Changing Times (or Is It Lines?)

What a difference six years makes...

2005

"Condo Fever Turns Buyers Into Early Birds" (New York Times)

 

2011

"Thousands Line Up in Red Bird to Apply for Dallas County Rent-Assistance Vouchers" (Dallas Morning News)

Comments

[They crossed the line]

One wonders why the Obama administration is following so many of Bush's policies. These policies show how Wall Street has captured the government. Why are Bernanke and Geithner still making policy in government when they facilitated many of the actions that contributed to huge mortgage fraud and the corruption of banking?

http://www.goldmansachs666.com/2011/07/why-would-anyone-do-business-with.html

[kevinearick]

Constitution Motive/Intent

So, we have reached critical mass, and the greedy, ignorant, jealous, and false pious seek to define motive/intent from their own frame of reference, which is a complete contrivance. Yes, I am the guy that is cornering Caesar on Family Law for you, not because I am in any way special, but because I just happen to have remained a random event, surfing the event horizon, and shaping it in the process, for the entire female half-cycle of the economy you see before you.

From the beginning, I was the ring boy at the wedding, the usher at the funeral, the changer at the diaper station, for a big family in Ohio, which was still the bread basket of the world at the time, from which 8 presidents mounted their campaigns. There is nothing women say to each other in private that I have not heard.

My father was a maintenance man for the pacific fleet, a curious fellow that ran in circles with admirals, mayors, and senators (with a police escort home when he drank too much), who viewed him as a lucky charm, although he designed, built, and maintained radio stations all by himself in the 50s and 60s, when radio experienced exponential growth in the Midwest.

When there was a big problem, these folks would end up in the Grant Grill to discuss it, where my dad sat at the bar, with me, the observer of 7 children. One by one, they would sit next to my father and have some inconsequential conversation, but within that context he would solve part of the problem for each of them with an apparently unrelated analogy, because he just loved to solve problems. The bartenders, who were frequently treated poorly by the four horsemen, loved the sh**show, so dad had a tab to infinity, and what is not to love about a kid sitting at the bar with his dad, watching the same sh**show and entertaining the bartenders with stories about women.

Naturally, when the admirals saw the son of their good luck charm resurfacing the bowling allies at night, cleaning the hospital rooms in the morning, and playing pool with the amputees coming back from Vietnam in the afternoon, they invited him up to the balcony and told him their stories. Likewise, the kid solved parts of their problems with apparently unrelated analogies, and naturally they gave him complete access to the resources under their command, which operated under rules beyond the law accustomed to others.

Later, as an off-the-book consultant, I was there when the information economy was enabled, when the service economy was enabled, and when the financial services economy was enabled, providing solutions to university expansion, regionalization, and best business practices, for the political resistors to change that wanted to survive, in return for an imbedded pathway for resistors to the resistors.

From the perspective of the nucleus out, family law, which leverages the battle of the sexes, is the primary gear in the divide and conquer, algebraic reduction system, division by 2. Funny, not ironically, it’s a prime number (the resistors to resistors can also divide by 0, but only on the event horizon, and only if the integral productively shapes the horizon, which may be perceived from either direction, beginning or end).

Normally, within a relatively stable social structure of increasing division, the polarity of family law is switched within maximum misdirection. When the viral nature of the resulting black hole becomes transparent, however, when the planet will no longer provide easily exploited resources under the regime, backlash is ignited, the lies/laws pop off the stack, and the dependent middle class is wiped out, leaving the nucleus naked, with no resource but to implode, because it will refuse to give up its “secret” to the very end, ensuring destruction and renewal.

I am the product of two divorces, by women who wanted to be the sun by controlling my output, taught to do so in Caesar’s do-what-I-say-not-what-I-do economy. Nothing anyone says or does can change my course, because I am the product of the gap between light and dark. What little I know is that I work for the planet, which ultimately works for the universe, and, next year, the universe is going to measure the body of my work, along with that of everyone else, not Caesar.

