Sunday, May 31, 2009

Why are the rantings of so called scientists so important?..

You would think that "experts" would simply study UFO's, Bigfoot, Loch Ness, etc. and give a definitive answer. After all we've had 60 years or so of sworn testimony that these phenomenon are are occurring.

What's the problem?

No government grants!

Why not?

Stanton Friedman

I hated wasting the money to buy the January/February 2009 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer (Vol. 33, Issue 1) which has for years been trying to debunk all sorts of so-called paranormal phenomena. But the cover said: Special Issue “The New UFO Interest: Scientific Appraisals.” This is an excellent example of false advertising since the appraisals are anything but scientific. SI is published by what is now labeled “The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry” (CSI Lite??). In actuality, the active writers and “investigators” aren’t skeptics. They are Debunkers doing their best to pull the wool over the eyes of a curious public. They know the answers, and so don’t really need to investigate. Proclamation is more their style. Deception is the name of the game. For example, inside the front cover is a very impressive list of about 75 scientists, writers, philosophers, etc., including three Nobel Prize winners. Also included on the list is Bill Nye, “The Science Guy,” whose purpose is to Deny… judging by his Larry King appearances. Unfortunately, most of the highly credentialed people aren’t the ones who write the articles or “investigate.” The dirty work in the trenches is normally done by the debunkers in residence. The primary tools are those of the propagandists such as very selective choice of data, positive and negative name calling, and misrepresentation.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

I'm debating......

Buy a Pepsi or a share of GM. Chrysler becomes Fiat. No really, Fiat. New unemployment claims are over 600,000 a month. Corporate profits are tanking. Defaults on first mortgages are exploding. And second mortgage defaults, who knows?

And don't forget, deficit spending plans to bail everybody out are out of control.

Meanwhile, here at ground zero Idaho, Patti got her (small) yearly raise yesterday at Wally World.Of course, based on lower sales,  we have more work with less employees than ever. Sales off by 10% doesn't help.

At least, the garden is mostly in and the place is looking good.

Now I need to plan our retirement better. We'll go back in to business after I get our insurance plan at Walmart fully funded. Need $5000 a piece to cover us for any serious illness. The plan covers 100% of hospitalization. I'll be able to use the money to cover Medicare coverage after I reach 65 or spend it as we see fit.

About half way there.

All hinges on getting through this, hopefully, short depression. Expect all the stimulus money to kick in the state's economy next year and pick up employment.

I expect this fiscal stimulant  to be effective for a couple of years. Hope I'm being too pessimistic. I need happy people enjoying themselves to buy my shit!!!

Friday, May 29, 2009

Oil booms again......

Want a peek at your future? Oil passes $65. Some one has to pay for all the broke dicks who no longer work, drive or have a roof over their heads.

Speculators rule Wall Street now as they learned fron George Sorros and the Feds on trading on price swings and borrowing government bailout and loan money to grab huge profits. 

Buy food. Your best investment. Expect huge inflation in  consumables that depend on oil. Toilet paper, fresh vegetables, Chinese goods and anything related to farming, the next investment boom coming.

Everybody has to eat. Setting up a food stand, I like hot dog carts. people will get out for cheap entertainment and buy a $2 hot dog and bitch about the economy.

Be plenty to bitch about for awhile!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Check out my new business......

Another year at wally World and I'll be set. Looking for the economy to perk up some and I can go back on the road. pay for the cart and hit the fairs and air shows in Florida winter of 2011.

Hot dog cart has a great ring to it right now. Check it out.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Not all wars are fought with bullets.....

Jesus next thing you know we'll have to hire Americans. You no what a bunch shitheads they are. Then the government will  be able to tax and lend money again here in America. Might even save the economy.

Can't have that.

Who's going to pay all those bankers fees and international bank loans?

This won't last. No body gets or stays elected for defying the ruling elites war on the working stiff!
America's Latest War - Mises Economics Blog

Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress have declared war on Canada. The press is calling it a "trade war," but aggression is aggression:

Ordered by Congress to "buy American" when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions. In recent weeks, other Canadian manufacturers doing business with U.S. state and local governments say they have been besieged with requests to sign affidavits pledging that they will only supply materials made in the USA.

Outrage spread in Canada, with the Toronto Star last week bemoaning "a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S." and Canadian companies openly fretting about having to shift jobs to the United States to meet made-in-the-USA requirements. This week, the Canadians fired back. A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts -- the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.

