Purchasing Managers’ Index from Caixin Media and Markit Economics fell to a 15-month low in July, weakening the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy. Currencies posted their longest stretch of weekly losses since January as U.S. economic data supported the case for the Federal Reserve to raise the near-zero interest rates that have bolstered demand for riskier assets in developing nations.

“It is negative for emerging markets and the world as a whole if China doesn’t manage to get its economy back on track,” Anders Svendsen, an analyst at Nordea Bank A/S in Copenhagen, said by phone. “How the Fed communicates next week will be crucial for emerging markets.”

U.S. policy makers are edging toward raising rates for the first time since 2006 following solid gains in the labor market. There’s a more than 50-50 chance the Fed will lift borrowing costs in September, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 09:54:23

Bonds | Fri Jul 24, 2015 6:04am EDT
EMERGING MARKETS-Weak China data pushes emerging stocks, currencies lower
LONDON, July 24 | By Sujata Rao

Offshore-traded yuan hit two-week lows on Friday and volatility rose on weak Chinese data and authorities’ plans to liberalise currency trading while other emerging currencies plumbed new multi-month and multi-year lows.

Shares worldwide skidded with the broader emerging MSCI index down almost 1 percent as data showing Chinese manufacturing at 15-month lows rekindled concerns for regional exports and economic growth. Chinese mainland equities slipped 0.6 percent after a six-day run of gains.

China also said it would widen “two-way fluctuation” in the yuan to support trade, though it gave no details on timing. That, along with the weak data, sent offshore yuan 0.12 percent lower while the onshore yuan was reportedly held steady by state banks’ dollar sales.

One-month yuan-dollar volatility, a measure of expected swings in a currency, rose to the highest in a week while one-year yuan forwards priced a slight weakening.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 10:01:13

ft dot com > Markets >
Emerging Markets
EM Squared
July 26, 2015 1:39 pm
Retail sales slump in emerging market commodity exporters
James Kynge
Impact of collapse in export earnings feeds through to consumers

A worker hands over a receipt and ruble cash to a customer at the checkout desk of an Azbuka Vkusa OOO, which translates as “Elements of Taste,” supermarket at the Neglinnaya Plaza shopping center in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015. Russia in August banned food imports from the U.S. and the European Union in retaliation for the economic sanctions, just as plunging oil prices sent its energy-dependent economy closer to recession.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

Retail sales growth in commodity-rich developing countries has slipped to its lowest level for six years, according to new research, underlining how broader economic malaise has hit consumers’ pockets.

The slowdown in consumer spending – which is particularly pronounced in Russia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and South Africa – shows how the impact of lacklustre commodity exports is weighing increasingly heavily upon shopping habits in the developing world.

“The commodity slump has delivered a big hit to incomes in commodity producing countries, and that is keeping people from being able to go out and spend,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, a research company.

Retail sales growth in developing countries that are net exporters of commodities slipped to 2.6 per cent in May from 2.7 per cent in April, according to a three-month moving average compiled by Capital Economics.

It marked the lowest level since October 2009, when retail sales growth averaged 2.2 per cent and was well off the 6.8 per cent growth registered in May last year.

It comes as economic growth in the developing world has declined to its lowest ebb since the financial crisis.

Overall emerging market GDP growth in May fell to 3.5 per cent, down from 3.6 per cent in April and well off a post-crisis peak of 10 per cent in 2010, the company added.

In an illustration of how significant the pass-through effect from dwindling commodity exports has been, average retail sales growth in those emerging markets that are net importers of commodities held up in May, rising 7.7 per cent compared with 7.4 per cent in the same month a year ago.

Overall, average retail spending growth in emerging markets dropped to 5.9 per cent in May, down from 6.2 per cent in April – highlighting the strength of flagging consumer activity in Latin American and emerging European commodity exporters.

Much of the outlook for commodity exporting emerging markets depends on demand from China, where investment-driven growth has slowed precipitously. There was more gloomy news for the Chinese economy last week as the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index – an indicator of manufacturing activity – slipped to its lowest level in 15 months in July.

The news helped depress the price of copper briefly to a new six-year low. Iron ore prices were also subdued, but off six-year lows hit earlier this month. Brent crude hovered at around $55 a barrel, near a four-month low.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 10:55:48

Dominoes seem to be in motion. How long from now until the central banker cavalry rides to the rescue again?

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 13:04:31

Hold on one minute:

1) The Fed has yet to unwind emergency measures in place ever since the 2008 financial meltdown;

2) Japan’s and Europe’s central banks already have major quantitative easing measures underway;

3) China’s central bank has a full court press in play to stop the panic.

And yet commodities and Third World currencies are in free fall.

Is it still “turtles all the way down” at this point?

Comment by In Colorado
2015-07-26 13:21:47

Unless First World Consumers buy stuff, then “capitalism” is in the sh!tter. And all the QE and “emergency measures” do next to nothing to put money into consumers’ hands.

You want prosperity? Then you need a thriving middle class. History shows that when the middle class takes it on the chin, bad things happen. But oligarchs won’t have history getting in the way of their plans.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 13:33:31

You want prosperity? Then you need a thriving middle class. History shows that when the middle class takes it on the chin, bad things happen.

100% true but Americans are brainwashed to think such a truth is “Socialist”. Look at some of the comments when I suggested a redistribution of wealth BACK to the middle class - wealth that had already been redistributed from the middle to the rich. It’s not rocket science. It’s reality and history.

USA’s far right has become propagandized dumb.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-26 14:26:01

‘redistribution back to the middle class’. more immorality from you comrade. you’re immoral to the bone, besides being an idiot.

 
 
 
 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 20:36:06

Stock Market Lookahead
China’s economy is getting sick. Will it infect America?
By Matt Egan
7/26/2015
China’s economy is at risk of catching a nasty flu — and infecting the rest of the world in the process.

After years of explosive expansion, China is cooling off. Growth has fallen to its lowest level since 2009, and investors believe it might be even worse because Beijing may be fudging the official numbers.

China is now the second biggest economy in the world. The fear is that China will pull other major economies — including the U.S. — down with it. That would be scary given how slowly the global economy is currently growing and how little ammo governments have left to jump start business.

“We need all the growth we can get. A slowdown in China wouldn’t help,” said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial.

Investors around the world went on high alert when China’s stock market began to crumble in late June and early July. While Chinese equities have stabilized for now, it’s rattled investors, causing prices for oil, gold and copper to tumble.

