The Housing Bubble

MT Pockets,

You couldn’t find a buyer for that shack for half of what you’ve got in it already.

‘you’re a homeowner. Funny that you would attack another’

‘We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.’

Ben-I don’t like group think.

Mafia - Wrong. We are still positive.

HA/Mafia, read her post carefully. They aren’t going to sell. Looks like they are planning to move so that she can get a job (or a better job), and they are going to rent the place out. And yes, they will certainly cash flow positive.

I’m not attacking the homeownership per se; I’m pointing out the inconsistencies in your postings. My guess is that it really WAS your toe-tag house, but you got hit with unforeseen change in life circumstances? I probably should not have piled on so hard.

MT Pockets,

I can ask $50k for my 10 year old Chevy truck but where is the buyer at that price?

So it is with your run down shanty.

Correction: So it is with your run down cashflow negative shanty.

I can ask $50k for my 60 year old Chevy truck but where is the buyer at that price?

See eBay.

timing is everything. buy low, sell high.

No Liberace. My 10 year old pickup

“HA/Mafia, read her post carefully. They aren’t going to sell. Looks like they are planning to move so that she can get a job (or a better job), and they are going to rent the place out.”

Somehow I think you were closer to the truth the first go. Cash flow positive is for landlords who are leveraged. If you paid cash you look at ROI. She is lying again.

Leaving her blind husband behind to go for a better job! Sacrifice him to hang onto that investment house that has all their money tied up. Priceless. They could have retired on the half a million. She is still all about flipping houses.

How could she leave the husband behind and also rent out the house?

Lola RageCage dead ahead.

Husband isn’t blind and relocating for a new position, and coming home on the weekend, or him visiting isn’t leaving. Blue, you owe me an apology. Nasty “chit”.

You’re going back to work at 60+ years old because haven’t got two dimes to rub together after throwing away cash on a run down shack at a grossly inflated price.

Brilliant.

The lead dog has the best view.

MTPockets,

What degree of negative cash flow are you looking at? $300/month? 500?

mafia,
Hardly negative. Our accruals are $550/mo. (ins and taxes)
Add pool guy and gardener and that $ under $700/mo. We are in a unique position.

What’s your monthly nut?

Throwing good money after bad on a depreciating asset you paid a 250% premium for is your problem and yours alone.

A friend quit his job 8 months ago, left his apartment in Denver at the end of his lease, sold his car, went to Hawaii to finish his dive master certification, and is now travelling in Asia

Loanowners can’t do that

Loanowners can’t do that

They can after they have owned for enough time int he right town. Rent the place out, use that cash to explore their darkside in Bangcock.

Buy low.

‘A friend quit his job 8 months ago, left his apartment in Denver at the end of his lease, sold his car, went to Hawaii to finish his dive master certification, and is now travelling in Asia

Loanowners can’t do that’

The key is to not have a lot of stuff you need to haul around. When I was in my early 20’s all my worldly possessions could fit in a VW Rabbit. Here I am now dreading the fact I have a ton of stuff I want to sell or give away so I have minimal requirements of transporting stuff around when I move.

Advice to 20 somethings: save your money and do not buy a bunch of crap to furnish your apartments and collect other crap.

My biggest ball and chain is my music collection and outdoor gear. It is gonna take time to figure out how to unload them. This is stuff I took years to acquire and presto now I want to find a way to let go of it because I envision it holding me back.

Living on a boat for a few years can be a great lesson on what stuff you actually need.

“Loanowners can’t do that”

Neither can family breadwinners, right Muggy?

Actually, almost no one can do that.

SnowFlake,

Why would anyone want to?

Well, he got out of Denver at least.

Who wants to live among gov loving communists anyways?

Who wants to live among gov loving communists anyways?

They’re everywhere. They can’t be avoided.

They’re not everywhere. They can be avoided.

The business cycle ended the depression.