No matter what Caesar’s minions do at this point, cut off my head, accuse me of being a wife beater and child molester, or drop my credit rating to 0, Caesar will have no bearing on the outcome, because I sought God with an increasingly open mind for the length of my life. The nucleus is along for the ride, in return for past investments, in case gravity is required. Gravity is a hedge. Don’t hedge against the future and expect a satisfactory result from a location in the middle class.

The electrons must choose to fall into orbit and create the necessary bonds to open the NPV window for Caesar to come along. There is no shortage of gravity in the universe. I have already brought up an electron from the lowest orbit on Tobacco Road for a partner in the work.

When I went through the Lost Coast, in a town so nasty that 90% remained addicted and another 9.9% only got out on the promise of addiction, a neutron at the lowest end of the middle class, lulled into believing she could be “elevated” to the nucleus by serving the church to attract mama’s boys from a homeless shelter, identified me as different and made it her purpose in life to contain me in that town. The farther away I get, the more elaborate her contrived schemes become, because she cannot see that the future passes through the event horizon and she is addicted to the crutches provided by the only economy she has ever known.

Roosevelt was a mama’s boy, bullying others for the attention of men born to become boys that would refuse to give up their toys. The economic explosion of the 50s resulted when they failed. I am the product of bigger and bigger bullies. Watch out when the electron suddenly chooses to be observed, on a platform built for the occasion. We are born to be shaped, to shape and give birth. The only difference among us is where we fall into the distribution relative to the event horizon, and the free will we employ to catch it.

I’ve been on over 1,000 jobs, most as a ramrod. I know what tools others have the instant they open their mouths, from the very first syllable, because tools are a function of travel in proximity to the event horizon, not stories about their affect told in a classroom, by those similarly bred, to believe in mythology. If interest on interest on interest is 0, and the real cost falls on the back of children…

[Don't answer that door]

Great Depression Comes Knocking

This article will illustrate yet again how mainstream media covers the world – China in particular – and why the reality is so much different. We regularly observe that the world's conversation is organized via the Anglosphere elites' "dominant social themes." These fear-based promotions are intended to strip wealth and prosperity from the middle class in order to increase control of globalist institutions. But the Anglosphere elites also work via OMMISSION. That is, in addition to advocating fear, they actively encourage ignorance.

We are well past considering it to be coincidence. The world's economy is a kind of planned madhouse. Those in power have inflicted upon it scores of central banks – all busily printing/creating money from nothing at the push of a button. Those who run these central banks are well aware of their ruinous disposition. They understand fully the boom bust cycle that brings bankruptcy and hopelessness to so many. But one does not ever acknowledge this. If one works within the system, one is not supposed to.
http://www.thedailybell.com/2660/Great-Depression-Comes-Knocking

[Soup lines]

You haven't seen anything yet!

Greece now, America in due course

HUDSON: Because what’s happening in Greece is a dress rehearsal for what’s going on in the United States.

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/07/greece-now-america-soon.html

[Look over there]

Debt Political Theater Diverts Attention While Americans’ Wealth is Stolen -- Kucinich

There is a massive transfer of wealth from the American people to the hands of a few and it's going on right now as America’s eyes are misdirected to the political theater of these histrionic debt negotiations, threats to shut down the government, and willingness to make the most Americans pay dearly for debts they did not create.

These are symptoms of a government which has lost its way, and they are a challenge to the legitimacy of the two-party system.

http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentPrint.aspx?DocumentID=251883

[Hook, Line, & Sinking]

Bank Delays May Push 1 Million U.S. Foreclosure Filings to 2012

Lender delays in processing home- loan defaults will push as many as 1 million U.S. foreclosure filings from this year to 2012 or beyond, casting an “ominous shadow” on the housing market, according to RealtyTrac Inc.

The number of properties receiving a notice of default, auction or repossession plunged 29 percent in the first half of 2011 from the same period last year, the Irvine, California- based data seller said today in a report. About 1.17 million homes got a filing, or one out of every 111 households.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-14/bank-delays-push-1-million-u-s-foreclosures-into-2012-in-ominous-shadow-.html

[online credit card]

That is great information.It's really great post.

