The Shells May Be Cracking
A weekend topic on the Panama Papers, starting with Digital Trends. “If you have been thinking about moving to the Miami area, check your bank account. Miami’s rentals are the most expensive in the country and the skyrocketing cost of real estate (especially luxury condos) knocks most people out of the market for buying a home, according to a story in the Miami Herald. The focus on pricey real estate in southern Florida comes courtesy of revelations from the Panama Papers.”
“News of the 11.5 million documents leaked from Mossack Fonseca, an international law firm headquartered in Panama, was announced simultaneously last Sunday by 100 publications, including the Miami Herald, that had been working with the paperwork trove since late 2014. Mossack Fonseca specializes in setting up shell companies for offshore accounts. It appears the shells may be cracking on multi-layered companies that paid cash for Miami high-rise condos.”
“Cash is still common in Miami transactions, accounting for 90 percent of all new construction purchases in 2015. Miami’s history of money laundering puts in a short list with New York City and Los Angeles for the most suspicious financial activity reports to the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen), a division of the U.S. Treasury.”
The Miami Herald. “Come to Mossack Fonseca, and we’ll create an offshore shell company to help you purchase that dream condo. Shell companies are a great way to hide ownership, and we’ll make up a legitimate-sounding name for yours.”
“[Cut to client testimonial].”
“I’m Leon Cohen-Levy, and the Mossack Fonseca law firm helped me and my father set up 13 different offshore companies! One of them was called BlueOcean Finance, which doesn’t sound anything like the money-laundering scam it was. With Mossack Fonseca’s help, Dad and I were able to buy a mansion on Miami Beach, a condo on Fisher Island, fancy cars and even a helicopter.”
“The IRS eventually busted us for a $49 million tax fraud, and we were sentenced to 10 years in the slammer. But that wasn’t Mossack Fonseca’s fault. We didn’t come right out and tell them we were scumbags. Four years after we were convicted, the law firm was still listed as the registered agent for our shell companies. Now that’s loyalty!”
The Real Deal. “A suspicious condo flip in South Beach has found its way in the ‘Panama Papers,’ according to a published report. In January, a small Miami Beach condo at 2129 Washington Avenue sold for $162,000. Then, in March, an offshore entity entered into a contract to buy the same apartment for 60 percent more – $258,000 – the Miami Herald reported. That sale has not yet closed.”
“That kind of flip could be indicative of money laundering. The sale would be a record for the Domicile, a 17-unit boutique condo that was built in 1948. Last year, a larger unit sold for $220,000.”
“The offshore entities mentioned in the ‘Panama Papers’ were established in the British Virgin Islands, Samoa, Hong Kong, and Panama. At least two billionaires with South Florida homes have so far been identified in the papers. The investigation also identified a Brickell condo where Mossack Fonseca’s Miami representative helped incorporate more than 200 shell companies.”
The Virgin Island Daily News. “Olga Santini, the Miami representative for Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, works out of an 18th-floor unit at the Palace, a waterfront tower on Miami’s Brickell Avenue. Mossack Fonseca specializes in setting up offshores for the world’s rich and powerful. The Miami Herald and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists received a massive leak of files — dubbed the ‘Panama Papers’ — from inside the firm last year.”
“The propensity to look the other way has helped turn South Florida into a hub of the world’s shadow economy. A cottage industry of lawyers and accountants based in Miami helps clients form offshore companies that can mask their activities. Mossack Fonseca is just one firm among many that set up offshores. In Brazil, it’s no surprise that Mossack Fonseca helped those linked to corruption buy condos, said Fabiano Angélico, who leads the Brazilian chapter of the global anti-corruption group Transparency International.”
“Brazilian prosecutors recently accused Mossack Fonseca of facilitating graft at the state oil company, issuing arrest warrants for four employees of the firm’s office in Brazil. (The investigation has been labeled Lava Jato, Portuguese for ‘car wash,’ and has even snared former president Lula, who was charged with money laundering in March.) Wealthy Brazilians are among the top foreign buyers of Miami condos, despite a crippled Brazilian economy that shrank 4 percent in 2015.”
“‘The use of offshore companies for the transfer of bribery is very apparent, but where this money was finally ending up, it’s not the most visible part of the scheme,’ Angelico said. ‘The direct link between corrupt money and Miami has not been known. But the level of interest is growing.’”
The Financial Post. “The so-called Panama Papers scandal this week couldn’t have come at a worse time as everyone files their tax returns. It’s particularly galling since the tax rate for high-income earners is now a record 54 per cent, and rich Canadians and multinationals can avoid taxation by using offshore tax avoidance schemes. The fact is that making fortunes in Canada, then taking them offshore to never pay taxes again, is a well-worn Canadian tradition. It’s all very legal. But morality is another matter.”
“While it’s hard to imagine, Canada is one of the world’s biggest secrecy and tax havens. Shell companies, offshore entities and proxies own, buy and sell assets here every day. There is massive money laundering through Canadian real estate — or conceal-estate — in Toronto and Vancouver condos. Foreigners use shell companies or proxies to acquire condos in these cities, with the help of Canadian banks, developers and brokers. These players have made housing unaffordable in both cities.”
The New York Times. “For wealthy Americans looking to veil their assets and shield some of their income from taxation, there is no need to go to Panama or any other offshore tax haven. It’s easy to establish a shell corporation right here at home. ‘In Wyoming, Nevada and Delaware, it’s possible to create these shell corporations with virtually no questions asked,’ said Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.”
“Heather A. Lowe, the legal counsel and director of government affairs for Global Financial Integrity, a research and advocacy group in Washington, warned that the problem was much more widespread than just a handful of states. ‘You can create anonymous companies anywhere in the United States,’ Ms. Lowe said. ‘The reason people know about Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming is because these states market themselves internationally.’”
“‘Where is that money going?’ Ms. Lowe asked. ‘Not to Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming, but New York, Miami and Los Angeles banks.’”
From USA Today. “A USA TODAY analysis of more than 1,000 American-based companies registered by Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers leak, casts the United States openly into an uncomfortable role: an offshore haven of corporate secrecy for wealthy business operations across the globe. The analysis found that both Nevada and Wyoming have become secretive havens much like Bermuda and Switzerland have long been. And at least 150 companies set up by Mossack Fonseca in those states have ties to major corruption scandals in Brazil and Argentina.”
“The corporate records of 1,000-plus Nevada business entities linked to the Panamanian law firm reveal layers of secretive ownership, with few having humans’ names behind them, and most tracing back to a tiny number of overseas addresses from Bangkok high rises to post offices on tiny island nations. Only 100 of the Nevada-born corporations have officers with addresses in this country: 90 in Nevada, nine in Florida and one in Delaware.”
“The financial records show more than 600 of the companies’ corporate officers are listed at one of just two addresses in the world, one in Panama and the other Seychelles, a small Indian Ocean archipelago. The addresses, in both countries, are the same as Mossack Fonseca’s headquarters. For about 700 of the American shell companies, the corporate officers are business entities rather than people, meaning no individual is linked to the Nevada firm in state records.”
“‘We shouldn’t be thinking about this as a Panamanian problem,’ said Matthew Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, D.C. ‘We should be thinking about this as a very American problem, and a problem that arguably is worse here in the states than it is in Panama.’”
From Quartz. “The US is one of the largest recipients of illicit financial flows from developing countries—money often smuggled out by corrupt politicians, drug dealers, or everyday criminals. The key reason is corporate secrecy. When individuals or companies want to hide their assets, they transfer them to shell companies that hide the true owners behind nominee directors who act as the custodian of the firm. Comparatively few Americans were found in the Mossack Fonseca’s records, and there’s a reason for that: In the US, corporate registration is handled on the state level, and many states offer generous corporate secrecy rules.”
“Just as small countries tend to breed the political culture that allows corporate secrecy, sparsely populated US states have competed in a race to the bottom to attract corporate investment through lax disclosure requirements. The tiny state of Delaware, called an ‘on-shore tax haven’ by critics, garners more than a quarter of its public revenue—just over a $1 billion—from its business registry.”
“This probably factors into the World Bank’s assessment of the US as one of the worst offenders when it comes to corporate secrecy. In fact, a 2012 academic study reports that it is easier to form a shell company in the US than it is in Panama—or indeed, anywhere else but Kenya. At the top of their list? Delaware and Nevada.”
From Agence France-Presse. “As-well as shining a spotlight on the secret financial arrangements of the rich and powerful, the so-called Panama Papers have laid bare London’s role as a vital organ of the world’s tax-haven network. The files leaked from Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca exposed Britain’s link to thousands of firms based in tax havens and how secret money is invested in British assets, particularly London property.”
“The files showed that Britain had the third highest number of Mossack Fonseca’s middlemen operating within its borders, with 32,682 advisers. Around 310,000 tax haven companies own an estimated £170 billion (210 billion euros, $240 billion) of British real estate, 10 percent of which were linked to Mossack Fonseca.”
“Every few years London pretends to ‘clean up its act’, wrote columnist Simon Jenkins in the capital’s Evening Standard newspaper. ‘Most world cities are ruthless against foreigners who arrive with suitcases of cash to buy property or other businesses. Not London,’ he added. ‘It is awash in ‘offshore’ towers overlooking the Thames.”
The Guardian. “World leaders, business people and celebrities are among those whose anonymous ownership of London property has been exposed by the massive leak of the Panama law firm’s data on offshore companies. The president of the United Arab Emirates has secretly built one of the single biggest offshore property empires in Britain, the Panama Papers reveal. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan owns dozens of central London properties worth more than £1.2bn through offshore companies supplied by Mossack Fonseca.”
“More than £170bn of UK property is now held overseas. Much of that is in London, where unprecedented house price inflation has transformed homes into highly profitable investments for asset speculators. Nearly one in 10 of the 31,000 tax haven companies that own British property are linked to Mossack Fonseca.”
“At least 700 properties were owned by companies named in the Panama Papers that were themselves owned through bearer shares – anonymous documents that grant ownership to the person physically holding the certificate. Bearer shares are now in effect banned in many countries, including the UK, due to their attractiveness to criminals.”
“Transparency campaigners have warned the secrecy of such arrangements can enable large sums of black money to be laundered through the property market. A senior National Crime Agency director warned last year that the capital’s housing market had been ’skewed by laundered money.’ The British government recently launched a consultation into whether to force offshore property owners to disclose their identities after David Cameron expressed concern that UK properties ‘are being bought by people overseas through anonymous shell companies, some with plundered or laundered cash.’”
Miami Beach, FL Housing Market Craters; Prices Implode 13% YoY As Chinese Speculators Dump Properties
http://www.zillow.com/miami-beach-fl/home-values/
Any US markets w prices still going up ?
coastal ca, the low end of it.
Are you sure?
Santa Monica, CA Housing Market Implodes; Prices Cave 8% YoY On Cratering Housing Demand
http://www.zillow.com/santa-monica-ca/home-values/
There is no low end in Santa Monica…
Low end or high end, demand continues to collapse. The end result is cratering prices.
Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
Or the modern version:
After every great bubble fortune, comes a great tax evasion.
That’s a platitude which seems untrue, unless you greatly broaden the definition of “behind.” Certainly at least some people come by great fortunes honestly.
That’s why I updated it. You gotta keep your Balzak fresh.
I have to read some Balzak someday. Aside from the Music Man reference to his work, I’m in the dark.
Read some of these famous quotes on banking while you’re at it.
http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/famous-quotations-on-banking/
Check out what Abraham Lincoln said:
“The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.” -Abraham Lincoln
Isn’t that what the Fed is now doing? Sorta?
