From National Mortgage Professional:
Foreclosure Inventory Drops by More Than 30 Percent Year-Over-Year in December
CoreLogic has released its December National Foreclosure Report, which provides data on completed U.S. foreclosures and the national foreclosure inventory. According to CoreLogic, there were 620,111 completed foreclosures across the country in 2013 compared to 820,498 in 2012, a decrease of 24 percent. For the month of December, there were 45,000 completed foreclosures, down from 52,000 in December 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 14 percent. On a month-over-month basis, completed foreclosures decreased 4.1 percent, from 47,000 reported in November 2013.
“The foreclosure inventory fell by more than 30 percent in December on a year-over-year basis, twice the decline from a year ago,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic. “The decline indicates that the distressed foreclosure inventory is healing at an accelerating rate heading into 2014.”
Completed foreclosures are an indication of the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure. Since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been approximately 4.8 million completed foreclosures across the country. As a basis of comparison, prior to the decline in the housing market in 2007, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide between 2000 and 2006.
As of December 2013, approximately 837,000 homes in the United States were in some stage of foreclosure, known as the foreclosure inventory, compared to 1.2 million in December 2012, a year-over-year decrease of 31 percent. The foreclosure inventory as of December 2013 represented 2.1 percent of all homes with a mortgage compared to three percent in December 2012. The foreclosure inventory was down 2.7 percent from November 2013 to December 2013.
“Clearly, 2013 was a transitional year for residential property in the United States. Higher home prices and lower shadow inventory levels, together with a slowly improving economy, are hopeful signals that we are turning a long-awaited corner,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “The housing market should continue to heal in 2014, but we expect progress to remain very slow.”
What’s the obsession with Super Bowl prostitution anyway? With ticket prices in the gutter and hotel rooms empty (not so surprising to see the highest percentage of local attendance in many years), it would make more sense to just tell the hookers to stay home. Of course, I’m sure the state and local police have spent millions gearing up for Hooker Bowl, and everyone is looking forward to their overtime too (I guarantee that some local municipality has spent a million dollars on machine guns and armor). So at what point exactly, will the hookers be propositioning the attendees? Between the time they say good bye to their wives the morning before the game and when they get back home later that evening? Quicky Mart on 1&9? Dunkin Donuts on 17? The way these folks have been talking on TV, you’d think Port Newark was receiving containers full of hookers every day.
Local attendance will be upwards of 50% by the time the last ticket is scalped, I’m sure more than 50% of those traveling have brought their significant others to NYC. And with a beer sure to cost twenty bucks, I’m pretty sure I know where the priorities are.
Hookers, don’t waste your time (they wouldn’t anyway, this whole thing is a hoax.)
From Reason, 3 days ago:
The Mythical Invasion of the Super Bowl Hookers
Major events such as World’s Fairs and the Olympics always provide an excuse for governments to “clean things up” in the host cities before the guests arrive. Police sweep people the leaders consider undesirable, embarrassing or just plain unsightly out of public view (and into jails or exile for the duration). The victims vary with the time and place: the poor, the homeless, unpopular minority groups, drug addicts and gay people have all been among them. The list always includes sex workers; even in countries where prostitution is legal (such as Greece or Brazil) the moralists feel compelled to purge the most visible manifestations of the sex trade from areas where visitors might encounter them. Xenophobia is also heightened by such events, as those so predisposed fear the prospect of strangers coming to town, bringing with them outlandish and alien forms of sin and crime. Together, these two factors may be the origin of one of the stranger (yet more persistent) myths of our time: the idea that some Lost Tribe of Gypsy Harlots, tens of thousands strong, wanders about the world from mega-event to mega-event, unimpeded by the usual logistics of transport and lodging which should make the migration of such a large group a daunting task indeed.
…
By 2008, the myth reached the United States, where it became attached to the Super Bowl (taking the place, perhaps, of the fading but equally spurious claim that domestic violence skyrockets on the day of the game). The story in Phoenix that year largely took the form of police statements that they had “received…warnings about an increase in prostitution and [were] prepared for it,” but by the following year police and other officials in Tampa had turned the rumor into a campaign…which bagged exactly one quarry, a 14-year-old pimped by two rather clueless individuals on Craigslist under the heading “Super Bowl Special” (a detail regularly repeated as part of the prohibitionist catechism since then).
…
Not to be outdone, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott declared the Super Bowl “one of the largest human trafficking events in the United States”; in preparation for the Dallas game (2011) he organized a huge “task force” involving a dozen different federal, state and local agencies, and missed no opportunity to pontificate about “pimps” and Backpage.com. The total haul from all this effort? One would-be pimp who got the idea from hearing the myth on television.
…
But legends like this take on a life of their own, which cannot be ended by mere facts. By July, Indiana’s attorney general, Greg Zoeller, got the Indianapolis Super Bowl bandwagon rolling with the claim that the Texans had actually made “133 separate human trafficking related arrests,” a number obtained by dishonestly representing every vice arrest made in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex during the two and a half week period around the game as a “trafficking” case (the number has since become part of the narrative).
From LA Weekly, circa 2012:
The Super Bowl Prostitution Hoax
Indianapolis is bracing for war. It’s Super Bowl week, after all. Time for the Annual Invasion of the Hookers, which promises to be as harrowing as the Ottoman Empire’s advance on Crete in 1647, though with considerably more nudity.
Yes, one of America’s great urban legends is again being trotted out just in time for kick-off: The notion that legions of out-of-town prostitutes descend on whichever city hosts America’s Big Game.
This time around, it’s Indiana attorney general Greg Zoeller who’s milking the hysteria for political gain.
Zoeller is riding the momentum of a hoax that’s reignited before every major sporting event, be it the Super Bowl, the World Cup, the Olympics or the NBA All-Star game. Alarming figures are pulled from the mist of imagination, where extra zeros apparently come free with every purchase. Anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 hookers will be coming to town! Hide the women and children! And perhaps the more effeminate men as well! You know, just in case!