And this war isn't just causing friction between nations -- it's doing damage within U.S. cities:

Monday, May 25, 2009

Cars? We don't need no stinkin' cars!!!.....

Watch the price of oil. I figured it would trade between 50 or 60. May pop to 80. Gas will probably hit my predicted 7-8 dollar range by 2011 or so as all this printing press money ends up in the banks creditors who speculate for a living.

So much for recovery.

Trace every bust in  American economy  since Nixon took us off the gold standard and it leads back to oil speculation of one sort or another.

Instead of a concerted effort to drill and conserve we get half-assed measures that are in la-la land .

But that's part of the new religion, "Environmentalism" that dotes on a major tenant that cars are the tools of the infidels. The evil ones. Those bastards in the oil companies.

The auto industry exists because of cheap energy which produces "Global Warming" gases which will flood the planet, kill the stupid polar bears (the smart ones will be on welfare) and smear the rich bitches make up with all that blubbering.

Of course, destroying the auto industry must be a common good because broke dicks work there and buy these shitty cars that the government insists these poor bastards have to make.

But I know that Obamama will wave his magic wand and I'' be able to drive to work on my new camel, like his daddy!

The American Spectator : Obama Nails the Coffin Shut

Can you hear that? It's the sound of the final nail being hammered down onto the coffin lid of the U.S. car industry.

President Obama wields the hammer -- in the form of a massive uptick in federally required fuel economy standards that will require each automaker's lineup of new vehicles to achieve an average of 35.5 MPG by 2016.

But what could be so bad about forcing the automakers to make cars more fuel efficient? Dig deeper and you'll see.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Told you so......

Cash. Lots of cash. If I could figure a way to make money off the global warming scam, I would. Why else would anyone give a shit about  a degree or two increase or decrease over the next 100 years.

Dead people don't have a say any ways. And we'll be long dead! Give me the cash!
The Climate-Industrial Complex | The Beacon

Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is “rent-seeking.”

The world’s largest wind-turbine manufacturer, Copenhagen Climate Council member Vestas, urges governments to invest heavily in the wind market. It sponsors CNN’s “Climate in Peril” segment, increasing support for policies that would increase Vestas’s earnings. A fellow council member, Mr. Gore’s green investment firm Generation Investment Management, warns of a significant risk to the U.S. economy unless a price is quickly placed on carbon.

Even companies that are not heavily engaged in green business stand to gain. European energy companies made tens of billions of euros in the first years of the European Trading System when they received free carbon emission allocations.

American electricity utility Duke Energy, a member of the Copenhagen Climate Council, has long promoted a U.S. cap-and-trade scheme. Yet the company bitterly opposed the Warner-Lieberman bill in the U.S. Senate that would have created such a scheme because it did not include European-style handouts to coal companies. The Waxman-Markey bill in the House of Representatives promises to bring back the free lunch.

U.S. companies and interest groups involved with climate change hired 2,430 lobbyists just last year, up 300% from five years ago. Fifty of the biggest U.S. electric utilities—including Duke—- spent $51 million on lobbyists in just six months.

Many have forgotten that it was no less than Enron that was the biggest backer of the Kyoto Protocol for the simple reason that as a major natural gas producer, Enron stood to make billions of dollars from a system of mandated emission credits.

The cozy corporate-climate relationship was pioneered by Enron, which bought up renewable energy companies and credit-trading outfits while boasting of its relationship with green interest groups. When the Kyoto Protocol was signed, an internal memo was sent within Enron that stated, “If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory business.”

In addition to Duke Energy, among the firms pushing for mandatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions are General Electric, Shell, British Petroleum, Ford, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Alcoa, American Electric Power, Caterpillar, John Deere, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, PNM, Siemens, Xerox, IBM, PG&E, News Corp., PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Nike.

Yet, this obvious interest-group component of the stampede to adopt extremely costly (and pointless, as Lombørg himself has shown) regulations of such non-pollutants as carbon dioxide appears to matter little in the major media or among most environmental groups. Indeed, there is no outcry! While true-believing climate alarmists have sought to smear and dismiss legitimate, scientific questions raised by scholars and organizations that receive funding from businesses opposed to climate controls, claiming that they are simply stooges for corporate interests, pro-alarmist groups supported by firms having an obvious interest in the adoption of climate statism are somehow enlightened, objective, incisive, and reliable. Why the double standard? The answer is that the climate alarmist view has far more to do with power politics, the shallowness of “elite” culture, and the fact that global warming is largely about environmental religion, not science.