The Fed loans the money it creates to member banks (itself) and to the Government at interest. The member banks (the Fed) loan the money to you at higher interest.
Abraham didn’t reckon on the Fed.
It was also hard to foresee computerized electronic bank balance sheets with unlimited expansion potential.
…or a fractional reserve system with no reserve requirements.
…or interest-bearing accounts that pay no interest.
…or a mortgage lending system devoid of qualification requirements.
“…or a mortgage lending system devoid of qualification requirements.”
We’re right back where it all began- no standards whatsoever.
I don’t believe qualifications were reinstituted at anytime. They were stripped away back in the late 1990’s and there haven’t been any ever since.
Link please.
fha.gov
I’ll bet a lot of sleepless nights are being endured by a lot of shady people.
Karma.
Reminds me of that Ashley Madison scandal we all got to enjoy watching a while back.
I found both my neighbor’s address and ex-landlord in the AM leak! On the credit card payment dump even!
There are a lot of people out there with no conscience. Karma is magical thinking, but I understand the sediment. Some people aren’t worthy of their good fortune, that’s for sure.
lol@MT Pockets
FAOM alert
Data my friend. Stick with the data.
Arcadia, CA Housing Market Implodes; Prices Plunge 12% YoY As Housing Bubble Deflates
http://www.zillow.com/arcadia-ca/home-values/
Lol @ porky
lol@Russ T
and your big belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly
It does. Now fetch me another bag of Cheetos.
Mom says no more cheetos, and to stop insulting your imaginary friends.
Fetch RussT
I wasn’t thinking of sleepless nights due to conscious, I was thinking more in terms of fear.
Arguably, all sleepless nights are due to conscious.
Wikipedia: “Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment that assists in distinguishing right from wrong.”
If a person is not inflicted by the affects brought on by his conscious (or lack of conscious) then his nights will not be sleepless.
But fear can (and will) step in and do what conscious cannot do.
Money can knock you unconscience.
Conscience is sedimental.
My sediments exactly.
“sediment”
That’s an appropos Freudian slip.
sentiment- wow, 3 hrs of sleep will do it. My mistake this morning. 1/2 awake. No need to be a-holes.
And conscious and conscience are different. I am conscious to know I have a conscience.Conscience and conscious both come from the Latin word conscius; the word elements mean “with” and “to know.” (Yes, the -science in conscience means the same thing as science itself.)
Conscience is a noun meaning “sense of the quality of one’s character and conduct,” “adherence to moral principles,” and “consideration of fairness and justice.” Confusion between conscience and conscious occurs because the latter word is sometimes used as a noun synonymous with consciousness, meaning “mental awareness,” though the longer form is usually employed.
More often, however, conscious appears as an adjective meaning “aware” or “awake,” or “involving perception or thought.” It also appears in combination with a noun in phrasal adjectives such as “budget conscious” to refer to someone who is concerned, sensitive, or vigilant about something.
Conscience and conscious can be distinguished because the former word is qualitative — people have various degrees of moral strength — while conscious, as its antonym, unconscious, indicates, is quantitative: You’re either one or the other, whether the word is used as a noun or an adjective.
However, consciousness, as the word is usually applied, like conscious refers to a continuum: We speak of raising one’s consciousness and of higher consciousness, because this quality can be improved or increased. Like the noun conscious, though, consciousness has a quantitative sense as well, referring to a state of mental activity, as opposed to unconsciousness caused by illness or injury.
Your conscience is keeping you from joining the mega-rich.
Are you conscious of that?
If I had MT Pockets like yours I’d be an insomniac like you.
No need to start swearing at us, and good for you learning a new vocabulary word.
So let me see if I understand this correctly:
I illegally hide and launder my ill-gotten money by forking it over to crooks.
If these crooks are honest crooks then they will act on my behalf. But if these crooks are dishonest crooks then they will do whatever it is that they want to do with my ill-gotten money and my recourse to this action of theirs would be to do … what?
Dishonest crooks get very little business, unless they are very good at hiding their dishonesty.
“Dishonest crooks get very little business, unless they are very good at hiding their dishonesty.”
If the dishonest crooks work it right then they will hide their dishonesty until all the marks that can be sucked in are fully and completely and irreversibly sucked in and then the dishonest crooks can fully and completely enjoy their moment of disclosing to these sucked-in marks that the game they, the marks, are really and truly playing is one whose name is “Gotcha”.
I was thinking about Bernie Madoff and his ilk when typing my comment.
by forking it over to crooks.
They aren’t crooks, they’re lawyers. [ducks and runs]
“They aren’t crooks, they’re lawyers.”
You do have a point.
Crime does not pay if you are a criminal, but it does if you are a lawyer.
Reminds me of banking.
Marks are brought to the bank to sign some dotted lines and when they come in they bring their risks in with them. When they sign the dotted lines the risks they brought in are transferred to whatever it is they are signing; They still get to keep the risks, all that has changed with the risks is the form they are in, a change in form that allows me to immediately take a cut and possibly to take cuts for … for thirty years, or maybe take cuts for … for forever.
There is always the prospect that the mark who signed the contract will eventually fail to honor it, in which case Mr. Banker gets to claim the collateral and restart the process with a new mark.
Hey, I’m an environmentalist and thus I’m into recycling.
A line from Breaking Bad comes to mind, when Jesse was advising a friend who had been arrested on serious charges…
You don’t need a criminal LAWYER, you need a CRIMINAL lawyer.
Ha was referring to Saul Goodman of course….BTW the “Better Call Saul” spinoff is worth seeing though the pace is waaay slower.
Two great moments lately - Jimmy singing “Bali Ha’i” to Kim and the “Scorpio” / inflatable / flashy new wardrobe scenes.
‘a 2012 academic study reports that it is easier to form a shell company in the US than it is in Panama—or indeed, anywhere else but Kenya. At the top of their list? Delaware and Nevada’
Rather than what one poster called a distraction, I’d say this leak has brought a lot of attention to a bunch of things.
‘Altogether, 19 foreign nationals were named in the report as buyers in Miami-Dade County, and eight have been linked to some sort of crime in their home countries. That’s barely a sliver of the local luxury market, but the reports give credence to growing worry over the sanctity of money that’s been feeding Miami’s condo boom.’
‘The investigation comes just months after a division of the U.S. Treasury Department launched an anti-money laundering program targeting the same types of shadow-buyers in Miami and Manhattan’s luxury residential markets.’
‘The agency’s goal was to uncover the true owners behind shell companies that pay all-cash for million-dollar properties, in hopes of curtailing foreign nationals stashing their illegal cash on U.S. soil through real estate purchases.’
‘But the treasury department has its work cut out for it. The Herald, citing data from the Miami Association of Realtors, reported that foreign nationals bought $6.1 billion worth of homes in South Florida last year. And of all the region’s home sales, more than half were paid for in cash.’
The all-cash buyer suddenly isn’t the white knight the REIC has been telling us. And recall the Miami broker who said all his cash buyers were re-financing the pre-construction flip and “buying more”. That could be repeated a number of times.
With Saudi and Russian ties, Clinton machine’s tentacles are far reaching, according to Panama Papers
don’t forget the scandal about the Chinese campaign funding when Bill Clinton ran for Pres.
I have only admiration for those who escape taxation. If you vpcancan find a way without ending up thrown in a cage, more power to you. IMO, if you yap about your scheme, whether it is legal avoidance or breaking the immoral law (I refuse to call that “illegal”), in the first case the tax avoidance scheme will be taken away and in the second case you will end up in the cage.
Take the home ownership. Californians love it because they can live in a primary residence and if lucky, gain a lot in two years and sell that for a tax free gain. That is legal. The reason that loophole exists is twofold: government promotes home moanership and very few people have taken advantage of the two year gain deal.
Municipal bonds in your state are also a legal way to not pay taxes on income.
Roth tax deferred account distributions are another way to not pay taxes.
I figured at one point a few years ago my tax rate at that time was under 9%. I had very little capital gains, no house, very little in municipals, but my career had a nice legal loophole. Now my tax rate is in the 28% bracket however I did not count my $600 per month municipal bond income and I am two years away from Roth distributions.
‘I have only admiration for those who escape taxation’
I read an interpretation that went like this. Problem is, look at how many of these people were crooks. Taxation didn’t enter into it. I’ve come to believe the only rational route for libertarian-ism is the rule of law. If you don’t like the law, change it. Otherwise, we have a system and our freedom depends on a level playing field. Too often, the government and those who can sway it are taking our freedom by illegal acts. For instance, where did all this money come from? QE and the like. This created money is theft. Theft by creating illegitimate claims on existing assets. You and I are powerless to stop this kind of theft. Only the rule of law can stop it. Consider that years ago we used to joke about a plunge protection team. Now it is central bank policy all over the world.
“Consider that years ago we used to joke about a plunge protection team. Now it is central bank policy all over the world.”
Nobody seems to deny the possible existence of bubbles any more, though the tendency to ignore a current bubble remains strong.
Censors in China: ‘What Panama Papers?’
‘China is home to more offices of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers leak, than any other country in the world. And the Panama Papers have linked offshore shell companies to many of China’s top leaders, including relatives of Chinese President Xi Jinping.’
‘What was striking for Cook was that not only is Xi implicated, but so are many current and former members of the Politburo Standing Committee of China’s Communist Party.’
“It’s not only people who might be considered Xi’s allies, but it’s also several people who might think, in terms of factional infighting, as being his rivals,” Cook says. “So it creates a situation where you actually have quite a spectrum of people within the Communist Party, the higher echelons of the party, being implicated in this. And in a lot of ways, that’s much more dangerous for them and much more sensitive for the party than if it was just a single official, even if that official were Xi Jinping.”
‘Overall, Cook says, this leak exposes something about the fear and insecurity that China’s wealthiest and topmost leaders feel about the future of their country. “They want to hedge their bets and so they don’t want to keep their money within China,” she says. “They want to be in a situation where if they need to escape they can.”
How is Xi’s corruption crackdown coming along?
One thing she’s wrong about; she says these companies are something only the “super-rich can do.” That’s not true. Even the companies leaked cost less than $2,000 to set up. A Delaware LLC costs $200, Throw in layers of these things and you could hide lots of money for a small cost. In one of these two dozen articles I have it mentions the Panama thing is dwindling down to near nothing.
It comes down to enforcement. A US citizen should pay tax on all income. But who can say they have income? Can the IRS or a foreign tax body enforce an audit on a company that exists in an unknown safe deposit box? And if the goal is money-laundering, there probably isn’t income, just hiding ill-gotten loot.
this leak exposes something about the fear and insecurity that China’s wealthiest and topmost leaders feel about the future of their country
I say it says something about the fear and insecurity of their own positions within that country.
How much of skyrocketing residential real estate prices are due to reinvested shell corporation monies? It seems quite unfair to think Mom and Pop American Laborer have to compete with repatriated Yellen bux funneled through shell corporations into residential investment purchases.
‘Among those implicated? Mauricio Cohen Assor and Leon Cohen-Levy, a father-son duo convicted of tax evasion in 2011. One of their multimillion-dollar assets, a waterfront mansion at 5930 North Bay Road, was listed for sale for $26 million in October. The Cohens, owners of the Flatotel chain, had concealed more than $150 million in assets and failed to report more than $49 million in income to the Internal Revenue Service, according to published reports.’
