OT: Iceland

On Mar 8, 9:27=A0am, "steve robinson" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
> The Icelandic government allowed the institution to trade , they
> allowed the bank to trade when it was obvous it was not in a position
> to meet its tradeing requirements

And THAT should have been obvious to the bankers that Iceland was in
no position to underwrite 5 billion in guarantees.
The Dutch and British bank did the same thing a supplier does when
they stock a store with goods. They would like to get paid and make a
profit when the stuff sells. Those two banks thought the 'store' to be
credit worthy. THEY were wrong. THEY eat their bad judgement. In this
analogy, the store went bankrupt, no remaining inventory, the supplier
is SOL.
It is not as if the Icelanders were running some kind of scheme.

Larry Blanchard wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:59:45 -0600, Swingman wrote:
>
>> my youngest daughter was just
>> refused by her insurance company for $30k worth of surgery to stop
>> imminent blindness in one eye.
>>
>> Fuck all you liberal bastards ...
>
> I thought it was all those "liberal bastards" who were trying to fix
> the health insurance problems?

No. Fromt he progressive's viewpoint, health care reform is only the means
to the end, not the end itself.

On 3/10/2010 6:49 AM, HeyBub wrote:
> Swingman wrote:
>>
>> Depends upon where you live in the South ... my property taxes in
>> Houston are in excess of $1000/mos.
>>
>> We have to haul a lot of education and health care freight for
>> illegals, indigents, and refugees from storms, and my youngest
>> daughter was just refused by her insurance company for $30k worth of
>> surgery to stop imminent blindness in one eye.
>>
>> Fuck all you liberal bastards ...
>
> You really need to have a look at something.
>
> I live in Houston in a house with an appraised value of $260,000. The total
> property tax load (state, county, school district, mosquito control
> district, Zombie Monitoring, etc.) is $2,900/YEAR.
>
> With your property being appraised - assuming the same ratio as mine - at a
> bit over $1 million,

Way off ... no where near a $1m appraisal on my 2800sf home, land and
improvements. I build houses in that range and can guarantee you the
property taxes for a home of that value in this area (SW Houston, inside
the loop) are well into the $20k range.

Where they are getting us in this area is on appraised land value. My 50
x 100 foot lot is on the tax rolls for $380K, and the value of the
"improvements" is less than yours, and only because of being frozen with
an over 65 exemption.

Basically, property taxes have doubled since 2001.

>maybe you could pay for your daughter's operation by
> looking under the sofa cushions in your home theater room.

LOL ... I'm self employed, no corporate safety net, work seven days a
week for a living when there is work, and there is NO change in my
pocket, after taxes ... and no "home theater" and only 30 year old sofas. :)

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Mar 8, 10:50=A0am, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> > <[email protected]> =A0scrawled the following:
> >> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
> >> should own a house. =A0Too bad if some people think that "The American
> >> Dream" is owning your own home. =A0If you do not have the means to pay
> >> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> > Amen.
>
> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagine
> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.

What has "need" to do with it?

> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase and own=
...

There are smaller houses. Not everyone can afford those, either.

On Mar 9, 2:00=A0pm, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/9/2010 12:41 PM, Robatoy wrote:
>
> > Fair question: How long have those insanely high taxes been in effect?
> > What is the political slant of your representatives? You governor is a
> > what?
>
> > Don't get me wrong, liberal policies. ideologies taken too the extreme
> > ARE fucked up. But when you follow the pendulum when it swings towards
> > the extreme right, insanity is rampant there too.
> > I learned a long time ago that assholes are assholes and no colour,
> > political slant or gender will 'un-asshole' them. Just look at Arnie
> > on the Left Coast.
>
> ALL politicians are assholes ...
>
> Texas has a Republican governor at the moment, but that label counts for
> nothing. Republican versus Democrat is nothing more than a device to
> keep the sheeple divided and their attention divertred ... there is NO
> difference in the amount of government each political party imposes, and
> this particular Republican governor parades as a conservative, while
> promoting "eminent domain" as a device to take private land to give to
> foreign companies to build toll roads.
>
> --www.e-woodshop.net
> Last update: 10/22/08
> KarlC@ (the obvious)

Do NOT get me started on the foreign owned toll roads and bridges. We
have an infestation of that kind of shit here. The 407, which runs
across the top of Toronto, is owned by, IIRC, a Portuguese company.
They actually managed to get access to the license plate renewal files
from the provincial government. If you owe a toll, and even if it is
in dispute, no license renewal for you and consequently no fucking
insurance either. (Told you not to get me going on this..<G>) The
bridge which connects Prince Edward Island...a complete province, no
less, is owned by a foreign company. Suuuuuure it supplies
employment...to what? 12 people??? They let you onto the island for
free. To get off the island you have to let them bugger your favourite
pet.
Oh... here's one for you... the Province of Ontario sold all the
Drivers' examination offices and officers to a British Company. "No
raise for you!" STRIKE!!! The gov't was powerless and started handing
out press releases that they "couldn't do anything about all the new
kids" who needed to get a license to drive to fucking SCHOOL!!!

I ask you... just who was so clever as to sell access to a PROVINCE to
a foreign company? HOW smart was that??? Suuuure you can take a ferry
if there is NO ICE AND YOU GOT ALL DAY!!!

Got myself started, I guess.

Sheeeeeitttt...

On Mar 8, 12:25=A0pm, FrozenNorth <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On 3/08/10 12:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 8, 10:50 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> >>> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> >>> <[email protected]> =A0 =A0scrawled the following:
> >>>> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
> >>>> should own a house. =A0Too bad if some people think that "The Americ=
an
> >>>> Dream" is owning your own home. =A0If you do not have the means to p=
ay
> >>>> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> >>> Amen.
>
> >> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagine
> >> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> > What has "need" to do with it?
>
> >> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
> >> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase and =
own...
>
> > There are smaller houses. =A0Not everyone can afford those, either.
>
> My house is small, but a lot of people don't want to buy a house built
> 60 years or more ago. =A0

So we're not talking about The Beaches? The Annex? Forest Hill? (I
know what you're saying though...*IF* you don't want to screw with all
that old stuff. But desirability in Toronto is all over 60 years old,
IMHO. If I take a look at what happened in my old neighbourhood 100+
year old homes.)
Damn I miss The Beaches sometimes.

On Mar 7, 10:33=A0pm, "Thos" <[email protected]> wrote:
> My reply is ...as far as Iceland goes with their monetary problems....WHO
> GIVES A RATS ASS?
> Quit whining to the world and fuck off...
> deal with what your elected leaders have dealt you...I assume you have
> elected leaders?

Thank you for your helpful contribution.

On 3/8/2010 4:23 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:
> On 3/8/2010 2:42 PM, Swingman wrote:

>> How does "builder greed" manifest itself in the overall price of houses
>> in an area?
>
> It showed up in a lot of ways here - most notably in large land grabs
> along our relatively few arterial highways. In some cases square miles
> of farmland were bought for prices on the order of $3K/acre and divided
> up into 1/2 acre $60K (minimum) building plots. A number of the builders
> then claimed the re-sale price of the land as assets and borrowed on
> that to buy still more land. It only came to my attention when I went
> looking for land to build a new shop.

I'm not maintaining that there was not plenty of greed to go around, nor
trying to rag you ... that said, land, material and labor are the cost
elements factored into determining the initial asking price of a spec
home (marketing to a lesser extent).

But, without sufficient demand, which ultimately establishes the actual
"market value" via the final sales transaction, even the sharpest of
practices above are all for naught in setting an average price of real
estate in a regional sense.

So what we have here are the unprincipled, from builder/speculators,
bankers, real estate agents, to taxing authorities responding to pent up
demand in the good old American way, resulting in the necessary
embracing of the even older, precursor concept of "caveat emptor". :)

> The construction pace appears to have been pushed beyond what could be
> managed/supervised and even inspected properly. One (I'm told typical)
> example of which I have some personal knowledge is a friend's new home
> in which the builder "forgot" to insulate one of the exterior walls, and
> no one noticed until my friend and his family spent their first winter
> in the house. You build houses - tell me how that happens.

As well you already know ... lack of supervision by unprincipled
speculators (not necessarily "builders" in the professional sense of the
term), coupled with a mostly unskilled labor force that requires lots of
same.

>> Inquiring minds, and all that ... I need some practice in that regard.
>
> Karl, I don't think you're made that way - and these aren't the kinds of
> practices either you or your customers need.
>
> I don't usually pay a lot of attention to what's going on in the
> construction business. I probably should, but my time and attention is
> fairly well eaten up with trying to improve solar technologies. You
> might be able to get a better glimpse of some of this by Googling on
> Regency Builders in Des Moines and reading. It's very likely to make
> more sense to you than to a guy who's not in the trade.

My point is/was that demand, generally and IME, has a much higher effect
on the true cost of real estate than greed on the builder/speculator's
part, no matter how unprincipled.

AAMOF, folks would be surprised to find that the margin on the average
spec home in the best of areas is generally less than 10% no matter how
sharp the operator.

Custom homes, with lots and lots of "change orders", are where the
"ching ching" comes into play. :)

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Mar 8, 2:16=A0pm, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/8/2010 12:51 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 8, 11:34 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >> On 3/8/2010 11:20 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> >>> On Mar 8, 10:50 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0 =A0wrote:
> >>>> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> >>>>> <[email protected]> =A0 =A0 =A0scrawled the following:
> >>>>>> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
> >>>>>> should own a house. =A0Too bad if some people think that "The Amer=
ican
> >>>>>> Dream" is owning your own home. =A0If you do not have the means to=
pay
> >>>>>> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> >>>>> Amen.
>
> >>>> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagi=
ne
> >>>> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> >>> What has "need" to do with it?
>
> >> Nothing at all that I've been able to identify - and yet I watched the
> >> "average price of a new home" (realty statistics presented on local
> >> news) in the greater Des Moines area go over a quarter million dollars=
.
> >> There were a _lot_ more million-dollar homes being built than $100K
> >> homes... and this is an area that normally tends to be fiscally
> >> conservative...
>
> > Perhaps that's because that's the house people *want*. =A0Of course
> > there are more $M homes built than $100K homes. =A0Two things drive
> > this; government regulations and economics. =A0Governments place
> > requirements on developers and builders that drive costs up (some of
> > these are good things like sewers). =A0To make money, these costs have
> > to be recovered. =A0It's easier making it up $50K on a $M home than
> > $100K home.
>
> That's true to a certain extent - but it wasn't government mandates that
> pushed the prices here. It was the combination of builder greed, too
> easy mortgages, and local government eagerness to see real estate tax
> revenue leap upward.

Government mandates do cost the developer/builder a third (or more) of
the house price. In Vermont it was more like half. A developer had
$100K in a lot before the first shovel saw light of day. Of course
the builder isn't going to put a $100K house on a $100K lot.

Revenue wouldn't need to increase if they didn't spend more. They
wanted to spend more without raising the "mil" rate - another
invisible tax. ...until the market goes down.

> It was also not an eagerness of _most_ folks to live on private lakes
> and golf courses.

Most, perhaps not, but a significant number do. I'd like to live on a
lake too. Maybe someday soon (when I really retire ;-).

> One of the effects was to make it difficult for young people at any
> level of income to have a home of their own at a price they could manage
> - and now the state has a problem because a *huge* percentage of
> graduates from the state universities have been deciding (with good
> reason) that they can't afford to live and work in Iowa, and find jobs
> elsewhere.

Where? California? I've heard this argument everywhere I've lived.

> > BTW, I looked in the Des Moines area (was offered a job there in '08 -
> > I would have likely taken the position but it turned out to be a mess)
> > and was quite happy with the prices. =A0A quarter megabuck buys a nice
> > home there. =A0I ended up in Alabama, where the prices are similar. =A0=
I
> > paid $300K for what you might call a McMansion (2600sq ft), which in
> > may situation is "fiscally conservative".
>
> I understand all of the above fairly well (and have kept up to date with
> where the "messes" are). I was offered a job in San Francisco a while
> back with what in Iowa would be considered a truly exhorbitant salary,
> and turned it down because housing costs _way_ more than ate up the
> difference. (Every now and then I scratch my head and ponder a move to
> northern Georgia or western Virginia...)

I should have explained better... The "mess" wasn't anything to do
with Des Moines, rather the employer screwed everything up after the
interview trip out there. Of course, if I had taken the job there I
would have been moving out there during the middle of the floods.

> >>>> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
> >>>> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase an=
d own....
>
> >>> There are smaller houses. =A0Not everyone can afford those, either.
>
> >> Who said everything about "everyone"? (My world is not, apparently, as
> >> binary as yours.)
>
> > The point of the discussion was that "everyone" was *supposed* to be
> > able to buy a home and the federal government tried to make it happen
> > for even those who have no business buying an orange crate. =A0We all
> > see how that worked out.
>
> Won't argue that. The road to hell _is_ paved with good intentions.
> Still, the fact remains that there is a need for housing for those who
> don't have large incomes (and/or have large outstanding college loans)
> and, here at least, that need is not being met.

Indeed they are. College loans are another government-caused mess.
The whole purpose of loans are to drive the cost of education UP.
Obama wants more.

> I think there's a basic fallacy in any reasoning that leads one to
> conclude that because someone can't afford a $250K house, they're
> automatically unworthy to build equity with a $100K house.

That's certainly not my position. However, there is no way a new home
can be built today for $100K in many places, mostly because of
government regulations (again, not saying that all are bad).
Discounting places like NYC and SF, where there isn't enough land for
the population (and this isn't totally out of government's hands), a
major reason for high housing costs is because of government
intervention.

Small houses can still be had for $100K in many areas. There is
nothing that says that a starter house has to be a new one, though
I've seen new ones in the low-middle $100s here.

On Mar 8, 10:00=A0am, Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 8, 9:27=A0am, "steve robinson" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > The Icelandic government allowed the institution to trade , they
> > allowed the bank to trade when it was obvous it was not in a position
> > to meet its tradeing requirements
>
> And THAT should have been obvious to the bankers that Iceland was in
> no position to underwrite 5 billion in guarantees.

