The health care floor vote this week?

The US Congress should change it's a name to US Charade because all we get from these clowns are empty or deceptive acts or pretenses

Leaving Congress Boz, outta here, if you could give yourself a raise without loseing your job, would ya?

Thanks for letting me know that helecopter Ben will be at the ICBA meeting this week - I have to be there, too, and I hadn't looked at the agenda yet.

On the prior thread, I was out in DC last week and the word is the Republicans will block the CFPA unless Dodd accepts that safety and soundness considerations will trump consumer protection issues. Other concerns are the attempt to give the federal regulators broad authority to regulate non-bank providers of financial services.

Otis, I'm pretty thick skinned, took no offense. I just don't like any characterizations using the word "all".

The system is surely broken, and your rage is certainly acceptable agaist the HMOs and Big Pharma.

What a week...

Runaway Priuses and pedophilia amongst priests~

The fed will "unexpectedly" announce a re-start of the MBS purchases.

dr munch wrote:

I just don't like any characterizations using the word "all".

Thanks for responding.

You are right about saying "all". There are always outliers and exceptions.

Mike, get pictures and send to all MSM ASAP. Happened to the building I was in, had to have 40 buckets catching the water, got crew on top on Monday, but took no pictures ourselves, insurance is denying, yet the agent had posted lots of wind and rain for that friday night.

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

You'd think Floridians would get a clue that they ought to get out of dodge, as increasingly insurance companies have looked at the models of climate change and told their customers that they didn't want them anymore, but no.

The World Meteorological Organization reports:

Hurricane counts (with no adjustments for possible missing cases) show a significant increase from the late 1800s to present, but do not have a significant trend from the 1850s or 1860s to present. Other studies infer a substantial low-bias in early Atlantic tropical cyclone intensities (1851–1920), which, if corrected, would further reduce or possibly eliminate long-term increasing trends in basin-wide hurricane counts. Landfalling tropical storm and hurricane activity in the US shows no long-term increase (Fig. 2, orange series). Basin-wide major hurricane counts show a significant rising trend, but we judge these basin-wide data as unreliable for climate-trend estimation before aircraft reconnaissance in 1944.
...
In terms of global tropical cyclone frequency, it was concluded that there was no significant change in global tropical storm or hurricane numbers from 1970 to 2004, nor any significant change in hurricane numbers for any individual basin over that period, except for the Atlantic (discussed above). Landfall in various regions of East Asia during the past 60 years, and those in the Philippines during the past century, also do not show significant trends.

The insurance industry is just doing what it always does, exploiting circumstance and preying on misperceptions of risk.

Rob Dawg wrote:

In terms of global tropical cyclone frequency,

Yes, what about intensity?

"exit strategy" & discuss planning for a "re-entry strategy"

"No time for the old in out, love. I've just come to read the meter"

YouTube - A CLOCKWORK ORANGE!! - FULL SCENE!

LBD,please explain the difference.

Sorry Dawgma, that's weak.

I can call one of dozens of insurance companies today and get coverage on my house in California, but try that in Florida.

Here's the gubmit plan...

Total US debt as % of GDP.....gonna take you higher !

http://www.investorsinsight.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/thoughts_5F00_from_5F00_the_5F00_frontline/image001_5F00_350C70EE.jpg

• More than five million homeowners are behind on their mortgages.
• There are over six million Americans who have been unemployed for at least six months, a record 40% of the ranks of the jobless.
• The private capital stock is growing at its slowest rate in nearly two decades.
• Roughly 30% of manufacturing capacity is sitting idle.
• Nearly 19 million residential housing units, or about 15% of the stock, is vacant.
• One in six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed.
• Commercial real estate values are down 30% over the past year.
• The average American worker has seen his/her level of wealth plunge $100,000 over the last two years, even with the recovery in equity markets this past year.
• Bank credit is contracting at an unprecedented 15% annual rate so far this year as lenders sit on a record $1.3 trillion of cash.
• Unit labor costs are down an unprecedented 4.7% over the past year, and what has replenished household coffers has been the federal government, as transfer payments from Uncle Sam which now make up a record 18% of personal income (and the Senate just passed yet another jobless benefit extension bill!)."

Wow. 18% of personal income in the US is now from the US government (also known as taxpayers, current and future).

