Sunday, February 8, 2009

Outrage Exhaustion

I think Dunc used the phrase "Outrage Exhaustion" a few weeks back in the comments to describe the nature of the comments. He just had an entry on Pegasus that there were only 200+ comments over here. I guess I think that's a little funny; I don't know of any local blogs that get that many, but c'est la vie.

But that's probably how this thing will end, especially locally. With a whimper, not a scream.

People will just slowly mentally succumb to this thing. All the Merenda replacing will have failed. The hottest spot in the hottest town in the West will just be laughable. That Subway will probably hold on by it's fingernails, maybe. But the hoity-toity stuff will all go down hard, and finally no one will step up to replace it.

I even think the Old Mill will suffer a long-term erosion. Some big anchors will close. The Money Losing Trophy Property (MoLo TroPro) concept will die a certain death, and that's much of what's there. I can't see REI staying. Greg's Grill gone. Yumm Cafe, Alisons Kitchen, Community Flatbread... all gone.

And there are no jobs here. The nationwide unemployment rate came out this week at 7.6%. As recently as September, we were at 6.0% nationwide, and it appeared things were stabilizing.

No more. This is a statistic that hardly moves one way or another more than .2% in any given month. It's gone up an average of .5% for the last 3 months. Doesn't sound like much, but I haven't seen any similar period in modern history where unemployment has moved so much, up or down.

And here's a graph of recent unemployment figures for the USA, Oregon, and Bend. You don't have to be Kreskin to see where Bend is going.
Unemployment for USA, Oregon, and Bend; Jul 2008 to present.

I mean, look at that; you tell me where you think it's going. The top of that graph is 14%, and if Oregon stays in it's ways of outpacing the nation by almost double, and Bend outpaces Oregon by 50%, it seems like a slam Dunc that we'll hit 15% for this month. 13% for January seems also within reason.

Towns with 15-20% unemployment are just not vital hubs of commerce. Towns like that are usually in long term decline. Those are your little towns out 30-40 miles SW of Missoula or somewhere (ie Burns), that are just in a secular decline. Outdoor mecca? Beautiful? Nice to visit? Oh yeah, all that. But in long term decline nonetheless.

I saw many towns like this on my last vacation. Beautiful spots. Outdoor activities out the ying yang. I had a great time there too. But get on the outskirts, and it was all decay, rot, malaise, and abandoned malls. You could see it on people's faces, they were in existence mode, just surviving day to day.

Not dying, mind you. There was just this perceptible resignation to a fate that had no chance of any "upside". No excitement, no challenges. People had stopped that, because the remnants of failure were all around them.

I think Dunc had it right: The "excitement" of the decline will be replaced by a real sort of despair that things aren't EVER going to bounce right back. We will become like so many other places in the West: Beautiful, activity-rich, but caught in a molasses-like, moribund economic spiral downward.

And I'm not trying to "drag people down" to my way of thinking, or some such bullshit. I'm trying to talk people out of economic suicide. On the slopes of Everest, when Common Sense Caution is not heeded, people die. It's not so dramatic here. Well, except for the people who have died. My point is, the signs are all around us: STOP THE CLIMB.

Many are still not heeding the advice of the environment around them. Everything points to white-out, 100 below, killer conditions; but still people start to climb.

Why is Merenda II even being considered? Why? Because what killed the last guy, won't kill me. I'm better than him. I'll make it. This. Is. Bend.

It's really incredible. Pahlisch Homes has watched as their subdiv's have imploded (from BendBB):
Just noticed today that all Pahlisch signage has been removed from the Fieldstone Crossing development in Redmond. Looks like their model has been shut down completely. Their is no reference to Fieldstone Crossing on the Pahlisch website.

And yet Pahlish announced they have started building The Bridges At Shadow Glen this week.

Ahhh... the power of LLC's. Failure is not an option.

Even our public servants have jumped on the Bubble Bandwagon.

Bend police captain on leave amid FBI probe

Bend Police Capt. Kevin Sawyer has been placed on administrative leave as the FBI investigates one or more businesses Sawyer and wife Tami have been operating, the police chief confirmed Friday. "I am aware of an investigation going on by the FBI into the finances of a business or businesses that Captain Sawyer is associated with,"said Police Chief Sandi Baxter.

And so it goes. Everyday, we seem to find someone with their twig & berries exposed as the tide rushes out. First Summit, now this guy, and there are, like an iceberg, many others that we aren't even hearing about.

The relentlessness of the pain, the disbelief of the corruption, the resignation that we can't beat The Powers That Be, will finally be the nail in Bend's coffin. There won't be anymore excitement, no more challenges. People's outrage will succumb to despondency. We'll all just give up on this place.

Outrage Exhaustion. Great description. Because the vast majority of people in this town will realize at some point that there is an existing "Aristocracy" of sorts (GOB Network), and if you are not part of it, and you have Big Dreams for your life, that you will Not Make It In Bend. This is Not a meritocracy. Things are NOT done "for the People". They are done for a small inbred cadre of well-defined beneficiaries who rig every election.

That's how it is in Bend, Oregon.

Not real people. Not real children. Spending NOT real money, from not real jobs, in a not real place.

OK, enough bitching about that. I just have a teeny-tiny outrage against my own kind.

And I have to preface this with the idea that what is trying to be accomplished and the means by which so many think it will be acconomplished, is just sheer folly.

And it is the passage of The Bailout. It's not a bank bailout. Nor autos. Nor any other particular thing. It's a bailout of this country. We are falling into the Abyss.

And strangely enough there is an unassailable mentality that a BAILOUT will save us. OK, governements can produce nothing. Except money, which they can produce in unlimited quantities. And governments many times think the printing of it can cure all ills. Of course, that's ridiculous.

Our problems will not be undone, until housing hits bottom. The bailout, and many other government measures are doing everything possible to avoid that. Forebearance on loans, delaying foreclosures, loan renegotiations. All these are failed ideas, and simply prolong the pain.

And prolonging the pain, is just what the RePug's intend to do. These hypocritical, lying, thieving, conniving fuckers are as much to blame as the Lib's for this thing.

But what's just classic, is that BOTH parties agree that the bailout is our only salvation (ridiculous, of course, it will only make things worse). But even in their idiotic agreement, they have put partisan politics FIRST, and the perceived needs of the American people a distant second.

BOTH parties have done this. Yes hbm, BOTH.

This is indicative of a country in decline. The elected aristocracy could give a fuck about the rank-and-file. Even when they are implementeing the most ass-backwards stupid plans imaginable, partisan wrangling is far more important than saving their own civilization.

The most depressing part of this implosion will NOT be the dire & near-catastrophic economic consequences, it will be the loss of will, the loss of drive, the loss of cause-and-effect thinking that people have, where if they struggle, work hard, and strive against the odds, that they can make something of themselves in this country.

That is what we are losing. We are rewarding FAILURE, EXCESS and EXTRAVAGANCE, and punishing prudence, thrift, and spending within your means. We're sending a message here with this bailout: Graft, corruption, and theft will be rewarded.

We are a nation in decline.

OK, finally I want to do a little re-print of an MSN article. It's got good info, but I suppose the big shocker is that mainstream press is starting to use The D Word. There is actually starting to be an open debate about whether a modern-ear Depression is possible. Maybe you & I are getting a tin-ear to this, because I have been banging this drum for 2 years.

But you could NEVER find mainstream press even discussing it. NEVER. Until now.

THAT is how BAD it is. All the hopeful sentiment that we are about to bottom imminently, has been replaced by How Low Can We Go? I think the past 60 days have been a wakeup call.

Too late to avoid a depression?

Policymakers are quickly running out of time and room for error. And even a brilliant plan -- which we haven't seen yet -- could fail without some good luck.
By Jon Markman

Over the past week, the world's intellectual, business, government and philanthropic elite emerged from World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, Switzerland, with grim faces and warnings of financial doom.

You'd almost think they'd met to plot a suicide pact rather than global trade, as the headlines were so gory they could have been mulched into meals for vampires.
Are things really that bad? Maybe not.

Your contrarian antennae really have to go up in the face of consensus from a cohort of eggheads, politicos and jet-setters not exactly known for clairvoyance. Their big idea last year: that emerging markets' domestic economies had become so strong that a decline in U.S. and European growth would not derail them. Oops.


Credible economic analysts now say there is still a narrow window of time in which policymakers in the United States, Europe and Asia can avoid a meltdown over the next year by immediately coordinating the injection of real financial adrenaline to banks, companies, households and local governments -- not just rhetoric and indiscriminate spending.

Yet that window is closing fast, and if the right steps are not taken soon it may be shut for years.
But governments don't know which steps work because economic theory breaks down at the level of human psychology.

Given a set of stimuli -- ranging from tax cuts and longer unemployment benefits to new construction jobs and wider broadband access -- economists try to mathematically determine the choices citizens are likely to make, then use the results to recommend a policy mix to legislators.


The problem is that the models often fail to accurately forecast human behavior, and politicians regularly screw it all up by ignoring the data and diverting funds to pet projects.

History is rife with successful financial episodes, such as the New Deal, in which luck and coincidence are later misinterpreted as results of prescient planning.
Slim hopes of an end-zone dance To prove the Davos set wrong, in short, congressional leaders must make the right choices at warp speed under pressure from special interests.

It's a public-policy version of the Steelers' final drive Sunday with time running out in the Super Bowl. Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, scrambling to elude a rush, had one good shot at throwing the football at an oblique angle to a receiver leaping among three defenders in the corner of the end zone.

In times like these, the result set is stark and binary: hero or goat in football, recovery or disaster in the economy.
The Davos pessimists' case for a severe economic dislocation over the next year -- let's go out to the extreme and call it a potential depression -- is easily made, as four key ingredients are in place.

Their recipe calls for a blend of cyclical recession, severe deleveraging, a shift of demographics favoring savings over consumption, and inappropriate fiscal and monetary responses by policymakers.
The first three are well under way, so the last one is the decider.

Looking back at the Great Depression of the 1930s and Japan's depression of the 1990s, it's clear that government leaders in each case failed to respond quickly enough, then overcorrected, and in general took steps that at the time were considered best economic practices but actually worsened the problems.

Our leaders will likewise now try to do the right thing based on currently popular theories, but we cannot confidently say whether they will turn out to be appropriate.

You just never know.


The only certainty is that measures must be taken immediately, and every day lost on minutiae such as bank executives' pay or Cabinet nominees' tax follies dampens the likelihood of success. Speed is of the essence, like putting up sandbags to stop a levee break, as we can see in daily headlines now that the darkness of Davos is descending.


The incredible shrinking economies
Layoff announcements over the past three months averaged 50,000 a week until they jumped to more than 100,000 last week. In an attempt to outrun revenue shortfalls, businesses are also cutting back on wages, travel and equipment purchases.

But it's a losing battle. ISI Group analysts figure that U.S. corporate profits will decline from their 2007 peak to a 2010 trough by a record 30%, though a 50% fall is not out of the question. They're already down 20%.
Customers are disappearing as wages and jobs falter and families raid their emergency funds. U.S. home equity decline has accelerated to a 30% annual rate, which combined with the stock market plunge, has slashed consumers' net worth by $12 trillion.

The pervasiveness of the plunge in demand that animates doomsayers is breathtaking. Reis, a real-estate research firm, this week said rents nationwide fell in 43% of buildings of all types in the fourth quarter, up from an average of 25% in the first nine months of the year. In New York, where financial layoffs are surging, rents fell in 75% of apartment buildings last quarter. This puts securitized loans on U.S. commercial and apartment buildings on track for a default rate of 6% this year, up from 1.1% at the end of 2008.

"We haven't seen this speed of decline before," one Reis analyst told Bloomberg.
In Asia, the momentum of deterioration and thus the need for policy speed is even more dramatic. Japan's industrial production is falling at a stunning 63% annual rate; in South Korea, it's falling at a 43% rate.

In China, real gross domestic production was unchanged in the fourth quarter, and ISI analysts expect it to be unchanged in this quarter, which would smash the GDP growth down to just 4% year over year, a stunning comedown for an economy that was growing at better than 10% last year and was once believed to be invulnerable.


In contrast, government leaders appear to be moving in slow motion. The Federal Reserve last week said it was "prepared" to buy Treasurys to push down interest-rate costs even though 10-year-note yields are up a lot in the past two months.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, has dawdled on plans to try to recapitalize the banking system or buy soured assets, and the fiscal stimulus package winding its way through Congress appears by independent estimates to be too small, insufficiently focused on real job creation and overly weighted on fiscal 2010 rather than 2009.

Meanwhile, the head of the European Central Bank is dragging his feet, stating that he would not back an interest-rate cut.
I would love to see the smug Davos crowd proved wrong, but the forces at work may have gone too far to be stopped. The nation may be on track now to spend $4 trillion -- more than on anything short of war -- to prevent the credit hole from getting so big we can't climb out.

It's especially worrisome to see so much money used to shore up the worst-managed banks, a misallocation of resources that could haunt us for decades.
In summary, total ruin can be averted and the Davos prophecy squelched if lawmakers seize the moment, aim true and get lucky.

Even if the result is low growth amid a newly chastened business and social culture, re-ranking of national priorities to celebrate saving over consumption and acceptance of a lower stature in the world, it's superior to depression and chaos.

Cross your fingers.


Oh right, I did want to let you guys in on a little secret: I was one of the attending physicians when Thomas Beatie gave birth to the first goat-human. There's been quite a bit of consternation about how someone could possibly push a goat out through their cock. I am here to tell you that after I, and assisting physician Neil Patrick Harris (aka Doogie Howser, MD) crammed a giant metal spear into that bastards cock, the end result was not pretty:
Asshole: The Other Pussy

I also want to address the delicate topic of where a man holds a baby goat. It's not in the belly, it's quite a bit lower. Here is a never-before-seen picture of Beatie posing completely naked, just prior to birth:
"Hi, I'm Thomas Beatie and there's a mother fuckin' goat in my nutsack! I'm calling Oprah!"

OK, I'll wrap it up by throwing Dunc a Betty Boop Pinup bone'r two here:
Please Dunc, don't hurt me!Dunc, I'm hankerin' for some spankerin'!
And squat, and thrust, and in and out!I wish someone would go apeshit on me right about now...
I wish there was a big strong Comic book retailer here to help me pet my pussy...

I'll give you this Dunc, She Hot. If I was born during the Civil War, I'd also find this 1930's style porno pretty hot. There ain't many chicks that look bad in a ball gag.

611 comments:

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tim said...

>>I think this gets back to our 97%

Yeah and we used to keep these people busy. Now they are idle. Do you know how long it took our grandmothers just to cook and do laundry? How long did it take just to make dinner for men who had worked physically all day?

Yes, those were hard times. But were they actually WORSE than people being idle and miserable, buying ridiculous crap?

tim said...

Is F1+ good?

Anonymous said...

, Galbraith says policy-makers are rediscovering the ideas of his father, Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith, and economist John Maynard Keynes ...


*

This is really funny, because ron paul says that the problem is that the ideas of Galbraith & Keynes are exactly what caused the problem, and continues the problem.

Fuckers like 'lava' are just discovering this shit like it 'new', the trouble is its been the 100% mantle of the USA government since 1932, to use the treasury to pick and choose winners.

Today the OREO has picked home building and car manufacturing to be the STIMULUS winner!!! Who could have guessed?

Anonymous said...

Fitch Rates Bank of the Cascades' FDIC Guaranteed Debt 'AAA/F1+'

Last update: 9:42 a.m. EST Feb. 10, 2009
NEW YORK, Feb 10, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Fitch Ratings has assigned 'AAA/F1+' ratings to debt issued by Bank of the Cascades through the FDIC Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP). Specifically, Bank of the Cascades, a subsidiary of Cascade Bancorp (CACB:
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Sponsored by:
, , ) , issued $26 million of senior unsecured debt under the TLGP. The fixed rate debt issue will mature in February 2012.
Obligations under the TLGP bear the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government. The maximum amount guaranteed equals 125% of senior, unsecured debt outstanding at Sept. 30, 2008 scheduled to mature by June 30, 2009, or alternatively if a depository institution had either no senior unsecured debt outstanding or only had federal funds purchased, its debt guarantee limit is 2% of its consolidated total liabilities as of Sept. 30, 2008. The FDIC guarantees expire at the earlier of the instrument's maturity or by June 30, 2012. Notes can be issued in U.S. dollars or foreign currency.
Fitch assigns the following ratings to Bank of the Cascades debt issued under the FDIC TLGP:
-- Long-term FDIC guaranteed debt 'AAA';
-- Short-term FDIC guaranteed debt 'F1+'.
Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, www.fitchratings.com. Published ratings, criteria and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance and other relevant policies and procedures are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.

Anonymous said...

Is F1+ good?

*

It depends on what $26M does for MOSS, its less than the S1031 boyz made-off.

Anonymous said...

If OREO pulls this off BPUSSY&HBM will be sucking OREO dick for days, and even dunc will be salivating.

...

Treasury, Fed unveil $1.5 trillion rescue plan

Bad bank program should provide as much as $1 trillion in financing

By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
Last update: 1:23 p.m. EST Feb. 10, 2009
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - In its latest effort to stabilize the broken financial system, the U.S. government will use mostly private money to create a fund of at least $500 billion to recapitalize banks and another fund of $1 trillion to support consumer and business lending, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced Tuesday.
As part of the plan, all major U.S. banks will be required to undergo a rigorous stress test to determine if they can survive a more severe economic downturn. If they can, they'll be eligible for government capital.
"The battle for economic recovery must be fought on two fronts," Geithner said as he unveiled the much-anticipated financial stability plan. "We have to both jump start job creation and private investment, and we must get credit flowing again to businesses and families." Read his speech.
Financial markets appeared to be underwhelmed by Geithner's plan, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average selling off as much as 300 points.
The plan is short on details and "short on the confidence factor that this will all work out fine," said Alan Ruskin of RBS Greenwich Capital.
To get credit flowing again, Geithner's plan has six parts, including the creation of a public-private partnership to buy illiquid assets from banks to help them recapitalize.
In partnership with the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Treasury will take a fraction of the remaining money from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program and leverage it with private-sector funds to create a $500 billion investment fund to buy toxic assets. The fund will allow the private sector to "determine the prices for current troubled and previously illiquid assets," Treasury said.
The trust -- sometimes called a "bad bank" -- will encourage private investors to acquire illiquid mortgage securities from troubled financial institutions, Geithner said.
Video: Prospects for a U.S. Recovery
John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia, talks about his expectations for the future of the country's gross domestic product, employment data and whether government stimulus will work. MarketWatch's Steve Gelsi reports. (Feb. 10)
"We believe this program should ultimately provide up to $1 trillion in financing capacity, but we plan to start it on a scale of $500 billion and expand it based on what works," Geithner said in a speech in Washington.
In a second part of the plan, the Treasury will invest funds from the TARP directly in banks that have passed the stress test. The taxpayers will receive dividends and securities that can be converted into equity in the banks. Banks will have to be more forthcoming about what they'll do with the money, and will have to accept restrictions on executive pay, dividends, stock repurchases, and acquisitions.
"This program will provide government capital and government financing to help leverage private capital to help get private markets working again for the legacy loans and assets that are now burdening the entire financial system" Geithner said.
"We're going to require banking institutions to go through a carefully designed comprehensive stress test, to use the medical term," Geithner said. "We want their balance sheets cleaner, and stronger. And we are going to help this process by providing a new program of capital support for those institutions which need it."
The third part of the plan will have the Federal Reserve greatly expand its still-in-the-works program to support consumer and business lending. The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) will take $100 billion from the Treasury and leverage it into $1 trillion of capital to "kick start lending by focusing on new loans."
Assets purchased by the TALF will be limited to AAA-graded securities. They can include securities backed by consumer as well as business loans, including commercial mortgage-backed securities.
Facing criticism from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Geithner is not asking for additional funds for the program until it is clear to him that the measures are not having their intended effect of reviving the financial markets.
The Treasury will release details later about parts of the plan to back up small-business lending and a program that would use at least $50 billion to help troubled homeowners on the verge of foreclosure. End of Story

LavaBear said...

>>>Fuckers like 'lava' are just discovering this shit like it 'new'

You funny. Ok one last time since you don't listen well. It was one of many books I've read on the subject. Yes, I've read McElvaine. I've read Galbraith. I've read multiple books on the topic. I've got a frickin economics bachelors degree. (That's not saying much I know.) And let me say this in a way that you might even understand. I FUCKING HATE Keynesian economics.

Bewert said...

Re: Fitch

OUCH!


CACB 1.81
-0.61 (-25.21%)
Real-time: 3:10PM EST

tim said...

"I'm really underwhelmed by the plan," says David Twibell, president of wealth management for Colorado Capital Bank in Denver. "Maybe there's not much that can be done right now other than let this work itself out."

---

Yeah, let's spend a trillion and a half so we can underwhelm people. Great plan.

Anonymous said...

Think I'll go cash a big check at cacb. Can't hurt to have a few $'s around.

Anonymous said...

If OREO pulls this off BPUSSY&HBM will be sucking OREO dick for days, and even dunc will be salivating.

I don't like the "bad bank" plan at all, as proposed. No meaningful pay caps for executives, no penalties for investors, little or no corporate accountability. Sounds like something Bush would have loved.

Obama is too timid. He won in a near-landslide with a mandate for progressive change, and he's acting like he eked out a 1-vote victory in the Electoral College. He needs to grow a pair, fast.

Anonymous said...

Looks like the defaults should start slowing down in 2012, assuming we don't make any more bad loans.

http://paul.kedrosky.com/WindowsLiveWriter/NextWaveofU.S.MortgageDefaults_A1A4/reset_2.gif

Anonymous said...

Yes, those were hard times. But were they actually WORSE than people being idle and miserable, buying ridiculous crap?

Not having lived then it's hard for me to say with authority, but ... no.

I grew up in the '50s in a blue-collar family. My father worked as a guard in a GM factory; my mother was a "homemaker," to use the jargon of the day. We had a modest, but neatly maintained, two-bedroom house in a decent suburban neighborhood. One car, one TV. Needless to say no computers, no Wii or X-Box, no granite-countered kitchen full of expensive gadgets that get used twice a year, no bathrooms that looked like they were built for King Farouk. Recreation meant fishing, going to a baseball game in Philly once in a while and a two-week driving vacation in the summer.

But we were happy because, I think, we had security. I never remember my father worrying about being laid off; I never remember my parents worrying or arguing about money. They knew they had enough to pay for the house and the car and whatever medical bills came along, and the food, clothes and utilities. They also knew my father would have an adequate pension when he retired -- which happened early because of disability.

Anxiety comes from feeling that you don't have enough money, and no matter how much you have you can always imagine it's not enough -- especially if you fall into the trap of thinking "I want it" means "I need it."

Bewert said...

Actually ther F1+ rating is fine:

The use of credit ratings defines their function: "investment grade" ratings (International Long-term, 'AAA' to 'BBB-'; Short-term, 'F1' to 'F3' ) indicate relatively low to moderate credit risk, while those in the "speculative" or "non investment grade" categories (International Long-term, 'BB+' to 'D'; Short-term, 'B' to 'D') either signal a higher level of credit risk or that a default has already occurred. Credit ratings express risk in relative rank order, which is to say they are ordinal measures of credit risk and are not predictive of a specific frequency of default or loss.