Interesting point.. You could argue that Britain and the Netherlands
did the same thing as the sub-prime lenders here! Where did they get
off lending 5 billion to 350,000 people? 9about 15,000 a head!)

shelly

On 3/7/2010 11:02 AM, Robatoy wrote:
> WAY off topic, but I am genuinely interested in what some of you think
> about this:
>
> Every family of 4 was asked to pay $ 185.00 per month for EIGHT years
> to pay back money a Dutch and British bank lost when their investment
> in an Icelandic Internet bank went bad during the last economic
> collapse.
> Now the way I see it, those two banks made a risky investment and got
> burnt. Too bad, so sad, it is the game they play.
> Now the banks along with the IMF are pushing parliament for some sort
> of repayment by the Icelanders who had not ONE word of say when those
> risky investments were made.

For once, I agree with you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Mar 8, 4:59=A0pm, [email protected] wrote:
> On Mar 8, 10:00=A0am, Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 8, 9:27=A0am, "steve robinson" <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
>
> > > The Icelandic government allowed the institution to trade , they
> > > allowed the bank to trade when it was obvous it was not in a position
> > > to meet its tradeing requirements
>
> > And THAT should have been obvious to the bankers that Iceland was in
> > no position to underwrite 5 billion in guarantees.
>
> Interesting point.. You could argue that Britain and the Netherlands
> did the same thing as the sub-prime lenders here! Where did they get
> off lending 5 billion to 350,000 people? 9about 15,000 a head!)
>
> shelly

Exactly. And that 15,000 per head includes 1 week old babies and 88
year old people.

On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 09:20:25 -0800 (PST), the infamous
"[email protected]" <[email protected]> scrawled the following:

>On Mar 8, 10:50 am, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>>
>> > On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
>> > <[email protected]>  scrawled the following:
>> >> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
>> >> should own a house.  Too bad if some people think that "The American
>> >> Dream" is owning your own home.  If you do not have the means to pay
>> >> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>>
>> > Amen.
>>
>> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagine
>> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
>What has "need" to do with it?

It's all about "appearances", keeping up with the Joneses. Hell, I
don't want to keep up with the Joneses. I can't even keep up with the
Simpsons.


>> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
>> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase and own...
>
>There are smaller houses. Not everyone can afford those, either.

True. And many can't afford rent because they're too busy drinking
beer, smokin' crack, and poppin' out babies.

--
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
-- Chuang-tzu

On Mar 9, 12:30=A0pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:19:02 -0800, busbus wrote:
> > I don't know how old everybody is but I remember growing up and almost
> > everybody had smallish houses and, if you were lucky, you had a one- ca=
r
> > garage. =A0The rooms were markedly smaller than the obnoxious ones toda=
y.
>
> I bought a 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch style house in a nice middle class
> neighborhood about 1960. =A0It was 1000 sq feet :-). =A0Me, 1st wife, and=
3
> kids.
>
> Now me and 2nd wife live in a 1500+ square foot mobile home in a seniors
> park and it seems too small.
>
> Only difference is perception and the amount of junk we call necessities
> nowadays.
>
> --
> Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

Well, 1,500 sqf isn't all that big! LOL!!! Not when I see these
3,000 - 4,000 monsters being built up here in Pittsburgh. Seem slike
all the new houses are that big. And the yards are getting smaller
(and not because there is more house sitting on the yard--the
properties are smaller). It saddens to see that there is not enough
space for a guy to throw a baseball or football to his kids let alone
have them hit a ball or kick one. I guess I just value the property
more than the house. Growing up on 20 acres does that to a person.
We could hit those big, black super balls they used to sell back in
the 1960s/1970s and never have to worry about hitting anything.

And to swing this pedulum back, the people who are buyiung these
houses are the 25-year-old kids who just got married. Sure, they got
a college degree and jobs (notice PLURAL jobs) but I always tell the
ones I know the sage advice an old man once told me:

"Just because you can make the payments doesn't mean you can afford
it."

And he was and IS right. I shudder to think what they will do once a
kid or two come along and somebody loses their job. Heck, just having
a couple/three kids will bankrupt them if they have to send the kids
to daycare.

I guess I am saying these kids do not need to buy this size house.
Buy a smaller house and build some equity and then go bigger and
better. That is where things today are out of whack. That and the
fact that these kids think they need two nice, expensive cars/SUVs and
a houseful of furniture to go along with the McMansion they
bought.....

On Mar 10, 3:56=A0pm, "HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Swingman wrote:
> > On 3/10/2010 6:42 AM, HeyBub wrote:
> >> Larry Blanchard wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:59:45 -0600, Swingman wrote:
>
> >>>> my youngest daughter was just
> >>>> refused by her insurance company for $30k worth of surgery to stop
> >>>> imminent blindness in one eye.
>
> >>>> Fuck all you liberal bastards ...
>
> >>> I thought it was all those "liberal bastards" who were trying to fix
> >>> the health insurance problems?
>
> >> No. Fromt he progressive's viewpoint, health care reform is only the
> >> means to the end, not the end itself.
>
> > Reaffirming ... to see an intellect sufficient to pierce to the heart
> > of the matter, instinctively and without the need for a 'Dick and
> > Jane' explanation.
>
> No intellect is really necessary if one performs the basic two-step proce=
ss:
>
> 1. Discount or ignore the reasons offered by a progressive.

Yea... whatever you do.. do NOT progress/adjust to the changing world.
Stick to your old fashioned ways and don't forget to polish that belt-
buckle on your hat.

It *is* possible to keep your faith, your standards, your morals AND
move upward and onward. Since when is progression a bad thing? Oh...
nebber minnnd... I get it... you're afraid of change.

On Mar 8, 10:03=A0pm, Larry Jaques <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 08:57:09 -0800 (PST), the infamous Robatoy
> <[email protected]> scrawled the following:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Mar 8, 11:50 am, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> >> > On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> >> > <[email protected]> scrawled the following:
> >> >> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
> >> >> should own a house. Too bad if some people think that "The American
> >> >> Dream" is owning your own home. If you do not have the means to pay
> >> >> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> >> > Amen.
>
> >> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagine
> >> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> >> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
> >> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase and =
own...
>
> >Oh sure. With smaller countertops. Goodie. :-)
>
> No, no, no. =A0No formal living or dining room, fewer bedrooms w/
> bunkbeds, and a bigarse kitchen with loads of counterspace.

I am all for that. Personally, I left a house with a large formal
dining room long ago. Now if I need to feed more than 12, I rent a
diningroom. With service and clean up. I used to enjoy cooking for a
dozen but now I would rather have some food catered in so I can
participate in all the parlor games as well. Pin The Tail On The
Donkey being one of my favourites. <G>
>
> Half the house as kitchen with brekkie nook sounds about right,
> doesn't it, Toy?
>
A nice island that seats 6-8 and a nook for 4-6, yuppers. At least two
ovens and at least two sinks. Six gas burners.

On 3/7/2010 9:02 AM Robatoy spake thus:

[snip]

> This is a call to keyboards. Post to the comments section of every
> Corporate Media article demonizing the Icelandic people for refusing
> the yoke of servitude created for them the concept of Odious debt and
> why it applies here!

To the barricades!

Liberté, égalité, fraternité!


--
You were wrong, and I'm man enough to admit it.

- a Usenet "apology"

On 3/7/2010 1:09 PM DGDevin spake thus:

> <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
>>> Classic anti-regulation rhetoric, conveniently ignoring that it
>>> was deregulation that allowed the current economic mess to
>>> happen.
>>
>> Bullshit. It was government financing and *guaranteeing* risky
>> behavior that was responsible for the meltdown. Nothing has
>> changed, so expect another, bigger, disaster. All Obama is doing is
>> trying to re-inflate the bubble.
>
> Horsecrap, no govt. forced investment firms to bundle rotten mortgages and
> sell them to each other, no govt. compelled S&P or the other rating agencies
> to stamp triple-A on securities so complex they didn't know what the hell
> they were rating, no govt. forced the banks to award huge bonuses for moving
> worthless paper and so on. The financial industry spent hundreds of
> millions lobbying Congress for deregulation; they got what they wanted and
> in less than a decade we got the worst financial crash in three-quarters of
> a century--we're supposed to believe that's just a big old coincidence?
> What's more people predicted what it would lead to at the time, that the
> coming crash would make the S&L crisis look like a picnic--too bad they
> weren't listened to, but everyone was making so much money, what could
> possibly go wrong?

Amen.

And please please *please* don't forget that it was the *Clinton*
administration that made perhaps the biggest (and worst) change in the
financial system since the Depression, which was overturning
Glass-Steagall. We're now suffering the consequences of that reckless
action.

[Although I do agree that Obama is desperately trying to reinflate the
bubble, which is the wrong thing to do.]


--
You were wrong, and I'm man enough to admit it.

- a Usenet "apology"

"Swingman" wrote

> On 3/8/2010 11:28 AM, steve robinson wrote:
>
>> If America goes into Iran they will end up getting a bloody nose ,
>> economically , its quite possible the oil produceing countries could
>> switch currencies , make the dollar worthless overnight .
>
> Don't get your anti-yank panties in a orgasmic twist just yet, Bubba. With
> only 5% of the world's crude production Iran is in no position to impose
> _anything_.
>
> --
In addition to that, Iran is an international pariah. The Arab states hate
Iran and will step up production to cover any shortfall. They would love to
see Iran fall.

Also, any attack on Iran would be measured and very high tech. Iran only
has old weapons that don't work well. Their military forces are inept. That
is why they want nukes. They are not a threat otherwise.

On Mar 9, 10:59=A0am, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/9/2010 10:45 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > On Mar 9, 10:19 am, busbus<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >> The saddest thing is that the monthly property tax allocation is now
> >> more than the mortgage we used to pay. =A0But that is the subject of
> >> another thread........
>
> > That's the beauty of living in the South. =A0My taxes are 1/4 what I
> > paid in my last house.
>
> Depends upon where you live in the South ... my property taxes in
> Houston are in excess of $1000/mos.

Ow! That's twice what I paid in VT (8x my current taxes). I thought
TX was supposed to be a friendly state.

> We have to haul a lot of education and health care freight for illegals,
> indigents, and refugees from storms, and my youngest daughter was just
> refused by her insurance company for $30k worth of surgery to stop
> imminent blindness in one eye.

Reason given?

> Fuck all you liberal bastards ...

You?

On Mar 9, 1:34=A0pm, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/9/2010 12:16 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 9, 11:41 am, "chaniarts"<[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >> [email protected] wrote:
> >>> On Mar 9, 10:59 am, Swingman<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >>>> On 3/9/2010 10:45 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Mar 9, 10:19 am, busbus<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >>>>>> The saddest thing is that the monthly property tax allocation is
> >>>>>> now more than the mortgage we used to pay. But that is the subject
> >>>>>> of another thread........
>
> >>>>> That's the beauty of living in the South. My taxes are 1/4 what I
> >>>>> paid in my last house.
>
> >>>> Depends upon where you live in the South ... my property taxes in
> >>>> Houston are in excess of $1000/mos.
>
> >>> Ow! =A0That's twice what I paid in VT (8x my current taxes). =A0I tho=
ught
> >>> TX was supposed to be a friendly state.
>
> >> no tx state income tax. they have to get the money somewhere, sorta li=
ke a
> >> fat lady in pantyhose. it has to bulge out somewhere.
>
> > If I read it right, you also have a 6.25% - 8.25% (my bet is that
> > Houston is at the high end) sales tax. =A0We also have an 8% sales tax,
> > but I don't pay anything like $10.5K in state income tax. =A0Yikes!
>
> 8.25% sales tax in Harris County.
>
> No state income tax is correct. Property taxes are out of hand due to
> the collusion between the politicians, the Real Estate industry, and the
> non-elected "Tax Appraisal District", created by the politicians so that
> they citizens can't hold their feet to the fire with regard to "taxation
> without representation".
>
> Simply put, my $12k in property gets me the EXACT same services,
> streets, roads, hospital districts, police, fire, etc that those who
> live in Waco get for 80% less taxes ... it just costs me eight times as
> much due to my appraisal district and home values inflated, in large
> part, with the help of the real estate industry.
>
> More than 50% of the total property tax bill goes to HISD, one of the
> worst run school districts in the state with an entrenched, politically
> correct, primarily minority bureaucracy that you couldn't unseat with a
> stick of dynamite thanks to Federal policies.
>
> In Texas, you just think your own your home ... try not paying whatever
> the tax appraisal districts think your can bear and see how long your
> supposedly inviolate "right of ownership" lasts.
>
> I'll say it again ... fuck all you liberal bastards!
>
> --www.e-woodshop.net
> Last update: 10/22/08
> KarlC@ (the obvious)


Fair question: How long have those insanely high taxes been in effect?
What is the political slant of your representatives? You governor is a
what?

Don't get me wrong, liberal policies. ideologies taken too the extreme
ARE fucked up. But when you follow the pendulum when it swings towards
the extreme right, insanity is rampant there too.
I learned a long time ago that assholes are assholes and no colour,
political slant or gender will 'un-asshole' them. Just look at Arnie
on the Left Coast.

On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
<[email protected]> scrawled the following:

>I believe you are right, unfortunately, that is not how the stinking
>world works. The people are responsible for it because I assume they
>have something like the FDIC there.

Yes, unfortunately.



>Basically, that is why we
>citizens are responsible for bailing out the knucklehead bankers and
>financial wizards who got us into this mess.

And that has to stop. There should be saner limits on risk, so they
aren't allowed to screw up so badly next time.


>In a small, small, small way, I agree that deregulation may have
>spurred the mess along in this country but I so think the Federal
>Government was the biggest fraud in the mess that happened in the US.
>The Clinton Administration more-or-less forced Fanny Maes and Freddie
>Mac to lend money to people that were not credit worthy all in the
>attempt to get them into a house they could not afford. Other
>institutions saw this happening and saw the money that was being made
>and jumped in with both feet without ever looking. The housing boom
>that incurred throughout the country quickly gave way to the bubble.

Precisely. And look who was on the Congressional Black Caucus who
steered/forced Fannie Mae into that. 'Twas our very own god, O.


