From the Star Ledger:
Paramus bank the first to meet new court foreclosure filing standards
Hudson City Savings Bank is in compliance with the state court’s new mortgage foreclosure filing standards, according to a July 12 document that was made public yesterday.
The move means the bank is the first of more than two dozen of the country’s biggest mortgage lenders and servicers to satisfy the court’s exhaustive review of foreclosure processes, according to documents posted to the court’s website.
The decision comes nearly seven months after state Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner issued a three-part initiative to investigate what he feared was rogue residential mortgage foreclosure filings, noting a staggering increase in caseloads and concerns the judges had inadvertently “rubber-stamped” files that had inadequate or inaccurate paperwork. Lenders and servicers were required to provide extensive documentation outlining how they handled foreclosure proceedings.
In his decision, retired Judge Walter Barisonek — serving as one of two special masters overseeing the cases — wrote that Hudson City Savings Bank has “sufficient policies and procedures in place to demonstrate affirmatively that there should not be irregularities in their handling of foreclosure proceedings in this state.”
The court’s actions have effectively halted foreclosure filings since December while lenders and servicers work with court-appointed special masters to review hundreds of pages of paperwork.
First me.. moi…
In all seriousness, Hudson is a pretty conservative lender, so they’re not likely sitting on a significant backlog of foreclosures.
On a percentage basis, what % of the Purchase and Sale Agreement sale price is considered within a reasonable range to ask for concessions on for repairs a seller does not want to make?
Is 2% reasonable or an amount at which a seller can tell the buyer to sit and spin?
Lets assume the home is in reasonably good shape but that the current owners were willing to deal with some substandard plumbing and electrical work that the buyers simply can’t deal with. Is it really that important to be able to take a shower with the dishwasher running and not lose water pressure? Just don’t shower when the washer is running and let everyone know not to flush the toilet, right?
“Lots of puppy mills in South Jersey, too.”
Even hicks gotta eat.
Is it really that important to be able to take a shower with the dishwasher running and not lose water pressure
You know, those shiny new high tech tankless hot water systems have a hard time delivering hot water to more than 2 uses at the same time unless you buy the largest and least efficient units. They’ll cut down flow pretty dramatically to keep temperature constant (read: drip drip drip). Maybe this is a “feature” and not a problem?
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/18/may-be-part-neanderthal-scientists-say/?test=faces
Is it just me or does this neanderthal look a lot like bin Laden?
The first time I encountered those tankless systems was in the UK. I am not a big fan. In fact, I am inclined towards multiple tanks: one for the master and one for the rest of the house, or one for kitchen and laundry and one for the rest of the house.
Speaking of South Jersey, when one gets deep down into Cumberland county, it is a whole different world down there. It is like parts of Virginia or West Virginia have been annexed to the Garden State.
Well I’ll be. Look at the , uh, humm, cough, “inspiration,” for Johnny B. Goode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkQWv18Trw0
Anyone looking for a FK in Seattle?
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2011/07/slideshow-foreclosed-homes-in-seattle.html
From CNBC:
Housing Crash Crushes Green Movement
Green costs more, and today’s already-skittish potential home buyers are not willing to shell out more cash for a greener standard of living.
At least that’s the finding of a survey by Chicago Agent Magazine.
The magazine did a green survey last year and then repeated the same questions this year to compare trends. Last year 33 percent of agents surveyed reported that they had clients specifically seeking out properties with green features. This year that number dropped to 15 percent.
“I believe that buyers appreciate ‘green’ features, but they are not yet ready to pay extra for them,” Bob Parris, broker/owner of Manchester Realty told the magazine.
The survey asked agents how many had completed “green transactions” in the past two years. 77 percent answered, none. That’s up from 64 percent who said none last year. Apparently more agents this year said green in just a “marketing term” and more say the term doesn’t make a difference to potential buyers. It’s not surprising therefore that fewer agents reported getting their “green designations.”
There is no question that Americans are more aware of and more receptive to the green movement than ever before, but green home features are still extremely costly, and while some can, over time, lower energy costs, it’s often over a long period of time, and to many, not worth the up front cash right now. 57 percent of agents still say they believe the green movement is still relevant to home buyers, but that is down from 67 percent a year ago.
Good Morning New Jersey
Good morning Mike
#3/250K – what % of the Purchase and Sale Agreement sale price is considered within a reasonable range to ask for concessions on for repairs a seller does not want to make?
–
there are no $ limitation rules of thumb or guidelines & it’s a buyer’s market. a grounded owner will acknowledge conditions they can expect all buyers to balk about and agree to concessions accordingly. it’s the sellers agent’s job to advise their client ‘eat’ needed repair/update costs that are discovered (upon inspection for example), to keep the deal on track. after price agreement of $330K on a house, after inspection it was determined the house needed a drainage system (french drains, etc) to counter erosion under unseen parts of the house ($12K fix). in my case $6K came off the sales price, $6K came in credits at closing fees. there are a lot of creative ways to recoup the cost of repairs cost determined after price agreement, after inspection, but before closing. in your case, i would expect 100% of the need fix to come out the hide of the owner/seller with no concern of ratios, etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/opinion/sunday/17friedman.html
I REALIZE that I should be in Washington watching the debt drama there, but I’ve opted instead to be in Greece to observe the off-Broadway version. There are a lot of things about this global debt tragedy that you can see better from here, in miniature, starting with the raw plot, which no one has described better than the Carnegie Endowment scholar David Rothkopf: “When the cold war ended, we thought we were going to have a clash of civilizations. It turns out we’re having a clash of generations.”
Indeed, if there is one sentiment that unites the crises in Europe and America it is a powerful sense of “baby boomers behaving badly” — a powerful sense that the generation that came of age in the last 50 years, my generation, will be remembered most for the incredible bounty and freedom it received from its parents and the incredible debt burden and constraints it left on its kids.
It is no wonder that young Greeks reacted so harshly when their deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, referring to all the European Union loans and subsidies that propelled the Greek credit binge after 1981, said, “We ate it together” — meaning the people and the politicians. That was true of the baby boomer generation of Greeks, now in their 50s and 60s, and the baby boomer politicians. But those just coming of age today will never get a bite. They will just get a bill. And they know it.
You can see that when you walk around Athens’s central Syntagma Square, where young people now gather every evening to debate the crisis and register their protests at the future being imposed on them. The facades of banks around the square have been defaced, and flapping in the wind are two large banners. One says “IMF Employee of the Year” and has a picture of Prime Minister George Papandreou, and the other says “Goldman Sachs Employee of the Year” and pictures George Papaconstantinou, the former finance minister. (And these are the good guys, trying to fix the problem.) Nearby is a picture of a baby, saying: “Father, whose side were you on when they were selling our country?” And the more blunt: “Yield to rage,” “Class war, not national war,” and, finally, “Life — not just survival” — a message that seemed filled with foreboding about what the next decade is going to be like for young Greeks.
I was struck by one big similarity between what I heard in Tahrir Square in Cairo in February and what one hears in Syntagma Square today. It’s the word “justice.” You hear it more than “freedom.” That is because there is a deep sense of theft in both countries, a sense that the way capitalism played out in Egypt and Greece in the last decade was in its most crony-esque, rigged and corrupt deformation, letting some people get fantastically rich simply because of their proximity to power. So there is a hunger not just for freedom, but for justice. Or, as Rothkopf puts it, “not just for accounting, but for accountability.”
snip
“And they’re off!”
This will be like watching turtles race
“It’s the word “justice.” You hear it more than “freedom.” That is because there is a deep sense of theft in both countries, a sense that the way capitalism played out in Egypt and Greece in the last decade was in its most crony-esque, rigged and corrupt deformation, letting some people get fantastically rich simply because of their proximity to power. So there is a hunger not just for freedom, but for justice. ”
Given greece’s post-war history, one is left to wonder if this means bombs will blow or bodies will hang from street lights.
(15) shore,
Dave Barry wrote a satirical version of that very scenario. Many years ago.
In our future, it will be generational and racial.
That is why I am putting ad much emphasis on providing for my girls’ futures as my own.
