Moved to 25% cash in January and now to 50% cash last weekend. Sold all the bond funds. Kept dividend funds. It’s looks to me like there is more risk to the downside than opportunity to the upside. I often make my portfolio adjustments too early, but I sleep better!
Why on earth would they raise interest rates? The predictions about this over the past couple of years have been repeatedly wrong. Will it hurt housing prices? If the answer is yes, they won’t do it.
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Comment by SUGuy
2015-07-30 06:40:13
Yellen will be whispered by the ptb that the unwashed masses are getting impatient and it’s okay for her to throw a bone to them. Aka little interest on their meager savings. Until that happens I don’t see a rate increase.
Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-30 06:43:15
Like a communist czar metering out ____ to the masses, Yeltsin is powerless.
Comment by Selfish Hoarder
2015-07-30 07:08:24
Beats me. Boomers are not retiring and boomer wages are stagnant. The only pressure on rents and hoses is from China. And the Chinese economy is crumbling. The deflation will return to RE.
Comment by Puggs
2015-07-30 09:19:01
Deflation is like a warm comfortable blanket for those of us neck deep in cash.
Comment by WPA
2015-07-30 09:29:26
…until the store shelves are empty because in deflation, a falling GDP means many producers are bankrupt and aren’t producing. Be careful what you wish for Puggs.
Comment by Mafia Blocks
2015-07-30 09:50:14
False my friend.
Deflation makes your wallet fat. Get it right.
Comment by "Auntie Fed, why won't you love ME?"
2015-07-30 10:24:26
I hate it when hose prices go up. Hoses should be affordable.
Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-30 10:39:07
Well that Canadian bubble should burst soon.
Comment by Puggs
2015-07-30 11:51:38
It all shakes out, finds the true price and life goes on…
Just don’t be a Debt Donkey when it does.
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-30 12:08:06
Yellen will be whispered by the ptb that the unwashed masses are getting impatient and it’s okay for her to throw a bone to them.
No need to throw them a bone. 95% of said unwashed masses bent over for the Oligopoly in 2008 and 2012, and will do so again in 2016, by voting for Wall Street water carriers. The system is doing what it’s supposed to do: fleecing the gullible and stupid, who continue to vote for more of the same.
Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-30 20:22:19
…until the store shelves are empty because in deflation, a falling GDP means many producers are bankrupt and aren’t producing. Be careful what you wish for Puggs.
Why would a producer who prudentially managed their balance sheet to avoid taking on excessive leverage go bankrupt due to deflation? Falling input prices should result in higher, not lower, profitability.
Actually, the dividends usually continue into a downturn. If the stock drops, the reinvested dividend is used to dollar cost average into the stock. IMHO, it is a lesser risk than bonds and a better defensive move, because you can gain some value in the downturn. It is a risk, but with 50% of my portfolio in MM funds, it is one I am willing to take. My average cost for VDIGX is probably under $11, so I get a 4% return.
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Comment by Professor Bear
2015-07-30 08:17:28
“Actually, the dividends usually continue into a downturn.”
What happens to the present value of future dividends (and rents, for that matter) when rates rise?
Comment by Rental Watch
2015-07-30 09:12:09
PB-
The difference is that with owning a bond, your coupon cannot and will not change.
With a dividend paying stock (and real estate), increasing interest rates often coincide with a strengthening economy, and with that strengthening economy, you often get dividend increases.
Of course, if you are starting at VERY low dividend yields, whatever increase occurs in dividends may not provide the stock price the “escape velocity” needed to get net stock price growth.
A few tidbits…since REIT earnings are coming out. A couple that I follow:
PLD: Announced a 10% increase in their dividend (out of cycle…usually only once per year), because their rents are increasing too much for their previous level of dividend. They announced very high change in rent on rollover (new rents on space vs. old rents) of 14% (a record).
DDR: Announced base rent increase of almost 5% year on year, and new leasing spreads of 7% (renewals) and 25% (new tenants).
HOWEVER, since leases generally go for 3+ years (industrial property) and 5+ years (retail shop space) and 10+ years (retail big boxes), these rent increases take a while to filter into a whole portfolio. This is why PLD is seeing more of the rent increases trickle to the bottom line faster than a company like DDR (shorter lease cycle).
As such, as I’ve said before, I think REITs will suffer in the near term as yields rise, but in the medium term (3-5 years), the stock price will recover as dividend growth drives the prices higher.
If you hold a long-term bond, there is no recovery unless yields fall again, or you hold to maturity.
BloombergBusiness
Commodities Set for Worst Month Since 2011 Amid Oversupply
by Ben Sharples and Sharon Cho
July 29, 2015 — 10:25 PM PDT Updated on July 29, 2015 — 11:25 PM PDT
Commodities are set for the biggest monthly loss since 2011 amid a price collapse that drove oil into a bear market and pushed gold to a five-year low.
The Bloomberg Commodity Index is down 9.5 percent in July, the most since September 2011, after dropping to a 13-year low this month. Oil companies such as BP Plc have started a new round of cost cutting, while shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc., the biggest publicly traded copper producer, fell the most on a weekly basis in six years through July 24. West Texas Intermediate is heading for its biggest monthly fall this year, while copper in London is set for the worst month since January.
The index of 22 raw materials has slumped 11 percent in 2015 amid expanding gluts and concern slower economic growth in China will crimp demand. Commodities also slipped as the dollar gained on signals from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen that the central bank may raise rates. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is up 2.4 percent this month.
“Bullish factors are missing for commodities in general at the moment,” Will Yun, a commodities analyst at Hyundai Futures Corp., said by phone from Seoul. “Economic growth concerns in China, a possible U.S. rate hike, a stronger dollar and the supply glut have all come into play. It seems we’ve nearly reached the bottom while the outlook for the second half for commodities doesn’t look so bright.”
Gold is set for its largest monthly drop in two years and Brent crude is heading for its third straight monthly decline. Wheat is on track for the biggest monthly drop since 2011.
Global Glut
About 90 percent of copper mines are profitable, even with prices near a six-year low, meaning most producers have little incentive to reduce output, according to Standard Chartered Plc. Prices need to fall another 24 percent before major companies begin cutting, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates.
Brent oil and WTI have both slipped into a bear market amid speculation the global glut will persist as leading members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pump record volumes to defend market share. U.S. crude inventories are almost 100 million barrels above the five-year average.
“All of these commodities are priced in the dollar, so the recent dollar strength is a clear drag on the prices,” said Barnabas Gan, an economist at Singapore-based Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. “We are expecting the Fed to initiate its rate hike this year. A firmer greenback should necessitate weaker prices across gold, crude oil and copper.”
…
Marketwatch dot com
Need to Know
Dollar watching can’t stop as a big move looms
By Barbara Kollmeyer
Published: July 30, 2015 7:17 a.m. ET
Critical information ahead of the market’s open
Mirrorpix/Courtesy Everett Collection
Judging by dollar gains this morning, a September interest-rate hike has not been completely ruled out, even if the tea leaves of yesterday’s Fed statement didn’t offer any clear direction.
That push higher overnight for the buck is getting a lot of people talking right now:
…
Our chart of the day takes a closer look at a big move that could be coming for the dollar. Of course, yesterday’s column didn’t agree with that line of thinking.
Also weighing in on the greenback this morning was Cullen Roche at Pragmatic Capitalism. On his blog, he highlights three bearish charts for the market, the trade-weighted dollar index being one of them.
“The current surge in the dollar is a sign that there’s a flight to safety occurring and more turmoil in the financial markets than many might presume,” says Roche. Read his blog post here.
…
It’s not that the tea leaves haven’t been offering clear direction. It’s just that they have been pointing in the wrong direction. No one believes any of it anymore.
Bloomberg
Chinese Stocks Just Created a New Headache for the Global Economy
July 28, 2015 — 10:23 AM PDT
Updated on July 28, 2015 — 8:04 PM PDT
China Stock Meltdown Adds Exit-Strategy Conundrum
Exit strategies used to be the preoccupation of Pentagon planners. Nowadays, it’s more a province for central bank watchers, since the Federal Reserve gorged on trillions of dollars of mortgage and government debt.
And in that economic realm, China has just added a new conundrum. The dependence of the nation’s stock market on official support was exposed Monday with the biggest drop since 2007 amid speculation aid had been dialed back. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.7 percent Tuesday even after China pledged efforts to “stabilize” the market.
China’s actions in the past month add a new asset to those whose prices depend on policy-maker fiat — from European and Japanese government bonds to U.S. mortgage securities.
The 2013 taper tantrum that followed speculation the Fed would slow bond buying hit emerging markets hard and showed what can happen when investors expect policy makers to reduce stimulus. For China, failure to eventually withdraw from emergency measures would prevent the communist leadership from achieving its goal of letting markets play a decisive role.
“Investors everywhere have been coddled by policy makers in recent years, making it hard for officials to exit,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. “A hard-nosed approach, possibly leading to a further slide in markets, would help establish sound policy over time. But the temptation remains to put off the pain a little longer.”
PBOC Role
The People’s Bank of China became ensnared in the stock-market rescue by extending funds to a broker-lending facility, saying early this month it will provide “ample liquidity” to aid the nation’s tumbling equities. In an unusual move Tuesday, it issued a statement before a mid-year meeting with local PBOC chiefs, saying it will “stabilize financial market expectations and continue to support the real economy.”
The Shanghai Composite indeed showed some stabilization last week, before sliding Friday. It was little changed as of 11:04 a.m. local time Wednesday.
How to wean Chinese investors — who outnumber Communist Party members — off that liquidity will be the tricky part. The challenge of restoring stock-market stability in the world’s No. 2 economy coincides with moves in the biggest one to begin an interest-rate increase cycle for the first time since 2004.
Exit Debates
“The Fed’s been a source of volatility since the third quarter of last year and now it’s China and the U.S.,” said Tim Condon, head of Asia research in Singapore at ING Groep NV. “The Fed’s doing its best to show it’s not going to be a source of uncertainty and now China’s in completely the same predicament.”
After more than quadrupling its balance sheet, the U.S. central bank wrestled with how to withdraw stimulus to the American economy. While the Fed has kept its holdings at around $4.5 trillion for almost a year, Chair Janet Yellen has signaled that a rate rise is coming by year-end.
…
CNBC.COM
China stock exodus: When will it end?
Ansuya Harjani
Mon, 27 Jul ‘15 | 10:43 PM ETCNBC.com
Premature to say China’s meltdown is over: Pro
Chinese equities remained volatile Tuesday following an initial stampede out of the market, with analysts cautioning that there is no clear end in sight to the drama.
“China is probably one of the most, if not the most, margin financed markets of all time – so comforting yourself that the unwind is done – because we’ve seen a lot of that unwind in the past couple of weeks - is probably somewhat premature,” Chris Konstantinos, director of international portfolio management at Riverfront Investment Group, told CNBC.
“[Also], I still don’t think you’re at a position where you’ve really got a lot of valuation support,” he added.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite opened down over 4 percent on Tuesday, swinging between losses and gains over the course of the morning session, as investor sentiment remained shaky despite a fresh commitment by Beijing to put a floor under the market. The index traded down as much as 5.1 percent.
“The market sentiment is extremely fragile so when investors see selling pressure, they compete to sell their stocks,” Dickie Wong, executive director at Kingston Securities, told CNBC.
…
According to some people I know, the US is causing the Chinese stock market to melt down. It won’t end until the American PTB wants it to end. On the other hand, I don’t recall any of these people saying that the meteoric rise in Chinese stocks was orchestrated by the US. That all happened because Chinese people are the natural leaders of the human race.
China stocks retreat again
English.news.cn 2015-07-30 17:08:58
#CHINA-STOCKS-FALL (CN)
An investor walks past a stock screen in Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, July 30, 2015. Chinese shares extended slumps on Thursday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index sinking 2.2 percent to finish at 3,705.77 points. The Shenzhen Component Index slumped 3.33 percent to close at 12,395.92 points. (Xinhua/Zhang Wenkui)
BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) — Chinese shares plunged back into negative territory on Thursday in a reversal of Wednesday’s blip, as investors chose to take profits.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shrank 2.2 percent to close at 3,705.77 points. The smaller Shenzhen Component Index fell 3.33 percent to close at 12,395.92 points.
The ChiNext Index, tracking China’s Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 4.93 percent to end at 2,561.19 points.
The turnover of the two bourses came in at 1.1 trillion yuan (180 billion U.S. dollars).
Only 107 shares rose by more than 5 percent while 669 shares dropped by over 5 percent. Sectors related to finance, banking and Internet security were the biggest losers.
CITIC Securities’ Gao Xiang said, “On one hand, the government is trying to stabilize the market and stop the sell-off, on the other, shareholders still lack confidence and are liquidating their positions,” he said.
…
ft dot com
Financial Times
Markets Insight
Last updated: July 30, 2015 1:45 pm
Why summer storms loom for investors
Michael Mackenzie Pressure on emerging markets, uncertainty on China and Fed rate rise concerns make explosive package
A summer break for investors looks highly unlikely this year. While many of us are already enjoying or planning some welcome down time away from the shackles of the office, asset prices appear vulnerable in the coming weeks against a backdrop of uncertainty driven by China and the US Federal Reserve.
No matter the recent easing in tension between Greece and its creditors, the big story framing the rest of summer is a timeworn classic, previously seen during the US bond market taper tantrum of 2013 and more spectacularly in 1998.
Emerging markets are under severe pressure, with a JPMorgan index of major EM currencies loitering at its lowest level since 1999, hampered by a one-two punch of a stronger dollar and collapsing commodity prices.
The tumult reflects a convergence between the outlook for China’s economy and markets with US central bank policy intentions.
Given the scale of intervention by China’s authorities in trying to stem their equity market rout, investors are increasingly sceptical that the country’s economy is expanding at an official rate of 7 per cent. Talk of China growing below 5 per cent has stirred markets of late, hence renewed downward pressure on commodity prices such as oil, copper and iron ore. That nasty price action is weighing on exports across the EM sector and spurring broad deflationary worries.
Against that backdrop, we have a clearly ascendant US dollar, reflecting expectations that the Fed will finally shift borrowing rates north in the coming months, perhaps as early as September.
…
Especially given Beijing’s ample financial resources, growth will almost surely continue at a robust pace………………..
If China seems less vulnerable to stock losses than some suggest, its real estate collapse threatens less, too. Americans, hearing about real estate problems anywhere, naturally and understandably draw parallels to their own highly destructive real estate problems in 2008-09. But such parallels are misplaced with China. In America, the problem was less the size of the questionable debt than that it was widely held throughout the financial system, so much so that no one knew which firms were threatened by it. In that circumstance, each financial firm distrusted the other’s stability, and consequently, all refused to deal with each other. The economy suffered accordingly and severely.
Getting people “into the mood” for buying when prices are falling is truly a valuable service. How else could markets stay liquid during periods of falling prices?
“In America, the problem was less the size of the questionable debt than that it was widely held throughout the financial system, so much so that no one knew which firms were threatened by it.”
But in China, real estate is such a huge driver of GDP that it will affect the entire economy when it crashes. It won’t just be financial firms that will be hit, but construction workers, steel, copper, and cement companies, developers, and local governments. BTW, I don’t think anyone knows how much questionable debt there is in China, but I think we’ll find that China has surpassed even the U.S. in that category.
