By the way, the British taxpayer is the proud owner of 43% of that loss, which puts him $9 Billion in the hole.
I wonder what it portends for Citi, which just a few days ago replaced its CFO (who himself spent only a few months on the job)? Not enough creative accounting?
$13 billion is the opening bid, not the final number.
One of the odd things about real estate markets is persistence. A lot of people remember all of the efficient markets discussions from econ or MBA school. While weak form efficient markets is defensible for stocks and bonds, it is nowhere near correct for real estate. Real estate demonstrates persistence in price changes. Knowing that prices dropped this month tells you they are likely to drop next month. This makes market value accounting a particularly stupid idea for real estate portfolios. Futures and REIT prices show different dynamics.
One of the odd things about real estate markets is persistence.
Welcome to the world of overshooting!
Trend used to be your friend, but now it is the cinder block tied to the real estate market's feet as it tries to swim upstream
Countervailing Power: Ben (and other CBers) can create money with a wave of their Fairy Godmother Wand. Financiers can destroy money with a countervailing wave of the Fairy Godfather's Wand. Poof! It's there. Poof Poof! It's gone.
As to the previous thread, it is mandatory to file foreclosure against
all inferior lienholders. This would not be necessary against yourself,
you could always file a Satisfaction of Mtg for the 2nd after the dust
clears.
The mistake wasn't filing, it was hiring attys to answer the 2nd
lien foreclosure. Sorry if this was addressed already.
The 2nd may actually be in trust for another entity. Or in a different
department, which may have thought there was equity after the first.
Sometimes, still, there is. This is not much of a defense!!
AIG is seeking political cover from Feinberg, Obama's compensation czar, to hand out 250 million in bonuses over the next nine months, and another 200 million due in March 2010.
Company says that without bonuses, AIG could lose top talent, and endanger the taxpayer investment.
This is news? Just give the bastards a blank check for 3 or 4 billion to party with, and be done with it.
As for anyone else, just follow Obama's advice and be patient...in a few years, a nickle or two may roll your way.
"Company says that without bonuses, AIG could lose top talent, and endanger the taxpayer investment."
The Cap Value of AIG was around $10 Billion as determined by Wall*Street, when it was decided that we the people would get the opportunity to purchase 79.9% of it for around $200 Billion. (so far)
Just imagine if the "terrorist hackers" were able to bring down ATM's and the financial grid around the country all at once.
Hurricane/ Earthquake Evacuation conditions writ large...
Maybe you could spend your cash; or not.
Well, the Brits have got their priorities in order.,,bankers pay is sacred, and big banks equally sacred.
"Alistair Darling stepped back today from a radical overhaul of Britain's banks when he ruled out caps on bankers' pay or breaking up the biggest City institutions.
Pointing to the importance of 1m jobs in financial services and the £250bn of tax generated by the sector in the past nine years, the chancellor's much-anticipated response to the current "severe financial crisis" rejected demands for major reforms by opposition parties and the Bank of England governor Mervyn King."
"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end."
- PRESIDENT OBAMA, on the need for reform in Africa.
Let's rephrase that just slightly, shall we?
"No business wants to invest in a place where the government [changes the rules constantly and taxes far more than necessary to perform its core functions], or the head of the [Treasury] is corrupt [or, equivalently, unwilling to fight the corruption in the system]. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality [of Government] and bribery [of Congress]. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, [especially when you have secret programs to spy on your own citizen!] and now is the time for it to end."
- PRESIDENT OBAMA, on the need for reform in [America].
While we need to continue to document what's wrong and why, I think it may be time for folks to stop complaining and start taking more active measures to stop the evils being perpetrated upon our nation?
Those chips are now part of a lot of clothing and shoes,in your credit cards and yes they are implantable.Germany refused to grant a patent for one that had a GPS locator and a cyanide dispenser.Google spy chips or RFID chips.People wearing portable faraday cages are no longer just the nuts.
Many, many years ago you were suposed to stop and get a visa in Mexico. No one ever bothered. The law said you must have the visa on your person at all times.
The standard excuse for no visa " I lost is swimming."
“No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers,”
Now substitute "regulators" for "police" (similar functions!) and "the financial sector" for "drug traffickers" (both of which have been pushing products inappropriate to the health of their customers!), and voila:
“No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or regulators can be bought off by financial companies.”
And no, I don't think leaving the country is an option, because we simply cannot allow so much military and economic power to fall into fascist or despotic hands. It won't matter where you live, if America becomes a thoroughly evil power.
Fry the chip and you'll have the shortest vacation ever, because they're not gonna let you in country except if it's Mexico or Canada.
The worst bit is that the new passports are even more fragile, my temp passport is as thrashed as my old one (that I had had for 3 years)but is only 8 months old.
I have my mom's deceased husband's dog tags. He was
in the Pacific theatre for WWII. If I put them on either side
of the pastport, will that scramble the signals? Seems
appropriate.
Passports take maybe 3 weeks by mail, can be done in 2 days if you want to pay for the expediting, or if in a city with an actual passport office (like NYC) you can get it same day if you are flying next day and you show your tickets.
Comrade Alexei Mikhailovich (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 7:58 am
Passports take maybe 3 weeks by mail, can be done in 2 days if you want to pay for the expediting, or if in a city with an actual passport office (like NYC) you can get it same day if you are flying next day and you show your tickets.
When the time comes the way things used to be won't matter.
The Post Office did mine, filled out all the papers, took pictures and birth certificate and MAILED it to Atlanta and I received it in six weeks along with my birth certicate.
lawyerliz (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 8:00 am
reply ignore user
Any nervousness on the streets yet, Dawg?
No. None. the only thing visible is a rapidly decelerating economy. Could be a combination of seasonal and rising unemployment. Could also be an exodus of the marginal population and hunkering down. We'll know if there's been a population migration locally come school registration in 6 weeks.
The budget is still nowhere near resolution. There's a nonstarter framework in high level discussions but neither party can possibly get their caucuses to cough up the votes.
Passport renewals are faster. Get one and keep it current.
Someday I am going to retire to Argenitna. Can't decide if I should save up in USD or Pesos. Maybe buy pasos when they are at the low end, do that for 10 yrs and I should have a pile. If I put them in whatever bank is left standing when I go it might be ok.
"Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate."
What Lloyds is doing may not be writing off current loses. When you can cook the books you just write off things as you build reserves. That way you are not insolvent?
The banks can continue to hoard money, take write offs over time and appear to be doing ok. See, things are just fine.
JP's link presaged my comment. They are still talking "framework." The reps won't vote unless there's reform. The Dems won't vote unless there are no meaningful reforms. Leadership is going down a rabbit hole.
CA legislators are termed out after two terms. It makes no difference as the districts are gerrymandered to preclude any sort of moderate candidates. There's no effective path to representation in Sacramento for regular people.
JD, you likely got caught in the backlog of the rush of applications; the Mexico/Canada req got pushed back for more than 2 years before they really, really meant it this time; meanwhile they're still letting gringos through when they come back from Rocky Point this time....
I go through passports like some people go through car leases, never took a month, let alone three.
In Sonora and Baja norte, you don't need the visa or car permit unless you go a couple of hundred clicks in, even then they'll give you a free permit as long as you don't leave the state(I still have my Sonora only decal on the windshield)
"I guess, as long as you weren't a SUSPECT held at Gitmo without charge or trial.
Or "extraordinarily rendered" to a secret torture camp."
Most people gave that a pass because of the 9/11 hysteria, just as much abuse occurred after December 7 in an earlier year. And, after all, those people weren't "US Citizens" (err, well, most of 'em)... Sigh. So much for "universal human rights", eh?
But many took that episode as their reason to join the ACLU and other similar organizations, some for the first time, and in many cases despite their being personally neutral-to-opposed regarding much else that the ACLU does. At least they FOIA'd and fought to get some of those abuses brought to light.
Maybe it's time to upgrade those memberships, and maybe contribute volunteer time since cash is tight?
Yeah, Juvenal, trouble is Klemperer was not so bothered by the methods of the Stasi and the communist repression, incarceration, theft and mass murder in the German Democratic Republic, where he decided to stay and make a career as an apparatchik after the war.
Klemperer's book is even more frightening, when, with hindsight, you realize that that the communist enemies of the nazis were not any better.
Someday I am going to retire to Argenitna. Can't decide if I should save up in USD or Pesos. M
bugger Argentina, Chile is the place with a stable democracy, currency, weather and the rule of law and property rights. Even Uruguay is a better bet.
Save up in USD but sock away a little is local currency both as a hedge and as a way to get on the right side of TPTB(especially in a dodgy country like Argentina)
IBs get to co-locate servers in the NYSE, with the exchange's complicity. The IBs steal anywhere from $25-50b annually by front-running orders from the rest of the investing public.
All the SEC has to do is mandate that the last posted bid and ask are good for a full second. This would end robotic frontrunning. WIll they do it? Of course not.
Klemperer's book is even more frightening, when, with hindsight, you realize that that the communist enemies of the nazis were not any better.
With hindsight? I thought it was common knowledge at the time that both regime's were evil. Hence Churchill famously sending his War Minister a cigar when the Nazi's opened up the Ossfront. Okay, well maybe not common knowledge anymore as people can't even name all 50 states of America, but I'm not aware too many people viewed Stalin and Hitler as good guys outside of Russia and Third Reich.
Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 8:29 am
All the SEC has to do is mandate that the last posted bid and ask are good for a full second. This would end robotic frontrunning.
All the SEC has to do is mandate that the last posted bid and ask are good for a full second. This would end this one example of frontrunning.
