Trubador ~ The Arbiter of Common Sense

Vent

2012-02-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

Repair Man Jack at RedState has a post about Rick Santorum. I posted a comment in his post. Below is what I wrote:

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

I lived in PA from birth until I was 31. I know Rick Santorum well. My last vote as a Pennsylvanian was for Rick in ’94 for Senate. Too much has been made about his backing Arlen Specter over Toomey. Rick sacrificed his political career on principle because he knew how important the US Supreme Court is in turning around the liberal/progressive tide.
Arlen was the high ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He helped shepherd in Thomas (during that vicious battle) and also Scalia.
Without Specter on that committee there is NO WAY we would have eventually gotten Roberts and Alito. In the end, Specter is now gone, and Toomey is now a PA Senator.
Now, I have not been thrilled with the line-up of candidates (those who threw their hat in the ring, and this who didn’t). Of all the candidates that DID officially run, only two have impressed me with their credentials and track record: Rick Perry and Rick Santorum. Newt is a distant third due to his Contract With America and his leading the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress after over 40 years.
Two people I will NEVER vote for with a supposed “R” next to their names: Ron Paul (an absolute crank) and Romney (too many adjectives to count that describe my disdain for him, his policies, his track record, his personality, etc.).
My state’s primary is in June. Things may very well be settled by then. I will vote for one of the three people I mentioned above, choosing at that time depending on what the lay of the primary landscape is at that time.
I have towed the line patiently and diligently for a looooong time. I voted for Bush Sr. in ’92 even though he went back on his word re: taxes. I swallowed Dole in ’96 when he placated the conservatives by picking Kemp as his running mate. I voted for Bush W. when he placated conservatives by picking Cheney as HIS running mate in 2000. And I held the line and re-elected Bush W. in ’04 even though he and the Republican congress started going off the reservation. I held my nose and voted for McCain when HE placated conservatives by picking Palin.
That’s it. I’m done. No more.
I vote my conscience. In the primary as well as in the main.
If Romney is the nominee, he could pick the re-incarnation of Reagan as his running mate.
I
DON’T
CARE
Third Party Candidate, Write-in candidate, or a non-vote for president. That will be my choice come November.
I was part of the masses that cried foul when others voted for Perot in ’92 and ’96. “Don’t throw away your vote,” I screamed. “We must vote for [insert candidate's name here] to stop [insert opposing candidates name here],” I yelled in 2000, 2004, 2008. But enough is enough. I will no longer follow the Republican Establishment anymore. I vote my conscience, and let the chips fall where they may.
I’m done.
There is no home for true (social, fiscal, national security, common sense, constitutional) conservatives anymore.

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

UPDATE: Captain Ed of HotAir also chimes in on Santorum.

And Then There Were Four...

2012-01-19T11:07:00.000-08:00

Out of a field of candidates that for many were left wanting, my choice from the bunch has, with grace and dignity, bowed out before the South Carolina primary and endorsed Newt Gingrich.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination and endorsed Newt Gingrich, adding a fresh layer of unpredictability to the campaign two days before the South Carolina primary.
"Newt's not perfect, but who among us is?" Perry said. He called the former House speaker a "conservative visionary" best suited to replace Barack Obama in the White House...

Gingrich issued a statement welcoming the endorsement. "I ask the supporters of Governor Perry to look at my record of balancing the budget, cutting spending, reforming welfare, and enacting pro-growth policies to create millions of new jobs and humbly ask for their vote," Gingrich said.
Romney reacted by praising Perry for running "a campaign based upon love of country and conservative principles" and saying he "has earned a place of prominence as a leader in our party."
Perry said he decided to suspend his campaign after concluding "there is no viable path forward for me."

Here's the full concession speech:

Erick at RedState has more info:

Governor Perry will head up a 10th Amendment project for Speaker Gingrich to rally Governors and state legislators toward a plan of devolving power from Washington. This project will include helping shape the Republican platform for the general election, something small government conservatives have been concerned about.
Governor Perry will also campaign for Speaker Gingrich in Texas. Texas has more than enough delegates at 155 (they are proportional) to offset Newt Gingrich not being on the Virginia ballot, which only has 49 delegates.

Aaron at RedState sums it up here:

The circumstances under which I write this are beyond horrible, I get it. It sucks that Gov. Perry is in this position. It sucks that the people of IA, NH, and now SC, have ignored the record of an outstanding governor and true blue conservative. It sucks that people have relied on shallow criteria for selecting a nominee.
It sucks, but the reality is, this is what has happened.

In other news, it's official... Iowa was won not my Romney, but by Santorum!

Sarah Palin does a quasi-endorsement of Newt in SC. Her husband Todd made an official endorsement himself last week.

Newt responds to Palin's comments.

AZ Congressman Trent Franks makes a point about Newt.

Via Gateway Pundit, Legal Insurrection had this clear-eyed point about Romney:

We are on a path to nominate someone who campaigned against Reagan, campaigned against the Contract with America, campaigned against those who are pro-Life, campaigned against 2d Amendment rights, campaigned against conservatism, and designed and enacted the precursor to Obamacare from which he will not back away.

Not if I can stop it.

Meanwhile, the latest Rasmussen poll in SC has Newt up 33% to Romney's 31%. Santorum's in fourth at 11%.

Not Giving Up On Perry Yet...

2012-01-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

Three more weeks worth of links regarding Rick Perry and the GOP Primary campaign.

Ace has a story on Perry's attack on Obama for not properly honoring the Iraqi War Vets.

Hot Air had a bunch of quotes regarding Perry (from last month).

Ace reposted a Perry round-up on the day of the Iowa caucus.

Perry ad shows a populist side to his campaign.

Another Perry ad that goes after Romney and Newt.

Perry strengthens his stance on Pro-Life.

The Virginia fiasco that has only Romney and Paul on the ballot (???).

Erick at RedState examines whether Perry can make a comeback.

Perry shifts his concentration to South Carolina.

NYTimes Nate Silver examines Perry's decision to stay in after Iowa.

More info on Perry's campaign reset and focus in SC.

Perry goes on the "values" offensive.

Several contributors at RedState chime in on the current campaign landscape:

* from Aaron Gardner

* from ExplodingHead

* from Paula

* from Constitutional

* an open letter to Perry from Dafyd

* also Dan McLaughlin

And a whole bunch of the contributors for RedState present a most thorough case for Rick Perry. This is a must-read!

It seems as though Ace of Spades, Erick and crew at RedState, and the readers of HotAir all want Perry. So do I.

Rick Perry, himself, posted on RedState three days ago. Go read "The Choice".

A Dozen Days In...

2012-01-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!!

Things have been moving forward with our potential purchase of a short sale house. Coordinating things, signing documents upon documents, getting the appraisal going, now getting the escrow account set up, then the inspection, etc. etc. etc. It never ends.

But, hopefully, soon we'll be at the point when closing occurs. Until then... *sigh*

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

2011-12-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!

Tis the Season for a Woeful Economy... fa-la-la-la-la... la-la la la....

2011-12-22T15:51:00.000-08:00

3rd Quarter growth weak due to cut in inventories.

The U.S. economy grew more slowly than previously estimated in the third quarter... Gross domestic product grew at a 2.0 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate on Tuesday, down from the previously reported 2.5 percent...

The government revised third-quarter output to account for an $8.5 billion drop in business inventories, the first decline since the fourth quarter of 2009.

The November unemployment rate drops to 8.6%. Reeeeally???

There are three elements that U-6 tracks that the official U-3 does not – “discouraged” workers (which is not nearly the same as the “want a job but haven’t looked lately” number mentioned above), those who hadn’t searched for work in the last 4 weeks because of reasons other than the job market (both not seasonally adjusted, and together being the number of those marginally attached to the workforce), and those employed part-time because of economic reasons.
The number of “discouraged” workers rose from October’s 967,000 to 1,096,000 in November, though the BLS does note that November 2011′s number is less than November 2010′s 1,282,000.

So, what about those questionable unemployment numbers.

The civilian participation rate in the workforce dropped 0.2% to 64.0% last month, barely above the 30-year low of 63.9% achieved in July of this year. The reason that both the topline and U-6 numbers declined is that both are based on the base number of workers, actual and potential, in the labor force that have plummeted in the last two years. The dramatic reduction in this number is what allowed a gain of only 120,000 jobs — which only covers the population growth in a month — drop unemployment by 0.4%.
In other words, the drop isn’t an indication of hope — it’s an indication of despair.

The "400,000 benchmark" myth explained.

Economy now hitting the breaks.

A different look at the economy in relation to past recessions and their subsequent recoveries.

Retail sales for November aren't so hot (so much for Black Friday saving the day).

Retail sales grew at their slowest pace in five months in November, tempering expectations for a strong holiday shopping season.
Retail sales increased a weaker-than-expected 0.2 percent after gaining 0.6 percent in October, a Commerce Department reportshowed on Tuesday...

Some of the weakness in the November retail sales might be because stores discounted heavily to attract customers, said Millan Mulraine, a macro strategist at TD Securities in New York.
"It's fairly disappointing given that all the evidence was pointing to fairly strong gains during the month," said Mulraine.

Oh, yeah... and that 2.0% growth for the 3rd quarter I posted just a few inches above in this post? Ahem... it's actually been revised downward to 1.8%.

Meanwhile, S&P warns all 17 Euro nations that they could be downgraded if things don't improve there.

Fitch ups the timeframe of a possible downgrade of France.

Fitch also warns of a possible downgrade of the U.S. rating (something S&P already did this summer).

All Things Perry...

2011-12-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

I made it known last month that my fairly consistent first choice for the (R) candidate for president is Rick Perry (of those who officially threw their hats in the ring). Over the last six months we've all seen the booms and busts of quite a few candidates and potential candidates.

Non-candidates:

Palin

Huckabee

Daniels

Barbour

McDonnell

Pence

Thune

Bloomberg

Jindal

Rubio

Ryan

Christie

Trump

Official candidates:

Pawlenty

McCotter

Bachmann

Perry

Cain

Gingrich

Romney (who never seems to be able to get above 25% - no surprise here)

And the remaining existing crazies, light weights or long shots:

Paul

Johnson

Huntsman

Santorum

Perry has been making a strong and steady comeback. Below is a list of more links, stories, interviews, debate updates and campaign ads.

The Cornerstone Speech in late October (in full, not in distorted snippets and soundbites).

Gator at RedState's 11/10 post on Perry.

Erick at RedState's 11/14 post on Perry.

Ken Blackwell's 11/13 post on Perry at TownHall.

Analysis of Perry's government reform speech, and the actual speech here.

Perry's take-down of the President.

His criticism of the botched "Fast & Furious" debacle and of AG Eric Holder.

His endorsement by AZ Sheriff Arpaio here and here.

Full 3-hour video of the Thanksgiving Family Forum with the candidates (Romney and Huntsman declined to attend).

Perry's ad that ran on during the Leno/Tonight Show broadcast on December 1.

Erick at RedState analyzes the comeback of Perry in his 12/4 post.

Perry's ad in Iowa on faith. More here.

His fight against "political correctness" here.

And Capt. Ed's post on Perry's big push in that state (via HotAir), and about Perry hitting the road in Iowa.

Perry talks about his back surgery in July, and it's effect on the early part of his campaign.

Ace of Spades has two posts of proposed Perry amendments here and here.

Ben Howe at RedState talks about "the Perry I know" which also has an 11-minute clip of Perry talking to veterans.

The Huckabee Forum and Perry suggests term limits for Supreme Court Justices.

Yet another new ad in Iowa here ("Momentum").

Clip of Perry at the last debate on 12/15.

Erick's analysis of that debate here.

And, finally, Perry's newest ad focusing back on the economy.

*WHEW*

That gives you all plenty of stuff to read, watch and listen.

BTW... Perry's Official Website.

Busy Busy Busy...

2011-12-16T09:44:00.000-08:00

I know I've been away from posting lately. Life takes over sometimes. Been busy with house hunting in this crazy housing market, and my wife & I are currently in the middle of a potential purchase of a short sale property. Updates to come. Also, the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons takes time away from blogging, as well. But I have been following the news and have plenty of links to come.

Rick Perry Interviews...

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

John Hawkins (of RWN) recently did an interview with Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry. Here is the link to the text of the interview. The topic is illegal immigration.

