From Bloomberg:
Fannie Adds Bailout For Underwaters Walkaways
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will let some borrowers who kept up payments as their homes lost value erase their debts by giving up the properties, helping Americans escape underwater loans while adding to losses at the mortgage giants bailed out with $190 billion of taxpayer money.
Non-delinquent borrowers with illness, job changes or other reasons they need to move will become eligible in March to apply for a so-called deed-in-lieu transaction that erases the shortfall between a property’s value and the size of its mortgage. It follows a change in November that lets on-time borrowers sell properties for less than they owe, known as short sales, wiping out the remaining mortgage debt. Normally, the lenders could pursue people to recoup their losses.
“It’s an extraordinarily generous approach for companies still in debt to American taxpayers,” said Phillip Swagel, a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy in College Park, Maryland. “We’re giving people an incentive to walk away, right when the housing market is starting to right itself.”
Previous foreclosure-prevention programs were designed to help only borrowers on the verge of losing their homes, in effect penalizing those who kept paying, according to homeowner advocates such as Julia Gordon, director of housing finance and policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington. In some cases, servicers have advised borrowers to stop making their mortgage payments to qualify for help, leading to evictions if their applications are denied, Gordon said.
…
“Fannie and Freddie are playing catch-up, making these changes when defaults are falling and the housing market is coming back to some extent,” said Kurt Eggert, a professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, California. “It should have happened a long time ago.”
…
The deed-in-lieu transactions, which require homeowners to leave properties in good condition, preserve the value of homes by preventing owners from abandoning them to take a new job or cope with an illness, Gordon said. Vacant and dilapidated real estate drags down values of nearby houses, increases expenses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and reduces the amount they’ll recover when the property is sold, she said.
…
To qualify for the programs, borrowers are required to have a 55 percent debt-to-income ratio — meaning 55 percent of their monthly gross income goes to paying debt. To be eligible, homeowners have to document a hardship, such as illness, for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider the deal.
From the NY Times:
A New Housing Boom? Don’t Count on It
WE’RE beginning to hear noises that we’ve reached a major turning point in the housing market — and that, with interest rates so low, this is a rare opportunity to buy. But are such observations on target?
It would be comforting if they were. Yet the unfortunate truth is that the tea leaves don’t clearly suggest any particular path for prices, either up or down.
On the one hand, there were sharp price increases in 2012, with the S.&P./Case-Shiller 20-City Index, which I helped devise, up a total of 9 percent over the six months from March to September. That comes after what was generally a decline in prices for five consecutive years. And while prices dropped very slightly in October, the trend was quite encouraging for the market. (Our November data come out on Tuesday.)
But some of these changes were seasonal. Home prices have tended to rise every midyear and to fall slightly every fall and winter. And for some unknown reason, seasonal effects have become more pronounced since the financial crisis.
After screening out these effects, a number of indicators are up, including data for housing starts and permits as well as the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Index of traffic of prospective homebuyers, which has made a spectacular rebound since last spring.
What might explain this picture? It’s hard to pin down, because nothing drastically different occurred in the economy from March to September. Yes, there was economic improvement: the unemployment rate, for example, dropped to 7.8 percent from 8.2 percent. But that extended a trend in place since 2009. There was also a decline in foreclosure activity, but for the most part that is also a continuing trend, as reported by RealtyTrac.
…
In short, it is hard to find an exact cause for the rebound in home prices. But that isn’t unusual — we hardly ever know the real causes of major changes in speculative prices. Yet we do know that any short-run increase in inflation-adjusted home prices has been virtually worthless as an indicator of where home prices will be going over the next five or more years.
…
History doesn’t suggest that another big bubble will come so fast. In fact, before the most recent one, the United States had had only one major national home price boom in the last century, when real prices rose a total of 68 percent from 1942 to 1953.
…
Most experts are not predicting any big change in home prices. As of December, the Zillow-Pulsenomics Home Price Expectations Survey, which involves more than 100 forecasters, and the S.& P. Case/Shiller Composite Index Futures were both forecasting modest increases for the next half-decade, implying inflation-adjusted price growth of 1 to 2 percent a year.
The bottom line for potential home buyers or sellers is probably this: Don’t do anything dramatic or difficult. There is too much uncertainty to justify any aggressive speculative moves right now. If you have personal reasons for getting into or out of the housing market, go ahead. Otherwise, don’t stay up worrying about home prices any more than you do about stock prices.