‘The Miami Beach attorney for Paulo Octávio Alves Pereira, a Brazilian politician under indictment for corruption in his home country, asked Santini to create an offshore company for the politician, who paid just less than $3 million for a unit at the St. Regis Bal Harbour. Octávio made his money developing shopping centers in his native Brazil, according to the Herald, and even stepped in as governor of Brasilia after his old boss was arrested for alleged bribery. But he quickly resigned after also being accused of taking bribes.’
“I never took bribes. There were no papers, no video that incriminated me. I am innocent. Everything is wrong. It’s political,” he told The Herald. “We made the offshore because the lawyers in America said it was the best way to buy an apartment in Miami. Many friends of mine, they do the same. They buy property with offshores.”
No surprise here.
What about the over-priced luxury condos in our major cities? Are they just stores of wealth for the world’s illegal economy? Is there a market for them at their current prices without them being such a great place to park illegal gains?
USA is the largest safe heaven of ill-gotten money around the world.
The City of London is the epicenter of financial fraud. US banks like JP Morgan outsource their fraud there, aka the London Whale.
London may be the capital, US as a whole is still the largest. London is London because US allows it.
‘While under-35s are effectively locked out of the UK housing market, the Panama Papers show Middle East and African dictators feel right at home in Britain’s pricey capital. The son of deposed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, a Nigerian senator currently facing corruption charges, and characters connected to Syrian President Bashar Assad all boast swanky pads in top London postcodes like Belgravia and Kensington.’
‘Meanwhile, British millennials find themselves incapable of getting a foot on the property ladder in two-thirds of the country, owing to a 50 percent rise in house prices since 2007.’
‘Among the property owners named in the Panama Papers is Soulieman Marouf. An Assad associate, Marouf’s assets have been frozen in Europe. He owns luxury flats in London worth an estimated £6 million (US$8.5 million) through a company in the British Virgin Islands.’
‘Alaa Mubarak, son of Hosni Mubarak, has an £8 million house in Knightsbridge. He was jailed for corruption but later released. Nigerian politician Bukola Saraki owns a Belgravia pad. A second property is owned by a firm in which his wife has shares. He is currently under investigation at home for failing to declare assets – allegations he denies.’
‘Experts say money is being laundered through the purchase of assets, a practice some say is not treated with enough gravity. “People are not taking money laundering seriously. Our job is not to be judge and jury but to flag up, in slightly uncomfortable fashion, deals that need more investigation,” Henry Pryor, a buying agent for luxury homes, told the Financial Times on Thursday.’
‘The fallout from that report is just picking up steam today. But experts say the leak could have very real repercussions in Miami-Dade County: The info might just be the final straw that ends the latest boom cycle in the Magic City.’
“There’s no question this will have a real chilling effect on all of South Florida,” says Peter Zalewski, the founder of real-estate firm Condo Vultures. “The timing couldn’t be worse, in fact. The market was already slowing down, so we were going into a period where finding more foreign national investors was seen as the elixir to get through it.”
“What’s going on in Miami now, we have a real crisis, and the perception among foreign buyers is going to be, ‘I’d rather wait for it to go away and let it get settled,’” Zalewski says. “This is going to be pretty dramatic for the market in the short term.”
‘But unless you’re a high-end developer or a realtor with your fingers in the luxury market, this could end up being good news. Ordinary buyers and renters are increasingly feeling priced out in South Florida. One reason: the flood of foreign cash that has inflated an unsustainable bubble.’
‘This is from a memo by one of the partners of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based outfit that specializes in setting up offshore accounts and shell corporations: “Ninety-five per cent of our work coincidentally consists in selling vehicles to avoid taxes.”
‘Everyone is now making vague noises about offshore tax havens and how they should be shut down, or regulated, or something. But the plain truth is that no one really wants to do it. Britain, obviously, could shut down the ones under their control pretty easily, but they never have. The United States could effectively shut them all down by refusing to allow offshore shell companies in designated tax havens access to US banks. But we haven’t done that either. Too many rich people like things just the way they are.’
‘Two months before the release of the Panama Papers, the attorney general of once-secretive Switzerland publicly proclaimed that $4 billion may have been misappropriated from state-owned companies in Malaysia. The statement set off a bomb under the long-running scandal of a Malaysian government investment fund, known as 1MDB.’
‘It also showed how much has changed in the murky world of secret offshore bank accounts and corporations. For the Swiss prosecutor—one of whose predecessors once said, “It’s hard to determine which suitcase of money is clean money or dirty money”—to come public was remarkable in itself.’
‘A closer look at both global enforcement and the law firm behind the documents shows how much has changed in the industry of hiding people’s money.’
‘Business at the Panamanian law firm where the papers allegedly originated has been tumbling for a decade as global regulators led by the U.S. cracked down on offshore tax havens and money laundering. The firm, Mossack Fonseca & Co., incorporated 13,287 offshore companies in 2005 but just 4,341 in 2015, a decline of two-thirds. In the past three years, according to the Panama Papers, clients of the firm have incorporated 16,323 companies but deactivated 28,777.’
‘Mossack Fonseca, like many other firms in this world, had a good business in bearer shares. Under this somewhat archaic structure, the shares in a business are owned by whoever possesses the physical stock certificates, allowing companies to exist without a registered owner. In 2005, the law firm represented nearly 6,000 businesses using bearer shares in Panama alone. Now the total is 170, according to the documents.’
“People are just getting out of this business,” said Bryan C. Skarlatos, a tax lawyer at Kostelanetz & Fink LLP.’
‘Despite the global effort, the system remains flawed. The biggest weakness is enforcement inside countries, which can choose to ignore information about wrongdoing inside their borders. But even then, information once shared has a way of getting out.’
‘That’s what happened in Malaysia. Malaysian investigators looking into 1MDB found that $1 billion was transferred to the accounts of Prime Minister Najib Razak and revealed a money trail that included banks in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Singapore and elsewhere.’
‘The domestic effort to clear Mr. Najib ran into obstacles overseas. Days later, the Swiss attorney general said he wanted to share what his investigators found with Malaysian authorities and dropped his bomb: $4 billion may have been misappropriated from the fund.’
‘It’s rare enough for a top law-enforcement official to raise issues about possible corruption in another government, but for the official to be Swiss illustrates a decadeslong transformation of the country from grudging cooperator to eager prosecutor. The Swiss action led governments in Luxembourg and Abu Dhabi to launch new overseas investigations into 1MDB.’
‘People who track hidden cash say they are certain that new ways have evolved to keep money away from authorities. The main strategy is to keep the cash as far away from the international banking system as possible. Some point to digital currencies like bitcoin, others say the crackdown on tax havens has led to the boom in high-end real estate.’
If they hide it in Fiat money they are fools.
“It’s rare enough for a top law-enforcement official to raise issues about possible corruption in another government, but for the official to be Swiss illustrates a decadeslong transformation of the country from grudging cooperator to eager prosecutor.”
“grudging cooperator”: This is the suck-’em-in stage.
“eager prosecutor”: This is the Gotcha stage.
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.
Over the last few days, we’ve been trying to coax out an insight.
It concerns whether Fed chief Janet Yellen really does have investors’ backs. Not that we have any doubt about her intentions.
Her career has been financed and nurtured by credit and the people who provide it. Crony capitalists, corrupt politicians, and Deep State hustlers paid good money for her; she’ll do all she can to avoid letting them down.
But something isn’t working. Not for her. Not for Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda. Not for the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi. Not for People’s Bank of China governor Zhou Xiaochuan.
Their tricks no longer work.
We’re on record with a bold prediction: The Fed will NEVER normalize interest rates.
http://bonnerandpartners.com/why-yellen-can-never-normalize-interest-rates/
“The Fed will NEVER normalize interest rates.”
That said, I concur that the Fed’s current game of hinting at normalization, then pulling back expectations, could continue for years, thanks to an army of suckers out there who fall for it every time.
Right now there’s a trillion dollar short against the “market.” That makes me wonder if Janet Yellen’s oligarch handlers have gone massively short, then will tell their creature Old Yellen to suddenly hike rates and crash the market. Then they can buy back stocks from retail investor bagholders at firesale prices. Wash, rinse, repeat.
When 95% of the population are stupid, the means of fleecing them are endless and repeatable.
Right now there’s a trillion dollar short against the “market.”
What? Where? By whom?
First comes the question:
“How did Bernanke, Yellen, Kuroda, Draghi et al think they would ever get away with it?
“How could they believe – even for a minute – that a debt problem could be solved by adding more debt?”
Now here comes the answer:
“And yet, they always got away with it before.”
So, the incentive for them is for them to do something … different?
“This probably factors into the World Bank’s assessment of the US as one of the worst offenders when it comes to corporate secrecy. In fact, a 2012 academic study reports that it is easier to form a shell company in the US than it is in Panama—or indeed, anywhere else but Kenya. At the top of their list? Delaware and Nevada.”
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Sears build-a-home kit (before the Fed’s debauchery of the dollar).
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/04/09/sears-build-a-home/
Bernie Sanders doesn’t have a clue of how he’ll “reform” Wall Street, but he knows the fix is in and Hillary is going to be the Democrat’s Annointed One.
So all he has to do is bloviate about “billionaires & millionaires” and the serfs will swoon. But it’s all a charade.
http://www.businessinsider.com/bernie-sanders-on-wall-street-reform-2016-4
He could start by reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, bringing back enforcement of the Sherman Antitrust Act in the financial arena and cracking down on the much-discussed offshore and onshore shell corporations. It’s not rocket science, and there are historical precedants.
“bringing back enforcement of the Sherman Antitrust Act”
I’m not so sure there ever was such a thing. Besides, to do that you would have to end the Federal Reserve.
Another great suggestion!
Bernie loves him some cheap money. That’s not gonna happen.
I’m not so sure there ever was such a thing.
Do you mean there was never such an act, or never any enforcement? I read something about two shoe manufacturers who wanted to merge back in the 1950s. Together, they would have 3% or 4% market share. The merger was blocked.
The fact that Bernie Sanders isn’t calling for a reinstatement of Glass-Steagal or a real audit of the Fed tells me he’s a strawman for the “controlled opposition.”
Remember when banksters went to jail for defrauding the government? Neither do I.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-09/wells-fargo-admits-deceiving-us-government-pays-record-12-billion-settlement
Silly proles and their delusions of holding oligarch-annointed politicians accountable.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-09/thousands-demand-david-cameron-resignation-following-panama-leaks-live-webcast
Our fundamental transformation must be accelerated. Forward!
http://nypost.com/2016/04/07/first-syrian-refugees-arrive-in-america/
‘Another sign the luxury condo market is cooling’
“The real sellers have made adjustments to what was unrealistic pricing,” said Andrew Heiberger, chief executive at brokerage firm Town Residential, who said that more developers will likely begin following suit for homes that have sat on the market.’
Add the funny money in luxury real estate to the dearth of returns. From yesterday:
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=9602
Comment by Ben Jones 2016-04-08
Danielle DiMartino Booth makes an interesting point in the last link:
‘The movement between regions will be catalyzed by demographics, according to the JLL study, which notes there will be more people over the age of 55 by 2050 than there were inhabitants on earth in 1950.’
“This demographic impact will have a profound effect on real estate investment strategies with the amount of private equity capital targeting direct real estate set to increase by over 500 percent, much of it driven by increasing institutional allocations looking at higher yielding opportunities.”
‘Did you notice something implicit in JLL’s argument? It would seem lower for longer will remain the mantra for the foreseeable future, which suggests frothier markets and subpar growth will continue. The most interesting tidbit comes down to who will be doing the investing, that is private equity.’