250K #3: I had a similar situation when I bought my house, only in this case it was underpowered electric panel with an auxilliary fuse box hanging off of it and no way to have a clothes dryer. Turns out also that the house is in violation of code because when they slapped the garage onto the side of the house, they didn’t move the electrical panel…the service MUST come in the outside of the house. Sellers (original owners) took it very personally that we were finding fault with the home in which they had raised their kids (they’re lucky we didn’t demand they take out the red carpet and the harvest gold appliances and countertop) and refused to budge. Our agent was able to negotiate an $800 concession for electrical upgrade to code from the seller and she kicked in $200. We paid $2200 (in 1996) for the upgraded panel and mast required to move the service so it cost us $1200 net. The house had good bones, 2 full baths, and was on a dead-end street, so we felt this was as fair as we were going to get. That was a fairly “balanced” market. Yours is different, so it’s up to you how much you want to fight.
Cisco to cut workforce by 6500 jobs. The announcement came on the same day that Borders Group Inc, the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain, canceled its bankruptcy auction plans and said it would close for good. Nearly 11,000 people will lose their jobs.
If one doesn’t have a job, one cannot purchase or invest in company’s goods and services. They’re not saving money, they’re accelerating their demise. There’s an economic term for a company that eats itself to death; does anyone remember the term?
http://news.yahoo.com/cisco-cut-workforce-15-percent-sell-factory-hon-044845679.html
And here I thought the “job creators” created jobs out of the goodness of their hearts after they couldn’t stuff any more cash into their own pockets. Isn’t that what the GOP seems to think?
hat is the funniest statement ever. A bank that made jumbos during peak and kept it on their books. 25% down is meaningless. Loans are marked to market. A one million dollar jumbo where someone put down 25% in 2005 is no where near as valuable today as owner has far less skin in game.
grim says:
July 18, 2011 at 8:58 pm
In all seriousness, Hudson is a pretty conservative lender, so they’re not likely sitting on a significant backlog of foreclosures.
Considering the lazy dirty population of NJ the odds of someone deciding to clean dishes and take a bath at same time is astronomical. Now if you were talking a blowdryer and making microwave popcorn at same time I would believe you.
grim says:
July 18, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Is it really that important to be able to take a shower with the dishwasher running and not lose water pressure
You know, those shiny new high tech tankless hot water systems have a hard time delivering hot water to more than 2 uses at the same time unless you buy the largest and least efficient units. They’ll cut down flow pretty dramatically to keep temperature constant (read: drip drip drip). Maybe this is a “feature” and not a problem?
JC,
What’s your solution to creating jobs?
More government and taxes it is the fix for everything, this way when we are all poor at least we will be equal under our burgeious leaders
housing starts up. more inventory coming . No problem . Does this help the sellers?
Poor 100 years ago was sleeping on the heating grate on the street and begging for food with holes in your shoes out in the snow.
Today it is having the maid come twice a month instead of every week
Painhrtz – Salmon of Doubt says:
July 19, 2011 at 8:59 am
More government and taxes it is the fix for everything, this way when we are all poor at least we will be equal under our burgeious leaders
JJ our poor live better than some countries middle classes.
JJ
About my client taking too much risk and therefore finding himself with a 21.8% effective on 340k income. Should note that he is retired, but has not reached the age for mandatory IRA distributions. His IRA is huge! I don’t think he is taking too much risk given his financial position. He also has over 50 MLPs. Doing his return is like my final exam!
I’m still waiting to hear what the ivory tower elitists’ proposal is to stimulate growth.
How about opening a lax residential restriction to wake the american entrepreneurship.In third world countries they are allowed to open a small store in the side of their residential zoned homes to supplement their incomes.In some cases it becomes their main source.They avoid rental cost because it is in the corner of their homes and the risk of BK is less.If it gets profitable the person can start hiring and move in to a bigger place.
This lessens the big risk of opening a business and get hit with rent etc without making a dime yet.
gary says:
July 19, 2011 at 8:39 am
JC,
What’s your solution to creating jobs?
here it is…
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/tragic-moment-d-c-politicians-totally-wrong-spending-170034293.html?source=patrick.net#yom-ad-NT1
Truly excellent.
New Jersey says:
July 19, 2011 at 6:55 am
Good morning Mike
Goldman misses expectations
Did anybody hear Blankfein getting a government job?
Banks continue robo-signing
America’s leading mortgage lenders vowed in March to end the dubious foreclosure practices that caused a bruising scandal last year. But a Reuters investigation finds that many are still taking the same shortcuts they promised to shun, from sketchy paperwork to the use of “robo-signers.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/18/us-foreclosure-banks-idUSTRE76H5XX20110718
Gary (30), same as always, more government spending, build bridges, dig ditches, doesn’t matter what, as long as it “stimulates demand”, their holy grail.
Grim (11). “let them be green” is the 21st century version of “let them eat cake”. Nothing is greener than not buying stuff, not working, and perishing to fertilize the soil.
JC (21). No, that’s how the GOP tries to reconcile capitalism with their Christian/altruist ethics. It reeks of hypocrisy, which is why they cave into government redistribution programs, and create their own. Businessmen hire people that help them make money, as is their right. People take jobs to make money. It lasts as long as it’s in their mutual interests to continue.
re # 27 – Not too far off. Poor were sleeping in shipping containers back during the depression.
Freight car converted into house in “Little Oklahoma,” California. February, 1936.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/depression/images/freightcar.jpg
CSpan 3 is must watch TV.
The Dirty Digger is testifying and there’s no 5th to hide behind.
JJ[27],
1/8 people on LI are on food stamps!!!!!!
Your perception is your reality, yours only.
Gary,
A massive investment program, something like the new deal on steroids, is one good way to lift the country out of steroids — massive solar energy work for starters. A WW won’t do it because it won’t a mostly remote war like WW1 and WW2. Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan will help. Going back to Clinton era tax rates will help. Cutting corporate tax loop holes will help to a small degree.
Now, your turn…
Ket [110, yesterday]
Now THAT’S an interesting development.
gary, Our trade deficit is killing us and our standard of living. Nothing short of starting a trade war will change the unemployment picture in this country. I agree with Trump on this. We have to get rid of existing trade agreements and establish real fair trade and disincentives for businesses to ship jobs and production out of the US. Maybe a 30% tarriff on all imported goods from China and other low cost producing countries. Of course this will cause prices to rise somewhat but something has got to give. We need to produce our own energy i.e., fossil, nuclear and alternative sources. That would be a start.
Re: 250k [3];
On a percentage basis, what % of the Purchase and Sale Agreement sale price is considered within a reasonable range to ask for concessions on for repairs a seller does not want to make?
Is 2% reasonable or an amount at which a seller can tell the buyer to sit and spin?
If there is a 20% downpayment, then its just a matter of financing the repairs into the note, rather than bringing significant additional cash to the table. If it’s FHA orother low-down mapyment financing, I think the offer makes the buyer look cash-poor and much weaker.
why haven’t 10 years of bush/obama tax cuts and deregulations sent us into a golden age for the economy? why would any sane individual think that doing the same thing over will bear different results?
“I was struck by one big similarity between what I heard in Tahrir Square in Cairo in February and what one hears in Syntagma Square today. It’s the word “justice.” You hear it more than “freedom.” That is because there is a deep sense of theft in both countries, a sense that the way capitalism played out in Egypt and Greece in the last decade was in its most crony-esque, rigged and corrupt deformation, letting some people get fantastically rich simply because of their proximity to power. So there is a hunger not just for freedom, but for justice. Or, as Rothkopf puts it, “not just for accounting, but for accountability.””
And how has that differed in the US? If anything its been magnified.
Moose 41
it appears that attorneys can be disbarred ( or other punishment???) for failing to follow the Florida Bar’s recommendations. Doesn’t that pretty much nuke the banks paper work games in Florida unless their attorney don’t mind risking disbarment???