There, fixed that for you. In other ongoing abuses you just ain't never gonna hit the tick anymore. People don't even object which astounds me.
Mrs. Gnome looks like she can cook some seriously good magazine food. Nice fotos.
Below is a sample from my CR inspired story. Seems to fit the threads mood.
When ever we cut up anything from the garden for food we had to make sure we didn't eat the seeds. They had to be saved and set aside for next year. Tommy had told us when we first got here how important it was to save the slippery little devils. His plants produced reusable seeds. Not all seeds were reusable. He was telling us how the government had begun making sure that agricultural states who were not enforcing federal tax collection, and remitting it, were now only receiving these one off use seeds.
I'm not aware too many people viewed Stalin and Hitler as good guys outside of Russia and Third Reich.
I refer you to pages 300-310 of Paul Johnson's Modern Times for a painfully long list of counterexamples.
Hitler had some detractors (not that it stopped Prescott Bush, whose company's assets were finally seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act).
Stalin had a very deep bullpen of American and European apologists.
Stalin was loved for a time in America, by, what was then, a large socialist community. His sell out of Poland did disenchant a few.
Hell, Stalin was loved in the USSR while millions of Soviet people were getting killed by the regime. As I said before, Stalin perfected the idea that in order to be truly loved the leader needs to be feared.
Some CEOs, banking or otherwise, find this formula working quite well in the corporate world, too
Isn't writing off something now considered a profit?
Not exactly. You profit by not writing it off:
... Another $2.7 billion before taxes came from an accounting rule that lets a company record income when the value of its own debt falls. That reflects the possibility a company could buy back bonds at a discount, generating a profit. In reality, when a bank can’t fund such a transaction, the gain is an accounting quirk ....
The long-term unemployment rate -- the proportion of the labor force that has been out of work for at least 15 weeks -- climbed to 5.1 percent. Until this year, the post-Depression high for that rate had been 4.2 percent.
June was also the first month since the government began collecting the data in 1948 that more than half of the unemployed people had been out of work for at least 15 weeks.
The proportion of workers without jobs for at least 27 weeks rose to 2.8 percent, which is also the highest since World War II.
The figures reflect an economy where the pace of layoffs and firings has slowed this year, so that fewer people are being added to the unemployment rolls. But the pace of new hiring is now even lower than it was when layoffs were peaking.
Stop Dissing Joe Steel,didn't "LOOK" magazine devote a whole issue to "Good Old Uncle Joe"? Can you get more apple pie than "Look"? and has there ever been a more successful Chechen Gangster? Geez ,the guy was an Al Capone on steroids what could be more american than that.The man came from no where,changed his name to something easier to spell and made it big using tactics any wall streeter would recognize.
As I said before, Stalin perfected the idea that in order to be truly loved the leader needs to be feared.
------------------------______________________
ages ago I told a friend to read up on how Stalin rose to power by isolating(and removing) the best and brightest by appealing to the jealous mediocrity and the people just below the best, then filling those spots with people who have fealty to you alone, rinse, repeat until the mediocre types are outflanked by your flunkies.
It worked, but at least for him his flunkies are better than the mediocre, but not good enough to read about Stalin.
Pavel, I was relying on my (fading) memory. A quick google/wiki search could not find any support to that claim (although it found rumors that Stalin was half-Ossetian). So, I can't really prove my point is accurate.
Dead on comrade! I now have two friends who travel to and fro to region 1 up north in Chile. They don't want to leave but if push comes to shove they will do like my cousins who got out of Germany in 1933 early on. They are preparing the way to leave if they have to. Just got this from one of the friends who wants to hold dual citizenship. He has bought some property in Chile, loves it and "like the smart rabbit...has three holes". More and more americans are going to creap towards the door before the sheeple figure out there is more than smoke here.
Just like the folks in California who can't understand why someone in their right mind would leave "paradise", the nation as a whole won't have a clue until the producers and savers get in the life boats.
On Dual nationality
Introduction
The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that dual nationality is "a status long recognized in the law" and that "a person may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both. The mere fact that he [sic] asserts the rights of one citizenship does not without more mean that he renounces the other" (see Kawakita v. U.S., 343 U.S. 717 [1952] ).
Current Law and Policy
United States law does not contain any provisions requiring U.S. Citizens who are born with dual nationality or who acquire a second nationality at an early age to choose one nationality or the other when they become adults (see Mandoli v. Acheson, 344 U.S. 133 [1952] ). The current nationality laws of the United States do not specifically refer to dual nationality.
While recognizing the existence of dual nationality and permitting Americans to have other nationalities, the U.S. Government does not endorse dual nationality as a matter of policy because of the problems which it may cause. Claims of other countries upon dual-national U.S. Citizens often place them in situations where their obligations to one country are in conflict with the laws of the other.
In addition, their dual nationality may hamper efforts to provide diplomatic and consular protection to them while they are abroad. It generally is considered that while a dual national is in the other country of which the person is a citizen, that country has a predominant claim on the person. In cases where a dual national encounters difficulty in a foreign country of which the person is a citizen, the ability of the U.S. Government to provide assistance may be quite limited since many foreign countries may not recognize the dual national's claim to U.S. Citizenship.
Which Passport to Use
Section 215 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act ( 8 U.S.C. 1185) requires U.S. Citizens to use U.S. passports when entering or leaving the United States unless one of the exceptions listed in Section 53.2 of Title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations applies. Dual nationals may be required by the other country of which they are citizens to enter and leave that country using its passport, but do not endanger their U.S. citizenship by complying with such a requirement.
Loss of U.S. Citizenship
The automatic acquisition or retention of a foreign nationality does not affect U.S. citizenship; however, the acquisition of a foreign nationality upon one's own application may cause loss of U.S. citizenship under Section 349(a)(1) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (8 U.S.C. 1481). In order for loss of nationality to occur under Section 349(a)(1), it must be established that the naturalization was obtained with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship. Such an intention may be shown by a person's statements or conduct. If the U.S. Government is unable to prove that the person had such an intention when applying for and obtaining the foreign citizenship, the person will have both nationalities.
More on Loss of U.S. Citizenship
Loss of Citizenship. Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that US citizens are subject to loss of citizenship if they perform certain acts voluntarily with the intention to relinquish US citizenship. These acts are:
Becoming a naturalized citizen of a foreign state;
Taking an oath, affirmation or other formal declaration to a foreign state or its political subdivisions;
Entering or serving in the armed forces of a foreign state engaged in hostilities against the US or serving as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer in the armed forces of a foreign state;
Accepting employment with a foreign government if (a) one has the nationality of that state or (b) a declaration of allegiance is required in accepting the position;
Formally renouncing US citizenship before a US consular officer outside of the United States;
formally renouncing US citizenship within the US (but only in time of war);
Conviction for an act of treason.
The Department of State is responsible for determining the citizenship status of a person located outside of the United States. When such cases come to the attention of a US consular officer, the person concerned will be asked to complete a questionnaire to ascertain his/her intention to relinquish US citizenship. Unless that person clearly and affirmatively asserts that it was his/her intention to relinquish US citizenship, the consular officer is required by law to assume that the person acted with the intention to retain his/her US citizenship, and therefore rule that the person did not lose his/her US citizenship.
Consequently a person will be judged to have lost nationality only in those cases where:
The individual formally renounces US citizenship in writing before a consular officer;
Takes a policy level position in a foreign state;
Is convicted of treason; or
The expatriating act is accompanied by conduct which is so inconsistent with retention of US citizenship that it compels a conclusion that the person intended to relinquish US citizenship (such cases are very rare).
The statutory presumption of an intention to retain US citizenship is applicable to cases previously adjudicated by the Department. Therefore, persons who previously were ruled to have lost their US citizenship may request a reconsideration in light of the new guidelines. A person may initiate such a request by writing to the nearest consular office or directly to:
Director, Office of Citizens Services
(CA/OCS/ACS)
Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520-4818
Each case will be reviewed on its own merits taking into consideration, for example, statements made by the person at the time of the potentially expatriating act.
We sold our home in a very prosperous area of LA 4 years ago, and I got 3 movers quotes and the first one was a gent that had been in the moving biz for 38 years.
I asked where people were moving to, and he told me that he'd never seen so many people moving out of the country, easily 3x as many as in any previous year. The other 2 movers verified this as well for me.
JD, have a number of swiss friends and kust talked to one who lives in Zuric (works for Swiss-Re) and you are right they say the US can stuff it with regards to the US courts.
Bad language could be good for you, a new study shows. For the first time, psychologists have found that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain. The study, published today in the journal NeuroReport, measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word. When swearing, the 67 student volunteers reported less pain and on average endured about 40 seconds longer.
.........How swearing achieves its physical effects is unclear, but the researchers speculate that brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. Earlier studies have shown that unlike normal language, which relies on the outer few millimeters in the left hemisphere of the brain, expletives hinge on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half...........
Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he'd bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car. It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker's gold. Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.
"Pavel, I was relying on my (fading) memory. A quick google/wiki search could not find any support to that claim (although it found rumors that Stalin was half-Ossetian). So, I can't really prove my point is accurate. ?"
MrM, I seem to recall reading about Ossetian ancestry, perhaps in a recent biography. Have no idea if it's true.
Beria was, so far as I've read, Mingrelian.
I used to pass by a house in whose courtyard Beria was executed, in central Moscow, at least according to a friend who lived a few streets away.
Anyone who grew up in Gori and survived had to be tough.
"Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he'd bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car. "
I read that story yesterday. The trajectory seems to be in plain sight.
JD, have a number of swiss friends and kust talked to one who lives in Zuric (works for Swiss-Re) and you are right they say the US can stuff it with regards to the US courts.