‘what really ended the Depression was the attack on Pearl Harbor…The war ended the Great Depression’

Man, you guys just repeat this stuff until it’s truth, huh? That doesn’t make it truth. On an on, “Oh Rosie the Riveter!” Hello, it’s 2015. Rosie’s crumbling dust by now. So many things have changed economically in the past EIGHTY YEARS, that what you are talking about is irrelevant. In the 80’s when I was studying economics, they were arguing “the war got us out of the depression, no it didn’t’. It’s ancient history. We have globalism now. We have QE operations running all over the world. How many bubbles are we on in the past 15 years? We’re BROKE and underemployed! Reminiscing about the glory days of 1946 isn’t going to get us anywhere.

So Neuromance introduced an irrelevant topic of conversation this morning. Some people enjoy discussing history, even events that took place more than 80 years ago. I, for none, didn’t claim that it’s relevant to the American economy in 2015.

I also took some economics classes in the 1980s. I can even remember the professor discussing the French government’s attempt to stimulate its economy in the early 80s after the election of Mitterand and how much of the increased economic activity actually occurred in the economies of France’s European neighbors, due to the large amount of integration of their economies.

‘The business cycle ended the depression’

But the most obvious and simple explanation doesn’t involve even more government borrowing and spending. If borrowing and spending produced positive results, we’d all be fabulously rich by now. What are the two more relevant economic episodes of economies wrecked by bubbles? Japan, and the oil states in the 80’s. Japan - still in depression. Texas, not in depression. Yes, I know there are bubbles in Texas, but by the 90’s it was pulling itself up. Nobody sat around crying, oh we’re victims! We got jobs in new industries. Suffered waiting for those industries to emerge. But they did. If Texans had insisted on handouts and reviving the oil/RE bubble, where would they have been? People declared bankruptcy, debt was liquidated, we moved on.

One more thing; if you could dig Keynes up and you told him, “well, we are running a deficit of a trillion this and a hundred trillions of obligations” and “a house costs $500,000″, you know what he’d say? “My God, have you debased your currency so? I was wrong, wrong about everything!”

So many things have changed economically in the past EIGHTY YEARS, that what you are talking about is irrelevant

Keynes published his economics book in 1936. Does that mean we can stop blaming him too? Would be awesome, thanks!

Right after you stop invoking his Krugman-esque insanity.

‘Some people enjoy discussing history, even events that took place more than 80 years ago’

So you were beating a dead horse? A dead horse that’s been getting his ass kicked for 40 or more years. By all means, continue to flog said horse. We can assume you disavow Keynesianism as being relevant to any future course of action?

‘Does that mean we can stop blaming him too?’

Quick search:

Janet Yellen: A Keynesian Woman at the Fed - The New …
http://www.newyorker.com/…/janet-yellen-a-keynesian-woma...
The New Yorker
Apr 3, 2013 - A couple of things make Janet Yellen’s Fed candidacy intriguing. One of them, obviously, is her gender. And in a field noted for its conservatism …
Yellen looks toward a Keynesian approach - Reuters
blogs.reuters.com/anatole…/yellen-looks-toward-a-keynesian-approach/
Feb 13, 2014 - Yellen’s testimony, in contrast, revealed Keynesian thinking, which views monetary policy as just one instrument, if perhaps the most important, …
A Return to Keynes? | National Review Online
http://www.nationalreview.com/…/return-keynes-thomas-sowe...
National Review
Oct 15, 2013 - The nomination of Janet Yellen to become head of the Federal Reserve System has set off a flurry of media stories. Since she will be the first …
Review & Outlook: The Yellen Difference - WSJ
http://www.wsj.com/…/SB1000142405270230406640...
The Wall Street Journal
Oct 9, 2013 - The Wall Street Journal argues that with Janet Yellen, the Tobin Keynesians are back in charge at the Federal Reserve.

