OT
Buffett's gloomy economic predictions
The Oracle of Omaha is gloomy about the state of our economy and says the worst is yet to come

Take that Sebastion.

Thanks CR.

--bh

The Psychology of a Spender IMO is " I will spend today because I anticipate X income in the future"

Throw in any uncertainty and the spender's mentality is disrupted.

Request repost

CR - It would be nice if you could comment on the final Q1-2009 GDP numbers released today. The top line number was more favorable than expected (-5.5% vs -5.7%) but it came mostly from even greater decrease in Imports.
Personal consumption continued to get revised down. Look at the PCE contribution to GDP
April release: +1.50%
May release: +1.08%
June release: +0.95%

Not a nice looking trend ...

withdrawals of home equity by households accounted for 2.3% of GDP each year from 2002 to 2006

hooboy

Wham, " I'm not a lawyer"

Every once in awhile, the truth slips out about what was happening...

In 2007, 29% of Californians used HELOC loans to buy new cars, as opposed to an average of 11% of the rest of the country doing so.

Why would this average be any different for anything else bought in the Golden State of plenty?

=========================================

There were only 2 ways to 'win' as the value of your home was going up during the housing bubble. The drastic way was to sell your home and either rent or move to cheaper digs elsewhere, vs. rewarding oneself with consumer accoutrement vis a visa easy no questions asked loans from the 1st National Bank of Your House.

BB - going to be difficult for him to survive his lies today, and his 'subprime is contained' comment. One lie was intentional, the other was sheer stupidity.

Using this methodology, we find striking results: from 2002 to 2006, homeowners borrowed $0.25 to $0.30 for every $1 increase in their home equity.
....
Finally, the effect of house prices on homeowner borrowing is isolated to homeowners with low credit scores and high credit card utilization rates. These “credit-constrained” households respond aggressively to house price growth, whereas the highest credit quality borrowers do not respond at all.

Taken together, these statements imply that the distribution of MEW activity is skewed, with poor credit quality homeowners probably taking $1 for every $1 increase in home equity and good credit quality homeowners probably taking $0 for every $1 increase in home equity. I wonder if that sort of skew is included in the current models of loss prediction?

Followed by a " I expect the American people to be repaid" This could be a drinking game.

/way ahead of you
/drink

--bh

The authors need to do a lot more work on establishing dependancies. Normalize these graphs for relative costs of living SF v. Atlanta and much of the "leverage gap" goes away.

Still I find their observation wrt to "credit constrained households" to be very persuasive.

ghostfaceinvestah

I agree that the U-6 is more important and the case you made for it...

I know this got pigged...
watching Ben reminds me of what Mary McCarthy said of Lilian Hellman - classic line:
'every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'.

@RD

The authors need to do a lot more work on establishing dependancies. Normalize these graphs for relative costs of living SF v. Atlanta and much of the "leverage gap" goes away.

Third, renters in inelastic areas did not experience a larger growth in their total debt.

Comparing the activity of homeowners in SF to renters in SF helps to normalize the data.

This was all part of Larry Summers' master plan to get himself the FRB chair job...use Paulson/Geithner to suborn lies from Bernanke; then leave him to twist in the wind before Congress. Leading to Summers replacing BB when the bearded devil's term is up.

Pow , now Geithner is stumbling around in another wood panelled room. Time to go to Home Depot.

The one thing I hate about these testimony's is... I don't know where the Q&A is archived? Also, what about the questions that are given to BB "for the record" that aren't answered but promised later? I was searching around after his last testimony (not sure if it was same committee) but just couldn't find it. I suppose one would have to listen to the C-Span archive...

"This was all part of Larry Summers' master plan to get himself the FRB chair job..."

Of course HR 1206 will go into effect just as Summers gets a hold of the chair...

2.3% of GDP nationally = what % in CA?

I suspect it's around 12-15%. That number sounds about right given the huge drop in sales and income taxes in CA.

"Year-to-date collections for the three
major taxes were down $13.6 billion
(-16.6%) below last year at this time.
Retail sales were down $2.8 billion
(-11.8%), personal income taxes fell by
$10.2 billion (-20.7%)..."