‘As it were, private equity “dry powder” directed specifically to real estate investments rang in the New Year at record levels. There is now $231 billion in dry powder available just for properties in the United States after $107 billion was raised in 2015.’
‘For being six years into a recovery in commercial real estate, investors certainly remain enthusiastic, especially public pensions. Pensions have allocated some $207 billion to private equity funds since late 2012. Increasingly, allocations have targeted real estate funds with March of this year providing a perfect example of the merriment surrounding this asset class. Here’s a wee sampling with special notations if the real estate fund is of a particular bent:
Texas Teachers: $500 million
State of Oregon’s Pension: $300 million
Pennsylvania Public School Employers: $307 million
Ohio Workers Compensation Bureau: $125 million
State of Minnesota’s Pension: $100 million (distressed); $100 million (opportunistic)
State of Maine Pension: $50 million
State of New Jersey: $200 million (commercial)
State of Kansas: $50 million
Texas Municipal: $375 million
“Pensions’ chronic underfunding has prompted them to stretch to achieve unrealistic return targets,” New Albion Partners’ Brian Reynolds explained. Reynolds has been keeping a running tally of these allocations and is quick to point out that leverage is often needed to hit the bogeys, which are 7.5 percent or more. Bear that in mind when you consider the money being shoveled into these funds.’
‘It really comes down to size, that is, of the pension system. In the early 1980s, pension liabilities amounted to about 50 percent of gross domestic product (GDP); today they are 100 percent of GDP. “Because of their growth, their investment flows have led to asset bubbles that have generated permanent losses,” Reynolds added.’
‘Pensions flocked to hedge funds but that strategy blew up after Long Term Asset Management nearly took down the financial system. This strategy was followed by wholesale herding into commodities, which we all know ended is disaster.’
‘The catch is the rate-of-return bogeys have barely budged despite Baby Boomers moving increasingly closer to retirement suggesting some risk should be taken off the table. (Rather than keeping you in suspense, it’s nearly an impossible feat to lower return targets. Less in assumed returns means states and municipalities have to pony up more money they don’t happen to have on hand. The State of Connecticut has reached the point where it is now taking a stab at taxing Yale’s endowment in a desperate attempt to top off its underfunded pensions.)’
‘No matter how you slice it, most public pensions face a dire set of circumstances, which begs the question: Just what are they to do?’
‘Reynolds’ reply: “They have turned to the last remaining asset class with high expected rates of return – commercial real estate. It’s as simple as that.”
‘Perhaps pensioners should begin praying the JLL report pans out. With commercial real estate prices declining in January for the first time since 2010, the latest data available, and investors balking at rich valuations, it just might take a miracle to keep profitable prospects alive.’
‘“They have turned to the last remaining asset class with high expected rates of return – commercial real estate. It’s as simple as that.’…Perhaps pensioners should begin praying’
So artificial activity funded with what people are counting on for retirement. Oh dear…
If you are a money manager they you will need to earn two returns:
1. One return to give to your clients that is high enough to keep them happy and to keep them from walking, and …
2. One return to take for yourself so as to keep yourself happy.
One return is tough enough to do in this Zirpy environment and two returns is really tough to do UNLESS you are willing to take some extraordinary risks (psssst …with money that belongs to somebody else).
So what to do? Chase prices that are going up? What else? What else is there to do?
Nothing? Nothing else? So then I guess prices will continue to get chased.
Income Taxes 2016: How Come A Record Year For Tax Collection Is Still Not Enough ?
Published: April 2, 2016
The Treasury Department of the United States Government hit another all time record high for tax revenues collected for the first five months of fiscal year 2016 (the fiscal year for them runs October to October, so we are talking about October 2015 through February 2016). What was the haul? Over US$1 Trillion Dollars just in the first 5 months alone. This follows the record tax haul of over US$3 Trillion Dollars in loot collected for the entire fiscal year of 2015, which means 2016 could be on track for another new record for the carpet baggers in Washington. And who is paying?
ndividual US income tax payers are the largest contributors, forking over US$21,000 for every person working either full or part time. The second largest source of booty was Social Security payments are other kinds of so-called payroll taxes (most Americans do not realize the true tax percentage of income taxes they pay because they often forget to calculate social security and other taxes taken out which puts many people way past 50 percent of income paid in terms of TOTAL taxes). Corporate income taxes collected for fiscal year 2015 amounted to about US$350 Billion which compares to US$1.6 Trillion collected from individual taxpayers and roughly US$1 Trillion Dollars taken in from social security and other kinds of taxes.
Despite this all time new record in the roughly 250 years of the US Government being in business, they still ran a deficit in fiscal year 2015 of more then US$400 Billion Dollars. In other words, despite a record haul, it still WAS NOT ENOUGH. And figures for the first 5 months of fiscal year 2016 show a difference of US$350 Billion in terms of spending verses loot collection (they took in US$1.2 Trillion and spent US$1.6 Trillion just in the first 5 months!). And another new record of course involves the official national debt of the US Government, which is quickly approaching US$20 Trillion Dollars, resulting in an amount that equates to about US$60,000 per US Citizen and US$160,000 per taxpayer (remember that the per citizen figure includes children, the retired and anyone else not working for what ever reason, which is comical when you realize even the homeless guy you find on the New York City subway platform owes US$60,000 as his share too – should we tell him?). I will not even dive into the issue of unfunded liabilities, which some have estimated to be roughly US$100 Trillion Dollars, if not more (the proverbial 800 pound gorilla no one wants to acknowledge).
http://www.blacklistednews.com/…/50187/0/38/38/Y/M.html - 288k -
‘which some have estimated to be roughly US$100 Trillion Dollars’
The Federal Reserve produced a paper that put it around this amount in 2005.
That guy meant it years ago when he said “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” These people really think there is no end to the amount they can spend. Look at how goofy it’s gotten. A trillion bucks used to be considered a lot. I’ve wondered out loud before; why even tax us? Just print the money. I’d bet that there are times they wonder if the whole thing could collapse at anytime and they’d have no idea what might cause it.
I heard a guy on the radio say every time you use a credit card money is created. Maybe Karen could post that info-graphic on the size of derivatives compared to all the other assets in that exist.
Then ironically, when you pay the credit card bill money must be destroyed. Perhaps the Feds are afraid to pay the national debt. They’d be destroying $20 Trillion.
Also, when you don’t pay the credit card debt money gets destroyed when it gets written down.
So borrowed money is created money, and paying this borrowed money back destroys this created money and not paying the borrowed money back also destroys this created money.
Go figure.
So it follows that if borrowed money gets destroyed when it is paid back and it also gets destroyed when it is not paid back then borrowed money’s highest value lies somewhere between these two extremes.
The highest value of borrowed money is not when it gets paid back nor when it never gets paid back but instead its highest value is when it remains in existence and continually gets serviced, gets rolled over and gets rolled over … forever gets rolled over.
The rent money that is generated by borrowed money determines the borrowed money’s value and this value diminishes as the probability of the money being destroyed increases, and this destruction can be done in two ways: by paying the money back and by not paying the money back.
IMO an interesting way to look at it.
Up until now I used to believe the best loans to make were to people that were most likely to pay the loaned money back but now I believe differently.
The best loans are not made to people who will pay them back and they are not loans to people who will not pay them back: The best loans are the ones that are continuously being refinanced or otherwise continuously being rolled over.
You want the borrower’s credit score to be high … but not too high.
And bankruptcy cancels the debt part of the money, but the money still exists. That’s the beauty of bankruptcy, it frees money from its mortality, its destiny of destruction when its debt is paid off, because the debt has been dissolved by bankruptcy.
That’s why I think the more recent bankruptcy reforms (e.g. the ones that keep “deadbeats” from getting off “Scot free” from their credit card debts) were so detrimental to our economy. Some money has to be freed from the grip of its own self-destruction, or else we end up with too much debt creation in order to get enough money to pay off the current debts.
There has to be an occasional debt sacrifice by bankruptcy, to free up some money for us to live on, or else we end up on a debt-fueled hamster wheel.
“And bankruptcy cancels the debt part of the money, but the money still exists.”
But one person’s debt is another person’s money. If you destroy one person’s obligation to pay back borrowed money then another person is out some money.
Money still exists in one person pocket in the form of money but it disappears from another person’s pocket in the form of promised money, of broken-promised money. So what it ends up being in one sense is a wash and what it ends up being in another sense is a transfer of wealth.
So what it ends up being in one sense is a wash and what it ends up being in another sense is a transfer of wealth.
Which is another way of saying it ends up as a noninflationary way (since the debt is destroyed) of increasing the money supply (and probably velocity- spendthrifts like to spend) without increasing debt. But the rich take the hit (since they usually hold the debt) so they’ve been choking it off as much as they can.
Bankruptcy is a wealth transfer from the unwise asset-holding rich to the economy at large (via some poor schmuck). It increases the velocity of money, and doesn’t inflate the money supply.
It’s the golden goose.
I heard a guy on the radio say every time you use a credit card money is created. Maybe Karen could post that info-graphic on the size of derivatives compared to all the other assets in that exist.
This does not happen to me when I use my Shift debit card - paid in bitcoin.
It’s just a longer process. You paid money to buy the bitcoins. Some sucker up the line had to borrow that money into existence. Good for you not being stuck on the hamster wheel of doom.
“Maybe Karen could post that info-graphic on the size of derivatives compared to all the other assets in that exist.”
Sorry I didn’t see this until today.
Here it is: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and-markets-in-one-visualization/
It’s the most stunning infographic I’ve ever seen.
From the article I read (subscription site) where I originally came across this link: “As you go down the list of monetary aggregates, you begin to perceive the extent to which the world is dependent on a system that nobody understands, nobody controls, and nobody can predict with any degree of confidence.”
That right there is stunning. In spite of record high unemployment and GDP at multi decade lows.
Personally made my goal of paying lower taxes for 2015 than for 2014. Won’t anticipate selling my mining stocks while a California resident. With my downsized expenses I anticipate the 2016 taxes I pay will be even lower.
If you are not reducing your effective tax rate you are not a real American (and I mean that in an anarchist sense, not a national sense.)
Everyone all agog about the Panama Papers? No investigators in sight as yet, lol. What a ruse.
http://in.reuters.com/article/panama-tax-fonseca-idINKCN0X60CB
They should have bought houses/condos in USA.
Also, why not follow American Model? Start charity/trust/foundation like Clintons, Bill/Melinda Gates foundation, etc.? You don’t pay taxes, you get notoriety, can appoint yourself/kids to lucrative positions. No corruption, right? But you and your family still have more or less full control.
ED ZACHARY, yuuuge. In fact years ago I read about this exact topic, the use of “foundations” by the wealthy in the US for both financial and social control. Just be sure to pay the protesters in Ferguson, Baltimore and wherever else. They hate not getting paid for destroying lives and property.
Kinda funny to see some of the “foundations” involved in the Panama Papers leak
Yeah, that was a really bright move by Bill Gates. Now he can arrange good jobs for his kids. Those would have really suffered if he hadn’t set up that foundation.
I think the essence of the problem is that nothing Mossack Fonseca did was illegal. The fact that these actions are legal, and the people using them to hide their money, are what is of interest. They’re just a bunch of lawyers working in Panama, apparently within the parameters of Panamanian law.
Plus, it takes a while for these things to shake out. It was an 11.5 million document drop, which will take a while for investigators to digest.
“I think the essence of the problem is that nothing Mossack Fonseca did was illegal.”
That’s the beauty of the situation, not the essence of the problem.
“The fact that these actions are legal, and the people using them to hide their money, are what is of interest.”
