The Way All Such Madness Ends
An Economic Letter from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. “The collapse of an asset price bubble usually creates a great deal of economic disruption. But bubbles are hard to anticipate and costly to deflate. As a result, policymakers struggle to determine how they should respond, if at all. Evaluating the economic costs of past equity and real estate bubbles—with particular attention to how much credit grew during boom phases—can provide valuable insights for this debate. A recent study finds that equity bubbles are relatively benign. More danger comes from housing bubbles in which credit grows rapidly.”
“How should a central bank respond to an asset price boom? Rudebusch (2005) provides a detailed road map. It all depends on how early one can tell that there is a bubble, and whether the costs of different policy interventions outweigh the benefits. Central banks monitor asset markets closely since they provide timely information on broader economic conditions. However, it is often difficult to tell the signal from the noise. Fluctuations in asset prices reflect a varying mix of fundamentals and speculation. Uncertainty about these mixed signals has often stayed the hand of policymakers, much like a monetary version of the Hippocratic admonition, ‘First, do no harm.’”
“Financial crises often follow credit and asset price booms that collapse abruptly. But many booms in credit and asset prices do not end up in a crisis or even in a garden-variety recession. This is the policymaker’s conundrum, to distinguish booms driven by speculation from those driven by fundamental economic forces.”
“We cannot provide a definitive answer to this debate. However, our research highlights the need to pay particular attention to conditions in housing and mortgage markets, rather than those in equity markets. The collapse of a leveraged housing market is still as dangerous today as it has always been.”
From CNBC. “Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, and CNBC’s Rick Santelli debated the potential repercussions from the ongoing money-printing bonanza from central banks around the world. ‘If you want to complain, you can’t complain when the stock market is at an all-time high and yields are this low, because everyone is trapped in the relative performance game,’ said Bianco. ‘This is like ‘99 with tech stocks or 2006 with real estate.’”
“Bianco believes that as long as asset prices continue going up, everybody ‘keeps rolling their eyes’ and looking the other way. ‘Today it’s a new era that central banks are running everything,’ he said.”
From MarketWatch. “U.S. Treasury bonds — backed by the full faith and credit of America — are considered the safest investment in the world. No longer. Friday’s sudden market tremor may herald the end of the bond bubble. Or it may just be the beginning of the end. But either way, this bond-market madness is going to end the way all such madness ends — with ordinary people losing money.”
“So far this year, U.S. wage inflation has averaged about 2.1%. So it would be reasonable to assume that in due course general inflation will be at least that, if not more. That means your 10-year Treasury will actually leave you poorer, in real terms. This, of course, is assuming that inflation does not gather speed — which it has usually done in the past. If inflation runs above 2.1% a year, someone buying a bond paying just 1.6% will get hosed.”
“The general principle of investing is to save $100 today in the expectation of having $110, or $150, down the road. Saving $100 today in the hope of having $90 in 10-years’ time seems an odd way of doing things.”
“There’s no great mystery to why the U.S. is in this situation: sluggish growth, low pricing power, and central bank activity around the world since the financial crisis of 2008. Plus one other factor: Few investors today can remember anything but a bull market in bonds. The Treasury market bottomed out in 1982 and has been largely on the way up since then. But bonds are called ‘fixed income’ for a reason. The coupons on your bond won’t rise. So there is a limit to how much you should pay for them.”
“Future generations may look back on this moment with amazement. They may ask, ‘What were people thinking?’”
The Dallas Morning News in Texas.”With home prices in the Dallas-Fort Worth area soaring over the last few years, local property owners are sitting on billions of dollars. Texans have some of the highest home equity rates in the country, according to CoreLogic. With so much money locked in housing, the number of consumers breaking into that piggy bank is growing. Homeowners are refinancing their properties to pull out cash or getting lines of credit tied to the equity in their homes.”
“‘Home equity lines of credit were up 36 percent in the second quarter compared to a year ago in Dallas,’ said Daren Blomquist, economist with Attom Data Solutions, formerly known as Realtytrac. ‘The increase in HELOCs in Dallas was the largest in any of the 74 metro areas we track nationwide.’”
“Currently almost 64 percent of home loans made in the U.S. are refinancings. The share of cash-out refinancings is at the highest level in eight years — about 10 percent, according to Freddie Mac. But cash out refis nationwide are still about a third of what they were before the Great Recession. In the first quarter of 2016 alone, U.S. homeowners got almost $16 billion from cash out refis and home equity lines of credit.”
“Tough credit standards should keep consumers from using their houses like a cash machine with no limits, said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist with Realtor.com. ‘It does not look like The Big Short all over again,’ Smoke said. ‘I would expect that an increase in cash-out refinancings and more HELOCs would be a logical result of recovering home equity balances, and that would be most significant in markets like Dallas where home values are at record levels.’”
From CBS DFW in Texas. “The house-flipping craze is hot and busy in North Texas. A new report by ATTOM Data Solutions shows the number of houses being flipped and the number of flipping investors are both at a nine-year high.”
“Daren Blomquist, the senior VP of communications at ATTOM, said the numbers are easy to interpret. ‘What’s that’s telling us is that there are more people kind of jumping on the flipping bandwagon, it’s not just some of the bigger, more established investors. It’s folks who maybe saw it on TV and think, ‘Well, we can try our hand at home flipping’ and they’re getting into it as well, thanks to the vey strong housing market.’”
“Apparently the flipping frenzy start to really kick in over the last two years and there have been nationwide increases over each of the last five quarters. Blomquist said, ‘Now in the second quarter we saw more than 51,000 properties flipped across the country. That was the highest level we’ve seen going all the way back to the second quarter of 2007.’”
“‘People definitely need to be careful if they don’t have experience in flipping, because it’s inherently a very highly speculative activity,’ he said. ‘You’re betting on the market to be behaving in a certain way in six months or a year, when you’re done rehabbing that home.’”
“There are also some concerns for amateur flippers in Dallas who seem to be operating on are very low purchase margins and not leaving themselves leave themselves a very big cushion. ‘In Dallas we’re only seeing that flippers are purchasing at a 6-percent discount below the property estimated full market value. Where as nationwide flippers are buying at a 26-percent discount,’ Blomquist said. ‘The problem with that is [flipping] it is very speculative and very reliant on the market continuing to go up at the same pace that it has been. And that’s where flippers can sometimes be caught and really lose a lot of money.’”
‘Central banks monitor asset markets closely since they provide timely information on broader economic conditions.’
These Dallas articles just so happened to show up at the same time as this letter. Here’s another one:
‘Dallas home market keeps rocketing skyward and it’s getting frightening’
By Thomas Randall
‘Dallas real estate continues to push the limits. Last year I made a prediction that we would see some type of bubble burst or correction made around election time or within 2 years from that article. The local numbers do not support my claim in the Dallas real estate marketplace.’
