BendBubble2: Bend Bulletin Stops Publishing, Cessna Closes

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Bend Bulletin Stops Publishing, Cessna Closes

With the release of January's unemployment figures, I think it's pretty safe to say we've reached the End of Days here in Bend.

It hasn't happened but a lot of things we're all accustomed to are going to go away. And Buster is pretty infamous for saying we're reverting to Olde Bend. But I think it's going to be worse than that.

Bubbles have a funny way of bursting. And the bursting doesn't seem to go according to anyone's plan.

I don't think we're going to have a local paper much longer. The economics aren't there.

So much of this place, the Bulletin included, survived, and thrived, due to RE. They were conjoined twins in an ever-escalating swell of leverage-fueled prosperity.

Now though, we're in The Great Unwind. The Big Deleveraging. The Big One.

We're in the most vicious down-spiral ever witnessed in our lifetimes, and still most people in Bend don't get it. There's still this enduring idea that We Are Near The Bottom, and things are going to turn around momentarily, thank you very much Dana Bratton.

But, of course, this is not true.

The RE/Bend media conjoined twin is on life support.

CACB, 3yrs

We only really have CACB to go from as a barometer of local financial health (OK, we have Prineville Bancorp PNVL, but it ain't exactly busting out either). And the patient is near death.

CACB officially went to penny stock status this week. 90 cents. Look at that chart, it's almost zero. Down 97% from it's peak.

Now the question isn't If it'll be shutdown, but When.

And if The Bully was a pubicly traded company, you would see something similar. A company on the verge of collapse.

Same with construction.

Same with local manufacturing. Manufacturing actually lost more jobs this past month in OR than construction.

The seemingly invulnerable combination of Bend media & the local RE juggernaut aren't just going to get slimmed down, they are dying. They will be dead in a year or so.

The whole infrastructure of this place -- the constant influx of people, the building, the new businesses... the whole freshness & zest & zeal, for lack of better terms -- is stopping.

We had 1 in 9 people unemployed in December. It's about to go to 1 in 8 for Jan. And in the month just gone, it promises to get even worse. And there's no end in sight.

Even the perma-optimist Obama, said that 2009 is going to get much worse before it gets better.

And I think it just hit me -- I think it was Tuesday -- that Bend is turning into Burns.

People do not go to Burns.

But Wait, you say. Homes will become cheap enough that people will want to stay here. Look at sales, they do seem to be bottoming out, as local RE-types have said. Right?

Homes are cheap in Burns.

The problem in Burns is Not cheap housing. It's no jobs. What jobs that are there, are low-wage, go-nowhere jobs. You cannot Build A Life in Burns.

There's something far more important than rock-bottom low prices to living somewhere: It's Building A Life.

It's doing something this year that makes you more than you were last year. It's making yourself a better person. It's seeing that you are piling up a skill set that is actually valuable out in The World. It's about some sort of legacy, a Life That Matters.

You can't build a life that matters in Burns.

And like a desert sandstorm can reclaim and consume an entire region, the desert is about to reclaim Bend.

Bend had been pushing out -- extending its prosperity oasis towards Burns, towards La Pine & Christmas Valley, towards Madras. The shoots of growth that started 30 years ago actually seemed like they had conquered the unconquerable. They had multiplied a thousand fold.

No more. The desert is pushing back and is going to reclaim this place.

I think a lot of people think (I was one of them): "Great! After prices fall far enough, I'm going to snatch up my own sweet-ass, rock-bottom foreclosure and just lord it over all my stupid friends who bought at bubble tops. Awesome!"

No. You might want to think about that. You might want to make a visit to Burns first.

Because I think I have a fairly prescient idea of what's going to happen here, in broad strokes.

The City will go broke.

Local paper will go broke.

Local banks will go broke.

Local restaurants will go broke.

Unemployment will reach Depression era levels.

This place will become a ghost town of The Walking Dead.

Like Burns. No life, no future, no human legacy, no nothing.

That just sort of hit me this past week. I'm starting to see quite a bit of empty parking, where it was once so full so constantly, it was really annoying sometimes.

They say downtown is filling up almost as fast as it is emptying out -- whatever that means -- but it is a losing battle. Downtown is emptying out nonetheless. Same thing all over town.

You can see The Walking Dead all around. It's 1 in 7 people here.

But at least Burns is functional; Burns has a grip on reality. Burns isn't pretending to be something it's not.

Burns has crappy shit-jobs, and crappy shit-houses. Both are at the ass-bottom of the money scale, whether paying or pricing.

Look at Bubble Bend: The whole West side is populated with vacant 3,500 sf McMansions. They were $850K. Now they're $550K. And of course, no one is buying.

No one gets it here. We have an Aspenesque housing market, that has just been plopped into a Burnsesque economy. Bend is so self-conflicted, so paradoxical, inconsistent and incongruous, it's mere existence is almost impossible.

What happens to a place that is Wall-To-Wall with mansions, where The Money seems to have taken on a will of it's own and fled, leaving confused and penniless humans behind?

Yes. It hit me this week.

Bank of the Cascades is going to be extinguished. And the dominoes will start falling in rapid succession after that.

The Bulletin will close. Cessna will close. Even the mighty St Charles may fall. The Old Mill will implode. Most of the restaurants, boutiques, art galleries, festivals, fairs, parades, schools, police stations, and local governments will simply fold.

That doesnt just mean "Cheap". That means Burns. That means No Life. That means Get Out As Soon As Possible.

See, people don't care about cheap, when their lifes work is in peril. Again, drive to Burns to witness the phenomenon for yourself.

I can buy a house today Cash in Burns. No going to though. My life is more important than getting a cheap house. If that's all I cared about, I'd be in Detroit right now.

A lot of people around here have been drinking the RE Kool Aid for so long that they can't imagine a life that doesn't revolve around RE, it's their lifeblood. It's pricing, the sales volume, the transacting, the ebb & flow of it, it's every movement, no matter how inconsequntial, is of riveting importance. Been like that for 30 years.

But in the end, this mindset will prove to be a phantom, fleeting.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Bend went from Safety to Self-actualization so forcefully & quickly, that it seemed like it was preordained. We are God's people, this is our fate to live life at it's pinnacle.

But actually this place is about existing at the Physiological level. It's at The Burns Level. It's in the red.

This is why I say Burns is Honest. Burns knows it sucks. Bend also sucks, but we think that we'll be OK, because we have surrounded ourselves with the edifices of Self Actualization, of that Shining Golden City on The Hill.

What happens in a place surrounded by the edifices of opulence after a monetary neutron bomb has gone off? What happens when you realize a place cannot ever sustain a Life Worth Living? What happens when you realize that Bend has essentially turned into Burns?

You leave. The desert reclaims it's own.

454 comments:

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IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Happy hbm? That was a pretty short one...; March 1, 2009 at 7:17 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: I think we're about to see The Second Great Gutting of Rural & Agricultural America.

Same thing happened during the Great Depression. People fled farming to work in cities, safety in numbers. Rural America just collapsed in the Depression.; March 1, 2009 at 7:25 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Bookshelf: "The Great Depression Ahead"
Posted by rdimesio March 01, 2009 13:00PM

NEW YORK — If the economy looks like it's going downhill now, just wait.

Government data released Friday showed the economy is slowing down much more dramatically than economists expected. But the current economic woes will pale in comparison to the big storm that's coming, predicts Harry S. Dent Jr. in his book "The Great Depression Ahead."

"If you thought 2008 was scary, 2010 to 2012 will bring on the greatest economic and banking crisis since the early 1930s," Dent writes, forecasting that real estate, stocks and commodities will all fall much further than they have already. The founder of HS Dent, an economic research and forecasting company in Tampa, Fla., Dent maintains the sharpest part of the decline will last at least two years. He sees the Dow Jones industrial average falling as low as 3,800, or just over half its current value.

The key to Dent's predictions are the various historical cycles his research has identified. The centerpiece is a 40-year demographic cycle that he says is winding down because baby boomers have started to drastically reduce their spending as they approach retirement. This change is the major factor that will drive a steep economic downturn. But it's not an isolated phenomenon, it's overlapped by other short-term, intermediate and long-term cycles that show patterns in stock market corrections, technological advances and commodity price changes, among other economic factors.

Dent acknowledges in the book that he has made wrong calls in the past, including a 1993 prediction that the Dow Jones industrial average would soar to between 32,000 and 40,000 in 2008. Of course that's not what happened. After further research he cut that prediction in half in 2006, and then cut it again in early 2007.

While his title may suggest all gloom and doom, Dent offers readers strategies that investors can use to profit during what he refers to as "The Great Winter," as the economy sinks in the next few years. And he describes the political and social impacts of the economic collapse he expects, including gains for the middle class both in the U.S. and in emerging countries, at the expense of those now on top.

The Associated Press talked with Dent about the predictions behind "The Great Depression Ahead" and the methods used to make those forecasts.

Q: Many critics have noted it's easy to pick out specifics for any given time and miscues in your predictions about how the stock markets are going to move or what will happen to the price of oil. Given that, how much confidence can readers have in your forecasts?

A:What our firm does that nobody, and I mean nobody, nowhere does, is predict trends decades in advance. When it comes to short term predictions, you know how much I'm right? Sixty, maybe 70 percent of the time. Our main message in this book is this is not just another recession, this is a long-term peak in stocks, like 1929, 1968, and 1989-90 in Japan. This one's not going to be over in a year. We look at demographics, and 90 million baby boomers are switching from being spenders to savers. Politicians think they're going to just fix the banking crisis, but what they really have is a long-term demographic slide. Government is not going to do the right thing, because you can't do anything about this.

Q:Even though they're aging, baby boomers are expected to live longer and be more active than prior generations. Why won't that help boost the economy?

A:Because of the spending cycle. People spend dramatically more money up to age 50, and then they spend less for the rest of their lives. The baby boomers are more active in retirement and they'll spend more in retirement. But they'll spend less than they have up to now, because their kids are gone and most of their durable goods are bought and paid for. Even if these people are more active, they may be spending money on vacations and rock climbing or whatever, but they're not spending money on houses and cars and the other things that stimulate the economy.

Q:You say there will be no major technological innovations to spark the economy in the next 15 years or so. Some people point to sustainable or "green" technologies being implemented now in energy and other areas to refute that. How do you back up your view?

A:We do think there are exciting new technologies that are being developed -- nanotechnologies, biotech and robotics, for example. But we focus more on technology cycles, which come in waves. There is always innovation. But it's when these technologies hit critical mass, like the Internet in 1994 to 1996, that they impact the broader economy. There are a lot of things emerging now, but you've got to remember, PCs emerged in the 1970s, but they didn't affect consumers that much until the 1990s.

We had a big cluster of things in the '60s and '70s that didn't emerge until the 1990s. Technologies are extremely important and innovation is still occurring. The iPhone's going to get better, broadband is going to get better, but you don't get the same impact from those improvements that you do from the adoption of computers and cell phones. Just like generational things, they ebb and flow. The next generation will bring nanotech and alternative energies and so forth, but we won't see the impact of that for decades.

-- The Associated Press; March 1, 2009 at 7:29 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Boom times for 'trash-outs,' in Oregon and elsewhere

February 27, 2009 22:40PM

Federico "Fred" Caprotta breaks into houses for a living, removes the contents and fixes up the homes for sale.

He marvels that neighbors hardly ever call the cops. In fact, what Caprotta does -- on behalf of big-name banks -- is quite legal.

"Obviously if you're foreclosing on properties," Caprotta says, "you're going to bring up a lot more issues than if you're delivering flowers."

Caprotta is a former real estate broker who bailed out of property sales when the market and profits collapsed. For nine months, seven days a week, he has supervised "trash-outs" in a trade more delicately known as property preservation.

Business is booming in the low-profile industry as millions of U.S. homeowners enter foreclosure. One of the biggest players, Safeguard Properties, services 1 million properties a month, checking on them, repairing them, mowing lawns and cleaning them for Realtors to show. The Cleveland company's sales, which it won't disclose, have jumped more than 30 percent in a year.

Caprotta, 50, invested $70,000 with a partner in his Portland venture, Global Property Preservation. He thought it could be lucrative. But trucks break down. Pay comes late or not at all. Expenses rise. For all his effort, he's not making money.

Still, Caprotta prides himself on compassion for people losing their homes. After all, he's losing his own.
Bruce Ely/The OregonianA worker who declined to be identified does a "trash-out" on a foreclosed house in the Portland area. The property-preservation business is growing as foreclosures rise. Contractors monitor, enter, secure, empty and clean bank-owned houses.

"My property that I bought and remodeled is going up in auction ... due to foreclosure," Caprotta says. "I could get all bummed out and cry.

"But whether I have property or no property, or money or no money, I'm still me."

Foreclosures have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. They accounted for 45 percent of all residential real estate transactions during the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Florida and Southern California were the hot spots. But in January, Oregon had the fifth-highest foreclosure rate in the country.

When lenders seize houses, people suffer, whether they were living beyond their means, lost their jobs or suffered some other calamity.

Trash-out contractors defend their work. They say that rather than profiting off misfortune, they fix up properties and preserve values of neighboring homes.

Banks -- or, more likely, middlemen -- pay anywhere from $1,200 to $1,600 for a trash-out, yet amounts vary widely depending on conditions of a house.

Windol Cador, of Duke Development in Portland, once did new construction but got into property preservation seven years ago. He has 10 guys in two crews.

Sometimes they spend five days working on one house. "We want the neighbors to be happy," Cador says.

Cador's crews put aside items of value for previous owners. "You find cool things," he says. "We recently found a whole printing press in a garage. One guy had a comic-book collection that he probably spent years collecting."

Some trash-out guys say they make real money.

Frank Patrick is a broker who began offering services for real estate-owned, or REO, properties five years ago. Patrick, a Kansas City, Mo., native, founded REO ResQ, specializing in bank-owned foreclosed properties. He built the company into a franchise now moving into 36 states.

Patrick, 41, moved to Phoenix when he saw Arizona foreclosures explode, leaving his brother, Scott, to run things in Missouri. "If I'd had another brother," Patrick says, "I would have sent him to California and Florida."

REO ResQ has trained more than 100 contractors nationwide. "The average preservation job is around $1,350, and there's going to be a couple million of 'em this year," Patrick says.

He expects a backlog of foreclosures left from moratoriums and slow-moving bank mergers to hit the market this summer.

"All at once the yards won't be mowed and the pools will be green," Patrick says. "In Kansas City in the summer, we mow 370 yards. This year we'll probably go to 700."

Everything is documented. "An average job would take us about four hours and result in about 250 photographs," he says, "so we have proof."

As unemployment climbs, Patrick gets more applications. In Phoenix last September he ran a Craigslist ad for a $10-an-hour job outside in the heat and got 1,170 applicants. "I had people offering to work for free for a week, just to prove themselves," Patrick says.

Patrick heads the American Society of REO Specialists, which has grown to about 700 members since starting last June. He says the industry is too fractured to estimate total revenues. He expects business to continue apace for five or six years as subprime loans, adjustable-rate mortgages and rising unemployment unleash successive waves of foreclosures.

"We wish we were all back in the heyday of the new-construction boom," Patrick says, "but that's not the reality."

Those who walk into foreclosed homes describe entering a "Twilight Zone."

Portland-area appraiser Sara Goodwin recalls walking through an abandoned house. "It was as if the occupants were abducted rather than left of their own volition.

"I walked into a fully furnished house ... dishes in the sink, pictures on the walls, everything. The only thing that would make me suspect abandonment was the foul smell of stale water in the plumbing."

Sometimes it's just the opposite. A house is missing fixtures and appliances. Walls, banisters, counters and cabinets are bashed and scarred.

The culprit could be an angry former owner or an unpaid subcontractor who backed a truck into the garage and took the appliances, says Don McCredie, a Portland-area Realtor specializing in foreclosed properties.

"The subs say, 'I'm going to go get my stuff,'" McCredie says. "They're mad at the builder and they take it out on the property."

Jeff Andrade, owner of Beaverton's Frontline Resources, will never forget a trash-out job where he walked into an upstairs bedroom and found a vagrant sleeping. "I don't know who was more scared," Andrade says, "him or me."

Airika Waible, a West One Properties broker, hates stepping into short-sale houses -- those where a house is sold for less than the bank is owed.

"They have, like, little kids' rooms, and the kids' rooms are decorated," Waible says. "They have a real life there, living there until it sells. Their little shoes are there, and their backpacks and their clothes."

Waible, who lives in a Wilsonville neighborhood, knows how it feels. She and her husband and two children lived in a Street of Dreams house with acreage.

"It got foreclosed on," she says. "And, by the way, we left everything in it."

Fred Caprotta, the trash-out entrepreneur facing his own foreclosure, sees the smashed-up houses, too, along with some in showroom condition. He finds fleas, garbage and mummified pets, abandoned by owners to die.

"It's really sick how some people live," Caprotta says.

Departing owners don't realize, he says, that when they shatter marble counters and break every oak spindle on a staircase, the carnage comes back to haunt them. When a bank writes off a loss on a loan, part of the loss may count as income for the borrower. The greater the loss, the more taxes the borrower must pay on that income.

Caprotta, an Argentine who moved to California as a youngster, has worked on Canadian oil rigs and pipelines, hitchhiked twice to Alaska and ridden his motorcycle there in the dead of winter.

He served in the Argentine military during the Falklands war. He addresses his crews in Spanish and his clients in English.

Caprotta says his business partner has quit. The father of three plugs away at a computer in a tired-looking office dotted with space heaters and overflowing trash containers.

Crew members botch jobs. Bank agents find ways not to pay. House occupants yell at him. "I feel for them," he says.

Caprotta sees the foreclosure crisis as a giant game of musical chairs in which some people got caught without chairs. No one cried when the housing market soared, he says. Yet when excesses bring tragedy, he says, everyone blames someone else.

Caprotta says neither the government nor trillions of dollars will fix the situation. Instead, he says, it will take a "shift in consciousness ... where we put the hopes and safety of all of us ahead of the individual."

"Sometimes," he says, "that involves some personal sacrifice for the greater good of all."

-- Richard Read; richread@aol.com

Wrongfully trashed-out, owner says
An Oregon businesswoman is furious, saying her vacation home was not in foreclosure

Realtors, bankers and property-preservation agents say homeowners get plenty of warning before so-called trash-out crews break into houses and empty them.

Tammy Glenn says her experience proves otherwise.

Glenn, 46, is suing Chase Home Finance and Safeguard Properties, the nation's largest privately held mortgage-field-services company, saying they dispatched trash-out workers who broke into her lakeside vacation home, ransacked it and took her possessions.

Glenn says a worker told a neighbor that he cleaned out foreclosed homes, implying she was losing the house to the bank. The abrupt trash-out of her Tygh Valley house, which appeared anything but vacant and abandoned, she says, left her anguished.

"It's a horrible feeling," Glenn says. "Your privacy has been taken away."

Mortgage industry members say mistakes, if that's what occurred here, occasionally do happen as trash-out companies scramble to service millions of U.S. homes in foreclosure.

A spokesman for Chase, the Chicago lender that acquired Glenn's mortgage after she refinanced in 2004, says the company is investigating. Bankers say they send contractors to check occupancy of houses whose owners are late on payments. Glenn's attorneys say they are investigating whether she was current on payments during the three times trash-out workers entered her house.

Glenn owns Boring Glass, Lumber and Hardware Inc. and volunteers for Guide Dogs for the Blind. She says she bought the A-frame house on Pine Hollow Reservoir in 2002. The blond, blue-eyed scuba diver loved swimming, boating and water skiing at the central Oregon lake.

On April 5, 2007, a Chase representative sent Glenn a letter saying the bank had been notified that her house was vacant, meaning the bank needed to secure the property. "This property is not vacant, nor has it ever been," Glenn wrote back.

Around January of last year, Chase instructed Safeguard to enter the property, according to the lawsuit filed this year by Glenn's lawyers, Alex Trauman and Nicholas Henderson, in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Safeguard hired another company to break in and change the locks, the complaint says.

Last March, according to the suit, workers entered the house and removed personal property violently and recklessly, causing extensive damage. A worker left some of Glenn's personal items with a neighbor, the suit says, who called to tell her what happened. When Glenn went to her house, finding it disheveled and damaged, the suit says, a neighbor insulted her and said she should pay her bills.

"I was scared -- in disbelief," Glenn says. "This was not in foreclosure."

Glenn worked for banks for 20 years as a financial-fraud investigator. She says property-preservation workers could easily have seen her house wasn't abandoned.

The curtains were open and the table was set, Glenn says. The thermostat was set at about 55 degrees. The refrigerator contained an unexpired container of dairy creamer, she says, and a current copy of a Tygh Valley magazine was in plain sight.

"If my cabin could be considered vacant and abandoned," Glenn says, "most of the properties there could be."

Tom Kelly, a Chase spokesman in Chicago, says the company wrote Glenn's attorney last May seeking more information, but didn't hear back. He says a Chase attorney called her lawyers Thursday after The Oregonian inquired about the case.

"On rare occasions, mistakes occur," Kelly said. "If there is a problem with how a situation was handled, we always work to try to make it right."

Diane Roman Fusco, Safeguard Properties public relations director in Cleveland, says she can't discuss specifics of a case in litigation.

"Safeguard and its contractors follow careful guidelines in inspecting, securing and maintaining properties," Fusco says. "These guidelines are designed to preserve and protect vacant properties from damage or harm."

Glenn also names All American Property Services, IHS and process server Dwight C. Dukes in the suit. She is seeking at least $200,000, reserving the right to pursue punitive damages.

-- Richard Read; March 1, 2009 at 7:34 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Funny that this guys business is "Booming", but his own home is in foreclosure. Cool.; March 1, 2009 at 7:34 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: From last wks comments:

"Keep the future of county growth in the hands of the county," said Crescent Fire Chief Kyle Kirchner.

For Crescent, a small town with a struggling economy, residents say the bill would put them on the brink of extinction, but a new resort could help revive it.

"It would also restore our pride in our community," said Cher Dolan, a Crescent resident.

The bill requires an immediate moratorium, and that would stop plans for the area's only destination resort, now in the works.

City leaders say Crescent Creek Resort would provide jobs, and put more money into the city's school and fire department.

"We need this economic boom to come to us," said Dolan.

People don't get it. Fuck, I thought Bendites were stupid, these Crescent motherfuckers make us look like Stephen Hawking.

"This economic boom"? Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?

A show of hands: How many people would go to CRESCENT OREGON for vacation?

Yeah, zero. What a deranged bunch of dumbfucks.; March 1, 2009 at 7:40 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Many residents in more populated areas like Redmond, Bend and sisters support the bill for its direction to study the impact of resorts on wells, ecosystems and transportation.

"The standards are not adequate to protect agricultural resources or forestlands, or wildlife habitat," said Carol Macbeth, an advocate with 1000 Friends of Oregon.

Redmond-area residents testified about the so-far unexplained drop in well water levels since around the same time resorts were built.

