This is so common......

We have several customers who buy books and bring them in and exchange them for new. Another famous incident is people who buy camping gear from the store use it and return the stuff after the week end is over and I believe, some people go to another store  and do it again.

And let's not forget the broke dicks that need a suit and tie overnight, right?

What really hurts the bottom line is the buying refrigerated or frozen items  and eating some and bringing it back for replacement. Of course, even not opening the package means it goes into the dumpster at Wally World for fear of contamination.

The secret is that Walmart doesn't usually question this behavior as it believes alienating a single customer is bad for the bottom line. Also any purchase less than 50$ is usually refundable without receipt.

Another racket shop lifters have glommed onto for fun and profit

The Daily Bark » Returnaholics: A Trendy Danger to the Retail Industry?

n the wake of the recent recession, consumers have been behaving much more conservatively with their money, which has arguably been one of the few positive outcomes of these rough economic times. Recent years have seen several new shopping patterns, including cost-conscious comparison-shopping and a significant increase in coupon use. However, a new trend that’s currently on the rise begs the question of whether consumer conservatism has gone too far. Returnaholics, as they are called, are shoppers who are obsessed with buying and retuning items on a regular basis. This compulsive, and sometimes downright fraudulent, behavior is starting to cause harm and headaches to retailers both large and small. Today, we explore the reasons Returnaholics can’t seem to hang onto their purchases and look at the large effect that this small group of shoppers has on stores and, ultimately, the rest of us.

Is this the same President.....?

Who told people not to go to Vegas? 

And I thought the stimulus was over? Look at all the happy people on Wall Street.  Well thanks to the stimulus the stock market has gotten back where it was under Clinton?

Not after inflation is counted, of course. But who's counting. And let's not forget that we've only closed 90 more banks this year. Or thanks to the government it now takes a 740 FICO score to buy a shack still hideously over priced.

But how many broke dicks have any FICO score to speak off? Once you lose your job it's only a matter of time before the bills pile up and you get behind. Remember people didn't have a dime saved except what little they had in retirement invested in  Wall Street swindles.

Yes, this is the same President who doesn't have a clue because he got the job precisely because he doesnt have a clue.

Borrowing to prop up Ponzi schemes is nuts!

President Barack Obama on Stimulus Bill Success in Las Vegas - ABC News

Why is Obama still selling the stimulus 17 months after the money started flowing into the country? The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that 7 in 10 Americans think there has been no economic benefit from the $862 billion stimulus legislation, so the president is out to convince the majority of the American people that they're wrong.

On Thursday, President Obama swept into the heartland of America with a similar economic message. In Kansas City, Missouri, he visited an electric truck plant that was the beneficiary of a $32 million stimulus grant. Recently, the company hired its 50th employee and expects to hire 50 more.

We can't have it both ways.......

All these houses have to be sold and taken off the bank's books. Actually, one way or the other, they will be.  Until then your house won't be worth much because these houses will destroy the banks  book value and cause them to fail keeping houses at pennies on the dollar at auction.

The Fed and Treasury have done about all they can do to stop the fall by buying inventory, giving money away and encouraging tax gimmicks. in due time prices recover or stop dropping like a rock  and these house get sold and then new houses get built.

At least that's the plan.

The alternative is to close the banks and auction off everything at pennies on the dollar and get it over with. This would have meant that the bust would have lasted about half the time it has as all previous busts have.

It's amazing what all that money contributed to the politicians will do. Let's not call it bribe money in public just expect it to double and triple in the future.

Hey, do you think maybe Al queda can scrape up a few bucks and get amnesty?

40 percent of Florida homes sales are foreclosures - Business Breaking News - MiamiHerald.com

Sales of foreclosed homes in Florida made up nearly 40 percent of all purchases in the first part of this year, a ``terrifying'' statistic, one analyst said, and one that led to deeply discounted prices on distressed properties.

In Miami-Dade County, foreclosure sales made up nearly half -- 47 percent -- of all homes sales in the first five months of 2010, according to a new report from Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, which aims to measure foreclosure sales and their impact on home pricing. In Broward County, 46 percent of all homes sales involved distressed properties.

To compare, less than 1 percent of Florida home sales in 2005 were of foreclosed properties, RealtyTrac found.

The report, released Wednesday, defines foreclosure sales as those of homes that are bank owned or where the owners have defaulted on the mortgage and received at least one foreclosure notice.

``Forty percent is a significant number,'' said Michael Sichenzia, president of Dynamic Consulting Enterprises in Deerfield Beach.

Jobs? Send them back....

Not exactly rocket science. Send 18$ an hour jobs over seas and give everyone a job in Walmart at half that. Works every time destroying the middle class. At least these guys didn't murder us like the commies did back in the twenties in Russia.

They just bankrupted us!!!


7 Systemic Problems that are Killing America | Business Pundit

In 1979, manufacturing comprised 21% of the economy. In 2008, that number was 11.5%. One in six factory jobs disappeared between 2000-2007. When a factory goes away, it takes its supply chain, R&D, and other supporting companies with it. Richard McCormack writes that “one manufacturing job supports 15 other jobs. No other category of job has such a high multiplier.”

By outsourcing much of our manufacturing, we ended up relying on services to support the economy. It’s a precarious situation, especially since services are outsourceable, too. One Princeton economist says 40 million jobs could be shipped out in the next 10-20 years, including 1 out of 3 service jobs.

What have gained by transferring our manufacturing (and, by association, knowledge and wealth) to other countries? A massive trade deficit with 90 countries, for one. Consumers and companies don’t have a choice of where to buy products. They’re made abroad by default. If they were made here, they’d be prohibitively expensive, thanks to stringent regulatory requirements that the US doesn’t apply to goods produced elsewhere. It’s no wonder we’re a country that consumes more than it produces.

We have a trade imbalance of $232.5 billion with China alone. China produces most of the goods that American consumers buy. American companies offshore there because China is cheap and doesn’t have expensive regulations. Moreover, China owns an estimated $1 trillion in US Treasuries. Yet the US only makes up about 12% of China’s trading. If China drops the ball, we flounder. We’re forced to politically tap dance with China in order to maintain economic stability.

Buy food......

Pay off old debts. Be ready for bargains after the next bust.

It's inevitable!!!


Activist Post: USDA Reports Food Shortages: Wall Street 'Caught Off Guard' by Severity

We are back to recession economics and rapidly heading toward a deeper, longer “Third Depression.” With all recent economic indicators setting new record lows and deficits at record highs, this ship is only going one way folks, down, down to Chinatown. This WTC-Building 7-style-controlled-demolition of the U.S. economy has long been engineered by the borderless banksters and will likely continue to collapse at the rate of free-fall gravity. With all of the manufactured confusion it may be difficult to know where best to invest your limited assets, but it seems to be clear that Food is on the march.

Depressions are caused when capital is removed from the economy and that large sucking sound you hear is your money being vacuumed out of your pockets into the banksters' coffers. The shakedown went like this: they bet big, got fat, then lost thousands of times more than everything real on earth combined, then representatives of the serfs gave them all of the serfs’ money they need (including bonuses) to re-stimulate the economy.

Corruption?.....

No. Just the new Washington that Oba mama has brought us. Next thing you know we'll have Republicans in charge and, boy, will things change!

Not!!!!!