LavaBear said...

>>>Actually ther F1+ rating is fine:

Well...the specific debt they are issuing has the "full faith and credit of the U.S. Government" is rated at F1+. So as soon as the government loses it's credit rating then I'd assume debt issued with it's full faith and credit to be affected. It doesn't really have much to say about Cracker Ass itself.

Umpqua once again held up today only down 6% compared to Cracker Ass down 24%.

Anonymous said...

yeh, cracker ass took it hard, only one cracker ass on planet took it harder and that was sterling bank, you got to admit it feels good to be #1, remember the employees of the old merenda are bringing frankenstein back to life, and you know it was MOSS all along that kept them alive, and now she'll do it some-more'

Anonymous said...

I grew up in the '50s in a blue-collar family. My father worked as a guard in a GM factory; - hbm

*

I think the subject was the depression, what did they tell you HBM? IN the 50's, given that they must have been alive? I know my folks and grand parents told daily, most of my family was fine, but a branch from Duluth, Minn had terrible storys of going hungry every night and only feeding the infants that the children and adults went unfed, that folks with food would leave out soup-bowls, that were often just bones and water that folks would share with the hood, from this branch of family I got a steady diet of depression storys of children dying from starvation, I know they would tell me of hunger pains that kept them from sleeping, ... On the other hand much of my family that had been in pharmaceuticals sold out in Chicago, and went to LA, and bought tons of real estate and lived quite well.

From what I have had been personally told it was the 'working man', and his inability to get jobs, and there were certain towns that the government had NO soup kitchens or welfare, again its all where you were and what you did, but I certainly was raised on endless horror storys about those years, and they went on for over ten years of misery, its the kind of stuff that drove most people west, sort of like the Irish potatoe famine, you either get out or die, sort of like our Bend.

But I heard lots of dead baby storys as a kid from the old relatives, it seems the little children were the ones that dropped dead most often from lack of food.

My family saw a lot of their friends children die of starvation in those years, and they never forgot, and never would let me forget those days.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, let's spend a trillion and a half so we can underwhelm people. Great plan.

*

Slow down big-boy TT, and don't forget that in the last six months they have spent $9 Trillion dollars. The $700B talked about is just window dressing, the $550B today about the $250k FDCI Sep 12 crash, ... was just icing on the cake.

It's going to cost $10T in 2008, and another $10T in 2009, and that's just to keep the US government in biz, the trouble is what will be the shooooooo after the next alt-energy bubble?

Anonymous said...

Obama is too timid. He won in a near-landslide with a mandate for progressive change, and he's acting like he eked out a 1-vote victory in the Electoral College. He needs to grow a pair, fast.


*

OREO is doing exactly what the PEOPLE in power told him to do, and he's doing it just fine.

tim said...

The 50s were a cover-up. My parents grew up in the 50s and it was easy. My parents are whiners.

But their parents were tough as nails, though, and ready for any old crazy thing.

Anonymous said...

OREO is MORE BUSH than BUSH, he doesn't need to grow a pair, the liberals are the ones that got bait&switched, but fuck like they had a choice? HRC or an OREO?

What the fuck is a good leader? Please somebody tell me? In the day it was Eisenhower, but it was because he was a winner of the 'good war'.

Today, we're a shopping pariah parasite on the world, and the USA is the worlds leper colony. What kind of 'leadership' comes from a vacuum? Perhaps in a generation after WWIII or WWIV there will again be 'leaders', or most likely there will be a world government, and we'll all be told what to think , cuz this open forum internet shit 'freedom' un-moderated will NOT last long.

Anonymous said...

But their parents were tough as nails, though, and ready for any old crazy thing.

*

Yep, no fucking doubt, unless the old-timers from the 1930's had lots of money. I know my family that went west 'lost everything', and when they sold out in Chicago after the crash in 1929, left with only $1M dollars, the funny thing is when they got to So-Cali in the early 1930's they damn near bought all of Santa Monica.

Like I always KEEP SAYING a 'recession' is when the nieghbor is un-employed, but a DEPRESSION is when YOUR un-employed.

A working-man losing his job, and not having the sense to re-invent or move on is a depression, but to a rich person having fell from say $20M to one Million it was like having lost 'everything'.

I think that's what I'm trying to say about today and all these bail-outs, the OREO government is the rich protecting the rich, so they don't have to suffer in these coming years, but the working-man, these people who support OREO, they'll never suffer like the working-man. Good news is that in Bend there are no jobs, and it hasn't been a 'working town' since the 1950's.

I moved to Bend as a base-camp, a place to keep toyz, a place to call home when I wasn't travelling or doing business elsewhere.


Lot's of people lots of places are going to hurt real bad, I keep reminding you all this cuz NO OREO candy is coming to BEND ORYGUN.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like something Bush would have loved.

*

All DURING the BUSH years, Geithner RAN the FED-RES behind the scenes the ENTIRE fucking $10T today was orchestrated by GEITHNER, he is the chosen one.

ALL this has NOT a fucking thing to do with OREO or BUSH, the FED-RES rules the USA, and the next step of Geihtner is a one world currency.

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting story from a few weeks ago about the after-math of 'globalization' and new penny-stocks, of course our own CACB is on the list, sort of interesting the tie in's of globalization, "BUY AMERICA", selling of BEND abroad as a NEW ASPEN to ASIAN, and our own CACB going into the toilet, fascinating death notice.

***

Signposts of Recession and the Downfall of "Free Trade"
BY FRANK BARBERA, CMT

It was Senator Mitch McConnell who put it best on Monday, when urging the Obama Administration to strip out the “Buy American” clause from the economic stimulus plan. Quoting McConnell, “"I don't think we ought to use a measure that is supposed to be timely, temporary, and targeted to set off trade wars when the entire world is experiencing a downturn in the economy," said Senator Mitch McConnell.” We would have phrased it a bit stronger, as in “the worst downturn of the last 60 years” but no arguments otherwise. As McConnell aptly stated, it is hard to see how such wording will be interpreted as anything but a return to US protectionism and as such, hard to see how the wording would accomplish anything other than a host of ‘retaliatory actions.’

To that end, as McConnell so stated, this language is a ‘bad idea’ – possibly a disastrous idea that could tilt a very negative situation into becoming a dire situation in short order. Any way you slice the baloney the globalization policies of the last two decades were terribly short sighted, and were cataclysmic for the US manufacturing base leaving the US today far more dependent on imported goods. On Monday, Macy’s, an American icon if ever there was one, announced 7,000 job cuts while slashing the dividend. In the last few days, each of the following companies has experienced a share price collapse of sizeable proportions with some of these companies now in single digits, or even penny stocks: Nova Chemicals (NCX), Advanta Corp (ADVNB), Dryships (DRYS), La-Z-Boy, Fifth-Third Bancorp (FITB) Eastman Kodak (EK), ADT Telecommunications (ADCT), Sterling Financial (STSA), Cascade Bancorp (CACB), Smurfit-Stone Container (SSCC), Capital Corp of the West (CCOW), City Bank (CTBK), Colonial Bancgroup (CSB), Beazer Homes (BZR), Black and Decker (BDK), Emulex (ELX), Juniper Networks (JNPR), Marshall & Illsley (MI), CNH Global NV( CNH), Allstate Corp (ALL), Ferro Corp (FOE), Synovus Financial (SNV), Mattel (MAT), EW Scripps (SSP), Hercules Offshore (HERO), Hitachi (HIT), Gannett (GCI), Pier One (PIR), International Paper (IP), Grubb and Ellis (GBE) and Las Vegas Sands (LVS).

Clearly, many of these companies are hurting, and with many folks now out of work, more cut backs will mean still more people joining the ranks of those unemployed. On that front, it is impossible to have anything but tremendous sympathy all the way around. However, the return to a “Buy American’ philosophy, at least as an officially sanctioned philosophy, is an option and a ship that sailed unfortunately 20 years ago. Note in the chart below, the long decline in the American Manufacturing Base as illustrated by the employment of manufacturing workers which peaked 1979 and has contracted by nearly 40%.

Anonymous said...

FUCK OREO, OUR OWN H-BOWEL-MOVEMENT has found his balls, ...

The Sawyer Case: Is The Bulletin AWOL? E-mail
User Rating: / 2
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Written by H. Bruce Miller
Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Since last Friday, both local TV news outlets have been carrying the story of Bend Police Capt. Kevin Sawyer being put on administrative leave while he and his wife, a well-known local realtor, are under investigation by the FBI. But, curiously, there’s been nary a word about it yet in Bend’s Only Daily Newspaper.

“I'm aware of an investigation or inquiry that is currently under way by the FBI, into the finances of a business or businesses that Captain Sawyer is associated with,” Bend PD Chief Sandi Baxter told KOHD and KTVZ.

Kevin and Tami Sawyer own the Sawyer Five, a real estate agency; Genesis Futures LLC, a property management company, and Starboard LLC, a real estate investing company.

According to KOHD, “alleged victims are claiming possible investment fraud. … There have been several civil cases filed against both Captain Sawyer and Tami, as well as her investment company Starboard LLC. One case filed last May against Starboard LLC lists a complaint of failure to make payments due under three different promissory notes. The plaintiff argues Starboard owes over $800,000.

“Another case filed last month against Captain Sawyer, Tami and Starboard involving money loaned to the Sawyers list complaints of money due and owing. The plaintiffs in that case want $95,000 in damages plus interest.”

KOHD reported that a probate trust petition also has been filed against the Sawyers involving the late Thomas Middleton, who lived at the Sawyer home and changed his will shortly before he died last July and whose relatives are fighting over the estate.

KTVZ quoted an anonymous tenant living in one of the Genesis Futures properties as saying that she had received a notice of default because Genesis hadn’t made payments on the property in more than six months, although the tenant has been steadily making rent payments for the past eight months.

“According to a court affidavit, Genesis Futures LLC has a negative worth of more than $300,000,” KTVZ reported.

KTVZ updates the story today with Steven Wilson, principal broker for The Sawyer Five, denying the real estate agency is under investigation. “The issues with Kevin and Tami Sawyer are their personal issues, and they really don't have anything to do with the real estate operations of this real estate company,” he said.

Of course, that doesn’t mean one or both of the Sawyers’ two other businesses are not under investigation.

KTVZ also uncovered the fact that in 2004 the Oregon Real Estate Agency received a complaint “alleging that [Tami] Sawyer failed to perform reasonable care and diligence in a transaction," according to Dean Owens, deputy commissioner of the agency.

“The state agency says that complaint quickly turned into several investigations of short sale transactions involving Sawyer,” KTVZ says. “The outcome: Sawyer's real estate license was reissued and limited in 2006, for a year.”

None of this has made the pages of The Bulletin. A search of the paper’s on-line archives turned up no stories about Tami and/or Kevin Sawyer in the past several years. However, a “News of Record” item on Feb. 2 stated that Michael Hibbs and Ondi Hibbs had sued Tami and Kevin Sawyer and Starboard LLC for $95,677.88.

Let’s hope the paper has turned its crack investigative reporters loose on this story and soon will bring us a complete, detailed account.

Meanwhile, Tami’s gushing description of herself remains posted on the Sawyer Five website: “Tami Sawyer is not easily defined. Tami is energy. Tami is creativity. Tami is about combining energy, creativity, experience and gut instinct, along with friends, family and investors to reach and exceed financial goals and expectations. Big or small, every project Tami touches is handled with the utmost care and attention.”

Anonymous said...

Is this really all the same Sawyer family that used to own the BULL??

Sawyer purchased Putnam’s interest in the Bulletin after Putnam became secretary to Governor James Withycombe, and in 1919 assumed the role of editor. During his years in this post, Sawyer became one of the state’s leading newspapermen. From 1927 to 1929 he served as president of the Oregon State Editorial Association. He remained editor until 1953 when the Bulletin was sold to Robert W. Chandler.[1]

[edit] Politics

Sawyer was involved in the split of Deschutes County from Crook County in 1917.

* 1920 – 1927, Deschutes County judge
* 1927 – 1930, member of the Oregon State Highway Commission.
* 1931 – 1937, President of the Oregon Reclamation Congress
* 1935, elected Oregon Director of the National Reclamation Association
* 1935 – 1939, advisory board for reconstruction of the Oregon State Capitol
* 1939 – , chairman of the Capitol Planning Commission.
* 1945 – 1948 Oregon Director of the National Rifle Association (NRA)
* 1946 – 1947 President of the NRA
* 1945 – 1951, vice-chairman of the Oregon Statuary Hall commission.

[edit] Conservation

Always an avid outdoorsman, he served as a director of the American Forestry Association and on the Pacific Northwest Regional Forestry Advisory Council. During the 1950s he was a member of the Hoover Commission Task Force on Water Resources and Power. Sawyer died of a heart attack on October 13, 1959. A former Oregon state park (now a city park) near Bend is named for him.[2]

Anonymous said...

Robert William Sawyer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Robert William Sawyer (May 12, 1880 – October 13, 1959) was an American politician who was a prominent figure and a respected conservationist in Oregon.

He was born in Bangor, Maine on May 12, 1880. He studied law at Harvard. In 1912 he moved to Bend, Oregon where he started working at the Bend Co. sawmill. Here he met George P. Putnam, the publisher of the Bend Bulletin. From this friendship, he soon became a news writer for the Bulletin.

Anonymous said...

Robert William Sawyer

The Bulletin is the daily newspaper of Bend, Oregon, United States. The Bulletin is owned by Western Communications, Inc., a family-owned corporation founded by editor Robert W. Chandler. WesCom owns nine publications in Oregon and California.

The Bulletin was established in 1903.[1] Its circulation is 32,455 Monday-Saturday and 33,087 on Sunday.[1] The publisher is Gordon Black and the editor-in-chief is John Costa.[1]
Contents

* 1 Notable editors
* 2 Sister publications
* 3 References
* 4 External links

[edit] Notable editors

* George P. Putnam
* Robert William Sawyer

[edit] Sister publications

* Baker City Herald, Oregon
* Central Oregon Nickel Ads
* Curry Coastal Pilot, Brookings, Oregon
* The Observer, La Grande, Oregon
* The Redmond Spokesman, Oregon
* The Daily Triplicate, Crescent City, California
* The Union Democrat, Sonora, California

Anonymous said...

Sawyer

$2M theft at a Bend home in silver coins and gold bars

By Cindy Powers / The Bulletin
Published: September 27. 2008 4:00AM PST
Dakotah Leverett Yarborough, 43, left, has been charged with burglary and aggravated theft in connection with about $2 million in stolen coins, silver bars and jewelry taken from a northwest Bend home. Connie Sue Yarborough, 38, has been charged with aggravated theft.
more photos more photos

Dakotah Leverett Yarborough, 43, left, has been charged with burglary and aggravated theft in connection with about $2 million in stolen coins, silver bars and jewelry taken from a northwest Bend home. Connie Sue Yarborough, 38, has been charged with aggravated theft.
Submitted photo
advertisement:
Some of the stolen Items

• About 200 bars of silver, weighing 100 ounces each
• $300,000 worth of gold American Eagle coins
• More than 8,000 silver coins
• 10-carat diamond ring
• Platinum watch with 3.5 carats in diamonds
• 22-karat heavy gold necklace with opal and diamond pendant
• 18-karat gold necklace
• Pink tourmaline necklace
Estimated value: $2 million
Source: Bend Police reports and Deschutes County Circuit Court records

A recent theft of about $2 million in jewelry, gold and silver coins from a northwest Bend home led to charges against a Hawaii couple Wednesday, after an investigation that took Bend police to three states this week.

Dakotah Leverett Yarborough and Connie Sue Yarborough, of Hilo, Hawaii, have been charged with stealing thousands of coins, precious metal ingots and heirloom jewelry from Dakotah Yarborough’s 67-year-old former stepmother.

“He is very familiar with the family and has been at the house and, up to this point, he has been welcome at the house,” Bend Police Capt. Kevin Sawyer said.

Detectives have recovered 14 5-gallon buckets containing more than 8,800 silver coins and 80 100-ounce silver bars from Dakotah Yarborough’s rental car, according to court documents filed this week.

Two Bend police investigators who flew to the couple’s Hawaii home this week were searching the house and had recovered some stolen items Friday, Sawyer said.

The stolen coins and precious metals were stored in safes inside the woman’s Bend home and were accumulated over the past decade as a nest egg, said the victim’s son, Portland lawyer Joe Durkee.

“The jewelry, from what I understand, is very rare jewelry as far as quality and size that was handed down from her father,” Durkee said.

HHis mother felt confident the valuables were secure in her safes, Durkee said.

On the advice of Dakotah Yarborough — who police say works as a private detective specializing in electronic surveillance — Durkee said his mother changed the locks on her home and combinations to her safes in August.

Dakotah Yarborough, 43, was staying at his former stepmother’s home at the time, according to court documents.

In late August, Dakotah Yarborough asked if she would sell him a silver bar or one of her gold coins, which she reluctantly did, according to a report by Bend Police Detective John Lawrence.

Authorities were called to the Bend home Sept. 8 on a report that “assorted gold & silver bars, diamond watch, Krugerrands and jewelry” had been stolen over the weekend, according to the burglary report.

After multiple interviews and a clean polygraph test of the locksmith who changed the safe combinations, authorities focused in on Dakotah Yarborough.

In the week after the burglary, Dakotah Yarborough flew to Hawaii and back, and his wife came to Bend for a visit, then returned to Hawaii, Sawyer said.

When Dakotah Yarborough returned to Bend, investigators from nearly every police agency in Central Oregon watched him on the streets and from the air. They used a fixed-wing plane and a helicopter the family pitched in to pay for, Sawyer said.

Dakotah Yarborough switched cars and clothing often, but detectives put vehicle trackers on three of the cars he drove. He pulled frequent U-turns and repeatedly circled roundabouts, according to Lawrence’s report.

After buying a shovel and 5-gallon buckets with lids at Lowe’s and Home Depot, Yarborough went to a cinder pit on U.S. Forest Service land, worrying detectives that he might have plans to bury the loot, the report said.

“So we had people sitting on five or six places that we knew he frequented or might go,” Sawyer said. “We had people out in the forest, in (camouflage), in the woods watching.”

On Sept. 19, detectives followed Dakotah Yarborough from a northeast Bend home, driving a dusty blue Pontiac Grand Am with a trunk that was obviously weighed down, Sawyer said.

He said Dakotah Yarborough ditched the car for a time and changed shirts twice before police watched him back the Pontiac up to the door of a first-floor room at a northeast Bend hotel and a Redmond detective arrested him outside.

A search of the Pontiac’s trunk turned up the buckets of silver, which weighed more than 1,000 pounds.

The hunt for Connie Yarborough led police to a Days Inn in Redwood City, Calif., where they arrested her Wednesday, according to a report by Bend Police Detective Brian Kindel.

Connie Yarborough, 38, had a new laptop and $17,904 in cash, the report said.

A booking sheet from San Mateo County lists her as “unemployed.”

Dakotah Yarborough was held at the Deschutes County jail Friday on $500,000 bail. A grand jury has filed an indictment charging him with one count of first-degree burglary, six counts of aggravated theft and one count of unlawfully “recording a conversation where a safe combination was discussed ...”

Yarborough has three prior convictions for identity theft and one prior felony theft conviction, according to court records.

Local authorities have recovered a Cobray .9 mm machine gun and a silencer they have linked to Dakotah Yarborough, Sawyer said. They expect him to face charges of being a felon in possession of an automatic weapon.

He is scheduled to appear in Deschutes County Circuit Court on Monday.

Connie Yarborough was lodged at the MacGuire Correctional Facility in San Mateo County on $250,000 bail. She has been indicted in Deschutes County on one count of aggravated theft.

She will be extradited to Oregon, Sawyer said.

Joe Durkee said his mother has been shaken by the burglary and theft of her valuables, but the family hopes some good may come of it.

“While the family has suffered hopefully only just a theft, the big thing is that we hope the courts will take this guy off the streets because he and his wife are like Bonnie and Clyde,” Durkee said. “We hope the sacrifice that we unintentionally suffered will help others.”

Anonymous said...

http://shortsalesbend.com/contact_us.html

Short Sales Dot Bend - Sawyer, who would have guessed??

Anonymous said...

Step into Spring Fashion Show

Modeling by Tami Sawyer, paid for by Summit 1031, ...

http://centraloregonwcr.org/fashionshow.html

Anonymous said...

Like as a kid I loved the Emerson quote "Your rich in proportion, to that which can afford NOT to buy".

###

Nice quote. Actually it's Henry David Thoreau:
"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone."

Hmmmm.... will have to ponder that one awhile.

Anonymous said...

I think the subject was the depression, what did they tell you HBM?

Both of their families made it through without too much hardship; my mother's father had steady work in a pottery factory and my father's father got laid off but got a WPA job. My wife's father was in the CCC.

If the question is whether it was worse for people to be starving than to be idle and preoccupied with buying useless shit, then I would have to say yes, it was. I don't want to repeat the Great Depression just because it would "build character." And I notice the people who suggest that tend to be those who are sitting pretty themselves.

Anonymous said...

My people saw lots of their best friends watch their infant children die of starvation. Yes, HBM you tell me that idleness is harder.

The fucking problem is life ain't fair, and the ramifications of the depression then & now were largely based on where you lived, and if your local & or state handed out food, shelter and clothing.

Anonymous said...

The following from the 'liberal' washington-post, fair and balanced, and even they concur that the FED-RES don't know what the fuck they're doing, except now they got their own boy running the US Treasury to BOOT!!!!

Complete fucking MADNESSS!!!

A Rush-and-Shush Rescue

By David Ignatius
Wednesday, February 11, 2009; Page A19

The financial rescue program involves "very large numbers," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said yesterday in announcing a package that could cost up to $2 trillion. Uh, yeah. . . . His bailout numbers would be equivalent to nearly 15 percent of last year's gross domestic product. And that's not counting the $838 billion stimulus program or the $350 billion we've already spent on the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Geithner's three-pronged plan shows just how worried government officials are about the frailty of the financial system. He proposed a "financial stability trust" to provide new capital for banks that fail government "stress tests" of their balance sheets; a new public-private investment fund (popularly known as the "bad bank") that would provide up to $1 trillion to buy toxic real-estate assets; and a $1 trillion program to rescue frozen credit markets that trade securities backed by student loans, credit card receivables, auto loans, commercial real estate and such.

Nobody likes rescuing the Wall Street rascals who made this mess. But financial experts paint a frightening picture of what could happen if normal credit doesn't start flowing again soon. We're talking about a squeeze that could cut off municipal bonds that finance state and local governments, halt the commercial paper that finances inventories and trade, and even undermine the lending that finances our credit card system.

Geithner's package makes sense if you think that a financial "catastrophe," to use President Obama's word, may be approaching. But it's possible that Geithner, after spending the past year imagining worst-case scenarios as president of the New York Fed, may be shellshocked. For a nonfinancial analogy, think of the "war on terror" decisions made in 2002 and 2003 by a Bush White House that began every morning with hair-raising threat assessments.

What's needed here is more transparency so a broader group can think about whether the bailout policies are working. That was a big problem with the first round of TARP bailouts. It was rush-rush, and shush-shush, and we poured huge sums into crisis loans and subsidies. It's hard now to follow just where this money went.