Here are the main ways that China’s economic turbulence could wash ashore in the U.S.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 20:38:52

Investing Guide
What’s behind the falling prices of oil, gold and copper
By Matt Egan
There’s a firesale on raw materials like copper, aluminum, gold and oil, raising concerns about the health of the global economy.

The CRB raw industrials spot price index is now at its lowest level since November 2009. The Bloomberg Commodities Index touched levels unseen since June 2002.

Just this week, crude oil prices retreated to $50 a barrel, while gold tumbled below $1,100 an ounce to five-year lows.

And mining stocks like Newmont Mining (NEM), Barrick Gold (ABX) and Coeur Mining (CDE) are down 20% to 25% this month alone.

What’s going on?

“It’s a yellow flag for the global economy. I don’t think it’s a heads up that we’re headed for disaster, but I do think it tells us something,” said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 20:44:06

Chinese Stocks Decline for Second Day Amid Signs of Weak Growth
July 26, 2015 — 6:24 PM PDT
Updated on July 26, 2015 — 7:20 PM PDT

China’s stocks fell for a second day, led by technology and energy shares, as a drop in profits for the nation’s industrial companies deepened concern the economy is weakening.

The Shanghai Composite Index retreated 1.3 percent to 4,017.44 at 10:10 a.m., extending Friday’s 1.3 percent decline. PetroChina Co., the biggest stock by market value, slumped 3.3 percent. Leshi Internet Information & Technology (Beijing) Co. and East Money Information Co., the largest companies in the ChiNext index, slid more than 5 percent. China Vanke Co. surged 2 percent to pace gains for real estate companies.

Industrial profits dropped 0.3 percent in June from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said Monday, after data Friday showed a private gauge of manufacturing in the nation unexpectedly declined in July to the lowest level in 15 months.

“The soft industrial figure number is adding downward pressure,” said Gerry Alfonso, a sales trader at Shenwan Hongyuan Group Co. in Shanghai. “Most sectors are posting a moderate correction with the property sector holding better than the market as investors seem to expect some type of policy easing.”

The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index in Hong Kong slumped 2.7 percent, heading for its lowest close since July 8. The Hang Seng Index declined 2 percent.

Industrial profits dropped last month to 588.6 billion yuan ($94.8 billion), compared with a 0.6 percent gain in May, according to data from the statistics bureau. For the first six months of the year, profits slid 0.7 percent to 2.84 trillion yuan.
Margin Trading

Margin debt in Shanghai fell for first time in six days on Friday, with the outstanding balance slipping 0.1 percent, or 547 million yuan, to 940.8 billion yuan, according to exchange data.

The Shanghai Composite rebounded 16 percent from July 8 through Friday after officials allowed more than 1,400 companies to halt trading, while banning major shareholders from selling stakes, restricting short selling and suspending initial public offerings.

Shanghai’s stocks are likely to trade in a range as the markets regulator may resume IPO issuance in the near term to address companies’ financing needs, putting further pressure on liquidity conditions for A shares, BNP Paribas SA analyst Judy Zhang wrote in a note dated July 25.

The median trailing price-to-earnings ratio on mainland bourses is 73, higher than in any of the world’s 10 largest markets. It was 68 at the peak of China’s equity bubble in 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 22:08:07

Asian stocks retreat on falling commodities, Fed
See Kit Tang
53 Mins Ago
CNBC.com

Asian stocks sold off on Monday, mirroring the declines offshore and as the fall in commodity prices continues to sap risk appetite. Meanwhile, caution ahead of the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting also kept investors on the sideline.

Spot gold fell for a third session in Asian trade on Monday, trading not far above its lowest level since early 2010, with expectations of further losses in the metal as the Federal Reserve moves closer to raising interest rates. The yellow metal eased 0.3 percent at $1,095.50 an ounce.

Meanwhile, U.S. crude for September delivery fell 14 cents at $48 a barrel and Brent crude futures for September delivery dropped 4 cents to $54.58 on the back of renewed oversupply concerns after data showed U.S. drilling activity increased last week.

Further hurting sentiment was the negative lead from Wall Street; U.S. indexes finished about 1 percent lower each on Friday as signs of slower global growth weighed on sentiment.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 22:15:04

Global Share Slump Continues in Asia as Commodities Extend Drop
by Emma O’Brien
July 26, 2015 — 4:07 PM PDT
Updated on July 26, 2015 — 9:50 PM PDT

Asian stocks fell, following the worst week for global equities this year, and a selloff in commodities deepened as a report showed China’s industrial profits declined. The dollar slipped after gaining for five straight weeks.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index retreated 1.2 percent by 12:36 p.m. in Hong Kong as Chinese stocks tumbled. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures were little changed after a slump in U.S. stocks Friday. The Bloomberg Commodity Index extended a 13-year low as oil in New York lost 0.6 percent and corn sank a second day. The greenback weakened against most major peers, falling at least 0.2 percent versus the yen and the euro.

Chinese industrial company profits decreased 0.3 percent in June from a year earlier, figures showed Monday, the latest evidence of an economic slowdown that’s fueling the collapse in commodity prices. Gold is trading near a five-year low and oil is in a bear market amid concern raw-material supplies are outpacing demand. In the U.S., data are due on durable and capital goods orders, with investors looking ahead to this week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve.

“Share markets are likely to remain volatile as we are still going through a seasonally weak period of the year,” Shane Oliver, global strategist at AMP Capital Investors Ltd. in Sydney, which oversees A$160.5 billion ($117 billion), said by e-mail. “Uncertainties remain regarding Chinese economic growth and a likely Fed interest-rate hike lies ahead for later this year.”

A gauge of Asian materials companies slid 1.2 percent Monday to extend a six-year low. Commodity stocks also drove the MSCI All-Country World Index’s 2.1 percent drop last week, the steepest since mid-December.

Chinese Shares

The Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.4 percent, while a gauge of Chinese stocks in Hong Kong slumped 3.6 percent. The report on industrial profits from the statistics bureau comes after data Friday showed a private gauge of manufacturing in the nation unexpectedly declined in July to a 15-month low.

“The soft industrial figure number is adding downward pressure,” said Gerry Alfonso, a sales trader at Shenwan Hongyuan Group Co. in Shanghai.

Japan’s Topix index declined a second day, headed for a two-week low. Taiwan’s Taiex index lost 2.3 percent.

West Texas Intermediate crude fell to $47.85 a barrel, while Brent lost 0.3 percent to $54.47. WTI retreated 5.4 percent last week, sliding into a bear market, as a rebound in U.S. drilling added to signs producers will keep pumping amid a global glut. The number of rigs seeking oil climbed by 21 to 659, the third weekly increase this month, according to Baker Hughes Inc.