>If we look back, we were warned about the bubble but it was ignored.
>What made matters worse were the Ponzi schemes that were put into
>place as banks packaged these horrible loans together and advertised
>them as an investment--a risky investment but one that everybody
>wanted because, if things worked out, you could make a lot of money.
>Too bad greed got in the way of common sense.
>
>One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
>should own a house. Too bad if some people think that "The American
>Dream" is owning your own home. If you do not have the means to pay
>for it and maintain it, you should not own it.

Amen.


>At the same time, *something* needs to be done with the morons who
>perpetrated all this nonsense that has spread around the world. We

And it ain't bonuses and higher-paying jobs, either. <flaming>


>can have all the regulations we want but if the regulators are
>incompetent or simply turn their heads, what good are regulations? A
>lot of heads should roll and not only should there not be any bonuses
>paid, many of these people should get their arses thrown into jail.

HARD time, MAXIMUM security, and unprotected.


>I sort of like this comic that was in the Sunday paper yesterday:
>http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2010/03/07/

I'm not much of a Danae fan, but I adore Wiley's Non Sequitur
cartoons. Yeah, THAT would work. We don't have many living T-rexes
(just a Sec State and Spkr House) but I think we have enough lions,
tigers, bears, wolves, and coyotes to handle the large load of errant
banker and CEO types we have here in the US.

--
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
-- Chuang-tzu

On Mar 7, 12:13=A0pm, Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/7/2010 11:02 AM, Robatoy wrote:
>
> > WAY off topic, but I am genuinely interested in what some of you think
> > about this:
>
> > Every family of 4 was asked to pay $ 185.00 per month for EIGHT years
> > to pay back money a Dutch and British bank lost when their investment
> > in an Icelandic Internet bank went bad during the last economic
> > collapse.
> > Now the way I see it, those two banks made a risky investment and got
> > burnt. Too bad, so sad, it is the game they play.
> > Now the banks along with the IMF are pushing parliament for some sort
> > of repayment by the Icelanders who had not ONE word of say when those
> > risky investments were made.
>
> For once, I agree with you.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
-- -
> Tim Daneliuk =A0 =A0 [email protected]
> PGP Key: =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

The Icelandic people understand something that your Congress does not.
Banks are private businesses, and private businesses that make
reckless and foolish mistakes deserve to go out of business and
government has no moral right at all to loot the general population to
save rich bankers from their own greed and folly.

On Mar 9, 4:16=A0pm, Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 9, 2:45=A0pm, busbus <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 9, 12:30=A0pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:19:02 -0800, busbus wrote:
> > > > I don't know how old everybody is but I remember growing up and alm=
ost
> > > > everybody had smallish houses and, if you were lucky, you had a one=
- car
> > > > garage. =A0The rooms were markedly smaller than the obnoxious ones =
today.
>
> > > I bought a 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch style house in a nice middle class
> > > neighborhood about 1960. =A0It was 1000 sq feet :-). =A0Me, 1st wife,=
and 3
> > > kids.
>
> > > Now me and 2nd wife live in a 1500+ square foot mobile home in a seni=
ors
> > > park and it seems too small.
>
> > > Only difference is perception and the amount of junk we call necessit=
ies
> > > nowadays.
>
> > > --
> > > Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw
>
> > Well, 1,500 sqf isn't all that big! =A0LOL!!! =A0Not when I see these
> > 3,000 - 4,000 monsters being built up here in Pittsburgh. =A0Seem slike
> > all the new houses are that big. =A0And the yards are getting smaller
> > (and not because there is more house sitting on the yard--the
> > properties are smaller). =A0It saddens to see that there is not enough
> > space for a guy to throw a baseball or football to his kids let alone
> > have them hit a ball or kick one. =A0I guess I just value the property
> > more than the house. =A0Growing up on 20 acres does that to a person.
> > We could hit those big, black super balls they used to sell back in
> > the 1960s/1970s and never have to worry about hitting anything.
>
> > And to swing this pedulum back, the people who are buyiung these
> > houses are the 25-year-old kids who just got married. =A0Sure, they got
> > a college degree and jobs (notice PLURAL jobs) but I always tell the
> > ones I know the sage advice an old man once told me:
>
> > "Just because you can make the payments doesn't mean you can afford
> > it."
>
> My sage old dad, an accountant, told me... ONE week net pay. Never pay
> more than ONE week net pay on your dwelling. ONE week for expenses
> (Transportation, car etc), ONE week for savings, ONE week for having
> some fun.
>
> Now, that does not include such variables as converting the bulk of a
> student loan into a stereo system, then finding an excellent deal on a
> bag of weed and then getting evicted for playing the music too loud...
> I think it was Drei Hunden Nacht (The German cover for Three Dog
> Night..I kid, I kid...).. yup.. I think it was Eli's Coming... that
> did it...well.. to somebody I knew.....<sheepish =A0grin>

....wait... or was it Uriah Heep?'s EEeeeeesy
Livin'?..no..wait...Grand Funk?..NAAA Couldn't have been Alice
Cooper....

On Mar 9, 12:34=A0pm, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/9/2010 12:16 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 9, 11:41 am, "chaniarts"<[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >> [email protected] wrote:
> >>> On Mar 9, 10:59 am, Swingman<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >>>> On 3/9/2010 10:45 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> >>>>> On Mar 9, 10:19 am, busbus<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >>>>>> The saddest thing is that the monthly property tax allocation is
> >>>>>> now more than the mortgage we used to pay. But that is the subject
> >>>>>> of another thread........
>
> >>>>> That's the beauty of living in the South. My taxes are 1/4 what I
> >>>>> paid in my last house.
>
> >>>> Depends upon where you live in the South ... my property taxes in
> >>>> Houston are in excess of $1000/mos.
>
> >>> Ow! =A0That's twice what I paid in VT (8x my current taxes). =A0I tho=
ught
> >>> TX was supposed to be a friendly state.
>
> >> no tx state income tax. they have to get the money somewhere, sorta li=
ke a
> >> fat lady in pantyhose. it has to bulge out somewhere.
>
> > If I read it right, you also have a 6.25% - 8.25% (my bet is that
> > Houston is at the high end) sales tax. =A0We also have an 8% sales tax,
> > but I don't pay anything like $10.5K in state income tax. =A0Yikes!
>
> 8.25% sales tax in Harris County.
>
> No state income tax is correct. Property taxes are out of hand due to
> the collusion between the politicians, the Real Estate industry, and the
> non-elected "Tax Appraisal District", created by the politicians so that
> they citizens can't hold their feet to the fire with regard to "taxation
> without representation".
>
> Simply put, my $12k in property gets me the EXACT same services,
> streets, roads, hospital districts, police, fire, etc that those who
> live in Waco get for 80% less taxes ... it just costs me eight times as
> much due to my appraisal district and home values inflated, in large
> part, with the help of the real estate industry.

Everyone in Texas has the same "mil rate" and a state-wide tax
bucket? Everywhere else I've lived property tax was local (more or
less) so the assessed value didn't much mater (at least in theory).
Each district had its own tax (there was state sharing, but that's
another thing) and rates, so reassessments didn't matter (at least in
theory). The assessments were all done once a decade. A house added
inbetween assessments would be added to the list at its current value
but everything would correct within ten years (give or take).

> More than 50% of the total property tax bill goes to HISD, one of the
> worst run school districts in the state with an entrenched, politically
> correct, primarily minority bureaucracy that you couldn't unseat with a
> stick of dynamite thanks to Federal policies.

In VT, 75% of the property tax went to the school district. The state
has a student to teacher ratio of 13:1, but that doesn't count the non-
teaching teacher for every other teacher and teacher's aid for every
other teacher, making the ratio really 6:1.

> In Texas, you just think your own your home ... try not paying whatever
> the tax appraisal districts think your can bear and see how long your
> supposedly inviolate "right of ownership" lasts.

Texas is hardly unique in this.

> I'll say it again ... fuck all you liberal bastards!

I'm with you on that one.

On Mar 9, 11:41=A0am, "chaniarts" <[email protected]>
wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
> > On Mar 9, 10:59 am, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> On 3/9/2010 10:45 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> >>> On Mar 9, 10:19 am, busbus<[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>> The saddest thing is that the monthly property tax allocation is
> >>>> now more than the mortgage we used to pay. But that is the subject
> >>>> of another thread........
>
> >>> That's the beauty of living in the South. My taxes are 1/4 what I
> >>> paid in my last house.
>
> >> Depends upon where you live in the South ... my property taxes in
> >> Houston are in excess of $1000/mos.
>
> > Ow! =A0That's twice what I paid in VT (8x my current taxes). =A0I thoug=
ht
> > TX was supposed to be a friendly state.
>
> no tx state income tax. they have to get the money somewhere, sorta like =
a
> fat lady in pantyhose. it has to bulge out somewhere.

If I read it right, you also have a 6.25% - 8.25% (my bet is that
Houston is at the high end) sales tax. We also have an 8% sales tax,
but I don't pay anything like $10.5K in state income tax. Yikes!

On Mar 7, 3:02=A0pm, "steve robinson" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
> If they refuse to pay they will be signing thier economic suicide
> note , Britain and Holland have already said publicly that if they
> dont pay they will veto any entry to the EU , and as the UK has
> influence with the imf , its unlikely iceland will get the bail out
> it needs without agreeing to pay up
>
> There is also the issue of trade , Iceland needs the EU markets , the
> EU markets dont need Iceland

What about the BEST Icelandic lutefisk? How will you ever go without?

Iceland would make a nice launch pad for those new Iranian missiles.

You get them vikings pissed off enough to start building longboats
again.

I think the biggest problem is that the whole island isn't worth 5
billion... and yet the Dutch and British banks thought it was safe?
With adequate collateral?

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> Also, the FDIC and other regulatory bodies did *such* a good job making
> sure Citi, AIG, et al were "well governed" didn't they? I love listening
> to big government advocates because their argument essentially boils
> down to this: "Because government has intruded upon and generally screwed
> up retirement funds, healthcare, banking, education, ... what we really
> need is MORE government." It requires an astonishing level of
> irrationality
> to demand more of something that already doesn't work. Apparently, if a
> little
> is lousy a lot will be terrific???

Classic anti-regulation rhetoric, conveniently ignoring that it was
deregulation that allowed the current economic mess to happen. It requires
an astonishing level of dishonesty to pretend that deregulating the
financial sector so they could make increasingly risky bets on unregulated
securities without being sufficiently capitalized if things went wrong was
*really* an example of government intruding on private enterprise.

On 3/10/2010 6:42 AM, HeyBub wrote:
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
>> On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:59:45 -0600, Swingman wrote:
>>
>>> my youngest daughter was just
>>> refused by her insurance company for $30k worth of surgery to stop
>>> imminent blindness in one eye.
>>>
>>> Fuck all you liberal bastards ...
>>
>> I thought it was all those "liberal bastards" who were trying to fix
>> the health insurance problems?
>
> No. Fromt he progressive's viewpoint, health care reform is only the means
> to the end, not the end itself.

Reaffirming ... to see an intellect sufficient to pierce to the heart of
the matter, instinctively and without the need for a 'Dick and Jane'
explanation.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Mar 8, 11:50=A0am, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> > <[email protected]> =A0scrawled the following:
> >> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
> >> should own a house. =A0Too bad if some people think that "The American
> >> Dream" is owning your own home. =A0If you do not have the means to pay
> >> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> > Amen.
>
> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagine
> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase and own=
...
>
Oh sure. With smaller countertops. Goodie. :-)

On 3/9/2010 11:32 AM, Larry Blanchard wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:59:45 -0600, Swingman wrote:
>
>> my youngest daughter was just
>> refused by her insurance company for $30k worth of surgery to stop
>> imminent blindness in one eye.
>>
>> Fuck all you liberal bastards ...
>
> I thought it was all those "liberal bastards" who were trying to fix the
> health insurance problems?

You thought, but didn't think ... there is NO line, paid for by _my_
taxes, for her to stand in because she speaks only English. There is NO,
advocate, paid for by _my_ taxes, available to her, because she is
blonde haired and blue-eyed. She has to work three jobs to make ends
meet, and the taxes that go along with them, but has to go to the end of
the line because she is a citizen and not a minority.

Liberal policies have resulted in the overloading of social systems in
this country by illegals and freeloaders, which is at the very core of
the problem.

Too many of you don't "think"!

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Mar 8, 11:34=A0am, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/8/2010 11:20 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 8, 10:50 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> >>> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> >>> <[email protected]> =A0 =A0scrawled the following:
> >>>> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
> >>>> should own a house. =A0Too bad if some people think that "The Americ=
an
> >>>> Dream" is owning your own home. =A0If you do not have the means to p=
ay
> >>>> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> >>> Amen.
>
> >> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagine
> >> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> > What has "need" to do with it?
>
> Nothing at all that I've been able to identify - and yet I watched the
> "average price of a new home" (realty statistics presented on local
> news) in the greater Des Moines area go over a quarter million dollars.
> There were a _lot_ more million-dollar homes being built than $100K
> homes... and this is an area that normally tends to be fiscally
> conservative...

Perhaps that's because that's the house people *want*. Of course
there are more $M homes built than $100K homes. Two things drive
this; government regulations and economics. Governments place
requirements on developers and builders that drive costs up (some of
these are good things like sewers). To make money, these costs have
to be recovered. It's easier making it up $50K on a $M home than
$100K home.

BTW, I looked in the Des Moines area (was offered a job there in '08 -
I would have likely taken the position but it turned out to be a mess)
and was quite happy with the prices. A quarter megabuck buys a nice
home there. I ended up in Alabama, where the prices are similar. I
paid $300K for what you might call a McMansion (2600sq ft), which in
may situation is "fiscally conservative".

>
> >> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
> >> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase and =
own....
>
> > There are smaller houses. =A0Not everyone can afford those, either.
>
> Who said everything about "everyone"? (My world is not, apparently, as
> binary as yours.)

The point of the discussion was that "everyone" was *supposed* to be
able to buy a home and the federal government tried to make it happen
for even those who have no business buying an orange crate. We all
see how that worked out.

On 3/7/2010 7:27 PM, David Nebenzahl wrote:
> On 3/7/2010 9:02 AM Robatoy spake thus:
>
> [snip]
>
>> This is a call to keyboards. Post to the comments section of every
>> Corporate Media article demonizing the Icelandic people for refusing
>> the yoke of servitude created for them the concept of Odious debt and
>> why it applies here!
>
> To the barricades!
>
> Liberté, égalité, fraternité!
>
>

Yeah, that worked out really well for the French...