Meanwhile, the Copenhagen Climate Council’s upcoming World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen is stacked with proponents of climate catastrophe with Mr. Gore as keynote speaker and media sponsors including MSNBC, National Geographic, the New York Times Company, and Berlingske Tidende. And next week, the Heartland Institute’s Third International Conference on Climate Change will be held in Washington, D.C., featuring two dozen climate skeptics and co-sponsored by forty skeptic groups. So, how do you believe the two events will be reported?

Friday, May 22, 2009

We rule.....Drop dead......

You can't have large corporations without large government.

Period.

Not enough resources to go around. Only government can "guarantee" protection from smaller competitors,  protection from union harassment and various government mandates.

Only a large entity can bribe, conjole or scare enough influential local people to "help" bring much needed jobs and taxes to a community. This in turn raises real estate values and encourages other businesses to set up shop next to or in a growing community. In return they collect taxes for the state.

Don't like Walmart? Close down your big governments first and they will wither on the vine.

Until then.....
Save More and Live Better, Just Not at the Expense of Others | The Beacon

Walmart takes a lot of heat for its alleged effects on wages, employment, labor standards, and community quality-of-life. In research we’ve worked on over the last few years, my co-authors and I have examined the merits of these claims and have found that a lot of this heat is undeserved. Rigorous empirical research shows that Walmart creates jobs and lowers prices. Research also shows that Walmart does not lead kill small businesses (though this claim has been brought into question) or generally reduce “quality of life” within a community.

One area in which Walmart should be viewed with skepticism, however, is their pursuit of subsidies from the local governments with which they do business. While these subsidies and tax breaks allegedly create jobs and tax revenue, they reward political savvy rather than productivity. This tilts the economic playing field in favor of large corporations with armies of lawyers and against small entrepreneurs.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The best is yet to come.......

Just ask Obamama!

Patty and I can live about two months out of our reserves. We have a 22 rifle and a 12 gauge just in case. The garden, small as it is, is in. I need a large freezer because the farmer's market is now open and full of good eats for little money.

The truck runs and the car gets great mileage so no major purchases this year. I'll need a  RV of some kind for our retirement plans that include Florida and California visits to see the kids. Probably buy after further price collapse.

As I've posted several times before, anyone employed during deflationary collapse and saves some cash, don't forget improving your credit by eliminating debt, will be able to buy everything they want at half price.

So far I'm on target with real estate. Auto prices are still artificially propped up by the Fed's to save their union contributions. It remains to be seen how long this can continue. Probably have to see ruinous inflation to change the inevitable. They are toast!

Be patient!

California's brand of fascism.,as I have pointed out, is doomed without a huge dose of "Obamama-nomics". Expect huge transfer of your money to Arnie.

Bank on it.

As for investments, used mobile homes, which only can be financed by the owner, are a sure bet. Buy cheap, ideally for all cash, finance at 10% for 5 years for people who can't qualify for bank financing, and repeat. I did it here in Idaho as a buyer and it's easy to do. Just use a title company to keep the title until you get it paid off.

Keep your money where you can see it not on Wall Street.
Modern Survivalism Tenet Number One by Jack Spirko

For example many survival-minded individuals grow gardens and develop more permanent food-producing crops like fruit trees, berry bushes etc. on their property. They generally stick to organic production methods, focus on water harvesting and attempt to maximize production per square meter. This is a classic survival technique designed to remain sustainable if anything hits from simple loss of personal income all the way up to a collapse of US infrastructure. So yes in the event of economic collapse this makes a tremendous amount of sense as a modern survival tactic.

Now let’s examine the other side of the issue. What if we never have an economic collapse, what if there are no food shortages in the next 30 years and what if the survivalist never even has a layoff to contend with? Flat out for the foreseeable future absolutely nothing goes wrong. If you have your property landscaped with sustainable organic food-producing crops are you not still better off?

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Take me to your leader.....

I can't wait to hear the excuses for this blip.
 SETI May Have Found Proof of Extraterrestial Life - UFO Casebook Files

Ragbir Bhathal is an astrophysicist from the University of Western Sydney and member of SETI. He has been searching for alien life for over 20 years, but not by scanning the cosmos for traditional radio waves, but instead for laser pulses.