Fed Meeting

Gold for immediate delivery slipped 0.2 percent to $1,097.30 an ounce, following last week’s 3.1 percent tumble amid concern about prospects for higher U.S. interest rates.

While there’s no chance that the Fed will increase borrowing costs when it meets this week, the odds that it will in September are 50 percent, according to the median probability in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Hedge funds swung into a net-short position on gold in New York for the first time in records going back to 2006, signaling the slump may have further to run.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 22:49:38

As commodity supercycle turns, prices face a grinding
These are not the best of times to be a commodity investor. Commodities have been hammered in the global market day after day and week after week this year.
By: fe Bureau | New Delhi | July 24, 2015 1:33 am

These are not the best of times to be a commodity investor. Commodities have been hammered in the global market day after day and week after week this year. The Bloomberg Commodity Index — which tracks the prices of 22 commodities ranging from energy products to metals to farm items — has dropped over 7% this month to a fresh 13-year low of 95.18 in intraday trade on Thursday.

While oil is presumed to be the most obvious villain, it’s base metals that have caused the maximum slide in the commodity index, while sugar and coffee have suffered the worst fall this year. If the Bloomberg Commodity Index is any indication, while economic slowdown in developed nations has mostly been blamed for the commodity crashes in recent years, two of the BRICS nations, China and Brazil — share a fair amount of blame for the latest drop due to the importance they command in the price movement of these commodities.

Coffee and sugar have lost around 27% each this year in the index due to a slide in prices following a depreciation of the currency in biggest producer Brazil and a glut in other producing nations, including India (in the case of sugar).

A slowdown in China, the world’s biggest consumer of most commodities, and a recent crash in its stock market also reinforced fears that these losses could infect the real economy and consequently hurt raw material demand. Base metals, including copper and nickel — which are down 12% and 23% this year, respectively — have affected the Bloomberg Commodity Index the most, even though more valuable items like oil and gold (down 12% and 6.8%, respectively) have heavier weightings in it.

Base metals’ contribution to returns this year, according to the index, have been less than -2%, followed by energy products (-1.6%) and farm items (-1.4%).

Commodity indexes, including Bloomberg’s, may drop further in the coming days, with the World Bank forecasting another year of fall for commodities and Goldman Sachs predicting a 44% plunge in copper prices through 2018, assuming China’s demand to grow at its slowest pace in two decades.

According to the World Bank’s latest “Commodity Markets Outlook”, average prices for fuels such as crude, natural gas and coal could crash 39% this year from 2014 levels. Prices of metals and fertilisers may fall about 12% each, it added. “All main commodity price indices are expected to decline in 2015, mainly due to abundant supplies, and in the case of industrial commodities, weak demand,” it said in the report.

The demand for commodities, especially metals and coal, could slow in China as it attempts a shift to a more services-oriented economy from a manufacturing-driven one.

The bank has forecast that crude oil prices could tumble from an average of $96 a barrel in 2014 to about $57 this year, although the latest forecast is still higher than its April prediction of $53. The projection — based on an equally weighted average of Brent, Dubai and West Texas Intermediate crudes — reflects some improvement in US fuel consumption and a 17% rise in prices between April and June. The bank noted that gas prices could fall sharply in Asia, Europe and the US, while coal will plunge 17% due to competition from other fuels, including gas, and a shift toward renewable energy.

Iron ore prices may dip to $55 per tonne in 2015, down over 40% from the average of last year, on low-cost mining operations in producing countries such as Australia and Brazil. Metal prices could see a 17% drop as well. Similarly, average prices of farm items could drop 11% from 2014.

Gold prices, having hit their lowest since March 2010 on Wednesday, inched up a bit to $1,101.25 an ounce at 5.30 pm on Thursday. However, analysts, including ABN Amro Bank’s Georgette Boele and Robin Bhar of Societe Generale, say the bullion will approach $1,000 by December this year.

Copper — which tracks the health of the global economy, especially of China — was hovering around six-year lows in intra-day trade on Thursday following Goldman Sachs’ bearish forecast. Goldman expects copper prices to touch $4,500 by the end of the next year, down 16% from Wednesday’s close. “We substantially lower our short-, medium- and long-term copper price forecasts on the back of lower Chinese copper demand growth forecasts, increased conviction in copper supply growth over the next three years, and less conservative assumptions regarding mining cost deflation in dollar terms,” Bloomberg reported, quoting the report. The LME Index of the six major metals, including copper and aluminium, has plunged 14% this year and is heading for a third monthly fall.

Having hit $5,315 a tonne in early trade, three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange fell 0.7% to $5,320 a tonne by 6.40 pm on Thursday, extending a 1.7% drop in the previous session. On July 8, the base metal had hit a six-year low of $5,240 per tonne on concerns the persistent crash in China’s stock markets could affect other markets as well.

Comment by Prime_Is_Contained
2015-07-27 18:26:58

As commodity supercycle turns, prices face a grinding

It’s not a commodity supercycle—it’s the tide finally going back out, after the tsunami of QE liquidity washed (destructively) through the system…

 
 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 23:17:53

Scoreboard: Commodities stampede
Daniel Palmer 9 hours ago
Markets Currency Indicies

The rush to exit commodities turned into a stampede last week as a weakening Chinese economy and a surging US dollar put the fright into traders and led commodities to post-crisis lows.

The sea of red in the Friday session was an all-too-familiar sight for miners as oil, gold and copper all slid in the wake of the softest reading on the Chinese manufacturing sector for 15 months.

It ensured the UK-listed stock of BHP Billiton settled at its third six-year low of the week after yielding a further 3.8 per cent.

Fellow Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto also touched a six-year trough after giving back 3.5 per cent, while Glencore dived 4.5 per cent to a record low and Anglo American stumbled 3.5 per cent to a 12-year nadir.

Across the Atlantic, stock in Brazilian iron ore heavyweight Vale traded at levels not seen for a decade.

Over the past year, Vale has been the worst performer of the above-listed names, plunging 66 per cent. Angle American (-49 per cent), Glencore (-41 per cent), BHP (-40 per cent) and Rio (-28 per cent) have scarcely performed much better.

The term ‘rout’ almost undersells it.

Commodities have relegated Greece to a back seat role despite optimism of a third bailout deal. Talks were slated to restart with its ‘troika’ of creditors on Friday, but “logistical problems” have seen them delayed until Tuesday.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 23:24:08

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 26 July, 2015, 3:57pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 26 July, 2015, 3:57pm
Policymakers flounder as global recovery starts to stall
After years of low interest rates, huge monetary injections and fiscal stimulus, policymakers are running out of ready solutions to stop the rot
David Brown

A much cooler mood is descending over global markets and investors could be feeling more than a cold snap if economic growth prospects start to freeze over in the coming months.