[Let the good times roll....American Pros(bare)ity]

A Visit to the Warehouse of Soul-Crushing Sadness

"How much do these people make?"

About $9 an hour. When I said that wasn't very much—when I worked at the moving-company warehouse starting in 1998, I made $10 an hour—she replied, "For them it is. They have no jobs." Also, it's 50 cents an hour more than the people on the previous shift make. In a state with 8.6 percent unemployment, fierce competition for limited job openings, and a minimum wage of $7.25, you could do a lot worse.

Technically, these workers are all temps. They're hired as temps by the warehouse company, which is contracted to handle temporary staffing by a logistics company. If they make it 90 days, they have the opportunity to become full-blown employees of the logistics company, which means benefits and an extra dollar an hour. It's been six months since the logistics company graduated someone here from temp to employee status. At one of the other locations Susie manages, no one has been hired as a real employee for two years. One of the workers in this warehouse has been a temp for a year and a half.
http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2011/07/ohio-warehouse-temps-unemployment

[Great Game]

Made in U.S.A.: Wealth Inequality (July 15, 2011)

Put these charts together and you get the outlines of the Great Game: to keep the debt-serfs from rebelling, the Financial Elites have OK'd the funding of private spending by Federal debt. The Federal Reserve is a key player in the Game, of course, and its "job" is to suppress interest rates so the true costs of this skyrocketing Federal debt are masked, at least for awhile.

Beneath the happy surface of Federal transfers and spending funded by debt, earned incomes for the bottom 95% are falling and wealth is accumulating in the top 1%. The Federal Reserve's project of goosing stocks and bonds has greatly enriched the holders of those assets, while doing essentially nothing for the bottom 90% except increasing their government's debt load.

It's painfully obvious that the Federal government and the Fed are the handmaidens of the politically powerful Financial Elites. Why spend your own money on bribes, bread and circuses when you can arrange for the Central State to borrow the money? Why, indeed. "Austerity" is of course a modest reduction in the amount of money borrowed and spread around to keep the masses safely passive, but a few trillion trimmed here and there over a decade won't change the Great Game.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly11/wealth-inequality-6-11.html

[Lugubrious]

What kind of recovery is this?

Consumer Confidence Falls Back to March 2009 Lows

Consumer sentiment deteriorated in early July to the lowest level since March 2009 on increasing pessimism over falling income and rising unemployment, a survey released on Friday showed.

http://www.fundmymutualfund.com/2011/07/consumer-confidence-falls-back-to-march.html

[If you're on that line..listen to this]

July 14 - Robert Reich on Blackmail and Brinkmanship with the Economy;
Age of Greed;

Robert Reich joins us to discuss the economic hostage crisis situation
going on in Washington DC as the full faith and credit of the United
States is subject to blackmail and reckless brinkmanship while
economic recovery and creating jobs takes a back seat to the so-called
deficit and debt crisis.

Part 2
Then Jeff Madrick, the author of a new book “Age of Greed: The Triumph
of Finance and the Decline of America” joins us. He is an Economic
Policy consultant and analyst and who explains the dismal economic
trajectory we are on and how we got there.
http://ianmasters.com/content/july-14-robert-reich-blackmail-and-brinkmanship-economy-age-greed-193rd-nation

[chartcreative]

Woww.. what happen to the rest of the world if america bancrupt. I hope my country little affected :D

[Blurtman]

Bush and Paulson order an official no prosecution of Wall Street fraud policy in the summer of 2008.

At 6:32 in the story: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/13/137789065/why-prosecutors-dont-go-after-wall-street

Of course, Obama and Geithner continue the no prosecution of Wall Street fraud policy.

[effete political force]

Obama is one weak President.