California has been hit by a double whammy of unemployment. Unemployed people who aren't making money, and unemployed homes which aren't making money via refis and helocs.

Did Bernake trash the video too? Damn,

Geithner is stumbling around in another wood panelled room

It is dark.
You are likely to be eaten by a J6P.

Jane Chardonnay has convinced herself that $2 buck Chuck ain't all that bad, and Joe 6 Pack can't afford to kill a dozen three times a week anymore.

Jim...think about the mentality of the person who would run up such debt in the first place. Just because a windfall came and allowed them to pay it off ONCE...why would that change their general view of money and credit? It wouldnt. It would just allow them to run it up again, and reinforce the notion that at some point, lady luck will shine again and magically make the debt go away. These people are for the most part, financially illiterate. They are only taught enough how to be abused by the system for other people's benefit. Did you ever wonder why simple basic personal financial planning 101 isnt taught to you unless you choose to learn it? The sheep must be kept as sheep.

Please pick up a copy of 1984 and read (or reread) it. Its fairly instructive on how this works.

"Jim...think about the mentality of the person who would run up such debt in the first place. Just because a windfall came and allowed them to pay it off ONCE...why would that change their general view of money and credit? It wouldnt. It would just allow them to run it up again, and reinforce the notion that at some point, lady luck will shine again and magically make the debt go away."

So, are you describing SF residents, or the CA legislature?

To bitter.

I found my first evidence of green shoots in Idaho today!

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/images/idaho/greenShootsInNampa.jpg

@crazyv:

The problem is not the financial crisis but a the economic policies that we have been following prior to the crisis. The failure of those policies was masked by the vast debt increase. Which raises my bigger point- what substantial change to economic policies as Obama put into place and even if he is successful at avoiding the reckless lending (and its concomitant growth) what is going to drive economic growth.

There will not be economic growth of any significance in the USA, until the USA-China pegged relationship gets readdressed. The control to steer USA is outside USA, not inside.

Fed and Govt can pass any policies till their face turn purple, it won't do a damn thing.

If the China peg gets realigned, short term there'll be pain, but long term, it makes USA manufacturing on equal footing and now we can finally service for the massive Chinese population and buy back our debt and begin to right the ship, slowly.

Anything important in economics, always happens at the margin.

A slight change in USD-China peg might, at the very margin, change the equation for an outsourcing project, so that some more jobs remain in USA; and at the other end of the margin, change the equation for production location, so that some products can be made in the USA more. Take this picture and replicate it across millions of margins, and you have the beginning of recovery.

I've always said and I will say it again, the Peg is the chokehold and nothing will change until China, and the rest of BRIC and oil countries depeg. Let forex do it's job of self-correction instead of forcing a static economic status quo.

For the average US Citizen though, it means a choice of wherher you want to starve from no work, or hobble along with no more "cheap walmart" goods. I don't think the populace is ready for that change until several years into more suffering...

I found my first evidence of green shoots in Idaho today!

Urban gardening? And all the free fertilizer you could want.

A couple I know ran up credit card debt to about $50,000.00 every couple of years. Then refied and paid off the cards. They did this at least twice, maybe 3 times.

Right before the real estate market tanked, they sold the house. Just lucky timing. However their credit was so bad by that time they had to do some funny paperwork to get the last bit of cash out of the house, then closed escrow with about 0 in their pocket.

The point is that this couplle believe life is always good and they will always find a way to continue to spend. One thing they have going for them is fairly well of parents, who bail them out as needed as well.

The economy will eventually stop contracting. But as far as what might start a steady upward march again to -- someday -- where we were, or better? Who knows?

Although, one bet might be to decrease socialism in America -- military socialism. A vast high-cost, low-productivity network of corporations and jobs that feed the military-industrial complex and produce items that do not improve American competitiveness. Oh, they improve our clout in the world -- to the advantage of the multi-national corporations which just happen to be based in the U.S. (but will proudly tell you they're multinational, and mean it).

But if we took 200 bill for weapons development and put it into infrastructure and health care and health care research and energy research, that'd do a lot to giving the economy the tools it needs to recover. You could cry "SOCIALISM." And I'd say -- "yeah, just like always. Just a broader range of recipients."