It doesn’t have to crash to bring down the economy, it only has to stop growing exponentially, which it has. All the things you mention are already getting crushed.
And people don’t own real estate in Ch either. The government does. The Ch government doesn’t just own a bunch of junk MBS, it owns all the land. That’s why the whole thing is so much more sinister and damaging than it was in the US.
Commodities Set for Worst Month Since 2011 Amid Oversupply. The key word in that title is supply. Notice the lack of description in the article for the supply of gold. Why is that? An article by Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler, Supply and Demand in the Gold and Silver Futures Markets, July 30, 2015, is there a new meaning for the word, supply. With 25 million excess and empty houses in the unitedstate, does the same line of thought apply to housing?
Remember - only bigger and bigger government with more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes can save us.
——————-
Medicare and Medicaid At 50: One Is Going Bankrupt, the Other Is Bankrupting States
Investor’s Business Daily | 07/29/2015 | John Merline
When President Johnson signed Medicare into law on June 30, 1965, he said , “If it has a few defects, I am confident those can be quickly remedied.”
Fifty years later, a Government Accountability Office report found that an eye-popping $60 billion — fully 10% of Medicare’s budget — was lost to waste, fraud, abuse or improper payments last year. Among the glaring defects, the GAO found 23,400 fake or bad addresses on Medicare’s list of providers.
And even with all this tinkering, the program’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be insolvent in 15 short years, after which Medicare Part A will run annual deficits that quickly top $200 billion. Closing that gap will require either deep benefit cuts or sharp tax hikes.
Medicare spending, meanwhile, will continue to eat up an ever greater portion of the federal budget and the economy. Medicare’s latest annual report projects that its share of GDP will climb 53% over the next two decades.
Medicaid at 50 is even worse.
Johnson referred to this program — not by name — only once at his signing ceremony, when he talked about helping the poor get health care.
But Medicaid has turned out to be the biggest budget-busting health care monster of all — wreaking havoc with state budgets while providing lousy care to the poor.
Medicaid today covers nearly 72 million people — compared with the 55 million on Medicare. Roughly 12 million of them signed up after ObamaCare induced dozens of states to expand the program.
Under Medicaid, state and federal governments split costs 50/50. The federal government pays all of the costs of those newly eligible under the ObamaCare expansion, but that share eventually drops to 90%.
Even so, Medicaid’s costs are swamping state budgets, climbing from 9% in 1989 to 20% today. The National Commission on Financing 21st Century Higher Education says that Medicaid’s explosive growth is crowding out funds that states used to spend on higher education.
Marketwatch dot com
Bulletin
Stock futures add to losses, Treasury yields rise following GDP, jobless claims
Metals Stocks
Gold futures drop, trade new 5½-year low
By Victor Reklaitis
Published: July 30, 2015 4:31 a.m. ET
Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
Gold prices tiptoe lower early Thursday.
Gold prices slipped early Thursday, trading near a five-and-a-half-year low as the dollar gained after the Federal Reserve left the door open for a September interest-rate hike.
August gold (GCQ5, -0.77%) traded at $1,085 an ounce, down $7.60 or 0.7%. The contract has traded as low as $1,081 an ounce, according to FactSet data, meaning it’s continuing to wallow around levels that had last been seen in early 2010.
…
How about the currency that doesn’t need to be converted? Try converting yuan in Galveston.
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Comment by In Colorado
2015-07-30 09:58:54
At this time, Uncle Buck is King. Mexicans are starting to hoard USD as the Peso has already fallen to $16.50 Pesos to a dollar, an all time low for the Peso.
From the article: If the election were held today, Clinton would be tied with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the poll—down from significant leads in a May 28 survey—but would top the current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
They better watch out for Bernie Sanders. He’s at almost 20 percent in the poll. As soon as someone like him is seen as a viable possible alternative to Hillary, she’ll collapse further. That number is a little over 25 percent.
Unfortunately there’s a floor level of support in place for both Hillary and Jeb, and that is the abject stupidity of the majority of the ‘Murican electorate. In 2008 the stupidity quotient was 95% (the Obama and McCain voters) and from all indications it hasn’t dropped appreciably since then - cretinism is usually a lifelong condition. The slack-jaws who fell for hope ‘n change or the neocon lunatic McCrazy and his dim-bulb Alaska sidekick in ‘08 will doubtless flock to HillaryJeb in ‘16, so the Oligopoly probably isn’t too worried about rotating another craven water carrier into the White House once Obama has finished up with his second term.
It’s by design — for whatever reason, her campaign managers are doing a “rope-a-dope” strategy of minimal public exposure and staying out of the media spotlight. Similar to the Obama “only adult in the room and above the fray” attitude. I guess they are worried about her peaking too early.
“Ai Weiwei forced to curtail visit to Britain after he is reportedly denied a six-month visa because he did not declare a criminal conviction in his application…”
“Ai said in a separate Instagram post he had “never been charged or convicted of a crime”.”
“Britain’s governing Conservative party has sought to improve relations with China after leader David Cameron angered Beijing by meeting with the Dalai Lama.”
Insane property taxes that are passed on to the renters?
Rent control which destroys available rental housing stock?
20 million Illegal immigrants - they are living somewhere?
etc.
—————–
The absolute worst advice we give to Americans struggling to pay rent
The Daily Dot | July 22, 2015 | Hanna Brooks Olsen
In urban centers around the country, rental prices are soaring. Cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City routinely report double-digit increases that make it nearly impossible for residents to make ends meet.
But it’s not just dwellers of those metropolitan areas who are having a hard time paying the rent. According to a report out this week from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, more than half of renters in America are considered to be financially burdened by their rent, meaning that they spend more than 30 percent of their income just on where they live. High rents have become a national crisis.
High rents are a national, not just an urban problem. Real estate company Zillow noted this year that in 2015, rents increased nationally by more than 3 percent. Meanwhile, personal incomes are creeping along; in May of 2015, disposable personal income grew just .5 percent. The average national rent, according to ApartmentGuide, is close to $800, while working full-time for the federal minimum wage nets you just under $1,000. Large portions of the country are unaffordable for those making even $10 per hour.
Other essential, traditionally middle-class workers are being edged out of metropolitan areas, and there are real consequences. Most police officers don’t live where they serve. In Portland, Oregon, where rents rose over 20 percent in the last five years, just under 25 percent of the total police force actually lives in the city—and those who do live in the city limits are much more likely to be non-white. Those who live outside the city are less racially diverse.
And even if all of these workers do move out into a less-expensive area, they’ll still need to get into the city if they plan to commute. The cities with the worst traffic congestion also tend to be those which are the least affordable. In Seattle, middle-class workers are being displaced every year, which is also leading to some of the worst traffic in the nation.
Good for you Ray K. on your post…
I am happy to see that Burning Platform has started to pick up on AFFH.
Julian Castro (wonder if he has a distant cousin named Fidel in a remote island south of Miami?) is the lead on AFFH and is - I have been reading one of the few of the select candidates for Hitlery’s Pres campaign - so….imagine this POS as VP pushing the AFFH agenda?
Murika - if you think real estate and urban issues are a problem now - just wait.
I had been reading S. Kurtz’s stuff from a while back when he was first talking about cities ’stealing’ from the suburbs - this while AFFH was in its infancy. WPA chastised me a while back for posting an article by Kurtz that was 3 years old but still very relavent re this topic. Wonder where WPA has been lately?
AFFH is classic Chicago community organizing crap. This crap has been going on for years here in this utopian paradise and look where the city is today? Crime continues to go up. Murder rate - esp. black on black shootings are highest in years. Debt is just beyond the pale, traffic congestion the likes of which no one can imagine. Public transit that struggles to stay operable, corruption and graft at all levels of government, road, sewer and water infrastructure that is falling apart - literally, and on and on.
AFFH - is just another lefty progressive policy crap shoot that is not doomed to fail - it has already failed here in Chicago.
You folks are being warned - read up on AFFH and see what is coming to a nabe near you.
I wonder if Trump would have signed NAFTA like Clinton did.
—————–
Donald Trump to Oprah In 1988: America A Debtor Nation; “Something Is Going To Happen” http://www.realclearpolitics.com | July 29, 2015 | RealClearPolitics
Donald Trump warns about debt and the impact of foreign trade on The Oprah Winfrey Show in April of 1988:
DONALD TRUMP: We’re a debtor nation. Something is going to happen over the next number of years with this country because you can’t keep on losing $200 billion (deficit at the time). And yet we let Japan come in and dump everything into our markets. It’s not free trade. If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it. Just forget about it. It’s almost impossible. They don’t have laws against it, they just make it impossible.
They come over here, they sell their cars, their VCRs, they knock the hell out of our companies. And, hey, I have tremendous respect for the Japanese people. I mean, you can respect somebody that’s beating the hell out of you, but they are beating the hell out of this country. Kuwait, they live like kings — the poorest person in Kuwait, they live like kings — and yet, they’re not paying. We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren’t they paying us 25 percent of what they’re making? It’s a joke.
Why Do Bill and Hillary Clinton Still Get a Pass?-
Townhall.com | July 30, 2015 | Larry Elder
Meanwhile, the cover of the current issue of New York Magazine shows pictures of 35 women who have accused Bill Cosby of rape, attempted rape or sexual abuse. In a recently unsealed deposition in relation to a lawsuit filed against Cosby by another alleged rape victim, Cosby admits giving Quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with.
This raises a question: Why does Bill Clinton continue to get a pass? Clinton was, after all, accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick. Broaddrick, on “Dateline NBC,” claimed that Clinton, then-Arkansas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate, raped her: “I first pushed him away. I just told him ‘no.’ … He tries to kiss me again. He starts biting on my lip. … And then he forced me down on the bed. I just was very frightened. I tried to get away from him. I told him ‘no.’ … He wouldn’t listen to me.”
She further alleges that Hillary Clinton, shortly after the alleged rape, verbally intimidated her, implying that Broaddrick better keep her mouth shut — or else. At a political event two weeks later, Broaddrick claims that Hillary approached her: “She came over to me, took ahold of my hand and said, ‘I’ve heard so much about you and I’ve been dying to meet you. … I just want you to know how much that Bill and I appreciate what you do for him.’ …
“This woman, this little, soft-spoken — pardon me for the phrase — dowdy woman that would seem very unassertive, took ahold of my hand and squeezed it and said, ‘Do you understand? Everything that you do.’ I could have passed out at that moment and I got my hand from hers and I left. … She was just holding onto my hand. Because I had started to turn away from her and she held onto my hand and she said, ‘Do you understand? Everything that you do,’ I mean, cold chills went up my spine. That’s the first time I became afraid of that woman.”
The late British left-wing writer Christopher Hitchens, in “No One Left to Lie To,” claimed that three women have made “plausible” allegations of rape by Bill Clinton. He gave no further details — and the media have been relentlessly indifferent.
This double standard reached its nadir when Kathleen Willey, a former campaign aide, described on “60 Minutes” an alleged sexual battery committed by Clinton in the Oval Office. Willey, a Clinton campaign volunteer, says that Clinton took her hand and placed it on his aroused genitalia: “He touched my breasts with his hand … and then he whispered … ‘I’ve wanted to do this ever since I laid eyes on you.’ … He took my hand, and he put it … on his genitals.” Willey said she managed to push him away.
This is just silly arguing over which oligarch plutocrat ruler was to blame. Nothing more clearly illustrates this than NAFTA. Democrats should have been outraged that one of their own pimped this, destroying Union jobs and manufacturing and giving them the SHAFTA.
Look at that picture of all the presidents standing on stage when it was signed, practically holding hands, Rs and Ds alike.
The Republicrat duopoly is the same bird of prey with two wings. Those who keep swallowing the red pill/blue pill snake oil are retards. Both parties have been bought off, and they both suck. Open your eyes, sheeple.
I have been saying that since Reagan! Ya cant trust the GOP not to spend all our money.
Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.
Using the words “American,” “obese,” “normal,” “mothering,” “fathering,” “homosexual,” “illegal alien,” and “senior citizens,” is offensive and should be discouraged, according to a “Bias-Free Language Guide” posted on the University of New Hampshire website.
The guide, first uncovered by Campus Reform, “is meant to invite inclusive excellence in [the] campus community.”
The word “American” is “problematic” according to the guide because it “assumes the U.S. is the only country inside [the continents of North and South America].”
Calling people “illegal aliens” is also politically incorrect, with the preferred term for undocumented immigrants being “person seeking asylum,” or “refugee,” while the word “foreigner” is discouraged and replaced with “international people.”
More banned words and phrases include;
– “Caucasian (replaced with “European-American individuals”);
– “Mothering” and “fathering” (replaced with “parenting” and “nurturing” so as to “avoid gendering a non-gendered activity”);
– “Homosexual” (replaced with “gay,” “lesbian,” “same gender loving”);
– “Obese” or “overweight” (replaced with “people of size”);
– Saying a person is “poor” (replaced with “person who lacks advantages that others have”);
– Saying the word “healthy” because it’s offensive to disabled people, who can’t be called disabled, they must be called a “person who is wheelchair mobile”).
“Terms also considered problematic include: “elders,” “senior citizen,” “overweight” (which the guide says is “arbitrary”), “speech impediment,” “dumb,” “sexual preference,” “manpower,” “freshmen,” “mailman,” and “chairman,” in addition to many others,” writes Peter Hasson.
The guide also rails against “ciscentrism,” which “includes the lack of gender-neutral restrooms, locker rooms, and residences” at the university.
To his credit, the president of the University of New Hampshire Mark Huddleston responded to the story by asserting that the guide was not official campus policy.
“I am troubled by many things in the language guide, especially the suggestion that the use of the term ‘American’ is misplaced or offensive,” he said. “The only UNH policy on speech is that it is free and unfettered on our campuses. It is ironic that what was probably a well-meaning effort to be ‘sensitive’ proves offensive to many people, myself included.”
The term “doublespeak” probably has its roots in George Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although the term is not used in the book, it is a close relative of one of the book’s central concepts, “doublethink”. Another variant, “doubletalk,” also referring to deliberately ambiguous speech, did exist at the time Orwell wrote his book, but the usage of “doublespeak” as well as of “doubletalk” in the sense emphasizing ambiguity clearly postdates the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four.[4][5] Parallels have also been drawn between Doublespeak and Orwell’s classic essay Politics and the English Language, which discusses the distortion of language for political purposes.[6]
Edward S. Herman, political economist and media analyst, has highlighted some examples of doublespeak and doublethink in modern society.[7] Herman describes in his book, Beyond Hypocrisy the principal characteristics of doublespeak:
What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don’t fit an agenda or program.[8]
In his essay “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell observes that political language serves to distort and obfuscate reality. Orwell’s description of political speech is extremely similar to the contemporary definition of doublespeak;
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible… Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness… the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. Where there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, …[9]
Anyone remember or seen photos of NYC in the 1970s?
————————
Exclusive: Photos Show Homeless Man Taking Bath In Columbus Circle Fountain
CBS New York | July 29, 2015 | Staff
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — It was a shocking scene at one of the city’s most visited landmarks.
CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer obtained exclusive images of what some call the latest public insult of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s New York City.
