I, for one, welcome our new principal reduction overlords.

CalculatedRisk wrote:

There really is no good solution.

Too late for fair but what about shooting for equitable? If we don't throw a bone to the responsible we'll never get past the kind of resentment that tears nations apart.

From the previous thread link. Walker:
"There are three key points with regard to spending. Spending more money than you make on a reoccurring basis is irresponsible. Irresponsibly spending someone else's money is unethical; and if you're a fiduciary, a fiduciary breach. And irresponsibly spending someone else's money when they're too young to vote and not born yet is immoral. And all three of those things are going on right now, and they threaten America's future."

Should be engraved over every entrance to the halls of power.

Is there a limp icon?

Rob Dawg wrote:

Too late for fair but what about shooting for equitable?

I'm just casting around here but the principle reduction may be in Big Fish, which in turn may increase inequitable shooting.

OT: wow... doom and a love of visionary and fringe 90's sci-fi has really taken over my media preferences lately...
my video directory...
X-Files, Millenium, Fringe, Warehouse 13
Firefly, The 4400, Earth 2, Space Above and Beyond
Nowhere Man

Been spending most our lives, livin in escapist paradise...

CalculatedRisk wrote:

There really is no good solution.

Pretty much sums it up - again CR takes the gold for understatement. The rest of us have to stand lower on the podium [or watch from the stands].

OT: Dean Baker on Spain's housing bubble.

Dean Baker: Stop Calling It a Financial Crisis

Another hoocooda-node on the tree of sorrow?

""I've come to the reluctant conclusion that the only way to accelerate the program and also provide adequate incentives for homeowners who sacrifice to stay in their own homes is through permanent, locally-tailored, unconditional reductions in mortgage principal," he [Kucinich] said."

Moral hazard be

Between this and the David Walker interview, I'm getting thoroughly depressed.

dryfly wrote:

Never enough .

Pay everyone's principal for a year <$300 billion. Cheap way to buy a year. We've just been paying too much for the wrong .

sm_landlord wrote:

provide adequate incentives for homeowners who sacrifice to stay in their own homes is through permanent, locally-tailored, unconditional reductions in mortgage principal," he [Kucinich] said."

I think this idea came from the seminal work of Sir Isaac Newton, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Reductiona.

picosec wrote:

Sure there's the obvious; acceptance of the loss as the least costly alternative. But why now?

CR wasn't the only person to publish the recast chart. I think there are more folks with the sense that the next leg down is coming up.

Zillow is also contributing (ie raising awareness): Some of the tonier zips have sizeable downlegs going on...

. . . and now, let us ponder an obvious chart . . .

INO Equities Stocks Indexes - DJ 30 INDUSTRIALS (INDEX:DJI) Price Chart and Quote

DJ30 hits bottom one year ago, setting the stage for twelve months of 'upward correction.' Does this chart show the US economy rising out of the recession? Is this the latest (and greatest) bubble?

picosec wrote:

I'm trying to get my mind around the reasons for the great leap forward in short sales. In Oakland it's massive, with asking prices clearly at a deep loss to the creditor.

Short sales are a relatively better idea to foreclosures where vacancies and crime are a problem. If the place will quickly be gutted and turned into a meth lab if vacant, short sales can start to sound like a very good idea. The homeowner is getting a trade: debt relief and housing for a while in order to reduce the chances of the place being completely trashed.

I have slowly come to agree with a woman whose firm does trashouts of foreclosed homes. People shouldn't stay in homes they can't afford, or which they lied to obtain. However, I'm ok with them staying until evicted or the home is sold. That should be a fairly short period, not years.

If you are underwater on your mortgage and have not yet defaulted, WAKE UP!!!!! I guarantee you that when they release a principal reduction program, they will grandfather it, so if you are not already delinquent you will be out of luck. So get delinquent.

"Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair advocates principal write-downs to help distressed borrowers, particularly for "underwater" homeowners -- those who owe more on their mortgage than the underlying home is worth. More than 11 million homeowners, comprising about a quarter of all homeowners with a mortgage, are underwater, according to real estate research firm First American CoreLogic.