He theorized that the likely form of communication of advanced alien life forms would be these laser bursts. These bursts could be easily distinguished from background noise, because the signal would likely be in a repeated, non-random pattern if there was a sender on the other end.

Until now, the Wow Signal was the only evidence for alien life.

And he has found one such signal.

While he’s quick not to jump to conclusions on the matter, it’s certainly an exciting discovery. Until now, SETI has not found much evidence of anything. In the 1970’s they discovered a short blip of radio wave (dubbed the Wow Signal because of the discoverer’s comment on the printout).

That discovery, which until now was the most likely candidate for extraterrestrial life, pales in comparison to Bhathal’s discovery.

Bhathal’s discovery appears to be a regular-patterned laser pulse emanating from space. Of course, as per the scientific method, his discovery will be under complete scrutiny and review by his peers.

This swings the door open for the question: “What will happen when SETI discovers definitive proof of alien life?”. Because the discovery of alien life would practically nullify our world’s religions, it would probably be denied outright– no matter how conclusive the evidence was.

Unless of course God just happened to forget to tell the prophets about his other experiments that he has running on other planets! This is all hypothetical of course, but it’s an interesting question.

If the discovery of alien life became an accepted notion, I imagine that nihilistic chaos would probably break out after the period of denial.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Affordability is the key, of course....

But read carefully. Adjustable-rate? At 4.96%?

Hello!

Anyone believe we can maintain this rate of interest? And what about the current 11.2 "official" unemployment rate, let alone future, unemployment.

How many houses are unemployed broke dicks going to buy? Hmm.

And as the author below mentions, prices are dropping like a rock. Wait and see about tax increases and employer  flight before we start buying houses.

O.K?

P.S Don't tell anyone that kalifornia is bankrupt!
Nearly 70 Percent Can Afford Entry Level Homes in California

The percentage of households that could afford an entry-level home in California rose to 69 percent in the first quarter of 2009, up from 46 percent a year ago, according to CAR.

The California Association of Realtors said the minimum household income needed to purchase a home valued at $213,040 in the pricey state was just $38,090, based on an adjustable-rate mortgage at 4.96 percent with a 10 percent down payment.

The group said first-time buyers typically buy a home equal to 85 percent of the prevailing median price, so the monthly mortgage payment including taxes and insurance would be around $1,270.

A year ago, households would have needed to come up with $65,030 to qualify for a mortgage on an entry-level home; the median household income in California is $61,030.

Monday, May 18, 2009

We ought to make tomorrow a holiday.....

From the gangsters in office.

The shit hits the fan in Kalifornia. Taxpayer revolution is more like it. Soon Uncle Sammy will have to send 50 billion or so to the state to save their bondholders and fat cat unions.

Which state is next? Heh heh.

And we thought the depression was over! Wait and see. The interest rates will skyrocket and cripple the "RECOVERY" if the government  bail out doesn't work. And why won't it work? The printing presses are a blazing already.

Foreigners?Hope they don't run out of money to lend. Of course, we ain't going to buy very much from them so where are they going to get it?

Oh, I know we already send them billions in "aid". They can give it back .Will that ever be stopped?

We  broke dicks won't be able buy anything from them soon anyways as taxes go through the roof.

Any ways, every state and local jurisdiction will be under water and begging Washington for "assistance". How much will they get from you?

Or from my mothers 900$ a month pension?

Got guns?
California's Day of Reckoning: May 19 by Gary North

Politicians believe in something for nothing. Washington is going to be asked to supply lots and lots of something for nothing. California's politicians want to be able to go before their constituents and assure them that vital services will still be available at below-market prices. Uncle Sugar has come up with the money.

THE BOTTOMLESS PIT

Politicians believe in the bottomless pit of tax revenues. They are like investors who think the same thing about corporate bailouts. Washington is seen by all as a bottomless pit of wealth to fund vital services. All services are vital, although some are more vital than others. Which are the most vital ones? Those that are supplied by union members. Unions vote as blocs.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Stimulate the Dead?.........

Yee hah, I love these guys.
Cafe Hayek: The Administration's Sixth Sense

Well this (HT: Drudge) is a really pioneering effort by the President to stimulate the unstimulatable:
This week, thousands of people are getting stimulus checks in the mail. The problem is that a lot of them are dead. A Long Island woman was shocked when she checked the mail and received a letter from the U.S. Treasury -- but it wasn't for her.