Pictures were snapped of a homeless man taking a bath in the fountain at Columbus Circle, a popular city landmark that is now the bathtub of a bum.
“This, for me, was the tipping point on quality of life. This man is actually lathering up with a bar of soap,” Ken Frydman said.
When asked if Giuliani would have tolerated such behavior, Frydman said, “No, no, this man would have been approached and questioned and taken probably to a psychiatric facility. I see a progressive backsliding of civility and quality of life in the city.”
The democrats have complete control of California.
——————-
California kids’ economic health is ranked near last in U.S.
San Francisco Chronicle | July 20, 2015 | Jill Tucker
California was just one Mississippi away from dead last in a new national ranking of the economic well-being of children, an indicator of poverty and financial instability of families.
Despite a reinvigorated economy, millions of California families are still digging out from the 2008 recession, with wages for many failing to keep up with the cost of living, according to the 2015 Kids Count report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation released Tuesday.
Across the state, 23 percent of children were living in poverty in 2013, the most recent data available, compared with 18 percent in 2008. In Mississippi, which ranked 50th among the states, 34 percent of children were living in poverty at last count. New Mexico came in just above California, at 48th, in economic well-being of children.
The state’s high cost of living and increasing rents and home prices are contributing factors to those living on the economic margins, she said. “There are millions of families that have been left behind entirely by the economic recovery,” Speer said. “It’s a story about rising inequality in the state.”
In addition, in June, California will start offering health insurance to immigrant children living in the state illegally, which means for the first time it’s possible to reach a 100 percent insured rate, she said.
Released yesterday. Coamerica Bank California Economic Index:
“”The California economy continued to gain momentum in May after picking up speed in April. In May we see the second monthly increase in our California Economic Activity Index, reversing a three-month slide through the first quarter of this year. Job creation in the state remains well above the U.S. average. Through June, payroll job growth in California was up 3.0 percent over the previous 12 months, bringing the state unemployment rate down to 6.3 percent, the lowest it has been since February 2008,” said Robert Dye, Chief Economist at Comerica Bank.”
California. The #1 State in the U.S. for GDP and venture capital business formation.
CA is a big state. Big difference between coastal towns and the central valley. It is like a third world country with no water in the central valley, mostly migrant farm workers picking your lettuce.
None of them are in my tennis league.
You can say the same thing about small states, or even small countries. There are probably a small number of people in Guatemala who enjoy a very high standard of living.
Soon the governors of Texas and Florida will be coming to your state to try to lure your jobs away. Which is good, we here in California are tired of seeing them, they are like annoying gnats.
Come now, Palmy. We need to indulge our newest Democrat-for-Life voting bloc. A few capers here and there can be overlooked for the greater good of installing our enlightened collectivist permanent majority….
We must quickly ban things, grow government and raise taxes to fight this!!!
————–
New Ice Age Is Coming, By 2030, Says Analysis
science20.com | 7/17/2015 | Staff
The arrival of intense cold similar to what some call the “Little Ice Age” of the late 17th century and early 18th century, is expected in the years 2030 to 2040, according to a presentation during the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales.
* * * * *
Several studies have shown that the Maunder Minimum coincided with the coldest phase of global cooling, which was called “the Little Ice Age”. During this period there were very cold winters in Europe and North America. In the days of the Maunder minimum the water in the river Thames and the Danube River froze, the Moscow River was covered by ice every six months, snow lay on some plains year round and Greenland was covered by glaciers,” says Dr Helen Popova, who developed a physical-mathematical model of the evolution of the magnetic activity of the sun and used it to gain the patterns of occurrence of global minima of solar activity and gave them a physical interpretation.
* * * * *
The study of deuterium in the Antarctic showed that there were five global warmings and four Ice Ages for the past 400 thousand years. People first appeared on the Earth about 60,000 years ago.
All people today are classified as Homo sapiens. Our species of humans first began to evolve nearly 200,000 years ago in association with technologies not unlike those of the early Neandertals.
The first fossils of early modern humans to be identified were found in 1868 at the 27,000-23,000 year old Cro-Magnon rock shelter site near the village of Les Eyzies click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced in southwestern France. They were subsequently named the Cro-Magnon click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced people. They were very similar in appearance to modern Europeans. Males were 5 feet 4 inches to 6 feet tall (1.6-1.8 m.) That was 4-12 inches (10-31 cm.) taller than Neandertals.
Origins of Modern Humans
There is no reliable evidence of modern humans elsewhere in the Old World until 60,000-40,000 years ago, during a short temperate period in the midst of the last ice age.
As we come to the end of the “Hope and Change” era
I expect more of these unexpected stories to come out.
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US cuts estimates for economic growth over past 3 years
Yahoo Finance - 7/30/2015
The U.S. economy grew more slowly over the past three years than the government had previously estimated, held back by more frugal consumers and steeper spending cuts by state and local governments.
The economy expanded at just a 2 percent annual rate from 2012 through 2014, down from a previous estimate of 2.3 percent, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
It’s all good, they are changing how GDP is calculated quarter to quarter to smooth out these rough patches. Big fan of the Office Space movie type solutions, “just fix the glitch.”
Remember too there guys - GDP calcs were changed a few years back at the behest of the high chair tyrant to include patents, copywriting and the like right?
With that included makes me wonder what base line GDP would be when only using the older metrics?
Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980’s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.
Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level.
I remember that well. My college classmates and I were all worried if we would be able to land a decent job upon graduation. And many of us were STEM majors
I remember the high interest rates. Construction ground to a halt, and gold soared. The average Joe didn’t have two nickles to rub together. By 1984 the liability insurance leaped because deep pocket tort liability became the law of the land. Yep, the top hats screwing the working class; America.
Did You Ever Notice the Asterisk on Your Social Security Statement?
National Review | 07/30/2015 | Myra Adams
While engaging in the mundane task of gathering financial statements for a “secure retirement” meeting with my husband’s and my adviser, this Baby Boomer stumbled upon documented proof that our nation does not have the guts to confront one of its most serious economic problems. The realization came when I pulled from my files a document statement innocently titled, “Your Social Security Statement.”
At first glance, the statement did not appear menacing. I was told I could expect to receive a benefit of “about $2,136 a month” upon reaching age 70 — which certainly seems like good news. But immediately I thought of a parallel of President Obama’s infamous Obamacare promise: “If you like your Social Security, you can keep your Social Security.”
Then, as if on cue, I saw an asterisk with the following message:
The law governing benefit amounts may change because, by 2033, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 77 percent of scheduled benefits.
With an asterisk, my beloved government was informing me that they will be unable to fulfill their part of a financial arrangement into which, as their statement attested, I had been making mandatory contributions starting in 1971 at age 16.
Social Security is not sustainable over the long term at current benefit and tax rates. In 2010, the program paid more in benefits and expenses than it collected in taxes and other noninterest income, and the 2014 Trustees Report projects this pattern to continue for the next 75 years.
Keep in mind that those millions of surviving Baby Boomers do not include all the immigrants, also aging, who came to America in the past decades. The official total is 74.9 million Boomers native and foreign-born.
The Social Security trustees go on to warn that “if no changes are made to the program,” they project that “assets will be sufficient to allow for full payment of scheduled benefits through 2032” — hence the most recent warning on my Social Security statement.
What comes to mind is a classic 1965 song by The Who, “My Generation.” If you are of a certain age you know the famous lyrics, “I hope I die before I get old.” Now, since the Baby Boomer generation is already redefining what it means to be “old,” it’s time to rewrite the lyrics: “I hope I die before the government goes broke.”
Gasp, what? You mean all those acts of love won’t be contributing to MY retirement? Oh, wait, they front run it with welfare and ebt and health care and edumacation for the anchor boo-boos.
More and more taxes on the rich and more and more regulation of the financial industry will easily fix social security.
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Comment by 2banana
2015-07-30 09:00:57
There is no problem that cannot be solved without bigger and bigger government with more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes.
Comment by Dman
2015-07-30 09:23:16
When it comes to America’s privileged money shufflers, yes.
Comment by Califoh20
2015-07-30 11:05:02
“There is no problem that cannot be solved without bigger and bigger government and higher and higher taxes.”
Ronald Reagan
Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.
Social Security is not sustainable over the long term at current benefit and tax rates.
Only because Republican idiots in Congress sit on their thumbs and do nothing. In 1977 when Congress passed the income cap, it was set to the 90th percentile of wages. If the cap kept pace with wages, the cap would be $250,000 instead of the $117,000 it is today. According to AARP that alone would solve the Soc Sec solvency issue for decades to come.
Oh, no, JEB! has the balls to say it. Wants to privatize it.
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Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-30 10:23:55
Didn’t his brother talk about that? It went nowhere.
Comment by Raymond K Hessel
2015-07-30 11:01:43
Oh, no, JEB! has the balls to say it. Wants to privatize it.
Jeb’s oligarch puppetmasters see pensions as the last great looting spree available to them, since the parasite is killing off the host. The Oligopoly WILL get its “privatized” social security, because the sheeple will bend over for them as always by voting for Wall Street water carriers.
Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-30 11:28:53
It was stopped last time. It can be stopped again.
MSM - Oh lookie over here - someone killed a lion.
“Putting it under ‘research’ gives us a little bit of an overhang over the whole thing,”
Why I am reminded about German doctors in WWII death camps?
———————
Planned Parenthood Plots Sale of Legally Alive Fetuses
mrctv.org | 7-30-2015
A Planned Parenthood executive plots harvesting of “intact” fetuses that are considered born-alive infants under federal law - and warns “they’re probably going to get caught” if they try it in anti-abortion states, a new undercover video by the Center for Medical Progress shows.
“Sometimes, if we get, if someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then we are intact,” Ginde says in the video. “We’d have to do a little bit of training with the providers or something to make sure that they don’t crush”
For 2nd trimester procedures, Planned Parenthood does not use feticide or digoxin. This means that intact deliveries can possibly be born-alive infants according to 1 USC 8 of federal law.
Later in the video, Ginde engages in negotiations for harvested organs. She says, “I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.”
Perhaps, the most atrocious statements reveal that Planned Parenthood knows what they are doing is illegal and efforts are needed to conceal their program. “Putting it under ‘research’ gives us a little bit of an overhang over the whole thing,” Ginde remarks. “If you have someone in a really anti state who’s going to be doing this for you, they’re probably going to get caught.”
Maybe more women wouldn’t consider abortion if they thought their baby would be raised in a good home, but I don’t see the anti-abortion crowd rushing out to adopt all those inner-city orphans.
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Comment by 2banana
2015-07-30 10:45:27
It is a nice little democrat meme to ignore the evil:
Maybe more women wouldn’t consider abortion if they thought their baby would be raised in a good home, but I don’t see the anti-abortion crowd rushing out to adopt all those inner-city orphans.
And the truth is there are waiting list for YEARS for people to adopt babies in America. So much so that many go to other countries to adopt.
So the answer to your snide comment is that any baby born in America and placed up for adoption would be adopted very quickly.
Comment by Puggs
2015-07-30 11:32:03
Having just gone through the adoption process with friends I can give you first hand affirmation that this is the TRUTH. The demand to adopt newborns is HUGE. Demand outstrips supply by a very wide margin in the U.S.
Comment by Blue Skye
2015-07-30 11:35:52
Why exactly should we not dissect those inner city orphans for a profit?
Comment by Dman
2015-07-30 13:05:41
There is also a high need for foster care homes for children whose mothers aren’t capable of taking care of them, money to pay for the foster homes, food stamps to see that the children don’t go hungry, school nutrition programs, tax breaks for the working poor so they can buy the basic necessities, and the list goes on. Where does the anti-abortion crowd stand on these issues? I think we all know. Once the fetuses grow into actual children they can die of malnutrition for all they care. That’s just one less soldier in the FSA who doesn’t need taxpayer money.
Comment by Califoh20
2015-07-30 13:24:57
Lets pass a law that says you cant terminate, you have to give birth and sell your kids. Great idea! What will that cost to run? and defend from attorneys? got more gov and more spending?
Comment by MightyMike
2015-07-30 13:37:40
Why exactly should we not dissect those inner city orphans for a profit?
I thought that there were no orphans.
Comment by Califoh20
2015-07-30 13:56:38
“I thought that there were no orphans.”
good point, what happened to the long lines?
Comment by trader jack
2015-07-30 23:45:37
easy solution for the problem
Require that all aborted children be named and given a proper burial at the expense of the mother and the father!
Do you really think that a the parents of an aborted child give a damn about the results of the abortion?
As far as the parents care they don’t want to be bothered about the disposals of their children.
I have not seen any report of mothers claiming the lost child, or requesting the remains for burial.
Which one of you parents who lost a child to an abortion would be willing to pay for the proper disposal of the remains?
But, hey, I could be wrong and there are fathers and mother who really wanted to keep the remains as souveniers of the occasion
I posted yesterday that 13 major corporations have pledged billions to fight climate change, and that will foreshadow a coming shift by the Republicans to embrace climate change as a proven, scientifically valid threat to the U.S.
Right on cue, another sign of the coming shift by Republicans to accept climate change: Jeb Bush: Humans Contribute to Climate Change
Article about 2brony’s buttboy Scott Walker (who Trump has double the support of in the latest polls), maybe Scott Walker will “win” when Harley Davidson moves their manufacturing to China:
All that is necessary is to reduce those workers’ salary and benefits down to Chinese levels. Then we’ll be able to keep those jobs right here in the USA.
Illinois Needs To Have A Scott Walker Moment
Investors Business Daily | July 29, 2015
Gov. Bruce Rauner is fighting almost single-handedly against an entrenched, corrupt political class of lawyers, lobbyists, social service providers, media and teachers unions whose rallying cry is to smother reform and maintain business as usual in Springfield……
Years of overspending have many state and city of Chicago bonds selling at junk status. Illinois is now called “the deadbeat state” because it’s two to three months behind in paying billions of dollars of bills owed. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels quips, “Being a neighboring state to Illinois is like living next door to the Simpsons.”……
Rauner should take a lesson from Illinois’ neighbor to the north. Six years ago, Wisconsin’s plight was just as dire, with unemployment running above 9% and red ink topping $1 billion. Republican Gov. Scott Walker stared down the public employee unions and trimmed excessive compensation costs while ending the crisis of runaway pensions and ending automatic tenure for teachers.
Walker later made Wisconsin a right-to-work state. It has subsequently seen a steep drop in unemployment while taxes have been cut and the budget balanced.
Nearly every state has seen falling unemployment over the past few years. It’s unlikely that the drop in Wisconsin could be reasonably described as steep.
I used to be in a union in a “right to work state”
The union was well run, professional, would kick out dirt bags, were pretty middle of the road with politics and negotiated good contracts.
And the “choice” membership rate…
93%.
And - I eventually worked up to a shop steward.
I am disgusted how the “you must join the public union as a condition of employment” goons behave, act and the political causes they support.
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Comment by X-GSfixr
2015-07-30 11:40:25
Make it easy then.
Let the scabs pull up their bootstraps and negotiate their own pay and benefits, instead of piggy backing onto a program they aren’t contributing to.
Sounds like a “47% are takers” problem to me.
Signed
-Former Kansas IAM member
-Former Shop Supervisor who played by the rules/contract, and had all of my terminations stick, instead of overturned by the grievance process (because other managers/supervisors in my department wouldn’t play by the rules)
You are a racist if you picture anyone but the Amish doing this.
