Bits Bucket for January 8, 2016
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here. Please visit my Youtube channel which you can also find here:
http:tinyurl.com/http-hbb-com
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
November 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
So is the China rout over? Or is this a dead cat bounce? Interesting that the market stabilized after it was announced that the “circuit breaker” was being deactivated.
SELL
I sold last year.
China is a side show. This is about three more Fed rate hikes in 2016.
Marketwatch dot com
Stock futures jump on strong jobs report, then pare gains
By Ellie Ismailidou and Victor Reklaitis
Published: Jan 8, 2016 9:27 a.m. ET
Jobs report ‘clears the way’ for future rate hikes, analysts say
…
The U.S. created 292,000 new jobs in December, the Labor Department said Friday, handily exceeding economists’ expectations of 215,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remained at 5%, largely because almost a half-million people joined the labor force. Employment gains for November and October, meanwhile, were revised up by a combined 50,000.
Investors were anxiously awaiting the jobs report to gauge the pace of future rate hikes by the Federal Reserve in 2016. The strong data now “clear the way for the Fed to continue its process for hiking rates at its projected pace,” said Chris Faulkner-MacDonagh, Market Strategist at Standard Life Investments.
The market-implied expectation is for two rate hikes in 2016 whereas the Fed’s own projection is for four hikes. The market is “so far behind the Fed,” Faulkner-MacDonagh said, and the jobs data suggest that “the market is going to have to reprice, not the other way around.”
…
The more panic we see the less likely the fed will raise rates, just seems inconceivable.
If Europe/China/et al continue to soften, I would expect Fed governors’ “jawboning” to quiet down too.
What if the “panic” you think you detect is merely the market’s resignation to the reality that the economy will never return to normalcy if liftoff is postponed indefinitely?
Further thought:
- Risk asset prices steadily marched upwards as the Fed invoked QE1, QE2, QE3 and ZIRP. Back then the thinking was that “fundamentals” justified higher valuations.
- Now that QE is over and ZIRP is going away, will “fundamentals” result in a reversion to lower valuations? Or will bubble prices for risk assets remain forever in place, even as returns on safe-haven assets like Treasury bonds return to normalcy?
China is a crater that is sucking in whole countries.
This is about three more Fed rate hikes in 2016.
You don’t really believe that is going to happen—do you??
Wall Street investors are acting as though they believe it.
Perhaps they are implicitly negotiating with the Fed to slow down on the pace of liftoff?
News flash: The Dow is down 54 points.
And this is the worst first week of the year on Wall Street in history.
Oh the humanity!
It’s not close to a buy-in time until Dow dips below 10,000. Otherwise you’re just throwing good money after bad.
RE: “It’s not close to a buy-in time”
Is “buy-in time” and, ‘buying The Dips’, the same as supporting The Bastards who rule us all?
I just want a 5% return….is that too much to ask?
I dont have to buy a snow blower.
U.S. stocks waver as oil slide resumes
Published: Jan 8, 2016 12:18 p.m. ET
Jobs report ‘clears the way’ for future rate increases, analysts say
U.S. stocks are trying to recover after getting knocked down this week.
By Ellie Ismailidou
Markets reporter
Victor Reklaitis
Markets writer
U.S. stocks relinquished an early advance Friday and were shifting between small gains and losses as they closely tracked oil prices.
The strong U.S. jobs report and the stability in Chinese markets helped propel the U.S. shares higher in early trade, though the main indexes remained on track to post steep weekly losses.
But the indexes turned lower as oil prices tumbled to new lows (CLG6, -0.66%) weighing on energy stocks.
…
ft dot com > Markets >
January 8, 2016 7:02 pm
Worst start to market year in two decades
Robin Wigglesworth and Eric Platt
More than $2.3tn was wiped off global stocks this week as China’s slowing economy and currency depreciations spooked investors around the world, leading to the worst start to a year for markets in at least two decades.
A robust US jobs report, which added a stronger-than-expected 292,000 extra jobs in December, allayed some concerns over the US’s economic growth on Friday but failed to rescue the grim week for financial markets.
The catalyst for this week’s market turmoil has been China’s plunging stock market and weakening currency. Beijing’s powerful influence over financial markets this week underlines for investors how the country’s policy decisions reverberate across the global stage.
“This heightened sensitivity of risk assets to Chinese policy is a relatively new phenomenon,” said Mark Haefele, global chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management. “We can see how even relatively small falls in the Chinese [renminbi] . . . are having a major impact on global markets.”
After initially climbing higher on the jobs report, the S&P 500 sagged to take its loss for the week to about 5 per cent — its second-worst start to a year since at least 1929. Every major European stock market also fell again on Friday.
…
Has the Plunge Protection Team gone out of business?
Why have they abandoned American investors in their time of crisis?
The evolution of bailout philosophy:
1) We have to bail out the banks, insurers and auto manufacturers, because if these systemically risky firms fail, the entire global economy will collapse.
2) Out of fairness to homeowners who gambled and lost on their use of subprime mortgages to buy homes they can’t afford, we have to bail them out as well
3) In the interest of bailing out everything, we are indefinitely implementing QE1, QE2, QE3 and ZIRP until further notice.
3) OMG, commodities, junk bonds, and pretty much all risk assets are collapsing! Sadly, we now are TBTB*!
* Too Broke to Bail
Did you buy the dip today, only to discover that this time really is different?
IT’S A DEAD CAT SPLAT!
It’s different here.
“Home prices in the Boston area are only going one direction: up.”
“If another recession hits of the magnitude of the economic downturn in 2007, S&P predicts, home prices in the Boston area would dip less than 2 percent. Even under the worst-case scenario envisioned by S&P, values in greater Boston would slip 6 percent, compared to a 27 percent plunge nationally.”
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/01/07/think-boston-housing-expensive-now-wait-five-years/6qTjKdarDT2AdZkpqrJWaJ/story.html?
compared to a 27 percent plunge nationally.”
Isn’t it interesting that no one has a problem imagining a nationwide price decline anymore…
Also interesting: my impression is that past recessions didn’t typically cause dramatic nationwide price declines—but now they assume that it would. Is that a subtle but tacit admission that we are in a bubble?
All real estate was local in past booms and busts.
In particular, the U.S. coasts could heat up and cool down with little effect on prices in the Midwest.
This time was different, as the global credit bubble drove prices skyward in every corner of the developed world.
Love that dirty water…
“Boston Rents Are Just Never Coming Down. Ever.”
“The latest proof comes from real estate research engine Reis, per the Globe’s Tim Logan: “The average rent for an apartment is now $2,009 a month, said real estate data firm Reis, Inc. That’s the first time Boston has broken the $2,000-per-month barrier. Among the 79 markets Reis tracks, only New York City, San Francisco and Silicon Valley are more expensive places to rent.” We think it’s all due to a trio of facts: an even more expensive housing market driving more Bostonians to rent; plenty of flush city dwellers are unfazed by $3,000 studios; and all that new construction is still not nearly enough to slake demand. ”
http://boston.curbed.com/archives/2016/01/boston-apartment-rents-2016.php
Southern California rent on my one bedroom place is 1/3 the PITI of the average house around me. I have so much money after my rent I have to buy gold, platinum, bitcoin, municipals, and two year notes.
1 bd apt vs a house???
nice comparison
If you have $$, why live in So Cal with all the traffic and Persians?
What traffic? My commute is only 8 miles each way. I have 3 alternative routes, one is I-5 and the others are boulevards.
You are forgetting the prime directive of the Bill in LA®, which is to live close to where you work and rent small.
Actually 4 alternative routes: I can tell when my main part of I-5 will be crowded or not at a certain spot where I can take the fourth route and move to a frontage road to skirt around much of the bad traffic.
Takes me an awfully long 18 minutes to drive. What misery.
ever go anywhere else? just work and home?
the 405 and 5 are life wasters
“Southern California rent on my one bedroom place is 1/3 the PITI of the average house around me.”
I PITI your moronic neighbors.
WICKED FUNNY
when you move south you never retunr ,no he never returned
At least now his fate is not still unknown.
Sell into this rally rally friends. This is not simply a correction. The ghosts of 2008 are coming back.
If you have to buy something look for value. Only value I see is in commodities.
Commodities are in oversupply everywhere.
Except for chocolate.
“Commodities are in oversupply everywhere.
Except for chocolate.”
Food for thought.
And, it’s raining gold and silver. …?
“And, copper and iron ore”, you might add?
It all just makes me wonder How manipulated we really are.
Mostly, it’s all cycles.
Commodity Supercycle Decline Might Be Finding A Bottom
http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/10/commodity-supercycle/
Oct 20, 2015 - The commodity supercycle decline, which saw commodities fall from 40 to … In like fashion, the price of gold production is near $800 per ounce, …
Nope—calling it a supercycle is revisionist history; the commodities bust is the direct result of the Fed’s massively liquidity injection, which artificially boosted demand (globally), and thus provided false demand signals to all producers, simultaneously. When the false demand recedes, the unavoidable result is being left with oversupply—of everything.
calling it a supercycle is revisionist history; the commodities bust is the direct result of the Fed’s massively liquidity injection, which artificially boosted demand (globally), and thus provided false demand signals to all producers, simultaneously………..
And? You are describing a repeating cycle of capitalism.
When the false demand recedes, the unavoidable result is being left with oversupply—of everything.
See? This is not new. History does not need to be revised, just acknowledged.
“Origin of term
A card from the South Sea Bubble
The term “bubble”, in reference to financial crisis, originated in the 1711–1720 British South Sea Bubble, and originally referred to the companies themselves, and their inflated stock, rather than to the crisis itself. This was one of the earliest modern financial crises; other episodes were referred to as “manias”, as in the Dutch tulip mania. The metaphor indicated that the prices of the stock were inflated and fragile – expanded based on nothing but air, and vulnerable to a sudden burst, as in fact occurred.” wiki
Those who could not see the credit expansion cannot imagine what comes after.
Those who could not see the credit expansion cannot imagine what comes after.
But who couldn’t “see” the credit expansion? I posted here on the Fed’s balance sheet explosion going back to 2008-10 in my home schooling of the ADan when he lied about when it started.
And that was the second credit expansion explosion affecting the housing market and other markets.
This stuff is not new. The scope might seem “new” however there is not much “new” under the sun imo.