It’s a myth that’s been playing to sell-out crowds for more than a decade. But there’s been trouble at the box office in recent years. No one gets too excited about garden-variety prostitution anymore. As a culture-war wedge, it’s so 1912.
Dallas Observer, circa 2011:
The Super Bowl Prostitute Myth: 100,000 Hookers Won’t Be Showing Up in Dallas
The alarm bells reached peak decibel in November, when Dallas Police Sergeant Louis Felini told the The Dallas Morning News that between 50,000 and 100,000 prostitutes could descend on the metroplex for the Super Bowl. The call to outrage had sounded.
His estimate was astonishing. At the higher figure, it meant that every man, woman and child holding a ticket would have their own personal hooker, from the vice presidential wing of FedEx to Little Timmy from Green Bay.
And if you believed a study commissioned by the Dallas Women’s Foundation, the hordes would include 38,000 underage prostitutes. Doe-eyed beauties from the Heartland would be peddled like Jell-O shots at the Delta Phi soiree.
…
Official Dallas would not be caught flat-footed. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and the FBI pledged extra manpower to fight “human trafficking.” The Arlington Police Department put up billboards near Cowboys Stadium. They featured flashing photos of busted johns, warning visitors: We don’t take kindly to perverts like you, son.
…
The city was gearing up for a massive invasion of skanks and sex fiends. It would be like Normandy, only with way more plastic surgery—the largest single gathering of freaks and pedophiles the world has ever seen. At least outside of a Vatican staff meeting.
Told you so, and plenty of overtime too. No doubt they’ll be breaking out the new machine guns too (bet that’ll get really their rocks off, nothing more exciting than paramilitary costume play). I’m no longer sure who the actual freaks are:
Christie, Cindy McCain issue warnings on human trafficking ahead of Super Bowl
“The Super Bowl has given law enforcement an opportunity to have a greater array of human trafficking criminality existing and when we have that opportunity, we have to seize on that opportunity in hopes that we can make inroads into cracking into this,” he said.
Molinelli said Bergen County’s Rapid Deployment Force (AKA SWAT Team) — a county-wide team led by New Milford Police Chief Frank Papapietro and Lodi Police Chief Vincent Caruso — will be providing a presence at critical sites in the county Sunday.
He also said the National Guard, and U.S. Marshals Service, will help New Jersey Transit Police patrol highway crossings and mass transit sites.
Breaking News: Shockingly – Christie and Zimmer make amends – and jointly announce a town-wide ban on cleavage in Hoboken this weekend. God forbid someone get shot.
OH MY GOD DOUBLE BREAKING NEWS! FIRST SWAT HOOKER BUST OF THE SUPERBOWL!!!
Hudson County SWAT Hooker Bust
Thank god they had the machine guns.
lmao…..you are so on point. Nothing like getting robbed by the people paid to protect us.
“Of course, I’m sure the state and local police have spent millions gearing up for Hooker Bowl, and everyone is looking forward to their overtime too (I guarantee that some local municipality has spent a million dollars on machine guns and armor).”
I wonder if retirement numbers will be up in the next three years with all of this SB overtime?
If JJ is any indication, I suspect there will be more hookers in town for the 23rd Annual Assembly of Accounting and Actuarial Professionals at the Javitz in May. I hear Pablo Escobar himself accompanied a shipment of 237 tons of cocaine destined for the 8th Annual Assembly of Accounting and Actuarial Professionals that took place in Miami in 1987. It’s rumored that the champagne reception that took place after check in actually dropped baggies of cocaine on the attendees instead of the more traditional balloon drop at the end of the night.
To quote the great Thespian, Charles Sheen.
I don’t pay hookers to have sex, I pay them to go away in the morning.
There was just a reported hooker bust on PIX11. Looked like mostly Latino whoers. They dragged them from some hotel into the paddy wagon in front of many cameras and the pimps were in the police car. I doubt they were there related to the Super Bowl though. These looked like locals.
Jersey boys make good . . .
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/30/smallbusiness/multiple-impact-bullet/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Nom [13];
[Advanced Ballistic Concepts] employs a full-time staff of 11 and about 90 part-time assemblers.
90 part-timers. Sounds like an Obamacare success story!
Random thought for the day: now that Michael Bloomberg is no longer mayor of New York City, will he go back to being a Boston Red Sox fan?
More to the point, will Red Sox Nation actually welcome him back?
I thought Jews could only be Mets fans.
On Tuesday, I saw cops moving homeless people out of Penn Station (for a change). Can we have the SuperBowl every weekend in NY?
Everyone sing……Amerika….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_67NHhI0M0
[17] lib,
As my friend Eddie Falcon over at Gun For Hire pointed out, the game is in Jersey. Only the hype is in NY.
I’ve got a question about Saturday traffic in NYC. I’ve heard there may be a bunch of street parties and street closures. I have to get to Lincoln Center for a performance late Saturday afternoon/night. My plan is to park above the Port Authority bus station coming out of Lincoln tunnel, then take the subway. Normally that works pretty well. My concern is that tons of NJ and out of towners may try to do something similar to be in NYC for super bowl partying. Anyone have an opinion of Port Authority parking this Saturday, or alternative recommendations (I’m coming from the west on 78)?
What’s everyone’s take on this?
http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#nav=intro§ion=home
[18] chifi
I notice you have this thing for euro techno pop.
Embedded in that story was one about machine gun tourism in Las Vegas. I found that funny because my SIL just went to Vegas and did that. A crew of them drove out into the desert and shot old TV’s and PC’s and stuff loaded with Tannerite. Book your trip now…
13.Comrade Nom Deplume on a new device says:
January 30, 2014 at 8:48 am
Jersey boys make good . . .
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/30/smallbusiness/multiple-impact-bullet/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Ragnar,
One option would be to park at Secacus Junction and take NJ Transit train in. They run frequently enough and you won’t have to worry about being jammed up at the Lincoln tunnel.