——————————-
Ohio Cops Hunt 70 Juveniles In Late Night “Mob And Rob” Of Circle K Store
The Smoking Gun | 27 July, 2015
Ohio cops are investigating the ransacking of a Circle K store that was overrun early Saturday morning by up to 70 juveniles.
According to Akron police, the suspects “entered the gas station and started to destroy and steal property” during the so-called mob and rob attack.
As seen above, a couple who stopped at the Circle K for gas shot video of the juveniles fleeing the store with stolen merchandise. A woman in the car called 911 and reported that the suspects were “running around in the parking lot like wild children.”
An Akron Police Department report–which classified the incident as vandalism–noted that the juveniles “entered business to destroy property” and that “misc merchandise damaged and stolen.”
As seen above, a couple who stopped at the Circle K for gas shot video of the juveniles fleeing the store with stolen merchandise. A woman in the car called 911 and reported that the suspects were “running around in the parking lot like wild children.”
Surely the woman who called 911 was arrested for microaggressing these “youths” by implying they might be feral?
I think what I’m really saying is that toolboxes who try to apply moral relativism to every situation are…what’s the word I’m looking for…douche nozzles.
Since these “youths” have never had any guidance and leadership, especially of the WASP kind, maybe the WASPs should hire a bunch of them, show some leadership, and teach them the personal responsibility lessons they aren’t getting at home.
Oh, that’s right………… not their job. Business people (especially “small business” owners) prefer uncomplaining slaves that they can treat and pay like $##t. If not US citizens, then illegals. Or outsource the jobs to China, where they don’t have a problem with using water cannons on complaining employees.
You can spend money to fix the problem. Or you can ignore the problem, and pay for the costs incurred by ignoring it. White surburbia transfers the costs to bigger cities, by having their local cops stop/arrest/harrass/shoot people “driving while black”.
Speaking of “youths” and “small business,” here’s yet another mob of Obamacare recipients helping themselves to yet another convenience store plunder run. I’m confused: since most of these stores are owned and operated by Asian or Middle Eastern immigrants, isn’t this a hate crime even if a “protected class” is involved?
Does smoking gun indicate whether the suspects have benefited from Obamacare?
Also, regarding this:
I’m confused: since most of these stores are owned and operated by Asian or Middle Eastern immigrants, isn’t this a hate crime even if a “protected class” is involved?
You should go look up the definition of hate crime.
I believe the operative definition is, any crime in which a white male is the aggressor and a minority of some sort is the victim. So, for example, a gang of black youths picking a random white guy and beating him into a coma would be “acting out” but not a hate crime, oh heavens no.
Team Obama promises justice for Cecil the Lion, but still not a single bankster jailed for causing the 2008 crisis, and not a word about the epidemic of “yutes” running wild in our cities.
Just some enlightenment for everyone, re: Union Shops in “Right to Work” states
Here is how contract negotiations typically go, in “Right to Work” states…..
-Contract is presented to the membership, with a yes/no recommendation by the bargaining committee. A passing “Yes” vote doesn’t mean anyone is happy with it, but the cooler heads recognize the following:
-10-25% of the shop is one paycheck away from bankruptcy, and will cross a picket line in the event of a strike.
-10-25% of the shop are die-hard anti-union types, and will cross a picket line no matter what……….after all, they can get plenty of overtime if they do. Then, when it’s ended, they get the same benefits/money that the union guys who went on strike get. A win-win for them.
Both of these facts are a major disincentive for voting down a contract, no matter how crappy it is. Why go without pay for weeks, so that half the guys in the shop can get a raise by undercutting your bargaining power.
Another interesting little fact:
Companies love it when their guys work overtime. especially when their time is billed to outside customers. Why?
Because the shop “flat rate” has the cost of benefits rolled in, but your benefits are billed out on a 40 hour week. You don’t get extra benefits when you work overtime, so they pocket that money.
Flat rate x 40 - (40 hour week x pay + benefits) = company profit
Flat rate x 1.5 x hours worked - (hours worked x (pay x 1.5) = company profit.
Finally………how “negotiating a raise” works for 99% of the boot-strapping, rugged individualist, wretched refuse.
- Request a pay raise, include research and supporting documentation.
- Counter offer of 2-3%, with an invitation to “pursue other opportunities if you don’t like it.”
So everybody’s pay is dependent on how many people can say eff it, relocate family and kids (usually with no assistance), find the wife/significant other a job that pays as much as her current job, AND finding a job that pays enough over your current pay to make all of this BS worth your while.
Which is why the job market sucks, no matter how many unicorns the government stats say there are.
FWIW I worked a private sector union job in California prior to retirement 3 years ago and the situation was about the same….plenty of people would have scabbed due to selfishness and/or being in a very precarious (and self inflicted) financial state and many more would have joined them had a strike gone on more than a week or two. No excuse for this given that people were well paid and had years to build up some savings for a strike fund. One former coworker said he’d scab and had no choice financially, this shortly after returning from a vacation in Italy and purchasing a time share condo there…
OTOH from what I’ve heard this is much less of a problem on the east coast, especially in NY and NJ as scabbing can result in some very serious and painful consequences.
The LL probably figures 5 well off Cal Poly parents will pony up $1000/mo each and if there is a bit of party damage the deposit will cover it. SLO is a college town and housing is tight so this sort of greed might very well work.
I drove past Bishop Pk on Foothill Blvd toward Los Osos Valley Rd for many years. Really miss those days… looking back. Amazing how fast prices went insane there. Borrow your way to prosperity!
The inevitable end-game of socialism: the parasites bleed the productive dry, so the productive stop producing for a system that steals the fruits of their labor. To the collectivist legions of Comrad Pelosi, watch and learn.
Opinion Columnists
Wonder Land Trump in River City Donald Trump is the Prof. Harold Hill of the presidential election.
By Daniel Henninger
July 29, 2015 7:01 p.m. ET
In “The Music Man,” Meredith Willson’s great musical, super salesman Harold Hill talks the townspeople of River City, Iowa, into buying trombones, bassoons and drums to form a boys’ band. Then, after the people of River City have committed belief and money to him, he’ll skip town.
Donald Trump is America’s Music Man, and the United States is his River City. Unlike the original, the Trump version isn’t going to have a happy ending.
Like Professor Harold Hill, Donald Trump must know it’s all a fabulous scam. How else to explain that on June 4—just before his presidential announcement—the Donald came to Mason City, Iowa, Meredith Willson’s hometown and the model for River City. And where did Donald Trump address Mason City’s locals? In Music Man Square.
Here’s the Washington Post reporting on the Trump visit to the border at Laredo, Texas: “During a whirlwind visit . . . Trump blazed around in a presidential-style motorcade that included seven SUVs and even more police cars. Local officers blocked off roads, including Interstate 35, for Trump’s entourage.”
From “The Music Man”: “I don’t know how he does it, but he lives like a king, and he dallies and he gathers, and he plucks and he shines and when the man dances . . . the Piper pays him.”
Like Harold Hill, Donald Trump believes he can say anything and get away with it.
He said Mexico has an inferior culture, and later claimed that he’d win the Hispanic vote.
What he said about John McCain should have barred him from public life, but the Donald’s enthusiasts said it was no big deal.
On the “Hannity” show Monday night he attacked Scott Walker —for not raising taxes. “I looked into Wisconsin,” Mr. Trump said. “Their roads are a disaster, they don’t want to spend any money on roads because he doesn’t want to raise taxes.” He accused the Wisconsin governor of being “divisive, because everyone there is fighting with each other.”
So the Donald would have raised taxes on the people of Wisconsin, and he thinks the Republican governor who defeated the public unions and survived a recall election is “divisive.” No matter. The people of River City are desperate to believe, and so the man who wrote “The Art of the Deal” is leading in the national polls.
Is anything going on here other than clinical egomania?
In three days, I’ll be seeing the madmax future of America in the slums of Nairobi. What an adventure!
The average house is 10 by 10 with a dirt floor. I hear that Nairobi is often called Nai Robbery.
Let’s see if I can still sing Kumbaiya in 15 days.
Let my true life begin.
Bloomberg
China’s Stocks Extend Slump in Worst Monthly Decline Since 2009
by Kyoungwha Kim
July 30, 2015 — 6:24 PM PDT
Updated on July 30, 2015 — 10:04 PM PDT
China’s stocks fell, with the benchmark index heading for its worst monthly drop in almost six years, as the government struggles to rekindle investor interest amid a $3.5 trillion rout.
The Shanghai Composite Index slid 0.8 percent to 3,677.83 at 1:02 p.m., dragged down by energy and industrial companies. The gauge has tumbled 14 percent this month, the biggest loss among 93 global benchmark gauges tracked by Bloomberg, as margin traders cashed out and new equity-account openings tumbled amid concern valuations are unsustainable.
While unprecedented state intervention spurred a 18 percent rebound by the Shanghai Composite from its July 8 low, volatility returned on Monday when the gauge plunged 8.5 percent. Outstanding margin debt on mainland bourses has fallen about 40 percent since mid-June, while the number of new stock investors shrank last week to the smallest since the government started releasing figures in May. Individuals account for more than 80 percent of stock trading in China.
“The support measures may have been less effective than what Beijing imagined,” said Bernard Aw, a strategist at IG Asia Pte. in Singapore.
…
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Is it safe to assume the July financial swoon is behind us?
Well probably, July is nearly over August awaits.
Moved to 25% cash in January and now to 50% cash last weekend. Sold all the bond funds. Kept dividend funds. It’s looks to me like there is more risk to the downside than opportunity to the upside. I often make my portfolio adjustments too early, but I sleep better!
will uncle fed let the market crash or just keep letting this bubble expand?
You have to laugh at some of the valuations of the 6 horsemen.
Why on earth would they raise interest rates? The predictions about this over the past couple of years have been repeatedly wrong. Will it hurt housing prices? If the answer is yes, they won’t do it.
Yellen will be whispered by the ptb that the unwashed masses are getting impatient and it’s okay for her to throw a bone to them. Aka little interest on their meager savings. Until that happens I don’t see a rate increase.
Like a communist czar metering out ____ to the masses, Yeltsin is powerless.
Beats me. Boomers are not retiring and boomer wages are stagnant. The only pressure on rents and hoses is from China. And the Chinese economy is crumbling. The deflation will return to RE.
Deflation is like a warm comfortable blanket for those of us neck deep in cash.
…until the store shelves are empty because in deflation, a falling GDP means many producers are bankrupt and aren’t producing. Be careful what you wish for Puggs.
False my friend.
Deflation makes your wallet fat. Get it right.
I hate it when hose prices go up. Hoses should be affordable.
Well that Canadian bubble should burst soon.
It all shakes out, finds the true price and life goes on…
Just don’t be a Debt Donkey when it does.
Yellen will be whispered by the ptb that the unwashed masses are getting impatient and it’s okay for her to throw a bone to them.
No need to throw them a bone. 95% of said unwashed masses bent over for the Oligopoly in 2008 and 2012, and will do so again in 2016, by voting for Wall Street water carriers. The system is doing what it’s supposed to do: fleecing the gullible and stupid, who continue to vote for more of the same.
Why would a producer who prudentially managed their balance sheet to avoid taking on excessive leverage go bankrupt due to deflation? Falling input prices should result in higher, not lower, profitability.
What’s the difference between a bond fund and a dividend fund, so far as market risk is concerned?
dividends are the first to go when sh@t hits the fan.
Actually, the dividends usually continue into a downturn. If the stock drops, the reinvested dividend is used to dollar cost average into the stock. IMHO, it is a lesser risk than bonds and a better defensive move, because you can gain some value in the downturn. It is a risk, but with 50% of my portfolio in MM funds, it is one I am willing to take. My average cost for VDIGX is probably under $11, so I get a 4% return.
“Actually, the dividends usually continue into a downturn.”
What happens to the present value of future dividends (and rents, for that matter) when rates rise?
PB-
The difference is that with owning a bond, your coupon cannot and will not change.
With a dividend paying stock (and real estate), increasing interest rates often coincide with a strengthening economy, and with that strengthening economy, you often get dividend increases.
Of course, if you are starting at VERY low dividend yields, whatever increase occurs in dividends may not provide the stock price the “escape velocity” needed to get net stock price growth.
A few tidbits…since REIT earnings are coming out. A couple that I follow:
PLD: Announced a 10% increase in their dividend (out of cycle…usually only once per year), because their rents are increasing too much for their previous level of dividend. They announced very high change in rent on rollover (new rents on space vs. old rents) of 14% (a record).
DDR: Announced base rent increase of almost 5% year on year, and new leasing spreads of 7% (renewals) and 25% (new tenants).
HOWEVER, since leases generally go for 3+ years (industrial property) and 5+ years (retail shop space) and 10+ years (retail big boxes), these rent increases take a while to filter into a whole portfolio. This is why PLD is seeing more of the rent increases trickle to the bottom line faster than a company like DDR (shorter lease cycle).
As such, as I’ve said before, I think REITs will suffer in the near term as yields rise, but in the medium term (3-5 years), the stock price will recover as dividend growth drives the prices higher.
If you hold a long-term bond, there is no recovery unless yields fall again, or you hold to maturity.
Moved to 25% cash in January and now to 50% cash last weekend.”
probably a smart move. Its all looking tried , RE, Stocks, bonds.
What are you going to do with the $20 dollar bill that you have now?
Save it for the 1/2 price sale coming up. Turning 20’s into 40’s, baby!
LOL ++++
Yes, July is almost over.
BloombergBusiness
Commodities Set for Worst Month Since 2011 Amid Oversupply
by Ben Sharples and Sharon Cho
July 29, 2015 — 10:25 PM PDT Updated on July 29, 2015 — 11:25 PM PDT
Commodities are set for the biggest monthly loss since 2011 amid a price collapse that drove oil into a bear market and pushed gold to a five-year low.
The Bloomberg Commodity Index is down 9.5 percent in July, the most since September 2011, after dropping to a 13-year low this month. Oil companies such as BP Plc have started a new round of cost cutting, while shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc., the biggest publicly traded copper producer, fell the most on a weekly basis in six years through July 24. West Texas Intermediate is heading for its biggest monthly fall this year, while copper in London is set for the worst month since January.
The index of 22 raw materials has slumped 11 percent in 2015 amid expanding gluts and concern slower economic growth in China will crimp demand. Commodities also slipped as the dollar gained on signals from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen that the central bank may raise rates. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index is up 2.4 percent this month.
“Bullish factors are missing for commodities in general at the moment,” Will Yun, a commodities analyst at Hyundai Futures Corp., said by phone from Seoul. “Economic growth concerns in China, a possible U.S. rate hike, a stronger dollar and the supply glut have all come into play. It seems we’ve nearly reached the bottom while the outlook for the second half for commodities doesn’t look so bright.”
Gold is set for its largest monthly drop in two years and Brent crude is heading for its third straight monthly decline. Wheat is on track for the biggest monthly drop since 2011.
Global Glut
About 90 percent of copper mines are profitable, even with prices near a six-year low, meaning most producers have little incentive to reduce output, according to Standard Chartered Plc. Prices need to fall another 24 percent before major companies begin cutting, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates.