Juvenal Delinquent wrote:

Sorry Dawgma, that's weak.
I can call one of dozens of insurance companies today and get coverage on my house in California, but try that in Florida.

I don't know how to say it different. The insurance companies made bad bets in their investments and are reacting by withdrawing from places that would damage them were claims to be made well within statistical probability. It isn't a problem on the risk side but rather on the return side.

Potential theme music for
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

YouTube - Steely Dan - Black Cow

Sacred cows make the best hamburger >> Mark Twain

Hmmm.... Debt grows at slowest pace on record Economic Report - MarketWatch

With businesses cutting their outstanding debt the most since 1991, nonfinancial debts increased at a 1.6% annual rate to $34.7 trillion at the end of the quarter, the smallest increase since the Fed began tracking the data in 1952.
+ =

Federal debt increased at a 12.6% pace in the fourth quarter to $7.8 trillion, compared with a 24.2% gain in 2008 and a 22.7% increase for all of 2009.

The Associated Press: Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs

This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

Budget Deficit in U.S. Widens to Record $221 Billion (Update2) - BusinessWeek

“The budget deficit numbers are truly frightening. This deficit is caused not just by over-spending. The receipts side of the budget ledger is suffering from a monumental recessionary hangover.”

The Associated Press: Money fund assets fell to $3.090T in latest week

Total money market mutual fund assets fell by $36.22 billion to $3.090 trillion for the week, the Investment Company Institute said Thursday.

What killed Lehman is alive and kicking - The National Newspaper

The most alarming element of the report may not be what it says about Lehman, but what it reveals about the rottenness and risks that still endanger the financial services industry and the global economy.

Stagflation at best, for 2 more years, then just slow growth that will keep pace with population growth (2%).

Sustainable jobs come from private business, not government. Private business produces wealth (taxes) and Government consumes it. This administration is still not helping with the private jobs problem. That is the ugly plan I see.

Rajesh wrote:

Rob Dawg wrote:
separation of anthropogenic changes
I didn't say anything about anthropogenic changes. If the natural cycle of climate is causing an increasing intensity of tropical storms, then insurance companies should expect a higher payout rate than they have observed historically.

Now IPCC hurricane data is questioned • The Register

There was a big flurry of speculation c. 2006 when the models predicted increase intensity and frequency but they were models and they failed miserably. Yup, far fewer and weaker than predictions. Hardly a reason to jack rates and reduce coverage.

I deal with insurance Cos that are smaller and don't do business in Hurricane areas. Seems to be cheaper.

Phoenix metro insurance is fairly inexpensive, No hurricans, no earth quackes, no forest fires.
We can get some heavy rains but usually no residencial flooding.

rich wrote:

Yes, if a limb falls on your house, deck or car, your insurance will get canceled. Happened to me twice before.

Do the rates increase when you buy new insurance? If so, by how much?

Rob Dawg wrote:

Insurance companies are reeling from poor investment returns. Don't mistake their new pricing models for a recalculation of the risk exposure.

Yup, got to get their combined ratios under 100 when their investment returns are ZIRP.

Bombshell: We Now Know What Set It Off (2008) - The Market Ticker

It is rare that we learn the precise reasons behind a collapse in the markets. What set people off in 1987, for instance? We'll probably never know. Nor do we know what the precise cause was of the 1929 crash.

The Jenner and Block report, however, lays out something very disturbing: As early as July 31st it appears Citibank knew that Lehman in fact had no cash - nor any liquid collateral to post for repo transactions.

Repo transactions are what makes the world go 'round. They're the "oil" in the engine, so to speak. When two financial parties have various trades they're settling for one another (as Citi was for Lehman in the FX markets) the posting collateral to obtain short-term cash is how one secures the clearing of these trades. There's nothing magical about them, but without them the common, every day occurrence of transactions in the marketplace simply stops.

Specifically:

Contributing to the difficulty of finding collateral that was agreeable to bothparties was the fact that Fleming told Citi that Lehman repoed out for cash all of the marketable securities in its liquidity pool.

Thanks nova.

Yes unexpected things will continue to happen unexpectedly.

Is the government capable of planning ahea
d?

Uncooked humans are raw materials.

No ground effects for the keyboard today. Mrs.B swore she had the parts stashed in the basement, but she didn't, just some inappropriate Christmas lights. Lowe's in the morning if I don't get a job.

Without a dramatic reversal of the jobs data everything else is unsustainable.