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk [email protected]
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

On Mar 9, 10:19=A0am, busbus <[email protected]> wrote:
> Larry,
>
> I think he means don't get married and don't have kids before you
> gradate high school and get a job. =A0 ;o)

Yes. (...in that order)

> But, you make a good point, too.
>
> I don't know how old everybody is but I remember growing up and almost
> everybody had smallish houses and, if you were lucky, you had a one-
> car garage. =A0The rooms were markedly smaller than the obnoxious ones
> today. =A0Two or three kids would be piled into one bedroom. =A0There
> would be no elbow room around the supper table. =A0Everybody would watch
> the same TV show in the same room because there was only one TV (and
> it wasn't always color!).

We didn't get a TV set (a B&W) until I was about 12. When my son was
young I refused to buy a second set for this reason. I still won't
have one in our bedroom, but we do have one in the guest bedroom.

> The thing is, in a way, a lot of room is nice. =A0In another way,
> however, it is a millstone around your neck. =A0You pay more for
> everything house-related because, well, there is more of it. =A0You tend
> to accumulate more *junk* that you don't need. =A0

Move every ten years. ;-) We've moved three times in fifteen and the
junk has been kept to a minimum. We've also outgrown the chochkis
phase. If it's not something special, that we know that we'll want to
look at for the next few decades, it doesn't get bought. We don't do
clutter anymore. Cleaning a large house is still work.

> And whenever you
> follow the sequence set forth above, once the kids move out, the place
> is just too dang big for two old people. =A0Then common sense returns
> and the old people look for a smaller place--with a bigger workshop
> (one that does not have to be shared with a stinking car).

When the kid moved out we bought a bigger house. ;-) Why would the
car share space with the workshop? The car sleeps in the
driveway. ;-)

> I sort of agree that getting a big house is like trying to keep up
> with the Joneses or Smiths or Rockefellers. =A0You can come up with
> 1,000+ excuses of why that may not be the case but logic will keep
> bringing you back to you trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Nonsense. I *like* the amenities of a big house; big kitchens, dining
room (for the CHERRY furniture), and master suite (w/ king size bed).
I really don't care what the neighbors have (our vehicles are 9 and 10
years old).

> My wife has attempted to pressure me into buying newer and bigger over
> the past 20 years but all I did was add on one 13x22 room on the main
> floor of my smallish split-entry house and dug out the same size room
> downstairs that she sort of took over as personal storage space. =A0Now
> that the oldest is getting ready to go off to college in the fall, the
> place seems almost big enough. =A0Once the younger one goes to college,
> it will be just right.

I'd never add onto a house, but that's me.

> Well, not really "just right" because the wife insists on cars being
> in the garage and the, *gasp*, tools moved out of the way but this is
> a small price to pay when you realize you are done paying a mortgage
> and you actually own the place lock, stock, and barrel.

I have a couple of years left on that one (bought in '08 and will pay
it off in '12 or '13).

> The saddest thing is that the monthly property tax allocation is now
> more than the mortgage we used to pay. =A0But that is the subject of
> another thread........

That's the beauty of living in the South. My taxes are 1/4 what I
paid in my last house.

On 3/9/2010 8:31 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:

> Maybe you should "think" before replying.

If you had the ability, you wouldn't have replied ...

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Robatoy wrote:
> WAY off topic, but I am genuinely interested in what some of you think
> about this:
>
> Every family of 4 was asked to pay $ 185.00 per month for EIGHT years
> to pay back money a Dutch and British bank lost when their investment
> in an Icelandic Internet bank went bad during the last economic
> collapse.
> Now the way I see it, those two banks made a risky investment and got
> burnt. Too bad, so sad, it is the game they play.
> Now the banks along with the IMF are pushing parliament for some sort
> of repayment by the Icelanders who had not ONE word of say when those
> risky investments were made.
>
> It was put up for a vote.
>

Didn't the Icelandic government guarantee the bank's solvency? If so, the
public DID have a say when they elected the rascals who approved the deal.

Plus there were all those Icelanders (at least twelve) who profited for many
years on the insanely high interest rates and dividends paid by the banks to
their depositors and shareholders.

"Ed Pawlowski" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> If I may make a suggestion. This can be resolved easily. What we can do
> in the US is to send some of our best Senators to Iceland to arbitrate.
> We'll send only the top 100 of them.

And they get one-way tickets.

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> Ah, don't forget the government MANDATING risky loans via the Community
> Redevelopment Act. The risky loans were demanded by the government and the
> banks actually had to hunt down people to give them money. It was that or
> the bank was out of business.

And then the banks (whose execs were paying themselves handsome bonuses)
took loans likely to default and bundled them into arcane securities and
sold them after getting the rating companies like S&P and Moody's (whose
people were also getting record bonuses) to rate them triple-A by the
cunning trick of paying them an average of half a million bucks a pop to do
so. And then the especially cunning investment firms like Goldman Sachs
(more mind-boggling bonuses) actually laid bets that those securities would
end up being worthless thanks to defaulting mortgages, and companies like
AIG were happy to take those bets because the guys running their financial
products division were making multi-million-dollar bonuses on that action
too. Imagine that, executives of powerful financial firms put their own
income ahead of the long-term health of their companies, and thanks to
deregulation there was nobody to step in and announce the party couldn't
continue unless somebody paid off the bar tab.

But to this day whenever this issue comes up the usual suspects announce it
was all because those &^%^$! Democrats forced the banks to write mortgages
to, well you know, those people on the wrong side of the tracks, but the
hands of the banks and investment houses and rating agencies--they're clean
as can be.

What a dark and bitter comedy this is.

Larry,

I think he means don't get married and don't have kids before you
gradate high school and get a job. ;o)

But, you make a good point, too.

I don't know how old everybody is but I remember growing up and almost
everybody had smallish houses and, if you were lucky, you had a one-
car garage. The rooms were markedly smaller than the obnoxious ones
today. Two or three kids would be piled into one bedroom. There
would be no elbow room around the supper table. Everybody would watch
the same TV show in the same room because there was only one TV (and
it wasn't always color!).

The thing is, in a way, a lot of room is nice. In another way,
however, it is a millstone around your neck. You pay more for
everything house-related because, well, there is more of it. You tend
to accumulate more *junk* that you don't need. And whenever you
follow the sequence set forth above, once the kids move out, the place
is just too dang big for two old people. Then common sense returns
and the old people look for a smaller place--with a bigger workshop
(one that does not have to be shared with a stinking car).

I sort of agree that getting a big house is like trying to keep up
with the Joneses or Smiths or Rockefellers. You can come up with
1,000+ excuses of why that may not be the case but logic will keep
bringing you back to you trying to keep up with the Joneses.

My wife has attempted to pressure me into buying newer and bigger over
the past 20 years but all I did was add on one 13x22 room on the main
floor of my smallish split-entry house and dug out the same size room
downstairs that she sort of took over as personal storage space. Now
that the oldest is getting ready to go off to college in the fall, the
place seems almost big enough. Once the younger one goes to college,
it will be just right.

Well, not really "just right" because the wife insists on cars being
in the garage and the, *gasp*, tools moved out of the way but this is
a small price to pay when you realize you are done paying a mortgage
and you actually own the place lock, stock, and barrel.

The saddest thing is that the monthly property tax allocation is now
more than the mortgage we used to pay. But that is the subject of
another thread........

On Mar 8, 3:13=A0pm, Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 8, 3:54=A0pm, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 8, 2:16=A0pm, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > On 3/8/2010 12:51 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > > > On Mar 8, 11:34 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> > > >> On 3/8/2010 11:20 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > > >>> On Mar 8, 10:50 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0 =A0wrote:
> > > >>>> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> > > >>>>> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> > > >>>>> <[email protected]> =A0 =A0 =A0scrawled the following:
> > > >>>>>> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not every=
body
> > > >>>>>> should own a house. =A0Too bad if some people think that "The =
American
> > > >>>>>> Dream" is owning your own home. =A0If you do not have the mean=
s to pay
> > > >>>>>> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> > > >>>>> Amen.
>
> > > >>>> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't i=
magine
> > > >>>> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> > > >>> What has "need" to do with it?
>
> > > >> Nothing at all that I've been able to identify - and yet I watched=
the
> > > >> "average price of a new home" (realty statistics presented on loca=
l
> > > >> news) in the greater Des Moines area go over a quarter million dol=
lars.
> > > >> There were a _lot_ more million-dollar homes being built than $100=
K
> > > >> homes... and this is an area that normally tends to be fiscally
> > > >> conservative...
>
> > > > Perhaps that's because that's the house people *want*. =A0Of course
> > > > there are more $M homes built than $100K homes. =A0Two things drive
> > > > this; government regulations and economics. =A0Governments place
> > > > requirements on developers and builders that drive costs up (some o=
f
> > > > these are good things like sewers). =A0To make money, these costs h=
ave
> > > > to be recovered. =A0It's easier making it up $50K on a $M home than
> > > > $100K home.
>
> > > That's true to a certain extent - but it wasn't government mandates t=
hat
> > > pushed the prices here. It was the combination of builder greed, too
> > > easy mortgages, and local government eagerness to see real estate tax
> > > revenue leap upward.
>
> > Government mandates do cost the developer/builder a third (or more) of
> > the house price. =A0In Vermont it was more like half. =A0A developer ha=
d
> > $100K in a lot before the first shovel saw light of day. =A0Of course
> > the builder isn't going to put a $100K house on a $100K lot.
>
> > Revenue wouldn't need to increase if they didn't spend more. =A0They
> > wanted to spend more without raising the "mil" rate - another
> > invisible tax. =A0...until the market goes down.
>
> > > It was also not an eagerness of _most_ folks to live on private lakes
> > > and golf courses.
>
> > Most, perhaps not, but a significant number do. =A0I'd like to live on =
a
> > lake too. =A0Maybe someday soon (when I really retire ;-).
>
> > > One of the effects was to make it difficult for young people at any
> > > level of income to have a home of their own at a price they could man=
age
> > > - and now the state has a problem because a *huge* percentage of
> > > graduates from the state universities have been deciding (with good
> > > reason) that they can't afford to live and work in Iowa, and find job=
s
> > > elsewhere.
>
> > Where? =A0California? =A0I've heard this argument everywhere I've lived=
.
>
> > > > BTW, I looked in the Des Moines area (was offered a job there in '0=
8 -
> > > > I would have likely taken the position but it turned out to be a me=
ss)
> > > > and was quite happy with the prices. =A0A quarter megabuck buys a n=
ice
> > > > home there. =A0I ended up in Alabama, where the prices are similar.=
=A0I
> > > > paid $300K for what you might call a McMansion (2600sq ft), which i=
n
> > > > may situation is "fiscally conservative".
>
> > > I understand all of the above fairly well (and have kept up to date w=
ith
> > > where the "messes" are). I was offered a job in San Francisco a while
> > > back with what in Iowa would be considered a truly exhorbitant salary=
,
> > > and turned it down because housing costs _way_ more than ate up the
> > > difference. (Every now and then I scratch my head and ponder a move t=
o
> > > northern Georgia or western Virginia...)
>
> > I should have explained better... =A0The "mess" wasn't anything to do
> > with Des Moines, rather the employer screwed everything up after the
> > interview trip out there. =A0Of course, if I had taken the job there I
> > would have been moving out there during the middle of the floods.
>
> > > >>>> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes w=
ith
> > > >>>> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchas=
e and own....
>
> > > >>> There are smaller houses. =A0Not everyone can afford those, eithe=
r.
>
> > > >> Who said everything about "everyone"? (My world is not, apparently=
, as
> > > >> binary as yours.)
>
> > > > The point of the discussion was that "everyone" was *supposed* to b=
e
> > > > able to buy a home and the federal government tried to make it happ=
en
> > > > for even those who have no business buying an orange crate. =A0We a=
ll
> > > > see how that worked out.
>
> > > Won't argue that. The road to hell _is_ paved with good intentions.
> > > Still, the fact remains that there is a need for housing for those wh=
o
> > > don't have large incomes (and/or have large outstanding college loans=
)
> > > and, here at least, that need is not being met.
>
> > Indeed they are. =A0College loans are another government-caused mess.
> > The whole purpose of loans are to drive the cost of education UP.
> > Obama wants more.
>
> > > I think there's a basic fallacy in any reasoning that leads one to
> > > conclude that because someone can't afford a $250K house, they're
> > > automatically unworthy to build equity with a $100K house.
>
> > That's certainly not my position. =A0However, there is no way a new hom=
e
> > can be built today for $100K in many places, mostly because of
> > government regulations (again, not saying that all are bad).
> > Discounting places like NYC and SF, where there isn't enough land for
> > the population (and this isn't totally out of government's hands), a
> > major reason for high housing costs is because of government
> > intervention.
>
> > Small houses can still be had for $100K in many areas. =A0There is
> > nothing that says that a starter house has to be a new one, though
> > I've seen new ones in the low-middle $100s here.
>
> There are some super-sweet deals in Detroit MI

...and Rochester NY. If you consider the average salary, perhaps
not. Seriously, that's one of the bigger factors in home prices, the
other being *government*.

"HeyBub" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> You're taking a proletarian view of both lobbyists and large donations.

Yeah, imagine thinking the people matter more than corporations, I must be a
radical socialist or something.

> First, it is the lobbyist who is intimately familiar with the venue
> subject to legislation. It is he who can inform, educate, and help craft
> laws that the average legislator is ill-equipped to understand. Who would
> you rather have setting the rail tarrif on hydrogenated yak-fat - your
> average representative or a yak herder?

You are using a false dichotomy, it isn't a choice between ignorant
legislators and greedy lobbyists. Members of Congress have staffs, and the
various federal agencies have staffs, both capable of researching the
hydrogenated yak-fat issue and advising members of Congress. The notion
that only industry knows enough about industry to write laws regulating
industry is Alice In Wonderland stuff. And Lord haven't we seen what
happens when lobbyists write laws, oh yes we have.