The power shift that went from the people who want to hide their money to the people who end up with the money to hide is what is interesting to me.
“They’re just a bunch of lawyers working in Panama, apparently within the parameters of Panamanian law.”
Who simply set up shop in such a way so that people from all over the planet are eager to hand over to them some very large amounts of money.
A thing of beauty.
It’s not illegal to drive a car either. If you drive the car to help robbers get away, you are guilty of robbery.
What if you’re an unaware uber driver?
I assume that’s how these guys position themselves legally.
The international financial system is rigged to favor cheaters whose attorneys know all the loopholes. Sad saps trying to play by the rules and make an honest living are LOOSERS.
Coming soon to a California high school near you…
Daily Wire
Main menu
University of Toronto Dumps Transgender Bathrooms After Peeping Incidents
AP Photo/Toby Talbot
Pardes Seleh
October 8, 2015
The administration at the University of Toronto was recently enlightened on why two separate washrooms are generally established for men and women sharing co-ed residencies.
The University is temporarily changing its policy on gender-neutral bathrooms after two separate incidents of “voyeurism” were reported on campus September 15 and 19. Male students within the University’s Whitney Hall student residence were caught holding their cellphones over female students’ shower stalls and filming them as they showered.
…
What about legitimate gay people, though? Shouldn’t they be forced to use the opposite sex bathroom?
They could be peeking!
It’s a matter of degree, and behavior. ‘Legitimate gay people’ (your term) are far less inclined to peep than horny heterosexual high school or college males.
And you would know this how? Somebody do a study? Or, like Oddie, didja enter enter a search term into google that returned lots and lots of results, thereby making it officially true?
‘Legitimate gay people’ (your term) are far less inclined to peep than horny heterosexual high school or college males.”
Oh, dear…
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/04/09/andy-richter-recalls-hastert-sitting-lazyboy-chair-near-boys-shower/82829860/
Peeker of the House!
How about legitimate bi-sexual people, shouldn’t they be granted a choice?
If the line is too long at one restroom they could simply walk on over and get in line at the other one.
Floor to ceiling stalls for all!
Does it even matter anymore? Someone could just stick a plastic hook on the wall, and film everything. There’s no privacy in the digital age.
That’d be your Nirvana Anklepants.
all new bathrooms will be one at a time, mixed use.
Feminists won’t like it.
TED Talk on the Panama Papers (run time = 7:47 mins):
https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_palmer_the_panama_papers_exposed_a_huge_global_problem_what_s_next#t-67301
“The gold standard under present conditions is the only standard which makes the determination of the purchasing power of money independent of the changing ideas of political parties, governments, and pressure groups,” argues von Mises.
The Bitcoin standard under present conditions is the only standard which makes the determination of purchaing power of money INDEPENDENT of the changing ideas of political parties, governments, and pressure groups. Moreover, due to its decentralized nature and algorithm, the Bitcoin standard cannot be inflated by a cartel to finance its wars. Fiat money is inflated to finance democide and is the lifeblood of the State.
Imagine you have relatives in Europe you want to send money to. How would you do that? Think seriously about that question. I have coinbase and shapeshift. I can use coinbase to send bitcoin to a relative in Europe instantaneously if she has a Bitcoin address. Or I can use Shapeshift to send it to her Ethercoin or Namecoin or Litecoin address. I can convert into her crypto currency and she would get the notification far sooner than if I wire the money to her, with virtually no transaction fee compared to Western Union.
As the article mentions, the Bitcoin price discovery is superior to gold in that price discovery happens 24/7. Bitcoin exchanges never close. Gold exchanges close.
Another nice thing favoring Bitcoin wallets: Obama said “If in fact you can’t crack [Bitcoin], if the government can’t get in, then everybody is walking around with a Swiss Bank account in their pocket. There has to be some concession to the need to be able to get into that information somehow.”
This is why I use encryption on my computers and phones.
Eff the “Panama Papers!” You got the means of having your own “Swiss Bank Account” where you are at!
https://news.bitcoin.com/austrian-school-economists-bitcoin/
“In fact, only about 3% of money in total circulation exists as physical cash. What’s more is that this number decreases with each day as the digital money supply is inflated.”
This essentially means for every $3 off the printing press, $97 is created electronically. Fractional reserve banking is a way to finance the evils of statism: democide, surveillance, and police state.
If instead of having $1,000 in a bank you have it in Bitcoin or gold, the bank cannot create loan products to hook the gullible into the fraud. And government cannot use that same means to finance another M-16 used to kill a “family member” of an alleged “terrorist.” Funny money cannot be created off of my stacks of gold and my Bitcoin wallets.
“your own “Swiss Bank Account”
I’m happy enough having beer and a steak in the fridge.
Novato, CA Housing Market Implodes; Prices Crater 13% YoY As Defaulted Housing Inventory Balloons
http://www.zillow.com/novato-ca/home-values/
So why are the rents there sky high?
Yet half the monthly cost of buying it.
‘Eff the “Panama Papers!”‘
Bitcoin is your Swiss bank account on your phone. But I also recommend stacking gold and silver bullion.
I’ve been thinking about the Panama Papers. I think the fundamental problem is that the interests of those with wealth are aligned with the interests of those who want to launder dirty money.
By that, I mean that both have a desire for secrecy. The wealthy want secrecy because they don’t want the poors to know how much they have; those with dirty money want secrecy because they don’t want governments to know how much they have, and likely aren’t paying taxes on.
As long as the wealthy have the ability to form the government in the image that they wish (via unlimited lobbying funds, which corrupt absolutely), we will always have a system that makes it easy to hide and launder corrupt money.
So the lesson is, if you want to succeed, cheat. Morality is counter to survival.
if you want to succeed, cheat. Morality is counter to survival.
Satan was right all along. The mega-rich just recognized this sooner, and have been playing us for suckers ever since.
Gonna have to put all my crucifix regalia on ebay so I can get pentagram-themed gear.
And what are the holidays? I need to let my employer know.
And what are the holidays?
They’re whenever your effin’ want, baby! That’s how Satan rolls!
Seriously, I don’t know. Is every day a holiday for a psychopath, or every day a workday?
The average Joe now has the means to keep his savings separate from the State and the Banksters. There are thousands more average Joes per power elite. And the wealth power is far more. The influence of having your own “Swiss Bank Account” on your phone is what can dwarf the bankers. The end of fiat is nigh and that will include the end of imperialism.
The end of fiat is nigh and that will include the end of imperialism.
Why? There was a lot of imperialism under the gold standard, it was arguably the high point of imperialism (Persia, Greece, Rome, Britain).
The gold standard almost makes imperialism more attractive, really. ‘There’s x amount of gold, they’ve got a bunch, let’s go get it! And put them to work digging more.’
Not quite. Look up democide on wiki. The 20th century was the high point of imperialism and it was financed by fiat.
There is a reason billionaire oligarchs like Soros and Bloomberg are spending hundreds of millions of dollars financing “gun control” initiatives. A disarmed population can be fleeced and culled at will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-dzMcAKk8g
Democide peaked in the 20th century due to technology, not due to lack of trying or desire back in the gold standard days. They were always slaughtering whole villages and whatnot back in the good old days. They just didn’t have the logistics to do it on a grand scale.
Democide is still occurring. Here is one link on the Bush I and II killings in the Gulf Wars
http://www.juancole.com/2013/10/american-population-sanctions.html
“the US polished off about a million Iraqis from 1991 through 2011, large numbers of them children. The Iraqi population in that period was roughly 25 million, so the US killed or created the conditions for the killing of 4% of the Iraqi population.”
Was that the first democide in Mesopotamia?
“A disarmed population can be fleeced and culled at will.”
An armed population can be shot down like Lavoy Fincum.
Democide? Like the death penalty?
There are thousands more average Joes per power elite.
True, but 95% of them bend over on demand for their oligarch overlords by voting for the Olipololy’s annointed political puppets.
Remember…… Nothing accelerates the economy and creates jobs like falling prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels. Nothing.
Are Germans through with bending over for the “former” Goldmanites running our central banks for the exclusive benefit of the oligarch cronies?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-09/people-germany-arent-stupid-germany-takes-aim-ecb-spiegel
Florida, a fraud-filled paradise!
We’ve moved up closing three weeks.
11 days…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLlUgilKqms
La nina does portend more hurricanes…
I’m aware that Earth has weather, thankies.
Just a reminder.
In case anyone here wants to know what Groupthink looks like and sounds like, it looks and sounds something like this …
“I guess I was a little scared. My other co-workers were doing it, so I just followed along,” Grewe told the Minneapolis-based station.
Do what? Read on …
“Prank caller convinces Burger King workers to bust out windows”
“On Friday, workers at a Burger King in the Minneapolis suburb of Coon Rapids, Minnesota, smashed windows of the store after a caller convinced them the place might explode, police Capt. Tom Hawley told CNN.’Someone called the restaurant Friday night, claiming to be a fire department official. The caller asked for the manager and said there was a dangerous explosive gas inside the building and that they needed to relieve the pressure by breaking the windows’, Hawley said.
“‘The employees ran out to their cars and got tire irons to break out the restaurant windows. About 20 windows were busted out,’ Hawley said.
“When officers arrived, employees were very upset, particularly the manager, who had been on the phone with the caller for some time.”
Lemmings.
Link …
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/us/minnesota-burger-king-prank/index.html
Are we sure these aren’t just disgruntled workers smashing up their work sites for fun? Or are they really risking their lives (by returning to what they think is a building about to explode) to save their employers property?
Which one seems more likely?
“Which one seems more likely?”
What seems more likely is that they are lemmings and as such will unthinkingly do what they are told to do, especially when they see their fellow lemmings doing what they are all told to do.
So if there was a fire, and they’d all evacuated, you think the employees would have run back in and fought it?
Because that’s what we’re supposed to believe happened here, except an imminent explosion is probably a lot more dangerous than a fryer on fire.
Aren’t you the guy who believes James Hansen’s prediction that our planet’s sea level will rise up by twenty to thirty feet over the next fifty years?
Yes? Is that you? And you will believe that but you won’t believe that Burger King employees could be sold on the idea that they need to bust out all the windows to prevent an explosion?
Lol.
I think you could convince the workers to evacuate, I just don’t think you could convince them to return and save the building unless the task required wasn’t as much fun as smashing out their employers’ windows (which they all seemed to have a convenient tool handy to accomplish).
As for your global warming points, yes, I believe the world’s scientists more than I believe the world’s fossil-fuel-funded doubters.
“As for your global warming points, yes, I believe the world’s scientists more than I believe the world’s fossil-fuel-funded doubters.”
So you believe that the planet’s sea level will rise from between twenty to thirty feet over the next fifty years?
This question regarding sea level rise is not a “more than” question, it is a simple “yes” or “no” question.
The fact that so many of the employees had tire irons and knew where they were makes me suspicious.
Me thinks there is more to this story than “people are stupid”
“The fact that so many of the employees had tire irons and knew where they were makes me suspicious.”
If a car carries a spare tire then it most likely carries a tire iron.
It doesn’t take many employees to learn where tire irons are kept, it only takes one.
Here’s a similar incident that happened a few days ago in a Burger King in Oklahoma. In this case the employees used chairs to bust out the windows …
http://kfor.com/2016/04/08/employees-at-oklahoma-burger-king-bust-out-windows-after-prank-call/
And something similar happened to a Burger King in February in California; This time the employees broke out the windows using stools … and a car.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/burger-king-workers-break-windows-gas-leak-prank-article-1.2517546
“Tire irons”
If your point is that in the true sense a “tire iron” is a tool for working with tires then I agree that most people do not know what a tire iron is nor do most people keep tire irons in their cars.