Just at the point when the global economy should be primed full of monetary stimulus ready to extend on the next leg of recovery, there are disturbing signs of economic sentiment starting to stall. What’s worrying is there is not a lot that world policymakers can do to prevent it.

After years of rock bottom rates, massive monetary injections and a huge flood of fiscal stimulus, global policymakers are running out of bright ideas and ready remedies to stop the rot. The magic box of policy tricks that central banks and governments generally turn to in times of need is looking alarmingly bare.

The deep crisis in Greece, stock market mayhem in China and worries about a return to tougher monetary policy in the US are just the top of a long list of worries niggling global investors and now starting to make a deeper dent in global economic confidence.

OECD leading cyclical indicators have been hinting at slower recovery momentum for months. The latest round of purchasing managers’ surveys are also pointing to weaker growth ahead. China’s July PMI reading sank to 48.2, suggesting the nation’s vast factory sector is contracting at its fastest pace in 15 months. It casts doubts about the government hitting its 7 per cent growth target this year. This is a troubling trend that is being experienced across the globe and challenging official complacency about upbeat hopes for continued recovery extending uninterrupted for much longer.

The dilemma is whether hints of slower recovery are a natural business cycle slowdown or something much more sinister in terms of the global financial crash moving into a more damaging phase.

The global financial crash was the product of excessive credit expansion, over-leverage and rash financial practices. The worry now is that the global economy could be entering a new phase of uncertainty and greater market dangers.

The impact of zero interest rates and extreme money-creation from quantitative easing definitely pepped up the global recovery by boosting economic confidence in the past six years. But it might have gone too far, pumping up irrational investor exuberance and encouraging over-zealous risk-taking in financial markets.

Much of the QE-related five-fold expansion of the US Federal Reserve’s balance sheet since 2008 has found its way into leveraged-bets, speculative trades and the rallies in commodities and emerging markets in recent years. The worry in investors’ minds is that recent rallies have far over-exceeded fundamental value and are now ripe for a correction.

If markets are looking for a potential trigger it could easily come from the monetary largesse being withdrawn. With the Fed on the brink of a return to tighter policy it is no surprise doubts are starting to sink in and investors are beginning to take fright. The worry is whether the recent investor scramble from risk assets descends into a chaotic rush for the exits.

The last time the Fed hinted at a tapering in monetary stimulus in 2013, the consequences were devastating for emerging markets with investors beating a hasty retreat. The shock of higher US rates in September could prove a much more catastrophic event for speculative bets and risk assets across the board.

 
 
Comment by frankie
2015-07-26 08:30:31

London property prices are being inflated by foreign criminals laundering billions in dirty money, warns crime agency

National Crime Agency alarmed by number of homes registered to complex offshore corporations
Inflows big enough to drive London property prices artificially high
Treasury’s £150m windfall in past three months from tax on properties bought by companies, trusts and investment funds

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-3174280/London-property-prices-inflated-foreign-criminals-laundering-money-warns-NCA.html

 
Comment by WPA
2015-07-26 08:35:46

Change is coming. It’s appearing right before our very eyes in the Nevada desert:

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/24/new-gigafactory-pictures/?

Cheap batteries for cars, cheap batteries for storage of power made by cheap solar panels. A game-changer. Got lithium stocks?

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:59:49

When I eventually retire, I want an off-the-grid cabin set-up. Some of this new technology looks very promising.

Comment by WPA
2015-07-26 09:18:52

It is promising. For off-the-grid living, I think electricity will be one of the easier challenges to solve. Water, septic, medical and internet access will be more problematic.

Comment by scdave
2015-07-26 09:23:04

medical ??

There is the Achilles heal when it comes to living remotely that is unless you choose to go without medical prevention/intervention and just let the cards fall where they may…I suppose, many people, The Alaska outback comes to mind, choose to live that way…

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Comment by Oddfellow
2015-07-26 10:17:50

Yep, the brother of an old friend of mine just died in a farming accident. That’s the trouble with being all alone out in the country, if you get injured, it’s up to you to get help. And even if you can call for it, it may not get there in time.

 
Comment by Blue Skye
2015-07-26 10:21:47

I am currently living off-grid only a few miles from a regional medical center.

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 11:50:01

My blood pressure drops noticably every time I’m in some remote, beautiful natural setting. I’ll take my chances with emergency situations that might arise.

 
 
 
 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 09:47:38

A game changer.

As long as the billions in federal subsidies keep rolling in and the campaign contributions keep rolling out…

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:37:44

The Donald keeps going from strength to strength as people contrast him favorable with the “Fab 15″ occupants of the GOP clown car.

http://www.businessinsider.com/polls-donald-trump-leads-new-hampshire-iowa-republican-primary-2015-7

 
Comment by scdave
2015-07-26 09:17:22

contrast him favorable with the “Fab 15″ occupants of the GOP clown car ??

At the end of the day I think it will be Kasich thats left standing…And, I am open to listening to what he has to say…He is unwilling to mud-wrestle with the likes of Trump..Won’t even respond to questions about Trump or others for that matter…

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 13:00:43

At the end of the day I think it will be Kasich thats left standing…

USA should be so lucky. I’d might vote for him. Seriously. The one big reason I wouldn’t vote for him is that Repubs control the Congress and unlike Kasich, most today’s Repubs are batSh!t crazy.

They are a disgrace to America iMO.

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:34:46

At the end of the day I think it will be Kasich thats left standing…

Wasn’t Kasich left standing in the rubble of Lehman Bros after he presided over that fiasco?

 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:43:50

“Sheriff Joe” will spin this raid by US Marshals as part of government persecution of him for his antics like investigating Obama’s birth certificate (which has nothing to do with his jurisdiction) but in fact, I’d love to see this buffoon, the embodiment of of misuse of authority and position, in an orange jumpsuit.

http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/u-s-marshals-raid-sheriff-joes-office/

Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 09:54:59

the embodiment of of misuse of authority and position, in an orange jumpsuit.

What - what?

Is he just ignoring laws he doesn’t like and just making up laws through EOs he wished he had? Does he use the agencies of government to go after people with different political views? Does he have enemies lists and kill Americans with out any due process (and brags about it)? Can he get one federal judge to overturn state constitutional amendments voted on by millions of citizens?