Antoniette Santopadre of Valley Stream was expecting a $250 stimulus check. But when her son finally opened it, they saw that the check was made out to her father, Romolo Romonini, who died in Italy 34 years ago. He'd been a U.S. citizen when he left for Italy in 1933, but only returned to the United Stated for a seven-month visit in 1969.

The Santopadres are not alone. The Social Security Administration, which sent out 52 million checks, says that some of those checks mistakenly went to dead people because the agency had no record of their death. That amounts to between 8,000 and 10,000 checks for millions of dollars.

Perhaps the President doesn't realize that outside of Chicago, this is not a crucial voting bloc.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Got ta love free trade......

I get a lot of hassels or strange quizzical looks when I bring this up. You pay for cheap imports.

With your standard of living. A country that creates nothing becomes nothing.

Period.

The big government guys will steal your children's lunch to take care of their own.

Want another example? Imagine the union worker who voted for this!:


The American Spectator : Outsourcing the Bailout

GM will be given billions of taxpayer dollars, courtesy of President Obama and his "car czar" -- and encouraged to use this money to build new plants (and create new jobs) not here in the USA but in countries like China and Mexico.

GM's "restructuring plan" -- the details of which are just beginning to leak out -- projects an increase of almost 10 percent in overseas production (23.5 percent vs. the current 15.5 percent) over the next four years, with more to come later.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Time will tell.........

Our sales (Walmart) are down this month 12%. Blame it on the remodel project, I guess. Store bonus is 47$, peanuts.

Heh heh no bailout for us from Obamama, hey!
"The Worst Is Yet to Come" If You|re Not Petrified You|re Not Paying Attention: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

The green shoots story took a bit of hit this week between data on April retail sales, weekly jobless claims and foreclosures. But the whole concept of the economy finding its footing was "preposterous" to begin with, says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates.

"We're in a complete mess and the consumer is smart enough to know it," says Davidowitz, whose firm does consulting for the retail industry. "If the consumer isn't petrified, he or she is a damn fool."

Davidowitz, who is nothing if not opinionated (and colorful), paints a very grim picture: "The worst is yet to come with consumers and banks," he says. "This country is going into a 10-year decline. Living standards will never be the same."

This outlook is based on the following main points:

* With the unemployment rate rising into double digits - and that's not counting the millions of "underemployed" Americans - consumers are hitting the breaks, which is having a huge impact, given consumer spending accounts for about 70% of economic activity.
* Rising unemployment and the $8 trillion negative wealth effect of housing mean more Americans will default on not just mortgages but student loans and auto loans and credit card debt.
* More consumer loan defaults will hit banks, which are also threatened by what Davidowitz calls a "depression" in commercial real estate, noting the recent bankruptcy of General Growth Properties and distressed sales by Developers Diversified and other REITs

Thursday, May 14, 2009

We're all one big happy government now.......

Just what part of Fascism don't you understand?

Autocratic control of the means of production. Making everything illegal that's not authorized by government. Imprisoning, fining or firing anyone, including media types, who disagree.

For instance:

 (Don Imus, remember, for embarrassing the Clintons at the national Press Club, got his. Or Newt Gingrich's book deal being taken away and Daschle losing his cushy Senate majority seat shortly after interfering with the Gingrich deal. There's probably a hundred more like this in recent memory but you get the idea. ).

Fixing elections (The Acorn gang ) for favorite politicians, like Chavez in Venezuela does, maybe.

More insidious is the interfering with the separation of power between the states and the Fed.


LewRockwell.com Blog: The States Love The Feds

Well, it was bound to happen:

In a historic first, Uncle Sam has supplanted sales, property and income taxes as the biggest source of revenue for state and local governments.

The shift shows how deeply the recession is cutting. Federal stimulus money aimed at reviving the economy and a sharp drop in tax collections have altered, at least temporarily, the traditional balance of how states, cities, counties and schools pay for their operations.

Who would have expected that in times of crisis the central state grows stronger?

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

5 to 10 years.....

The shit hits the fan. But wait maybe I'm a pessimist.
Nah. Obamama and his gang will wave his magic wand and poof! all this goes away.

They'll swear up and down broke dick foreigners will save me in my old age. After all our bonds will be guaranteed by the full faith in our government.

How long can this go on? Until they run out of suckers and desperate Foreign investors of course. Think we'll have plenty of these in the future?

Yea, right!