Brent oil and WTI have both slipped into a bear market amid speculation the global glut will persist as leading members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pump record volumes to defend market share. U.S. crude inventories are almost 100 million barrels above the five-year average.
“All of these commodities are priced in the dollar, so the recent dollar strength is a clear drag on the prices,” said Barnabas Gan, an economist at Singapore-based Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. “We are expecting the Fed to initiate its rate hike this year. A firmer greenback should necessitate weaker prices across gold, crude oil and copper.”
…
wtf?
how come all silver and copper co’s are losing their azs
About 90 percent of copper mines are profitable, even with prices near a six-year low,
wtf?
how come all silver and copper co’s are losing their azs”
I’m watching PAAS waiting for 5 bucks.
I thought stocks that drop below $5 HAVE to be sold by some mutual funds. Is $5 wise?
“About 90 percent of copper mines are profitable, even with prices near a six-year low,”
Now you’re working with something.
The same is true for the construction biz. In particular residential construction.
Remember….. if you’re paying more than $55/sq ft(less depreciation) for a house, you’re paying too much.
Marketwatch dot com
Need to Know
Dollar watching can’t stop as a big move looms
By Barbara Kollmeyer
Published: July 30, 2015 7:17 a.m. ET
Critical information ahead of the market’s open
Mirrorpix/Courtesy Everett Collection
Judging by dollar gains this morning, a September interest-rate hike has not been completely ruled out, even if the tea leaves of yesterday’s Fed statement didn’t offer any clear direction.
That push higher overnight for the buck is getting a lot of people talking right now:
…
Our chart of the day takes a closer look at a big move that could be coming for the dollar. Of course, yesterday’s column didn’t agree with that line of thinking.
Also weighing in on the greenback this morning was Cullen Roche at Pragmatic Capitalism. On his blog, he highlights three bearish charts for the market, the trade-weighted dollar index being one of them.
“The current surge in the dollar is a sign that there’s a flight to safety occurring and more turmoil in the financial markets than many might presume,” says Roche. Read his blog post here.
…
It’s not that the tea leaves haven’t been offering clear direction. It’s just that they have been pointing in the wrong direction. No one believes any of it anymore.
Bloomberg
Chinese Stocks Just Created a New Headache for the Global Economy
July 28, 2015 — 10:23 AM PDT
Updated on July 28, 2015 — 8:04 PM PDT
China Stock Meltdown Adds Exit-Strategy Conundrum
Exit strategies used to be the preoccupation of Pentagon planners. Nowadays, it’s more a province for central bank watchers, since the Federal Reserve gorged on trillions of dollars of mortgage and government debt.
And in that economic realm, China has just added a new conundrum. The dependence of the nation’s stock market on official support was exposed Monday with the biggest drop since 2007 amid speculation aid had been dialed back. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.7 percent Tuesday even after China pledged efforts to “stabilize” the market.
China’s actions in the past month add a new asset to those whose prices depend on policy-maker fiat — from European and Japanese government bonds to U.S. mortgage securities.
The 2013 taper tantrum that followed speculation the Fed would slow bond buying hit emerging markets hard and showed what can happen when investors expect policy makers to reduce stimulus. For China, failure to eventually withdraw from emergency measures would prevent the communist leadership from achieving its goal of letting markets play a decisive role.
“Investors everywhere have been coddled by policy makers in recent years, making it hard for officials to exit,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. “A hard-nosed approach, possibly leading to a further slide in markets, would help establish sound policy over time. But the temptation remains to put off the pain a little longer.”
PBOC Role
The People’s Bank of China became ensnared in the stock-market rescue by extending funds to a broker-lending facility, saying early this month it will provide “ample liquidity” to aid the nation’s tumbling equities. In an unusual move Tuesday, it issued a statement before a mid-year meeting with local PBOC chiefs, saying it will “stabilize financial market expectations and continue to support the real economy.”
The Shanghai Composite indeed showed some stabilization last week, before sliding Friday. It was little changed as of 11:04 a.m. local time Wednesday.
How to wean Chinese investors — who outnumber Communist Party members — off that liquidity will be the tricky part. The challenge of restoring stock-market stability in the world’s No. 2 economy coincides with moves in the biggest one to begin an interest-rate increase cycle for the first time since 2004.
Exit Debates
“The Fed’s been a source of volatility since the third quarter of last year and now it’s China and the U.S.,” said Tim Condon, head of Asia research in Singapore at ING Groep NV. “The Fed’s doing its best to show it’s not going to be a source of uncertainty and now China’s in completely the same predicament.”
After more than quadrupling its balance sheet, the U.S. central bank wrestled with how to withdraw stimulus to the American economy. While the Fed has kept its holdings at around $4.5 trillion for almost a year, Chair Janet Yellen has signaled that a rate rise is coming by year-end.
…
CNBC.COM
China stock exodus: When will it end?
Ansuya Harjani
Mon, 27 Jul ‘15 | 10:43 PM ETCNBC.com
Premature to say China’s meltdown is over: Pro
Chinese equities remained volatile Tuesday following an initial stampede out of the market, with analysts cautioning that there is no clear end in sight to the drama.
“China is probably one of the most, if not the most, margin financed markets of all time – so comforting yourself that the unwind is done – because we’ve seen a lot of that unwind in the past couple of weeks - is probably somewhat premature,” Chris Konstantinos, director of international portfolio management at Riverfront Investment Group, told CNBC.
“[Also], I still don’t think you’re at a position where you’ve really got a lot of valuation support,” he added.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite opened down over 4 percent on Tuesday, swinging between losses and gains over the course of the morning session, as investor sentiment remained shaky despite a fresh commitment by Beijing to put a floor under the market. The index traded down as much as 5.1 percent.
“The market sentiment is extremely fragile so when investors see selling pressure, they compete to sell their stocks,” Dickie Wong, executive director at Kingston Securities, told CNBC.
…
According to some people I know, the US is causing the Chinese stock market to melt down. It won’t end until the American PTB wants it to end. On the other hand, I don’t recall any of these people saying that the meteoric rise in Chinese stocks was orchestrated by the US. That all happened because Chinese people are the natural leaders of the human race.
You must hang out with some ignorant, ill-informed people, then. The Chinese bubble-chasers and their feckless “leadership” did this to themselves.
I can always count on your vote of confidence.
I’m consistent, just one of the many great things about me.
Humble, too!
It’s great the ChiComs have a convenient scapegoat to avoid having the finger of blame pointed where it belongs…on themselves.
China stocks retreat again
English.news.cn 2015-07-30 17:08:58
#CHINA-STOCKS-FALL (CN)
An investor walks past a stock screen in Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, July 30, 2015. Chinese shares extended slumps on Thursday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index sinking 2.2 percent to finish at 3,705.77 points. The Shenzhen Component Index slumped 3.33 percent to close at 12,395.92 points. (Xinhua/Zhang Wenkui)
BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) — Chinese shares plunged back into negative territory on Thursday in a reversal of Wednesday’s blip, as investors chose to take profits.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index shrank 2.2 percent to close at 3,705.77 points. The smaller Shenzhen Component Index fell 3.33 percent to close at 12,395.92 points.
The ChiNext Index, tracking China’s Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 4.93 percent to end at 2,561.19 points.
The turnover of the two bourses came in at 1.1 trillion yuan (180 billion U.S. dollars).
Only 107 shares rose by more than 5 percent while 669 shares dropped by over 5 percent. Sectors related to finance, banking and Internet security were the biggest losers.
CITIC Securities’ Gao Xiang said, “On one hand, the government is trying to stabilize the market and stop the sell-off, on the other, shareholders still lack confidence and are liquidating their positions,” he said.
…
ft dot com
Financial Times
Markets Insight
Last updated: July 30, 2015 1:45 pm
Why summer storms loom for investors
Michael Mackenzie
Pressure on emerging markets, uncertainty on China and Fed rate rise concerns make explosive package
A summer break for investors looks highly unlikely this year. While many of us are already enjoying or planning some welcome down time away from the shackles of the office, asset prices appear vulnerable in the coming weeks against a backdrop of uncertainty driven by China and the US Federal Reserve.
No matter the recent easing in tension between Greece and its creditors, the big story framing the rest of summer is a timeworn classic, previously seen during the US bond market taper tantrum of 2013 and more spectacularly in 1998.
Emerging markets are under severe pressure, with a JPMorgan index of major EM currencies loitering at its lowest level since 1999, hampered by a one-two punch of a stronger dollar and collapsing commodity prices.
The tumult reflects a convergence between the outlook for China’s economy and markets with US central bank policy intentions.
Given the scale of intervention by China’s authorities in trying to stem their equity market rout, investors are increasingly sceptical that the country’s economy is expanding at an official rate of 7 per cent. Talk of China growing below 5 per cent has stirred markets of late, hence renewed downward pressure on commodity prices such as oil, copper and iron ore. That nasty price action is weighing on exports across the EM sector and spurring broad deflationary worries.
Against that backdrop, we have a clearly ascendant US dollar, reflecting expectations that the Fed will finally shift borrowing rates north in the coming months, perhaps as early as September.
…
F**ffing for the 1%, I wish i had a job like this
Exposed: China’s Economy Won’t Collapse
Especially given Beijing’s ample financial resources, growth will almost surely continue at a robust pace………………..
If China seems less vulnerable to stock losses than some suggest, its real estate collapse threatens less, too. Americans, hearing about real estate problems anywhere, naturally and understandably draw parallels to their own highly destructive real estate problems in 2008-09. But such parallels are misplaced with China. In America, the problem was less the size of the questionable debt than that it was widely held throughout the financial system, so much so that no one knew which firms were threatened by it. In that circumstance, each financial firm distrusted the other’s stability, and consequently, all refused to deal with each other. The economy suffered accordingly and severely.
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/exposed-chinas-economy-wont-collapse-13442
Getting people “into the mood” for buying when prices are falling is truly a valuable service. How else could markets stay liquid during periods of falling prices?
“In America, the problem was less the size of the questionable debt than that it was widely held throughout the financial system, so much so that no one knew which firms were threatened by it.”
But in China, real estate is such a huge driver of GDP that it will affect the entire economy when it crashes. It won’t just be financial firms that will be hit, but construction workers, steel, copper, and cement companies, developers, and local governments. BTW, I don’t think anyone knows how much questionable debt there is in China, but I think we’ll find that China has surpassed even the U.S. in that category.
“real estate is such a huge driver of GDP ”
It doesn’t have to crash to bring down the economy, it only has to stop growing exponentially, which it has. All the things you mention are already getting crushed.
Besides, falling prices do not reduce GDP.
And people don’t own real estate in Ch either. The government does. The Ch government doesn’t just own a bunch of junk MBS, it owns all the land. That’s why the whole thing is so much more sinister and damaging than it was in the US.
This is hilarious.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11772878/Hackers-turn-Confederate-Pride-Facebook-page-into-pro-Obama-LBGT-group.html
Commodities Set for Worst Month Since 2011 Amid Oversupply. The key word in that title is supply. Notice the lack of description in the article for the supply of gold. Why is that? An article by Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler, Supply and Demand in the Gold and Silver Futures Markets, July 30, 2015, is there a new meaning for the word, supply. With 25 million excess and empty houses in the unitedstate, does the same line of thought apply to housing?
Burgeoning supply + collapsing demand = Supply glut + falling prices
According to the Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler article, supply is not increasing and demand is increasing. You should read the article.
Here’s the link, please read it. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/07/27/supply-demand-gold-silver-futures-markets-paul-craig-roberts-dave-kranzler/
Remember - only bigger and bigger government with more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes can save us.
——————-
Medicare and Medicaid At 50: One Is Going Bankrupt, the Other Is Bankrupting States
Investor’s Business Daily | 07/29/2015 | John Merline
When President Johnson signed Medicare into law on June 30, 1965, he said , “If it has a few defects, I am confident those can be quickly remedied.”
Fifty years later, a Government Accountability Office report found that an eye-popping $60 billion — fully 10% of Medicare’s budget — was lost to waste, fraud, abuse or improper payments last year. Among the glaring defects, the GAO found 23,400 fake or bad addresses on Medicare’s list of providers.
And even with all this tinkering, the program’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be insolvent in 15 short years, after which Medicare Part A will run annual deficits that quickly top $200 billion. Closing that gap will require either deep benefit cuts or sharp tax hikes.
Medicare spending, meanwhile, will continue to eat up an ever greater portion of the federal budget and the economy. Medicare’s latest annual report projects that its share of GDP will climb 53% over the next two decades.
Medicaid at 50 is even worse.
Johnson referred to this program — not by name — only once at his signing ceremony, when he talked about helping the poor get health care.
But Medicaid has turned out to be the biggest budget-busting health care monster of all — wreaking havoc with state budgets while providing lousy care to the poor.
Medicaid today covers nearly 72 million people — compared with the 55 million on Medicare. Roughly 12 million of them signed up after ObamaCare induced dozens of states to expand the program.
Under Medicaid, state and federal governments split costs 50/50. The federal government pays all of the costs of those newly eligible under the ObamaCare expansion, but that share eventually drops to 90%.
Even so, Medicaid’s costs are swamping state budgets, climbing from 9% in 1989 to 20% today. The National Commission on Financing 21st Century Higher Education says that Medicaid’s explosive growth is crowding out funds that states used to spend on higher education.
Only trillion dollar wars and tax cuts for the Koch Brothers can balance the budget.
Only trillion dollar wars
Just another form of cheese, one that right wingers are A-OK with.
Gold dropping sharply. Looks like more Chinese margin calls are going out.
http://www.kitco.com/market/
I thought the Chinese government had banned further stock price declines, but apparently the market is not subject to Chinese Communist Party rules.
I don’t think all those millions of elementary school educated farmers and grandmothers give a damn if the government doesn’t want them to sell.
Marketwatch dot com
Bulletin
Stock futures add to losses, Treasury yields rise following GDP, jobless claims
Metals Stocks
Gold futures drop, trade new 5½-year low
By Victor Reklaitis
Published: July 30, 2015 4:31 a.m. ET
Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
Gold prices tiptoe lower early Thursday.
Gold prices slipped early Thursday, trading near a five-and-a-half-year low as the dollar gained after the Federal Reserve left the door open for a September interest-rate hike.
August gold (GCQ5, -0.77%) traded at $1,085 an ounce, down $7.60 or 0.7%. The contract has traded as low as $1,081 an ounce, according to FactSet data, meaning it’s continuing to wallow around levels that had last been seen in early 2010.
…
‘Muricans, meet your future when the Fed causes a dollar collapse.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-29/complete-collapse-greece-reverts-barter-economy-first-time-nazi-occupation
Hoard cash and Bitcoin.
But which country’s cash?
How about the currency that doesn’t need to be converted? Try converting yuan in Galveston.
At this time, Uncle Buck is King. Mexicans are starting to hoard USD as the Peso has already fallen to $16.50 Pesos to a dollar, an all time low for the Peso.
U.S. dollars
Hillary keeps sinking in the polls. Are the sheeple finally waking up?
http://time.com/3977941/hillary-clinton-poll-trump/
From the article: If the election were held today, Clinton would be tied with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the poll—down from significant leads in a May 28 survey—but would top the current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
They better watch out for Bernie Sanders. He’s at almost 20 percent in the poll. As soon as someone like him is seen as a viable possible alternative to Hillary, she’ll collapse further. That number is a little over 25 percent.