"My own well which is 600 feet deep, and the well of my neighbor went dry in the spring of 2006," said Jack Remington of Redmond.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with a bunch of tree-hugging dredlockers, but they're right.

We're drying up the aquifier.

As I said, The Desert Reclaims It's Own.; March 1, 2009 at 7:43 AM
Anonymous said...: The BULL got the go ahead on the Sawyers:

Police captain leaves trail of legal troubles
By Sheila G. Miller / The Bulletin
Published: March 01. 2009 4:00AM PST

Editor’s note: This is the first story about the lawsuits involving Bend police Capt. Kevin Sawyer. The Bulletin will examine the real estate holdings of Kevin and Tami Sawyer at a later date.

Last month, the Bend police chief confirmed the FBI was investigating a police captain, his wife and their businesses.

As the FBI continues to stay mum on its investigation into Bend police Capt. Kevin Sawyer and his wife, Tami, one thing is clear about the Sawyers: The couple participated significantly during the Central Oregon real estate boom, taking out millions of dollars of loans, trading properties back and forth, and ultimately ending up with a number of properties in their names.

Their real estate holdings stretch from Oregon to Indiana and Mexico, involve more than a dozen banks and have left several investors wondering where their money went, a two-week examination of public records shows.

Their dealings have led to a half-dozen lawsuits, in which plaintiffs say the Sawyers owe them hundreds of thousands of dollars. One plaintiff says the Sawyers took their money and used it for personal gain.

Kevin Sawyer was hired by the Bend Police Department in 1979. He divorced current Bend Police Chief Sandi Baxter in 1990 and has risen steadily through the ranks of the department over 30 years. Most recently, he served as one of three captains, a position in rank directly below the chief. He oversaw investigations and support services.

On Friday, Baxter said Sawyer, who is on paid administrative leave, has given notice that he will retire. Baxter also said the FBI investigation has nothing to do with Sawyer’s work with the Police Department, and that the FBI has not requested any documents about Sawyer from her office.

But, Baxter noted Friday, there are codes of ethics police officers must follow, even when off duty.

“We have a law enforcement code of ethics, and when you’re sworn in, you repeat that,” she said. “We also have what’s called a policy ... regarding our professional ethics and standards.”

She went on to quote the policy.

“A peace officer will conduct their public and private lives so that they exemplify the high standards of integrity, trust and morality demanded of members of the law enforcement profession,” she said. “The peace officer shall maintain conduct in personal and business affairs that is in keeping with” the level of the job.

If Kevin Sawyer’s business affairs turn out to have violated the department’s policies, Baxter said, his position with the department could have been in jeopardy.

Tami Sawyer, 45, was born Tamara Lynn Harris. She was married to Robert Dean Hunt and has three daughters from that marriage; the pair divorced in 1988, and she married Aaron Garcia in 1991. She divorced Garcia in 1995. She began using Sawyer as her last name on county documents in 2002.

At least as far back as 1990, Tami Sawyer worked as a real estate agent, according to divorce records; in those records, she also stated she was the owner of Bare Elegance, a lingerie shop in Bend. According to Secretary of State records, that company was registered to Sawyer’s home on Scottsdale Drive in northeast Bend through 2007.

According to other tenants of the building on Third Street, the lingerie store closed last year.

In 1991, Sawyer stated in her divorce records she earned about $440 per month from real estate.

The Sawyers, who said Friday they’ve been advised by lawyers not to talk about the investigation or the open lawsuits against them, have run as many as six companies out of two office buildings on Bluff Drive near The Old Mill District and their 4,222-square-foot house worth more than $900,000 on Scottsdale Drive. Their lawyers, Chris Hatfield, of Bend, and Mark Blackman, of Portland, also declined to comment for this story.

Currently, three of those Oregon companies are still active. The pair also are connected to companies in Delaware and Indiana.

According to Deschutes County clerk records, the pair own 20 properties in Deschutes County, many of which are rented. Through their companies, the couple owns another 27 properties, the bulk of which are lots in the South Briar development in southeast Bend. They’re real estate activity increased significantly beginning in 2002. Since then, they dabbled in short sales of foreclosed properties; they bought up millions of dollars of property for development. Now, three of their properties are in default.

While the Sawyers’ real estate dealings in Oregon have slowed in recent months, records show, their legal troubles have increased.

The couple has at least six civil cases open against them and their companies locally.

One of them is a probate trust lawsuit filed in October and currently under way in Crook and Jefferson County Circuit Court.

Thomas, Stephen and David Middleton have filed the lawsuit, concerned about their father’s trust. A document filed in March 2008 in Deschutes County shows their father, Thomas Middleton, gave Tami Sawyer power of attorney. The document was signed in October 2006. After Thomas Middleton died, Sawyer oversaw the sale of his home, which brought in $219,900.

In Jefferson County Circuit Court on Thursday, the Middletons’ lawyer, David Smiley, said he wanted to see any bank statements that would account for the proceeds from that home sale.

“If that $219,000 from the sale of the deceased’s residence ended up somewhere other than the trust account, we’re asking for copies of those statements to verify the receipt,” Smiley said by telephone during the hearing, noting that the statements he’s received don’t show that money anywhere.

“I’m concerned that these (bank statements) do not show any deposit of $219,000 that the trustee received from the sale of the residence. ... $150,000 is alleged to have gone into her own company, but that leaves a lot unaccounted for.”

Smiley said in the hearing that depending on where the money is, “this is a little worse than we’ve anticipated in our wildest dreams.”

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for early April, but the court records have been sealed by Judge Gary Williams for reasons as yet undetermined.

While the probate case may be sealed for now, the five other lawsuits involving the Sawyers remain available.

Most recently, the Sawyers and one of their companies, Genesis Futures LLC, were sued for more than $300,000 by Community First Bank.

In the complaint filed Thursday, the bank states that it made five loans to the Sawyers and Genesis Futures of $370,200 between March and May 2007.

According to the lawsuit, the five loans are now all in default. Community First Bank seeks $153,489.60 from Kevin and Tami Sawyer on two of the loans, and also seeks $216,943.50 from both Genesis Futures and the Sawyers for the three other loans.

On Feb. 18, the Sawyers and Starboard, one of the Sawyers’ companies, were sued by Parris Menoni. In the suit, Menoni says she loaned the Sawyers and Starboard $136,668.23 for one year at 6 percent. The funds, Menoni says, were an investment to develop row houses in Indiana.

The funds were never repaid, the suit states. It further accuses the Sawyers and Starboard of commingling Menoni’s funds with other investors’ funds, and then using the proceeds for other properties and personal expenses and investments.

To Bend lawyer Martin E. Hansen, who represents another plaintiff suing Starboard in a separate lawsuit, the reference to investments is troubling.

“When you start selling pieces of something, that’s like stock. It’s a security,” Hansen said. “You have to have an SEC license. If you tell someone they’re a 10 percent owner in something, that’s a securities issue.”

Menoni’s suit says no Starboard security has been registered with any authorities and that securities were sold to other members of the public.

Included in Menoni’s suit is a copy of a promissory note signed by Tami Sawyer and a separate document describing Starboard’s activities. The document states Starboard was formed in 2004 as a company that purchases foreclosures, then updates them and resells them at a profit. When that concept became less profitable, the document reads, Starboard got involved in other investments.

“Currently, Starboard LLC is buying and developing residential properties locally, and in Indiana and Mexico,” the document states.

It goes on to describe the company’s properties, including nine homes in Redmond, two parcels on 27th Street in Bend, and a connection with a local builder to construct 34 homes on lots in the North Shire subdivision in 2007. It also details projects in Greensburg, Ind., for 200 row houses with rooftop patios and a nearly 10-acre commercial property.

Menoni’s lawyer, Craig Ingram, wrote in an e-mail that another client in Montana was also “suckered into their scheme.”

Others also accuse Starboard and the Sawyers of failing to repay them.

In January, Michael and Ondi Hibbs filed suit against the Sawyers and Starboard for a total of $95,677 plus interest. Ondi Hibbs worked at The Sawyer Five; the suit states that the Hibbses made a series of loans to the Sawyers and Starboard in 2005 and 2006, with an original understanding that they’d be paid back within a year at 12 percent interest.

Last May, David Redwine sued Starboard for more than $808,000. Redwine says in his lawsuit that the company borrowed $800,000 from Redwine, his wife, Laurie, and his pension plan.

Since filing suit, Redwine’s attorneys, Hansen and Michael McGean, have moved to compel Starboard to provide a variety of documents, including all records that show how loan proceeds were used by the company; any records that show how the loan proceeds were transferred by the company; and records showing where the loan proceeds are currently located.

Finally, there’s a 2007 suit by Redstone Development against Starboard and Megan Marie, another company owned by the Sawyers. That suit alleges breach of contract and says the companies owe Redstone more than $60,000 for work done on a property in Redmond.

In the first of three amended complaints, Redstone De- velopment states that Starboard’s transfer of the property to Megan Marie was a fraudulent conveyance; that is, that it was done in an intent to “hinder, delay or defraud” Redstone Development.

Several of these cases are slated to go to trial in the next few months. According to Hansen, if any of the plaintiffs gets a judgment, the Sawyers may be required to undergo a debtor exam, in which they must bring all of their records into the courtroom to determine where their assets lie.

But if many of the Sawyers’ properties have loans and mortgages associated with them, Hansen said, those would first have to be paid off, making getting any money out of the Sawyers’ assets difficult.

###

Sidebar:

There are currently six open civil suits in Deschutes County involving Kevin and Tami Sawyer and their companies.
PlaintiffsDefendants DateDetailsCommunity First BankKevin and Tami Sawyer, Genesis Futures LLCFeb. 25, 2009The bank alleges it loaned the Sawyers and their company $370,200. It seeks $153,489.60 from the couple and $216,943.50 from both Genesis Futures and the Sawyers.Parris MenoniStarboard LLC, Kevin and Tami SawyerFeb. 18, 2009Menoni alleges that the Sawyers and Starboard failed to repay a loan of $136,668.23 and is owed the entire balance.Michael and Ondi HibbsStarboard LLC, Kevin and Tami SawyerJan. 20, 2009The Hibbses allege that they loaned the Sawyers and Starboard $188,000 and are still owed $95,677 plus interest.Thomas, Stephen and David MiddletonKevin and Tami SawyerOctober 2008The Middletons are suing the Sawyers over their father’s trust. Their father, who recently died, gave power of attorney to Tami Sawyer. Court records in this case are sealed.David Redwine and Laurie Turner-RedwineStarboard LLCMay 22, 2008The Redwines allege that the company has failed to repay $800,000 in loans. They seek $808,759.23 plus interest.Redstone Development and The Heritage Limited PartnershipStarboard LLC, Megan Marie LLC, Kevin and Tami Sawyer, Jade Excavation Inc.March 9, 2007Redstone alleges that the defendants’ companies Starboard LLC and Megan Marie LLC failed to pay for work performed by Jade Excavation, which Redstone ordered.
Source: Deschutes County Circuit Court documentsSheila Miller and Andy Zeigert / The Bulletin; March 1, 2009 at 7:47 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: The strongest support for the bill came from those who have been fighting the controversial plans for two destination resorts in the Metolius Basin.

They arguing the resorts would be in the line of frequent wildfire, prevent game migration, and put stress on nearby cities' infrastructure.

"We need to take immediate action while it's studied," said Macbeth.

Fuck them. Let them build it, then let's all watch it burn.

Fucking morons. Building a RESORT in the Metolius is like shitting on a chicks titties: Maybe perversely interesting to a small number of fucking weirdo's, but an abomination & no way to live.

If they allow that, then you know we are well & truly fucked. People come here to ENJOY THE FORESTS, NOT LIVE IN THEM. A forest with homes is not a forest.; March 1, 2009 at 7:48 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Good article about the Sawyers.

“I’m concerned that these (bank statements) do not show any deposit of $219,000 that the trustee received from the sale of the residence. ... $150,000 is alleged to have gone into her own company, but that leaves a lot unaccounted for.”

Smiley said in the hearing that depending on where the money is, “this is a little worse than we’ve anticipated in our wildest dreams.”

Interesting choice of words:

"this is a little worse than we’ve anticipated in our wildest dreams."; March 1, 2009 at 7:53 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: In January, Michael and Ondi Hibbs filed suit against the Sawyers and Starboard for a total of $95,677 plus interest. Ondi Hibbs worked at The Sawyer Five; the suit states that the Hibbses made a series of loans to the Sawyers and Starboard in 2005 and 2006, with an original understanding that they’d be paid back within a year at 12 percent interest.

Ahhh yes, the fucking over of employees continues.

What was that RE developer that did the same thing? Took employee money, promised to build them homes, then just offed with the cash?; March 1, 2009 at 7:58 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Whew, the Sawyers really jumped on the LLC DEFRAUD BANDWAGON.

If you are about to enter into a financial partnership with someone who has an array of LLC's, like say Brooks Resources, The Sawyer Five, or Don Bauhumper, then you are probably about to get fucked.

And don't let the 4,222 sf house fool you, the way Tami Sawyers McMansion obviously fooled her grifting marks.

We salute you Tami Sawyer: You along with Don Bauhumper, Summit 1031, and a vast array of small-time grifters have successfully played the only game left in this one-horse shithole town:

FUCKING OVER YOUR NEIGHBORS FOR CASH.; March 1, 2009 at 8:08 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Remember, remember the fifth of November...

Bend developer faces $13M lawsuit
By Jeff McDonald / The Bulletin

LibertyBank has sued the developer of the former Bend Trap Club property for more than $13 million, most of which was for loans made in April 2006 to purchase and develop the property.

Don Bauhofer, Terrence A. Donofrio and Stephen J. Robertson, three shareholders in Pennbrook Homes Inc., are named in the suit filed in Deschutes County Circuit Court Oct. 7.

Pennbrook Homes, which is in the process of dissolving, is a division of The Pennbrook Co., a property-management company in Bend and Redmond. The Pennbrook Co. also has developed commercial projects, including the Nolan Town Center in west Redmond and The Design Center in south Redmond off U.S. Highway 97. Bauhofer also is a partner in Arrowood Development LLC, which is co-developing Tetherow resort west of Bend.

Included in the $13 million in loans, the company borrowed $456,626 to build single-family residences around Central Oregon, which it has been unable to sell due to the collapse of the real estate market, Bauhofer said.
...; March 1, 2009 at 8:11 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

This place is just reverting to It's True Self, and that is a sand-engulfed ghost town.

Lots of people think they will be The Chosen Survivor, but it will not happen.

ROI is -100% when something is headed for $0, whether you bought at $100, or $1, or 10 cents.

If you want cheap, go to Burns, see what that gets you.; March 1, 2009 at 8:16 AM
Anonymous said...: Dunc's nightmare is about to come true:

Bend may alter how businesses fund downtown services
By Erin Golden / The Bulletin

The Bend City Council will take comments from the public Wednesday on a plan that would restructure the way downtown businesses fund special events, beautification efforts and other services.

In a meeting Wednesday evening, the council will hold a public hearing on the ordinance, which would establish a new three-year Economic Improvement District levy and require all downtown businesses to pay for membership in the Downtown Bend Business Association.

Chuck Arnold, the association’s executive director, said the plan would decrease fees for the majority of downtown businesses that are already members of the association, but would raise fees for nonmembers.

All business owners currently pay into the EID, which generates revenues by assessing 11 cents per square foot of commercial space and brings in about $115,000 per year. But members of the association pay additional dues for work that benefits the entire area.

Arnold said the new plan would help distribute the costs of things like sidewalk sweeping, holiday lights, banners, benches and marketing for events among all downtown businesses.

“The change is that we are looking to restructure the way we fund all downtown activities,” he said. “Some has been voluntary, and some has been mandatory, and a majority of businesses feel (the activities) have equal benefit (and) there should be equal contributions, so this is looking to restructure that to create better equity among all businesses downtown.”

The council will vote on the plan at a later meeting. If it is approved, another public hearing would be held, and the plan would also have to be approved by two-thirds of downtown property owners in the district.

Also Wednesday, the council will receive an update on the approximately $2.2 million the city is expected to receive in federal stimulus funds.

Tyler Deke, manager of the Bend Metropolitan Planning Organization, said $1.2 million has been designated for road projects, and $1 million will be used for transit-related purchases.

Officials are planning to use the roadway projects money to help with street repaving efforts and curb-ramp improvements, while the transit funds would be used for bus stop accessibility improvements, the purchase of new Dial-A-Ride buses and the addition of security cameras to Bend Area Transit buses.

Deke said the council will be asked to approve the plans for the road project funds, while the transit plans will be forwarded on to the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s policy board for a final decision.; March 1, 2009 at 8:17 AM
Anonymous said...: Happy hbm? That was a pretty short one...

Delighted. I actually was able to read the whole thing in one sitting instead of having to break it up into chapters.

Re The Bull: I don't think it's going to fold, at least not soon. One, the Chandlers don't have to answer to stockholders, and they have the personal resources to keep it afloat for a while. Two, the Western Communications chain also includes a number of weekly papers, and weeklies (unlike dailies) have been gaining readership and ad dollars in recent years.

The Bull may be scaled down drastically in terms of page count and staff, but I believe it will survive in some form.; March 1, 2009 at 8:20 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: A comment at hbm's recent post, California Dreamin' and Bend Reality

Thomas Ware said:
Well, bud, today I'll have to take exception. There's a great deal to be optimistic about, with no need to swallow down copious quantities of Ambien, Prosaic and Viagra Kool-Aid. For example...

It's pretty much a foregone conclusion in waterworld these days that in ten years there will simply be no water available for Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. No water. Period.

Where are all those people going to move?

Buy low, sell high...

Oh. Right. Yes, When The Water Runs Out, People Will Beat A Path To The Fucking Desert.

Well put, you fucking dumbshit.

OK, this is one of those times when a statement is so completely idiotic, that I have to think the person is putting me on.

Hmmmm... I try to believe the best about people, so I'll assume this guy is just fucking around... No one could possibly really be that stupid. Not possible.

Right?; March 1, 2009 at 8:21 AM
Anonymous said...: Redmond-area residents testified about the so-far unexplained drop in well water levels since around the same time resorts were built.

Pretty simple, isn't it? When you stick more straws into the liquid and more people start sucking on them, the level goes down.

"I drink your milkshake!" -- Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will Be Blood"; March 1, 2009 at 8:23 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: The Bull may be scaled down drastically in terms of page count and staff, but I believe it will survive in some form.

People in a coma survive in some form too.

I don't think it'll be around in it's present form in a few years. It'll be VASTLY SMALLER, if at all.

These papers should start looking at the kindle for some idea of what their futures look like.

Maybe even the kindle is doomed, who knows. But electronic delivery is just an overwhelming force. Pulp & paper is the buggy whip that separates wheat from chaff.; March 1, 2009 at 8:27 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: "I drink your milkshake!" -- Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will Be Blood"

Great movie.

And that brings up an interesting point, not so much with water, but oil.

We have over the century pumped many BILLIONS of cubic yards of the stuff out of the ground.

What does that do? I mean it seems like it's sucking the juice out of an orange or something. Granted the Earth is a pretty big orange, but it seems like there has to be some sort of after effects of sucking such vast quantities of viscous material out of a fixed volume. It's at most a few miles down we've sucked the stuff out.

I always wondered if there will be some sort of "sink hole" effect from doing this, some sort of strange catastrophic settling that occurs at some tipping point. Mass flooding and all that.

Anywho...; March 1, 2009 at 8:33 AM
Anonymous said...: Homer,

Must I write about BURNS's??

When I say I relish Bend returning to 1983, I'm talking Burns.

Let's talk Burns for a moment. The hwy-20 through town is much like I97 through Bend, with a few shopping malls.

Burns has an old down-town up on I395 north of town, its an old historic downtown just like Bend.

Burns is a fun place I have spent a ton of time there, north is hunting, east is rafting, south is hot springs, and west is desert.

Bend is just a base-camp.

In the Bend of my memory it was BURN's, today you say Bend is going to be much worse than 1983, it will be Burns', all I can say is DUH?? What do you think MY Bend of early 1980's was?? There was NOTHING to do in BEND HOMEEE, NUTTIN, just like BURN's when you have a town of paupers, all you have is bars, stores, and gas stations.

But don't bash BURN's, Burn's is looking DAMN good today, it doesn't have the cali's.

Burn's can survive, cuz today is no worse than yesterday.

But BEND, 90% of the folks in BEND came here the last 20 years, they got NO fucking idea of living in a REMOTE desert town with nothing to do. Back in the DAY Burns is where you went to outfit, cuz after Burns you never saw another store or gas station.

Today we have I97 and endless sea of continual shopping malls, but whose going to use them? In the old days farmers and ranchers came as far as BURNS to shop in BEND, now they can go to la-pine or redmond.

See HOMER, I see BEND becoming WORSE than BURN's, Burns is a paradise, its not going to have 50% of welfare.

Burn's doesn't have learned helpless, everybody in BURN's has guns and knows how to hunt. They know how to cut wood for heat. Burns is survivors.

Deschtues County is parasites, Cali Parasites, the worst kind of SCUM.

I don't know why I made BEND my base-camp some 40 years ago, I did and I'm stuck, today I don't drive as much out in Burns, these days I just go up to Canada and go boating, which is essentially free motor-sailing.

The one thing that I can see good about this recession(depression) is that once again things may become MORE isolated in eastern orygun, its why I like remote Canadian waters, I can go back into fiords up there and not see another human for weeks, I can step off a boat and row a dinghy ashore and walk on beaches and wander through forest with NOBODY around anywhere. Just like it used to be in SE ORYGUN.

NO HOMER, the BEST OF TIMES ARE RETURNING.

ALL THESE NEWBIE BASTARDS IN BEND WILL HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE. But where? That is the question, and it ain't here, cuz there's NOT enough water here to support the CALI lifestyle.; March 1, 2009 at 8:35 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: And I say "not water", because it seems to largely be preserved. We pump it out, sure, but then it evaporates, falls back as rain/snow, and the cycle largely begins again.

We pump out oil and burn it and it is discharged into the atmosphere. It doesn't recycle at all.

I mean, it's not a lot. Billions of cubic yards of oil is a drop in the bucket compared to the Earths volume. But it doesn't have to be much to completely destroy life on the surface.

If the crust of the Earth settled down a foot or so, millions of acres would be underwater.

Just a curiosity I've wondered about, but have never heard discussed.; March 1, 2009 at 8:38 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Deschtues County is parasites, Cali Parasites, the worst kind of SCUM.

Agreed.; March 1, 2009 at 8:40 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Burn's doesn't have learned helpless, everybody in BURN's has guns and knows how to hunt. They know how to cut wood for heat. Burns is survivors.

As I said, BURNS IS HONEST.

You can inflict 25% unemployment on a place like Burns, and it'll live. Well, it'll survive.

Inflict 18% on Bend, and the motherfucker folds like Superman on laundry day.

Bend is fucking doomed. I just don't think people appreciate what that really means yet.; March 1, 2009 at 8:42 AM
Anonymous said...: I always wondered if there will be some sort of "sink hole" effect from doing this, some sort of strange catastrophic settling that occurs at some tipping point. Mass flooding and all that.