‘The up, up, and up of the market is frightening to me. It resembles the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis era…The sheer number of jobs and pent-up demand in Dallas discredit my suspicion though. If we had a glut of homes, like we did in 2007-2008, it would make sense that a Dallas recession was coming.’
‘We are starting to see 2-bedroom homes in central Dallas being sold for half a million dollars. These homes are pristine, remodeled, and in no way a teardown but these same homes were valued at a fraction of this a decade ago. It is hard to really get a grasp on the leap in prices if you are unfamiliar with the area.’
‘All of a sudden Dallas is becoming a real estate mecca and the cost of living is still low. The possibility of purchasing a 2-3 bedroom home near downtown for under a half a million dollars will not exist in another decade or two like it does now. This home will certainly not look like the half a million dollar two-bedroom homes that I mentioned earlier, but the potential is certainly there.’
‘The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex lead the nation in new home starts for the 12 month period ending at the mid-year, according to MetroStudy, Inc. That is a 20 percent increase since 2015!’
‘The fact is that North Texas home builds, and sales of these builds, are at the highest level since 2008. It is not a coincidence that builders are quickly buying up as much land as possible to build and capitalize on this city. It begs the question of why would I still be a Realtor when home flipping, building, and real estate holdings are cashing in on a much larger scale.’
‘It begs the question of why would I still be a Realtor when home flipping, building, and real estate holdings are cashing in on a much larger scale.’
‘Day jobs are the real fuel to the fire here in Dallas. The real estate market is sitting on the backs of those who are working every day and who not focused solely on money, and instead are focused on their family and their life outside of work. The job market is booming and because of this, people are being paid well and they feel valued.’
‘I, along with others, feel no need to rush away from a job that has steady pay and that is rewarding just to take a giant leap of faith into the real estate market even though the footing may feel solid. It is only those builders, home flippers, and investors who are reaping the benefits and we, the working class, are okay with that.’
On this:
‘It is hard to really get a grasp on the leap in prices if you are unfamiliar with the area’
Yeah, I’ve been hearing they are buying dumps, slapping some paint on and flipping for 100k or more profit instantly. Probably to other flippers. Oh, but the Fed is watching, closely!
‘China’s Holdings of U.S. Treasuries Fall to Lowest Since ’13′
‘The biggest foreign holder of U.S. government debt had $1.22 trillion in bonds, notes and bills in July, down $22 billion from the prior month, in the biggest drop since 2013, according to U.S. Treasury Department data. The portfolio of Japan, the largest holder after China, rose $6.9 billion to $1.15 trillion. Saudi Arabia’s holdings of Treasuries declined for a sixth straight month, to $96.5 billion.’
‘Bond yields are surging despite deflation, and that is dangerous’
‘The growth rate of nominal GDP in the US has fallen to 2.4pc, the lowest level outside recession since the Second World War. It has been sliding relentlessly for almost two years, a warning signal that underlying deflationary forces may be tightening their grip on the US economy.’
‘We can all agree that oxygen is thinning as we enter the final phase of the economic cycle after 86 months of expansion. The MSCI world index of global equities has risen to a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 17, significantly higher than on the cusp of the Lehman crisis.’
“We think that too much complacency has crept in,” says Mislav Matejka, equity strategist for JP Morgan. “After seven years of having a structural overweight stance on global equities, we believe the regime has fundamentally changed. We think that one should not be buying the dips any more, but use any rallies as selling opportunities,” he said.’
‘The correlation between bonds and equities has reached unprecedented levels, and that has the coiled the spring. The slightest rise in yields now has a potent magnifying effect across the spectrum of assets. Hence the angst over what is happening to US Treasuries.’
‘It is striking that markets do not believe that the Fed will hit its 2pc inflation target for the next 30 years, based on the pricing of the “TIPS” breakeven curve. Michael Darda from MKM Partners says it would be “utterly absurd” for the Fed to give in to the chorus of calls for a rate rise in such circumstances.’
‘Fed governor Lael Brainard clearly agrees. Far from capitulating to the hawks - as many expected - her speech on Monday night warned that business investment has been falling for the last three quarters, and now the housing market is softening too.’
‘She said the real “neutral” rate of interest has fallen to zero, and that there is no margin for error. It would be very hard to extract the US economy from Japanese-style trap if the Fed ever allowed it to happen. “This asymmetry in risk management in today’s “new normal” counsels prudence in the removal of policy accommodation,” she said.’
‘What is true is that markets fear the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank are reaching their political limits, and may not be allowed to press ahead with their experiments even if they want to.’
Japan’s Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has had his wings clipped by critics in the ruling party of Shinzo Abe, alarmed that the BoJ is swallowing up the financial system. They forced him to carry out a “comprehensive review” of his policies. “Japan has reached an inflexion point. The BoJ is clearly cornered,” said Stephen Jen from Eurizon SLJ Partners.’
‘The bank already owns 12pc of Fast Retailing and 13pc of the technology group Advantest, and these holdings are heading for 20pc next year as a mathematical effect on current policy. Japan’s market economy is being nationalised.’
‘The BoJ will soon hold 50pc of all Japanese government bonds. It is monetising the entire budget deficit. Mr Jen says the central bank is nearing the fateful point where it will have no exit strategy if inflation ever does recover, a worry shared by officials at the International Monetary Fund.’
‘We are entering dangerous waters. Markets are losing faith in the central bank “put”, but governments are not yet willing to step into the breach with fiscal stimulus to keep the global show on the road. This is how accidents happen.’
‘Bond yields are surging despite deflation, and that is dangerous’
And so it begins.
Deflation?
Add med cost and rent and consider what % that is for j6p
‘The BoJ will soon hold 50pc of all Japanese government bonds. It is monetising the entire budget deficit. Mr Jen says the central bank is nearing the fateful point where it will have no exit strategy if inflation ever does recover, a worry shared by officials at the International Monetary Fund.’
I wonder how many other countries’ central banks are doing the same thing?
How much interest does Japan pay on its bonds? I seem to recall it being said here that they are on the verge of paying negative rates.
DEBT MONETIZATION AND CURRENCY DEBASEMENT!
ISNT THIS REALLY A TAX?
‘California again has nation’s highest rate of real poverty’
‘Gov. Jerry Brown and state legislators have been crowing about what they did for California’s poorest residents the last few years. They raised the state’s minimum wage, improved overtime pay for farm and domestic workers, enacted an earned-income tax credit, expanded health and welfare benefits, and provided extra money for the educations of poor students.’
‘However, their failure to confront the heaviest burden on poor families — California’s soaring housing costs — will extend California’s embarrassment of having the nation’s highest rate of real poverty.’
‘Deeper dives into the data leave little doubt that California’s high costs of living, particularly for housing, are a huge factor in its having such a high proportion of impoverished residents.’
‘Raghuram Rajan, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, has been leery of the unconventional monetary policy tools used by central banks since the financial crisis. At some point, he said, pushing interest rates low seems to have the perverse effect of making people save rather than spend.’