[21] michael,
2 and 3 are largely nonissues. They are quibbling over the margins so I won’t devote much to this.
No. 1 has always interested me because, IMHO, the First World exported poverty to the Third World. In agrarian, communitarian societies, the concept of poverty as we know it didn’t really exist. There was little inequality, or at least not incredible disparity and even in feudalistic societies, the lords looked after the poorer serfs. Only after Western powers (and some that later became Eastern) colonized these areas and imposed their regimes did we see industrialization, specialization and, concominantly, poverty. Now, we can say that these agrarian or nomadic peoples were poor beforehand but that was by our standards, not theirs. And while it is true that we have introduced “improvements” to their lives that result in longer life expectancies, better access to food and water, better shelter, etc., it was at the cost of eradicating their culture and way of life (which we deemed base and savage).
I don’t attach a value judgment to our (being the West’s) actions. I am neither saying it was good or bad, but it is hard to ignore the facts of what happened, and the fact that “poverty” as we define it was something that we imposed on these peoples when we restructured their ways of life.
You asked for my $0.02.
Rags [20];
I have no specific information about this Saturday, but my take is if you want to avoid city traffic, dump your car at Secaucus. If you’re going to drive through the tunnel anyway, just shoot up the west side to Lincoln center and you should avoid the midtown zoo. It’s what, 10 blocks?
Really nice piece of analysis and this guy can turn a phrase. . . .
“This pen-and-phone business represents a pretty stunning admission from a president five years into his term – that he and his senior aides are still groping about for ways to wield the power of the office, and that they have essentially given up on legislating. Their latest strategy holds that, since a small number of Republican lawmakers have effectively decided to thwart the public will, Obama must resort to doing the things he can do on his own, mainly by signing executive orders and making lots of calls.
. . . . But none of this gets to the hard truth that underlies Obama’s lagging approval ratings, which is that while most Americans may agree with the president’s assessment of what’s wrong in government, they no longer trust him to fix it.
. . . . In other words, Obama isn’t tanking simply because nihilistic conservatives are bent on blocking his policies. Rather, conservatives can get away with blocking his policies because the voters aren’t persuaded they’ll work.”
http://news.yahoo.com/what-obama-still-hasn-t-figured-out-about-being-president-221911009.html
[27] redux,
and this, which hits a lot closer to home for many of you. . . .
“White House aides should ask themselves why New Yorkers gave overwhelming support to their new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and his tax-raising agenda. Sure, residents of Park Slope and the Upper West Side are inherently more liberal than most Americans, but it’s also true that they’ve just enjoyed 12 years of ruthless efficiency under the Bloomberg administration. They take for granted the basic competence of government, and that makes all the difference when you ask them to expand it.”
Amazing! This blog looks exactly lіke my old onе! It’s on
a totally different topic but іt has prettry much thhe samе pɑge layout and design.
Wonderful choide օf colors!
28
efficiency? pff
re # 20 -Rags if the weather holds up it will be on big s*hitshow on Saturday and Sunday, too bad they don’t allow you to walk around with an open container like they did in downtown Indy.
It’s absolutely true, and turns most of what we’ve been taught in schools about the rest of the world on it’s head. One of the most interesting points Gates makes, is that the infant death rate is decreasing throughout the world. This, in turn, results in lower birth rates. So, really, overpopulation is not the problem in many industrialized nations, it’s a shrinking working age population! It’s an interesing fact that can be used in discussions with anti-immigration Xenophobes. Without immigration in this country, we will be faced with the problem of an increasing/ retiring baby boomer generation with an increasing need for entitlements. The US will need to increase the working age population in this country…and it can’t be done by motivating current citizens to have more babies. Immigration is the only answer…..Unfortunately, many people are Xenophobic and worry that there will be an increase of uneducated Hispanic immigrants….and equate that to mean immigration is bad. The soloution, however is to encourage educated/entreprenurial/job creator immigrants. Immigration reform is needed in the US, unfortunately most people don’t understand how or why we need it so badly…
21.Michael says:
January 30, 2014 at 9:21 am
What’s everyone’s take on this?
http://annualletter.gatesfoundation.org/#nav=intro§ion=home
32
Why wouldn’t foreign born entreprenurs, while starting a business in the US, utilize the same tactics that others currently do (e.g. offshoring, H1B visa workers et al)?
I gather with Comrade Deblasio now running the show it is time to extinguish any idea of Exceptionalism and undo all of the work Bloomberg put into the school system. Lets start with the gifted and talented programs Comrades!
“Ditmas Park’s P.S. 139 Principal Mary McDonald told parents the elementary school would no longer accept kindergartners applications for the SOAR program. Future classes will be ‘heterogeneously grouped.’
A popular gifted program will get the axe after Ditmas Park school officials chose diversity over exclusivity.
Citing a lack of diversity, PS 139 Principal Mary McDonald informed parents in a letter that the Students of Academic Rigor and two other in-house programs would no longer accept applications for incoming kindergartners.
“Our Kindergarten classes will be heterogeneously grouped to reflect the diversity of our student body and the community we live in,” McDonald told parents in a letter posted on the photo-sharing site flickr.
More than two thirds of the school’s roughly 1,000 students are black or hispanic while Asian-American and white students made up 28%, according to Education Dept. records.
At least one parent described the small gifted program, Students of Academic Rigor — or SOAR — as overwhelming caucasian (spelled as caucasion in the Daily News), although others disputed that characterization.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn-school-cutting-gifted-program-boost-diversity-article-1.1595864#ixzz2rtTEnX00
[34] juice,
I wonder who di Blasio appointed to the newly created post of Handicapper General?
They might.
33.joyce says:
January 30, 2014 at 9:58 am
32
Why wouldn’t foreign born entreprenurs, while starting a business in the US, utilize the same tactics that others currently do (e.g. offshoring, H1B visa workers et al)?