Transparency is not a natural instinct for those who regulate financial markets. The minutes of Fed meetings were once kept secret, on the theory that the markets would be spooked by details of the deliberations. That same mentality prevailed when Bloomberg News filed a Freedom of Information request in November seeking details of more than $2 trillion in emergency loans from the Fed. In December, the Fed rejected Bloomberg's request.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke promised Congress yesterday that he would review the Fed's disclosure policies and create a new, improved Web site. But even the limited information on the old, clunky Web site raises some questions about whether Geithner and Bernanke are going farther down a blind alley.

As of last week, the Fed had $1.84 trillion in outstanding credits. Only about $475 billion were in plain-vanilla Treasury securities, of the sort that, until the crisis, made up nearly all of the Fed's portfolio. New items on the balance sheet included a $259 billion facility to backstop the commercial paper market. If that approach has been working, why do we need a new facility? If it hasn't, why add more money?

Then there are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As of last week, the Fed had outstanding credits of $29 billion for Fannie-Freddie securities and an additional $7 billion for mortgage-backed securities they hold. Under the new rescue plan, those numbers could jump to $100 billion and $500 billion. Does that increase make sense?

If you want to get really frazzled about how your money has been used, look at items on the Fed's balance sheet known as Maiden Lane II and III. Those special-purpose vehicles hold $46.4 billion in securities from the ruined insurance giant AIG. (That's in addition to $39 billion in other AIG emergency credit.) Plus, AIG got $40 billion more in Treasury money under a program memorably called "Systemically Significant Failing Institutions." If you ask Wall Street insiders why AIG got all this loot, they say it was to prevent the failure of its counter-parties, the giant investment banks such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. That's the sort of chicanery that Geithner must avoid.

Wall Street's problems have stemmed partly from the secrecy in which its cockeyed financial schemes were hatched. Treasury and the Fed have been enablers of this process, with their fetish about not "stigmatizing" institutions that receive bailouts. That has to stop. If Geithner wants our money for this new rescue package, he has to give the public more details about how it's being spent. This is an area where sunlight really is the best disinfectant.

Anonymous said...

It's not governments job to entertain people or make them idle or not, certainly going back 20+ years even old Ross Perot warned of the giant sucking sound of lost jobs, and today they're BEND GONE.

No way in hell they're coming back.

People re-invent yourself, if you can't then get the fuck out of Bend, and find a place where you can feed your family.

There are simply too many blood sucking parasites in Bend, and not enough hosts to support them.

HBM's fear of idleness is typical of the elderly fearing the un-employed and bored youngster. Certainly if more of the old simply ate their young when in need of food the problem that bewilders HBM could rapidly be solved.

Anonymous said...

It's one thing to print money and de-value the dollar, its another for Geihtner to seize private money for his use of of buying toxic assets. Expect a 'bank holiday' very soon, and expect your deposits to be new Geihtner Bonds rather than US-DOLLARS.

***

Geithner's Financing Fiasco
Daniel Indiviglio, 02.10.09, 07:05 PM EST
Treasury's plan to finance asset sales may not be enough.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says he wants to involve private investment in the next phase of the government's efforts to stabilize the financial system. Doing so might not be as easy as he thinks.

The creation of a so-called "Public-Private Investment Fund"--a way to remove toxic assets from banks' balance sheets--is one of the few kernels of new information that Geithner revealed Tuesday while unveiling the Treasury's plan to bolster the financial sector. Details are sketchy.


On the surface, it seems like a pretty slick idea. Since the government cannot figure out how to value these assets, they will entice private investors to do so. One way to avoid the valuation problem is to put it on somebody else's shoulders.

Of course, some incentive must be provided to encourage investors to take on the task of valuation. That's no small task.

"If the pricing were easy, someone would have done it," says Donald Ogilvie of the Deloitte Center for Banking Solutions and a former head of the American Bankers Association.

Treasury officials have indicated they'll provide only the financing for investors to buy these securities. What Uncle Sam won't offer: guarantees on those assets or a share in any losses.

That means that investors still face the enormous risk of mis-pricing the assets. Ogilvie worries that overpaying could lead to losses in the financing the government provides.
Comment On This Story

The Treasury wants to create a fund worth $500 billion to $1 trillion. To do that, it will need to provide relatively inexpensive financing so that investors won't quickly burn through most of their cash to buy the securities.

Thus, a sort of tug-of-war exists between the Treasury providing taxpayers with the greatest protection and providing investors with the greatest motivation to purchase troubled securities.

While very inexpensive financing is a strong incentive for investors, it will also leave taxpayers more vulnerable. Unfortunately, providing more expensive financing to protect taxpayers might not drum up enough investor interest to buy the toxic securities.

Another looming problem: The Treasury cannot be sure that banks holding the troubled securities will accept the price investors are willing to pay.

"I don't know that the availability of financing is going to make it any easier for the selling institutions to sell the bad assets at a big loss," says Edward Gainor, a partner at the law firm McKee Nelson who focuses on securitization.

If investors offer prices that are too low, banks might not accept them, because they might not be able to sustain the resulting write-downs. Also, the problem of so-called "mark-to-market" accounting--valuing assets at their present value rather than what they might really be worth--persists.

Gainor notes, however, that more money from the government could help banks overcome the write-downs resulting from asset sales.

If that's not an option, banks may demand higher prices than investors are willing to pay. That means the plan won't achieve its goal: relieving banks of a significant portion of their troubled securities.

Just because the government has avoided the valuation problem for itself doesn't mean that it goes away. As long as the market is voluntary, the pricing problem persists.

In order to encourage sufficient investment and pricing acceptable to the banks, the Treasury will probably need to provide greater incentives than just financing. Both of these issues boil down to the government needing to either reduce the pricing risk investors face or absorb the losses sellers incur.

"If it's just financing for toxic assets, I don't know that it gets us very far," says Gainor.

Anonymous said...

So what we know, whether Geithners robs us blind or not,

1.) We let the RE prices collapse to their real value, there is no choice, it can not be propped up.

2.) We let all the worthless assets mark-to-market, and let the everything un-wind, of course most retirements will be wiped out, but they're already wiped out.

3.) We create new clean banks.

4.) Those who have already cleared out their US money, and have a safe haven will be ready for the new clean banks.

5.) Anybody sitting around waiting for OREO to fix their fixing problem will become ONE of HBM's "IDLE".

Anonymous said...

don't want to repeat the Great Depression just because it would "build character." And I notice the people who suggest that tend to be those who are sitting pretty themselves.

*

The buying of useless shit has already come to a BEND-END, we're already down to the wire, FOOD&SHELTER, all else is BEND-GONE, most are already not paying the auto insurance. Soon many people will not be able to afford to buy fuel, given it costs so much, and whats the point?

There are NO choices to the debate HBM, either you saw it coming and like our MARGE put away beans, bullets, and bullion or you didn't. If you did then you'll survive, but marge was already a hardened bend bitch, thus she didn't need a depression to make her strong.

Those bambists like hbm, bp, and dunc, that saw it coming, but thought that the car saw them are fucked. Nobody relishes the suffering, but there isnt' enough GOLD that Geithner can loot to feed all, and thus its going to be very local about who gets what, who eats and who doesn't eat. I see very few food trucks hauling food out to prineville-orygun, get out while you can.

The worst problem for BEND is we brought in all these FUCKING god damn retirees like HBM, and they're now BEND broke across the board, the pension system is broken, and they county can't possible feed these old dying people, its going to be fucking ugly in these high desert towns.

Bewert said...

Re:
The financial rescue program involves "very large numbers,"

###

Quote of the day.

1963: plastics

2009: green energy

Bewert said...

Rethinking economics
by Jerome a Paris [Subscribe]
Tue Feb 10, 2009 at 04:43:02 AM PST

The Guardian has an article this morning that notes, with some amazement that high winds in Spain are bringing power prices down as the significant penetration of wind farms in that country allows a lot of zero-marginal-cost electricity (ie, any additional production is essentially free) to come into the system. Of course, while lauding the foresight of the Spaniards in building up the industry, the article could not help noting acidly that end-users were paying fixed prices and did not see the benefit of this.

Thinking about the economic implications of this, I also noted this exchange between Migeru and ATinNM about whether energy is a good (a "noun" / extensive) or a service (a "verb" / intensive) and I can't help linking the two in a wider theme that has bearing on the financial crisis, and the wider environmental crisis, which is: how do you put a proper price on utilities and infrastructure (including banking) - and on the output they provide?

* Jerome a Paris's diary :: ::
*

How do you value things that are quasi-free IF the right infrastructure is in place? Conversely, how do you pay for any infrastructure if the marginal cost of using it is close to zero? How do you move from the "cost to own" (buying energy) to the "cost to use?" (buying the services energy provides: transportation, heat, etc.... Symetrically, how do you make people pay for indirect costs they generate, but do not bear, as a result of their actions?

Discussions on externalities, positive and negative, are not a new thing, but we are at a time of confluence of several trends that could have a significant political impact if put together in perspective (ie framed) in a smart way:

* the financial crisis is making regulation and government intervention a necessity rather than an evil thing, which opens up opportunities to "sell" the right kind of regulation;

* the emergence of the wind industry on a large enough scale to have a macro-economic impact provides a easily understandable and positive demonstration that well designed infrastructure, made possible by long term planning and regulation has obvious, immediate economic benefits via persistently lower prices for all when it actually exists;

* the recent volatility of prices in the oil&gas industry (and other commodities) shows to all that pure market mechanisms create shocks - to consumers on the way up, to producers on the way down - that economies are not able to absorb within the timeframe of such price movements without a lot of otherwise avoidable pain. Expressed in another way, in times of finely balanced supply and demand, energy as a good is incredibly more volatile and unstable than energy as a utility, or service provided by a network - and you get energy to be utility-like only if the infrastructure is widely available to do. Only governments, or entities acting on a large enough scale, can provide the impetus and the coordination required for that to happen in practical terms in a modern economy, as this requires consistent design and rules of access, long term planification of investments and system-wide management.

* similarly, the volatility of asset prices suggests that money may need to be treated as a utility as well - except that in that case, it's money scarcity, rather than money itself (the service would be "risk mitigation"), that needs to be allocated by the relevant infrastructure. Again, the case for an entity defining what the public interest is and within what guidelined private actors can act seems compelling.

All of this put together suggest to me that we have a unique opportunity to re-define economic activity, and government's role. I'm still grappling with some of the ideas outlined here, but I think this is something that should be developed and pushed.


###

From DKos, interesting enough to throw in here. Jerome finances wind projects from Paris. Link to original with hotlinks to source docs.

My personal take on new economics is how do we liberate ourselves from the buying new plastic toys dogma that Tim talked about earlier. That is the entire basis of our current economy. And the end stage just doesn't work out, no matter how hard I try to imagine it.

tim said...

>>My personal take on new economics is how do we liberate ourselves from the buying new plastic toys dogma that Tim talked about earlier. That is the entire basis of our current economy. And the end stage just doesn't work out, no matter how hard I try to imagine it.

My problem is how does the world move from manufacturing crap to manufacturing what is NEEDED and having everything else be services?

Beats the hell out of me.

Remember that we still manufacture tons of stuff, but it's done mostly without labor. So what do you do with these people who would have been fine laborers 50 years ago now that robots and machines make the stuff?

Just wait until China is automated. What the hell will they do with all their people? All I can think of is massive moving armies.

Bewert said...

Great questions, Tim. I'm at loss, too.

So are we just going to have wars to thin out the number of humans? With embedded media presenting us the inside scoop.

Bewert said...

The problem starts when we can manufacture more than we can consume. Through robotics or whatever.

Now that is a fucking issue. One the world has never confronted.

Bewert said...

Or rather more than people that can pay can consume.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Anyone else besides marge supporting the CACB BAILOUT?

That means BAIL OUT of your CACB checking account, before the fuckers go on LIFE SUPPORT.

As I wrote 2 wks ago, THE FEDS ARE GOING TO SEIZE THAT SHITHOLE.

I wanna hear MossCo start sputtering shit about a SOFTWARE GLITCH CAUSING CRACKER ASS CRACKER BROKE TO GO DOWN.

Why is this woman still in charge? Unbelievable.

LavaBear said...

>>>So are we just going to have wars to thin out the number of humans?

I thought that was what Bird Flu was for. Or some super viral derivative will do the trick.

LavaBear said...

>>> what do you do with these people who would have been fine laborers 50 years ago

Well...it's the reho's and mortgage brokers et al that were the laborers of our day. Now they are all jobless with limited skills. Plus they made $175k a year for a few years so they are as spoiled as can be.

LavaBear said...

>>>reho's and mortgage brokers

Guess we can add in investment bankers to the lot as well.

LavaBear said...

>>>That means BAIL OUT of your CACB checking account, before the fuckers go on LIFE SUPPORT.


I'd lost confidence in them around $15 a share. At $1.86 I'm debating buying some just on the off chance they get a TARP handout in any way...but I'll be out by Friday because that's when they close banks. I was also wondering if the FDIC loan from earlier was simply a bridge until FDIC can pawn them off to someone.

Bewert said...

A Limbaugh acolyte manifesto.

“I’d like to encourage other like-minded people to do what I’ve done,” Adkisson wrote. “If life ain’t worth living anymore, don’t just kill yourself. Do something for your country before you go. Go kill liberals.”

Bewert said...

Re:Guess we can add in investment bankers to the lot as well.

###

Hedge fund managers, too.

Although if you are really smart and pay attention, arbitrage always has opportunities.

Anonymous said...

Anyone else besides marge supporting the CACB BAILOUT?
****

Nah...CACB is a deadman walking. It won't pass the "stress test" and therefore won't get any "medicine".

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I'm debating buying some just on the off chance they get a TARP handout in any way...

Dude, take a look at banks that HAVE received TARP funds... they are down the most. In fact, receiving TARP money seems to be the death knell.

Bewert said...

Oran's Coronation as Savior of Bend

Anonymous said...

I'll be out by Friday. They are used to me cashing good sized checks..She always asks..you going on vacation? Naw, just garage sales.

>>> either you saw it coming and like our MARGE put away beans, bullets, and bullion or you didn't. If you did then you'll survive, but marge was already a hardened bend bitch, thus she didn't need a depression to make her strong.<<<<<

Really poor and hardend grand parents form a young mind to survive in the face of desperate lack of warmth and food.
Got Wood?
Got sleepings bags?
Got food?
Feel Safe?
Got cash?
Got friends? Important.
How bout batteries, light, cooking methods, warm socks, garden seeds, stored water, rain barrels and grey water collection, protection, barking dog, canner, dehydrator, smoker, TP, outhouse, fire starter(Bulletin) also works for TP, the list goes way beyond these. Hope I never need them, but have been them using for years.
One needs not live in Bend to utilize any of the above.
By the BY my Buillion isn't gold it is edible.
Fair travels.

Bewert said...

Boy, the BULL is really taking a beating on Craigslist:

Their reporters can be bought and sold to the highest bidder....is correct. I have seen this IN PERSON, at a community meeting involving land use laws. They are in the pockets of the wealthy movers and shakers in Central Oregon. Their reporting is heavily biased. The whole paper is a joke if anyone asks me. I have had personal dealing with them and would`nt use their paper to wipe my ass.

Anonymous said...

When I yanked my cash out of CACB they had to round the cash up from multiple branches and take me to the special counting room for an hour. They had the nerve to question a bit and I told them in a nice way it was none of their fucking business.

Bewert said...


I have a huge rant for the BB. After being subject to the spammer about T&K these last few weeks, sometimes finding the story intriguing as well as annoying because of the overposts, I have to send out a huge HUGE rant to the BB. On Friday, the story finally comes out in the media about T&K and I wait to read what the paper is going to write about it. As slow as the BB is about putting news in the paper, I am thinking by Sunday it will come out. Ok..its Monday and still nothing. Holy Crap BB....The fricking FBI are investigating two prominent people who live here in Bend. One being a cop..the other a realtor. I would say that would be NEWS! I feel like Bend has gotten the shaft from you!!! You are not only biased in your coverage, but you refuse to tell our community the real news. You only choose to tell us what you want us to hear. That is not doing your job!! A newspaper is to keep the community informed of happenings here! I am in disbelief that you would actually hold back on a story like this and quietly push it under a rug so you don't step on any toes. You people are not doing your job and now that I have finally seen the light on how you treat stories, I am going to now refrain from renewing my subscription. You have let Bend down. "Others" runs circles around you and tells the story like it is! Only thing I will miss from the BB is the comics. But I can find them online.
Shame on you! Wonder how many other stories about our community you decided we didn't need to hear about......communist paper!

Anonymous said...

"Just wait until China is automated. What the hell will they do with all their people? All I can think of is massive moving armies."

Guys - this is just Econ 101.

Technological change.

Think about it. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors spent everyday gathering berries, fruits, and trapping wild animals.

EVERYONE had to work. With the invention of agriculture -- controlled cultivation of edible plants -- now only a small share of the population needs to grow food.

That frees up the rest of the population to do what?

Build bridges,
trade with distant lands,
develop a system of writing (be a scholar),
perform medical services (be a doctor)
invent new tools (a wheeled cart),
invent new product (gunpowder), . . .

Probably back then, someone said:

If we do need all these people to grow food, WHAT are they going to do?

Be idle?

No, people always put their time to good use.

It's called civilization.

What gets us there?

Technological change.

The key thing is that the govt. makes the right kinds of investments and allows for the right kind of incentives. . .

which may be to let innovators do their thing (e.g., don't subsidize failing technologies like oil, through more road construction).

It's all about innovation.

Bewert said...

The Bend Bulletin - FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW... (Redmond)

I've own a small newspaper distribution business here in CO. for about 17 years now. There hasn't been a small paper (*daily, weekly, monthly, niche, classifieds, etc.)I wasn't contracted to work for at some point. There isn't a news box in CO that I don't know about and I'm usually the first to notice their demise by publications decreased circulation (print copies printed).

Over the years, I've personally witnessed the The Bend Bulletin Circulation Team emptying news boxes of "non-competing" papers through-out ALL of Central Oregon. And the reason why I use the term "non-competing" is because I don't consider niche publications, classifieds, or even weekly news papers not in the same
league as them.

However, should you print a ANY publication in Central Oregon and NOT use their in-house printing services - YOU WILL BE CONSIDERED COMPETITION AND THEN TARGETED BY THEIR CIRCULATION DISTRIBUTION TEAM. See, they spent like $20+ million upgrading new web presses several years ago. Bend Bulletin's master plan was to squeeze the web-press printing market in Central Oregon.

The last 2 weekly news publications that were NOT printed by the Bulletin never had a chance. Not only did I witness Bend Bulletin Circulation employees dump hundreds of their newspapers into the circular garbage containers in downtown Bend. And then to my disbelief, I watched the very same person moving/tampering with the location of rival boxes and racks in downtown the night before the Bend Film Festival.

I reported this activity to the Bend PD, but since these types of papers are usually free - there is no value to it and a theft report couldn't be filed.

The infamous Source in Bend had these very same circulation issues for years - until they decided to bite the "Bullet-in" and print it there.

Bewert said...

Re:
It's all about innovation.

###

Buster, you are starting to sound like a progressive. What about the rant of the lazy Americans?

Anonymous said...

GOOD ON YOU BP!
I'll cancel tommorrow with same sentiments. Sawyer has spent 20's of Thousands advertising in the BS over the past many years. Maybe they hope she will spend more. Might be hard to do without a RE license. That would disappear first, even before any FBI charges. The RE commis works quickly. Particularly with property management.

LavaBear said...

>>>(e.g., don't subsidize failing technologies like oil, through more road construction).

Like banking.

LavaBear said...

>>>Buster, you are starting to sound like a progressive

Ummm that's not Buster. Look it's after 9:00 and the poster is sorta sober. That ain't Buster, it's Anonymous.

Bewert said...

LB, yep.

Bewert said...

So I invited the Craigslist Rant and Rave crowd over if they want to post without flagging issues. Whether that was a good idea or not...

Anonymous said...

Just cemented my status as persona non grata-Oran came up and shook Don's hand, but didn't even bother saying hi to me sitting right beside him... BPussy

*

Pussy your uncanny ability to cozy up to the losers, and distance yourself and be hated by the winners as a gadfly is simply amazing.

Teater & Capell care about Bend, in her own twisted way so does Mayor 'Palin' Cheerleader, and she'll be gone in six months via boredom, and once again teater will be mayor, or preferrable it will be Capell who wants to be mayor.

Leonard only had 'propane' to sell to the BAT BUS fiasco, so it figures that he be friendly with you, as he sees you as a fucking moron that can be worked like a fucking Geithner Sausage in a factory. You really need to be rational, and just try to be nice to Teater, Capell, and Eckman, and praise them for their years, and ALSO NOTE dumb fucking KUNT PUSSY newbie, these folks have been here for fucking ever, what the FUCK have you done to deserve RESPECT? NOT A FUCKING THING.

Anonymous said...

>The infamous Source in Bend had these very same circulation issues for years - until they decided to bite the "Bullet-in" and print it there.

The Source doesn't print at the Bullshitin. They print at The Wenatchee World.

Anonymous said...

>Buster, you are starting to sound like a progressive. What about the rant of the lazy Americans?

Time to put them back to work on the farm. Read "The Long Emergency."

Bewert said...

Re: NOT A FUCKING THING.

###

So you have bitched about sucking up to the GOB's and about not sucking up to the GOB's. Yet I don't give a shit what you think.

I'm sure they all care about Bend, and have their own plan to fix Bend.

And I'm nice to everyone. It's my nature. It's also my nature to say what I think, often very directly, in person.

It's your nature to sit behind your Anonymouse identity and bitch. moan, whine, complain, and tell us what to do.

Fuck you. Grow a pair and I might actually consider what you say.

Bewert said...

Re; Read "The Long Emergency."

###

It's at my bedside right now.

Anonymous said...

The rodeo position (Yee Haw)

Well, it's where you get your wife down on all fours and you mount
her from behind. Then you reach around and cup each one of her breasts in your hands and whisper in her ear; 'Boy, these feel just like your sisters.'

Then you try and stay on 8 seconds.

Bewert said...

RE: The Bend Bulletin - FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW... (Redmond)

The Source doesn't print at the Bulletin press. They use The Wenatchee World press.

###

Maybe HBM knows the real facts.

Bewert said...

Fucking incorrigible Jack Russell's. I've got two, one grumpy old bitch at 14 and one just 10 months closing in on her first heat. That's going to be fun.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bend and Redmond home prices reported

Published: February 11. 2009 4:00AM PST

The median sales price for a single-family home in Bend rose in January to $233,000, a gain of more than 3 percent compared with December, according to the Bratton Report released Tuesday. Year-over-year, however, the January median price was down nearly 26 percent.

The Bratton Report, an analysis of local real estate sales compiled by the Bend-based Bratton Appraisal Group, listed January sales of 65 homes in Bend, a drop of more than 8 percent from December and more than 13 percent from January 2008.

The median price per square foot in January held relatively steady, at $125, compared with $126 in December 2008. The per-foot price dropped nearly 22 percent from January 2008. Real estate professionals consider price per square foot the most accurate assessment of a home’s worth.