‘Perhaps the most cogent critic of Fed quantitative easing policy, Rajan says the asset-price boost that comes with it may disappear if these assets can’t grow into their valuation. That risks still haunts the U.S. economy, he said.’
“A bridge that relies on wealth effects, you better hope that you got enough growth to justify the asset price increase which created the wealth effect in the first place.” - Raghuram Rajan.
‘California again has nation’s highest rate of real poverty’
You accuse California of inconsistency!
“They raised the state’s minimum wage,…”
How will higher unemployment among low-wage workers help their plight?
“You can’t accuse California of inconsistency!”
Post-caffeine correction
I wonder, wouldn’t it be more cost effective to give California’s poor vouchers so they can leave the Golden State for cheaper pastures?
Scdave and h2o are happy to kick in more
And more
Yet California jobs are growing fast. Accounting for 25% of the new jobs in August
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobs-august-california-20160915-snap-story.html
I was wrong: 42% of all new jobs in August in the USA were in California!
Here’s a little something that appears to have the potential to be a black swan event. At the very least it may remind people what a fragile system they live in:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-16/why-east-coast-gas-prices-are-about-explode
If you live on the 1-95 corridor anywhere from Florida to Maine, you might want to consider gassing up your vehicles. And also stocking up on essential items, in case there are interruptions in truck deliveries to grocery stores and pharmacies. I’m old enough to remember the gas lines of the 1970s. It wasn’t pretty.
And this is why I despise the MSM, because there hasn’t been one peep about it on the local news. And it’s been going on since September 9th.
This doesn’t seem as dire as you make it out to be, but you did remind me that I should probably go out and buy some gas today. Thanks!
I didn’t say it was “dire”, but I did note it had the “potential” to be an event. Whether it is dire or not depends on where you live. I’ve been monitoring a regional board and one guy posted that gas is scarce in Knoxville. Another posted about price hikes in the Atlanta area.
Here in Tampa Bay, we’re lucky to be south of the northern Florida Jacksonville/Tallahassee area, because our gas comes from elsewhere, apparently. However, given that corporate America is in love with the whole “Just In Time” distribution model and tends not to keep much inventory on hand, it pays to be a little prepared for shortages of, say, toilet paper, printer ink and paper, packing tape, etc. Maybe even medicines. And certain foods.
Even without this situation, there have been occasions where I’ve walked into the local Dollar General or discount grocery to get something, only to hear “the truck hasn’t come in yet”. I just shrug and come back the following day, no problem. It’s possible we could find ourselves waiting for the truck a little longer now.
This.
Once we get full blown currency collapse, all the supply chains failed, and mass starvation, death and disease. Roving gangs killing and raping anyone for precious few resources. Electrical grid down and not coming back. You could try to defend yourself with a gun but it won’t matter, there’s too many of them.
Around the same time there will be a mass plague too, some virus unleashed killing off 99.9%. It will be a double-punch.
After the worst of it, the only people that might survive to rebuild our civilization are those that live far far up in the remote Alaskan woods, in the places only accessible by airplane, the small few who know how to live off the land. Not an easy thing.
The good news will be.
Housing will be free.
Electrical grid down and not coming back
This would e something that would unify the country. Rich and poor, urban and suburban, black and white, everyone will work together to get the electricity working again.
What will be interesting is. What to do with the nukes. And the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
Just leave them there? Most likely everyone with the technical knowledge of how those things work will be dead. Let’s hope the military leaves behind a “How to Disarm a Nuclear Weapon For Dummies” book. Heh.
“Electrical grid down and not coming back”
We had a power outage in my part of SD a few years ago. I don’t recall how long it lasted, but I remember going for a walk around my neighborhood in the evening with nothing but starlight to guide me, and noticing many of my neighbors out and about doing the same. There was a rather fascinating short-term transformation of the neighborhood dynamic thanks to the novelty of a blackout.
In my nabe in Carlsbad it was pandemonium when San Diego lost power for the day. The local Albertsons was over run, lines AROUND the outside aisles of the entire supermarket, took me an hour to get through that, people could park in parking spots so they just parked on sidewalks, up on curbs, I thought I was walking into the zombie apocolypse. I drove through all the downed stop lights to come home with my gas fireplace the only light in the house. Two more days of no power, no gas stations, no traffic signals and it would have been anarchy.
I didn’t say it was “dire”
I’ve posted here before about the fragility of “just in time” accounting and logistics.
Remember Katrina? I do.
401, did you go to the rally? If so, how was it.
No, we climbed Pikes Peak instead.
45 cent differential metro vs exurbs here in Va
And this is why I despise the MSM, because there hasn’t been one peep about it on the local news.
Only vegetables get their news and information from the MSM.
I think that the only people who watch the network news are either in a retirement home or will be in one soon.
I don’t even know who the current anchors are.
That leak sounds pretty bad actually. The workers are having a tough time even getting near it. From another article about it:
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/09/gasoline_pipeline_spill_cleanu.html
“Air monitoring stations have been set up at the site, with safety benchmarks based on thresholds set by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. If fumes reach 10 percent of the concentration levels that would make combustion possible, workers have to leave the area.”
“Federal authorities restricted the airspace over the spill. ”
–
In a post-apocalyptic world, that kind of thing will happen and nobody’s going to be able to do anything about it. They will become permanent off-limit zones to the remaining people left.
Realtors are liars.
‘In times of plenty, it can be easy to forget there may be leaner years ahead. But Toronto city council and its city managers need only look westward for a cautionary tale about relying on a volatile source of revenue. here, it’s the municipal land transfer tax — but in Alberta it was oil.’
‘Plunging oil prices have taken their toll on provincial revenues — down to $1.4 billion this year, from a high of more than $10 billion. That’s a glimpse of what could happen in Toronto when the housing bubble eventually bursts, real estate economist Frank Clayton says.’
‘Toronto’s city manager has warned council that it cannot count on the money indefinitely. It’s a source of revenue that’s at the whim of the market, Peter Wallace told the executive committee last December.’
“In very practical terms, the city of Toronto has been a free rider on a real estate boom,” Wallace said then. “If that tax did not exist, the city of Toronto would have gone through the fiscal wringer a long time ago.”
Canada = Texas
Oil may not be the driver in each local,but overall they’re both screwed till it gets over $60 again
‘During the financial crisis in 2008, Canadian banks were the envy of the world. So well regulated, our schedule A banks steered clear of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that led to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and almost took down the American economy. Others did much of the same. The U.K. had a similar meltdown with giant Bank of Scotland needing government bailout funds to stay in business.’
‘At the time, Canadians proudly declared that this could never happen here. We have strict regulations. Our selective schedule A banks cannot lend to sub-prime clients.’
‘These rules, of course, only apply to Canadians. Foreign buyers, some have speculated this week, may be receiving preferential treatment.’