[34] juice,
Probably the most trenchant comment I’ve seen yet on the di Blasio administration:
“For NYC, it boils down to higher taxes and more regulation…which was the business model for Detroit.”
Joyce, but at least if you get them to come here…there’s a shot. I concede it’s not the total solution….but it’s part of it. Otherwise, the US follows in the same path blazed by Japan….who I think currently has a debt/gdp ratio of more than 230%…..they have almost no immigration, a low birth rate, and an aging population….
25- Great take on that piece. Never thought of that angle of the West creating the definition of poor we use today. So much in life is determined by perspective and personal experience. Exactly why there usually is not one answer or one way of looking at something.
34, In the future, DiBlasio will make sure each gifted student gets leg-cuffed to a special ed student.
When I was 8 and 9, I got bussed to another school’s gifted program once per week. (Only 2 or 3 kids in my school were gifted). The problem was that the bus was shared by the mentally disabled kids, who outnumbered us 10 to 1. On TV disabled kids are always portrayed as sweet, gentle, and loving. In real life on that bus, they were big, screaming, mucus-flinging monsters that delighted in tormenting us.
Rags. Easiest move is to stay on 78 to the Holland Tunnel and park in any number of lots near the tunnel entrance on the Manhattan side. It’s much cheaper to park down there on the weekend short-term and you could hop on the 1 on Varick which actually has a Lincoln Center stop. Easy peazy and less likely for there to be traffic. I hate the Secaucas lot because it’s not cheap, it’s a long cold walk from the station and if you use the valet service, it can take forever (especially on an event-filled weekend).
The C from the PABT will only get you as close as Columbus Circle. Then again, if you go that way, you can take a horse drawn carriage to Lincoln Center before DeBlazio replaces them with electric carriages so his friends can develop the land where the stables are located. Baa Baa!
Oh..also…that PABT lot does get filled up and closes. I would be wary of that on the Saturday night before the SB.
And speaking of the mentally disabled, I have a friend who teaches them in Jersey City. The stories he tells, you are lucky you were only pelted with mucous.
The End is Nigh (JJ Edition):
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101375694
And on that exceptionally cheery note, back to the salt mine.
So all I need to do is spray myself with catecholamines and book a flight to Japan!
I wonder if bill deblasio’s son is still sleeping on the couch. Someone should wake that degenerate up and tell him to wipe the cheetos crumbs out if his fro.
Deblasio’s lazy brillo head son is a fine example of the future of NYC schools.
Funny thing is, De Blasio’s kid is prolly way ahead of where Bojangles was at the same age.
…although Bojangles prolly scored better choom.
What I don’t understand is why DeBlazio married a militant lesbian. It just doesn’t make sense, unless he’s a unich.
What I don’t understand is why DeBlazio married a militant lesbo. It just doesn’t make sense, unless he’s a unich.
What I don’t understand is why DeBlazio married a militant lesbo. It just doesn’t make sense, unless he’s a un1ch.
clot: any good snark for this from Cornell?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPD-joMsRPo
I posted this one yesterday and got absolutely zero response…..
chicagofinance says:
January 29, 2014 at 2:16 pm
OK….I literally almost pissed my pants in the Jersey Mike’s in Red Bank on this passage…..”Victoria’s Secret models were henceforth required to parade down catwalks wearing horrible masks resembling bearded Princeton economists.”
In fairness, I had just drank my 3rd large Diet Pepsi refill from the soda fountain…..
Stephens: Kurt Vonnegut’s State of the Union
Updating a story about government-mandated absolute equality.
The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
—From ” Harrison Bergeron ” (1961), a short story by Kurt Vonnegut
The year was 2019 and Americans were finally on their way toward real equality. Not just equality in God’s eyes, or before the law, or in opportunity.
They were going to be equal every which way.
All this equality was due to bold new government action. There was the Decent Wage Act of 2017, which pegged the minimum wage to the (inflation-adjusted) average hourly wage of 2016. There was the NEW-AMT, which set a 55% minimum federal tax rate on individual income over $150,000 (or 80% for incomes above $500,000). There was the Unemployment Insurance Is Forever Act of 2018. There was the 2018 De Blasio-Waxman CEO Pay Act, which mandated a 9-to-1 ratio between the highest and lowest paid person in any enterprise.
Happily, none of this harmed the economy in the slightest. Higher minimum wages have “no discernible effect on employment” ( Schmitt, 2013). High marginal tax rates have no effect on productivity and business creation (Piketty-Saez, 2011). Preserving jobless benefits puts money into the hands of consumers and thus stimulates the economy (Zandi, as usual). As for the 9-to-1 pay ratio—that’s just plain fairness, OK?
New rules on income weren’t the only way America was achieving equality. Thanks to the efforts of Attorney General Thomas Perez, disparate outcome lawsuits were changing the country’s public culture in unexpected ways.
For example, the average height of NBA players for the 2007-08 season was just under 6 feet 7 inches. The average American male is 5 feet 9 inches. Patently unequal, patently unfair. Mr. Perez demanded that the NBA establish an average-height rule that would require each team to offset taller players with shorter ones.
Americans quickly adapted to the Midget-Monster rule, as it was lovingly known, though alley-oops were never quite the same.
Another industry transformed by the new rules was Hollywood. For “The Bourne Equilibrium,” Matt Damon returned to the title role of Jason Bourne, a former super-assassin now entirely at peace with himself and the world. For his efforts he was paid $330,000 (or $130,000 after federal, state and local taxes), which is still nine times the salary of the second-assistant key grip. It was a far cry from the $20 million he was paid for the 2007 “Bourne Ultimatum” but, as he said, “it was totally worth it” because he now has no choice but to send his children to public school.
Fashion also changed. Victoria’s Secret models were henceforth required to parade down catwalks wearing horrible masks resembling bearded Princeton economists. Fox News came out with a roster of all-male, paunchy middle-aged anchors.