I am with you BURN...but looking back I sometime wish I was one of the D-baggers....they had fun and walked away from it all, us frugal types get to pay the bill.

Suckie trade off in my book...but then again flush with cash I can buy their crap for pennies on the dollar...but then again I have enough crap.

"I applaud everyone that managed to live within or below their means during the orgy of consumption. It wasn't easy, but we prevailed."

I have been living within or below my means. Saving to send my girls to college (in 15 years). Renting (to buy when the RE makes sense in So Cal). All our savings is in banks making 3% (don't trust the stock market) But, I don't feel like I prevailed...I feel screwed. Is it just me?

the Peg is the chokehold and nothing will change until China, and the rest of BRIC and oil countries depeg.

Try this thought experiment:

If USA is trying to be ruthless, it can peg USD at 1000:1 for Euro (i.e. 1000 USD for 1 EU). Aggressively, non-negotiable.

What happens?

Immediately, Euro stuff will be prohibitively expensive in USA, similarly USA stuff will be Walmart nice in Euros.

Cost of oil, materials, etc are transient ultimately, and will flow through the system over the mid term. (Short term pain maybe, not ultimately not disastrous) But LABOR COST and GOVT COST immediately yields a competitive advantage.

So USA will earn some EURO forex; which naturally should cause USD to raise and "fix" the 1000:1 ratio. Let's force the system not to correct by buying Euro treasuries; thus widening their trade deficits. Repeat and rinse.

Over time, we'll have massive amounts of Euro treasuries, we'll have a massive employment and Europe will be struggling and wondering why their interest rate is so low. With their interest rate distorted, they'll probably have a housing bubble or some other speculation bubble. (at this point, if the bubble burst, People will blame the "morals" of the European, etc; but I blame the system. You cannot abscond the enabler of bubble any crime and just say the people's at fault.)

Short of a "Smoot Hawley" foreign import tax; there's no way for Europe to escape this peg. But implement one is like using a nuclear bomb economic wise.

no its not just you...the only people I see winning is those swimming in biggest bonus pool ever and 50% pay increases so they don't leave....

It doesn't really take all that much extra capital to turn MacDonald's into a decent restaurant. I never eat at a fast food chain unless I'm captive to a group. Any Greek diner, any day.

hc...agree that the peg is probably the single most important factor, but to get the ChiGov off it will mean taking it from their cold, dead hands...it's the only thing between them and economic/social meltdown in China.

Bob D...also agree...the mil/industrial complex now is about extracting cash from the US taxpayer...consider we built 8600 B-24's in three years or so in WWII from scratch as opposed to a couple hundred F-22's at $200 mil each over a design build cycle of 20 years.

CR said: "...The results of Atif Mian and Amir Sufi fit with what I've observed."

Well, of course they are! You're in California, Ground-Zero for all the high-risk markers in the study, like this one:

"...the increase in debt among homeowners in high house price growth areas is concentrated in mortgage and home equity related debt."

And this one:

"...Finally, the effect of house prices on homeowner borrowing is isolated to homeowners with low credit scores and high credit card utilization rates. These “credit-constrained” households respond aggressively to house price growth, whereas the highest credit quality borrowers do not respond at all...."

California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, all centers of high house price growth and sub-prime/Alt-A lending.

If you lived elsewhere, without the high risk factors described in the study, your observations would be different. My observations of local conditions are similar to the Calomiris study.

Sebastian

I don't feel like I prevailed...I feel screwed. Is it just me? - Lurker

That about sums it up.
Do I live in a better neighborhood? No. The uber-leveraged took them all.
Do I get any form of financial break? On the contrary I am expect to clean up this mess.

The true disaster is waiting. WE are going to say "no" and TPTB will be left dumbfounded as to their next step.

Go market go!

hc-so what you recommend is that we do to Europe what China did to us? Where does the madness end?

Relax, I'm only using an analogy to show how it works.

I completely removed China from the picture to show how I can recreate today's crisis from a relatively benign US-EU relationship.