Want better advice?

Pay off your debts and invest in food. With any luck we'll be able to start a new country. Wouldn't be the first time a aging empire spawned something new.

In the meantime expect more of the same. War on oil producing countries. Bribing foreign governments. Corruption becomes the norm. Union, government,corporations and Greens collude to protect and control our economy.

it will be theirs to save. Get a good seat your going to need it.





       Medicare Insolvent In 8 Years

We're officially past the point where Social Security and Medicare insolvency are far-off problems that we can ignore.

Medicare is going bust sooner than we expected. And this isn't some crazy, partisan rambling. This is coming straight from the government, which just updated their numbers based on new tax data. Here's what Tim Geithner said in a statement:

"The Medicare Trustees Report makes clear today there is no more important long-term fiscal policy measure than gaining control of the growth of Medicare costs by delivering health care services more efficiently. These savings can only be achieved in the context of a larger effort to control health care costs and improve quality more generally. The most effective entitlement reform measure will be a major health reform that helps bring down the growth rate of national health care spending. The Administration is committed to working with Congress to find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures while helping to ensure that all Americans receive the high quality, affordable health care they deserve. The recent commitment of major health stakeholders to help lower the annual growth rate in costs by 1.5% represents a crucial step in that direction.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Told you so.......

The unions bought and paid for a seat of power with the Dems a long time ago. As a former, but very minor union official, I learned that first hand 20 or so years ago.

In union friendly territory these guys can do no wrong.

But normally it's not possible for them to expand their power base because conservatives have been able to keep them in check by holding Repub's feet to the fire.

Those days are over!

Welcome to the left's version of Fascism.
The American Spectator : Hands Off Big Labor

"The administration is cutting the budget of the only agency in government that monitors labor union activity, while at the same time ratcheting up the budget of all other enforcement agencies against employers," Chao told TAS in reaction to the news.

The OLMS budget cuts come on the heels of a recent decision by the Labor Department to loosen union financial disclosure rules, a blow to transparency that will make it more difficult for union members to examine the finances of the organizations to which they are paying dues, as well as the conflicts of interest of labor leaders.

The Obama administration's hands-off policy toward big labor should not come as much of a surprise. Unions played a key role in Obama's election by helping him with fundraising and organizing, and his choice for Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, has a cozy relationship with unions.


Monday, May 11, 2009

Buying a house for future profits?......

Are you nuts?  If we wait until the bottom of unemployment we should see another 20% drop in prices.

Remember unemployed broke dicks without credit can't buy very many houses. Let alone employed broke dicks with or with out credit.

Most people have to sell their present home to get the down for their next. Kind a screwed there. Better hang tight until Obamama's printing press money kicks in next year for construction. However, state governments are going bust and must bum money or screw everyone in sight.

You think they'll let up on houses? Really?
10 Reasons Why Buying a Home in Southern California today is a Mistake. California Housing and Financial Market Analysis produces no Green Shoots. » Dr. Housing Bubble Blog

One argument making the rounds from bottom callers is mortgage rates are at historical lows. I actually take this argument as a reason not to buy. Why? Well look at the above chart. Mortgage rates are being artificially pushed down by the government through various programs at the Federal Reserve. This cannot go on forever. Here is a scary thought. I ran the numbers above to find the average 30 year fixed rate since 1971. Want to know what that is? 9.08 percent. Big deal right? Well let us run the numbers with the current 4.81% rate and the 9.08% rate on a $500,000 mortgage:

PI @ 4.8% $500k = $2,623/month

PI @ 9.08% $500k = $4,051/month

Now here is the thing, sure you can buy the home at the low rate but let us say rates in 5 to 7 years when you are looking to sell are now closer to the historical average? Who are you going to sell too? If we have a Japan like multi-decade stagnant economy, you better get ready to stay in your home for the duration. Like I said, rates have only one way to go and that is up. Some view this as a plus, I view this as a liability. Give me a good price and a higher interest rate over a high price and a low interest rate any time. You have more option with a low priced home with a high interest rate. You can refinance at another time, pay it down quicker cutting into principal faster, or you can sell and have a bigger pool because it is a better price. A low rate by itself is not a good thing. If that were the case, those teaser 1.25% toxic mortgages would be all the rage again.


Sunday, May 10, 2009

Think we are kidding?.....

Or exaggerating?