Erick Erickson (of RedState) along with Human Events also did a sit-down interview with Rick Perry. There are four segments of the interview on YouTube:

#1 - Economy and Flat Tax

#2 - Energy and the Super Commitee

#3 - Federalism and Immigration

#4 - Foreign Policy and Why Perry Got Into Politics

More about the economic plan via Ed Morrisey (of HotAir) via a conference call.

Forbes Magazine analyzes the flat tax plan and it's effect on health care.

Steve Forbes predicts Perry to win the nomination.

Fox News contributor Kevin McCullough predicted the same last summer. He still believes it to be true now.

Gator at RedState posts more on Perry.

Romney...

2011-11-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Among many, many, many reasons why I will never vote for Romney (even if he should win the Republican nomination, and no matter who his running mate ends up being)... THIS is why I would either vote 3rd Party or not cast a vote at all for President in Nov 2012:

(via Ace and Hot Air)

Mitt Romney was firm and direct with the abortion rights advocates sitting in his office nine years ago, assuring the group that if elected Massachusetts governor, he would protect the state’s abortion laws.
Then, as the meeting drew to a close, the businessman offered an intriguing suggestion — that he would rise to national prominence in the Republican Party as a victor in a liberal state and could use his influence to soften the GOP’s hard-line opposition to abortion.
He would be a “good voice in the party” for their cause, and his moderation on the issue would be “widely written about,” he said, according to detailed notes taken by an officer of the group, NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts.
“You need someone like me in Washington,” several participants recalled Romney saying that day in September 2002, an apparent reference to his future ambitions.
Romney made similar assurances to activists for gay rights and the environment, according to people familiar with the discussions, both as a candidate for governor and then in the early days of his term.

Sorry, Mitt. I've had enough of slick, polished, squishy, flip-floppers.

I have not been impressed with the field. Of those who are running:

Perry first (has the fewest negatives for me, though not perfect... then again, who is?).

Cain second (although he's beginning to fade for me).

Maybe even Gingrich (given what he did with Contract For America from 1994 thru the rest of the 90s, but gosh he has a lot of baggage).

Santorum can't win, but he knows his stuff.

Bachman, Huntsman, Johnson and Ron Paul all are jokes.

Let's have some fun with the #OWS protesters...

2011-11-03T09:59:00.001-07:00

James O'Keefe up first.

Army vet and trial lawyer Kurt Schlichter is up next.

Then Peter Schiff gives a metaphorical 1-2 punch here and here.

Oh, and by the way... how many of those OWS protestors are actually part of the 1% they're protesting against??? Detailed arrest records tell it all.

And this pic cracks me up 'cause it's sooooo right on the money (literally as well as figuratively):

hehehehe

For regular and detailed updates & reports about the #OWS fiasco, just go to Gateway Pundit.

Thursday Thrills...

2011-11-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

So the markets got restless after Greece decided to have a referendum vote AFTER they got the bailout okay'ed by the Eurozone heads (and details of the bailout unveiled that it's not that great of a bailout anyway).

Well, the Eurozone heads then said, "you're not getting any of the bailout money until AFTER the December 4 vote."

Greece, then, decides NOT to go ahead with the referendum vote, with their prime minister saying:

"Elections as a solution, today and at this moment, would mean a much greater danger of bankruptcy and of course exit from the euro."

There you have it! Elections are a BAD thing!

*WOW*

Unemployment numbers aren't really that much better for last month.

The Fed keeps things steady, but lower their forecasts for 2011 through 2013.

Officials now expect the [U.S.] economy to grow by a tepid 2.5 percent to 2.9 percent next year, down from the rosier 3.3 percent to 3.7 percent they were expecting in June, with inflation muted over the forecast horizon.
They see the unemployment rate going no lower than 8.5 percent to 8.7 percent by the end of 2012, up from the more sanguine 7.8 percent to 8.2 percent range envisioned in June.

National average for 30-year mortgage interest rates fell back down to 4% (just off of it's all-time low of 3.94% one month ago).

Debit Fees to Disappear...

2011-11-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

Chase, Citi and others have changed their minds about charging fees to their customers for using their debit cards to access their own money.

JPMorgan Chase has decided it will not charge customers who use their debit cards for purchases, joining a growing list of banks that will not follow the lead of financial giant Bank of America, which announced a $5 monthly fee last month.
JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, U.S. Bank, PNC Financial, and Key Bank have confirmed they are not planning to charge customers debit card fees when they make purchases.
JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the country by total assets, began testing a $3 fee in parts of Wisconsin and Georgia in February. However, the bank decided it won't roll out the fee to the rest of the country, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
A person familiar with Chase confirmed with ABC News that it is not planning to charge debit card fees due to customer preferences.

Bank of America then stated that there were going to "revamp" their plan to charge $5/month to customers:

Bank of America Corp, after receiving heavy public criticism for a planned $5-per-month debit card fee, is likely to give customers more ways to avoid the fee, a person familiar with the bank's plans said Friday.
The second-biggest U.S. bank is reworking its plans as rivals Wells Fargo & Co and JP Morgan Chase & Co have decided not to charge monthly fees, ending test programs in certain states.
Bank of America is likely to allow many customers to sidestep the fee by taking measures such as maintaining minimum balances, having paychecks direct deposited, or using Bank of America credit cards, the person said.
Under earlier plans, customers might have needed balances totaling $20,000 across all their Bank of America accounts to skip the fee.

Then, today, BofA said this:

Bank of America is nixing its plans to charge a $5 debit card fee.

That's 1 for the little guy, 0 for the banks.

What Goes Up... Must Come Down...

2011-11-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

The stock markets have been in volatile flux for months. It dropped down to steep lows in the summer, then worked it's way back, then dropped right back down again. Last week, the markets got all giddy after the "wonderful" Euro deal and saw the Dow peak to approx. 12300 (the other markets also when ga-ga).

Thennnnnnn reality kicked in.

Redstate reports here. Reuters analyzes, as does the AP.

And the Dow right now is at 11655.

No surprise from me.

Charting Two Months of Housing Woahs...

2011-10-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

Starting in late August there was this news report:

Sales of new homes fell for the third straight month in July, a sign that housing remains a drag on the economy. If the current pace continues, 2011 would be the worst year for new-home sales on records dating back at least half a century.
Sales fell nearly 1 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 298,000, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. That's less than half the 700,000 that economists say represent a healthy market.
Last year, 323,000 homes were sold — the worst year on records that go back to 1963.
While new homes represent less than one-fifth of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs and $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
High unemployment, larger required down payments and tougher lending standards are preventing many people from buying homes.

The following day, this report came out about mortgage apps:

Home mortgage applications for purchases fell to a nearly 15-year low last week as resurgent worries about the strength of the economy kept buyers at bay, an industry group said on Wednesday.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell 2.4 percent in the week ended August 19.
The seasonally adjusted gauge of loan requests for home purchases tumbled 5.7 percent to its lowest level since December 1996, the MBA said. Refinance demand also sagged as interest rates rose, with the refinance index slipping 1.7 percent.

Mortgage rates then did this the day after that:

Fixed mortgage rates edged up this week from their lowest levels in decades. But few have been able to capitalize on them.
The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 4.22 percent, Freddie Mac said Thursday. That's up from 4.15 percent last week, the lowest level on records dating to 1971.
The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, rose to 3.44 percent. Last week it fell to 3.36 percent.

At that point in time, the local area had this report:

About half of all residential real estate sales in Ventura County this spring involved properties in some stage of foreclosure, according to data released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc.
RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing service, said 50.1 percent of the 1,349 Ventura County home sales in the second quarter were foreclosure-related, with an average price discount of 24.7 percent. Nationally, only 31.3 percent of sales involved foreclosure-related properties, but the price discount was larger — 32.1 percent.

When September rolled around, this news came in:

Builders broke ground on fewer homes in August, a reminder that the housing market remains depressed.
The Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders began work on a seasonally adjusted 571,000 homes last month, a 5 percent decline from July. That's less than half the 1.2 million that economists say is consistent with healthy housing markets.
Single-family homes, which represent roughly two-thirds of home construction, fell 1.4 percent. Apartment building plunged 12.4 percent. Building permits, a gauge of future construction, rose 3.2 percent.
Hurricane Irene also slowed construction in the Northeast.
Overall, homebuilding fell to its lowest levels in 50 years in 2009, when builders began work on just 554,000 homes. Last year was not much better.

Consumer confidence remained weak in September:

...depressed consumer and business sentiment is holding back recovery. The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes was little changed at 45.4 this month from 45.2 in August. Economists had expected a rise to 46.0.
"Consumers appear to have lost some hope in this recovery and may cause them to retrench spending, which could augur poorly for the recovery," said Millan Mulraine, a senior macro strategist at TD Securities in New York.
Details of the confidence report were mixed. More Americans plan to buy houses over the next six months, but fewer intend to purchase cars and other big-ticket items.
The steep stock market sell-off, political bickering in Washington over budget policy and the worsening debt crisis in Europe all have eroded confidence, viewed as a key gauge of consumer health.
Consumer spending data on Friday will shed more light whether the decline in equities -- with the Standard & Poor's 500 index down 13 percent since late July -- caused households to hunker down. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, slowed sharply in the second quarter.

August home sales numbers rolled in next:

Sales and prices of new single-family U.S. homes fell in August despite historically low mortgage rates, underscoring the difficulties policymakers face in efforts to boost the moribund housing sector.
A stagnant job market and a big overhang of unsold existing homes have combined to keep new home sales on the rocks even as mortgage rates returned to lows not seen since at least the early 1970s.
New home sales slipped 2.3 percent last month to a 295,000 annual rate, a six-month low, the Commerce Department said on Monday. That was in line with analysts' forecasts and did little to allay fears the United States could slip back into recession.
The median sales price also moved lower from the previous month and was 7.7 percent below year-ago levels.

And what about those mortgage rates?:

Fixed mortgage rates have fallen to historic new lows for a fourth straight week and are likely to fall further.
The average on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 4.01 percent from 4.09 percent this week, Freddie Mac said Thursday. That's the lowest rate since the mortgage buyer began keeping records in 1971. The last time long-term rates were lower was in 1951, when most long-term home loans lasted just 20 or 25 years.
The average on a 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, ticked down to 3.28 percent. Economists say that's the lowest rate ever for the loan.

Then they did this!!!:

Mortgage rates have never been cheaper, with the 30-year rate falling below 4% for the first time in history.
The interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate loan fell to 3.94% this week, the lowest rate since mortgage giant Freddie Mac began tracking it. Meanwhile, the average for a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage also hit a record, falling to 3.26%.

It then fluctuated and went to this:

The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was nearly unchanged for a second straight week after rising from a record low.
Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan fell to 4.10 percent from 4.11 percent last week. Three weeks ago, it dropped to 3.94 percent. The National Bureau of Economic Research says that's the lowest rate ever.
The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage was unchanged at 3.38 percent. Three weeks ago, it hit a record low of 3.26 percent.
Low rates have done little to jolt the struggling housing market. Sales remain depressed, and home prices are still dropping in many markets.
High unemployment and declining wages have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Most of those who can afford to refinance already have.
The number of Americans who bought previously occupied homes fell in September and is on pace to match last year's dismal figures — the worst in 13 years.

Analysis of the situation says...:

Today's record-low mortgage rates are out of reach for millions of U.S. homeowners who would benefit from them most.
One in four homeowners with a mortgage — 11 million people — owe more than their home is worth. These "underwater" borrowers have virtually no shot at refinancing.
Their plight is a drag on the housing market and the broader economy.
The Obama administration is hoping at least 1 million of these borrowers will take advantage of its refinancing program under more lenient rules unveiled Monday. Homeowners who are current on their payments will be eligible to refinance no matter how much their home's value has dropped.
Still, it's unclear how many borrowers will benefit. Lenders will remain under no obligation to refinance a mortgage they hold.
A growing number of these people are missing mortgage payments and falling into foreclosure. And the higher rates they're locked into limit how much they can contribute to a weak economy. If they were able to refinance at today's rates, it could boost consumer spending by tens of billions of dollars, economists say.
Underwater homeowners are paying an average 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 5.7 percent, according to an analysis of mortgage data by CoreLogic and The Associated Press. That compares with today's average rate of 4.11 percent on a 30-year fixed mortgage. For a homeowner with a $250,000 mortgage, the lower rate would save more than $200 a month.