Thus, the peg is the enemy. Spread the news/viewpoint. DOWN WITH THE PEG!

Nuke,

In general I agree, even as the evil-federal contractor.

But the best and brightest are not rewarded inside the government. They get ground down and either give-in to the lowest common denominator, or get out. And frankly, I'd rather go from contract to contract on my own terms then get re-orged every friggin 15 months. It is not that the human capital isn't there in the government to do, let's say, IT, but that the human capital has been demotivated and desensitized to any personal and professional ambition. And so the resources are often absent to do complex and specialized tasks.

--bh

Mad Max in Home Gnome, with Michelle Bachmann warning you not to fill out a census form because all the white middle class people will be rounded up into internment camps.....Oh, the insanity.

If you lived elsewhere, without the high risk factors described in the study, your observations would be different. My observations of local conditions are similar to the Calomiris study.

Sebastian,
Have you ever read one of CR's posts and attempted to digest it, or are you here simply to lecture your elders?

elements of projection that come into play

Debt is a mathematical function.

The Bubble was inevitable, which means the Crash was inevitable.
Most people choose not to see but the U.S. is looking a lot like Germany of the 1930s.

foolonthhill wrote:
Sure the Fed diddled with BoA.
But for all you anti BB gloaters..

Would you rather ML tanked??

Yes, I would rather ML tanked.
Liquidate the banks.

could not agree more except the part about manu. jobs. We no longer have the workforce to staff any large factories (should they even have the capital to create them) it's only through addressing this part of the equation would that actually have a chance in being a plausible outcome.

The equation won't be fixed overnight, the jobs/manufacturers at the margin will find profit, and over time, build up their capacity. The margin is the key in any economy.

It's a lot easier to expand existing manufacturing than to rebuild; ditto to easier to regrow your existing base if you still have the technology and know-how. (we do)

I would submit that you're absolutely right that the skills is gradually going out the window the longer our manufacturing lays in waste and our previous skilled generation is forced to retire or switch careers. I would say we're stuck with our situation after majority of baby boomer all retire (another 10-15 years); but we still have a fighting change yet.

Alas, the govt/fed/china TPTB will not give USA that chance.

Black Star Ranch: "Sebastian.........Let me clarify this in my own mind for you........

John, Carol, Ted, & Alice are STILL unemployed today. State benefits were 6-mos., 3-additional months for Federal (9-mos total). Maybe an additional 3-mos state extended but many hoops to jump through (12-months AT MOST). That puts them back to June of '08. That means that if they were laid off prior to that , they are going hungry, correct? I suggest there are already hundreds of thousands in that predicament. Look at the number of unemployed in June of '08 - they are going over the waterfall now! (500K initial)."

And permit me to clarify my point, cold-blooded as it might sound: Even if they starve to death, that doesn't mean the economy can't grow.

I can appreciate their plight, as I have been in that situation before, but economic growth can and will occur regardless of the misery-level of a minority of our citizens. Even at a peak of economic growth there are lots of people in desperate straits.

Sebastian

Window dressing for end of quarter, natch

Ike was a lot smarter than most people give him credit for. I think the last president who truly understood how the military worked and its limitations was GHW Bush. Which is why he didn't want to occupy Iraq. Clinton was enamored with open ended nation building campaigns (which tie up resources to this day) and GW Bush, well, you know how that story ends.

"But, I don't feel like I prevailed...I feel screwed. Is it just me? "

I don't feel anything but disappointment for people that got in over their heads. They consumed and spent until their garage was full of unnecessary crap and then wasted the rest of the money. What little I had I raked together and bought a little pile of sand. It's not much, but it's ours and paid for. Since the "day of enlightenment" 20-years ago, I haven't contributed a dollar to this mess and have lived in abject poverty just so I can't be accused of condoning or fostering it.

Things won't get any better until they get MUCH worse this time. The temporary fixes are no longer working.

"Downside of capitalism is failure."

That, to me is not a downside, but instead a key component that allows the market to get bad business out of the way for the good. Capitalism ceases to be effective without it.

healines mrktwatch

Dollar consolidates after Fed-inspired rally...
better one...
were extending programs to buy more recylced trash...were going green....