One wonders about running an empire on borrowing money from one group of supplicants and bombing another?
LewRockwell.com Blog: Notes on the Empire

So the emperor of the world, Obama I, calls the US-installed leaders of two of his provinces, Afghanistsan and Pakistan, to Karnak on the Potomac, to be scolded. Scolded is not quite the word for this relationship, of course, since Obama can order their deaths with a wink to the CIA. But isn't it an insult to bring the leaders of two traditional enemies at the same time, and virtually make them fan the pharoah with ostrich feathers? Few Americans seem able to put themselves in the other guy's shoes, but no one likes being ruled by foreigners, let alone by foreigners who like to rub their faces in their subordinate status. The US empire isn't even a smart empire.


Saturday, May 09, 2009

Scum always rises to the top......

Heh heh imagine the silly people who voted for "change". We replaced one gang with another.

All bought and paid for.

Oh, it will not change in our lifetimes. Sure is fun to bitch about it, though.

Want real change?

Quit doing business with these banks and Wall Street quick buck guys.

Use a credit union. Or cash!
The Automatic Earth: May 7 2009 2: Truth is irrelevant

One more employer who needs to check on one of his employees is Barack Obama. You see, Mr. President, Steve Friedman resigned today as Chairman of the New York Fed. He did so because the Wall Street Journal recently found out that he made millions on illegal purchases of Goldman stock, behind the veil of a waiver bestowed on him by then New York Fed President Tim Geithner. If you would like to find out exactly how illegal all this was, just ask Friedman why he resigned. And once you have the answer, tell Geithner to publicly explain his role in Friedman's millions.

Oh, and while you're busy providing the transparency we can believe in, make sure to give Andrew Cuomo a call and demand he start an investigation and, if he finds any wrongdoing, prosecute Friedman to make sure he's held accountable to the full extent of the law, no matter what that may mean for your Treasury Secretary. The only society people can possibly believe in is one in which the law is upheld. Anything else is just a hugely expensive waste of time. Like all the rescues and bail-outs to date in your first hundred plus days, and those muddy water stress debacles.


Friday, May 08, 2009

More scandal.....

Ho hum.

Will the last scumbag please turn out the lights when you leave Washington.
EXCLUSIVE: Records violations dog housing nominee - Washington Times

President Obama's choice for the government's No. 2 housing job is embroiled in the largest fine in U.S. history for "blatant violations" of open records laws after the Washington State Supreme Court chastised his office for withholding documents detailing taxpayer costs for a new professional football stadium in Seattle.

The documents that Ronald Sims' office was found to have kept from the public when he served as King County executive included information about cheaper alternatives to the $430 million Seattle Seahawks stadium, which was built in 2002, according to a Washington Times review of the court records.


Thursday, May 07, 2009

Why would a Moslem attend ?.......

he was born a Moslem. Lived as a Moslem. Always will be a Moslem. It's their law. Like father like son.

Forever.

Attending non Islam services will simply be uncomfortable. (illegal)

Previously he attended services to further his political career with the Reverend wright.

Not needed now, right.
Obama to be prayer day no-show - Washington Times

President Obama is distancing himself from the National Day of Prayer by nixing a formal early morning service and not attending a large Catholic prayer breakfast the next morning.

All Mr. Obama will do for the National Day of Prayer, which is Thursday, is sign a proclamation honoring the day, which originated in 1952 when Congress set aside the first Thursday in May for the observance.


Wednesday, May 06, 2009

This is what you get......

The public voted for it. Now they pay.

As I have pointe4d out before it's all about saving the unions. No one voluntarily votes these union gangsters into power. They have to buy it.

And paybacks are a bitch!
Attack on the Chrysler Capitalists by Peter Schiff

Giving control of Chrysler, and soon GM, to the UAW and the government will enshrine a culture of failure and seal Detroit's fate. Both companies will become government-sponsored entities, not too dissimilar from Amtrak or the Post Office, forever relying on taxpayer funds to create products of dubious quality.


Tuesday, May 05, 2009

China is doomed......

We have a tendency to believe that the Chinese are monolithic. Not true. They have many factions working at cross purposes.

Imagine 100 million unemployed. Mostly young males with out women.

Get the idea.

Let alone centuries of racial, religious, and political differences that have been buried by totalitarian rule.

It is more reasonable to expect several different China's to emerge.

But becoming a superpower?

China will be hard pressed to feed their population in the next few years. Let alone suppress the masses of disaffected.