Exactly. But it's not just a reversal of the data that's needed. Well-paying jobs would be helpful.

pavel.chichikov wrote:

Exactly. But it's not just a reversal of the data that's needed. Well-paying jobs would be helpful.

That would require moving some of the economy back here from overseas and taking the billions we ship overseas for energy and using it to make energy -- and jobs -- here at home.

But creative destruction is only for the little people.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Obama's Backbone Like Over-Cooked Spaghetti; So Where Are The Fiscal Conservatives?
Nice visuals.............

and taking the billions we ship overseas for energy and using it to make energy -- and jobs -- here at home.

There's that too, but anathema to King Abdullah, Hugo Chavez, Ahmedinejad and the Emir of Kuwait. et. al.

Do we owe them something?

RayOnTheFarm wrote:
Not everyone ended up on, or near, the beach, but plenty bought into the myth
Somewhere there is a metaphor here for their retirement assets...

I expect a lot of headlines with the word "unexpected".

From the text below the vids...

The amount saved from this freeze has been consistently reported as $15 billion in the first year and $250 billion over 10 years. I hate the “we’re saving $250 billion over 10 years” line. It is a piece of crass political rhetoric and I’m disappointed that the administration would use it. If they actually implement a three year freeze on the portion of the budget they’re talking about (which is a big if, but let’s assume the best), why measure the effects in the space of 10 years?

The answer is “To make the freeze look bigger”.

They might as well say that they’re saving a trillion dollars over the next 25 years or a hundred trillion over the next 300 years. It is a data statement designed to trick people.

This business of inflating piddly amounts over X-years has been driving me crazy for years. The gov can't project 10 minutes into the future and we're supposed to believe in 10-year projections.

Rob Dawg wrote:

Now IPCC hurricane data is questioned • The Register

This was their headline. Well, it is debunked now:

Here is the peer reviewed work from Tamino regarding this issue:

Global Update « Open Mind

And here from the Yale forum on climate change and the media:

The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media » ‘Extraordinary Claims’ in KUSI BroadcastOn NOAA, NASA … but ‘Extraordinary Evidence’?

A San Diego TV station’s mid-January one-hour broadcast reporting that two key federal climate research centers deliberately manipulated temperature data appears to have been based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the key climatology network used in calculating global temperatures.

It is not about how big a megaphone you have or how rabid your following is but it really ought to be about the science. Visit the denialist sites and Tamino's and check out the comments. It is quite easy to tell even if you are not an expert where the deep knowledge resides. Are there any peer reviews of the Register's claim? Let's see them! One side has scientists and the other has mostly political junkies with an agenda. I prefer to listen to well reasoned scientists...

The problem with gubmit reality is that it's all virtual with sleight of hand.

DCRogers wrote:

I expect a lot of headlines with the word "unexpected".

Followed, we hope eventually, with more and more headlines containing the word "accuses."

In the year 2025
If Social Security is still alive
I will be suprised

Anybody want to buy my expected grandido a month, for right now money?

...in Bizarro World Ed McMahon shows up @ your house demanding money

New York state has unearthed billions of dollars in unpaid taxes as old as the 1950s in an attempt to shake money from the pockets of some taxpayers.

In January, the state dug into its archives and mailed a list of outstanding bills to 700,000 people — everyone who has a debt older than three years on the state’s books.

“Maybe they hoped we forgot about it,” Acting Tax Commissioner Jamie Woodward said.

Gov. David Paterson and state legislators are offering a kind of half-off sale on the old debts. If taxpayers pay in full by Monday, they can have a discount.

New York floods mailboxes with 700,000 vintage tax-delinquency letters: You may be a debtor! |

CR just dropped Mishistan from the blogroll, again.

Oh the Humanity..

As the depression grinds on, my increasing sense is that those closest to the engines of large-scale job creation - small, semi-independent business owners - are the ones leaving the middle-class cohort the most quickly, and the ones looking most foolish relative to the folks in the public-sector with decent pensions, or ones who tucked away a half million bucks in an IRA while serving a much larger corporation.

Of course, they still don't realize the utter contempt that people of the social class that actually end up in Congress feel for them.

We talk about a lot. But lately I've been thinking of moose, and how many times they die from severe tick infestation. It's quite a problem, not just that they die from the ticks directly, but that they die from rubbing against trees or whatever, trying to free themselves of the ticks, and then their hair gets removed, and they die from hypothermia.