I may not understand the full implications of the Bar’s ruling. Would you or any other legal beagles care to elucidate for me the implications of this?
re #44 – Seif you are downplaying the issues. Bush tax cuts only add up to 200-300 Billion a year, and our deficit, debt and unfunded liabilities go back nearly 40 years. As I explained yesterday in simpler math if every top 1 % earner a millionaire wrote a check for a million dollars extra to the US Treasury each and every year from now on we still would have a deficit and all of the debt. The last 10 years of Bush tax cuts cannot make up for the unfunded liabilities. We only have 58% of the adults working. The math does not work unless we confiscate wealth from everybody, like 1933 all over again. We are in a situation that we cannot get out of unless we get all of the grown ups working and paying taxes, we need full employment and we need to reduce the unfunded liabilities, all other talk from any party down in the beltway is just rhetoric.
grim # 47 in Mod
Ket [46];
Haven’t read the story in full, nor any background. However, keep in mind that it is the client’s perogative to sue THEIR lawyer for malpractice. From the other side of the “v.”, the lawyer and their client are basically one and the same.
#45
AMEN!
re #44 – Seif you are downplaying the issues. Bush tax cuts only add up to 200-300 Billion a year. Our deficit, debt and unfunded liabilities go back nearly 40 years. As I explained yesterday in simpler math if every top 1 % earner a millionaire wrote a check for a million dollars extra to the US Treasury (1.4 Trillion) each and every year from now on we still would have a deficit and all of the debt. The last 10 years of Bush tax cuts cannot make up for the unfunded liabilities. We only have 58% of the adults working. The math does not work unless we take wealth from everybody, like 1933 all over again. We are in a situation that we cannot get out of unless we get all of the grown ups working and paying taxes, we need full employment and we need to reduce the unfunded liabilities, all other talk from any party down in the beltway is just rhetoric.
Pain
some farm animals are more equal then others.
Moose 48
Florida attorneys would seem to be taking on potentially substantial liability even if they feel confident the bank would never hang them out to dry, or that there isnt some other avenue that could lead them afoul of the bar.
BTW, Just to wrap up yesterday’s thread — if anyone thinks the robosigning settlement and or ‘sticking it to the banks’ fixes the housing market, they’re dreaming. Just spoke to bank’s attorney on a run of the mill foreclosure: filed in Dec ’08 — now in limbo, had to start over — best estimate is 18 mos. to completion.
That’s 5 years, folks.
BS can you say Baby Mama. Once I did a charity party. There was “single” Moms on welfare and food stamps all living in subsidized apartments. Meanwhile their baby daddies were all cops, fireman, garbage men, drug dealers etc. since they were not married mommy can clean up. Also asians and indians in old westbury and Jehrico are famous for taking all moms money and putting them on food stamps, medicaid, welfare.
make money says:
July 19, 2011 at 9:57 am
JJ[27],
1/8 people on LI are on food stamps!!!!!!
Your perception is your reality, yours only.
If Murdoch’s board does not sack him after his trstimony they are nuts. Either Rupert and James are lying to the MPs ir they are derached beyond reason for an executive.
gARY #24: I don’t have one, and neither do you. However, what I DO know is that “trickle down” does not create jobs. Distributing more cash into the pockets of fewer and fewer people and creating an impoverished majority with no middle class does not create enough consumption to keep an economy like ours going. DEMAND creates jobs, not tax cuts.
The Bush tax cuts have been in place for a decade now and it’s the worst job creation environment we’ve seen in my lifetime. We’ve seen stagnant-to-dropping wages along with massive tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest individuals. Right now we have “economic growth” and no hiring. This is because there is no demand. There’s no demand because people are scared to death. They’ve either fallen out of the middle class or they’re terrified they might. When you’re afraid you’ll lose your job, or won’t find one, you aren’t going to buy things that companies make…and if there’s no demand, there’s no reason to hire.
Jobs aren’t created with the leftover money after buying the 27 mansions, the 42 luxury cars, and six original Picassos. That money is put into Cayman bank accounts. If you make something for which there’s demand, increased demand will make you increase supply, and there’s only so much you can work your existing employees to death so you’ll have to hire more. But you aren’t going to hire if there’s nothing to do, no matter how many Benjamins are falling out of your pocket because it’s already stuffed.
JJ – Dunkin or Zillow IPO?
http://blogs.forbes.com/petercohan/2011/07/19/ipo-face-off-should-you-invest-in-dunkin-brands-or-zillow/
JC problem is once tax cuts end only jobs created will be govt jobs. I have used my extra cash for dinners out, lawn services, starbucks, nice lunches, new car,kid parties, kitchen, roof, vacation, netflix, etc. like everyone else.
Come higher taxes I cut all this out and extra cash either goes towards taxes or towards buying tax free investments. Local roller rink, bowling alley, starbucks, car dealer, landscaper, roofer, restaurants and bars all lose business and employees while US Govt workers get their pension plans and free medical for life short falls fixed.
I am cheap. If you tax me at 60% I will just max out every tax advantaged investment I can get my hands on and stop all discretionary spending.
Only way to get unemployment down is to have a massive depopulation scheme. Pick your poison. Either Grandma and Grandpa have to go or WW3 will have to wipe out a generation of young adults. Maybe both.
I will be selling vegetables at my road side vegetable stand as the world burns around me.
JC [56];
Jobs aren’t created with the leftover money after buying the 27 mansions, the 42 luxury cars
No, jobs are created in the building (and marketing, and maintenance, and resale, etc.) of “27 mansions and 42 luxury cars”. can you explainto me why a car bought by someone one the government dole and paid for from their welfare check is somehow moraly superior?
JJ[54],
I own a few small 6 unit properties where I accept section 8 payments and I personally know the famillies. Again, your perception is your reality.
While some “work” the system most need it for their survival. You’d be suprised how many people make minimum wage or very close to it.
Cisco,
31 Billion cash held offshore, Effective income tax rate 8.8% Hunting for a 5% holiday to repatriate the cash.
http://news.businessweek.com/article.asp?documentKey=1376-LNZIT71A1I4H01-4C0GFSV9561EQK95ARGS61VIJU
Yea, these business need a tax cut to create jobs. How many jobs are created cutting Googles efficive tax rate when its currnetly 2%.
re # 63 – Fabius – Sen Carl Levin? What ever happened to his last Senate report on the 2008 crash? Chambers is a hard core Republican, and the right showing the left that their agenda is finished, expect other companies to follow suit. It is all in the game plan for 2012.
Shore, Here’s a nice place
http://keywestproperties.blogspot.com/2011/06/1433-reynolds-street-casa-marina-area.html
Make [61];
I submit that your perception and JJ’s (taking it at face value) are merely different. Both can be correct.
Also, the question is not just need. Lots of people “need” lots of different things. Many othem obtain what they “need” legally, morally, and without governemetn assistance (indeed, often despite it).
The question is, how much fraud do I have to tolerate so your ‘deserving’ section 8 families can get something they may genuinely need AND have no other way to obtain? And BTW, since we’re talking about your tennants, isn’t this just funneling revenue to your real estate empire?
People make min wage because of things like section 8, food stamps, medicaid, welfare etc.
Bishop of Brooklyn was once asked what is the difference between the poor in Brooklyn from 80 years ago and today responded. 80 years ago poor Italian imigrants came to the church with holes in their shoes to put money in the poor box today the poor come to church wearing $100 dollar pairs of sneakers asking for money.
make money says:
July 19, 2011 at 11:02 am
JJ[54],
I own a few small 6 unit properties where I accept section 8 payments and I personally know the famillies. Again, your perception is your reality.
While some “work” the system most need it for their survival. You’d be suprised how many people make minimum wage or very close to it.
Being born in the US makes you instantly entitled to live better than 95% of the world’s population, no matter how lazy, unenterprising, or incompetent you are. If your own efforts don’t earn you income to that level, you’re entitled to pick your neighbor’s pocket until your income level surpasses the 90th percentile globally. This is the process by which the US became the world’s largest economy.
Not.
NJE,
Yes it is, but you confuse me for someone who would spend seven figures on a house. I grew up too poor for that to be something I could do.
West, I’m sure you achieved all your much reported boasted about success in a vacuum with no support from our system. Gaming tax law is no different from the welfare queens you lament. Your attitude is amazing, really.
[67] But don’t you feel sorry for those poor American souls who only have basic cable and struggle each month to pay for basic necessities like cell phones, fast-food, and the latest triple fat goose apparel?