If you lived elsewhere, without the high risk factors described in the study, your observations would be different. My observations of local conditions are similar to the Calomiris study.

Sebastian, what aspect of the Mian/Sufi 'elastic' model fails to represent your area? Bear in mind I know NC quite well.

..........But you DO have fresh milk, cheese and eggs, brother.

Amen........And more importantly, a family that thinks I might be a touch crazy, and not so bad......

Today in The Zombieconomy
Today in The Zombieconomy - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org

Psst — want to know why our capital markets don't work? Because "investors" are mostly agitpropagandists, seeking a more and more ephemeral informational edge — instead of analyzing companies better.

Just like food companies no longer produce real food — but the experience of having eaten food.

Just like the media industry dumped durable, high-quality content, like analysis and reporting — in favour of disposable, low-cost entertainment.

Just like venture investors are investing in...minigames — instead of launching a wave of 21st century industrial revolutions in energy, finance, education, and healthcare.

Welcome to the Zombieconomy — want fries with that layoff?

Market Basket? You do miss New England.

"economic growth can and will occur regardless of the misery-level of a minority of our citizens"

Yes, yes that miracle is what got us here today! We will get to test that concept real time against the continuing increase in record consumer credit default rates - next up, a sermon on the virtues of the oxymoron 'jobless recovery.'

"Didn't TPTB already threaten martial law?

Well, it will never happen here in America.
We're special.
Like the kids on the short bus."

I'm not sure they could do it effectively. Might be wrong, but this is a big country. The multitudinous wartime rules and regs were widely flouted by the population in WWII (no matter what the official history says) -- and that was for a crisis people bought into. If they don't buy in -- how many millions of troops do you have? And how many come from the areas you're trying to hold down.

Before Obama put a stop to the practice, my city and county had stopped cooperating with the feds when they came to make raids on medical marijuana plantations. Bump that level of local noncooperation up a couple of notches in various parts of the country, and how much control does martial law get you?

One question... If you "live within your means" .. Who defines " your means" and why should you care?

Since we all live only once, and kids are at best a means to propogate genes, does not the " you" die with you?

LOL, I think.

@ Bob
I never said they'd be able to effectively pull off martial law; only that they would attempt it if things get bad enough.

My 4th of July wish:
The repeal of the US Patriot Act.

Geez, LongTime, you still haven't answered the question I posed:
What do you think will happen?
Go on, express yourself.

Wicked pissah. Visit, not return.

Heck if this economy plays out at worst case* I'll buy 400 acres in Western Mass and a D-9 with grader option and build an executive fly-in 4 season resort. Golf/fishing April-Oct, snowmobiles/x-country Dec-Feb. A few dozen acres dedicated to heirloom varietals and gentleman farming.

• worst case - you know like if unemployment exceeds the adverse scenario.

@nuke

One quibble. Bush senior left Clinton a post election booby prize - sent troops into somalia.

Kanjorski just drops the ball, like the others. No one ever demands a detailed explanation of why the financial collapse would be any worse for anyone except bankers.

Gnome

I think the militia, mad maxer, end of the worlder stuff is a pipe dream delusion.

The economy will suck for a long time - a W double dip, a long awful L_____________, or maybe even a GD 2.0 (though odds of the last seem lower now it is still a non-trivial possibility)

But I think GWB will be the low point for civil liberties. The history of the country has seen this before and responding in similar ways. There is a powerful reaction against what Bush did. Not powerful enough for my tastes, but powerful all the same.

Martial Law? Unless there is a nuclear war or a giant metor hits, I think the odds are very low. It is mainly the stuff of right wing fantasy and projection: a nightmare of fear for what is, in fact, desired.

Gnome

p.s.

I would also love to see a repeal of the Patriot Act, or at least substantial parts of it. We agree on that, at least.

I'd also like to see all the torture photos and documents released to the public, and I think will happen over the next couple of years. Nothing ever happens in a day - well, not most things political, anyway.

probably all on this blog!!!

Rob,
The original Market Basket (Demoulas) in Lowell used to buy produce from my Papere's farm.
If they're still buying locally you could make the nut on your resort.