I am wondering if the US IRS folks are try to bluff their way into many people accepting tax amnesty rather than take the chance that the Swiss will cave.
We can make it on my income alone. Hubby's business has really tanked the last two years. Guess it was the best plan that I restart up my firm. Now if I can just get him to do the laundry LOL.
Someone correct me here, but didn't FDR have similar speeches about having patience for things to get better...all we need now is a distraction...maybe like Cheney under criminal investigation? That should only take four or five years right?
@Scrooge McDuck (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 10:02 am
Middle class at 4M....down from 12M in 2000
Pretty soon there will be nobody in the middle class for upper class/lower class to steal from. End Game.
Yup .... couple this with limited to no assets bubbles esp. real estate and with incomes continuing to go down, unemployment continuing to grow and underemployment growing faster than unemployment for a very bleak economic situation yet Obama says urges Americans to have patience for stimulus plan with hope and change.
they seem to be projecting the end of the middle class. I agree,
However, middle class means in the middle - even if it is the middle of what we now refer to as poverty level. They will simply change the way they apply and report the numbers.
Povery level is a bit over $10,000.00 per yr for a single person. Next year it will be $8,000.00. Fewer will be in poverty and the middle class will be broke.
New way to determine lower vs middle class: are you living in your car?
Well I don't have the smarts to dig us out of this hole, but I do know that patience and a gradual slowing of negative economic momentum isn't the path through the forest I was hoping to take. Granted throwing the brake on, might of had some nasty unintended consequences, but I think there isn't enough track left for a gradual stop either...who knows... as a nation we can't even agree to what the problem is yet...how many people here feel like America will be a fundamentally different place just 5-10 years down the road?
...how many people here feel like America will be a fundamentally different place just 5-10 years down the road?
America will be different. We will less income to afford increasing costs.
We will hang up our laundry to dry, even if we have a drier.
We will visit family for our vacations, not fly to Europe.
We will drive our cars until they fall apart in the street.
Kids at 7 yrs old will not be getting that cell phone for a birthday gift.
We will cook at home and eat as a family. Kids will not be placed in every activity in the world.
Creidt will be something looked down on. BK and forclosure will be concidered a normal act without any stigma.
There will be many social shifts driven by economic nessesity.
the irony is that the yields necessary to finance the middle class dream were achieved via debt pushing and global labor arbitrage. that is, unless one believes that the economy can grow 8% organically in a "flat" world.
The one union job that most of us come into contact once a week or so, is the checker @ your supermarket.
The supermarket checker of my youth was an amazing person that had to have quite the memory and dexterity, but nowadays the hardest task for them is punching in the number for navel oranges or carrots and sticking them on the digital scale. Otherwise, the job is like any other scanner job, no biggie.
barfly, I don't think a lack of third-world wages is what damned us...if you accept that America was an Empire then when we became too civilized to 'colonize' other parts of the world, we were doomed. If the people of a nation no longer have the stomach for 'the evils' that go with running an empire, then it can't continue. I mean from a political science stand point we used to be a big believer in nation states acting in amoral ways due to self-preservation. That has been thrown out the window, especially with the climate change agenda. Now we have to act with conscience. Not saying we aren't still up to our share of evil as a nation, but philosophically we have had a shift with what the people will accept. I guess you could argue that we are just more aware today, but I don't think we were that naive in the past. This is the 'force' of history at work. Just one big shifting line in the sand that moves in and out of of public view. The question that bothers me is how much of what we have left will we be willing to sacrifice in order to chase the illusion of what we once were. When there is a void we try to fill it, I don't think there is a vision of the future given by the government yet that fills that hole. I am rambling now, sounding like the absent-minded philosopher I am.
OT, but interesting, a blog "letter" about the again postponed coming out of the Boeing 787 & history of the McDonnell Douglas takeover of Boeing & how it has led, in the view of the writer, Richard Aboulafia, to Boeing being run not by (or for) engineers, but by "bean counters and lawyers."
okay, before I go back to cleaning this large mcmansion, I have a couple of thoughts about the true course we face.
Thirty years ago, when I was a young teenager we had a lot of junk already, but coming out of a recession, the folks were tight with cash. so we scrounged, saved, wheeled and dealed. Now, with the upper middle class kids facing a large sense of entitlement, we now have the usual number of folks asserting this change.
Well, I remember the upper middle class kids got it all handed to them on a plate, but it sure didn't make them want to succeed.
Now, deep in a recession, I still haven't had that kid that wants some spending money coming by to do yard work here in Phoenix.
When that day arrives, then we will have come full circle. I used to cut lawns, shovel snow, and do light work. My friends used to wear polyester and ask if I would like fries with my order.
We passed all of that to the loads of recent immigrants, mostly illegal, as we all thought we went upscale. Welcome back to reality. Now, are kids going to pissed off and sullen. Well, yes. They are teenagers, and that is their natural state, especially if they don't have helicopter parents providing every last bit of junk on TV.
The paranoia that manifests itself on this blog with the squirrel recipes and gun hoarding is really funny, but a real sign of insecurity on the part of the folks that have those urges. I lived in SouthEast Michigan from 1981 through 1984 while in High School, and what I saw was 20% plus unemployment, but I sure didn't see the need for arsenals and survival redoubts.
So lighten up, buckle up, and get ready for a long boring grind, punctuated with sudden drops. Welcome back to the 70s, so just enjoy it.
I have no problem with composite products, just where they are in mission critical locations. Any engineer shouldve told the beancounters that and any lawyer would never sign off it they heard the engineers.
Many people are accepting any wage they can get, if it is higher than the umemployment they are getting. Many people are accepting a wage cut rather than no job at all. Some are getting an unpaid (lower wages) day off a week.
There is allot of "acceptance" going on. I have not seen this happen before.
We humans are kind of interesting in that whatever we buy, we tend to use...
Just after the presidential election, the Righty-Tighty-Gawdalmightys went on full-court press, telling their constituency to load up on guns and ammo, because Obama was going to ban them*.
The repercussions and ricochets from these moral cowards has yet to come~
ha!... He allowed guns into National Parks-the last place your 2nd amendment rights weren't allowed.
If an apartment in China and US is relitive to the percent of wages paid, we need to figure wages in terms of expenses. Who knows, we may be earning less already.
Is America ready to grow up? I doubt it, but think about this:
The ability to delay gratification is often a sign of emotional and social maturity. Young children, for example, find it more difficult to delay gratification than older children. When kindergartners in one study were offered a choice between getting a small candy bar immediately or a larger one later, 72% chose the smaller candy bar. This number decreased to 67% among first and second graders and 49% for third and fourth graders. By the fifth and sixth grades it had fallen to 38%, nearly half the rate for kindergartners.
I still have a lime green pant suit with flared legs and some patent plastic platforms but I won't wear any of them. I'm waiting for the big tax credit for donating them to the museum. However, I have grown a rather perky set of boobs as I enter my dotage. Glad to post a topless pic if anyone cares.
One last thought on gratification in this recession, i.e, it will take years and years of financial pain for people to understand that they have to pay a price to look like they have a million bucks, versus go out and spend whatever they want and charge it, or lie about their incomes.... Americans are going to look a lot more down to Earth in the next 5 years!
Doc, not many adults I see are able to wait for anything. They "deserve" it now. They expect it yesterday. Everyone is special and should live is some nirvana state.
We love fast food, the express lane and precooked food in packages. The marketers have done a very good job with us all.
I have no idea how many teens are making money online, but it is not uncommon. One of the forums on online marketing I read has recently started a section limited to teenagers. So at least some of the teens you haven't seen are profitably employed elsewhere
Doc Holiday (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 1:03 pm
The ability to delay gratification is often a sign of emotional and social maturity.
Yes, but it doesn't lend itself to a consumption-based economy or the enshrining of wish-fulfillment psychology as a cultural goal.
Interestingly enough it also develops and is a result of the development of, the forebrain, neocortical fibers in the hemispheres, etc. In short the evolutionarily youngest parts of the human brain that don't fully mature in "normal" people until they're well into their twenties.
That's a bit harsh. Supermarket checkers in LA earn around $15-20 an hour and are all unionized in the bigger chains. They went on strike for almost a year, about 6 years ago.
So lighten up, buckle up, and get ready for a long boring grind, punctuated with sudden drops. Welcome back to the 70s, so just enjoy it.
+10, a bunch of the jobs I worked as a kid are now immigrant stacked; not because of wages but that employers wanted to remove the seasonality and variation of talent.
The interesting thing to watch is how young people will deal with economic reality in the next few years. Most young kids think they have unlimited cash to consume whatever they want, but will they understand how to control spending and then save? This is obviously the problem related to banking going forward in terms of cash flow versus credit flow. Banks will have to learn to live with less cash, just like kids.
It is very hard to package [credit card debt] right now. The business of believing you could package subprime loans and isolate the buyer from the risk is going to be rethought."
Wharton marketing professor Stephen J. Hoch said credit card companies and savvy consumers were both playing games that have come largely to a halt with the freeze on credit expansion. Credit card companies were able to use the fine print in contracts to draw many borrowers into escalating debt, he said
Not that I frequent them, but go into any fast-food chain place in LA, and what used to be a bastion for pimply pre-adult children (many working for the 1st time) is now the bailiwick of Hispanics.
Re: "Americans are going to look a lot more down to Earth in the next 5 years"
I see the point with gravity, but I was implying that people will have less expensive clothing, their cars will be more connected to their incomes, their homes will be more within their income range, their shopping carts will be less full, their will be more of a focus on trying to make ends meet versus anything goes, there will be more fear about how much to spend and when, there will be less travel, there will be more obese people that will eat more crappy food as stress increases...