The One announced a new program to "help" those in the mortgage/housing crunch.

Via Hot Air, here's some analysis of this "wonderful" program by The One:

This plan is for current borrowers who want to get a lower monthly payment through a lower mortgage rate. Yes, it’s the first plan that “rewards positive behavior,” says Florida attorney and mortgage expert Shari Olefson, but it doesn’t do anything for the now 6 million plus borrowers who are either behind on their mortgage payments or already in the foreclosure process. It also does nothing about all those foreclosed properties sitting on the books of Fannie, Freddie, the FHA and the big banks that still need to be sold and right now can only be sold at below-market prices. This plan does nothing to stop the bleeding in home prices.

Another analysis here.

Economy 101...

2011-10-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

How the economy entered a recession again at the end of August:

“Since 1948, every time the four-quarter change has fallen below 2 percent, the economy has entered a recession. It’s hard to argue against an indicator with such a long history of accuracy.”

The Feds then "pondered" an intervention.

Everybody, let's do the "twist":

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it will shuffle $400 billion of its portfolio to try to drive down long-term interest rates and get the economy going. But economists doubted it would do much good, the stock market sold off, and the Fed itself was unusually divided over the strategy.
Lowering interest rates makes it cheaper for people and companies to borrow money and spend it throughout the economy, which has slowed sharply more than two years after the Great Recession. Consumer spending makes up most of the nation's economic activity.
But rates are already at historic lows. Americans, still feeling insecure about the future, might not be willing to take on more debt, even at lower rates. Others see no reason to jump into the housing market when prices are still falling. Others can't get credit.
"Frankly, I don't see it having any meaningful impact on the economy," said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist with the Economic Outlook Group. "What the Fed did today was a distraction."

Come on, baby... let's do the "twist" (a mixed impact for consumers).

...and it goes like this ("Twist" Q&A).

Let's twist the knife a bit more:

The U.S. economy is on a "knife edge" between growth and contraction, and if it were a dashboard, it would be flashing "watch out, danger ahead on all gauges," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank's top economist said on Tuesday.
"The economy is moving along at stall speed," Dallas Fed research director Harvey Rosenblum told a forum sponsored by the greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. "Unless we start moving a little bit faster, we are at a tipping point where things may not go the right way."
The U.S. jobs engine has lost momentum and could be set for further "backtracking," Meanwhile, he said, there is also a "credible" risk of rising inflation.
"We are in the midst of the Second Great Contraction," Rosenblum said, demonstrating the economy's predicament with a picture of a place on the Appalachian Trail known as "Knife's Edge."
"This patient is still not ready to get out of the hospital, there are still tubes connected to the patient, and the patient is still not responding well to all the medicine."
The grim assessment of the economic outlook came a week after a majority of the Fed's policy-setting panel backed further monetary policy easing to help support a faltering U.S. recovery.

VP Joe Biden puts the blame of the economy square on The One and his administration. Thanks, Joe!!!

Senator Dick Dubin (D) blames fellow democrats for not passing The One's so-called "Jobs" bill (really just another bogus "stimulus" package).

The S&P downgrades Italy.

Fears about the world economy continue to drag markets.

Wall Street hits a low on fears of the on-going Euro-mess.

Moody cuts the ratings of BofA, Citi, and Wells Fargo.

And it's possible that the U.S.'s credit rating may soon get knocked down a peg again - this time by Moody's and/or Fitch. (This was already done by S&P in August.)

By August 30, the consumer confidence hit it's lowest level in two years:

Consumers' confidence in August dropped almost 15 points to the lowest level since April 2009 as worries about the economy fueled the wildest stock market swings since the financial meltdown in 2008.
At a time when Americans are increasingly worried about a weak job market, higher costs for food and clothing and recent stock market turmoil, the falling confidence numbers raise new concerns about their willingness to spend and jumpstart the economy. That's particularly important since consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.
"Consumer confidence deteriorated sharply in August, as consumers grew significantly more pessimistic about the short-term outlook," said Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center in a statement.

The Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index fell to 44.5, down from a revised 59.2 in July. The number was the lowest level since April 2009 when the reading was 40.8. It also is far below the 53.3 that analysts had expected. A reading above 90 indicates the economy is on solid footing; above 100 signals strong growth.

Two months later...:

Americans say they feel worse about the economy than they have since the depths of the Great Recession.
Consumer confidence fell in October to the lowest since March 2009, a research group said Tuesday — an ominous sign for the economy as families begin to prepare their budgets for holiday shopping season.
The declining mood reflects the big hit that the stock market took in late summer — down almost 20 percent in one month — as well as frustration with an economic recovery that doesn't really feel like one.
The Conference Board, a private research group, said its index of consumer sentiment came in at 39.8, down about six points from September and seven shy of what economists were expecting.
The reading is still well above where the index stood two and a half years ago, at 26.9. But it's not even within shouting distance of 90, what it takes to signal that the economy is on solid footing.

Peachy!

Where the heck am I? LOL

2011-10-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm here. Been busy with life. Will update soon.

I have been tracking news stories and links, and will be posting in the coming days.

:-)

Markets Down to 13-month Low...

2011-10-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Two months of gains from the previous lows of the year have now been wiped out.

Dow closed at 10655, Nasdaq closed at 2335, S&P closed at 1099.

News link here.

Summary here:

NEVER FORGET!!!

2011-09-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Gibson Guitars in the Obama Admin's Crosshairs...

2011-08-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

MAJOR UPDATE BELOW!!!

In one of last Friday's posts, I linked to several stories regarding the Obama Administration's raid of Gibson Guitar's plants in Tennessee.

(via Gateway Pundit)

The Holder Justice Department raided Gibson Guitar facilities in Nashville and Memphis this week because the company is using unfinished wood from India and this violates Indian law… Not American law.

(again via Gateway Pundit)

Juszkiewiz said the government suggested that the company’s use of unfinished wood from India is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because of the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. The Holder Justice Department raided at least two Gibson manufacturing plants this week forcing hundreds of workers off their jobs. Juszkiewiz says the company lost a million dollars this week.
Finally, Henry Juszkiewicz told Dana, “The Obama Justice Department wants us to just shut our doors and go away.” He says he will continue to fight for the Gibson company and its workers.

The Wall Street Journal had a report:

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.
It isn't the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian's ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms."

WSJ concludes:

Last year, Dick Boak, director of artist relations for C.F. Martin & Co., complained to Mother Nature News about the difficulty of getting elite guitarists to switch to instruments made from sustainable materials. "Surprisingly, musicians, who represent some of the most savvy, ecologically minded people around, are resistant to anything about changing the tone of their guitars," he said.
You could mark that up to hypocrisy—artsy do-gooders only too eager to tell others what kind of light bulbs they have to buy won't make sacrifices when it comes to their own passions. Then again, maybe it isn't hypocrisy to recognize that art makes claims significant enough to compete with environmentalists' agendas.

Well, more info has come to light (via HotAir):

Commenters yesterday wondered whether Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz is a Republican donor. Yep, he is. It also turns out that Chris Martin IV, the CEO of Gibson competitor, C.F. Martin and Company, is a long-time donor to Democrats. C.F. Martin uses the same “questionable” Indian rosewood in its guitars, but has the federal government raided a C.F. Martin factory? Didn’t think so. Juszkiewicz said yesterday he feels like this is a personal attack. Could it be because it is?

...It’s also worth noting that the U.S. is a “trivial” importer of rosewood from India and Madagascar. According to Hinderaker, 95 percent of it goes to China. So, the whole “it’s for the trees” argument doesn’t really hold up.

Even MORE interesting info is THIS:

But if it turns out that the Indian rosewood in question is illegal contraband in the eyes of Obama’s DOJ, then Michelle Obama is just as guilty of trafficking in it as Gibson. In 2009, Michelle Obama gave [French First Lady] Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a Gibson guitar with a fretboard made of the material...

According to a list of the gift’s specs at Gibson.com, the fretboard was made from a “choice piece of Indian rosewood.”

Hypocrisy, thy name is Obammy!

Hahahahahhahaha...

UPDATE:

The Obama Administration wrote in a plea document to Gibson Guitars, "Your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of ours." In other words, don't use American workers, use foreign workers to manufacture your guitars. (!!!)

UPDATE:

Another point of interest is that Tennessee is a "right to work" state, and Pennsylvania is not. Just like the Boeing issue in which the O-Administration is pressuring Boeing to move their new plant in South Carolina (another "right to work" state) to Washington state (not a "right to work" state).

What's a "right to work" state?:

Right-to-work laws are statutes enforced in twenty-two U.S states, mostly in the southern or western U.S., allowed under provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, which prohibit agreements between labor unions and employers that make membership, payment of union dues, or fees a condition of employment, either before or after hiring, thus requiring the workplace to be an open shop.
Prior to the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act by Congress over President Harry S Truman's veto in 1947, unions and employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act could lawfully agree to a closed shop, in which employees at unionized workplaces must be members of the union as a condition of employment. Under the law in effect before the Taft-Hartley amendments, an employee who ceased being a member of the union for whatever reason, from failure to pay dues to expulsion from the union as an internal disciplinary punishment, could also be fired even if the employee did not violate any of the employer's rules.
The Taft-Hartley Act outlawed the closed shop. The union shop rule, which required all new employees to join the union after a minimum period after their hire, is also illegal. As such, it is illegal for any employer to force an employee to join a union.
A similar arrangement to the union shop is the agency shop, under which employees must pay the equivalent of union dues, but need not formally join such union.
Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act goes further and authorizes individual states (but not local governments, such as cities or counties) to outlaw the union shop and agency shop for employees working in their jurisdictions. Under the open shop rule, an employee cannot be compelled to join or pay the equivalent of dues to a union, nor can the employee be fired if he joins the union. In other words, the employee has the right to work, regardless of whether or not he is a member or financial contributor to such a union.
The Federal Government operates under open shop rules nationwide, though many of its employees are represented by unions.

Which states are "right to work" states?

Friday's Round-up: Part II...

2011-08-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

(via Gateway)

The Obama Administration raided a Gibson Guitars plants in Tennessee! Because of wood from India.

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewiz responds.

The Wall Street Journal chimes in.

And Captain Ed over at Hot Air has a take on it.

Meanwhile, we have a nasty beetle in larva form that arrived in a 10-lb bag of rice from - of all places - INDIA.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg bars any clergy from taking part in the 9/11 ceremonies. WTF?!? Yet, he's supporting the mosque being built at Ground Zero. Again, WTF?!?

The Republican debate on Sept 7 at the Reagan Library has been set. This last sentence is interesting:

Giller said the eight candidates are the final lineup unless someone else declares his or her candidacy and meets the debate's criteria.

And guess who's making a major announcement in Iowa on Sept 3?

Friday's Headline Round-Up...

2011-08-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

We've got a lot to cover here. Take a deep, cleansing breath, hold it....... count to 10....... and sloooooowly release.......... OK. Here it goes:

The 1st Quarter GDP numbers had been revised downward (surprise, surprise) from 1.9% to 0.4%. The 2nd Quarter GDP numbers were initially 1.3%. Well, guess what?:

The U.S. economy grew at a meager 1 percent annual pace this spring, slower than previously estimated. The downward revision will likely increase fears that the economy is at risk of another recession.
Fewer exports and weaker growth in business stockpiles led the Commerce Department to lower its estimate for the April-June quarter from its previous rate of 1.3 percent growth. That means the economy expanded only 0.7 percent in the first six months of the year.

The report continues:

Most economists aren't forecasting a recession. JPMorgan Chase projects the U.S. economy will grow only 0.9 percent this year and 1.7 percent in 2012, much lower than the bank's estimates just a few weeks ago. Other economists have made similar downgrades.
Nine of the past 11 recessions since World War II have been preceded by a period of growth of 1 percent or less, economists note.

Morgan Stanley had also cut it's global forecast less than two weeks ago (so did Goldman Sachs):

Morgan Stanley slashed its global growth forecast for 2011 and 2012, saying the U.S. and the euro zone were "dangerously close to a recession", and criticized policymakers in Washington and Europe for not acting more decisively to contain the sovereign debt crisis.
The bank cut its global gross domestic product growth forecast to 3.9 percent from 4.2 percent for 2011, and to 3.8 percent from 4.5 percent for 2012.