*

Texas oil was found in large salt-domes, concave formations that trapped the lighter oil on water, once much of the oil is pumped you have water.

In some places they have created vast USA Strategic oil-reserves, but filling old oil fields.

In ORYGUN the water thing is quite interesting, I could write more about it as I have developed many wells, but essentially you don't go deeper than 450-600 or you get salt-water which is useless.

Another thing missed by people is the canals, everybody has long known that the canals are porous, and keep the water table in the area full, and that if and when the canals are piped that all the wells in the BEND AREA will go dry. It's all something to think about in the name of 'infrastructure' cuz putting all these siberian homes all over tri-county on public water pipe will cost billions, and who will pay? Certainly NOT the boss-hogg developer.

Back to oil, there are many levels, pri, sec, tert, under primary is like the movies oil came out under pressure, then sec they moved with water, and then tert they use steam which can get out the last of sticky shit glued to rocks, but generally water is down there, like most things the petro biz uses a LOT OF WATER.; March 1, 2009 at 8:43 AM
Anonymous said...: I said, BURNS IS HONEST.

*

When people in BURNS talk shit, they say, "YOU FROM BEND", like we here on BB2 say "YOU A CALI".

Let's remember that for MOST of eastern-orygun, BEND has been a cancer for 20+ years, no accident that MOST of rural orygun calls Bend "Little California".; March 1, 2009 at 8:45 AM
Bewert said...: Re: Burns is honest

###

Remember that incident last fall with one homeless guy stabbing another and chasing him down Hwy 20? The one couple that stopped and called the police were from Burns, on their way home. Everybody else just kept driving.; March 1, 2009 at 8:45 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Here's the future of newspapers; March 1, 2009 at 8:56 AM
Anonymous said...: Where are all those people going to move?

Buy low, sell high...

Oh. Right. Yes, When The Water Runs Out, People Will Beat A Path To The Fucking Desert.

*

That's an INTERESTING DEBATE, and MY primary argument, which still remains the same, HOMER seems to have become MORE negative, and plans to leave, HBM will leave when wifey retirees. But for ME, everything remains as planned, BEND is collapsing exactly as I have assumed all along. A typical CYCLIC collapse. Sure the stimulus will help, but NOTE BP said the BUS was DEAD, what are they using the $2M stimulus on? Roads (knife-river/moss/mdu), and BUS! Long live BEND-BAT!!! The NEXT quasi-government boondoggle of tri-county central orygun.

Now, what have I said since day-one here back in 2006.

"Folks will continue to move to ORYGUN", ... but WHY?

1.) Crime&Pollution in Cali will become untolerable.
2.) Color, blacks&mexicans will drive white flight to sand-point-ID, and Bend-OR.
3.) Water, much of USA-SW, has no water future, and guess what?? Resnick of Suterra owns what is left.

Ok, lets not debate 1&2 today, but lets talk 3, water. Sure BEND doesn't have the water of the valley(PDX), and never will, Bend has its water shed above Tumalo Falls, and Bend 'city' water, is what it is, but there is NOT even enough today for Deschutes-Brewery to expand.

This is why SUTERRA went to JR, which is on WELL-WATER, cuz they can steal the shit for FREE, yes MYRTLE pesticide&tire folk use TONS OF FUCKING WATER, who could have guessed, Zyklon-B that Suterra sprays on Cali's is 99% water, and the process is WATER. So guess why BIG water users want to go to JRMB(MOSS)??

Deschutes on the other hand needs GOOD water, fresh mtn spring water, not nasty salty, high mineral content ground water.

I think Mr.REALTOR is correct, he must have been reading my SHIT, but see here folks this is where the MYTH ends and BEGINS, of course the DUMB fucking cali white-ass knows he's got niggers and mexicans, and he knows he's got pollution and crime, but he really thinks that with all those COVA pictures of MT-B that BEND has endless fucking water from those mountains!!!!!

Thus we have a reality problem versus COVA PR&MARKETING, sure the realtors will TELL the CALIS that WATER is a endless resource in Eastern-ORYGUN, however those who are HERE know its NOT true, that's why ALL of EASTERN-ORYGUN is FULL of fucking ghost towns. Since the 1800's folks tried to grow shit, and some even sunk wells, and it didn't take long for the well to run dry....

So why the fuck not? As long as BROOKS-RESOURCES or some other MOSS, SAWYER, S1031,... exists and as long as ONE fucking CALI still has more than zero in his/her 401K, why NOT take their money and sell them some BEND-AREA desert the the dream of no crime, no niggers, and unlimited water so they can have a british garden on 10 acres in a siberian gated desert community? Why the fuck not??

Of course 'WE' a few of us here, like HBM know, its fucking IMPOSSIBLE, but POLITICS is the art of making the impossible, possible.

Just like BEND-BAT it should be DEAD, it should because the voters rejected it, but it just keeps getting more&more money, ... it will never die.

Water will become more valuable? So fucking what? City will just charge more right Now I get billed $50/mo for water in Bend on my little home that uses a few cubic-ft a month. Even over in PDX they pay $50/quarter for home-use. I see Bend going to $100/mo very soon, they actually WANT this, cuz water is one of the few things that the city of BEND has the monopoly power to fuck the little person.

Enough I'll wait to be told I'm an asshole, homers post was so short, maybe he or hbm could write more.; March 1, 2009 at 9:07 AM
Anonymous said...: It's NOT often that somebody writes coherently on 'these times', but this guy has put ALL our modern issues today in one article, this is a keeper, there is enough fodder here for sunday HOMER.

The Great Financial Crisis
Economics / Credit Crisis

2009 Feb 27, 2009 - 11:18 PM

By: Mike_Whitney

Economics

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleInterview of John Bellamy Foster - John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the coauthor with Fred Magdoff of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences, recently published by Monthly Review Press.

MW :Do you think that the American people have been misled into believing that the current financial crisis is the result of subprime loans and toxic assets? Aren't these merely the symptoms of a deeper problem; financialization? Can you explain financialization and how the economy became more and more detached from productive activity and more and more dependent on the accumulation of paper wealth?

JBF: I think it is true, as you say, that the American people have been misled by analyses of the crisis into focusing on mere symptoms, or on the straws that broke the camel's back, such as subprime loans. There is still a great deal of toxic financial waste out there in the financial superstructure of the economy, but the real problems go much deeper. One reason for this failure to account realistically for the crisis is that those at the top of the system have very little clue themselves, given the near bankruptcy of orthodox economics. A second reason is that the dominant ideology is designed to naturalize any economic disaster, pretending it has nothing to do with the fundamental nature of the system but is simply the result of external forces, mistakes of federal regulators, deregulation, corruption of a few individuals, etc. Under these circumstances, what you get from the elites and the media is mostly nonsense, though there are individuals in the financial community, in particular, that are now analyzing the problem at a deeper, more realistic level.

The first thing to recognize is that this is a very serious crisis, of an order of magnitude comparable to the Great Depression. It is not a regular business cycle downturn or credit crunch. This should suggest that there are long-term forces at work. These include, over the last third of a century, stagnation , or the slowing down of the economy, and the financialization , the shift in the center of gravity of the economy from production to finance. Financialization refers not to just one or two financial bubbles (such as the New Economy bubble and the housing bubble) but to the growing reliance on financial speculation, which can be treated as a whole series of bubbles one after the other, each new one bigger than the last. This has been the dominant economic development since the 1970s, and especially since the 1980s. This financialization was occurring on top of a "real economy" or productive economy that was more and more stagnant. Given the rot below, financial speculation thus became the only game in town, serving to lift the economy. More and more economic activity was geared not to production but to the pursuit of paper claims to wealth. The last bubble-bursting episode, associated with the housing or subprime bubble, was so severe that it brought financialization to an end, generating what we call in the title of our new book The Great Financial Crisis .

The idea at the top was that the financial explosion could be managed, and a financial collapse prevented. The central banks as lenders of last resort could pour liquidity into the system at critical points to avoid a financial avalanche. And in fact they succeeded in doing this for decades. Ben Bernanke, the current head of the Federal Reserve, even referred a few years ago to “The Great Moderation,” in which the business cycle had been overcome by monetary policy. Following the successful leveraging of the system out of the 2001 crisis that followed the 2000 bursting of the New Economy bubble he assumed that they now had discovered the elixir of indefinite financial-based growth. Yet, the scale of the financial superstructure of the economy kept on rising in relation to the stagnant production system underlying it and finally it overwhelmed the capacity of the Federal Reserve and other central banks to stave off the inevitable financial collapse.

From a long-term perspective we can say that there is a kind of mean reversion taking place whereby the financial system and the inordinate profits it generated over decades is reverting to the long-term trend of the overall stagnant economy, which means that trillions upon trillions upon trillions of dollars in capital assets are being lost. And with financialization no longer lifting the economy as it has in decades past we are face to face with the underlying forces of long-term stagnation. For this reason the best economists and financial analysts are now saying that when the recovery from this crisis begins, perhaps in 2011, it will be an L-shaped recovery, pointing toward long-term stagnation as in the depression decade. Without financialization there is nothing on the horizon to boost the U.S. and other advanced capitalist economies.

MW : Is the financial crisis the result of deregulation, lax lending standards and too much leveraging or are there more important factors involved? In your new book The Great Financial Crisis, you say that stagnation is unavoidable in mature capitalist economies because "a handful of corporations control most industries" which has ended "price warfare". How has "monopoly capital" paved the way for financialization and the creation of derivatives, structured debt instruments and other complex investments? Could you clarify what you mean by stagnation is and how it led to the present crisis?

JBF: The long-term process of the growth of financial speculation or financialization (the shift in gravity of the economy from production to finance) was a process that had to keep going because once it stopped you would have a financial avalanche. As increased debt is used more and more to leverage financial speculation the quantity of debt increases while its quality decreases. This means that the level of risk keeps rising. As speculation becomes more extreme various mechanisms are introduced to manage risk. Structured debt instruments like collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps, and a host of other exotic financial instruments, were introduced supposedly to reduce the risk of the individual investor, but ended up expanding risk system-wide. Ideologically the increased risk is rationalized in various ways--for example the presumed high tech basis of the New Economy bubble and the notion that new financial instruments had sliced and diced risk and thereby lessened risk exposure in the subprime bubble. But eventually, the decrease in quality that goes along with the increase in quantity of debt has its effect. In this respect, the giving out of subprime loans was simply part of the normal evolution (though this time on a massive scale) of financial instability basic to speculative finance. This was well explained by economist Hyman Minsky in his various works on the “financial instability hypothesis,” largely ignored by mainstream economists.

Regulation of this system was impossible, since the risk had to keep rising and any attempt to place any limits on the system once financialization got to a certain point risked a financial meltdown. The capitalist state therefore had no choice but gradually to dismantle the entire financial regulatory system and to allow risk to grow. Indeed, in every major financial crisis over the last thirty years the response was financial deregulation. The risk-prone structure that emerged was presented as “optimal” in the governing ideology and the IMF and other institutions worked at imposing the same supposedly advanced, high-risk "financial architecture" on all the countries of the world.

The real underlying problem, as indicated above, was stagnation. Explaining stagnation is a long and complex process. It was analyzed in depth by Paul Baran, Paul Sweezy, and Harry Magdoff. For a fuller understanding, beyond what I am able to give in this short space, I recommend our book The Great Financial Crisis and earlier works by Baran, Sweezy, and Magdoff, especially Baran and Sweezy's Monopoly Capital . There are two factors basically to consider: maturity and monopoly. Maturity stands for the fact that industrialization is an historical process. In the beginning, i.e., the initial industrial revolution phase, there is a building up of industry virtually from scratch as in the United States in the nineteenth century and China today. During this period the demand for new investment seems infinite and if there are limits to expansion they lie in the shortage of capital to invest. Eventually, however, industry is built up in the core areas and after that production is geared more and more to mere replacement, which can be financed out of depreciation funds.

In a mature economy growth is increasingly dependent on finding investment outlets, and capital tends to generate more surplus (or investment-seeking capital) than can be absorbed in existing outlets. New industries arise (such as the computer, digital product industry of today), but normally the scale of such industries relative to the whole economy is too small to constitute a major boost to the entire economic system. Although the capitalist economy is not often discussed in terms of such a historical process of industrialization (which lies outside the governing ideology,) it is taken for granted in discussions of the world economy that the more mature economies of the United States, Europe, and Japan are only going to grow nowadays at, say, a 2.5 percent rate, while emerging economies may grow much faster. The maturity argument was influenced by Keynes and developed by Alvin Hansen in the late 1930s and early 1940s in such works as Full Recovery or Stagnation? and Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles . But the most powerful and clearest theoretical discussion of maturity was provided by Paul Sweezy, building on a Marxian frame of analysis, in his Four Lectures on Marxism.

The second factor is monopoly (or oligopoly). Marx was the first to discuss the tendency in capitalist economies toward the concentration and centralization of capital, an emphasis that has distinguished Marxian economics. In Marxian and radical institutionalist economics this led to the emergence by the last quarter of the nineteenth century (consolidated only in the twentieth century) of a new stage of capitalism that came to be known as the monopoly stage (or monopoly capitalism) displacing the earlier freely competitive stage of capitalism of the nineteenth century. In essence, the economy in the nineteenth century was dominated by small family firms (other than railroad capital). In the twentieth century this turns into an economy of big corporations. Although monopoly capital, remained a stage of capitalism, the laws of motion of the system were modified. The biggest change is the effective banning of price competition. Monopolistic (or oligopolistic) firms, as Paul Sweezy, then a young Harvard economist, famously explained in the 1930s in his theory of the kinked-demand curve of oligopolistic pricing, tend to shift prices in only one direction--up. Price competition among the majors is seen as self-defeating, and replaced by a steady upward movement of prices, usually a form of indirect collusion, following the price leader (usually the biggest firm in an industry).

With the effective banning of price competition in mature industries (there is still price competition in rising industries where a shakedown process is occurring) the main assumption of orthodox conceptions of the capitalist economy is violated. Competition continues over low cost position in an industry (i.e. over productivity), and in other areas aimed at market share, such as advertising and branding of products (referred to as “monopolistic competition”). But actual price competition under monopoly capital is usually treated as “price warfare,” which is no longer acceptable. Throughout the nineteenth century in the United States the general price level fell with the exception of the Civil War years. Throughout the twentieth century the general price level rose with the exception of the Great Depression years.

The result of all of this is that, given rising productivity, monopolistic corporations end up grabbing as surplus a larger portion of the gains of productivity growth (and virtually all the gains when real wages are also stagnant), leading to a tendency of the surplus of monopoly capital to rise. There is then a vast and growing investment-seeking surplus, which, however, encounters relatively diminished investment outlets due to a number of factors: industrial maturity, growing inequality which negatively affects consumption (insofar as this is based on paychecks not debt), and persistent unused industrial capacity which discourages the further expansion of capacity. In Marxian terms, we can say that the rate of surplus value (or the rate of exploitation) within production is too high for all of the surplus value potentially generated through production to be realized in final sales.

As Keynes taught savings/surplus ( ex ante ) that is not invested simply disappears, so this slows down the economy as a whole. But the problem of surplus capital seeking investment is not thereby alleviated, since monopoly capital tends to adopt measures that continually pump up potential surplus even in a crisis. So the contradiction continues.

Baran and Sweezy summed up their argument by claiming that stagnation was the normal tendency of the monopoly capitalist economy. This was in sharp contradiction to received economic theory which assumed that capitalism by nature tended toward rapid economic growth and full employment. In the mainstream view, rapid growth and full employment were intrinsic to the system, so the emergence of slow growth required a specific explanation. In contrast, Baran, Sweezy, and Magdoff, building on a long line of thinkers before them (Marx, Veblen, Keynes, Hansen, Kalecki, Steindl), argued the opposite, that it was periods of rapid growth under monopoly capitalism, such as the now fabled Golden Age of the 1950s and ‘60s, that needed to be explained as due to special factors. In their view, it was necessary to point to the specific historical stimuli that propelled extraordinary periods of rapid development (in the Golden Age: enormous consumer liquidity after the war, a second great wave of automobilization, military spending associated with two regional wars in Asia and the Cold War, the expansion of the sales effort, etc.). Stagnation itself was the normal tendency of the system and so could be accounted for simply by the waning of such special factors.

If investment and consumption are inadequate to maintain demand, as is the normal case under monopoly capitalism, the government is called into help. In the United States this has often taken the form of increased military spending (which is crucial the imperial goals of the system) and lately through financialization. Both of these means of maintaining demand, however, have reached their limits (the U.S. accounts for as much military spending as the whole rest of the world put together and cannot easily expand this at present), resulting in a deepening economic stagnation.

Baran and Sweezy's Monopoly Capital had pointed to financial sector expansion as a possible countervailing factor to stagnation, but in the 1960s this was merely potential and had not emerged to any large extent. The evolution of the system from the 1970s on became so dependent on the growth of finance, and the incorporation of the giant corporations into this, that I have termed this later phase “monopoly-finance capital.”

MW : As the economy has become more dependent on financialization for growth, the gap between rich and poor has grown wider and wider. As you point out in your book, "In the United States the top 1 percent of wealth holders in 2001 owned more than twice as much as the bottom 80 percent of the population. If this was simply measured in terms of financial wealth, the top 1 percent owned more than four times the bottom 80 percent." (p 130). How have working class people managed to keep their heads above water with all this wealth being shifted to the rich?

JBF: The answer is fairly obvious. If people cannot maintain their standard of living on the basis of their income, they will borrow against income and against whatever wealth they have. The result—if their incomes don't rise, or if the value of whatever assets they have do not increase—is that they will simply get deeper and deeper in debt in an attempt simply to stand still. I became concerned about the growth of working-class household debt in 2000 and carried out a study of The Survey of Consumer Finances , which is published every three years by the federal government with a three year lag in the data. This is the only major federal government data source that we have on household debt broken down into income groups so that we can determine the debt burden of different classes. I published an article based on this research in the May 2000 issue of Monthly Review entitled “Working-Class Households and the Burden of Debt.” I then followed this up six years later with an article in the May 2006 Monthly Review on “The Household Debt Bubble,” which was to be incorporated into The Great Financial Crisis . There I wrote that “The housing bubble and the strength of consumption in the economy are connected to what might be termed the ‘household debt bubble,' which could easily burst as a result of rising interest rates and the stagnation or decline of housing prices.” This is of course what happened, and the reason why this crisis has turned out to be so severe was the destruction over decades of the finances of working-class households, on the back of which financialization took place.

MW: Will you define "debt-deflation" and explain its potential danger to the economy? As credit continues to tighten and housing prices sink; aren't we slipping into a reinforcing deflationary spiral? Do you think that fiscal policy will reverse this trend or is the stimulus package too small to stop real estate and equities from continuing to slide?

The term “debt-deflation” is associated particularly with the work of Irving Fisher during the Great Depression. Fisher wrote an article for the journal Econometrica in 1933 entitled “The Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions.” Deflation as applied to the general economy is a drop in the general price level, something not seen in the United States since the Great Depression, and catastrophic in the economy of monopoly capital (and even more so under monopoly-finance capital). In the first place, deflation (or disinflation, i.e. the reduction of inflation to what the Federal Reserve calls “below optimal” levels) means that the profit margins of corporations are squeezed, even if the cost structure of production, and productivity remain the same. Under these circumstances price competition is reactivated with giant firms actually in a life and death struggle. This also generates pressure for heavy layoffs and wage reductions, creating all sorts of vicious cycles.

But the real fear of deflation has to do with the enormously bloated financial structure and the huge debt load of the economy. Under inflation, which is usually assumed to be built into the advanced capitalist economy, debts are paid back with smaller dollars (that is, worth less over time). In a deflationary economy, however, debt has to be paid back with bigger dollars (worth more over time). This then creates a debt-deflation spiral, enormously accelerating financial meltdown. As Fisher put it, “deflation caused by the debt reacts on the debt. Each dollar of debt still unpaid becomes a bigger dollar, and if the over-indebtedness with which we started was great enough, the liquidation of debt cannot keep up with the fall of prices which it causes.” Stated differently, quoting from The Great Financial Crisis (p. 116), “prices fall as debtors sell assets to pay their debts, and as prices fall the remaining debts must be repaid in dollars more valuable than the ones borrowed, causing more defaults, leading to yet lower prices, and thus a deflationary spiral.” In order to check this deflationary tendency, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have been trying to reflate the economy by printing money (euphemistically called “quantitative easing”). But they have not succeeded and deflationary forces are still very strong, causing President Obama to warn shortly after his election that “we now risk falling into a deflationary spiral that could increase our massive debt even further.”

It is also worth mentioning the effect that deflation has on investment. With capital faced with the fact that a few years down the line the price level could be lower than it is now, expected profits on investment in new productive capacity (given that this takes years to be built and has to paid for in current prices) are depressed, creating a deeper stagnation of accumulation.

The stimulus package introduced by the Obama administration is far too small to pump up demand and reflate the economy under these circumstances. It is less than $400 billion a year, forty percent of which is tax cuts, so that the increased governmental spending is miniscule compared to the size of the hole created by the drastic drop in consumption, investment, and state and local government spending. It is also dwarfed by the total federal government support programs, primarily to financial institutions, which now amount to more than $9.7 trillion in the form of cash infusions, debt guarantees, swaps of Treasuries for financial toxic waste, etc.

MW : Karl Marx seems to have anticipated the financial meltdown we are now facing. In Capital, he said, "The superficiality of political economy shows itself in the fact that it views the expansion and contraction of credit as the cause of the periodic alterations of the industrial cycle, while it is a mere symptom of them." Marx appears to agree with your theory that the real problem is deeper---economic stagnation which forces surplus capital to look for more profitable investments. While the monetarist theories of Milton Friedman are under withering attack, Keynes and Marx seem to have held up rather well. What does Marx mean when he talks about "political economy"?

JBF: Marx was an acute analyst of financial crises in his time and described their main features. However, he saw financial expansions (as economists in general have until recently) as occurring at the peak of a boom, not as a secular phenomenon. Financialization in the sense of a long-term shift in the center of gravity of the economy toward finance, with financial speculation building over decades, is a completely unprecedented situation.

Marx and Engels did place great emphasis on the growth of joint-stock companies/corporations and the appearance of a market for industrial securities that began to appear near the end of the nineteenth century. It was this creation of the modern market for industrial securities that was the real beginning of the emergence of finance as a relatively independent aspect of the monopoly capitalist economy. There are essentially two pricing structures to the economy: one in the real economy related to the production of goods and services, the other in the financial realm associated with the pricing of assets (paper claims to wealth). The two are interrelated but can be disassociated from each other for periods of time. Keynes in the 1930s singled-out the dangers of an economy that was increasingly governed by the speculative pricing of financial assets. Marx was such an acute observer of capitalism, that even in his time he began to see the contradictions emerging between money (or fictitious) capital and real capital.