Like I have said - democrats are not going to like the tactics of the obama administration when used against them.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 11:53:22

Misuse of authority is unacceptable no matter if it’s Sheriff Joe’s goons with badges shaking down illegals and pocketing valuables seized during drug raids, or Eric Holder turning a blind eye to Wall Street fraud and criminality (and leaving “public service” for an obscene salary back with the financial firm he left to become AG, a reward for his lack of vigor in applying the rule of law to the Oligopoly.)

 
 
 
Comment by phony scandals
2015-07-26 08:44:49

U.S. Marshals Raid Sheriff Joe’s Office

Judge orders seizure of records, hard drives in racial-profiling case

by WND | July 26, 2015

A judge on Friday ordered the seizure of identification documents and computer hard drives from Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office, and chastised his attorneys for failing to turn over the evidence, requested months ago in a racial-profiling case against the Arizona lawman.

The U.S. Marshals Service later raided the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow ordered the raid after a court-ordered monitor reported the sheriff’s office failed to hand over more than 1,400 identification documents – driver’s licenses, passports and identification cards – as part of a misconduct investigation involving the sheriff’s office.

Arpaio’s immigration smuggling squad and other deputies are accused of regularly pocketing items from people during traffic stops and busts of safe houses used during illegal-immigrant smuggling.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 09:01:16

What a scumbag. As Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff character said in “No Country for Old Men,” there ain’t no abomination like a dirty lawman.

Comment by scdave
2015-07-26 09:19:45

there ain’t no abomination like a dirty lawman ??

+10

 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:56:25

With Greece getting set to ask for a third bailout, Merkel, who up to now has had no problem with saddling German taxpayers and future generations with the bills for bailing out her bankster patrons, may have a problem on her hands. The influx of asylum-seekers from the MENA is galvanizing support for nationalist parties, who detest the ECB and EU and are fed up with endless bailouts for the PIIGS. So Merkel’s latitude to act as the banksters’ enforcement arm is going to be severely constrained going forward. What happens when enough Germans finally say “NEIN!” to endless bailouts? The can-kicking will come to an abrupt halt.

Comment by azdude
2015-07-26 09:21:33

let them go bankrupt. I’m tired of hearing about this bs everyday.

Haircuts and move on. Quit trying to pretend they will pay their debts.

Comment by In Colorado
2015-07-26 14:44:07

let them go bankrupt. I’m tired of hearing about this bs everyday.

I’m also tired of hearing about Bruce Jenner and the Kardashians. The only thing I can do is tune the rubbish out.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:36:38

It’s Caitlan, not Bruce. Stop micro-aggressing her by referring to biological identities.

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Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 15:57:47

Bruce looks more manly now that he’s a she. I think he’s doing it on purpose.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 16:41:39

Actually I believe you are responding to the expectations shock of such a manly-looking female. When Caitlan was a man, you wouldn’t have given a second thought to his manly appearance.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 08:58:18

Astonishing - a country where they arrest bankers who are criminal malefactors.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/25/former-head-of-collapsed-portugese-bank-bes-put-under-house-arrest

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 09:50:26

Muslims vote overwhelming for the party of bigger government everywhere they infest.

That is why they go to the front of the immigration line.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 09:30:51

Thursday evening, after three morose days in US stock markets, Amazon came out and said it made a profit! OK, a teeny-weeny profit of $92 million, a barely perceptible 0.4% of sales, a rounding error for other thriving companies’ with $23 billion at the top line. But for Amazon, the mere fact that there wasn’t a minus-sign in front of it, for once, was huge.

Its shares soared 22% after hours. The company’s valuation jumped by $40 billion. CNBC exploded with excitement. And Friday should have been a huge day for stocks.

That particular detail is actually more reminiscent of early 2000, just before the tech-stock crash.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 14:48:51

Brett Arends’s ROI
Opinion: Stocks, any way you slice them, are no bargain
Published: July 24, 2015 5:15 a.m. ET
The next 30 years might produce radically different returns
By Brett Arends
Columnist

The six-year-plus boom on Wall Street has left the U.S. stock market overvalued on 13 of 18 historic measures, according to research by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

And while the bank’s analysis does not suggest, or even imply, that the market is poised to crash, as the doom sayers like to predict, it does suggest there’s a significant risk that long-term returns may be below-average.

Based on the benchmark S&P 500 Index, Bank of America/ML (BAC, -1.54%) strategists found stocks are above their long-term trends when compared with a whole gamut of gauges, including last year’s and next year’s earnings, growth rates, operating cash flow, gold, net asset values and the overall size of the economy.

In many cases, the degree of overvaluation was slight. However, when the strategists removed the wacky days of the 1990s dot-com bubble from the historical data, the picture looked worse. For example (as of June 30), the stock market traded for an average 17.4 times per-share earnings of the past 12 months, compared with an average of 15.3 since 1960, excluding the tech bubble (and 16 times when you include it). Stocks are valued at 12.3 times annual operating cash flow, compared to 9.6 since 1986 (again, excluding the bubble).

Any individual measure is subject to hefty caveats, but it gets harder to argue that the stock market is a bargain when you look across the board. Some of the measures with the longest track records seem to look the worst. The cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, which compares stocks to the average per-share earnings of the past 10 years, has been tracked with data back to 1881 by Yale University finance professor Robert Shiller. By that standard, stocks are 61% above their long-term average.

The so-called “Warren Buffett indicator,” which compares the value of the stock market with the size of U.S. gross domestic product, suggests stocks are overvalued by nearly 100%. (It is known as the Buffett indicator because the fabled investor has sometimes offered it as a rough rule of thumb about the market.) But there are issues with this indicator, as the bank acknowledges. These days, big U.S. companies such as Apple (AAPL, -0.53%) and Exxon Mobil (XOM, -1.48%) are so global that it makes little sense to compare them solely with the U.S. economy.

There’s a popular industry on Wall Street these days that consists of mocking any measure that suggests the stock market is expensive. Every time share prices rise, after all, the skeptics look even more foolish. But markets can be overvalued for many years before they correct. (How stupid the gold skeptics looked a few years ago, as the metal rocketed relentlessly toward $2,000 an ounce). And, naturally, the higher that shares rise, the less good a deal they become.

 
 
 
Comment by Muggy
2015-07-26 09:58:44

A few things:

1. Spent the week in Chicago for work. It was awesome. I enjoyed my time there. If you like improv, check out TJ and Dave at iO, they are unbelievable. The food nearly killed me. By day three I was eating salads only. RJ, why do you dislike Chicago so much? It’s an amazing city.