A senior Treasury official told HuffPost on Monday that the department was heading towards more writing down of principal as part of its mortgage modification efforts, and that an announcement was to be expected in the next few weeks."

The nasty feeling that something bad is coming around the end of Q2 has made the jump from the back of my mind to the forefront. Not just another market crash - something worse. I still can't put my finger on it. Maybe a massive dump of properties on the market. Maybe a currency crash.

ghostfaceinvestah wrote:

If you are underwater on your mortgage and have not yet defaulted, WAKE UP!!!!! I guarantee you that when they release a principal reduction program, they will grandfather it, so if you are not already delinquent you will be out of luck. So get delinquent.

One major exception - if your payments even underwater are LESS than what you can rent for locally. That is my situation and the situation for most of my peers here in rural flyover. Completely opposite of what is seen on the coasts I realize but not that uncommon in the boonies.

mock turtle wrote:

please listen to the interview of david walker
"x" comptroller general of the USA, ...a man who has worked in both dem and repub administrations
on the npr show "fresh air'" with terry gross
his call to arms..financially speaking, may be our last chance
he speaks the truth without regard to left or right
After Financial Ruin, Plotting America's 'Comeback' : NPR

Thanks mock. It's a fantastic interview. Scary when he talks about Bush refusing to meet with him, when two Chinese premieres both requested his presence.
Bush doubling the debt, then Obama potentially doubling the debt. Sounds exponential. Has someone paged KD?

dryfly wrote:

if your payments even underwater are LESS than what you can rent for locally.

Depends on timeframe unless you plan to never, ever sell again.

sm_landlord wrote:

What advice would you give to someone who had no debt?

Move to a country which values personal responsibility, if you can find one anymore.

sm_landlord

ok all joking aside

own a place to live free and clear not too close to an urban center

have cash in your possession, and make some of that physical pm

stock up

make friends with neighbors and organize your community for common good

get involved in local politics

mock turtle wrote:

own a place to live free and clear not too close to an urban center

Planning on it. Open question is how far away is far enough.

On getting involved in local politics, how does one do that without becoming a target? Laying low seems like a safer policy.

ghostfaceinvestah wrote:

Move to a country which values personal responsibility, if you can find one anymore.

Still looking.

ghostfaceinvestah wrote:

But guess what happens when principal is reduced? House prices are going to drop. So much for that idea.

I got like $50K in the house - that's my principal - how much more can it drop? Does it even matter?

Something like half the country is like this - not quite as cheap but shockingly cheap [maybe with principals of $100K]... the other half is out of sight expensive. Your point is well made for the crazy expensive half - not so much here.

dryfly wrote:
Something like half the country is like this - not quite as cheap but shockingly cheap
We're going to have two countries soon enough.. physical reality will greatly mirror economic realities of wealth distribution. Guess which end we're on? (as an aggregate)

sm_landlord wrote:

I don't think the kids would be interested in moving to a doomstead. They're doing their futures in the city. Same thing I did when I was their age.

Besides the craziest crazies are all in the boonies anyway - believe me I KNOW.

mock turtle wrote:

hmmm can you shoot minute of arc...and how quick can you reload?
ik enuf with the joking...uh id like to be a tank of gas away from a big city but im not
but definitely not closer than a two day walk from a central city

Haven't done much shooting since I turned 20. I guess it's time to get back to the range.
First plan is to move about 50 miles out. We'll see what that's like.

adornosghost wrote:

But they blush in comparison to those living in the desert-----

I don't know. I live in the Mississippi River Valley - there are some odd ducks in the swamp.

sm_landlord wrote:

I'll take your word for it. But cities are where large groups of people go crazy all at once.