> Second, "special interests" are a foil to the fickle insistence of the
> unwashed masses. They are the voice of sanity when compared to the
> pitchforks and torches crowd.

You're one of those guys who assumes if he'd lived in days of yore he'd have
been a member of the aristocracy, aren't you. Lord Heybub, Duke of
Windbaggery. Rather more likely you'd have been an apprentice dung-piler
like all the rest of us.

> For example, recent polls say 63% of the public is opposed to the current
> renditions of healt-care plans. Very many (most?) of the Congress are
> moving contrary to the uneducated and evidently uneducatable mob. In so
> doing, they are obviously listening to a handful of their better informed,
> but largely unknown, betters.

A short time ago the majority of the voters were in favor of the "public
option," and even today the majority are in favor of most of the components
of the current health legislation, they just get the shakes over the whole
package. Members of Congress are divided between those motivated entirely
by the desire to overturn the results of the last election, and those afraid
of losing their seats--no wonder the lobbyists have such easy pickings
getting legislation twisted to their liking.

Morris Dovey <[email protected]> writes:

>I've also seen $1 homes in Des Moines, but the number of people who can
>afford to buy one to live in is astonishingly small.

Hmm. Something funny amount that. I'd think quite a few could affort $1 homes
if they could find them :-)

I've heard that you can get good deals for $75k in certain parts of Riverside
County, California.

scott

Swingman wrote:
> On 3/10/2010 6:42 AM, HeyBub wrote:
>> Larry Blanchard wrote:
>>> On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 10:59:45 -0600, Swingman wrote:
>>>
>>>> my youngest daughter was just
>>>> refused by her insurance company for $30k worth of surgery to stop
>>>> imminent blindness in one eye.
>>>>
>>>> Fuck all you liberal bastards ...
>>>
>>> I thought it was all those "liberal bastards" who were trying to fix
>>> the health insurance problems?
>>
>> No. Fromt he progressive's viewpoint, health care reform is only the
>> means to the end, not the end itself.
>
> Reaffirming ... to see an intellect sufficient to pierce to the heart
> of the matter, instinctively and without the need for a 'Dick and
> Jane' explanation.

No intellect is really necessary if one performs the basic two-step process:

1. Discount or ignore the reasons offered by a progressive - they are almost
always a lie, and
2. What available reason: a) Promotes equality of status and b) Feels or
sounds good?

[email protected] wrote:
> On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 12:14:43 -0800, "DGDevin"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>
>>> Also, the FDIC and other regulatory bodies did *such* a good job
>>> making sure Citi, AIG, et al were "well governed" didn't they? I
>>> love listening to big government advocates because their argument
>>> essentially boils down to this: "Because government has intruded
>>> upon and generally screwed up retirement funds, healthcare,
>>> banking, education, ... what we really need is MORE government."
>>> It requires an astonishing level of irrationality
>>> to demand more of something that already doesn't work. Apparently,
>>> if a little
>>> is lousy a lot will be terrific???
>>
>> Classic anti-regulation rhetoric, conveniently ignoring that it was
>> deregulation that allowed the current economic mess to happen.
>
> Bullshit. It was government financing and *guaranteeing* risky
> behavior that was responsible for the meltdown. Nothing has changed,
> so expect another, bigger, disaster. All Obama is doing is trying to
> re-inflate the bubble.
>

Ah, don't forget the government MANDATING risky loans via the Community
Redevelopment Act. The risky loans were demanded by the government and the
banks actually had to hunt down people to give them money. It was that or
the bank was out of business.

On 3/10/2010 7:43 AM, Robatoy wrote:

> Purely from a personal interest standpoint, what was the insurance
> company's reason for refusal? (Take that off-line if you wish. My
> website topworksdotca "Get Info" button puts you into my Crackberry)
> It is stuff like that which drives me nuts. Is that what Obama wants
> to do? Remove the right for an insurance company to refuse? IOW remove
> all pre-existing conditions?

Yep, the reason for denial is "pre-existing" condition, despite five
separate medical diagnoses that it is not.

In any event, it's a moot point as we would be paying for four more
years before "Obamacare" would kick in, even assuming it is effective in
that regard, which is not without a shadow of doubt.

And, while there is nothing "experimental" in any way about this
particular surgery, the incentive and medical innovation that led to its
development will, under "Obamacare", arguably be only a distant memory
by then.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>>Horsecrap, no govt. forced investment firms to bundle rotten mortgages and
>>sell them to each other, no govt. compelled S&P or the other rating
>>agencies
>>to stamp triple-A on securities so complex they didn't know what the hell
>>they were rating, no govt.
>
> You're a liar, too. The government *did* force banks to make shady loans
> and
> they *did* guarantee those loans, and buy packaged loans and *guarantee*
> those
> packages. Don't be so damned blind.
>
> <WAY too much bullshit to read, snipped>

Doesn't like to read information he disagrees with--gee, who could have
predicted that?

On 3/8/2010 10:50 AM, Morris Dovey wrote:
> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
>> <[email protected]> scrawled the following:
>
>>> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
>>> should own a house. Too bad if some people think that "The American
>>> Dream" is owning your own home. If you do not have the means to pay
>>> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>>
>> Amen.
>
> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagine
> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase and
> own...

Not gonna happen in this country. Sadly, the reality is that I can sell
a 3800 sf home five times faster than a 2800 sf home in the same
neighborhood, even in the worst economic crisis in 70 years ... and
prove it again and again every time I build smaller.

It's a cultural thing ... folks who buy new houses in the US are in a
certain age demographic, with less common sense to go along with, what
is loosely defined these days as, educational level.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On 3/8/2010 12:34 PM, Lee Michaels wrote:
> "Swingman" wrote
>
>> On 3/8/2010 11:28 AM, steve robinson wrote:
>>
>>> If America goes into Iran they will end up getting a bloody nose ,
>>> economically , its quite possible the oil produceing countries could
>>> switch currencies , make the dollar worthless overnight .
>>
>> Don't get your anti-yank panties in a orgasmic twist just yet, Bubba. With
>> only 5% of the world's crude production Iran is in no position to impose
>> _anything_.
>>
>> --
> In addition to that, Iran is an international pariah. The Arab states hate
> Iran and will step up production to cover any shortfall. They would love to
> see Iran fall.
>
> Also, any attack on Iran would be measured and very high tech. Iran only
> has old weapons that don't work well. Their military forces are inept. That
> is why they want nukes. They are not a threat otherwise.

Oil producers and traders want/require, above all other factors,
s-t-a-b-i-l-i-t-y ... and an historical track record in an established
"rule of law" in the global trading capitals that insures same, along
with an infrastructure, economic and physical, that will guarantee
global "delivery" of the commodity ... something Iran can not provide,
at this at this time, or until they fulfill their wish to nuke the rest
of us into submission.

And, as for going to the Euro ... never say never, but the downside and
disruption in global energy trading to effect a change in currencies
will require a more dire economic collapse of not only the US, but most
its trading partners, than is being seen today.

But, WTF do I know, eh? Otherwise I wouldn't be posting here on a day
too rainy to do something more productive, obviously.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:16:11 -0500, Chuck wrote:

> Ed Pawlowski wrote:
>>
>>
>> "Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>
news:[email protected]...
>>> WAY off topic, but I am genuinely interested in what some of you think
>>> about this:
>>>
>>> Every family of 4 was asked to pay $ 185.00 per month for EIGHT years
>>> to pay back money a Dutch and British bank lost when their investment
>>> in an Icelandic Internet bank went bad during the last economic
>>> collapse.
>>> Now the way I see it, those two banks made a risky investment and got
>>> burnt. Too bad, so sad, it is the game they play. Now the banks along
>>> with the IMF are pushing parliament for some sort of repayment by the
>>> Icelanders who had not ONE word of say when those risky investments
>>> were made.
>>>
>>> It was put up for a vote.
>>>
>>> The next paragraphs are from a news-wire along with another comment.
>>>
>>> ---------
>>>
>>> Iceland votes 'no' to debt deal for collapsed bank.
>>>
>>> Voters in tiny Iceland defied their parliament and international
>>> pressure, resoundingly rejecting a $5.3 billion plan to repay Britain
>>> and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the collapse of an Icelandic
>>> bank.
>>>
>>> ---------
>>>
>>> Iceland defies their parliament? The parliament is supposed to
>>> represent the will of the Icelandic people! Their function is to obey
>>> orders, not issue them!
>>
>>
>> If I may make a suggestion. This can be resolved easily. What we can
>> do in the US is to send some of our best Senators to Iceland to
>> arbitrate. We'll send only the top 100 of them.
>
> And give them a ONE WAY ticket. Works for me...

Also put their names in the Homeland Security computers as undesirable
and unable to re-enter the US.

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>>Classic anti-regulation rhetoric, conveniently ignoring that it was
>>deregulation that allowed the current economic mess to happen.
>
> Bullshit. It was government financing and *guaranteeing* risky behavior
> that
> was responsible for the meltdown. Nothing has changed, so expect another,
> bigger, disaster. All Obama is doing is trying to re-inflate the bubble.

Horsecrap, no govt. forced investment firms to bundle rotten mortgages and
sell them to each other, no govt. compelled S&P or the other rating agencies
to stamp triple-A on securities so complex they didn't know what the hell
they were rating, no govt. forced the banks to award huge bonuses for moving
worthless paper and so on. The financial industry spent hundreds of
millions lobbying Congress for deregulation; they got what they wanted and
in less than a decade we got the worst financial crash in three-quarters of
a century--we're supposed to believe that's just a big old coincidence?
What's more people predicted what it would lead to at the time, that the
coming crash would make the S&L crisis look like a picnic--too bad they
weren't listened to, but everyone was making so much money, what could
possibly go wrong?

http://piggington.com/clinton_republicans_agree_to_deregulation_of_us_financial_system

Clinton, Republicans agree to deregulation of US financial system
User Forum Topic
Submitted by Ex-SD on September 19, 2008 - 11:04am
A piece of history for those who want to blame all of this mess on Bush. I'm
no Bush lover but facts are facts and here's an article from 1999.

Clinton, Republicans agree to deregulation of US financial system

By Martin McLaughlin
1 November 1999

An agreement between the Clinton administration and congressional
Republicans, reached during all-night negotiations which concluded in the
early hours of October 22, sets the stage for passage of the most sweeping
banking deregulation bill in American history, lifting virtually all
restraints on the operation of the giant monopolies which dominate the
financial system.

The proposed Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 would do away with
restrictions on the integration of banking, insurance and stock trading
imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, one of the central pillars of
Roosevelt's New Deal. Under the old law, banks, brokerages and insurance
companies were effectively barred from entering each others' industries, and
investment banking and commercial banking were separated.

The certain result of repeal of Glass-Steagall will be a wave of mergers
surpassing even the colossal combinations of the past several years. The
Wall Street Journal wrote, "With the stroke of the president's pen,
investment firms like Merrill Lynch & Co. and banks like Bank of America
Corp., are expected to be on the prowl for acquisitions." The financial
press predicted that the most likely mergers would come from big banks
acquiring insurance companies, with John Hancock, Prudential and The
Hartford all expected to be targeted.

Kenneth Guenther, executive vice president of Independent Community Bankers
of America, an association of small rural banks which opposed the bill,
warned, "This is going to begin a wave of major mergers and acquisitions in
the financial-services industry. We're moving to an oligopolistic
situation."

One such merger was already carried out well before the passage of the
legislation, the $72 billion deal which brought together Citibank, the
biggest New York bank, and Travelers Group Inc., the huge insurance and
financial services conglomerate, which owns Salomon Smith Barney, a major
brokerage. That merger was negotiated despite the fact that the merged
company, Citigroup, was in violation of the Glass-Steagall Act, because
billionaire Travelers boss Sanford Weill and Citibank CEO John Reed were
confident of bipartisan support for repeal of the 60-year-old law.

Campaign of influence-buying

They had good reason, to be sure. The banking, insurance and brokerage
industry lobbyists have combined their forces over the last five years to
mount the best-financed campaign of influence-buying ever seen in
Washington. In 1997 and 1998 alone, the three industries spent over $300
million on the effort: $58 million in campaign contributions to Democratic
and Republican candidates, $87 million in "soft money" contributions to the
Democratic and Republican parties, and $163 million on lobbying of elected
officials.

The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Texas Republican Phil Gramm,
himself collected more than $1.5 million in cash from the three industries
during the last five years: $496,610 from the insurance industry, $760,404
from the securities industry and $407,956 from banks.

During the final hours of negotiations between the House-Senate conference
committee and White House and Treasury officials, dozens of well-heeled
lobbyists crowded the corridors outside the room where the final deal-making
was going on. Edward Yingling, chief lobbyist for the American Bankers
Association, told the New York Times, "If I had to guess, I would say it's
probably the most heavily lobbied, most expensive issue" in a generation.

While Democratic and Republican congressmen and industry lobbyists claimed
that deregulation would spark competition and improve services to consumers,
the same claims have proven bogus in the case of telecommunications,
airlines and other industries freed from federal regulations. Consumer
groups noted that since the passage of a 1994 banking deregulation bill
which permitted bank holding companies to operate in more than one state,
both checking fees and ATM fees have risen sharply.

Differing versions of financial services deregulation passed the House and
Senate earlier this year, and the conference committee was called to work
out a consensus bill and avert a White House veto. The principal bone of
contention in the last few days before the agreement had nothing to do with
the central thrust of the bill, on which there was near-unanimous bipartisan
support.

The sticking point was the effort by Gramm to gut the Community Reinvestment
Act, a 1977 anti-redlining law which requires that banks make a certain
proportion of their loans in minority and poor neighborhoods. Gramm blocked
passage of a similar deregulation bill last year over demands to cripple the
CRA, and bank lobbyists were in a panic, during the week before the deal was
made, that the dispute would once again prevent any bill from being adopted.

Gramm and other extreme-right Republicans saw the opportunity to damage
their political opponents among minority businessmen and community groups,
who generally support the Democratic Party. Gramm succeeded in inserting two
provisions to weaken the CRA, one reducing the frequency of examinations for
CRA compliance to once every five years for smaller banks, the other
compelling public disclosure of loans made under the program.