Unfortunately there’s a floor level of support in place for both Hillary and Jeb, and that is the abject stupidity of the majority of the ‘Murican electorate. In 2008 the stupidity quotient was 95% (the Obama and McCain voters) and from all indications it hasn’t dropped appreciably since then - cretinism is usually a lifelong condition. The slack-jaws who fell for hope ‘n change or the neocon lunatic McCrazy and his dim-bulb Alaska sidekick in ‘08 will doubtless flock to HillaryJeb in ‘16, so the Oligopoly probably isn’t too worried about rotating another craven water carrier into the White House once Obama has finished up with his second term.
FORWARD……
Off a cliff….
Wylie Coyote with sign sayin “Help!”
It’s by design — for whatever reason, her campaign managers are doing a “rope-a-dope” strategy of minimal public exposure and staying out of the media spotlight. Similar to the Obama “only adult in the room and above the fray” attitude. I guess they are worried about her peaking too early.
Oxy, is that you?
“Ai Weiwei forced to curtail visit to Britain after he is reportedly denied a six-month visa because he did not declare a criminal conviction in his application…”
“Ai said in a separate Instagram post he had “never been charged or convicted of a crime”.”
“Britain’s governing Conservative party has sought to improve relations with China after leader David Cameron angered Beijing by meeting with the Dalai Lama.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11772308/Ai-Weiwei-says-visit-cut-short-because-Britain-restricted-his-visa.html
Not mentioned:
Insane property taxes that are passed on to the renters?
Rent control which destroys available rental housing stock?
20 million Illegal immigrants - they are living somewhere?
etc.
—————–
The absolute worst advice we give to Americans struggling to pay rent
The Daily Dot | July 22, 2015 | Hanna Brooks Olsen
In urban centers around the country, rental prices are soaring. Cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and New York City routinely report double-digit increases that make it nearly impossible for residents to make ends meet.
But it’s not just dwellers of those metropolitan areas who are having a hard time paying the rent. According to a report out this week from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, more than half of renters in America are considered to be financially burdened by their rent, meaning that they spend more than 30 percent of their income just on where they live. High rents have become a national crisis.
High rents are a national, not just an urban problem. Real estate company Zillow noted this year that in 2015, rents increased nationally by more than 3 percent. Meanwhile, personal incomes are creeping along; in May of 2015, disposable personal income grew just .5 percent. The average national rent, according to ApartmentGuide, is close to $800, while working full-time for the federal minimum wage nets you just under $1,000. Large portions of the country are unaffordable for those making even $10 per hour.
Other essential, traditionally middle-class workers are being edged out of metropolitan areas, and there are real consequences. Most police officers don’t live where they serve. In Portland, Oregon, where rents rose over 20 percent in the last five years, just under 25 percent of the total police force actually lives in the city—and those who do live in the city limits are much more likely to be non-white. Those who live outside the city are less racially diverse.
And even if all of these workers do move out into a less-expensive area, they’ll still need to get into the city if they plan to commute. The cities with the worst traffic congestion also tend to be those which are the least affordable. In Seattle, middle-class workers are being displaced every year, which is also leading to some of the worst traffic in the nation.
More social engineering coming to your community and neighborhood. This is what you voted for, so enjoy.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/07/30/affirmatively-destroying-americas-neighborhoods-in-the-war-on-suburbia/
Good for you Ray K. on your post…
I am happy to see that Burning Platform has started to pick up on AFFH.
Julian Castro (wonder if he has a distant cousin named Fidel in a remote island south of Miami?) is the lead on AFFH and is - I have been reading one of the few of the select candidates for Hitlery’s Pres campaign - so….imagine this POS as VP pushing the AFFH agenda?
Murika - if you think real estate and urban issues are a problem now - just wait.
I had been reading S. Kurtz’s stuff from a while back when he was first talking about cities ’stealing’ from the suburbs - this while AFFH was in its infancy. WPA chastised me a while back for posting an article by Kurtz that was 3 years old but still very relavent re this topic. Wonder where WPA has been lately?
AFFH is classic Chicago community organizing crap. This crap has been going on for years here in this utopian paradise and look where the city is today? Crime continues to go up. Murder rate - esp. black on black shootings are highest in years. Debt is just beyond the pale, traffic congestion the likes of which no one can imagine. Public transit that struggles to stay operable, corruption and graft at all levels of government, road, sewer and water infrastructure that is falling apart - literally, and on and on.
AFFH - is just another lefty progressive policy crap shoot that is not doomed to fail - it has already failed here in Chicago.
You folks are being warned - read up on AFFH and see what is coming to a nabe near you.
I wonder if Trump would have signed NAFTA like Clinton did.
—————–
Donald Trump to Oprah In 1988: America A Debtor Nation; “Something Is Going To Happen”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com | July 29, 2015 | RealClearPolitics
Donald Trump warns about debt and the impact of foreign trade on The Oprah Winfrey Show in April of 1988:
DONALD TRUMP: We’re a debtor nation. Something is going to happen over the next number of years with this country because you can’t keep on losing $200 billion (deficit at the time). And yet we let Japan come in and dump everything into our markets. It’s not free trade. If you ever go to Japan right now and try to sell something, forget about it. Just forget about it. It’s almost impossible. They don’t have laws against it, they just make it impossible.
They come over here, they sell their cars, their VCRs, they knock the hell out of our companies. And, hey, I have tremendous respect for the Japanese people. I mean, you can respect somebody that’s beating the hell out of you, but they are beating the hell out of this country. Kuwait, they live like kings — the poorest person in Kuwait, they live like kings — and yet, they’re not paying. We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren’t they paying us 25 percent of what they’re making? It’s a joke.
Your question is irrelevant, as Trump was never a U.S. president like Clinton was.
Clinton may have signed it but Bush negotiated and fast tracked it…..
Why Do Bill and Hillary Clinton Still Get a Pass?-
Townhall.com | July 30, 2015 | Larry Elder
Meanwhile, the cover of the current issue of New York Magazine shows pictures of 35 women who have accused Bill Cosby of rape, attempted rape or sexual abuse. In a recently unsealed deposition in relation to a lawsuit filed against Cosby by another alleged rape victim, Cosby admits giving Quaaludes to women he wanted to have sex with.
This raises a question: Why does Bill Clinton continue to get a pass? Clinton was, after all, accused of rape by Juanita Broaddrick. Broaddrick, on “Dateline NBC,” claimed that Clinton, then-Arkansas attorney general and gubernatorial candidate, raped her: “I first pushed him away. I just told him ‘no.’ … He tries to kiss me again. He starts biting on my lip. … And then he forced me down on the bed. I just was very frightened. I tried to get away from him. I told him ‘no.’ … He wouldn’t listen to me.”
She further alleges that Hillary Clinton, shortly after the alleged rape, verbally intimidated her, implying that Broaddrick better keep her mouth shut — or else. At a political event two weeks later, Broaddrick claims that Hillary approached her: “She came over to me, took ahold of my hand and said, ‘I’ve heard so much about you and I’ve been dying to meet you. … I just want you to know how much that Bill and I appreciate what you do for him.’ …
“This woman, this little, soft-spoken — pardon me for the phrase — dowdy woman that would seem very unassertive, took ahold of my hand and squeezed it and said, ‘Do you understand? Everything that you do.’ I could have passed out at that moment and I got my hand from hers and I left. … She was just holding onto my hand. Because I had started to turn away from her and she held onto my hand and she said, ‘Do you understand? Everything that you do,’ I mean, cold chills went up my spine. That’s the first time I became afraid of that woman.”
The late British left-wing writer Christopher Hitchens, in “No One Left to Lie To,” claimed that three women have made “plausible” allegations of rape by Bill Clinton. He gave no further details — and the media have been relentlessly indifferent.
This double standard reached its nadir when Kathleen Willey, a former campaign aide, described on “60 Minutes” an alleged sexual battery committed by Clinton in the Oval Office. Willey, a Clinton campaign volunteer, says that Clinton took her hand and placed it on his aroused genitalia: “He touched my breasts with his hand … and then he whispered … ‘I’ve wanted to do this ever since I laid eyes on you.’ … He took my hand, and he put it … on his genitals.” Willey said she managed to push him away.
Bubba’s new girlfriend is vouching for him.
This is just silly arguing over which oligarch plutocrat ruler was to blame. Nothing more clearly illustrates this than NAFTA. Democrats should have been outraged that one of their own pimped this, destroying Union jobs and manufacturing and giving them the SHAFTA.
Look at that picture of all the presidents standing on stage when it was signed, practically holding hands, Rs and Ds alike.
The Republicrat duopoly is the same bird of prey with two wings. Those who keep swallowing the red pill/blue pill snake oil are retards. Both parties have been bought off, and they both suck. Open your eyes, sheeple.
+1
I have been saying that since Reagan! Ya cant trust the GOP not to spend all our money.
Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.
I tried to follow the rules and my middle name is still problematic.
University of New Hampshire: Using the Word “American” is Offensive
‘Obese’, ‘normal’, ‘mothering’, ‘fathering’, ’senior citizens’, ‘homosexual’, ‘illegal alien’ also discouraged
by Paul Joseph Watson | July 30, 2015
Using the words “American,” “obese,” “normal,” “mothering,” “fathering,” “homosexual,” “illegal alien,” and “senior citizens,” is offensive and should be discouraged, according to a “Bias-Free Language Guide” posted on the University of New Hampshire website.
The guide, first uncovered by Campus Reform, “is meant to invite inclusive excellence in [the] campus community.”
The word “American” is “problematic” according to the guide because it “assumes the U.S. is the only country inside [the continents of North and South America].”
Calling people “illegal aliens” is also politically incorrect, with the preferred term for undocumented immigrants being “person seeking asylum,” or “refugee,” while the word “foreigner” is discouraged and replaced with “international people.”
More banned words and phrases include;
– “Caucasian (replaced with “European-American individuals”);
– “Mothering” and “fathering” (replaced with “parenting” and “nurturing” so as to “avoid gendering a non-gendered activity”);
– “Homosexual” (replaced with “gay,” “lesbian,” “same gender loving”);
– “Obese” or “overweight” (replaced with “people of size”);
– Saying a person is “poor” (replaced with “person who lacks advantages that others have”);
– Saying the word “healthy” because it’s offensive to disabled people, who can’t be called disabled, they must be called a “person who is wheelchair mobile”).
“Terms also considered problematic include: “elders,” “senior citizen,” “overweight” (which the guide says is “arbitrary”), “speech impediment,” “dumb,” “sexual preference,” “manpower,” “freshmen,” “mailman,” and “chairman,” in addition to many others,” writes Peter Hasson.
The guide also rails against “ciscentrism,” which “includes the lack of gender-neutral restrooms, locker rooms, and residences” at the university.
To his credit, the president of the University of New Hampshire Mark Huddleston responded to the story by asserting that the guide was not official campus policy.
“I am troubled by many things in the language guide, especially the suggestion that the use of the term ‘American’ is misplaced or offensive,” he said. “The only UNH policy on speech is that it is free and unfettered on our campuses. It is ironic that what was probably a well-meaning effort to be ‘sensitive’ proves offensive to many people, myself included.”
The term “doublespeak” probably has its roots in George Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although the term is not used in the book, it is a close relative of one of the book’s central concepts, “doublethink”. Another variant, “doubletalk,” also referring to deliberately ambiguous speech, did exist at the time Orwell wrote his book, but the usage of “doublespeak” as well as of “doubletalk” in the sense emphasizing ambiguity clearly postdates the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four.[4][5] Parallels have also been drawn between Doublespeak and Orwell’s classic essay Politics and the English Language, which discusses the distortion of language for political purposes.[6]
Edward S. Herman, political economist and media analyst, has highlighted some examples of doublespeak and doublethink in modern society.[7] Herman describes in his book, Beyond Hypocrisy the principal characteristics of doublespeak:
What is really important in the world of doublespeak is the ability to lie, whether knowingly or unconsciously, and to get away with it; and the ability to use lies and choose and shape facts selectively, blocking out those that don’t fit an agenda or program.[8]
In his essay “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell observes that political language serves to distort and obfuscate reality. Orwell’s description of political speech is extremely similar to the contemporary definition of doublespeak;
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible… Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness… the great enemy of clear language is insincerity. Where there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, …[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak
Kinda like when you “shrink government” and “lower taxes” by launching another trillion dollar war?
I am looking forward to Mark Levin’s new book (except for the neocon war part of it) coming out next week as it is written to and for young people
I was in a Walmart last week and I saw a person of size who lacked advantages that others have and was wheelchair mobile.
Just one? There’s usually dozens of them.
People of size prefer to be called the gravitationally challenged.
Just call everyone a “winner” and it’s all covered.
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.”
“He who pick bottoms have smelly finger” — Ancient Chinese Proverb
That’s when they keep digging.
“If you ever accidentally drop your keys in a river of molten lava, just let them go, ‘cuz man, they’re gone.”
Anyone remember or seen photos of NYC in the 1970s?
————————
Exclusive: Photos Show Homeless Man Taking Bath In Columbus Circle Fountain
CBS New York | July 29, 2015 | Staff
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — It was a shocking scene at one of the city’s most visited landmarks.
CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer obtained exclusive images of what some call the latest public insult of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s New York City.
Pictures were snapped of a homeless man taking a bath in the fountain at Columbus Circle, a popular city landmark that is now the bathtub of a bum.
“This, for me, was the tipping point on quality of life. This man is actually lathering up with a bar of soap,” Ken Frydman said.
When asked if Giuliani would have tolerated such behavior, Frydman said, “No, no, this man would have been approached and questioned and taken probably to a psychiatric facility. I see a progressive backsliding of civility and quality of life in the city.”
…. and we’ll see it again. Renaissance never endures.
Especially with progressives and socialists in charge.
I cant believe 2crazyfruit or anyone else on the planet still think the GOP is for less gov and less spending.
“psychiatric facility”
Because he is using soap?
Really, who is the crazy one?
Really, who is the crazy one?
The people who elected a mayor that can’t even stop bums from using public fountains as a bathtub.
Real confederate flag wavin’ Muricans hate it when people take baths. That’s what furriners and immigents do.
I don’t get it.
The democrats have complete control of California.
——————-
California kids’ economic health is ranked near last in U.S.
San Francisco Chronicle | July 20, 2015 | Jill Tucker
California was just one Mississippi away from dead last in a new national ranking of the economic well-being of children, an indicator of poverty and financial instability of families.
Despite a reinvigorated economy, millions of California families are still digging out from the 2008 recession, with wages for many failing to keep up with the cost of living, according to the 2015 Kids Count report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation released Tuesday.
Across the state, 23 percent of children were living in poverty in 2013, the most recent data available, compared with 18 percent in 2008. In Mississippi, which ranked 50th among the states, 34 percent of children were living in poverty at last count. New Mexico came in just above California, at 48th, in economic well-being of children.
The state’s high cost of living and increasing rents and home prices are contributing factors to those living on the economic margins, she said. “There are millions of families that have been left behind entirely by the economic recovery,” Speer said. “It’s a story about rising inequality in the state.”
In addition, in June, California will start offering health insurance to immigrant children living in the state illegally, which means for the first time it’s possible to reach a 100 percent insured rate, she said.