True, they are better off than 90% of humanity, but please don’t let a little detail like that mar their unblemished image as innocent victims of an unjust American society. All they need is more audacity of hope.
Shore, was just giving you an idea of what is available. There are other places listed if you look at the site.
A. West [67],
Who says you have to be born here to achieve that status. Just tunnel your way under a border like a mole. All it takes is a shovel and a dream. Oh… is that what Oblammy meant by shovel-ready jobs?
I think the real reason Hudson has it’s foreclosure ducks in a row is *because* they *kept* loans on their books, even though the quality and underwriting may still be questionable. By keeping the loans they don’t have the cracked bell that can’t be un-rung: failed chain of assignments. The securitized mortgages really can’t be fixed legally. If the chain of assignment was never done or has even one fault, the REMIC is no good and the bondholders have more ammunition for their pending and future lawsuits.
Yes… We… Can!
I see the ground work for WWIII is coming along nicely
FT: “We are concerned that a series of naval incidents in recent months has raised tensions in the region,” said John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, and John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate. “If appropriate steps are not taken to calm the situation, future incidents could escalate, jeopardising the vital national interests of the United States.”
http://www.scribd.com/doc/60337179/Letter-to-China
I know, and I appreciate it. It is actually nice to see something nice. We may need to put KW on our “serious look” list. It all depends on how Coastal Carolina strikes us.
Shore, Juice
i know its old and boring news now, but you 2 might get a kick out of this ( text is in german):
latest radiation maps for japan
http://www.dwd.de/wundk/spezial/Sonderbericht_loop.gif
Kettle, that reminds me. What is going on with the storm? It should be interesting.
The loop is interesting as well. I can’t believe that the folks in Hiroshima are all that pleased with the gift they are receiving from Fuk-U-Shima.
#70 the latest triple fat goose apparel?
What is that??
NJE/SL,
This one looks interesting:
http://keywestproperties.blogspot.com/2011/06/great-expectations-great-frustrations.html
“enlarged and thoroughly renovated after 2005 both on the inside and outside with the addition of a pool and pool house. In mid 2006 the newly renovated property was put on the market at the asking price of $2,699,000 or $1173 per sq ft. It did not sell. It was put back on the market in January 2007 at $2,295,000 and later reduced to $1,995,000. It did not sell. Now it is offered as a short sale at the asking price of $749,000 or $357 per sq ft. There must have been great expectations. There surely were great frustrations. “
SHore
http://www.hurricanezone.net/#08w
The eye of the storm, categorized as “strong” by the Meteorological Agency, was about 745 km southwest of Tokyo at 11 a.m. Tuesday, the weather bureau said.
“Its progress has slowed while the wind speed remains the same,” agency official Shunichi Yamaguchi said. “The outlook is for the typhoon to head east off Tokyo’s coast, meaning it will not impact Fukushima and the northeast areas directly.”
Shore,
Korea is continuously picking up quite a nice little long term gift from fukushima as well.
That’s a nice part of Old Town away from Duval St and tourists. Clarence used to jam down the street at the Schooner Wharf.
Here is a documentary about this subject…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we6mrCmT4O4&feature=watch_response
yo’me says:
July 19, 2011 at 9:30 am
Banks continue robo-signing
But a Reuters investigation finds that many are still taking the same shortcuts they promised to shun, from sketchy paperwork to the use of “robo-signers.”
From Dealbreaker:
Layoffs Watch ’11: Goldman Sachs
After disappointing earnings with FICC revenues down 63% from last quarter, David Viniar announced on this morning’s call that GS expects to complete $1.2 billion in run-rate compensation and non-comp expense reductions by year end. Translation: 1,000 of you are out.
http://dealbreaker.com/2011/07/layoffs-watch-11-goldman-sachs-3/
37. Juicebox
I loved this series as a child. I read most of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boxcar_Children
Shore,
I kind of don’t like the OBX. Trashy where there are people, too many rednecks and the water isn’t that nice ( too rough, too much undertow). I’d go KW.
Also the drive out to OBX makes me stabby. Its obnoxious.
[80] Just one of many fine ghetto-fabulous options to which our tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free are entitled.
http://www.triplefatgoose.com
Did Rupert Murdoch just hit the walk-off home run or soemthing?
The ole cream pie in the face gag always good for a laugh.
boken 91
cyanide shaving cream?????
or if the perpetrator was russian, perhaps polonium shaving cream
For the folks interested in how our tax laws are gamed:
http://www.amazon.com/Perfectly-Legal-Campaign-Benefit-Everybody/dp/1591840198
Most Americans would agree that they are duty bound as beneficiaries of our democracy to pay taxes, and the majority of us do pay—-exorbitantly. But what about those who do not pay their fair share? David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, here reveals how fairness and equity have eroded from the American tax system. Johnston describes in shocking detail the loopholes our government provides the “super rich”–from private individuals to profitable corporations—-to hide their wealth, to defer or evade tax payments, and to pass the bill to law-abiding middle-class Americans. The loss in revenue “imposes a severe cost on honest taxpayers” through reduced services, increased federal debt, and a weight on the middle class that threatens to impede its ability to achieve upward social mobility.
Admitting the extreme complexity of our economy and by extension our tax code, Johnston points out that the very wealthy do, of course, pay taxes. However, because of shelters that allow them to understate most of their income, they pay little more on average than most Americans on the dollar. This is regressive, and unquestionably favors the superrich. Johnston includes examples of outrageous corporate malfeasance (such as companies that establish off-shore tax addresses) and exposes the tax benefits of the particularly loathsome practice made famous by Jack Welch, in which thousands of wage earners are laid off while a handful of executives are granted hundreds of millions of dollars through deferred compensation, company stock options, and lucrative retirement packages, all at stock holders’ xpense. In addition to these offenses, he describes the tax evasion methods of those who simply defy the law and are emboldened by a beleaguered IRS that is too underfunded to serve as an effective deterrent to tax cheats. Johnston calls for a complete overhaul of the system. But because those who most benefit from these laws comprise the “donor class” that supports the government power structure, our prospects for reform remain very bleak. –Silvana Tropea
Since he began writing about taxes for the New York Times in 1995, Johnston’s investigative reporting has earned two Pulitzers. The journalistic legwork informs every page of this expos‚ of the ways in which, he says, America’s taxation system is stacked in favor of the wealthy. Johnston evades the imposing abstractness of the tax code by keeping the story focused on individuals, from working-class parents facing audits to Internal Revenue Service officials desperate for the resources to revamp their procedures. Chapters addressing the inability of the IRS to go after the worst tax cheats, thanks in part to opposition from grandstanding members of Congress, are particularly effective in putting a spotlight on the problem, but there’s plenty of space given to revealing how canny tax attorneys come up with legal (and barely legal) ways to get around the system. And for those who can afford it, he reports, there’s always a new dodge available once the law has caught up to the latest tricks. At some points, dealing with numbers becomes unavoidable, but even here Johnston displays a knack for breaking the story down into easily grasped components. Though the tax cuts engineered by Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush receive most of the criticism, Democrats come in for their fair share of opprobrium. Genuine reform, he suggests, will require serious and sustained attention from the public, not just reflexive griping. His book is a thoughtful overview for any citizens willing to educate themselves on the issue.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
That is a good wife ready to stand by her man!
Annon[65],
All my s8 tennants, are either disabled of some kind(mostly physical) or earn minimum wage, only find work part time etc…without it they’re on the street, begging, stealing, robing, and eventually costing us more as a free society.
There will always be a bottom of the population. We need to provide a safety net for these people for our own safety.
As far I’m concerned, I’m investing in the slums and providing clean and safe shelter to the unfortunate. I have to deal with burglaries, vandalism, theft, and receive phone calls at 3:00AM saying that their oven doesn’t work. Only to find out the next day that they were on drugs and didn’t realize that their 13 yr old kid unplugged it because they were afraid the dad was going to set the house on fire.
So yes, I take the checks they send me and go buy “money”with it.
If you think its easy then feel free to contact grim and he’ll gladly sell you a 6 family in Newark.
JJ is right today’s poor all have Cable TV, X-Boxes and Air Conditioning.