But in a broader definition of the term, one that stretches out to really mean lug wrenches, then, incorrect as the term may be, this is probably what the reporter meant when he was talking about tire irons: He said tire irons but he probably meant lug wrenches.
You being a fixer probably means that you are a purest when it comes to the naming of tools. But most people are not fixers so they may use terms such as tire irons and money wrench and other terms which may not necessarily be exact but still they convey the message that means “car tool”.
“money wrench” = “monkey wrench”
If I was around someone who was working on some sort of machinery who asked me to hand him “That monkey wrench over there in the corner” I would understand that he really did not mean “monkey wrench” but most likely I would hand to him the wrench that he wanted.
“money wrench” = Fed’s electronic printing press
A bit off topic (but not by much) …
When I was young and a telephone man in the Air Force I would now and then (because I could) call up selected individuals and tell then that I needed to blow the dirt out of their telephones and that they should lift the phone’s handset off the cradle and set it in a trash can for ten minutes until the blowing out process was completed. This they invariable did.
I did not call everyone and tell them to do this but only a selected few. Since I was the telephone guy they did not think to question any of what I asked them to do, they just did it.
These are not pranks, instead they are scams. But the results are similar in that strangers, posing as authorities, are able to convince people to willingly do things that are definitely against their interests.
“IRS Urges Public to Stay Alert for Scam Phone Calls”
“IRS Special Edition Tax Tip 2015-18, October 21, 2015″
“The IRS continues to warn consumers to guard against scam phone calls from thieves intent on stealing their money or their identity. Criminals pose as the IRS to trick victims out of their money or personal information. Here are several tips to help you avoid being a victim of these scams:
•Scammers make unsolicited calls. Thieves call taxpayers claiming to be IRS officials. They demand that the victim pay a bogus tax bill. They con the victim into sending cash, usually through a prepaid debit card or wire transfer. They may also leave “urgent” callback requests through phone “robo-calls,” or via phishing email.
•Callers try to scare their victims. Many phone scams use threats to intimidate and bully a victim into paying. They may even threaten to arrest, deport or revoke the license of their victim if they don’t get the money.
•Scams use caller ID spoofing. Scammers often alter caller ID to make it look like the IRS or another agency is calling. The callers use IRS titles and fake badge numbers to appear legitimate. They may use the victim’s name, address and other personal information to make the call sound official.
•Cons try new tricks all the time. Some schemes provide an actual IRS address where they tell the victim to mail a receipt for the payment they make. Others use emails that contain a fake IRS document with a phone number or an email address for a reply. These scams often use official IRS letterhead in emails or regular mail that they send to their victims. They try these ploys to make the ruse look official.
•Scams cost victims over $23 million. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, or TIGTA, has received reports of about 736,000 scam contacts since October 2013. Nearly 4,550 victims have collectively paid over $23 million as a result of the scam.”
Link …
https://www.irs.gov/uac/IRS-Urges-Public-to-Stay-Alert-for-Scam-Phone-Calls
Another off topic post …
If any of you readers want to learn how to get people to send money you in the mail then send to me a letter that contains your mailing address along with ten dollars.
“IRS Urges Public to Stay Alert for Scam Phone Calls”
Public Urges IRS to Stay Alert for unauthorized workers Scam
IRS Sent $46 Million In Refunds To ‘Unauthorized’ Workers At One Atlanta Address
Sara Gates
Law student & former journalist
06/23/2013 01:02 pm ET
In what appears to be a significant oversight, the Internal Revenue Service sent a total of $46,378,040 in refunds to “unauthorized” workers at one address in Atlanta, Ga., according to a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
Brought to light last year by WTHR-TV Indianapolis, the IRS’ $46 million in refunds included 23,994 tax payouts sent to the particular property in 2011.
As the audit report discloses, the Atlanta address is one of several that received a high number of refunds for Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) tax returns. ITINs are issued to those who are ineligible to obtain a Social Security number. However, it seems, the application for these identification numbers is flawed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…illion-refunds-unauthorized-workers-atlanta_n_3486748.html - 294k -
‘The employees ran out to their cars and got tire irons to break out the restaurant windows. About 20 windows were busted out,’
They want $15 an hour?
They want $15 an hour?
Assuming they believed what they were doing, they’re heroes who risked their lives to save their employer’s property. They deserve bonuses and raises.
If they really believed the building was about to explode.
“They deserve bonuses and raises.”
Someone worthy of $15 an hour would have known opening the doors would do the same thing as smashing the windows.
They’d take more that $15 if they could get it. They probably want as much they can get, just like everyone else.
Why is it that falling housing prices cause such rage?
I’d love to see that phenomenon again. Last time it happened was in 2007-2011.
Bad news American males, your fallback job may be at risk.
This Uber Competitor Wants Female Riders to Feel Safer—so It Only Hires Female Drivers
By Ilan Mochari
Chariot for Women, a ride-sharing service slated for an April 19 launch throughout the U.S. The company, which is based Charlton, Massachusetts, is not hesitating to take arms against Uber and Lyft, billing itself as a safer option than the market-leading ride-sharing companies for several reasons: First, all its drivers will be women. Second, it will only pick up female riders or males under age 13.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/04/08/chariot_for_women_is_a_ride_hailing_startup_that_only_hires_female_drivers.html
http://www.buzzfeed.com/katieheaney/11-terrifying-female-serial-killers-youve-never-heard-of
Bad news American males, your fallback job may be at risk.
Last week six convoys of 44-tonne trucks left their home factories spanning the continent from Stockholm to Munich, and crisscrossed Europe in tandem, arriving in Rotterdam harbour together on April 6.
The trucks were driving themselves.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/04/10/britain-is-head-and-shoulders-above-rivals-in-putting-driverless/
Will Brits (or Euros in general) want to have a driverless car? I ask because at this point in time they refuse to give up their clutch and stick shift and buy automatic transmission cars, even though often they sit in horrific traffic jams.
I did another Zillow on my Miracle House and Zillow told me that my Miracle House is among the fairest houses of them all in that the imputed rent it generated went up by $147 during the past thirty days to reach a total of $2400 per month.
That works out to be about a 6.5 percent increase for … for thirty days! Extend the miracle out over twelve months and the increase will be … $1,764 for the year!
I told my boss that I needed an imputed raise so that what I clear AFTER TAXES will match the $1,764 of extra imputed rent cost and since it wasn’t really costing her anything she immediately granted my request under the condition that I would increase my imputed productivity by the same amount.
I immediately and enthusiastically agreed to do this and while I was there I also pointed out to her that the numbers that make up our nations GDP seems to be struggling as of late and it is up to all of us to get these numbers once again moving in the proper direction, which is up - always up.
Up … by any means necessary.
And not a renter or buyer in sight at half that amount.
Remember…… I can ask $50k for my used up 10 year old Chevy pickup but where is the buyer at that price?
So it is with all depreciating assets like houses.
Here’s a bunch of stories related to the Panama Papers. Each bullet point has a link:
The Latest From the Panama Papers: Details From the Largest Leak in History
by Daniel Politi
OECD calls tax meeting. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has called for a meeting of senior tax officials on April 13 in Paris to discuss the Panama Papers.
“A bad image to our country.”
EU calls for common list of tax havens.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is speaking up against tax havens. Now that his has been found.
Nigeria’s Senate president vows to hang tight.
A bad plugin? Cybersecurity experts continue trying to track down how someone was able to get so many files from Mossack Fonseca.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is facing increasing calls to resign after he finally acknowledged on Thursday that he profited from his father’s offshore trust.
Big British banks must disclose any ties with the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca
Argentine president fights back. Mauricio Macri, one of the 12 heads of state named directly in the Panama Papers, continues to insist he has nothing to hide…
Panama’s attorney general and a ‘half-hearted’ probe. Four days after the Panama Papers broke, Panama’s Attorney General Kenia Porcell confirmed yesterday that there will be an investigation into the Panama Papers. But the probe so far only relates to Mossack Fonseca’s loss of confidential information, and won’t look into whether its business practices were illegal…
Mossack Fonseca co-founder quits government council.
Senators call on Treasury to investigate. Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sherrod Brown are calling on the Treasury Department to look into the documents released as part of the Panama Papers…Although the Justice Department has already said it is reviewing the issue, the senators said that isn’t enough.
Putin says Panama Papers are U.S. plot to weaken Russia.
Mossack Fonseca keeps Americans at arm’s length… Many (including Slatest) have raised the question about why there aren’t more Americans in the Panama Papers. Ramon Fonseca talked to the Associated Press and gave a straightforward explanation: the firm would rather not have them as clients. The firm has long focused its business on Europe and Latin America rather than the United States.
China boosts censorship. It was already difficult for people in China to read news about the Panama Papers…
European soccer under scrutiny
Nevada connection.
Americans don’t need to go offshore…The United States has emerged as “an active competitor in the ‘corruption services’ business,”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/04/04/details_from_the_panama_papers_the_largest_leak_in_history.html
Hong Kong emerges as hub for creating offshore companies
‘Hong Kong was Mossack Fonseca’s go-to spot for financial intermediaries, home to 2,212 accountants, banks and other middlemen Mossack Fonseca used to set up 37,675 offshore companies for its global clients from 1977 to 2015 — more than any other place in the world, according to ICIJ’s analysis.’
“It’s quite natural that Hong Kong would grow to play a significant role in the plumbing infrastructure of globalization,” said Martin Kenney, an asset recovery lawyer in the British Virgin Islands. “They are the architects, designers and engineers of the structures.”
‘In part, the prominence of offshore vehicles in Hong Kong has to do with its special relationship with mainland China. Many investors set up offshore vehicles so they can sell mainland assets without being subjected to layers of government approval. Others have used, and sometimes abused, offshore structures to take advantage of China’s tax breaks for foreign companies. More foreign direct investment to China between 1979 and 2014 ostensibly came from the British Virgin Islands than from anywhere else, aside from Hong Kong, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.’
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-emerges-hub-creating-045336201.html
Open Bazaar is even better than Hong Kong. Unlike Silk Road, Open Bazaar is decentralized. The voluntaryist economy is here. https://openbazaar.org
How much of your million bucks do you have in Bitcoin? My guess is less than 10 percent. Its all play money fiddle farting around til your skin in the game is a serious bet with real life stakes.
How much of your millions is in fiat money? You are a darn fool or very old of your assets are mostly in savings of some sort instead of investments.
I have to repeat again:
Precious metals billion is no an investment.
Fiat money (cash under the mattress) is not an investment.
Short term treasuries are not an investment.
Crypto currency is not an investment.
Though I do know a guy who bought a house with Bitcoin.
Ben -
I wonder how much of this ill gotten gain and subsequent tax evasion ended up in those high priced sky box condos in NYC in the recent past?
I recall on this site and several others that I read that folks in NYC were wondering where all this money to buy these overpriced, multimillion dollar condos was coming from. Ruskies, Chicomms, Brazilians etc. seemed to be the ones. Wonder if the PP will expose this in the near term.
Promises, promises…
US states of emergency
US faces ‘disastrous’ $3.4tn pension funding hole
Collective deficit of retirement plans is three times larger than official figures
6 hours ago
by: Attracta Mooney
The US public pension system has developed a $3.4tn funding hole that will pile pressure on cities and states to cut spending or raise taxes to avoid Detroit-style bankruptcies.
According to academic research shared exclusively with FTfm, the collective funding shortfall of US public pension funds is three times larger than official figures showed, and is getting bigger.