Postal boss was not sent packing - Washington Times

The former $232,500-per-year president of shipping and mailing for the U.S. Postal Service regularly worked on outside corporate business while in the office, even enlisting his postal staff to schedule meetings and arrange for his private travel, postal investigators have found.

Robert Bernstock also helped steer millions of dollars in no-bid postal contracts to former business associates he knew from his days as a top executive at companies such as pickle producer Vlasic Foods and lawn care giant Scotts Miracle-Gro, according to a new report by the office of inspector general for the U.S. Postal Service and contract records.

Did I tell you we can't make this shit up?....

Honest. The dumb bitch actually orgasmed or something. I actually seen it on TV.

What's really weired is somebody actually voted for this nut job.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi | News Room | Press Releases

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President’s economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation—innovation begins in the classroom—clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform. Health insurance reform is about jobs. This legislation alone will create 4 million jobs, about 400,000 jobs very soon.

Beats working....

Wouldn't be cheaper just to cut every welfare recipient a check directly from the IRS and do away with the bureaucrats. Of course, but that wouldn't buy very many votes.

We have and need "poor people" to support the corrupt bureaucrats who support the corrupt politicians who support the corrupt system that we pay for.

It never ceases to amaze me that anyone doubts how our system works. The key is to figure a way to get in on it.

While it last of course.


RECTOR/DONOVAN: Confronting the unsustainable welfare state - Washington Times

The Washington Times Online Edition

Sean Lengell
quoteRepublicans pressed Kagan on many thorny legal questions and social issues.quote

Sean Lengell

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RECTOR/DONOVAN: Confronting the unsustainable welfare state

By Robert Rector and Charles A. Donovan

9:38 p.m., Wednesday, June 30, 2010

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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Fourteen years ago, an energized Republican Congress voted to reform a vital part of the nation's fast-growing welfare system. President Clinton signed the bill into law, promising that the measure would "end welfare as we know it."

But what began as a promising era of reform has completely collapsed. Government welfare spending is climbing rapidly, and at an unsustainable rate.

The Obama administration projects that over the next 10 years the United States, at all levels of government, will spend more than $10 trillion on means-tested welfare programs for the poor. And we're off to a galloping start.

President Obama's budget for next fiscal year would increase spending on these programs by 42 percent compared with President Bush's last complete budget.

You can't make this shit up.....

Well, I could. But there are people who would put money on it. (hey they give money to preachers, for Christ's sake. )


Unexplained Mysteries - Aquarium owners predict football results with octopus

In a peculiar story this week Paul the "psychic octopus" has allegedly been credited with predicting football results.

A "psychic" octopus is said by its aquarium owners to have predicted the country's football team will knock England out of the World Cup.

The two-year-old cephalopod has a record of predicting past German results in this manner, his owners say. Paul has so far correctly predicted all of Germany's results in South Africa.

Did I mention" double dip?".....

Maybe there was never a recovery at all. Our store sales have collapsed again. Down 4% from last year. A year that was atrocious at best.

Patti and I had our hours cut by 7 next week.  Hope that's all.

Hussman: A Double Dip Recession is Coming | Credit Writedowns

The following is an excerpt of the Weekly Market Commentary By John Hussman.

Based on evidence that has always and only been observed during or immediately prior to U.S. recessions, the U.S. economy appears headed into a second leg of an unusually challenging downturn.

A few weeks ago, I noted that our recession warning composite was on the brink of a signal that has always and only occurred during or immediately prior to U.S. recessions, the last signal being the warning I reported in the November 12, 2007 weekly comment Expecting A Recession. While the set of criteria I noted then would still require a decline in the ISM Purchasing Managers Index to 54 or less to complete a recession warning, what prompts my immediate concern is that the growth rate of the ECRI Weekly Leading Index has now declined to -6.9%. The WLI growth rate has historically demonstrated a strong correlation with the ISM Purchasing Managers Index, with the correlation being highest at a lead time of 13 weeks.

Nuke them!!!.....

Why fuck around. They wear towels on their heads for God's sake. Yea, fuck them up good. Teach them a lesson for getting between us and all their oil. Next thing you know one of them will get elected president, then what? (lol)


“Christian Cal’s” Solution for Afghanistan: More War « LewRockwell.com Blog

Cal Thomas, who backed Bush’s wars to the hilt, says that “victory” can be achieved “… if the U.S. prevails in Afghanistan by establishing a sustainable democratic government that is relatively free of corruption (a herculean task) and can be converted from an opium-based economy to one that can take advantage of its enormous mineral resources.

“To win in Afghanistan, and make such things possible, our ‘rules of engagement’ must change. American casualties have increased because of self-imposed restraints when encountering Taliban who hide behind civilians. You can’t win a war by hesitating when the enemy is at a disadvantage. To paraphrase a familiar admonition: Grab them by their throats and their hearts and minds will follow.”

So with Cal’s Christian blessing, more violent and corrupt nation-building will never quite erase Afghanistan’s culture of corruption — which means that the occupation will last forever . Brazenly killing more civilians will not bring peace, but unfathomable horror, which the Moslem victims will now recognize (on Cal’s authority) as a Christian tactic. Expropriating Afghanistan’s natural resources through billion-dollar deals with corruptos like Karzai is theft, but apparently OK because the empire’s Mother Country will profit. God Bless the USA!!!

Callous Cal’s version of the Gospel reads like it was written in Big Brother’s Ministry of Truth.

Too much pussy?.....

It would appear that the  South Dakota Supreme Court has nothing better to do?
 I guess the cops will just have to stop every car at the border and make sure you don't have more than your quota.

South Dakota claw enforcement nabs 15 cats - Washington Times

How many cats is a person legally allowed to let roam the inside of his or her car while they travel the country?

The South Dakota Supreme Court weighed in on that very issue last week, setting the bar somewhere below 15.

The state's highest court ruled — in a case titled State of South Dakota v. Fifteen Impounded Cats — that a police officer acted correctly in August when he seized the aforementioned 15 felines from a vehicle belonging to Patricia Edwards.

Miss Edward

Houseing recollapse unexpected?....

Tell me again why anyone pays attention to these guys. The "experts", picked out by the media, I guess, haven't a clue. Just what is so hard to understand that we are broke and need a breather to pay off debts. Unemployed broke dicks can barely buy food let alone buy houses.  This is not going away.

Expect more bailouts as the Dems get their asses kicked in the polls. Soon enough Repubs will join them as their money bags on Wall Street get nowhere as the economy goes flat. This will be the pattern as the government has to prop up consumer spending or face being booted down the road.

But the next boom is coming. A trillion here and a trillion there eventually hits home and the average guy finally joins the party because they can't save jack shit and need handouts to buy Chinese trinkets here at Walmart and buy food at Micky D's. Whether we survive the boom remains to be seen. No other Empire has done it.

I wouldn't want to be living in Ayatollah country over the next ten years or so. They' have a targets printed in capital letters spelled OIL found here.


Existing Home Sales Fall Unexpectedly in May - CNBC

Sales of previously owned homes fell unexpectedly in May as delays in processing mortgage applications hampered the closing of contracts benefiting from a popular homebuyer tax credit, an industry group said on Tuesday.

AP

The National Association of Realtors said sales fell 2.2 percent month over month to an annual rate of 5.66 million units from an upwardly revised 5.79 million-unit pace in April.

Analysts polled by Reuters expected May sales to rise 5.5 percent to a 6.12 million-unit pace from the previously reported 5.77 million units in April. Sales were up 19.2 percent compared to May last year.

