We need more Ink.

including scenarios showing the reserves going below zero.

Technically speaking, once the level falls below zero, it is no longer a "reserve."

At that point, I think the correct accounting term is "rat hole."

Catz, that great siimulous to the economy.

Our local tv "news" reported, gasp, choke, that people were actually not
paying their mortgages on PURPOSE, and living there free for up to 3 years.

Where have they been for the last 3 years? We should start calling
the the "Olds". this is a MIAMI tv station, not the national news. I listened
to the teaser, sighed and turned off the TV.

FHA should just call them credit default swaps and remove that pesky reserve requirement altogether.

It's a shame when government insists on using old and busted business models instead of shiny Wall Street innovations.

shill we dont use ink we use electrons

Savings for him/her in the form of and silber.

Back to werk.

FHA may become suboptimal? hoocoodanode?

lawyerliz
they just a little slow thats all

Ok, no loans at all here.

25 cents on the dollar.

You know what this tells me?

.....Time's up!

...There are entirely too many audits.....

(What did you think it told me??? Honestly! You guys never get the right answer...)

B in T

What good are reserves if you don't use them up?

Exactly. With Frank stating that making bad loans is policy why do you even need reserves? Just cut FHA a check every month to balance its book.

shill wrote:

No, enjoy her/him while they are young, everything else is irrelevant.

Actually, this is true. The two major affects you have on your children are genetics (which you really can't do much about now) and the peer group that they grow up in. So, where you live, which determines where they go to school, is the only thing you really get to decide.

Boy Diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome After Swine Flu Shot

Va. teen suffers rare illness after swine flu shot - Swine flu- msnbc.com

the problem is the grey invisible ink those new printers use....

FHA is committed not only to understanding its risks, but also to developing policy responses appropriate to addressing that risk.

Was I the only one who thought that was funny?

it's great news that they have gone out of their way to model a variety of outcomes
so they will privately know exactly how bad they screwed the pooch before anyone else

How come there are no feel-good stories when you so desperately need them?

Like a little kid falling down a well, and 33 hours later is heroically saved by the local fire department, along with the aid of a few lawyers and Wall*Streeters that just happened to be passing by?

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Like a little kid falling down a well, and 33 hours later is heroically saved by the local fire department, along with the aid of a few lawyers and Wall*Streeters that just happened to be passing by?

Like science fiction, do you?

I'm also peeved at their cavalier attitude where they accelerate lending uninterrupted without there having been an official request to maintain minimum capital. What is a minimum requirement if it's not enforced? I suppose the result of being above the law, or the auditor general as it were in this case

Reserves? We don' need no steenkin' reserves.

"Fannie and Freddie are well capitalized"

"He's probably just hibernating."
"What does this button do?"
"I'm making a citizen's arrest."
"So, you're a cannibal..."
"It's probably just a rash."
"Are you sure the power is off?"

credit-

next batch of suckers fully loaded IMO as well.

Ciao
MS

Like a little kid falling down a well, and 33 hours later is ...

simultaneously charged rent by the hour by the well-owner, and trespassing by the local leo goons out trrrising the population.

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

Reserves? We don' need no steenkin' reserves.
"Fannie and Freddie are well capitalized"
"He's probably just hibernating."
"What does this button do?"

"Hold this bag for me. I'll be right back."

ot-the $ move up is strong...

It might last a few days. With O asia bound the Administration might be tossing a few crumbs to his hosts.

The results of the F.H.A.’s annual audit showed the agency’s capital reserves to be 0.53 percent, far under the 2 percent minimum mandated by Congress. A year ago, the capital reserves were 3 percent.

... but concludes that under most economic scenarios considered FHA’s reserves would remain above zero.

So reserves fell by ~85% in one year, yet they are confident they won't drop below 0%. Sure, that makes me feel confident.

Oil down
Gold down
Silver down
Dollar up

Hmmmm ....