Daniel Gross had this report on the state of things:

First, data on unemployment claims, manufacturing and existing home sales lent weight to the case that the U.S. economy is slowing. (Of course, other data released this week, such as the leading economic index and retail sales suggests the U.S. economy continues to plow along at a positive, but not satisfactory, rate.)
Second, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs downgraded their forecasts for global growth in 2011 and 2012. Stocks are leveraged bets on growth. The big firms that populate the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 now get a very large chunk of their revenues, and much of their growth, from overseas. The prospect of a growth slowdown in China and India is far more daunting to investors than the possibility that U.S. and European growth could fall.
Third, there are continuing problems emanating from the euro zone. Growth seems to have stalled in both France and Germany, the engines of the continent's economy. The big fear this week is that French and German banks might suffer a two-fold blow. They're heavily exposed to government and private-sector debt in Greece, Spain and Italy — countries whose ability to repay debts is being questioned. And they're also heavily exposed to consumers and businesses in their suddenly flat home markets.
Of the three problems listed above, it's the last that I find most troubling.

He ends his report with this:

Europe is dishing up a toxic brew: a rigid currency, fiscal contraction, begrudging aid from the central bank, and a long history of enmity between its constituents. That's a recipe for collective paralysis, not for the sort of bold collective action that is required to halt banking crises. Pundits have floated the idea that Europe could solve its problems by issuing eurobonds. And it's true that selling bonds that are guaranteed collectively by European countries would allow countries to escape the tender mercies of the bond markets. But that plan, which would require true collective action, has been rejected.
The reality is that Europe today resembles the U.S. states during the Article of Confederation period — an agglomeration of allies and frenemies, unwilling fully to cast their lot with one another. European policymakers aren't inclined to take advice from American political thinkers. But they'd be well-advised to heed the warning Benjamin Franklin issued at a time when collective action was being considered: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Bernanke today says the Fed ain't gonna do anything right now. No QE3...yet. And he already stated previously that interest rates will remain the same for two more years (until mid-2013). So what else could he really say or do, anyway? Nothing but sitting on his thumbs, I guess.

Meanwhile, unemployment rose in July in 28 states. California (at 12%) is second only to Nevada's 12.9%.

As Gateway Pundit also reports (via CSN News), "The percentage of young people employed was the lowest ever for a July since the government started tracking the numbers in 1948."

On an interesting tack, one college student decided to try and see if his fellow students would put their GPA where their mouth is. Since students are so eager to want the wealthy to have that wealth taken away and given to those less fortunate, would they themselves be willing to give their 4.0 Grade Point Averages to other students who're less fortunate?

“They all earn their GPA,” said Darcy in an interview with "Fox and Friends." “So we asked them if they’d be interested in redistributing the GPA points that they earned to students who may be having trouble getting a high GPA.”

Darcy, who films his encounters with teachers and fellow students, doesn’t have much luck selling this theory.

He said many students on college campuses support high taxes on the rich, but when put into relative terms, cringed at the thought of spreading around their academic wealth.

In a video posted on Exposingleftists.com, one student said, “If I do give GPA points to students that don’t deserve it, it isn’t fair, I work for what I have.”

What does big business think of the current economic climate and the state of federal government debt and deficits?

Heads of over 100 major companies have joined Starbucks Corp. CEO Howard Schultz in a pledge to boycott political donations until Congress and the president agree on a long-term debt and deficit plan, Schultz announced in a letter Wednesday.
"Remarkably, the initiative triggered a national dialogue and a groundswell of support," Schultz wrote, adding that in the 10 days since releasing his pledge, he "heard directly from thousands of concerned citizens and was astounded by the volume of support we received through calls, emails, social media exchanges and various other public votes of confidence."
That included over 100 business leaders who signed on to Schultz' initiative, including Myron Ullman of JC Penney, Duncan Niederauer of NYSE, and Walter Robb, co-chief executive of Whole Foods, Tim Armstrong of AOL, Mickey Drexler of J. Crew Group, and billionaire investor Pete Peterson.

And what do they think about ObamaCare?

Nearly one in 10 midsize or large employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014, according to a survey from a large benefits consultant.

Towers Watson also found in a survey completed last month that an additional 20% of companies are unsure about what they will do...

In fact, a survey of employers published by McKinsey in June found that as many as 30 percent will definitely or probably drop coverage once the exchanges begin, and among those with a “high awareness” of the new rules post-ObamaCare, that number rises to 50 percent. And why not? If you can cut costs by paying a fine instead of buying insurance for workers, why not push them off onto the exchanges and let taxpayers pick up the slack?

Speaking of ObamaCare, remember when Rep. Joe Wilson caught flack for yelling, "You lie!" during The One's State of the Union address when Obama insisted that illegal aliens will not benefit from ObamaCare?

Guess what? Rep. Wilson was right!

...the Health and Human Services Department awarded millions to “migrant and seasonal farm worker” health care — a spokeswoman in the department was cited last week saying patients would not be asked about immigration status and an department official confirmed Monday that the centers receiving the grant money must offer primary care to “all residents” in a given area.
Wilson, on his campaign website, declared the funding announcement proved him right. Though most farm workers are here legally, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that about a quarter of them are undocumented.

More to come in today's second post.

Home, Home Down the Drain...

2011-08-18T10:48:00.000-07:00

Let's see now...

June's existing home sales dropped nearly 1%. And approximately 70% of all mortgage applications are for refinancing, NOT for purchasing.

Also, prices for NEW homes in June rose. And (surprise, surprise) it didn't help the market much.

Banks are starting to bulldoze the worst of the foreclosed properties to help get rid of the glut, and some of the banks are giving the land back to the cities.

Increasingly, it appears banks are turning to demolition teams instead of realtors to rid them of their least valuable repossessed homes. Last month, Bank of America announced plans to demolish 100 foreclosed homes in the Cleveland area. The land is then going to be donated back to the local government authorities. BofA says the recent donations in Cleveland are part of a larger plan to rid itself of its least saleable properties, many of which, according to a company spokesperson, are worth less than $10,000. BofA has already donated 100 homes in Detroit and 150 in Chicago, and may add as many as nine more cities by the end of the year... And BofA is not alone... The banks do the deals because once the properties are donated they no longer have to pay taxes or for upkeep. Tax experts say the banks may also be able to get a write off for the donation. That appears to be a better deal than trying to repair some of these homes.

Home sales for July dropped 3.5%, reaching a new low.

The number of people who bought previously occupied homes fell in July for the third time in four months. This year is on pace to be the worst in 14 years for home sales, as more Americans worry that the economy could slip back into another recession.
Home sales fell 3.5 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.67 million homes, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That's far below the 6 million that economists say must be sold to sustain a healthy housing market.

Housing starts for July dropped, as well. More info here.

Gary Shilling (one of the few who predicted the housing bubble burst) thinks that housing prices need (and will) drop down to as much as another 20% in value. More info with video here.

Excess inventories are the mortal enemy of housing prices. Lower prices are needed to unload surplus inventory, but in turn, lower prices bring forth more inventory from anxious sellers. The anxiety of house sellers and the reluctance of buyers are enhanced by the realization that house prices can fall – and are falling for the first time in 70 years.
Those excess inventories are huge. Historically, new and existing inventories listed for sale have averaged about 2.5 million. So that's the normal working inventory level, and anything above 2.5 million is excess. It's currently about 4 million, implying excess inventories of 1.5 million. But wait! There's more! As foreclosures keep mounting, a "shadow" inventory of as many as 500,000 additional homes will become visible as many more Americans choose to sell rather than endure further price declines.

[The] huge and growing surplus inventory of houses – at least 2 million above normal working levels – will probably depress prices considerably from here, perhaps another 20 percent over the next several years. That would bring the total decline in house prices from the April 2006 peak to 45 percent. My forecast may be optimistic, because declines tend to overshoot on the downside just as bubbles do on the upside.

After the markets did their major downturn last week, and after the S&P downgraded the debt holdings of the U.S., the Federal Reserve stated that they will keep interest rates at their current lows for another 2 years (until mid-2013).

The Federal Reserve sketched a dim outlook for the economy Tuesday, suggesting it will remain weak for two more years. As a result, the Fed said it expects to keep its key interest rate near zero through mid-2013.
It's the first time the Fed has pegged its "exceptionally low" rates to a specific date. The Fed had previously said only that it would keep its key rate at record lows for "an extended period."
The Fed announced no new efforts to energize the economy in its statement released after its one-day policy meeting. But the statement held out the promise of lower rates on mortgages and other consumer loans longer than many had assumed.
The decision was approved on a 7-3 vote. Three Fed regional bank presidents who have been worried about inflation objecting. It was the first time since November 1992 that as many as three Fed members have dissented from a policy statement. [emphasis mine]

Hmmm... dissension in the ranks of the Fed Board? More here.

Anyways...

Today, the 30-year mortgage rate dropped to it's lowest level on record:

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has fallen to its lowest level on records dating to 1971.
The rate on the most popular mortgage dipped to 4.15 percent from 4.32 percent a week ago, Freddie Mac said Thursday. Its previous low of 4.17 percent was reached in November.
The last time long-term rates were lower was in the 1950s, when 30-year loans weren't widely available. Most long-term home loans lasted 20 or 25 years.
Few expect record-low rates to energize the depressed home market. Over the past year, the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage has been below 5 percent for all but two weeks. Yet prices and sales remain unhealthy and are holding back the overall economy.
Five years ago, the average 30-year fixed rate was near 6.5 percent. In 2000, it exceeded 8 percent...
...After previous recessions, housing accounted for 15 percent to 20 percent of overall economic growth. This time, in 2009 and 2010, housing contributed just 4 percent to the economy...

...The average rate on a 15-year fixed mortgage, which is popular for refinancing, fell to 3.36 percent, also a record low. It's the third straight week of record lows for the popular refinancing option. Freddie Mac's records date to 1991, but analysts believe the new low on the 15-year mortgage is the lowest ever.

For someone like myself and my wife, as potential first-time home buyers, this all could bode well come this fall and winter. Remains to be seen.

ObamaCare Debacle...

2011-08-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

AARP has gotten an ObamaCare waiver.

In May another 200+ got waivers.

As of July 14, the total number of individual companies, organizations, unions, etc. (even the state of Maine!), reached 1471. And that's just the numbers up to the end of June.

Obama-appointed Supreme Court Justice Kagan (and the White House) lied about her role in ObamaCare litigations. So, I hope this means that she will have to recuse herself when all those lawsuits reach the desks of the "9 in Black".

HotAir has this post of the coming cost explosion due to ObamaCare.

Obama concedes that ObamaCare won't control costs (surprise, surprise).

And a Federal Appeals Court ruled 2-1 that the individual mandates are unconstitutional.

UPDATE: On the 1472 waivers (that will last three years).

It's All in the Numbers and the Solution is Common Sense...

2011-08-09T10:52:00.000-07:00

THIS gives you an inkling of an idea of what the issue - THE issue - is today. Namely, the national debt.

MORE charts and numbers from Hot Air.

Hmmm... $16 trillion in loans to banks in just three years. Read it. It'll pi** you off.

Rep. Paul Ryan points to healthcare reform (true reform) as a key to the debt crisis. Remember that, in my post yesterday, I quoted the S&P head saying that:

"The key thing is, yes, entitlement reform is important because entitlements are the biggest component of spending, and the part of spending where the cost pressures are greatest."

...the agreement last week to reduce the nation's debt by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years "fell well short" of comprehensive reforms that some had advocated.

In other words: ObamaCare, Medicare, MedicAid, Social Security.

Remember, also, that CC&B (Cut, Cap and Balance bill) that sailed through the House, but stalled in the Senate and was threatened a veto by The One himself. Seems that, 2-to-1, adults approve of that bill. And it's a CNN poll. The ratio of approval, I'm sure, would be even higher for registered voters. And higher still with likely voters.

Let's re-watch Rick Santelli from a couple days ago:

(with analysis by HotAir here)

Rick goes off some more here:

(thanks to Gateway Pundit)

So, let's go way back to February of 2009 and watch Rick's original rant on CNBC:

Inspiring, isn't it?