"The one union job that most of us come into contact once a week or so, is the checker @ your supermarket"
----Bullshit. I have never seen a unionized checker.
According to U.C. Berkeley, 19.8% of the supermarket workforce, about 500,000 workers, was represented by unions in 2007, down from 21% in 2002, but up slightly from the 19.6% represented in 2005.
Doc Holiday (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 1:18 pm
ResistanceIsFeudal,
The interesting thing to watch is how young people will deal with economic reality in the next few years. Most young kids think they have unlimited cash to consume whatever they want, but will they understand how to control spending and then save? This is obviously the problem related to banking going forward in terms of cash flow versus credit flow. Banks will have to learn to live with less cash, just like kids.
The youngest will be fine, I have no doubt. Those in my age category (25-35) probably hurt the most in terms of lifestyle adjustment and being stuck in long-term speculative gambles (homes, cars, etc) and lifestyles that relied upon ready credit, especially young families in the middle and upper-middle income brackets.
Well, part of the new new is going to be a resurgence in making those now bastions of undoc workers back into jobs for the unemployed and dropped off the back end.
Sucks to be undoc, but Americans are going to put the screws to the owners of those businesses muy pronto.
If I owned a franchise type business, I would be staffing it with autistic and working class kids in preparation. The local theater chain here does this, and it keeps the costs down. Going in there feels like I am back to my first job in 1982. One has to remember that smart business owners ruthlessly cut costs with the undocs, but when you get bills in the multiple thousands for violating employment laws, they go right back to the shadows, and then home when the supply gets too great.
Get ahead of the curve, next up will be the H1B scams. That means you, tech folks.
Broward needs a real job so he can pay for his parents social security;-}
Feel the changes, as our politicians scramble to get in front of the masses.
Politicians don't really lead, they just see where the parade is going, and act like they knew it all along;-}
When engineering and science supplant business and law as coveted degree/career paths. When a phd scientist commands more respect, and income, than a harvard mba or a high-power attorney, you'll know we are on the path to recovery. Until then, th 70s is a best of a possible outcomes.
Who will win today's stage in the Tour?
Why don't they write-off a cool One Trillion and be done with it?
Remember when the pound was a credible currency?
C
A billion dollars isn't what it used to be.
Nelson Bunker Hunt
remember when the dollar was a credible currency?
They need to move to the US then they wouldn't have to write off a damn thing. Probably could show record profits based on the same facts
double post......no coffee yet.
They need to move to the US then they wouldn't have to write off a damn thing. Probably could show record profits based on the same facts
Cool Bailitania.
C
Our banks will be back at the write-off game before too long.
Have you seen this?
Dr. James Galbraith: Professional Fed Killer
Dr. James Galbraith, Professional Fed Killer - Home - The Daily Bail
Repost from last thread:
What does everyone think another of these will do to our eCONomy?
Hurricane Katrina, 2005 / Stormpulse / Hurricanes, severe weather, tracking, mapping
Think we can hit $5/ gallon gas again?
She was one mean girl!
By the way, the British taxpayer is the proud owner of 43% of that loss, which puts him $9 Billion in the hole.
I wonder what it portends for Citi, which just a few days ago replaced its CFO (who himself spent only a few months on the job)? Not enough creative accounting?
$13 billion is the opening bid, not the final number.
One of the odd things about real estate markets is persistence. A lot of people remember all of the efficient markets discussions from econ or MBA school. While weak form efficient markets is defensible for stocks and bonds, it is nowhere near correct for real estate. Real estate demonstrates persistence in price changes. Knowing that prices dropped this month tells you they are likely to drop next month. This makes market value accounting a particularly stupid idea for real estate portfolios. Futures and REIT prices show different dynamics.
HG
Portugal went downhill fast after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake...
Imagine what a 9.0 would do to LA/SF?
As Britain's North Sea oil declines in output and value and London Finance crumbles and their population ages we could see Iceland writ large.
David Gregory needs to be a pitcher for a softball team, pathetic.
One of the odd things about real estate markets is persistence.
Welcome to the world of overshooting!
Trend used to be your friend, but now it is the cinder block tied to the real estate market's feet as it tries to swim upstream
When a billion dollars loss no longer sends shivers down our spine,
then money is well on its way to becoming meaningless.
Brave New World?
Implantable MicroChits?
Countervailing Power: Ben (and other CBers) can create money with a wave of their Fairy Godmother Wand. Financiers can destroy money with a countervailing wave of the Fairy Godfather's Wand. Poof! It's there. Poof Poof! It's gone.
We need to set some traps out for the mouse clique...
As to the previous thread, it is mandatory to file foreclosure against
all inferior lienholders. This would not be necessary against yourself,
you could always file a Satisfaction of Mtg for the 2nd after the dust
clears.
The mistake wasn't filing, it was hiring attys to answer the 2nd
lien foreclosure. Sorry if this was addressed already.
The 2nd may actually be in trust for another entity. Or in a different
department, which may have thought there was equity after the first.
Sometimes, still, there is. This is not much of a defense!!
First-half results due to be posted in three weeks will show that its losses are accelerating ...
I thought second-derivatives were getting smaller. No green shoots here.
I was going to get a passport, 'cause my mom wants to go on a cruise.
Now the passport will reside in a safely deposit box after use.
Maybe hackers taking down the system will be doing us a favor.
Hey, maybe it's not North Korea after all, maybe it's some Randists.
AIG is seeking political cover from Feinberg, Obama's compensation czar, to hand out 250 million in bonuses over the next nine months, and another 200 million due in March 2010.
Company says that without bonuses, AIG could lose top talent, and endanger the taxpayer investment.
This is news? Just give the bastards a blank check for 3 or 4 billion to party with, and be done with it.
As for anyone else, just follow Obama's advice and be patient...in a few years, a nickle or two may roll your way.
AIG Plans Millions More in Bonuses
Troubled Insurer Is In Talks With U.S. Over $250 Million
"Company says that without bonuses, AIG could lose top talent, and endanger the taxpayer investment."
The Cap Value of AIG was around $10 Billion as determined by Wall*Street, when it was decided that we the people would get the opportunity to purchase 79.9% of it for around $200 Billion. (so far)
Imagine if they had shitty talent?
Just imagine if the "terrorist hackers" were able to bring down ATM's and the financial grid around the country all at once.
Hurricane/ Earthquake Evacuation conditions writ large...
Maybe you could spend your cash; or not.
Juv,
Do you mean ShittyGroup type talent?
A good reason to have 1-2k cash in the Sealy.
Soon the ATMs will be dispensing IOUs instead of Jacksons.
Green shoots!
a bad reason to have $1M in the mattress
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
Don't worry, your Fidelity Money Market Account is covered by insurance from Lloyd's of-- oh, wait...
OT (even for a Sunday Morning)
Mrs. Gnome has a new post at her food/travel blog.
See my homepage.
Well, the Brits have got their priorities in order.,,bankers pay is sacred, and big banks equally sacred.
"Alistair Darling stepped back today from a radical overhaul of Britain's banks when he ruled out caps on bankers' pay or breaking up the biggest City institutions.
Pointing to the importance of 1m jobs in financial services and the £250bn of tax generated by the sector in the past nine years, the chancellor's much-anticipated response to the current "severe financial crisis" rejected demands for major reforms by opposition parties and the Bank of England governor Mervyn King."
Darling rules out radical changes in City white paper |
Business |
guardian.co.uk
Most Americans long to be Thousandaires, while the powers that be are content with losing billions...
Oh my, the incestuous nature of ponzi finance...
liz: all I need now is one or two k!
Liz,go to the Electronic Freedom fou.ndation,or EPIC they sell pouches and purses that block the signal to RFID chips
Tom,
Couldn't one just microwave the passport for a few seconds?
Should fry the chip...
How to get 1k.
Take $20. Put it in the Sealey.
Repeat once a week for 50 weeks.
It can be done.
Excellent idea, Gnome.
Time to put the $20s in the change jar, instead of quarters.
I really don't want the banks to have any of my money. Sure I need some for bill paying, but time for the rest of it to go in the change jar.
now, where to find a twenty...
I'm guessing if the border guards can't read your chip; you might be staying for awhile...
Sad we're even discussing this in the Land of Freedom...
From today's New York Times:
Obama Delivers Call for Change To a Rapt Africa - NY Times
"No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end."
- PRESIDENT OBAMA, on the need for reform in Africa.
Let's rephrase that just slightly, shall we?
"No business wants to invest in a place where the government [changes the rules constantly and taxes far more than necessary to perform its core functions], or the head of the [Treasury] is corrupt [or, equivalently, unwilling to fight the corruption in the system]. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality [of Government] and bribery [of Congress]. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, [especially when you have secret programs to spy on your own citizen!] and now is the time for it to end."
- PRESIDENT OBAMA, on the need for reform in [America].
While we need to continue to document what's wrong and why, I think it may be time for folks to stop complaining and start taking more active measures to stop the evils being perpetrated upon our nation?
Gnome,it would work,but it is classified as a terrorist act.I wish I was joking about that.I REALLY wish I was joking about that...
What happens when they can't read the chip? Are enough of them defective that no red flag goes up?
Oops, I was in a car accident and it got squished. Not my fault.
URL for above:
Obama Delivers Call for Change To a Rapt Africa - NY Times
BTW, there are more fantastic quotes in that article that are just begging for a "why don't you look in the mirror, Obama"? response.
So, frying your own passport is a terrorist act. Tough. Let them come and get me.
If you are one of the 85% of Americans without a passport, it would behoove you to get one.