In Redmond, the January median price for a single-family home dropped to $159,000 from $190,000 in December 2008, on the sale of 19 homes. In January 2008, the median price was $202,000, on sales of 24 homes. Median price per square foot in January dropped to $90, from $103 in December 2008, and $131 in January 2008.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Here's Roger Lee taking a page from Alana Audette, just making up shit:

Aviation companies split on Bend tower

Lee said in opening remarks that the summit was a chance for civic leaders to understand what is needed to help propel the airport into the future. He added that the airport contributes more than 1,600 jobs and $578 million in direct and indirect economic impact to the region, according to a December 2007 study commissioned by the Oregon Department of Aviation.

By comparison, Lee said tourism annually contributes more than $600 million directly and indirectly to the region but employs nearly four times as many people as the local aviation industry, illustrating the higher pay for aviation workers.


These numbers are 100% fabrications, pulled out of thin air, so that Lee can keep getting paid for producing NOTHING. Same with Audette.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

the airport contributes more than 1,600 jobs and $578 million...

I'm sure those numbers were judiciously scaled back with the mass layoffs at Cessna, right Roger?

No. Why scale back, when they're 100% made up anyway?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

the airport contributes more than 1,600 jobs and $578 million...

No Roger, it $6 bazillion. Why even use real words? If we're making up shit, let's make up FAKE WORDS too!

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Lee said tourism annually contributes more than $600 million directly and indirectly to the region but employs nearly four times as many people as the local aviation industry, illustrating the higher pay for aviation workers.

No, actually it just illustrates that ILLEGALS have flooded the local maid ranks.

And it's not $600 million, it's $600 quadrillion. It's actually more dollars than there are atoms comprising the Earth.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

1,600 jobs and $578 million...

This is $361,250 per person in "ECONOMIC ACTIVITY".

This is just 100% BULLSHIT.

Lee: "Well, how do we get this number up from $10 million, to something where I'll get paid to fuck off forever?

OK, I heard about a guy who went skiiing who works out at the airport, so I think it's safe to say that 99.999% of Bachelor revenue is airport related. And I know that people who test out planes stay in hotels... so there's $250-300 million. And they all gotta eat, right? There's $300 million.

So let's just scale back our estimates from 400% of Deschutes County Gross Domestic Product to something reasonable... like 350%. No, call it 375.... no, OK, let's call it 400%. No wait, I heard Audette is going to use 750% for tourism next year, so let's call it 800% of local GDP.

Whew! That felt good! And we didn't have to stretch the truth! Well, not more than usual."

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Funny how I posted many moons ago how people would be PERP WALKED OUT OF THEIR OFFICES. Sounded like a CRAZY IDEA. Uh huh.


Bend captain on leave during FBI investigation

By Sheila G. Miller / The Bulletin
Published: February 11. 2009 4:00AM PST

A captain in the Bend Police Department is currently on leave while he is investigated by federal law enforcement.

Bend Police Chief Sandi Baxter said Capt. Kevin Sawyer is on paid administrative leave due to an ongoing FBI inquiry.

“I’m aware of an inquiry under way by the FBI,” she said. “I know it has nothing to do with his duties here at the Police Department. It’s regarding the finances into the businesses he’s associated with.”

According to state business records, Sawyer is associated with two businesses: The Sawyer Five, a real estate brokerage, and Genesis Futures LLC.

Sawyer’s wife, Tami, is associated with Genesis Futures, as well as another company, Starboard LLC, according to state business records.

Genesis Futures owns and manages Casa de Querenca, a luxury vacation rental in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

The Sawyer Five was registered in January with the Oregon Real Estate Agency. Secretary of State’s Office records list Tami Sawyer as a broker with the company.

According to Deschutes County property records, Tami and Kevin Sawyer own more than a dozen properties in Bend and Redmond.

Beth Steele, the public information officer for the FBI in Portland, said she could neither confirm nor deny an ongoing investigation involving Sawyer and his businesses.

Baxter said Sawyer would remain on leave until the inquiry was finished and noted there’s no limit to how long officers can remain on paid leave.

Sawyer, reached by cell phone, said he couldn’t comment on the matter.

“I cannot talk about anything,” he said. “We are represented by several attorneys, but they’re not going to give any comments either. There’s just no way we can comment right now.”

tim said...

>>Be idle?
>>No, people always put their time to good use.

No, they don't. They watch TV and get hooked on drugs.

The percentage that will get out of the funk to learn something, or even to exercise, is not inspiring.

Anonymous said...

Ex-Bender BUSTED, ... Soooooooo Bend

Ex-Bend martial arts teacher pleads guilty to abuse

Ex-Bend martial arts instructor admits teen's abuse (2/10)

Mark Froelich stood next to defense attorney Jonathan Ash as he entered guilty pleas Tuesday
Mark Froelich stood next to defense attorney Jonathan Ash as he entered guilty pleas Tuesday

Faces up to 4-plus years at sentencing

By Kelsey Watts, KTVZ.COM

A former Bend martial arts instructor pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of second degree sex abuse involving a 15 year old female student.

It's been a year since Mark Froelich, 33, was arrested and indicted on nine counts of third-degree rape, sodomy and sex abuse.

At the time, Froelich owned Bend's Karate for Kids, ran the ATA Black Belt Academy out of the same building, and taught tae-kwon-do.

After his arrest, Karate for Kids was closed for a while, and other martial arts centers in Central Oregon, including Acrovision Sports Center in Bend, said they got calls from some parents, wanting to move their kids.

"Well it's a disturbing thing to arise in the community," Dan Graff, the director of tae-kwon-do at Acrovision, told NewsChannel 21 a year ago. "But as long as people can learn to defend themselves and speak out when wrong things occur, then this is the kind of thing we want to teach people."

The charges against Froelich are all Class C felonies, meaning they don't involve the use of force. In court Tuesday morning, Froelich was quiet as he pleaded guilty to three counts of second degree sex abuse.

"It was three separate and distinct crimes or incidents?" Judge Tiktin asked.

"Yes, sir," Froelich replied.

Inside his court file, a typed statement written by Froelich.

"I have a statement in which you admit that you committed the crime of sex abuse in the second degree, three times between January 11th and January 30th of 2008, is that true?" Judge Tiktin asked.

Again, Froelich replied, "Yes, sir."

Froelich does not have a prior criminal history, and based on Oregon's sentencing guidelines, he could face more than four years in prison in convicted.

He now lives out of state, but will be back in Deschutes County Circuit Court on March 30 for his sentencing. At that point, the other six original charges are expected to be dropped.

Anonymous said...

The percentage that will get out of the funk to learn something, or even to exercise, is not inspiring.

*

So fucking what, why are you dwelling on this?? Ever been to Willamina, OR? Or some other logging towns in ORYGON?? 2nd & 3rd generation welfare, folks just gave up two generations ago and said "If I can't log, then I'l die in my single in front of my TV, and my kids kids will go on welfare, an so it goes", as LONG as the government continues to PAY people to ROT @HOME, then yes TIM is right they'll ROT @HOME, but this is 'learned helplessness' is is GOVERNMENT INSPIRED.

As a rich person, I can tell you that as a kid I was TAUGHT, by the judges & bankers and boss-hoggs of the town that I grew up at that WELFARE was used to KEEP THE NIGGERS HOME, that it was CHEAPER to pay the niggers to sit in front of TV, than to imprison them. Tim your not looking at your own problem correctly,

But that said your 1st assert was correct, and that is there has always been those who rot and DIE, just like the PUPPY that doesn't even try to move himself from the shocks, 'learned helplessness', NOTHING can change human behavior, it all goes back to the 97/3 %,

There is only on REAL problem, and that is INNOCENT children shouldn't be allowed to starve cuz their parents are BEND 'DUMB' Assholes.

Like today, good people give food, and then parents take the food to walmart for cash, so solution? Food banks now have to blacken-out bar-codes on food so it has no redemption value, and JUST MAYBE the food will make its way home. What kind of parents collect food, and then take it to the store for 'cash'?? MOST.

SO FUCKING WHAT.

Anonymous said...

Aviation companies split on Bend tower

*


The Bend airport is one of the most dangerous and highest accident rate airports in the State.

The issue of 'tower' in the biz is what we call 'controlled' and 'un-controlled', without the tower you don't have a 'control tower'.

Sadly, Redmond has control tower, .. Does Bend need a control-tower? Its like the argument of I97 between Bend&Redmond needed a divider is it really the MOST dangerous section of road in the State? Hell no, that is a myth, there are many sections of road MUCH more dangerous, but in the AIRPLANE biz, Bend is one of the most dangerous airports in the State.

Anonymous said...

The Bend airport is one of the most dangerous and highest accident rate airports in the State.

*

I should have probably used the word 'incident' as in aviation that is treated 'critical', while not reported by media, who would only report an accident.

Anonymous said...

Just cemented my status as persona non grata-Oran came up and shook Don's hand, but didn't even bother saying hi to me sitting right beside him... BPussy

*

Pussy your uncanny ability to cozy up to the losers, and distance yourself and be hated by the winners as a gadfly is simply amazing.

Teater & Capell care about Bend, in her own twisted way so does Mayor 'Palin' Cheerleader, and she'll be gone in six months via boredom, and once again teater will be mayor, or preferrable it will be Capell who wants to be mayor.

Leonard only had 'propane' to sell to the BAT BUS fiasco, so it figures that he be friendly with you, as he sees you as a fucking moron that can be worked like a fucking Geithner Sausage in a factory. You really need to be rational, and just try to be nice to Teater, Capell, and Eckman, and praise them for their years, and ALSO NOTE dumb fucking KUNT PUSSY newbie, these folks have been here for fucking ever, what the FUCK have you done to deserve RESPECT? NOT A FUCKING THING.

*

Pussy to City Council your just like JEFF&RAY, just another out-of-town drifter with NO street cred, and no knowledge of BEND, that comes in like a fucking know-it-all, and then your so fucking THICK, you wonder why they don't respect you.

I have told you a 1,000 times to put your NAME on the ballot and run for ORIFICE, until you do so you will be treated for what your ARE.

Anonymous said...

Time to put them back to work on the farm. Read "The Long Emergency."

*

Dumb fucking PUSSY, Chairman Mao long ago did this and called it the 'great leap forward', then one generation they call came back to town for jobs, and the villages were ghost-towns.

Today they're all going back to the villages.

Works for CHINA, as the villages are full of EMPTY STD's, but their std's are timeless being built of concrete.

In the USA it would be virtually impossible to send the 'niggers' back to the farm, it would have to be relocation camps, and WWII internment camps, but go for it pussy call it a 'farm vacation' just like HITLER did when he boxed them up for the train ride to Auschwitz.

Smart folks are already up in Madras doing farm work, and that has pushed out the Mexican, PUSSY wants the GOVERNMENT to get involved and "FORCE" people to go work @MONSANTO, or some US-CORP AGRI-BIZ.

Anonymous said...

Vote of No Confidence

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 11, 2009; 9:37 AM

I'm not an economist, but when Tim Geithner unveils his long-awaited bailout plan and the Dow plunges nearly 400 points, that's probably not a good sign.

Most people have been scratching their heads about the Bush bailout. How could we have spent half the $700 billion and yet the banks still aren't lending? They're sitting on the cash or buying other banks and paying bonuses? Where did the money go?

Against that backdrop, the last thing the Obama administration needed was complaints that its plan didn't provide enough details. But that was the overwhelming reaction. "Critical details of the plan remained unanswered, despite the weeks of planning leading up to Tuesday's announcement," the Wall Street Journal said in a midday report.

As if to underline the point:

"Bailout Plan: $2.5 Trillion and a Strong U.S. Hand" -- NYT

"In $1.5 Trillion Plan, Few Details" -- WP

Huh?

Brian Williams told Geithner in a CNBC interview that taxpayers would like to know whether he's going to need more money from us. Geithner sidestepped the question, saying it would be cheaper over the long run to be "more forceful up front," but didn't explain what that meant. (Williams also asked about his payment of back taxes, and the Treasury secretary used the Obama script: "I screwed up.")

The president told ABC's Terry Moran that Wall Street wants a magic bullet, a painless solution. That may be right, and it ain't gonna happen. Too many financial institutions made too many bad decisions and are in too deep a hole. You can't print enough dollars to make up all the losses.

Obama got one bit of good news when the Senate -- thanks to Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter -- passed the stimulus bill. But as old Washington hands know, the real battle always takes place in conference with the House. And who knows how long that will drag on?

Obama bluntly told a Florida town hall yesterday that if his plan doesn't work, "then you'll have a new president." But that could mean four very painful years for the country.

"Investors had been expecting the Obama administration to unveil a shock-and-awe solution Tuesday for the nation's hobbled banking system," the NYT reports. "But the main reaction was disappointment as the new plan raised more questions than it answered, sending stock markets -- and the shares of banks assumed to be holding swaths of toxic assets -- sharply lower."

Anonymous said...

Golden Parachutes for all before the Titanic Sinks

...

Merrill secretly moved up bonus payments: Cuomo
Reuters - 29 minutes ago
By Joseph A. Giannone NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch secretly accelerated bonus payments and gave at least $1 million to each of nearly 700 employees as the brokerage was amassing billions of dollars of losses, New York Attorney General Andrew ...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

You can't print enough dollars to make up all the losses.

Oh yes... they can

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Zimbabwe hyperinflation 'will set world record within six weeks'
Inflation levels in Zimbabwe are running at 13.2 billion per cent a month and could reach an all-time world record within weeks.



The latest figures put the country's annual rate at 516 quintillion per cent – 516 followed by 18 zeros – overtaking Yugoslavia in 1994 and putting it behind only Hungary in 1946.

With goods unavailable and official statistics widely distrusted, the Cato Institute in Washington calculated the figures based on exchange rate movements and market data.

In post Second World War Hungary monthly inflation reached 12,950,000,000,000,000 per cent, with prices doubling every 15.6 hours – Zimbabwean prices are currently doubling every 1.3 days.

The most famous hyperinflation, Weimar Germany in 1923, is in a distant fourth place, at 29,525 per cent a month with prices doubling every 3.7 days.

Prof Steve Hanke said: "They still have a way to go to catch Hungary, but they are getting there. This is conjecture, but if they keep going at this pace, they have a shot at it within a month or maybe a month-and-a-half at the outside."

For ordinary Zimbabweans, the consequences are appalling and they must spend money as soon as they get it before it loses its value.

But the dysfunctional economy means that goods are in desperately short supply, and they must spend hours foraging to find things to buy.

There comes a point, though, where the inflation rate makes little practical difference.

"The economy just stops functioning or slows down very much," said Prof Hanke. "A lot of barter takes place. Money is not used as much or if it is, it's all foreign exchange." Supermarkets in Harare are accepting only US dollars and South African rands, leaving those Zimbabweans without access to foreign currency in dire straits.

The latest official figure for inflation in Zimbabwe – dating back to July – is 231 million per cent a year. Robert Mugabe's government blames foreign sanctions for the economic turmoil.

Prof Hanke said the only way to stop the rise was to abolish the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe – which is a key tool of the regime.

"At the end of the day, people will just refuse to use the money. It will be just worthless and the Reserve Bank will be useless too. The only way you can change expectations about inflation in hyper-inflating countries is completely get rid of the old system."

Announcing a range of measures this week, that only tinker with symptoms of the problem, Gideon Gono, the governor of the reserve bank, blamed a “breed of selfish and unrelenting money launderers and speculators” for the crisis.

“The nation has to appreciate the magnitude of the 'sanctions’ and the mightiness of the enemies who are at play in order to understand that we are at war,” he said.

For years, analysts and opposition politicians have predicted that the economy would prove to be Mr Mugabe's downfall, but Prof Hanke, who is professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, said that Slobodan Milosevic survived for almost eight years in Yugoslavia after hyperinflation peaked.

"The idea hyperinflation is going to blow Mugabe out of there isn't based on historical experience.

"Milosevic and Mugabe are similar in more ways than one: the restrictions on liberty of all sorts; Milosevic carrying on just like Mugabe that it was the foreign sanctions that were ruining the economy. It's very similar."

Bewert said...

That was a fine piece of reporting by the BULL about the Sawyers. Great gig, unlimited paid leave.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Some reader responses to the MSN article I re-printed in this weeks post by Jon markman:

* This is one of the better commentaries I've seen in mainstream media regarding our current situation. I have been telling people that we entered a depression the day the Fed lowered the prime lending rate to 0%. At that point the Keynesian economic model we've adopted collapsed unless it generated an immediate turnaround in the economy, which it didn't. At this point I only see two ways out of the current mess; a huge reduction in government spending and the size of government -- that won't happen -- or hyperinflation, which will occur like it or not. Yes, the depression is here; the only questions are how bad it will be and how long it will last.

* This article is frightening in its clear-cut analysis of where we probably are and where we are most likely headed in the US. Sadly, I do not for a minute believe that our elected officials see the scope of what we are all facing because the Washington culture insulates them from the "real" world. No amount of 2010 stimulus is going to help me today when my gas, food and heating costs are rising and the unemployment probably will continue to climb. The average person has stopped worrying about the banking industry and Wall Street. I am more concerned with the fact that I am employed now but for how long? What happens if I lose my job? Spending on anything is out of the question except some small household repairs that will have to be done so that my house can be rented to cover the mortgage if I lose my job and have to move in with family. Thank you for the painfully honest article, and my fingers are also crossed that the Davos group is wrong.

* While politicians play their games, they are squandering our last best hope to save the greatest nation on earth. We need REAL stimulus, and markets that are less encumbered by baloney and government intervention. The fact is, that a REAL bank (or business person) never would have taken these associated risks without Freddie and Fannie and every special-interest lawyer pushing for credit for the credit-less. Greed and human folly from executives and the masses have brought us to a turning point in the greatest social experiment known to mankind. God help us.

* First the tech stock bubble, then the housing bubble, and now the financial-stimulus bubble. What happens after that? What happens when this stimulus plan works, but only as long as the government keeps "loaning" money? There isn't any reason to expand a business right now because no one is buying anything. It seems as though our politicians and top executives think that spending will go back to what it was. It can't. Homes have lost value and it will take years to just get back to where we were in 2006. Job loss means income loss -- that lost money can't be made up, it is gone; and more than likely any job that someone gets will pay less than the one they had. And, as Jon alluded to in his article, people are not going to just pick up where they left off with their spending habits. People feel poor, they have lost trillions collectively and it may take years for people to feel wealthy again.

* We might see a socialist solution happening to America. After decades of capitalist abuse to our economy, we could be setting the stage for radical solutions. The main fear would be massive salary cuts to the professional classes as our country reshapes its values. During the last depression, the top tax rate on the high Income taxpayers was raised to 90%. This closed the income inequality gap. So a writer making $300,000 . . . now takes home nearly $200,000 but after a socialist-type plan you could see the janitor taking home $20,000 and the bigshot writer taking home $60,000. Let's hope this doesn't happen. You'll have to save more and sacrifice and work harder and make less.

* You media guys -- all you do is preach doom and gloom. It's media outlets like you that have gotten us in this situation to begin with (to a point). You throw around words like depression and the average person goes into a shell. No wonder no one is spending. Take two minutes to do your research and look around, because I tell you, you can't get into a mall or Home Depot or Wal-Mart on the weekend in southeast Louisiana. So the sky is not falling, the sun will rise, and the Earth continues to rotate around the sun.

LavaBear said...

Goofball Bob Pisani's Blog post on CNBC:

....1) Everyone was waiting to see what homebuilder Toll Brothers [TOL 18.42 -0.16 (-0.86%) ] would say about January sales, since they came up with an aggressive 3.99 percent 30-year fixed rate mortgage.

They reported preliminary results for the quarter ending in January, and the bottom line is that traffic did improve, but not orders. Net orders were down 59 percent compared to the same period last year.

Given the publicity around the 3.99 percent mortgage, the lack of any spike in January sales numbers are a disappointment.....



I've been saying and thinking this for some time now. Lower rates to 0% and it's not going to move the meter that much. People that can, did and now they are stuck. Those that want to might. Those that want to and are paying attention sure the fuck won't until you lower your price and you don't want that do you? Just another scam.

Anonymous said...

Ever been to Willamina, OR? Or some other logging towns in ORYGON?? 2nd & 3rd generation welfare, folks just gave up two generations ago and said "If I can't log, then I'l die in my single in front of my TV, and my kids kids will go on welfare, an so it goes"

Loggers and ex-loggers often lament the loss of their "way of life," but when I ride through those dilapidated logging towns I think: "WHAT way of life?"

But I think it's fear rather than laziness that keeps most of these people stuck -- fear of change, fear of having to learn something new, fear of maybe having to live in a new place. Many people would rather cling to their "way of life" even if it sucks than take the risk of pursuing a better one.

Anonymous said...

Ever been to Willamina, OR? Or some other logging towns in ORYGON?? 2nd & 3rd generation welfare, folks just gave up two generations ago and said "If I can't log, then I'l die in my single in front of my TV, and my kids kids will go on welfare, an so it goes"

Loggers and ex-loggers often lament the loss of their "way of life," but when I ride through those dilapidated logging towns I think: "WHAT way of life?"

But I think it's fear rather than laziness that keeps most of these people stuck -- fear of change, fear of having to learn something new, fear of maybe having to live in a new place. Many people would rather cling to their "way of life" even if it sucks than take the risk of pursuing a better one.

Anonymous said...

- fear of change, fear of having to learn something new, fear of maybe having to live in a new place.

*

It ain't 'fear', cuz IF the checks quit coming that PAID them NOT to work, they would LEAVE, but WHY LEAVE?? Now that its going on the 2nd generation, its common to see 14yr old girls pushing strollers, with their kid, ... when you get to second generation, nobody thinks twice about being on welfare, or meth, its the town, ... again the 'system' keeps the learned-helplessness alive, ... these old ghost towns would die, if they didn't get welfare, what if ORYGUN still sent checks to the folks in Millican? They would still be there waiting for checks every month

Anonymous said...

Most excellent POST, on OREO's HOPE&CHANGE, and that it NEVER actually meant the little people to get a BONE, and that it ALWAYS meant that the RULING CLASS would keep their fucking BONE. ( NO HBM/PUSSY I'm NOT a fucking progressive, I'm an Emma-Goldman Anarchist ). I told you all last summer that with Geither this is exactly what OREO would do.


What Happened to our New Deal?

February 11, 2009, 11:25AM

We were told that Obama was going to be the next FDR. But Paulson, er, Geithner's new Tarp plan would leave FDR snickering in disdain. Franklin Roosevelt charged into office and completely transformed the banking industry. And those reforms led to an unprecedented 70 year boom the likes of which the world had never before seen until Clinton and the GOP de-regulated financial services in the 1990's. I can remember in the 1990's how puzzled I was that banks were suddenly being allowed to offer stock trading to the public. "We have stock brokers for this," I thought. "Why are banks getting into this business?"

Well, we know where that has led us, to the point where Bank of America almost went belly up after botching its merger with Merrill. The Citibank model of the "financial supermarket" is in complete ruins. The de-regulators have destroyed the economy. All FDR's hard work has been undone.

But Obama was supposed to fix this. He was supposed to be the "New FDR." And yet Tarp II is so timid and, well, so REPUBLICAN, that you have to seriously question whether or not Obama has the confidence to do what needs to be done. Has he spent so much time with the elites that he simply is not capable of saying no to them? FDR had no problem being a traitor to his class. Obama needs to do the same to his own class: the Overclass.

