sorry sir - we are fully booked

Yep. Every time this little bit of dishonest, fraudulent dealing occurs in some tiny little corner of the financial system, a small amount of trust is destroyed and ripples out far beyond that bank and the customer it is stealing from, magnified beyond recognition as it touches huge numbers of other people.

Banking’s Systemic Subprime Subterfuge « Your Mortgage or Your Life…

ot per previous threads//So am I to understand the tinfoil hat crowd now believes the banksters are crashing satellites and nuclear subs into each other to intimidate our leaders?

Feckless writes:

What do your insides tell you, Sebastian?
Feckless Ness | 02.16.09 - 4:49 pm | #

Yuck. Are you suggesting an entrails reading?

Yesterday you sent me back to bed with the pensions story.

Now I'm too queasy to contemplate dinner.

Please, Feckless, clean up your comments.

Cheers

On the gutting of Glass-Steagell:

Sure, Clinton had a hand in it.

The right historical way to look at this is to see it as part of the Reagan Revolution and its legacy. Reaganism was triumphant not so much because Reagan served two terms and was popular, but because his administration and leadership succeeded in restructuring the terms of debate for 28 years.

Reagan was part of that. Clinton came along in the middle, within the context of that restructured debate on issues. And then George W layed an enormous role by sitting by fecklessly (sorry Ness, nothing personal) while things visibly unravelled.

But the point is precisely not to focus so completely on the individuals (important though they may be) and, instead, to track the larger shifts in the terms of the discussion.

Bringing things up to the present, that is precisely what is so stunning about the past couple of weeks: There has already been a revolution in the terms of the discussion.

Just ask Sens Richard Shelby and Lindsey Graham.

Apparently, not only is he not a doctor, but he didn't even stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

.
India

India defence budget up 24%

Pakistan

Pakistan-Taliban deal: Islamic law for peace in Swat Valley | csmonitor.com

Do you want to play a game?
.

daily bail(Unrated) writes:
but where are the deals?

i've yet to see signs of panic.

True that. I'm waiting for better rates for our usual family spring break trip. Something modest, and in the U.S. Usually I tie it to a professional conference, but those meetings are in the Aloha state year. No way. The rates over there haven't budged, and the airfare is >1K. Was thinking Phoenix, San Antonio or even D.C. (anonymous jr.'s are the right age).

Am reading stories in the NYT/WSJ about how many professional conferences have been outright cancelled at the luxo places, yet when I call direct, it's still 2006. In the end, I can afford to go where I want, but I am interested to see which of these places is hungry and wants my business.

It's hungry where I live in flyover country. Restaurants, retail and lodging are dying. I don't see that changing soon either.

Maybe I'll stay home and watch the revolution in HD. I can TiVO the action stuff..

Maybe I'll stay home and watch the revolution in HD. I can TiVO the action stuff..
anonymous | 02.16.09 - 5:45 pm |

I think the CR commentariat started the "got popcorn" thing in 2006
.

With the fans off it makes a nice squirrel roaster.

It's about time Ronco came out with a new product.

The NYT report on California matches my analysis of the structural roots of California's inability to deal with its budget problem:
California Struggles to Close a Projected $41 Billion Deficit
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LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMy SpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkBy JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: February 16, 2009
LOS ANGELES — The state of California — its deficits ballooning, its lawmakers intransigent and its governor apparently free of allies or influence — appears headed off the fiscal rails.

Since the fall, when lawmakers began trying to attack the gaps in the $143 billion budget that their earlier plan had not addressed, the state has fallen into deeper financial straits, with more bad news coming daily from Sacramento. The state, nearly out of cash, has laid off scores of workers and put hundreds more on unpaid furloughs. It has stopped paying counties and issuing income tax refunds and halted thousands of infrastructure projects.

After negotiating nonstop from Saturday afternoon until late Sunday night on a series of budget bills that would have closed a projected $41 billion deficit, state lawmakers failed to get enough votes to close the deal and adjourned. They returned to the capital late Monday morning only to adjourn until the afternoon, though it was far from clear whether they would be able to reach a deal.

California has also lost access to much of the credit markets, nearly unheard of among state municipal bond issuers. Recently, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the state’s bond rating to the lowest in the nation.

“No other state is in the kind of crisis that California is in,” said Iris J. Lav, the deputy director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group in Washington. The roots of California’s inability to address its budget woes are statutory and political. The state, unlike most others, requires a two-thirds majority vote in the legislature to pass budgets and tax increases. And its process for creating voter initiatives hamstrings the budget process by directing money for some programs while depriving others of cash.
NY Times

I would only add, as I posted earlier, that the disease of gridlock from supra-majority requirements, term limits, and several more referenda on budgeting produces a virus that spreads throughout the political institutions of the state: no power, no responsibility, no development of leadership.

Barley writes:
Can Ronco solve the homeless people problem

squirrel skin tent-stitcher
.

Aspen is the biggest bubble of all of the ski resorts...why do they need 8+condo towers in Snow mass??

Let's see: 
too many homeless.
too many houses.

hmmmm
hmmmm
hmmmmm

Stabilize house prices!
Or, I suppose we could hire the homeless to bulldoze the "excess" houses.