Modern Poverty Includes A.C. and an Xbox
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/272081/what-does-american-poverty-look-ken-mcintyre
Steve Wynn a Democrat now turns on Obama.
But Wynn said he could be doing even more if not Obama. His company alone could add 10,000 jobs in Las Vegas, but he is “afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States.”
http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/19/news/companies/wynn_obama/
Philly residents could face $120 fine for texting while walking
By Alexandra Christopoulos.
Philadelphia – Cellphone users in Philadelphia could face a fine if they’re caught walking and sending SMS messages on their mobile phones.
The city of Philadelphia will be handing out $120 fines to pedestrians who text while they walk without looking ahead, CNET reports.
Officials made the call as part of a new program called “Give Respect, Get Respect,” which was launched in the spring and targets bad behaviour by people traveling in cars, bicycles and on foot.
Deputy mayor Rita Cutler was reported saying in August, more citations are expected to be issued.
Can’t wait for Bloomberg to top this one. Probably Texting, while smoking, & breaking wind, will be life in prison.
Happy[70],
You must be naive and believe that all man are created equal. That simply trading places the movie is real and everyone needs more hope and the right environment.
Just like the cream rises to the top, the dense gravitate to the botom. Add drugs and alcohol addictions, lack of family stability, ignorance, a handicap, illness, a culture of playas and hoos etc and you have millions of people at the bottom. This is precisely why we have a middle class. In order to have a middle you need a top and and a bottom.
The bottom doesn’t have cable TV they listen to the radio. Please don’t try to “understand” what’s wrong with the bottom or provide solutions. It’s a bit more complicated than you think.
Make money makes sense
escapee,
So because we all lived in the same country which includes a growing welfare state, there’s no difference between one person struggling to attain success, putting yourself through school, working hard for years, saving and planning, deferring children until one can support them, and then making and paying hundreds of thousands of taxes; while another person does none of the above, pays no income taxes, and lives off wealth transferred from those who did?
It sure feels different. I must have an amazing attitude, as you said.
make money,
the bigger problem is that it is becoming alarmingly commonplace for the members of the middle class looking to exploit the system. When twenty somethings from suburbia work part time and get a food stamp debit card to supplement their purchases at Whole Foods, the system is broken and headed for disaster. A great short term career move in this day and age would be to get laid off, collect unemployment & any other public assistance you can while working as much as you possibly can under the table. The take home pay would dwarf that of someone making 60k a year and paying taxes.
A West
once you get off the coasts, you’ll immediately notice that what you describe describes the majority of the US. There are other kinds of back door welfare, one is being a resident of a welfare state in southern or middle America….but don’t tell the Fox News crowd….another is doing a piss poor job raising your kids then sending them into the welfare lines when they screw up instead of helping them yourself. How about putting your old man or old lady into a state home by repositioning and allocating their assets so it appears they have none? Yep, in middle America, most middle class people are about 1-2 degrees separated from welfare lifers.
No money is great, deal a little weed, scalp a little tickets, few scams here and there, some govt checks. The hos are easy to get, the 40’s are nice and cold.
I recall when I was fairly poor. Was driving a 14 year old car with no insurance. Working some horrible clerical job. Meanwhile next to some of the other people I was rich. Why I had zero money in the bank and was dead broke. But I did not owe money, had a place to live and no illegitimate kids. At that level I was a catch.
Clerks used to take two buses to and from work and work second shift or third shift as they were either coming from day jobs or if they had kids the other person was watching kids.
Anyhow one girl was new there, I say 100% slightly below average in everything. Lived with her mom and stepdad and both wanted her out, said Dad and Mom would use the belt, mind you the girl was 19. She also was a two bus girl. Anyhow I had my beat up car it was cold so I go it is like two miles out of way I will drop you home. I had to drop her behind house as she said step Dad would beat her if he saw her with a boy. Crazy. Anyhow a few more weeks go by and I notice when we got dinner she claimed she brought something but I never saw her eat anything more than some crackers. So another cold night, I go let me drive you home, she says Bus takes like an hour and if you drive me I will be home in five minutes. I go I drive you anyhow. I am hungry I will buy you a burger, she goes ok. Anyhow get the burger in a pub place, buy her one beer. Go out to car I drive her home she has me park around the corner so Dad does not see and goes thank you for the ride and the burger, let me pay you back. gives me a BJ and off she went. Life at the bottom is interesting. Amazing at the dead end bottom of the barrel job just having a car, never mind it has 100K miles, 14 years old and no insurance. While I had that car I actually dated an extremely extremely hot girl whose parents were dirt poor white trash, sister had illegimate mixed race kids and other sister had an ilegimate kid and they all lived in a rent controlled apt. Amazingly my car was their own access to transportation sometimes as Dads car was 25 years old with like 200K miles and made my 14 year old car look good. I got lunch made, dinner made, whatever, just cuase it beat two buses. Sometimes I think I should get a part time job at wallmart and just go to town, any girl who works at wall mart pretty much a drive home and a sandwich makes you a rock star.
Oh, also there’s the “strident Christian” welfare maker. Let’s get married at 19 with only a HS diploma, have more kids than we can handle…manage to stay off of welfare rolls but due to stresses and immaturity, raise some really messed up kids who wind up in the system, pregnant and unwed, etc. Its funny how people think they can afford their convictions.
West, our system has been that way since before you and I were born. There were people on “Relief” back in the 60s. Our country’s system including infrastructure and educational opportunities were available to us through the hard work and contributions of our predecessors including taxes. The only thing that is different now is that it is our turn to pay for the system we have benefited from. If you or I choose to avoid to pay our fair share of the taxes it becomes everyone else’s problem. If you think China or India are better places by all means go and have a blast. I’ll choose to live in a community / country where at least we have some folks with compassion.
re: #101- Make – The bottom does have Cable TV, they also have air conditioning and X-boxes, here is some data from a 2005 survey.
http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2011/pdf/bg2575.pdf
Make – I have been in several hundred subidized housing units over the last 3 years, beleive me when I tell you that the vast majority of them not only had cable TV, they had flat screen TV’s, DVD players, video game consoles etc.
They also never owned a vacuum cleaner. Ask a subisidized housing owner what they spend every year on carpets during unit turns and they will get sick to their stomach.
Additionally, I worked a portfolio where the cable TV was bought in bulk and sold to the tenants. Want to know what the collection rate was on that property? 100%.
Rent not in by the 5thof the month. Owner shuts off cable. Rent majically appears. Do not underestimate how much all Americans value TV.
magically, even…geez
Really how hard is it for women under 40 to find a sugar daddy?. Heck once I had this crazy clerk working for me named Verinta or something. Anyhow she once asked me to borrow five dollars for lunch. I said are you paying me back on payday? She said I doubt it I don’t pay back money when I borrow it. She was ugly but skinny and young. After she left turns out the fat guy around 15 years older lent her five bucks for lunch twice a week, she had some type of system when ever it got to $20 she would pay back with a BJ in the file room. That chick had lot so toys. I don’t know how much lunch money she was collecting. I also know another guy we fired was giving her a lot more than five bucks and I could not figure out why. Until after we fired him we found a note that he was meeting Vernita after work and he had a big jar of KY in his desk. We were like so that is what a $20 dollar lunch looks like.
homeboken says:
July 19, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Make – I have been in several hundred subidized housing units over the last 3 years, beleive me when I tell you that the vast majority of them not only had cable TV, they had flat screen TV’s, DVD players, video game consoles etc.
They also never owned a vacuum cleaner. Ask a subisidized housing owner what they spend every year on carpets during unit turns and they will get sick to their stomach.
JJ – just read that the Alternative Minimum Tax might be repealed under the latest budget defixit reduction plan coming from the gang of six in the Senate.
Should I go out and buy an American car or an import?
Many years ago H.L. Hunt, the Texas oil magnate then reputed to be the world’s richest man, revealed his confident arrogance about the federal tax system, indicating that “even if they taxed us 99%” that the wealthy would prevail and pay nothing, leaving the rest of society to bear the responsibility. He had reason to be confident, as noted by Johnston’s informative investigation. As for ferreting out tax cheats, the current IRS weakesses are appalling. Johnston noted that after locating the 16,000 worst suspected tax cheats, the IRS then investigated only a paltry 4% of the perceived malefactors.