One of the things I loved about FDR was his confidence. He had no problem standing up to the elites and telling them "we're doing it my way." "We're regulating the banks." "Were creating the SEC and I don't care how you've been doing things all these years on Wall Street those days are over!" So why isn't Obama doing the same thing? These bankers don't have a shred of credibility to fight Obama on this issue. Who cares if Sean Hannity starts screaming "socialism! socialism!"

Nationalize the banks once and for all. Boot out the executives. Slash their pay. Get banks out of the securities business. Just take control already. Taxpayers are willing to pay the price if the Government would just end this damn credit crisis once and for all.

What happened to our New Deal?

...

Excellent post in all respects!!!!! Well put indeed!

"Has he spent so much time with the elites that he simply is not capable of saying no to them?"

I think the answer is probably yes.

Obama is nothing if not cautious. Because of that, he is not really very well suited to telling the interests of predatory wealth they can't have what they want or that the party is over and we're going to be doing things differently from now on, etc...

I believe more with each passing day that the President sees his job as restoring what is now impossible to restore which is the status quo in the economy prior to the collapse and business as usual with a just a tweak here or there. I don't think he ever envisioned a new New Deal for people like us. Lots of people projected that hope on him, lots of writers and media outlets speculated about it but he himself never gave any indication that was where he was headed.

As the President adopts Bush's unconscionable and immoral state secrets policy, appears headed for a pro-insurance industry health care bill, accomodates the neoconfederate Republicans in Congress on the stimulus bill, and essentially continues the Bush/Paulson attempt at restoring Wall Street's "stability" by throwing money at the greedy criminals who caused us all these problems it is hard to see any real change coming our way. I guess we still have hope eh?

Anonymous said...

One of the things I loved about FDR was his confidence. He had no problem standing up to the elites and telling them "we're doing it my way." "We're regulating the banks." "Were creating the SEC and I don't care how you've been doing things all these years on Wall Street those days are over!" So why isn't Obama doing the same thing? These bankers don't have a shred of credibility to fight Obama on this issue.

*

The FDR was NO OREO, the OREO is what he is a kiss-ass nigger in an empty white-mans K-Mart Suit.

Yes masssa, yes masssa I bail-out da wall street, I just hate the Limbaugh & Hannity, & O'Reilly to say bad dings about do nigger, me a good nigger, me bring hope&change to the ruling class of ameriKKKa.

Anonymous said...

I think it's fear rather than laziness that keeps most of these people stuck -- fear of change, fear of having to learn something new, fear of maybe having to live in a new place. Many people would rather cling to their "way of life" even if it sucks than take the risk of pursuing a better one.

*

Days turns into years, years into generations, people continue to live. Humans like cockroaches can adjust to anything, the Nazi death camps proved that. So long as somebody brings food ( or welfare checks ) there is no reason for a dead town to die like a ghost town.

Perhaps with this economic collapse the complete collapse of the POST 1960's WELFARE-INDUSTRY, perhaps finally these old logging ghost towns will die, and the people will have to move to where there are jobs.

Certainly when the history of the USA is written it will be said, that once a program is created to pay people to sit in front of TV, that years became generations and eventually everyone sat in front of TV and waited for a check, and then one day there was NO money to send, and the money itself was worthless, and then all these 'welfare generations' had to go find food a NEW WAY, by "WORK" god forbid.

Perhaps on TT's TV show there will be now SITCOM's where people work for a living, and make money, and have food to eat, while the nieghbor next door who waits for the government check starves to death.

What a novel idea.

Bewert said...

Oregon Option limit[s] AFDC [welfare] to 24 months of benefits in any 7-year period.

So what's keeping them there the other five years, with no government checks coming?

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps on TT's TV show there will be now SITCOM's where people work for a living, and make money, and have food to eat, while the nieghbor next door who waits for the government check starves to death."

Yes! I like it!

But it will only work if you make it a reality show . . .

Like "Biggest loser" or "Wife Swap".

Maybe the wife of the welfare recipient can swap places with the wife of the farm worker . . . they can make lots of ornery comments, and people will get a laugh out of it too !!!

Anonymous said...

The infamous Source in Bend had these very same circulation issues for years - until they decided to bite the "Bullet-in" and print it there.

The fact that this idiot got one of the key arguments to prove his point wrong (The Source is not printed at The Bulletin), basically negates everything that he wrote before it. It's kind of like paying someone a compliment and then inserting the word "but" before you slam them. Everything before the but (or in this case the Butt) is moot.

Anonymous said...

So what's keeping them there the other five years, with no government checks coming?

*

BP, you ask STUPID fucking questions, but I'm a good father to a retarded son,

They all got baby's by 14yr, and they never get a job, and once you got a baby the government pays welfare, and the your 28 yr old boyfriend lives at the apartment, ...

Extensions BP, I know guys that lost their jobs six years ago, that are still getting checks, I know familys that have had no body work for generations,

BP you really need to learn how to play the system.

Quimby said...

>> Sadly, Redmond has control tower, .. Does Bend need a control-tower? Its like the argument of I97 between Bend&Redmond needed a divider is it really the MOST dangerous section of road in the State? Hell no, that is a myth, there are many sections of road MUCH more dangerous, but in the AIRPLANE biz, Bend is one of the most dangerous airports in the State.

Gospel truth. Remember, Bend is "special" and needs a good fat government pork project when there's a highly superior and much safer alternative already in place with TWO 7000+ ft runways 10 miles to the north. It even has an expensive FAA tower already.

If Cessna/Epic had a brain, they'd move to Redmond.

Quimby said...

>> The percentage that will get out of the funk to learn something, or even to exercise, is not inspiring.


The devil will find work...

Anonymous said...

It only takes ONE child that has children and welfare kicks, in and some households the women keep pooping out new babies until their 40's, ... then there is the never ending supply of new 12yr old girls getting knocked up, which means more babies and new welfare revenue, BP you obviously don't live even near the real world, not to know how the fuck ORYGUN reallly works,

What makes old logging towns keep ticking for generations?? Do I have to write a book? Ever heard of Bend ORYGUN??

WHY the FUCK do you think ECKMAN left burns in the 1970's and came to BEND to make her fortune??


I rememeber years ago out south of Pendleton, they had the highest rate of incest in the USA, something like 40% of all children were pregnant by their own family, I think the town, I'll find the town on the map its just north of Burns, and south of Pendleton on I395.

Anonymous said...

Nationalize the banks once and for all. Boot out the executives. Slash their pay. Get banks out of the securities business. Just take control already. Taxpayers are willing to pay the price if the Government would just end this damn credit crisis once and for all.

What happened to our New Deal?

*

Isn't rather funny that we have to BK the USA, before we can get our "NEW DEAL"???

Anonymous said...

See too me what is really going on is that the RULING CLASS really FEARS a 'new deal', but its NOT COMING from the OREO.

On the behalf of PUG's the OREO will BK the USA, and the ruling-class will get made-off with bail-outs, then we'll BK, and then the OREO will say NO PORK for the 'new deal'.

Now what should happen, is that ALL 2008 bail-out money be seized, and all bonunses seized, and that all banks be nationalized, and like the above all banks out of the stock market crap, but sadly we only close the barn door in ameriKKKa after everything is dead or stolen.

Investors & Bankers MUST be fucked hard on this one, and sadly OREO is owned by bankers.

LavaBear said...

>>>See too me what is really going on is that the RULING CLASS really FEARS a 'new deal', but its NOT COMING from the OREO.

I'm not so sure at the moment. It could ge true but from Geithner's performance yesterday it sure looks like they are a house divided. On one side you have Timmy who clearly is a man of the banks. He's in the shit way over his head. I'm guessing that on the other side of the fence is Volker who wants to kill the insolvent banks and drink the morrow from their bones before selling off the rest. Thus the say nothing, not really a plan from Timmy yesterday. OREO is stuck in the middle and obviously hasn't sided one way or the other just yet.

PopGoesBend said...

I just got forwarded the Bratton Report for Jan. It's the first one I have actually seen.

Things of interest for Bend:

Median $/sf
Jan 09: $125
Jan 08: 162
Jan 07: 179
Aug 06: 206 (high)
Jan 06: 168
Jan 05: 133


Building permits:

Jan: 12
Dec 08: 7
Nov: 13

Feb 08-Jan 09: 269
Feb 05-Jan 06: 2122
March 05: 220


House sales:
$0-$100k: 1
$100k-$150k: 7
$150k-$200k: 18
$200k-$250k: 17
$250k-$300k: 11
$300k-$350k: 2
$350k-$400k: 1
$400k-$450k: 6
$450k-$500k: 2
$500k-$550k: 2
$550k-$600k: 3
$600k-$650k: 2
$650k - up : 0

I've seen the MLS reports before - the weekly reports that Realtors get that have inventory numbers (why does the Bratton report leave these out), and break down inventory by price range, months inventory by price range, and has pending as well as contingent sales as well. It seems like those are a much much better report than the Bratton Report.

Bewert said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Normally I don't post much CALI, but note here the PAIN in CALI has NOT started per WSJ, and thus the PAIN in ORYGUN will NOT start for another two years.

...

* FEBRUARY 11, 2009

California's Pain Is Only Beginning
Cuts to Parks, Schools and Roads Hint at What's to Come Under Any Budget Deal

* Article
* Video
* Comments

more in Economy »
By JIM CARLTON and BOBBY WHITE

BIG SUR, Calif. -- As Sacramento squabbles over the state's $42 billion deficit, Californians are getting a bitter taste of what's to come after the steep budget cuts that are inevitable when legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger finally hammer out a deal.

Some world-famous parks like Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park may not open this year. After-school programs in low-income areas are being scuttled, putting high-risk teens on the street just as police forces are being cut. Schools are closing classrooms, and some highway projects have ground to a halt. The state may not be able to monitor some sex offenders as required under law.

A budget deal may restore some of the missing funds. But everyone knows that not all monies will flow again after a deal, and Californians increasingly fear they are seeing a hint of their future.

View Full Image
Concrete buttresses have been built for a bridge crossing the Big Sur River to a campground on the other side, but work to finish the bridge itself was still underway when the project ground to a halt a few weeks ago.
Jim Carlton/The Wall Street Journal
Concrete buttresses have been built for a bridge crossing the Big Sur River to a campground on the other side, but work to finish the bridge itself was still underway when the project ground to a halt a few weeks ago.
Concrete buttresses have been built for a bridge crossing the Big Sur River to a campground on the other side, but work to finish the bridge itself was still underway when the project ground to a halt a few weeks ago.

View Full Image
A state parks superintendent inspects the site of an unfinished bridge at California's Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. The world-renowned park on the Central California coast may not open this summer because funds to complete a new bridge to a large campground have been frozen amid talks by California lawmakers to resolve a $42 billion budget deficit.
Jim Carlton/The Wall Street Journal

A state parks superintendent inspects the site of an unfinished bridge (below) at California's Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. The world-renowned park on the Central California coast may not open this summer because funds to complete the new bridge to a large campground have been frozen.
A state parks superintendent inspects the site of an unfinished bridge at California's Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. The world-renowned park on the Central California coast may not open this summer because funds to complete a new bridge to a large campground have been frozen amid talks by California lawmakers to resolve a $42 billion budget deficit.
A state parks superintendent inspects the site of an unfinished bridge at California's Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. The world-renowned park on the Central California coast may not open this summer because funds to complete a new bridge to a large campground have been frozen amid talks by California lawmakers to resolve a $42 billion budget deficit.

"Before it gets better, it's going to get a lot worse," said Joseph Valentine, director of Contra Costa County's Department of Employment and Human Services. The department, which administers social services such as food stamps, has cut 12%, or $25 million, of its budget. It has managers answering reception-desk phones, and Mr. Valentine expects another round of cuts.

The empty coffers have hit some California icons. Pfeiffer Big Sur may not reopen this summer because work on a new bridge to the campground was halted, part of a $6 million renovation project that state officials have ordered frozen along with hundreds of millions of dollars in other state infrastructure projects. Dan and Vickie Coughlin of Torrance, Calif., face not camping in the park with their daughters, ages 10 and 13, for the first time since they were born. When they were advised they couldn't book reservations, "it just broke my heart, and my kids almost cried," said Ms. Coughlin.

Other states face budget cuts too, but California's budget mess stands out for its size. Its deficit is projected at $42 billion by mid-2010. Since Gov. Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency 14 weeks ago, he and lawmakers have been deadlocked over how to close the gap. Democrats want tax increases and moderate spending cuts; Republicans seek deep cuts and no tax increases; the governor wants a combination.

The governor's office warned Tuesday that if no budget deal is reached by Friday, the state would send layoff warnings to 20,000 workers. Gov. Schwarzenegger also said he intends to cut 10,000 jobs through layoffs and attrition to save $750 million over 17 months.

Meanwhile, the state is raising money in unprecedented ways. The treasurer's office said Tuesday that it is close to selling $200 million in general-obligation bonds to the Bay Area Toll Authority, a municipal agency, to fund public-works projects around the San Francisco Bay area.

While Sacramento talks, money is drying up in places like Contra Costa County, where 40,000 families have applied for 350 available slots for Section 8 vouchers -- a federal subsidy that allows low-income families to rent in the private market. "The level of desperation is just heartbreaking," said Joseph Villareal, executive director of the Contra Costa Housing Authority.

View Full Image
california pfeiffer big sur state park
Jim Carlton/The Wall Street Journal

Pfeiffer Big Sur is so popular that campsites like this one, in a grove of towering redwoods, are almost always booked as far as seven months in advance.
california pfeiffer big sur state park
california pfeiffer big sur state park

Marin County's Novato Unified School District alarmed parents with a proposal to cut its entire sports program to help save $6 million over two years, which would affect about 75% of Novato's 8,600 students. "When the community heard about the possible cut, they freaked out," said Superintendent Jan La Torre-Derby, who adds that "it's not set in stone yet."

The California State University system -- the nation's largest -- faces new cuts after already seeing reduced class offerings, increased classroom sizes and delays in students being able to graduate after a series of budget cuts in recent years.

Things could get worse as more budget cuts loom. The state may not be able to monitor sex offenders as required under a 2006 law that calls for sex offenders to be on GPS monitoring for life and to live more than 2,000 feet from schools and parks. In January, corrections officials said they were monitoring all 6,622 paroled sex offenders with GPS devices, after Gov. Schwarzenegger set aside $106 million in last year's budget for the program. But because the law contained no revenue-raising mechanism, authorities say it is unclear whether they will have funds to continue monitoring.

Anonymous said...

LB,

The SHOW you saw yesterday was 100% theatre, lets remind the troops here that VOLCKER is the living 'godfather' of the Federal Reserve, and that Geithner is the wunder-kid of the past ten years running the whole show.

Volcker & Geithner both have the same interests, to protect the FED-RESERVE system at all costs.

On the other hand you have Jim Rogers and Ron Paul who say FED-RES is the fucking problem.

To suggest that OREO is torn between Geithner & Volcker is BULLSHIT, as its VOLCKER that has all along groomed and created Geithner. They're all birds of the same feather.

The REAL issue here is CAN OREO keep the full faith of a house divided on the keeping the FED-RES bank intact, so all these good old boyz can keep doing what they have been doing since 1917.

This is only the beginning my guess is that a NEW repuglican group will come of this MESS calling for the dismantling of Federal Reserve and a return to congress the power to print money.

The debate hasn't even started, like everyone is saying about OREO "HURRY UP AND HUSH", nobody wants the fucking debate, the reactionarys aka Gingrich are the barbarians at the gate, and they smell blood.

OREO knows who got him elected and right now he's simply trying to payoff short term campaign debt with BAIL-OUT PORK.

When the REAL fucking debate starts then we'll know something, so far even the wall street journal is still talking in code, they're like you with the KEYNESIAN dick so far up their ass they can't think straight.

Somebody like Ron Paul that has street cred will come forward and articulate the problem, it must happen, if this country is to survive, e.g. to protect the dollar.

LavaBear said...

Cracker Ass bled more out the ass today as Umpqua was up a smidgeon of course.

Anonymous said...

From 1969 to 1974 Mr. Volcker served as under-secretary of the Treasury for international monetary affairs. He played an important role in the decisions surrounding the U.S. decision to suspend gold convertibility in 1971, which resulted in the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.

*

Most rational MOFU's would say that VOLKCER is the guy who fucked the USA, but NIXSON gets the blame, but it was really volcker that created the 'worthless dollar', and then saved it with 20% interest-rates.

Anonymous said...

'Manufacturing Bail-Out Consent' is what we should call this, but as always CHOMSKY has a take, and most likely the MOST correct take as to what is going on, and why the theatre of the day have put Geithner&Volcker on the same stage, aka 'bretton woods 2'.

***

Chomsky: Understanding the Crisis — Markets, the State and Hypocrisy

Sameer Dossani | February 10, 2009

Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco


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Foreign Policy In Focus
www.fpif.org

Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. Sameer Dossani interviewed him about the global economic crisis and its roots.

SAMEER DOSSANI: In any first year economics class, we are taught that markets have their ups and downs, so the current recession is perhaps nothing out of the ordinary. But this particular downturn is interesting for two reasons: First, market deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s made the boom periods artificially high, so the bust period will be deeper than it would otherwise. Secondly, despite an economy that's boomed since 1980, the majority of working class U.S. residents have seen their incomes stagnate — while the rich have done well most of the country hasn't moved forward at all. Given the situation, my guess is that economic planners are likely to go back to some form of Keynesianism, perhaps not unlike the Bretton Woods system that was in place from 1948-1971. What are your thoughts?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well I basically agree with your picture. In my view, the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s is probably the major international event since 1945, much more significant in its implications than the collapse of the Soviet Union.

From roughly 1950 until the early 1970s there was a period of unprecedented economic growth and egalitarian economic growth. So the lowest quintile did as well — in fact they even did a little bit better — than the highest quintile. It was also a period of some limited but real form of benefits for the population. And in fact social indicators, measurements of the health of society, they very closely tracked growth. As growth went up social indicators went up, as you'd expect. Many economists called it the golden age of modern capitalism — they should call it state capitalism because government spending was a major engine of growth and development.

In the mid 1970s that changed. Bretton Woods restrictions on finance were dismantled, finance was freed, speculation boomed, huge amounts of capital started going into speculation against currencies and other paper manipulations, and the entire economy became financialized. The power of the economy shifted to the financial institutions, away from manufacturing. And since then, the majority of the population has had a very tough time; in fact it may be a unique period in American history. There's no other period where real wages — wages adjusted for inflation — have more or less stagnated for so long for a majority of the population and where living standards have stagnated or declined. If you look at social indicators, they track growth pretty closely until 1975, and at that point they started to decline, so much so that now we're pretty much back to the level of 1960. There was growth, but it was highly inegalitarian — it went into a very small number of pockets. There have been brief periods in which this shifted, so during the tech bubble, which was a bubble in the late Clinton years, wages improved and unemployment went down, but these are slight deviations in a steady tendency of stagnation and decline for the majority of the population.

Financial crises have increased during this period, as predicted by a number of international economists. Once financial markets were freed up, there was expected to be an increase in financial crises, and that's happened. This crisis happens to be exploding in the rich countries, so people are talking about it, but it's been happening regularly around the world — some of them very serious — and not only are they increasing in frequency but they're getting deeper. And it's been predicted and discussed and there are good reasons for it.

About 10 years ago there was an important book called Global Finance at Risk, by two well-known economists John Eatwell and Lance Taylor. In it they refer to the well-known fact that there are basic inefficiencies intrinsic to markets. In the case of financial markets, they under-price risk. They don't count in systemic risk — general social costs. So for example if you sell me a car, you and I may make a good bargain, but we don't count in the costs to the society — pollution, congestion and so on. In financial markets, this means that risks are under-priced, so there are more risks taken than would happen in an efficient system. And that of course leads to crashes. If you had adequate regulation, you could control and prevent market inefficiencies. If you deregulate, you're going to maximize market inefficiency.

This is pretty elementary economics. They happen to discuss it in this book; others have discussed it too. And that's what's happening. Risks were under-priced, therefore more risks were taken than should have been, and sooner or later it was going to crash. Nobody predicted exactly when, and the depth of the crash is a little surprising. That's in part because of the creation of exotic financial instruments which were deregulated, meaning that nobody really knew who owed what to whom. It was all split up in crazy ways. So the depth of the crisis is pretty severe — we're not to the bottom yet — and the architects of this are the people who are now designing Obama's economic policies.

Dean Baker, one of the few economists who saw what was coming all along, pointed out that it's almost like appointing Osama bin Laden to run the so-called war on terror. Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, Clinton's treasury secretaries, are among the main architects of the crisis. Summers intervened strongly to prevent any regulation of derivatives and other exotic instruments. Rubin, who preceded him, was right in the lead of undermining the Glass-Steagall act, all of which is pretty ironic. The Glass-Steagall Act protected commercial banks from risky investment firms, insurance firms, and so on, which kind of protected the core of the economy. That was broken up in 1999 largely under Rubin's influence. He immediately left the treasury department and became a director of Citigroup, which benefited from the breakdown of Glass-Steagall by expanding and becoming a "financial supermarket" as they called it. Just to increase the irony (or the tragedy if you like) Citigroup is now getting huge taxpayer subsidies to try to keep it together and just in the last few weeks announced that it's breaking up. It's going back to trying to protect its commercial banking from risky side investments. Rubin resigned in disgrace — he's largely responsible for this. But he's one of Obama's major economic advisors, Summers is another one; Summer's protégé Tim Geithner is the Treasury Secretary.

None of this is really unanticipated. There were very good economists like say David Felix, an international economist who's been writing about this for years. And the reasons are known: markets are inefficient; they under-price social costs. And financial institutions underprice systemic risk. So say you're a CEO of Goldman Sachs. If you're doing your job correctly, when you make a loan you ensure that the risk to you is low. So if it collapses, you'll be able to handle it. You do care about the risk to yourself, you price that in. But you don't price in systemic risk, the risk that the whole financial system will erode. That's not part of your calculation.

Well that's intrinsic to markets — they're inefficient. Robin Hahnel had a couple of very good articles about this recently in economics journals. But this is first year economics course stuff — markets are inefficient; these are some of their inefficiencies; there are many others. They can be controlled by some degree of regulation, but that was dismantled under religious fanaticism about efficient markets, which lacked empirical support and theoretical basis; it was just based on religious fanaticism. So now it's collapsing.

People talk about a return to Keynesianism, but that's because of a systematic refusal to pay attention to the way the economy works. There's a lot of wailing now about "socializing" the economy by bailing out financial institutions. Yeah, in a way we are, but that's icing on the cake. The whole economy's been socialized since — well actually forever, but certainly since the Second World War. This mythology that the economy is based on entrepreneurial initiative and consumer choice, well ok, to an extent it is. For example at the marketing end, you can choose one electronic device and not another. But the core of the economy relies very heavily on the state sector, and transparently so. So for example to take the last economic boom which was based on information technology — where did that come from? Computers and the Internet. Computers and the Internet were almost entirely within the state system for about 30 years — research, development, procurement, other devices — before they were finally handed over to private enterprise for profit-making. It wasn't an instantaneous switch, but that's roughly the picture. And that's the picture pretty much for the core of the economy.