But see, she isn’t really. What we have now is what I’ve called central bankism. It big, really big, and they are making it up as they go along. It has no theoretical rudder. It suits the communist central banker in China just as well as the US and the EU.

Someone else made some assertions about the Depression and the war and I expressed disagreement. Some might say that his view is a dead horse that I was kicking, but it appears that a lot of people hold those views, so the horse isn’t dead.

If a matter of economics is discussed for decades and we haven’t gotten any closer to resolution, it’s dead. Worse, it is a detraction. The problem at hand is modern economic policy, with hyper-active central banks, globalism and the predominant feature of the landscape being financial manias.

Paying off the debt means the money goes bye-bye from the system. It’s not freed, it disappears.

Except that your employer had to borrow the money to pay you.

Not necessarily, Oddfellow. When I pay off the debt associated with the created money, that money is actually mine, in the form of a tangible asset. When I sell the house, the money will be mine in the form of cash. The money might be out of circulation for a while, but it’s not gone from the system.

It can be argued that the money supply must always increase, because the cumulative amount of paid labor done by people is always increasing. That past labor is never really gone from the system either (at least not in modern times).

Skye, my salary is NOT paid by borrowed money.

When I pay off the debt associated with the created money, that money is actually mine, in the form of a tangible asset.

Perhaps, but that tangible asset is no longer in the monetary system. Although money borrowed into existence could possibly buy it from you someday.

“Skye, my salary is NOT paid by borrowed money.”

Last I heard, you worked for the US government.

my salary is NOT paid by borrowed money.

Is it paid by the confiscated money?

“Zillow says I’m rich because prices of comparable houses have risen in value, which caused my house to also rise in value.”

According to the masters of the universe you should liberate that equity and buy a 4-dr pickup truck, a kitchen remodel and breast implants for the wife. In fact, the American economy and the average consumer with a flat income have both become hugely dependent on HELOC spending.

The punch bowl ran dry in 2007, and here we are nearly a decade later still muddling along. However, iOS 9 is out, so some out west can still make their mortgage payments.

I always chuckle when I see “Austrian economists” because no one in Austria actually practices the Mises school. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, ‘there ain’t one nation in the world successfully using that economic system.’

Under a gold standard, would there be credit cards?

Keep worshiping the bankers WPA, they might even let you sleep on their rags:

Wall Street Is Running the World’s Central Banks

Life under a gold standard:

Anybody have change for a hundred?

Under a gold standard, would there be credit cards?

Sure there would be—credit cards are just electronic methods of transferring dollars, not money in and of themselves. So yes, you could certainly have credit-card & electronic transfers that are claims on a gold-based currency.

credit cards are just electronic methods of transferring dollars,

I think that would be debit cards. Credit cards are little monetary printing presses.

‘Credit cards are little monetary printing presses’

Uh, no. If a bank gives you a credit card and you use it (borrow), it is the fractional reserve system that created the money.

‘One of the most dangerous mistakes possible to make in trying to understand the shape of the economic future is to think of the fundamental concepts of economics as simple and uncontroversial. They aren’t. In economics, as in all other fields, the fundamentals are where disguised ideologies and unexamined presuppositions are most likely to hide out, precisely because nobody questions them.’

‘Money is a system of abstract tokens that complex societies use to manage the distribution of goods and services, and that’s all it is. Money can consist of lumps of precious metal, pieces of paper decorated with the faces of dead politicians, digits in computer memory, or any number of other things, up to and including the sheer make-believe that underlies derivatives and the like. Important differences separate these various forms of money, depending on the ease or lack of same with which they can be manufactured, but everything that counts as money has one thing in common – it has only one of the two kinds of economic value.’

‘Money is not wealth, but a claim on wealth.’

‘It’s still embarrassingly common for people to forget that money isn’t true wealth, and to assume that as long as they have some sufficiently large quantity of some kind of money that’s likely to hold its exchange value over time, they’ll never want for wealth. This assumption is understandably made, because in the relatively recent past, this has been true a good deal more often than not, which feeds the belief that it will always be true in the future. But that assumption is lethally flawed.’