Expect Islam to conquer all is more realistic.
When Giants Fall: The Tectonic Shift

The Tectonic Shift

I am not in the camp that believes China is set to snatch the leadership baton from the United States and become the next sole superpower -- at least, not in the short run.

Among other things, our rival to the east will have its hands full for quite some time as it tries to reorient its economy towards domestic consumption and come to grips with the environmental and social fallout caused by years of helter-skelter industrialization.

That said, I do believe that America's growing loss of influence will, over the time and to a great extent, be China's gain.

According to Dilip Hiro, writing in an essay for TomDispatch.com entitled "Defying the Economic Odds," it appears that the Chinese themselves are cognizant of -- and keen to capitalize on -- this evolving reality.

The World Melts Down, China Grows

In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a new world order is emerging -- with its center gravitating towards China. The statistics speak for themselves. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts the world's gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by an alarming 1.3% this year. Yet, defying this global trend, China expects an annual economic growth rate of 6.5% to 8.5%. During the first quarter of 2009, the world's leading stock markets combined fell by 4.5%. In contrast, the Shanghai stock exchange index leapt by a whopping 38%. In March, car sales in China hit a record 1.1 million, surpassing the U.S. for the third month in a row.


Monday, May 04, 2009

More growth is the ticket......

Yea, right. Better get busy.

Give everybody a check, stand back, and pray.

How about quit worshiping "growth" and learn to live within our means?

Not good for the gangs who run our world don't you think?

 
Only 1 way out of big economic hole - MSN Money - Jubak's Journal

Check 'em off. President Obama's first 100 days: done.

Now get ready for the hard part: the next 1,000 or so days.

That's about how long the United States and the rest of the world have to turn the anemic economic growth that now seems likely into the kind of strong economic growth we need to pay down the huge pile of debt we've created in our efforts to stave off a global financial meltdown.

Without growth higher than is now projected, the burdens of this crisis will linger for a generation in the form of lower living standards and higher interest rates, taxes and inflation. And, unfortunately, the world's economic experts know even less about creating stronger growth -- without creating a bubble -- than they do about fixing a global credit crunch and a deep recession.
Projections don't look good
It's not that stopping the global financial crisis was easy.


Sunday, May 03, 2009

That will teach the little bastards......

Go to work with daddy and he tasers your little ass.

OK.
The War on Guns: We're the Only Ones Electrifying Your Kids Enough

A Florida corrections officer was fired after zapping children with 50,000 volts of electricity during a "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" tour. [More]

You can't make this stuff up. Where do they get these morons from? What kind of total meathead would think this is a good idea? And why do they have authority over others?

And if it's a kids at work day, doesn't that mean the idiot consenting parents are also "Only Ones"?


Saturday, May 02, 2009

Say it ain't so........

Now we're going to far. We need to conquer space so we have somewhere to go. Something for all these bureaucrats to do with our stolen money.

How are we supposed to pay all these bailout monies if we get rid of all these stupid ideas?

Well?

Next thing you know we'll have to lower spending and balance the budget. (Not!!)
Unexplained Mysteries :: NASA may abandon plans for Moon base

It is believed NASA may abandon its plans to build a base on the Moon and instead focus its efforts on manned missions to Mars or near-Earth asteroids. The agency is still thought to be sending humans back to the Moon by 2020.

"NASA will probably not build an outpost on the moon as originally planned, the agency's acting administrator, Chris Scolese, told lawmakers on Wednesday. His comments also hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid."


Friday, May 01, 2009

Why Not?......

We still haven't caught the perpetrator of man-made Anthrax from 2001.

This virus needs explanation because it is believed to consist of different strains mixed together. However, stranger things have happened in science.

After all, who want to harm us?

By the way, back in 1976 the swine flu epidemic killed one person.

 The government mandated vaccine killed 25.
Indonesia floats idea of man-made swine flu

As swine flu continues to take its toll, claims surface that the deadly four-part flu virus could have been created for "bio-terror attacks."

Speaking at a conference to reassure the public over hers government's response to the swine flu threat, Indonesian Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Tuesday that the controversial virus could have been man-made.

She declined to elaborate on her claim but she had previously accused Western governments of making and spreading viruses in the developing world to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits, AFP reported.

"I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility," Supari said.

Supari assured Indonesians that the deadly virus could not survive in tropical countries like Indonesia which was the worst hit country by the bird flu virus.