The latter provision was particularly offensive to black and other minority
business and community groups, who have used the CRA provisions as a lever
by threatening to challenge mergers and other bank operations which require
government approval. In most such cases, the banks have offered loans to
businessmen or outright grants to community groups in return for dropping
their legal actions. These petty-bourgeois elements have been able to
posture as defenders of the black or Hispanic community, while pocketing
what are essentially payoffs from finance capital and concealing from the
public the details of this relationship.

The banks and other financial institutions did not themselves oppose
continuation of the CRA, which they have treated as nothing more than a cost
of doing a highly profitable business in minority areas. Loans tied to the
CRA average a 20 percent rate of return. Financial industry lobbyists
complained that they were being caught in a crossfire between the
Republicans and Democrats which was unrelated to the main purpose of the
bill.

The Clinton White House threatened to veto the bill if CRA provisions were
substantially weakened, in response to heavy pressure from the Congressional
Black Caucus and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, whose Operation PUSH has made
extensive use of CRA in its campaigns to pressure corporations and banks for
more opportunities for black businessmen. But eventually the White House
caved in to Gramm, accepting his amendments so long as the program remained
formally in place.

The White House similarly retreated on pledges that consumer privacy would
be protected in the legislation. Consumer groups pointed to the potential
for abuse of financial information once giant conglomerates were created
which would handle loans, investments and insurance at the same time. For
example: a bank could refuse to give a 30-year mortgage to a customer whose
medical records, filed with the bank's insurance subsidiary, revealed a
fatal disease.

The final draft of the bill contains a consumer privacy protection clause,
but it is extremely weak, applying only to the transfer of information
outside of a financial conglomerate, not within it. Thus Citigroup will be
able to pass on financial information about its bank depositors to Travelers
Insurance, but not to an outside company like Prudential. Even that
limitation would be breached if there was a contractual relationship with
the outside company, as in the case of a telemarketer which did work for
Citigroup and was given private information about Citigroup depositors to
aid in its telephone solicitations.

Threat to financial stability

The proposed deregulation will increase the degree of monopolization in
finance and worsen the position of consumers in relation to creditors. Even
more significant is its impact on the overall stability of US and world
capitalism. The bill ties the banking system and the insurance industry even
more directly to the volatile US stock market, virtually guaranteeing that
any significant plunge on Wall Street will have an immediate and
catastrophic impact throughout the US financial system.

The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which the deregulation bill would repeal,
was not adopted to protect consumers, although one of its most celebrated
provisions was the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, which guarantees bank deposits of up to $100,000. The law was
enacted during the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration to rescue
a banking system which had collapsed, wiping out the life savings of
millions of working people, and threatening to bring the profit system to a
complete standstill.

As a recent history of that era notes: "The more than five thousand bank
failures between the Crash and the New Deal's rescue operation in March 1933
wiped out some $7 billion in depositors' money. Accelerating foreclosures on
defaulted home mortgages-150,000 homeowners lost their property in 1930,
200,000 in 1931, 250,000 in 1932-stripped millions of people of both shelter
and life savings at a single stroke and menaced the balance sheets of
thousands of surviving banks" (David Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, Oxford
University Press, 1999, pp. 162-63).

The separation of banking and the stock exchange was ordered in response to
revelations of the gross corruption and manipulation of the market by giant
banking houses, above all the House of Morgan, which organized huge
corporate mergers for its own profit and awarded preferential access to
share issues to favored politicians and businessmen. Such insider trading
played a major role in the speculative boom which preceded the 1929 crash.

Over the past 20 years the restrictions imposed by Glass-Steagall have been
gradually relaxed under pressure from the banks, which sought more
profitable outlets for their capital, especially in the booming stock
market, and which complained that foreign competitors suffered no such
limitations to their financial operations. In 1990 the Federal Reserve Board
first permitted a bank (J.P. Morgan) to sell stock through a subsidiary,
although stock market operations were limited to 10 percent of the company's
total revenue. In 1996 this ceiling was lifted to 25 percent. Now it will be
abolished.

The Wall Street Journal celebrated the agreement to end such restrictions
with an editorial declaring that the banks had been unfairly scapegoated for
the Great Depression. The headline of one Journal article detailing the
impact of the proposed law declared, "Finally, 1929 Begins to Fade."

This comment underscores the greatest irony in the banking deregulation
bill. Legislation first adopted to save American capitalism from the
consequences of the 1929 Wall Street Crash is being abolished just at the
point where the conditions are emerging for an even greater speculative
financial collapse. The enormous volatility in the stock exchange in recent
months has been accompanied by repeated warnings that stocks are grossly
overvalued, with some computer and Internet stocks selling at prices 100
times earnings or even greater.

And there is a much more recent experience than 1929 to serve as a
cautionary tale. A financial deregulation bill was passed in the early 1980s
under the Reagan administration, lifting many restrictions on the activities
of savings and loan associations, which had previously been limited
primarily to the home-loan market. The result was an orgy of speculation,
profiteering and outright plundering of assets, culminating in collapse and
the biggest financial bailout in US history, costing the federal government
more than $500 billion. The repetition of such events in the much larger
banking and securities markets would be beyond the scope of any federal
bailout.

>> It requires
>>an astonishing level of dishonesty to pretend that deregulating the
>>financial sector so they could make increasingly risky bets on unregulated
>>securities without being sufficiently capitalized if things went wrong was
>>*really* an example of government intruding on private enterprise.
>
> Who was guaranteeing loans to people who *obviously* couldn't afford them?
> Who
> made the market for the (in)securities? Talk to Barney, and Chris.

You conveniently ignore every part of the formula for disaster showing the
fingerprints of private business. Why is it you can see only the blunders
of govt., why is the reckless greed of business invisible to you?

My reply is ...as far as Iceland goes with their monetary problems....WHO
GIVES A RATS ASS?
Quit whining to the world and fuck off...
deal with what your elected leaders have dealt you...I assume you have
elected leaders?..
"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> WAY off topic, but I am genuinely interested in what some of you think
> about this:
>
> Every family of 4 was asked to pay $ 185.00 per month for EIGHT years
> to pay back money a Dutch and British bank lost when their investment
> in an Icelandic Internet bank went bad during the last economic
> collapse.
> Now the way I see it, those two banks made a risky investment and got
> burnt. Too bad, so sad, it is the game they play.
> Now the banks along with the IMF are pushing parliament for some sort
> of repayment by the Icelanders who had not ONE word of say when those
> risky investments were made.
>
> It was put up for a vote.
>
> The next paragraphs are from a news-wire along with another comment.
>
> ---------
>
> Iceland votes 'no' to debt deal for collapsed bank.
>
> Voters in tiny Iceland defied their parliament and international
> pressure, resoundingly rejecting a $5.3 billion plan to repay Britain
> and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the collapse of an Icelandic
> bank.
>
> ---------
>
> Iceland defies their parliament? The parliament is supposed to
> represent the will of the Icelandic people! Their function is to obey
> orders, not issue them!
> It is the previous government of Iceland that defied the will of the
> people, just like the way the US Congress defied the will of the
> people to pass TARP!
> International pressure? The only pressure is coming from the bankers,
> who have gotten this silly idea into their heads that they can make
> bad business decisions, engage in risky, reckless, highly speculative
> gambling, pay themselves billions on bonuses when the dice roll their
> way and stick the people with the losses when the game falls apart.
> The people of Iceland are right to repudiate this debt. They did not
> approve of it. They did not agree to it. The debts were not incurred
> for the betterment of the people of Iceland!
> This is a call to keyboards. Post to the comments section of every
> Corporate Media article demonizing the Icelandic people for refusing
> the yoke of servitude created for them the concept of Odious debt and
> why it applies here!

"David Nebenzahl" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>> Horsecrap, no govt. forced investment firms to bundle rotten mortgages
>> and sell them to each other, no govt. compelled S&P or the other rating
>> agencies to stamp triple-A on securities so complex they didn't know what
>> the hell they were rating, no govt. forced the banks to award huge
>> bonuses for moving worthless paper and so on. The financial industry
>> spent hundreds of millions lobbying Congress for deregulation; they got
>> what they wanted and in less than a decade we got the worst financial
>> crash in three-quarters of a century--we're supposed to believe that's
>> just a big old coincidence? What's more people predicted what it would
>> lead to at the time, that the coming crash would make the S&L crisis look
>> like a picnic--too bad they weren't listened to, but everyone was making
>> so much money, what could possibly go wrong?
>
> Amen.
>
> And please please *please* don't forget that it was the *Clinton*
> administration that made perhaps the biggest (and worst) change in the
> financial system since the Depression, which was overturning
> Glass-Steagall. We're now suffering the consequences of that reckless
> action.

Not exactly, the legislation was written by Republicans, although Clinton
signed it and defends doing so until this day. As with media consolidation
Clinton signed the legislation rather than vetoing it, but that legislation
was the work of Republicans.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_40/b4102000409948.htm

"MARIA BARTIROMO
Mr. President, in 1999 you signed a bill essentially rolling back
Glass-Steagall and deregulating banking. In light of what has gone on, do
you regret that decision?

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON
No, because it wasn't a complete deregulation at all. We still have heavy
regulations and insurance on bank deposits, requirements on banks for
capital and for disclosure. I thought at the time that it might lead to more
stable investments and a reduced pressure on Wall Street to produce
quarterly profits that were always bigger than the previous quarter. But I
have really thought about this a lot. I don't see that signing that bill had
anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has
helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of
Merrill Lynch (MER) by Bank of America (BAC), which was much smoother than
it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill.


[MB] Phil Gramm, who was then the head of the Senate Banking Committee and
until
recently a close economic adviser of Senator McCain, was a fierce proponent
of banking deregulation. Did he sell you a bill of goods?


[BC] Not on this bill I don't think he did. You know, Phil Gramm and I
disagreed
on a lot of things, but he can't possibly be wrong about everything. On the
Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it
was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence. But I can't blame [the
Republicans]. This wasn't something they forced me into. I really believed
that given the level of oversight of banks and their ability to have more
patient capital, if you made it possible for [commercial banks] to go into
the investment banking business as Continental European investment banks
could always do, that it might give us a more stable source of long-term
investment."

> [Although I do agree that Obama is desperately trying to reinflate the
> bubble, which is the wrong thing to do.]

Given that the other candidate for President proposed similar measures only
on a somewhat smaller scale I find the hysteria over Obama's economic
policies to be bitterly amusing. And next November there is a good chance
the clowns in control of Congress for a decade when all the shit was being
piled up in front of the fan will be in the majority again. Oh boy, we're
going to re-appoint the same officers to run Titanic II, that should get
things fixed right up.

On 3/10/2010 7:15 AM, Swingman wrote:
> On 3/10/2010 6:49 AM, HeyBub wrote:

>> I live in Houston in a house with an appraised value of $260,000. The
>> total
>> property tax load (state, county, school district, mosquito control
>> district, Zombie Monitoring, etc.) is $2,900/YEAR.
>>
>> With your property being appraised - assuming the same ratio as mine -
>> at a
>> bit over $1 million,

Do you live in the city limits and in Harris County, or just in the
Houston "area"?

2009 Tax rate = 2.2437

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Swingman wrote:
> On 3/10/2010 7:15 AM, Swingman wrote:
>> On 3/10/2010 6:49 AM, HeyBub wrote:
>
>>> I live in Houston in a house with an appraised value of $260,000.
>>> The total
>>> property tax load (state, county, school district, mosquito control
>>> district, Zombie Monitoring, etc.) is $2,900/YEAR.
>>>
>>> With your property being appraised - assuming the same ratio as
>>> mine - at a
>>> bit over $1 million,
>
> Do you live in the city limits and in Harris County, or just in the
> Houston "area"?
>
> 2009 Tax rate = 2.2437

Oh, I'm in Sharpstown. In a modest little bungalow.

Nonny wrote:
>
> TX seems to make up for a lack of income tax with property taxes.
> I have a relative in Jollyville and his house taxes are about 4%
> of market value.

We make up for it also by being a "low-service" state. Our state insurance
board does not mandate health insurance companies to cover chiropractic,
naturopathy, aroma therapy, homeopathy, tattoo removal, hair straightening,
sex-change operations, or voodoo. If my pet has hallucinations, wets the
bed, or is afflicted with PTSD, I have to pay for the psychological
counseling myself (and the pet psychologist is not licensed by the state).

Heck, if I call 911 to report a home invasion, the first thing the operator
asks is whether I can handle it myself. If I request an ambulance, she asks
if the bone is sticking out.

A couple of months ago, some fool stood on the steps of the capitol and
fired a few shots in the air. Studies were undertaken over this flagrant
lack of decorum, meetings held, and opinions solicited from near and far.
Just today, the committee looking into the matter released its
recommendations. They were:

* Implement a wide-alert warning system ("Run Away! Run Away!)
* Increased bicycle patrols
* Installation of easily obtainable First Aid kits
* Additional First Aid training.
* Maybe explosive-sniffing dogs

Nothing add to one's sense of security than a Texas Ranger on a Ten-speed.

I'm not making this up:

"State Leaders Call for Tighter Security at Texas Capitol"
http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=268928

"Larry Blanchard" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> Yes, they did. It would appear that Iceland is on the hook for the
> money, but wouldn't it be nice if they seized the assets of all the
> politicians and bankers responsible? Might not make much of a dent, but
> it sure would make the rest of the country feel better.
>
> Come to think of it, why didn't we? Instead of them getting bonuses.

How many million-dollar donations have you made to the political parties?
None? Me neither. I guess that explains why the politicians do what the
lobbyists want rather than what the people want.

On 3/8/2010 11:28 AM, steve robinson wrote:

> If America goes into Iran they will end up getting a bloody nose ,
> economically , its quite possible the oil produceing countries could
> switch currencies , make the dollar worthless overnight .