One thing that Marx did argue in this context is that surges in financial speculation were responses to stagnation and decline in the real economy, as capital desperately sought a way to maintain and expand its surplus. Thus he wrote that the “plethora of money capital” in such periods was due to “difficulties in employment, through a lack of spheres of investment, i.e. due to a surplus in the branches of production” and showed nothing so much as the immanent barriers to capitalist expansion (quoted in The Great Financial Crisis , p. 39).

Marx remains the strongest foundation for the critique of the capitalist economy, down to our day. But the real Keynes (not to be confused with the bastardized Keynesianism of today) is also important, since he emphasized what he called the “outstanding faults” of the capitalist economy: the tendency to high inequality and high unemployment. He also pointed to the dangers of a system geared to speculative finance.

MW : Is wage stagnation and income inequality a direct result of financialization?

I would put it the other way around. Wage stagnation and growing income and wealth inequality are components of the underlying stagnation tendency. Both have shown a tendency to worsen over time, resulting in deepening stagnation tendencies within the overall economy. Real wages in the United States peaked in 1971, when Richard Nixon was president, and by 2008 had fallen back to 1967 levels, when Lyndon Johnson was president. This is in despite of the enormous growth of productivity and expansion of wealth over the intervening decades. Hence, this is a marker of “the tendency of surplus to rise,” as Baran and Sweezy put it, or a rising rate of surplus value, in Marx's own terms. This was accompanied by a massive growth of income and wealth at the top. As we stated in The Great Financial Crisis (p. 130), “From 1990 to 2002, for each added dollar made by those in the bottom 90 percent [of income] those in the uppermost 0.01 percent (today about 14,000 households) made an additional $18,000.” By 2007 income/wealth inequality in the United States had reached 1929 proportions, i.e., the level reached just prior to the 1929 Stock Market Crash that led to the Great Depression.

I do think you are right, though, that financialization made income and wealth inequality worse, and contributed to the stagnation of wages. We can see neoliberalism as basically the ideology of monopoly-finance capital, introduced originally as the ruling class response to stagnation, and then increasingly geared to promoting the financialization of capital, itself a structural response to stagnation. Neoliberalism promoted incessant breaking of unions, forcing down wages, cutting state social welfare spending, deregulation, free mobility of capital, development of new financial architecture, etc. One way to understand this is the enormous need for new cash infusions to feed a financial superstructure that was voracious in its demand for new money capital, which it needed to leverage still more piling up of debt and financial speculation. Insurance companies, real estate, and mutual funds all provided infusions into this financial superstructure, as did the state. All limits were removed. Under these circumstances workers were encouraged to use their houses like piggy banks to finance consumption, credit cards were handed out to teenagers, subprime loans were pushed on those with little ability to pay. Individual retirement packages were shifted toward IRAs that were tied into the speculative financial system. This had all the signs of an addictive system. In these circumstances, too, the real economy, particularly production of goods and manufacturing, was decimated. In the introduction to The Great Financial Crisis we include a chart covering the period since 1960 showing production of goods as a percentage of GDP in a slow, long-term decline, while debt as a percentage of GDP is skyrocketing over the same period. All of this meant a massive redistribution away from working people to capital, and to those at the pinnacle of the financial pyramid.

MW : In your book The Great Financial Crisis, you are critical of Paulson's capital injections into the banks saying that "at most they buy the necessary time in which the vast mass of questionable loans can be liquidated in an orderly fashion, restoring solvency but at a far lower rate of economic activity--that of a serious recession or depression." On Friday, Timothy Geithner told CNBC that "We will preserve the system that is owned and managed by the private sector." This suggests that the Treasury Secretary might not liquidate the toxic assets at all, but try maintain the appearance that these underwater banks are solvent. What do you think will happen if Geithner refuses to nationalize the banks?

I would not interpret Geithner's statement that way. Rather we are experiencing one of the greatest robberies in history. I have written on the question of nationalization for the “Notes from the Editors” forthcoming in the March 2009 Monthly Review . All the attempts to rescue the financial system at this time go in the direction of nationalization. The federal government is providing more and more of the capital and assuming financial responsibility for the banks. However, they are doing everything they can to keep the banks in private hands, resulting in a kind of de facto nationalization with de jure private control. Whether the federal government is forced eventually toward full nationalization (that is, assuming direct control of the banks) is a big question. But even that is unlikely to change the nature of what is going on, which is a classic case of the socialization of losses of financial institutions while leaving untouched the massive gains still in the hands of those who most profited from the whole extreme period of financial speculation.

To get an idea of what is happening one has to understand that the federal government, as I have already indicated, has committed itself thus far in this crisis $9.7 trillion in support programs primarily for financial institutions. The Federal Reserve (together with the Treasury) now has converted itself into what is called a “bad bank.” It has been swapping Treasury certificates for toxic financial waste, such as collateralized debt obligations. As a result the Federal Reserve has become the banker of last resort for toxic waste with the share of Treasuries in the Fed's balance sheet dropping from about 90 percent to about 20 percent over the course of the crisis, with much of the rest now made up of financial toxic waste.

Obviously, full, straightforward nationalization would be more rational than this. But one has also to remember the system of power—both economic and political—that we are dealing with at present. The classic case of full bank nationalization was Italian corporatist capitalism of the 1920s and ‘30s, and was carried out by the fascist regime. Without suggesting that we are headed this way now it should be clear from this that nationalization of banks itself is no panacea.

The fact that Geithner, Obama's pick for Treasury Secretary, is overseeing the enormous robbery taking place, probably exceeding any theft in history, with the ordinary taxpayers picking up the tab, should certainly cause one to ask questions about the “progressive” nature of the new administration.

MW : Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan has dismissed criticism of his monetary policies saying that no one could have seen the humongous bubble developing in housing. In your book, however, you make this observation: "It was the reality of economic stagnation beginning in the 1970s...that led to the emergence of the 'new financialized capitalist regime's kind of 'paradoxical financial Keynesianism' whereby demand in the economy was stimulated primarily 'thanks to asset bubbles.'” (p 129) The statement suggests that the Fed knew exactly what it was doing when it slashed rates and created a speculative frenzy. Debt-fueled asset bubbles are a way of shifting wealth from one class to another while avoiding the stagnation of the underlying economy. Can this problem be fixed through regulation and better oversight or is it something that is intrinsic to capitalism itself?

Greenspan is of course trying desperately to salvage his reputation and to remove any sense that he is culpable. I would agree that the Fed knew what it was doing up to a point, and deliberately promoted an asset bubble in housing—what Stephanie Pomboy called “The Great Bubble Transfer” following the bursting of the New Economy tech bubble in 2000. The view that no one saw the dangers of course is false. It reminds me of Paul Krugman's face-saving claim in his The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 that while some people thought that financial and economic problems of the 1930s might repeat themselves, these were not “sensible people.” According to Krugman, “sensible people” like himself (that is, those who expressed the consensus of those in power) knew that these things could never happen—but turned out to be wrong. It is true, as Greenspan says, no one could have foreseen precisely what really happened. And certainly there were a lot of blinders at the top. But there were lots of warnings and concerns. For example, I drafted an article (“The Great Fear”) for the April 2005 issue of Monthly Review that referred to “rising interest rates (threatening a bursting of the housing bubble supporting U.S. consumption)” as one of the key “perils of a stagnating economy.” Other close observers of the economy were saying the same thing.

The Federal Reserve Board, indeed, was internally debating in these years whether to adopt a policy of pricking the asset bubbles before they got further out of control. But Greenspan and Bernanke were both against such a dangerous operation, claiming that this could bring the whole rickety financial structure down. Since they didn't know what to do about asset bubbles they simply sat on their hands and tried to talk the market up. The dominant view was that the Federal Reserve could stop a financial avalanche by putting a rock in the right place the moment there was a sign of trouble. So Bernanke went ahead, closed his eyes and prayed, raising interest rates to restrict inflation (an action demanded by the financial elite) and the rest is history.

At all times it was those at the commanding heights of the financial institutions that called the shots, and the Fed followed their wishes. Greenspan himself is no dummy. He wrote in Challenge Magazine in March-April 1988 of the dangers associated with housing bubbles. But as a Federal Reserve Board chairman he pursued financialization to the hilt, since there was no other option for the system. Needless to say, such financialization was associated with the growing disparities in wealth and income in the country. Debt itself is an instrument of power and those at the bottom were chained by it, while those at the top were using it to leverage rising fortunes. The total net worth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans (an increasing percentage of whom were based in finance) rose from $91.8 billion in 1982 to $1.2 trillion in 2006, while most people in the society were finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. None of this was an accident. It was all intrinsic to monopoly-finance capital.

MW : The financial crisis is quickly turning into a political crisis. Already governments in Iceland and Latvia have collapsed and the global slump is just beginning to accelerate. Riots and street violence have broken out in Greece, Latvia and Lithuania and worker-led protests have become commonplace throughout the EU. As unemployment skyrockets and economic activity stalls, countries are likely to experience greater social instability. Do you see this crisis as an opportunity political mobilization? How does one take deep-seated discontent and rage and shape it into a political movement for structural change?

JBF: The first thing to recognize is that we are suddenly in a different historical period. One of my favorite quotes comes from Gillo Pontecorvo's 1969 film Burn!, where the main character, William Walker (played by Marlon Brando) states: “Very often between one historical period and another, ten years suddenly might be enough to reveal the contradictions of an entire century.” We are living in such a period; not only because of the Great Financial Crisis and what the IMF is now calling a depression in the advanced capitalist economies, but also because of the global ecological crisis that during the last decade has accelerated out of control under business as usual, and due to the reappearance of “naked imperialism.” What made sense ten years ago is nonsense now. New dangers and new possibilities are opening up. A whole different kind of struggle is emerging.

The sudden fall of the governments in Iceland and Latvia as a result of protests against financial theft is remarkable, as are the widespread revolts in Greece and throughout the EU, with millions in the streets. The general strikes in Guadeloupe and Martinique, the French Antilles, and the support given to these movements by the French New Anti-Capitalist Party is a breakthrough. In fact much of the world is in ferment. Latin Americans are engaged in a full-scale revolt against neoliberalism, led by Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, and the aspiration of a new socialism for the 21 st century (as envisioned also in Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba). The Nepalese revolution has offered new hope in Asia. Social struggles on a major scale are occurring in emerging economies such as Brazil, Mexico, and India. China itself is experiencing unrest.

The one place in the world where this world historical ferment appears to not be having telling effect at present is the United States. This can be traced to two reasons. First, the United States as the center of a world empire is a fortress of conservatism. Second, the election of the Obama administration has confused progressive forces, leading to absurd notions that the Democrats under Obama are going to create a New New Deal without renewed pressure arising from a revolt from below. Meanwhile, under Obama's watch, and with the help of his chosen advisers, vast amounts of state funds are being infused into the financial system to benefit private capital.

What is needed in the United States today, we argue in The Great Financial Crisis , is a renewal of the classic concept of political economy (with its class perspective), whereby it comes to be understood that the economy is subject to public control, and should be wrested from the domination of the ruling class. The bailing out of the system right now is going on with taxpayer funds but without the say of the public. A revolt to gain popular control of the political economy is therefore necessary.

It is possible to start with the demand for a New New Deal rooted in the best legacy of the Roosevelt administration in the 1930s, most notably the Works Progress Administration. But as Robert McChesney and I argued in “A New New Deal Under Obama?” in the February 2009 issue of Monthly Review , the struggle has to move quickly beyond that to an expansion of workers' rights along socialist principles, breaking with the logic of capital. For this to occur there has to be a great revolt from below on at least the scale of the industrial unionization movement of the 1930s that created a new political force in the country (later destroyed in the McCarthy Era). The story of this struggle is told in David Milton's classic account, The Politics of U.S. Labor , which also points out that the rising labor movement was led by socialists and radical syndicalists.

It is important, as István Mészáros explained in his Beyond Capital , that the radical politics opened up in this historical moment not be diverted into attempting to save the existing system, but be directed at transcending it. As Mészáros wrote: “To succeed in its original aim, radical politics must transfer at the height of the crisis its aspirations—in the form of effective powers of decision making at all levels and all areas, including the economy—to the social body itself from which subsequent material and political demands would emanate.”

In the United States a primary goal of any radical politics should be to cut military spending, which is the imperial iron heel holding down the entire world, while corrupting the U.S. body politic and diverting surplus from pressing social needs.

The obvious weak link of the whole political, ideological and economic structure in command in the United States today, is that the system has clearly failed to meet peoples' real needs. Rather than addressing these pressing needs in the crisis, the emphasis of the economic overlords is to bailout private capital at virtually any cost. Between October 2008 and January 2009 the federal government provided about $160 billion in capital and infusions and debt guarantees to the Bank of America, which had a total net worth in late January of only a small fraction of that amount. The rest had gone down the rat hole.

The robbing of public funds to bailout private capital is now on a scale probably never before seen. A politicized, organized working class capable of understanding and reacting to that theft, and choosing thereby to restructure society, to meet real social, egalitarian needs is what is now to be hoped for. The title of a recent cover story Newsweek declared: “We Are All Socialists Now.” As it turned out, Newsweek 's editors were simply referring to the increase in public spending now taking place—hardly an indication of socialism. But the fact that this is said at all in the mainstream media points to the fact that we are in a different historical moment in which radical forces have the possibility of moving forward.; March 1, 2009 at 9:09 AM
Anonymous said...: People in BEND quit paying for garbage collection, and NOW simply let it pile up in their yard. I hope COVA takes pictures and uses this to SELL STD's to CALIS!!!!

Another casualty of economy: garbage collection
Posted by The Portland Oregonian
01, 2009 06:00AM

The Bend Health Department reports on the increase of trash code violations - another sign of the times as people struggle to pay for their trash to be hauled away. Bend's lone code compliance officer has seen an uptick in violations.

A few years ago, the city's biggest code compliance headache involved people with old cars in their yards. These days, it's trash -- around the city, some people trying to get by with less are cutting their garbage pickup and piling it up around their homes.

Though he sees plenty of people who violate city codes because they don't feel like they have to play by the rules, Goff has also run into a growing number of residents who have lost their jobs, are facing foreclosure, and have simply let some aspects of their lives and their homes spiral out of control.

As a code enforcement officer, Goff is part law enforcement officer, part civil servant, and now, more than ever, part social worker. Though his main responsibility is making sure people comply with all the ins and outs of the city's code, Goff also has made it his mission to first try to help people with their problems rather than just write citations.

"I had a mother of four, working two jobs, and I could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice, that this gal is trying, but she got behind on her trash and couldn't get it taken care of," he said of one recent case.; March 1, 2009 at 9:12 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: homers post was so short...

Fuck dude, I've done spunked about as much love-juice as I can tearing down people's expectations on this thing.

Man, 28, Dies After 'Guzzling' Viagra During 12-Hour Romp

A Russian man died after guzzling a bottle of Viagra to keep him going for a 12-hour orgy with two female pals.

The women had bet mechanic Sergey Tuganov $4,300 that he wouldn’t be able to follow through with the half-day sex marathon.

But minutes after winning the bet, the 28-year-old died of a heart attack, Moscow police said.

“We called emergency services but it was too late, there was nothing they could do,” said one of the female participants who identified herself only as Alina.; March 1, 2009 at 9:14 AM
tim said...: Butter, can you do me a favor and swap all your its for it's and it's for its before you post?; March 1, 2009 at 9:22 AM
tim said...: From the Bulletin article:

"They’re real estate activity increased significantly beginning in 2002."

Really? They are?; March 1, 2009 at 9:29 AM
Anonymous said...: Let's talk more about water, and FORGET about OIL, cuz that ain't ORYGUN.

HOMER, HBM, ... for instance when a well dies, they generally don't come back, see it takes water to make water, water moves by adhesion, as its sticky to other water molecules.

Once a well goes dry, they're generally destroyed.

Which of course means that the person WHO owns the property now doesn't have water. Now he 'maybe' can drop a well at another location, but lets play the numbers at $100/ft, a 600 ft well is $60k, and that's just for the hole, not counting the liner ( plastic tube with holes ) the pump, and infrastructure. $60k CASH BOYZ.

Most BANKS will NOT even LOAN property to BUILD a home, if your WELL doesn't deliver at least 7 gal/min in ORYGUN.

Typical well is 400 ft deep, and water is at about 30-40 ft deep, you figure the ID of a home well might be 4", do the math 360'*4(PI)" isn't that much water in cubic inches, once its in gallons, this is why the 5-7 gal/min test tells you about your well recovery.

Most well's below 400-600, and deeper hit alkaline or salt water, which is essentially worthless as its non-potable.

Want a well?? Buy some land and get a well permit from the water master, but first you got to get a building permit, and the water well permit is only for the number of bathrooms on the property, normally in OREGON under LCDC you can only have one home on ever 160 acres in SIBERIA forest or desert.

But these 'resorts' play funny games with the law.

What else do you want to know about wells?

Another thing folks don't understand that wells don't run on solar-panels, this is HIGH energy shit. A 300 ft well require 220v @20AMP, a 1 hp submerged pump, that's 5kw or more startup, stops most generators and blows fuses on most solar charge-controller systems and/or inverters.

So when you have a well you need REAL POWER from the grid. A 600 ft well would need a 2hp or better pump, and some these can get you into some serious amperage, and complexity like 3phase power and 440v systems. A lot of rural areas are only single phase, look at the top of your power lines sometime are there two wires ( single phase ) or three wires ( three phase ).

I'm just mentioning power and wells, cuz some fuckers think, "I'll just go off the grid, and live in the desert". This is why MOST folks in NORTH-ARIZONA have their water delivered, its cheaper to pay $40, for 2000 gallon truck to fill a tank than to sink a well and pay $1M for a power-line to siberia.

There is one way to get water in siberia with one of those old types of pumps that look like a rocking horse that are essentially a series of upside down umbrellas and they slowly pass the water to the top, of course pulling up that much water takes a lot of friction and power, but done slow enough with reduction drive, it can be done with a 12v starter if left to run 24/7, some guys do it, but in some areas where it costs $200/ft for your hole that is 800 feet, not many people have $160k, it makes home delivery of water look real good.; March 1, 2009 at 9:35 AM
Anonymous said...: Really? They are?

*

Apu are you ashamed of Jindal? If I were you I would be.; March 1, 2009 at 9:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Want a well?? Buy some land and get a well permit from the water master, but first you got to get a building permit, and the water well permit is only for the number of bathrooms on the property, normally in OREGON under LCDC you can only have one home on ever 160 acres in SIBERIA forest or desert.

*

Water master is STATE, its essential I explain this to people, it has NOTHING to do with city county, cuz state knows that water is critical to life of the state, and that ruthless locals will and have through history destroyed the water.

Thus the State of Orygun in Salem controls all water from streams or wells.

The State MUST audit all these fucking siberian resorts and private homer owners in this region with their fucking British 10 acre lawns surrounding their mini-me mc-mansion, as the water well permit was for the home and its bathrooms, and NOT for general irrigation, these people are running systems 24/7 to keep make high-desert pucker-brush look like garden of eden 'willamette valley', and that is where ALL the fucking water has gone.; March 1, 2009 at 9:41 AM
Anonymous said...: A Russian man died after guzzling a bottle of Viagra to keep him going for a 12-hour orgy with two female pals.

*

What does this have to do with the Bend economy??; March 1, 2009 at 9:43 AM
Anonymous said...: Why the fake Bend titty's on a flat chested Asean woman?

Homer can't you give us real flesh, or is Cali Fakery the best you got??

Me, HP, BP, DP, & TP want cock, and I'm sure Marge is sick of big fake tits.; March 1, 2009 at 10:31 AM
Anonymous said...: DP ( dunc pussy ) is saying on his blog that BB2 has gone nuts with the doom & gloom.

I don't think so, and I agree with dunc essentially that life for him is good.

The problem is that DP has NO FUCKING sympathy for his fellow man, which is why he doesn't see the pain. On the other hand, dunc admits he's min-wage, and didn't play kool-aide, he ain't going down, and did something to protect his white-ass.

END OF THE WORLD? HELL NO, but the INTERVIEW ABOVE is RIGHT-ON about OREO running the biggest robbery in human history.

...

A depression is when you don't have a job.

A recession is when your neighbor doesn't have a job.

A comic book store in Burns? So what, vital axis of two major super highways, I20&I395.

You laid everyone off, you cut the expenses and taxes to the bone. Almost all your inventory is paid for, people most likely will buy books & comics during the 'depression', remember when un-employment is over 10% its a depression, and REAL un-employment today in this area is 15% or higher.

Yes, we're here. End of the world? All depends on your debt, and whether the police are chasing your white ass. All depends on how many folks you screwed in the golden years? You didn't screw anybody did you dunc?

End of the world? Nope. BB2 Homer seems to think that Bend will be worse than Burns, to me that sounds like Paradise, Burns being 3hr drive from PDX. For these newbies like HOMER-et-al, its a fucking NIGHTMARE.

Kids? Hell yes, last saturday night I went on a damn near all night'r starting at the BBC @4pm, and going to disco's at midnight, and Summit&Blacksmith were pack'd with kids, 1,000's of kids partying and drinking.

But hell lets remember, that most kids now and in 1983, could live at home, and spend all their money on booze and pot ( cascadian pipe weed ), and spend all their time chasing pussy.

"END OF THE WORLD", Those worrys are for OLD PEOPLE.

KID's never worry about shit, unless its a kid going to college, but that's the good thing about BEND NOT being a college town, all our kids are losers.

Partying in BEND?? A kid, it means your stuck here an a loser, and probably working a food joint or bar, like at the BBC where I could talk, all the young girls 30+ I talked with worked restaurants, now and 1983 they all worked several. They bundle up with friends, and many have given up their auto, ... there are MANY places in Bend where you can get a beer for $2/pint.

Life is good, End of the world?? It all depends how much kool-aide you drank.

End of the 'little california' in ORYGUN, that world is GONE.

BEND GONE.

END of BEND? FUCK NO

No more than the the End of Burns.

Marge ain't leaving, I'm not leaving, Dunc ain't leaving; Bend OR, town of 3, so fucking what.

Paradise.; March 1, 2009 at 10:49 AM
Anonymous said...: Paradise indeed!
After 30+ years of full-time Bend living, I am looking forward to Bend changing. Being broke in Paradise the first 7 years was a great toughening experience. It added a new dimension of skill sets that I had been lacking. I am now more Burns than the new Bend. I spend a fair amount of time in sleepy Dayville and Prairie City in the spring/summer. There is plenty to do and it centers around helping out with neighbors needs. Building corals, moving cattle, branding calves, cleaning and fixin the Hall/Grange. The beer flows freely and it's not 2 bucks a pint. After the work is done the tequila bottles are opened and the pot luck food arrives. Everyone pitches in to clean up and drive the drunks home. Even with high unemployment these towns have folks that help each other, no one will go hungry, there is always extra beef or deer in the freezer and lots of spuds in the cellar. They may live like folks in the 30's-40's, but the kinships are unlike nearly anything in Bend.
I do have a handful of friends in Bend like this and they are all skilled in barebones living and cut and haul firewood for those that can't. A couple years ago a friends barn blew away and 10 of us built a new one in 2 days.
There is still a good spirit in Bend, you just have to seek out like minded people. My neighbors and I have a plan to share each others bounty this coming year. 3 save their vegie trimming which I turn into compost, one has 15 chickens whose eggs are traded for fish, elk, carrots, potatoes and more. We buy in bulk and break it down to share.
I see the times ahead in Bend as a new chance to bring people together and watch the town empty of those that refuse to live this way. The me/miners will leave. The rest will prosper in new and simpler ways.; March 1, 2009 at 11:19 AM
Duncan McGeary said...: I understand the nostalgia for those days.