‘As NDP housing critic David Eby said in the Globe and Mail that no less than four incomeless students, who cannot be called foreigners with certainty, purchased nine multimillion-dollar homes in Vancouver in the past two years. Mortgages in these homes were underwritten by the BMO, CIBC and HSBC. Mr. Eby correctly asks, “How did they qualify for these mortgages?”
‘Here, according to the original Globe and Mail article, is how it worked: The students were wired a down payment at 35 to 50 per cent of the purchase price of the home. Who knows what the source of those funds were, as they came from foreign banks. In addition to the 35 to 50 per cent down payment, the students also had to have one year’s worth of payments in the bank.’
‘Student A makes an offer on a house on the West side of Vancouver for $2,000,000 (reasonable assumption, as many are worth much more). The student puts $700,000 down, plus banks around $90,000 for the mortgage payments for one year on $1,300,000. The house doubles in value in two years and now is worth $4,000,000 (not at all a stretch in the bubble of Vancouver).’
‘The house is sold for its new worth, less $400,000 for realtor fees and costs. Then pay back the $1,300,000 mortgage, subtract the two years of payments and property taxes, and you are left with around $1,500,000 in pure profit. That’s a 114 per cent return on investment in two years!’
‘Any seasoned investor will tell you that doubling your money in two years is almost impossible. Many of these investors did better than this example for sure. It’s too good to resist, and that accounts for the flood of money into the Vancouver real estate market this past few years. If these were foreign buyers, it explains all the empty speculation homes with investors waiting for prices to hit their acceptable profit level before they sell. It explains the housing crisis.’
‘We were bamboozled. Treated like second-class citizens by the big banks so they would not lose out on the real estate bubble bath party in Vancouver. Who knows what the interest rate was on these student loans. I would bet much higher than prime. It is time for us to take action. We have to let our MPs and prime minister know that this rigged system is not going to be tolerated.’
‘Our Canadian banks are not as clean as we were led to believe. They have contributed to the housing bubbles in Vancouver and Toronto. Bubbles burst. Maybe what happened down south can indeed happen here.’
And that student probably declared it as his personal residence and didn’t pay any tax on his profit.
“An Economic Letter from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.”
Janet Yellen was president of the FRB of San Francisco a few years ago, back when the entire mainstream economics profession denied the existence of asset bubbles. It seems like tremendous progress for their research department to publish an article on the best policy response to an asset bubble.
From the first piece: “Sometimes the economic consequences of the boom-bust cycle typical of a bubble are well contained. A good example is the dot-com boom and bust of information technology stocks in the early 2000s. Other times the consequences are dire, as the collapse of the housing market and the Great Recession taught us.”
I was under the impression that home equity extraction bailed-out the dot-com crash. Hence, the dot-com crash and housing bubble are linked, in my mind. Zoom-out to the large view, it’s about the baby-boomer’s pension funds, which are likely just liabilities on a ledger; the money has already been spent on democracy in the middle-east. Hehe.
“A recent study finds that equity bubbles are relatively benign. More danger comes from housing bubbles in which credit grows rapidly.”
How recent?
When Bubbles Burst - IMF — April 2003
Amf to the imf and world bank
Their employees don’t pay taxes.
You should see their twin towers in dc
Taj Mahal 2
“This is the policymaker’s conundrum, to distinguish booms driven by speculation from those driven by fundamental economic forces.”
Where does a central bank pouring gasoline on the bonfire land on the speculation versus fundamental economic forces scale?
I wonder what % of California’s taxes come from capital gains on stawks and homes vs income taxes?
They don’t care about bubbles because its a great excuse to extend more credit and fiat when they pop.
It doesn’t cost much to produce a few more trillion of fiat.
Doesn’t it seem we are substituting fiat for wealth?
I think California does not tax the capital gain on the sale of your principle residence for the first $250,000.
It does tax your stock capital gains at the California ordinary income rate. That is 10% for me.
Buy a house in Malibu. You can’t go wrong.
I want to live in so cal and feel important.
We are unstoppable now that the Rams are back in the Coliseum. We just need Warren Beatty to have a fatal accident.
“The general principle of investing is to save $100 today in the expectation of having $110, or $150, down the road. Saving $100 today in the hope of having $90 in 10-years’ time seems an odd way of doing things.”
This brings to mind one of the great things Combotech keeps telling us. Be lucky you got your job. Think how much principle has to be gambled in, say, the S&P 500 to get a 2% yield to be the equivalent of your income at your job.
Imagine saving 30% of your income in low yielding TBills per year for 40 years. At retirement you essentially have ten years of full income of cash, plus any social security.
Imagine doing the same with gold in physical form. It was $35 per ounce in 1972 and now $1315 per ounce.
Now imagine doing that with Vanguard index funds and you get a modest 6% annual gain.
Imagine doing the same with gold in physical form. It was $35 per ounce in 1972 and now $1315 per ounce.
Timing is everything.
In 1980 (or thereabouts), gold breached $800 per ounce…took almost 30 years to get back there. The question is whether we are at the equivalent of a $35 price in 1972, or the $800 price in 1980. Candidly, I don’t think we are at either, but probably somewhere in between.
I heard recently that the longest bear market in history for the S&P 500 was something like 2 years.
I prefer assets that generate cash flow/earnings (companies, real estate, etc.) than assets that just sit there and cost money to store.
Inflation,energy is up big this ytd.
Rents up w some bail from food.
Wage pressure at the low end which is heavily weighted and recorded.
Forgot medical which is way up
Fraternal Order of Police endorses Trump.
Yawn…
FINANCIAL TIMES
US Election 2016
Trump urges secret service to stop protecting Clinton
Republican candidate raises prospect of assassination
…
Trump’s going to appoint Supreme Court Justices that will overturn Roe v Wade and that just drives you nuts.
I really doubt he will will do that. And he won’t chase gays or trannies out of town either. He is not a social conservative.
More likely outcome:
President Trump’s failure to pander to the many extreme political demands of the social conservative agenda drives them nuts.
Are you suggesting Trump was less than truthful when he said he would put someone on the Supreme Court “as close to Scalia as he could find”? “Scalia was terrific.”
I don’t give a flying fork about Roe v Wade, except for inside the deluded confines of your cranium.
The last thing the GOP wants is to overturn Roe v. Wade (which is one reason I want it overturned).
Bear with me.
The pro-choice/pro-life debate is the main social issue that the GOP uses to attract the right wing fringe (especially the bible-thumping contingent)…and because of Roe v. Wade, independents can still sleep at night when voting for a Republican.
Well over 50% (something like 75%) of the US population support some kind of abortion rights (including a large percentage of Republicans). If Roe v. Wade was overturned, the independents and moderate Republicans would flock to pro-choice candidates (because in the context of no Roe v. Wade, the pro-choice stance would then actually matter).
The GOP would lose the House and Senate in the next election, unless they took a less extreme position.