I'm shocked!....Shocked! Washington scum knew about the Gulf problem......

Nah! Told you so would be more like it. Hard to be surprised that anything that happens in Washington is being done for the honest working stiff. But we must not worry Oba mama will get "reelected". Of course, hardly anbody not on the take would ever vote again. That leaves gangsters, corporate welfare assholes, misguided minorities, baby killers, airhead Hollywood has beens and bimbos, assorted nut jobs on the political left, and God knows what else will crawl out of the ooze to reap the benefits of sleaze that is occuring right under their silly noses.

As I've been posting right along, the Empire reeks and will die a slow death as these greedy bastards willy nilly murder more and more little brown people who wear towels on their heads because we can't drill our own vast reserves of oil. Then again, maybe the nuke goes off about Christmas 2012 and puts an end to it.

Maybe not.


The Coming Depression: Enormous Fraud: Government Knew Oil Was Gushing In February?

It seems incomprehensible that the president and other members of the administration still have jobs when it is now being reported that the federal government was apprised by BP on February 13 that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was leaking oil and natural gas into the ocean floor.
In fact, according to documents in the administration's possession, BP was fighting large cracks at the base of the well for roughly ten days in early February.
Further it seems the administration was also informed about this development, six weeks before to the rig's fatal explosion when an engineer from the University of California, Berkeley, announced to the world a near miss of an explosion on the rig by stating, "They damn near blew up the rig."

Hmmm....
Now let's see.... there was no public dissemination of this information, was there? Well, no.
And yet we know that:

According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman’s sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP’s stock during the quarter.

Really.....
We also know that:

Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.

The latter article also says:

Whine... Walmart mean.....

Walmart destroys communities, marriages, the environment, the planet, fucks up small town America, wipes out mom and pop rip off joints, etc etc. The one thing it it does that no one mentions is pump billions into the local communities in taxes and wages.

But who's counting!

Pajamas Media » Do the Benefits of Wal-Mart Outweigh Its Drawbacks?

There are a lot of mom and pop retailers out there, across America, and some that are a bit bigger than that. Local or regional chains give little towns and big cities some of their local charm. I feel bad when I see these operations fail to adapt to the arrival of the Wal-Mart gorilla. And this is true not just in the Wal-Mart market sector, but in many others as well. Traditional hardware stores that survive the arrival of Home Depot or Lowe’s do so because they are providing either levels of service or inventory that the big-box home improvement stores don’t. If I need black oxide button head 8-32 1.25” long machine screws on a Saturday, I go to the Ace Hardware store in Eagle, Idaho, because they have it. Home Depot doesn’t.

Still, for all the tears over the loss of some traditions of American retailing, it’s important to remember that Wal-Mart’s efficiency and ruthless paring of costs to the bone benefits consumers — even consumers who aren’t shopping at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart’s prescription program provides an astonishing number of the most commonly prescribed drugs for $4. That’s less than the health insurance copayment for many of these drugs at traditional pharmacies.

What's all the bitching about offshore oil?........

It's not like we have a choice. Drill or starve, baby! Let's not forget that every politician for the last 40 years have pontificated on getting us off "foreign oil". They all had great ideas, except find it here, of course.

When I was a newly wed the country allowed BP and several other oil companies  to drill the Alaskan north slope and for 35 years or so it worked pretty good.  But the religious fanatics in the environmental movement worked their voodoo on Congress and sold us down the river trying to get everyone setting up windmills in their back yard. (Except for the environmentalist  backyards, of course.)

But not to worry the next president will get us off foreign oil, even if he has to invade Iran. Or something. It seems to me, though that we keep getting congenital liars elected.

Just check out the last 8 presidents we've had. Oh yeah, maybe we need to buy a better class of gangsters is all. The ones we keep getting are a little long on the tooth. Have you noticed we keep getting the same old shit from these guys and somebody keeps voting for them but no one will admit it.

Hell even the welfare queens who get fee money won't vote for these clowns. Makes you wonder about our system. doesn't it.

BP get's the shaft......

They paid Oba mama millions in contributions and still have to cough up $20 billion.

Out of hundreds of billions in clean up cost who says crime doesn't pay, right?


The Coming Depression: Estimated Cost For Gulf Cleanup is Over 1 Trillion Dollars. BP to Give 20 Billion For Claims

The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a corporate crime whose magnitude almost defies comprehension. The eventual cost—combining damage to complex Gulf and coastal ecosystems, wiping out of the fishing and tourism industries, and long-term health consequences for the population of the region—is likely to total over $1 trillion.
The explosion that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killed 11 workers and began the massive and continuing flow of oil was not an “accident,” but the product of willful corporate cost-cutting and negligence. Further evidence of this fact was provided Monday in documents released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. One document was an email from a BP engineer, Brian Morel, on April 14, six days before the explosion, in which he described the rig as a “nightmare well which has everyone all over the place.”

One of the great mysterys in life.....

How we came into existence. No conclusive proof so far that convinces me that we are here by accident or evolution. Or for that matter,  that some GOD waved a magic wand. Read the following and ask yourself..... How do genes get conveniently "fused."


Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History

Creationists often say that species cannot be evolved from each other because chromosome numbers are different. Humans, for example, have 46 chromosomes, while chimpanzees have 48. But the human chromosome 2 is the result of what is called a Robertsonian fusion – the ancestral ape chromosomes 2p and 2q appear to have fused at their ends (telomeres) to form the human chromosome 2 (Williams, not dated), and other species that have large chromosomal differences can still interbreed (Nevo et al. 1994). DNA aligns according to local sequence rather than large-scale chromosome structure, and this is why inversions and translocation in parts of the sequence still allow interbreeding.

There appears to be no single amount of genetic variation common between closely related species that prevents interbreeding. In some, only a few are sufficient. In others, much variation, such as the large chromosomal difference in Nevo's mole rats, fails to prevent interbreeding. Introgression, or the leakage of genes across species boundaries, has been observed in lizards, plants, birds, and fish.

There's good in everyone.......

LOL


» How Obama Reduced Crime Rates Last Year - Big Government

While gun sales started notably rising in October 2008, sales really soared immediately after Mr. Obama won the presidential race. 450,000 more people bought guns in November 2008 than bought them in November 2007, that’s over a 40 percent increase in sales. By comparison, the change from November 2006 to November 2007 was only about 35,000. Over the last decade, the average year-to-year increase in monthly sales was only 21,000.

The increase in sales continued well beyond November 2008. From November 2008 to October 2009, almost 2.5 million more people bought guns in the 12 months after the election than in the preceding 12 months. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, doesn’t tell us how many guns each person bought just the number of people who bought them. Most likely though, gun sales rose by more than the number of people who purchased them.

At the same time gun sales were soaring, there was an unusually large drop in murder rates. The 7.4 percent drop in the murder rate was the largest drop in murder rates since the 1999. For those who don’t remember, 1999, when President Bill Clinton and Columbine occurred, was another time when gun sales soared. With people such as Elena Kagan serving as Mr. Clinton’s deputy domestic policy adviser were pushing hard for more gun control, Americans were worried that more gun bans were coming. And in response gun sales soared.

Just as higher arrest and conviction rates, longer prison sentences, or the more frequent use of the death penalty reduce crime, so does letting victims defend themselves with guns. More certain or greater penalties make it more risky for criminals to commit crime. Victims who can defend themselves can also make committing crime more dangerous and deter criminals.