And they are visible - you have to walk around them or step over them. In the boonies they are just 'out there' - in more ways than one.

sm_landlord wrote:

First plan is to move about 50 miles out

I'm one of the 7% who survive a ruptured aorta. I wouldn't be here if paramedics who could start IV's had not been close by. So fifty miles out seems like a long way in case of a medical emergency. The odds of that sort of emergency seem much higher as we age than the doom type situations. Any thoughts about emergency medical care?

Swamp!
Desert!
Swamp!
Desert!
Our crazies are crazier than your crazies!
No they aren't!
::::
What a country!

adornosghost wrote:

But it might be an interesting contest, but who would judge it?

Not the sane - they have better things to do.

mhdoc wrote:

Any thoughts about emergency medical care?

Avoid medical emergencies.

Fifty miles is too far.

There's quite a few small cities (50K to 250K pop) with good medical facilities. Odds of violence should be low, regardless.

sm_landlord wrote:

They must come to town once in a while.

Occasionally but not so much - no one counts the deer in the county. If they come in its for a case of liquor or ammo then its back out.

Tom Stone wrote:

Dry,I live rural and we have one neighbor who dresses in full russian camo and rides his 3wd ural around on the trails.he has an MG42 mounted on a pintle in front of the sidecar.No Idea whether the MG is functional or not.

LOL - that's the type. He needs a spot light on the thing - to be able to shine deer.

mhdoc

maybe choose an area not too far from a state capitol

usually a smaller city, but still first class in terms of services...hospital police fire etc

sm_landlord wrote:

I mean 50 miles away from the urban core, not 50 miles away from civilization.

I think this is another case like dryfly mentioned up thread, where rules/guidelines good for one area don't apply as well in other places. I forget because 50 miles from downtown Albuquerque can have you out in some VERY sparse country.

Dry,no need to shine them here,I see an 8 point buck that lives up the road all the time in broad daylight,plenty of does too.

ghostfaceinvestah wrote:

How are you underwater with only 50K in debt on a house? And you've been in it for 25 years? You are below 1985 prices?

Don't know. Seriously. Its a beat up old house about 100 years old in a river town about 50-60 miles outside of a city. I have no idea what it would sell for - I'm not sure it would fetch $50K right now as is. There is way more America like that than people realize. And its okay too - we all don't have to live in Palo Alto.

sm_landlord wrote:

The location of King's Free Park is only a few miles away from me

An Analog story reference?

edit - ah, yes, it is.

Tom Stone wrote:

Dry,no need to shine them here,I see an 8 point buck that lives up the road all the time in broad daylight,plenty of does too.

Same here - in town - but start dropping a few and they get smart real fast. Then a spot light really helps [plus you are less likely to get reported if at night & outside city limits]. There is a reason the deer act safe in town and are jumpy as hell in the sticks.

Happy 100th Birthday Samuel Barber.

ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:

Still wouldn't even make much more than a nice speed bump for BlackwaterXe paramilitary or modern militarized police forces. He's as fu as the rest of us, and will probably draw fire first in a SHTF martial law scenario.

Absolutely. I had a friend in the SEALs - we discussed that a few times. Ams vs the pros - be as much of a contest as senior mens touch football going up against the Colts or Saints.

RiF,the man has a lot of fun,bless his loony self.I suspect bringing in mercenaries to replace local police would irk many people here including LEO's and retired military.We have an absurd number of exmarines in my immediate area who do not take well to being pushed by anyone.I do not mean to imply that they could do anything more than make the area ungovernable,trained military forces with modern equipment are something else.

OT, but funny

Write-offs are driving decline in credit-card debt - MarketWatch

"Credit-card debt has been falling for 16 straight months but consumers aren't paying off their financial obligations as much you might think. Instead, they're walking away from the debt, forcing credit-card issuers to write off as much as 90% of that reported drop, according to a new report by CardHub.com.