And we would be on a path to a constitutional amendment to legalize abortion.
We would no longer have so much political energy focused on the matter, and we could focus on things like making Medicare solvent, and improving the lives of Americans generally.
People think it’s a terrible risk to take (overturning Roe v. Wade), but I think it’s been occupying far too much of the conversation for far too long.
MSM upset after being punked by Trump.
CBS News Reporter has Major Meltdown on Live TV - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieaZLdqGdhw - 271k - Cached - Similar pages
22 hours ago .
PS
Some of the comments by the deplorables are priceless.
Money for Nothing
How the world’s richest companies get local governments to hand over millions of dollars in exchange for crappy jobs and empty promises.
by Chris Brooks
In 2008, the governments of the city of Chattanooga, Hamilton County, the state of Tennessee, and the United States all collaborated to provide Volkswagen (VW) with a $577 million subsidy package, the largest taxpayer handout ever given to a foreign-headquartered automaker in US history. The bulk of the subsidy package, $554 million, came from local and state sources. The federal government also threw in $23 million in subsidies, bringing the grand total of taxpayer money that VW received in 2008 to $577 million.
According to the “subsidy tracker” at the website of watchdog group Good Jobs First, the package provided to VW included “$229 million from the state for training costs and infrastructure; $86 million in land and site improvements from the city and the county; state tax credits worth $106 million over 30 years; and local tax abatements worth $133 million over the same period.” In exchange for this massive infusion of public wealth onto Volkswagen’s corporate balance sheets, the company promised to create two thousand jobs in Chattanooga, bringing the price tag for each promised job to $288,500.
When asked to respond to concerns about VW’s record-shattering subsidy package, then Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, unabashedly replied, “I don’t know whether it’s fair that a Mercedes Benz costs $90,000, I just know if I want one that’s what I’ve got to pay.” Tennessee’s senator, Lamar Alexander, a Republican, applauded the deal as another significant mile marker on the way towards “Tennessee’s future” of becoming the “the No. 1 auto state in the country.”
The political logic is pretty clear: massive subsidies are just the price that the public is expected to pay in exchange for the limited number of jobs made available to them within the “free enterprise” system. The VW subsidy deal is just one example of how large corporations leveraged the widespread suffering caused by the Great Recession, the longest and deepest economic crisis since the 1930s, to bleed the funds of state governments in exchange for jobs.
In a 2013 report studying the rise of “megadeals” — subsidy deals with a local and state subsidy cost of $75 million or more — Good Jobs First found that “since 2008, the average number of megadeals per year has doubled (compared to the previous decade) and their annual cost has roughly doubled as well, averaging around $5 billion.”
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/09/vw-subsidies-chattanooga-tn-uaw-autoworkers/
How many thousands of years does it take to recoup 577 million?
Who’s buy vw,s ?
And after their US diesel fiasco, where VW has agreed to buy back about 500,000 cars. which I learned cannot be reexported to markets with more lax emissions standards and will have to be scrapped, VW has a grim future in the US, if not the whole world. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tennessee production lines where moved to VW’s plant in Puebla, Mexico.
will have to be scrapped,
Scrapped? I thought it was just a matter of a software upgrade; they can dial down emissions by dialing down the power produced.
Apparently not. From what I have read, it can’t be replicated in real world driving. Something about engine components wearing out prematurely. Apparently the cheat is bad for the engine.
It would be hard to find a bigger POS than a VW.
The union will save vw
Bahhhhhhh
Even the turbo for the standard motor is lame
Hillary’s supporters are as vile as she is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/politics/hillary-clinton-voters.html?_r=0
At long last, Europeans are pushing back against “free trade” deals that only benefit the oligarchy. Will ‘Muricans come out of their vegetative state and fight back as well?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tens-thousands-protest-europe-against-atlantic-free-trade-144156387.html
They know that their manufacturing will be offshored to the US, especially the low wage, non-union South.
If they can’t get their leaders to stop to Muslim invasion, what chance do they have to stop the “free trade” deals?
The EU’s globalist leaders didn’t rise out of the ground: they were elected by the sheeple. Same as in the US.
That’s my point. As of today, only a minority is opposed to the Masters of the Universe.
especially the low wage, non-union South
In terms of economic development, this region is somewhere between Western Europe and Mexico.
They pay your 0% for your savings interest and then charge you 25% interest on a credit card. Seems like a scam.
What’s stopping you from making unsecured loans to deadbeats for 24%?
Banks get bailed out when dead beats don’t pay them back.
THEIR JOB IS TO GET GET YOU TO PAY MORE FOR STUFF.
@CarlMorris: it appears I lost your email address somewhere along the way. Can you drop me a line? drumminj/gmail.
Thanks!
What San Francisco Says About America
“It seems a terrible statement about my home country that my children will encounter homelessness and mental illness much more vividly in the wealthiest nation in the world than they did in Thailand, where we previously lived.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/what-san-francisco-says-about-america.html?pagewanted=all
That guy’s a total doosh. In Thailand they round up the homeless and mentally ill and throw them in gas chambers.
The potential pitfall I see is that I wouldn’t have the means to execute a buyout regardless of how fair the offer was, at least not at the moment.
God, we can hope…
Paste fail. My comment was intended to be about this tidbit:
And that’s where flippers can sometimes be caught and really lose a lot of money.’”
This is pretty funny/ sad.
“Manuela Manetta went to the Seattle Street Food Festival last month thinking about Afghani naan bread and hot dogs. She came home with a new condo.
While walking through the festival, the 33-year-old squash coach stumbled upon a booth hosted by the sales team for Nexus, a high-rise condo with a daring design that starts construction in November in downtown Seattle. The booth had a lounge area, along with architectural models and video tours with renderings of the building. Ms. Manetta and her partner put down a deposit for a $350,000 one-bedroom unit. “It was completely out of the blue,” says Ms. Manetta, who currently lives in a condo in Seattle’s Belltown district….”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-food-festivals-sell-homes-1473948962
free article
It won’t be funny until she gets foreclosed on.
she wont principal reductions!
Since the Fed and its lapdog media mouthpieces all assure us the economy is expanding, shouldn’t freight volumes be expanding as well?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/17/that-sinking-feeling-for-hanjin-as-falling-freight-rates-fuel-a/
CHEAP MONEY !!!
Since the Fed and its lapdog media mouthpieces all assure us the economy is expanding, shouldn’t freight volumes be expanding as well?
Apparently not, we were told by the crackpot yahoo media a few years that the collapse in the Baltic Dry Index would to lead to a severe global recession and it never happened.
maestro
It kind of seems like the global shipping industry is in a death spiral that no amount of funny money is able to halt.
