All of a sudden, some investors, analysts, and commentators are getting the "feeling" that the economy might be "bottoming."
That is despite the fact that housing continues to slip-slide into a dark abyss, the employment "gains" we've seen in recent months have largely been due to statistical plug-factors, long-term interest rates are rising both here and abroad, chief financial officers and other senior executives are growing increasingly cautious in their outlooks, and an expanding list of historically reliable indicators is signalling tough times ahead.
To top it off, the group that would have to be at the forefront of this alleged turnaround -- because they account for more than two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product -- is anything but upbeat about the future, according to Editor & Publisher, in a report entitled, "Gallup: 7 in 10 Americans Say Economy Is 'Getting Worse.'"
A new Gallup Poll will only reinforce those who claim that while the rich get richer most Americans don't feel they are sharing in the growth in our economy. The stock market may be climbing and the unemployment remains relatively low, but 7 in 10 Americans believe the economy is getting worse -- the most negative reading in nearly six years.
Only one in three Americans rate the economy today as either excellent or good, while the percentage saying the economy is getting better fell from 28% to 23% in one month.
Gallup adds: "For the first time this year, a majority of Americans are negative about the employment market, saying it is a bad time to find a quality job."
The 70% negative rating is up 10 points since April. Also, just in the past month, there has been a significant five-point drop, from 28% to 23%, in the percentage saying conditions are getting better.
"When asked about the most pressing financial problems their family faces today, Americans mention healthcare costs, lack of money or low wages, and oil and gas prices," Gallup reports. "Healthcare costs are mentioned by 16% of Americans while 13% say low wages and 11% say oil and gas prices. These percentages are virtually unchanged from last month."
The survey of 1,007 adults was taken June 11 to 14.
Based on this, I'm wondering whether those who've been experiencing these warm and fuzzy "feelings" lately should get themselves checked out -- before they start inflicting a great deal more harm onto themselves and others?
This behavior is all to easy to read. Whenever a business cycle peaks and markets top out, the pundits and analysts (hucksters and scammers) continue even harder to promote that good times are still ahead. These tactics are giant red flags to all retail investors to sell and head for the hills. The Big Guns are busy lining up their ducks as they quietly exit finally leaving Joe Six pack with the bag just as they did in 2000. Personally Im shorting the DOW, moving some stocks into CASH, and continue to hold my good miners. You know, folks with stuff in the ground to sell.
Posted by: Brian | June 21, 2007 at 08:31 AM
The Privatization of the Justice System
I would like to humbly thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on the subject of defective housing and arbitration clauses - two subjects, which have become synonymous. I have graciously been granted 5 minutes ... five minutes I consider the most important in my life, yours, and the hundred of thousands, maybe millions of Americans, who I have been invited here to represent. My name is not important. My husband and I have already lost our home and become a foreclosure statistic. We are listed in last year's sub-primes where we do not belong. That is where the vast majority of us are hidden. We went through arbitration twice - once after we did not even own a home. To be completely factual, we lost our home during the first arbitration. The president of Tremont / Stature, our builder, even called our mortgage company and pressed them to foreclose on us immediately. They taped the conversation. He was under the impression... if I no longer had a home, it would shut me up; and afterward, he could punish me in arbitration and be rid of me once and for all. He told me straight-out his lawyers would take care of me in arbitration.
According to arbitration clauses, any dispute past, present, or future puts the builder in a fail-safe position... and the homeowner forever in jeopardy – jeopardy... even from their own words or opinions. We have lost our right to a trial by jury, our seventh amendment rights that we thought were guaranteed under the constitution; and now many of us are being frightened into giving up our first.
The builders can force us into arbitration by simply calling us disputes, which we most certainly all are. We are supposed to buy and shut up; or after we have signed this consumer-cursed clause, we are in impending danger. Many of us now understand arbitration, and would advise any homeowner to avoid it like the plague. Foreclosure is not as painful, abasing, or as humiliating as arbitration.
My husband and I were just a wave of the crisis that rolled into shore. There were waves before, and there are bigger and bigger waves coming in behind us... unimaginable like a secret storm. We talk to people everyday, hanging on by their fingernails; they are headed to foreclosure. Each wave will be larger than the previous, until victims will reach the proportions of an economic tsunami like this country has never seen. This is, and will, wreak havoc on this nation's economy, just as it has destroyed... so many individuals' economic lives.
Consumer confidence is at an all time low, and so is public trust. Nowhere does anyone acknowledge that we are also included in those numbers... for the reasons just mentioned. We are at war IN this country. The skirmishes and battles in every state are being misnamed, covered up, ignored, and hidden in places like foreclosure numbers. Our enemy and nemesis hides under the laws of this land. Earl Warren said, "It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive." The original Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) was intended for businesses and parties on a somewhat equal footing. It's intent was not for the corporations to punish the consumers, multimillion dollar companies going up against one individual homeowner. Let's repeat that sentence... There is no spin anybody can logically use to make that the spirit of the Federal Arbitration Act.
There is no place that we can go, so our real numbers are counted. Foreclosure statistics are not even accurate... they do not reflect how many of us have actually lost our homes. When we are posted for foreclosure, scumbag investors come to our homes, uninvited. Our mailboxes are crammed full of offers, and our phones ring off the hook. They say that they want to help us... they really want to pick what is left of our bones. They want in our houses to determine if they can cover up enough defects to dump them on some other homebuyers. We are not offered money; and we both know we are going to lose our money and our homes, so they offer to save our precious credit rating and keep it from having a foreclosure on it. All we have to do is give this bottom feeder our power of attorney. He will go to our lenders and cut deals... deals they won't make with us, or for us.