And? You are describing a repeating cycle of capitalism.
No. Never before have we had a tsunami of liquidity unleashed by multiple central banks in collusion, intent on avoiding the unavoidable results of a bubble burst.
See? This is not new. History does not need to be revised, just acknowledged.
Baloney. Sure, _bubbles_ are not new—but the coordinated central bank action that we have seen this time around is definitely new and unprecedented.
The commodities bust is the result of their engineering.
You can try to chalk it up to “normal” supercycles and “normal” bubbles for as long as you want—but everyone here knows you are full of it.
This stuff is not new. The scope might seem “new” however there is not much “new” under the sun imo.
This is the first time that the Fed has _intentionally_ reinflated a bubble, at least temporarily…
Why are you downplaying it?
The Commodities Supercycle bottom callers are full of crapola.
The problem with their call is that either we are not in a recession, or we are in a stealth recession.
Either way, there will be no bottoming of commodities until we are in a recession and everyone knows it, thanks to massive job loss and outright panic over falling asset prices.
This is the first time that the Fed has _intentionally_ reinflated a bubble, at least temporarily…
Why are you downplaying it?
Because every time the past 30 years I’ve “downplayed” chicken littles talking about the “end of the world” I’ve been correct.
The commodities bust is the result of their engineering.
I’ve seen this movie before. You think it’s new. You’re wrong.
Because every time the past 30 years I’ve “downplayed” chicken littles talking about the “end of the world” I’ve been correct.
Where did I say this was or would be the “end of the world”? Please don’t put words in my mouth.
The only thing I said is that you are mis-attributing the cause.
And you seem otherwise intelligent enough to understand this—which makes me wonder why you are spinning it to be something that it is not. Is that the side of your bread that is buttered? Que Upton Sinclair…
precious metals are holding up very well in these panics. They held up well during the panic of 2015.
They will really zoom up when this bull market is over with and switched to bear.
I wouldn’t trust Hillary to watch my shopping cart in a grocery store much less watch over the country.
I trust my cat to guard my tuna fish sandwich before I would trust a politician of any kind.
Gooooood morning, trumplings! Time to rise and whine!
Russ you have a long list of grievances. How come Obama has done nothing about them?
Grievances? The sun is shining, and the trumplings are rubbing their eyes, lower lips a-quiver, and I have a day of mocking their feeble complaints ahead. Life is good!
Ross is fearful of Trump. Biggest threat to his choice of Hillsy.
Angry Trump trolls have taken over the HBB.
Actually only one . . . Housing Analyst’s MPD has gotten really bad lately - to the point that he’s having entire conversations with himself on here.
And living in your head, rent free my friend.
The Trumplings have been swindled by the master swindler.
I’m not HA. But one gun control problem will be solved after a current candidate is no longer allowed to own a firearm upon conviction.
Your Central Scrutinizer. Er…. No. I am. And I’m Jingle Male too.
I’m not HA.
How come Obama has done nothing about them?
Obamas long list of failures.
Housing Analyst’s MPD has gotten really bad lately - to the point that he’s having entire conversations with himself on here.
I wonder if HA/Mafia played a lot of American football.
lol@Lola.
Leave it to Lola to be pimping the weakness meme. Football is played by tens of millions of kids without a problem.
Housing Analyst’s MPD has gotten really bad lately - to the point that he’s having entire conversations with himself on here.
Proxy, now Canklepants, Mafia, HA, Strawberry et al.
He changes his name so often it takes me about two posts to put his new name on “ignore” on the Joshua Tree Extension.
Lola…. you haven’t the fortitude to ignore anyone here.
“The attempt to train the wild forces of supply and demand by the authorities has really ramped up since 2009. Just four trading days into 2016 the widening of the gyre makes it very obvious that they have failed to create a pet to do their bidding. The wild forces of supply and demand have sought to deliver deflation, at least since 2008, but the falconer has demanded the lift-off of inflation. In the first four trading days of January 2016 it has become even clearer that gravity wins and this bird will not fly.
However, by 2014 it was ever more difficult to borrow more money than the people of China were desperate to export and the market began to win. Since then foreign reserves have been falling and the grand falconer has tried to support the exchange rate while simultaneously easing monetary policy to boost economic growth. I’m no falconer but isn’t this akin to trying to get a bird to fly while tying back its wings?
This bird does not fly and if this bird does not fly the centre does not hold. A major devaluation of the RMB is just beginning and the faith in all the falconers will wane as deflation comes to the world almost seven years after the falconers first fanned the winds of QE supposed to levitate everything.
From 2009-2015 investors were well paid, at least in the developed world, to believe the most impossible of the six things before breakfast: that central bankers can subvert the desires, wishes, greed and fear of millions of people who set prices every day through their actions.
You now have two choices: keep believing the most impossible thing, or accept that the wild force that establishes market prices has not been tamed. It’s not a pet, it’s a falcon and ‘The falcon cannot hear the falconer’. The ‘people’s falcon’ may be the first to enter ‘a widening gyre’ but it won’t be the only wild force that refuses to be tamed in 2016.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-07/russell-napier-explains-how-decline-yuan-destroys-belief-central-banking
Watched ‘The Big Short ‘ yesterday and was struck by the stuff we all were talking about as it went down… CDOs, liar loans, liar landlords, lying ratings agencies, new McMansions abandoned with green pools in half built subdivisions. They hit it all.
This time I’m not seeing so many details. From a macro perspective, house prices are way up and wages aren’t, so it’s clear we have the same problem, but better one the fed holding rates low and the government buying up all the mortgages, I’m not grokking where the pea is in this round of shell game.
“and the government buying up all the mortgages”
A centralized landlord, for one. Everyone else: you’re a helot.
It’s the new American caste system about to go go worldwide.
Er, trying to, anyway.
+1. Bow down before to your new feudalist overlords, titans of crony capitalism like Monsanto and BlackRock.
Trump Supporters Appear To Be Misinformed, Not Uninformed
And that may explain why his support has proved to be so durable.
Donald Trump has a consistently loose relationship with the truth. So much so, in fact, that the fact-checking website PolitiFact rolled his numerous misstatements into one big “lie of the year.” But all the fact-checking in the world hasn’t pushed Trump toward a more evidence-based campaign, and his support has held steady or even increased in some polls. What explains Trump’s ability to seemingly overcome conventional political wisdom?
One way to understand Trump’s longevity is to look more closely at his supporters. Trump’s backers tend to be whiter, slightly older and less educated than the average Republican voter. But perhaps more importantly, his supporters have shown signs of being misinformed. Political science research has shown that the behavior of misinformed citizens is different from those who are uninformed, and this difference may explain Trump’s unusual staying power.
Because an informed citizenry is believed to be an essential element to a functioning democracy, political scientists have long been interested in what Americans know about politics. For the most part, scholars have found that many U.S. citizens don’t have basic information about politics and don’t hold consistent opinions on policy matters. More recently, scholarly interest has turned to a more nuanced understanding of what being politically informed means.
In 2000, James Kuklinski and other political scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign established an important distinction: American citizens with incorrect information can be divided into two groups, the misinformed and the uninformed. The difference between the two is stark. Uninformed citizens don’t have any information at all, while those who are misinformed have information that conflicts with the best evidence and expert opinion. As Kuklinski and his colleagues established, in the U.S., the most misinformed citizens tend to be the most confident in their views and are also the strongest partisans. These folks fill the gaps in their knowledge base by using their existing belief systems. Once these inferences are stored into memory, they become “indistinguishable from hard data,” Kuklinski and his colleagues found.
Furthermore, in 2010, political scientists Brendan Nyhan1 and Jason Reifler2 found that when misinformed citizens are told that their facts are wrong, they often cling to their opinions even more strongly with what is known as defensive processing, or the “backfire effect.”
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-supporters-appear-to-be-misinformed-not-uninformed/?ex_cid=story-twitter
Weird Al needs to add a verse to “Dare to be Stupid.”
One lie they aren’t misinformed on: no one but Trump is even talking about doing a damn thing about immigration other than open borders.
And he’s talking about it because he knows it’s what you plump trumplings want to hear. The master con man rules the fools.
And Bernie is talking about fixing the borders… But you can’t see past the devil horns you’ve drawn on him to get your fear fix.
Trumplings are willfully stupid and misinformed, just like Il Douche likes them.
RE: “talking about fixing the borders”
Mange, that’s such a joke. Wall, or no Wall. Until TPTB stop leaving out the snacks on the back-porch to draw in every hungry wild thing, the beat goes on.
“Free snacks! Free snacks! Come and get yer Free snacks!
Here, chicky chicky chicks!”
So you prefer trump flavored bullshit. Bon apetit!
RE: “trump flavored bullshit”
You seem kind of lost there. Did I mention Trump? No, I did not.
Are you a city person? In the country, when people put free food on their back-porch steps a lot of critters are attracted to the free food. That’s something the two wings of the predator bird known as politicians and their supporters fail to acknowledge. Are you one of the clueless?
We’re it used to me, there would be NO immigration. You seem to be the confused one.
Plenty of cities have pigeons and squirrels and so forth. There was an article just a few days ago about raccoons in Brooklyn.
Barnie’s fix is to open the borders, there no more problems. Bernie is a shill.
One lie they aren’t misinformed on: no one but Trump is even talking about doing a damn thing about immigration other than open borders.
Newsflash: encouraging mass immigration and open borders is part of the globalist agenda.
+1000. The Oligopoly needs wage slaves to toil in its factories and fields, and their Republicrat hirelings need cheap lawn boys and domestic help. Plus Comrad Pelosi gets her permanent DNC voting block. All is good, unless you’re a member of the 99%.
he Oligopoly needs wage slaves to toil in its factories and fields,
Personally, I suspect it goes deeper than that; I think the Bilderberg folks actually believe that by encouraging/forcing intermixing around the globe, that barriers are being torn down long-term, however uncomfortable that may be in the short-term.
Think of it as busing as a way to to counteract school-district segregation. I suspect that is why the Syrian campaign was undertaken to begin with: forced busing throughout Europe.
538 and Nate Silver have been in the tank for the left and Hillary forever. They constantly get it wrong about Trump becuase there is no decent robust set of data. Rear view window watchers just like the housing analysts in 2006.
I’m sure you were citing Rasmussen poll numbers after Ohio went for Obama in 2012, like Karl Rove.