The state sector is innovative and dynamic. It's true across the board from electronics to pharmaceuticals to the new biology-based industries. The idea is that the public is supposed to pay the costs and take the risks, and ultimately if there is any profit, you hand it over to private tyrannies, corporations. If you had to encapsulate the economy in one sentence, that would be the main theme. When you look at the details of course it's a more complex picture, but that's the major theme. So yes, socialization of risk and cost (but not profit) is partially new for the financial institutions, but it's just added on to what's been happening all along.
Double Standard

DOSSANI: As we consider the picture of the collapse of some of these major financial institutions we would do well to remember that some of these same market fundamentalist policies have already been exported around the globe. Specifically, the International Monetary Fund has forced an export-oriented growth model onto many countries, meaning that the current slowdown in U.S. consumption is going to have major impacts in other countries. At the same time, some regions of the world, particularly the Southern Cone region of South America, are working to repudiate the IMF's market fundamentalist policies and build up alternatives. Can you talk a little about the international implications of the financial crisis? And how is it that some of the institutions responsible for this mess, like the IMF, are using this as an opportunity to regain credibility on the world stage?

CHOMSKY: It's rather striking to notice that the consensus on how to deal with the crisis in the rich countries is almost the opposite of the consensus on how the poor countries should deal with similar economic crises. So when so-called developing countries have a financial crisis, the IMF rules are: raise interest rates, cut down economic growth, tighten the belt, pay off your debts (to us), privatize, and so on. That's the opposite of what's prescribed here. What's prescribed here is lower interest rates, pour government money into stimulating the economy, nationalize (but don't use the word), and so on. So yes, there's one set of rules for the weak and a different set of rules for the powerful. There's nothing novel about that.

As for the IMF, it is not an independent institution. It's pretty much a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department — not officially, but that's pretty much the way it functions. The IMF was accurately described by a U.S. Executive Director as "the credit community's enforcer." If a loan or an investment from a rich country to a poor country goes bad, the IMF makes sure that the lenders will not suffer. If you had a capitalist system, which of course the wealthy and their protectors don't want, it wouldn't work like that.

For example, suppose I lend you money, and I know that you may not be able to pay it back. Therefore I impose very high interest rates, so that at least I'll get that in case you crash. Then suppose at some point you can't pay the debt. Well in a capitalist system it would be my problem. I made a risky loan, I made a lot of money from it by high interest rates and now you can't pay it back? Ok, tough for me. That's a capitalist system. But that's not the way our system works. If investors make risky loans to say Argentina and get high interest rates and then Argentina can't pay it back, well that's when the IMF steps in, the credit community's enforcer, and says that the people of Argentina, they have to pay it back. Now if you can't pay back a loan to me, I don't say that your neighbors have to pay it back. But that's what the IMF says. The IMF says the people of the country have to pay back the debt which they had nothing to do with, it was usually given to dictators, or rich elites, who sent it off to Switzerland or someplace, but you guys, the poor folks living in the country, you have to pay it back. And furthermore, if I lend money to you and you can't pay it back, in a capitalist system I can't ask my neighbors to pay me, but the IMF does, namely the US taxpayer. They help make sure that the lenders and investors are protected. So yes it's the credit community's enforcer. It's a radical attack on basic capitalist principles, just as the whole functioning of the economy based on the state sector is, but that doesn't change the rhetoric. It's kind of hidden in the woodwork.

What you said about the Southern Cone is exactly right. For the last several years they've been trying to extricate themselves from this whole neoliberal disaster. One of the ways was, for example Argentina simply didn't pay back its debts, or rather restructured them and bought some of it back. And folks like the President of Argentina said that "we're going to rid ourselves of the IMF" through these measures. Well, what was happening to the IMF? The IMF was in trouble. It was losing capital and losing borrowers, and therefore losing its ability to function as the credit community's enforcer. But this crisis is being used to restructure it and revitalize it.

It's also true that countries are driven to commodity export; that's the mode of development that's designed for them. Then they will be in trouble if commodity prices fall. It's not 100% the case, but in the Southern Cone, the countries that have been doing reasonably well do rely very heavily on commodity export, actually raw material export. That's even true of the most successful of them, Chile, which is considered the darling. The Chilean economy has been based very heavily on copper exports. The biggest copper company in the world is CODELCO, the nationalized copper company — nationalized by President Salvador Allende and nobody has tried to privatize it fully since because it's such a cash cow. It has been undermined, so it controls less of the copper export than it has in the past, but it still provides a large part of the tax base of the Chilean economy and is also a large income producer. It's an efficiently run nationalized copper company. But reliance on copper export means you're vulnerable to a decline in the price of commodities. The other Chilean exports like say, fruit and vegetables which are adapted to the U.S. market because of the seasonal differences — that's also vulnerable. And they haven't really done much in developing the economy beyond reliance on raw materials exports — a little, but not much. The same can be said for the other currently successful countries. You look at growth rates in Peru and Brazil, they're heavily dependent on soy and other agricultural exports or minerals; it's not a solid base for an economy.

One major exception to this is South Korea and Taiwan. They were very poor countries. South Korea in the late 1950s was probably about the level of Ghana today. But they developed by following the Japanese model – violating all the rules of the IMF and Western economists and developing pretty much the way the Western countries had developed, by substantial direction and involvement of the state sector. So South Korea, for example built a major steel industry, one of the most efficient in the world, by flatly violating the advice of the IMF and the World Bank, who said it was impossible. But they did it through state intervention, directing of resources, and also by restricting capital flight. Capital flight is a major problem for a developing country, and also for democracy. Capital flight could be controlled under Bretton Woods rules, but it was opened up in the last 30 years. In South Korea, you could get the death penalty for capital flight. So yes, they developed a pretty solid economy, as did Taiwan. China is a separate story, but they also radically violated the rules, and it's a complex story of how it's ending up. But these are major phenomena in the international economy.
Government Investment

DOSSANI: Do you think the current crisis will offer other countries the opportunity to follow the example of South Korean and Taiwan?

CHOMSKY: Well, you could say the example of the United States. During its major period of growth – late 19th century and early 20th century – the United States was probably the most protectionist country in the world. We had very high protective barriers, and it drew in investment, but private investment played only a supporting role. Take the steel industry. Andrew Carnegie built the first billion-dollar corporation by feeding off the state sector — building naval vessels and so on — this is Carnegie the great pacifist. The sharpest period of economic growth in U.S. history was during the Second World War, which was basically a semi-command economy and industrial production more than tripled. That model pulled us out of the depression, after which we became far and away the major economy in the world. After the Second World War, the substantial period of economic growth which I mentioned (1948-1971) was very largely based on the dynamic state sector and that remains true.

Let's take my own institution, MIT. I've been here since the 1950s, and you can see it first hand. In the 1950s and 1960s, MIT was largely financed by the Pentagon. There were labs that did classified war work, but the campus itself wasn't doing war work. It was developing the basis of the modern electronic economy: computers, the Internet, microelectronics, and so on. It was all developed under a Pentagon cover. IBM was here learning how to shift from punch-cards to electronic computers. It did get to a point by the 1960s that IBM was able to produce its own computers, but they were so expensive that nobody could buy them so therefore the government bought them. In fact, procurement is a major form of government intervention in the economy to develop the fundamental structure that will ultimately lead to profit. There have been good technical studies on this. From the 1970s until today, the funding of MIT has been shifting away from the Pentagon and toward the National Institute of Health and related government institutions. Why? Because the cutting edge of the economy is shifting from an electronics base to a biology base. So now the public has to pay the costs of the next phase of the economy through other state institutions. Now again, this is not the whole story, but it's a substantial part.

There will be a shift towards more regulation because of the current catastrophe, and how long they can maintain the paying off banks and financial institutions is not very clear. There will be more infrastructure spending, surely, because no matter where you are in the economic spectrum you realize that it's absolutely necessary. There will have to be some adjustment in the trade deficit, which is dramatic, meaning less consumption here, more export, and less borrowing.

And there's going to have to be some way to deal with the elephant in the closet, one of the major threats to the American economy, the increase in healthcare costs. That's often masked as "entitlements" so that they can wrap in Social Security, as part of an effort to undermine Social Security. But in fact Social Security is pretty sound; probably as sound as its ever been, and what problems there are could probably be addressed with small fixes. But Medicare is huge, and its costs are going way up, and that's primarily because of the privatized healthcare system which is highly inefficient. It's very costly and it has very poor outcomes. The U.S. has twice the per capita costs of other industrialized countries and it has some of the worst outcomes. The major difference between the U.S. system and others is that this one is so heavily privatized, leading to huge administrative costs, bureaucratization, surveillance costs and so on. Now that's going to have to be dealt with somehow because it's a growing burden on the economy and its huge; it'll dwarf the federal budget if current tendencies persist.
South America

DOSSANI: Will the current crisis open up space for other countries to follow more meaningful development goals?

CHOMSKY: Well, it's been happening. One of the most exciting areas of the world is South America. For the last 10 years there have been quite interesting and significant moves towards independence, for the first time since the Spanish and Portuguese conquests. That includes steps towards unification, which is crucially important, and also beginning to address their huge internal problems. There's a new Bank of the South, based in Caracas, which hasn't really taken off yet, but it has prospects and is supported by other countries as well. MERCOSUR is a trading zone of the Southern cone. Just recently, six or eight months ago, a new integrated organization has developed, UNASUR, the Union of South American Republics, and it's already been effective. So effective that it's not reported in the United States, presumably because it's too dangerous.
So when the U.S. and the traditional ruling elites in Bolivia started moving towards a kind of secessionist movement to try to undermine the democratic revolution that's taken place there, and when it turned violent, as it did, there was a meeting of UNASUR last September in Santiago, where it issued a strong statement defending the elected president, Evo Morales, and condemning the violence and the efforts to undermine the democratic system. Morales responded thanking them for their support and also saying that this is the first time in 500 years that South America's beginning to take its fate into its own hands. That's significant; so significant that I don't even think it was reported here. Just how far these developments can go, both dealing with the internal problems and also the problems of unification and integration, we don't know, but the developments are taking place. There are also South-South relations developing, for example between Brazil and South Africa. This again breaks the imperial monopoly, the monopoly of U.S. and Western domination. China's a new element on the scene. Trade and investment are increasing, and this gives more options and possibilities to South America. The current financial crisis might offer opportunities for increasing this, but also it might go the other way. The financial crisis is of course harming — it must harm — the poor in the weaker countries and it may reduce their options. These are really matters which will depend on whether popular movements can take control of their own fate, to borrow Morales' phrase. If they can, yes there are opportunities.

LavaBear said...

>>>Most rational MOFU's would say that VOLKCER is the guy who fucked the USA

So do you think it's Larry Summers? Or someone else on the cabinet we don't know that is providing the resistance? Or are they just plain as unprepared as Geithner appeared yesterday? I'm going with the hope they have resistance somewhere to just rolling over for the banks ala Paulson.

Anonymous said...

Chomsky is the best, I know its too much to ask for Bend KUNTS, ... but we can only try, besides Chomsky another essential is Carrol Quigley.

FYI, if you don't know Chomsky he invented computational linquistics back in the 1950's at MIT, one of the greatest living minds in the USA today.

...

People talk about a return to Keynesianism, but that's because of a systematic refusal to pay attention to the way the economy works. There's a lot of wailing now about "socializing" the economy by bailing out financial institutions. Yeah, in a way we are, but that's icing on the cake. The whole economy's been socialized since — well actually forever, but certainly since the Second World War. This mythology that the economy is based on entrepreneurial initiative and consumer choice, well ok, to an extent it is. For example at the marketing end, you can choose one electronic device and not another. But the core of the economy relies very heavily on the state sector, and transparently so. So for example to take the last economic boom which was based on information technology — where did that come from? Computers and the Internet. Computers and the Internet were almost entirely within the state system for about 30 years — research, development, procurement, other devices — before they were finally handed over to private enterprise for profit-making. It wasn't an instantaneous switch, but that's roughly the picture. And that's the picture pretty much for the core of the economy.

Anonymous said...

So do you think it's Larry Summers? Or someone else on the cabinet we don't know that is providing the resistance?

*

Geithner is un-prepared, because nobody is prepared the TARP was always a hand-out / bail-out, nothing more, and it can't be salvaged even by Geithner.

OREO was TOLD to put Geithner in charge of US-TREASURY. OREO is a fucking sock-puppet.

FED-RES is being attacked by Jim Rogers, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, ... Pat Buchannan, this whole fucking IDEA of the BPUSSY and TEAM-OREO that LIMBAUGH is opposition is BULLSHIT OPPOSITION is not Limbaugh, cuz LIMBAUGH is status-quo, just like the OREO.

WWII, Bretton-Woods II has started, LB if you want to understand what the fuck is going on then read Chomsky.

I think to simplify things its just a world power play the USA was never that powerful, they were lucky pre&post WWII, then with Bretton-Woods they got real lucky, today the entire ship is sinking and all is going to be lost, its too bad that everybody has to talk code.

The USA SHEEEPLE know something is very-very wrong, broken or bad, but the fact is that for the USA its game-over, your SHOW you watched yesterday WAS NOT for you, it was for FOREIGN investment, and they SOLD yesterday, the confidence for team-oreo and the usa is zero.

The rest of the world is NOT buying US toxic waste, and Geithner can't sell it with his powers of persuaion, cuz their is NO rational argument to invest in the USA.

Anonymous said...

The USA SHEEEPLE know something is very-very wrong, broken or bad, but the fact is that for the USA its game-over, your SHOW you watched yesterday WAS NOT for you, it was for FOREIGN investment, and they SOLD yesterday, the confidence for team-oreo and the usa is zero.

The rest of the world is NOT buying US toxic waste, and Geithner can't sell it with his powers of persuaion, cuz their is NO rational argument to invest in the USA.

*

LB, Don't you understand that this is all about CONFIDENCE building abroad, its all theater, all these boyz are playing from the same script, there really is NO opposition, other than Jim Rogers or perhaps Ron Paul wrt the FED-RES.

The real deal is like what CHOMSKY talks about, none of this is really that bad, but the end result is a major loss of power for the USA, like Ron Paul keeps saying we can't afford to be the world's policeman and be spending 100's of billions all over the world for cop-shops, when were broke.

It's japan & china that buy our T-bills, and the show you saw yesterday Geithner was NOT for you, it was for asia, and Geithner proved he's a fucking MADE-OFF fraud.

Anonymous said...

Dean Baker, one of the few economists who saw what was coming all along, pointed out that it's almost like appointing Osama bin Laden to run the so-called war on terror. Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, Clinton's treasury secretaries, are among the main architects of the crisis. Summers intervened strongly to prevent any regulation of derivatives and other exotic instruments. Rubin, who preceded him, was right in the lead of undermining the Glass-Steagall act, all of which is pretty ironic. - chomsky

*

LB, you reading this, do you understand what the fuck is going on??

OREO is going to be written down in history as the stupidest fucking prez in US history, he just slapped the DUMB-NIGGER on the foreskin of every black man in the world for posterity.

Anonymous said...

So do you think it's Larry Summers? Or someone else on the cabinet we don't know that is providing the resistance? Or are they just plain as unprepared as Geithner appeared yesterday? I'm going with the hope they have resistance somewhere to just rolling over for the banks ala Paulson.

*

There is NO resistance, sure on even TV there is token sock-puppets like Ron Paul & Jim Rogers that sing a different tune, but in General to be a US senator, or a judge, or hell even a cop, you got to be a player and go along with the program.

Today everybody in the belt-way is with the program, the problem is the NATION is BEND broke, and nobody knows how to fix the problem, because it can't be fixed. Then again like Chomsky says its just normal Capitalist cycles, and this one will eventually pass.

To me the only real opposition to the current system is someone who doesn't accept the US-DOLLAR, for as soon as your accept a US-DOLLAR you must be part of the largest PONZI Sceme in world history, so everyone plays along like the 'Emperors new clothes', eventually someone will tell the horrible truth the US dollar is worthless, but until the charade continues.

LavaBear said...

>>>It's japan & china that buy our T-bills, and the show you saw yesterday Geithner was NOT for you

Then it sure was genius of Geithner to rattle on about the value of the yuan last week. Brilliant timing there. His comments I'm sure got more play overseas than yesterdays fiasco.

Anonymous said...

What is 'opposition'? I mean even Gingrich or Limbaugh, or OREO, or Geithner, all want the same thing, wine, women, and song, gold, glory and girlz.

Our current system the FED-RES has setup themselves as a monarchy, US Congress gave up their right to declare war, and print money long ago, and now what your seeing is a club of MEN who run the FED-RES all fighting over who gets to run the piggy-bank and how, but NONE of them want to BREAK or destroy the piggy printing press, me thinks that EVEN RON PAUL likes US-DOLLARS, and so does Jim Rogers.

I don't see any opposition to the US-DOLLAR ponzi scheme, other than the EURO, or YUAN, e.g. some other foreign power, and today that is where the WAR is being waged, as to which country can provide the MOST sound economy and confidence, and clearly that is NOT the USA under OREO.

Anonymous said...

Then it sure was genius of Geithner to rattle on about the value of the yuan last week.

*

It might have been a slip of the tongue, but at even 7 to 1, the YUAN today in five years will be one of the best bets a person could make. The USA is going down, and china has the jobs, and makes the products.

Just the other day Geithner was bashing China, so I guess from now on you can pick and choose any day of the week and prove any possible point from a Geithner sock-puppet, he is like the OREO all things to all people, and if you go back to his record, he supports all possible outcomes.

Compared to the US Dollar the YUAN is valuable, hell its more valuable, in the last 20+ years the US dollar has only become MORE worthless ten years ago the Yuan was ten to one, today its six to one, soon it will be two to one, those holding Yuan will make a fortune.

Ever thought that all this bullshit, that Giethner and buddy's aren't trading opposite on their own rhetoric?

LavaBear said...

>>>country can provide the MOST sound economy and confidence, and clearly that is NOT the USA under OREO.

So far it is. Look at any currency chart and it's the USD that has held up. My guess is that soon enough it is going to be a race to who can devalue their currency the BEST.

LavaBear said...

>>>Compared to the US Dollar the YUAN is valuable

You can't look at the yuan and compare. The fucking thing is tied to the usd. It's not a real valuation. And that is what Geithner was crying about last week.

Bewert said...

Re: Cracker Ass bled more today

###

Did you see the volume? Patti has to be having trouble sleeping at this point.

Duncan McGeary said...

A week ago, after Obama had been in office a whole two weeks, he STILL hadn't solved everything.

Now it's been three weeks, which makes him even MORE of a failure.

I can't imagine what kind of disaster he'll be after a whole MONTH!!!


Ninnies.

Bewert said...

Joe Scarborough in response to WH Press Sec Robert Gibbs about a possible Senate run in 2010:

"Here’s my problem, Robert," Scarborough said. "I don’t really think it would be good to run in 2010 with a party that is actively associating itself with the Taliban."

LavaBear said...

>>>A week ago, after Obama had been in office a whole two weeks, he STILL hadn't solved everything.

The problem I have is Geithner has had several months to prepare for yesterday. He came out and said a whole bunch of buzz words jumbled together with not much to tie them together. We could of played the ol' buzz word bingo game watching him speak. It was really disappointing. I haven't watched him speak much, I had high hopes he'd say SOMETHING with merit yet, is was just a big ol letdown.

Anonymous said...

The problem I have is Geithner has had several months to prepare for yesterday. He came out and said a whole bunch of buzz words jumbled together with not much to tie them together. We could of played the ol' buzz word bingo game watching him speak. It was really disappointing.

*

Greenspan got away with saying nothing for 40+ years, why should we as ameriKKKan's hold Geithner to a higher standard?

5th amdendment, mumble, ... SOP it is.

Plain speaker, ... we just had that with twisted little shrub, and nobody liked that either, notice that our high powered FED-RES folks are always of this class, mumble, and obfuscate, but say nothing 'for fear of rattling the market'....

People ask "How did made-off get away with it for 40 years..." People in the future will ask "How did the FED-RES get away with it for all those years". ...

OMERTA

Anonymous said...

So far it is. Look at any currency chart and it's the USD that has held up. My guess is that soon enough it is going to be a race to who can devalue their currency the BEST.

*

Hell yes, the USD has held up under OREO, and ergo we can extrapolate into the future and say the same ad infinitim.

The dollar has been going into the toilet since the 1970's, ...

Anonymous said...

The OREO was always done for foreign consumption, its FOREIGN DEBT that funds the USA printing press.

The OREO was to be the great white nigger who saved the dollar, the OREO is/was going to make the USA into a new kind of printing-press, err kleptocracy, ...

Fit for foreign consumption, they voted confidence with their feet.

Anonymous said...

Another RIP. Austin Tile is closing down.

LavaBear said...

>>> People in the future will ask "How did the FED-RES get away with it for all those years". ...


Just so you know...Geithner is the Treasury Secretary. OREO appointed him. The night before in a prime time address OREO told us all to wait for tomorrow and the Treasury Secretary will lay it all out. Didn't happen.

The dude in charge of the FED-RES is named Bernanke. OREO didn't appoint him but I'm sure he won't stay too long so OREO will appoint his own dude. Actually Bernanke was on the hill yesterday as well and while I really don't like the content of his lies he is understandable and comes across very intelligent.

Anonymous said...

Buster you're way too cynical about the USA.

I have to admit that I liked your post by Chomsky very much. I haven't read much of his stuff -- well actually nothing.

I study some of these things and I am amazed as the breadth of his knowledge.


But anyway, the one thing that the U.S. has going for it is INSTITUTIONS.

Why do rich middle easterners put their money here?

Because they know they can get it out. Maybe not all of it (!) but at least we have a functioning legal system.

Have you ever tried to do business in one of the corrupt Asian countries (yes, even like Japan).

There is corruption everywhere but Western country's comparative advantage is that we have SO LITTLE of it.

Our institutions -- set up on the Anglo Saxon model hundreds of years ago -- are our saving grace.

Yes, we are going to BUST big time, but in the end -- this is the best country in the world for getting shit done.

*

You think so much of China -- their young people are lean, hungry, and competitive -- but they lack some basic institutional infrastructure that we take for granted here.

In China, is there a functioning justice system? You may think it's bad here, but ours is WAY better than what they have.

Anonymous said...

Rush Limbaugh -- the de facto leader of the Republican Party -- said on his show Tuesday that the entire economic meltdown was actually precipitated by a conspiracy between George Soros and a cabal of billionaire liberals who deliberately sought to sabotage the world economy in order to get Barack Obama elected. -- Bob Cesca on HuffPo

Damn, is Buster writing Limbaugh's material?

Bewert said...

Re: The night before in a prime time address OREO told us all to wait for tomorrow and the Treasury Secretary will lay it all out. Didn't happen.

###

Yep. Geitner stunk. And now we'll see how Obama deals with it.

I distinctly remember hearing O say he didn't want to take away from Geitner's moment in the sun. It was a disappointing moment.

Bewert said...

And forgive for forgetting the H.

LavaBear said...

>>>I have to admit that I liked your post by Chomsky very much. I haven't read much of his stuff -- well actually nothing.

I agree. Smartest shit Buster has posted in a few years.

Anonymous said...

In China, is there a functioning justice system? You may think it's bad here, but ours is WAY better than what they have.

*

I have lived in China. Let's answer your question. Functional 'justice system', I remember one day about 15 yrs ago I was in Shanghai and cop raped a girl, they shot the cop that day. Justice? I would call if fucking inspiring, the cop was caught in the act, there was no dispute, and slow trial. The system doesn't fuck around.