And what about Republicans? Though most conservatives were resistant to the Equality Movement, some found the new political environment congenial to their anti-elitist aims.
There was the Grassley-Amash De-Tenure Act of 2016, which abolished the “monstrous inequality” of college-faculty tenure. That was soon followed by the Amash-Grassley Graduate Student Liberation Act of 2017, ending the “master-slave” relationship between professors and their teaching and research assistants.
More controversial was the Grassley-Gowdy De-Ivy Act of 2018, requiring all four-year colleges, public or private, to accept students by lottery. Besides its stated goal of “ending elitism and extending the promise of equality to tertiary education,” many conservatives saw it as a backdoor method of eliminating affirmative action. Liberals countered that it had precisely the opposite effect.
Still, it was not enough for Americans to promote equality within America. Also necessary was to seek equality with other nations. In 2017, Sen. Rand Paul joined with Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee to cap defense spending at no more than 2% of gross domestic product. “Brazil only spends 1.5% of their GDP on defense, and they’ve never been invaded,” said Mr. Paul. “Canada spends about 1.2%, and they’ve only been invaded by us. Maybe the lesson is that a big military makes us less secure, not more.”
In the summer of 2018, a software engineer at Los Alamos uploaded detailed blueprints of a Trident missile warhead to the Internet. Mr. Paul praised the engineer, who fled to Ecuador, as “civil disobedient,” like Martin Luther King Jr., and noted that many scholars believe nuclear proliferation—or nuclear equality—makes the world a safer place.
Of course, not everyone was happy with the emerging utopia. From his yacht 100 miles off the coast of Marin County, hedge- fund billionaire Tom Perkins wrote bilious letters to The Wall Street Journal, which, mysteriously, the Journal saw fit to publish. Fortunately, investigative ace David Brock was able to establish that Mr. Perkins’s real name is Emmanuel Goldstein, and promptly created a Two Minutes Hate program on Media Matters for America, which was very popular.
And then came the State of the Union speech. From the hushed chamber of the House of Representatives, a young Texas congressman named Harrison Bergeron yelled “You lie!” as the president spoke about the joy Americans felt as the promise of equality was finally realized.
Shhhhhh! whispered the rest of the House, in absolute unison. And President Elizabeth Warren carried on.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
chi (49)-
I thought Cornell kids drank wine through a straw.
Spine they butt chug it
I am sooo screwed my oldest kid just made Honors Roll/AP roll and is on the advanced track when she starts HS. Even worse she has a almost perfect average. I am doomed.
Hopeing to get away with bartender school or community college.
jj: check out the new SI trailer….
http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2014/01/look_sports_illustrated_swimsuit_issue_will_focus_on_new_jersey.html#cmpid=nwsltrhead
so chi Kate upton in bad makeup with big hair? i can support this
Would you toss your ball back in for another? I sure would not.
“When Buffett talks about this lottery, he often concludes by asking:
If you could put your ball back, and they took out, at random, a hundred other balls, and you had to pick one of those, would you put your ball back in? Now, of those hundred balls … roughly five of them will be American. … Half of them are going to be below-average intelligence, half will be above. Do you want to put your ball back? Most of you, I think, will not. … What you’re saying is, “I’m in the luckiest 1% of the world right now.”
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2010/03/31/warren-buffett-on-the-lottery-of-birth/
54. $200k plus for prestigous undergrad.
I will find a way to get if for Free, as an extreme cheapskate I must do it.
Essex says:
January 30, 2014 at 2:27 pm
54. $200k plus for prestigous undergrad.
She can earn that 200k on her knees.
2.6 inches of snow + the city of Atlanta = Ice debacle 2014
Here’s where things went wrong: On Tuesday, January 28, 2014, at 1:30 in the afternoon, in response to the sparkle of several snowflakes in the air above Atlanta, virtually the entire adult population of America’s ninth most populous metro area stood up, left their workplaces, got into their cars, and created a traffic deadlock of legendary proportions.
Good news for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie that he was nowhere near here at the time, nor could he be linked via administrative assistants to our wintry surprise. But among Great Traffic Jams of the 21st Century, move over Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Melissa Fay GreeneMy friend Johanna Norry, a Georgia State University grad student, tried to leave her parking place on a downtown parking deck and traveled — in one hour and seven minutes — 23 feet. My friend Elida Baverman posted on Facebook: “Six hours and 18 minutes to get home from Perimeter Mall. Wish my car made it, too.” My husband’s law partner, Ed Garland, inched along I-75 north toward home from 5 p.m. Tuesday until 1 a.m. Wednesday, at which point his car ran out of gas. He abandoned it and set off on foot through the snowdrifts, reaching his home at 2 in the morning.
By all accounts — I wasn’t going out there — the city’s throughways on Wednesday looked like parking lots, where cars with empty gas tanks sat frozen in the Arctic air. (It was 16 degrees Fahrenheit Wednesday morning.) Some of the cars had been abandoned; others might have still had people in them. “If you are stranded and cannot get through to 911,” announced the Atlanta Police Department, “please send the Atlanta Police Department a message through Facebook or Twitter.”
I hope you mean praying!! Daughters are always off limits.
Scrapple n’Ricin says:
January 30, 2014 at 2:55 pm
She can earn that 200k on her knees.
Review & Outlook
Perkinsnacht
Liberal vituperation makes our letter writer’s point.
Five days on, the commentariat continues to drop anvils on Tom Perkins, who may have written the most-read letter to the editor in the history of The Wall Street Journal. The irony is that the vituperation is making our friend’s point about liberal intolerance—maybe better than he did.
“I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent,” wrote the legendary venture capitalist and a founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Mr. Perkins called it “a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendant ‘progressive’ radicalism unthinkable now?”