Americans living in the District of Columbia and Chicago have seen this phenomenon themselves. After the ban went into effect in both cities, murder rates rose dramatically. After the Supreme Court threw out DC’s ban and gunlock laws in 2008, the District’s murder rates plunged by 25 percent in 2009. Indeed, my research in the just released third edition of More Guns, Less Crime shows that every place in the world that we have crime data for has seen murder rates climb when guns were banned.

If Mr. Obama really understood that letting law-abiding citizens defend themselves reduces crime, it is unlikely that gun sales would have had to increase. Yet, if the Supreme Court strikes down the Chicago gun ban this month, Americans may get to see yet again that more guns mean less crime.

Not a snowballs chance .....

We'll kill this subsidy to the rich when Oba mama becomes born again.  Even the Dems aren't this stupid. This handout is for the real estate industry and the rich who pay for such a large piece of the political  campaigns.

Remember you have to have over 11 grand of interest on your house payment yearly  to qualify for this gimmick and  have a house mortgage of somewhere around   $160000 at today's interest rate.

This usually is around the price level for most starter homes in most of America and effects 20 million voters or so.  So changing it is so much hot air. None of these clowns in Washington are that brave.

Trust me!

However, any attempt to means test the measure  because the wealthy  have billions in interest deductions on their mansions is doomed to failure .  After all  the politicians would have to take a hit in their own taxes and then try to explain to the sheep back home why they raised taxes during a depression.

Not going to happen.

A better bet is more gimmicks, handouts, credit extension games, bailouts, bitching about consumers saving too much  and especially whining about rich people ripping the government off.

There's probably a lesson there somewhere.


White House Continues Press For Elimination of Mortgage Interest Deduction

To my real estate friends; agents, brokers, homeowners, et al., this is a serious threat to an industry that is just now trying to get it’s feet underneath it.

The White House and Congress see the 100 billion dollars a year that goes to homeowners and want to spend it on their own projects. They have realized they are spending way to much money and the deficits are growing out of control.

How out of control? Let’s talk nearly 20 trillion dollars in debt by 2015.

Now they are not going to stop spending. Spending means power in Washington, so instead they are doubling down. Taxes are going up, tax breaks are being removed, and every possible revenue source is being examined.

This includes the Mortgage Interest Deduction for Homeowners.

We need to keep an eye on Congress and the White House. They know they are in trouble and could lose control of the process by January. If this is the case, they may push through a host of changes to our tax code in the coming months.

The popular tax break for mortgage interest, once considered untouchable, is falling under the scrutiny of policymakers and economic experts seeking ways to close huge deficits.

Although Congress last year rejected the White House’s proposed cut to the amount wealthier taxpayers can deduct for home mortgage interest payments, the administration included it again in its 2010 budget — saying it could save $208 billion over the next decade.

And now that sentiment has turned against all the federal red ink — and cost-cutting is in vogue — Democrats on President Barack Obama’s financial commission are considering the wisdom of permanent tax breaks such as the mortgage deduction and corporate deferral. Calling them “tax entitlements,” senior Democratic lawmakers have argued they should be on the table for reform just like traditional entitlement programs Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. … via The Hill

We have oil coming out of our asses....

Oil producers scam us in to believing oil is scarce. They have been saying this for over a hundred years. Whether it's DDT which wiped out malaria for awhile, Alar on fruit wiping out poor farmers in Chile, Global warming bullshit, oil gushers wiping out sand fleas on the beaches, little girls with nit wit parents getting lost on sailboats etc. the established order marches on.

Pretty soon, (20012 maybe?)  since Iran insists on obliterating Israel, the world will get a break from this shit and the pelicans, polar bears, honey bees, seals, and all the rest of the DOOMED critters the media makes money bitching about make a wondrous comeback.

But oil spills go away, the planet warms or cools, mysterious chemicals kill people we've never heard of, and animals disappear no matter how much we listen to the purveyors of truth like all the  non stop scare mongering as soon as we quit buying it!

Did I tell you people watch too much TV! No wonder they believe this as gospel. TV makes millions scarying  the fuck out of people and  theses morons educated by the government fall for it every time. Hell they think Oba mama is qualified, because he's black, for President! That should clinch the argument. 

You can't believe a word these guys tell you!


"Gulf Oil Spill ‘Could Go Years’ If Not Dealt With" by F. William Engdahl. FSO Editorial 06/10/2010

According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.”3 Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

As I wrote at the time of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster,3 Haiti had been identified as having potentially huge hydrocasrbon reserves, as has neighboring Cuba. Kutcherov estimates that the entire Gulf of Mexico is one of the planet’s most abundant accessible locations to extract oil and gas, at least before the Deepwater Horizon event this April.

You don't think the government is lying, do you?......

Nah! 

They claim the depression is over. (Just don't call it a depression.) Of course the numbers tell us something different.  The economy isn't creating jobs, real jobs that is, in most areas of the country. Here in Northern Idaho Canadians and a few summer visitors have showed up and Walmart in store sales are up  3% more than last spring.

But last Spring was horrendous! Anything looks better than last year. But it remains to be seen, if housing doesn't improve without government gimmicks and handouts, if the local lumber industry ever recovers.

But thanks to free trade and  environmental regulations here, Canada stands to produce plenty of wood products for our market and the local companies will not get much of a chance to get back into the game.

Therefor, the clowns in Washington should behappy as they hate lumber and mining. Just like they couldn't wait to close down the oil industry they have been have been eviscerating the timber industry.  You wonder if they get their way on destroying our economy if anyone will have any reason to create any jobs at all.

Or is that the idea? Take us back to windmills and bicycles and everyone lives happily ever after living on peace and love. I guess we'll see.


Social Security Payouts Are Already Crippling The Government This Year

I am stunned by the continued drop in FICA/SECA tax receipts. There are many metrics on the overall economy that have shown YoY improvement. The SS revenue numbers are telling us something different. They measure the incomes of 160 million workers. This is the broadest definition of employment we have. My read on the numbers is that we have very fundamental weakness in employment. The problem is bigger than the headline numbers from the BLS suggest.

-The payroll tax revenues versus the benefits paid number lines have crossed. Some, including the CBO, see this as a temporary phenomenon. I disagree. For there to be a return to a positive result of (payroll tax revenue – benefits) the economy would have to grow on a sustained basis at 5% and inflation would have to remain near zero. Those conditions are unlikely to be met.

-The estimated $50 billion of negative cash flow to be realized in the second half of the year is just more money that Treasury has to borrow. It does not, by itself, increase our total indebtedness. It is a shift between the Intergovernmental and Debt to Public accounts. Does an extra 50 Bil matter when the total the public holds is already 8.6 Tril? No, not really. Not as of today at least. But when the tables turn and the markets focus on the US bond/bill calendar it will make a difference.

-All heavily indebted borrowers, whether they be individuals, corporations or sovereigns are highly dependent on cash flow to service debt. When cash flow goes negative individuals and corporations go bankrupt. Most sovereigns do too. The US is in the enviable position of being able to ignore cash flow. We can simply print our way out of this problem. At least some people think we can.

-SS is $2.5T of the $4.5T Intergovernmental account. I believe that this entire group is going cash flow negative. The IG account cost us ~$160 billion in interest last year, but some out there are pretending the IG account does not exist. An example of this is in the following link.