Their new accountant, Zeno, assures us that before reserves can drop to zero, they must first drop to .10%. And prior to that, .15%.
Of course, before that, ...

"It might last a few days. With O asia bound the Administration might be tossing a few crumbs to his hosts. "

The likely outcome.....still think it's create the next short squeeze....after-all we have Op.ex next week...

Ciao
MS

FWIW, I increased the "savings rate" yesterday.
I went to the store with no money.
When I left empty-handed I'd saved hundred$.
No, possibly thou$and$

curious wrote:

So reserves fell by ~85% in one year, yet they are confident they won't drop below 0%.

If they did, then they wouldn't be reserves now would they?

RockyR wrote:

I seem to remember something about how it was important to keep the operations of the fed and the treasury separate, but I forgot why.

I thought they're still separate. One prints, the other borrows.

creditcriminalslovetarp wrote:

I'm looking around right now for things to collateralize...thinking my unopened Kettle One 1.75 ml bottle is worth at least $100.00 at 3 to1 leverage....

Why not try securitizing it instead? Bet the 4th tranche wouldn't taste so good-

A mere 5/6th of a loss in reserves?

YouTube - Monty Python-The Black Knight

The reserves are already gone.

Is that like saying "We're not out of beer.," because there's a fly drowning in the dregs of the very last bottle?

The Global Monetary Policy Outlook - Forbes.com

Apparently time to once again change accounting methods, and keep adjusting till the desired results are shown.

Bad loans do not stabilize home prices.

We all live in a Yellow Suboptimal Machine...

The trillions in borrowing by our Government, the tillions in guarantees for the financial system, the QE, the alphabet soup lending facilities, etc. all have one underLYING purpose:

TO PRESERVE THE VALUE OF TRILLIONS IN FRAUDULENT CREDIT.

p.s. what a relief to let my inner Denninger out.

The beatings of the numbers will continue until economic morale improves.

I think Barney Frank needs to spend a little more time with his boyfriends and their and a little less time making "let's deliberately bankrupt public agencies for the greater good" policies.

The only part of this report that I find shocking is that they once had 3% reserves and have only burned through 83% of that.

That said, I have no idea what makes FHA so different from everyone else that we care about accurately marking their loans or measuring their capital levels. Deficit spending is a general solution, no matter what the problem is.

the world is going haywire...

Playboy reportedly in talks to sell company - MarketWatch

no more pajama parties with scantily clad women looking for a rock or hollywood star....this sucks...

curious wrote:

So reserves fell by ~85% in one year, yet they are confident they won't drop below 0%. Sure, that makes me feel confident.

I'm sure they will make it all back on condos, now that they have relaxed those rules...

Maybe OT, maybe not. Today's local paper had a huge spike in first time NOD's involving BAC/Countrywide loans in Jackson, MS (Hinds County) Probably doesn't mean anything.

Good Lord! Imagine where those reserves are going to be in 12-18 months if unemployment keeps rising... They ARE the market for FTHB, they ARE the new subprime. And they're running out of reserves BEFORE the buyers even have a reasonable chance of default.

Red; it's the new black!

The less reserves we hold, the higher the leverage ratio on this hedge fund called the United States.

Out of about 40 million doses of H1N1 vaccine available to date, that’s a far lower rate of GB[Syndrome] than the 1 case that develops in every 1 million people who receive the regular flu vaccine.

"It's much less than we'd expect," she said, adding that many cases go unreported.

In 1976, about 1 additional case of GBS developed in every 100,000 people who were vaccinated against the swine flu, according to the CDC.

Cause and effect, please. In 40 million tries, you'd expect a few might get Guillain-Barre "hours later". So far, 1.

JD: ROFLMAO!!

FWIW (zero), my M2/MZM vs. gold charts for 11/1/2009:

Dollar Death $piral: Gold charts 11/1/2009

creditcriminalslovetarp wrote:

miracle on whatever street goldman sachs resides...