Couldnt care less, didn’t vote in that election of shills becuase there wasn’t a candidate giving the middle finger to the PC crowd on both sides.
From your empty skull directly to the White House, Donald Trump lives rent free.
“Trump Supporters Appear To Be Misinformed, Not Uninformed”
It’s a typical problem for uneducated people.
Some Obama voters didn’t finish 6th grade but they are informed and pampered so it’s all cool!
Trumplings always assume anybody not with them is for hillobama. It’s almost as though they’re incapable contemplating more than a single option.
Tears of impotent rage have clouded their fading old minds.
Nope, just obvious that you are. Your racial pimping group identity politics is exposed.
It’s called black-and-white thinking, and it’s a time-tested ingredient in the Republican party’s election-losing platform.
poll at prioson,car wash etc for best results
Trump’s backers tend to be whiter, slightly older and less educated than the average Republican voter. But perhaps more importantly, his supporters have shown signs of being misinformed.
Blazing Saddles - Trumpsters (parental discretion advised)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHqL7dNujNc
As opposed to supporting the misinformer in chief’s spouse? I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, …
Tribe to protesters occupying Oregon wildlife refuge: ‘We were here first … get the hell out’
Before the Bundy brothers and fellow occupiers took over the remote headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and claimed it for private citizens, before there was even a federal wildlife refuge to occupy, there were the Northern Paiute, a tribe that hunted, fished, lived and worshiped in this harshly beautiful landscape for more than 13 centuries.
The area that is now the refuge was once their wintering grounds, but the Paiute were restricted to a reservation in 1868 after signing a treaty that would guarantee them federal recognition and protection from encroaching white settlers. Over time, that land allotment became even smaller, until the central Oregon Paiute were confined to a few thousand acres along what is now Highway 20 — the Burns Paiute Indian Reservation.
As the anti-government protesters dug in for their fifth day at the wildlife refuge, insisting that they would leave only once the land had been “returned to its rightful owners,” the Burns Paiute council convened at its tribal offices 30 minutes away. They all had one, angry question on their minds:
Who exactly did the occupiers think those “rightful owners” might be?
“Don’t tell me any of these ranchers came across the Bering Strait,” the tribal chairwoman, Charlotte Rodrique, said at a news conference Wednesday. “We were here first,” she added. “We’d like the public to acknowledge that.”
Jarvis Kennedy, a member of the tribal council, put his demand bluntly: “They just need to get the hell out of here.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/07/tribe-to-protesters-occupying-oregon-wildlife-refuge-we-were-here-first-get-the-hell-out/
‘Don’t tell me any of these ranchers came across the Bering Strait,’ the tribal chairwoman, Charlotte Rodrique, said’
Were you going by Charlotte when you made that trek long ago? Or was it Ms Rodrique?
RE: “across the Bering Strait”
It seems that a study of history matters little. The ancestors of the Native Americans of today pushed out and genocided the people which were there before them. …But, none of that matters.
‘Keepers. Keepers. Losers, weepers!’
If that’s true, it’s irrelevant to woman’s point. If those people were wiped out, it’s not possible to give land to their descendants.
Those jackasses need to pack it up and go home. The feds, to their credit, have acted with great restraint in several of these recent standoffs, but some of these armed militia types seem determined to spark a violent showdown. Ultimately the government is going to have to assert its authority, and these idiots are doing what they can to ensure the worst, most costly outcome for everybody concerned.
I’m not following the drama, but I am glad the Feds are not executing people for being in a closed for the season park building.
I’m not following the drama
You were waxing poetic about the same guys doing the roughly the same thing in Arizona (or wherever they’re from), a year or so ago. Now you’re not even reading about them in the press, as they kick it up a notch?
Why the change?
Keep making excuses for a careless overbearing govt arbitrarily violating the laws they wrote……. for everyone else.
Concern about government overreach doesn’t automatically translate into support for people who seem to thrive on the prospect of violent confrontation and rabble-rousing, whether it’s Black Lives Matter or anti-government militia types.
“Concern about government overreach”
Mass Man has no such concern. The Only thing that matters is ‘Dreamtime’.
Very well said, Ray.
I’ve watched interviews with these guys, and they come across as calm, stoic, rational rancher people, like I grew up around. If they’re not putting on an act for the media, I just can’t figure out how they got themselves into this idiotic situation.
They’re going to jail, or going to die, for absolutely no good reason.
RE: “They’re going to jail, or going to die, for absolutely no good reason.”
I wonder why Eric holder didn’t, and they would?
Because Eric Holder had a clue about how the political machine works.
RE: “Because Eric Holder had a clue about how the political machine works.”
That explains nothing.
Why did it work for him?
Eric walked away scott free, why shouldn’t these guys?
I’m not going to endlessly repeat the answer… Just scroll up and give it another read.
I’ve watched interviews with these guys, and they come across as calm, stoic, rational rancher people, like I grew up around.
It’s turning into a WingNut Woodstock. (With some wood stocks.) I think they need some more snacks - a big box of Snickers bars.
Oregon militants brawl as friends beg them to go home: ‘You’re surrounded by informants’
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/oregon-militants-brawl-as-friends-beg-them-to-go-home-youre-surrounded-by-informants/
Rumors and harsh facts arriving from outside the grounds of an Oregon nature preserve appear to be roiling the armed militants who have taken over a federal building in hopes of sparking an armed confrontation with government agents.
At least one of the militants, Joe “Capt. O” Oshaugnessy, left the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge amid drinking claims after arguing with participants over bringing their wives and children to the standoff, and another — Brian “Booda” Cavalier — left the compound after news reports revealed he had lied about serving in the military.
ADVERTISING
inRead invented by Teads
A former compatriot-turned-opponent claims one of the most prominent militants, Blaine Cooper, sucker-punched one of his friends — sending the counter-protester to the hospital with a concussion and serious facial injuries.
READ MORE: Tearful militant discovers friend drank away donation money
Lewis Arthur, who describes himself as an anti-violence patriot and head of the Veterans on Patrol activist group, said he arrived Wednesday with three other men to remove a “radicalized” and “suicidal” veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has a tendency toward violence when he’s placed under stress.
“We came up here to de-escalate the situation and to convince someone that having the federal government killing you is not going to make you a martyr, and the majority of the ‘patriots’ are pounding on their keyboards — they’re not going to rise up,” Arthur said in a video posted Thursday evening on Facebook.
Arthur said the 36-year-old Cooper, a former friend, attacked a member of his three-man crew during an argument over their mission to remove women, children and Ryan Payne — a U.S. Army veteran who has bragged about setting up sniper teams to target federal agents during the 2014 standoff at Bundy ranch.
“(Payne) made it very clear out there that he wanted the federal government to go and take him out,” Arthur said. “I had to come up here because I know what he wants.”
However, Cooper and other militants say Arthur, who set up a camp across the road from the nature preserve, initiated the fight by assaulting a guard and trying to enter the compound.
Jon Ritzheimer, the Arizona militiaman known for organizing anti-Muslim rallies, disputed that Payne hoped to become a martyr to the “patriot” cause and said Arthur was merely seeking “a couple of seconds of fame.”
I’ve watched interviews with these guys, and they come across as calm, stoic, rational rancher people, like I grew up around.
Some of my relatives are ranchers and farmers. Even though some of them got screwed over royally by MF Global and have concerns about the direction the country is headed in, they’re law-abiding, solid people who shake their heads in wonder at the antics of the Bundys and their ilk. I’ve often wondered if some of the key personalities agitating for confrontation aren’t agent provocateurs. God help us as a country if we devolve into angry masses of armed bands devoid of restraint and spoiling for a fight over real or perceived injustices.
While 95% of the ‘Murican electorate are stupid, as evidenced by their votes for Obama, McCain, and Romney, they are generally passively stupid. What happens if a significant number of them become militantly, aggressively stupid? That to me is the nightmare scenario.
“careless overbearing govt arbitrarily violating the laws they wrote……. for everyone else.”
You can say that again. Timeless and generational.
RE: “Those jackasses need to pack it up and go home.”
Maybe one of them wants to become the next attorney general or something? I mean, it worked for Eric Holder when he did a very similar thing in the 1960’s.
Apparently, this false story is a big deal on the Internet.
Black Panther Sleepover Party
A 2012 article claiming former attorney general Eric Holder participated in an armed occupation of a university ROTC office has resurfaced, but the original report was inaccurate.
CLAIM: Eric Holder participated in the armed occupation of a Columbia University ROTC office in 1970.
MOSTLY FALSE
WHAT’S TRUE: Former Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a peaceful sit-in at a Columbia University residence hall ROTC lounge in 1970.
WHAT’S FALSE: Holder took part in an “armed occupation” of a building at Columbia University.
http://www.snopes.com/eric-holder-participated-in-armed-siege-of-rotc-office/
Interesting, why would it mater if they were armed or unarmed?
Because civil disobedience in the name of a just cause is to be applauded.
“Tarpman” in Oregon said that he won’t be taken alive.
Sitting around locking arms is a world away from standing at the windows with rifles in your hands- that’s violent (by threat of violence) disobedience which seems unjustified here.
Interesting, why would it mater if they were armed or unarmed?
It must matter to the people who made up the lie and spread it on the internet.
If those guys in Oregon didn’t have firearms with them, a small number of local cops or federal agents could just go in and tell them to get lost. That’s why it matters that they’re armed. In fact, that must be why they are armed.
That and the veiled threats to shoot the lawmen if they try to do their jobs. I don’t care how white and conservative you are, that’s gonna bring trouble.
You introduce firearms into a situation, and automatically you’ve dramatically escalated the threat and risks posed by dealing with such a situation. I’m no fan of Eric Holder, but there is a huge difference between a sit-in by unarmed protestors and the implicit threat of violence posed by armed anti-government militants. That guy Payne that brags about pointing guns at Federal agents should’ve had his sorry ass hauled off the prison after the Bundy stand-off. That’s felony menacing, and it dramatically raises the potential to escalate the situation and put lives at risk on both sides.
Were he (Eric Holder) and his fellow protesters (in the ’60’s) carrying long guns and threatening not to be taken alive?
Another example of where people with mortgages can never go:
http://i.imgur.com/ab8tQFk.jpg
Region VIII
Goon, dude. I love your photo input (thanks for sharing) but maybe lay off a bit on the, ‘where mortgage slaves cant go’ theme. As a fellow renter, with the ever spiraling upward prices of everything I need to live, I can’t afford to go there either.