Jesse Jackson wants a boycott on BP oil.....

I wish I had a BP station around here so I could fill up everytime I drove by. Jackson is a nut who needs to be in prison because he's corrupt and I'm sure he'll be at the BP headquarters and getting some extortion money as that's what he does.

After all he represents all those big spending "welfare queens" and pathetic liberals who never had real jobs.

Oh yea, you think Oba ama will give back BP's Money?

Nah!!

What's $260 million matter....

When you're bankrupt. Yes, LA  is inhabited by the insane. How else would you explain these nut jobs blowing this kind of money on Yuppie nuttiness.


Mayors Beat World Leaders Promoting Cycle Paths (Update1) - Bloomberg.com

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Los Angeles: city of freeways, smog, and -- bike lanes?

That’s where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants to take his town. In one of the less likely transformations in the global effort to cut carbon output, Los Angeles plans to spend $230 million on 1,700 miles of bicycle paths, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its June 7 issue.

Most of the program will be completed by 2015, and includes changing rooms, showers, and bike storage areas operated by the city and private partners, the city’s Web site says. It comes on top of subsidies for installing solar panels and incentives for planting trees and switching to electric vehicles.

“We have to make a change,” says Michelle Mowery, senior coordinator for the city’s bike program. “We can’t fit any more cars in.”

From the freeways of Los Angeles to the canals of Amsterdam, cities are taking the lead in the fight to reduce carbon-dioxide

Bonus came in.....

$266 a piece. Sales better than last year but last year was horrendous. Hopefully it will continue so my Walmart stock will recover.

For now I'm skeptical.

Patti and I celebrated 40 years yesterday. Took a boat trip. Now I'm shopping for a cabin cruiser. LOL

What happened to crash the Derivitives?......

Gas prices went nuts, remember? People couldn't afford any extra expenses because they were in debt up to their eyeballs. Then when their mortgages increased through their contractual interest rate adjustment something had to give. Most of these just people quit paying. Therefore, it wasn't long before no one was buying house, cars, furniture, stocks, bonds etc. and began paying off their debts.

A slowing of spending and the whole rotten shit house came down. But with any luck we'll re-inflate and within 5 or 10 years when the "boomers" retire the next bust will make this one seem pretty tame.

If we make it that far, of course.  (lol)


Forget About Housing, The The Real Cause Of The Crisis Was OTC Derivatives

Officially, roughly $604.6 trillion in OTC derivative contracts, more than ten times world GDP ($57.53 trillion), hang over the financial world like the sword of Damocles, but to the average investor the derivatives bubble is invisible. From the perspective of those outside the bubble, the explosion of OTC derivatives is a mania.

The inherent lack of transparency in OTC markets impairs price discovery and obviates the efficient markets hypothesis, i.e., that financial instruments are almost always priced correctly, thus OTC derivatives and the risks associated with them may be priced incorrectly, as in the case of American International Group’s CDS contract premiums.

No rot here.....

Just criminal behavior as usual. Won't change so why report it?

By the way, do you think anybody gives a shit if Oba mama tours the Gulf Coast?


Report: More than 1,400 former lawmakers, Hill staffers are financial lobbyists

Even for Washington, the revolving door between government and Wall Street spins at a dizzying pace. More than 1,400 former members of Congress, Capitol Hill staffers or federal employees registered as lobbyists on behalf of the financial services sector since the start of 2009, according to an exhaustive new study issued Thursday.

The analysis by two nonpartisan groups, Public Citizen and the Center for Responsive Politics, found that the "small army" of financial lobbyists included at least 73 former lawmakers and 148 ex-staffers connected to the House or Senate banking committees. More than 40 former Treasury Department employees also ply their trade as lobbyists for Wall Street firms, the study found.

Our sales up.....

Last quarter WallyWorld sales up a couple of percent and we got a 40$ in store bonus. This quarter we're up 5 or 6 % and we are getting over $200. Sales have been ok but not great, but compared to last year, we seem to be pretty busy.  I think the local economy is still weak as we are so dependent on logging which sucks thanks to poor new housing starts. Be awhile before the banks and government can clear out all those millions of foreclosures that still have to be dealt with and then people can buy the more expensive new houses.

Meanwhile, my neighbors sold their mobile home for $35000 in less than a week putting it up for sale. Private sale no Realtor. I paid $210000  for mine which is at least comparable so I may sell and find another even though I like no payments on it. Or I might put it on a lot here in town and refinance the equity in a year or two then sell and buy another fixer.

That is if the economy finally booms which I still believe is coming. Always does after a crash as the government cranks up the presses  and can't slow the money supply in time.

Main thing is how long will oil prices stay this low. The last boom, remember, came to a screeching halt when oil hit $140 a barrel. After all said and done, broke dicks can't afford their debts, toys, vacations, pensions, health care, houses, etc. without driving to work every day.

Of course, Bush wont be there for Oba mama to blame so, we'll just have to go back to blaming foreigners I guess. After all, it's always been good politics to kill our enemies and make a buck.

This guy has it right.....

The economy is now on life support from government stimulus. We have to remember that stimulus 1 from last year pumps a lot of money into construction for early 2011 to save Oba mama.  The economy is slowing again as Fed funds are pulled in fear of a political backlash from fear of deficits killing careers in Washington.

Remains to be seen but I expect a second dip without another massive cash input from the Fed before then.

If not,  next time it will be the Republicans turn because I don't think the Dem's are going to be in charge much longer.  Of course Oba mama runs for reelection against another nobody in about 18 months and it will probably be business as usual.

Expect a lot of bullshit about deficits, not killing enough Moslems and especially we need more windmills to drive our SUVs.  Just pray these morons don't close down the rest of the oil industry in America because we have proven again that we do a lousy job at civilizing brown people who fight with sticks and rocks.



International Forecaster June 2010 (#1) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More

We believe an inflationary depression began in February of 2009, and little has changed. Since then factory output has increased, as have inventories and other outward signs, such as retail sales. We believe that one-year spurt is ending, unless a new stimulus program is put in place. This past week we saw a $78 billion addition to unemployment benefits and Larry Summers has said they need an additional $200 billion. In order to keep the economy going sideways a total of another $800 billion will be needed. The Fed may have cut back the creation of money and credit to zero, but it is still dishing out trillions to domestic and foreign banks, which can only affect the domestic economy in a residual way. The key is real personal income. Including government programs it has fallen $500 billion over the past 16 months. In addition real unemployment remains at a high of 22-3/8%. That is U-6 less the birth/death ratio. This terrible dilemma is a first and is surprising in as much as government addition to income has gone past 18% for the first time ever. We expect that part of the reason for both situations is the perpetual drag of free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing, which has continued unabated.

May we at least send the gay guys?.......

They at least have more balls than the losers in the Congress.

Hell, my old lady has more balls than the assholes in Congress.

Senate says no to 6,000 border troops - Washington Times

Senate Democrats managed Thursday to block deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, but the proposal still garnered a majority of senators, showing widespread support for a border-security-first strategy and underscoring why President Obama is having difficulty trying to win an immigration-legalization bill.

The vote flustered Democrats, who seemed uncertain how to handle the proposal and were reluctant to defy Mr. Obama, who just this week proposed that a much smaller 1,200-troop force be deployed.

I made this case a long time ago......

Deficit spending has always worked. Giving away our middle class jobs doesn't. Most people believe the opposite.