I wouldn't discount the self-delusion of the employed peasants. Merica runs on self-delusion, and always has. The peasant's balance sheet repair might be put on "temporary" hold during the holiday guilt-induced spending frenzy.

Angry Saver
I believe MetLife's annual survey last said half of American households would be broke within 4 weeks of unemployment

AIG owes $5.8 billion, or more than half of the $10 billion in debt outstanding in the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, the New York-based insurer said last week in a regulatory filing....

“AIG remains more dependent on government financing than we would like them to be,” said Clark Troy, a senior analyst based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for Aite Group, a research firm. “It is more money to repay, and **I don’t know if the taxpayer will be made entirely whole.”
**
AIG May Tap Credit Line as Commercial Paper Expires (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

But I know will be made "entirely whole". Completely, fully "entirely whole", 100%.

The delude abides.

Good thing we didn't have a nasty hurricane season this year.

Frank's entire career has been focused on indigent housing, and his colleagues defer to him on the subject and - I think mistakenly - on legislation more broadly related to housing.

I don't care one way or another about his proclivities. I care very much that his prints are all over so much housing legislation. He appears to be out of his depth.

bberg said:

More than 8,000 3Com calls changed hands yesterday, 17 times the four-week average. The most active were contracts conveying the right to purchase 3Com for $5 through Nov. 20, followed by December $5 calls. The shares rose 5.2 percent, the most since Sept. 28, to $5.68 in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading prior to the announcement.

Almost 4,000 of the November $5 calls and 3,300 December $5 calls traded, with almost all of the transactions occurring at noon. That compares with a total of six puts giving the right to sell 3Com shares. Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest personal- computer maker, agreed to pay $7.90 a share in cash for 3Com, a 39 percent premium to yesterday’s closing price.

More than 22 million shares of 3Com changed hands in the stock market yesterday, compared with this year’s daily average of 4.85 million and the most since March 2008. Trading was heaviest in the hour after 11 a.m. in New York, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

“Somebody knew something was coming,” said Stefen Choy, founder of Livevol Inc., a San Francisco-based provider of options market data and analytics. “It looks like very unusual call buying. I see this very frequently when there’s a takeover...”

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised 3Com on the transaction, while Morgan Stanley helped Hewlett-Packard, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Both banks are based in New York. 3Com has its headquarters in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and Hewlett- Packard is based in Palo Alto, California...

credit-

I always thought it a touch ironic that the Fed building is located across the street from the cemetery.

Ciao
MS

Where was Martha Stewart yesterday, 11 am?

Vampire Squids from hell!

http://67.19.64.18/news/2009/11-12tm/1.jpg

Slumdog, I placed a bet on black at the roulette table. It came out red. No dinner for you, sorry.

slumdog.

Do you manage money? I like your style

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

I see this very frequently when there’s a takeover...

If the insiders can't run a scam, what would be the point of being an insider? We surely can't hold the smart amoral scumbags to the ideals of "free and open markets" or "Libertarian justice" now can we?

is that like ?

Anyone have a good calamari recipe?

energyecon,
Foreign Banks and Domestic w/ Foreign Bank Parents seem to be behind the decline. There was some indication that their CP borrowing, was powering some of the USD shorting
That's one idea

The American Economy in One Chart

Safe Haven | The American Economy in One Chart 

There is NO WAY the Skins are going to beat Denver this week.

Gavshire, it's a funny thing... to prove a point that one's personal strength is not tapped out, stupid statements are made, stupid as in ignorant and bellicose. The consequences, repeatedly, are that those who don't get it end up losing. You lost. The market hit my first number. I left half, as I said I would, just to stick my finger in the E boy's eye, and it's shoved in well enough that his rants are just that, energy flowing through his fingers but not through his profit oriented brain. I would have stayed fully in the 1/3 position for the ride to 1045, but I had a point to make, and E wins the cheese. I'm not a kid. It's quite inappropriate for a rockskipper to enter into a weight lifting contest unless long and well seasoned. I post because it's my public mirror. I prosper or fail in my avocation on my posted word. My track record is long and enviable... no where near the best returns, but I rarely, rarely, rarely lose.