Elizabeth Warren Out as Possible Head of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

We have said for some time Warren was not going to get head the new consumer financial protection agency. Obama was not willing to ruffle the banks, and Geithner, who is is most powerful Cabinet member, would not stand for it). Nevertheless, we are disappointed by this outcome. And it seems a bit churlish for this news to be leaked the day after she ran the gauntlet with the House Oversight Panel. From Bloomberg:

President Barack Obama has chosen a candidate other than Elizabeth Warren as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The president’s choice is a person who already works at the consumer agency, the person said today. Obama may make the nomination as soon as next week, another person briefed on the administration’s plans said.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/07/elizabeth-warren-out-as-possible-head-of-consumer-financial-protection-bureau.html

[Moral hazard]

Listen and learn

James G. Rickards

http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/7/16_Jim_Rickards.html

[Ingrain this quote into your being]

Think this can't happen in the states?

Nortel Pensioners Slammed Again?

"I remember because at the time I was making money buying out-of-the-money Nortel call options, listening to my Nortel analyst at the National Bank Financial who was touting this company as the "next best thing." I thought I was going to retire rich; instead I learned the most valuable lesson of all, the value of losing money.

Never trust what the weasels at the top say; always pay attention at what they're actually doing."

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/nortel-pensioners-slammed-again?

[Make no bones about it....we've been had]

"They’re Going to Cut Back the Bone and They’re Going to Keep the Fat, Basically. They’re Going to Try to Panic the Population into Acquiescing in a Democratic Party Sellout by Cutting Back Payments to the People...While Making Sure that They Pay the Pentagon, They Pay the Foreign Aid, They Pay Wall Street

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/07/theyre-going-to-cut-back-bone-and.html

[Nighty Night]

Wall Street’s Euthanasia of Industry

The important thing is that now Ms. Bair is saying look, people said that there would’ve been a meltdown I you didn’t give all this 13 trillion to Citibank, to AIG and to Goldman Sacks but the fact is that we at the FDIC wound down Washington Mutual. Our business is winding down bad banks. Citibank could have gone under and all the other banks and the depositors wouldn’t have lost. They would’ve all been insured because there were plenty of bank assets. There weren’t enough assets in Citibank and AIG to pay the gamblers and the big players, the wealthiest one percent. And she said in every case they were told the wealthiest one percent can’t afford to lose a penny.

Well, you asked about the economy. The economy’s going under because Wall Street and investors realize that it’s a done deal. That Mr. Obama is going to succeed in pushing the economy much further into a depression. We need the depression in order to cut living standards and labor by 30 percent. We need a depression in order just to lower the wages of America and to have an excuse – of course, a depression is going to make the budget deficit even larger and the solution to the depression has already been written up just like the invasion of Iraq was all written up before 9/11 the solution is going to be that the government is going to sell of its land, whatever is in the public domain.

The American government is going to look just like Greece and just like Ireland.

http://michael-hudson.com/2011/07/the-euthanasia-of-industry/

[NO stocks 4 me]

yeah but "they" under paid, unemployed poor, will still have their cell phones ( and the bills) still have their HBO/shotime (and the bill) still have their DSL or High speed cable ISP ( and bill) still line up for those new Iphones/Ipads (and the bill)

don't tell me cell phones are "cheap" they always require adding more min weather you use them or not and in time can add up ( more bills) a "cheap" cell peoples phone would be a cell phone with NO expiring min, and you only add min when you run out, NO time limits period.

I remember seeing a line around the block in one of them states FL I think of people waiting to get the chance to buy a 1 bed 1 bath condo for 350K, man more of those poor I guess.

its always a pain to see the same talking heads on those financial shows still making their 7 figure incomes talking all this "how bad the economy" is shit, and the metal heads that talk about shinning their shinny yellow and white metal hoard. must be some poor people

[The Top .1%]

The Critical Difference Between the Top 1% and the Top .1%: Capital Gains

An entrepreneur in the top 1% explains the difference between those in the top 1% of income and those in the top 1/10 of 1%: capital gains enable a much lower tax burden on the thin layer of super-wealthy.