Uh, no. If a bank gives you a credit card and you use it (borrow), it is the fractional reserve system that created the money.

That was my point.

So is Warren Buffett wealthy, or is his wealth merely digits on a screen??

Digits on a screen mostly. His net worth is $66 billion — how much of that are tangible assets and cash on hand versus unrealized gains?

Don’t forget, if you have $200K in a savings account at a bank, we call those hard assets but it’s really just digits on a screen. You don’t have bills stacked up in the bank vault with your name on it. That $200K is just a promise by the bank to pay you on demand.

Scene starts off with the same office as used by the Psychiatrist in the last sketch, but it is now occupied by a surgeon. Start on portrait which has moustache and beard and glasses being added by surgeon.)

Surgeon (Graham Chapman): Brr brr (picks up phone) No, no wrong number I’m a colleague of his, a surgeon, who specializes in these kind of things. Yes thank you very much. (replaces phone) Next please. (knock at door) Come in. (Notlob enters; ‘Going to the zoo’ is faintly heard) Ah come in, please take a seat. (cut to terribly quick shot of Napoleon, then back) My colleague who has a similar office has explained your case to me (he is rising from seat) Mr Notlob, as you know I am a leading Harley Street surgeon as seen on television. (he puts needle down on ancient gramophone; Dr Kildare theme begins playing) I’m afraid I’m going to have to operate. It’s nothing to worry about although it is extremely dangerous. I shall be juggling with your life, I shall be playing ducks and drakes with your very existence, I shall be running me mitts over the pith of your marrow. Yes! These hands, these fingers, these sophisticated organs of touch, these bunches of five, these maulers, these German bands that have pulled many a moribund unfortunate back from the very brink of Lazarus’s box. No, it was Pandora’s box wasn’t it? Well anyway these mitts have earned yours truly a lot of bread. So if you’ll just step through here I’ll slit you up a treat.

Notlob (Michael Palin): What?

Surgeon: Mr Notlob, there’s nothing wrong with you that an expensive operation can’t prolong.

(Cut to operating theatre. The conversation and the guitar can still be heard. Notlob is on the table. His head is real but the rest of the body is false. Table is covered with green cloth for reality. Surgeon is swabbing. ‘Going to the zoo’ is still audible.)

Surgeon: Right, I’m ready to make the incision. Knife please, sister (takes knife) What’s that supposed to be. Give me a big one. (takes big knife and strops it on steel sharpener) Oh I do enjoy this. Right! (he stabs the body and makes a slit four feet long) Oh what a great slit. Now gentlemen, I am going to open the slit.

(He pulls it apart. The song gets louder. The head of a squatter pops out.)

Squatter (Eric Idle): Too much man, groovy, great scene. Great light show, baby.

Surgeon: What are you doing in there?

Squatter: We’re doing our own thing man.

Surgeon: Have you got Mr Nottob’s permission to be in there?

Squatter: We’re squatters, baby.

Surgeon: What? (to nurse about Notlob) Nurse, wake him up. (she slaps his face)

Squatter: Don’t get uptight man. Join the scene and other phrases. Money isn’t real.

Surgeon: It is where I’m standing and it blows my mind, young lad.

Monty Python Hippie Stomach Squatters

What I find fascinating is that, in all these terror attacks, rarely if ever does a politician or higher level financier get harmed. Just a bunch of tourists or folks out for a nice evening or middle and lower level office workers.

A bunch of financiers died in the September 11 attacks.

That was profound SnowFlake.

“A bunch of financiers died in the September 11 attacks.”

Did you notice the terms “middle” and “lower level” in my post?

Either you didn’t or you chose to ignore them. Those were mainly middle level expandable financiers.

Dang, I meant to say “expEndable”. They were just lackeys, easily dispensed with.