I loved knowing every customer, playing cribbage on the sidewalk, creating a new business out of almost nothing, out of duct tape and stables and bailing wire.

But....I don't see how we get there from here.

Rent back then was .35 a foot, done on a handshake, and they were glad to have you.

My last lease, they acted like they were really bending over backward to give me 10% off a rent 7 times the old days.

I'm still hoping for a middle ground, because I think it would hit the old days and keep going south.; March 1, 2009 at 11:34 AM
Duncan McGeary said...: err..baling wire, though bailing wire is sort of appropriate...

Hey, I just noticed we got a twofer on the end. (A twofer of the twofers!); March 1, 2009 at 11:38 AM
Duncan McGeary said...: Ooops, more like an Octofer! Sorry. I keep this blog at the botttom of the picture, if that's any excuse.; March 1, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Anonymous said...: duct tape, staples (not stables) and baling wire..That was the twofer.
Get out the crib board Dunc as the bored-om will set in.

:}; March 1, 2009 at 11:45 AM
Anonymous said...: BendBB arrested in KFALL's for shooting homers girlfriend.

Man accused in S. Oregon shooting arrested

2/28/2009, 9:47 a.m. PST
The Associated Press

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Authorities have arrested a 25-year-old Klamath Falls man accused of firing shots in a drive-by shooting.

Christopher Ricketts was arrested Friday at a St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, where he was receiving care for a back injury sustained in a traffic crash that happened after the Feb. 19 shooting.

He was charged with attempted murder and assault. He was taken to Klamath Falls, and lodged in the Klamath County Jail. He was being held on $500,000 bail.

The victim, who is an amputee and wheelchair-user, suffered injuries to her left elbow by a bullet shot through her bedroom window.; March 1, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Anonymous said...: Building corals, moving cattle, branding calves, cleaning and fixin the Hall/Grange. The beer flows freely and it's not 2 bucks a pint. After the work is done the tequila bottles are opened and the pot luck food arrives. Everyone pitches in to clean up and drive the drunks home.

Ah, rustic alcoholism. Can't beat it.

Frankly I prefer living in a town where there's something to do besides getting drunk.; March 1, 2009 at 12:42 PM
Anonymous said...: I see the times ahead in Bend as a new chance to bring people together and watch the town empty of those that refuse to live this way.

If you think Bend is going to return to a hunter-gatherer economy you are mistaken, Marge.

Must I write about BURNS's??

When I say I relish Bend returning to 1983, I'm talking Burns.

What I can't figure out is why, if you love BURNS so fucking much, you don't just fucking MOVE THERE. The real estate is certainly affordable, and anyway you claim to be rich and able to live wherever you want.

My take on Burns is the same take that W.C. Fields had on Philadelphia: "I spent a week there one night."; March 1, 2009 at 12:50 PM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Frankly I prefer living in a town where there's something to do besides getting drunk.

Then what the fuck are you doing here?; March 1, 2009 at 12:51 PM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Frankly I prefer living in a town where there's something to do besides getting drunk.

I'm just saying hbm, that for Liberal Urbane Sophisticates such as yourself, this cracker ass cracker motherfucking cultural-blackhole of drunken Whitey has got to be damn near a prison sentence.; March 1, 2009 at 12:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Rent back then was .35 a foot, done on a handshake, and they were glad to have you.

*

Well that's cuz the dollar is worthless, YOU MUST look at the picture at what a gallon of gas or a ounce of gold.

How many gallons of fuel PSF compared, or in gold or silver.

You simply can't compare time with the worthless dollar, and I can damn well tell you that in ten years from today the dollar will make you look back to 2009, and wish for these prices.

The folks that print money are absolutely guaranteeing hyper-inflation.

So dunc what how many ounces of gold then and how many now for floor space?

I know in 1983 you could rent an apartment or a little house for $200/month, hell most folks only made $200/week, if they were lucky, that old 4X. Today folks have to live with $1k/mo, if they shop around. So that's 5X right there in 25 years of loss of buying power.

How much do workin stiff's make these days in BEND?? I have no fucking idea? It's all over the map, my gut says about $30k/yr, which is about $12/hr, or $480/wk, so now folks have to double up to rent, and its 2X of their income going to rent, and now most are getting smart about AUTO cuz they simply can't do that option.

In 1980's early, a guy could buy an auto for $200, and insurance was an option. Today you can find a clunker for $2k, but insurance will cost what? For a kid? $100/month? or more?

Buying Power across the board is down. Hell in the 1970's kids could live like KINGS on min-wage of $2/hr, taking home the big $80/week.

Paper money don't mean shit.

Soon people will be bring wheel-barrels of money to the comic store for comics, so fucking what?

For me I always go by cost, forever a good deal as ten cent beers anywhere in Mexico. Now places like Baja are more than San Diego.

The 'handshake' deal I agree is FUCKING SAD, back in early 1980's you could rent on a hand-shake, but then folks paid the rent, made good, now you let a dead-beat in a rental and you can't remove them, now as a land-lord its a full FBI background check, and first plus $500 deposit, and full check, life history, employment, rental, and all be verified, ... Now most people you meet are CROOK's, then it was take the cash in hand from the first person who showed up cuz you were glad to have a renter, if he didn't pay the following month, you through him and his ass on the street. Today you do that SHIT, and he can SUE you for everything you got, and you pay his attorney costs. Big fucking diff from today and yesterday.

So today shit is hyper complex, and fucking hyper inflated, but tomorrow will be worse.

But marge is right, stop and play a game outside your store, use the sidewalk for something useful.

HEY DUNC, what the fuck are you going to do about the asshole taxing you for sweeping your own side-walk? Are you going to fight it or pay? I notice your being FUCKING silent?; March 1, 2009 at 12:57 PM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: From Dunc:

At any rate, the guessing is over. We're living it. The next few months, we'll probably find that there is no uptick at all. No jobs to be had. Homes may sell, but they'll be foreclosed homes. High end will be jumping on tourists so bad, everyone will go home and mutter, "Boy, those guys are desperate...."

I've heard this very thing, ambushing passers-by, is happening in Vegas, out front of the casinos. They are absolutely DESPERATE.

I just think that Bend will not be the sort of "IN" place young hipsters will flock to anymore... ever. That time is gone.

So we'll drive away the Cali's. Then we'll drive away the semi-oldsters like hbm. Then we'll drive away the long timers who are sick of fighting the Bend Uphill Battle.

And there'll be 30K left, shooting the fuck outta each other.; March 1, 2009 at 1:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Frankly I prefer living in a town where there's something to do besides getting drunk.

*

Mark Twain wrote a book called "letters from earth", about where old pederasts go, where there is no alcohol, and life is good after death.

Let's see they call PORTLAND 'Brewtopia', and Bend has six micro-brewery's, and a distillery.

Marge is RIGHT, when cowboys ain't butt-fucking each other, or cattle, or sheep, they're drinking. It's the ORYGUN way,

Why the fuck are you here hbm?? Worse than fucking prison.

HBM, rhetorically ask's "why doesn't buster-drunk move to Burns, well I used to spend a lot of time there, I don't drive their much anymore, these days I spend more time up in Canada.

BEND is my base-camp, made that decision 40+ years ago, why do you always keep coming back? Its you that HATES Bend hbm, not me, Burns is only 2 hrs, that's only 2hr to heaven, its close enough.

Tourism is Bend?? RIght HBM, what the fuck do you think they do here? DRINK HBM>

LOOK at your FUCKING SORE, winterfest a few weekends ago, the BIGGEST activity they had was the art-wine-walk, it was a sell-out, and what was it?? OLD DEAD FUCK-HEAD CALIS walking around with wine-glasses in the OLD-MILL, and the SORE made a fucking KILLING.

OH, but that is good people and alcoholism.

Look at the BOOM years 2002-2006, wine tents ran by COVA & SORE every fucking NIGHT at Drake park, every fucking night. Where then was YOUR fucking outrage at alcoholism hbm?

YOU GOD DAMN FUCKING HYPOCRIT.

THE KOOL-AIDE that ran the BUBBLE was WINE, & COCAINE.; March 1, 2009 at 1:06 PM
Anonymous said...: And there'll be 30K left, shooting the fuck outta each other.

*

Nope, we'll be playing scrabble or chess in front of dunc's shop,

I'll be running a bocci ball tournament at drake park or maybe even horse shoes.

What the fuck to old people do in Italy, or France, or Greece, ... or any where there is nothing to do?

People play games, they talk, they sit near the city plaza, and if there's dirt they throw old cannon balls, and the drink wine or beer, and coffee all day, ... and then they take a nap and do it again, its called LIFE,

It's just that BEND like CALI is so rush-rush hamster crazy make a fucking BUCK, that people have forgotten how to live.

Like Marges story, its the elephant, she see's people in Dayville ( john-day,OR ) helping each other, HBM see's drunks, I see paradise, dunc see's loss of comic sales, BP see's cowboy-dick;... It's all about living. People have been fucking fermenting shit since they learned how to cultivate grains and grapes, so fucking what, but folks like HBM created prohibition.

HBM even wants to prohibit studded tires.

I DEMAND that BEND citizenry prohibit old fucks like HBM.

Now back to my fucking point, in most villages any where in the world, old people just sit around, even in China they sit in the dirt with rocks and play checkers or games similar to 'go'. It's what humans do, ...

This fucking USA where old people MUST sit at home in front of the TV and DIE, where they can't be seen by the tourists, cuz we all know that in BEND, everyone over 50 is out biking, hiking, skiing everyday,... ( Well I do, but MOST FUCKING DON'T ).

I really do wish that there were tons of places downtown 'community chess', scrabble, bocci, just things to do, and NO FUCKING MONEY INVOLVED, ...

But yes, like dunc paying somebody $100/mo to sweep his fucking sidewalk, something that could take HIM 1 min/day, this town is ONLY about people $$$ fucking each other, nobody can live, everybody is AFRAID.

There are dozens of METER-MAIDS running around marking-tires, everyone is BEND is a fucking spy. IT's this SHIT that makes BURNS thankful that its NOT BEND.

See in Dayville, or Burns, ... People really can live, but in Bend, everyone is supposed to hide, and hide your trash, and hide your dog, cuz a tourist might see trash, or dogs and KNOW the truth, that BEND is a shit-hole nazi prison.; March 1, 2009 at 1:16 PM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Liberal Urbane Sophisticate Hipsters

LUSH's.

Lush's differ from alki's in that they make money from the endeavor.; March 1, 2009 at 1:16 PM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: From Dunc:

Where's Central Oregon's unemployment rate? 9.9% for Oregon can't bode well...

Remember: It's actually 10.9% with no adjustments.

And employment adjustments don't pay the bills.

Him: Honey, I have good news and bad news!

Her: What's the bad news?

Him: I lost my job.

Her: What's the good news?

Him: After adjustments, me and about 25,000 other unemployed bums won't be counted as unemployed! We can still go out & eat every night!

Her: You truly are a dumbshit.; March 1, 2009 at 1:23 PM
Anonymous said...: A show of hands: How many people would go to CRESCENT OREGON for vacation?

I wouldn't go to Crescent but if there was a nice Sunriver or Black Butte Ranch-type resort there I might go to that.

There wasn't ANYTHING in Sunriver before the resort was built.; March 1, 2009 at 1:56 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm just saying hbm, that for Liberal Urbane Sophisticates such as yourself, this cracker ass cracker motherfucking cultural-blackhole of drunken Whitey has got to be damn near a prison sentence.

If it was urbanity and sophistication I wanted I would have stayed in the Bay Area. Actually I'm a man of simple tastes and I like small-town life, which was why we lived here and which we had for about the first 15 years we lived here. My big bitch about Bend is that it's lost the small-town quality, and gained damn little in return.; March 1, 2009 at 2:03 PM
Anonymous said...: Another thing missed by people is the canals, everybody has long known that the canals are porous, and keep the water table in the area full, and that if and when the canals are piped that all the wells in the BEND AREA will go dry.

Bingo. But the GOBs and GOGs have been pushing the piping of canals as a way to "save" water which could then be delivered to the homes and golf courses they were gonna build. They figured they'd make their pile and clear out before the shit hit the fan.

It hit sooner than they expected.; March 1, 2009 at 2:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Be sure NOT to include Rising Star (the furniture store) on the "RIP Bend Bubble Victims" list. That one was an avoidable implosion.; March 1, 2009 at 2:11 PM
Anonymous said...: I DEMAND that BEND citizenry prohibit old fucks like HBM.

LMAO!!! Us old fucks are the only fuckers with any money around here. Drive away all the old fucks and this town would just dry up and blow away with the tumbleweeds.

Of course that's what you want. You're longing for the good old days when everybody in Bend was poor and dumb and you didn't feel inferior.; March 1, 2009 at 2:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Be sure NOT to include Rising Star (the furniture store) on the "RIP Bend Bubble Victims" list. That one was an avoidable implosion.

How so?

I know they were in business under the Blok family for many, many years and survived recessions before, so I'm kinda wondering why this one killed them.; March 1, 2009 at 2:15 PM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: My big bitch about Bend is that it's lost the small-town quality, and gained damn little in return.

Agreed.

If anything it's lost a lot.; March 1, 2009 at 2:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Well its here paranormal time, like space aliens, scientists can't figure out where BEND water went? Who would have known? It's gone national BOYZ, and they have called in the FED's!!!!!! ABOUT FUCKING TIME

Drop in C. Oregon groundwater puzzles scientists

3/1/2009, 12:30 p.m. PST
The Associated Press

BEND, Ore. (AP) — A mysterious drop in groundwater levels in the triangle between Redmond, Prineville and Powell Butte is under investigation by state and federal scientists.

One mile south of Redmond, water levels underground have declined nearly 20 feet in the last 15 years.

If that trend continues, it would be "troubling," said Doug Woodcock, a Salem-based groundwater manager with the Oregon Water Resources Department.

A July 2008 U.S. Geological Survey document said that some of the area's well-water declines are because the basin started receiving less rain in the 1950s.

But it added that many wells "in the more developed parts of the basin appear to show declines larger than what would be expected due to climate alone."

If that is true, then it could have "important implications" for the Deschutes groundwater mitigation program, the document said.

Depending on what the new study finds, it could reignite debate over a touchy subject: how water is managed in the Deschutes River basin.

"Basically, what we're trying to get a read on is, how solid (is) our management in this basin?" Woodcock said.

The state's Deschutes groundwater mitigation program requires farmers and developers to purchase water rights to offset the effect their activities might have on the Deschutes River and its tributaries.

But if the new study suggests that the program is not protecting underground water supplies, then it could lead to tighter rules, according to Kimberley Priestley of the group Water Watch of Oregon.

Drop in C. Oregon groundwater puzzles scientists
Page 2 of 2

"I would think it would be of interest not only to the state but to developers," she said of the study. "If we're seeing declines, then that could bring a whole new layer of management."

For months, state officials been working with USGS hydrologists on the new study to update a computer groundwater model they haven't changed in years.

The three-dimensional model will show the number and location of new wells, add more recent data on rain and snowfall, and show that some irrigation canals have been replaced by pipes affecting recharge of the underground aquifier.

Once that work is complete, hydrologists will run tests to determine how much of the reduced groundwater reduction is due to pumping, how much to irrigation changes, and how much is attributable to reduced rain and snowfall.

Kevin Limbeck, board president of the Powell Butte View Estates Water District, says he is keeping an open mind, but suspects the rapid pace of development in recent years is largely to blame.

His district serves 88 homes perched on the butte's western slope. He says the district drilled its well more than a decade ago, and has seen its water level drop 15-20 feet.

"There've been quite a few large wells put down in the Powell Butte area."

Marshall Gannett, the USGS hydrologist who is spearheading the study, said he doesn't think the declines pose an "imminent risk" to the basin's underground resource.

The study is expected to be completed by year's end.

___

Information from: The Bulletin, http://www.bendbulletin.com

(C)Copyright Moss&Co c/o Western Communication; March 1, 2009 at 2:21 PM
Anonymous said...: I like small-town life, which was why we lived here and which we had for about the first 15 years we lived here. - hbm

*

Shit HBM, for me we lost that shit in 1986, that's why I97 became a fucking parking lot, and I quit biking or walking east of I97. You hadn't even moved here. From your writing it sounds like things were peachy here until 2003??

Fuck the 1960's was sweet, but I'm fond of plywood, so that's why I focus on 1983.

'Sophistication', yeh right HBM, I told you I grew up in East LA Watts in the early 1950's, I went to an all black I school, I learned how to survive. Want to know the secret HBM? You treat everybody with respect, you look them in the eye, and treat them as an equal or better. Otherwise you got your ass kicked, every fucking day. Everybody carried pliers and screwdrivers, for pulling teeth and stabbing eyeballs. Most of the kids I grew up with wore eye patches or had teeth missing. I made a conscious decision early on to keep my teeth ( most have been knocked out now, but god bless dental implants ), and my eyes.

No HBM, the whole CONCEPT of superiority is LOST on me, but you being a 'princeton english' major, I'm sure they taught you folks ivy superiority. Your kind attitude towards people would have gotten me killed when I was young, and as most things to this day I treat people they way I learned to survive as a kid, by treating everybody with respect, even losers, and red-necks.; March 1, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Anonymous said...: My big bitch about Bend is that it's lost the small-town quality, and gained damn little in return.

Agreed.

If anything it's lost a lot.

*

Nope, like HOLLERN said the other day "We made a lot of money for a few years", ...

Neuman-1031, Sawyer, McDonald, Audia, ... Ton's of money. Sort of like a horror flick, where the guy take the money up front from the devil, and spends it on white & women, then the devil comes for what he wants.

Today the DEVIL has big plans for Bend.; March 1, 2009 at 2:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Bubbles have a funny way of bursting. And the bursting doesn't seem to go according to anyone's plan.

###

Nope, everything is going exactly as planned and predicted, no fucking surprises.

Honestly, Homer what fucking surprise do you see? The speed? How quickly the BULL capitulated? Remember, Remember the 5ofNOV2007,.. its only been two fucking short years of BB2.

Some boss-hoggs (RE/COBA) thought they could keep the bubble inflated with hot-air. They tried and failed. The 'press' has long predicted as fucked, like today you said, want to see the future of the press? Kindle?

The only surprise for me is that they got away with ten's of trillions of dollars of bailout 'THEFT' so that the banking system could be kept private, rather than socialized ( nationalized ), but I concur, in time, once people KNOW for a fact that they have been ROBBED, and ROBBERY so vast that it makes the cost of all war in human history look small. Now that was a surprise.

But what do you expect? A two party government, both sides owned by one, a diversionary OREO brought in to finalize the deal. Everybody distracted with PALIN's daughter, ... the ROBBERY will go down with 'What were they thinking' in say 10-20 years. For now its just mushrooms fed shit and kept in the BULL-dark.

BUT BEND-ORYGUN, no there's not one fucking surprise here, and remember, the resets don't end until 2012, and like the expert above the UofO prof says this recovery is going to be 'L-Shaped', albeit with an ever declining worthless dollar.

But BEND? No surprises? Cop retiring over RE deals? No surprise IDIOTS were flipping in 2004, even the cops are smart enough to imitate an idiot.

A town 100% dependent upon Tourism, and selling said tourists worthless desert swamp-land?? Something new under the sun here?

It's like 1920's Florida, that's when they sold swampland to folks from NewYork, and its like the BEND crowd played the Cali 401k retiree like a fiddle.

Surprised? The outcome??

It's always the same.; March 1, 2009 at 3:04 PM
Anonymous said...: HBM said:
If you think Bend is going to return to a hunter-gatherer economy you are mistaken, Marge.

Don't be such a snob, hbm, I never mentioned a hunting and gathering economy, as in the Old West.
I agree the small town has disappeared from Bend for the most part. There are still good people here that hold that quality close to thier hearts and pitch in to help friends and neighbors. That's the only reason I haven't left. I am lucky enough to know and surround myself with those folks.; March 1, 2009 at 3:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Who should I believe?

Here's Butter:
I think we're about to see The Second Great Gutting of Rural & Agricultural America. Same thing happened during the Great Depression. People fled farming to work in cities, safety in numbers. Rural America just collapsed in the Depression."

Here's Jim Rogers:
I really think agriculture is going to be the best place to be. Agriculture's been a horrible business for 30 years. For decades the money shufflers, the paper shufflers, have been the captains of the universe. That is now changing. The people who produce real things [will be on top].

You're going to see stockbrokers driving taxis. The smart ones will learn to drive tractors, because they'll be working for the farmers. It's going to be the 29-year-old farmers who have the Lamborghinis. So you should find yourself a nice farmer and hook up with him or her, because that's where the money's going to be in the next couple of decades.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_10/b4122017811535_page_2.htm; March 1, 2009 at 4:22 PM
PopGoesBend said...: >Be sure NOT to include Rising Star (the furniture store) on the "RIP Bend Bubble Victims" list. That one was an avoidable implosion.

The only way it would have been avoidable is if new owners hadn't bought it two years ago. If the original owners still had it I'm betting it would have lasted. Instead they sold the business (smart) and someone bought it (not so smart.)

When a business sells they base the price on how much money it is making and how much it can be expected to make in the future. I'm sure the price was based on the sales from the bubble years. Look at how much money was made by furniture stores in 2003-2006. Most everyone who bought a new house wanted new furniture to go in it. Sales were brisk.

Then... pop.... House sales stopped and furniture sales slowed. One number I heard on NPR in November is that furniture sales were the worst since WW2.

Running an established business during these times is one thing. Running a business that starts out in severe debt because you paid bubble prices for it is another.

The numbers in the Bulletin said that sales were down 27% the first year they owned it, and are now down 25-30% since then. That's a 45-49% drop in sales since they bought it.

There was a furniture bubble that was caused by the RE bubble, and they bought the business at the peak.

Bubble failure. Unavoidable by the new owners.; March 1, 2009 at 5:18 PM
Bewert said...: Marge,

What's the number of listings and how many are vacant?; March 1, 2009 at 5:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Active listings, all residential types: 1791
Vacant: 586

Spooky

Wish there was a way to check prior years on this stat.

Those vacant houses would go along way housing folks that are out on the street and used to have homes.; March 1, 2009 at 5:31 PM
Anonymous said...: No HBM, the whole CONCEPT of superiority is LOST on me, but you being a 'princeton english' major, I'm sure they taught you folks ivy superiority.