Devin Nunes, a US Republican congressman, said: “It has been clear for years that many cities and states are critically underfunding their pension programmes and hiding the fiscal holes with accounting tricks.”
Mr Nunes, who put forward a bill to the House of Representatives last month to overhaul how public pension plans report their figures, added: “When these pension funds go insolvent, they will create problems so disastrous that the fund officials assume the federal government will have to bail them out.”
Large pension shortfalls have already played a role in driving several US cities, including Detroit in Michigan and San Bernardino in California, to file for bankruptcy. The fear is other cities will soon become insolvent due to the size of their pension deficits.
Joshua Rauh, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think-tank, and professor of finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, who carried out the study, said: “The pension problems are threatening to consume state and local budgets in the absence of some major changes.
“It is quite likely that over a five to 10-year horizon we are going to see more bankruptcies of cities where the unfunded pension liabilities will play a large role.”
The Stanford study found that the states of Illinois, Arizona, Ohio and Nevada, and the cities of Chicago, Dallas, Houston and El Paso have the largest pension holes compared with their own revenues.
…
On the same subject, from the minarchist Reason link:
http://reason.com/archives/2016/04/10/we-need-a-sequel-to-the-big-short-to-cri
FBI raids offices of investment firm tied to Dallas Police and Fire Pension System
CDK Realty Advisors once managed more than $700 million for the pension fund, but the two have had a messy split since the pension fund’s former administrator, Richard Tettamant, was ousted in June 2014.
The pension system filed a claim against CDK this week, alleging the firm gave it “reckless and improper” advice and charged inflated fees. The system also accused CDK officials of abusing their position by giving “sweetheart deals” to friends through pension fund properties. CDK has denied those allegations.
http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/2016/04/fbi-raids-offices-of-investment-firm-tied-to-dallas-police-and-fire-pension-system.html/
Shut it the heck down. It’s been a miserable failure.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-09/department-education-our-work-here-done
“The Department of Education was created in 1979 and now has an annual budget of $73 billion, with 5,000 government bureaucrats roaming its hallways. When you include all Federal, State and Local spending on public education it totals about $700 billion per year, or $13,000 per student. The Department of Education was created to improve the education of our children.”
Housing will be expensive until we’re all dead.
You have two choices:
1. Pay too much for rent and be at the mercy of incapable LLs tryna turn a quick buck and move often and/or stress every year at renewal
2. Pay too much for house in attempt to capture some form of stability (get less than you need).
“Housing will be expensive until we’re all dead.”
Just like oil and other commodities?
Not to mention home prices in other countries?
Bonus Slump Fueling Home-Price Drop in London’s Banker Enclaves
Sharon R Smyth
April 4, 2016 — 6:42 AM PDT
Home prices in London districts typically favored by bankers are falling as bonus payments drop and career promotions are delayed, according to a report compiled by Knight Frank LLP.
Values in Knightsbridge declined 6.8 percent in the year through March, while they were down 4.9 percent in South Kensington and 2.5 percent lower in Chelsea, the London-based broker said in a report Monday.
…
This real estate market is about to crash
Ron Insana | @rinsana
Monday, 28 Mar 2016 | 12:01 PM ET
CNBC.com
…
WND EXCLUSIVE
Not again! Replay of U.S. housing crisis looming?
Feds again pushing banks to loan to customers with weak credit
Published: 5 days ago
Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.
The last big crash in the American housing industry, running roughly from the end of 2007 well into Barack Obama’s first term as president, has been blamed on a number of different factors.
But nearly every assessment cites the government’s lowered standards for loaning money as a contributor.
In fact, Peter Wallison, a member of the Financial Inquiry Commission that reviewed the disaster, contends that without the government’s actions, there would have been no housing crisis.
In the Atlantic magazine in 2011, he cited pressure from Democratic U.S. Rep. Barney Frank and others to have government mortgage institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, move aggressively into the market for “no-downpayment loans,” “subprime” loans and “low quality” loans.
“There is no doubt that the government created the demand for these weak loans; less than 30 percent (7.8 million) were held or distributed by the banks, which profited from the opportunity created by the government,” he wrote then. “When these mortgages failed in unprecedented numbers in 2008, driving down housing prices throughout the U.S., they weakened all financial institutions and caused the financial crisis.”
So can American now expect another such crisis in which millions lose their homes in foreclosure and major banking institutions teeter and crash?
…
“Just like oil and other commodities?”
No, BIG FED doesn’t buy excess oil and hide it. BIG FED doesn’t offer FIATSCOS for silly loans to buy oil.
Plan accordingly.
The best indication I see that you are wrong is the number of young families in my circle making the same decision as yours, to lock into home ownership based on the presumption that real estate prices and rents can only go up from here. From my experience, it is after all the passengers rush to one side of the boat and nearly tip it over that it rolls backwards the other direction, much to their collective surprise.
“presumption that real estate prices and rents can only go up from here”
This is not my assumption..
“Housing will be expensive until we’re all dead.”
Hmmmm….
It’s tricky thinking.
Question: do you expect your rent to decrease by $100 next time you renew?
If so, will you consider your monthly rent affordable, or expensive still? I don’t expect prices to go up ALOT. But I don’t expect the market to be cheap or easy. The 2010 dip happened quick and the reinflation caught me off guard.
I am saying that housing is such a thick sh*t sandwich everyone is going to have to chew hard.
I don’t disagree with you the we’re in bubble 2.0. I would say that nobody here can predict what the aftermath will look like. FWIW, a house on my street that was a zombie from 1.0 just sold in 2016. That’s a decade later.
I don’t pretend to have all of the answers or know the future.
All I know is RE is hell.
Plus everyone needs a place to live in, whether rented or “owned”, unless they choose or get stuck with the homeless lifestyle…
There are means to avert the massive losses associated with housing. Moving, sharing expenses, substitutions, are just a few of the methods.
Ignore the reasons that housing demand is at 20 year lows at your own peril.
Housing will be expensive until we’re all dead.
Even the dead need “housing”, even if it’s just a canister in a mausoleum wall. The beauty of being dead is that providing that “housing” is someone else’s problem.
“Even the dead need ‘housing’”
Tiny “coffin” apartments in Tokyo …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2286069/Living-box-The-tiny-coffin-apartments-Tokyo-cost-400-month-rent.html
FL_Donk,
Those are the choices you imposed on yourself.
Not everyone has a rich uncle who lets you crash in his basement for free, VT_Donk.
FL_Donk…. The stable you put yourself in has nothing to do with me, Ben Jones or anyone else here my friend.
So what’s your plan? Are you going to rent forever, or will you buy at some point? If so, at what price points would you buy? Do you rent on the open market, or from family?
I’m looking forward to a non-troll response with timelines and hard numbers. Thanks
I already have a couple dumps. I don’t need another.
What are “hard numbers”? That’s a Rental_Fraud expression.
I already have a couple dumps.
HA is a specuvestor??!? Wonders never cease…
You have two choices:
There is a third option:
3) Find one of those rare landlords who have been doing it for a long, long time, have their mortgage paid off, and who understands the benefit of having a reliable, responsible, long-term tenant.
Yeah, that one may sound nearly impossible, but they are definitely out there…
Fatty orders a sugar-filled Starbucks mocha something or other, gets rude (but truthful) comment on cup, files hurt feelings report.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/10/starbucks-customer-shocked-by-rude-diabetes-comment-reportedly-w/
As a “fattie”, you get used to hearing the insulting/ disparaging comments by total strangers. At least once a week.
Of course, none of these chicken shits want to continue the conversation in the parking lot.
As with many other things, some prefer to blame the individual for their condition, ignoring the fact that our society doesnt help.
Being fed the wrong foods since I was a baby didnt help. Neither did growing up in a culture where fat kids were considered “healthy”.
The time I spent on second shift didnt help. Neither did the 800-900 hours a year of overtime (for nine years) I was pulling when I was a second shift foreman.
(Employer “wellness ” programs are a joke. They always seem to be available to the HR and Accounting types, but not to the “tip of the spear” guys who are working 60 hour weeks trying to keep up with the workload)
What I enjoy is the assumption that I’m a poor uneducated, dumb ass. An assumption that I am perfectly happy letting people believe.
Its funny how nobody minds “fat” when you are looking for football linemen, or someone to help you move your heavy crap.
For the record, I’m pushing 59, and my blood sugar is normal. While my weight will hopefully kill me off suddenly, sparing me the alternative of “homeless with dementia” stage. Or the “ICU sucking the last penny out of my estate” stage.
I saw a 2016 Challenger yesterday.
Pretty sweet.
With some big-bellied, comb-over micro-dick at the wheel, no doubt.
Being a big-bellied, comb-over micro-dick at a wheel is an expression of freedom.
Why do so many posters here at HBB judge others expressions of freedom? It’s very weird.
“With some big-bellied, comb-over micro-dick at the wheel, no doubt.”
Actually it was a chick at the wheel.
Late 20s early 30s and she was pretty easy on the eyes too.
I was at Wal-Mart the other day to pick up some fuel for my camping stove (otherwise I avoid the place like the plague). All the Wal-Mart shoppers either looked like they had some kind of wasting disease, or were pre-diabetes Type II waiting to happen. Utterly slovenly and disgusting human beings, especially the scooter people. And now thanks to Obamacare, I get to pick up the tab for their poor lifestyle choices, the processed GMO crap they consume in prodigous quantities, and their general gluttony and lack of exercise. Awesome….
FREEDOM!!
There is no greater joy than a diet filled with bags of Cheetos, mega boxes of Toaster Strudel and $20 worth of food from McDonald’s for lunch.
“a diet filled with bags of Cheetos, mega boxes of Toaster Strudel and $20 worth of food from McDonald’s for lunch.”
That’s for Lightweights.
Mr. Creosote Blows Up - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8 - 367k -
I make that dude look a coat rack.
http://picpaste.com/1a25a33db5a37b51162d2db2e5760eda.jpg
D-FW new home sales and starts soared in the first quarter
http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2016/04/d-fw-new-home-sales-and-starts-soared-in-the-first-quarter.html/
Rising transactions is typical when prices crater.
Dallas, TX Housing Prices Crater 17% YoY
http://www.zillow.com/bluffview-dallas-tx/home-values/
Deflationary spirals: the nightmare spector for FBs who bought into asset bubbles with borrowed money.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/10/china-guru-warns-of-erm-style-currency-crisis-as-deflation-persi/
We must welcome the fleeing Chinese elites with their laundered millions and moral bankruptcy. In additon to propping up the housing bubble on the high end for a bit longer, they will make fine additions to our oligarchy class and generous donors to the Republicrat duopoly.
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/04/09/china-push-world-into-economic-crisis-end-of-chinese-miracle/
Our oligopoly media border collies are stepping up the volume and intensity of their propaganda barrage against The Donald. What are the oligarchs so afraid of? And are the functional retards who comprise 95% of the electorate ever going to see right through the lies and disinformation?
http://www.businessinsider.com/boston-globe-trump-cover-2016-4
In general, with a few rare exceptions, the “media” is nothing more than a filthy conglomerate of liars, shills, parasites and propagandists. They need to be careful when they see a doctor or auto mechanic or any service provider on which their lives may depend, because what goes around, comes around.
And really, it’s not so much the media and what it puts out that is disturbing, it’s the fact the people can and do believe them, which is a function of the education scam conglomerate of liars, shills, parasites and propagandists.
Congenital stupidity in the vast majority of the sheeple is the major factor in the elites’ success in “dumb ‘em down and profit.”