Yeah, and look how crappy they are doing compared to Kansas.
Never mind.
Released yesterday. Coamerica Bank California Economic Index:
“”The California economy continued to gain momentum in May after picking up speed in April. In May we see the second monthly increase in our California Economic Activity Index, reversing a three-month slide through the first quarter of this year. Job creation in the state remains well above the U.S. average. Through June, payroll job growth in California was up 3.0 percent over the previous 12 months, bringing the state unemployment rate down to 6.3 percent, the lowest it has been since February 2008,” said Robert Dye, Chief Economist at Comerica Bank.”
California. The #1 State in the U.S. for GDP and venture capital business formation.
CA is a big state. Big difference between coastal towns and the central valley. It is like a third world country with no water in the central valley, mostly migrant farm workers picking your lettuce.
None of them are in my tennis league.
You can say the same thing about small states, or even small countries. There are probably a small number of people in Guatemala who enjoy a very high standard of living.
CA is 7th largest economy in the world.
We are not struggling, nor poor as much as the sour grapes who could not afford the coast wish.
And the largest welfare state in the US.
The statistics show that quite a few Californians are poor.
It’s good to be the King:
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2015/07/29/denver-rated-americas-best-place-for-business-by.html
Region VIII
Soon the governors of Texas and Florida will be coming to your state to try to lure your jobs away. Which is good, we here in California are tired of seeing them, they are like annoying gnats.
A primer on Wall Streeters.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/the-difference-between-a-psychopath-and-a-sociopath-10422016.html
Axe of Love:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ohio-immigration-20150729-story.html
It’s like these guys have some sort of brain implant that says “Rape. Kill. Rape. Kill. OK, maim a little, then Rape. Kill”.
Come now, Palmy. We need to indulge our newest Democrat-for-Life voting bloc. A few capers here and there can be overlooked for the greater good of installing our enlightened collectivist permanent majority….
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2015/07/violence-explodes-in-all-points-of.html
Here’s what appears to be an anchor boo-boo axe of love. Having a name like A.J. wont stop ‘em.
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_28557576/santa-cruz-disturbing-details-emerge-about-suspect-how
Rape. Kill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_a0zOLMAfw
Acts of Love
and
Future democrat voters
FYI there were very, very few Acts of Love in Northeast Ohio twenty years ago
Every landscape crew you ever saw was white high school and college students
OMG
We must quickly ban things, grow government and raise taxes to fight this!!!
————–
New Ice Age Is Coming, By 2030, Says Analysis
science20.com | 7/17/2015 | Staff
The arrival of intense cold similar to what some call the “Little Ice Age” of the late 17th century and early 18th century, is expected in the years 2030 to 2040, according to a presentation during the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales.
* * * * *
Several studies have shown that the Maunder Minimum coincided with the coldest phase of global cooling, which was called “the Little Ice Age”. During this period there were very cold winters in Europe and North America. In the days of the Maunder minimum the water in the river Thames and the Danube River froze, the Moscow River was covered by ice every six months, snow lay on some plains year round and Greenland was covered by glaciers,” says Dr Helen Popova, who developed a physical-mathematical model of the evolution of the magnetic activity of the sun and used it to gain the patterns of occurrence of global minima of solar activity and gave them a physical interpretation.
* * * * *
The study of deuterium in the Antarctic showed that there were five global warmings and four Ice Ages for the past 400 thousand years. People first appeared on the Earth about 60,000 years ago.
“People first appeared on the Earth about 60,000 years ago.”
Put under things we are sure about but actually are probably not true.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jul/28/french-archaeologist-finds-tooth-dating-560000-years-tautavel
Early Modern Homo sapiens
All people today are classified as Homo sapiens. Our species of humans first began to evolve nearly 200,000 years ago in association with technologies not unlike those of the early Neandertals.
The first fossils of early modern humans to be identified were found in 1868 at the 27,000-23,000 year old Cro-Magnon rock shelter site near the village of Les Eyzies click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced in southwestern France. They were subsequently named the Cro-Magnon click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced people. They were very similar in appearance to modern Europeans. Males were 5 feet 4 inches to 6 feet tall (1.6-1.8 m.) That was 4-12 inches (10-31 cm.) taller than Neandertals.
Origins of Modern Humans
There is no reliable evidence of modern humans elsewhere in the Old World until 60,000-40,000 years ago, during a short temperate period in the midst of the last ice age.
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm
The $600,000,000,000+ a year war machine thinks they know something you don’t:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/07/30/how-the-pentagon-is-preparing-for-climate-change-in-each-part-of-the-world/
Permanent war is the neo-con way.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jul/29/michael-moore-film-where-to-invade-next-us-government-war
As we come to the end of the “Hope and Change” era
I expect more of these unexpected stories to come out.
——————–
US cuts estimates for economic growth over past 3 years
Yahoo Finance - 7/30/2015
The U.S. economy grew more slowly over the past three years than the government had previously estimated, held back by more frugal consumers and steeper spending cuts by state and local governments.
The economy expanded at just a 2 percent annual rate from 2012 through 2014, down from a previous estimate of 2.3 percent, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
It’s all good, they are changing how GDP is calculated quarter to quarter to smooth out these rough patches. Big fan of the Office Space movie type solutions, “just fix the glitch.”
Remember too there guys - GDP calcs were changed a few years back at the behest of the high chair tyrant to include patents, copywriting and the like right?
With that included makes me wonder what base line GDP would be when only using the older metrics?
The magic of “GDP” is that prices and revenues everywhere can be crashing and the GDP number goes up.
Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980’s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.
Who ya gonna call?
Who ya gonna call?
Jimmy Carter?
The mess Reagan had to deal with at the beginning of his term was monstrous.
But he did it - despite
NEVER HAVING A REPUBLICAN FILIBUSTER PROOF SENATE
and a republican super-majority in the house.
Sounds like the BUSH and O situation. Except O has not tripled the deficit…..yet.
The Bush Wars are expensive.
Carter = no wars and a balanced budget.
Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level.
I remember that well. My college classmates and I were all worried if we would be able to land a decent job upon graduation. And many of us were STEM majors
I remember that well.
I remember the high interest rates. Construction ground to a halt, and gold soared. The average Joe didn’t have two nickles to rub together. By 1984 the liability insurance leaped because deep pocket tort liability became the law of the land. Yep, the top hats screwing the working class; America.
As the ponzi scheme draws to a close.
——————
Did You Ever Notice the Asterisk on Your Social Security Statement?
National Review | 07/30/2015 | Myra Adams
While engaging in the mundane task of gathering financial statements for a “secure retirement” meeting with my husband’s and my adviser, this Baby Boomer stumbled upon documented proof that our nation does not have the guts to confront one of its most serious economic problems. The realization came when I pulled from my files a document statement innocently titled, “Your Social Security Statement.”
At first glance, the statement did not appear menacing. I was told I could expect to receive a benefit of “about $2,136 a month” upon reaching age 70 — which certainly seems like good news. But immediately I thought of a parallel of President Obama’s infamous Obamacare promise: “If you like your Social Security, you can keep your Social Security.”
Then, as if on cue, I saw an asterisk with the following message:
The law governing benefit amounts may change because, by 2033, the payroll taxes collected will be enough to pay only about 77 percent of scheduled benefits.
With an asterisk, my beloved government was informing me that they will be unable to fulfill their part of a financial arrangement into which, as their statement attested, I had been making mandatory contributions starting in 1971 at age 16.
Social Security is not sustainable over the long term at current benefit and tax rates. In 2010, the program paid more in benefits and expenses than it collected in taxes and other noninterest income, and the 2014 Trustees Report projects this pattern to continue for the next 75 years.
Keep in mind that those millions of surviving Baby Boomers do not include all the immigrants, also aging, who came to America in the past decades. The official total is 74.9 million Boomers native and foreign-born.
The Social Security trustees go on to warn that “if no changes are made to the program,” they project that “assets will be sufficient to allow for full payment of scheduled benefits through 2032” — hence the most recent warning on my Social Security statement.
What comes to mind is a classic 1965 song by The Who, “My Generation.” If you are of a certain age you know the famous lyrics, “I hope I die before I get old.” Now, since the Baby Boomer generation is already redefining what it means to be “old,” it’s time to rewrite the lyrics: “I hope I die before the government goes broke.”
Gasp, what? You mean all those acts of love won’t be contributing to MY retirement? Oh, wait, they front run it with welfare and ebt and health care and edumacation for the anchor boo-boos.
You are a racist if you want social security to be solvent.
Solution: Write me a check for my “contribution” to the penny. I’ll waive ” my rights” to AntiSocial Insecurity.
More and more taxes on the rich and more and more regulation of the financial industry will easily fix social security.
There is no problem that cannot be solved without bigger and bigger government with more and more regulations and higher and higher taxes.
When it comes to America’s privileged money shufflers, yes.
“There is no problem that cannot be solved without bigger and bigger government and higher and higher taxes.”
Ronald Reagan
Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously. Reagan promised “to move boldly, decisively, and quickly to control the runaway growth of federal spending,” but federal spending “ballooned” under Reagan. He bailed out Social Security in 1983 after attempting to privatize it, and set up a progressive taxation system to keep it funded into the future. He promised to cut government agencies like the Department of Energy and Education but ended up adding one of the largest — the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, which today has a budget of nearly $90 billion and close to 300,000 employees. He also hiked defense spending by over $100 billion a year to a level not seen since the height of the Vietnam war.
If you’re breathing you’re a racist.
I just stopped being a racist for 63 seconds.
Damn Chinese!
And add to The Who’s list - Baba O’Reilly - aka Teenage Wasteland!!!
Social Security is not sustainable over the long term at current benefit and tax rates.
Only because Republican idiots in Congress sit on their thumbs and do nothing. In 1977 when Congress passed the income cap, it was set to the 90th percentile of wages. If the cap kept pace with wages, the cap would be $250,000 instead of the $117,000 it is today. According to AARP that alone would solve the Soc Sec solvency issue for decades to come.
The Social Security shortfall is a phony crisis created by politicians who want to kill social security, but don’t have the balls to say it.
Oh, no, JEB! has the balls to say it. Wants to privatize it.
Didn’t his brother talk about that? It went nowhere.
Oh, no, JEB! has the balls to say it. Wants to privatize it.
Jeb’s oligarch puppetmasters see pensions as the last great looting spree available to them, since the parasite is killing off the host. The Oligopoly WILL get its “privatized” social security, because the sheeple will bend over for them as always by voting for Wall Street water carriers.
It was stopped last time. It can be stopped again.
+1 Dman.
If you think it’s a good idea to pay more into SS, get your checkbook out.
BTW, who’s enjoying this “Cuckservative” meme? I know I am. Priceless.
The evil of the democrat party on full display.
MSM - Oh lookie over here - someone killed a lion.
“Putting it under ‘research’ gives us a little bit of an overhang over the whole thing,”
Why I am reminded about German doctors in WWII death camps?
———————
Planned Parenthood Plots Sale of Legally Alive Fetuses
mrctv.org | 7-30-2015
A Planned Parenthood executive plots harvesting of “intact” fetuses that are considered born-alive infants under federal law - and warns “they’re probably going to get caught” if they try it in anti-abortion states, a new undercover video by the Center for Medical Progress shows.
“Sometimes, if we get, if someone delivers before we get to see them for a procedure, then we are intact,” Ginde says in the video. “We’d have to do a little bit of training with the providers or something to make sure that they don’t crush”
For 2nd trimester procedures, Planned Parenthood does not use feticide or digoxin. This means that intact deliveries can possibly be born-alive infants according to 1 USC 8 of federal law.
Later in the video, Ginde engages in negotiations for harvested organs. She says, “I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.”
Perhaps, the most atrocious statements reveal that Planned Parenthood knows what they are doing is illegal and efforts are needed to conceal their program. “Putting it under ‘research’ gives us a little bit of an overhang over the whole thing,” Ginde remarks. “If you have someone in a really anti state who’s going to be doing this for you, they’re probably going to get caught.”
I’m sure you’re outraged by that murder in Cincinnati. Wait, the killer was a white cop and the victim was a black guy. Never mind.
And he is up on murder charges.
But these baby murders and baby organ for profit sellers are lauded by democrats like you.
And people wondered where the good germans came from
Maybe more women wouldn’t consider abortion if they thought their baby would be raised in a good home, but I don’t see the anti-abortion crowd rushing out to adopt all those inner-city orphans.
It is a nice little democrat meme to ignore the evil:
Maybe more women wouldn’t consider abortion if they thought their baby would be raised in a good home, but I don’t see the anti-abortion crowd rushing out to adopt all those inner-city orphans.
And the truth is there are waiting list for YEARS for people to adopt babies in America. So much so that many go to other countries to adopt.
So the answer to your snide comment is that any baby born in America and placed up for adoption would be adopted very quickly.
Having just gone through the adoption process with friends I can give you first hand affirmation that this is the TRUTH. The demand to adopt newborns is HUGE. Demand outstrips supply by a very wide margin in the U.S.
Why exactly should we not dissect those inner city orphans for a profit?
There is also a high need for foster care homes for children whose mothers aren’t capable of taking care of them, money to pay for the foster homes, food stamps to see that the children don’t go hungry, school nutrition programs, tax breaks for the working poor so they can buy the basic necessities, and the list goes on. Where does the anti-abortion crowd stand on these issues? I think we all know. Once the fetuses grow into actual children they can die of malnutrition for all they care. That’s just one less soldier in the FSA who doesn’t need taxpayer money.
Lets pass a law that says you cant terminate, you have to give birth and sell your kids. Great idea! What will that cost to run? and defend from attorneys? got more gov and more spending?
Why exactly should we not dissect those inner city orphans for a profit?
I thought that there were no orphans.
“I thought that there were no orphans.”
good point, what happened to the long lines?
easy solution for the problem
Require that all aborted children be named and given a proper burial at the expense of the mother and the father!
Do you really think that a the parents of an aborted child give a damn about the results of the abortion?
As far as the parents care they don’t want to be bothered about the disposals of their children.
I have not seen any report of mothers claiming the lost child, or requesting the remains for burial.
Which one of you parents who lost a child to an abortion would be willing to pay for the proper disposal of the remains?
But, hey, I could be wrong and there are fathers and mother who really wanted to keep the remains as souveniers of the occasion
At least Planned Parenthood employees aren’t bathing in public fountains. That’s what we really need to be concerned about.
More and more government regulation of abortions and higher and higher taxes on abortion clinics will solve everything.
Think about it…if debt were not so easy to obtain, would asset prices be as high as they are?
Save yer cash for fire sale prices. They be a’comin’.
I posted yesterday that 13 major corporations have pledged billions to fight climate change, and that will foreshadow a coming shift by the Republicans to embrace climate change as a proven, scientifically valid threat to the U.S.
Right on cue, another sign of the coming shift by Republicans to accept climate change: Jeb Bush: Humans Contribute to Climate Change
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/249771-jeb-bush-humans-contribute-to-climate-change
Well, he needs to have a talk with his people and their axe of love.
JEB!’s part of the new Cuckservatism.
So is the word that Columba cucked him?
No, I doubt she’d ever do such a thing, but ya gotta check out the Cuckservative meme. It’s a riot.