I noticed that, but I don’t think that it was correct. Of course, you may mean that “higher level” financiers is a dozen people who meet at Bilderberger gatherings.

A LOT more than a dozen people meet at those globalist summits.

If anyone high level had bit the biscuit on 9/11, it would have been all over the place. Just expendable mid level lackeys.

I didn’t know PBS’s Charlie Rose was a “higher level” financier.

PBS’s Charlie Rose Runs Away From Bilderberg Questions - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP6l39I47QA - 183k -

He’s part of the bought-and-paid-for propaganda machine - see the film Eyes Wide Shut. That movie perfectly illustrates who is in the 1% and who is not (and shows who thinks that they are, but painfully find out that they are not).

Charlie Rose is to The Bilderbergers as piano player Nick Nightingale is to the 1% in the above-referenced movie.

These azz clowns are having a sh*t hemorrhage because their little socio-genetic engineering experiment is collapsing faster than the twin towers on 9/11.

People are waking up to the fact that their fight is not really with “radical” brown people, but with (mostly) white elitists who use them as shock troops to control the populace. Witness the fact that Wall Street is on a tear despite all this terror.

The real enemy is composed of people who spew the R & B (racist and bigot) words as a method of social control. I hope they keep doing it, it’s a great means of identification.

Palmetto,
I didn’t realize I was so in control of society. I think you have me confused with Jamie Dimon or the Kock Brothers.

Nah, you’re just on the bottom rung of the trickle down, getting paid in feelz, not realz. Work harder. Your bankster masters depend on it.

C’mon, you can do it, petey. Keep on pukin’ up that hairball.

Bigotbigotbigotbigotracistbigotbigotracistbiggy.

The real enemy is composed of people who spew the R & B (racist and bigot) words as a method of social control.

This may be a valid point if reducing bigotry is the social control that you’re talking about.

The circle jerk is over at Huffpo, Mikey. You’re welcome to run over there and twist semantics around your neck.

So now you’re trying to censor me. You want the HBB to be safe space, free of facts and logic.

“So now you’re trying to censor me.”

Nobody is trying to censor you Mike

You are free to keep bringing number 5

Rules for Radicals

By Saul Alinsky - 1971

“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

Yes, that was a little joke. Then again, wasn’t this intended to be ridicule?

Bigotbigotbigotbigotracistbigotbigotracistbiggy.

“Then again, wasn’t this intended to be ridicule?”

“Bigotbigotbigotbigotracistbigotbigotracistbiggy.”

I thought that was just a response to…

Comment by Pete Deer
2015-11-20 07:04:50

Taxpayers,
And bigoted idiots such as yourself make up over 70% of online comment postings.

Yes, you were ridiculing Pete. When did you first hear of Alinsky?

I had this discussion with Albuquerque Dan around a year ago. If you have access to the internet, you have access to an untold quantity of facts and statistics. You could state positive or negative facts about any particular group. It’s the choices that you make that can indicate bigotry.

I don’t thing ZH is right about a commodity trader being involved. Oddie’s post is more likely true, it’s all black market.

A few days ago U.S. aircraft bombed ISIS oil trucks (then ZH pops up and says, nyet, those were Russian planes — example No. 53 of Russian propaganda). Why didn’t he hit those trucks a year ago? Because we don’t ISIS destroyed, just contained, but the Paris event forced our hand.

I just posted a link to PBS which covered exactly this. It IS all black market. The oil doesn’t go into the global commodity kitty. It’s sold right out of the pipes onto local wholesale truckers, cash, who go on to sell it retail somewhere else. It’s not tracked at all. The reason the US didn’t hit the truckers is because those truckers are civilian men, not really connected to the organization.

There’s always a middleman or two in these things, like arms traders and such. There used to be a guy down in Boca by the name of Munther Bilbeisi who was very active in this sort of thing back in the day, and very tied in with finance. I remember friends of mine who were very taken by the guy. He was constantly being feted at various social events in South Florida.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1991-08-04/news/9101290387_1_munther-bilbeisi-arms-coffee

There it is, all financed by BCCI.