That comparison was unfortunate, albeit provocative. It’s not always easy to be subtle in 186 words, as Mr. Perkins learned, though a useful rule of thumb is not to liken anything to Nazi Germany unless it happens to be the Stalinist Soviet Union. Amid the ongoing media furor and an ungallant rebuke from Kleiner Perkins, Mr. Perkins has apologized for the comparison, without repudiating his larger argument.
While claiming to be outraged at the Nazi reference, the critics seem more incensed that Mr. Perkins dared to question the politics of economic class warfare. The boys at Bloomberg View—we read them since no one else does—devoted an entire editorial to inequality and Mr. Perkins’s “unhinged Nazi rant.” Others denounced him for defending his former wife Danielle Steel, and even for owning too many Rol5x watches.
Maybe the critics are afraid that Mr. Perkins is onto something about the left’s political method. Consider the recent record of liberals in power. They’re the ones obsessed with the Koch brothers and other billionaires contributing to conservative causes, siccing journalists to trash them and federal agencies to shut them down.
President Obama’s IRS targeted conservative political groups for scrutiny in an election year and has now formalized that scrutiny in new regulatory “guidance” for this election year. Democratic prosecutors in Wisconsin unleashed a special prosecutor to target conservative groups allied with Governor Scott Walker. A judge threw out the subpoenas as baseless but only after months of legal harassment and dawn police raids.
Or take New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who said in a recent radio interview that, “If they are extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York.” He said he meant people who oppose gay marriage or abortion, or favor legal assault weapons. He didn’t say they were wrong. He said get out of the state.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio then chimed in to say Mr. Cuomo was “absolutely right,” throwing in a riff about “crippling inequality” for no extra charge. Like Mr. de Blasio, Mr. Obama doesn’t merely want to raise taxes on the rich to finance the government. He says “millionaires and billionaires” simply make too much money and deserve to be punished. Or as they say at the New York Times, NYT they are “the undeserving rich.” By the way, does that include the third-generation rentiers in the Sulzberger family?
The liberals aren’t encouraging violence, but they are promoting personal vilification and the abuse of government power to punish political opponents.
Mr. all-man tough guy IS going to spoil his kids and not make them work, all talk once again
send her to community college
Actually I had a summer job lined up for my daughter. But in NYS you need to be 14 years old to get working papers. So I dont have any kids that old.
Last summer they helped me renovate my investment property. OMG what a whine fest.
Also I wont pay for silly degrees. I wont pay for weddings if I dont like guy. I wont help with down payments if I dont like house. Unlike most Chinese people with one kids I can afford to skip one or two kids if I want.
Hopefully my next marriage is to a trophy wife whose first rich husband dropped dead and she can pump out a few more kids for me before I move on to wife three. Then I can have kids from wife one and two babysitting my current kids.
joyce says:
January 30, 2014 at 3:32 pm
Mr. all-man tough guy IS going to spoil his kids and not make them work, all talk once again
I don’t have any daughters. How are MY kids going to get advanced degrees?
grim: why do you prefer Basking Ridge over New Providence/Berkeley Heights?
They will play pro sports, go on reality TV or be rappers. Pretty much my big three of professions for men from NJ.
Important: dont be a Poser when you can be a Playa
Also change the letter S to Z – that is a gangsta style resume.
Libturd at Home says:
January 30, 2014 at 3:47 pm
I don’t have any daughters. How are MY kids going to get advanced degrees?
Basking Ridge is like 40 miles to the City!!! That is more a weekend vacation place distance than a commute.
Speaking of getting daughters into college, I’m trying to figure out which race I need to steer my 6th grade daughter to select for maximum advantage.
She’s half Chinese, half white.
I’ve been suggesting “multiracial” or “mixed”, but every form doesn’t offer that.
“Other” sounds good too, if available.
The real debate is when the above choices are available, whether its better for her to pick “White” or “Asian”. I’m pretty sure that “Asians” aren’t treated as downtrodden minorities by colleges, and that on average, their SAT scores and grades are higher than whites, making it a tougher comparison group. Is it safer to just play it safe with “white” when in doubt? Alternatively, she could easily pass for “Hispanic” on looks, which would be a much easier ticket into school, possibly scholarships. The problem is that it’s too much trouble, and would have to start “correcting” school forms now so that they all say the same thing. Anyone know if “mixed” gets counted as more support-worthy than white or Chinese at colleges?
This is all so important because of how non-colorblind colleges have become.
Rag chinese
SHHHH … don’t tell FlabMax….. he’s too busy trying to prove that the Jews are send the Polar Vortex to Atlanta…….
Fracking Boom Keeps Home Heating Bills in Check
Prices of Natural Gas Avoid Volatility of Past Winters
By Russell Gold
Natural-gas consumption on Tuesday was the second-highest on record. Abundant U.S. supplies are keeping prices in check for homeowners. Associated Press
Freezing temperatures are creating near-record demand for natural gas in the U.S. as shivering Americans turn up the heat and plug in their electric blankets.
Natural-gas prices have jumped in response, topping $5 per million British thermal units for the first time since 2010 as fuel has been pulled from underground storage vaults to keep furnaces running and electric utilities humming.
But compared with past cold snaps, such as in 2000, the price surge has been muted, according to utilities and other big gas users.
That is good news for businesses and consumers. Manufacturers that consume large amounts of the fuel—steelmakers, for example—say they have trouble planning for sharp price changes. And homeowners on fixed incomes can be hit especially hard when utilities raise prices.
In the short term, higher prices help gas drillers, many of which have been losing money on wells in a supply glut. Over the long term, though, stable prices attract demand for gas from power companies, trucking firms and railroads.
American Electric Power Co. AEP +1.39% , one of the country’s biggest electricity generators, is pleased to have a less-volatile market. “It is a lot different,” said Marguerite Mills, vice president of fuels procurement. “We can go out and find supply.”
The difference today is the U.S. energy boom, which over the past few years has created vast supplies of the fuel, in part through hydraulic fracturing. As a result, the natural-gas market isn’t gripped with fear that refilling storage could take years, a concern behind panicky trading a few years ago that sent gas prices over $10 per million BTUs.