Sarah Palin posts her views here (required reading!):

HotAir comments here:

...Sarah Palin came through today with a Facebook post that strikes the right tone and is at once simple, direct, and comprehensive. It doesn’t rail at past mistakes, nor does it come across as a raised-voice, you’ve-got-to-get-this-people communication. Palin takes it for granted – with refreshing common sense – that we are in a crisis, its features are obvious, and the task now is to deal with it, not continue to argue whether it’s really a crisis or how big it is or whose name we can pin on it.
She makes no bones about the significance of the problem we face. I am particularly impressed with her point that if we don’t square ourselves away, the specter hangs over us of IMF staffers showing up on our doorstep with China and France and Germany arrayed behind them, ready to throw folders on a desk and start telling us how much we can spend on cable TV and incidentals each month. Whether things would really play out for the US as they are playing out for Greece and Ireland is a valid question, but Palin is quite correct that the pitched confrontation is on the horizon now, as it was not six weeks ago – and she has the courage to face that possibility head-on. It’s not pleasant to mention it, but it’s the right thing to do.
The last third of Palin’s post is devoted to laying out what we need to do. Grow the economy by releasing the regulatory clamps on it, starting with the energy sector. Cut spending and reform entitlements. She doesn’t pretend the latter would be easy, but she faces head-on the fact that it is inescapably necessary. I urge you to read her post for the discussion of particulars. It is material and convincing without being in the weeds.
The piece is positive and encouraging for its forthrightness. There is nothing “clever” to be done in this situation; it’s all straightforward. The US federal government has to cut spending and let the economy grow, even if that means breaking the stranglehold of unions on the public trough and overruling advocacy groups and government bureaucrats who don’t want the economy to grow. Pretending that the federal budget is too complex to be governed by the ordinary rules of accounting – or that the US is too special to be limited by the ordinary definition of fiscal solvency – is a dodge, not a sign of insight or expertise.
Palin focuses like any good executive on the big picture. We have to cut spending and get government out of the economy’s way so it can start pumping out revenues again. These things are increasingly obvious to everyone, and moreover, they constitute a plan.

Palin in 2012 with Santelli as Treasury Secretary!!!

The Obama Alphabet...

2011-08-08T09:52:00.001-07:00

Brought to you by Brett Stephens of the Wall Street Journal on-line:

A is for the Arab world, and our standing in it: This year, Zogby International found that 5% of Egyptians had a favorable view of the U.S. In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, it was 9%.
B is for the federal budget deficit, which is estimated to come in at around 11% of GDP in 2011, up from about 3% in 2008.
C is for China's military budget. For 2012, Beijing plans to increase spending on defense by 12.7%. The Obama administration, by contrast, proposed Pentagon cuts in April averaging out to $40 billion per year over the next decade, and Congress may soon cut a lot more.
D is for—what else—the federal debt, which grew to $14.3 trillion this month from $10.7 trillion at the end of 2008. D is also for the dollar, which has lost almost half its value against gold since Aug. 2008.
E is for energy. The average retail price of a gallon of gas hovered near the $1.80 mark when Mr. Obama was inaugurated. It has since more than doubled. E is also for ethanol, the non-wonder fuel the U.S. continues to subsidize to the tune of $5 billion a year.
F is for free trade. Bill Clinton signed Nafta in 1994, which facilitates $1.6 trillion in the trade of goods and services between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. George W. Bush midwifed more than a dozen FTAs, from Australia to Singapore to Morocco to Bahrain. Number of FTA's signed by the current president: zero.
G is for Guantanamo, which remains open, and for Gadhafi, who remains in power, and for Greece, which offers a vision of America's future if we don't reform our entitlement state.
H is for Hillary Clinton, who—I can't believe I'm writing this—would have made a better president than Mr. Obama.
I is for Israel, a Middle Eastern country the president claims to support even as he routinely disses its prime minister, seeks to shrink its borders and—why not?—divide its capital.
J is for jobs. In November 2008, president-elect Obama promised he would create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. By October 2010 the economy had shed 3.3 million jobs.
K is for Karzai, Hamid, Afghanistan's feckless leader. Still, the Obama administration probably did itself no favors by publicly dumping on the man, leading him to seek new best friends in Tehran.
L is for Laden, Osama bin. The president's greatest triumph, which will forever put him one notch—if only one notch—above Jimmy Carter.
M is for Mexico, a country that manages 5.4% unemployment and 4.2% annual growth even as it fights a war against the drug cartels.
N is for NATO, once a pillar of Western security, which Mr. Obama is in the process of destroying through his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and his refusal to give NATO the push it needs to win in Libya.
O is for ObamaCare, which goes far to explain B, D, J as well as the Greek part of G.
P is for Pyongyang, whose ruler the administration is once again attempting to engage in the six-party talks. This is after the Kim regime welcomed Mr. Obama's plea for a nuclear-free world by testing a nuclear bomb, torpedoing a South Korean ship, shelling a South Korean village, and unveiling a state-of-the-art uranium enrichment facility.
Q is for QE2, the most disastrous experiment in monetary policy since Fed Chairman William Miller's low-interest rate policy crashed the dollar in 1978.
R is for the reset with Russia, the principal result of which is an arms-control treaty that brings us to parity in strategic nuclear weapons, leaves us behind in the tactical category, and ill-equips us for the challenge of a proliferating world.
S is for shovel-ready. Enough said.
T is for taxes, which Mr. Obama would like to see raised for "millionaires and billionaires"—curiously defined as people making $200K and up.
U is for Iran's uranium enrichment. When Mr. Obama came to office promising to extend his hand to the mullahs, Iran had enriched 1,000 kilos of uranium. Today they have produced more than 4,000 kilos.
V is for Venezuela, a country whose extensive subterranean links to Iran the administration has consistently downplayed.
W is for the Dubya, whose presidency now looks like a model of spending restraint.
X is for Liu Xiaobo, an example of what a deserving winner of the Nobel Peace Prize looks like.X is also for Xanax, likely to be remembered as the drug of choice of the Obama years.
Y is for Yes, We Can! Unfortunately, it's also for Yemen.
Z is for zero, which is the likelihood that one of the current GOP hopefuls will defeat Mr. Obama in 2012.

It's getting ugly (except for oil & gold)...

2011-08-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

(UPDATED)

After S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Friday after the markets closed, the Dow (and other markets) take another dump.

Since the July 21 high of 12747, the Dow is now currently at 11125. That's a 13% drop in just two and a half weeks! Oil has dropped to $83/barrel (one bright spot in all of this) while Gold breached the $1700 threshold (another bright spot IF you invested in gold).

Moody's thinking of lowering the U.S. credit rating, as well:

Ratings agency Moody's Investors Service on Monday warned it might also downgrade the U.S. government'scredit rating if its planned measures to reduce its budget deficitturned out to be not "credible" after all.
In his first comments after the move by rival rating agency S&P, Moody's analyst Steven Hess sounded a note of caution about Moody's rating of the U.S., repeating that the August 2 plan to cut deficits by $2.1 trillion was positive for the U.S. credit standing, but not enough to keep its rating on a stable outlook...

..."If the process for further deficit reduction that is included in the budget control act produces results that are not really credible, that combined with the economic performance could potentially cause an early move on the rating," Hess told Reuters in an interview.

Meanwhile, today S&P downgraded Frannie Mae & Freddie Mac, and others:

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Monday downgraded the credit ratings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other agencies linked to long-term U.S. debt.
The agency also lowered the ratings for: farm lenders; long-term U.S. government-backed debt issued by 32 banks and credit unions; and three major clearinghouses, which are used to execute trades of stocks, bonds and options.
All the downgrades were from AAA to AA+, reflecting the same downgrade S&P made of long-term U.S. government debt on Friday.

The S&P head stated that:

"The key thing is, yes, entitlement reform is important because entitlements are the biggest component of spending, and the part of spending where the cost pressures are greatest."

...the agreement last week to reduce the nation's debt by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years "fell well short" of comprehensive reforms that some had advocated.

Via Hot Air, Rick Santelli (he of Feb '09 fame who's impromptu on-camera CNBC rant sparked the Tea Party movement) says, "they're still not listening":

UPDATE: Dow now down 523 points just for today! That's almost 15% down since July 21.

UPDATE#2: The markets closed with the Dow down to 10810. So, in just 13 business days the Dow has gone down 15.2%, the S&P down 16.4%, and the NASDAQ down 17.5%.

Down Dow Down... Up Gold Up...

2011-08-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

UPDATED and LINKED

The Dow closed down over 500 points today. The worse single-day drop since Oct 22, 2008 (remember THAT time?...can YOU say TARP, QE1-2-3, Corporate Bailouts, Freddie & Fannie Faux Pas, Too-Big-To-Fail-BS, and the beginning of all this mess?). Since Monday morning, the Dow's dropped almost 900 points. All the markets (S&P, NASDAQ, etc.) were hit even harder.

Gold's at $1650/ounce, though! The average price of gold in 2008 was........ $872. The average price in 2005 (before the housing crash began?)..... $445. Gold was stable for many, many years, until 1933. Then it up-ticked a bit. Stayed stable again until the early 1970s when it went from $36 in 1970 to $124 in 1976 to $615 in 1980. Nixon/Ford, then came Carter, and look out!

Gold stabilized and fluctuated in the $317-460 range thru the late 90s. Dipped into the high $200s for a few years. In 2001 it was at $271, then it went back to it's 2+ decade range until... 2006. It went from $445 in 2005 to $603 in 2006. Then to $695 in 2007, $872 in 2008, then $972 in 2009, then $1224 in 2010. And now it's at $1650. Welcome back, Carter!!

(link)

Phantom Budget Deal Passed & Signed, So What Does Moody Say?...

2011-08-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

News Link

Rating agency Moody's upheld its AAA rating for the United States Tuesday after Congress passed new legislation to raise the debt ceiling that averted a possible default.
But Moody's added a "negative outlook" on the grade, saying a historic downgrade could still come if fiscal discipline weakens or economic growth deteriorates significantly.

So, how did Wall Street respond today?

News Link

The S&P 500 turned negative for the year on Tuesday as the wrangling over the U.S. debt ceiling faded and investors turned their attention to the stalling economy.
The broad-based index fell for a seventh day and crashed through the key 200-day moving average in an ominous sign for markets. The seven days of losses mark the longest losing streak since October 2008.
"It is going to be a long week," said Jim Maguire Jr., a NYSE floor trader at E.H. Smith Jacobs. "The bid is not here in the market."
The selloff accelerated into the close as volume jumped well above average. The fall was broad-based, with four stocks falling for every one rising on the New York Stock Exchange.
The index also broke through its 2-1/2 year uptrend line from itsbear market low in March 2009. Thursday was the index's worst day in a year...

..."Investors have made the shift from Washington to what I'm calling economic realities," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at The Davidson Cos. in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Mm-hmm...

DEBT and BBA...

2011-07-29T16:03:00.000-07:00

(via Ace of Spades)

THIS is why a Balanced Budget Amendment is so necessary!

Hmmm... didn't I post a suggestion about this in 2005 and 2004?

The Housing Chronicles...

2011-06-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

Let's start with a March 31 report that shows "all cash" sales in housing are at record highs (gee, that makes buying a house soooo much easier for 95% of the population).

Nationwide, cash buyers grabbed 33 percent of all used homes sold in February, the National Association of Realtors reported March 21. The figures, based on agent reporting, do not include foreclosure auctions on courthouse steps, which are usually cash-only.

In early May, Flopping Aces had a great post about "The Housing Recovery That Wasn't". The numbers and charts are staggering.

Capt. Ed then posted about how the home buying credit from last year really didn't do much for the market.

"... it turned out to be a pretty bad deal for those who used the credit as well as taxpayers. Thanks to the artificially higher home prices that the tax credits provided, buyers have lost almost twice as much in value as the credit itself, and in some cases 150% more..."

The AP then talks about how the low interest rate on mortgages aren't helping matters much because:

In many metro areas, real estate is straining under the weight of foreclosures, higher down-payment requirements, tighter credit, still-high unemployment and buyers' expectations of even lower prices.
"If people aren't confident about the economy, about jobs and home prices, they certainly aren't going to sign up for the biggest purchase of their lives," said Greg McBride, a senior analyst at Bankrate.com.

Then April's existing home sales slipped nearly 1%.

And new housing starts fell nearly 11% that same month.

"The Census Bureau reported today that the annualized rate of new residential starts dropped over 10 points from March to April, and that single-family starts dropped 5.1%. Permit applications also declined by 4%, which indicates that no one sees much hope for renewed demand in the market."