The Telegraph
That sinking feeling for Hanjin as falling freight rates fuel a global shipping crisis
A Hanjin ship stranded outside the port of Long Beach, California this month
Credit: Reuters
Jillian Ambrose
17 September 2016 • 3:35pm
They just keep slitting each other’s throats with lower rates,” the shipbroker says. His sense of desperation is common in the industry, but he still asks not to be named. Tomorrow he will be fixing deals for the same shipowners who have flooded the market with new vessels in recent years, driving shipping rates lower as the glut of unused vessels grows.
“They’re building larger and larger ships to increase their capacity so they can cut costs, but with each larger vessel ordered they’re making the market worse. For at least the last five years it’s been a fight to the death,” he says.
Container shipping could lay claim to being the world’s first global industry. More than 50,000 merchant ships registered in more than 150 countries carry as many as 16,000 20ft containers at a time via a complex network of trade routes. From raw materials to finished goods, the shipping industry carries the lifeblood of the global economy, supporting 90pc of world trade.
But after years of falling freight rates, deepening company losses and mounting debt, the shipping market is reaching a crisis point. In recent weeks the first major fatality came. South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping, the world’s seventh largest container carrier, controlled a fleet of 141 ships worth around $1.76bn and transported more than 100 million tons of cargo a year. But its final set of financial results at the end of June revealed $5.5bn of debt. Two months later it entered administration.
…
If you rigged a turbine to the revolving door between the SEC and the banks its supposed to be overseeing, you could power a small city.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-17/secs-former-head-hft-expert-joins-hft-titan-citadel
DONT FIGHT INFLATION PEONS!
A list of things Donald Trump said on Friday
The Republican presidential nominee appeared in Washington and Miami on an eventful Friday. He made 15 false claims.
WASHINGTON—On an eventful Friday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump renounced his baseless “birther” conspiracy-peddling in a bizarre event at his new Washington hotel, did an interview on Fox Business, and held a rally in Miami, where he tried to woo the Cuban community. A list of some of the things he said:
Called for the disarming of Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service detail; added, “Let’s see what happens to her . . . it’ll be very dangerous”
Renounced five years “birther” lying with one sentence: “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period”
Falsely blamed Hillary Clinton’s campaign for starting the birther saga
Falsely claimed to have opposed the Iraq war
Falsely claimed to have said “I don’t know” when asked by Howard Stern whether he supported the war (Actually said, “Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly”)
Claimed Bataclan massacre would have been averted if people there had guns
Bragged on Twitter about tricking the media
Reversed position on Cuba: Said he would reverse Obama softening he called “fine” in September
Falsely claimed 58 per cent of African-American youth can’t get a job. (It’s 26 per cent)
Falsely claimed black people have “no jobs, no education”; falsely claimed black people in “inner cities” can’t walk down the street without getting shot
Falsely claimed Clinton “is raising your taxes substantially.” (Her tax hike is only on the top 1 per cent)
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/09/17/a-list-of-things-donald-trump-said-on-friday.html
80 Syrian soldiers were killed today when the US mistakenly bombed them, allowing ISIS to advance. That’s 80 families that lost a father or son in a war Clinton pushed strongly for as Secretary of State. This on top of an estimated 400,000 Syrian dead and 11 million displaced in this pointless civil war. And you talk about misstated statistics.
And 80 families who now hate our guts, and will at least demand an explanation of how the mistake occurred, and they will want the people who made the mistake punished. Which won’t happen, of course. So we have 80 families, and all of their extended families, who are now our enemy forever.
Or, who knows, maybe we could be cool about it and at least offer them to come live here. I’m totally against mass-importations of Syrian refugees, but in this case (killing a bunch of them by accident), I think it would be justified.
And you talk about misstated statistics.
Others talk about mortgage fraud and so forth.
War makes Donald Trump cry.
‘Called for the disarming of Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service detail; added, “Let’s see what happens to her . . . it’ll be very dangerous”’
Is Trump offering to disarm his own Secret Service detail as well?
I don’t know. Is he for disarming the citizenry like you and Hillary? Or is he trying to point out the hypocrisy of the liberal?
^^^^^^^^^^^
My last free (of ten on this browser but not other browsers or my phone) of 10 free articles as reported by real journalists at the New York Times:
“For both parties, every election can feel like the most vital of a lifetime, the one day standing between a still-proud nation and its imminent demise. Among liberals, there is an especially rich tradition of “bed-wetting,” as even some practitioners call it, at the faintest sign of shakiness from their candidate.
But as Hillary Clinton lurches toward Election Day, her supporters at times seem overwhelmed by a tsunami of unease, exacerbated by Mrs. Clinton’s bout of pneumonia and a slow-footed acknowledgment of the illness. They are confronting a question they had assumed, just a few weeks ago, they would not need to consider in a race against the most unpopular presidential nominee in modern times: Could Mrs. Clinton actually blow this?
“It’s like someone dropped ice water on the head of America,” Julie Gaines, the owner of Fishs Eddy, a home goods store in Manhattan, said of Mr. Trump’s increased odds. “Everyone sobered up. This could happen.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/politics/hillary-clinton-voters.html
Hillary supporters are as vile as she is. Meanwhile, her most chaste husband stands accused of yet another sexual assault, with Hillary as usual playing the role of enabler.
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/photos/bill-clinton-sexual-assault-charges-national-enquirer/
Dogs climb mountains.
There were some dogs on the summit of Pikes Peak today. Full moon last night, makes these dogs go crazy.
“Dogs climb mountains.”
Dogs ask other dogs…
How did you get that human up there?
“Then Cathi Anderson, who was shopping with Ms. Donohue, mentioned yet another distressing poll, this one from Ohio, which showed Mr. Trump ahead. Ms. Donohue nodded grimly.”
“Just in case her faith in the American electorate was misplaced, Ms. Donohue said, she had retained her Irish citizenship.”
Speaking of “grimly” and before she heads back to Ireland, I wonder if Ms. Donohue would like to place a bet?
I heard the Over/Under for Hillary taking another on screen tumble before election day is 1.
What is Over/Under?
This is a type of wager which depends on the combined total of the points/goals (falls) scored by two competing teams or one coughing candidate. One can bet the total will exceed or be less than a specified number.
WE ARE IN A GOLDILOCKS ECONOMY!
“Show me the money!”
http://nypost.com/2016/09/15/bill-clintons-birthday-bash-proves-the-clintons-just-cant-stop-influence-peddling/
Explosion rocks Chelsea in New York City
By Tom Wilson and Larry Celona
September 17, 2016 | 9:18pm
A dumpster blew up at 8:40 p.m. Saturday night in Chelsea, blowing out the lower windows of a 14-story residence for the blind.
At least 26 suffered minor injuries from what may have been an explosive device, police sources told The Post.
The explosion, described by one neighbor as “deafening,” happened outside the Associated Blind Housing facility at 135 W. 23rd Street. The facility provides housing, training and other services for the blind.
According to police radio transmissions, the people inside the facility have been initially told to remain inside as police began their investigation.
Two buildings to the east of the facility were being evacuated. No fires have been reported, but multiple emergency vehicles, including ambulances, rushed to the scene.