You are not going anywhere without it, and it takes months to get it processed.
liz: happened to me, I was sitting on it wearing pants that made my butt look purrfect
Listening to Mrs. Alan Greenspan talking about matters economic on MTP is hilarious...
If'n you don't have $20 bucks to put in the Sealey, why do you have a passport?
Those chips are now part of a lot of clothing and shoes,in your credit cards and yes they are implantable.Germany refused to grant a patent for one that had a GPS locator and a cyanide dispenser.Google spy chips or RFID chips.People wearing portable faraday cages are no longer just the nuts.
Wow nice cost cutting in NYC i.e. no wonder more and more Americans are getting disgusted with pay of city, state and federal workers
Shhh! Mayor Bloomberg quietly authorizes $69 million in bonuses for managers over two years
Shhh! Mayor Bloomberg quietly authorizes $69 million in bonuses for managers over two years
Many, many years ago you were suposed to stop and get a visa in Mexico. No one ever bothered. The law said you must have the visa on your person at all times.
The standard excuse for no visa " I lost is swimming."
More Obama:
“No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers,”
Now substitute "regulators" for "police" (similar functions!) and "the financial sector" for "drug traffickers" (both of which have been pushing products inappropriate to the health of their customers!), and voila:
“No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or regulators can be bought off by financial companies.”
And no, I don't think leaving the country is an option, because we simply cannot allow so much military and economic power to fall into fascist or despotic hands. It won't matter where you live, if America becomes a thoroughly evil power.
Fry the chip and you'll have the shortest vacation ever, because they're not gonna let you in country except if it's Mexico or Canada.
The worst bit is that the new passports are even more fragile, my temp passport is as thrashed as my old one (that I had had for 3 years)but is only 8 months old.
Go long lead lined passport holders
liz: snark off
I have my mom's deceased husband's dog tags. He was
in the Pacific theatre for WWII. If I put them on either side
of the pastport, will that scramble the signals? Seems
appropriate.
Seems like "HammerTime" to me...
Wired 15.01: START
But be careful – tampering with a passport is punishable by 25 years in prison.
Thanks, Gnome.
"It won't matter where you live, if America becomes a thoroughly evil power. "
IF?!?
Have you been awake the last eight or nine years?
interesting tone to the thread
gottagoshittodo
OT: Very interesting article on electronic trading in the markets:
http://www.themistrading.com/article_files/0000/0348/Toxic_Equity_Trading_on_Wall_Street_12-17-08.pdf
Sorry if already posted.
Passports take maybe 3 weeks by mail, can be done in 2 days if you want to pay for the expediting, or if in a city with an actual passport office (like NYC) you can get it same day if you are flying next day and you show your tickets.
It took me 3 months to get my passport last year, and now you need one to go to Canada or Mexico.
3 months is ok; don't want to go til weather is nice.
Comrade Alexei Mikhailovich (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 7:58 am
Passports take maybe 3 weeks by mail, can be done in 2 days if you want to pay for the expediting, or if in a city with an actual passport office (like NYC) you can get it same day if you are flying next day and you show your tickets.
When the time comes the way things used to be won't matter.
Any nervousness on the streets yet, Dawg?
Gotta go.
Fresh blueberry pancakes are almost ready...
CA is actually making budget progress? I'll believe it when I see it.
@HomeGnome:
"It won't matter where you live, if America becomes a thoroughly evil power. "
IF?!?
Have you been awake the last eight or nine years?
Yes. But I'm an optimist and haven't managed to reach the conclusion that things are irreversible without a long trip through H*ll.
The Post Office did mine, filled out all the papers, took pictures and birth certificate and MAILED it to Atlanta and I received it in six weeks along with my birth certicate.
lawyerliz (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 8:00 am
reply ignore user
Any nervousness on the streets yet, Dawg?
No. None. the only thing visible is a rapidly decelerating economy. Could be a combination of seasonal and rising unemployment. Could also be an exodus of the marginal population and hunkering down. We'll know if there's been a population migration locally come school registration in 6 weeks.
The budget is still nowhere near resolution. There's a nonstarter framework in high level discussions but neither party can possibly get their caucuses to cough up the votes.
Compared to evil powers of the past, America is a very modestly evil
power.
Any thoughts of calling back (or whatever you call it) intransigent legislators?
Passport renewals are faster. Get one and keep it current.
Someday I am going to retire to Argenitna. Can't decide if I should save up in USD or Pesos. Maybe buy pasos when they are at the low end, do that for 10 yrs and I should have a pile. If I put them in whatever bank is left standing when I go it might be ok.
I guess, as long as you weren't a SUSPECT held at Gitmo without charge or trial.
Or "extraordinarily rendered" to a secret torture camp.
Alright, those blueberry pancakes are ready!
If you are interested in absolute evil faithfully recorded by a critical thinker in diary format, "I Will Bear Witness" is your Baedeker...
From today's WSJ editorial on Sarah Palin
It sounds like a comment posted to CR.
"Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate."
What Lloyds is doing may not be writing off current loses. When you can cook the books you just write off things as you build reserves. That way you are not insolvent?
The banks can continue to hoard money, take write offs over time and appear to be doing ok. See, things are just fine.
JP's link presaged my comment. They are still talking "framework." The reps won't vote unless there's reform. The Dems won't vote unless there are no meaningful reforms. Leadership is going down a rabbit hole.
CA legislators are termed out after two terms. It makes no difference as the districts are gerrymandered to preclude any sort of moderate candidates. There's no effective path to representation in Sacramento for regular people.
JD, you likely got caught in the backlog of the rush of applications; the Mexico/Canada req got pushed back for more than 2 years before they really, really meant it this time; meanwhile they're still letting gringos through when they come back from Rocky Point this time....
I go through passports like some people go through car leases, never took a month, let alone three.
In Sonora and Baja norte, you don't need the visa or car permit unless you go a couple of hundred clicks in, even then they'll give you a free permit as long as you don't leave the state(I still have my Sonora only decal on the windshield)
@HomeGnome:
"I guess, as long as you weren't a SUSPECT held at Gitmo without charge or trial.
Or "extraordinarily rendered" to a secret torture camp."
Most people gave that a pass because of the 9/11 hysteria, just as much abuse occurred after December 7 in an earlier year. And, after all, those people weren't "US Citizens" (err, well, most of 'em)... Sigh. So much for "universal human rights", eh?
But many took that episode as their reason to join the ACLU and other similar organizations, some for the first time, and in many cases despite their being personally neutral-to-opposed regarding much else that the ACLU does. At least they FOIA'd and fought to get some of those abuses brought to light.
Maybe it's time to upgrade those memberships, and maybe contribute volunteer time since cash is tight?
Anon2
Did Sara say that or the author of the artical?
Jeebus, Murdoch is talking his book again? The WSJ is losing credibiity quicker than a 40 year old hooker.
@josap: It's a WSJ editorial. Even if they said sarah had said it, would you believe 'em?
Yeah, Juvenal, trouble is Klemperer was not so bothered by the methods of the Stasi and the communist repression, incarceration, theft and mass murder in the German Democratic Republic, where he decided to stay and make a career as an apparatchik after the war.
Klemperer's book is even more frightening, when, with hindsight, you realize that that the communist enemies of the nazis were not any better.
LOL WisdomSpeaker.
Nope wouldn't beleive them, just wanted to know who to disbeleive.
Hearst has nothing on Rupert's yellow-come-stain...
Shy,
He of course had no idea of the future when he chronicled everyday life in Dresden for the duration of the 3rd Reich...
An epic pair of books that should put paid to the ridiculous notion that the holocaust was a myth~
Someday I am going to retire to Argenitna. Can't decide if I should save up in USD or Pesos. M
bugger Argentina, Chile is the place with a stable democracy, currency, weather and the rule of law and property rights. Even Uruguay is a better bet.
Save up in USD but sock away a little is local currency both as a hedge and as a way to get on the right side of TPTB(especially in a dodgy country like Argentina)
electronic trading in the markets
IBs get to co-locate servers in the NYSE, with the exchange's complicity. The IBs steal anywhere from $25-50b annually by front-running orders from the rest of the investing public.
All the SEC has to do is mandate that the last posted bid and ask are good for a full second. This would end robotic frontrunning. WIll they do it? Of course not.
Klemperer's book is even more frightening, when, with hindsight, you realize that that the communist enemies of the nazis were not any better.
With hindsight? I thought it was common knowledge at the time that both regime's were evil. Hence Churchill famously sending his War Minister a cigar when the Nazi's opened up the Ossfront. Okay, well maybe not common knowledge anymore as people can't even name all 50 states of America, but I'm not aware too many people viewed Stalin and Hitler as good guys outside of Russia and Third Reich.
Maury the Credit Responsibility Panda (profile) wrote (in reply to...) on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 8:29 am
All the SEC has to do is mandate that the last posted bid and ask are good for a full second. This would end robotic frontrunning.
All the SEC has to do is mandate that the last posted bid and ask are good for a full second. This would end this one example of frontrunning.
There, fixed that for you. In other ongoing abuses you just ain't never gonna hit the tick anymore. People don't even object which astounds me.
It's a WSJ editorial. Even if they said sarah had said it, would you believe 'em?
Note that the editorial is from Peggy Noonan, who created quite a stir by getting caught off-mike:
YouTube - Noonan and Murphy on Palin
Colonel Klink worked for the Stasi?
Mind blown
BTW, why are wiggers fighting the Chinese? Some hip hop fued I don't know about?
.
.
.
What's that?
Nevermind
Gnome,
Mrs. Gnome looks like she can cook some seriously good magazine food. Nice fotos.