I can’t offer any clearer picture, and I don’t see a solid basis for anyone else to do so, either.
Good Morning New Jersey
After saying yesterday that we were backing out of the market, we saw a listing for a house that we previously rejected. It was a Ranch with a finished basement, and had been listed at 489,900. Great location, good lot in an excellent subdivision , but we felt it was overpriced for the size and layout.
Yesterday, we saw it listed in the paper at 399,900
Now this will get interesting. Will the right try and bury Rubio.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/immigration-reform-obama_n_2564400.html
One day closer to oblivion.
In NJ we have no immigration laws. Its a free for all . just walk the streets.
[5] ernest,
Oblivion is here. The School District shut down for the day due to weather.
I have a friend looking for a graduate entry SQL programmer in New Brunswick. Great starter job to get Gradon or Ellory out of the basement. Get my email from Grim.
[4] miminis,
Depends on the plan. Besides, you now have Obama in the mix.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/us/politics/senators-agree-on-blueprint-for-immigration.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130128&_r=0
Here they come 11 million illegals and the washington crowd folds
[10] freedy,
Now, now, try to think of them as 11 million surplus laborers as the right does, or 11 million voters as the left does.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will let some borrowers
I love the fact Fannie and Freddie calls them what they are “borrowers” not home owners.
Back from Europe what did it miss.
or 11 million that have a capacity to contribute to the American economy as the middle will say
jj
How about bpop? Up 15% last 2 days
Treasury 10-Year Note Yield Rises to 2% for First Time Since April
What did Europe miss? A chance to avoid socialism……
JJ’s B.Se says:
January 28, 2013 at 8:32 am
Back from Europe what did it miss.
I love bpop makes me want to go to utube and play some hanson brothers songs.
I bought a 47k bpop trup at 63 cents on the dollar back around two years ago and have been loving my PR interest payments and cap appreciation.
If BPOP has a mini dip due to a near term corrections they have a 8% pref stock at there that is juicier than a 21 year old mamasita in the PR parade
I should have went all common on the BPOP puppy, its value, if you run numbers are amazing and it is a TBTF member. PR is on its way to statehood and property market is turning around and non-performing loans are drying up.
yome says:
January 28, 2013 at 8:42 am
jj
How about bpop? Up 15% last 2 days
At Davos the Paki Heads predicting that England will experience a food crisis in next five years and it will be full blown cannibalism by 2018. I highly doubt that, nothing I have ever eaten that is English ever tasted good. I rather starve.
chicagofinance says:
January 28, 2013 at 9:06 am
What did Europe miss? A chance to avoid socialism……
JJ’s B.Se says:
January 28, 2013 at 8:32 am
Back from Europe what did it miss.
Guess the company? This company blamed everything except the CEOs wife being on the rag for missing the numbers.
Total company sales for the year will be up, but not enough to offset higher marketing expenses and lower gross margin…The fourth quarter started out slowly, as the first two weeks of fiscal November were negatively impacted by the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the distractions created by the presidential election and the uncertainty of the fiscal cliff. Going into the critical holiday selling season, starting on Black Friday, we believed we had a strong marketing and promotional strategy for the period. However, many of the promotional items and a large part of our holiday assortment were items that sell best in cold weather and the weather was unseasonably warm. Historically, we have had strength with these types of items, but our customers (specifically at our stores) didn’t respond as well to our promotional offers as they had in the past.
[13] yome,
What will change in terms of econ? They’re already here. And will they fill our tax coffers? You get much more with an HB1 program.
That said, I say let em in, let em pay in and take out. I just find it ironic that those who would be hurt the most are the biggest cheerleaders.
Apple? Taking a page out of the microsoft playbook.
Hey dope when did the nobel peace prize winner go to war with mexico
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/279449-new-special-ops-command-in-mexico-politically-motivated-analysts-claim
Money, I may be no conspiracy theorist but damn if I don’t think that the idiots in charge are getting ready to go to war with their own population. Looks like you may have been right on that one.
19 –
Jos A Bank
[22] pain
Never let a crisis go to waste.
pain (22)-
In the end, we will be involved in a shooting war with TPTB. The only question is when it will start.
Let’s see how much of a taste Bojangles has for special ops in Mexico when a few of his guys’ heads end up in a duffel bag on the side of the road.