HomeGnome wrote:

Anyone have a good calamari recipe?

Didn't I give you one yesterday? That said, I wonder if one could take hot Italian sausage, fry it, cook risotto rice in water mixed int he oil, add some pepper and shallot, and finally take the squid after being soaked in baking soda and add it to the mix? Ask your wife about it

Mike Duffy (senatorduffy) on Twitter + CBC News - Prince Edward Island - Duffy aims to stop Twitter impostor

I've been working on digital identity for years now and the common responses I get today are:

A) We don't care about security
B) Can't Google just do this for free or something?

And that's how we got here, and why we'll be here for a looooong time.

hmm, should i be concerned for the future of my 2 week old baby?

Just get a few credit cards in her name, plus a mortgage or two and start spendin' like there's no tomorrow. It'll be her problem to pay off later.
I believe this is the equivalent of what passes for "economic policy" in DC.
~splat

I appreciate the recipes folks; I really do.
But it is an attempt at Humor.
As in: We should fry the that are killing our economy and country as we know it.

The President announces White House will convene a meeting of business leaders, economists and labor representatives to brainstorm about job creation.

"Can't they all have government jobs ?"
~splat

HomeGnome wrote:

I appreciate the recipes folks; I really do.
But it is an attempt at Humor.

Didn't work yesterday; what made you think it'd work today"

That squid reminds me of the groundhog from Groundhog day....time to take it for a ride. How's that for a metaphor...America's future...Groundhog Day...just how long was Bill Murray's character caught in the loop anyway? I swear it feels like we are in purgatory.

fully aware and its twisted humor to post a recipe....I prefer keep the squid live and let them wiggle in my mouth as I crunch them lightly to increase the wiggling (a girl can dream).

telephone companies sure have a lot of employees
British Telecom announced it will cut more than the 15,000 announced earlier in the year

So... Is hiring?

today alone: they abandon kittens, steal from charities, and are front-running/insider trading
the more money they make, the more they'll lose the PR war

All the talk of gambling seems to have brought up an add for DICEcapedes ?!

Just wait for the bumper crop of failures coming from the FHA's 2009 pool!! YIKES!

On that note: State Lotto sales must be down big time:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiZVWHUtn01U&pos=9

That was always amusing to me. The lotteries are intended to fund education, and yet, every single year, my taxes increase for education. So, lets appeal to the lower class for their one shot with gigantic odds of coming out poverty to fund education. ugh.

Breaking:

12:24p MarketWatch : Shoplifting on the rise

Think of it as gentle Darwinian pressure slowly encouraging the species to be more skilled at risk analysis. It will make you feel better.

In Charity Tax Filing, a Glimpse of Goldman - CNBC

In Charity Tax Filing, a Glimpse of Goldman

Published: Thursday, 12 Nov 2009 | 11:03 AM ET

"Given the firm’s anticipated profits and supersize bonuses, which have touched off public furor, it is no surprise that Goldman [GS 179.30 -0.55 (-0.31%) ] said recently it would increase its charitable giving. It has set aside $200 million to nearly double the size of its main foundation.

Long before the financial crisis erupted, though, there were calls for even more, and those calls have stepped up in recent months. John C. Whitehead, the retired co-chairman of Goldman Sachs and former head of its foundation, said in a May 2007 interview with Bloomberg News that the pay levels on Wall Street were “shocking” and that he had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Goldman to give $1 billion to charity.

But the money allotted for its foundation is dwarfed by the sums that will be doled out to its bankers. In the first nine months of this year, the firm set aside about $17 billion for bonuses and other compensation."

...Yes, friends and fellow bailout sponsors...these boys gave out 17 billion in bonuses and have set aside 200 million for charity. They are Too Greedy To Survive.....TGTS...