U.S. banks charged off a record $83.3 billion in credit-card losses last year. That makes up the bulk of the $93.2 billion drop in outstanding credit-card debt that was reported by the Federal Reserve for 2009. "

News stories about neighborhoods in Chile forming self defense groups to protect themselves from looters mentioned a variety of hand weapons; knives, etc., but no firearms. I'm thinking in the USA that would be a whole different story. Even in poor neighborhoods.

adornosghost wrote:

a friend who lives there is coming up to go fishing up on the Eel.

the proposed fishing ban looks like it will incite more people than the mortgage changes

sm_landlord wrote:

I agree, but as I recall you didn't like Los Gatos much either.

SL, I liked Los Gatos until about 1965, which is about the time it started to "gentrify."

mp wrote:

Palo Alto is highly over-rated anyway.

Hello mp,

Left you a post the other day - was in a factory where they had six huge horizontal Mazaks all tied together with a 20 tombstone pallet changer - huge FMS. Runs pretty much around the clock. We figured counting fixtures & tombstones & cycle times that it could run 12 hours unattended [tool holders were fully sistered & overly redundant - machines bristling with sensors to detect tool wear & breakage].

Only two operators required to man it - one on first, one on second - ran all third shift lights out. Tough parts too.

And we wonder why we have a jobloss 'recovery'.

broward wrote:

the proposed fishing ban looks like it will incite more people than the mortgage changes

Catch and release for wild steehead (a fairly existential exercise, with little expected success)

adornosghost wrote:

Catch and release for wild steehead

All recreational fishing BANNED by executive order! Can this be true or am I in the twilight zone!!!?

just read the comments on the first page, much less the remaining ten.

sm_landlord wrote:

Rob Dawg wrote:
Yes, a dozen miles on the other side of the Mugu Rock border checkpoint guard station.
It wouldn't take much to close the road at that point, would it?

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

uh huh, and chairman o is going to require all fornicators to have a federally issued license and pay a head tax on every incident of copulation too

Lord, things seem a trifle fanciful tonight. Moving 50 miles away from city centers? Closing down public highways at handy pinch points? Taking up marksmanship in full dotage when you can't any longer see the prints on your palms? You folks need some

flaminia wrote:

Taking up marksmanship in full dotage when you can't any longer see

That's why you need an MG42.

mp wrote:

Damned near everything is becoming soul-less.

Ya I remember discussing that with a buddy in the die cast business 25 years ago... I had worked in a chemical plant prior where we had instruments, sensors & automation everywhere... I told the die casting engineer we'll eventually do that to dies once senors & instruments get cheap enough. It would take the 'black magic' out of a lot of it once we 'know' what's going on inside the machines when the molds close up. He said I was crazy - no way they'd do that to molds & casting machines... never happen. Its positively commonplace now - more so than even I imagined back then.
::::::

mp wrote:
Damned near everything is becoming soul-less.
+1... The people perish for lack of vision... loss of soul is capitalism's win condition in addition to a psychological crisis.

Rob Dawg wrote:

What would we do with 8,000 bombers? 1,500 F/A-18s can deliver the same bomb load with 1/8th the crew.

I simply said:

"I bet they couldn't do it, couldn't turn out that many of anything of equivalent complexity..."

mp wrote:

I'd like to see their damned kerchunkers turn out 8,000 bombers in 2-1/2 years.
I bet they couldn't do it, couldn't turn out that many of anything of equivalent complexity with their damned kerchunkers.

Nope. And there aren't that many machinists left either to man the set up like back then.

Ever see them do high speed hog out of aluminum? I saw a job run in central Minnesota [airframe structure] where they took 2000 lb blocks and hogged away until they ended up with 100 lb parts. Spindle speeds in the 30K-40K range. Pumping chips like crazy. All offline programmed CNC. The machinist [if you can call him that] just watched it go like it was a dishwasher.

dryfly wrote:

I saw a job run in central Minnesota [airframe structure] where they took 2000 lb blocks and hogged away until they ended up with 100 lb parts.

Well, this is the kind of thing that just drives me wild. It's a tremendous waste of material. They can get away with that now, but if the day comes when they can't?

dryfly wrote:

And there aren't that many machinists left either to man the set up like back then.