Don't get your anti-yank panties in a orgasmic twist just yet, Bubba.
With only 5% of the world's crude production Iran is in no position to
impose _anything_.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/22/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)

Tim Daneliuk <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> On 3/7/2010 11:02 AM, Robatoy wrote:
>> WAY off topic, but I am genuinely interested in what some of you
>> think about this:
>>
>> Every family of 4 was asked to pay $ 185.00 per month for EIGHT years
>> to pay back money a Dutch and British bank lost when their investment
>> in an Icelandic Internet bank went bad during the last economic
>> collapse.
>> Now the way I see it, those two banks made a risky investment and got
>> burnt. Too bad, so sad, it is the game they play.
>> Now the banks along with the IMF are pushing parliament for some sort
>> of repayment by the Icelanders who had not ONE word of say when those
>> risky investments were made.
>
> For once, I agree with you.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----- Tim Daneliuk [email protected]

So, FDIC insurance should be abolished? Let Joe Schmoe figure out whether
Citibank is solvent and well governed?

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Robatoy <[email protected]> wrote in news:6bf2e483-0fe3-4843-b2f6-
[email protected]:

> On Mar 7, 3:02 pm, "steve robinson" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> If they refuse to pay they will be signing thier economic suicide
>> note , Britain and Holland have already said publicly that if they
>> dont pay they will veto any entry to the EU , and as the UK has
>> influence with the imf , its unlikely iceland will get the bail out
>> it needs without agreeing to pay up
>>
>> There is also the issue of trade , Iceland needs the EU markets , the
>> EU markets dont need Iceland
>
> What about the BEST Icelandic lutefisk? How will you ever go without?

Lutefisk is only for enslaved Vikings. No one else will touch it

> Iceland would make a nice launch pad for those new Iranian missiles.

Won't work

> You get them vikings pissed off enough to start building longboats
> again.

From what? Concrete, or iceshavings?

> I think the biggest problem is that the whole island isn't worth 5
> billion... and yet the Dutch and British banks thought it was safe?
> With adequate collateral?

Iceland has apparently some very nice people, drinks, and other touristic
attractions. They'll have to make do wth that. I wouldn't mind visiting
them.

Icelanders (at least some) made contract(s) with Ukkies and Dutch. They
better keep their promises. It's too bad that not all Icelanders were
consulted beforehand, but they are still all in it. Same here in the US.
We all are going to pay for the financial meltdown, whether we took
advantage of it or not. The bandits did get away with it.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On Mar 8, 10:18=A0am, "steve robinson" <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Robatoy wrote:
> > On Mar 8, 9:27=A0am, "steve robinson"
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > > The Icelandic government allowed the institution to trade , they
> > > allowed the bank to trade when it was obvous it was not in a
> > > position to meet its tradeing requirements
>
> > And THAT should have been obvious to the bankers that Iceland was in
> > no position to underwrite 5 billion in guarantees.
>
> The Icelandic government underwrote the debts , the bankers were
> icelandic bankers not british or dutch who advised the icelandic
> government .
>
> At the end of the day the icelandic government should have realised
> that they couldnt cover the potential losses and declined to
> legislate the garentee scheme into law , unfortunatly all they saw
> was a large influx of foriegn currency entering the country
>
> In essence its very much like the USA with oil transactions being
> performed in dollars , the US government holds trillions of dollars
> at any one time on behalf of foriegn governments , if the oil states
> decided to trade in Euros overnight your economy would go bust

Something Sadam Hussein wanted to do and is, by some, one of the big
reasons to invade.

Iran wants to trade in Euros as well...... guess what?

She's growing up nice...


http://www.dailystab.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/bjork-interview-1.jpg

"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>> Classic anti-regulation rhetoric, conveniently ignoring that it was
>> deregulation that allowed the current economic mess to happen. It
>> requires
>> an astonishing level of dishonesty to pretend that deregulating the
>> financial sector so they could make increasingly risky bets on
>> unregulated
>> securities without being sufficiently capitalized if things went wrong
>> was
>> *really* an example of government intruding on private enterprise.
>>
>>
> Uh no. Classic "Acquanted With Reality" rhetoric. You might step away
> from
> your moveon.org talking points and do just a bit of research here. The
> root causes of all this were in *three* areas:

There we go, somebody disagrees with Timbo so it must be because they read
moveon.org (which I hold in about equal esteem with the Jerry Springer
Show). Meanwhile the financial industry that lobbied long and hard for the
deregulation that (among other things) dissolved the boundary between
investment banks and insurance companies and kept credit default swaps
off-limits to regulation and so on are now paying their lobbyists overtime
to prevent re-regulation. But according to Tim deregulation had nothing to
do with this. Uh huh.

> 'Good think the big government advocates managed to get their various
> "Houses For 'Hos" programs in place, though. "Social Justice" is its own
> reward ...

The other day my wife and I were talking about all the (young) people we
knew who were losing their homes because they couldn't afford their
adjustable-rate mortgages, and guess what, none of them were black. But you
go on believing it was all "Houses For Hos" if that appeals to you for some
reason.

On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 17:57:38 +0000 (UTC), the infamous Larry Blanchard
<[email protected]> scrawled the following:

>On Sun, 07 Mar 2010 11:16:03 -0600, HeyBub wrote:
>
>> Didn't the Icelandic government guarantee the bank's solvency? If so,
>> the public DID have a say when they elected the rascals who approved the
>> deal.
>
>Yes, they did. It would appear that Iceland is on the hook for the
>money,

In that case, the people owe it. <grrr>


>but wouldn't it be nice if they seized the assets of all the
>politicians and bankers responsible? Might not make much of a dent, but
>it sure would make the rest of the country feel better.
>
>Come to think of it, why didn't we? Instead of them getting bonuses.

Amen to that.

--
The blind are not good trailblazers.

-- federal judge Frank Easterbrook

On Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:42:11 -0600, the infamous Swingman
<[email protected]> scrawled the following:

>On 3/8/2010 2:16 PM, Morris Dovey wrote:
>
>> That's true to a certain extent - but it wasn't government mandates that
>> pushed the prices here. It was the combination of builder greed, too
>> easy mortgages, and local government eagerness to see real estate tax
>> revenue leap upward.
>
>How does "builder greed" manifest itself in the overall price of houses
>in an area?
>
>Inquiring minds, and all that ... I need some practice in that regard.

The area is full of $400k homes and the builder decided to build a $1M
home there (or $675k home. It cost him $100k more.) Happens all the
time, and the houses sit vacant for a whole long time until they sell
for just a bit over the normal price for the area.

I take it that you've never done that.(?) I haven't, either. I'm
small potatoes. ;)

--
Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
-- Chuang-tzu

On Mar 9, 2:45=A0pm, busbus <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 9, 12:30=A0pm, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:19:02 -0800, busbus wrote:
> > > I don't know how old everybody is but I remember growing up and almos=
t
> > > everybody had smallish houses and, if you were lucky, you had a one- =
car
> > > garage. =A0The rooms were markedly smaller than the obnoxious ones to=
day.
>
> > I bought a 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch style house in a nice middle class
> > neighborhood about 1960. =A0It was 1000 sq feet :-). =A0Me, 1st wife, a=
nd 3
> > kids.
>
> > Now me and 2nd wife live in a 1500+ square foot mobile home in a senior=
s
> > park and it seems too small.
>
> > Only difference is perception and the amount of junk we call necessitie=
s
> > nowadays.
>
> > --
> > Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw
>
> Well, 1,500 sqf isn't all that big! =A0LOL!!! =A0Not when I see these
> 3,000 - 4,000 monsters being built up here in Pittsburgh. =A0Seem slike
> all the new houses are that big. =A0And the yards are getting smaller
> (and not because there is more house sitting on the yard--the
> properties are smaller). =A0It saddens to see that there is not enough
> space for a guy to throw a baseball or football to his kids let alone
> have them hit a ball or kick one. =A0I guess I just value the property
> more than the house. =A0Growing up on 20 acres does that to a person.
> We could hit those big, black super balls they used to sell back in
> the 1960s/1970s and never have to worry about hitting anything.
>
> And to swing this pedulum back, the people who are buyiung these
> houses are the 25-year-old kids who just got married. =A0Sure, they got
> a college degree and jobs (notice PLURAL jobs) but I always tell the
> ones I know the sage advice an old man once told me:
>
> "Just because you can make the payments doesn't mean you can afford
> it."
>
My sage old dad, an accountant, told me... ONE week net pay. Never pay
more than ONE week net pay on your dwelling. ONE week for expenses
(Transportation, car etc), ONE week for savings, ONE week for having
some fun.

Now, that does not include such variables as converting the bulk of a
student loan into a stereo system, then finding an excellent deal on a
bag of weed and then getting evicted for playing the music too loud...
I think it was Drei Hunden Nacht (The German cover for Three Dog
Night..I kid, I kid...).. yup.. I think it was Eli's Coming... that
did it...well.. to somebody I knew.....<sheepish grin>

On Mar 8, 3:54=A0pm, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mar 8, 2:16=A0pm, Morris Dovey <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 3/8/2010 12:51 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > > On Mar 8, 11:34 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> > >> On 3/8/2010 11:20 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > >>> On Mar 8, 10:50 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0 =A0wrote:
> > >>>> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> > >>>>> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> > >>>>> <[email protected]> =A0 =A0 =A0scrawled the following:
> > >>>>>> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybo=
dy
> > >>>>>> should own a house. =A0Too bad if some people think that "The Am=
erican
> > >>>>>> Dream" is owning your own home. =A0If you do not have the means =
to pay
> > >>>>>> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> > >>>>> Amen.
>
> > >>>> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't ima=
gine
> > >>>> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> > >>> What has "need" to do with it?
>
> > >> Nothing at all that I've been able to identify - and yet I watched t=
he
> > >> "average price of a new home" (realty statistics presented on local
> > >> news) in the greater Des Moines area go over a quarter million dolla=
rs.
> > >> There were a _lot_ more million-dollar homes being built than $100K
> > >> homes... and this is an area that normally tends to be fiscally
> > >> conservative...
>
> > > Perhaps that's because that's the house people *want*. =A0Of course
> > > there are more $M homes built than $100K homes. =A0Two things drive
> > > this; government regulations and economics. =A0Governments place
> > > requirements on developers and builders that drive costs up (some of
> > > these are good things like sewers). =A0To make money, these costs hav=
e
> > > to be recovered. =A0It's easier making it up $50K on a $M home than
> > > $100K home.
>
> > That's true to a certain extent - but it wasn't government mandates tha=
t
> > pushed the prices here. It was the combination of builder greed, too
> > easy mortgages, and local government eagerness to see real estate tax
> > revenue leap upward.
>
> Government mandates do cost the developer/builder a third (or more) of
> the house price. =A0In Vermont it was more like half. =A0A developer had
> $100K in a lot before the first shovel saw light of day. =A0Of course
> the builder isn't going to put a $100K house on a $100K lot.
>
> Revenue wouldn't need to increase if they didn't spend more. =A0They
> wanted to spend more without raising the "mil" rate - another
> invisible tax. =A0...until the market goes down.
>
> > It was also not an eagerness of _most_ folks to live on private lakes
> > and golf courses.
>
> Most, perhaps not, but a significant number do. =A0I'd like to live on a
> lake too. =A0Maybe someday soon (when I really retire ;-).
>
> > One of the effects was to make it difficult for young people at any
> > level of income to have a home of their own at a price they could manag=
e
> > - and now the state has a problem because a *huge* percentage of
> > graduates from the state universities have been deciding (with good
> > reason) that they can't afford to live and work in Iowa, and find jobs
> > elsewhere.
>
> Where? =A0California? =A0I've heard this argument everywhere I've lived.
>
> > > BTW, I looked in the Des Moines area (was offered a job there in '08 =
-
> > > I would have likely taken the position but it turned out to be a mess=
)
> > > and was quite happy with the prices. =A0A quarter megabuck buys a nic=
e
> > > home there. =A0I ended up in Alabama, where the prices are similar. =
=A0I
> > > paid $300K for what you might call a McMansion (2600sq ft), which in
> > > may situation is "fiscally conservative".
>
> > I understand all of the above fairly well (and have kept up to date wit=
h
> > where the "messes" are). I was offered a job in San Francisco a while
> > back with what in Iowa would be considered a truly exhorbitant salary,
> > and turned it down because housing costs _way_ more than ate up the
> > difference. (Every now and then I scratch my head and ponder a move to
> > northern Georgia or western Virginia...)
>
> I should have explained better... =A0The "mess" wasn't anything to do
> with Des Moines, rather the employer screwed everything up after the
> interview trip out there. =A0Of course, if I had taken the job there I
> would have been moving out there during the middle of the floods.
>
>
>
>
>
> > >>>> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes wit=
h
> > >>>> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase =
and own....
>
> > >>> There are smaller houses. =A0Not everyone can afford those, either.
>
> > >> Who said everything about "everyone"? (My world is not, apparently, =
as
> > >> binary as yours.)
>
> > > The point of the discussion was that "everyone" was *supposed* to be
> > > able to buy a home and the federal government tried to make it happen
> > > for even those who have no business buying an orange crate. =A0We all
> > > see how that worked out.
>
> > Won't argue that. The road to hell _is_ paved with good intentions.
> > Still, the fact remains that there is a need for housing for those who
> > don't have large incomes (and/or have large outstanding college loans)
> > and, here at least, that need is not being met.
>
> Indeed they are. =A0College loans are another government-caused mess.
> The whole purpose of loans are to drive the cost of education UP.
> Obama wants more.
>
> > I think there's a basic fallacy in any reasoning that leads one to
> > conclude that because someone can't afford a $250K house, they're
> > automatically unworthy to build equity with a $100K house.
>
> That's certainly not my position. =A0However, there is no way a new home
> can be built today for $100K in many places, mostly because of
> government regulations (again, not saying that all are bad).
> Discounting places like NYC and SF, where there isn't enough land for
> the population (and this isn't totally out of government's hands), a
> major reason for high housing costs is because of government
> intervention.
>
> Small houses can still be had for $100K in many areas. =A0There is
> nothing that says that a starter house has to be a new one, though
> I've seen new ones in the low-middle $100s here.

There are some super-sweet deals in Detroit MI

On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 13:09:57 -0800, "DGDevin" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
><[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>
>>>Classic anti-regulation rhetoric, conveniently ignoring that it was
>>>deregulation that allowed the current economic mess to happen.
>>
>> Bullshit. It was government financing and *guaranteeing* risky behavior
>> that
>> was responsible for the meltdown. Nothing has changed, so expect another,
>> bigger, disaster. All Obama is doing is trying to re-inflate the bubble.
>
>Horsecrap, no govt. forced investment firms to bundle rotten mortgages and
>sell them to each other, no govt. compelled S&P or the other rating agencies
>to stamp triple-A on securities so complex they didn't know what the hell
>they were rating, no govt.