Thanks for the reply, LongTime.
I, too, think that martial law is a long shot possibility but I also note that the Dem's have NOT repealed the Patriot Act.

Weren't the private mercenary units of Blackwater sent to New Orleans during Katrina?
Aren't National Guard units of the individual states now under FEDERAL control?
Doesn't every state have a DHS office now?

Again, martial law a definite long shot; but a possibility nonetheless.

RE: Torture Photos
But King Rush said they just show what amounts to "harmless fraternity pranks" so what's the problem with releasing them?
Guess he's already seen them...

Sebastian?

Is a mighty response in progress to my question at 12:10, or does the 'elastic' model perhaps reflect conditions in much of the North Carolina market, so no answer required?

Blackhalo:

I was referring to the Balkans and Haiti. Few people realize that, 10 years after the fact, much of Bosnia and Kosovo are directly administered by foreign powers in one of the few nakedly colonial societies left.

How about the secret 13th Amendment, Broward? And Obama's birth certificate?

Evidence for the 13th Amendment is well-documented and your continued denial is your issue, not mine, and not particularly surprising, I've seen it often enough over the years.

Likewise the original birth certificate jpg posted on Obama's site was photo-shopped, I downloaded and examined it myself. and I've seen no explanation of why yet.

but.... you wouldn't know any of that because you never bothered to examine any source evidence, you "knew" that none of it could be true. Yes, the U.S. looks a lot like Germany circa 1930s.

Hi, guys.

I am tired but my mom's house was closed, the money has been wired, and
the stuff has been moved.

Great anguish with movers who lied to me, and didn't show up until 5:30 in the evening.

The purchasers and I were freaking out. They had movers coming immediately.

The buyers got 4.75% rate. Young couple by my son overheard somethings indicating
they were under financial stress. Both working! Both good jobs!

We went to Fells Point, which is a small pleasant enclave on Near-Boston ambiance.

Food in restaurants is much more expensive than in South Florida.

Out to lunch and move my mom's money around.

"US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive "

I'm sure that's what they end up doing.

From a green philosophy point of view, I resent that a lot.

A lot of resource and Earth-hurting damage went into building the houses. It is very wasteful to completely bulldoze it.

To be, it's waste is akin to cutting down trees for sport, hunting animals and letting the meat rot; fishing whales just for the fun of killing it.

I cannot fathom why they cannot find some less wasteful ways of using these properties? And why we cannot leave them alone so the city can eventually grow back into them?

Hi, Otis, where ya been?

The homes will rot before they can be used.

At least in Fla.

Averages don't work. The analysis shows averages and they will not work in this economy from an analysis perspective.

If averages did work, and extrapolating them into infinity, we should all just did a hole and jump in it now....

The current US situation is not unique to history. We are a dead empire.

The twist was that our empire was corporate colonialism instead of the sovereign colonialism of history. Globalism and free trade were the cover story for corporate colonialism.

Corporate colonialists are now overextended and trying to extract all they can from their colonies (see credit cards).

The colonized are rejecting the colonists.

The people are rejecting corporate con games and the ponziconomy.

Springtime for Broward, and Idaho, di do di do.
Winter for liberals and their rants.

Tell us about the real 13th amendment, Broward, and everything else you have held in your hands.

Unqualified - for years I knew people who looked at the debt to income ratio of american consumers and thought everyone was ok. I said, well, can we stratify that, to see who holds the debt and who gains the income. Silence.

Well, of course, the income was all taken by the top, and a lot of the debt by the bottom - you could infer this from other data sources, even if you couldnt necessarily build yourself a stratified debt to income ratio. It's all sitting in the survey of consumer finances from the FED, which of course, just got released with 2007 data. Lot of help that is.

But my point is that your point is well taken..averages can be woefully misleading.

It doesn't take an expensive research study looking at data back to 98 that consumption patterns and elevated house prices correlate. Common sense is enough.
This country has lived for too long on credit and false valuations. Time to buckle up.

"I'm sure that's what they end up doing.

From a green philosophy point of view, I resent that a lot.