Leverage.

The same thing will happen in business software but virtually no one believes it.

dryfly wrote:

I saw a job run in central Minnesota [airframe structure] where they took 2000 lb blocks and hogged away until they ended up with 100 lb parts.

Ahhh the wing spar. Sorry about that. The reason was corrosion when laminated structures were tried.

Ams vs the pros - be as much of a contest as senior mens touch football going up against the Colts or Saints.

You're assuming a level playing field. Obviously the professionals can quickly destroy any opponent they can identify (and Mr MG42 isn't making it hard); and even if someone digs in well enough that the military doesn't care to send soldiers in bodily, there's always Hellfire missiles and thermobaric weapons.
The problem for the military is that the lethality and sophistication of improvised weapons a society like ours could produce is terrifying. The remotely-detonated IEDs, EFPs and what have you that the Afghanis and Iraqis are able to come up with are antique technology. Get enough engineers pissed off and you'd have tiny robots killing people with VX or fentanyl or nickel tetracarbonyl, and improvised EMP/HERF weapons to attack military electronics. To say nothing of the fact that TPTB share much of our infrastructure, which would be torn apart in an insurrection scenario, and ultimately lead to the degradation of even the military's technological base.

mp wrote:

Well, this is the kind of thing that just drives me wild. It's a tremendous waste of material. They can get away with that now, but if the day comes when they can't?

It has always been a battle between the netshapers [castings & forgings & fab] and the metal removers [machinists] - with High Velocity Machining the battle line has moved back toward the metal removal folks again. Part of it is the blocks of aluminum they start with are consistently solid without porosity or inclusions so the resulting structure is better. Still a 5% final product yield leaves a lot of chips to 'recycle'.

Rob Dawg wrote:

Ahhh the wing spar. Sorry about that. The reason was corrosion when laminated structures were tried.

I bet you even know the company in 'Central Minnesota' I was in - not too far from Lefty's if that helps.

bbartlog - they won't have any problem finding the perps here UNLESS the information system breaks down - phones, internet, mobile devices even passive RFID - after 'Patriot' all that stuff could be gathered and gleaned - the only way antagonists could move about is if they went completely electronics free... no phones [land or wireless] no internet - nothing.

Big Brother would be jealous.

adornosghost wrote:

And the link was from Drudgeeee-

Drudge's references are usually news articles on other sites, despite common myth.

Here's the original link, although my connection is poor that I can't verify myself right now.

Public input period for federal fishery strategy has ended - ESPN

I don't care about fishing but the instant anger and paranoia was interesting.

When governments destroy their credibility, they open the gates for anything and everything else.

Jonathan wrote:

None of this stuff is expensive, we're talking $100 for a tv downlink, $60 for a wing leveler, $60 for a stamp sized GPS and $50 for a microcontroller to tie it together. Obviously more is needed but those are the key parts.
I wonder what the sweet spot for pricing would be?

Well if it can be fitted out to hunt deer - Cabela's will want to sell them.

Again -

If America's companies are sending out stuff like this:

More Best of the EmaiL - The Daily WTF

then we all surely deserve what's coming to us.

your tax dollars at work.

Build America Helps Generate Wall Street Fees - WSJ.com

"Wall Street firms have received fees exceeding $1 billion in less than a year selling "Build America Bonds" meant to spur jobs in struggling cities, often charging municipalities higher costs than for traditional bond deals."

mp wrote:

He'll have made it to almost 18, which is pretty damned good for a cat.

Yup, that's pretty good.

We had one that lived to almost twenty but his offspring died much earlier.

Feds really can't afford a double-dip, I think.

Northfield man jailed after allegedly torching his own house, vehicle | StarTribune.com

kcoop wrote:

My condolences.

Thanks. He's had a good run.

They're still trying to fix things.

From a comment on JHK's blog:

I see a lot of merit in John Michael Greer's distinction between a problem and a predicament. We think we have problems, which imply solutions, so we look for or expect solutions. What we actually face are predicaments -- which by definition don't have solutions, only coping or adjustments.