“It was a quiet night, and then I heard this deafening boom,” said Jakir Aussin, who works at a Dunkin Donuts at 23rd and Sixth Avenue. “My first thought was, ‘Oh god, a bomb,’ so I got down on the floor.”
He added “I looked outside and it’s all broken glass, car alarms going off — I still don’t know what happened.”
Witnesses described hearing a massive noise — “100x louder than thunder,” one tweeted.
The smell of gunfire filled the air. People flooded the street from nearby bars and restaurants.
“Louder than any thunder I’e ever heard in my life,” tweeted Liz Mandel. “Like the sky exploded. Shook the building.”
That was the second bomb today.
Device Explodes In Garbage Can At Seaside Park Charity 5K; No …
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/09/17/seaside-park-pipe-bomb-blast/ - 117k - Cached - Similar pages
10 hours ago ..
Do you have any idea what would happen if these events were pinned to one of the candidates?
Remember these historic words when you vote your conscience in November:
“The world we confront is too perilous and too complex to have as president a man who believes he, and he alone, has all the answers and has no need to listen to anyone. A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander in chief is too great a risk for America.”
Regan?
…
Mr. Trump has been cavalier about the use of nuclear weapons. He has a record of insults to servicemen, their families and the military, which he called a “disaster.” He has declared our senior military leaders “reduced to rubble” and “embarrassing our country” and has suggested that, if elected, he will purge them—an unprecedented and unconscionable threat. As of late, he appears to be rethinking some of these positions but he has yet to learn that when a president shoots off his mouth, there are no do-overs.
Mr. Trump is also willfully ignorant about the rest of the world, about our military and its capabilities, and about government itself. He disdains expertise and experience while touting his own—such as his claim that he knows more about ISIS than America’s generals. He has no clue about the difference between negotiating a business deal and negotiating with sovereign nations.
All of the presidents I served were strong personalities with strongly held views about the world. But each surrounded himself with independent-minded, knowledgeable and experienced advisers who would tell the president what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear. Sometimes presidents would take their advice, sometimes not. But they always listened.
The world we confront is too perilous and too complex to have as president a man who believes he, and he alone, has all the answers and has no need to listen to anyone. In domestic affairs, there are many checks on what a president can do; in national security there are few constraints. A thin-skinned, temperamental, shoot-from-the-hip and lip, uninformed commander-in-chief is too great a risk for America.
…
At least on national security, I believe Mr. Trump is beyond repair. He is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief.
Mr. Gates served eight presidents over 50 years, most recently as secretary of defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Mr. Gates served eight presidents over 50 years, most recently as secretary of defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
I think it’s fair to say this is NOT an accomplishment.
I’m sure Robert Gates’ achievements pale in comparison to your own.
How could it be any worse than this?
US-led coalition aircraft strike Syrian army positions, kill 62 soldiers …
I bet Robert approves this. Freaking madness….
We have always been at war with Oceana….
The alternative is Crooked Hillary and Goldman Sachs. ‘Nuff said.
http://www.deptofnumbers.com/employment/north-dakota/
Oil patch recovery ? Kinky
Robert Gates is another red diaper doper baby.
Trump plays middle school tit-for-tat with anyone who offers an objective assessment of Trump.
“Making America Hate Again”
And speaking of dopers, do you read your own posts? They’re an embarrassment to intelligent life.
Robert Gates is another red diaper doper baby.
link please
Does it strike others as odd that the Trump campaign knew that there were bombings in Trump’s home state before the media even confirmed the story? I do hope the FBI pays close attention as campaign season winds down.
Trump planted the bombs himself. That’s why he knew before anyone
They went off in a gay district, so it had to be Les Deplorables. Stay on script, folks.
Don’t jump to conclusions so fast.
Yes that seems to be the talking point marching orders the MSM had been handed when it came to this bombing.
Problem is nobody got the message to the real journalist on Hillary Airline that allowed Hillary to make a statement calling it a bomb and then 40 seconds later ask one stoned looking Hillary…
“Do you have any reaction to the fact that Donald Trump, prior to taking the stage tonight, called the explosion tonight a bomb, and if that’s an appropriate term”
To which Hillary replied…
“it’s always wiser to wait until you have information before making conclusions”
More on the NYC explosion.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/18/explosion-in-new-york-city-25-reported-injuries/
The bombings were used to scare people away from watching the anti government movie, Snowden. Yesterday was its second day. I saw the movie and Oliver Stome did a good job presenting Snowden’s case.
We voluntaryists even have comics on Saving Snowden
http://www.indyplanet.us/product/133858/
…
Trump continued, revealing why he delayed in exiting the plane for 13 minutes.
“I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly what’s going on,” Trump said.
Some in the crowd audibly gasped. Trump gave no further information. In large part, Trump was right. Nobody knew exactly what was going on. But it didn’t stop Trump from telling a crowded airport hangar that a bomb had gone off – though at the time he had no confirmation. At that time, the only reports that were circulating were filled with speculation. Neither the NYPD or the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) had confirmed that there was a bomb, only that they were responding to reports of an explosion in the Chelsea area of Manhattan.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether Trump had been told that a bomb had exploded in Manhattan or who briefed him on the explosions that occurred.
Hours later, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio said in a news conference that the city believed that the explosion was “an intentional act.”
…
But the Washington strike on Syria, that killed 62, during a “cease-fire” no less, was “accidental”.
RT is a Russian government-funded media outlet that has to be viewed for what it is: a Kremlin propaganda outlet. That said, it is instructive to get the Russian viewpoint on some of these events which are glossed over by our MSM, especially since the Russian Bear seems to be getting more and more pissed off by our actions against countries they view as client states or in their sphere of influence.
https://www.rt.com/news/359732-us-syria-strike-moscow/
Putin is doing his best to hang on and not retaliate in hopes that Trump gains the presidency and puts an end to this nonsense. Hence, we have the canard from the globalists and neocons that Putin is working with Trump.
Now if Hillary wins, their bluff gets called.
What the hell do they have Hillary on?
Hillary Clinton Says “Bombings In New York” – 40 Seconds Later Criticizes Use of Word “Bombing”…
These MSM dolts are so dependent on collaborated and scripted narratives, they can’t even stop themselves from following the script when it makes them look silly
The Last Refuge - September 18, 2016 155 Comments
Hillary Clinton Says “Bombings In New York” – 40 Seconds Later Criticizes Use of Word “Bombing”…
In under a minute you can see/hear an audio visual demonstration showing why the vast majority of Americans just laugh at journalists in the 2016 presidential campaign.
A well sedated Secretary Clinton begins her remarks (00:28) by saying:
“I’ve been briefed about the bombings in New York and New Jersey, as well as the attack in Minnesota”…
Note the emphasis: “briefed about the bombings“.