Johnston exposes the gimmick of pandering members of Congress who showboat on behalf of the wealthy to insure continuing tax breaks. A particularly egregious example was the drama put on by Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, who lost his Senate Majority Leader status for his tribute to former ardent segregationist, Senator Strom Thurmond. Lott’s histrionics focused on perceived abuses by the IRS which were never corroborated. The performance related to keeping the heat on those who wanted to change the system by presenting the image of an aggressive IRS trampling on the rights of the wealthy patrons Lott sought to protect.
While focusing much criticism on presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush for helping skew the federal tax code in the direction of the wealthy through their massive tax cuts, Johnston notes that to attempt to focus too much of the blame on these individuals would be a grave mistake. It is much broader than these two individuals, as powerful as they were and as fervent as their efforts have been in that direction. The special interests have woven their magic in bringing prominent as well as less than prominent Democrats and Republicans onto their team with the situation deteriorating over a long period of time. For instance, remember footage of so-called “seminars” at posh country club retreats? Scores of these have been organized by the corporate sector to “inform” elected officials from the House and Senate on how to properly deal with the tax system. Needless to say, these seminars are best conducted in comfortable surroundings. Unsurprisingly, those who cooperate find themselves back in office, assisted by special interest largesse. Those who do not generally find themselves out of office.
Grover Norquist is a successful tax lobbyist with his own think tank. He is a prominent adviser to Bush, Cheney, and Rove. Knowing how the system is played, Norquist has referred to bipartisan congressional cooperation as “date rape.” As for basic federal programs enjoyed by taxpayers, such as park systems and educational benefits, Norquist takes a harsh view. He has stated his desire that federal government activity, absent defense spending and anti-crime activity, belongs “flushed in a toilet bowl.” He knows that if the system is top heavy enough in the corporate direction, with the middle class confronting the burden, that a plutocracy will result more in the tradition of eighteenth century France’s pre-revolutionary phase than the New Deal, Fair Deal, and New Frontier administrations of presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy.
You see, France can be used as a sensible model, after all, by Bush partisans! Freedom fries, anyone?
“There were people on “Relief” back in the 60s. ”
Indeed there were; however, the percentage of people who were on the economic edge and engaging in counter-productive activities, out of wedlock births, for instance, was far smaller than today. Moynahan pointed to to these issues as a huge threat to the United States back when the people covered by his report made up a small fraction of the population. Since then, there has been a huge run-up in the percentage of people who are “on the dege” and draining America’s wealth.
Does society have an obligation to provide each child born here to get an education, to remove artificial barriers to achievement, and to help each child to gro up to be a productive citizen? Yes! It is a shame, though, how many parents do not take advantage of the resources society provides and insist that their children make the most out of our free education, etc., etc.
One can lead a horse to water but one cannot make it drink, and if it dies of thirst, despite an abundance of water, whose fault is that?
Page 7 explains the “charitable trust” racket to money-launder assets like stock or buildings to get 96% of your money tax-free! “The U.S. tax code is the most political law in the world” said an expert. Taxation reflects policy; taxing the poor limits their ability to improve their life (p.10). Wage earners have a harsh set of rules unlike business owners. Tax policy since 1981 created the most highly concentrated wealth since 1929. The richest 1% are taxed more lightly than the middle class (p.11). Page 12 explains the “intellectual property” scam to lower taxes. Ever-tougher rules restrict union organizing. New rules allow trusts perpetual life and eliminate the estate tax. “Limited liability” corporations enabled corporate cheating since 1991 (p.13). These issues are under-reported because they’re not ‘fit to print’. Talk of the top 1% earning 21% of income but paying 37% of taxes is a created statistic like in advertising (p.15); the truth is on page 16. The 1997 reduced tax rate on long-term capital gains is a major tax break for the rich. Originally capital gains were taxed higher than wages on moral grounds (p.17).
The tax scams began in 1983 when Social Security taxes were raised, changing it from pay-as-you-go to create a trust fund to pay benefits over 30 years. But this money was used to pay for tax cuts for the super rich (p.18)! Whether Democrats or Republicans, the tax cuts for the super rich were financed by higher taxes for everyone else. This tax system is creating fewer stable jobs and lesser retirement incomes. Chapters 2 to 20 cover various related topics.
CPI is accurate right?
“The once moribund Senate “Gang of Six” regained new life Tuesday after Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn unexpectedly rejoined the group — and more senators are now coalescing around a new proposal that would cut the debt by as much as $3.7 trillion over the next decade. According to a copy of the plan, obtained by POLITICO, the group would impose a two-step legislative process that would make $500 billion worth of cuts immediately followed by a second bill to create a “fast-track process” that would propose a comprehensive bill aimed at dramatically restructuring tax and spending programs. The plan calls for changes to Social Security to move on a separate track, and establishes an elaborate procedure for considering the measures on the floor.” And here is the kicker: “The $500 billion in cuts would come from a range of sources, including shifting to a new consumer price index to make cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security.”
You know, if they were serious about tis they would trim back medicare/medicaid first, its liability is way larger then SS. of course the pharmaceuticals would get hit by that big time as would a fair percentage O’s disadvantaged supporters.
SHore,
Are you suggesting we take certain segments back behind the shed and shoot them as you would a horse who refuses to drink?
Like this is going ot happen….
To enact a comprehensive deficit plan, the group calls for congressional committees to report legislation within six months that would “deliver real deficit savings in entitlement programs over 10 years,” the plan says.
It calls on the Finance Committee to permanently reform or replace Medicare’s Sustainable Growth Rate – an outdated formula aimed at determining the amount to reimburse doctors for treating Medicare patients – by $298 billion.
The Finance Committee would be instructed to deliver “real deficit savings” through simplifying the tax code and raise as much as $1 trillion. It would do this by establishing three tax brackets with rates of 8-12 percent, 14-22 percent and 23-29 percent. It would permanently repeal the $1.7 trillion Alternative Minimum Tax. And it calls for establishing a single corporate tax rate, between 23 percent and 29 percent, and to move to a competitive territorial tax system.
[107] Thanks, Juice Box — good cite. I was too lazy to respond; I grew up in a fairly low-income area and I’m bored interacting with libtards who have little concept of what “poverty” in America is all about.
This excerpt from the article you cited sums it up pretty nicely:
“According to the government’s own survey data, in 2005, the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. The family had a car (a third of the poor have two or more cars). For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household had a microwave, refrigerator, and an oven and stove. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
The home of the average poor family was in good repair and not overcrowded. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. (Note: that’s average European, not poor European.) The poor family was able to obtain medical care when needed. When asked, most poor families stated they had had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.
By its own report, the family was not hungry. The average intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals by poor children is indistinguishable from children in the upper middle class, and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor boys today at ages 18 and 19 are actually taller and heavier than middle-class boys of similar age in the late 1950s, and are a full one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than American soldiers who fought in World War II. The major dietary problem facing poor Americans is eating too much, not too little; the majority of poor adults, like most Americans, are overweight.”
Homo,
When you’re at the bottom and never had more than $500 in your life, buying a $200 toy is a big accomplishment. I-phone in the hood is the equivalent of an AMG parked in driway for NNJ or LI. No one knows about 401K, 529 plans, granite countertops, or summer camps for 6year old are.
I tile all the floors. All you need is a mexican from home depot for $80 and $30 worth of cleaning supllies, new paint and the pleace is ready for a new tennant.
Homo,
Also, assume they make $1500 per month take home income. Prices of technology have become soo cheap that $100 air conditioner or a $400 TV or an xbox have become soo cheap and offer them soo much joy out of life. I know about TV and its importance when you’re not emplpoyed.
Not to mention that they each get a $5000 credit card in their lifetime which they max out and never make a payment.
that is crappo I was hanging with Gang of Six”
Shore,
you might like this budget proposal:
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ContentRecord_id=1d817708-76ed-4b2b-9cc2-076415409d44
Coburn is unveiling a plan to reduce deficit spending by a whopping $9 trillion, shrink government by some 20 percent and balance the budget, all within 10 years.