Here's an article on moose's problems with ticks:

Winter Tick in Moose and Other Ungulates

"Animals that die because of heavy infestations with Winter Ticks appear to die because they do not eat enough food to supply the energy they require. Thus, they appear to have starved to death. Heavy infestations with the Winter Tick both increase the amount of energy the host animal requires and cause the animal to spend inadequate amounts of time feeding. The ticks have these effects on the host animal in two different ways: 1) by feeding on the animal's blood and 2) by causing severe irritation of the skin."

are almost cute in comparison with ticks.

I'm thinking we need a :tick: icon.

The entirety of the FIRE sector is really nothing but mosquitoes.

What? Anger and hatred? Just wait for the coming elections. Then you'll see some anger and hatred.
Still waiting for some indictments.

Oh, and just to be a little clear, the whole tick story has to do with hosts and parasites. Squids just don't seem parasitic enough as an icon.

When you own a small business, you know where all the money goes and the bottom line...

Optimism only goes so far when you are losing money hand over fist~

Ticks are mere nothings compared to the host-parasite relationship between a tarantula hawk and a tarantula...

The tarantula hawk has about the worst sting from a pain standpoint, they reckon

Tarantula hawk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RE wrote:

One side has scientists and the other has mostly political junkies with an agenda. I prefer to listen to well reasoned scientists...

On the contrary. Both sides are generously supplied with fools. Some of them quite articulate.

I think the syndrome you described is enabled and inevitable in a fiat system, but that's just little ol' me and my .

Speaking of looking ahead, get ready for announcements of massive teacher layoffs. Most contracts get renewed in the next month, so districts are scrambling to let teachers know if they'll be retained. Spouse gets to go to a meeting afet classes tomorrow- where the principal says she has a major announcement, and wants to discuss her expectations from staff for the rest of the year. The district is cutting 25 million this year alone.

So tomorrow night is either happy or really glum.

Lobbyist Ben Dover wrote:

Consumer based economy will only work in balance with a large increase in US manufacturing products.

of course, I know you mean this in concert with a saving wage

" Spouse gets to go to a meeting afet classes tomorrow- where the principal says she has a major announcement, and wants to discuss her expectations from staff for the rest of the year. The district is cutting 25 million this year alone. So tomorrow night is either happy or really glum."

So much better to waste 700 billion dollars annually to military, ten times more than China or Russia or even Germany (all spending about the same, 50-60 billlion dollars). France is a bad boy, only about eight times less. But they live next to "evil" Germany, so never know never...

The problem never was about taxation, it was all about the imperial building, taking over from the stupid Brits. Well, looks like the future American cannon fodder needs only 3-4-day school weeks, partially blacked out street (good for night attack training!) and schools turned into fortified barracks...that way they will get to use to a) violence and b) obeying authority without questions.

LoserBeachBum wrote:

Well, looks like the future American cannon fodder needs only 3-4-day school weeks, partially blacked out street (good for night attack training!) and schools turned into fortified barracks...that way they will get to use to a) violence and b) obeying authority without questions.

No kidding! (And just as an aside to those who claim teachers unions are insanely powerful- if that were true do you think so many teachers would have to wait three hours to pee?)

I think Mish fails to realize that certain unions were able to protect their member' wages during the time that he said the Government
was understating inflation dramatically. If you're a cop in NY and you need to live in the city to keep your job, you are going to
demand wages that allow you to do that. A lot of concessions to the unions came about because of the easy credit policy of the Fed.
He needs to look at the salaries and pensions of public employees in Mississippi, Alabama, etc... they aren't generous by any means.

CalculatedRisk wrote:

If someone believes unions are crippling the government - and their pensions are unaffordable - I have no problem with someone writing that. Calling unions " termites and parasites" - I think that crosses the line.

I dunno, something which cripples its host and makes survival of both them and the host an unsustainable living arrangement, that sounds an awful lot like a parasite to me.

The imbalance, whereby increasing funds are taken at gunpoint from the public to pay for bloated union salaries and benes, I think is pretty enraging. And without rage, this travesty will not change.

Tom Stone wrote:

if reid grew a pair he would need a bra.

Teddy Roosevelt once said, "I can carve a judge from a banana with a stronger spine." in response to a decision handed down from the Supreme Court.