Reuters, then, stated the obvious:

Residential construction is being crowded out by an oversupply of used homes on the market, in particular, foreclosed properties, which sell well below their value.

Jazz Shaw at Hot Air asks the all-important question - "Where have all the home buyers gone?":

The four worst states for housing sales were Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada. But regionally, the biggest drop came in the Northeast. So who were the big winners? Among them, South Carolina and Texas. One of the biggest individual losers in the Northeast? Connecticut.
What do the elements of this tale have in common? States embracing right to work laws and electing legislatures who are lowering taxes to attract businesses which bring jobs are seeing growth in housing sales. States who seek to balance their budgets on the backs of higher taxes and engage in anti-business practices are seeing their populations flee and their houses go unsold.

By the end of May, housing foreclosures still accounted for 28% of all homes sold. That's still six times higher than normal.

Foreclosure sales, which include homes purchased after they received a notice of default or were repossessed by lenders, hit the highest share of overall sales in a year during the first quarter, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
"It's an astronomically high number," said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac. "In a normal market, you're looking at the percentage of homes sold in foreclosure to be below 5 percent."
The pace at which homes are entering the foreclosure process has slowed in recent months amid bank and court delays. But distressed properties remain a fixture of a housing market still searching for a sustained recovery. The properties, often in need of repair, typically sell at a discount, weakening prices for other types of homes...

The report continues:

Bank-owned homes accounted for nearly 19 percent of all sales, up from 17 percent in the fourth quarter and up from 18 percent a year ago, the firm said.
That's not good news for the housing market.
RealtyTrac estimates there are 872,000 homes that have been repossessed by lenders, but have yet to be sold. At the first-quarter's sales pace, it will take three years to clear the inventory of 1.9 million properties already in some stage of foreclosure.
For bank-owned properties alone, that amounts to a 2-year supply.

And how about in my neck of the woods?

In California, foreclosure sales accounted for 45 percent of all home sales in the first quarter, down from nearly 48 percent a year earlier.

The nationwide home-price index has fallen to such an extent that:

Prices have now fallen further since the bubble burst than they did during the Great Depression. It took 19 years for the housing market to regain its losses after the Depression ended....
...Many economists think prices nationally will drop at least 5 percent more by year's end. They aren't likely to stop falling until the glut of foreclosures for sale is reduced, employers start hiring in greater force, banks ease lending rules and would-be buyers regain confidence that a home purchase is a wise investment.
"Folks are having so much difficulty in getting financing for a home," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo. "It may be early next year before prices hit bottom."
Another obstacle to a rebound in prices: A delay in processing foreclosures. Homes in foreclosure sell for, on average, 20 percent discounts. When they do, they pull prices down further. But many foreclosure sales have been delayed while federal regulators, state attorneys general and banks review how those foreclosures were carried out over the past two years.
Once those homes are eventually foreclosed upon, they will trigger a further price drop in many markets. Those declines are "etched in stone," said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

Judson Burger picks up on the state of things in this report:

The bleak prediction comes after he released a report estimating that since the collapse began from the pricing peak of 2006, prices have fallen 33 percent -- more than the 31 percent dive recorded between the 1920s and 1930s.

Remember, though, that the boom from 1998-2006 was severely artificially inflated to more than triple in just eight years. He continues:

The data underscores the trouble the U.S. economy is having emerging from what is described as the worst recession since the Great Depression. "The sharp fall in house prices in the first quarter provided further confirmation that this housing crash has been larger and faster than the one during the Great Depression," the analysis said.

Dales said the collapse has eclipsed that of the Great Depression because the boom that preceded it was much bigger. Unlike during the 1920s, access to the housing market was far more open leading up to 2006.

"This boom was characterized by homeownership becoming the norm for pretty much anyone," Dales said, noting that the boom has effectively been thrown in reverse.

A key sentence here:

Nationally, prices hit a new post-collapse low in the first quarter, and have returned to roughly 2002 levels.

Exactly! It still needs to get back down to 1998 levels (adjusted to the low inflation rate over these last 13 years). Which is why home prices still need to drop (and will drop) over the next 1 to 2 years.

And then yesterday's AP report just continues with more of the same:

Home sales sank 3.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.81 million homes, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. That's far below the roughly 6 million annual sales rate typical in healthy housing markets.
Since the housing boom went bust in 2006, sales have fallen in four of the past five years. Analysts say they expect sales to level off at about 5 million a year. That's not much better than the 4.91 million homes sold last year, the worst showing in 13 years...

...One sign of the housing industry's struggles is that fewer first-time buyers are entering the market. The number of first-timers ticked down to 35 percent of sales last month. In healthy times, they drive about half of sales.
First-time buyers are critical because they tend to improve their properties and invest in their communities, a combination that raises home values. And their purchases allow sellers to move up to pricier homes.
Instead, the market has been saturated with foreclosures...

...Bigger required down payments, tougher lending rules, heavy credit-card and student-loan debt and a shortage of desirable starter homes are keeping many would-be buyers away. Even some who do have enough money for a down payment and a solid credit history are holding off, worried that home prices will keep falling.
Investors are filling some of the void. They are spending cash to scoop up deeply discounted homes in hard-hit areas of Phoenix, Las Vegas and Tampa. Last month, investors accounted for 19 percent of all sales.

Peachy, ain't it?

The reason why I haven't posted lately...

2011-06-06T12:09:00.001-07:00

... is because on Wednesday, June 8, at 3:30 PM I will be getting married.

:-)

10 Years Later... Justice Delayed... Justice Served...

2011-05-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

The evil bastard is finally dead!

DNA confirms it.

Tuesday Toss-ups...

2011-04-26T12:09:00.000-07:00

The truth about light bulbs (CFLs vs. Incandescents).

So, you bought an electric car to (a) save money on gas, and (b) "save the environment". GUESS WHAT?!

Meanwhile, about those gas prices (currently no lower than $4.13/gallon in my area).

Are food and fuel prices the death knell for The One? Apparently, when fuel energy costs surpass 6% of consumer spending we head into a recession. IT'S DOUBLE-DIP TIME!

Here comes inflation!

And, what about that shrinking workforce?

How's that job search in California going?

JP Morgan downgrades its the nation's prospect.

S&P also lowers it's long-term outlook for the country.

Plus the coming Treasury Bond crisis looming on the horizon.

Then, finally, there's the housing issue... which is THREE TIMES worse than you think, with a double-dip happening there as well.

Ain't it fun???

Jobs, Inflation, Gas/Oil Prices... Up, Up & Away...

2011-04-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

Jobless rate is much higher than the 8.9% in February:

Since November 2010, the unemployment rate has tumbled from 9.8% to 8.9% in February. That seems to signal a return to healthy job growth. But is it real?
While unemployment has fallen nearly a full percentage point, just 407,000 payroll jobs have been created — a mere 0.3% rise.
How can that be? Maybe it's because the real jobless rate — which includes those unemployed Americans so discouraged they've stopped looking — is higher than 8.9%. Much higher.
"Though the official unemployment rate is improving, according to our poll, we still have at least 20% of able Americans looking for full-time employment," said Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, IBD's polling partner...
At one time, the jobless rate included all people without jobs.
But during the first Clinton administration, the BLS changed its definition to exclude long-term discouraged workers. As a result, the unemployment rate has looked far lower than it really is.
The labor-force participation rate, now 62.2%, is at a 27-year low. If you're not in the work force, you can't be "unemployed."...
Gallup's "broader unemployment" measure combines the unemployed with part-time workers seeking full-time work. It rose to an alarming 19.9% in March, from 17.2% in December.

March's "official" number dropped to 8.8%, but Gallup's true numbers rose to 20.3%. Also, there is this tidbit:

Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

Via Hot Air, on April 5 the Washington Post reported that inflation is here (duh!) and wages are lagging behind (double duh!!):

Today, Wall Street stumbles on news of inflation going up, the March unemployment numbers "unexpectedly" as initial jobless claims went back above 400,000. Core producer prices are up, too. I like this gem of a quote from The One's Labor Dept:

The Labor Department said on Thursday its seasonally adjusted index for prices paid at the farm and factory gate -- excluding volatile food and energy costs [emphasis mine] -- rose 0.3 percent after gaining 0.2 percent in February. Economists had expected core PPI to rise 0.2 percent in March.

Yeah, let's just EXCLUDED those pesky food and energy costs. And prices still rose!

Is there a bubble forming in food commodities? Via Daily Eudemon, there's this:

And, about those energy prices???

Energy prices, which rose 2.6 percent, accounted for nearly 90 percent of the increase in wholesale prices last month. Energy prices rose 3.3 percent in February.
Gasoline prices rose 5.7 percent after increasing 3.7 percent in February.

Let's chart that sucker (thanks to PoliPundit):

Here in southern California the cheapest gas price I can find is $4.11/gallon. (Ouch!)

What else could also be affecting the cost of government? How about this fact!:

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.
It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers.

The One's OMB admits that the Prez's budget won't reduce spending at the federal government level at all.

Flopping Aces has an antidote for too much government.

So where the heck am I???

2011-04-11T11:19:00.001-07:00

Been busy...

... Putting together the complex pieces of the puzzle of a wedding...

... My wedding...

:-)

... which will occur in a couple months.

I will occasionally be blogging soon. Mostly good collections of links to stories and articles of note.

Hehehehe...

2011-04-11T11:15:00.001-07:00

Chris makes me chuckle (click on the image below to see enlarged and in full):

Home Sales Drop Again... Big Time...

2011-03-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

Sales of previously-owned homes dropped last month by almost 10%. The lowest level in almost a decade:

Fewer Americans bought previously occupied homes in February and those who did purchased them at steep discounts. The weak sales and rise in foreclosures pushed home prices down to their lowest level in nearly 9 years.

More info here:

At February's sales pace, the supply of existing homes represented an 8.6 months' supply, up from 7.5 in January. A supply of between six and seven months is generally considered ideal, with higher readings pointing to lower house prices.
"Inventory is still high, about a third higher than it was pre-recession. We are not going to see any bounce back in new home sales until the inventory of existing home sales gets worked down," said Steve Blitz, a senior economist at ITG Investment Research in New York.
"We don't even know what the inventory is. We see a visible supply but then there is a shadow supply that comes on and off the market depending on the time of the year. It's still a morbid market on a national level."

New home sales dropped to a new low, down almost 17%:

...the Census Bureau confirms that sales of new homes has hit another record low in the 48 years that the US government has tracked this economic indicator, sliding to an annual sales rate of 250,000.

It hasn't been this bad since... the year I was born (a loooong time ago):

That marked the lowest number of units sold since 1963, when records began.
At the current rate it would take almost nine months for the all the new homes on the US market to be sold -- if no more homes are built.
The biggest slowdown in turnover was seen in the country's populous northeast, with sales down 57 percent from January.
"Nothing good can be said about the February report," said Steven Ricchiuto, an economist with Mizuho describing it as "several times worse that the markets expected."

The One Goes To War... Without Congressional Approval...

2011-03-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ace has some commentary here and here on The One's decision to go to war against Libya.

Congress (including Democrats) is miffed (as well they should be) since The One did not seek Congressional approval (as is necessary under a certain insignificant document called the U.S. Constitution):

Article 1, Section 8:

"The Congress shall have Power To...declare War"

Hot Air asks, "Where's the anti-war movement now?"

The One even continues to flip-flop on Gaddafi.

Add this to the Egypt fiasco and you have what Flopping Aces and RedState both see as Jimmy Carter 2.0.

Meanwhile, back to Libya... let's see what Mr. Foot-in-Mouth (aka, VP Biden) has to say about Presidents going to war without Congressional approval:

One

Two

Three

I'm just waiting for #2 to lead the charge on that impeachment process.

Any day, Joe...... any day......... annnnny day......

TGIF...

2011-03-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

UPDATED:

California's economic mess (it's been building since the early Gray Davis years).

The Michigan Democrats plot to put fake Tea Party candidates on ballots was a major FAIL.

Alan Grenstan admits that the stimulus plans did not help with the economic recovery, and actually hurt it.

Hedge Funds and Junk Bonds... again... OH MY!

The UK gets a clue and questions whether The One may be the weakest American president in history.

In the first two years of The One's term in office, he did not meet with half a dozen of his own Cabinet members!!!