Me neither. I don’t get that much time off! But I do love the vicarious thrill of seeing the Goonster’s rambles about the lovely state of Colorado.
It is about working hard, and being smart. Not renting v owning. I have been on both teams, always traveled.
Florida Professor Who Cast Doubt on Mass Shootings Is Fired
MIAMI — A Florida Atlantic University professor who suggested in blog postings and radio interviews that the 2012 massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary and other mass shootings were a hoax designed by the Obama administration to boost support for gun control was fired Tuesday.
James F. Tracy, 50, a tenured associate professor of communications at the Boca Raton university, has repeatedly called into question the authenticity of recent mass shootings, including the slaying of churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., and office workers in San Bernardino, Calif. In his blog postings and radio interviews, Mr. Tracy has said the Newtown massacre may have been carried out by “crisis actors” employed by the Obama administration.
Mr. Tracy’s ideas fall into part of a larger movement of Internet conspiracy theorists who believe the spate of mass murders have simply been staged by the government. A few of the theorists do not think the shootings took place at all.
Florida Atlantic University, which first reprimanded Mr. Tracy in 2013, dismissed him less than a month after the parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, the youngest victim of the shooting at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Conn., publicly accused the professor of harassment in a Sun Sentinel opinion piece. Lenny and Veronique Pozner, angered by Mr. Tracy’s conspiracy theories, had asked Mr. Tracy to remove a photograph of Noah from his blog, Memory Hole. In return, Mr. Tracy sent them a certified letter demanding proof that Noah ever lived and that the Pozners were his parents.
Mr. Tracy continued his clash with the Pozners on Facebook, where he called the Newtown shootings a “drill,” a reference to a theory that the massacre was an exercise in which no one died staged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“The Pozners, alas, are as phony as the drill itself, and profiting handsomely from the fake death of their son,” Mr. Tracy wrote in a letter that is attributed to him on the Sandy Hook Hoax Facebook page. Mr. Tracy declined to comment on his termination. His lawyer, Thomas Johnson, also declined to comment on whether Mr. Tracy would seek legal action or file a grievance against the university over his dismissal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/us/florida-professor-who-cast-doubt-on-mass-shootings-is-fired.html?_r=0
MoronMilk must have gotten an email blast this morning.
Sounds like the perfect guy to hang drywall with phony.
Why would you say that?
i find it odd that the Pozners, Mighty or the New York Times would have ever even acknowledged professor Tracy or his blog.
A little flattered aren’t you?
Is he you, or your mentor?
“Chipotle’s recent $24 billion market cap, in fact, is the bubble in extremis which explains the entire financial bubble at large. It is surely the poster boy for the manner in which the Fed-sponsored Wall Street casino has hyped the mundane into the miraculous; and substituted paint-by-the-numbers hockey sticks for substantive analysis and judgment.
That is, a financial market which can value rented burrito joints which generate just $750k of store level cash flow at $12 million per copy is just plain off it rocker; it’s a greater fools gambling den that would make the moguls of Los Vegas envious.
Yet the astonishing level of complacency that took CMG shares to a peak of $750 a few months ago, is not a one-off aberration. It embodies the sum and substance of financial markets that have been destroyed by massive central bank intrusion and systematic falsification of interest rates and asset prices.”
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/priced-for-perfection-why-this-burrito-market-is-heading-for-a-fall/
It seems like there are some people out there that are very good at marketing and franchising fast food.
They conned the market into believing that there Chipotle joints would eventually being as ubiquitous as Mickey D’s.
Their competitor, QDoba, is constantly emailing me 2 for 1 coupons. The burrito fad is over.
I think qdoba is owned by jack n the box.
Doesn’t mcdonalds partially own CMG?
Its funny how these new chain restaurants just try and open as many new restaurants as possible real fast. Its a way to show fast sales growth. Doesnt matter if they make money or not.
I find it quite amazing how many workers these places have behind the counters.
Now that they have to get paid $15 an hour you’ll see a lot less of them.
Well, Mafia or Raymond or someone was complaining today about all of the minimum wage jobs created last month. (That’s according to Tyler Durden, of course.) So if fewer of those jobs are created in the future, that must be a good thing.
Minimum wage is ~$8/hr here in the Centennial State (it adjusts every year for inflation), though many fast food places in my little burg have signs saying they’re paying $10/hr or even more.
The burrito fad is Never over!
Love People. Make them tasty food.
It would be better if it could be done without inflammatory carbs, but still. … The burrito fad is Never over!
From my anecdotal information, burrito joints seem a lot less busy that in years past (hence the periodic twofer coupons in the email). Prices have gone up. $8 for a tortilla mostly full of rice and beans seems a bit steep to me.
“seems a bit steep to me”
The motto of the future?
A bit of competition would solve that. How-freaking-ever; our overlords wont allow that. Competition, that is. Especially, the free market sort.
It’s no longer, ‘The American Way’? …Which always causes me to wonder: What exactly IS, ‘The American Way’? …’Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out’? ‘Crush competition via monopoly’? ‘Regulate the heck out of everyone’? ‘My way, or The highway’? ‘Like it, or leave it’? ‘”We” be the boss of you’?
Turtles, all the way down?
I bet that there are plenty of joints selling burritos in Colorado’s area.
Chipotle and Qdoba are both Denver based. They compete with each other, but while Qdoba resorts to discounting (the twofers and the loyalty card) Chipotle has been running on “we use better ingredients”, which worked OK for them until all the poisonings began.
Kind of like my high school lifeguard gig, the best summer job I ever had until that blue kid turned up….
I imagine that there must be smaller Mexican chains as well in your area, as well as non-chain places where you can get a burrito.
DEAD CAT BOUNCE ?
Dead cats don’t actually bounce. Don’t ask me how I know this.
Would DEAD CAT SPLAT be a more accurate description of this week’s market action?
The smart money is selling into any rally. They know the party is over.
They can if you give them the right spin.
Or, if they land on a slope.
Or, roll back down a hill.
The last word on dead cats.
http://www.amazon.com/101-Uses-Dead-Simon-Bond/dp/0517545160
He’s made the Middle East worse: Let’s be honest, Obama bears as much responsibility for this mess as predecessors who shaped them
It is all there now for us to see. Decades of cynical, poorly devised policy in the Middle East, vacant of any principle our indispensable nation purports to advance, return as we speak to bite our president and his foreign policy cliques on their backsides. The shambles that now ensues serves them right, absolutely.
With the sudden ignition of smoldering hostilities between Iran and Saudi Arabia last weekend—the Iranians managing this more correctly than the Saudis—at last the veil drops to expose the gross duplicity, not to say stupidity, of Washington’s alliances in the region. At last we can talk about the unclothed emperor. And it is our responsibility to do so.
One would never argue that the chaos into which the Middle East now descends is all President Obama’s doing. It is not, by a long way. The music simply stopped on his watch, and it is he who is left to grope for a chair. No solicitude and no empathy, however. The bitter reality is that our hope-and-change president, as a drone-addicted assassin signing death warrants on a routine basis, bears as much responsibility for the messes he now confronts as any of those predecessors who shaped them.
If there is a single moment that crystallized all that has been wrong in America’s conduct across the Middle East for many decades, it came at the weekend, when the administration’s spokesmen could not bring themselves even to comment directly on, to say nothing of condemn, Riyadh’s purposely provocative beheading of a prominent Shiite cleric, a principled critic of the regime, last Saturday.
Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, took as few words as he could get away with to say nothing whatsoever. When John Kirby, the dim bulb who fronts for the State Department, noted only “the need for leaders throughout the region to redouble efforts aimed at de-escalating regional tensions,” one knew the hypocrisy and bankruptcy of American policy in the Middle East were both perfectly intact.
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/06/hes_made_the_middle_east_worse_lets_be_honest_obama_bears_as_much_responsibility_for_this_mess_as_predecessors_who_shaped_them/
Meanwhile, some of those Mid-East refugees we’re taking in after we regime-changed their countries seem less than grateful.
https://www.rt.com/usa/328246-fbi-arrest-refugees-terrorism/
We are a witnesses to a shia-sunni world war.
ISIS, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Gulf Arab states and the Yeman government on one side with US/NATO support.
Iran, Iraq, Assad, Hezbollah, and the Yeman rebels on the other with Russian/China support.
The Kurds, Christians and the Jews will do what they need to do to survive and will play either side.
Look at the middle East this way and it explains mucho.
Look at the middle East this way and it explains mucho.
The neocons’ endless wars on behalf of their Likud Party/AIPAC patrons explains it much better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw
Could you extrapolate? I cannot view videos.
General Wesley Clark (of Kosovo fame) revealed that after 9/11, a shocked senior officer confided to him that the neocons had put together a plan to implement “regime change” in seven mideast or African countries, with Iraq, Iran, and Syria being among them. Clark thought that was nuts, since most of those countries had never attacked us and had nothing to do with 9/11, contrary to what the neocons and their NYT shills like Judith Miller were telling the ‘Murican sheeple.
Check out this possible scenario for Europe based on their current Muslim invasion, courtesy of Matt Bracken:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/bracken-tet-take-two-islams-2016-european-offensive/
Very frightening, and very real.
Well that was depressing. A happy new year to you, too….
The lesson is that faith-based behavior, i.e. scripturally commanded, is unhealthy - Islamic or otherwise.
Of course, some people only live by the good parts of the Koran or Bible, but as a rule Bronze Age texts are poor sources for ethics/code of conduct.
Islam is “religion” based on cruelty to the unbeliever. Unbelievers can be other Muslims from other sects of Islam or non-Muslims. Muhammad was a child rapist, slave trader, slave master, sex slave trafficker, kidnapper, genocidal mass murderer, blissful torturer, thief and liar. This and more is well documented in the Koran and Hadith.
The Muslims joining ISIS are just Muslims wanting to be “Good Muslims.” They want to follow the way of their prophet. In the exact way Muhammad lived and ruled. No amount of sugar coating or mumbling about “moderate” Muslims will change that. “Radicalized” Muslims are simply Muslims who want to be “Good Muslims” in their host country according to the very same Koran and Hadith
“Radicalized” Muslims are simply Muslims who want to be “Good Muslims”
Yeah, yeah. But I have to ask, why do we keep giving them money and guns?