Below is a sample from my CR inspired story. Seems to fit the threads mood.
When ever we cut up anything from the garden for food we had to make sure we didn't eat the seeds. They had to be saved and set aside for next year. Tommy had told us when we first got here how important it was to save the slippery little devils. His plants produced reusable seeds. Not all seeds were reusable. He was telling us how the government had begun making sure that agricultural states who were not enforcing federal tax collection, and remitting it, were now only receiving these one off use seeds.
Site: American Apocalypse
I'm not aware too many people viewed Stalin and Hitler as good guys outside of Russia and Third Reich.
I refer you to pages 300-310 of Paul Johnson's Modern Times for a painfully long list of counterexamples.
Hitler had some detractors (not that it stopped Prescott Bush, whose company's assets were finally seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act).
Stalin had a very deep bullpen of American and European apologists.
I normally don't look at the WSJ opinion page but you guys pointed me to it. So the best editorial today IMHO:
Pepper … and Salt - WSJ.com
Stalin was loved for a time in America, by, what was then, a large socialist community. His sell out of Poland did disenchant a few.
I have spent the weekend reading Walter Schellenbergs memoirs. He would have made a great CEO in America.
I see. I wonder what happened to the propoganda machinations put in place during the war...
Isn't writing off something now considered a profit?
Stalin was loved for a time in America, by, what was then, a large socialist community. His sell out of Poland did disenchant a few.
Hell, Stalin was loved in the USSR while millions of Soviet people were getting killed by the regime. As I said before, Stalin perfected the idea that in order to be truly loved the leader needs to be feared.
Some CEOs, banking or otherwise, find this formula working quite well in the corporate world, too
Isn't writing off something now considered a profit?
Not exactly. You profit by not writing it off:
... Another $2.7 billion before taxes came from an accounting rule that lets a company record income when the value of its own debt falls. That reflects the possibility a company could buy back bonds at a discount, generating a profit. In reality, when a bank can’t fund such a transaction, the gain is an accounting quirk ....
Link: Bank Profits From Accounting Rules Masking Looming Loan Losses - Bloomberg.com
NYT unemployment article- damn this is one barn burner of a recession....I vote depression
OFF THE CHARTS; In the Unemployment Line, and Stuck There - NY Times
The long-term unemployment rate -- the proportion of the labor force that has been out of work for at least 15 weeks -- climbed to 5.1 percent. Until this year, the post-Depression high for that rate had been 4.2 percent.
June was also the first month since the government began collecting the data in 1948 that more than half of the unemployed people had been out of work for at least 15 weeks.
The proportion of workers without jobs for at least 27 weeks rose to 2.8 percent, which is also the highest since World War II.
The figures reflect an economy where the pace of layoffs and firings has slowed this year, so that fewer people are being added to the unemployment rolls. But the pace of new hiring is now even lower than it was when layoffs were peaking.
Stop Dissing Joe Steel,didn't "LOOK" magazine devote a whole issue to "Good Old Uncle Joe"? Can you get more apple pie than "Look"? and has there ever been a more successful Chechen Gangster? Geez ,the guy was an Al Capone on steroids what could be more american than that.The man came from no where,changed his name to something easier to spell and made it big using tactics any wall streeter would recognize.
"not that it stopped Prescott Bush, whose company's assets were finally seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act)."
Or Averell Harriman who was his partner. Truman wanted Bush tried for treason, but FDR overruled him.
As I said before, Stalin perfected the idea that in order to be truly loved the leader needs to be feared.
------------------------______________________
ages ago I told a friend to read up on how Stalin rose to power by isolating(and removing) the best and brightest by appealing to the jealous mediocrity and the people just below the best, then filling those spots with people who have fealty to you alone, rinse, repeat until the mediocre types are outflanked by your flunkies.
It worked, but at least for him his flunkies are better than the mediocre, but not good enough to read about Stalin.
The formula 'Two and two make five' is not without its attractions.
Fydor Dostoevsky
Stalin was a Georgian, not a chechen(not that I would trust either with a nickel)
The proportion of workers without jobs for at least 27 weeks rose to 2.8 percent, which is also the highest since World War II.
Try these charts too
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UEMPMEAN?cid=12
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UEMPMED?cid=12
Stalin rose to power by isolating(and removing) the best and brightest by appealing to the jealous mediocrity and the people just below the best
You left out the part where he murdered all possible rivals by the bucket load. It was an important part of his rise to power.
Stalin was a Georgian, not a chechen
Stalin was a Mingrel, which according to some Georgians is not the same as a Georgian
Btw, Beria, Shevardnadze and Gamsakhurdia were Mingrels, too
MrM,
those look like charts from hell...scary...thanks...familiar with that site but never went that direction....
What do you think I meant by "remove"?
I can't have my friend killing his way up the corporate ladder, can I?
"Stalin was a Mingrel"
Didn't know that.
Try these charts too
EGads! These figures start to rise from levels where prior recessions peaked.
Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.
Fydor Dostoevsky
Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.
Fydor Dostoevsky
Was he being sarcastic when he wrote that?
Remember when the pound was a credible currency?
Before Egypt took over the Suez Canal, 1956. Not since.
Gori's a long way away from mingrelskaya
"Stalin was a Mingrel"
Didn't know that.
Pavel, I was relying on my (fading) memory. A quick google/wiki search could not find any support to that claim (although it found rumors that Stalin was half-Ossetian). So, I can't really prove my point is accurate.
Add to the scary chart list
https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EMRATIO?cid=12
US, Swiss ask for delay in UBS secrecy case
Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found
please delay so we can get all the AIG, CITI, GS, JPM employees money out of there
please delay so we can get all the AIG, CITI, GS, JPM management money out of there
there, fixed if for ya
Energy,
looks like a classic head and shoulders on that last graph...will it get back to 57 to complete it...
To the Swiss this is a sovereign rights case, US courts can get bent.
If it goes back to 57%, there will be one income per household. Or 50% of households homelss.
"Gnomenklatura"
"To the Swiss this is a sovereign rights case, US courts can get bent."
josap-It looks to be heading that way..note to self-stay with current working girlfriend.....
More chart prOn: rail traffic
Buffett’s Most-Watched Index Takes a Tumble: Chart of the Day - Bloomberg.com
click on Graphic tab above story headline
Dead on comrade! I now have two friends who travel to and fro to region 1 up north in Chile. They don't want to leave but if push comes to shove they will do like my cousins who got out of Germany in 1933 early on. They are preparing the way to leave if they have to. Just got this from one of the friends who wants to hold dual citizenship. He has bought some property in Chile, loves it and "like the smart rabbit...has three holes". More and more americans are going to creap towards the door before the sheeple figure out there is more than smoke here.
Just like the folks in California who can't understand why someone in their right mind would leave "paradise", the nation as a whole won't have a clue until the producers and savers get in the life boats.
On Dual nationality
Introduction
The Supreme Court of the United States has stated that dual nationality is "a status long recognized in the law" and that "a person may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both. The mere fact that he [sic] asserts the rights of one citizenship does not without more mean that he renounces the other" (see Kawakita v. U.S., 343 U.S. 717 [1952] ).
Current Law and Policy
United States law does not contain any provisions requiring U.S. Citizens who are born with dual nationality or who acquire a second nationality at an early age to choose one nationality or the other when they become adults (see Mandoli v. Acheson, 344 U.S. 133 [1952] ). The current nationality laws of the United States do not specifically refer to dual nationality.
While recognizing the existence of dual nationality and permitting Americans to have other nationalities, the U.S. Government does not endorse dual nationality as a matter of policy because of the problems which it may cause. Claims of other countries upon dual-national U.S. Citizens often place them in situations where their obligations to one country are in conflict with the laws of the other.
In addition, their dual nationality may hamper efforts to provide diplomatic and consular protection to them while they are abroad. It generally is considered that while a dual national is in the other country of which the person is a citizen, that country has a predominant claim on the person. In cases where a dual national encounters difficulty in a foreign country of which the person is a citizen, the ability of the U.S. Government to provide assistance may be quite limited since many foreign countries may not recognize the dual national's claim to U.S. Citizenship.
Which Passport to Use
Section 215 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act ( 8 U.S.C. 1185) requires U.S. Citizens to use U.S. passports when entering or leaving the United States unless one of the exceptions listed in Section 53.2 of Title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations applies. Dual nationals may be required by the other country of which they are citizens to enter and leave that country using its passport, but do not endanger their U.S. citizenship by complying with such a requirement.
Loss of U.S. Citizenship
The automatic acquisition or retention of a foreign nationality does not affect U.S. citizenship; however, the acquisition of a foreign nationality upon one's own application may cause loss of U.S. citizenship under Section 349(a)(1) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (8 U.S.C. 1481). In order for loss of nationality to occur under Section 349(a)(1), it must be established that the naturalization was obtained with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship. Such an intention may be shown by a person's statements or conduct. If the U.S. Government is unable to prove that the person had such an intention when applying for and obtaining the foreign citizenship, the person will have both nationalities.
More on Loss of U.S. Citizenship
Loss of Citizenship. Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that US citizens are subject to loss of citizenship if they perform certain acts voluntarily with the intention to relinquish US citizenship. These acts are:
Becoming a naturalized citizen of a foreign state;
Taking an oath, affirmation or other formal declaration to a foreign state or its political subdivisions;
Entering or serving in the armed forces of a foreign state engaged in hostilities against the US or serving as a commissioned or non-commissioned officer in the armed forces of a foreign state;
Accepting employment with a foreign government if (a) one has the nationality of that state or (b) a declaration of allegiance is required in accepting the position;
Formally renouncing US citizenship before a US consular officer outside of the United States;
formally renouncing US citizenship within the US (but only in time of war);
Conviction for an act of treason.