You're a liar, too. The government *did* force banks to make shady loans and
they *did* guarantee those loans, and buy packaged loans and *guarantee* those
packages. Don't be so damned blind.

<WAY too much bullshit to read, snipped>

On Mar 7, 2:02=A0pm, Mike O. <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 09:02:56 -0800 (PST), Robatoy
>
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >Every family of 4 was asked to pay $ 185.00 per month for EIGHT years
> >to pay back money a Dutch and British bank lost when their investment
> >in an Icelandic Internet bank went bad during the last economic
> >collapse.
> >Now the way I see it, those two banks made a risky investment and got
> >burnt. Too bad, so sad, it is the game they play.
> >Now the banks along with the IMF are pushing parliament for some sort
> >of repayment by the Icelanders who had not ONE word of say when those
> >risky investments were made.
>
> I wouldn't want facts to get in the way of a good story but that's not
> exactly how it went down.
> The"Icesave" Internet =A0bank owned by Iceland's Landsbanki did business
> with the English and the Dutch. =A0In order to do business in those
> countries they had to participate in the those government's bank
> deposit insurance programs. =A0 Basically the same as our FDIC.
> They did that by enrolling Iceland's bank deposit insurance program
> with the English and the Dutch. =A0This was required so that Iceland's
> deposit insurance would cover British and Dutch deposits made to
> Iceland's bank. =A0This was all done with Iceland government approval so
> that the Icelandic bank could do business in those countries. =A0This is
> also standard practice with foreign banks operating within the EU and
> not at all out of the ordinary.
> When the Iceland banks went broke in 2008, the Iceland deposit
> insurance program went broke too after it paid =A0the Icelanders back
> for their deposits in that bank and paid depositors of two other
> failed Icelandic banks. =A0Now, since Iceland's deposit insurance
> program had no money, the English and the Dutch governments both
> covered their domestic depositors (with the Icelandic bank) with their
> own bank deposit insurance programs. =A0
> Now, they want that money back from Iceland. =A0 Even Iceland's
> Chancellor says they will get it but it's a matter of how much and
> when. =A0The original agreement which was vetoed by the President (and
> caused the referendum) was 5.5% interest over 14 years with the first
> 7 years interest deferred.
> The whole public vote was a political move to show the lack of support
> for the original agreement and put Iceland in a better negotiating
> position. =A0 What the President is looking for here is a better deal.
> He'll get it, Parliament will agree to it, the President will sign it
> and the public likely won't get to vote on it next time. =A0They will
> however still get to pay for it...or at least some of it.
>
> Mike O. =A0

Thanks for the history lesson behind it all, although it still clear
that the Icelanders have no taste to participate in a proposal shoved
down their throat by a government which will be hard put to get itself
re-elected. The next president will get elected based on the platform
that the Icelanders are not going to pay, so they'll repeal whatever
legislation the current idiots will sign. This is not about whether or
not they should pay, it is about WILL they pay? 10cents-on-the-dollar
maybe? Even that would be a bitter pill to swallow. There is only
320,000 of them for chrissakes and all they got is some fish and
Bjork.

On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 09:02:56 -0800 (PST), Robatoy
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Every family of 4 was asked to pay $ 185.00 per month for EIGHT years
>to pay back money a Dutch and British bank lost when their investment
>in an Icelandic Internet bank went bad during the last economic
>collapse.
>Now the way I see it, those two banks made a risky investment and got
>burnt. Too bad, so sad, it is the game they play.
>Now the banks along with the IMF are pushing parliament for some sort
>of repayment by the Icelanders who had not ONE word of say when those
>risky investments were made.

I wouldn't want facts to get in the way of a good story but that's not
exactly how it went down.
The"Icesave" Internet bank owned by Iceland's Landsbanki did business
with the English and the Dutch. In order to do business in those
countries they had to participate in the those government's bank
deposit insurance programs. Basically the same as our FDIC.
They did that by enrolling Iceland's bank deposit insurance program
with the English and the Dutch. This was required so that Iceland's
deposit insurance would cover British and Dutch deposits made to
Iceland's bank. This was all done with Iceland government approval so
that the Icelandic bank could do business in those countries. This is
also standard practice with foreign banks operating within the EU and
not at all out of the ordinary.
When the Iceland banks went broke in 2008, the Iceland deposit
insurance program went broke too after it paid the Icelanders back
for their deposits in that bank and paid depositors of two other
failed Icelandic banks. Now, since Iceland's deposit insurance
program had no money, the English and the Dutch governments both
covered their domestic depositors (with the Icelandic bank) with their
own bank deposit insurance programs.
Now, they want that money back from Iceland. Even Iceland's
Chancellor says they will get it but it's a matter of how much and
when. The original agreement which was vetoed by the President (and
caused the referendum) was 5.5% interest over 14 years with the first
7 years interest deferred.
The whole public vote was a political move to show the lack of support
for the original agreement and put Iceland in a better negotiating
position. What the President is looking for here is a better deal.
He'll get it, Parliament will agree to it, the President will sign it
and the public likely won't get to vote on it next time. They will
however still get to pay for it...or at least some of it.

Mike O.

On Mar 9, 11:59=A0am, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/9/2010 10:45 AM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > On Mar 9, 10:19 am, busbus<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >> The saddest thing is that the monthly property tax allocation is now
> >> more than the mortgage we used to pay. =A0But that is the subject of
> >> another thread........
>
> > That's the beauty of living in the South. =A0My taxes are 1/4 what I
> > paid in my last house.
>
> Depends upon where you live in the South ... my property taxes in
> Houston are in excess of $1000/mos.
>
> We have to haul a lot of education and health care freight for illegals,
> indigents, and refugees from storms, and my youngest daughter was just
> refused by her insurance company for $30k worth of surgery to stop
> imminent blindness in one eye.
>
> Fuck all you liberal bastards ...
>
> --www.e-woodshop.net
> Last update: 10/22/08
> KarlC@ (the obvious)

Purely from a personal interest standpoint, what was the insurance
company's reason for refusal? (Take that off-line if you wish. My
website topworksdotca "Get Info" button puts you into my Crackberry)
It is stuff like that which drives me nuts. Is that what Obama wants
to do? Remove the right for an insurance company to refuse? IOW remove
all pre-existing conditions?

On Mar 8, 11:25=A0am, FrozenNorth <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On 3/08/10 12:20 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > On Mar 8, 10:50 am, Morris Dovey<[email protected]> =A0wrote:
> >> On 3/8/2010 10:31 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:
>
> >>> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 04:55:48 -0800 (PST), the infamous busbus
> >>> <[email protected]> =A0 =A0scrawled the following:
> >>>> One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
> >>>> should own a house. =A0Too bad if some people think that "The Americ=
an
> >>>> Dream" is owning your own home. =A0If you do not have the means to p=
ay
> >>>> for it and maintain it, you should not own it.
>
> >>> Amen.
>
> >> Owning one's home is generally a good thing - but I just can't imagine
> >> /anyone/ actually needing a McMansion.
>
> > What has "need" to do with it?
>
> >> Perhaps a part of the solution might be to build smaller homes with
> >> lower cost of ownership that more people can /afford/ to purchase and =
own...
>
> > There are smaller houses. =A0Not everyone can afford those, either.
>
> My house is small, but a lot of people don't want to buy a house built
> 60 years or more ago. =A0You also have to be prepared for reno costs and
> difficulties with older wiring, plumbing, plaster/lath walls etc.
> Although I will suggest, they are for the most part a better product.

Right. I don't want an old house and I don't want a small house
either. I can afford that choice, though.

On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 11:27:30 -0800 (PST), Robatoy
<[email protected]> wrote:

>There is only
>320,000 of them for chrissakes and all they got is some fish and
>Bjork.

They must have SOME money.
Have you ever tried to buy something from 66 degrees North? ;-)

Mike O.

On Mar 8, 1:56=A0pm, Swingman <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 3/8/2010 12:34 PM, Lee Michaels wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Swingman" =A0wrote
>
> >> On 3/8/2010 11:28 AM, steve robinson wrote:
>
> >>> If America goes into Iran they will end up getting a bloody nose ,
> >>> economically , its quite possible =A0the oil produceing countries cou=
ld
> >>> switch currencies , make the dollar worthless overnight .
>
> >> Don't get your anti-yank panties in a orgasmic twist just yet, Bubba. =
With
> >> only 5% of the world's crude production Iran is in no position to impo=
se
> >> _anything_.
>
> >> --
> > In addition to that, Iran is an international pariah. =A0The Arab state=
s hate
> > Iran and will step up production to cover any shortfall. =A0They would =
love to
> > see Iran fall.
>
> > Also, any attack on Iran would be measured and very high tech. =A0Iran =
only
> > has old weapons that don't work well. Their military forces are inept. =
=A0That
> > is why they want nukes. They are not a threat otherwise.
>
> Oil producers and traders want/require, above all other factors,
> s-t-a-b-i-l-i-t-y ... and an historical track record in an established
> "rule of law" in the global trading capitals that insures same, along
> with an infrastructure, economic and physical, that will guarantee
> global "delivery" of the commodity ... something Iran can not provide,
> at this at this time, or until they fulfill their wish to nuke the rest
> of us into submission.
>
> And, as for going to the Euro ... never say never, but the downside and
> disruption in global energy trading to effect a change in currencies
> will require a more dire economic collapse of not only the US, but most
> its trading partners, than is being seen today.
>
> But, WTF do I know, eh? Otherwise I wouldn't be posting here on a day
> too rainy to do something more productive, obviously.
>
I still don't think the US would let the oil currency be changed to
the Euro without some objections. <G>

The sun is out, 52=B0F 57% humidity, very light, cool, clean breeze off
Lake Huron, ice-floes heading down river, somewhere near here a
woodpecker is trying to put paid to his new home. I'll be cleaning my
410 this weekend in case he likes one of my trees. (Just a little
rocksalt, you unnerstand.....)

Spring is gonna be farking AWESOME!!!

On Sun, 7 Mar 2010 12:14:43 -0800, "DGDevin" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>"Tim Daneliuk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>
>> Also, the FDIC and other regulatory bodies did *such* a good job making
>> sure Citi, AIG, et al were "well governed" didn't they? I love listening
>> to big government advocates because their argument essentially boils
>> down to this: "Because government has intruded upon and generally screwed
>> up retirement funds, healthcare, banking, education, ... what we really
>> need is MORE government." It requires an astonishing level of
>> irrationality
>> to demand more of something that already doesn't work. Apparently, if a
>> little
>> is lousy a lot will be terrific???
>
>Classic anti-regulation rhetoric, conveniently ignoring that it was
>deregulation that allowed the current economic mess to happen.

Bullshit. It was government financing and *guaranteeing* risky behavior that
was responsible for the meltdown. Nothing has changed, so expect another,
bigger, disaster. All Obama is doing is trying to re-inflate the bubble.

> It requires
>an astonishing level of dishonesty to pretend that deregulating the
>financial sector so they could make increasingly risky bets on unregulated
>securities without being sufficiently capitalized if things went wrong was
>*really* an example of government intruding on private enterprise.

Who was guaranteeing loans to people who *obviously* couldn't afford them? Who
made the market for the (in)securities? Talk to Barney, and Chris.

On Mar 8, 6:10=A0pm, Upscale <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Mar 2010 11:22:07 -0800 (PST), Robatoy
>
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >Damn I miss The Beaches sometimes.
>
> And you'll also miss the name. "The Beaches" has been officially
> renamed "The Beach". Happened last year. They've been busy fixing all
> the street signs in the area so the say "The Beach".

I heard somebody listing a house in " North Beaches"...LOL..north of
Gerard, south of Danforth. What a frickin' joke.

On Mar 8, 9:27=A0am, "steve robinson" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
> This was done on the behalf of the Icelandic people , they then
> renaged on paying out when the system collapsed , the icelandic
> nation made =A0vast sums of money prior to its demise .
>

No. SOME of the Icelanders, a handful, absconded with the fruits of
the Dutch and British banks' greed. Fukkum and repo all the toys from
those who benefitted from the scam. Sorry banks, that's all there is.
What those banks are trying to do is to convert a business loss into a
tax on those people who did not participate actively in the business
decisions. It's extortion. And there is always somebody who tries to
carry the banner "Steal what you can from the serfs."

And then to threaten that they are losing a chance to participate a
full-time raping by the EU, is just nuts.

I believe you are right, unfortunately, that is not how the stinking
world works. The people are responsible for it because I assume they
have something like the FDIC there. Basically, that is why we
citizens are responsible for bailing out the knucklehead bankers and
financial wizards who got us into this mess.

In a small, small, small way, I agree that deregulation may have
spurred the mess along in this country but I so think the Federal
Government was the biggest fraud in the mess that happened in the US.
The Clinton Administration more-or-less forced Fanny Maes and Freddie
Mac to lend money to people that were not credit worthy all in the
attempt to get them into a house they could not afford. Other
institutions saw this happening and saw the money that was being made
and jumped in with both feet without ever looking. The housing boom
that incurred throughout the country quickly gave way to the bubble.

If we look back, we were warned about the bubble but it was ignored.
What made matters worse were the Ponzi schemes that were put into
place as banks packaged these horrible loans together and advertised
them as an investment--a risky investment but one that everybody
wanted because, if things worked out, you could make a lot of money.
Too bad greed got in the way of common sense.

One thing we at least learned from this mess is that not everybody
should own a house. Too bad if some people think that "The American
Dream" is owning your own home. If you do not have the means to pay
for it and maintain it, you should not own it.

At the same time, *something* needs to be done with the morons who
perpetrated all this nonsense that has spread around the world. We
can have all the regulations we want but if the regulators are
incompetent or simply turn their heads, what good are regulations? A
lot of heads should roll and not only should there not be any bonuses
paid, many of these people should get their arses thrown into jail.

I sort of like this comic that was in the Sunday paper yesterday:
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2010/03/07/

That would work.

busbus