Isn’t it because Assad doesn’t want a Saudi Oil pipeline to run through Syria?
It’s about power and control, the pipeline is secondary.
why do we keep giving them money and guns?
1. Because a significant portion of American (to include congressmen and senators) are low-information citizens and are too lazy to really understand islam.
2. That most Americans don’t understand that islam is not a religion like Christianity or Hinduism or Judaism (etc.) where people go into a building once per week, pray, read and sing and then spend the rest of their time being good Americans.
3. Islam is economic, legal and governmental way of life and nothing else will be allowed to exist. Islam is a region based solely on cruelty to the unbeliever and an apartheid system of living (much worse than anything South Africa ever did).
4. Most Americans thinks everyone thinks like them. The “Golden Rule,” work hard, help each, etc. Nothing could be further from the truth in islam.
5. McCain and obama are fools. They think they control islam. That they can find “good muslims” who want to be like the west. Nothing could be further from the truth.
6. Modern Turkey, which used to held up as shining light of a moderate islamic society still has their islamic apartheid system. And Ataturk, the “Geroge Washington” of Turkey tried to forcibly removed all islamic power and influence from Turkish political and social spheres.
“Only when the authority of Islam was utterly eliminated could Turkey progress into a respected, modern nation”
– Ataturk
That most Americans don’t understand that islam is not a religion like Christianity or Hinduism or Judaism (etc.) where people go into a building once per week, pray, read and sing and then spend the rest of their time being good Americans.
Actually, that probably describes the behavior of the vast majority of observant Muslim Americans.
RE: “Islam is economic, legal and governmental way of life and nothing else will be allowed to exist.”
Psft! As if other religions are not?
Those are nice rose colored glasses you’re wearing.
I mean, Get Real.
Actually, that probably describes the behavior of the vast majority of observant Muslim Americans.
Myth of the ‘Moderate Muslim’
Townhall.com ^ | January 3, 2016 | Matt Barber
83 percent of Palestinian Muslims, 62 percent of Jordanians and 61 percent of Egyptians approve of jihadist attacks on Americans. World Public Opinion Poll (2009).
1.5 Million British Muslims support the Islamic State, about half their total population. ICM (Mirror) Poll 2015.
Two-thirds of Palestinians support the stabbing of Israeli civilians. Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (2015).
38.6 percent of Western Muslims believe 9/11 attacks were justified. Gallup (2011).
45 percent of British Muslims agree that clerics preaching violence against the West represent “mainstream Islam.” BBC Radio (2015).
38 percent of Muslim-Americans say Islamic State (ISIS) beliefs are Islamic or correct. (Forty-three percent disagree.) The Polling Company CSP Poll (2015).
One-third of British Muslim students support killing for Islam. Center for Social Cohesion (Wikileaks cable).
78 percent of British Muslims support punishing the publishers of Muhammad cartoons. NOP Research.
80 percent of young Dutch Muslims see nothing wrong with holy war against non-believers. Most verbalized support for pro-Islamic State fighters. Motivaction Survey (2014).
Nearly one-third of Muslim-Americans agree that violence against those who insult Muhammad or the Quran is acceptable. The Polling Company CSP Poll (2015).
68 percent of British Muslims support the arrest and prosecution of anyone who insults Islam. NOP Research.
51 percent of Muslim-Americans say that Muslims should have the choice of being judged by Shariah courts rather than courts of the United States (only 39 percent disagree).The Polling Company CSP Poll (2015).
81 percent of Muslim respondents support the Islamic State (ISIS). Al-Jazeera poll (2015).
As if other religions are not?
Those are nice rose colored glasses you’re wearing.
I have been all over the world. Thank your god you not a non-muslim in a muslim dominated country. Thank your god you are not a woman in a muslim country.
————–
Islam is “religion” based on cruelty to the unbeliever. Unbelievers can be other Muslims from other sects of Islam or non-Muslims. Muhammad was a child rapist, slave trader, slave master, sex slave trafficker, kidnapper, genocidal mass murderer, blissful torturer, thief and liar. This and more is well documented in the Koran and Hadith.
Ever try to buy alcohol on a Sunday in a heavily populated Christian dry county?
Nevermind The War Against Some Drugs.
Notice the story about the guy in jail visited by his two wives?
I imagine the same applies trying to order a steak dinner in India. Etc…
Christianity has brought great things to people, just the same, it demands an economic, legal and governmental way of life and nothing else will be allowed to exist.
None of those percentages contradict what I wrote. Going into a building once per week, to pray, read and sing and then spending the rest of their time being good Americans.describes how the vast majority of Muslim Americans practice their religion.
How about, The Myth of the ‘Christian American’?
‘Love your enemies’ means to bomb them?
You’re right, I thank God I’m not in a Muslim country. It’s theirs. They make of it what they want.
That does not mean other countries are any different.
The distinction it seems like you ignore is, without government power & control, none of this would matter.
The debate today is over power and control, not they type of religion welding it.
I can’t believe I agree with something MightyMike wrote. Wow.
Cruz would implement Christian sharia law if he could.
Qatar, rich and dangerous, wants a gas pipeline through Syria.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Qatar-Rich-and-Dangerous.html
62 percent of Jordanians and 61 percent of Egyptians approve of jihadist attacks on Americans.
But Christians are different.
Seventy-Two Percent of Americans Support War Against Iraq
March 24, 2003 GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
http://www.gallup.com/poll/8038/seventytwo-percent-americans-support-war-against-iraq.aspx
Seventy-two percent of Americans interviewed in a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Saturday and Sunday favor the war against Iraq, while 25% are opposed. Roughly the same number approve of the job President George W. Bush is doing.
The percentage supporting the war is just slightly lower than the 76% approval registered last Thursday night — the day after hostilities began — but remains significantly higher than support levels in the weeks and months leading up to the beginning of hostilities.
‘Muricans re-elected Bush. ‘Nuff said.
Another day, another radical jihadi in a dress trying to kill a cop in America.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/01/08/philadelphia-police-say-attacker-tried-to-execute-officer/
“The lesson is that faith-based behavior, i.e. scripturally commanded, is unhealthy - Islamic or otherwise.”
A study of western civilization and the effects of Christianity upon People produces the exact opposite conclusion,… but, whatever.
Or, as Goon would say, globalist gonna globe.
Christians and Muslims pray to the same God (as do Mormons).
Crediting Christianity with advancing civilization is highly debatable. Ancient Greeks and Romans would be my choice, but Muslims could argue for their significant contributions. Ever heard of Al-gebra?
Muslim governments ruled peacefully over peoples of many religions for several hundred years.
It depends how you interpret your religious scriptures.
“Your religion is bizarre, mine is OK.” What nonsense!
“Western culture as it has come to be known cannot be explained without understanding the impact that Christianity has had; of course, there was Greece and Rome before, and there were valuable contributions made by Muslim and Eastern thinkers, scholars, scientists and philosophers. But the basic story can be told without these; I don’t believe it can be told without Christianity.”
The Cultural Abyss
By Bionic Mosquito
December 22, 2014
I saw a study somewhere that said that Christian Americans are no more ethical than atheist Americans.
Also, your quote from Bionic Mosquito (must be a Kenneth Clark for the 21st century) doesn’t address the question of whether Christianity has had a beneficial effect on Western Civilization.
“In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by “political correctness” and “the war on terror.”” …
The Greatest Gift for All
By Paul Craig Roberts
December 24, 2013
“Christians and Muslims pray to the same God (as do Muslims).
No they talk to similar volumes of air, and not necessarily to the same air.
I’m a bit surprised there isn’t more discussion (generally) about Richard Fisher’s recent admission in an interview on CNBC about the Fed front loading the markets. And more importantly, what withdraw of such front loading might mean. Is it insignificant?
It almost seemed like he was talking down the market to me. Isnt he working for a investment house now?
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/06/29/former-dallas-fed-president-fisher-to-join-barclays-as-senior-adviser/
whats a little crazier is that there are two fishers associated with the fed. as an astute reader pointed out the other day there is fisher and then there is fischer. I got them confused.
Let me help you out. Fisher is a former hedge fund manager and recently retired Dallas Fed president.
Fischer is a top ranked econ professor who trained a significant number of today’s central bankers.
I figured the peanut gallery would chime in on that one.
I think the readers here will understand my message.
understand my message
It all sound like donkey to me.
tired of wasting keystrokes on you!
unpossible
I used to use the word, ‘KimPossible’.
A link with a snippet:
Fed Official Confesses Fed Rigged Stock Market — Crash Certain
By: David Haggith | Wed, Jan 6, 2016
“You have to be careful here and frank about what drove the markets…. It was, the Fed, the Fed, the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Japanese Central bank … all quantitatively driven by central bank activity. That’s not the way markets should be working…. They were juiced up by central banks, including the Federal Reserve…. So, I think you have to acknowledge reality.”
http://www.safehaven.com/article/40068/fed-official-confesses-fed-rigged-stock-market-crash-certain
Do u think barclays has some pretty huge short positions? why dont you investigate that please?
Interesting replies. You’re saying that he’s only saying that to enrich himself & his chronies,… and it’s no big deal? How much of ‘the market’ does the Fed have to be, to become, ‘the market’? Or, put another way, what effect does a market leader have on investors?
In the background, ‘the market’ sets rates.
MSM trying desperately to get Greater Fools to reinflate the Ponzi market.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-this-weeks-global-equity-meltdown-could-be-a-big-fat-buy-signal-2016-01-08
If this market closes down big today after the big DEC jobs report that is a huge sign sentiment is turning big time.
You can almost see the PPT straining mightily to prop up the Ponzi, but ultimately to no avail.
There’s tension between the markets short-term bounce due to dips buyers and the long-term deadweight of Fed liftoff. My guess is that the Fed’s deadweight factor will drive the trend in 2016.
and obama wants to let in millions more…
Soon to come to a city near you.
Wonder how housing prices will do in mulsim no-go zones in America?
——————
Sources: Suspect Confesses To Shooting Officer, Says He Did It In the Name Of Islam
philadelphia.cbslocal.com | 1/8/2016 | Justin Finch
Authorities say a Philadelphia police officer is recovering after he was shot several times during an ambush late Thursday night in West Philadelphia.