And, about those ObamaCare waivers that are now over 700 companies and 2.2 million employees (and growing).

Flopping Aces has commentary on The One's quote about it being so much easier to be a leader China.

Europe, in general, gets a clue and allows crucifixes in classrooms.

And, on a tangent... what about increasing brain power and memory ability?

Hump Day Mish-Mash...

2011-03-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

Wholesale prices increased in February at their fastest rate in over a year and a half, while housing starts dropped to their lowest level in 27 years. More info here.

Also, mortgage apps last week also dropped.

The markets are down for the third straight day after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. At this moment, and Dow and S&P are off 6% and the Nasdaq is off 7.5% from their recent highs.

How about some electronic pickpocketing.

"If I'm walking through a crowd, I get near people's back pocket and their wallet, I just need to be this close to it and there's my credit card and expiration date on the screen," says Augustinowicz demonstrating how easily cards containing RFID can be hacked.

How about WMDs found... IN THE USA!

Or federal agents being told to allow weapons into Mexico, and then being used against Americans.

The problems with government (and cooky environmental) regulations causing plumbing problems.

Light bulb issues, too. Rand Paul asks an interesting question.

Sometimes Moore is less (heh!).

And the piéce de résistance:

Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, “No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.”

Thursday Thrashabout...

2011-03-10T15:00:00.000-08:00

Questions abound on whether we're about to see another bubble burst. AP business writers say this:

After two bubbles in the past 10 years — tech stocks and real estate — investors are suspicious of consistent gains that seem too good to be true. Some worry that the Fed's dramatic measures to pump up the economy mean the market's gains are an illusion. But a range of measurements suggest the market isn't in the midst of a bubble now. Instead, the stock market may simply be back to normal.

Really??? They continue:

One sign of a bubble would be if stocks rose far beyond what's normal by historical standards, says Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Asset Management Group. By that measure, it's not happening yet. According to Stone's research, since 1928, the average bull market runs almost five years and gains 164 percent. By comparison, this bull market has barely hit middle age.

Why does he say that? Earlier in the article it's stated that:

The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is in its fastest climb since 1955, doubling since the market bottomed on March 9, 2009. In January and February alone, it's up 5.5 percent.

Hmmm... let me get this straight. It's only been a little over two years into this "bull" market, so you can't make any assumptions yet. [CORRECTION] Even though in just TWO year the S&P doubled (that's a 100% increase). That, stretched over a 5-year span would mean a 250% increase. Which is WAY more than the 164% average.

Here's even more:

Judged by other measures of value, the companies that make up the S&P 500 look rich. Investors are paying 24 times inflation-adjusted earnings over the last decade. The historical average is 16. That ratio could climb if people push stock prices higher because they expect earnings to catch up. But Arnott believes people are already underestimating larger problems ahead. The U.S. government's $14 trillion in debt and a greater share of the work force hitting retirement are both bound to drag down economic growth. "That's quite a hurricane," he says.

REEEEALLY???

...investor Jeremy Grantham, chief investment strategist of GMO... [states] If the S&P 500, at 1,321 on Friday, climbs to 1,500 by October, then watch out. At that point, he says, "it will be a market looking for an excuse to go. On the first piece of really bad news, it will make a determined effort to tank."

SO... about those jobs being created:

Several recent studies suggest that the new jobs pay less and offer fewer work hours than the ones they have replaced...

• Lower-wage industries -- things like retail and food preparation -- accounted for 23 percent of the jobs lost during the recession, but 49 percent of the jobs gained over the last year, a recent study by the National Employment Law Project found. Higher-wage industries, by contrast, accounted for 40 percent of the jobs lost, but just 14 percent of the jobs gained. In other words, low paying jobs are increasing as a percentage of total jobs, while high-paying jobs are on the decline.
• Meanwhile, the percentage of those working who have part-time jobs and want full-time ones surged in mid-February to 19.6 percent -- almost as high as it was a year ago before the recovery began, according to Gallup numbers. That suggests, of course, that a large number of the new jobs created over the last year are part-time.
• And a recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that even though productivity rose 5.2 percent from mid 2009 to the end of 2010, wages increased by just 0.3 percent. That means only 6 percent of productivity gains were shared with workers. In past recoveries, that figure has averaged 58 percent. This time around, far more of the gains went to shareholders, in the form of profits, which are at record levels.

Spain's been downgraded by Moody, meanwhile. And the stock market took a hit today.

Lovely.

3/15 UPDATE: Looks like a massive natural disaster in Japan has pushed the markets back down. The Dow is off it's recent 12418 high to 11798 (a 5% drop). The S&P was at 1344, and is now at 1296 (a 4% drop). Oil is at $98/barrel (it reached $105 last week). And even Gold dropped to under $1400 (its high was $1430).

It's Ash Wednesday...

2011-03-09T10:25:00.001-08:00

"Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."

Jobs, the lack thereof, and food you can't afford...

2011-03-09T10:05:00.000-08:00

In January, jobless claims jumped and wholesale food costs begin to go up big.

Hiring fell short of expectations. (...unexpectedly...)

Eric (via Zero Hedge) went into the labor numbers here:

At 64.2%, the labor force participation rate (as a percentage of the total civilian noninstitutional population) is now at a fresh 26 year low, the lowest since March 1984, and is the only reason why the unemployment rate dropped to 9%...

...Those not in the Labor Force has increased from 83.9 million to 86.2 million, or 2.2 million in one year!

February wasn't much better.

ObamaCare will cost us yet another 800,000 jobs.

Then, the Obomination Administration and the Mainstream Media try to boast about the recent unemployment numbers.

Clarity is needed, here.

Eric, yet again, goes thru the real numbers.

Meanwhile, food prices worldwide are now at their highest:

Global food prices are the highest in 20 years and could increase further because of rising oil prices stemming from the unrest in Libya and the Mideast, a U.N. agency warned Thursday.
Skyrocketing food prices have been among the triggers for protests in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere, and raised fears of a repeat of the food price crises in 2007 and 2008...
The Food and Agriculture Organization said in a statement that its food price index was up 2.2 percent last month, the highest level since January 1990 when the agency started monitoring prices.
It also was the eighth consecutive month that food prices had risen, the Rome-based agency said. In January, the index had already registered a record peak.
The increase was driven mostly by higher prices of cereals, meat and dairy products, FAO said. Sugar was the only commodity of the groups being monitored whose price hadn't risen.
Global oil prices, which increased on concerns about the potential impact of supply disruptions following unrest in Libya, are a crucial variable...
Oil prices affect food markets in many ways, from production to transport costs. When oil prices are high, there is a bigger incentive to produce alternative fuels such as ethanol, which is made from crops such as corn. Increasing demand for alternative fuels made from crops drives up food prices.

Peachy!

NPR = Narcissistic Progressive Radicals...

2011-03-09T09:43:00.000-08:00

So, on March 7 NPR's CEO Vivian Schiller claimed (on video) that:

"...NPR has 'no particular bias.' During the hour-long coverage on C-SPAN2, Mrs. Schiller repeats her evaluation that NPR is a bi-partisan news agency and that their reporting is 'ethical.'”

On March 8, Project Veritas released a hidden video of NPR Senior Executive Ron Schiller (no relation) saying things like this:

In a new video released Tuesday morning by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, Schiller and Betsy Liley, NPR’s director of institutional giving, are seen meeting with two men who, unbeknownst to the NPR executives, are posing as members of a Muslim Brotherhood front group. The men, who identified themselves as Ibrahim Kasaam and Amir Malik from the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC) Trust, met with Schiller and Liley at Café Milano, a well-known Georgetown restaurant, and explained their desire to give to $5 million to NPR because, “the Zionist coverage is quite substantial elsewhere.”
On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been “hijacked by this group.” The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, “the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people.” Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

Apparently, it was publicly announced last week that Ron Schiller was leaving NPR in May. But the video was filmed on Feb 22 (three weeks ago). Ronny is now on administrative leave. (My non-liberal heart bleeds.)

Poor Ron is also apparently not taking on his new position at the Aspen Institute.

Vivian, meanwhile, has quit NPR over the incident. But this isn't the first issue that has haunted Viv. She was the one that fired liberal journalist Juan Williams last year:

Vivian Schiller was criticized for last year's firing of analyst Juan Williams after he said on Fox News that he feels uncomfortable when he sees people in "Muslim garb" on airplanes. She later said she was sorry for the way she handled Williams' dismissal but stood by her decision to fire him.

Juan Williams had PLENTY to say about the nasty culture at NPR.

As Ron Schiller said in that hidden video:

"NPR 'would be better off in the long-run without Federal funding.'”

Be careful what you wish for... you just might get it.

Heh!

3/10 UPDATE: Seems NPR was also willing to hide from the federal government the fact that the money they'd receive from the sting was from a Muslim Brotherhood front group. OUCH! That's gotta hurt.

Bernanke's An Idiot...

2011-03-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

You probably already knew that, but his latest utterance kinda seals the deal on that sentiment for me:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke offered a fairly upbeat assessment of the economy on Tuesday, saying the recent surge in oil prices is unlikely to have a major effect on growth or inflation as long as higher prices do not become sustained.
Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee he saw increasing evidence that the economic recovery has enough momentum to become self-supporting. But job growth remains far too anemic, he said...
... "We do see some grounds for optimism about the job market over the next few quarters," Bernanke said, citing a steep recent decline in the jobless rate among other factors.
Bernanke said downside risks to growth had diminished and, for the first time, stated that the risk of deflation was now "negligible." The threat of deflation, a downward spiral in wages and prices that could derail the economy, was a key justification for the Fed's bond-buying spree...
... [Bernanke] reiterated a warning that a failure by Congress to raise the government's debt ceiling could lead to a debt default that would have dire consequences for the economy.
"It would be extremely dangerous and very likely a recovery-ending event," he said.

You're kidding me, right? Rising oil prices won't have an effect on the economy? And, just at this moment, oil passed $100/barrel. The only things not in inflation mode are housing (because that bogus bubble burst, and the stale air from that false inflation is still deflating), and wages (how many of you who had wages cut in recent years have gotten any of that back - even partially?). Unemployment has not really recovered. And raising the debt ceiling - AGAIN - would be a friggin' disaster.

Yeah... okay.

No, Bernanke, we are NOT in a deflationary mode, nor were we threatened to be getting into one. INflation and HYPER-inflation, quite likely. Almost certainly STAGflation, with wages and unemployment stuck, and fuel/energy and food prices skyrocketing.

Let's read the definition of Stagflation on WikiPedia, shall we?:

Economists offer two principal explanations for why stagflation occurs. First, stagflation can result when the productive capacity of an economy is reduced by an unfavorable supply shock, such as an increase in the price of oil for an oil importing country. Such an unfavorable supply shock tends to raise prices at the same time that it slows the economy by making production more costly and less profitable.
Second, both stagnation and inflation can result from inappropriate macroeconomic policies. For example, central banks can cause inflation by permitting excessive growth of the money supply, and the government can cause stagnation by excessive regulation of goods markets and labor markets, Either of these factors can cause stagflation. Excessive growth of the money supply taken to such an extreme that it must be reversed abruptly can clearly be a cause. Both types of explanations are offered in analyses of the global stagflation of the 1970s: it began with a huge rise in oil prices, but then continued as central banks used excessively stimulative monetary policy to counteract the resulting recession, causing a runaway wage-price spiral.

Just keep printing more dollars, Benji. That, plus more federal regulations, and rising oil prices will do the trick... make everything all hunky-dorey. Nothing to see behind the curtain... look away, look away.

*sigh*

Yep! Just as I had expected. Jimmy Carter 2.0.

Well Lubed by Oil...

2011-02-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

After pushing the $100/barrel threshold last week, oil closed today on the market at $96.89/barrel. The national average for gas is now at $3.37/gallon.

Now, let's remember this post I had back in October of 2008.

To re-interate, in July of '08 oil peaked at $147.27/barrel and gas peaked at $4.11/gallon, nationally ($4.65/gallon in my area of California). Using that as the benchmark, if oil is currently at $96.89/barrel then that means it is at 65.7% of it's high. This SHOULD translate into a 65.7% of $4.11/gallon of gas.

But 65.7% of the national peak of $4.11 is... $2.70. And 65.7% of my area's peak of $4.65 is... $3.06.

So, WHY is the current national average 67-cents more than it should be?