Yep, there’s a Munther or two mixed up in this.

And here’s another revenue stream:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/19/the-tiny-pill-fueling-syrias-war-and-turning-fighters-into-super-human-soldiers/

Captagon. Never heard of it. Sounds like meth on steroids.

“They left this to the politicians and anyone who took the bait,”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g–28FUYdyQ - 227k -

“Who’s got more money than the fossil fuel industry?”

Obviously, the governments that are members of the United Nations.

The oil industry is bleeding like a stuck pig, in case you hadn’t noticed.

“Shukla appears to have paid himself and his wife $1.5 million from government climate grants for his part-time work”

AFP PHOTO/Jewel Samad

by James Delingpole22 Sep 2015745

When twenty alarmist climate scientists wrote to President Obama last week demanding that he use RICO laws to crush dissenting climate skeptics, the world of honest science – it still exists, just about – was rightly and properly appalled.

The hypocrisy and dishonesty of signatory Kevin ‘Travesty’ Trenberth, which we reported here last week, was bad enough.

But just wait till you hear the sorry tale of the letter’s lead signatory, Jagadish Shukla. It’s so murky you’ll wonder what on earth possessed him to stick his head above parapet. And you may well conclude that if anyone in this ugly business is worthy of investigation, it’s certainly not anyone on the skeptical side of the argument…

George Mason University Professor Jagadish Shukla is a lead author with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and winner of numerous awards including the International Meteorological Organization Prize, the Rossby Medal of the American Meteorological Society, and the Padma Shri National Award from the President of India. He is currently president of the Institute of Global Environment and Society and a professor of Climate Dynamics.

For his expertise, Shukla is amply rewarded by George Mason University with a salary over $250,000 a year.

Apparently, though, this isn’t a full time job. It can’t be – because on top of this salary, from 2012 to 2014, Shukla appears to have paid himself and his wife $1.5 million from government climate grants for his part-time work via his non-profit Institute of Global Environment and Society (IGES).

IGES is an organization which gets almost all its income from US taxpayers – last year a whopping $3.8 million – via institutions including the National Science Foundation, NOAA and NASA. The organization’s declared aim is to “improve understanding and prediction of the variations of the Earth’s climate through scientific research on climate variability and climate predictability, and to share both the fruits of this research and the tools necessary to carry out this research with society as a whole.”

A tough job, clearly, but someone’s got to do it. Which is why Shukla generously rewards its president – himself – with a salary of $330,000 for a 28 hour week and his wife (who works full time) another $166,000.

Perhaps this is all perfectly above board and legal.

But there are a couple of details that appear rather puzzling.

IGES is, according to the Maryland department of Assessments and Taxation where it is registered, supposed to be organized exclusively for charitable, religious, educational and scientific purposes. (Hence its non-profit status).

So why, exactly was the letter to Obama sent from the IGES? Does its tax status not exclude it from such naked politicking?

Also, is it not the case that under Virginia law (Shukla teaches at George Mason University, remember) you cannot be employed elsewhere to do the same job? So perhaps he can explain how his work as professor of climate dynamics at GMU differs so markedly from his “scientific research on climate variability and climate predictability” at IGES that it entitles him to claim separate federal grant funding for the latter. If he can’t, then GMU might want him to ask him for its share of that $3.8 million in federal grants mentioned above. The university would be entitled to 50 per cent.

http://www.breitbart.com/…/ - 134k -

Good thing the Breitbart web site wasn’t around 50 years ago or they would have vilified medical doctors for saying cigarettes cause cancer.

“Denier “scientists” are paid a de-facto salary that is linked to predetermined outcome and advocacy.”

As if you would know.

Please explain how “Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen, an emeritus Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT” is funded in the way you describe.