B in T

OT..........
Just listened to Dobbs last newscast last night.........everyone thinks he's going to FoxNews.......I think he'll be the next Republican Presidential Candidate - you heard it here first.

Don't panic, green money technology is getting bigger, faster, globaly unbiquitous, and because of productivity gains of 9.5% in the third quarter, also cheaper here in the US, at least for the time being.

I like to think of "Darwinian pressure" as a mythological construct invented by folks who wanted a pseudo-scientific justification for being complete assholes to everyone outside their monkeysphere. It may make you feel better.

Not repub, I think he is going to launch third party. My dad and I were talking about it last night, just the way his statement read...he is going to run for something....be interesting to watch.

"Nearly one in five loans made in 2007 are seriously delinquent"

We need to simply re-align the definition of delinquent, something along the lines of 'seriously in need of modification' or 'in line with revised projection of the overall performance of the loan" Doesn't that sound much better ?
~splat

here you go..

End The Fed Network - Sound Money for America! Support HR 1207, S.604 and HR 833!

Ciao
MS

LOL........only after heavy cow-time with and

Black Star Ranch wrote:

3rd Party DOES make more sense

More Merican obsession with celebrity. A "3rd Party" of two (assuming there's a VP) isn't a Party. Who's he going to get to run the government?

Moody’s Sees Double-Digit Leveraged Loan Defaults in 2009

Research Recap » Blog Archive » Moody’s Sees Double-Digit Leveraged Loan Defaults in 2009

Anonymous Bosch wrote:

Is that like saying "We're not out of beer.," because there's a fly drowning in the dregs of the very last bottle?

No more like saying "We're not out of beer..." because although the keg is dry you are still drunk and haven't pissed in awhile...

HomeGnome wrote:

Palin/ Bush (Jeb) 2012!!!

The Bush name is tainted. But Palin for sure. She's got the intellect to match the Faux News supporters.

Dobbs/Palin! LOL!

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

the more they'll lose the PR war

But does the public ultimately care?

Black Star Ranch, I knew something was "wrong" with Lou Dobbs a couple of months ago because he seemed so inhibited. My wife felt the same way. He wasn't talking and acting like his old self. I jokingly suggested to my wife that maybe he had had a minor stroke or heart attack, but we shall see.

Agreed. Or Dobbs/Huckabee. That ticket would have more intellectual weight and gravitas.

Palin/ Beck 2012?

---I KNOW that's crazy batshit enough!!!

On the Dollar:

World Tries to Buck Up Dollar - WSJ.com

But does the public ultimately care?

The greater part of the public don't know, don't understand, don't care... always been the case. They NEED someone to tell them how to think and how to feel. Notice how insanely popular Oprah is, or the chattering heads on Fox etc.
~splat

Oh good gawd, I'd need a continuous morphine drip to get through that.

oh. Dick Armey's not going to be happy with Lou Dobb's economics degree from Harvard...

quite cereally.......it doesn't take but a candidate that is fiscally more traditionally conservative, socially more liberal, militarily more of a Ron Paul libertarian, and more of a JFK in regards to family values. Run the FedGov like you need to run your own household, an attorney or professional politician would be excluded, and I think you'd find support from both sides of the aisle - especially after THIS 30-year fiasco.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

you tell a hungry person who took the food off their plate, and the next thing you know there is a hungry mob storming the Bastille

I don't mean to steal NaRm's thunder, but I'm having little faith in the American Public (tm) being at that point. We are months or years away from people being willing to kill their dream's version of the American Dream and start down the road towards so-so-socialism!

from that WSJ link:

Thailand, South Korea, Russia and the Philippines have been snapping up dollars this week in order to hold down the value of their currencies, traders said Wednesday, as the U.S. currency wallowed near 15-month lows.

A new coinage - wallowing dollar.

Breaking News:

"Baghdad Bob" is new White House Press Secretary.

Full blown depression.