‘Wall St.’ flees NY for tax-free Fla.
By JOSH MARGOLIN
Last Updated: 8:07 AM, January 28, 2013
Posted: 1:15 AM, January 28, 2013
The city’s hedge-fund executives are flying south — and it’s not for vacation.
An increasing number of financial firms, especially private equity and hedge funds, are fed up with New York’s sky-high city and state tax rates and are relocating to the business-friendly climate in Florida’s Palm Beach County.
And they’re being welcomed with open arms — officials in Palm Beach recently opened an entire office dedicated to luring finance hot shots down south.
“Florida is a state of choice,” said Thalius Hecksher, global development chief for Apex Fund Services, who moved many of his operations to Palm Beach. “It’s organically grown. There’s no need to drag people down here. It’s a zero-income-tax jurisdiction.”
Wall St. flees to FLA – How’s the train ride from Upper Haugtyville to Winter Park??
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/wall_st_flees_ny_for_tax_free_fla_Q6e4qSDMUethpylfznC4tO
Feed the hedgies to alligators. About all they’re good for.
The Biggest Housing Bubble in the World Is in … Canada?
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/the-biggest-housing-bubble-in-the-world-is-in-canada/272499/
Lots of alligators in Palm Beach County.
(30)
From the article:
“In the best case, prices wouldn’t fall, except below the rate of inflation, so that real prices decline without hitting household net worths.”
So how does a price decline in real terms not hurt a household’s net worth?
This article can be so wonderful ! I will be sure I could discuss it together with just as much folks as possible.
iphone repair manchester http://mac-win.co.uk/iphone-repair-manchester
The average person is very stupid. Joe six pack buys a 400K starter home and pays 8k a year property tax, 2k a year homeowners, 5k maint/improvements, 14K mortgage interest and home rises in value by end of year to 420K he hits the mall shopping as he made 20k.
joyce says:
January 28, 2013 at 11:15 am
(30)
From the article:
“In the best case, prices wouldn’t fall, except below the rate of inflation, so that real prices decline without hitting household net worths.”
So how does a price decline in real terms not hurt a household’s net worth?
Holy Ferraris, Batman!
The $4.6 million sale of TV’s original Batmobile grabbed most of the headlines from the Scottsdale car auction this weekend, but the huge prices paid for Ferraris and other exotics were the real story.
Two Ferraris sold for more than $8 million, and 23 cars sold for more than $1 million in Scottsdale. That helped set an all-time sales total record for Scottsdale of $223.8 million—$40 million more than the record set last year, and $60 million more than the pre-crisis peak of $163 million in 2007.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100394955?__source=yahoo|related|story|text|&par=yahoo
[35] Messed up the link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100394955
Are these the same people you claim have the ability to invest in shady market for several decades without taking big losses without panic
Actually biggest issue is folks let it ride in good times and sell in a panic.
I dollar cost average into stock. I sold a bit in Jan 2000 to buy a house. I sold a bit in Jan 2004, I sold a bit in 2009 and sold a bit in 20011. In 2004, 2009 and 2011 I bought bonds with proceeds and used interest to dollar cost average in.
I told a ton of folks to sell apple when it was over 600 and all said I am holding on to 1,000. Folks ride winners too long. Same thing happened in housing, folks doubled down in spring 2003 to spring 2008. Same folks should have been doubling down in Spring 1996 to Spring 2002. But they like to wait till prices double before doubling down.
joyce says:
January 28, 2013 at 11:47 am
Are these the same people you claim have the ability to invest in shady market for several decades without taking big losses without panic
#20 nom
Just like you said, they are here and
working. Why not make them pay taxes
OK we have tight supply right now, but when do people start listing for the spring season? After NYE? After Superbowl? After Easter?
I’d like to look around but it isn’t worth it much now, should I just go away for 2 months or actively look next week?
39
How many will become unemployable if they have to go ‘on the books’
38
Please stop telling the same exact stories
krugnuts continuing to show that despite a nobel peace prize in economics knows actually very little about the subject.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/gop-state-income-tax-proposal-reverse-robin-hoodism-160903504.html
Keyneseian economics the gift that keeps on giving like the an STD.
[39] yome,
After EITC and other benefits, will they still be a net plus to the economy and the public fisc? What about collateral effects? Finally, are all of the people we intend to admit actually working? Or will they all get “humanitarian” admission with the implied understanding that they vote democratic? (and please don’t tell me that doesn’t happen when those who should know tell me that it does).
Nom, best way to understand the would be result will be to look at the economic result of the amnesty in the 80s.
40 – Depends, are you browsing or are you buying?
If you are buying and are picky, I’d recommend staying engaged. Decent priced properties are still moving relatively quickly, if you are only passively engaged, you’ll likely miss this inventory. Given the lack of inventory, staying engaged is the only way to get exposure to the biggest set of properties.
If you are just browsing, you could probably devote the next 4 weekends to ski and check back on in March.
44
What was the economic result, solely from, the amnesty of the 80s?
Nom,
The process will be a green card holder then aplly to be a citizen usually takes 5 years. For them to get benefits that is suppose to be for us citizen will be after oath taking after 5 years of application. To get benefits for unemployment you need to pay into it for so many months of working.
pain [42]
Do you realize that your livelihood is 100% dependent on the fact that the govt keeps being heavily involved in your industry – both as a regulator, and as a payer?
To imply that this people that get amnesty will vote democratic is wrong. First of all they need to be a citizen to vote. They will be a green card holder at least 5 years before they can apply and take the oath. Then they can choose a party and vote.
After oath taking. I hate typing in this droid
49
If all goes to plan, they will choose a party (like good drones) and vote. God forbid they should remain independent.
Yome,
I hear ya, typing on droid. Sucks.
As for the 80’s, I ‘d be interested in seeing any studies.
As for green card status, yes, that occurs, but then you go for citizenship and believe me, there is a congressional aide whose task it is to congratulate you and remind you who was pulling for you when you got your citizenship, and who is there to welcome you when you have issues. And then there are the nonprofits that helped these people get through the process from GC to citizenship and they aren’t shy about pushing their views. Is it Tammany? No, but what is done is as much as can be done without line crossing.
And if this isn’t happening, ask yourself why so many dems are interested in getting illegals admitted and so many republicans are against it when it would seem logical that their natural constituencies would not want them going that way (dems and labor, and GOP and business)?
[3] errata,
Our agent tells us that the ad for the house that appeared to drop its ask by 90K is an error, and that the house is under contract at the original sale price.
So much for a dropoff in the local market.
[53] redux
And the same agent is now starting to slip in the mantra “buy now or be priced out forever” or something similar.
Nom [53];
Under contract, huh? Offer them $2,000 for an option to buy at $399k (r whatever your chosen strike price is), exercisable in 90 days, void if they sell for a higher price in that time. If it is under contract, they should be happy to take your money, knowing you’ll get nothing in return.
However, knowing that you already looked at the place, I suspect that the honest, trustworthy, and upstanding sellers broker is lying her azz off.
Non-delinquent borrowers with illness, job changes or other reasons they need to move will become eligible in March to apply for a so-called deed-in-lieu transaction that erases the shortfall between a property’s value and the size of its mortgage.
all the homes in far rockaway will be for sale on homepath come May
Checkmate
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2013-01-24/news/checkmate/full/
Thanks grim, yeah I’m really just browsing.
Joyce [57];
Sounds like the next step of outsourcing traffic enforcement to Northrop Grumman’s Red Light Camera division.
http://www.governing.com/news/local/mct-red-light-cameras-lead-to-lawsuits-for-6-more-new-jersey-cities.html
Moose,
I read that article a few months ago. SOrry to say, the biggest complaint was not that the practices were in place, but just that they needed to be tweaked to be in compliance.
I have no doubt whether its traffic cameras (or the collections from my article) that it will continue, and get worse, and have govt support. Traffic enforcement has always been a HUGE money maker. Why else would we have the majority of local/state law enforcement focused on that rather than murder/rape/robbery? Those cases take time and resources and result in ZERO money for the them.
Always follow the money
Cobbler yes and yes. Contrary to popular, if the FDA/Medicare/Medicaid goes away there will still be a pharmaceutical industry. Existing laws could easily take the place of the FDA in terms of liability and specious claims. It is also in the industries best interest to produce products of high quality, efficaciousness, and purity to make money. clinical trials will still have to be conducted to support safety and effectiveness. I’m not worried about my job, and even if I had to be I have a multitude of skills that will feed me and the family just fine. The ridiculous amount of monetary compliance forced on Pharma companies by regulations could then be freed for R&D and reducing costs of marketed products. You also don’t have companies chasing only block busters and maybe orphan products that treat a small subset of the population see the light of day.
No, America Does NOT Need More Scientists and Engineers
Derek Lowe is a medicinal chemist who has worked for several major pharmaceutical companies since 1989 on drug discovery projects against schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, osteoporosis, and other diseases. He has been writing about drug discovery at In the Pipeline, where this post originally appeared, for more than ten years.
Slate recently published one of those assume-the-conclusions articles up on science and technology education in the U.S. It’s right there in the title: “America Needs More Scientists and Engineers.”
Now, I can generally agree that America (and the world) needs more science and engineering. I’d personally like to have researchers who could realize room-temperature superconductors, a commercially feasible way to turn carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into industrial products, and both economically viable fusion power and high-efficiency solar power beamed down from orbit—for starters. We most definitely need better technology and more scientific understanding to develop these things, since none of them (as far as we know) are at all impossible, and we sure don’t have any of them yet.
But to automatically assume that we need lots more scientists and engineers to do that is a tempting, but illogical, conclusion. And it’s one that my currently unemployed readers who are scientists and engineers probably don’t enjoy hearing about very much. I think that the initial fallacies are (1) lumping together all science education into a common substance, and (2) assuming that if you just put more of that into the hopper, more good stuff will come out the other end.
If I had to pick one line from the article that I disagree with the most, it would be this one:
America needs Thomas Edisons and Craig Venters, but it really needs a lot more good scientists, more competent scientists, even more mediocre scientists.
No. I hate to be the one to say it, but mediocre scientists are, in fact, in long supply. Access to them is not a rate-limiting step. (That’s the chemist’s way of saying it’s not the main bottleneck.) Not all the unemployed science and technology folks out there are mediocre—not by a long shot (I’ve seen the CVs that come in)—but a lot of the mediocre ones are finding themselves unemployed, and they’re searching an awful long time for new positions when that happens. Who, exactly, would be clamoring to hire a fresh horde of I-guess-they’ll-do science graduates? Is that what we really need to put things over the top, technologically—more foot soldiers?
But I agree with the first part of the quoted statement, although different names might have come to my mind. My emphasis would be on “How do we get the smartest and most motivated people to go into science again?” Or perhaps “How do we educate future discoverers to live up to their potential?” I want to make sure that we don’t miss the next John von Neumann or Claude Shannon, or that they don’t decide to go off to the hedge fund business instead. I want to be able to find the great people who come out of obscurity, the Barbara McClintocks and Francis Cricks, and give them the chance to do what they’re capable of. When someone seems to be born for a particular field, like the Nobel-winning R. B. Woodward seemed to be for synthetic organic chemistry, I want them to have every chance to find their calling.
But even below that household-name level, there’s a larger group of very intelligent, very inventive people who are mostly only known to those in their field. I have a list in my head right now for chemistry; so do you for the fields that you know best. These people we cannot have enough of, either—these are the ones who might be only a chance encounter or sudden thought away from a line of research that would lead to an uncontested Nobel Prize or billion-dollar industrial breakthrough.
To be fair, Slate may well get around to some of these thoughts; they’re going to be writing about science education all month. But I wish that they hadn’t gotten off on this particular foot. You’ve got to guard yourself against myths in this area. Here come a few of these myths, which feed the erroneous idea that we need more scientists and engineers:
1. Companies, in most cases, are not moving R&D operations overseas because they just can’t find anyone here to do the jobs. They’re doing that for the same reason so many other employers have sent jobs abroad: because it’s cheaper that way (or appears to be; the jury’s probably still out in many instances)—people in many other countries simply do their jobs for less money. And it’s often the ordinary grunt work that’s being outsourced, which makes the “we even need mediocre scientists” line especially wrong-headed.
2. We are not, as far as I can see, facing the constant and well-known “critical shortage of scientists and engineers.” There have been headlines with that phrase in them for decades, and I wish people would think about that before writing another one. Some fields may have shortages (and these vary over time), but that’s a different story entirely.
3. And that brings up another point, as mentioned above: while the earlier stages of science and math education are a common pathway, things then branch out, and how. Saying that there are so-many-thousand “science PhDs” is a pretty useless statistic, because by that point, they’re scattered into all sorts of fields. A semiconductor firm will not be hiring me, for example.
To sum up: our problems are not caused by a shortage of scientists and engineers, and they will not be fixed by cranking out a lot more mediocre ones. It’s harder than that—isn’t it always?
Fast Eddie;
A fellow traveler, this is:
http://catskills.craigslist.org/reo/3545643423.html
Could have easily been said about NJ.
Grim….a new way to interact with windows 8 (and mac OS)
http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/01/04/t-ts-leap-motion.cnnmoney
As Joseph Dixon has summarized, “The state of Missouri has 6 million people from whom they draw tribute (taxes), from which they could fight us. To fight them, we had 65 cows. And the truth never seemed even to be a consideration, let alone a goal.”
http://truthfarmer.com/2013/01/18/morningland-dairy-the-final-solution/
http://www.cheapusland.com/blog/doomsday-preppers/
I found grim’s real estate website!
I like what you guys are up too. Such clever work and exposure! Keep up the fantastic works guys I’ve included you guys to my own blogroll.
Great. Moose has gone to looking at craigslist RE postings from the Catskills.
Slow day, eh, bankster lackey?
Nom,
It was Reagan that proposed the amnesty in the 80s.Reagan signed it 86 yet Clinton won election in 92 when the 2.7 million people that got amnesty were elegible to vote Republican.
Money [67];
Since I’m (apparently – ha!) joining you in taking leisure time, maybe I should partake of the ripple as well?
I am on the job 24/7.
I do not look at RE in the Catskills.
Ever.
I bet Moose is married to Totie Fields.
Dang. Totie Fields died in 1978.
Remember in 2009-2011 when I was yelling put some junk in your trunk every day.
wow I have not been tracking junk funds that much, but this one which is at best average but large in most 401Ks has a ten year average of 11.71% a year. Wow.
So time travel back ten years buy a junk fund instead of a beach house and cash out today on a sandy special. I need to be a time traveler.
Fidelity® Capital & Income Fund
Symbol: FAGIX
AS OF 12/31/2012 ; *YTD AS OF 1/25/2013
YTD (Daily)* 1 Yr 3 Yr 5 Yr 10 Yr
YTD (Daily)* +2.26% 1 Yr +16.41% 3 Yr +10.18% 5 Yr +9.41% 10 Yr +11.71%
[68] yome,
Once burned …
74
So what are you saying that back then the R’s did it only to gain votes?
but now I got cheap chinese food and lawn service so it was all worth it.
yome says:
January 28, 2013 at 4:01 pm
Nom,
It was Reagan that proposed the amnesty in the 80s.Reagan signed it 86 yet Clinton won election in 92 when the 2.7 million people that got amnesty were elegible to vote Republican.
[75] joyce
I wasn’t in the room, and I doubt it was the primary driver, but one driver, yes. Immigration has always been about votes.
But then why do you assume it’s the primary driver now?
[78] Joyce
Look at who wants it, who is opposed, and how the group is expected to vote.
(MONTERREY, Mexico) — Searchers pulled 10 bodies from a well in northern Mexico on Monday, near the site where 20 members of a Colombian-style music group and its crew disappeared late last week, a state forensic official said.
It was hard to determine how many more bodies were submersed in the water, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the case.
Nuevo Leon state Gov. Rodrigo Medina earlier told a local television station, “We have evidence that indicates that (the bodies) may very well be the members of this band,” though he said experts were still working to identify them.
The bodies recovered showed signs of torture, the official said.
Sixteen members of the band Kombo Kolombia and four crew members were reported missing early Friday after playing at a private party held at a ranch called La Carreta, or The Wagon, in the town of Hidalgo north of Monterrey.
The forensic official said authorities had been searching for two days when they came upon the well Sunday along a dirt road in the town of Mina, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) from Laredo, Texas.
People living near the ranch in Hidalgo reported hearing gunshots at about 4 a.m. Friday, followed by the sound of vehicles speeding away, said a separate source with the Nuevo Leon State Investigative Agency. He also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by the news media.
The officials added that gunfire is common in the area and said investigators found spent bullets nearby.
Relatives filed a missing persons report on Friday after losing cellular phone contact with the musicians. When they went to the ranch to investigate, they found the band members’ vehicles still parked outside.
Kombo Kolombia has played a Colombian style of music known as vallenato, which is popular in working class neighborhood in the city of Monterrey and other parts of Nuevo Leon state. Most of the group’s musicians were from the area, though state officials said one of those missing is a Colombian citizen with Mexican residency.
The band regularly played at bars in downtown Monterrey on the weekend. At least two of the bars where they had played had been attacked by gunmen.
It was Mexico’s largest single kidnapping since 20 tourists from the western state of Michoacan were abducted in Acapulco in 2010. Most of their bodies were found a month later in a mass grave. Authorities said the tourists were mistaken for cartel members.
Members of other musical groups have been murdered in Mexico in recent years, usually groups that perform “narcocorridos” that celebrate the exploits of drug traffickers. But Kombo Kolombia did not play that type of music, and its lyrics were about love and heartbreak and did not deal with violence or drug trafficking.
But singers of drug exploits are not the only musicians targeted, said Elijah Wald, author of the book, “Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns and Guerrillas.”
“There is really not correlation. Drug guys hire people to play for their parties and they hire whatever is happening,” he said. “Sergio Gomez, the single-most famous singer killed from K-Paz de la Sierra, his big hit was a version of ‘Jambalaya.’ “
Gomez was kidnapped and found strangled and tortured in 2007 in the western state of Michoacan, a day after Zayda Pena of the group Zayda and the Guilty Ones was shot in a hospital while recovering from a separate bullet wound in the border town of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
Valentin Elizalde, “El Gallo de Oro,” was shot to death along with his manager and driver in 2006 following a performance in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas. Norteno singer Sergio Vega was shot dead in a northern state of Sinaloa in 2010.
“A lot of people are being killed because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time and musicians are some of the people on that list,” Wald said.
Cobbler (48), Pain,
Based on Cobbler’s logic, North Koreans should not criticize their government, because after all, that’s where they get their livelihood. Germans under Hitler, Russians under Stalin, same deal. Take what the government gives you and shut your mouth, right Cobbler?
Similarly, we cannot criticize the social security or medicare system, or public schools.
By Cobbler’s logic, the state must never stop growing, and whatever it does must never face criticism, unless lefties give the ok sign.
I sincerely hope I live long enough to be able to shoot at people in the gubmint.
[81] ragnar,
Off to Room 101 for you.
Ragnar, don’t worry I fully expect to spend some point to.be in a reeducation camp yelling avenge me like Henry Dean Stanton in red dawn. Or dead by some leftists hand because I wasn’t the right thinking type.
Man I hate my phone. Some point in my life in a reeducation camp
I read on Bloomberg that so many expatriates were buying property in Dubai that they essentially barred foreigners from the mortgage market. So the foreigners are paying cash. This suggests wealthy expats. Dubai. Hmmmmm.
“While Korea cannibalism is not news to residents of the isolated country, allegations that families are eating children are shocking elsewhere, especially in developed countries. Sources say a “hidden famine” is behind cannibals eating their own and Korean officials are masking the human rights issue.
Citing a story on Jan. 28 from the Atlantic Wire, stories are cropping up in various news agencies about a disturbing revelation in the troubled country. Suggestions of Cannibalism in North Korea supposedly comes from eyewitness accounts.
“While his wife was away on business he killed his eldest daughter and, because his son saw what he had done, he killed his son as well. When the wife came home, he offered her food, saying: ‘We have meat.'”
http://www.examiner.com/article/korea-cannibalism-claims-famine-behind-north-korean-cannibals
plume (86)-
Do they practice Sharia law in Dubai?
Got machete?
I think it’s odd that “cannibalism” doesn’t get your comment thrown into moderation at NJRER.
Could grim be a connoisseur of the long pig?
You’re all talk. Please stop your whining.
Ernest Money says:
January 28, 2013 at 6:25 pm
I sincerely hope I live long enough to be able to shoot at people in the gubmint.
You work for the gubmint, skittlepoop? Maybe I can shoot you someday.
Guns are crude and obsolete weapons.
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2013/01/fairfield_police_website_falls.html#incart_m-rpt-1
Take off the red glasses, Comrade.
ragnar[81]
The difference between the North Koreans and pain is that the latter had many potential paths in life, the huge majority of which being less involved with the govt than the one he chose. North Koreans don’t have choices, they can only be slaves, or be dead. If you work for the corporation and badmouth it in the media, you have a decent chance of being fired… pain’s employer (indirectly) is government, it is hypocritical to engage in endless attacks that he’d never launch against the company that signs his paycheck. To me, your Randian belief system is repugnant, but I respect your right to express it as long as you are not on my (taxpayer) payroll.
94
Leaving aside pain and his industry, how is your belief system anything but repugnant when it’s based on ‘legalized’ theft?
joyce [95]
First, I didn’t state that Randian beliefs are “repugnant” – I said they are repugnant to me. Second, my belief system is in line with both the teachings of major religions and the way most humans behaved towards the members of their group/tribe since the pre-historic times. I am quite comfortable with it being repugnant to you and have no desire of forcing it upon you.
96
Does it matter if you said ‘repugnant’ or ‘repugnant to me’? I assumed you were speaking for yourself.
Your belief system is in line with the teachings of major religions… and what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t tribal nature one of voluntary association based on mutual benefit?
Lastly, you may have no desire of forcing your belief system on me but you most certainly post speaking as though you would like to force your system (of govt, et al) on me and others.
“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
― Mark Twain
joyce [97]
but isn’t tribal nature one of voluntary association based on mutual benefit?
Sometimes, yes. Sometimes no – when they were taking care of the orphans and the oldsters, they had been just reassuring themselves that if something happens to them, they will get the same treatment. Altruism helped survival…
Cobbler, as much as it may be hard for you to believe not everyone in a corporate job is a drone. I’m actually paid to feed upper management a sh!t sandwich every day and to tell them there decisions suck, which will affect their products and bottom line. Now I do it in a tactful way but I basically bad mouth them daily. Now I would not be stupid enough to bite the hand that feeds me. I realize I traded independence for stability but I don’t want to live in a world.where if I ever decided to take the risk that half of what I built would be annually tithes to the government in the name of fairness.
99
How many people in this country still voluntarily take in their family when they grow old? (perhaps it’s not as prevalent in NJ as in other areas) Wasn’t this the norm a generation or two ago?
Heywoode Jablomey
Ernest Money says:
January 28, 2013 at 8:23 pm
plume (86)-
Do they practice Sharia law in Dubai?
Got machete?
Pain, most of both kudos and troubles I’d ever had received at work resulted from me not being a drone, so your claim is quite believable… and you are providing a valuable service to the management by pointing at problems in memos, presentations or whatever that you give (are you doing internal audit?). What I meant was that had you – instead of taking this action – posted garbage about your company say on its Yahoo stock board, such behavior would be at least reprehensible. As for the 50% tithe and fairness… dunno… it depends on what you are getting back…e.g., I’d happily agree to have my pay lowered by say 20 or 25% in exchange for a guarantee of having my job till 65 or 68 if I keep good performance… and I don’t care whether I would pay for this security to my employer (as lower salary), or to the state (as a tax)… Nobody is making such an offer though.
joyce [101]
Quite a few do… However, many people have to choose between the need to work and the need to take care of their elders… a generation or two ago women were mostly staying home, and on average, the oldsters expired without convalescing for years; Alzheimers had been described as a medical condition only 106 years ago…
104
The ability of one wage earner to comfortably support a family has been systematically destroyed mainly by inflation. Your problem is directly with govt or (govt sanctioned) programs.
[105]
Well, no… by globalization and greed… at my company production workers had been starting at $17/hr in 1997, they are starting at $14/hr now, and we have at least 50 resumes per vacancy… and sorry to remind, but this busboy you employ… he can’t hire anyone to care for his Grandma while he is at work, since he’d have to pay more than he is making… so your taxes pay for her nursing home Medicaid coverage…
Why are people’s greed not placed in check by other competition and/or in some cases by the justice system (when it crosses into unlawful activity)? It is because it’s enabled and fostered by the revolving door of govt/corporations? Why is it that some people always want to grant more power to this corrupt institution?
Globalism is enabled by the govt, is it not? They set the tax structure; they set the tariffs.
How the F can you say ‘no’ to inflation? It is systematic and working as intended for over a century. The fact that you apparently think nothing of it speaks volumes. Forget inflation by the FED/govt, the majority of it is caused by private banks. They can create credit/loans which spend identically to money. They could and did even when the currency was partially backed by gold & silver.
You are hopelessly lossed.
wow..
lossed = lost
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