Philadelphia police commissioner Richard Ross says the officer was sitting in his patrol car around 11:30 p.m. at 60th and Spruce Streets when a gunman fired 13 shots through the driver’s side of the car.
The officer - 33-year-old Jesse Hartnett - was struck three times in his arm, authorities say.
“Shots fired! I’m shot! I’m bleeding heavily!” Hartnett can be heard yelling on police radio.
Sources tell Eyewitness News the suspect has given a full confession, saying he did it in the name of Islam.
European sheeple might be re-assessing their voting habits going forward, now that they’re enjoying the fruits of globalism and all its multicultural blessings.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/632735/Germany-sex-attacks-gang-rape-Cologne-New-Years-Eve
and obama wants to let in millions more…
Why are you resorting to lying?
Jeb Bush wants to “end” food stamps (and replace it with another program no doubt administered by his Wall Street puppet masters).
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/obama-rips-nra-for-peddling-fiction-at-town-hall-on-guns-2016-01-08?dist=lcountdown
They did that in CA. Same thing, just called it CalFresh. About $160 a mo to poor folks, spent locally… helps economy. Better than $1 mill for a bomb to blow up some rocks a a $2000 used Toyota in Afghanistan.
Better than $50k a yr to jail someone, who stole food.
As a fiscal conservative, I approve!!!
Most poor people are eating empty carbs, i.e. processed crap that makes them fat and unhealthy. I’d be willing to pay more for a program that actually incentivized and enabled them to eat healthy and not sit on their fat a$$es all day.
I’d be willing to pay more for a program that actually incentivized and enabled them to eat healthy and not sit on their fat a$$es all day.
Brilliant idea! It’s like a Walk-a-thon: the amount of your food-stamp benefit depends on your mileage.
like Ive said before the quickest way to get people off assistance is to make them sit in class 15-20 hours a week and learn English and Math. and to have a FB page in their own name and to respond in English not ghetto ebonixxx
that is being tough…..
sounds like more gov and more regulations and more costs to administer that plan…
cheaper to give them food stamps, keeps them out of jail and the ER. Lots of food stamp recipients live in their car.
Quit pimping the lie that welfare is $160 a month. It’s almost 30k a year including Section 8 for a family of 4 including medical. For NOT WORKING.
He referring to food stamps only. That’s the topic under discussion here.
That a lot more than 160 a month also. $500 bucks or more, MilkyMoron.
He was probably referring to the amount that a single person could get.
How obnoxious would this be?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/south-korea-fires-back-at-kim-jong-un-with-blast-of-pop-music-2016-01-08?dist=lcountdown
How about the “old food stamp” program.
No EBT credit card.
You get stamps. You get some shame in the food line. And you can only buy the basics - eggs, cheese, fruit, hamburger meat, etc.
It should be to keep you from starving and nothing else.
You want steaks, lobster and frozen pizza? Get a job.
I agree with you, but if you were to implement such an idea, it would place a significant burden on the stores as THEY would then have to police the items that can and cannot be purchased.
Howso? In your example above: steaks. So you are telling me that the store is now going to have to differentiate between cuts of meat - that some of them are OK to sell to EBT holder, while others are not? Is the organic, lean ground beef ($7/lb) not OK to sell but the $4/lb “regular” ground beef is?
That is a real problem and the stores don’t receive any compensation for having to deal with this. Meanwhile at the checkout counter, dozens of ticked-off regular customers stand in line fuming while this all gets sorted out.
If you are banning entire classes of products, such as alcohol, cigarettes, and candy, then it is much easier to enforce.
The devil is ALWAYS lurking in the details.
That’s a good point. It probably means that there wasn’t some time in the past when steak and lobster couldn’t be purchased with food stamps.
I used to work in a grocery store.
Even back in the day, this was pretty easy.
All products are coded (what tax to charge, produce, meat, etc.)
You just code what is allowed to buy with food stamps. The few basic items in the store have a big sign of them “Available for Food Stamps”
At the register - it will not allow food stamps to be used to buy anything not on the list.
Way, way (way) back I worked in a ghetto supermarket in NYC. I’d work until midnight, 1 AM for minimum wage checking out food stamp recipients with better clothes than mine and perfectly manicured nails. Lobsters and steaks were definitely on the menu. Arguments about what items were allowed on food stamps were constant.
Customers would sometimes try to intimidate you by pushing items past, saying “you don’t have to charge for this”. I was threatened more than once, told they would wait for me outside, etc. One evening a woman took a swing at the cashier next to me, and she, no shrinking violet herself, started to climb over the counter to retaliate. After a few months working there you became pretty unflappable, so when we were all herded into the back by a manager because guys with guns were robbing the place, we thought it was funny (young, dumb, invincible).
The worst part of it all was getting up for school at 6 AM with not enough sleep - torture. Good times.
jealous of food stamp recipients–a new low.
Zzzzzz…
A record number of people in our Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs “recovery” are receiving food aid - something like 47 million. Jeb’s oligarch backers must be salivating at the prospect of “administering” such a massive program and ensuring an inordinate percentage of “aid” gets kicked back to Wall Street in the form of “fees” and “program administration costs.” What a racket.
Re: How about the “old food stamp” program.
I like your stance, however; how about, “no free lunch”?
Ever study how charity worked before government got involved?
I will never understand the willingness of Mass Man to support robbing Peter to pay Paul. Theft, by any other name, is still theft. A lot of problems would be solved if A. stopped robbing B. in order to take a slice to pay C. …But, that’s not how the world likes to roll.
Who’s Mass Man? More importantly, if taxes are theft, it doesn’t matter what they are spent on. So don’t forget to include the armed forces when discussing “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
So don’t forget to include the armed forces when discussing “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Entitlements: 60% of the Federal Budget
Defense: 17% of the Federal Budget
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png
RE: “Who’s Mass Man?”
That is the krutch (crutch?) of the madness of crowds, isn’t it? Responsibility is foregone. Can you understand that? The individual is lost in the crowd so there is no one particular “Mass Man”. Your overlords depend on you not knowing.
RE: “So don’t forget to include the armed forces when discussing…” Yeah, and pot hole repair, and while you’re at it include the phrase, “not infringe”.
A scrap of paper… The Constitution is. All that’s left is: Bully Thugs. Their whims, their mass support, and the delusions of crowds. That’s how we wound up with a Housing Bubble in the first place.
That is the krutch (crutch?) of the madness of crowds, isn’t it? Responsibility is foregone. Can you understand that? The individual is lost in the crowd so there is no one particular “Mass Man”. Your overlords depend on you not knowing.
I think that I have an idea of what you’re getting at, though I don’t why you couldn’t have been more explicit. You may be working for the overlords.
You remind of that crackpot tj. He once wrote that he thought that it’s unethical for people for come together and work as a group. Everyone should just look out for himself. He was probably thinking of organizations like unions and movements like the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He probably didn’t realize that it would also apply to the Tea Party. In any case, that sort of stance it exactly what the one-percenters want. Keep the masses disorganized. It allows the elites to run the country without interference.
people WHO WORK AT wALmART full time get food stamps. Why do I (taxpayer) have to pay them, I dont shop there. WMT has billions, let them pay their own workers.
At $160 a mo, why would you buy lobster? Rice, beans and peanut-butter, more likely to survive.
You get stamps. You get some shame in the food line.
Most EBT people are from working families. Why should they be shamed because their wages are so low?
Most the rest are sick, disabled or can’t find a job but are looking. Let’s shame them too.
why would 2banana feel better about herself if we shamed these zombies?
got therapy?
From my direct observation, a lot of EBT people are fat, lazy, disgusting, pierced/tattooed slobs who can’t get jobs because they’re physically repulsive and visibly lack any pride, motivation, morals, or discipline.
You mean that you see people using SNAP at the supermarket and you can determine all of that by looking at them for a minute?
Have you met these people? no one will EVER hire them. they have no skills. now what?
Are you referring to people on food stamps? How many have you ever met? You stated yourself that some people who work full time at Wal-Mart have incomes low enough to qualify.
On the other hand, there are many recipients who could never get a job. They include small children, the elderly, veterans who came back from Afghanistan with missing limbs and PTSD.
there are many recipients who could never get a job. They include small children, the elderly, veterans who came back from Afghanistan with missing limbs and PTSD.
Shame on them. Especially the fat ones.
Shame on you for doing nothing for them Lola.
H-1B temporary worker’s visas…because American companies can’t find skilled employees with American citizens…
———————-
Convicted Baby/Grandma Killer Loses Bid to Charge Detective With Fraud
India West | January 7, 2016 | SUNITA SOHRABJI
Raghunandan Yandamuri, who killed an Indian American 10-month-old baby and her grandmother in 2012 in Pennsylvania during a botched kidnapping attempt, lost his bid Jan. 6 to charge a detective involved in his case with fraud.
On Oct. 10, 2014, before being sentenced to death for the gruesome killings, Yandamuri told Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Steven T. O’Neill: “I don’t want this hearing. I would rather take the death penalty.” O’Neill sentenced Yandamuri to die by lethal injection.
Yandamuri was also convicted of seven felonies relating to kidnapping and burglary. He was also convicted of one misdemeanor charge for abusing a corpse. During the trial, prosecutors said Yandamuri - a neighbor of the Venna family who frequently socialized with them - first killed Satyavathi, then combed the Vennas’ apartment for valuables. He then stuffed baby Saanvi into a suitcase and fled the apartment with the suitcase, which he stashed in a basement gym.
Since his sentencing, Yandamuri has filed an appeal saying he was coerced into confessing the crimes. The Andhra Pradesh native - who has lived in the U.S. since 2010 on an H-1B temporary worker’s visa - has fired his court-appointed lawyers and is representing himself.
There are plenty of good arguments to be made in favor of reducing the number of H1-B visas drastically, but this is not one of them.
I’m guessing most H1-B visa holders are a lot less criminally inclined than native-born ‘Muricans.
How about we don’t find out?
Less crime + more jobs for Americans.
How about just plain, more jobs?
More opportunity?
Less regulation to enable the turtles at the top?
Psft! Who am I kidding. That would interrupt The New American motto: ‘Dreamtime” forever! Or, as Combo might say, ever upward vales and prices for all! Muhahaha! …Oh, wait, that’s Mr. Banker.
cheer up my friends:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjgq6-5uDtY
She’s hot!
Nice. Well done Poet.