The Department of State is responsible for determining the citizenship status of a person located outside of the United States. When such cases come to the attention of a US consular officer, the person concerned will be asked to complete a questionnaire to ascertain his/her intention to relinquish US citizenship. Unless that person clearly and affirmatively asserts that it was his/her intention to relinquish US citizenship, the consular officer is required by law to assume that the person acted with the intention to retain his/her US citizenship, and therefore rule that the person did not lose his/her US citizenship.
Consequently a person will be judged to have lost nationality only in those cases where:
The individual formally renounces US citizenship in writing before a consular officer;
Takes a policy level position in a foreign state;
Is convicted of treason; or
The expatriating act is accompanied by conduct which is so inconsistent with retention of US citizenship that it compels a conclusion that the person intended to relinquish US citizenship (such cases are very rare).
The statutory presumption of an intention to retain US citizenship is applicable to cases previously adjudicated by the Department. Therefore, persons who previously were ruled to have lost their US citizenship may request a reconsideration in light of the new guidelines. A person may initiate such a request by writing to the nearest consular office or directly to:
Director, Office of Citizens Services
(CA/OCS/ACS)
Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520-4818
Each case will be reviewed on its own merits taking into consideration, for example, statements made by the person at the time of the potentially expatriating act.
Is that "street cred"?
For what it's worth...
We sold our home in a very prosperous area of LA 4 years ago, and I got 3 movers quotes and the first one was a gent that had been in the moving biz for 38 years.
I asked where people were moving to, and he told me that he'd never seen so many people moving out of the country, easily 3x as many as in any previous year. The other 2 movers verified this as well for me.
JD, have a number of swiss friends and kust talked to one who lives in Zuric (works for Swiss-Re) and you are right they say the US can stuff it with regards to the US courts.
Dropping the F-bomb or other expletives may not only be an expression of agony, but also a means to alleviate it
Why the #$%! Do We Swear? For Pain Relief: Scientific American
By Frederik Joelving
July 12, 2009
Bad language could be good for you, a new study shows. For the first time, psychologists have found that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain. The study, published today in the journal NeuroReport, measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word. When swearing, the 67 student volunteers reported less pain and on average endured about 40 seconds longer.
.........How swearing achieves its physical effects is unclear, but the researchers speculate that brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. Earlier studies have shown that unlike normal language, which relies on the outer few millimeters in the left hemisphere of the brain, expletives hinge on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half...........
Is anybody surprised..
Chips in Official IDs Raise Privacy Fears
Chips in Official IDs Raise Privacy Fears - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he'd bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car. It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker's gold. Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.
Obama urges Americans to have patience for stimulus plan
REAL hope and change is right around the corner....you betcha
"Pavel, I was relying on my (fading) memory. A quick google/wiki search could not find any support to that claim (although it found rumors that Stalin was half-Ossetian). So, I can't really prove my point is accurate. ?"
MrM, I seem to recall reading about Ossetian ancestry, perhaps in a recent biography. Have no idea if it's true.
Beria was, so far as I've read, Mingrelian.
I used to pass by a house in whose courtyard Beria was executed, in central Moscow, at least according to a friend who lived a few streets away.
Anyone who grew up in Gori and survived had to be tough.
josap,
That is it exactly - in the age of the two income trap - the consumer credit default rate has only begun to reflect this trend...
"Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he'd bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car. "
I read that story yesterday. The trajectory seems to be in plain sight.
Middle class at 4M....down from 12M in 2000
Pretty soon there will be nobody in the middle class for upper class/lower class to steal from. End Game.
THE VANISHING CLASS - NYPOST.com
JD, have a number of swiss friends and kust talked to one who lives in Zuric (works for Swiss-Re) and you are right they say the US can stuff it with regards to the US courts.
I am wondering if the US IRS folks are try to bluff their way into many people accepting tax amnesty rather than take the chance that the Swiss will cave.
Obama urges Americans to have patience for stimulus plan
AP news alert: Similar statement issued by Dr. Kevorkian upon injecting needle in patient....
3 million U.S. jobs will move offshore by 2015
Study supports controversial offshore numbers :
News : Business - ZDNet Asia
if there's only 4M middle class, and they're projected to ship 3M jobs offshore....is 1M people supporting 300M? /sarcasm off
(I know this is crude math; it's just for effect.)
At this rate we might not have any jobs left before 2015.
We can make it on my income alone. Hubby's business has really tanked the last two years. Guess it was the best plan that I restart up my firm. Now if I can just get him to do the laundry LOL.
Someone correct me here, but didn't FDR have similar speeches about having patience for things to get better...all we need now is a distraction...maybe like Cheney under criminal investigation? That should only take four or five years right?
@Scrooge McDuck (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 10:02 am
Middle class at 4M....down from 12M in 2000
Pretty soon there will be nobody in the middle class for upper class/lower class to steal from. End Game.
Yup .... couple this with limited to no assets bubbles esp. real estate and with incomes continuing to go down, unemployment continuing to grow and underemployment growing faster than unemployment for a very bleak economic situation yet Obama says urges Americans to have patience for stimulus plan with hope and change.
patience is un-American
they seem to be projecting the end of the middle class. I agree,
However, middle class means in the middle - even if it is the middle of what we now refer to as poverty level. They will simply change the way they apply and report the numbers.
Povery level is a bit over $10,000.00 per yr for a single person. Next year it will be $8,000.00. Fewer will be in poverty and the middle class will be broke.
New way to determine lower vs middle class: are you living in your car?
Well I don't have the smarts to dig us out of this hole, but I do know that patience and a gradual slowing of negative economic momentum isn't the path through the forest I was hoping to take. Granted throwing the brake on, might of had some nasty unintended consequences, but I think there isn't enough track left for a gradual stop either...who knows... as a nation we can't even agree to what the problem is yet...how many people here feel like America will be a fundamentally different place just 5-10 years down the road?
Too bad those pesky unions insisted on higher living standards, and kept us from third-world wages, or none of this would be happening now.
...how many people here feel like America will be a fundamentally different place just 5-10 years down the road?
America will be different. We will less income to afford increasing costs.
We will hang up our laundry to dry, even if we have a drier.
We will visit family for our vacations, not fly to Europe.
We will drive our cars until they fall apart in the street.
Kids at 7 yrs old will not be getting that cell phone for a birthday gift.
We will cook at home and eat as a family. Kids will not be placed in every activity in the world.
Creidt will be something looked down on. BK and forclosure will be concidered a normal act without any stigma.
There will be many social shifts driven by economic nessesity.
how many people here feel like America will be a fundamentally different place just 5-10 years down the road?
I think that's baked into the cake at this point. I'm surprised that America hasn't changed more than it has in the past 3 years or so.
the irony is that the yields necessary to finance the middle class dream were achieved via debt pushing and global labor arbitrage. that is, unless one believes that the economy can grow 8% organically in a "flat" world.
The one union job that most of us come into contact once a week or so, is the checker @ your supermarket.
The supermarket checker of my youth was an amazing person that had to have quite the memory and dexterity, but nowadays the hardest task for them is punching in the number for navel oranges or carrots and sticking them on the digital scale. Otherwise, the job is like any other scanner job, no biggie.
The one union job that most of us come into contact once a week or so, is the checker @ your supermarket.
Not if you self-checkout.
we will not spend $10 per ticket to see "Land of the Lost" or "Year One."
None of those seem significant enough to justify stocking up on ammunition or moving to a foreign country.
Kids are going to turn on technology, trust me.
They are the arbiters of cool, and once their parents can't afford to keep them wired in the fashion they've come accustomed to, they'll come undone.
Not a bad thing, really...
Used to be kids beat each other up for their shoes. Now it'll be i-pods.
barfly, I don't think a lack of third-world wages is what damned us...if you accept that America was an Empire then when we became too civilized to 'colonize' other parts of the world, we were doomed. If the people of a nation no longer have the stomach for 'the evils' that go with running an empire, then it can't continue. I mean from a political science stand point we used to be a big believer in nation states acting in amoral ways due to self-preservation. That has been thrown out the window, especially with the climate change agenda. Now we have to act with conscience. Not saying we aren't still up to our share of evil as a nation, but philosophically we have had a shift with what the people will accept. I guess you could argue that we are just more aware today, but I don't think we were that naive in the past. This is the 'force' of history at work. Just one big shifting line in the sand that moves in and out of of public view. The question that bothers me is how much of what we have left will we be willing to sacrifice in order to chase the illusion of what we once were. When there is a void we try to fill it, I don't think there is a vision of the future given by the government yet that fills that hole. I am rambling now, sounding like the absent-minded philosopher I am.
OT, but interesting, a blog "letter" about the again postponed coming out of the Boeing 787 & history of the McDonnell Douglas takeover of Boeing & how it has led, in the view of the writer, Richard Aboulafia, to Boeing being run not by (or for) engineers, but by "bean counters and lawyers."
Bean counters and lawyers are quite the fixture @ all of our arms merchant dealerships, lowly engineers not so much.
Think about it. If we all accept Chinese wages, or better yet, even less, all the jobs will come back, with the associated pollution.
okay, before I go back to cleaning this large mcmansion, I have a couple of thoughts about the true course we face.
Thirty years ago, when I was a young teenager we had a lot of junk already, but coming out of a recession, the folks were tight with cash. so we scrounged, saved, wheeled and dealed. Now, with the upper middle class kids facing a large sense of entitlement, we now have the usual number of folks asserting this change.