2. Back in Florida, bubble 1.0 still looms. Two teachers that I worked with are returning home this summer (both to Alabama) and they are massively underwater… one bought in 2005, the other in 2006. They both admit that they don’t know what is going to happen and they don’t care. Another couple we’re friends with, is unable to move to a better area because their townhouse is worth HALF of what they paid in 2005. So, they’ve been paying for TEN YEARS for the “pride of ownership” and have nothing to show for it. All of these people have spent their Saturdays doing yard work while I’ve been frolicking about nature with my kids.

Get on that property ladder!

3.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-26 13:08:12

If you like improv, check out TJ

I know right? He’s hilarious like a 9 year old and says the craziest things!

Comment by Muggy
2015-07-26 16:29:23

?

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-27 12:28:37

If you like improv, check out TJ
?

I was making a joke about tj the angry little boy on this blog.

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Comment by tj
2015-07-27 15:29:24

people SHOULD be angry about thieves like you.

btw, it must really be a funny joke when you have to explain it. but i imagine you explain most of your jokes..

 
Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-27 17:03:08

Lola hasn’t mastered wit and satire yet.

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-27 17:31:20

haha! i know, but he tries so hard.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2015-07-27 18:37:54

haha! i know, but he tries so hard.

What’s really funny is Blue Sky, Mafia Blocks and tj suckin up to each other just because they don’t like me. :)

Hardy harr harr! :)

 
Comment by tj
2015-07-27 18:47:47

you mean like you and your liberal buddies do all the time?

 
 
 
 
Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-26 16:00:35

What is three supposed to be?

 
 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 10:00:43

Remember - school choice is evil and only public union goons should be allowed to run schools.

—————–

Principal commits suicide amid Common Core test scandal [ New York ]
New York Post | July 26, 2015 | Susan Edelman,

The principal of an innovative West Harlem public school killed herself the day after her students took the state Common Core exams — which were later tossed out because she cheated …

Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, 49, of Teachers College Community School, jumped in front of a B train in the 135th Street station …

Worrell-Breeden, who made $135,000 a year, was the founding principal of the school, which the DOE opened in 2011 ..

Worrell-Breeden got the job despite a scandal at her former school, PS 18 in The Bronx. In 2009, the special commissioner of investigation for city schools found she had clocked in for overtime pay while working out with a personal trainer three times a week in the school gym.

Her time card “disappeared” after investigators visited the school. The probe found she altered her time card and coerced subordinates to say she had offered them hundreds of OT hours first — as required — before taking them herself.

 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 10:05:40

Lord help you if you own a house in a public union goon run city.

It is funny though - one Federal judge can overturn state laws and constitutions on other issues (like marriage…or use the California “defense” as they argued they have no “standing” to support their own state constitutions).

I have said it before - democrats are not going to like it when their tactics are used against them…

————————–

Pension doomsday: How will Illinois pols cope with this crisis?
Chicago Trubune | JULY 24, 2015

More bad news for Chicago (and Illinois) taxpayers arrived Friday morning in a 35-page, double-sided packet. On one of the last pages: “The entire Act is void.”

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Rita Novak tossed out Chicago’s pension reform law. City Hall had negotiated the pension changes for municipal and labor employees with many of the city’s unions on board. But Novak, using the Illinois Supreme Court’s May pension opinion as her sword, ruled that the city’s plan violates the Illinois Constitution: A public worker’s pension is a contract that cannot be “diminished or impaired.”

Yes, it’s a Chicago-centric decision, but the implications menace governments statewide. Many of them promised too many retirement dollars to their employees. Now those governments are learning from judges that they’ll have to impose draconian changes — higher taxes, fewer services, much more outsourcing, concentration on core responsibilities, or anything else they can do to slash costs. All because too many politicians gave away too much future tax revenue to too many workers — and then didn’t properly fund their pension systems. Never forget that all of that foolish behavior was intentional.

So, elected officials, show us the ugly. Show taxpayers what government in this state is going to look like. Packing 50 kids into each classroom? Outsourcing entire city departments? Demanding the necessary state permission to file for bankruptcy? Taxing residents to death so more move away?

Because it’s clear there’s nowhere near enough public money to meet all of these obligations.

Nor will there be enough money in countless tomorrows. State and local elected officials, many still in power, gave too much of it away.

 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 10:07:35

It is fun when a government bankrupt businesses that they do not agree with.

Who cares how much taxes they pay. We can always print more.

Coming soon to democrat run businesses…

———————-

Furious Coal CEO Lets It All Out: “Obama Is Nation’s Great Destroyer”
Zero Hedge | 07/26/15 | Tyler Durden

“Currently, the coal industry accounts for 7% of the gross business product of the state, but our industry pays 60% of the business taxes in West Virginia,” Murray said. “Oil and gas producers are not taxed to this extent. Relief must be given to the coal industry as our coal cannot compete with that from other states, all of which have lower coal severance taxes, or none at all.”

 
Comment by 2banana
2015-07-26 10:09:44

I wonder if the bankers and the NAR are getting nervous…

———————-

Donald Trump: I Pay My Own Way, Unlike Bush, Walker or Clinton
WSJ | 26 Jul 2015 | Heather Haddon

OSKALOOSA, Iowa—Donald Trump said there was no cap in the amount of money he would be willing to put into his campaign for the Republican nomination for president if his message continues to resonate with voters.

Speaking at a free-wheeling press conference following a rally in this city east of Des Moines, Mr. Trump also attacked Republican rivals Jeb Bush and Scott Walker and Democrat Hillary Clinton with accusations that they were beholden to wealthy donors.

Mr. Trump, a real-estate developer and television personality, has almost entirely self-financed his campaign so far.

“Bush is controlled by those people. Walker is controlled by those people. Hillary Clinton is controlled by those people. Trump has none of those people,” he said Saturday afternoon. “I’m not controlled. I do what’s right for the people.”

Mr. Trump was particularly pointed in his attacks of Mr. Walker. He criticized the Wisconsin governor’s handling of his state’s economy and accused him of flip-flopping his stance on the Common Core education standards.

“I said ‘hey now, the gloves are off,’” said Mr. Trump, who called the fundraiser a “stupid person.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Walker’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Trump spoke before more than 1,000 people who gathered for a “family picnic” and speech that his campaign sponsored. Attendees filled the auditorium of the city’s high school and spilled into a space in the neighboring middle school, with 1,300 people registering to attend, a campaign official said.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 14:37:30

Given that Trump made his fortune as a real estate developer, exactly what kind of threat does he pose for bankers and the NAR?