A lot of resource and Earth-hurting damage went into building the houses. It is very wasteful to completely bulldoze it.

To be, it's waste is akin to cutting down trees for sport, hunting animals and letting the meat rot; fishing whales just for the fun of killing it.

I cannot fathom why they cannot find some less wasteful ways of using these properties? And why we cannot leave them alone so the city can eventually grow back into them? "

I spent last night researching WWII era propaganda posters for a project of mine -- particularly those aimed at the U.S. home front.

And I was surprised at how "green" so many of the messages were: Grow your own food! And can it! Repair household goods instead of placing them! Eat less meat, don't waste food! Save gasoline! Carpool! (My favorite poster: "When you drive alone, HITLER rides with you!") Vacation locally! Learn useful skills! Work on farms! (Join the U.S. Crop Corps!) Collect waste and recycle it: rubber, metal, rags, cooking fat (for bombs!). All couched in terms of helping to defeat an evil enemy.

Not everybody took all this seriously, but many did. With the right motivation and coordination -- including impending poverty -- it could come around again, if couched in terms of achieving a vitally important goal.

Dearest Broward,

Please show us one supreme court justice who has ever maintained that there was any other 13th amendment besides the real one that everyone knows about. One justice, just one. Alito? Roberts? Scalia? Any of them ever mention it? Or are they all closet pinkos?

Or how about one reputable historian? One? Or is that word "reputable" nothing but a placeholder for the vast conspiracy that has been destroying your liberty since the early nineteenth century?

Shill,
Re:Farah F
that was the time to have a poster business..rip

Count de Monet: It is said that the people are revolting.

King Louis XVI: You said it! They stink on ice!

Hi liz, I was in TN looking at chiggerland.

Juvenal Delinquent (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/25/2009 - 12:56 pm

Count de Monet: It is said that the people are revolting.

King Louis XVI: You said it! They stink on ice!

Actually, as a Spaceball fan, my favorite line is--"We're surrounded by assholes."

Dennis the Menace

Get BB Get'em!

"The stigma."

Not so sure there is a stigma for many. Some are boldly proud claiming they beat the system with BK and still have the home and stuff they over bought. Those of us with standards of responsibility suffer the reality of those who cheated and walk away to play another day.

"Today's Funniest Job Ad -"

That's complete lunacy - interns make more than that, and don't need their own tools or a degree.

Although the work I have seen coming out of some web shops makes me think that this sort of thing is not unusual.

Fed Extends Some Emergency Lending Facilities, Trims Others

"Not so sure there is a stigma for many. Some are boldly proud claiming they beat the system with BK and still have the home and stuff they over bought. "

Maybe society gives them no stigma, but these are not the sort of people I invite into my home.

I posted an ad for a web designer to program an interactive bike builder and got about 90 respondents in a few days. None qualified. All "interested in a challenge." All had a ridiculous idea of what their skills were worth and most were, how do you put it, um, seething .

Collage artists.

I pulled the plug on the ad and gave up.

Sebastian, please note that when MEW was falling, it was still positive. That means its add on effect to consumption was diminishing, not that it was supposed to make spending drop. You arent really this daft, are you?

Consumption began to decline in q408, just after MEW finally returned to its mid 90s level.

For the most part, I disagree that Bush's administration was the low point for civil liberties--unless Congress suddenly changes its ways or the courts get quite defiant--nothing much is going to change. I went to a civil liberties forum last week, in PDX, the panelists were attorneys working w/the National Lawyer's Guild (or for), head of a local ACLU chapter, a community organizer who's a former state rep (discussed racial profiling by police in PDX), and Stephen Wax, from the PDX Public Defenders' office. He was part of the PDX PD's office team that has represented some of the Gitmo detainees and Brandon Mayfield, the PDX attorney who was the subject of warrantless wiretapping & secret searches of his home (and attempted search of his law office) based on lousy evidence, fingerprint evidence that turned out to be completely wrong, and even after the feds knew that they continued to claim that the fingerprint match was valid. The two National Guild attorneys have been represented an Islamic charity & a few other clients

The general consensus was that the Obama administration has adopted the Bush Administration stand/position on warrantless wiretapping--meaning that the Executive branch says it & only it has the power to determine when it's ok to do wiretapping, etc., that includes US citizens. No warrant, not even a warrant procured through the FISA court, which at least would subject the alleged "evidence" to examination by a judge.