Quote of the day from Zero Hedge…….
“Obama encouraged Kenyans to “choose the path to progress”
====
If they only knew.
Article about 2brony’s buttboy Scott Walker (who Trump has double the support of in the latest polls), maybe Scott Walker will “win” when Harley Davidson moves their manufacturing to China:
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-harley-an-awkward-ride-for-union-busting-republican-walker-2015-7?op=1
All that is necessary is to reduce those workers’ salary and benefits down to Chinese levels. Then we’ll be able to keep those jobs right here in the USA.
Illinois Needs To Have A Scott Walker Moment
Investors Business Daily | July 29, 2015
Gov. Bruce Rauner is fighting almost single-handedly against an entrenched, corrupt political class of lawyers, lobbyists, social service providers, media and teachers unions whose rallying cry is to smother reform and maintain business as usual in Springfield……
Years of overspending have many state and city of Chicago bonds selling at junk status. Illinois is now called “the deadbeat state” because it’s two to three months behind in paying billions of dollars of bills owed. Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels quips, “Being a neighboring state to Illinois is like living next door to the Simpsons.”……
Rauner should take a lesson from Illinois’ neighbor to the north. Six years ago, Wisconsin’s plight was just as dire, with unemployment running above 9% and red ink topping $1 billion. Republican Gov. Scott Walker stared down the public employee unions and trimmed excessive compensation costs while ending the crisis of runaway pensions and ending automatic tenure for teachers.
Walker later made Wisconsin a right-to-work state. It has subsequently seen a steep drop in unemployment while taxes have been cut and the budget balanced.
Posting articles from conservatives magazines doesn’t prove your point, it just shows that you’re the biggest propagandist on this site.
Nearly every state has seen falling unemployment over the past few years. It’s unlikely that the drop in Wisconsin could be reasonably described as steep.
You do realize there is a big difference between public union goons and private sector union goons?
And what was the evil Scott Walker did?
He ALLOWED public workers to CHOICE to join a PUBLIC union.
The inhumanity…
And I thought democrats were all for choice?
Yeah, so they can be like the union members in private sector unions in “right to work” states.
- Get union pay per the contract, without paying union dues, or being a member.
- Backstab the guys who go on strike, by crossing picket lines, then
- Collect whatever raises/benefits the union guys get when the contract is settled.
Basically, stealing pay and benefits without paying for them.
I used to be in a union in a “right to work state”
The union was well run, professional, would kick out dirt bags, were pretty middle of the road with politics and negotiated good contracts.
And the “choice” membership rate…
93%.
And - I eventually worked up to a shop steward.
I am disgusted how the “you must join the public union as a condition of employment” goons behave, act and the political causes they support.
Make it easy then.
Let the scabs pull up their bootstraps and negotiate their own pay and benefits, instead of piggy backing onto a program they aren’t contributing to.
Sounds like a “47% are takers” problem to me.
Signed
-Former Kansas IAM member
-Former Shop Supervisor who played by the rules/contract, and had all of my terminations stick, instead of overturned by the grievance process (because other managers/supervisors in my department wouldn’t play by the rules)
Gimme a “C”
C
Gimme an “R”
R
And I’ll see you an ‘ater.
Gimme an “A”
A
You are a racist if you picture anyone but the Amish doing this.
——————————-
Ohio Cops Hunt 70 Juveniles In Late Night “Mob And Rob” Of Circle K Store
The Smoking Gun | 27 July, 2015
Ohio cops are investigating the ransacking of a Circle K store that was overrun early Saturday morning by up to 70 juveniles.
According to Akron police, the suspects “entered the gas station and started to destroy and steal property” during the so-called mob and rob attack.
As seen above, a couple who stopped at the Circle K for gas shot video of the juveniles fleeing the store with stolen merchandise. A woman in the car called 911 and reported that the suspects were “running around in the parking lot like wild children.”
An Akron Police Department report–which classified the incident as vandalism–noted that the juveniles “entered business to destroy property” and that “misc merchandise damaged and stolen.”
As seen above, a couple who stopped at the Circle K for gas shot video of the juveniles fleeing the store with stolen merchandise. A woman in the car called 911 and reported that the suspects were “running around in the parking lot like wild children.”
Surely the woman who called 911 was arrested for microaggressing these “youths” by implying they might be feral?
Are you saying it would have been better if they had shot up a crowded movie theater?
I think what I’m really saying is that toolboxes who try to apply moral relativism to every situation are…what’s the word I’m looking for…douche nozzles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkard7Jdsmc
Since these “youths” have never had any guidance and leadership, especially of the WASP kind, maybe the WASPs should hire a bunch of them, show some leadership, and teach them the personal responsibility lessons they aren’t getting at home.
Oh, that’s right………… not their job. Business people (especially “small business” owners) prefer uncomplaining slaves that they can treat and pay like $##t. If not US citizens, then illegals. Or outsource the jobs to China, where they don’t have a problem with using water cannons on complaining employees.
You can spend money to fix the problem. Or you can ignore the problem, and pay for the costs incurred by ignoring it. White surburbia transfers the costs to bigger cities, by having their local cops stop/arrest/harrass/shoot people “driving while black”.
Speaking of “youths” and “small business,” here’s yet another mob of Obamacare recipients helping themselves to yet another convenience store plunder run. I’m confused: since most of these stores are owned and operated by Asian or Middle Eastern immigrants, isn’t this a hate crime even if a “protected class” is involved?
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/akron/circle-k-mob-and-rob-786429
Obamacare = $150 a mo, $350 a mo gov subsidy. Blue cross wins! People get $5000 deductive.
it is awful!! But very few people understand it and the fact that the insurance cos wrote it.
That’s because most people, and 100% of the ones who voted for Obama, are stupid.
Your GOP edited and passed it and tested it as RomneyCare. Edited it hard!
and we are still waiting for a better idea since it blows.
I’m on record as labeling those who voted for Romney and McCain what they are: retards.
Does smoking gun indicate whether the suspects have benefited from Obamacare?
Also, regarding this:
I’m confused: since most of these stores are owned and operated by Asian or Middle Eastern immigrants, isn’t this a hate crime even if a “protected class” is involved?
You should go look up the definition of hate crime.
I believe the operative definition is, any crime in which a white male is the aggressor and a minority of some sort is the victim. So, for example, a gang of black youths picking a random white guy and beating him into a coma would be “acting out” but not a hate crime, oh heavens no.
I told you to go look it up. Man, are you lazy.
The original white mobs ☺️ I will we could have handled them in the same fashion you recommend:
http://www.americanlynching.com/images/pic5.gif
Oh but teaching them WASPiness is culturally insensitive or something.
B…b…but I thought Obama was going to pay my mortgage….
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/72-of-struggling-borrowers-rejected-from-federal-mortgage-assistance-program-2015-07-29?link=MW_home_latest_news
De Blasio: Feds (read: taxpayers) must rescue Puerto Rico.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mayor-de-blasio-feds-must-rescue-puerto-rico/
Team Obama promises justice for Cecil the Lion, but still not a single bankster jailed for causing the 2008 crisis, and not a word about the epidemic of “yutes” running wild in our cities.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/30/team-obama-vows-justice-for-cecil-the-lion/
The Breitbart headline doesn’t reflect the contents of the article. If the local mailman delivers the mail late, these people probably blame Obama.
Just some enlightenment for everyone, re: Union Shops in “Right to Work” states
Here is how contract negotiations typically go, in “Right to Work” states…..
-Contract is presented to the membership, with a yes/no recommendation by the bargaining committee. A passing “Yes” vote doesn’t mean anyone is happy with it, but the cooler heads recognize the following:
-10-25% of the shop is one paycheck away from bankruptcy, and will cross a picket line in the event of a strike.
-10-25% of the shop are die-hard anti-union types, and will cross a picket line no matter what……….after all, they can get plenty of overtime if they do. Then, when it’s ended, they get the same benefits/money that the union guys who went on strike get. A win-win for them.
Both of these facts are a major disincentive for voting down a contract, no matter how crappy it is. Why go without pay for weeks, so that half the guys in the shop can get a raise by undercutting your bargaining power.
Another interesting little fact:
Companies love it when their guys work overtime. especially when their time is billed to outside customers. Why?
Because the shop “flat rate” has the cost of benefits rolled in, but your benefits are billed out on a 40 hour week. You don’t get extra benefits when you work overtime, so they pocket that money.
Flat rate x 40 - (40 hour week x pay + benefits) = company profit
Flat rate x 1.5 x hours worked - (hours worked x (pay x 1.5) = company profit.
Finally………how “negotiating a raise” works for 99% of the boot-strapping, rugged individualist, wretched refuse.
- Request a pay raise, include research and supporting documentation.
- Counter offer of 2-3%, with an invitation to “pursue other opportunities if you don’t like it.”
So everybody’s pay is dependent on how many people can say eff it, relocate family and kids (usually with no assistance), find the wife/significant other a job that pays as much as her current job, AND finding a job that pays enough over your current pay to make all of this BS worth your while.
Which is why the job market sucks, no matter how many unicorns the government stats say there are.
I imagine that in your profession the option of “walking across the street to get another job” a la Silicon Valley is not an option.
FWIW I worked a private sector union job in California prior to retirement 3 years ago and the situation was about the same….plenty of people would have scabbed due to selfishness and/or being in a very precarious (and self inflicted) financial state and many more would have joined them had a strike gone on more than a week or two. No excuse for this given that people were well paid and had years to build up some savings for a strike fund. One former coworker said he’d scab and had no choice financially, this shortly after returning from a vacation in Italy and purchasing a time share condo there…
OTOH from what I’ve heard this is much less of a problem on the east coast, especially in NY and NJ as scabbing can result in some very serious and painful consequences.
I want to borrow some cash @ zero and buy stock in my own company so I can cash out some stock options.
http://slo.craigslist.org/apa/5127721201.html
crazy rents 3
Why buy it when you can rent it for half the monthly cost?
PITI - $10k ya think?? on a $750-850k home?
got math?
And don’t forget your losses to depreciation my friend.
I like pineapple juice.
And falling housing prices.
The LL probably figures 5 well off Cal Poly parents will pony up $1000/mo each and if there is a bit of party damage the deposit will cover it. SLO is a college town and housing is tight so this sort of greed might very well work.
I drove past Bishop Pk on Foothill Blvd toward Los Osos Valley Rd for many years. Really miss those days… looking back. Amazing how fast prices went insane there. Borrow your way to prosperity!
lmfao wtf are folks thinkn?
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/30/la-union-wants-to-be-exempt-from-15-minimum-wage.html
2Banana,
In hearing your definition of liberal vs. conservative, I couldn’t help but think of you after reading this.
Liberals want to be exempted from laws they expect everyone else to abide by.
True. And conservatives want to legislate morality and execute you if you do not read the Bible.
The inevitable end-game of socialism: the parasites bleed the productive dry, so the productive stop producing for a system that steals the fruits of their labor. To the collectivist legions of Comrad Pelosi, watch and learn.
http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelas-largest-beer-company-suspends-2-plants-202937624.html
Opinion Columnists
Wonder Land
Trump in River City
Donald Trump is the Prof. Harold Hill of the presidential election.
By Daniel Henninger
July 29, 2015 7:01 p.m. ET
In “The Music Man,” Meredith Willson’s great musical, super salesman Harold Hill talks the townspeople of River City, Iowa, into buying trombones, bassoons and drums to form a boys’ band. Then, after the people of River City have committed belief and money to him, he’ll skip town.
Donald Trump is America’s Music Man, and the United States is his River City. Unlike the original, the Trump version isn’t going to have a happy ending.
Like Professor Harold Hill, Donald Trump must know it’s all a fabulous scam. How else to explain that on June 4—just before his presidential announcement—the Donald came to Mason City, Iowa, Meredith Willson’s hometown and the model for River City. And where did Donald Trump address Mason City’s locals? In Music Man Square.
Here’s the Washington Post reporting on the Trump visit to the border at Laredo, Texas: “During a whirlwind visit . . . Trump blazed around in a presidential-style motorcade that included seven SUVs and even more police cars. Local officers blocked off roads, including Interstate 35, for Trump’s entourage.”
From “The Music Man”: “I don’t know how he does it, but he lives like a king, and he dallies and he gathers, and he plucks and he shines and when the man dances . . . the Piper pays him.”
Like Harold Hill, Donald Trump believes he can say anything and get away with it.
He said Mexico has an inferior culture, and later claimed that he’d win the Hispanic vote.
What he said about John McCain should have barred him from public life, but the Donald’s enthusiasts said it was no big deal.
On the “Hannity” show Monday night he attacked Scott Walker —for not raising taxes. “I looked into Wisconsin,” Mr. Trump said. “Their roads are a disaster, they don’t want to spend any money on roads because he doesn’t want to raise taxes.” He accused the Wisconsin governor of being “divisive, because everyone there is fighting with each other.”
So the Donald would have raised taxes on the people of Wisconsin, and he thinks the Republican governor who defeated the public unions and survived a recall election is “divisive.” No matter. The people of River City are desperate to believe, and so the man who wrote “The Art of the Deal” is leading in the national polls.
Is anything going on here other than clinical egomania?
Yes, and it’s no laughing matter.
…
In three days, I’ll be seeing the madmax future of America in the slums of Nairobi. What an adventure!
The average house is 10 by 10 with a dirt floor. I hear that Nairobi is often called Nai Robbery.
Let’s see if I can still sing Kumbaiya in 15 days.
Let my true life begin.
Does anybody else expect AlbqDan to resurface once the Chinese stock market starts rising again?
Bloomberg
China’s Stocks Extend Slump in Worst Monthly Decline Since 2009
by Kyoungwha Kim
July 30, 2015 — 6:24 PM PDT
Updated on July 30, 2015 — 10:04 PM PDT
China’s stocks fell, with the benchmark index heading for its worst monthly drop in almost six years, as the government struggles to rekindle investor interest amid a $3.5 trillion rout.
The Shanghai Composite Index slid 0.8 percent to 3,677.83 at 1:02 p.m., dragged down by energy and industrial companies. The gauge has tumbled 14 percent this month, the biggest loss among 93 global benchmark gauges tracked by Bloomberg, as margin traders cashed out and new equity-account openings tumbled amid concern valuations are unsustainable.
While unprecedented state intervention spurred a 18 percent rebound by the Shanghai Composite from its July 8 low, volatility returned on Monday when the gauge plunged 8.5 percent. Outstanding margin debt on mainland bourses has fallen about 40 percent since mid-June, while the number of new stock investors shrank last week to the smallest since the government started releasing figures in May. Individuals account for more than 80 percent of stock trading in China.
“The support measures may have been less effective than what Beijing imagined,” said Bernard Aw, a strategist at IG Asia Pte. in Singapore.
…
Business
China stocks fall at market open
Fri, Jul 31 06:57 AM IST
SHANGHAI, July 31 (Reuters) - China stocks fell on Friday morning at market open.
The CSI300 index fell 1.0 percent to 3,777.15 points at 1:26 GMT, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.4 percent to 3,655.67 points.
China CSI300 stock index futures for August fell 0.3 percent, to 3,668.4, 108.75 points below the current value of the underlying index.
(Reporting by Pete Sweeney; Editing by Adam Jourdan)