 
 
Comment by frankie
2015-07-26 11:50:57

The UK is the number one destination for the world’s super-rich ahead of the US, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong

Top universities and schools one of the reasons millionaires want to come
Other reasons are ease of travel within the EU and ability to move money
Super-wealthy from Russia, China and India are looking for citizenship

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3175137/The-UK-number-one-destination-world-s-super-rich-ahead-Singapore-Australia-Hong-Kong.html

Ah Londinium, they will have to change your name to Boltholeville.

 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 12:00:45

I’d hate to be sitting on a Bubbleicous mortgage when deflation kicks in.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/93665/deflation-winning-–-beware

Deflation is back on the front burner and it’s going to destroy all of the careful central planning and related market manipulation of the past 6 years.

Clear signs from the periphery indicate that a destructive deflationary pulse has been unleashed. Tanking commodity prices are confirming that idea.
Whole groups of enterprises involved in mining and energy are about to be destroyed. And the commodity-heavy nations of Canada, Australia and Brazil are in for a very rough ride.

Whether the central banks can keep all of their carefully-propped equity and bond markets elevated throughout the next part of the cycle remains to be seen. We know they will try very hard. They certainly are increasingly willing to use any all tools at their disposal to keep the status quo going for as long as possible.

Whether it’s the People’s Bank of China stepping in to the market to buy 10% stakes in major Chinese corporations in a matter of weeks, the Bank Of Japan becoming the majority owner of key ETFs in the Japanese markets, or the Swiss National Bank purchasing $100 billion of various global equities, we see the same desperation. Equity prices are being propped, jammed and extended higher and higher without regard to risk or repurcussions.

It makes us wonder: Why haven’t humans ever thought to print their way to prosperity before?

Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-26 14:56:09

Humans were much, much less prosperous before money printing. Maybe it played a role.

 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 15:26:31

“Why haven’t humans ever thought to print their way to prosperity before?”

I guess BillCoin has not been circulated enough to be seen in your area RKH. My bad.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 12:15:09

Central bankers are losing control, and it’s beautiful to behold. Unless you bought into their asset bubbles or Ponzi markets.

http://dollarcollapse.com/money-bubble/central-banks-preparing-to-panic-again/

Comment by azdude
2015-07-26 13:06:00

Through inflation then deflation seems like they always win. When you know the next move in advance you have a big advantage.

I want to have confidence in the value of assets I buy via free markets and price discovery.

 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 14:27:38

The only way they would lose control is by everyone refusing to borrow and also to get out of the USD.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2015-07-26 14:42:42

Central bankers are losing control, and it’s beautiful to behold. Unless you bought into their asset bubbles or Ponzi markets.

Collapsing asset prices are GREAT for the banking clan, because they can purchase them for a pittance, while they charge people like nycDJ 20% interest on the credit card he just can’t seem to pay off.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 14:50:17

That 20% CC interest rate includes a sizable default risk premium, which is eaten by actual defaults.

Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:38:19

Yeah, someone has to pay for the deadbeats.

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Comment by azdude
2015-07-26 15:59:51

Interest rates need to stay low so corporations can service all the debt from buybacks over the past 6 years and so uncle sam can service its debt it has racked up from trillion dollar deficits over the past 7 years.

It has nothing to do with unemployment or whatever other bs excuse is dreamed up.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 15:48:02

Donald Trump, the Great Uniter.

http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/07/26/donald-trump-the-great-uniter/

Nothing unites enemies more than a common foe who threatens harm to both. The Bloods and Crips are street gangs at war with each other, literally to the death. Merely being a member of the rival gang is reason enough to have your actuarial table altered. Even they unite when their joint existence is threatened. The most recent case was in Baltimore, although there are numerous other examples in other cities.

Our national version of the Bloods and Crips — Democrats and Republicans — are joining forces against their common enemy, Donald Trump. Prior to his foray into politics, few would think of Trump as a great uniter. He doesn’t act like one, nor does he care to. However, he is a common threat to the plunder and pillage that both political parties have inflicted on the country. In that sense, they will unite against him. The media is also a major player in this game with interests in siding against Trump. David Limbaugh describes the current state of affairs:

The professional hand-wringers are freaking out over Donald Trump’s straight talk while displaying abysmal indifference to the deserved targets of Trump’s charges. The United States is incinerating, but all they can think about is Trump’s heated rhetoric.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 16:43:11

Democrats = Bloods
Republicans = Crips

Or is it the other way around?

 
 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 16:45:25

The article posted below puts into perspective the extraordinary lengths to which China has gone to prop up its stock market (including paying AlbqDan to post propaganda right here on this blog!).

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 16:47:59

Here’s to hoping the downfall of China’s stock market precipitates the downfall of Chinese communism!

Newsweek
Opinion
The China Stock Market Crash Threatens Xi’s Survival
By Kerry Brown 7/23/15 at 12:59 PM
Investors talk on July 6 as they watch a board showing stock prices at a brokerage office in Beijing. Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters

Despite its recent rebound, a host of problems are connected with the current volatility of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, which lost up to $4 trillion in stock values, almost a fifth of its value, in the space of three weeks. But most significant is how this could undermine the credibility of the Communist Party in the eyes of the aspiring and emerging middle class of China.

The stock market matters to them, because it is, broadly, a theater of aspiration. About 40 million people are probably invested in the market. (There are 90 million accounts, but individuals can have multiple portfolios.)

While a small number of them are the new superrich, who are simply gambling on stock rises and can probably take the impact of the fall without too much pain, plenty more are the less well-off, who have invested their hard-earned cash in the hope that it will give them decent returns. For this group, seeing their wealth ebb away hurts them profoundly and creates antipathy toward a government that needs their support.

 
 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 16:57:41

Don’t try this at home.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 17:00:25

US | Sun Jul 26, 2015 4:56pm EDT
Missouri man kills father by lying on his head to ‘prove a point’
KANSAS CITY, Mo. | By Carey Gillam

A Missouri man was charged Sunday with murdering his 74-year-old father by lying on his head until the man lost consciousness, to prove “how big and bad” he was, authorities said.

Kyle Webb, 44, of Grandview, Missouri, is charged with killing Franklin Webb late Saturday night at a home they shared after the father complained about the way his son was cleaning up around a leaky pipe, according to a police report.

Kyle Webb admitted the killing, telling police that he became angry at his father’s complaints and attempted to scare him by acting as though he was going to hit him with an empty vodka bottle, according to the police report. Franklin Webb then tried to punch his son but fell back, hitting a kitchen chair before falling to the floor where the son jumped on top of him, the police report states.