Special Ops often have an over inflated view of themselves. They can't do much in an insurrectionary situation because it's about numbers. The US had to pay off the dead-enders in Iraq to stay at home and drink tea, and is negotiating with the evil Taliban right now.

sorry to go OT but it appears the US natives are getting restless as the biggest ponzi/robbery in the history of man comes unraveled. MSM insists we are too diverted and uninformed, uneducated and watching American Idol while texting on our 3 year 3G plan. Yet, 83% is a gigantic majority of people. The contempt of congressional leaders, the financial cabal, MSM of We da People is profoundly pathological and it will be their ultimate undoing.

Give Congress the Boot to Save Our Great Country: Caroline Baum - Bloomberg.com

.....
Term limits is equally popular with the public, among Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike. In an October 2008 national poll commissioned by USTL, 83 percent of Americans said they support term limits, the highest ever.

Guess who opposes term limits? Incumbent politicians, their staffs and lobbyists in search of legislative favors.
.......

Congressman Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, who was forced to give up his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee last week, isn’t a bad person. He got comfy with the perks of power.

Rangel served his country with distinction in the Korean War before serving his Harlem constituents for 40 years. His ethical lapses include underreporting income and underpaying taxes, accepting corporate-sponsored trips, using official letterhead to solicit money for a City College of New York education center that bears his name, and maintaining four rent- stabilized apartments, a violation of New York City rules.

He’s not alone. Remove the security of lifetime employment and lawmakers might actually have to do something productive.

With public approval of Congress at an all-time low and support for term limits at an all-time high, it’s time to seize the day. What can you do? Sign the petition on the USTL Web site. Contact your senator or representative and tell him your vote is contingent on his support for term limits.

We the people have a voice.

(Caroline Baum, author of “Just What I Said,” is a Bloomberg News columnist.

Here's the website to sign the term limits petition:

• U.S. Term Limits

greenchutes wrote:

project fresh debt which matches GDP, no problem,

Senate to pass jobless aid, business tax breaks - Yahoo! News

Its peanuts compared with the TRILLIONS of debt/leverage to insure golden parachutes and year end bonuses of the top earners whose wealth each YEAR exceeds that of all the Pharaohs combined thanks to responsible schmucks, US taxpayers, over decades and for decades to come. What do we get in return for it? Trust the cabal will continue to be rewarded so richly for doing Gawds work? uh-huh, right. Next.

I missed a serious doom thread! Not good. I even wrote about these scenarios. I used mp's comment one night and used it as the basis of American Apocalypse II

For what it's worth: I see secure zones, less secure, as in local police augmented with feds, and no go zones. No go due to failure of tax revenue, the amount of open space to be covered,etc that these areas will receive no official law enforcement or services. Somewhat like 1880's America.

Jeebus, I am scaring myself. I wrote all this out as a 600 page story based on what I read here for the most part and it is actually happening.

Coming to America soon -- The return of the Marcher Lords!

nanoo,

I would like to say I know but I don't really. I just use possibilities. I think we will see, maybe, a cross between civil war and system failure. The possibilities considering the fracturing of an America based on opposing belief systems is the scariest thing to me. That is where the real ugliness comes from.

thank you nova. I've seen that ugliness first hand in a limited way first growing up in the South during the Civil Rights movement and desegregation and of course as a professional working in major regional trauma hospitals. I've seen both ends of the spectrum. Poverty breeds a lot of ills which translate into social diseases that aren't medical. The rise of a populist dictator, the eroding freedoms with unconstitutional invasion into our lives we currently face I think are the scariest. History is a fine teacher. I see it happening too in the popular media promoting hate/vinegar and divisiveness against each other rather than those who really bear the responsibility.

There are a lot of us who won't survive simply because we are physically weaker and older. So, at least for me, I'm planning for the worst, hoping for the best and trying to live one day at a time counting my stars no one can rob from me..

MBA: Mortgage Applicatio