You really just want to put him in jail for not being part of your gang of thugs. You have already stated numerous times that you would like to see me personally jailed for not agreeing with you.

You have already stated numerous times that you would like to see me personally jailed for not agreeing with you.

LOL that’s so ridiculously false it’s funny. If you’re going to troll, learn how to do it before you post.

“LOL that’s so ridiculously false it’s funny.”

WPA

You seem to be the only one laughing.

It’s not funny at all. That’s the problem Pineapple.

You say that I am on Exxon’s payroll. You say that Exxon and it’s coconspirators should be busted with the RICCO Act or with Neuremberg style trials. If you had the power to accomplish this fantasy of power, would I still be enjoying my freedom?

You are a rabid dog. Useless, thankfully.

You say that I am on Exxon’s payroll. You say that Exxon and it’s coconspirators should be busted with the RICCO Act or with Neuremberg style trials.

That’s actually I who said something sort of like that, although I was not addressing you personally, and I stand by what I said. If you are part of a conspiracy to knowingly mislead humanity as to a serious danger that faces it, then you may well, and probably should, go to trial for it one day, and a jury will decide your fate. There’s nothing shocking about that, that’s how the justice system works, and has worked for quite a while. It’s not some new twist we’ve invented.

Conversely, if you’re just a dupe of Exxon’s misinformation, then you have nothing to fear.

But remember, “just following orders/just doing my job” were not considered satisfactory excuses at Neuremberg nor under RICO statutes. Nor in the eyes of the lord, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Concealed carry laws reduce crime. Your beef is with the people of Utah.

There is a lesson here; never, ever have a bullet in the chamber until it’s time to fire.

Yeah, and if idiots leave rounds chambered (which practically all of them do), and it discharges when it hits the floor, and kills you or your kid, well, that’s just the price you have to pay so the idiot can exercise his Second Amendment rights.

(The -fixr is personally acquainted with one of these idiots. Fortunately, the only thing that got a hole blasted in it was the customer’s new jet)

I guess you can call it privatizing the benefit, and socializing the risks.

Yes, those “cocked and locked” idiots . . .

It’s funny doing a timed shooting exercise with them, with some invaribly failing it because they forgot to flip the safety (oops, bad guy just shot you, you’re dead).

Why There Are So Many Rich Counties Concentrated Around Washington, D.C.

Derek Thompson Dec 18, 2013

But the Washington, D.C., area dominates the list of highest-earning counties, claiming six of the top ten and 13 of the top 30. Why?

The first half of the answer is that Washington, D.C., has an remarkable concentration of high-(but not the
highest-)earning households. More than 45 percent of its residents make more than $100,000 a year. There are 13 counties around D.C. where more than half of the households are in the top quartile of the country’s earners.

The federal government has a lot to do with this: The Capitol and the economy orbiting around it (including lawyers, defense contractors, computer engineers along the Dulles Corridor, and doctors near NIH) attract college graduates who reliably contribute to six-figure households. Crucially, there was a $1.7 billion increase in lobbying between 1998 and 2010, as Dylan Matthews explained. With each $1 million of lobbying “associated with a $3.70 increase in the D.C. wage premium,” the money pouring into Washington wound up in the pockets of its residents.

http://www.theatlantic.com/…/282481/ - 128k -

Who are they funneling lobbying money to in DC?

Who are they funneling lobbying money to in DC?

Congress. It’s in your other post, above. “Crucially, there was a $1.7 billion increase in lobbying between 1998 and 2010″ Plus, add dark money and Citizens United, no doubt that figure has gone up.

‘Boomtown’ Special Assails D.C. for ‘Extracting’ Wealth from Taxpayers

by Tony Lee25 Jan 201

Schweizer, the president of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Institute, highlighted how the permanent political class that relies on lobbying and influence peddling makes more money by “growing the size of government,” which leaves no incentive on either side of the aisle to limit government.