Natural gas closed Tuesday at $5.03 per million BTUs, up 40% since the beginning of September. Some local markets jumped higher as pipelines maxed out.
But during a cold snap in December 2000, gas prices doubled in 2½ months. In 2000, the U.S. produced about 52.5 billion cubic feet a day of gas. Last year, it produced 66 billion cubic feet a day.
Today, there is a lot of “production to build back inventory levels to normal,” said Jack Weixel, director of analysis for Bentek Energy, which tracks natural-gas data. “You can climb back onto the horse a lot quicker.” Gas consumption on Tuesday was the second highest on record, he said, nearly eclipsing the record set Jan. 7.
New supplies from shale formations, such as the Marcellus Shale in the Northeast, have had a profound impact on gas prices and lowered volatility.
“The available of the Marcellus and other shale gas has really dampened the effects of weather,” said Joe Gregorini, a vice president of Peoples Natural Gas, a Pittsburgh utility that has 700,000 customers. “This is one of the coldest winters we’ve seen in our service territories in decades, but the available of natural-gas supplies has insulated customers.”
AK Steel Holding Corp. AKS +1.67% said Tuesday that the rise in gas prices cost the West Chester, Ohio, company a few million dollars more than expected but that it wasn’t terribly concerned. “Later this year or perhaps even later this month…gas will come back down,” Chief Financial Officer Roger K. Newport said in an earnings conference call.
In the past, price jumps driven by cold weather quickly trickled down into home-heating bills. About half of U.S. households use gas for heat. In 2000, gas prices began the winter at $4 per million BTUs, then spiked above $10 for several days.
Local gas utilities passed along these higher prices, and the cost of home heating nearly doubled to $624 for the winter of 2000-’01 from $380 a year earlier, according to federal records.
Businesses also were affected. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco reported that farmers idled production to avoid paying more to keep their greenhouses warm.
This year, some customers will get pinched by higher prices but there won’t be a heavy wallop. Many states require that utilities lock in what their customers pay for natural gas and electricity for months at a time. The companies determine those fees from the prices they pay for gas under long-term contracts, which are less susceptible to price swings.
Electricity generators that need to buy natural gas at higher winter prices can sometimes turn to other sources of fuel, such as coal, if natural-gas is scarce or prices are too high.
And the fact that energy companies are pumping lots of natural gas has reassured customers.
“The strong production is keeping people from freaking out,” said Aaron Calder, an analyst for Houston-based natural-gas consultant Gelber & Associates. “Nothing fundamental changed in the market. It just got cold.”
No question refer to her as white. Asian is a BIG negative. They are disproportionately represented on the campuses relate to the overall applicant pool.
Ragnar says:
January 30, 2014 at 4:15 pm
The real debate is when the above choices are available, whether its better for her to pick “White” or “Asian”. I’m pretty sure that “Asians” aren’t treated as downtrodden minorities by colleges, and that on average, their SAT scores and grades are higher than whites, making it a tougher comparison group. Is it safer to just play it safe with “white” when in doubt? Alternatively, she could easily pass for “Hispanic” on looks, which would be a much easier ticket into school, possibly scholarships. The problem is that it’s too much trouble, and would have to start “correcting” school forms now so that they all say the same thing. Anyone know if “mixed” gets counted as more support-worthy than white or Chinese at colleges?
This is all so important because of how non-colorblind colleges have become.
relate = relative
rags:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/opinion/asians-too-smart-for-their-own-good.html?ref=contributors&_r=0
[71] Why limit yourself to white or Asian, two options that will have you discriminated against?
I opted for “Latino” for my kids, because . . . that’s how we “identify.” Bring on the race bennies!
“People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be any race.”
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf
See also:
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2009/05/28/whos-hispanic/
Renter,
Thanks. Her godfather is Hispanic so it’s clear she can “identify” that way.
Chifi,
Thanks for that article, I’ve been reading similar stories for years about “reverse” discrimination against Asians. I’m just not sure if the schools have actually admitted to this.
White is the low-effort choice, as is “mixed”.
But I don’t think the “mixed” group has been lobbying hard for benefits yet. I wonder which box DiBlasio’s kids check?
70. 40 mins is OK based on the sh&t you don’t have to put up with in the area.
Rags: admit or not, it is there…..and I see it in my work….your surname leaves your kids camouflaged…..
On the flip side, when you see affirmative action in place, it is nauseating……ESPECIALLY when there is a sense of entitlement or lack of appreciation of how much the skids are greased…..it is a joke….
Applications for jobs and colleges don’t ask if your “race” is hispanic/latino, they ask if your ethnicity is. Racial identifcation is a seperate question.
Put down White – By the time she hits college she will be a minority
Ragnar says:
January 30, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Speaking of getting daughters into college, I’m trying to figure out which race I need to steer my 6th grade daughter to select for maximum advantage.
She’s half Chinese, half white.
grim: why do you prefer Basking Ridge over New Providence/Berkeley Heights?
Tangible reasons? Ridge HS has been a top performer for many, many years. If that ain’t good enough, you’ve got Pingry too.
Property taxes will tend to be lower in BR (Somerset) than BH/NP (Union).
Intangibles? I think on net Basking Ridge has a nicer set of neighborhoods and housing stock than New Providence/Berkeley Heights, both of which are higher density.
I think NP sometimes tends to have an inferiority complex set next to Chatham and Summit. Don’t get me wrong, I like NP, but it tends to be the value play, unlike BR. Don’t misread me though, NP is a great choice too.
At a price point in the 7s or 8s, you’ll be buying the nicest house on the block in many parts of NP and BH, which I generally would never recommend from a value/resale perspective.
grim: you kick a%%; thank you
jj# 66:
“Last summer they helped me renovate my investment property. OMG what a whine fest. “.