Maybe a Daily Strumpet post a’la CraterRage Photo Of The Day?
One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people—I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I’m concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn’t be fighting me, they’d be doing something constructive themselves.
Be gentle on the Pineapples this morning. They’re distraught at the untimely destruction of one of their idols by the Chinese government.
http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-giant-statue-of-ex-chinese-leader-mao-zedong-demolished-2016-1
China’s Noah’s Ark Park.
“Where The December Jobs Were: Minimum Wage Deluge Continues”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-08/where-december-jobs-were-minimum-wage-deluge-continues
8 years of falling wages. Great job Obama.
Merkel has all but guaranteed the rise of far right nationalist parties all across Europe and a clean sweep of “centrist” parties who serve as water carriers for the oligarchs and globalists. Unlike Merkel and her CDU Quislings, nationalist administrations will tell the ECB to go pound sand when it tries to put their taxpayers on the hook to cover more bankster bailouts - meaning the financial reckoning day, long deferred, is going to draw a lot closer.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-08/ms-merkel-invited-me-refugee-sex-assaults-reported-finland-switzerland-austria
Where is the backlash in Sweden, Germany and Norway against their pro-refugee governments?
In the USA, Republicans’ insistence on overturning Roe v.Wade makes it hard for most non-Republicans to check the box for them, even if the alternative is less than appetizing.
If the refugee-violence is half as bad as it appears in the media that I see, the backlash will be swift.
RE: “If the refugee-violence is half as bad as it appears in the media”
The blog, MindBodyPolitic had a well thought out bit deconstructing the rape meme in Europe. Perhaps, all is not as it seems?
If the refugee-violence is half as bad as it appears in the media that I see, the backlash will be swift.
I doubt it. Europeans, like ‘Muricans, have been so dumbed down and zombified that they’ll have a dim perception that something isn’t right, but they’ll lack the intelligence to connect the fruits of globalism with their votes for the status quo.
Plus, most of them already had their guns taken away, so they can stand there and stomp their feet to feel better.
Hammer to Fall…..
Queen…..Yep - Here we stand and here we fall, history won’t care at all…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU5LMG3WFBw
Happy Friday!
Keeeeeeeeeeeeyrank it up to…. well…. there isn’t enough wattage to suit this one, sit back and count your pile o’ caaaaaaaaaaaaash.
https://youtu.be/2nHIhvx34ew?list=PLda0Q821IKAJuwIHyNziCQ68_qj2fyfvL
And heres one for you leotard wearing Lolas.
https://youtu.be/izGwDsrQ1eQ
Alas, it seems that manufacturing in Comrade Pelosi’s People’s Republic of Kalifornia is one of those productive activities that must be ruthlessly punished by the Parasite Party, aka the Democrats.
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/01/08/the-sky-is-falling-on-california-manufacturing-worst-since-february-2009-may-drag-regional-economy-into-recession/
German police chiefs who tried to cover up immigrant involvement in the New Year’s mob assaults on women are fired, although the real culprits, Merkel and her globalist, multiculturalist CDU Quislings, remain in office.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12088994/Cologne-sex-attacks-Two-immigrant-suspects-arrested-carrying-note-in-German-and-Arabic-saying-I-want-to-have-sex-with-you.html
How about the female mayor of Cologne who basically blamed the German women for getting raped?
Pepper spray…now THERE’S the solution….
/sarc
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/08/german-shops-sell-out-of-self-defence-pepper-spray-in-wake-of-cologne-migrant-rapes/
they could get guns,but Hitler took them
Funny how the 300 million guns in the US didn’t stop the Mexodus and the crimes they commit.
I’m going to go way out on a limb and predict that some of the European sheeple who voted for globalists and multiculturalists like Merkel and that babbling idiot mayor of Cologne may look for alternatives next time around.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3390168/Migrant-rape-fears-spread-Europe-Women-told-not-night-assaults-carried-Sweden-Finland-Germany-Austria-Switzerland-amid-warnings-gangs-ordinating-attacks.html
Funny how people who have lived under tyranny are the staunchest opponents of “gun control.”
https://www.facebook.com/693477984029441/photos/a.693905133986726.1073741826.693477984029441/998111650232738/?type=3&theater
Here is another article for 2B’s file for Chicago ILLANNOY.
Sad that obozo won’t shed a tear for the daily slaughter that takes place here. Don’t move here - you will hate it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-gun-violence-town-hall-20160108-story.html
And re: “Father” Phlager - you gotta look this left wing nut job to really understand who controls the narrative in Chicago ILLANNOY - hint - it ain’t the folks on City Council.
Great, now I got that song, ‘They like it like that” in my head.
Also, you do know the left is only the other wing on the same bird of prey the right is attached to, don’tchya?
Yep - us and them there baby!!!
Cool.
CraterRage Chart Of The Day
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52dbdf4b69bedd0604c75720-1200-924/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.png
The sure fire way to kick those debt blues is to GET OUT OF DEBT.
If you find it doesn’t suit you when you finally do it’s easy to go back and get a loan.
Ha! ‘If you find it doesn’t suit you when you finally do it’s easy to go back and get a loan.”
Que Mr. Banker.
Indeed, just as it is always a good time to buy real estate it is always - ALWAYS - a good time to take out a loan.
Terms can be, er, flexible and interest rates can become quite interesting (as in adjustable) for those who are man enough to step up and JUST DO IT!
So the question is: Are you man enough to reach down and take it, man enough to JUST DO IT, man enough to perhaps become THE NEW DONALD?
Yes? If yes then come into my (lair?) office and ask for the Dotted Line Special, the one that includes the new and improved wealth generating (and possibly wealth adjusting) Adjustable Rate Option and we, you and I, will perhaps share a cup of coffee or two (I’ll buy!) and possibly more than a few grins.
Jeb Bush’s oligarch puppetmasters are desperately trying to revive his floundering campaign, even though Rubio is essentially the same candidate.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/paul-warren-mock-greenberg-donation-to-bailout-bush-campaign-2016-01-08?link=MW_home_latest_news
Trump told Jeb! to use his last name last night in VT, now he is. What a joke the Republican Bush family is.
No, the joke is on us. It was the bovine stupidity of the electorate that resulted in “Shrub” being elected not once but twice, despite his epic incompetence and the hubris of Cheney’s neocon cabal that resulted in the biggest strategic blunder in US history: the invasion of Iraq. Thank God only a residual core of the most retarded GOP voters are still backing this oligarch puppet, Jeb, who would attempt to finish what his dimwit brother started.
good point. we lose, unless we are in business with the defense industry profiting off war.
Corruption has been the downfall of all empires. Read and heed, HBB Democrats.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-08/empires-us-fall-when-corruption-becomes-rampant
My smart friends are all independents. We would never belong to one party.
I think maybe you sould have broken this up into parts:
“My smart friends are all independents.”
“We would never belong to one party.”
‘Independents’ are the tail feathers attached to the same bird of prey the two wings the right and left belong to.
Insert photo of giant man killing extinct bird, here. X.
…It lives on. Er, ‘They Live’.
You independent? Ha ha ha
Accept it, you are voting Hillary.
i WONT VOTE FOR :
jib, CRUZ, THE FAT GUY, mARCO OR ANY OTHER NEO-CON IS ALL i KNOW.
PROBABLY GO GOLFING INSTEAD
And Hillary isn’t a neocon? Obama isn’t a neocon?
You are such a democratic tool man…why even pretend so hard?
A vote for Hillary is a vote for corruption and the crony capitalist status quo, “independent” or not.
Empires are awful. The founding fathers started America by getting rid of the British empire. I guess that every cloud has a silver lining.
RE: “I guess that every cloud has a silver lining.”
I imagine that people said that a lot during The Great Depression, too.
The millions in unitedstate prisons probably say that?
The bombed out wedding parties and schools for the blind in foreign lands prolly say that?
Everyone says that except for those at The Top and their supporters who are lucky enough to avoid being swept up in the net known as repression and authoritarianism while maintaining a bit of obliviousness. ‘Dreamtime’ rules!
It’s really freaky to me how, ‘These United States’ are becoming what I was taught The Soviet Union, was.
Twenty years ago I Never would have guessed this was the outcome. A lot of people might jump into the gap and say it isn’t so. However; the facts say otherwise. Notice the jail numbers, the increase in regulations, the vast contrariness to the Constitution and the disappearance of the meaning of words, like say, the meaning of ‘infringe’. …Ya. the People in ‘Dreamtime’ can’t, won’t and do not recognize all that. Tally Ho! Full Speed Ahead!
The founding fathers started America by getting rid of the British empire. I guess that every cloud has a silver lining.
The British Empire outlasted the American Revolution and didn’t fade away until after WWII. Clearly you are a product of our ‘Murican public education system as evidenced by your mindless regurgitation of DNC talking points and a flawed conception of history.
UCO my friends.
Donald Trump wants you to pay more for smartphones, TVs and a lot else,,,
Are you good with a 45% tariff on China and the costs of goods going way up?
we all know it will never happen.
GREAT JOBS REPORT!!
ps. the gov does not create jobs, nor do we want them to.
Living wage jobs disappearing or being offshored, replaced by minimum wage jobs and people working multiple low-wage jobs to make ends meet. How’s the hope ‘n change working out for you, ‘Murica?
College grads are doing just fine. You reap what you sew. If you make min wage, you are worth min wage–quit and get a better job if you dont like it. The gov is not here to raise u.
Lots of lazy fools in America, they never worked hard to get ahead.
Going to college is not a solution for any more than a very small portion of minimum wage workers. America already sends too many of its young people to college and has been doing so for decades. The nature of the economy is that a large percentage of all jobs don’t require much in the way of skills or education. This has been true forever in every country on the planet. If those low-skill jobs pay poverty wages, then a large percentage of all Americans will be living in poverty.
education, skills, talent, personality — yes it all matter and you have to work at it.
some care, some dont. Not sure what to do with the Zombies on their porch all day. Good luck cutting off their food stamps.
College students are coming out with massive debts and bleak employment prospects in our Obama-Fed-Goldman Sachs “recovery.” Learning a trade makes a lot more sense.
You mean like the thousands of still-viable age 40-something software engineers that are quietly laid off by Microsoft every year due to their Jack Welchian cull-the-herd performance review system? The one in which you get a bad review two years in a row and then are given the option to either quit or be fired (after they let you stay on for a few months and see if you can find a new job internally, with a big scarlet letter on your forehead)?