“I had to prove how big and bad I was,” Kyle Webb told police, according to the police report.

Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 17:08:55

White people problems.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 17:35:30

Well, actually a photo of Mr. Webb suggests otherwise.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 18:12:59

He looks a bit mixed… it was the white devil in him.

 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 18:44:48

Or he must have read books written by white people. Innocent!

 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2015-07-26 18:58:42

The fault clearly lies with whoever taught him to read.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 17:04:39

Gold and Gibson’s Paradox

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-26/gold-and-gibsons-paradox

One fact I know is my salary is stagnant. But another fact I know is that rents are continuing to go up. Personally I am up against the wall with my back to the wall. A heavy weight of a second roof is overhead and I’m about to downsize. It will provide me relief for a few years but I am not sure if it will be enough if rents go up every year like they’ve been.

As for Gibson’s paradox, was the period from 1970 to 1980 an aberration only or is Gibson’s paradox finally no longer in effect? If it is a long term phenomenon and only disappears for short half generation durations, it’s a good idea to keep stacking precious metals.

 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 17:15:53

Buying and renting have both become unaffordable. Which will crash first?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-26/these-13-us-cities-rents-are-skyrocketing

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 17:37:35

The important things to understand:

1) An eventual crash of the Echo Bubble is likely to bring down both purchase prices and rents, in a reversal of the recent (second) parabolic bubble price blowout.

2) If you bought, you got stucco.

3) If you rent, you get to choose between renting for less or buying for less.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2015-07-26 23:45:17

“Which will crash first?”

Which will have the first sustained burst of development?

 
 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 18:03:27

To protect & serve…the unaccountability of law enforcement in its abuses of citizens is something I wish Trump would take on.

http://townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/2015/07/26/cops-as-criminals-n2030079

Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 18:47:07

You kidding? Trump wants Snowden executed. He is a bootlicker.

 
 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 18:31:01

All commodities crashes are local.

Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 18:32:01

Money & Markets
Deutsche Bank: Just because all commodities are falling doesn’t mean there’s one driver
Greg McKenna
Tomorrow at 5:50 AM

Gold, copper, corn, wheat, iron ore.

The list of commodities that have been falling and under pressure over recent weeks and months grows.

It would be easy to think there is something they all have in common. A stronger US dollar, rising US interest rates, slowing Chinese growth?

Not so, says Deutsche Bank in their weekend note db140weekender – insights in 140 words.

Rather, Stuart Kirk and his team said:

Unlike Tolstoyan families, all unhappy commodities are alike whereas each happy one is happy in its own way. This time last year, with prices still strong, the average correlation among eight diverse commodities had fallen to a decade low of 10 per cent. Since then, amid a slump afflicting everything from gold and oil to copper and sugar, the correlation has increased to 20 per cent. Yet even though the overall CRB commodities index is approaching 2009 lows, the correlation is only half the level back then. This suggests investors are mistakenly looking for common factors such as impending US rate hikes, a rising dollar or slowing Chinese growth to explain idiosyncratic moves in basic material prices. After all, no one looks for shared themes to explain Apple and Unilever’s stock prices, though they have been more in sync than commodities.

Even a broken watch is right twice a day.

 
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-26 18:39:01

World View: Commodities and World Trade Volume Plunge as China Pumps Stock Market
by John J. Xenakis
25 Jul 2015

Commodities and world trade plunge, signaling stock market decline

For the first time since the financial crisis of 2008, commodities and trade figures are signaling a warning for the global economy.

Gold has collapsed to five year lows. Copper just hit a six year low. Oil prices have had the worst price crash in 45 years. World trade volume has been declining sharply for five months.

Some analysts blame the plunge on the appreciating dollar and China’s failing economy. Whatever the reason, forecasts are that the trends will continue for the rest of the year. Analysts are mixed about the consequences, but with so many declining signals, a decline in US stocks of 30-50% would not be a surprise to some.

Generational Dynamics predicts that we are headed for a global financial panic and crisis. According to Friday’s Wall Street Journal, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings index (stock valuations index) on Friday morning (July 24) was at an astronomically high 21.18. This is far above the historical average of 14, indicating that the stock market is in a huge bubble that could burst at any time. Generational Dynamics predicts that the P/E ratio will fall to the 5-6 range or lower, which is where it was as recently as 1982, resulting in a Dow Jones Industrial Average of 3000 or lower.

China’s stock market partially ‘recovers’ after destruction

As we reported several times, China’s Shanghai Composite stock market index peaked on June 12, and then plunged 30% in the next four weeks. It has now recovered about 1/4th of what it lost, because of extraordinary intervention by China’s government:

China’s state-owned banks have lent a combined 1.3 trillion yuan (US$209 billion) to the China Securities Finance Corp (CSFC), an arm of the Chinese stock market regulator, to be used to purchase stock shares, in order to push up stock prices.

State-owned or state-affiliated companies were forced to buy stock market shares, once again to push up prices. Industrial Bank, for instance, snapped up 9.9 billion yuan of its own shares.

Trading was frozen on shares for hundreds of companies where the prices of the shares might have fallen. This tactic has not only prevented margin calls from being triggered; by limiting the supply of stocks that can be traded, it has boosted liquidity to the rest of the market.

The “China dream” is for China to replace the United States militarily, by taking control of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and also to do so financially, by replacing the dollar with the Chinese yuan as the global reserve currency. In order to do that, China has to prove that it can provide a world-class stock market that can operate free of government information.

For that objective, the last month has been a disaster. China has effectively destroyed the Shanghai stock market as a market. China has absolutely no credibility left in its ability to provide a world-class stock market.

And that’s not the worst of it. Where is China going to go next? China has intervened massively to prop up an imploding bubble. China may have bought a few weeks’ time, but that bubble is going to implode, wrecking the savings of millions of ordinary people, often older people, who invested their life saving in the stock market when the bubble was growing. China has a history of massive “people’s rebellions” against an oppressive government. The last one was Mao’s Communist Revolution that ended in 1949. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, China is now overdue for the next one.

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-26 19:39:21

Meet the Kagans, the neo-con puppetmasters for most of the GOP clown car occupants.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-26/meet-kagans-seeking-war-end-world

Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 21:09:52

Wow. Like minds!

 
 
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 21:11:21

She was found unconscious in a bathtub seven months ago. I thought the whole thing was odd. Just a coincidence?

 
 
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-26 20:35:27

Meet the architects of PNAC / American imperialism: The Kagans

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-26/meet-kagans-seeking-war-end-world

 
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