He just needs to smoke a few bowls of Hopium, that'll cheer him up.
~splat

I'm looking to trade down now after this political talk..to a cave without TV, WiFi and critters all about for my food and entertainment.

hi Liz. I knew they were one of the last to have layaway but I had never seen online layaway. Wasnt it just two years ago that walmart discontinued their layaway? Theywere spouting some crap about "the majority of our customers no longer use layaway, they use credit,s o we are ending this program" heheheh.

Well Kmart is obviously not only accepting the fact they are the poorstore but absolutely reveling in it and using it as DMA ,as a fav fictional character of mine would say, a Distinct Marketing Opportunity

abandons kittens, hunh.

well I could forgive anything else, but abandoning kittens . . . .

The President Announces a Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth | The White House

"My friends at Goldman told me it's be a good PR stunt and Rahm agreed" - BHO
~splat

Yeah Rick Perry was sounding the alarm down here in Texas on socialism this morning...and accusing the President of 'punishing Texas'....it is hard for me to get a vibe for how strong it is....but never in my life did I believe the country would be straining to pull itself apart again in my lifetime... it is an undercurrent gaining strength. Still trying to pinpoint source and motivations other than general discontent with the power of Washington.

NOTaREALmerican wrote:

Nobody I know does. Most REAL Mericans I work with are still confused about the bidness leaders of THE most moral country in the entire whole wide world - bidness leaders who work hard and pay taxes UNLIKE THESE DAMN WELFARE QUEENS - moral bidness leaders who lead the most honest bidnesses in the entire world, who are moral and honest and have flags and eagles - no - these moral honest moral freedom loving moral leaders are uh (I can't say it).

Cracks are starting to show in this... I've noticed real Mericans being really pissed off that their credit card limits have been cut and their payments have been increased so they either can't afford more toys or food. Increasing the minimum payments on credit cards has really hurt a LOT of people's standard of living since their budgets are based on paying the minimum payment. There is this idea spreading that the average guy is getting screwed by the banks.

"This year, when the dollar has been weak, oil has been strong; a weaker dollar supports oil because dollar-priced commodities become cheaper for buyers using other currencies. The inverse relationship between the dollar and crude has been remarkably tight: the 200-day correlation coefficient between the dollar index and oil is -0.94, Reuters data showed."
Dollar trouble, oil's bubble could derail recovery
| Reuters

.....gotta go deliver some cream.........enjoy folks......

DC,

SPG has been a sight to behold, no? All the REITs really. I'll still get my gratification -- good things come to those that wait.

,rad Gnome,

The Unabankers are impersonating Major Major Major Majors, and nobody seems to have caught on, as of yet...

Winston wrote:

There is this idea spreading that the average guy is getting screwed by the banks.

you wish- the credit card companies are doing what they are doing because theywant to extract the maximum pain so that they can argue that all of this was made necessary because of the Credit Card legislation. What is the bet that the sheep will buy this?

crazyv wrote:

For the moment lets put all the other issues that distract our politics aside.

Great idea (who controls the loot is ALL that matters), but I can't see the dumbasses ignoring the important issues of "fornicating harlots" and "global warming".

"Increasing the minimum payments on credit cards has really hurt a LOT of people's standard of living"

Are the grain ships from Egypt not getting through to Ostia?

I'd rather have Fred C. Dobbs on the ticket in 2012.

who needs a lawyer to avoid paying taxes? just get turbotax...

Onward Crazy Christians!

Columbia, SC (WLTX, AP) -- After a federal judge said South Carolina could not issue license plates that feature a cross in front of a stained glass window and the phrase "I Believe," a Christian group filed paperwork to reserve rights to the phrase.

Officials with the Palmetto Family Council said in a Thursday news release that the group "took legal steps" to reserve "I Believe" as an associated entity of the faith-based organization.

Controversy over the plate arose after some said it violated the separation of church and state.

Dr. Oran P. Smith, the President of the group, said in the news release, "The tag will provide South Carolinians another way to share their faith."

Smith says his group's version of the license tag "should face no legal impediment."