The O admin has also (explicitly) adopted the Bush admin position on the "state secrets" privilege. So it would seem that the Obama administration is also going for the Chief Exec as Great Poobah & dictator.

One of the biggest concerns expressed by the attorneys was that the evidence the Exec. uses as a basis for warrantless wiretapping is often of extremely poor quality. As in, more the expression of bias then based on any objective evidence. Yet, during the Bush admin, strategic "leaks" out of DC were used to effectively convict the accused prior to trial.

The one favorable point made is that upon Obama's taking office, he (allegedly, the panelist wasn't sure) revoked or repealed all of George jr's executive orders. There was also some discussion about classification & reclassification of the Gitmo detainees and how that might affect their ability to obtain due process, etc.

The panelists felt that the best possibility of a check on Exec power (since Congress seems to be wholly ineffective & unwilling to exercise its legitimate authority & power) was the courts. The general conclusion was that the trend, historically, was that judicial deference tends to decline as the originating "emergency" recedes into time. So, absent another 09/11, etc. one could expect the courts to offer greater resistance to the idea of an unfettered/unchecked executive branch.

Since these were people who have been involved in litigating some important cases, their POV carries considerable weight for me.

I too would like to see the Patriot Act repealed, also the Military Commissions Act.

The PDX PD's written a book you might be interested in reading: "Kafka Comes to America" by Stephen Wax. Great title, good book.

lama (profile) wrote on Thu, 6/25/2009 - 9:30 am

Rob,
The original Market Basket (Demoulas) in Lowell used to buy produce from my Papere's farm.
If they're still buying locally you could make the nut on your resort.

Cripes, I'm neveah gonna be allowed to leave am I?

We bought at Lapinski's in West Springfield. And Derby's Cider Mill of course.

@curious Comparing the activity of homeowners in SF to renters in SF helps to normalize the data.

That's an interesting idea...I also found the tidbit regarding the inverse relationship between creditworthiness and the strength of the effect interesting...not surprising really, but just interesting to see it crop up, yet again. What is that about lottery winners always winding up in horrible debt?

GDD9000 said: "Sebastian, please note that when MEW was falling, it was still positive. That means its add on effect to consumption was diminishing, not that it was supposed to make spending drop. You aren't really this daft, are you?"

PCE slowed and fell in staggered lockstep with MEW.

PCE
2006 Q1 4.3
2006 Q2 2·8
2006 Q3 2.2
2006 Q4 3·7
2007 Q1 3.9
2007 Q2 2·0
2007 Q3 2.0
2007 Q4 1.0
2008 Q1 0·9
2008 Q2 1·2
2008 Q3 -3·8
2008 Q4 -4·3
2009 Q1 1.4

Just superimpose that on the MEW chart:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pMscxxELHEg/Scj-vk4_KVI/AAAAAAAAE3o/uMkhuOAViqA/s1600-h/MEWactiveQ42008.jpg

The correlation is so tight...well, only a special type of person could miss it...or miss the worst recession or housing bust in 70 years.

I'm done. If you want anything else, send a retainer.

lawyerliz (profile) wrote on Sat, 6/27/2009 - 7:05 pm edit reply Even if you add just 50 or 100 bucks a month, you will pay
your mtg down much faster.

Our first Fla house, they would give us only a 25 year mtg, 'cause
they said the house was only rated to last another 25 years, so
we paid it off slightly faster. The new owners got a 30 year mtg when
we sold 9 years later, in 81, and it's still very much there.

Then, here, we again got a 25 year mtg, and whenever we got a
windfall or the hub got a bonus, paid down the mtg. It's was paid
off a year and a half ago.

There is hardly any difference in payment between a 25 and 30
year mtg. And only a little more with a 20 year mortgage.
The 15 has a significantly increased payment, but a lower
rate.

The Kathy McM article is sad, but no doubt true.

Thanks Costs