Fuck off, Buster.

I come from a working class background -- more lunch boxes than briefcases in my family. I was the first person in my family to go to college. My father didn't graduate high school and he never earned more than $10,000 a year in his life. My mother was the daughter of Polish immigrants. Her father barely spoke English.

Unless asked I ordinarily never tell people where I went to college, but I couldn't resist it after your dumbass statement that I "hadn't read much."

Want to know the secret HBM? You treat everybody with respect, you look them in the eye, and treat them as an equal or better.

Right. Just like you do on this blog -- hurling obscene insults at everybody from behind the shield of anonymity like a fucking monkey in the zoo flinging his feces.

You are a gutless sack of shit, sir. With all due respect.; March 1, 2009 at 5:36 PM
Anonymous said...: HBM said: "LMAO!!! Us old fucks are the only fuckers with any money around here. Drive away all the old fucks and this town would just dry up and blow away with the tumbleweeds.

Of course that's what you want. You're longing for the good old days when everybody in Bend was poor and dumb and you didn't feel inferior."

Nice one douche bag...

There was money and brains long before your sorry ass showed up. Plenty of rich folks around but they weren't the type to flaunt it. I can remember a time that there were no 911's driving the streets of Bend. Only a fuggin kook would drive a car like that in a town like this. We long for the pre-kook/douche bag days HBM.; March 1, 2009 at 5:36 PM
Anonymous said...: From my point of view this is a fairly good read.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html or
http://minyurl.org/yq
Dunc , you may or may not enjoy this. The Pugs won't like it. The hippies will read it. The Dem's, Jeebus who knows? Who's left or right don't know!; March 1, 2009 at 5:50 PM
PopGoesBend said...: >Want to know the secret HBM? You treat everybody with respect, you look them in the eye, and treat them as an equal or better. Otherwise you got your ass kicked, every fucking day.

The irony is astounding - these words from someone who treats very few as equals on the blog. He must be excluding all the PUSSYs, CUNTs, KUNTs, Cali-Bangers, Kooks, Douche bags, Renter-fucks, man_wives, PUG BITCHs, loan mtg-re HOs, dumbfucks, cargo-cultists, mormrons and niggers. Other than THOSE people, everyone is equal.

His statement shows why he "treats them as equals" - he doesn't want to get his ass kicked. Buster doesn't actually believe that people are his equals. FACT.; March 1, 2009 at 5:57 PM
PopGoesBend said...: Oh, can't forget the "newbies".; March 1, 2009 at 5:59 PM
Anonymous said...: 18 years ago a fellow wearing bib overalls and drivin an older pickup walked into our RE office and asked if there was any commercial RE around to buy. The floor person almost blew him off. As one thing lead to another, this bibbed man bought numerous downtown buildings and spent multi millions in Bend. Who knows if he went to college or high school. Don't throw out you "credentials" and no one will have any expectations of you. Help your neighbor and be quiet.; March 1, 2009 at 6:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Buster is a kook/douche bag of a different sort...the moronic sort no matter where they reside.; March 1, 2009 at 6:02 PM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Right. Just like you do on this blog -- hurling obscene insults at everybody from behind the shield of anonymity like a fucking monkey in the zoo flinging his feces.

You are a gutless sack of shit

Now that was good. That shit is Funny!; March 1, 2009 at 7:54 PM
Bewert said...: From FT.com:

The budget reveals the liberal Obama

By Clive Crook

Barack Obama’s first budget is a revelation. The US president’s plans will not come to pass in the form he suggests. Congress writes the laws and will make a hash of it. Still, this first full statement of intentions speaks volumes, and leaves me in a paradoxical position. On one hand, I admire much of what the budget says. On the other, I feel I owe Republicans an apology.

As you recall, in the debate over the fiscal stimulus, Republicans accused the president of presenting a measure they could not support, disguising this with an empty show of co-operation. Bipartisanship, they said, is more than inviting your opponents round for coffee and a chat. I did not buy it: I accused them, in effect, of brainless rejectionism and a refusal to compromise, and congratulated the president for trying to come to terms with the other side.

This budget says the Republicans had Mr Obama right all along. The draft contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.

To be sure, there is much in this vision to admire. For a start, who expects a politician to keep his promises? With the economy crumbling and public borrowing through the roof, Mr Obama had every excuse to slither away from healthcare reform.

In the same breath, as it were, that he announces a deficit of $1,750bn (€1,380bn, £1,226bn) this year, he requests a 10-year $635bn down payment toward the cost of that reform. Mr Obama knows that the president who gives the US universal healthcare is assured of his place in history alongside FDR. He means to do it.

One may question the timing, and the method as well, no doubt, once the administration says what that will be. But the goal is worthy, one that any centrist can endorse. Most of the country wants healthcare reform and is willing to pay something for it.

When Mr Obama turns to financing this historic initiative, however, he moves left. His budget pencils in roughly $80bn a year in new revenues from a carbon cap-and-trade system – another welcome innovation, by the way, in my view. Does he use those revenues to pay for the new healthcare reserve, or to close the deficit in outlying years? No, he uses them to make permanent the tax credits in the fiscal stimulus: rebates and subsidies tilted to the working poor. To pay for healthcare reform, the plan curbs Medicare payments to private providers and, unexpectedly, reduces the value of income-tax deductions claimed by the better off.

So as well as reversing the Bush tax cuts for households making more than $250,000 a year, as promised during the campaign, the budget comes up with another way to extract tax from high earners. All but 5 per cent of households will pay “not a dime” for the panoply of public investments in the blueprint.

Take this budget at face value, and when Mr Obama talks about “a new era of responsibility” he does not mean: “We are all in this together.” He means: “The rich are responsible for this mess and it is payback time.” Leftist Democrats are thrilled, and rightly so. The budget has three themes: healthcare reform, public investment and unflinching redistribution. This is indeed a new social contract: we get, they pay. Liberals never had it so good.

Tactically speaking, Mr Obama may have overdone it. If I were advising him, I would say that the elation of his party’s progressive wing is a red flag. It mocks the president’s claim to be a consensus-builder, and tells the centre to watch out. Keep the left unhappy, would be my counsel.

The administration will have many chances to row back, of course, and to succeed it will have to. Despite optimistic assumptions, the budget leaves a full-employment budget deficit of 3 per cent of gross domestic product – not counting the full costs of healthcare reform, which the budget mentions but fails to provide for, and longer-term demographic and other pressures. Spending cuts and new taxes on the broad middle class are going to be needed; and to get those passed, the president will need support from the political centre.

For the moment, though, this budget reveals Mr Obama with new clarity. He is no Tony Blair, ideologically rootless, as I had previously suspected. He is a conviction politician: a bold progressive liberal. Yet his outreach to Republicans is no sham; his civility, I think, is not a front. He respects people who disagree with him, is capable of liking them, and is always willing to listen – but then stays true to his beliefs. This is a rare and devastating combination.

For years in the US, the Democratic left, despite a surfeit of brilliant minds, has neutered itself with its own rage. The fixed expression of progressive liberalism has been anger and contempt – with perplexity at its lack of political success mixed in for comic effect. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Amid an economic crisis, with capitalism under fire and the country looking to government for answers, the liberal left finally has a leader with brains, who shares its convictions, yet is as friendly and as likeable to the politically uncommitted as anyone could wish – so appealing, in fact, that the party almost chose somebody else to lead it.

Whether Mr Obama will be good for the country remains to be seen. We can already be sure that he is conservatism’s worst nightmare.

###

Nah, he's more Bush than Bush. Just ask Bubba aka Buster; March 1, 2009 at 8:31 PM
Anonymous said...: Who should I believe?

###

I agree, I posted it last night from the Venezuela press, that Chavez had socialized rice, the factors are hoarding, cuz the price is going up, and their money is collapsing, so Chavez sent in the national guard.

The point MOFU KUNT in BEND?? The Point?

The point is that food will not BE flowing to isolated desert towns unless you have lots of money, ergo if you want 'cheap' then live near a farm, and/or work the farm. Jim Rogers is RIGHT, that said, a smart man, to quote 'Road Warrior' a SMART man would have a plan, and of course our smart could survive anywhere.

But the average BEND dumb-fuck, be near a farm to eat come this depression, cuz if you be in a city, or in a remote ISL like the COCK-ROCK of Bend, you be fucked, unless you have lots of CASH, live in a gated COMM.

Yeh, Homer is over loving the stock market, and always ignoring the wisdom of Jimmy Rogers, I guess what makes jimmy so damn good is that he is a mid-west boy, raised mid-west, and knows the language, and knows where food comes from. City folk like Homer & HBM, really think they have bone-less chicken farm in downtown Chicago, near OREO's plantation.

That was the one issue of the GREAT DEPRESSION was 'food'. You either had it or you didn't. It helps to live where it grows abundantly and frequently, and sadly, that NOT be our Bend.

Yes, like Marge said today in MOST of Eastern ORYGUN, everybody has spuds and beef, and onions grow wild near the stream, ... life is good. You got chickens, and greens, ya got omelets in the AM, and soup for lunch, and beef stew for dinner, and the city folk are eating leather.

Who should you believe? YOUR STOMACH MOFU.; March 1, 2009 at 9:27 PM
Anonymous said...: Heres what Clive really said, ... Tomorrow Daily Kos has their annual pussy issue, and we all voted for BP. ...

February 27, 2009, 10:00 pm
Weekend Opinionator:
Has Obamanomics Vanquished Reaganomics?

By Tobin Harshaw

“The budget that President Obama proposed on Thursday is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters.” So wrote The Times’s David Leonhardt in Friday’s paper, and it’s hard to disagree. Leonhardt continues:

More than anything else, the proposals seek to reverse the rapid increase in economic inequality over the last 30 years. They do so first by rewriting the tax code and, over the longer term, by trying to solve some big causes of the middle-class income slowdown, like high medical costs and slowing educational gains.

After Mr. Obama spent much of his first five weeks in office responding to the financial crisis, his budget effectively tried to reclaim momentum for the priorities on which he campaigned.

His efforts would add to a budget deficit already swollen by Mr. Bush’s policies and the recession, creating the largest deficit, relative to the size of the economy, since World War II. Erasing that deficit will require some tough choices — about further spending cuts and tax increases — that Mr. Obama avoided this week.

So the revolution has come. Now, will it bring a new égalité, or will we simply lose our heads?

Some say the president’s budget is the opening shot of a revolution. Others call it a bunch of fuzzy numbers.

“It represents the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than forty years,” writes Robert Reich, the former Clinton labor secretary, at American Prospect. And he’s thrilled: “Fairness is at stake but so is the economy as a whole. This Mini Depression is partly the result of a widening gap between what Americans can afford to buy and what Americans, when fully employed, can produce. And that gap is in no small measure due to the widening gap in incomes, since the rich don’t devote nearly as large a portion of their incomes to buying things as middle and lower-income people. The rich, after all, already have most of what they want.”

Hmmm, I think the rich might beg to differ on that last point.

The Atlantic’s Clive Crook thinks the president’s sheer audicity should shame his lefty critics: “To announce an initiative of that scale and scope in the same budget that predicts a $1.75 trillion deficit in 2009, and a full-employment deficit of 3% of GDP even after ten years of brisk recovery and steady growth, took some nerve. Obama clearly has plenty. Left-leaning Democrats who have spent recent weeks moaning about centrist appointments and attempts at outreach to Republicans should hang their heads in shame. This is the budget they have been dreaming about for years.”

Yet Crook seems to wonder if audacity is leading to hubris:

In this “new era of responsibility”, as the budget document is called, it would have been better for Obama to signal that huge and desirable initiatives like universal health care will impose at least some costs on all Americans. It is literally impossible to make the rich pay for everything, and telling 95% of voters that they can have all these things at no cost is not good leadership. It has even less to do with shared responsibility.

For all I know, however, it might be good politics. We will have to see how that plays out. One thing, though: unless and until he adjusts the message of this budget, Obama’s claim to be centrist and pragmatic looks false. On the stimulus, he successfully characterised the Republicans as unconstructive doctrinaire rejectionists and himself as the pragmatic bipartisan leader. It wouldn’t have taken much in this budget to build on that success: on taxes, confining himself to reversing the Bush tax cuts, as he promised in the campaign, might have been enough. The surprise of the extra $30 billion a year in capped deductions was enough to make “redistribution” the big story. Time will tell if that was a mistake.

Some on the right feel we don’t need any time to make that judgment. “I don’t recall Obama nor the democrats running on a platform to kill Reaganism,” writes A.J. Strata at the Strata-Sphere. He continues:

Reagan is one of this nation’s most beloved and respected Presidents. He made us feel good about ourselves and broke us out from the darkness of government dependency and brought us into the light of self responsibility and achievement …

I have been hearing a lot about rolling back Reaganism since Obama has taken office. Personally I think it is a really dumb idea which will backfire all over the Democrats. People have tasted the fruits of individual responsibility for too long to want to move into a dependency mode where we wait on the bureaucrat gods to hand out our rewards for living.

Reagan touched something inherent in America, he did not befuddle or fool America with misleading sound bites. He tapped into our spirits and reminded us we can get through tough times. There is no undoing that, nor the policies that line up with that kind of thinking.

(Strata notes that a new Rassmusen poll on Reagan’s famous saying that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” found that “59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.”)

Speaking of actual data, the AP’s Martin Crutsinger has found some folks who think optimism might be blinding the administration’s number crunchers:

The Obama administration’s outlook has private economists wondering: Has Rosy Scenario made a comeback?

President Barack Obama’s first budget is based on economic assumptions that are significantly higher than the forecasts of many private economists which could make it harder to reach his goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term …

The administration predicted that the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, will shrink by 1.2 percent this year but will grow by a solid 3.2 percent in 2010. That growth would be followed by even stronger increases of 4 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012 and 4.2 percent in 2013.

By contrast, the consensus of forecasters surveyed by Blue Chip Economic Indicators in February predicted that the GDP will fall by a larger 1.9 percent this year and then increase at weaker rates of 2.1 percent in 2010, 2.9 percent in 2011 and 2012 and 2.8 percent in 2013.

The White House, however, is going to counter such criticisms vehemently, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Sudeep Reddy:

Speaking to reporters Thursday, White House economist Christina Romer called the projections an “honest forecast” by the administration’s professional forecasters. “I’d reject the premise that we’re noticeably rosier,” she said. “We certainly are somewhat more optimistic, but certainly nothing out of the ballpark.”

Ms. Romer, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, said the forecast incorporates expected effects from the recently passed $787 billion stimulus package, the ongoing financial-sector rescue and plans to help homeowners and the housing market. She noted that some private-sector forecasts, which are averaged into the Blue Chip consensus figures, don’t fully include all of those efforts.

(Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, formerly of the Bush White House, has this data in reader-friendly form.)

Count the Atlantic’s Megan McArdle among those who aren’t buying Romer’s line; and while McArdle isn’t surprised by numbers game-playing, she’s galled that the president “has actually gotten everyone to congratulate him for his breathtaking honesty.” Here’s the perfidy, in her opinion:

Take the Iraq war. We were not, under any administration, going to spend as much in 2015 as we did in 2005. But by treating that spending as an ongoing cost, Obama now gets to take as much credit for reducing it as he would for closing permanent air bases in Germany, or trimming Social Security. Reducing the cost of “overseas contingency operations” acounts for $1.5 trillion of Obama’s much vaunted $2 trillion in savings. Likewise the AMT fix–with high-end incomes falling, deflation in the air, and homeownership rates declining, AMT collections are going to decline even without a fix; this lets them recognize the entire decline at a time when the numbers are so large that taxpayers are too dazed to notice the fall.

The Obama administration is hardly the first to calculate the numbers to allow them to deliver upside surprises; during the Bush administration, the forecasts issued by the White House’s Office and Management and Budget started to diverge from those of the Congressional Budget Office in an unexpected direction: they became markedly more pessimistic. Few people think it was an accident that this allowed the Bush administration to deliver a steady stream of “Surprise! The budget deficit is falling even faster than expected!” announcements.

Obama needs those big bath numbers on the Iraq side, because it seems unlikely that a lot of the things he’s counting on to bailout his budget are going to materialize. Health care savings are often promised by American politicians, but so far never delivered. The cap and trade revenues which are supposed to deliver $625 billion over the next 10 years are going to be politically controversial, and also, highly dependent on energy demand–if there are too many permits, they won’t yield much revenue.

Indeed, though Obama is getting a lot of credit for projecting out ten years, I’m not sure I see the point from an economic, rather than a political, perspective. These models consist of the modellers assuming that most things will continue to be largely as they are, unless the economy is in a recession, in which case everything will return to 3% trend growth 18 months after the recession started. They don’t track reality all that much better than you would by throwing darts at a board with a bounded range of GDP growth around a mean of 3%. Given that we are in most unual times, they are particularly suspect now.

Well, at least nobody’s complaining that Obama isn’t spending enough, right? Never say never, reminds the New Republic’s Bradford Plumer:

As mentioned earlier, the White House’s newly unveiled budget proposal plans to raise $646 billion in tax revenue between 2012 and 2019 by auctioning off carbon permits under a cap-and-trade regime—about $80 billion per year. But what sorts of assumptions are they making here? What, exactly, are they envisioning for climate policy? On a White House conference call just now with reporters, a handful of senior administration officials unspooled their thinking a bit.

First, the basics: The White House is assuming we’ll have a cap-and-trade system up and functioning by 2012, which might be feasible if Congress finalized legislation this year or early next, though we’re talking breakneck speed. (”It’s an optimistic calendar,” one official admitted.) The proposed cap would aim to slash U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, with an 83 percent cut by 2050. Officials were quick to note that the conversation on this “was just beginning,” but that may not entirely placate green critics, because those targets are actually fairly timid. Indeed, recent climate science suggests we should shoot for a 20 percent cut below 1990 levels by 2020—a far steeper reduction than Obama’s contemplating.

On a related note, the White House is expecting the price of carbon will settle at around $20 per ton. That’s actually cheaper than the price under Europe’s emissions-trading regime (before the financial crisis hit), and it’s cheaper than the $28 per ton predicted under last year’s Boxer-Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill, which was lambasted by many environmentalists as far too flimsy. Administration officials did, again, caution that this figure was just a “placeholder” and a “fairly conservative number” at that.

And at least one liberal blogger laments some of the increased spending — here’s David Corn at CQ Politics:

The Defense Department is a big winner in the Obama budget unveiled on Thursday morning. The Pentagon’s base budget gets a hefty $533.7 billion, up 4 percent from 2009–not a bad raise these days. And this figure excludes money for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The budget includes an additional $75 billion for “overseas contingency operations”–meaning Iraq, Afghanistan and other missions–for 2009 and $130 billion for 2010.

Some House liberals had been pushing for a cut in military spending to free up money for Obama’s other priorities. He didn’t hear them.

The budget overview released by the administration notes that the expanded Pentagon budget will allow Obama “to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps, to continue to improve the medical treatment of wounded servicemembers, and to reform the acquisition process.” The report boasts that the Pentagon will be “doing more” to address post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Which is admirable. But the document says nothing about cutting any big-ticket weapons programs. Such cuts could still materialize as a result of the Defense Review underway–which is supposed to identify and prioritize Pentagon goals–but for now it seems as if the Pentagon dodged a bullet.

O.K., as much as we all love using our calculators, time to talk bigger themes. I just got off the phone with Lou Cannon, the author of five books on Reagan (and a contributor to The Times’s ongoing 100 Days blog), who thinks the whole discussion of Obama being the anti-Reagan is misdirected. “Reagan was the greatest creator of the deficit in American history, far outdoing F.D.R. and Lyndon Johnson,” Cannon said. “In his budgets, programs weren’t fully funded and he wasn’t willing to tackle entitlements. In fact, the Obama budget is more like one of Reagan’s than one of Clinton’s.”

Not probably what today’s devout Reaganites want to hear, including National Review’s Rich Lowry, who seems to think that Obama has more in common with George H.W. (”No New Taxes”) Bush than with the Gipper.

In his speech, Obama didn’t want his listeners to think he’s a big-government heir to Lyndon Johnson, so he talked of slashing waste. He said his team had begun going “line by line” through the budget, and “we have already identified $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.”

In common parlance, “savings” is taken to mean . . . well, savings. But half of this $2 trillion is accounted for by Obama’s planned tax increases on the rich — in other words, he has identified revenue, not savings …

Even as he expands government, Obama forswears any interest in expanding government and says he’s scaling back: “Everyone will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars, and that includes me.” Really? The only programs he said he’d cut were ineffective education programs, useless weapons systems, and subsidies to agribusiness, and his budget increases discretionary spending by 12 percent next year. To paraphrase Bob Dole, where’s the austerity?

“What’s particularly odious about Obama’s scare tactics is that he’s using them for the mother of all bait-and-switches,” adds Lowry’s colleague Jonah Goldberg. “He justifiably scares people about the magnitude of the financial crisis, but uses that fear not to sell them on a solution to the crisis but to trick them into signing up for a new Great Society. It’s like convincing someone he’s got cancer and then telling him that’s why he needs to buy a new car.”

And the former Times columnist William Kristol, writing in The Washington Post on Obama’s televised address, called it “the most unabashedly liberal and big-government speech a president has delivered to Congress since Lyndon Baines Johnson.” He added”

Obama intends to use his big three issues — energy, health care and education — to transform the role of the federal government as fundamentally as did the New Deal and the Great Society…

Conservatives and Republicans will disapprove of this effort. They will oppose it. Can they do so effectively?

Perhaps — if they can find reasons to obstruct and delay. They should do their best not to permit Obama to rush his agenda through this year. They can’t allow Obama to make of 2009 what Franklin Roosevelt made of 1933 or Johnson of 1965. Slow down the policy train. Insist on a real and lengthy debate. Conservatives can’t win politically right now. But they can raise doubts, they can point out other issues that we can’t ignore (especially in national security and foreign policy), they can pick other fights — and they can try in any way possible to break Obama’s momentum. Only if this happens will conservatives be able to get a hearing for their (compelling, in my view) arguments against big-government, liberal-nanny-state social engineering — and for their preferred alternatives.

Well, it’s those alternatives, preferred or not, that remain the question. If they exist, one would expect to find them at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, but if the American Spectator’s John Tabin is any indication, it seems any search would be in vain.

I’ve been wandering around CPAC today, and I have to say I find a lot of it rather depressing. There’s a whole lot of talk about strategy and getting the message out (especially through Twitter and Facebook), but surprisingly little about what the message ought to be. It hasn’t always been like this; in past years there have been heated policy debates at CPAC over issues that divide the right, like drugs and immigration. There’s a foreign policy panel later today that promises some friction, but that’s about it. The right needs to be hashing out its policy ideas if its going to be politically relevant again in the post-Bush era. I would have thought this would be obvious, but apparently it isn’t.

As for fresh blood, the Politico’s Andy Barr is eyeing the star of the show.