These houses further wreak havoc on other homebuyers who think they are getting a great deal because some poor schmucks over-extended themselves with a sub-prime loan.
Don't listen to the figures arbitration companies put out about how much cheaper arbitration is than court; look instead at the bills we enclosed. In the beginning, the arbitration company is very careful never to send you the total cost, or even an estimate of the total amount. They know if you don't die of a heart attack, you would just hide what was left of your meager cash in your sock drawer and let them just go ahead and rule against you – like they most probably will anyway.
In the beginning of the arbitration, these... non-profit arbitration companies try to help you out by sending you a form to complete
- a blank form for you to fill in your credit card information so they
can charge you as the costs go spiraling out of control. You will be in credit card debt to MC for the rest of your natural born life. You will be in this quandary because this insidious arbitration company has already entered into a contractual agreement with your builder. They have formed a symbiotic relationship to destroy you. Their bills are astronomical; and if you continue, you still have to pay to present a case, just like you would at a trial. When you are in this process, you'd better be able to have serious money for an attorney, because the builders have stables of them – the sleazy kind we make jokes about, that give all lawyers a bad name.
Arbitration and defective houses are tantamount because of the debacle my family has endured, and the people in the waves before and after me.
If I have anytime left over at the end of this, I want to mention the names of some of these victims and the states they are from. I don't want these people to be nameless anymore. They are not merely defendants, or victims, or dear constituents. They are human beings, even if they haven't been treated like it. They are good people who vote, and work hard, and have paid good money to have their families endure atrocities you cannot even imagine. Some are so despicable; I doubt you would believe me.
Many hundreds of them have been included in the packet we have prepared for you. Some like myself, are listed amongst people from entire neighborhoods. My neighborhood had 37 seriously defective out of 44 - houses are so defective ethical real estate agents will not even list or show them.
Arbitration is like a jail sentence: your possessions and money are taken from you; others have complete control over your lives. You are forced in legal handcuffs into a secret kangaroo court held behind closed doors and the rules of law no longer apply. No media is allowed.
Arbitration is used to victimize and silence what these builders are doing. If you do not complain or try to get your house repaired, and just let it go into foreclosure... then you can escape arbitration, and you will avoid being raped again. Raped again ...that was what a woman (named, Mary Finn) from Milford Ohio called arbitration last week... she is 82 years old.
You are guilty until you prove your innocence; the entire burden of proof is on you, the tax-paying homeowner. Everything you have ever known; it is upside down. The perpetrator has been allowed to file on the victim. This is like sending a small child into a room of sexual predators without supervision.
Why would anyone ever chose to go behind closed doors without a clue as to what was going to happen to them... knowing whatever ridiculous decision was rendered... it would not-only be upheld by the court... but there would be no appeal! Most victims of arbitration come out in shock; many are under gag orders, referred to as secrecy agreements so they cannot tell what has been done to them. Consumers are lambs to the slaughter and clueless when they meet this big bad wolf.
Do not be swayed by statistics issued by arbitration companies. How do they have the privilege of using our cases to their advantage... since they are not public record? No one but these companies and the builders know the outcome or what went on behind these closed doors... (That reminds me of what) Shakespeare said "the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose."
I am going to use my builder's sworn testimony in another case he was involved in when he was trying to prove how defective our house was - because it was to his financial advantage... Our builder used our house as his example of the most defective and even some of my letters describing the damage to our home. He said, "project damages includes roofing systems... resulting in water damage penetration to interior of the units. The interior units' damage includes sheet rock, insulation, wall studding, electric wiring and boxes, plumbing, A/C duck work, flooring... both wood and carpet, and interior painting." Knowing all these things, this "Hispanic Man of the Year" and member of the Harris County Housing Authority, sold us our house with no disclosure. He patched it so well that without destructive testing, we could not have known. Can you imagine asking a builder of a new home if you can do a little destructive testing while you check out the house?
When we speak of defects, we are not talking about a leaky faucet we are speaking of defects so severe they become life threatening and a danger to our family and guests.
Because of arbitration... this world is so upside down and sick that I can say my husband and I are the fortunate ones, because our children were out of the house and able to support themselves, and our elderly parents and our dog had passed on.
So, we do not have sick elderly parents to provide housing and care for... we do not have small children we are responsible for protecting... or pets that lose their hair and die suddenly. We are only responsible for ourselves. We consider ourselves fortunate to share our small apartment.
We need emergency interim relief for people having to go into debt to defend themselves in arbitration while they have to watch their families suffer as they are all physically, emotionally, and financially destroyed. Their voices need to be heard. We need a bill to protect us like we once believed that the Constitution of the United States of America did.
We need to hear an outcry from our representatives, on our behalf. This is not a problem just for Democrats or just for the Republicans. The selection of victims... in this arbitration atrocity... is completely bi-partisan.
We should all leave this room today with a definite sense of purpose... as well as a sense of outrage.
In 1774, John Adams said,
"Representative government and trial by Jury are the heart and lungs of liberty. Without them, we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine.
jfogla281@aol.com
google my name for more information
Posted by: Jordan Fogal | June 28, 2007 at 12:16 AM