‘Murica!
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/04/08/question-of-the-day-apr-8/
Chinese “investor” bagholders never learn.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-10/where-else-can-i-put-my-money-china-starts-arresting-people-crisis-it-created-comes-
The Panama Papers exposing oligarch tax dodges are the tip of the iceberg.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/04/09/panama-is-small-change/
Hmm. Short interest reaches one trillion dollars, while on Monday Yellen the Felon and her flying monkeys will convene a non-scheduled, i.e. emergency meeting to “discuss rates.” Have Yellen’s Goldman Sachs handlers gone massively short, then ordered their creature to unexpectedly hike rates to crash the market? Guess we’ll see shortly.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-06/the-1-trillion-short-underlying-u-s-stocks-spring-awakening
With the Fed getting ready to sell off the mortgage-backed securities it took off the hands of its bankster accomplices, courtesy of the US taxpayer, will Yellen the Felon announce NIRP & QE to prop up the housing market before hiving off its MBS portfolio?
http://sputniknews.com/us/20160408/1037670516/federal-reserve-trim-assets.html
With the Fed getting ready to sell off the mortgage-backed securities it took off the hands of its bankster accomplices
??? You are very confused, if you really believe that. Both Bernanke and Yellen have stated unequivocally that they won’t sell any of these securities, ever. Instead, they will let them mature off the books, which sounds like roughly a 30-yr normalizing cycle, AFTER it begins (it hasn’t yet).
And before anything will start “maturing off”, they have to stop reinvesting both the interest generated, and the maturing principal; at the moment, they are still rolling everything over.
“Instead, they will let them mature off the books, which sounds like roughly a 30-yr normalizing cycle, AFTER it begins (it hasn’t yet).”
It sounds like an entombment of toxic mortgages on the Fed’s balance sheet.
Which brings to mind, why don’t they use the same approach as was used for the housing bailout to eliminate the student debt crisis, the pension crisis, the energy junk bond crisis, and all the other debt overhangs which threaten to bring down the global financial economy?
why don’t they use the same approach as was used for the housing bailout to eliminate the student debt crisis, the pension crisis, the energy junk bond crisis
Given their apparent success in re-igniting the bubble, I think it is quite likely that they will foolishly apply the technique elsewhere the next time a crisis hits. After all, they have only one tool in their toolbox at this point—so what else would they do??
Shouldn’t there be laws governing what sectors of the economy are bailout-worthy, rather than leaving such decisions to Fed leaders at the moment of crisis? Otherwise the moral hazard to ramp up systemic risk may become uncontained.
Shouldn’t there be laws governing what sectors of the economy are bailout-worthy
Precisely. And any company considered bailout-worthy should also be regulated to within an inch of its life, in order to ensure that is very unlikely to contains surprise liabilities and risks.
“And any company considered bailout-worthy should also be regulated to within an inch of its life, in order to ensure that is very unlikely to contains surprise liabilities and risks.”
That’s where the Sanders-Sherman Antitrust Bill comes into play:
Sanders Introduces ‘Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist’ Bill to Break Up Big Banks
By Ali Meyer | May 6, 2015 | 3:53 PM EDT
(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unveiled legislation at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday that would break up any ‘too big to fail’ institutions and reorganize them to avoid taxpayer bailouts.
“If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” said Sanders in explaining the legislation that he introduced Wednesday along with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Cal.), which is titled the “Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act.”
“The bill I am introducing today with Congressman Brad Sherman would require regulators of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to establish a too big to fail list of financial institutions and other huge entities whose failure would pose a catastrophic risk on the United States economy without a taxpayer bailout,” said the senator.
…
The Panama Papers: the consequence of the Oligopoly concentrating all power and money into its own greedy hands, aided and abetted by our captured political elites and an indiscribably stupid electorate.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr16/centralized-money4-16.html
I am going to hazard a prediction: not one of the mega-tax dodging US oligarchs exposed by the Panama Papers will ever spend a day behind bars, thanks to the Loretta Lynch Justice Department and its blind eye toward Too Big to Jail criminals.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/08/the-panama-papers-oozing-slime/
Saying our schools need to be safer makes you a rayciss.
http://nypost.com/2016/04/10/youre-now-a-racist-if-you-say-schools-need-to-be-safer/
Maybe… but adopting faux ebonics definitely does.
Eat me.
Racists are delicious, but I could never eat a whole one.
So misspelling the word is supposed to be a way to ridicule certain people who supposedly speak that way? The way that some brains work is truly fascinating.
“The way that some brains work is truly fascinating.”
I couldn’t agree more.
“Under pressure from Obama educrats, public school districts are no longer suspending even violent students; but now, under pressure from Black Lives Matter, they are suspending teachers who complain about not suspending bad kids.”
I was chatting with an acquaintance the other day and he brought up how Ft Collins and Loveland draw in a lot of retirees who relocate here to retire. He was perplexed that retirees move here, because it snows.
My response was that it’s because of a simple reason: Ft Collins (82%) and Loveland (92%) are overwhelmingly white. Both are less than .6% black. Both have much lower crime rates than nearby Greeley, which is 40% Hispanic.
I was in Santa Clara last week. It was interesting being in a community where whites are merely the largest minority. 1500 sq ft, 60 year old crapshacks in the neighborhood down the road from the corporate campus fetch 900K or more. I can’t begin to imagine living in such a place.
Sunday funnies by TBP (Mo’ ham edition). Enjoy!
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/04/10/sunday-funnies-moe-ham-edition/
Check out the puddles and rain drops in this backyard photo, which documents another reason why I am increasingly hopeful the CA drought is ending. It seldom rains here in April.
Unfortunately, a la nina period pretty much always follows a strong el nino, and it appears that is happening now. So prepare for a probable return to drought.
Party pooper.
Perfect zika breeding grounds.
From Fresno on northward, the rainfall in that part of California so far this season has been above normal.
Here’s a good NYT article …
“Congratulations! You’ve been fired!”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/opinion/sunday/congratulations-youve-been-fired.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&src=me&WT.nav=MostEmailed
Interesting that they lump telemarketers in with “tech workers”
But yeah, people are fired on a whim at small companies.
The Yen carry-trade has been one of most reliable means for insiders to manipulate our Ponzi markets. Thanks to Yellen’s “dovishness” the Yen is suddenly killing the dollar and causing major losses to traders who borrowed cheap Yen to speculate in the market. We can’t have speculators getting hurt, which makes me wonder if the Fed’s meeting tomorrow is to prop up the dollar with an unexpected interest rate hike.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr16/yen-yuan-USD4-16.html
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hundreds-hurt-as-migrants-confront-macedonian-border-police/ar-BBrzSJY?li=BBnb7Kz
Real world Camp of Saints.
The Shells May Be Cracking…..
Really? Another generation of people have finally taken notice of Miami?
What type of money built the Falls Shopping Center ? Coconut Grove’s Mayfair? All of post year 1979 Miami ? Downtown is Downtown. It’s not Westchester or Sabal Chase or Homestead. It’s a square mile or three of laundered money. A lot of Chinese, Colombian, stolen circa 1982 Venezuelan bank cash…. coming home to nest.
Is this some sort of surprise? To whom is it a surprise? You? A Miami banker? A Miami lawyer? Who can buy a whole f—king floor? An entire building?
And how much debt have we created? Answer: Infinite. No number. Not one trillion. Infinite. No one knows. Infinite. We are not talking about money in circulation. PAPER entries create the INFINITE. It’s physics. A global space/time continuum that merely expands infinitely. What happens when expanding space always accommodates expanding velocity ? Computer entries, not printing presses.
Answer: Infinite.
The Shells May Be Cracking…..
Really? Another generation of people have finally taken notice of Miami?
What type of money built the Falls Shopping Center ? Coconut Grove’s Mayfair? All of post year 1979 Miami ? Downtown is Downtown. It’s not Westchester or Sabal Chase or Homestead. It’s a square mile or three of laundered money. A lot of Chinese, Colombian, stolen circa 1982 Venezuelan bank cash…. coming home to nest.
Is this some sort of surprise? To whom is it a surprise? You? A Miami banker? A Miami lawyer? Who can buy a whole f—king floor? An entire building?
And how much debt have we created? Answer: Infinite. No number. Not one trillion. Infinite. No one knows. Infinite. We are not talking about money in circulation. PAPER entries create the INFINITE. It’s physics. A space/time continuum that merely expands infinitely. What happens when expanding space always accommodates expanding velocity ? Computer entries, not printing presses.
Answer: Infinite.
1 million seconds is about 11.5 days
1 billion seconds is about 32 years
1 trillion seconds is 32,000 years
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/car-subprime-bubble-auto-loans-credit-acceptance-don-foss
+1. Thanks. That was a good read.
tiny-home-financier-billionaire.com
“Foss took Credit Acceptance public in 1992. It was around then that Ohio lawyer Ron Burdge, in the process of suing a used-car dealer, obtained a copy of Credit Acceptance’s corporate manual and realized, with a mix of horror and awe, that ‘they had created this remarkable system for taking every last dime from their customers’.”
I like it.
cruel, cruel summer
Bahahahahaha … near the beginning of the article is a video, “The Don Foss Story”, and every puke that visits this message board should view this video and then after they are finished with their viewing and are completely and totally sold on the wonderful idea of just how wonderful that wonderful Don Foss guy is he (or she - or whatever gender the puke claims to be this week) should take some time to watch this video of Chick Lambert (who worked for Ralph Williams) tell the truth about Ralph Williams (for once) and possibly, just possibly, the puke will get a real and realistic and accurate idea of just who and how - deep down who and deep down how - these guys really and truly are.
Here, for those pukes who can take it …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcYH2Hyy2mM
Bahahahahahahahahahahaha … this is some really great stuff!
“According to court documents, the couple ended up paying $12,450 for a four-year-old Ford Taurus, about $5,000 more than the Black Book value—and that didn’t include the extras, such as a $209 charge for “fees to public officials.” (It actually cost the dealer about $10 to file the required paperwork with the state.)”
Bahahahahahahahahahaha
“The Peels also let the salesman talk them into an extended warranty for $1,380. Minus their $1,000 down payment and the $2,500 that Car Time offered for the Suburban, they were left with a balance of $10,960, to be financed by Credit Acceptance. The interest rate—24 percent—was triple what they would have paid with good credit, and it amounted to an additional $6,620 in payments over the life of the loan.”
The interest rate was TWENTY FOUR PERCENT!
“They would pay $17,580 all told, but ‘this was going to be my chance to build up our credit so we’d never have to pay a rate like that again,’ Peel says.”
Clone him!
Funny how people here keep knocking the Federal reserve and Janet Yellen yet laugh at alternatives to fiat money.
Okrah: “We were here when there was nothing but hoes and rats on the street, and now it’s one of the hottest neighborhoods [in Chicago]. The time had come to downsize this part of the business and to move forward.”
Gee - I worked in Okrah’s hood before Okrah landed there - I guess I must be one of the hoes or rats to which she refers. What a f….ing dolt this large lathered idiot is. There were some 30 years ago when I first landed in the amazing utopia called Chicago many small run businesses, fruit and veggie vendors, etc. on West Randolph St. and restaurants throughout that are long since gone. So……Okrah - YOU did not build that - it was the small fry, the architects and arteeesty types, the risk takers that started to revitalize the hood to which you refer that made it safe enough for you to enter the market there. Sheesh - where do these elite blood sucking morons get off?
http://jacksonvillefreepress.com/oprah-closing-harpo-studios-for-good/