The Conservative Political Action Conference may not have A-list Govs. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) or Bobby Jindal (R-La.) this year, but it has Samuel Wurzelbacher.

Wurzelbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber,” is getting the rock-star treatment at CPAC, mobbed by attendees seeking autographs, handshakes and photos.

“Oh my god, there he is,” one flustered young woman shouted, holding her hand over her mouth upon spotting the McCain campaign icon.

“I love this guy,” a middle-aged man said as he put his arm around Wurzelbacher to pose for a picture.

CPAC, a blend of movement and politics, plays host to heavyweight Republican pols, conservative policy wonks, fringe groups and numerous other organizations and interests. It’s hard to tell where Wurzelbacher fits into this mix, but he undoubtedly does.

It’s hard to imagine what Ronald Reagan — who certainly knew show business, but only in the pre-”American Idol” world — would have thought of Joe the Plumber. But it takes less imagination to to guess what he would have thought of Barack Obama’s use of the word “responsibility” on the cover of a budget document intended to consign the Great Communicator to the dustbin of history.

—————————-

Last week’s column on Eric Holder and “post-racial” America brought in its fair share of grumblings. “How were these particular commentators chosen and what qualifies their opinions as worthy of consideration?” asked commenter “Jerry Spiegler.”

Not by pitch of their voices or the patterns of their pajamas. The Opinionator simply chooses to highlight those voices that interest him most, either for their sage words or because they typify dominant lines of thought out in the blogosphere. The Web is too big a place for me to be comprehensive, encyclopedic or to offer equal time to all. As for the commentators’ qualifications, most have small bios on their blogs, but the Opinionator is more concerned with a quality of a post than the c.v. of the blogger.

“Tobin, a lot of us are offended by Holder’s race-baiting, despite attempts to pretend he only meant the whole nation,” added commenter “Chris.” “It’s disingenuous to heap lopsided scorn on conservative blogs protesting this - some of those blogs are truly off the deep end, agreed - but thoughtful conservatives and a very large number of liberals (including myself) are also angry about Holder’s bullying.”

First, it was Ta-Nehisi Coates, not the Opinionator, who made the claim that Holder was making “a statement about the entire nation.” Second, I’m not sure on whom I heaped scorn. I simply cited interesting quotes from Jonah Goldberg, Ward Connerly, John McCormack and other conservatives.

And a little promo for my day job from reader “larry buchas”: “You cannot dispute the social class differences in America. Sure, it has improved. But we have a long way to go after Barack Obama. For starters, I suggest coming up with answers for Tony Dungy’s column the other day.”

For those who want to do so, you can find Coach Dungy’s article on the paucity of African-American college football coaches here. And, for those wanting more perspective on Eric Holder’s speech, take a look at Stephen L. Carter’s article from Wednesday’s Op-Ed page.; March 1, 2009 at 9:32 PM
Anonymous said...: "Homer is ... always ignoring the wisdom of Jimmy Rogers, I guess what makes jimmy so damn good is that he is a mid-west boy, raised mid-west, and knows the language, and knows where food comes from."

No, I think Jimmy loves agriculture because he that's what he's SELLING: commodities. You think he's tellling us to go into agriculture out of the goodness of his heart? No, it's becomes he's long agricultural commodities and wants them to go UP, UP, UP.

It's like asking Buster if he thinks you should buy one of his currently unrentable little houses -- of course he'll say that's where you should be at.; March 1, 2009 at 9:46 PM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: CACB hit 61 cents a few minutes ago, DOWN 32% FOR THE DAY

Ho hummmmm....; March 2, 2009 at 7:29 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: And not to be a repetitive asshole, but

GET YOUR MONEY OUT OF CACB NOW!

GET IN YOUR CAR RIGHT NOW!

BE THERE WHEN IT OPENS!

GET YOUR MONEY!; March 2, 2009 at 7:31 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: Well, we're back to the 6,000's on the DJIA, after a 13 yr hiatus.

WHO WOULD HAVE KNOWN? WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED?

Oh, Jeebus H Christmas, someone shoot me.; March 2, 2009 at 7:43 AM
Anonymous said...: Cacb low today 0.61, currently 0.75, DOW below 7,000,

DOW 4000, here we come, Like Bend, I'm now willing to openly discuss

DOW 400

Why the fuck not? Is there a bottom??; March 2, 2009 at 7:47 AM
Anonymous said...: People have been fucking fermenting shit since they learned how to cultivate grains and grapes, so fucking what, but folks like HBM created prohibition.

HBM even wants to prohibit studded tires.

I DEMAND that BEND citizenry prohibit old fucks like HBM.

*

HBM, is so fucking Intellectually LAZY, I didn't say he should be ran out of town cuz he's old, I said he should be ran out cuz he's a prohibitionist. From banning alcohol, to pot, to guns, to studded tires, these fuckers are fuck-heads.

WRT progressive ideas I enjoy HBM, but his prohibition-ism, his nanny-ism, is continual condescension towards red-necks is nauseating. Too me HBM hates all that is good. He hates pussy, he hates booze, he hates big trucks, he hates guns, he hates dogs.

What does HBM like?? Other than Books?; March 2, 2009 at 7:51 AM
Anonymous said...: No, I think Jimmy loves agriculture because he that's what he's SELLING: commodities.

[ YES, but thats NOT the point, Rogers is also telling people WHO don't have money to buy his 'paper' that they need to get near a farm and quick, and its a good POINT. Rogers knows that his 'futures paper' can't be eaten, he's from the midwest. Rogers is a billionaire he'll survive hell yes, he sells commoditys, but thats not the point, today he's advocating that poor people NOT sit in the desert or city and wait for food to be brought to them. ]

It's like asking Buster if he thinks you should buy one of his currently unrentable little houses -- of course he'll say that's where you should be at.

[ I rent the nicest, cheapest, little homes in the city I prefer under 1,000 sq-ft cheap. Nice, ... No Vacancy. Sorry. ]

Homer says "Move to the City".

[ This is what started this homer versus rogers thread. Just yesterday I was hearing Rogers talk about people returning to the farm, that the farmer would be king, that un-employed 'brokers' would be begging for jobs so they could eat and feed their family. NOTHING about selling fucking commodities. WRT he's obviously just another part of that fucking biz, homer sells stocks, Rogers sell commoditys, they're both whores. YEs. ]

Today in our area we're already seeing the trend, up in MADR-ASS white-folk are beggiing the farmers for jobs ( they grow wheat ), its pushing out the Mexicans.; March 2, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Bewert said...: Looks like CACB opened late, too. On strong selling pressure. Ugly.; March 2, 2009 at 8:03 AM
Anonymous said...: I said he should be ran out cuz he's a prohibitionist. From banning alcohol, to pot, to guns, to studded tires, these fuckers are fuck-heads.

When did I ever say alcohol, pot or guns should be BANNED? Shit, nobody enjoys a drink more than I do. Ask anybody who knows me.

Too me HBM hates all that is good. He hates pussy

LOVE pussy.

he hates booze

See above.

he hates big trucks

Wouldn't own one myself, but don't care if others do.

he hates guns

I don't hate 'em, I'm indifferent to 'em.

he hates dogs.

Yeah, that's why I have two.

You're a fucking moron, Buster.; March 2, 2009 at 8:05 AM
Anonymous said...: Yesterday me & homer talk of oil, I mentioned 'strategic petro reserve', today the OREO has announced he's going to open the SPR to keep down the price of OIL ... ok, sounds interesting hasn't been done before, ...

But this is exactly what happened in the depression, the gov tried push down prices, and PUSH UP prices, and people started hoarding food, and no food made it to the city-market, and the gov paid farmers to destroy food to keep the price up,...

Now the gov says its going use the SPR to modify supply&demand of oil, hmm it will soon be doing the same with ALL commodity's.

The thing is prices are going UP, for food, as we all know, and wages are going down, on average with the loss of jobs.

If merchants, and middle-men, and suppliers think they can 'sit' on their food-stocks and wait for a better price, then the food disapears, and if your not in the chain, or near the source, your fucked.

Deja-Vu 'great depression' and starvation.

This thread is so very 'marge', as she essentially advocates the MORMON approach to survival 2-3 years of food-stock in supply at all homes, plenty for all in that 'community of mormons' to survive.; March 2, 2009 at 8:07 AM
Anonymous said...: Shit, nobody enjoys a drink more than I do. Ask anybody who knows me.
- hbm

###

So we're constantly harrassed here by HBM for having an occasional beer, and now HBM fesses up that he himself the city's self imposed boss-hogg of virtuosity if himself an ALKI?

Who would have guessed? Who could have known??; March 2, 2009 at 8:10 AM
Anonymous said...: I think we're about to see The Second Great Gutting of Rural & Agricultural America.

Same thing happened during the Great Depression. People fled farming to work in cities, safety in numbers. Rural America just collapsed in the Depression.

*

The OREO "SAYS" he's going to cut CORP AG CORP WELFARE FOR AGRI-BIZ, if that's true it could force the AGRI-BIZ to sell back to little guy, making things more like they were before, in recent years lobbying by monsanto, an ADM has largely created the CORP-FARM, but its a fascade held together by PUG subsidy.

That said the distribution system that we know today is 100% CORP, and thus again if you want food you may need to be near a source.; March 2, 2009 at 8:13 AM
Bewert said...: RE: Reagan is one of this nation’s most beloved and respected Presidents. He made us feel good about ourselves and broke us out from the darkness of government dependency and brought us into the light of self responsibility and achievement …

I have been hearing a lot about rolling back Reaganism since Obama has taken office. Personally I think it is a really dumb idea which will backfire all over the Democrats. People have tasted the fruits of individual responsibility for too long to want to move into a dependency mode where we wait on the bureaucrat gods to hand out our rewards for living.

Reagan touched something inherent in America, he did not befuddle or fool America with misleading sound bites. He tapped into our spirits and reminded us we can get through tough times. There is no undoing that, nor the policies that line up with that kind of thinking.

###

Buster just has his own reality. Like the guy who wrote this crap about Reagsn, who gave us Iran-Contra, the S&L crises, and then rich pissing down on the poor economics. Great stuff.

We need to kill the fucking Reagan myth once and for all. Here is a good link to bookmark--didn't those Reagan economic policies do a great job at reining in our deficit spending? NOT.; March 2, 2009 at 8:14 AM
Anonymous said...: (Strata notes that a new Rassmusen poll on Reagan’s famous saying that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” found that “59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.”)

YEP,

I'm from the GOVERNMENT, I'm here to 'help you'.

The meaning and fear created by that statement is time-less.; March 2, 2009 at 8:16 AM
Bewert said...: Re:
That said the distribution system that we know today is 100% CORP, and thus again if you want food you may need to be near a source.

###

Like somewhere on the eastern side of the Willamette Valley? Moderate temps, lots of water. Fishing in the rivers. Like east of Eugene where the river canyon opens up.; March 2, 2009 at 8:23 AM
Anonymous said...: Reagan touched something inherent in America, he did not befuddle or fool America with misleading sound bites. He tapped into our spirits and reminded us we can get through tough times. There is no undoing that, nor the policies that line up with that kind of thinking.

###

HEY PUSSY, first of all the 'real buster' ONLY say's "RAYGUN", mr star wars, asshole governor of CALI, grade-b actor, pornstar during the depression.

I think its FUNNY, OREO has spent almost ALL his time studying FDR/LINCOLN/RAYGUN for his image, and persona.

The OREO ain't no fucking Lincoln, and he ain't no fucking FDR.

The OREO could be a RAYGUN, cuz essentially RAYGUN was JUST a fucking actor like RushLimb. The OREO is a damn good actor.

Since summer of 2008 we have KNOWN the OREO if elected would put Geithner in charge of the world economy, and he did so, and Geithner behind the scenes has ran the looting of the treasury, and made it possible that the richest bankers in the USA didn't lose their shirts.

My best estimate of what the fuck is going on, is the 'Great Diversion'.

The left hopes, the right is kept pissed, the middle?

But NOBODY focuses on the SUBSTANCE, there's only one POST in all these threads here that says anything, and that is the interview with the professor at UofO, that MOFU speaks the truth all else is BULLSHIT on BB2.

An honest group of people would ONLY focus on the prez we have, and DEMAND the OR-BOMB-EO to do good for the 'people'.

But instead we debate the best & worst and compare, this is typical of 'manufactured consent', these are bad times, RAYGUN is dead. Lincoln is Dead, FDR is dead.

We MUST demand that the OREO do what is GOOD.

The reality is that OREO is no good, that he is owned by OUR ONE PARTY system, and that he's playing divide&conquer politics like a fiddle.

Solution? Smart CEO's back in the 1980's bought Italian Villas, and that's where they hide today to 'ride this one out'. The smartest thing to do these days is to NOT be in the USA in the next five years and ride it out, and then come back and pick up the pieces for penny's on the dollar, after the civil war.; March 2, 2009 at 8:29 AM
Bewert said...: Direct access to that post, which is excellent: http://bendbubble3.blogspot.com/; March 2, 2009 at 8:32 AM
Anonymous said...: Regulation of this system was impossible, since the risk had to keep rising and any attempt to place any limits on the system once financialization got to a certain point risked a financial meltdown. The capitalist state therefore had no choice but gradually to dismantle the entire financial regulatory system and to allow risk to grow. Indeed, in every major financial crisis over the last thirty years the response was financial deregulation.

*

Thanks, but essentially albeit 'well written' this prof is saying what I have tried to say for years here @BB2.

That sometime in the 70's the USA went from making shit, to selling credit, that GM & FORD went from an ROI on making auto's of 5%/yr, to an ROI of 15%/yr selling consumer-credit, everybody did this its what the author calls 'financialization'.

Post 1980 money wasn't made by 'making shit', money was made off credit, an endless borrowing created the ultimate PONZI. There was a BUST in 1986, but it was fixed, ... we just kept doing the same for 20 years, then in 2006 the shit hit the fan.

The future? For Survivors? It will be making shit, like 'breedlove guitars', and growing food 'farmers'.

We all saw post 1970's the country go from a manufacturing econ, to a service econ, today nobody wants your fucking service. We don't make shit.

Soon shit will not come to the desert ISL.

Then we'll once again, ride bikes, make our own shit, and grow our own food.

We' PRAY like hell that marges friends in Dayville, bring potatoes and beef to BEND to sell to those of us with coin, bullets, or barter.

Not to say it will come to this, but the veneer of civilization is thin, the break-down today is as BIG as the US CIVIL WAR, during that time, all paper money was essentially worthless, because of counterfeiting and the flood of paper.

'Deregulation' is interesting, cuz we see that in OUR city here at home, the City of BEND essentially went from a local government of the people to EXEC SESSION for boss-hoggs, people vote down BAT-BUS, but it lives, ... de-Regulation, the laws that made things work in the past are NOW ignored, to expedite what the BOSS-HOGG say's, and nobody cares, cuz their is NO over-sight.

In the meantime people debate who was the best dead president.; March 2, 2009 at 8:44 AM
Anonymous said...: It’s hard to imagine what Ronald Reagan — who certainly knew show business, but only in the pre-”American Idol” world — would have thought of Joe the Plumber. But it takes less imagination to to guess what he would have thought of Barack Obama’s use of the word “responsibility” on the cover of a budget document intended to consign the Great Communicator to the dustbin of history.

###

I frequently WRITE that I hate the left&right, that I hate the DEM&PUG.

But looky here, you got to admit, PALIN, Joe-The-Plumber,...

I mean the pug's rep the USA, dumb&dumber was never better.

OREO is an intellectual elitist, and he's surrounding himself with brains, but like the above this is not longer a time for a prez to have co-starred with a chimpanzee (bedtime for gonzo-raygun), no today is 'Reality TV', where UGLY people like joe-the-plumber, talk shit and are ROCK-STARS. Where people like PALIN, eye-candy ROCK.

What the FUCK does the DEM got? UGLY PEOPLE!!!

The USA is a third world ex-prison colony with NUKES, exceptionalism is BEND is a joke, and exceptionalism of the USA is a JOKE.

The USA is joe-the-plumber. Tocqueville, knew this 130 year ago. Education in the US is dead, people are NOW incapable of deep thought, listen to the ramblings above, the highlight of the PUB conference was the exceptence of 'twitter', another fucking 'text messaging technology' IDEAS?? I think NOT!!!

The ELECT-OREO crowd all had iPhones, so fucking what. The PUG's now all have black-berrys with twitter, great everybody can send 24 byte text messages,... awesome.

DUMB&DUMBER, and who is the ROCK STAR of the CPAC?? JOE THE PLUMBER.

Education? ZERO? Knowledge of HISTORY zero? Let's make him the next US prez PUG candidate.

DUMB&DUMBER.

It's the ameriKKKan way, in the future ameriKKKan-IDOL will be how we vote for US prez, and the show will go for months, and the winner will rule the world.

In the meantime while ALL are entertained, Geithner&Co are robbing the the FUTURE of the USA at about $100B/day.

In just a few years we went from millionaires being somebody, but today its the billionaire, I can see in perhaps five years we're going to have 'trillionaires', and these guys will have made their money by having been a Geithner 'Bank'.; March 2, 2009 at 9:07 AM
Anonymous said...: Why does some biz fail, and other survive? - Dunc

$$$$

DEBT

Why they survive or fail?

It's funny dunc, a naive MORON fed shit in SCHOOL.

He would tell you the secret of biz is...

1.) Borrow
2.) Look good, get a nice office, place drive a good car.
3.) Hire employees, help the community, create jobs

CALL ME MUSSOLINI DUNC, me don't care but its ALL FUCKING BULLSHIT.

DEBT is the #1 killer in small biz, never borrow a fucking DIME, I know dunc, you float your biz with credit-cards, you have been DAMN lucky

Live like a dog, old car, minimal building, no fancy office shit, which means its all paid for NEVER BORROW to buy shit, NO FUCKING DEBT.

EMPLOYEES biggest fucking killer there is to small biz, when you first start you work 12-18 hrs/day for years, build a biz, and sure you might get an employee or lots, but then you payroll/taxes is 90% of sales, your making a ton of money but keeping NONE.

The sweet spot of biz, is minimal-employees, yet society, the press always lionizes places and MEN who have the most warm bodies.

WHAT REALLY KILLED MERENDA?? TOO BIG, and TOO MANY EMPLOYEES.

MOST biz in BEND is dying today cuz of DEBT, they got into biz with HELOC, which is now gone, and its NOT FUN ANYMORE.

DEBT is is the KILLER, if YOU HAVE NO FUCKING DEBT you can always survive.; March 2, 2009 at 9:19 AM
Bewert said...: Another for the tombstone: RSC Equipment Rentals; March 2, 2009 at 10:07 AM
Anonymous said...: I've heard this very thing, ambushing passers-by, is happening in Vegas, out front of the casinos. They are absolutely DESPERATE.

NO SHIT dude. Took a weekend in Vegas a few weeks back and was shocked by two distinctly different things from any of my many other trips there:

#1 - Practically gang raped by poaching door vultures at EVERY casino. They would almost take a knee with mouth open and ready...

#2 - Half naked dancing girls in and around the tables at many casinos. For fuck sake, there are still people bringing their kids to places like Excalibur and they're now walking right by stripper Sally shaking her bubble ass in their faces. 'course I LIKED that new element, but wow... how things have changed...; March 2, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Anonymous said...: People have tasted the fruits of individual responsibility for too long to want to move into a dependency mode

You don't say. And what "people" might those be? The 10% (the real number is more like 18%) of Americans who are laid off? Those who have seen their investments vanish? Those who are facing foreclosure? Those who can't afford health care? Those who have seen their real incomes decline for the past 30 years? THOSE people?

"Individual responsibility" my big hairy semi-Polish ass. "Individual responsibility" is what the 1-percenters preach to the 99-percenters while the 1-percenters get fatter sucking at the government tit.

Fuck you and your "individual responsibility."; March 2, 2009 at 10:53 AM
Anonymous said...: Message seen on a local reader board this morning:

WE HAVE HEARD THERE IS A RECESSION. WE DECLINE TO PARTICIPATE.

I admire the spunkiness of that.

As everybody who frequents this blog knows, I'm pessimistic about most things, especially the economy. But I do think we've gotten to a point where the "fear factor" is playing a big role in deepening and prolonging the downturn. People are just AFRAID. Even the people who have money won't spend it because they're afraid something terrible will happen and they'll need it. And they won't invest it because they feel they can't trust anybody with it. The catastrophists (people like Marge) are stockpiling food and ammo in preparation for the Apocalypse. Most people are just paralyzed.

How do we break the fear cycle? Somebody's got to start spending and investing again. And since the private sector is unwilling and/or unable to do it, it's up to the government. That doesn't gibe with right-wing "free market" dogma, but I don't give a shit about dogma of the left or right. I'm in favor of what works. If the right-wingers can show me something that looks more likely to work (not just "CUT TAXES! CUT TAXES! CUT TAXES!") I'll buy it. But so far they got nothin.; March 2, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Duncan McGeary said...: You first....; March 2, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Anonymous said...: How do we break the fear cycle? Somebody's got to start spending and investing again.

*

THanks DUNC, exacty MY THOUGHT.

"YOU FIRST DUMB-SHIT"

This is just another flavor of Bratton, ... just another, 'gosh if some idiot, just went out and shot off all his cannons, we could get the war going again',...

Nope, it AIN'T going to happen. What you have seen, is 30+ years of 'financialization', I hate that fucking word, I call it 'mercantilism', and Oswald-Sprengler wrote about it in the 1920's.

All mercantile societys collapse this way.

At first a supplier meets demand, but as productivity increases he needs new markets, and he offers his customer credit, eventually the market becomes saturated and we have a cyclic collapse.

We have had two generations of GREED & CONSUMERISM, we're now ENTERING what is called 50 yr cycle, now we're going to have ONE GENERATION at least of austerity,

The last FUCKING THING your going to see if dumb fucking spending, cuz those that do, are out of the game.

We here write about SURVIVAL.

In order to SURVIVE you need to keep your powder dry, and your lead nearby. Those that go out tonight and burn all their power, and spend all the their lead will wake tomorrow with no ability to survive.

It's all about survival.

There is NO fucking way in HELL the US-GOVERNMENT or any nanny-state like OREO can keep what we had post 1980, it was non-sustainable.

Today MOST US CORPORATIONS are in DEBT, today MOST US INDIVIDUALs are in DEBT.

US savings personal went negative in 1998, US Corporate savings went negative in the early 1980's.

The party is OVER.

But go ahead MORON, spend your MONEY, throw a party, and starve tomorrow.

Darwin Rules, Social Darwinianism says that we MUST encourage morons to exterminate themselves and their spawn.

End of the world? Hell no?

There is still pussy, and you can still make your own booze at home in a bath-tub, distilling with an old pressure cooker is the easiest thing in the world, home-made bread is just a little flour. Basic living costs little, most folks in Africa have been living on a $1/week for years.

Having been raised by DEPRESSION parents I know all too well what is coming, the MORE you punish yourself now and get used to simple-living, the easier it will be tomorrow.