And, WHY is my local area gas prices currently at $3.69 to $3.79/gallon, depending on the gas station (63- to 73-cents more than it should be)?

Housing Update...

2011-02-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

This just in:

National home prices fell 4.1% during the last three months of 2010, compared with 12 months earlier, according to the latest report from the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index, a closely watched indicator of market trends. They were down 1.9% compared with three months earlier.

"Despite improvements in the overall economy, housing continues to drift lower and weaker," said David Blitzer, spokesman for S&P.
And things may get a lot worse, said Robert Shiller, a Yale economist and half of the Case-Shiller team, in a web conference after the report's release.
"There's a substantial risk of home prices falling another 15%, 20% or 25% more," he said.
Shiller cited a few reasons for his bearish stance. The government is expected to reduce the presence of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the housing market. These agencies currently provide loan guarantees for about two-thirds of mortgages. If they fade away, private mortgage money will have to fill the gap and the cost of mortgage borrowing will surely rise. That will hurt home prices.
There's also talk of possibly ending the mortgage interest tax deduction for many homeowners. Meanwhile, the weak economic recovery may be threatened by higher oil prices as a result of turmoil in the Mideast.

UPDATE: HotAir has a new post that gives newer statistics on the mess:

... the Census Bureau announced that new residential sales dropped 12.6% over a mild bump upward in December, down to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 284,000 units. That number barely avoids the low-water mark reached in October 2010 of 280,000 units, which was itself the lowest such figure in the entire historical run of the data, which goes back to 1963...

The actual number of houses sold in January, not seasonally adjusted, was 19,000 — which is the lowest number in a month in the entire 48-year history of sales tracking. That beats the monthly low hit in November by 1,000, and is 3,000 less than December.

Housing Woes Continue...

2011-02-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

Back in November there was a news report that housing prices were continuing to drop:

Millions of foreclosures and weak demand from buyers are forcing home prices down in most major U.S. cities.
Prices are falling even in places like San Francisco and San Diego, which had posted strong increases just a few months ago. Analysts say many markets won't improve until they see fewer foreclosures and more job gains.
"Unemployment is still high, people are afraid of losing their homes and credit is hard to get," said Maureen Maitland, vice president of Standard & Poor's indices.
A report Tuesday underscored the weakness. Home prices declined in 18 of the 20 cities, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index.

The foreclosure crisis (as I had predicted in the past) will continue to steamroll this year:

Lenders are poised to take back more homes this year than any other since the U.S. housing meltdown began in 2006. About 5 million borrowers are at least two months behind on their mortgages and industry experts say more people will miss payments because of job losses and also loans that exceed the value of the homes they are living in.
"2011 is going to be the peak," said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at foreclosure tracker RealtyTrac Inc. The firm predicts 1.2 million homes will be repossessed this year.
The blistering pace of foreclosures this year will top 2010, when a record 1 million homes were lost, RealtyTrac said Thursday.
One in every 45 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing last year, a record 2.9 million of them. That's up 1.67 percent from 2009. [emphasis mine]

Housing starts in December were the worst in a year:

Housing starts fell 4.3 percent to a 529,000 annual rate, the lowest level since October 2009, Commerce Department figures showed today...

Home sales for 2010 was the worst since 1997:

The number of people who bought previously owned homes last year fell to the lowest level in 13 years...
The National Association of Realtors says sales dropped 4.8 percent to 4.91 million units in 2010. That was slightly lower than 2008, which had been the weakest level since 1997. [emphasis mine]
Home prices have been depressed by a record number of foreclosures and high unemployment. Many potential buyers held off on purchases last year, fearful that prices hadn't bottomed out yet.

Bank of America suffers a loss on the mortgage sector.

Via HotAir, the Washington Post had this interesting tidbit:

This “double dip” in real estate represents one of the worst fears of housing analysts and is developing just as it appeared that the overall economy was recovering. For now, many economists expect prices to keep slipping at least through the first half of the year, dragged down by the nation’s large volume of foreclosures and high unemployment rate.

HotAir then analyzes:

The reason for the upcoming “double dip,” which really has been upon us for a while, is because of ill-advised federal interventions after the bubble popped. Congress passed tax breaks for people buying homes, which did nothing to create more qualified buyers — that still required the normal income-to-debt ratios that got ignored during the bubble period — but instead subsidized sales that would have occurred anyway with tax dollars. It also stole demand from future sales, which has contributed to the poor performance in the second half of 2010.

Otherwise, we wouldn’t have needed a second “dip” to reach the proper market valuation for housing. These interventions only delayed the inevitable, which was the reset of prices to a norm outside of the bubble — perhaps back to 1998-2000 pricing, adjusted for inflation. Those who bought during the bubble understandably resist this, but the valuation of housing had always been coupled to the rate of inflation until Congress and successive administrations made home ownership into a fetish and incentivized lenders to give mortgages out to people who couldn’t afford them. [emphasis mine]

However, those millions of people whose mortgages are underwater make a powerful political force. They want Congress to address a problem that they believe Congress created to support at least the current valuation of homes. The only real way to do that, though, is to create more qualified buyers — and the only way to do that is to create public policy that stimulates growth in large quantities. That can be done through monetary policy, tax policy, and regulatory policy. The Obama administration has gone the wrong direction on the latter throughout its first two years, and until that gets reversed, expect home sales and values to continue their downward drift.

So, how bad is it, really?:

Buyers purchased the fewest number of new homes last year on records going back 47 years.
Sales for all of 2010 totaled 321,000, a drop of 14.4 percent from the 375,000 homes sold in 2009, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It was the fifth consecutive year that sales have declined after hitting record highs for the five previous years when the housing market was booming... [emphasis mine]
... economists say it could be years before sales rise to a healthy rate of 600,000 units a year.

It's gonna be a long 2011 (and even 2012).

Hidden Inflation...

2011-02-21T11:20:00.000-08:00

This January article points to something I've been saying for quite some time now.

A recent Consumer Reports investigation found that the amount of dish detergent, toilet tissue, and first aid spray in those same old containers has shrunk as much as 20%...

Blame it on the rising costs of producing these goods, such as raw materials, energy, and facility costs, say manufacturers. As their expenses rise, they've got to find ways to make up the difference: Either charge more for the product, or give less of it to you for the same money.
The latter strategy -- charging the same amount for less-generous servings -- is the safer bet: Studies show that shoppers are more sensitive to price increases than product volume decreases. And manufacturers go to great lengths to get you to overlook the downsized items in your shopping cart.

I'm sure you've noticed in recent years that a half-gallon of ice cream is now 1.5 quarts. Orange Juice is in 59 ounce cartons instead of half-gallon ones. Cheese-its are in 13 oz boxes instead of 1 lb. Coffee is sold in 13 oz cans instead of 1 lb cans. The list goes on and on and on.

And now food commodities are going through the roof (via Daily Eudemon):

“Corn spot up 7.76%, wheat up 5.63%, Rice up 10.08%, Hogs up 10.16%, Sugar up 5.64%, Orange Juice up 3.33%, and cotton…. up 17.08%. That’s in one month!”

Here's what's also interesting about commodities and pricing (from Daily Eudemon, again):

So what are the TBTFs doing with they money that they’re getting from the Fed? They’re buying stocks, bonds, and commodities (known as “prop trading“). As a result, the prices of everything are going up (see Friday’s TDE post). It makes Bernanke happy, because the stock market is up, and when the market goes up, Americans stop thinking about economic issues. In the words of Albert Jay Nock, “A falling stock market seems to clarify and stimulate thought. When it is rising, nobody cares to know why or how, but when it falls, everyone is very eager to know all about it.”
Unfortunately, commodity prices are increasing the fastest, and the people who are hurt worst by increasing food prices are the poor. Especially the poor in developing countries. As the price of food in these countries increases, so does the discontent. As discontent increases, the chances of rioting breaks out.
Yet another reason many intelligent people think Bernanke must be insane or evil or both.

The World Bank is very concerned about food prices being at dangerous levels:

Global food prices have hit "dangerous levels" that could contribute to political instability, push millions of people into poverty and raise the cost of groceries, according to a new report from the World Bank.
The bank released a report Tuesday that said global food prices have jumped 29 percent in the past year, and are just 3 percent below the all-time peak hit in 2008. Bank President Robert Zoellick said the rising prices have hit people hardest in the developing world because they spend as much as half their income on food.

Clothing prices to go up 10% in the Spring:

Cotton has more than doubled in price over the past year, hitting all-time highs. The price of other synthetic fabrics has jumped roughly 50 percent as demand for alternatives and blends has risen.
Clothing prices are expected to rise about 10 percent in coming months, with the biggest increases coming in the second half of the year, said Burt Flickinger III president of Strategic Resource Group.

Inflation? Or stagflation? Ace knows what's going on, too.

Double-Dip?

2011-02-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

Back in August on 2010, Yahoo Financial also had this article about the potential double-dip recession. The article looks at 11 key factors that could show signs of a double-dip:

Housing (still dropping and stalling)
Unemployment (starting to inch up again)
Consumer Spending (stagnant)
Consumer Confidence (fickle)
Auto Industry
Trade
Budget (Hah!)
National Debt (Double Hah!)
Stock Market (not acting realistically in this economy... can you say "bubble"?)
Banking (will more banks fail in 2011?)
Interest Rates

It really makes you wonder.

So... let's look at the economy, shall we???

2011-02-21T11:06:00.000-08:00

And let's start with an article from way back in July of 2010 in Yahoo's financial section. It's regarding the shrinking of the American middle class. Below are the 22 stats from the article:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.

• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.

• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.

• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.

• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.

• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.

• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.

• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.

• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.

• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.

• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.

• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.

• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.

• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

So, why the lack of posts???

2011-02-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

Among other things... I'm putting the pieces of the puzzle together for a wedding in June. :-)

I'm still here... :-)

2011-01-31T12:22:00.001-08:00

Real life takes over sometimes. Posts to come in Feb.

A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

2010-12-31T05:00:00.000-08:00

The next year or so will continue to be rough going, with unemployment remaining high, a further housing market collapse, coming inflation, fuel/energy price spikes, etc. But, eventually, it will get better.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, despite these troubled times. And may your New Year be better, brighter and more prosperous.

Keep the faith, and don't give up hope!

God Bless!

End-of-Year Post...

2010-12-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

Consumer confidence down "unexpectedly" while housing prices drop:

Consumer confidence unexpectedly deteriorated in December, while prices of single-family homes fell almost double the expected pace in October, tempering growing optimism on the economy's recovery.

Home foreclosures jumped in 3Q:

The regulators said one reason for the increase in foreclosures is that banks have "exhausted" options for keeping many delinquent borrowers in their homes through programs such as loan modifications.
Newly-initiated foreclosures increased to 382,000 in the third quarter, a 31.2 percent jump over the previous quarter and a 3.7 percent rise from the same quarter a year ago, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) said in a quarterly mortgage report.
The number of foreclosures in process increased to 1.2 million, a 4.5 percent increase from the second quarter and a 10.1 percent increase from a year ago, according to the regulators.

The blizzards kept consumers from buying:

A blizzard in the U.S. Northeast this weekend postponed about $1 billion in holiday retail sales by keeping shoppers out of stores in the days after Christmas, research firm ShopperTrak said on Wednesday.
The snowstorm shut roads and canceled flights in New York City and created havoc across the Northeast, where shopper traffic was 11.2 percent below ShopperTrak's expectations for Sunday December 26 and off 13.9 percent on Monday December 27.

Ninety-eight of the TARP'ed banks are close to failing (despite the bailout):

The total, based on an analysis of third-quarter financial results by The Wall Street Journal, is up from 86 in the second quarter, reflecting eroding capital levels, a pileup of bad loans and warnings from regulators. The 98 banks in shaky condition got more than $4.2 billion in infusions from the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

What's coming to your local hotels and malls:

The United States is stepping up security at “soft targets” like hotels and shopping malls, as well as trains and ports, as it counters the evolving Al-Qaeda threat, a top official said Sunday.

And the internet and the so-called "net neutrality" law: link 1, link 2, link 3.

National Insecurity...

2010-12-23T10:35:00.000-08:00

A Mexican drone invaded USA airspace, but nothing to see here... look away, look away.

Meanwhile, TSA deploys scanners at bus stations. and gropes grandma while an Iranian-American gets thru with this wonderful little mistake.

*sigh*