On the other hand if your talking 'white collar justice' where a rich guy can buy a good lawyer and get away with OJ-SIMPSON murder, I concur your right, in China the OJ would have been executed pronto, rich or not, good lawyer or not.

Then there is 'intellectual property', well they just don't like us, get over it.

Then there is 'contract law', well if you lease a property from the mayor, and the governor decides that he wants your property, well your fucked, but its the same in Mexico, if you lease a property and some General decide he likes what you have done, he can take, ... again much of the world works this way, when buying stuff in CHINA its all about due diligence, and making sure you purchase from the highest monkey on the pole.

I love China, and yes the USA is the most evil fucking country on the face of the earth.

Anonymous said...

The night before in a prime time address OREO told us all to wait for tomorrow and the Treasury Secretary will lay it all out. Didn't happen.

*

It all happened it was all laid out, its just that the emperor has no clothes, but the media tomorrow will remind us that MICHELLE is on the cover of Vogue, do you KUNTS think that this was a coincidence?

Controlling the US mind is like playing with BP's dick.

Anonymous said...

Damn, is Buster writing Limbaugh's material? - hbm

*

I'm not going to even think about that one, and give it much thought. I know people that think that KENNEDY family owns the OREO, I know people and groups that think AIPAC owns the OREO.

Personally WHO gives a fuck, what matters is ACTION, and to date the OREO has put people into posts that are MORE BUSH THAN BUSH, that's all that matter to me.

Ownership of the OREO or control? Certainly all true, Soros gave money, but so did Stewart Resnick of Suterra give a ton of money to OREO, being the largest contributor in Calif of the DNC.

What 'buster' said was to suggest that LimpBaugh was running the RNC was crazy, see folks Limbaugh is just an entertainer, and in many ways he is getting quite rich like Belusconi the Italian prez who was a nobody bad actor/comedian that went political, and is now the richest man in Italy, so it can be done. Limbaugh is so fucking part of the US media, he's 100% status-quo all these people go to the same partys in DC & NYC.

It's like a few years ago under Clinton, The Mary Matalin married Carver(?) I mean you had the brains of the DEM party marrying the brains of the PUG party, don't you folks see that everything is theatre & charade including 'limpbaugh'?

Anonymous said...

Have you ever tried to do business in one of the corrupt Asian countries (yes, even like Japan).

*

You ever heard of Madoff? Or perhaps Sawyer? or perhaps Summit-1031??

Corruption?

If you get fucked by Asians, its because you showed them you were weak, they only respect strength, but they also respect integrity, and face. Learn the fucking language, learn the fucking culture.

Think about this DILDO-BRAIN, Asian is KICKING OUR FINANCIAL ASS, yet the USA leads the world in FUCKING financial fraud.

The whole reason the Geithner can't answer a fucking question, is that the Banks, the USA is INSOLVENT.

Go fuck yourself with 'corruption' the USA is the hypocritically corrupt country in the world.

Note you all like 'chomsky' good shit, one of the smartest men alive, and did you notice that his interview had the word 'hypocrisy' in it with respect USA markets & business???

This is WHY the world is so fucking pissed @ the USA and voting with their feet to get out of the DOLLAR and US assets, because of the HYPOCRISY.

Like IMF, chomsky notes, the US has different rules for themselves, emerging nations, ... yet all run by USA.

Again todays Geithner theatre was for foreign consumption, as ameriKKKans were watching OPRAH, and Geithner can't tell foreigners there money is safe in the USA because it is NOT.

Anonymous said...

Hey Dunc,

The proper spelling is "pomegranate", not "pomegranite". I'm disappointed in you, a graduate in English, owner of a bookstore, reading every day for the past 40 years or more.

Anonymous said...

Good story here about a BAT-BUS driver up here in Canada (BC), that got fired for having a 'blog', note you FUCK-HEADS that hate anonymity, this is what happens when you blog are publicly known. You get fired.

...

Vancouver bus driver fired over blog
DEREK MOSCATO FOR METRO VANCOUVER
February 11, 2009 05:47


A Vancouver bus driver says he has been fired for publishing a blog that describes his day-to-day experiences on the job.

Michael Cox, who completed his training with Coast Mountain Bus Company in December, started a blog called Short Turns to share with the public what he was learning about operating a bus.

“The initial impetus for the blog was for friends and family — curious about my training — but soon I got more interested in blogging about transit in general, including other cities, and was writing entries each night after my shift,” Cox told Metro in an exclusive interview.

He also blogged about Coast Mountain’s response to this winter’s snowstorms. He wrote that thousands of commuters were left stranded, but added that it was unavoidable under the circumstances.

On Jan. 15, Cox, who was still a probationary driver, received a phone call from his union representative, informing him that management was placing him on administrative leave.

The next day, Cox met with Coast Mountain management, who indicated that a complaint had been received about the Short Turns blog. They also informed him that probationary drivers could be fired for any reason.

Two hours later, he was officially terminated.

The blog had a growing local readership and was even followed by TransLink’s own Buzzer blog.

According to Cox, Jhenifer Pabillano, the Buzzer editor at TransLink, had at one point even asked him to contribute to the Buzzer’s online site.

“I think it’s foolish that they fired me rather than just talked to me about the blog,” said Cox, who is 53 and lives in East Vancouver with his wife. “In my short tenure I was a very good driver in that I enjoyed customer interaction. I thought I was doing a good job.”

Derek Zabel, media relations manager for Coast Mountain, said yesterday the company does not comment on past employees for privacy reasons.

Jim Houlahan, vice-president of CAW 111, the union representing bus drivers, confirmed it was the blog that triggered the dismissal.

“My understanding is he was terminated because of the content of his blog,” Houlahan said. “I believe he was critical of the Coast Mountain Bus Company’s service plans during the snowstorm.”

He added that the union looked into the facts and decided Cox was not discriminated against.

“Had I not been a probationary employee I most likely wouldn’t have been fired,” Cox said. “My naiveté was in thinking — if I thought about it at all — that I could write freely, on my own time, about work and not suffer repercussions for telling the truth.”

Anonymous said...

The proper spelling is "pomegranate", not "pomegranite". I'm disappointed in you, a graduate in English, owner of a bookstore, reading every day for the past 40 years or more.

*

Yes, and Suterra's owner Resnick of LA, and the #1 contributor to the DNC in CALI owns out-right the world supply of Pemegranate-Juice, and ergo owns the OREO.

Does that make the OREO a Pomegranate??

Anonymous said...

But anyway, the one thing that the U.S. has going for it is INSTITUTIONS.


*

Yes, prisons, the US has more people incarcerated than any other people in the history of the world.

At a cost that exceeds sending them to college, just one more fucking reason why the US will BK,

The BIGGEST MOST POWERFUL UNION in CALI is the prison UNION, and CALI is the MOST BK state.

INSTITUTIONS, ...

Anonymous said...

Why do rich middle easterners put their money here?

*

They diversify, they put their money all over. For instance if the USA buys your OIL, what typically you do has have them make payment in a bank local to them, there are many reason for this, but mainly less charge.

So for instance if I'm an oil sheik and Texaco buys a tanker, and the wire $200M to my US dollar account in Houston, TX, I may use that money another time, or for another purpose, the money was paid in DOLLAR's, the currency sadly of oil at this time, IRAQ & IRAN, and Saudi would very much like the payment of oil NOT to be in dollars.

So now I have $200M in Texas, I could buy my friend GW-BUSH a baseball stadium ( actually happened ), or I could order a container of parts from Baxter ( oil services company ) and them shipped to me in the middle-east, all payment in dollars with no conversion charge.

When your doing INTL trade you don't want to be shuffling money back&forth all the time, that involves transaction costs, and conversion.

The real question is do middle-eastern oil sheiks LEAVE their money in the USA, I don't think so. As you well know the USA has long history of seizing cash assets of Arab nationals.

The $200M is just chump change, but it can be used in the USA to BUY politicians (BUSH), and pay necessary costs to do business in the USA, this is why some oil money floats in the USA.

Anonymous said...

There is corruption everywhere but Western country's comparative advantage is that we have SO LITTLE of it.

*

You have never heard of Bend Oregon? Have you? Do you read the BULL or something? Only a BULL reader would think that the USA is free of corruption.

Corruption, and Suicide is Bends greatest asset. Summit-1031, Sawyer (et-al), $200M of city money stolen and passed to Knife-River, Moss, and Costa, ....

No corruption in the USA, move along.

Anonymous said...

The G&O toy bank, Geithner&OREO

The G & O (Geithner and Obama) Bank

By NIRANJAN RAMAKRISHNAN

This from the Washington Post, reporting on Secretary Tim Geithner's appearance before the Senate Finance Committee on Feb 10, 2009.
5:07 P.M.:

Geithner just stood up to further government intrusion into corporate boardrooms, a move that will hearten and perhaps surprise economic conservatives.

Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) was upset to learn that some companies receiving bailout money are offshoring jobs to save money. He wondered if the government shouldn't require that such companies employ Americans, in addition to the limits on executive compensation they're now facing.

"I do not believe we can put ourselves in position of raising the prospect where government comes in and directly manages at great detail the choices [companies] make," Geithner said. "Ultimately, we will end up costing the economy and taxpayers much more."

Geithner said that he is "deeply offended" by "many of the judgments" top executives have made, clearly referring to big bonuses and other perks. "But the important offsetting obligation we have is to not create the prospect that the government is going to come in and make decisions for institutions that want to remain in private hands," he said.

Brown replied that it is "not very reassuring to hear" that a company is offshoring.

"I don't think your answer is cavalier, but I do think it implies something I don't like to hear," said Brown, who clearly wanted to hear that more government conditions will be placed on companies getting bailout money. "I hope you will revisit that, and we will do all we can to make sure you revisit it."

The bottom line is, companies can take money from the Federal government, then go out and hire cheap labor abroad so as to make the maximum profit. The American worker, it would appear, is once again left in the cold in this nifty piece of bypass surgery. Why is this any different than the Liar's Loans made famous by the subprime scandal?

That an American Secretary of the Treasury could be so unconcerned by this -- 'cavalier' is indeed the correct word -- should set aside any doubt that the Obama administration is a worthy follower to the Clinton and Bush administration in its unconcern towards the draining of the nation's wealth.

It is funny that people like Clinton and Obama who speak about recycling and its role in the environment don't get it when it comes to money. Capital is just as much a resource as any other, more difficult to make than to conserve. Geithner's insouciance (I also caught the exchange on C-SPAN) was breathtaking. But he is hardly alone.

So devoted is the political class to free trade. one is frequently reminded of Lenin's words about capitalists selling their executioners the very rope with which they would be hanged. Still, economic nationalism (see American Swadeshi) is on the comeback, and not all of Barack Obama's caution will hold it back. Here's Pat Buchanan, long a opponent of Free Trade, has to say in a recent article titled, "Buy American -- or Bye-Bye, America" (Once a Kucinich slogan):

For the stimulus bills of both Houses have a "Buy American" provision mandating that in "public works" only U.S. iron, steel and manufactures be used. The provision came out of the appropriations committee of the House on a 55-to-0 vote.

The Senate watered it down by declaring the Buy American provision must be consistent with all U.S. trade commitments. But Congress is sending a message: The rebuilding of America is to be a project of, by and for Americans, not outsourced. Sen. McCain's free-trade amendment, to strip all Buy American provisions from the bill, was routed 65 to 31

The reaction of Barack Obama, a NAFTA skeptic in 2008 with bumper stickers that read, "Buy American, Vote Obama," was to genuflect to the gods of globalism and recant his economic patriotism.

"I think it would be a mistake ... at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for the United States to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking out after ourselves," he told Fox News. We don't want to "trigger a trade war," he told ABC.

And since when has "looking out for ourselves" become unbecoming of an American president? They still don't get it. Where did all the loose credit lead if not right where we are? If we simple provide more credit without assuring jobs, how can people repay? To paraphrase Huckleberry Finn, "[we] been there before".

A friend of mine who now lives in Dubai said this about the Dubai ruler's philosophy. People from all over the world flock have been flocking to Dubai for jobs and good living. The ruler's philosophy is, "I want you to make good money, but I want you to spend it all in Dubai". The ruler is an internationalist for inflowing capital, but nationalist in the matter of outflows. Barack Obama and Tim Geithner are the latest to star in the decades-long "Don't Worry, Be Happy" economic burlesque that has left the country in a financial anemia.

The old saw is that those who do not study history are destined to relive it. But what of those whom history has just punched in the nose, getting set to do the same thing all over again? That species is named Globalistus Americanus. As adaptive as the household cockroach, and evidently, just as corrosive to its host.

Duncan McGeary said...

"The proper spelling is "pomegranate", not "pomegranite". I'm disappointed in you, a graduate in English, owner of a bookstore, reading every day for the past 40 years or more."

Nah, I was a Speech major, an even dumber discipline....

Anonymous said...

Predictions on Geithner from NOV08, are holding true to form, in testimony about 'bear stearns' collapse he said "who could have known", the guy uses the Bend-Orygun script, he's one of us, give him a break ...

Geithner at Treasury: can he learn?

Timothy Geithner is a safe pick to head the US Treasury, but he also bears some responsibility for the current financial crisis

24 November 2008 17.00 GMT

Barack Obama's pick of Timothy Geithner as US Treasury secretary shows the sort of caution that Obama has displayed in both his campaign and the other top appointments announced to date. As president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and a former Treasury undersecretary, Geithner is certainly a safe pick. He has been lurking in the top tiers of economic policymaking for more than a decade. The financial markets clearly appreciated the gesture, jumping 5% after news of Geithner's selection leaked on Friday.

Given the current economic crisis, there is something to be said for a safe pick. Of course being in the middle of policymaking means that he bears part of the responsibility for the current disaster. In fact, one if his first high-profile missions was designing the east Asian bail-out following the region's 1997 financial crisis.

In many ways the roots of the current crisis can be attributed to the course that Geithner and his colleagues followed in designing that bail-out. The east Asian countries, most importantly Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea and Malaysia, were hit by a sudden panic beginning in the summer of 1997. Their currencies and stock markets were sent plunging as investors fled from these countries, which previously had been some of the fastest-growing economies in the world.

The plunge in currency values suddenly made banks and other major companies in the region insolvent, since much of their debt was denominated in dollars. With their profits coming in domestic currency that had fallen by more than 50% in value against the dollar, few companies were able to pay back dollar-denominated debt.

One possible solution would have been to encourage large-scale write-downs of debt, with creditors getting back a fraction of the value of their loans. The other solution – and the one chosen by the Treasury-IMF crew – was to give the companies and countries in the region temporary forbearance with short-term loans, but then require that debts be repaid in full.

This forbearance was accompanied by a commitment to keep the US markets open for an enormous volume of exports from the region, which would be facilitated by the now grossly undervalued currencies of the region. The undervalued currencies meant that exports from the region were very cheap for people in the US. The Treasury-IMF response to the east Asian crisis put some serious muscle behind Robert Rubin's high dollar policy.

Once the economies of the region recovered from the crisis, they continued to export huge amounts to the US. These countries, like much of the rest of the developing world, viewed the conditions imposed by the Treasury-IMF crew as being so onerous that they never wanted to be in the same situation again. Therefore, they began to accumulate massive volumes of foreign exchange. This foreign exchange was earned through their huge trade surpluses with the US.

The jobs that the US lost because of the trade deficit in turn created the weakness in demand that could only be filled by first the stock bubble and more recently the housing bubble. These bubbles created trillions of dollars of ephemeral wealth that fuelled a consumption boom, at least as long as the bubbles persisted. This bubble-driven consumption filled the vacuum in demand that was a direct result of the overvalued dollar.

The other part of the story was the suspension of regulatory oversight of the financial industry. This allowed for huge over-leverage, predatory mortgages and the other excesses of the financial industry that fuelled the bubbles.

Geithner was in the middle of all this, even if not a lead actor. While this should not be forgiven – this recession and the millions of lives that are being ruined is not funny – it is not clear that Obama had very much choice.

In this respect, Obama faced the same sort of problem as those hoping to de-Ba'athify Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It would have been almost impossible to establish a government without including members of the Ba'ath party, since membership was a virtual requirement for holding a position of responsibility under Saddam.

Similarly, it would have been almost impossible to get to the top echelons of power, or even the middle ranks, during the Clinton-Bush years without giving lip service to the policies of one-sided financial deregulation and bubble-driven growth that were so fashionable at the time. The real question is whether Geithner has learned anything.

The jury is out on this point. After Bear Stearns sank in March, Geithner testified about the collapse before the Senate banking committee and gave the classic "who could have known" answer. Given the economy's current economic situation, we really do need a Treasury secretary who can give answers, not just excuses.

It may not have been feasible for Obama to go the full de-Ba'athification route. But the real question is whether he wanted to.

Duncan McGeary said...

Chomsky and Buster is an unholy union.

Like Eleanor Roosevelt and Mussolini.

Anonymous said...

economic nationalism (see American Swadeshi) is on the comeback, and not all of Barack Obama's caution will hold it back. Here's Pat Buchanan, long a opponent of Free Trade, has to say in a recent article titled, "Buy American -- or Bye-Bye, America" (Once a Kucinich slogan):

For the stimulus bills of both Houses have a "Buy American" provision mandating that in "public works" only U.S. iron, steel and manufactures be used. The provision came out of the appropriations committee of the House on a 55-to-0 vote.

The Senate watered it down by declaring the Buy American provision must be consistent with all U.S. trade commitments. But Congress is sending a message: The rebuilding of America is to be a project of, by and for Americans, not outsourced. Sen. McCain's free-trade amendment, to strip all Buy American provisions from the bill, was routed 65 to 31

Anonymous said...

Jim Rogers said on 2009.02.11 that Geithner caused the crisis and we must let banks fail.

http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Groupvideo.2078550#!flashvars#&rel=0&border=0&

Jim Rogers on Geithners jive, ...

Anonymous said...

You guys listen to the above, this is what I have been saying all along, ...

Anonymous said...

Chomsky and Buster is an unholy union.

Like Eleanor Roosevelt and Mussolini.

*

Fuck Off Comic Dude, for a Zillion years here I have said I was an 'Emma Goldman' Anarchist, do you know anything about Goldman Dunc? But then your a comic guy, I wouldn't expect you to understand much non-fiction.

Duncan McGeary said...

Emma Goldman was the real deal. She had more balls than everyone here put together.

She wouldn't have hidden behind anonymity. She would have dared them to put her in jail....

Anonymous said...

"Emma Goldman was the real deal."

Hey Homer -- can you put up some Emma Goldman swimsuit pics up next week?!

She hot -- in that 19th century, Civil War sort of way!

Bewert said...

Re: for a Zillion years here I have said I was an 'Emma Goldman' Anarchist

###

An anarchist in favor of regulation...hiding as an Anonymouse.

Emma would have been appalled at your lack of balls.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Read in The Bully this AM that Oregon has taken it's rightful place near the top of the foreclosure race.

After the perennial top 4, Cali, Nevada, AZ, and Florida, Oregon has rocketed to Number 5.

And Bend is mostly to blame. Highest foreclosure rate in the state, by far.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Emma Goldman: Assassin:

Emma Goldman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Though Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.

Anonymous said...

Sunday, February 1st, 2009
Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies, maim innocent toddlers, handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.

Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing.

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen . . . is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Although, she seemed to be an endless disturber of the Peace, which is aiiiight in my book.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Huh. CACB was worth $900 MILLION at it's peak.

Slightly lower today, slipping below $50 mill. Total "EQUITY" is $273 mill. The market says otherwise.

Good job MossCo.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Yours,

Michael Phelps


Agreed. We have NO RIGHT to tell Phelps or even that nutty-ass welfare case lunatic of octuplets, what the fuck they should do with their lives.

My God, wake up White Peepul. This shit is inconsequential.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And how fucking lame is it that this guy now has to live according to an unreachable standard, just because he won the Olympics?

I know, he's got endorsement deals, and there are clauses where his ass is kicked for this and that's perfectly fine, but that's it.

Geez... cell phone cameras have turned us all into paparazzi, the lowest form of life on Earth.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Michael Phelps' 10 Crimes Which Are Worse Than Smoking Weed

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

CACB: $1.70.

That brings the full 10 year return on CACB to MINUS 70%!

Thanks Patty Moss, you ugly bitch.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Another monster loser, is Columbia Bancorp (CBBO) in The Dalles.

Down from $27.35 2 yrs ago, it's at $1.50, or MINUS 80% for the past 10 years.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

West Coast Bancorp (WCBO) in Lake Oswego, at $2.00, MINUS 87% over the past 10 years. $34.64 2 yrs ago.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Wall St is starting to figure out the next great Center of RE Collapse is right here in OR.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Oregon exports soar in 2008, until the end
by Richard Read, The Oregonian
Wednesday February 11, 2009, 9:30 PM

Oregon's sales to the world exploded in 2008, growing 17 percent to a record $19.4 billion despite plunging late in the year as the global economy nose-dived.
...
But mainland China also exemplified the sharp drop in late-2008 buying. Its purchases doubled between the first and third quarters, only to fall during the fourth quarter, according to Wiser Trade, a Massachusetts organization that crunches government data.

"There has just been a stunning pace of contraction in global trade," said Tim Duy, a University of Oregon economist. "That retrenchment is something we didn't want to see."

Trade, which tends to support high-paying jobs, is another leg of the global economic stool that has given way as the recession deepens. Consumer spending was one leg, which collapsed under the weight of energy prices and additional job losses. Credit snapped, destroying investment. And trade crumbled as the U.S. financial crisis went global.

"Trade has been a significant support for the U.S. economy over the last couple of years," said John Mitchell, a Portland economist. "That's one of the ironies of some of this protectionist nonsense they're trying to put in the stimulus bill."

Mitchell fears that buy-American provisions, for example, could backfire as other nations retaliate. Oregon, where trade accounted for 10 percent of the gross state product in 2007, could lose jobs to such squabbles.

Oregon recorded the 16th-highest export growth in the nation last year. Nationally, exports rose 12 percent in 2008, to $1.3 trillion.

In Oregon, 2008 fourth-quarter exports fell 19 percent from the previous quarter, ending five quarters of growth.

"It's really an indicator of the global recession," said Karen Goddin, managing director of the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department's business innovation and trade division.

Goddin expects Oregon exports to be flat this year. "I wouldn't necessarily see a lot of growth, but not precipitous declines either," she said.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

"That's one of the ironies of some of this protectionist nonsense they're trying to put in the stimulus bill."

Rest of the World sees this DILDO STIMULUS PACKAGE as a TRADE WAR.

All will be undone, and we'll be worse off than when we started.

Anonymous said...

Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control.

*

Emma Goldman was 'imprisoned' for sedition & libel for saying "The poor have the natural right to steal bread from the rich when hungry".

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Homeowners emerge from denial on falling values

Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Illustration

(02-10) 18:57 PST -- Perception is finally catching up to reality when it comes to home prices.

A quarterly survey by Zillow.com and Harris Interactive of how people view the value of their homes shows that more people now realize that their single largest asset is declining in value.

More than half (57 percent) of 1,573 homeowners surveyed now believe that their home lost value in 2008. That still lags the reality that 76 percent of all U.S. homes declined in value in 2008, according to Zillow's figures.