Replaced by the tens of thousands of fresh-off-the-plane newly-minted H1Bs every year?
Yeah, that college degree really is their safety net, LOL!
If you don’t have the proper “career velocity” (in other words, you are happy in your current position and aren’t a ladder-climber), your changes of getting ‘managed out’ (and replaced with a 20-something H1B version of yourself) when in mid-life are greatly increased.
I have lived in Microsoft’s back yard for the past 20 years and have seen this happen over and over, and it is still going on (never makes the local papers, hmmm I wonder why).
You have a point about it being a good thing to have a college degree, but my point is even then, it doesn’t guarantee you a job or even mean that you’ll get to keep your job.
Even the college degree holders are now getting hosed. And good luck finding a lesser position because you’ll always be told that you are overqualified and they don’t want to hire somebody that they think will quickly leave.
Think: “Union”.
The gov is not here to raise u.
The 1% is raised lovingly and coddled by the government. The government is the rich’s nanny.
All part of the globalists’ plan. One-world government/currency is not far off now. The big question is how bad the wars will get before that happens.
C’mon DOW 12,000!!
Cellphone plans are getting cheaper — thanks, Obama! (and T-Mobile)
Next time you go shopping for a new cellphone plan, you’re likely to find that the options are a lot better than they were a couple of years ago. Prices are lower. You don’t have to sign up for one of those annoying two-year contracts. You’ll probably get unlimited phone calls and text messages as a standard feature — and a lot more data than before.
If that happens to you, you should thank the Obama administration — specifically, the antitrust watchdogs at the Department of Justice.
Many of the positive developments of the past four years have been driven by T-Mobile, which until recently was the smallest of the nation’s four national wireless providers. Back in 2011, AT&T was on the verge of gobbling up T-Mobile, which would have turned the industry’s Big Four into the Big Three and eliminated the industry’s most unpredictable company.
“Even prior to the merger, T-Mobile was known as being this maverick competitor,” says Brent Skorup, a researcher at the Mercatus Center. If the merger had gone through, the industry’s maverick would have disappeared.
But then the Obama administration intervened to block the merger. With a merger off the table, T-Mobile decided to become a thorn in the side of its larger rivals, cutting prices and offering more attractive service plans. The result, says Mark Cooper, a researcher at the Consumer Federation of America, has been an “outbreak of competition” that’s resulted in tens of billions of dollars in consumer savings.
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/7/10730384/cellphone-obama-t-mobile
competition is good! Now lets bring it to the health insurance industry.
great job ya socialists!
I spend about $25 a month, but I have a flip phone, so no data plan. I’m also charged per minute and per text. If someone texts me a picture I’m charged per MB.
I held off until last year and finally got an iPhone. I am seriously considering going back to a flip and possibly no cell phone at all.
Will 2016 be the year the Fed’s asset bubbles and Ponzi markets implode?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-08/market-massacre-worst-ever-first-week-trading
the fundamentals are strong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QpD64GUoXw
“The Federal Reserve is a giant weapon that has no ammunition left.
You have to be careful here and frank about what drove the markets…. It was, the Fed, the Fed, the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Japanese Central bank … all quantitatively driven by central bank activity. That’s not the way markets should be working…. They were juiced up by central banks, including the Federal Reserve…. So, I think you have to acknowledge reality.” Former FED member fisher
http://www.activistpost.com/2016/01/fed-official-confesses-fed-rigged-stock-market-crash-certain.html
Well, that’s not quite true. They can take away the punchbowl or at least drain it a bit. This year we’ll see if they actually do this, or if they claim that rates are higher while they secretly institute NIRP.
Last month I was at a Christmas party here in the Seattle area with a bunch of millenial engineers. They were all sharing stories about:
1) What round of VC financing their startup was in
2) What their ‘burn rate’ (monthly use of cash) was
3) How many months of burn they had left (before more VC $ was necessary)
If the punchbowl gets taken away, where is all of this investment capital going to be coming from?
It’s going to get really ugly. Can Amazon/Facebook/Apple save us?
The VC money was flowing fast and easy in early 2000, right up until the day when the Tech Bubble began its spectacular, months-long collapse.
giving everyone a voice on the internet has divided this county, not Obama.
Just read what the Texans write about their hate of Gov and their guns. Or these clowns in OR and their “snack” requests.
Here’s an idea: let’s send the Syrian refugees to the Chinese ghost cities.
http://www.creativeboom.com/photography/photographer-captures-chinas-largest-abandoned-ghost-town-in-eerie-but-strangely-beautiful-set-of-images/
Here’s an idea: let’s send the Syrian refugees to the Chinese ghost cities.
That’s one heck of an idea RayKay. China’s got the space and the houses, needs a little variety in its gene pool, culture and thinking patterns imo, and no potential terrorist would get away with much in China.
Why not? The West could pay China to do it. In money that we borrowed from them.
Will Hillary’s decades-long string of corruption, sleaze, and law-breaking finally catch up with her? Or will she be further validation that the .1% are literally above the law?
http://spectator.org/articles/65131/bells-toll-hillary
Oh Shift!
It’s a debit card, tied solely to Bitcoin and not the USD. It’s finally in my hands!
Vacate the banks? Sure? As much as possible while leaving a token amount for transferring to credit card payments and rent. But most of my cash is in brokerage for great stock buy deals ahead when those stocks are cheap, and second most is in cash under the mattress (not in banks), followed by Bitcoin.
Be a creditor when it comes to the USD - in notes with 1% yields, not a 0.1% yielding passbook savings creditor. Banks rip you off.
Starve the banks.
“Starve the banks.”
Dream on.
As P.T. Barnum noted, the birth rate for bank customers is one a minute.
Question to ponder over the long weekend:
Are we once again in the middle of a historic financial panic, so soon after the last one?
Opinion Review & Outlook
The China Panic
Policy disarray is leading to fears of a deeper economic slide.
A stock market in Huaibei, Anhui province, east China on January 7.
Photo: Zhengyi Xie/Cpressphoto/ZUMA Press
Jan. 7, 2016 7:39 p.m. ET
Have China’s leaders lost the plot? With stock-market gyrations, a weakening currency and mixed signals on reform, Beijing’s reputation for technocratic competence is depreciating faster than the yuan. This has global markets on edge, to say the least, as the likelihood of a “hard landing” for the Chinese economy grows.
This week’s Chinese stock crash was worsened by new circuit breakers. Halting trading is seldom a good idea, and in this case the thresholds were set so low that on Thursday the market opened for less than half an hour before the brakes kicked in. A frozen market can’t find a natural bottom so more investors panic, which has radiated through global markets in stocks and commodities. Late Thursday China’s securities regulator said it would suspend the circuit breakers starting Friday, which is good news.
The stock market is also hostage to the opaque politics of Beijing. The Communist Party’s boosterism when stock prices more than doubled from late 2014 to early 2015 left it vulnerable to public anger after June’s initial crash. Fearful of being blamed for investors’ losses, officials forced government-linked institutions to buy and hold stocks to support the market. Now those holdings hang over the market, and fears they might be sold contributed to this week’s crash.
In August the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) suddenly announced a new method of setting the yuan’s daily fixing rate and allowed the currency to fall by 1.9% in a day. That poorly orchestrated move sparked fears of competitive devaluation.
Central bank officials reassured investors that the PBOC would keep the exchange rate stable and that there would be no large devaluation. But the yuan’s sudden fall over the past few days has reignited those fears. The Chinese currency has fallen 5.8% against the dollar since August.
Assumptions that Beijing would deploy fiscal and monetary stimulus to keep GDP growth at the target 7% rate have also proved wrong. A Communist Party magazine quoted General Secretary Xi Jinping last Friday speaking against stimulus: “China cannot rely on extensive development and strong stimulus to achieve these targets, otherwise the country will repeat the old path, and then create new contradictions and problems.”
The PBOC has also sent mixed signals on monetary policy. While officials say they have plenty of tools to support the economy, in practice the central bank has only replaced liquidity lost as capital leaves the country. Real interest rates are relatively high.
But monetary easing is complicated by capital flight. The U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest-rate rise last month has caused the dollar to strengthen, and aggressive PBOC easing could exacerbate capital outflows and put more pressure on the yuan. China’s reserves stand at $3.3 trillion, but it used $108 billion defending the yuan in December, the biggest monthly drop since 2003. In theory capital controls should limit money leaving, but China’s wealthy can bypass them.
Meanwhile the slowing economy has exposed the excesses of the post-2008 credit boom. In response to the global panic, Beijing deployed $586 billion in stimulus, largely on infrastructure. It also encouraged lending for housing construction and purchases, creating a bubble in smaller cities. The borrowing pushed China’s debt-to-GDP ratio above 240% from 160% in 2007. Star banking analyst Charlene Chu predicted last year that nonperforming loans will top 20% of total assets during this deleveraging cycle.
This looming bill explains why Beijing’s economic policy is in disarray. Some officials want more stimulus and industrial policy, while others realize that structural reform and less government intervention are key to sustainable growth. In recent months Mr. Xi has endorsed the latter point of view, but as the short-term pain intensifies he will be tempted to return to Keynesian pump-priming that would only postpone the day of reckoning.
…
Did the Baltic Dry Index fare better than the world’s stock markets this week?
Baltic Dry Index falls to 429, down 16
in Dry Bulk Market 08/01/2016
Today, Friday, January 08 2016, the Baltic Dry Index decreased by 16 points, reaching 429 points.
Baltic Dry Index is compiled by the London-based Baltic Exchange and covers prices for transported cargo such as coal, grain and iron ore. The index is based on a daily survey of agents all over the world. Baltic Dry hit a temporary peak on May 20, 2008, when the index hit 11,793. The lowest level ever reached was on Friday, January 08 2016, when the index dropped to 429 points.
Source: Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide
If the BDI were a barometric pressure reading, it would be indicating a nearby tornado.
Happy New Year!
I did not know about this, did you? A template?
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/texas-news/2016/01/08/15-year-armed-standoff-quietly-ends-outside-dallas/78452414/
If you think about it, the Fed has been having a 15 year (25 year?) standoff, as well, eh?
Bubble support. A kind of self-imposed prison destined to end. Someday.
Also, and a Happy New Year to you, too.