I have failed to make an essential distinction between those in the top 1% of income earners who pay ordinary tax rates and those in the upper reaches of that 1% who escape the heavy tax burden via shifting income to capital gains. The most egregious example of this is hedge fund managers who bought a loophole which enables their $600 million annual income each to be treated as capital gains, a rate of 15% compared to a top rate of 35% for earned income and a self-employment tax on the first $106,000 of 15.3% for self-employed/sole proprietors--a total of 50.3% for top earners of ordinary income.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly11/capital-gains-6-11.html

[If you can write a check, you're off the hook]

Dylan Ratigan Must See Report w Barry Ritholtz on Settlements, Wall Street and the Firing of FL AG Investigators

http://4closurefraud.org/2011/07/17/dylan-ratigan-must-see-report-w-barry-ritholtz-on-settlements-wall-street-and-the-firing-of-fl-ag-investigators/

[NO stocks 4 me]

@ The Top

"their $600 million annual income each"

holy o S&%t just WTF does an "individual" do with that per year???? man and I bitch about the "poor" ball bouncer, ball kicker and ball hitter's.

Well like I said, depression, resession, armageddon, and what ever else you use for economics, is where your at in life.

[Rocky]

@ The Top

American voters elected a Republican House majority, including many tea baggers and many religious conservatives, along with some very conservative Democrats. The result was an extension of the Bush tax income tax cuts. Were the voters totally clueless about the Bush tax cuts or did they place a higher priority on stopping gay marriage and legal abortions? Either way, we have to live with the consequences.

[The Top .1%]

@Rocky...leadership starts at the top! I agree about the distractions...BUT it's a 1 party system...GREED!

Richard Russell

I'll tell you a secret. I'd give away every penny I own if I could be 35 again and know what I know now. America adores youth. I understand that in Asia old age is revered because in Asia the people appreciate wisdom. Old people have usually had many experiences and out of experience, hopefully, comes wisdom.

And I compare it with the government we have today. It's too bad that the US is now led by men whose chief desire is to be re-elected. I doubt if the Founding Fathers ever planned it that way. Today we need men who are ready to sacrifice their sacred honor and their wealth to run the nation. This may be the fatal flaw in Democracy. We lack men of great character. We lack men and women who will die for the honor of making this a great and better nation.

During World War II I fought with young men (hailing from all over the nation) who were ready to die for freedom and Democracy and America. Who in Congress could match these young men today?

http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/7/18_Russell_-_Gold_Market_is_Saying_Bernanke_to_Print_Money.html

[They took the money and ran...now it's not there!]

Never let a crisis go to waste...hmm...

Were America's Assets Looted Years Ago?

Forbes' Merrill Matthews argues that the multi-trillion dollar social security trust fund was looted years ago:

Either Obama and Geithner are lying to us now [in saying that social security checks won't go out if the debt ceiling isn't raised], or they and all defenders of the Social Security status quo have been lying to us for decades. It must be one or the other.

Here’s why: Social Security has a trust fund, and that trust fund is supposed to have $2.6 trillion in it, according to the Social Security trustees. If there are real assets in the trust fund, then Social Security can mail the checks, regardless of what Congress does about the debt limit.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/were-americas-assets-looted-years-ago?

[No one has your back...especially not the politico's]

Ron Paul On "Debt Ceiling Drama" "We Need To Stop Allowing Secretive Banking Cartels To Endlessly Enslave Us"

Alarmingly, the administration is talking about changing the methodology of the CPI calculation yet again to hide the damage of the government's policies. Changing the CPI will also enable the government to avoid giving seniors a COLA (cost of living adjustment) on their social security checks, and raise taxes via the hidden means of "bracket creep." This is a default. Just because it is a default on the people and not the banks and foreign holders of our debt does not mean it doesn't count.

It is very telling that the administration would rather frighten seniors dependent on social security checks than alarm their big banking friends, who have already received $5.3 trillion in bailouts, stimulus and quantitative easing. This instance of trying to blackmail Congress into tax increases by threatening social security demonstrates how scary it is to be completely dependent on government promises and why many young people today would jump at the chance to opt out of Social Security altogether.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/ron-paul-debt-ceiling-drama-we-need-stop-allowing-secretive-banking-cartels-endlessly-enslav?