We need our BFF poll soon - wonder if the choices will be increased now that Sheila will get her $45 billion?

Terry wrote:

We need our BFF poll soon - wonder if the choices will be increased now that Sheila will get her $45 billion?

What was last Friday? I had to bugger off for the weekend and missed the festivities...

Vonbek777 wrote:

.I honestly can't think of anyone in the public arena I want as President. That is a pretty sad state of affairs....

My wife accuses me of having a venomous hatred of Obama- for the record I regard myself as a progressive and contributed,campaigned and voted for Obama- she is probably right. I suspect it is in part because he has destroyed what faith I had in the political process - for that I will never be able to forgive him.

Nader / Perot
Chelios / Roenick
Modano / Leetch

Yeah, well let's audit the gold reserves and prove that little factoid: 261.5 million ounces....I don't believe it.

HomeGnome wrote:

Dr. Oran P. Smith, the President of the group, said in the news release, "The tag will provide South Carolinians another way to share their faith."

Christian vanity plates should be an oxymoron.

I believe in the truth fairy, but that doesn't mean I can issue license plates, does it?

the only thing worse than Christians who thinks God is an American are Christians who think that God roots for their football team...

'Christian vanity plates should be an oxymoron.'
Amen brother...

Basel Too, the tax laws are changing daily and he is dealing with those making at least a million. Have you seen the 1000 plus page books that are being written by our congressman daily? Turbotax fees are chump change to them and besides, paying taxes are for little people.

Not unless you are planning on moving to South Carolina.
I STRONGLY advise you not to!

Whiskey wrote:

My folks like Lou Dobbs for some reason, and they both backed Perot in the 90's. Perot got 18% of the vote in 1992 after he dropped out. To get to 20%, Dobbs could focus on Perot voters who hate immigrants.

There are a lot of people in this country who lost jobs to immigrants and overseas outsourcing. Dobbs has tapped in to a significant chunk of voters. Personally, I don't like Dobbs, but I don't discount his influence.

Basel<

I have it on good authority that Gawd likes mustard based BBQ the best!

"Gold Losing Its Shine" headline metaphors in 3... 2...

Jonathan wrote:

Well that will eliminate a big chunk of people leveraging the tax credit into an effective 0% down loan.

Just look at effective demand's chart for Ventura County. See that line at 96.5%? Lot's of people even in very expensive areas aren't putting anything more than a few percent down. Wipe out all the sales right of the 20% down payment line and you kill the market worse than in 2007.

Ah, the Gideon-Belt and it's welcoming ways to infidels...

NOTaREALmerican wrote:

the left ones let the right ones steal their deity.

that is because we keep referring to it as "Christian Right" when what we should be calling it Right wing Christians or Christian Taliban.

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

why is the word libertarian used instead of liberal?

The word "liberal" got ridiculed out of existence by Reagan. It was brilliant politically. Most libertarians aren't.

Good ol double-top.
Double-top S&P
Double-top S&P

Double-top = beast with two backs

crazyv wrote:

It will require a party in the middle- one that believes in balanced budgets, that we should pay for the wars we start with current taxes, an income tax code that is simple (doesn't have to be a flat tax to be simple) takes a libertarian view on social issues , that believes that big banks need to be broken up ( 2000's version of 1900's anti trusts) and that the Fed needs to be cut down in size. I believe that kind of party could easily get 40% of the vote.

The middle is awful crowded. A new party can't just replicate what's going on, so if the message is 'balanced budgets, simplifying income tax codes, a reduction in government size, you know whose pool those votes are going to come out of.

Now, if they included a few initiatives to take away power from the democrats, such as a couple of highly visible public projects to spur R&D and domestic manufacturing capabilities, as well as maybe a more coherent approach for healthcare, they might be considered 'middle'.

What you're proposing is a far right party.

Terry wrote:

Just in the past hour noob - just voted on by the board.

I see, thanks! Since I was gone anyway, was last week's BFF a success? What was the final tally?

noob,

Five failures.