As a result, he noted the three richest counties and seven of the top ten wealthiest counties in the nation are in the Washington, D.C. region. The District also consumes the most fine wine in the nation. He asserted the business in Washington is now “not politics” but “money.”

Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, said the best and the brightest now come to Washington because they see Washington as a Tammany Hall that will allow them to get rich off of influence peddling. He noted that Washington D.C. runs the equivalent of a $4 trillion private equity fund every year and essentially doles out 25% of the country’s wealth to those who are connected.

“Nobody has ever turned a camera on them,” Bannon said, indicating he intends to change that in the future. “This is a permanent political class that has now formed an aristocracy. That’s why nothing has changed in Washington.”

Bannon explained people arrive in Washington as country lawyers and then decide to “turn the business of government into a family business” by having their wives and kids work in lobbying.

“And this is how they become a permanent political class,” he concluded.

Hannity mentioned that Washington politicians “kick money back to family, friends, or people that hire them when they retire.”

And Schweizer concurred. He claimed the permanent political class is bipartisan and those who are a part of this permanent aristocracy either marry or are born into it.

Schweizer noted former Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, a Republican, and former Louisiana Senator John Breaux, a Democrat, partnering up to lobby after they left Congress. He cited Republican Rep. Bill Young of Florida whose daughter-in-law does defense lobbying while he sits on one of the most powerful subcommittees dealing with defense issues.

Schweizer also pointed out that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)
2%
has two sons who have also lobbied for projects in which their father was involved.

According to Schweizer, this type of bipartisan nepotism that would not be tolerated in corporations is why “political debates are like professional wrestling, it’s not always what it appears to be.”

“It’s a massive cultural problem in Washington, D.C.,” he lamented, adding that the problem is going to get worse.

Bannon said if one follows the money, it is clear there is no incentive for the permanent political class to cut spending. And because there is not an incentive to cut spending, Bannon said, Americans are stuck with a party of “big government” and a junior partner that is the party of “little big government.” Unfortunately, Bannon said the country lacks a party that is truly focused on limited government.

“There is no pressure on them to cut. Washington controls the money. They have an industrial logic to the business model,” he explained. “The permanent political class of both political parties are benefiting from it.”

Sorry, long posts culled from highly biased sites don’t negate facts.

Nice dodge

Sorry, long posts culled from highly biased sites don’t negate facts.

Lazy bastard! Pull a Rio and post your own biased articles.

“It’s a massive cultural problem in Washington, D.C.,” he lamented, adding that the problem is going to get worse. ”

Makes CA fire look like amateurs

That’s what happens when you give too much credence to Zero Hedge and Russia Times. You give up on democracy.

Keep hope alive! Or bend over and take it from the oligarchs.

We are decades into the “two wolves and a sheep.” Dumbocracy sux.

I dont think Blue Cross will lower their rates. Adding competition will, but so far not much out there. ACA definitely needs help, the cost of health insurance is ridiculous.

I dont think Blue Cross will lower their rates.

You are one thick mofo. There were people paying less before not so aca.

At the yearly open enrollment for all employees they are pushing high deductible plans with health savings accounts.

the complicated just got more complicated.

There is nothing complicated about it.

You pay more and get less.

Here’s how it works:

1. (Get the gov’t to) Force people to buy your product.
2. Raise the deductible so your payouts go down.
3. PROFIT!

We are not canada nor sweden. US gobmint can’t do anything right period.

Wendell Potter (former Cigna Communications VP) has some great insights on his blog about the ACA, and he tears into the dental crisis. New model of NP and PA type dental care coming.

No wonder medical tourism is a growing sector. One of the Blues owns a medial tourism co. I am aboard, if I should ever need it. Luckily, I got the low-carb and exercise discipline thing going.

We are not canada nor sweden. US gobmint can’t do anything right period.

American exceptionalism at work! We’re the only country that can’t do it!

We are not Soviet Union either, eh Chainsaw?