History has shown us that the government can borrow as long as they can find people to lend them the money. We've been doing it since at least the last "Great Depression". But giving our industry away to foreign entities, called free trade, so the foreigners can lend us money is a recipe for disaster. You end up spending the borrowed money on the broke dicks you have just created. This in turn leads to more government. Soon you can't fart without permission.

Of course, the people  doing it make out like bandits. Eventually you runout of foreigners, then what?

In Defense of Deficits | The Nation

To put things crudely, there are two ways to get the increase in total spending that we call "economic growth." One way is for government to spend. The other is for banks to lend. Leaving aside short-term adjustments like increased net exports or financial innovation, that's basically all there is. Governments and banks are the two entities with the power to create something from nothing. If total spending power is to grow, one or the other of these two great financial motors--public deficits or private loans--has to be in action.

For ordinary people, public budget deficits, despite their bad reputation, are much better than private loans. Deficits put money in private pockets. Private households get more cash. They own that cash free and clear, and they can spend it as they like. If they wish, they can also convert it into interest-earning government bonds or they can repay their debts. This is called an increase in "net financial wealth." Ordinary people benefit, but there is nothing in it for banks.

Looks like a good spot to look......

Shouldn't be to hard to sort them out and send them home. Probably cause a burrito shortage but what the Hell we'll survive.


Thousands protest controversial Ariz. immigration law - Washington Times

PHOENIX (AP) — Thousands of people from around the country marched to the Arizona state Capitol on Saturday to protest the state's tough new crackdown on illegal immigration.

Marchers carrying signs, banners and flags from the United States and Mexico filled a five-mile stretch of central Phoenix. Dozens of police officers lined the route, and helicopters hovered overhead.

Police declined to estimate the size of the crowd, but it appeared at least 10,000 to 20,000 protesters braved temperatures that were forecast to reach 95 degrees by mid-afternoon. Organizers had said they expected the demonstration to bring as many as 50,000 people.

Bush's fault.......

Read the last paragraph. By the way. how many thousands of jobs and billions in taxes has this "progressive"idiot cost the government with this moratorium? Well, at least these states will continue to be Republican for ever.

P.s notice not one single bureaucrat will lose their job.

Daily Digest - Daily Digest - May 27 - May. 27, 2010 - Blogs at Chris Martenson - Daily Digest, Economy

President Obama, who planned to visit the gulf on Friday, ordered a suspension of virtually all current and new offshore oil drilling activity pending a comprehensive safety review, acknowledging that oversight until now had been seriously deficient.

His action halted planned exploratory wells in the Arctic due to be drilled this summer and planned lease sales off the coast of Virginia and in the Gulf of Mexico. It also halts work on 33 exploratory wells now being drilled in the gulf.

Mr. Obama said at a news conference in Washington that he was angry and frustrated about the catastrophe, and he shouldered much of the responsibility for the continuing crisis.

“Those who think we were either slow on the response or lacked urgency, don’t know the facts,” Mr. Obama said. “This has been our highest priority.”

But he also blamed BP, which owns the stricken well, and the Bush administration, which he said had fostered a “cozy and sometimes corrupt” relationship between oil companies and regulators at the Minerals Management Service.

Now I can sleep better at night......

Kind of makes you glad you don't live in Vegas, doesn't it? What will they do without these silly diversions from the disaster that big government is.

Might better ban the candidates, heh heh. At least that would be something positive.

Ban on chicken suits at polls still stands - News - ReviewJournal.com

Protesters of a statewide ban to keep people dressed as chickens from coming closer than 100 feet to polling places are crying "fowl."

It seems Secretary of State Ross Miller's ban did not stop some peeps from flocking to vote Wednesday.



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"Anyone else tired of chickens?" Miller tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

Clad in a bright yellow chicken suit, Michael Ginsburg voted at the Rainbow Library despite the ban, claiming the debate has transformed into a free speech issue rather than a jab at any one particular candidate.

"The concern is they could ban something else," said Ginsburg, an at-large board member for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. "I understand the chicken outfit has become synonymous with a certain campaign, which we weren't actually discussing or out in opposition to. This really just interferes with someone's First Amendment rights."

OK. It's not a black joke.......

Thanks to icanhasacheezburger.com .

The fix has been reconfirmed.....

Corporations love government regulations. It kills competition dead leaving a multitrillion dollar market with only a hand full of players.

At least the politicians won't have to worry about their cut not coming on time. They'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

US Senate Rubber-Stamps the Dictatorship of the Big Banks

The Wall Street Journal reported the rise in prices under the headline, “Financial Stocks Turn Higher After Senate Passes Reform Bill.” CNNMoney.com titled its story, “Bank stocks rally on heels of Wall Street reform,” noting that “major banks reacted positively to the reform’s passage, and shares climbed in afternoon trading.”



There is a striking and politically illuminating contrast between the market reaction and the populist phrases mouthed by Democratic politicians in Washington. Harry Reid, the Democrat majority leader in the Senate, boasted, “When this bill becomes law, the joyride on Wall Street will come to a screeching halt.”



President Obama was more restrained, declaring, “Our goal is not to punish the banks but to protect the larger economy and the American people from the kind of upheavals that we’ve seen in the past few years.” But he hailed the passage of the bill as a triumph over intensive lobbying by the major banks (who were among his biggest financial backers in the 2008 presidential campaign).



“When they couldn’t kill it, they tried to water it down,” he claimed, adding, “Taxpayers will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes. There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period.

Fucking mayans.....

Who else could it be?

Have aliens hijacked Voyager 2 spacecraft | The Daily Telegraph

IT left Earth 33 years ago, now it's claimed the Voyager 2 spacecraft may have been hijacked by aliens after sending back data messages NASA scientists can't decode.

NASA installed a 12-inch disk containing music and greetings in 55 languages in case intelligent extraterrestrial life ever found it.

But now the spacecraft is sending back what sounds like an answer: Signals in an unknown data format!

The best scientific minds have so far not been able to decipher the strange information – is it a secret message?

Alien expert Hartwig Hausdorf said:"It seems almost as if someone had reprogrammed or hijacked the probe – thus perhaps we do not yet know the whole truth" Read more in Bild

What do the Chinese know?........

The world is awash in recoverable oil. Tar sands can still be processed at a profit.

Especially with nuke power. Something the Chinese would be able to use without asking permission from tree huggers without real jobs.

After they clean up the world's assets maybe they'll lend us a couple more bucks, right? Only if we do as we're told, of course.

Agora Financial's 5 Minute Forecast

“Love what you guys bring each day,” writes another piling on. “Just one correction to your comment on the oil sands. Big existing oil sands installations are very economical. The cost of production at Suncor and Syncrude, by far the biggest oil sand producers, is $30-35 per barrel and $20-25 per barrel, respectively.

“Only new projects are coming in at the $70-90 per barrel level.”

The 5: Thanks for pointing out the distinction. Still, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the Chinese buy in after the Canadian delegation leaves town this week. In other deals around the world, China has demonstrated a willingness to pay above-market prices to ensure a reliable supply. That usually gets the deal done… that and the many cups of bai-jo you are encouraged to imbibe when doing business here.

This post is for my brother Bert....

Couldn't help myself. Need to keep the old boy on his toes. Heh heh.