Well, I remember the upper middle class kids got it all handed to them on a plate, but it sure didn't make them want to succeed.
Now, deep in a recession, I still haven't had that kid that wants some spending money coming by to do yard work here in Phoenix.
When that day arrives, then we will have come full circle. I used to cut lawns, shovel snow, and do light work. My friends used to wear polyester and ask if I would like fries with my order.
We passed all of that to the loads of recent immigrants, mostly illegal, as we all thought we went upscale. Welcome back to reality. Now, are kids going to pissed off and sullen. Well, yes. They are teenagers, and that is their natural state, especially if they don't have helicopter parents providing every last bit of junk on TV.
The paranoia that manifests itself on this blog with the squirrel recipes and gun hoarding is really funny, but a real sign of insecurity on the part of the folks that have those urges. I lived in SouthEast Michigan from 1981 through 1984 while in High School, and what I saw was 20% plus unemployment, but I sure didn't see the need for arsenals and survival redoubts.
So lighten up, buckle up, and get ready for a long boring grind, punctuated with sudden drops. Welcome back to the 70s, so just enjoy it.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Allen
You and I seem to agree that we are going back to the future of the 70s.
Interesting. Must be smething about the 70s that we find acceptable.
Link please to boeing blog.
I have no problem with composite products, just where they are in mission critical locations. Any engineer shouldve told the beancounters that and any lawyer would never sign off it they heard the engineers.
Me thinks this says it all:
King Henry IV Part 1
Act 4. Scene II
SCENE II. A public road near Coventry
PRINCE HENRY
I did never see such pitiful rascals.
FALSTAFF
Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food
for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better:
tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.
WESTMORELAND
Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor
and bare, too beggarly.
FALSTAFF
'Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had
that; and for their bareness, I am sure they never
learned that of me.
Barfly,
Many people are accepting any wage they can get, if it is higher than the umemployment they are getting. Many people are accepting a wage cut rather than no job at all. Some are getting an unpaid (lower wages) day off a week.
There is allot of "acceptance" going on. I have not seen this happen before.
Deleted
We humans are kind of interesting in that whatever we buy, we tend to use...
Just after the presidential election, the Righty-Tighty-Gawdalmightys went on full-court press, telling their constituency to load up on guns and ammo, because Obama was going to ban them*.
The repercussions and ricochets from these moral cowards has yet to come~
Must be something about the 70s that we find acceptable.
The other thing about Chineese wages vs US wages.
If an apartment in China and US is relitive to the percent of wages paid, we need to figure wages in terms of expenses. Who knows, we may be earning less already.
LOL Barfly. I am soooo toooo old for that now.
Is America ready to grow up? I doubt it, but think about this:
The ability to delay gratification is often a sign of emotional and social maturity. Young children, for example, find it more difficult to delay gratification than older children. When kindergartners in one study were offered a choice between getting a small candy bar immediately or a larger one later, 72% chose the smaller candy bar. This number decreased to 67% among first and second graders and 49% for third and fourth graders. By the fifth and sixth grades it had fallen to 38%, nearly half the rate for kindergartners.
josap - I'm sure you're still beautiful
"Welcome back to the 70s..."
I still have a lime green pant suit with flared legs and some patent plastic platforms but I won't wear any of them. I'm waiting for the big tax credit for donating them to the museum. However, I have grown a rather perky set of boobs as I enter my dotage. Glad to post a topless pic if anyone cares.
One last thought on gratification in this recession, i.e, it will take years and years of financial pain for people to understand that they have to pay a price to look like they have a million bucks, versus go out and spend whatever they want and charge it, or lie about their incomes.... Americans are going to look a lot more down to Earth in the next 5 years!
"The one union job that most of us come into contact once a week or so, is the checker @ your supermarket"
Bullshit. I have never seen a unionized checker.
Doc, not many adults I see are able to wait for anything. They "deserve" it now. They expect it yesterday. Everyone is special and should live is some nirvana state.
We love fast food, the express lane and precooked food in packages. The marketers have done a very good job with us all.
I have no idea how many teens are making money online, but it is not uncommon. One of the forums on online marketing I read has recently started a section limited to teenagers. So at least some of the teens you haven't seen are profitably employed elsewhere
Doc Holiday (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 1:03 pm
The ability to delay gratification is often a sign of emotional and social maturity.
Yes, but it doesn't lend itself to a consumption-based economy or the enshrining of wish-fulfillment psychology as a cultural goal.
Interestingly enough it also develops and is a result of the development of, the forebrain, neocortical fibers in the hemispheres, etc. In short the evolutionarily youngest parts of the human brain that don't fully mature in "normal" people until they're well into their twenties.
Store checkers in Az markets are unionized.
yogi,
That's a bit harsh. Supermarket checkers in LA earn around $15-20 an hour and are all unionized in the bigger chains. They went on strike for almost a year, about 6 years ago.
Care to apologize for your unnecessary outburst?
"Americans are going to look a lot more down to Earth in the next 5 years!"
Other than several body parts of both sexes giving in to the sedulous force of gravity, whatever do you mean?
Volker
Burn that pant suit!!!!! Please.
"We love fast food, the express lane and precooked food in packages. The marketers have done a very good job with us all. "
I will agree that the marketers have done an excellent job with most.
but, but, it's a part of my so called life!
Overheard at safeway " I used to have 38 "c"'s,now I have 38 longs".
Gimme some instant gratification!
I wanna see the pant suit!
So lighten up, buckle up, and get ready for a long boring grind, punctuated with sudden drops. Welcome back to the 70s, so just enjoy it.
+10, a bunch of the jobs I worked as a kid are now immigrant stacked; not because of wages but that employers wanted to remove the seasonality and variation of talent.
SHIT!
Man, that felt good.
ResistanceIsFeudal,
The interesting thing to watch is how young people will deal with economic reality in the next few years. Most young kids think they have unlimited cash to consume whatever they want, but will they understand how to control spending and then save? This is obviously the problem related to banking going forward in terms of cash flow versus credit flow. Banks will have to learn to live with less cash, just like kids.
Re: Credit card issuers rethink their business
delawareonline.com | Wilmington | The News Journal
It is very hard to package [credit card debt] right now. The business of believing you could package subprime loans and isolate the buyer from the risk is going to be rethought."
Wharton marketing professor Stephen J. Hoch said credit card companies and savvy consumers were both playing games that have come largely to a halt with the freeze on credit expansion. Credit card companies were able to use the fine print in contracts to draw many borrowers into escalating debt, he said
Not that I frequent them, but go into any fast-food chain place in LA, and what used to be a bastion for pimply pre-adult children (many working for the 1st time) is now the bailiwick of Hispanics.
RockyR (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 11:16 am
SHIT!
Man, that felt good.
I've often felt that way after a couple of days on MRE's
...is now the bailiwick of Hispanics.
Re: "Americans are going to look a lot more down to Earth in the next 5 years"
I see the point with gravity, but I was implying that people will have less expensive clothing, their cars will be more connected to their incomes, their homes will be more within their income range, their shopping carts will be less full, their will be more of a focus on trying to make ends meet versus anything goes, there will be more fear about how much to spend and when, there will be less travel, there will be more obese people that will eat more crappy food as stress increases...
"The one union job that most of us come into contact once a week or so, is the checker @ your supermarket"
----Bullshit. I have never seen a unionized checker.
According to U.C. Berkeley, 19.8% of the supermarket workforce, about 500,000 workers, was represented by unions in 2007, down from 21% in 2002, but up slightly from the 19.6% represented in 2005.
Grocery Headquarters
So if 20% are unionized, "most of us" would not come into contact once a week.
No apology needed.
Doc Holiday (profile) wrote on Sun, 7/12/2009 - 1:18 pm
ResistanceIsFeudal,
The interesting thing to watch is how young people will deal with economic reality in the next few years. Most young kids think they have unlimited cash to consume whatever they want, but will they understand how to control spending and then save? This is obviously the problem related to banking going forward in terms of cash flow versus credit flow. Banks will have to learn to live with less cash, just like kids.
The youngest will be fine, I have no doubt. Those in my age category (25-35) probably hurt the most in terms of lifestyle adjustment and being stuck in long-term speculative gambles (homes, cars, etc) and lifestyles that relied upon ready credit, especially young families in the middle and upper-middle income brackets.
yogi is never wrong, just ask him, he'll tell you
Well, part of the new new is going to be a resurgence in making those now bastions of undoc workers back into jobs for the unemployed and dropped off the back end.
Sucks to be undoc, but Americans are going to put the screws to the owners of those businesses muy pronto.
If I owned a franchise type business, I would be staffing it with autistic and working class kids in preparation. The local theater chain here does this, and it keeps the costs down. Going in there feels like I am back to my first job in 1982. One has to remember that smart business owners ruthlessly cut costs with the undocs, but when you get bills in the multiple thousands for violating employment laws, they go right back to the shadows, and then home when the supply gets too great.
Get ahead of the curve, next up will be the H1B scams. That means you, tech folks.
Broward needs a real job so he can pay for his parents social security;-}
Feel the changes, as our politicians scramble to get in front of the masses.
Politicians don't really lead, they just see where the parade is going, and act like they knew it all along;-}
Someday this war's gonna end...
Someday this war's gonna end...
When engineering and science supplant business and law as coveted degree/career paths. When a phd scientist commands more respect, and income, than a harvard mba or a high-power attorney, you'll know we are on the path to recovery. Until then, th 70s is a best of a possible outcomes.
AllenM, we can hope the undocs and h1bs come under fire!
rodkyR,
that may be whywe think 70s, it is the best outcome we can hope for. And we were young adutls in a time when life at least seemed simpler.