Aspen is the biggest bubble of all of the ski resorts...why do they need 8+condo towers in Snow mass??
crispy&cole | Homepage | 02.16.09 - 6:10 pm | #

C/C : I might throw Telluride on that list too. Really hard to get there, and almost nobody in the Denver/metro area goes there for day skiing. It's secluded, and highly dependent upon out-state high rollers to keep the con alive. Plus, the locals have built up a militant dislike for tourists that is gonna come to a head soon for "ruining their town."

Actually, come to think of it, that goes double for Aspen. Hunter Thompson would be writing great (but probably incoherent) stuff about if he were still around.

If Ireland defaults how can the UK not follow?

If California defaults how can the US not follow?

See what I did there?

We went to Breckonridge. It was a headache and wind sucking experience.

Sea level is where humans were designed to live.
nova | Homepage | 02.16.09 - 6:19 pm | #

Was in Breckenridge (and Frisco) for a few days over the summer. Happened to visit a cemetary - don't ask - and noticed something. Very few "old" people buried there. Top age I saw was something like 65. I think the altitude has a self-selecting effect there...becomes too hard to move air, and those with COPD are out the door. They go down to the prarie to die.

Some journalist has been rejoicing over it for the past few years.

Please don't let it be Tom Friedman.
Please don't let it be Tom Friedman.

Telegraph | Error 404 | Sorry, the page you have requested is not available Cocaine-cheaper-than-lager-and-wine-as-drug-price- falls-by-half.html
Comrade joeblo | 02.16.09 - 6:23 pm |

I wish I hadn't seen that--LOL
.

SM Landlord

I think the history in California is rather different than what you say.

The main issue behind the approval of Prop 13 was not state spending, but the way that accelerating property values in the 1970s were producing higher and higher tax bills. See this: Proposition 13: Love it or Hate it, its Roots Go Deep

Now the problem of higher tax bills on residential property was quite real for seniors on fixed income, but the problem could have been addressed in other ways, as it is in many states, by providing exemptions and reduced taxation for seniors, the disabled, people on fixed income, etc.

Instead, the issue was ideologized by Howard Jarvis and became an anti-tax crusade, and Prop 13 was the result.

Prop 13, for any who don't know, pegs assessed value of residential real estate to its purcahse price, with a max 2% annual increase, and possibilty to petition a temporary lowering of assessment in an RE downturn. Prop 13 also requires a 2/3 vote on state budgets and tax increases.

What were the results of Prop 13? Well, it jazzed up property values - bubblicious, anyone? And it gutted the government's ability to budget.

One result of that is the ballooning deficits we see, which are far far bigger now than in the days before Prop 13.

We race in Denver (5860 ft)and the corrected air can be over 10,000 ft. Imagine on top of a mountain.

Then you are not a real Viking are you

Different anonymous here than local anonymous.

Counterpointer writes:
Broader issue therefore, is the higher-end RnR / entertainment industry skrood?

Big category, but I'd say overall "not yet." This will be the last good season for awhile. Skiing, golf, boating, tourism in general all about to go dark. Prices need to fall, and bargains need to be more obvious to draw the crowds back. When they don't come back in spite of lowered prices and deals, then the staffs get cut (this is where Hawaii is at right now). Then, services and maintenance fall off the cliff and people stop going altogether.

I give it 18 months, tops.

Volker is light on thinking.

A line of coke cheaper then a pint?

Deflation/inflation argument has been resolved firmly in the deflation camp.

Isn't coke a rich man's(bankers) drug? Maybe the financial industry is showing some signs of strain. Contact FOX and let them know their might be a real economic crisis. Make sure they tell their republican front men to tone down the rhetoric an do some more coke. The shadow banking needs some more drug money to stay solvent.

Did I just solve the entire crisis? Contact Bill O'Reilly.

"...the whole look like your ready to wrestle a grizzly"

Humans look very puny when standing next to a grizzly. Sort of like most humans when standing next to the economic system.

it is but those residuals from Capitol One keep him in kringlas

future ny post: Cocaine Bank Train Sails off Rails

There is plenty of demand for hotels. But not at $400/night....

At $150 then you have a deal...But, they won't lower their prices...

Strange strange industry...

Shares in Oz Minerals Ltd , the world's second-largest zinc miner, jumped 29 percent on Tuesday after it agreed to a $1.7 billion takeover bid from Chinese state-owned trading group Minmetals.
Business finance news - currency market news - online UK currency markets - financial news - Interactive Investor

Sacking 'em up.

Evelyn Woods

Well, in a way you prove my point. Prop 13 did nothing to limit spending and nothing to limit deficits.

In fact, Prop 13 itself immediately made the State budget grow.

Prop 13 shifted local spending to the state, because localities no longer had enough tax revenue from property taxes. The first year after Prop 13, State spending went up 1/3.

Yes, the budget increased a lot over the past few years, and over the past 40 years.

My argument, upthread, is that the most important effect of Prop 13 was that it broke the entire budgeting process and was a major step (not the only one) that turned the political institutions of California into worthless, deadlocked, irresponsible, and impotent hulks.

By the supra-majority requiremtn, Prop 13 makes governance impossible and replaces it with irresponsible deadlock.

That's not an argument about how big the budget should be, or how small, but about the inability of the state govt to do anything about it, which we see today in its most appalling form.

The rot is spread through all the institutions of the state. There have not been any talented leaders in the state two decades, if not longer.

New Thread: State Budgets: No Progress in California, Kansas Suspends Income Tax Refunds ( 0 comments ...You could be FIRST! )

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