A full quarter of homeowners had the sunny view that their home's value had increased; in reality, 20 percent of homes did increase in value during the year, according to Zillow's reckoning. Another 18 percent insisted their homes' value was the same, while only 4 percent of homes actually kept their value, Zillow said.

Previous surveys showed homeowners mired deeper in denial, convinced that their own homes were immune to the nationwide plunge in real estate values that started about 2 1/2 years ago. Just six months ago, only 38 percent of people surveyed believed that their homes were declining in value.

That's despite constant bad news with headlines, TV news reports and respected indexes such as Case-Shiller trumpeting the onslaught of foreclosures that caused home prices to fall faster than a rock dropped from the top of a tower.

"Up until now, people have been pretty resistant to external data about the housing market and have continued to say their homes are doing quite fine," said Stan Humphries, vice president of data and analytics for Zillow in Seattle. "The events of fall 2008 with bank failures and large companies going out of business marked a turning point in many people's heads about what's actually happening. The fact that the economy is having larger troubles makes them more aware of what's happening to home values."

Still, people remain optimists when it comes to real estate's future prospects. More than two-thirds (70 percent) of homeowners believe their home's value will either rise or stay the same during the next six months. That's far more cheerful than any economic forecast, even that of the perpetually upbeat National Association of Realtors.

"We're optimists by nature," said Daniel McGinn, author of the 2008 book "House Lust: America's Obsession with Our Homes." "It's a lot easier to ignore the decline in value of your house than of your stocks, bonds and 401(k). There is only so long you can ignore opening your 401(k) statements."

Of course, unlike 401(k)s, homes don't come with handy guides to check their value. That's where services like Zillow, which was founded in 2005, try to step in. By offering value estimates for millions of homes, it became a social phenomenon, tapping into people's voyeuristic curiosity and real estate mania.

"One thing that makes homes such fascinating elements in our lives is their illiquidity," McGinn said. "You can't wake up tomorrow and look in the newspaper to figure out what your house is worth. It takes work - hiring an appraiser, doing competitive analysis, talking to Realtors. At the end of the day, you never really know what your house is worth until you sell it."

Homeowners in the hard-hit Western states are the most pessimistic nationwide. The survey showed 70 percent of homeowners there believe their homes are worth less - although the actual percentage of homes that decreased there clocked in at 90 percent.
Less denial

A nationwide survey of homeowners found that more than half now know their homes lost value over the past year when 76 percent actually did.

Perception (by percentage):

-- Home is worth less: 57

-- Home is worth the same: 18

-- Home is worth more: 25

Reality:

-- Percentage of homes worth less: 76

-- Percentage of homes worth the same: 4

-- Percentage of homes worth more: 20

Source: Zillow.com

E-mail Carolyn Said at csaid@sfchronicle.com.

Anonymous said...

What is this about 'anonymous', great writers and thinkers were anonymous, Lewis Carrol ( alice in ned-flanders world ), Mark Twain ( truth is stranger than fiction ), ...

Hell even when Ben Franklin first landed in philly he penned under 'anonyn-ass', the issue is NOT anonym-ass, the issue is why do our THREE pathetic loser idiots hbm, dunc, & BP think its so fucking important to strut their stuff in public???

Dunc is an economic loser, hbm is a failed journalist, and BP well, BP is a mother boy going on fifty.

These are our real-men, our non-anonymous, thus its probably a good idea for our homer, and marge, to remain anon, then I can imagine when I wack off at night that marge looks like betty-page, when in fact she might really have dunc's money, bp's hair&teeth, and hbm's good looks ( eck ).


No, the anonymous is what makes the USA great, throughout history.

Please, I already know too much about bp, dunc, and hbm; I don't want to know anymore, and I don't want to know anything of the equivalent about the others, I would prefer to image that lava-bear is a big working stiff, and that timmy-twat is an intellectual, and that homer is a hard working mba that free-lances when he's not flying around as super-man.

I would prefer to envision buster living at the D&D like barney on the Simpsons perpetually nursing a warm, flat, watery beer.

Reality is fucking ugly. Like today, did anyone really read Emma goldman's books? Hell no, today you just read the first paragraph from wiki, and call that knowledge. Emma Goldman wrote dozens of books, read them, learn something about the person.

Like Noam Chomsky, I have been posting his shit for almost three years now, and all of a sudden its like deja-vu, you KUNTS realize there is someone in this FUCKING country telling the truth!!! Note even Jim Rogers & Ron Paul are insiders, the media ONLY puts friendlys on their show, just like the BULL only interviews friendly's, this is how the media works.

Noah Chomsky has been ripping the media apart since the 1960's, he has written 100's of books, and I highly suggest you all read a few dozen and learn how the USA really works.

Then of course there is Carrol Quigley ( father of state-dept, and modern foreign affairs@georgetown ), Quigley wrote the books on how the USA took over the world, and how they stay in that position, and his purpose is to train the next generation of CIA kids to KEEP the USA in that position. Noam Chomsky worked side-by-side all along @MIT during WWII with the best minds in the country inventing computers, as he mentions a full 30 yrs before they were released to the public for profit.

There is useful knowledge out there if you know where to look. Today there are many levels of education, the dunc/ned-flanders kind where you can make min-wage, and the elite send their kids to GOOD SCHOOLS where they read quigley & chomsky, and learn how the fucking country REALLY WORKS.

Why is this important? Survival. Know thy enemy, and know they self. Sun Tzu.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for mentioning that about zillow my wife just last night mentioned to me that homes around us have been selling for $190k on zillow, that be major drop given that this shit was flipping for $450k back in fall of 2006. It has to drop below $150k before it will pencil for a rental, but we are entering a stealth reality very quickly.

This is why the government is in such a fucking rush to 'fix' the housing, to stem the collapse.

Of course the real reason is so the 'chosen bankers' can exit & unwind with their pants still on, cuz once this thing is over you don't want to be in the market, or near the market.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Japanese asset price bubble
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History

In the decades following World War II, Japan implemented stringent tariffs and policies to encourage people to save their income. With more money in banks, loans and credit became easier to obtain, and with Japan running large trade surpluses, the yen appreciated against foreign currencies. This allowed local companies to invest in capital resources much more easily than their competitors overseas, which reduced the price of Japanese-made goods and widened the trade surplus further. And, with the yen appreciating, financial assets became very lucrative.

With so much money readily available for investment, speculation was inevitable, particularly in the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the real estate market. The Nikkei stock index hit its all-time high on December 29, 1989 when it reached an intra-day high of 38,957.44 before closing at 38,915.87. Additionally, banks granted increasingly risky loans.

Prices were highest in Tokyo's Ginza district in 1989, with choice properties fetching over 100 million yen ($1 million US dollars) per square meter ($93,000 per square foot). Prices were only marginally less in other large business districts of Tokyo. By 2004, prime "A" property in Tokyo's financial districts had slumped to less than 1 percent of its peak, and Tokyo's residential homes were less than a tenth of their peak, but still managed to be listed as the most expensive in the world until being surpassed in the late 2000s by Moscow and other upstarts. Tens of trillions of dollars worth were wiped out with the combined collapse of the Tokyo stock and real estate markets. Only in 2007 had property prices begun to rise, however it began to fall in late 2008 due to the financial crisis.

With the economy driven by its high rates of reinvestment, this crash hit particularly hard. Investments were increasingly directed out of the country, and manufacturing firms lost some degree of their technological edge. As Japanese products became less competitive overseas, the low consumption rate began to bear on the economy, causing a deflationary spiral. The Japanese Central Bank set interest rates at approximately absolute zero. When that failed to stop deflation some economists, such as Paul Krugman, and some Japanese politicians, advocated inflation targeting.[1]

The easily obtainable credit that had helped create and engorge the real estate bubble continued to be a problem for several years to come, and as late as 1997, banks were still making loans that had a low probability of being repaid. Loan Officers and Investment staff had a hard time finding anything to invest in that would return a profit. They would sometimes resort to depositing their block of investment cash, as ordinary deposits, in a competing bank, which would bring howls of complaint from that bank's Loan Officers and Investment staff. Correcting the credit problem became even more difficult as the government began to subsidize failing banks and businesses, creating many so-called "zombie businesses". Eventually a carry trade developed in which money was borrowed from Japan, invested for returns elsewhere and then the Japanese were paid back, with a nice profit for the trader.

The time after the bubble's collapse (崩壊, hōkai?), which occurred gradually rather than catastrophically, is known as the "lost decade or end of the century" (失われた10年, ushinawareta jūnen?) in Japan. In October 2008 the Nikkei 225 stock index reached a 26-year low of 6994.90.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Economic history of Japan

Deflation from the 1990s to present

Deflation in Japan started in the early 1990s. On March 19, 2001, the Bank of Japan and the Japanese government tried to eliminate deflation in the economy by reducing interest rates (part of their 'quantitative easing' policy). Despite having interest rates down near zero for a long period of time, this strategy did not succeed.[4] Once the near-zero interest rates failed to stop deflation some economists, such as Paul Krugman, and some Japanese politicians, spoke of deliberately causing hyperinflation.[5] In July 2006, the zero-rate policy was ended. In 2008, the Japanese Central Bank still has the lowest interest rates in the developed world, deflation has still not been eliminated[6] and the Nikkei 225 has fallen over approximately 50% (between June 2007 and December 2008).

Systemic reasons for deflation in Japan can be said to include:

* Fallen asset prices. There was a large price bubble in both equities and real estate in Japan in the 1980s (peaking in late 1989). When assets decrease in value, the money supply shrinks, which is deflationary.

* Insolvent companies: Banks lent to companies and individuals that invested in real estate. When real estate values dropped, many loans went unpaid. The banks could try to collect on the collateral (land), but due to reduced real estate values, this would not pay off the loan. Banks have delayed the decision to collect on the collateral, hoping asset prices would improve. These delays were allowed by national banking regulators. Some banks make even more loans to these companies that are used to service the debt they already have. This continuing process is known as maintaining an "unrealized loss", and until the assets are completely revalued and/or sold off (and the loss realized), it will continue to be a deflationary force in the economy.

* Insolvent banks: Banks with a large percentage of their loans which are "non-performing" (loans for which payments are not being made), but have not yet written them off. These banks cannot lend more money until they increase their cash reserves to cover the bad loans. Thus the quantity of loans are reduced and less funds are available for economic growth.

* Fear of insolvent banks: Japanese people are afraid that banks will collapse so they prefer to buy gold or (United States or Japanese) Treasury bonds instead of saving their money in a bank account. This likewise means the money is not available for lending and therefore economic growth. This means that the savings rate depresses consumption, but does not appear in the economy in an efficient form to spur new investment. People also save by owning real estate, further slowing growth, since it inflates land prices.

Anonymous said...

great writers and thinkers were anonymous, Lewis Carrol ( alice in ned-flanders world ), Mark Twain ( truth is stranger than fiction )

There's a difference between using a nom de plume and posting obscene psychotic shit on-line, Buster. Everybody knew who Lewis Carroll and Mark Twain were.

Anonymous said...

Emma Goldman was 'imprisoned' for sedition & libel for saying "The poor have the natural right to steal bread from the rich when hungry".

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to steal bread, to sleep under bridges and to beg in the streets." -- Anatole France

One of my all-time faves.

Anonymous said...

"That's one of the ironies of some of this protectionist nonsense they're trying to put in the stimulus bill."

Rest of the World sees this DILDO STIMULUS PACKAGE as a TRADE WAR.

*

The USA really has a long history of 'protectionism'. More to the point, the boyz that have sold us 'gatt,nafta,...' globalization, have of course exported 'our' jobs.

Short term there is no fix, the jobs are bend-gone, but with peak-oil having passed the notion of shit made in china, and floated to orygun is bend-over, just takes time.

The usa wages will go into the toilet, and the chinese yuan will become more valuable, very shortly there will be no advantage to manufacture in china, this is why the chinese have actively developed africa in the last ten years.

Then as chomsky says the real action in the world is south-america.

Yes, the dildo is a damn-good icon, being that the USA is the #1 consumer of porn, sex-toys, TV, and general CRAP.

The trade-war has begun, no matter what your hear all the 'infrastucture stimulus' is QUITE CLEAR, the materials (RAW) must be made in the USA.

America First, what a novel idea, ... the OREO has just handed Pat Buchanan the fucking 2012 on a platter.

HBM likes to say that limbaugh is running the RNC, but if you read the WSJ daily you can see that KARL-ROVE is in fine form, and everyday calling the marching orders.

The only people who listen to limbaugh is morons, and its quite dangerous for hbm to think that the RNC is 100% morons, ... "know thy enemy, know thy self", but what matters, for hbm, dunc, and bp reality is not what life is about, life is about carrying the torch for the cause of the day for the OREO of the day.

Anonymous said...

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to steal bread, to sleep under bridges and to beg in the streets." -- Anatole France

One of my all-time faves.

*

I'll have to find the author, the name escapes me, but all 'law' comes from WAR, the conquerors of any war, write the law, and the elite make the rules, there has never been anything righteous or benevolent about law. In effect all LAW comes from killers, & butchers.

Like Von Mises say's ... "The essence of government is beating, killing, an imprisoning; those who ask for more government are in effect asking for MORE totalitarianism".

Lastly, What is "Emma Goldman Anarchism", some think and rightly so cuz the press in the 1915's portrayed 'anarchism' with violence. But in actuality, what Goldman said was that 'anarchism' was "Communalism in its most perfect form".

Of course we know that Mao & Stalin created 'perfect communalism', ...

Like the bozo above who says that what makes the USA great is 'institutions', like what the marine-corp? The prison-industrial complex? The military-industrial complex?

Sure these things make USA powerful, but the USA is NOT great.

So Emma Goldman spent many years rotting in prison for saying that hungry people had a right to steal food from the rich. A few decades later tons of US citizens died of starvation all the while the government PAID farmers to plow in the produce, so as to maintain high prices for the exchange.

Then as now, nothing has changed.

p.s. did I mention that BP, and DUNC ( ned flanders ) were idiots??

Anonymous said...

There's a difference between using a nom de plume and posting obscene psychotic shit on-line, Buster. Everybody knew who Lewis Carroll and Mark Twain were.

*

Obscene, pscyhotic shit, ... Homer make a note of this, I think HBM has missed his doss of thorazine this am.

Obscenity: Well I think we're going to have to let our BULL moderator HBM, define this one for us.

PsychoticShit: Not a normal H-Bowel-Movement, no siree, but this be a Psychotic-Bowel-Movement, I think from now on my nom be PBM.

This is the recurring problem with our MORONS ( hbm, dunc, and bp ), adolescent name calling, and a lack of intellectual backbone, but then if any them had this IB, they wouldn't be the failure that they are today.

HBM,BP,DUNC remind me of famous character who wrote the clock-work orange books, about how they clubbed smart people, and beat in the faces of good looking people, so that everyone was stupid & ugly just equal, the perfect society.

Last week for HBM it was vile & bile, of course he's just trying to be funny in his own pederastic way.

Anonymous said...

Tenant Paying but Landlord not paying. Now what do I do? (Bend Rental Property)
Reply to: pers-1031527599@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2009-02-12, 2:03AM PST


Someone today told me that there was a lot of information in this section of Craigs list about my recent problem with my landlords (that have been on the news.) I did not see much written but hope that some of you may help me by replying or posting. I just wanted to know if any of you know the true answers. Do any of you know this couple personally? I never met them personally when renting, I dealt with a female rental agent. Do you think with their assets there is any way they will pull it out financially with the bank? The mortgage on my rental is not being paid and hasn't been paid in months. Anyways, I am one of the victims of this mess with this famous realtor and have no idea what my rights are. I would appreciate any emails directing me, or giving me advice, especially legal. I dont want to take advice from people that have somethig personal against them for something. I hope that who responds truly knows them. Are they really this bad or did they just fall victim to this economy? (Though I must say, I am livid that no one from their office said a word about this to me - no warning) Who all is suing them and for what? I googled them but couldnt find out. Did the leasing agent know they weren't paying and continue to rent the properties anyways? If so, I think that is criminal, maybe even more so than just falling behind because of financial problems. It is hard for me to get angry at the owners when I only dealt with the leasing agent. I would think that she too would have an obligation to warn a tenant and not just allow the breach of contract if she is acting on behalf of this company? So what is this I hear about Mexico? Who all owns homes down there from this threesome? Do I have the right to know if they have my deposit still? Can I trust what they tell me? Do they have consciences? How much time do I have to find a place to live? What have they done so bad that the FBI is involved? I don't get that part. There are probably many others taking rents and not making the mortgage payments, but the durned FBI isnt knocking at their door? Does that mean the FBI will be coming to my home soon too? Who do I pay rent to now? How much time do I have before I truly have to be out? Who will actually show up to tell me to go? Any help greatly appreciated. I dont want to jump the gun. I just moved in and am hoping that I will not have to move again. In that aspect, I am praying that the landlord WILL work things out with the bank. Moving is expensive and time consuming. Packing, getting boxes, changing utilities, printing etc. Any help greatly appreciated. I am just sick about this. Dont know about this town. It seems kind of scary how tied together everyone seems. Please help if you can, or if you know of a good attorney I could speak with that arent my landlords best friend,have him or her contact me. Thank you.
Sad Tenant
I hope you can appreciate why I am not writing my name and address down. If you are also a victim, reply and maybe we can get together on this. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Do you think it is true? (Bend)
Reply to: pers-1030635542@craigslist.org

There are whispers Captain Sawyer is going to testify against Tami. Anyone else heard this? I think being in his profession he knows he is going down and needs to save his rear now

Anonymous said...

Not a normal H-Bowel-Movement

That's witty ... for a 6-year-old.

Anonymous said...

Homer,

Thanks for taking this back to ECON, but really emma-goldman is very much about ECON.

On the subject of JAPAN, you love fucking Japan, but so fucking what.

I have been there many times to So-Korea, Japan, ... during the last 20 years, and seen first hand.

People move-on has the de-flation really been such a bad thing? Yes the RE didn't come back, but so fucking what? It's still virtually impossible to purchase a room bigger than a closet.

Most people in Japan would give anything to have a sq-foot of dirt for their kids, dirt is hard to find anywhere except a rural village.

Compared with hyper-inflation, I think that the Japan style de-flation is honestly better.

Then back to our USA, where they'll just keep print dollars and de-valuing our currency, fine, ...

I'm not so sure that we'll go JAPAN, first of all you must UNDERSTAND that Japan is a COLONY of the USA and has been so since WWII, we still control the country. I mentioned so-korea above during these times cuz last time I was there it was like 100k korean won to a dollar, now they were having hyper-inflation, during the same time Japan was stable.

The IMF via the US government dictates to the world,

I don't think the IMF will force the USA to 'eat its own shit', like CHOMSKY points out the IMF/USA is hypocritical, what is good for japan, or korea, or china, or africa, is NOT good for the USA.

The USA will do what they do, they'll do what they have been doing since the 1970's, and that is keep printing money and handing it out. If & when the dollar is not wanted, then Volcker will bring back 20% interest rates, and people will re-invest in the USA.

It's fun to study CHINA, but it really doesn't have anything to with us, they're a controlled conformally society.

Given that OREO has the SAME fucking people running his FINANCE, that were running US finance in the 1970's, I think we can all assume that everything will be status-quo and more of the same.

Until NEW leaders come forward, or people other than Ron Paul come forward with SOLID replacements for the federal reserve, everything in the USA will be the same, and thats exactly how the status-quo wants it.

Anonymous said...

The only people who listen to limbaugh is [sic] morons, and its quite dangerous for hbm to think that the RNC is 100% morons

Missing the point as usual. The RNC is not 100% morons but they have to pander to their "base," which is composed of morons who worship Rush Limpballs, and that means they have to pander to Rush Limpballs. That's why Limpballs is the de facto leader of the GOP. Capisce?

Anonymous said...

Tenant Paying but Landlord not paying. Now what do I do? (Bend Rental Property)

*

This is NOT why the FBI is involved in Sawyer.

Landlords have forever been collecting rent and NOT paying the MTG, and home-sellers have forever been collecting contract-sales monthly payments and not paying their own PRINCIPAL payment to the actual bank.

If you RENT or BUY a home on contract, your fucked if the 'owner' of the home isn't paying the payment.

This IS NOT WHY Sawyer is under investigation.

My bet, from what I see is that Sawyer is tied in with the Summit-1031 deals, and that has brought in the investigation.

Given that the police captain had little if anything to do with his wifes RE biz, its certain to agree that his police job, should NOT be at risk for her bad business practices.

For myself, I always keep my wifes name off ALL my business shit, but for many couples they're too fucking DUMB.

My argument has always been HONEY, when they come after me, I don't want them to come after you, and that's why our names aren't JOINT. The fact that mrs Sawyer is joint, is most likely that she needed her husbands co-sign to run her 'racket' cuz her own credit was fucked, and given his status it made her golden.

Anonymous said...

From Now on until I'm bored, HBM is PBM, Psychotic-Bowel-Movement.

BP of course is Bruce-Pussy,

and Dunc, is Ned Flanders, that kiss ass christian, faker on Simpsons,

Anonymous said...

Missing the point as usual. The RNC is not 100% morons but they have to pander to their "base," which is composed of morons who worship Rush Limpballs, and that means they have to pander to Rush Limpballs. That's why Limpballs is the de facto leader of the GOP. Capisce?

*

Well your almost there capisce boy, cuz as a rule you talk in fucking code.

'Morons' as a base, its a very small percentage. Sure let's call it the PALIN-VOTE, but its NOT the KARL-ROVE crowd, or the WSJ readers. Limbaugh is for the dis-enfranchised red-neck white trash of the USA, and given that economic status, they really have nothing to offer anybody, albeit their vote, if you could get them to the polls, and obviously this past election you couldn't with the terrible candidates provided.

Now what HBM said was that "Limbaugh was the leader of the RNC", NO, and now HBM is getting closer to the truth, that LIMBAUGH is the leader of the MORON-FACTION of the RNC, big fucking difference HBM.

But morons are morons, and fickle, and gingrich, or buchanan, could and will move them any time they so wish, or even perhaps a new 'ron paul' face could grab them, any time you got millions of stupid un-employed white-men looking for a leader, ... lookout!!!

But 'capisce', I DONT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE MORONS, this is why I write about Geithner, and CHOMSKY, I only care about the people who have something to say or run the racket, LIMBAUGH is a worthless blow-hard, and the white-morons pugs of the USA are losers, not very interesting, but they obviosly fascinate you.

The DUMB fucking pugs of the USA bore the hell out of me.

LavaBear said...

>>>LIMBAUGH is a worthless blow-hard,


Holy SHIT!!!! I think Buster and hbm just agreed on something. I smell love in the air.

Anonymous said...

Limbaugh is for the dis-enfranchised red-neck white trash of the USA

Yep. Otherwise known as "low-information voters," otherwise known as "the Republican base."

They make up approximately 25-30% of the electorate. They are the people who supported the Clinton impeachment (70% of Americans opposed it) and insisted until the end that Chimpy was doin a heckuva job (74% of Americans thought he was a piece o' shit).

They are the hard core of the Republican Party, and without that core the GOP doesn't have a prayer. The party leaders are NOT morons but they understand this, which is why they kiss Limpballs' fat pimply ass.

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