However, seemingly oblivious to the fact Secretary Clinton just said “bombings“, Hillary’s traveling press pool asks the very first question 40 seconds later (01:08) which was:
“Do you have any reaction to the fact that Donald Trump, prior to taking the stage tonight, called the explosion tonight a bomb, and if that’s an appropriate term”?
Hillary Clinton And Donald Trump Respond To Explosion In …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8TR61QFpoA - 144k -
At 2:55 of this video is that Huma ducking and retreating from her Weekend at Bernie’s position behind Hillary?
It’s Huma, but the optics are really weird, like a puppeteer pulling their hand out and ending the performance.
Or Hillary like a dog following her trainer.
It takes a village…to keep Hillary upright.
http://hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-unkindest-cut.html
Here’s one for ya, phony. Jimmy Fallon breaks up talking about Hillary being featured in a women’s magazine:
http://ijr.com/2016/09/694507-jimmy-fallon-cant-hold-in-his-laughter-while-telling-a-hillary-clinton-health-joke/
More proof, as if more were needed, that Hillary is unfit to be President especially in these turbulent times.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/09/18/proof-hillary-is-unfit/
What the hell do they have Hillary on?
IDK phony, maybe part of her problem could be drinking.
Hillary Drinks | SUPERcuts! #291
If that video was the only thing I knew about Hillary I would like her much more than I do. She seemed almost human in some of those clips.
Back to her current problem. She may still be drinking Vodka but if she is it looks like she’s using it to wash down something like xanax or oxycodone.
Pay no attention to those flashing red alerts…our central planners and central bankers and their computer models have everything under control.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/18/bis-flashes-red-alert-for-a-banking-crisis-in-china/
Fundamental transformation comes to St. Cloud, MN.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MALL_ST_CLOUD_MINNESOTA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-09-18-09-40-44
1 in 4 in Va would be carrying
No Muslim problems here
You’d think by now people would realize that somehow, these attacks never target higher government offices, corporate headquarters, the UN, tech companies, nope.
Just malls, nightclubs, lesser government cube farms, residential areas, neighborhood sporting events, etc. Wherever there are just regular folks, not any members of the power structure. Not after 9/11 anyway. Some may say, what about Nidal Hasan, who shot up Ft. Hood? He only shot up regular service people, who were actually disarmed.
At what point do people realize what the true purpose of Muslims in the US and Europe is? A very crude, but effective control mechanism of the globalists.
All part of the globalist agenda.
http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/mike-ciandella/soros-boasts-spending-100-million-us-immigration-reform-push
Sunday funnies from TBP. Enjoy!
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/09/18/sunday-funnies-130/
The German sheeple voted for adjuncts of the globalists and banksters. Now that they’re getting exactly what they voted for, a backlash has been building against Establishment (Quisling) parties. Of course, if you do not want your country flooded by refugees hostile to western civilization and freeloading off your social services, you are “far right” or a neo-Nazi.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/16/berlin-mayor-pleads-against-return-of-far-right-and-nazis-as-ant/
The globalist Quislings of the EU are starting to point fingers at each other as the chickens start coming home to roost.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/711702/Donald-Tusk-Angela-Merkel-migrant-crisis-ISIS-attacks-Paris-Brussels
The Clinton Foundation is giving Soros competition for running the most malign and corrupt NGO on the planet.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/09/17/haitian-president-exposes-the-clinton-foundation-hillary-clinton-tried-to-bribe-me/
Dt may be a fb
Discuss
Nice to see growing popular opposition in Europe, at least, to oligarch-drafted “free trade” deals that will further evicerate the working class and accelerate our march into the globalists’ and banksters’ incorporated neoliberal plantation. While the ‘Murican sheep graze on the green shoots sprouting from the manure the MSM spreads across their pasture.
http://theantimedia.org/300000-protests-germany-trade-deals/
In Jim Cooley’s open-carry America, even a trip to Walmart can require an AR-15
WINDER, Ga. —All Jim Cooley wants to do is buy some soda.
“You want to come to Walmart?” he asks his wife.
“No,” Maria says.
“Pretty please?” Jim asks.
“I’m not going to sit there and have the police called on you. I mean, I don’t want to see that crap,” Maria says, knowing what a trip to Walmart means. She knows her 51-year-old husband has two guns inside the house, and this afternoon it won’t be the 9mm, which he straps on with a round in the chamber when grabbing lunch at his favorite fast-food restaurant or visiting a friend’s auto shop. It’ll be the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, which he brings when going somewhere he thinks is dangerous, like the Atlanta airport, where he’s taken it loaded with a 100-bullet drum, or Walmart, where he thinks crowds could pose easy targets for terrorists.
In a country of relaxing gun laws where it’s now legal to open-carry in 45 states and there are 14.5 million carry permits, every day seems to bring a new version of what open carry can mean. In Kentucky, it’s now legal to open-carry in city buildings. In downtown Cleveland, people carried military-style rifles during the Republican National Convention. In Howell, Mich., last month, a father went openly armed to his child’s middle-school orientation. In Mississippi, it’s now legal to open-carry without a permit at all. And in Georgia, which has passed a “guns everywhere” bill and has issued nearly 1 million carry permits, Jim Cooley is staking out his version of what’s acceptable as he keeps pleading with his wife.
“I got to get soda.”
Maria sighs. She worked the night before assembling air-conditioner compressors at a nearby factory, and in a few hours, she knows she’ll have to leave for another third shift.
“Yeah,” she says, giving in. “I might as well get this travesty out of the way.”
“What travesty?”
“You carrying a big ol’ rifle in the store, scaring the hell out of all the Walmart shoppers.”
“There’s no difference between carrying a rifle and carrying a handgun,” he says.
“You tried that last time, remember?” Maria says, stepping into a pair of flip-flops and running her fingers through her hair. “And what happened? Barrow County sheriffs. Three or four of them.”
“They can’t tell me what and what not to carry,” Jim says. “You know I wouldn’t listen to them anyway.”
“Well, you go one way in the store; I’ll go the other,” Maria says. “Then when they say, ‘Ma’am, do you know this person?’ I’ll say, ‘No, I’ve never seen him before in my life.’ ”
He places a lit cigarette into an ashtray, walks into his bedroom, reaches behind its door, picks up the AR-15, snaps in a magazine with 15 rounds, and slings the rifle around his left shoulder so it rests against his torso.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah,” she says, grabbing her purse and following her husband out the door for an afternoon trip to Walmart to buy soda.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/guns-and-sodas/2016/09/17/805e0db4-79e9-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html?tid=pm_pop_b
A lot of these open-carry advocates are idiots who don’t really think through the potential consequences of what they’re doing.
While the MSM is scrambling to formulate a “powering through” Narrative for Hillary’s ghastly 11 PM news conference last night, Twitter users aren’t fooled in the least, with the ZombieHillary hashtag trending massively - hilarious and creative poster art projects.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ZombieHillary?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw