From Forbes:
Existing Homes Sales Fall In September As Housing Becomes Less Affordable
Well it shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise. Sales of previously owned homes fell 1.9% in September from a month earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors, as the summertime spike in mortgage rates pressured activity and housing affordability decreased.
“Affordability has fallen to a five-year low as home price increases easily outpaced income growth,” says Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors’ chief economist. “Expected rising mortgage interest rates will further lower affordability in upcoming months.”
The annual pace of existing home sales slipped to 5.29 million, in line with economists’ expectations. NAR also downwardly revised its August estimate to 5.39 million, meaning activity was closer to a near-four-year high rather than the six-and-a-half-year high initially reported by NAR.
Still, September existing home sales are 10.7% higher than a year ago and activity has remained higher than year-ago levels for a consecutive 27 months now.
Despite the decrease in sales activity, homes continue to trade at prices higher than a year ago. Nationally, the median existing-home price in September was $199,200 — an 11.7% yearly jump. NAR notes that median prices have climbed at double-digit year-over-year rates for 10 straight months now. Higher prices have bitten into affordability levels as well.
The Realtors chalk rising prices up to still-tight inventory levels. Total housing inventory, comprised of single-family homes, condos, townhomes and co-ops, remained unchanged in September with 2.2 million existing homes listed for sale. At the current pace, that represents a 5-month supply; a healthy market is typically comprised of a six-month supply.
Since sales of existing homes can take up to two months to close, September’s report reflects the effects rising mortgage rates and home prices have been having on prospective buyers.
First, mf’er!
Article about pocket listings in this past Sunday Bergen Record:
http://www.northjersey.com/realestate/228507251__Pocket_listings__protect_privacy_–_sometimes_at_a_price.html
The Slants
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/21/racial-slur-government-blocks-asian-american-band-from-trademarking-the-slants/
148K on the jobs numbers; 7 out of 8 created are part time jobs. Of course, the (ahem…) unemployment rate drops to 7.2% (eyes rolling).
JJ: appears in the WSJ…….he is the husband in the video……
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303902404579149542886151358.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth
skip forward to 2:00 of 5:00
check out some of the comments:
At my age, I still remember how. I just forgot why. Not sure this article helped. Also, the rental option was not discussed, and it implies you have to know something about your partner.
Scott Marshall Wrote:
the last time I had sex, I was alone…
Thomas Bishop Wrote:
“Two New Studies Examine What Motivates Couples to Have Sex”
louis armstrong reportedly said “if you gotta ask, you’ll never know”.
Robert Fahey Wrote:
My wife and I are both negative sex survivors. But we’ve never had negative sex in a vehicle. It’s always very positive. That’s why I have a RAV4. And that’s why babysitters exist. And that’s why cell phones have “off” buttons — so your children can die horrible deaths somewhere while you extract a positive experience on a bed of rancid food crumbs.
Steve Gilbert Replied:
Robert, you need to work on your wording.
The way I first read your comment I would have sworn you where advocating having sex with your babysitter.
If they are under age that’ll get you in very serious legal trouble. If they are not under age it can still cause you lots of problems.
Robert Fahey Replied:
Better wording: Try the car.
also grim….for yesterday….you can go suck it you slackwad….
Most of my friends got married cause they did not want to have s ex that much.
If I wanted to do it five nights a week I would have remained single. That is why guys should not get married till their mid 30s. My buddy who had his first kid recently at almost 50 OMG he slept with an insane amount of women. Has a finance once and that begining to end was 24 months, So basically from ninth grade till 48 he was single.
He even managed when he finally got engaged at 47 to get booked on a nine month assignment in LA and rented a place on the beach, went to lease traded got a BMW and joined a private bar. He fiance owned a small store so she really could only get out there once. I recall the last week of trip he did a 19 year old hot nanny and he was like you know what it was mechanical. I am ready to be married and get some rest.
Grim got taken to town by chinkbots yesterday
Fast,
I am getting wonderful opportunities. For instance, a placement firm contacted me about a great job managing testing on a clients new FX platform. They wanted 12 years experience, FX SME, SDLC/Agile, CAPM/PMP, MBA. Pay was 600/day with no benefits. Don’t forget 10 hour professional day. That is less than 6 figures when taxes, bonus, benefits, vacation and sick are calculated out. I’m really jumping in my seat here. Just another day in the recovery..
@NewsBreaker: Student shooter at Sparks Middle School in Nevada was armed w/semi-automatic handgun that belonged to his parents http://t.co/MbHKQVdB8y CBS
One of the complications of the pocket listing is the commission. Typically, the seller pays the commission and the seller’s agent splits it with the buyer’s agent. In many pocket listings, both buyer and seller are represented by the same agent, who gets the whole commission. Some agents in this situation cut the commission from the typical 6 percent.
It’s called collusion and favoritism. It’s also the reason that some of us will not pay over a HALF MILLION DOLLARS for someone elses f0ul-smelling, rank, dank, Rheingold and cabbage reaking, piece of sh1t that is tossed on the “open” market in hopes of snagging a s.ucker.
What’s your fcuking point?
12.anon (the good one) says:
October 22, 2013 at 9:30 am
@NewsBreaker: Student shooter at Sparks Middle School in Nevada was armed w/semi-automatic handgun that belonged to his parents http://t.co/MbHKQVdB8y CBS
Bystander,
An HR rep from a financial firm wants me to come in and interview for a Tech Analyst role. It is a full time opportunity but I’m embarrased to post the salary range.
15 – Isn’t Tech analyst considered a low level/entry level position?
@NewsBreaker: CHILLING: Scanner traffic recording released of Sparks Middle School Shooting in Nevada http://t.co/DQdmDEtXyj – @KRNV
anon wants to talk about anything but the actual news, it’s what these shills do because they refuse to admit failure when they see it.
Maybe it just my experience, there are exceptions obviously, but most people I know who marry in there 40s by choice are pretty shallow and self absorbed – Typical legend in their own mind types.
Street,
It’s a senior role. I’m being non-specific for a reason.
Nice…
Talk Joisey to me: N.J. accent among 5 ‘sexiest’ in North America
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/10/talk_joisey_to_me_nj_accent_among_5_sexiest_in_north_america.html#incart_river_default
I would agree, however, what is the downside for the man?
I met my wife at 34, got engaged at 35 and married at 35. I would have waited but honestly I wanted three kids and a stay at home wife and when you wait till your 40s to marry all that is left if gold digger wives and self absorbed women who at best want one kid.
Plus I noticed my buddy was doing hot girls in his plymouth duster in ripped jeans with a cooler full of tall boys at 19, his last girl before marriage was a hot 19 year old nanny, however at 47 he need a BMW, a 500K job, a place on the beach and some strong moves and a lot of lies, to accomplish what he could have gotten with a burrito in one hand and a tall boy in another in a taco bell parking lot when he was 20.
nwnj says:
October 22, 2013 at 10:20 am
Maybe it just my experience, there are exceptions obviously, but most people I know who marry in there 40s by choice are pretty shallow and self absorbed – Typical legend in their own mind types.
I suddenly have a craving for a burrito and a tall boy…
Without salary growth, I wonder if this would push more potential buyers further outside the NYC area into the exurbs and PA areas.
Home prices in New Jersey up over last year, but affordability dips
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2013/10/home_prices_in_new_jersey_up_o.html
Total financial armageddon, dead ahead.
@NewsBreaker: Out of 300,000,000 guns privately owned in the US, about 12o kids under the age of 14 are killed eacgh year. Out of the 254,000,000 cars privately owned in the US, in the average year there are 1550 deaths among those under 14. And of the 120 kid deaths by gun, about 15 are accidental. Obviously, we need a car ban.
Street [14];
What’s your fcuking point?
None that we’ve been able to discern for as long as he’s been dutifully parroting leftist tweets.
Look for Anon’s next tweet to call for background checks to include whether or not an applicant for handgun permit has children. Have kids? No firearm for you – the kid might steal it and use it to hurt someone. Strangely, I have yet to see any leftist call for a permit requirement for bloggers or tweeters, especially those with children, before exercising their first amendment rights. Which is odd, because most leftist tweets look like the do come from children.
On the topic of employment: Aerotek pursuing me for temp to perm position. Am I correct thinking that the less they pay me the more $$ they put in their own pocket?
If they won’t move on $$, any reason for me not to go to hiring co directly other than being hated by Aerotek?
Nomad [28];
Aerotek’s deal with their client may prevent the client from hiring you directly. Not sure precisely how that would be enforced, but the client may not want to touch you just to avoid the argument. OTOH, the Aerotek might be servile and take it rather than rock their boat. Not really sure who has the upper hand in those arrangements.
My experience is that companies use headhunters or staffing services to outsource their HR functions. They may not even want to talk to you about filling their need — that’s what they pay Aerotek to do.
I wish you luck in any case.
I think neighbors should also weigh in on handguns.
Fairly nice jewish women late 30s invited my daughter over for a play date once. Very nice well spoken lady, we never met husband. We find out he works night shift at Kennedy airport, the met in HS or something and only guy she ever knew.
So my wife goes in for playdate on the weekend to check place out. Husband is a hot headed Italian guy who likes guns and to hunt. So wife is doing a four year old girls play date and guy is cleaning his whole gun collection on dining room, table. Shotguns rifles etc. Looks at wife and goes no worries I will stay in her and out of way. Takes me awhile to clean all my guns. So they head to basement play room and deer heads dead stuff animals in this basement with paneled walls, looks like where murdered children end up. So wife goes sorry we cant stay with guns, women goes are you sure and then she throws in my husband would be upset so she leaves.
The live on a cape on a 60×100 plot with two capes on either side with kids. A few weeks later I see a just born sign in front of neighbors house and other than some sheetrock and siding this nut has an arsenal of weapons that could easily go through walls and kill the neighbors.
It he hunts, leave it upstate. It cant be protection. Guy is a blue collar joe, pos cape with paneling and he is a big hot headed guy in his thirties and he does construction on side, so he has hammers, axes, saws, nail guns in house. WTF does he need 5-7 loaded handgunsm shotguns and rifles?
“WTF does he need 5-7 loaded handgunsm shotguns and rifles?”
In case Anon comes.
In case we have to hear that same story for the 4th time.
JJ he just sounds like a wierd guy. Kind of a classless douche who has no respect for his wife. The wife sounds like she puts up with a lot of crap. I mean…the dining room table? If I tried to rebuild the carburetor for my lawnmower on the dining room table or something my wife would have a fit. Doesn’t he have a workbench in his basement or garage?
The guy across the street from me works for homeland security. He has all sorts of guns in his attic. Some for his job and some just because he likes to shoot. I never really gave it much thought. Some people would say they feel safer because they have a cop living on their street.
Thanks Anon.
Wonder if there is any data showing productivity differences between temp employees and FTEs.
(35) Who says Homeland Security has anything to do with being a cop. Those schleps working at EWR work for Homeland security.
37 – This particular person was a local cop, then went to work as an air marshal after 9/11. I understand Air Marshals are now part of Homeland security. He recently asked to be re-assigned within Homeland security so that he could spend more time with his kids. Firearms were always a part of his job and I never really had any fear of his house spontaneously combusting and all the bullets blowing up shooting everybody in the neighborhood.
That is some code for being violently schizophrenic, or else it is a anarchist punk band that covers Aerosmith……
Street Justice says:
October 22, 2013 at 1:39 pm
He has all sorts of guns in his attic.
I am still partial to Hobo With A Range Rover…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAK2dDQ-S4Q
Mythbusters
Bullets on a Campfire
Myth: Bullets in a campfire can fire with lethal force
Adam and Jamie went out to the Alameda Bomb Range to test a variation on the bullets in an oven myths: bullets on a campfire. Without the oven to absorb the blast, they wanted to see how much damage a bullet can do. Jamie rigged up a remote control vehicle to deliver the bullets to the 1000 degree fire while Adam setup triangles of the soundboard + plywood backboard to gauge the bullet damage — ballistics gel would melt over a fire. Once again, expert Jamie Nelson to supervise.
As expected, the bullet immediately began to fire like popcorn when they were dumped on the 1000 degree fire. The thermal camera was able to catch individual bits of shrapnel firing into the boards.
After the popcorn noise of the bullets had ceased, Adam wanted to put out the fire in order to protect his soundboard+plywood rig from burning. Adam was just going to walk over to the fire, but Jamie recommended carrying one of the blast shields over to protect them. Adam argued his side but was quickly rebutted by the sound of another bullet going off in the fire: “Alright, let’s walk with one of these ahead of us.”
Just as in the oven myth, it was the bullet casings that did the major damage.
Bullets on a Campfire: busted
As seen at Jets game this Sunday aint no helpin White Trash
Street Justice says:
October 22, 2013 at 1:36 pm
JJ he just sounds like a wierd guy. Kind of a classless douche who has no respect for his wife. The wife sounds like she puts up with a lot of crap. I mean…the dining room table? If I tried to rebuild the carburetor for my lawnmower on the dining room table or something my wife would have a fit. Doesn’t he have a workbench in his basement or garage?
[22] JJ – There’s ways around that. I met my wife when she was 27 and I was in my early 30’s, we got our first place a year later but I didn’t propose until I was 40. She comes from money, so the way I like to tell it is that when her parents first met me they were afraid I was a gold-digger but 8 years later they were praying I was one.
I met my wife at 34, got engaged at 35 and married at 35. I would have waited but honestly I wanted three kids and a stay at home wife and when you wait till your 40s to marry all that is left if gold digger wives and self absorbed women who at best want one kid.
I met my wife when I was 22, but we didn’t start dating until I was 28……we didn’t have kids until I was 38……these are the reasons we are still married and can stay that way…..
if you can’t afford it, then don’t buy it
@NewsBreaker: APPLE’S new iPad Air:
•25% thinner
•1lb
•”Screaming Fast”
•72 X faster graphics
•9.7″ display
•thinner bezel http://t.co/7uO1jgBpOd
@mynameisjerm: Microsoft is now the only company that sells an operating system.
“With the new techniques in vasectomies, you don’t even get an incision that needs to be stitched. You just get a little Band-Aid, that’s it.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-22/public-vasectomy-with-band-aid-promotes-family-planning.html
#4 Fast Eddie
“148K on the jobs numbers; 7 out of 8 created are part time jobs.”
Any numbers to back that up?
#48 Chi
Can’t see that taking off in NNJ. I was talking to a Urologist who told me his “Black Friday is the “Tue/Wed/Thur” at the start of March Madness. The guys want three days lying on the sofa with an Oxy script.
[4] eddie
Robert Funk knows a thing or two about employment. And he doesn’t come right out and say that BLS is cooking the books, but he comes pretty damn close.
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000209739&play=1
[51] fabius,
Cannot verify eddie’s number, but a quick search turned up this, and it is from a news source you find impeccable:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/part-time-job-creation_n_3788365.html
A Graphic Look at Payrolls from the September Employment Report
Submitted by Robert Oak on October 23, 2013 – 5:23am
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/graphic-look-payrolls-september-employment-report-5410
Below is the breakdown of jobs growth per industry sector for September 2013. From these two pie charts we can see the job market has changed into more crappy, low paying service jobs of health care assistance and restaurant workers. We expected to see construction jobs shrink relative to total payrolls and it did, by 1.1 percentage points. Manufacturing, of which the auto industry is a part, has contracted 1.1 percentage points as share of total jobs. The financial sector, only shrank 0.2 percentage points as it’s share of payroll jobs, in spite of being the maelstrom behind the recession. The manufacturing sector just continues to erode and if one thinks about it, the manufacturing job implosion should not be so great due to the causes of the recession. Health care has gained the most jobs, yet working in a nursing home and as attendants are also low paying jobs.
Below is a bar chart showing the employer’s payroll growth since January 2008. We see health care jobs, part of education and health sector, is the only real growth sector, along with very low paying restaurant jobs in leisure and hospitality. Remember professional and business includes waste management and low paying administrative types of jobs. Manufacturing has just been decimated.
Job gains for the past year, from September 2012 to September 2013 are shown below. While one might think professional and business jobs are good jobs, this isn’t quite true. There are many low paying office worker and waste management services jobs in this category. Additionally the BLS counts foreign guest workers in their employment statistics, so in the Science & Technology fields, don’t assume those jobs went to Americans.
Thanks to the slacker administrator, this website has degraded into Washington DC………….a combination of northern hospitality and southern efficiency.
Was it an open marriage? Ten years stuck with same women and not even kids to distract you. They should write a part three to the Bible. Jesus’s 40 days in the desert sounds easy next to ten years of eating day old tuna tacos
chicagofinance says:
October 22, 2013 at 4:05 pm
I met my wife when I was 22, but we didn’t start dating until I was 28……we didn’t have kids until I was 38……these are the reasons we are still married and can stay that way
This website is a cesspool…..
A University Education JJ Style:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/college-ta-sends-students-nude-pics-math-answers-article-1.1494191
un mod
Not sure who posted about 1 Stop Leasing a few weeks back… if you’re reading this, how successful were you at negotiating the price lower (cause they seem quite low to begin with, and all with $0 down)?
56. Weird timeline right? Here’s to ya Sparky. Congrats on finding a woman to talk to ya. Trouble is most are pretty shitty company. Admit it.
Talk about rolling the dice … 0 Comments
NEW
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LEARN MORE
By Shayndi Raice
Bank of America Corp. committed fraud when it sold loans to mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a scheme called the “hustle,” a jury found Wednesday.
By Shayndi Raice
Bank of America Corp. committed fraud when it sold loans to mortgage finance firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a scheme called the “hustle,” a jury found Wednesday.
Bloomberg
Customers use automated teller machines (ATM) at a Bank of America Corp. branch in New York.
The decision marks the first time a bank has been found by a U.S. court to be responsible for wrongdoing tied to its financial-crisis-era dealings, experts say.
The jury also found that Rebecca Mairone, a former Countrywide Financial Corp. executive, was liable for fraud for her role in leading the hustle loan-processing program. Bank of America BAC -0.28% , the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, bought Countrywide in 2008.
“The jury’s decision concerns a single Countrywide program that lasted several months and ended before BofA’s acquisition,” said a spokesman for the Charlotte, N.C., bank. “We will evaluate our options for appeal.”
The trial has taken jurors on a journey inside Countrywide’s subprime lending unit, often seen as a central player in the subprime-mortgage crisis that brought the housing market to its knees. And it has dragged Bank of America back into the spotlight for Countrywide’s alleged misdeeds during the housing boom.
See expanded version at WSJ.com.
Wake me up when Mozilo is in Leavenworth.
That orange sum bitch.
@BreakingNews: 14-year-old suspect accused of killing Massachusetts teacher ordered held without bail at arraignment – @ScottIsaacs http://t.co/sFYjItCNxR
Breaking news: anon is declared to be a moron.
Hey, anon: stick to the Bernie Sanders retweets. They’re cute, and they show you in sort of an imbecilic/Forrest Gump kind of light.
@SenSanders: A single-payer system, like Medicare, is the cure for America’s ailing healthcare – Sen. Bernie Sanders, @guardian: http://t.co/8ooW3XFW2g
@SenSanders: Poll: Major damage to GOP after shutdown, and broad dissatisfaction with government: http://t.co/ZHQkt0pTdM
Life is like a box of chocolates, right, anon?
A vote for DeBlasio is a vote for NJ Real Estate…..
OPINION
Bill de Blasio Should Ask Me About the Sandinistas
The New York mayoral candidate still fondly recalls a regime that I fled in terror for my life.
Shortly after Bill de Blasio won the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor in September, his long-ago flirtation with radical governments in Cuba and Nicaragua flared as a campaign issue. But he is far ahead in the polls, and New Yorkers seem to have decided that the matter is not relevant to the job he is now seeking. To me and my family, though, the would-be mayor’s activism hits home. That’s because when Mr. de Blasio was visiting Nicaragua to show his support for the Sandinista government in 1988, my son and I were moving to New York, fleeing that government.
Twenty-five years is a long time, and people change. But on this subject, Mr. de Blasio has made clear that he has not.
Last month, a Cuban-American radio host asked Mr. de Blasio to explain his 1991 honeymoon to Cuba. While acknowledging that there are a “huge number of problems” with the country’s communist government, Mr. de Blasio praised Cuba’s health-care system, saying: “I also think it’s well known that there’s been some good things that happened in that government.”
He has been even more effusive about the Sandinistas, the violent revolutionaries in Nicaragua who overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979 and installed a soc!alist government that ruled until 1990. Mr. de Blasio told the New York Times recently that the Sandinistas showed a “youthful energy and idealism mixed with a human ability and practicality that was really inspirational.” In the same article, one unrepentant Sandinista activist complained about some Sandinista supporters who later dropped their support for the cause. “Bill wasn’t like that,” she said.
For those who became disillusioned with the Sandinistas, a turning point came when the regime showed that it was determined to wipe out peaceful opposition. I was a member of that opposition.
I was not one of the Contra rebels who attacked the regime. I lived peacefully in Managua, the capital. I also wasn’t a supporter of the Somoza family, whose long rule the Sandinistas overturned. My family had fought the Somozas for generations, and my brother was a hero in the Sandinista revolution, rising to the rank of colonel. I was working for the Sandinista cause in the late 1970s when much of my family moved to Mexico to escape the war.
After the revolution in 1979, I joined the government. I was hired to help “humanize” Nicaraguan prisons. I was enthusiastic about the work—until I found out that Sandinista-style “humanization” often involved extrajudicial executions.
I once appealed to a prison warden to allow a diabetic prisoner his dose of insulin. The warden refused, telling me: “If it was up to you, we’d let them all out!” When I wrote a note to higher-ups complaining about all this, I was told by co-workers to get out of government before I was silenced permanently.
My moment of truth came at a meeting of government workers with Interior Minister Tomas Borge several months after the revolution. Borge was a confirmed Marxist but had been discreet until that moment. “Why not say it?” Borge said to the crowd. “We are going toward soc!alism.” The Sandinistas had already nationalized the banks and were confiscating property and executing opponents in the streets. I was scared to see what would come next.
I left the government after a few months, and got a job with IBM IBM +0.46% until the Sandinistas made doing business impossible for all American corporations. At that point, in 1986, I found work at the British Embassy. Because of my family’s connections with the Sandinistas, I was not immediately in danger. That changed when a friend was thrown in prison for organizing peaceful demonstrations against the government.
When I began visiting him in prison with his wife, the secret police began harassing me and my family. I was followed and my phone was tapped. That’s when I began planning my escape with my future husband, a journalist who was then writing about Latin America for this newspaper.
It was a long, hard road that led to my finally stepping off a plane in New York with my 7-year-old boy and an overnight bag to start a new life. The transition was even harder for my son, who spoke not a word of English and who had left his extended family behind. I never would have left Nicaragua had I not been convinced that the alternative was unacceptable.
Nov. 4 will mark the anniversary of the day I arrived in New York. It was a rough time for the city—crime was rampant and the city seemed to be falling apart. But New York was home. I find it hard to believe that on Nov. 5, New Yorkers may elect a man who continues to praise the brutal government that I fled.
Ms. Aviles Asman lives in Manhattan.
A vote for DeBlasio is a vote for NJ Real Estate…..
OPINION
Bill de Blasio Should Ask Me About the Sandinistas
The New York mayoral candidate still fondly recalls a regime that I fled in terror for my life.
Shortly after Bill de Blasio won the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor in September, his long-ago flirtation with radical governments in Cuba and Nicaragua flared as a campaign issue. But he is far ahead in the polls, and New Yorkers seem to have decided that the matter is not relevant to the job he is now seeking. To me and my family, though, the would-be mayor’s activism hits home. That’s because when Mr. de Blasio was visiting Nicaragua to show his support for the Sandinista government in 1988, my son and I were moving to New York, fleeing that government.
Twenty-five years is a long time, and people change. But on this subject, Mr. de Blasio has made clear that he has not.
Last month, a Cuban-American radio host asked Mr. de Blasio to explain his 1991 honeymoon to Cuba. While acknowledging that there are a “huge number of problems” with the country’s communist government, Mr. de Blasio praised Cuba’s health-care system, saying: “I also think it’s well known that there’s been some good things that happened in that government.”
He has been even more effusive about the Sandinistas, the violent revolutionaries in Nicaragua who overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979 and installed a soc!alist government that ruled until 1990. Mr. de Blasio told the New York Times recently that the Sandinistas showed a “youthful energy and idealism mixed with a human ability and practicality that was really inspirational.” In the same article, one unrepentant Sandinista activist complained about some Sandinista supporters who later dropped their support for the cause. “Bill wasn’t like that,” she said.
For those who became disillusioned with the Sandinistas, a turning point came when the regime showed that it was determined to wipe out peaceful opposition. I was a member of that opposition.
I was not one of the Contra rebels who attacked the regime. I lived peacefully in Managua, the capital. I also wasn’t a supporter of the Somoza family, whose long rule the Sandinistas overturned. My family had fought the Somozas for generations, and my brother was a hero in the Sandinista revolution, rising to the rank of colonel. I was working for the Sandinista cause in the late 1970s when much of my family moved to Mexico to escape the war.
After the revolution in 1979, I joined the government. I was hired to help “humanize” Nicaraguan prisons. I was enthusiastic about the work—until I found out that Sandinista-style “humanization” often involved extrajudicial executions.
I once appealed to a prison warden to allow a diabetic prisoner his dose of insulin. The warden refused, telling me: “If it was up to you, we’d let them all out!” When I wrote a note to higher-ups complaining about all this, I was told by co-workers to get out of government before I was silenced permanently.
My moment of truth came at a meeting of government workers with Interior Minister Tomas Borge several months after the revolution. Borge was a confirmed Marxist but had been discreet until that moment. “Why not say it?” Borge said to the crowd. “We are going toward soc!alism.” The Sandinistas had already nationalized the banks and were confisc-ting property and executing opponents in the streets. I was scared to see what would come next.
I left the government after a few months, and got a job with IBM IBM +0.46% until the Sandinistas made doing business impossible for all American corporations. At that point, in 1986, I found work at the British Embassy. Because of my family’s connections with the Sandinistas, I was not immediately in danger. That changed when a friend was thrown in prison for organizing peaceful demonstrations against the government.
When I began visiting him in prison with his wife, the secret police began harassing me and my family. I was followed and my phone was tapped. That’s when I began planning my escape with my future husband, a journalist who was then writing about Latin America for this newspaper.
It was a long, hard road that led to my finally stepping off a plane in New York with my 7-year-old boy and an overnight bag to start a new life. The transition was even harder for my son, who spoke not a word of English and who had left his extended family behind. I never would have left Nicaragua had I not been convinced that the alternative was unacceptable.
Nov. 4 will mark the anniversary of the day I arrived in New York. It was a rough time for the city—crime was rampant and the city seemed to be falling apart. But New York was home. I find it hard to believe that on Nov. 5, New Yorkers may elect a man who continues to praise the brutal government that I fled.
Ms. Aviles Asman lives in Manhattan.
[81] anon,
The problem with pushing that line is that it confirms to all America that the dems were disingenuous about Obamacare. They basically lied to the american people about it. And, sadly, you condone that so long as it advances your agenda.
Don’t wish too hard for junta-style government. You might not like the result.
[85] ChiFi
I love diBlasio. How can I not love a mayor who will bring NYC back to the bad old days and make it the butt of more jokes than it already is; cause people and commerce to flee to Christie’s NJ; and, the piece d’ resistance, he’s a RED SOX FAN!!!!
[78] anon,
You’re a dick, trying to politicize a senseless killing, especially one from my neck of the woods. And WTF do you care anyway? He didn’t use a gun. Besides, you should be championing him as he was doubtless an oppressed minority and she a symbol of white oppression, right? Go join schabadoo and the rest of the loony left, you c#unt.
Is that a Twitter hashtag category?
Comrade Nom Deplume in smelly Wilmington, Delaware says:
October 23, 2013 at 9:06 pm
c#unt.
http://www.alexmarchant.com/blog/2013/10/22/healthcare-dot-gov-lines-of-code-comparison.html
anon and his ilk are the kind of dolts who think Che Guevara was some sort of romantic rebel type, instead of the homicid@l maniac he really was.
Exclusive: After Westgate, Interpol Chief Ponders ‘Armed Citizenry’
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said today the U.S. and the rest of the democratic world is at a security crossroads in the wake of last month’s deadly al-Shabab attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya – and suggested an answer could be in arming civilians.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Noble said there are really only two choices for protecting open societies from attacks like the one on Westgate mall where so-called “soft targets” are hit: either create secure perimeters around the locations or allow civilians to carry their own guns to protect themselves.
“Ask yourself: If that was Denver, Col., if that was Texas, would those guys have been able to spend hours, days, shooting people randomly?” Noble said, referring to states with pro-gun traditions. “What I’m saying is it makes police around the world question their views on gun control. It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the past with an evolving threat of terrorism?’ This is something that has to be discussed.”
“For me it’s a profound question,” he continued. “People are quick to say ‘gun control, people shouldn’t be armed,’ etc., etc. I think they have to ask themselves: ‘Where would you have wanted to be? In a city where there was gun control and no citizens armed if you’re in a Westgate mall, or in a place like Denver or Texas?'”
Prior to the Westgate attack, the gun control debate has been ignited time and time again in the U.S. in the aftermath of a series of mass shootings, including one in a movie theater in Aurora, Col., a suburb of Denver.
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=20637341&ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F