My Daughter did the same and all the hard work was done! What she said after the complaining was: “How much am I going to get paid for this?”.
Ah, takes after her ‘ol man afterall!
Told her she’ll inherit the place and it’ll be paid off by then but she’ll be greiving property taxes forever.
Her: How much money are we talking about….
Son: Thanks for the twenty!
Since then I’ve taken them with me to collect rent.
ragnar: what do you think? I’m meeting my (Cantonese) buddy from high school there? In high school this guy used to pick on me….he’d say “get some white friends you freak”…..
http://www.chicagobooth.edu/conversations/event-schedule/20142013/nyc-02062014
grim,
If they bought in Bridgewater like me, their 7/8K could buy a 4br house they actually liked in the northeast section or in Martinsville. School is rated good, I think it’s good for a public school, but one notch below the most prestigious Ridge, where few poor kids show up to drop the averages. But family friends kids graduated from Bridgewater HS into Colombia and and Harvard U. Both Chinese of course. But the train to NYC is inferior. Either town it’s at least a 1.5hr commute to NYC.
Pingry isn’t so easy to get into – they accept maybe 20% of applicants these days, higher if they are of a disadvantaged race, and the chances to get in other than 6th grade or 9th grade class expansions are virtually nil. And they make you spend many hours in the process. So counting on Pingry as a backup school when you want it is easier said than done.
Yeah the Pingry was a joke but you bring up a good point about Martinsville.
Chifi,
Looks like fun. UChicago seems to have a more active alumni program than NYU.
I’ve got to say though that finance industry conferences with important people mostly bore me. People with large titles but who aren’t founders tend to say “safe” things for the most part. I’d like to do more CFA conferences where they invite some people with radical ideas to present. Guys like Cliff Asness – you should follow his blog/ read his missives. He’s a Uof C PhD too!
good job W
@BreakingNews: At least 18 killed in Iraq ministry building assault, senior security source says; building’s control regained by security forces – @Reuters
What about this?
http://www.chicagobooth.edu/alumni/events/showEvent?eventId=5086
Actually…you want to go….I can probably get it covered…..
BTW Microsoft picks new CEO
Even the ticket scalpers are complaining.
http://www.nj.com/super-bowl/index.ssf/2014/01/ticket_scalpers_this_is_the_worst_super_bowl_ever.html#incart_m-rpt-2
Boo fcuking hoo. Drop a daisy cutter on the Super Bowl.
SADDLE BROOK — An 82-year-old Saddle Brook man was arrested Wednesday on charges he sexually abused an 11-year-old girl, prosecutors said.
Nicolangelo Pallotta faces charges of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said in a statement. Pallotta was accused of engaging in “inappropriate sexual activity” with the girl, who authorities said was an acquaintance.
Obviously, that was Super Bowl-related human trafficking.
Keystone XL Report Said to Disappoint Pipeline Foes on Climate
By Jim Snyder, Mark Drajem and Jonathan Allen
January 30, 2014 9:37 PM EST
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The U.S. State Department is preparing a report that will probably disappoint environmentalists and opponents of the Keystone pipeline, according to people who have been briefed on the draft of the document.
While the report will deviate from a March draft in some ways to the liking of environmentalists, the changes won’t be as sweeping as they had sought, several people familiar with the government’s deliberations over the review told Bloomberg News. Changes could still be made to the report before its release, which could come as early as tomorrow.
The March report concluded that the Canada-U.S. oil pipeline would have only a minimal impact on carbon emissions, because the oil sands in Alberta will be developed anyway. Several people briefed on the findings, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said they expect the final report will track that conclusion.
The release of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement will kick off a separate review in which President Barack Obama must determine whether building the Keystone pipeline is in the U.S. national interest.
“No matter what the SEIS says, it would be premature for either side to tear down the goalposts because there is still a long part of the game left to be played,” said Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based research group opposed to the pipeline.
http://mobile.businessweek.com/news/2014-01-30/keystone-xl-report-said-to-disappoint-pipeline-foes-on-climate
#73 Chi
Have Did the Actuaries factored in, the future Superfund cleanups into the price?
Rags [71]
It’s all about hitting the numbers. If you select “Other” that doesn’t help the multi-culti’s, because they read ‘other’ as “white, but didn’t want to admit it”. Sadly “Asian” or “Chinese” gets you nowhere as well in school admissions. Even 25 years ago, I heard an admission officer openly say “Asians are not considered and under-represented minority in our school.” No quota soup for you!
Fortunately for my kids, my last name can be traced to Iberian roots — “Hispanic” here I come!
I know people who tutor kids from Pingry. The kids learn nothing from the teachers there. Their parents all end up hiring 5 personal tutors each year to pick up the slack.
Grim,
Looking for grain?
http://newjersey.craigslist.org/grd/4312492338.html
chi – BR – NP/BH argument
Grim’s points are valid and not at the same time… Ridge High is probably the most competitive HS in this part of the state after Millburn – and non-Asian kids are very distinct minority on the honor roll. Your child may have a better chance for getting to the top college, all things equal, when graduating in NP or BH – which are very solid schools with average scores lower than Ridge mostly because about a third of the population in both towns are small businessmen rather than professionals, and their kids don’t feel the pressure to get to the best U. [this also explains why NP/BH vote much more R than Summit or Basking Ridge] .
As for the 7/8 handle, essentially everything single-family built in NP/BH since mid-1980s is in this range and upwards; right now new construction homes are uniformly over a million. The lots are truly smaller than in BR, grim is right to this end.
Haven’t had the time to respond lately, but I did have to take a moment to bow down and pay respect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v85NWc0RIKc
The post above is further proof of how the Third World collectivist mindset has fatally infected us.
gluteus and his Third World collectivists are winning.
Esto realmente es artículo. He estado navegando la página de Google y no he encontradonada sobre este asunto. Estoy muy agradecido y continúa con mucho esfuerzo para tu sitio.