“It’s specific, it’s detailed, it makes hard choices,” Coburn said. “And it’s rough, but it’s necessary.”
Greetings from beautiful Wildwood Crest NJ, Just got a link after 3 days. Water nice, beach clean. Staying right on the beach delightful. Back to my drink in the sand folks, catch you later.
[107] Thanks, Juice Box — good cite. I was too lazy to respond; I grew up in a fairly low-income area and I’m bored interacting with people who have little concept of what “poverty” in America is all about.
This excerpt from the article you cited sums it up pretty nicely:
“According to the government’s own survey data, in 2005, the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. The family had a car (a third of the poor have two or more cars). For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household had a microwave, refrigerator, and an oven and stove. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
The home of the average poor family was in good repair and not overcrowded. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. (Note: that’s average European, not poor European.) The poor family was able to obtain medical care when needed. When asked, most poor families stated they had had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.
By its own report, the family was not hungry. The average intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals by poor children is indistinguishable from children in the upper middle class, and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor boys today at ages 18 and 19 are actually taller and heavier than middle-class boys of similar age in the late 1950s, and are a full one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than American soldiers who fought in World War II. The major dietary problem facing poor Americans is eating too much, not too little; the majority of poor adults, like most Americans, are overweight.”
[107] This excerpt sums it up nicely:
This excerpt from the article you cited sums it up pretty nicely:
“According to the government’s own survey data, in 2005, the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. The family had a car (a third of the poor have two or more cars). For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household had a microwave, refrigerator, and an oven and stove. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
The home of the average poor family was in good repair and not overcrowded. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. (Note: that’s average European, not poor European.) The poor family was able to obtain medical care when needed. When asked, most poor families stated they had had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.
By its own report, the family was not hungry. The average intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals by poor children is indistinguishable from children in the upper middle class, and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor boys today at ages 18 and 19 are actually taller and heavier than middle-class boys of similar age in the late 1950s, and are a full one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than American soldiers who fought in World War II. The major dietary problem facing poor Americans is eating too much, not too little; the majority of poor adults, like most Americans, are overweight.”
Heading to Aruba tomorrow morning.Will try to read some post while in the happy island
I know better than to wade into the tax debate. It’s the proverbial tar baby.
However, here is some data for folks to chew (and disagree) on. It highlights a trend that is also unsustainable, IMHO.
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2009/tax_liability_shares.pdf
BTW, this data only goes back to 1979. Some data I saw before, and cannot find now, showed that the overall tax burden was distributed much more equally across income groups in the 60’s and 70’s than it is now.
Point is, we have steadily put more and more of the burden on the “rich” across the decades. I won’t go into the how and why of that-you are all smart people.
What I worry about is what if, like Nixon, we don’t have the rich to kick around any more?
[123] yo
snap off a piece of the Antilla for me. I wasn’t able to get that deep last time I was there.
Finally, there is this thought from a piece posted in 2007 (and lifted from the Tax Foundation website, so Fabius will instantly declare it b.s.) that may give some perspective on why democrats have tolerated (and in the case of Clinton, embraced) the growing gap betwixt rich and poor:
“Growing inequality is a boon for federal tax collections because the higher income people are taxed at higher percentage rates. The same dollar earned by a high income person nets the IRS much more in taxes collected than if a lower income person in a low tax bracket earns that dollar. The top 1% alone paid almost 40% of total federal income taxes. This is why such a big chunk of the electorate isn’t strongly opposed to more federal spending. They know they won’t be the ones paying for it.”
“Sometimes I think I should get a part time job at wallmart and just go to town, any girl who works at wall mart pretty much a drive home and a sandwich makes you a rock star.”
A new low for jj…
Make [96];
If you think its easy then feel free to contact grim and he’ll gladly sell you a 6 family in Newark.
I never said what you do is easy. Just don’t try to convince me that it’s cheap.
Yo’me,
The Italian place up by the California Lighthouse has nice views towards sunset.
“Are you suggesting we take certain segments back behind the shed and shoot them as you would a horse who refuses to drink?”
No, not at all. What I am suggesting is that some people seem unwilling to help themselves and, if their actions doom themselves, so be it. It is a free country and nobody says that one has to try and make something of one’s self. Of course, nothing says that society must help those who do not choose to participate in the making the country stronger. I am all for offering a helping hand to anyone who wants to take it. Those who decide not to, well….
Ket,
From that Coburn report (works for me):
http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/immigration
Immigration is a critical part of our national heritage and economy. With the exception of Native Americans, America is a nation of immigrants. America is a welcoming nation, but one that is based upon the rule of law. Tolerating illegal immigration serves only to undermine the law and threatens our national security.
Across America, illegal immigration is placing a tremendous burden on local, state, and federal budgets. Today, there are an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. Tolerating illegal immigration also displaces American workers and causes wage depression for American workers.
Legislation Dr. Coburn has proposed
Amendment JEN07C76 – To make all records on undocumented aliens obtained by the National Instant Criminal Background Check system available to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In the 109th Congress, S. 557.
Legislation to repeal Executive Order 13166. This Clinton Executive Order requires all federal agencies and recipients of federal funds provide translation services, at tax payer expense, in whatever language a person speaks.
In 2005 and 2006, Dr. Coburn co-introduced legislation to enforce our borders, strengthen employer verification systems to make sure that only citizens and those eligible to work in the U.S. are employed, and to increase the ability to deport people found guilty of violating our laws. In 2005 the bill number was S. 2061 and in 2006 it was S. 2368 and the title was Border Security and Interior Enforcement Act. Neither of these bills contained an amnesty program.
Click here for additional information on co-sponsored legislation.
Other Important Principles
Dr. Coburn also strongly supports a measure designating English as our national language.
Dr. Coburn also is opposed to birthright citizenship, often referred to as “anchor babies” or “chain migration.” He believes Congress must apply the standards our forefathers intended for the 14th Amendment. The Founders understood only those children born to naturalized immigrants or current citizens would automatically get citizenship when born. This would take away a huge incentive for illegal immigrants to come here to have children who become their legal anchor in the United States.
Actually, that was a link to his Web site, but it is still okay.
shore 131
I have no problem with that proposal
“I have no problem with that proposal”
Sastry? What do you think about Coburn’s immigration proposal?
“We are in a situation that we cannot get out of unless we get all of the grown ups working and paying taxes, we need full employment and we need to reduce the unfunded liabilities, all other talk from any party down in the beltway is just rhetoric.”
bingo
shore [131]
The 14th Amendment states Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.. I don’t see how the anchor baby may not be a citizen, unless the amendment is repealed.
It depends on what the Court decides “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-07-19-aviation-shutdown-faa_n.htm
snip
“Mica acknowledged that he inserted the airport language into the extension bill partly as a means to “send the Senate a message that we want this finally resolved.”
“The long-term funding bill approved by the Senate in February included a provision ending subsidized air service for 10 of the 13 airports that would be affected by the provision in the House extension bill. Mica said he “tweaked” that language to include three more airports — in Nevada, Montana and New Mexico— because their subsidies amount to more than $1,000 per ticket.”
snip
It depends on what the Court decides “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means.
If we put him in jail when he robs someone, clearly, he is subject to our jurisdiction.
…and I will support the replacement of the 14th Amendment by a much more restrictive clause – but as it stands now, no chance of disenfranchising the anchor babies. Maybe we should make a special effort to deport pregnant illegals, e.g. when they show up in labor in the hospital. From NJ, they can be helicoptered to a specially built offshore platform in less than 30 minutes… will you sponsor the construction?
This review is from: Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill) (Hardcover)
For those of us hoping for a future U.S. economic miracle, this book provides a sound point of departure in its honest description of economic realities. Relentlessly exposing with primary docs and correct statistics how wealthy pseudo-capitalistic entrepreneurs are constantly tapping federal and state subsidies while pretending to be true and independent capitalists and then spreading the cost onto the sullen masses, those who are not in the market. This is supposed to be free enterprise?
What is absolutely disarming and brilliantly conceptualized is Johnston’s use of Adam Smith’s theories and observations to expose how senior business managers and CEOs massively violate the injunctions and dicta worked out by the founding father of the theory of modern capitalism. Beyond that he also enlists, now and then, biblical references to contrast and hold accountable those committing massive mischief while pretending to help out the poor. After finishing the book, one realizes that parasitism and exploitation of the masses are far better descriptions of America’s economic processes than free enterprise and individual initiatives.