Natural Disasters Fill Seers’ Calendar in 2012

[Lately, Mother Earth has been angrier than we can ever recall. A friend of ours with a keen interest in the predictions of seers alerted us a few years ago to the prospect of a dramatic increase in seismic activity around now, so we were naturally eager to have him update the forecast. He has obliged with the grim predictions detailed below. Be warned that his outlook is not for the squeamish and that it suggests 2012 could be a year in which natural disasters impact hundreds of millions of lives around the planet. Incidentally, if you’d like to sample the eclectic range of Rick’s Picks commentary, you can get a free seven-day trial, including daily stock and futures recommendations, by clicking here.]



Rick has asked me to outline the impact of potential future geological events on the U.S. economy. I am not a geologist or an economist, (although I do have an eclectic university education background) - my own personal studies for the last several decades have included amongst other things various prophecies about future events from multiple sources around the world. I write this anonymously, and am writing it at Rick's request. I am just putting it out there for your consideration - what you choose to do with this prophetic scenario, if anything, is up to you.

More bullshit from big media....

Remember global warming? How about baillouts fixing the economy? Then you must agree that we are doomed by oil spills.

Yea right!

I contend that the big buck gangsters can't make any money if we lessen our need for Middle East oil.  The reason?

Big military sales!

My Way News - Where's the oil? Model suggests much may be gone

About 35 percent of a spill the size of the one in the Gulf, consisting of the same light Louisiana crude, released in weather conditions and water temperatures similar to those found in the Gulf now would simply evaporate, according to data that The Associated Press entered into the program.

The model also suggests that virtually all of the benzene - a highly toxic flammable organic chemical compound and one of the chief ingredients in oil - would be stripped off and quickly vaporize.

The model was not designed for deepwater spills like the one at the Macondo well in the Mississippi Canyon now threatening the Gulf Coast. But experts said the analysis might give a close approximation of what is most likely happening where the oil plume is hitting the surface nearly 50 miles south of Louisiana.

The size and nature of the spill also has been altered by response efforts. So far, about 436,000 gallons of chemicals have been sprayed on the oil to break it up into smaller droplets and about 4 million gallons of oily water have been recovered.

Of that recovered mixture, at least 10 percent is oil, BP and NOAA said. Smaller amounts of oil also have been collected after washing ashore, and crews have burned a negligible quantity off the surface.

That would leave as much as 2.7 million gallons at sea as of Friday, with about 210,000 gallons coming up from the well every day.

The 210,000 gallons figure - specifically, about 5,000 barrels - comes from NOAA and has frequently been cited by BP PLC and the Coast Guard. Some scientists have said based on an analysis of BP's video of the leak that the flow rate is much higher, while others have concluded the video is too grainy to draw any such conclusions.

Even with computer models and history as guides, uncertainty reigns.

Doug Helton, the operations coordinator for NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration, said the agency was uncertain how much oil would sink to the bottom. For now, most of it is near the surface.

"This oil is coming from the sea floor and coming up to the surface in droplets and then once it comes to the surface it re-coelesces as a slick," he said.

Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University chemist who's analyzed the spill for NOAA, said he thinks most of the oil is within a foot of the surface.

"Ultimately, you could have a lot of oil on the shoreline. It won't be a black tide coming in, it will be globs coming ashore," he said.

"It's going to be a long, slow summer."

Wilma Subra, a chemist and MacArthur Fellow affiliated with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, said there was a risk that the effort to break up the oil with dispersants would simply sweep it to the ocean bottom and contaminate the food chain, a possibility that has shrimpers on edge.

Merv Fingas, who has studied oil spills for 35 years and has worked for Environment Canada, that nation's environmental agency, predicted a bit of both: some would wash up, and some would stick to sediment and mud and sink slowly to the bottom, much of it likely settling near the spewing well.

"That's the fate of a lot of oil spills: sedimentation on the bottom," Fingas said.

Overton disagreed, saying the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill is too light to sink all the way.

A common refrain among experts and officials is that every oil spill is unique.

Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said the Deepwater Horizon spill reminds him of the last catastrophic oil flood in the Gulf.

In 1979, Mexico's Ixtoc I in the western Gulf blew out and spewed about 420,000 gallons of oil a day for nine months. Large quantities of oil did not reach Texas beaches.

"This was a problem we ran into with Ixtoc, we never found the oil," McKinney said. "But I think even today if you dig down in some sandy beaches you can find a layer of Ixtoc oil."

Retarded fucker.....

Putting your money in a 401 k has proven over andover to be a ponzi scam. Only the gangsters running the legal rackets will make more than peanuts.

Want security for retirement. Pay off your debts. Have no house payment. Live like a king instead of serf. No other retirement is more secure. Remember, no one ever went broke paying their way and not borrowing!!


» Start Retirement Savings Early

You’ve probably heard that your most valuable asset is time. For new graduates, that line actually refers to two different ideas, both of which are critically important to understand. The first idea is that with few entanglements and draws on your time (mainly no kids), you can devote more of it to your career and engineer the largest advancements in your career.

The second refers to the power of compounding interest and that’s important to understand with regards to your retirement in forty+ years.

This post is part of Bargaineering’s 2010 New Graduate Guide series where I’ll share my insights and offer my financial guidance to the graduate class of 2010. This post is part of day 1, establishing your financial foundation.

Contribute to a 401(k)

When you start working, your employer may offer you the opportunity to contribute to your retirement through a 401(k) (here’s a primer on retirement investing). They will entice you to do this by offering some sort of matching offer, say 50 cents for every dollar you contribute up to 6% of your salary. You will not find a better deal in the entire world, I guarantee it.

Anyone in the Democrat party not working for Goldman?....

Only Oba mama knows for sure. Maybe. Of course they'll be diligent in investigating these gangsters, right?


A List of Goldman Sachs People in the Obama Government: Names Attached to the Giant Squid’s Tentacles | The Seminal

At a time when Congressional hearings are set to call testimony from some Goldman Sachs employees, it is vital to understand how widespread that institution’s ties are to the Obama administration. This diary shows the pervasive influence of Goldman Sachs and Goldman created institutions (like the Hamilton Project embedded in the Brookings Institution), employees and influence peddlers in the Obama administration.

While many of the people listed below formerly worked for Goldman Sachs or its offshoots (like the Hamilton Project, including all three of that project’s first Directors) influence can be exerted not only through people but through money, awards, sponsored scholarship, and creation of an agenda favorable to Goldman Sachs (which is where Brookings and the Hamilton Project come in and have proved especially useful to Goldman Sachs).

It is further of note that although Goldman Sachs has been the center of attention especially since Matt Taibbi’s insightful investigative journalism, that I have not been able to find a comprehensive list of the influence of Goldman Sachs in this administration. Recently in the New York Post, for instance, Michelle Malkin wrote a good article called "All the President’s Goldman Men" but she only listed the usual suspects like Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Rahm Emanuel, Gary Gensler and Mark Patterson.

But that’s just the tip of the Goldman Sachs iceberg. Here you will find

What a racket......

Borrow from the Fed at .25% lend to the Treasury at over % 3. Simply push buttons on your desk and collect millions. Why would these crooks do any thing different.

Would you?

We need to get these guys off welfare. Rope sounds good for most of them.  In the meantime quit doing business with them and stick with credit unions and small local banks.


‘Perfect Quarter’ at Four U.S. Banks Shows Fed-Fueled Revival - Bloomberg.com

By David Mildenberg and Dawn Kopecki

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Four of the largest U.S. banks, including Citigroup Inc., racked up perfect quarters in their trading businesses between January and March, underscoring how government support and less competition is fueling Wall Street’s revival.

Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the first, second and fifth-biggest U.S. banks by assets, all said in regulatory filings that they had zero days of trading losses in the first quarter. Citigroup Inc., the third-largest, doesn’t break out its daily trading revenue by quarter. It recorded a profit on each trading day, two people with knowledge of the results said.

“The trading profits of the Street is just another way of measuring the subsidy the Fed is giving to the banks,” said Christopher Whalen, managing director of Torrance, California- based Institutional Risk Analytics. “It’s a transfer from savers to banks.”

You got a love a genuine nut job.....

This guy is weird. But all politicians are weird.

Of course that doesn't mean he's unique.


UPDATE: Venezuela's Chavez Plans To Attack Soaring Inflation - WSJ.com

CARACAS (Dow Jones)--Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez responded Sunday to what could become an out-of-control inflation problem, promising swift action that includes unleashing the military to nail merchants who unfairly raise prices.

Chavez said that in many of the cases, it's not just greed but politics that are leading businesses to raise prices. With key congressional elections just four months away, he said, businesses loyal to the opposition are hoarding goods so prices will rise, in the hopes of stirring panic and pulling voters away from the ruling socialist party.

Hey! You've only lost a ton of money......

Walk away from your mortgage!

Another trillion for bank bailouts......

Blame it on Greece because we can't have the gangsters running the world taking a hit can we?  But what the Hell you and I  as tax payers are only responsible for 200 billion. A lot a luck on that Greco butt boys!


The Mortgage Porter: Mortgage Rates: Greece is the Word

Mortgage Rates: Greece is the Word

Stocks are rebounding from last weeks losses with Europe coming forward with a plan to save Greece. Right now the DOW is up about 360 points and mortgage backed securities are all ready in a position for lenders to issue new rate sheets with re-pricing for the worse...and it's not even 8:00 a.m.

Please keep that in mind when ever you read rates that are published on a website, Twitter or even worse, on print...the second they're published, they may no longer be valid as mortgage rates may change several times a day.

With no scheduled economic reports to be released until Wednesday, watch for mortgage rates to take their lead from stocks. Remember, the better the stock market does, the higher rates tend to go. This is because investors will pull money from the safety of bonds for stocks.

get exactly the government you pay for.....

Right BP. Oba mama took a lot of their money. Now the Fed's will have to make it up to their financiers.

Obama Sheltered BP's Deepwater Horizon Rig from Regulatory Requirement

Last year the Obama administration granted oil giant BP a special exemption from a legal requirement that it produce a detailed environmental impact study on the possible effects of its Deepwater Horizon drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico, an article Wednesday in the Washington Post reveals.

Federal documents show that the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) gave BP a "categorical exclusion" on April 6, 2009 to commence drilling with Deepwater Horizon even though it had not produced the impact study required by a law known as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.

The exemption came less than one month after BP had requested it in a March 10 "exploration plan" submitted to the MMS. The plan said that because a spill was "unlikely," no additional "mitigation measures other than those required by regulation and BP policy will be employed to avoid, diminish or eliminate potential impacts on environmental resources." BP also assured the MMS that any spill would not seriously hurt marine wildlife and that "due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."

Kierán Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Post that the Obama administration's exemption effectively "put BP entirely in control," adding, "The agency's oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-stamping British Petroleum's self-serving drilling plans."

In fact, BP's self-assessment of the potential for a disaster reproduced that of federal regulators. In 2007, under the Bush administration, the MMS carried out three studies of the potential environmental impact of deep sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including one that pertained specifically to the area where Deepwater Horizon was ultimately deployed, known as "Lease 206." The MMS determined that a "deepwater spill" would not reach the coast and would not exceed 4,600 barrels.

Banks r us.......

The government controls virtually all home loans. It also controls the auto industry. soon it will completely control Wall Street.

Or is it the other way around?  Gangsters r us, hmm?


Jim’s Mailbox : Welcome To Jim Sinclair's MineSet

The Federal Reserve creates as many billions of dollars as it wants with the stroke of a key. Next, it loans those billions of dollars to U.S. Banks at a rate of close to zero percent interest. U.S. Banks then take the billions of dollars they have borrowed from the Federal Reserve and purchase U.S. Treasuries, earning a margin of three percent or more interest.

Banks understandably prefer earning money this way to making actual loans to U.S. businesses and individuals. As noted in the Bloomberg article, “The risk of owning Treasures is lower than creating loans.”

This is an out-and-out monetization of U.S. debt. The government could literally do this to infinity. The only thing holding it back would be coming up with the interest payments; however, those, too, could be monetized to infinity.

It also amounts to an enormous subsidy of the banking industry that was never authorized by the legislature. In exchange for nothing more than executing a couple of keystrokes, U.S. banks earn a margin of three percent or more interest on however much money the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve see fit to create.

Next, as explained in the Wall Street Journal article, “U.S. Role in Mortgage Market Grows Even Larger,” we see that the U.S. government has been forced to take over the lending operations that U.S. banks now find undesirable. As a result, we learn that the U.S. government’s “share” of the U.S. mortgage market has grown to 96.5%.

My favorite theme.....

We're broke. The "Boomers" have hit bottom. No one is going to buy houses and cars for awhile with out government handouts. We have to work our way off the deck and recover from our losses giving our  retirement accounts which have been devastated  time to come back.

Expect more handouts and gimmicks as  the banks unload a couple million more foreclosures. Then the Dem's will have to scramble to save their asses. Not that the Republicans are any better. Instead of getting out of the way they'll all be running around like chickens with their heads cut off screaming that the government has to do something.

Like not drilling for oil.

I'm in a get debt free and improve access to credit mode as I just paid off the mobile home. Being prepared for $6 gas and food price explosions is another  great idea. I expect Oba mama to be reelected because no Republican seems to be in position to remove him. Next year the economy will be receiving "Obama money" as I predicted a year ago. Most of the bailout funding kicks in 2011 in order for him to get reelected.This means  the economy has got to show a big improvement for the average guy not just the rich.

It wouldn't hurt if the Dem's put some people on Wall Street in jail but don't count on it as too many politicians, wives and other relatives are on Wall Street's payroll . Removing this money from going to  our public officials would solve some of the corruption.

Good luck on that.

Oftwominds: Why the "Nascent Recovery" Won't Last

The aging of the 78 million-strong Baby Boom means that the number of citizens sucking up Medicare expenses (roughly $400-$500,000 each under many projections based on current costs) will rise by 50% to 67 million in a few years.

Social Security rolls will rise by the same number as Boomers rush to cash in their dwindling retirement chips. The Social Security surplus has already rolled over into deficit as unemployed and downsized Boomers are taking their Social Security at 62 rather than waiting to get their full draw at 67.

So if half the budget is being captured by Medicare/Medicaid alone, where will the money come from for running the Empire, Social Security, interest on the national debt, etc.?

We'd rather not discuss that because it isn't "confidence building."

These gargantuan deficits aren't 20 years away--they're just a few years away. yet all the rosy projections never mention them, as they are inconvenient flyspecks of reality on the rosy forecast of "nascent recovery."

Here is a chart of the unfunded liabilities of the Savior State's entitlements:

Even if you expropriate the entire wealth of the nation--$54 trillion--you come up $50 trillion short.