Johnston’s makes the case that the wealthiest 1 percent have been getting substantially wealthier through vast patterns of direct federal subsidies, state subsidies, circumventing laws, pushing for new laws favoring them, using risk transfers, risk dispersion in both fiscal and monetary policies, indirect subsidies, media manipulations, court decision, etc. He defines “Free Lunch” as referring to an economic benefit received by one party, almost exclusively the super-rich, that is paid for by the masses through government action or inaction. This has the results that the rich are getting richer while making the poor poorer or denying them improvement. Economics courses tend to teach us that the rich should be allowed to get richer by producing products that help the poor. Economic processes, though, in the U.S. have reversed this.
Johnston makes his case persuasively by summarizing the fraudulent or unethical actions of John Snow, George Steinbrenner, Warren Buffett, George W. Bush, Cabela, Walton, Abramoff, Keiser, Kozlowski,Barron Hilton, Lay, Schwartzman, Goldschmidt, Wasserman, McGuire, et al. who got rich or super-richer not through producing products which helped the consumer but through shockingly devious and highly variegated methods that range from favorable laws to milking gov’t medical services to enlisting eminent domain, to backdated stock options to favorable IRS policies such as “private letter ruling(s),” etc..
Johnston does not neglect to focus on the few who courageously and ethically tried to counteract and limit the giant crimes foisted on 99 percent of all Americans by the top 1 percent. Their lonely and desperate efforts failed too frequently. These unsung heroes range from ordinary workers to Erik Lie, the University of Iowa economist, who examined 39,000 stock options granted by 7000 corporations between ’96 and ’05 and discovered that 14 percent of them granted to CEOs were either backdated or manipulated.
While the author does enlist some comparative analysis, references and statistics with Canada, the EU, Japan and New Zealand, this portion could have been expanded. Also, he may just overadulate socialism a bit and may just forget that socialistic economies also have considerable frauds, exploitations and corruption. He finishes with solutions or suggestions for improvement and they, too, are well thought out. He says we need an ethos that cheating is wrong and also need a common purpose and that ALL members of an economy should have their needs addressed. In short, parasitism–though he doesn’t use this term–must end. On balance, this is an easy read and a great and necessary book.
Yo’me-
Going windsurfing? Aruba is a great place for it.
In other Caribbean news, bartenders at the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke said they spotted Casey Anthony there today. Nobody needs a “painkiller” more than her.
Bush bought the Texas Rangers baseball team, with the help of a public subsidy of $202 million from the city sports authority to build a new stadium. Then he sold it nine years later, at a $164 million profit. Bush got $17 million, on which he paid tax at the capital gains rate of 20 per cent, not, as he should have done, at the compensation rate of 42.5 per cent, saving himself $3.7 million.
Donald Trump benefits from a tax designed to help the old and poor, part of which is now diverted to fund his casinos. Paris Hilton’s grandfather got his fortune by overturning his father’s will, to take the money from charities that specifically benefited poor children. A fabricated Apple board meeting gained its CEO Steve Jobs an extra $70 million.
Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Company paid just 4 per cent of its US profits in federal corporate income taxes in 2006. The government agreed to let it defer $666 million in taxes in 2007, so by 2035 it will have paid just half of its tax! This is like getting an interest-free loan from the government, that is, from all other taxpayers.
Many firms service the rich by helping them to evade taxes and cheat the great majority who pay their taxes. KPMG, for instance, helped Columbia/HCA cheat the government, when it had a contract to detect such frauds.
The hugely rich get away with murder, yet a guy who steals nine videos worth $150 gets a 50-year jail sentence, with no chance of parole. The Supreme Court upheld this punishment in 2003. The rule of law, anyone?
90 per cent of Americans are no better off than they were in 1973. Average incomes have fallen since then. Of every dollar earned in 2005, the richest ten per cent got 48.5 per cent. Between 1990 and 2003, the net effect of foreign investment in the USA was the destruction of 3.4 million US jobs.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became the world’s sole superpower (or hyperpower). Wolin capitalizes the word “superpower” to mark the United States’ uniqueness as being an actual form of government and not an ideal type.
[edit] Inverted totalitarianism and managed democracyPart of the Politics series
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Given the transformations that Superpower has undergone during the military mobilization required to fight the Axis powers, and during the subsequent campaign of containing the Soviet Union during the Cold War, does Superpower continue to resemble a liberal democracy domestically, or is it itself taking on totalitarian tendencies? Wolin suggests that the latter possibility is closer to the truth:
While the versions of totalitarianism represented by Nazism and Fascism consolidated power by suppressing liberal political practices that had sunk only shallow cultural roots, Superpower represents a drive towards totality that draws from the setting where liberalism and democracy have been established for more than two centuries. It is Nazism turned upside-down, “inverted totalitarianism.” While it is a system that aspires to totality, it is driven by an ideology of the cost-effective rather than of a “master race” (Herrenvolk), by the material rather than the “ideal.”[6]
There are three main ways in which inverted totalitarianism is the inverted form of classical totalitarianism. First, whereas in Nazi Germany the state dominated economic actors, in inverted totalitarianism corporations and their lobbying dominate the Superpower, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This isn’t considered corruption, but “normal”.[7]
Second, while the Nazi regime aimed at the constant political mobilization of the population, with its Nuremberg rallies, Hitler Youth, and so on, inverted totalitarianism aims for the mass of the population to be in a persistent state of political apathy. The only type of political activity expected or desired from the citizenry is voting. Low electoral turnouts are favorably received as an indication that the bulk of the population has given up hope that the government will ever help them.[8] Third, while the Nazis openly mocked democracy, Superpower maintains the conceit that it is the model of democracy for the whole world:[9] Wolin writes:
Inverted totalitarianism reverses things. It is all politics all of the time but a politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash.[10]
[edit] Managed democracyWolin calls this form of democracy, which is sanitized of the political, managed democracy. Managed democracy is “a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control”.[11] Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state through the continuous employment of public relations techniques.[12]
This brings us to one major respect in which Superpower resembles Nazi Germany without an inversion: the essential role that propaganda plays in the system. Whereas the production of propaganda was crudely centralized in Nazi Germany, in Superpower it is left to highly concentrated media corporations, thus maintaining the illusion of a “free press”. Dissent is allowed, although the corporate media serves as a filter, allowing most people, with limited time available to keep themselves apprised of current events, only to hear points of view which the corporate media deems to be “serious”.[13]
Superpower has two main totalizing dynamics. The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the Global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that Superpower has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to Superpower seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist its domination.[14] The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the population to economic “rationalization”, with continual “downsizing” and “outsourcing” of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by U.S. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society.[15] (Thus, neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism.) The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, thus making it less likely that they will become politically active, and thus helping to maintain the first dynamic.[16]
God damn. This wine store turnaround I signed onto appears to be the vinous equivalent of Fukushima. I found $1,000 of Malaga and 2 $1,100 bottles of Scotch stored in black rot-infested cardboard boxes under the receiving conveyor belt today.
There are $5,000 cases of wine being used to prop up broken tables in the storage area.
I think the previous manager bought everything that was ever offered to him. I also sense he was taking kickbacks from the vendors.
[139] cobbler
On US soil, subject to US jurisdiction. But there are exceptions, such as diplomats.
Priceless
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0711/Dems_use_Reagan_against_GOP_on_debt_ceiling.html?showall
#126
Anything from Tax Founddation (sponsored by Koch) will always be treated by me with skeptism. Its sort of like reading a article with the word “Obamacare” in it. I sort of know that there will be a big slant to the piece.
But yes I would call bs on this. If anything I think the IRS value of that last dollar would be more of a bell curve. The last Buffet dollar taxed at 17% is worth less that the middle class dollar taxed at 25%. Also consider that the dollar produced by Buffet is most likely going into a capital gains based investment, were the low income dollar will be going into retail that will have a rinse repeat cycle for the IRS, until it ultimatly ends up as a higher income capital gains dollar.
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