Conspicuous Consumption is OUT, which is why the whole notion of running out today and blowing your WAD is insane.; March 2, 2009 at 11:24 AM
Anonymous said...: "Individual responsibility" my big hairy semi-Polish ass. "Individual responsibility" is what the 1-percenters preach to the 99-percenters while the 1-percenters get fatter sucking at the government tit.

Fuck you and your "individual responsibility."

*

I agree HBM, but a 1%er is hard ass real life BIKER, I have known quite a lot of 1%er's in my days.

I'm not sure calling the 'boss-hogg' a 1%'er is a good thing, ... It's all very old.

A better analogy is the plantation.

You got plantation owners, house niggers, and field niggers.

The field niggers (blue collar) want to work in the house (white collar), and the house niggers want to own the plantation.

Here in ameriKKKa the plantation owners want the field nigger to pay all taxes.

"Individual Responsibility", yes not sure what that means? Does it mean that the plantation owner expects the young field nigger girls to wash their pussy before he rapes them? Does it mean that the parents of that girl should feel privileged??

Some call the PRESS, the fourth estate, certainly on the level of USA plantation ownership the 'press' has become an ethereal heaven all part of plantation paradise.

But 1%'ers are tough ass men to the core.

The plantation owner is quite often a 'W' silver-spoon spoiled child that inherited the plantation. His only worry is making sure field-nigger NEVER gets a REAL education, and the the HOUSE nigger always stays in his place.

Yes, HBM its funny to watch the white-collar folks bitch & moan, and watch the blue-collar folk ( joe-the-plumber ) pontificate. But the plantation owners make the rules, they run the courts,

Today in ameriKKKa the NIGGERS are restless, and mad as HELL at the MADE-OFF plantation owners, and even the HOUSE-NIGGER's are pissed cuz their 401k was going to buy them a plantation and freedom.

Broken dreams.

Yep, 'Individual Responsibility', I liken this to JFK, "Ask now what its in for you, but ask what you can do for me", YEP Slavery, today the US Government wants dumb fucking idiots to work for free, and to continue to be fed shit forever.

Is there a fucking solution? Considering this SHIT has gone in the USA since day-one, NOTHING is going to change.

Even the civil-war only disrupted the plantation life shortly, and sure freed slaves wandered up to Detroit where they quickly become slaves again for industrialization, but the paradigm remains.

"Individual Responsibility" is CODE for "BE A GOOD NIGGER".

1%er's don't play by anyone's rules, 1%er's make the rules, and take any woman they want, and steal what ever they want, ...

The people that ran the USA are largely like 'W' silver-spoon wimps. They're NOT 1%er's.; March 2, 2009 at 11:42 AM
Anonymous said...: How do we break the fear cycle?

*

I guess that's the difference between a physicist and a english major.

I see a cycle as something, that has a period (time), and by definition has troughs and peaks.

Anyone who has truly studied US economic history knows that we have always had 50 year major cyclical depressions.

How do you break a 'cycle', you start by NOT calling it a cycle, because by definition a cycle must be allowed to run its course and renew.

There has been an endless debate since the time of Marx & Engels about the making of the perfect government that is fair to all, and led by the gentle hand.

FUCKING BULLSHIT, a true student of ECON knows that ALL is GREED&FEAR, that we have just came out of one of the BIGGEST and LONGEST GREED 'peaks' in human history, and what goes up, comes down, now we'll go into one of the longest 'fear' troughs seen in a long time.

During the depression in 1932 they had 'real estate paralysis', sellers couldn't sell, buyers couldn't buy. Paralysis.

Sure the government can step in, but they can only help people who aren't stupid or criminal, which means they can't help most people.

What HBM is really asking is "HOW DO WE END CYCLES".

To me that is like a child asking, how can I change the position of the moon.

It's well known to students of MASS-HYSTERIA "The Crowd" its french, read it, ... crowds take on a life of their own, its NOT possible for one person to stop a 'crowd' once there is a large enough disturbance.

The crowd MUST run its course.

Since 1986 ORYGUN had ONLY BEEN ABOUT GREED twenty fucking years, and now post 2006 for at LEAST ten years ORYGUN will be about FEAR, and there is NOT a fucking thing you can do to change this HBM nothing, its like trying to move the the moon.; March 2, 2009 at 11:54 AM
PopGoesBend said...: Bad Bank

The collapse of the banking system explained, in just 59 minutes. Our crack economics team—the guys who explained the mortgage crisis, Alex Blumberg and NPR’s Adam Davidson—are back to help all of us understand the news. For instance, when we talk about an insolvent bank, what does it actually mean, and why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to rich bankers who screwed up their own businesses? Also, two guys go to New Jersey to look at a toxic asset.

http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/375.mp3; March 2, 2009 at 12:03 PM
Anonymous said...: How do we break the fear cycle? Somebody's got to start spending and investing again. And since the private sector is unwilling and/or unable to do it, it's up to the government.

*

There are NO solutions, left or right, DEM or PUG.

The reason is that the USA titanic is sinking, and today you have Geithner looting 100's of billions per day and passing it to the people that he has worked for his entire adult life.

Friends of Geithner will be tomorrows 'survivors'.

The government today as we know it is a band of crooks, de-regulation has now become lawlessness, anything goes, and nothing is sacred.

At some point when enough people are starving, and people start rioting, then and only then will our 'leaders' get off their ass, but today they enjoy the best pussy, wine, and food that government money can buy.

Today the people FEAR their government, when the majority of ameriKKKans are starving, ONLY then will the government fear the people.

Greed & Fear can generally explain all.

Sure the PUG's are greedy, they run the government, and they didn't want to pay any taxes, but enjoy fruit of taxes collected, but the same can be said of the DEM's.

The rich don't pay taxes, and even under OREO it will only be the STUPID rich that even might pay.

But so what if you have to pay a little tax, when Geithner is giving people 100's of billions a day.

I still say that "Oswald Sprengler" wrote the best on the subject that HBM is asking, "How can we end cyclic excess in our economy", ... well its a basic product of mercantilism going back to the time of egypt, and its what brought down Rome, and its what will bring down the USA.

Cyclic economic tsunamis are part & parcel of mercantilism.

So what HBM is really asking for is the end of 'consumer' economy to be replaced by a government hand to feed all, and the trouble with that as shown in Bulgaria in the 1970's is there was nothing to eat. Having been there, I can tell you that when the farmer gets little to nothing for his effort, he passes nothing to the state store.

What works, just cyclic purges all great societys last 100's of years and then collapse, its always been this way.

Greed & fear.

"Oswald Sprengler" read both volumes "Decline of the West" 1918.
He was a mathematician, which probably explains why he doesn't talk shit.; March 2, 2009 at 12:05 PM
Anonymous said...: why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to rich bankers who screwed up their own businesses?

*

Cuz they got the OREO elected.; March 2, 2009 at 12:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Well there is always GOOD NEWS if you look for it. Black-Water is toast.

'W's Private Army of carte-blanche thugs shooting up civilians over the world now has lost ALL their fucking contracts.

Black days at Blackwater

March 2, 2009

The mercenary contractor Blackwater Worldwide, which increased the danger for American service personnel in Iraq through the trigger-happy behavior of its own gung-ho civilians, has responded to a firestorm of criticism with two changes, at least one of which is purely cosmetic.

Blackwater, which has $600 million in U.S. government contracts to provide security and protection around the world, is changing its name to Xe, the official abbreviation of the inert gas Xenon, and its founder Erik Prince is relinquishing the CEO title to be a non-executive chairman.

Prince, grousing to the Wall Street Journal that “I thought this was a meritocracy,” seems not to realize that the demerits his company got for its performance in Iraq were well-deserved, and he deserves a great deal of the blame for being too stupid to realize it was not merely a P.R. problem. Even now he tells the Journal “the P.R. challenges were far more relevant than I thought they would be.”

What ails his company has nothing to do with public relations. If anything, his good relations with the Bush administration gave him something of a free pass with the more conservative segments of the public, or Blackwater would be in even more trouble than it already is. Ultimately he and his company lost its goodwill with President Bush, which speaks well of Mr. Bush.

News reports have focused on a Sept. 16, 2007, incident in which Blackwater cowboys fired on a crowd of Iraqis killing 17, some of whom died from gunshot wounds to the back because they were running away from the Blackwater employees when they were felled.

But there is more to it than that. The New York Times reported that regular military personnel regarded Blackwater employees as trigger-happy cowboys who made things worse on the ground by antagonizing the locals needlessly. They were the living embodiment of those bumper stickers that say America is making enemies faster than we can kill them. A bum rap against military personnel, it’s a pretty fair assessment of what Blackwater’s thugs did, while its management back home contented itself with inert gas on the issue.

The harm done extends beyond Iraq. Blackwater had a large contract — a third of all its revenue — to provide security services to U.S. embassies around the country. The State Department has now canceled that contract. The cowboys in Iraq gave a bad name to their brothers guarding diplomats in other sketchy places, a worthy service if done in an American way and not like some movie.

There may be certain advantages to having a private contractor acting on behalf of American government personnel in other countries. But those advantages are lost, and everything backfires, when the private contractor lets its employees behave like asses.; March 2, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Duncan McGeary said...: Re. "you first."

I was trying to find the name of the arrogant fool billionaire who kept buying stocks into the Great Crash, because he was sure he could turn it around.

I found this, instead on Wiki; it's do.

The decline then accelerated into the so-called "Black Thursday", October 24, 1929. A record number of 12.9 million shares were traded on that day.

"At 1 p.m. on Friday, October 25, several leading Wall Street bankers met to find a solution to the panic and chaos on the trading floor. The meeting included Thomas W. Lamont, acting head of Morgan Bank; Albert Wiggin, head of the Chase National Bank; and Charles E. Mitchell, president of the National City Bank. They chose Richard Whitney, vice president of the Exchange, to act on their behalf. With the bankers' financial resources behind him, Whitney placed a bid to purchase a large block of shares in U.S. Steel at a price well above the current market. As traders watched, Whitney then placed similar bids on other "blue chip" stocks. This tactic was similar to a tactic that ended the Panic of 1907, and succeeded in halting the slide that day. In this case, however, the respite was only temporary."; March 2, 2009 at 12:24 PM
PopGoesBend said...: why are we giving hundreds of billions of dollars to rich bankers who screwed up their own businesses?

*

Cuz they got the OREO elected.

It started way before the OREO was elected. That's a very poor answer.; March 2, 2009 at 12:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Cuz they got the OREO elected.

It started way before the OREO was elected. That's a very poor answer.

*

The same people under BUSH that were handing out money to bankers, under OREO have been PROMOTED.; March 2, 2009 at 12:31 PM
Anonymous said...: >The same people under BUSH that were handing out money to bankers, under OREO have been PROMOTED.

Which is different than the simpleton response of "Cuz they got the OREO elected."; March 2, 2009 at 12:34 PM
Anonymous said...: I was trying to find the name of the arrogant fool billionaire who kept buying stocks into the Great Crash, because he was sure he could turn it around.

*

I think it was possible in 1897, and 1906, to what JP-MORGAN did, but then things were largely played by rules, there really were rules, and everybody knew and saw what was going on, when a 'insider' dumped, the word on the street knew. I think Jesse Livermore wrote the best book about pre 1930's stock market.

Today is a different BEAST post 1970's the US-CORP didn't produce, they financed, and good debt was kept on BOOK's and bad debt kept off books, in the name of de-regulation the SEC played along, which is how MADE-OFF got away with 40 fucking years of fraud.

TODAY all the stock market is a fraud.

Electronic trading of the post 1950's has 'hidden' the market like wizard-of-oz behind a curtain, in the days of old all was seen on the floor.

Today 'valuations' mean nothing, perhaps 'market capitalization' means something,

Mark to Market doesn't even mean much, as most assets can't be sold at any price.

The system is de-leveraging, as people MUST sell everything to raise cash.

I'm confident of DOW 4000, but soon I might even want to argue DOW 400.

How about it??; March 2, 2009 at 12:38 PM
Anonymous said...: >The same people under BUSH that were handing out money to bankers, under OREO have been PROMOTED.

Which is different than the simpleton response of "Cuz they got the OREO elected."

*

If you have spent 20 minutes on BB2 you would know that OREO is owned by the bankers looting our treasury.; March 2, 2009 at 12:39 PM
PopGoesBend said...: >If you have spent 20 minutes on BB2 you would know that OREO is owned by the bankers looting our treasury.

No. Since I have spent 20 minutes on BB2 I know that Buster is a blowhard that holds the opinion that OREO is owned by the bankers looting our treasury. FACT.

Buster's opinion is not to be taken as FACT. FACT.; March 2, 2009 at 12:43 PM
Anonymous said...: Just 3-4 months ago a few 'experts' were saying, ...

Dow 4,000. Food shortages. A bubble in Treasury notes. Fortune spoke to eight of the market's sharpest thinkers and what they had to say about the future is frightening.

Nouriel Roubini

Known as Dr. Doom, the NYU economics professor saw the mortgage-related meltdown coming.

We are in the middle of a very severe recession that's going to continue through all of 2009 - the worst U.S. recession in the past 50 years. It's the bursting of a huge leveraged-up credit bubble. There's no going back, and there is no bottom to it. It was excessive in everything from subprime to prime, from credit cards to student loans, from corporate bonds to muni bonds. You name it. And it's all reversing right now in a very, very massive way.; March 2, 2009 at 12:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Hey Rogers, 'impaired' is a nice word for negative-net-worth,...

Jim Rogers
The commodities guru predicted two years ago that the credit bubble would devastate Wall Street.
Nov 2008

We are in a period of forced liquidation, which has happened only eight or nine times in the past 150 years. The fact that it's historic doesn't make it any more fun, of course. But it is a pretty interesting time when there is forced selling of everything with no regard for facts or fundamentals at all. Historically, the way you make money in times like these is that you find things where the fundamentals are unimpaired. The fundamentals of GM are impaired. The fundamentals of Citigroup are impaired.; March 2, 2009 at 12:49 PM
Anonymous said...: No. Since I have spent 20 minutes on BB2 I know that Buster is a blowhard that holds the opinion that OREO is owned by the bankers looting our treasury. FACT.

*

You can lead 'pop' to water, but you can't make him drink.

Read the prof's report from UofO, don't believe me, about who owns OREO, or who is robbing the US Treasury.

http://bendbubble3.blogspot.com/2009/02/uofo-prof-explains-how-obama-is-robbing.html

But I know, its party line to 'believe' in the magic-negro, like believing in the Bend baby-jeebus at westside-church-of-1031; March 2, 2009 at 12:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Pop,

Buster is an asshole.

An opinion is like an asshole, every asshole has an opinion.

Does pop have an opinion? Me thinks pop has gotten bored with BENDBB's BEBB pathetic dribble and came to join the real men??

Welcome, piss on the rock, enjoy shit hurling insults, with no moderation.

buster,; March 2, 2009 at 12:59 PM
Anonymous said...: Re: The demise of Rising Star

PopGoesBend said: I'm sure the price was based on the sales from the bubble years.

To a certain degree, that's true. However, RS's sales had already been declining and my understanding is that RS's sale price reflected an anticipation of a slowdown.

PGB said: One number I heard on NPR in November is that furniture sales were the worst since WW2.

True. However, in Central Oregon, the overall sales volume (all stores combined) remained fairly constant. Granted, that was being spread over a greater number of stores, given that several more stores opened/expanded over the past 18 months or so. RS was sold in large part to put fresh energy & different skills and focus at the helm. Unfortunately, the new "leadership" was, in many ways, LESS effective than the previous. Significant opportunities were missed and resources were squandered. Indeed, the economy -- and, yes, the realities of running a business that's in debt from the get-go -- were contributing factors in that they provided very little room for error. Nonetheless, the failure stems from the errors, not the limited room for them.

PGB said: The numbers in the Bulletin said that sales were down 27% the first year they owned it, and are now down 25-30% since then. That's a 45-49% drop in sales since they bought it.

OK, so you're basing your position in part on information that was provided by the business owner's PR firm? I assure you, those numbers don't come close to hinting at the whole story.

PGB said: Bubble failure. Unavoidable by the new owners.

Absolutely not. This is a case of a powerful external force being used to conveniently hide mismanagement.; March 2, 2009 at 1:01 PM
PopGoesBend said...: >You can lead 'pop' to water, but you can't make him drink.

Nope. I'll look at all the watering holes first, then figure out which seems to be the best. You have your watering hole, but based on prior knowledge one should always be suspect of a watering hole let to by you. There are many holes. Choose wisely.; March 2, 2009 at 1:03 PM
Anonymous said...: "Oswald Sprengler" read both volumes "Decline of the West" 1918.

Buster read a book, once, and has been bragging about it ever since.

But he still can't spell the author's name right.

Anyway, at least he isn't quoting Ayn Rand at us. Even Buster isn't that big of an idiot. (Alan Greenspan is.); March 2, 2009 at 1:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Ayn Rand is pretty fucking boring, but Ayn Rand is fiction.

I was forced to read ton's of ayn-rand as a kid, I liked George Orwell much better. Ever read down and out in Paris by Orwell HBM??

I don't like fiction,

OswaldSprengler is about HISTORY, me like history.

Sorry HBM, but what's going on today is NOTHING new under the sun, its just history, and humans always repeat the same shit over&over.; March 2, 2009 at 2:43 PM
Anonymous said...: Why do some biz die, and others live??

Sure but let's remember the odd's most new biz fails the first 3 years, most new food joints the first year entry, most people its just too easy to enter food, they think "I can boil spaghetti, I'll open a food joint",...

Dunc re-invents himself, he calls himself 'comic' but its really one of the last downtown book stores.

Survival is what we're talking about here, going 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50, ... years,...

Look today on this NOTE Monaco Coach made the finest RV's in the world, cost about $500k each, and today they're TOAST everybody is getting laid off.

"END OF THE WORLD?" For the people of Coburg, OR, hell yes.

Breedlove Guitar, so they say make some of the finest wood acoustic guitars in the world, family biz, survive? Who knows, building a legacy biz is largely about the patriarch, but even in the best cases say Evergreen Aviation in McMinnville the founders groomed well-bred son died in tragic accident. I think the same for the heirs of Les-Schwab, he out lived most of his children.

I think what we're talking about today, is why they fail in the first 1-3 years, of course there is a book written on it, and maybe DUNC can tell us where to find it for those who have not read it, it got me through the 60's as a naive young businessman, the book is called "What ever happened to the woolly mammoth", a book written by a CPA in plain english on most small biz fails in first few years.

I think guys like dunc, just get used the cycles, the ebb&flow, the good and the bad. Early on I noted, that in GOOD times I hired employees and traveled the globe, nobody can fuck things in a good econ, but in a bad time, you lay everybody off and work your ass off, of course it helps to have NO debt in the bad times, cuz you just don't know about burn rate.

They used to say six months cash on hand, but now its more like six years is what you should have on hand.

[ dunc, I have the book, its out of print, I have not seen it anywhere for years, but I always felt it was one of the best. ]

Another good book is Robert Townsends 'up the organization' about business, how he rescued Avis in the 60's, and of course contains my favorite quote of biz, "If you ain't doing it for money or fun, then what the FUCK are you doing it for?"

I think just the other day dunc asked this question, called the Townsend-Question, but he didn't attribute it,; March 2, 2009 at 2:44 PM
Anonymous said...: There are many holes. Choose wisely.

*

Most of Bend's watering holes suck, ran by micro-managing dweebs.

You tell me Pop name a fucking HOLE in this town that is any good?

Again, had you spent 20 min here you would know that BB2 is for the bad boyz of bend.

Nice people suck.; March 2, 2009 at 3:09 PM
PopGoesBend said...: In my metaphor an opinion or idea is a hole to drink from. In yours a place where you post the opinion is the hole.

Never be forced to drink the water. You said that yourself a month ago. Everyone has an opinion and you must be aware enough to filter what you read. Anything posted by you has to go through a filter, be boiled and have iodine tablets put in it. Then you still have to look again to see if it is worth consuming.

You are talking big ideas - economics that go far beyond the scope of Bend. Why limit yourself to "a fucking HOLE in this town that is any good." The message boards and blogs that are Bend based are good for getting local information but can't be relied on for any of the big picture things.

And please, call me a newbie again!! Oh come on..... you know you want to. Fuck, I've been posting on this blog 10-20 times a week for the last 20 months.; March 2, 2009 at 3:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Why limit yourself to "a fucking HOLE in this town that is any good."

Because he wouldn't be allowed to post his Tourette's Syndrome rants anywhere else.; March 2, 2009 at 3:37 PM
Anonymous said...: I was forced to read ton's of ayn-rand as a kid

That's CHILD ABUSE, dude. No wonder your head is fucked up.

Who the hell made you do that??? Were your parents in some kind of cult?

I liked George Orwell much better.

Me too.

Ever read down and out in Paris by Orwell HBM??

No. Should get around to it one of these days.; March 2, 2009 at 3:42 PM
Anonymous said...: And please, call me a newbie again!! Oh come on..... you know you want to. Fuck, I've been posting on this blog 10-20 times a week for the last 20 months.

*

Newbie can't even remember what name he used last on BB2.

Bruce just called men said HBM is paying for beers tonight at Deschutes. It's his coming out party, now that he's admitted to being an alki.; March 2, 2009 at 3:45 PM
Anonymous said...: I was forced to read ton's of ayn-rand as a kid

Who the hell made you do that??? Were your parents in some kind of cult?

*

I was dating this girl in high-school, and her father was an aerospace engineer, and a 'libertarian' and real big in that shit, she had big tits so I kept going back for more, I had to humor the father by reading these books he kept handing me, all fucking Ayn Rand.

The things I do for pussy.

'libertarians' were weird MOFU's.

Upon moving to Orygun in later years I met more Libertarians but they all tended to be IRS tax-cheats and eventually lost everything.

I learned the 'libertarian-ism' is much like today's republicanism, nobody wants to pay taxes, and some people exempt cuz the 1918 income-tax law doesn't apply to 'working income', and thus these idiots set their exemptions to max, and never paid taxes, until the IRS came along and garnisheed 90% of their paycheck. Today all these guys are pathetic losers and still libertarians, but I can see why they hate taxes and government, it is the cause of their failure.

Your buddy Greenspan is just like Limbaugh, well they had their chance to show their stuff, and they bankrupted the US treasury, and now the HEIR Geithner is going to transfer every last asset to his mentors. In a few years there will be nothing left to steal.; March 2, 2009 at 3:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Ever read down and out in Paris by Orwell HBM??

No. Should get around to it one of these days.

*

It's the book that inspired Anthony Bourdains "Kitchen Confidential", but its about living on the street in Paris & England during the depression, struggling as an un-employed writer, its non-fiction, and Orwell was the first ever to write about what goes on in the kitchens of the finest eatery's of Paris.

It's a great read, to hear someone like Orwell describe camping with street gypsies, and being chained up at night in homeless shelters like dogs. Some ten years of Orwells life where he got his real education that later led him to being a famous author.; March 2, 2009 at 4:01 PM
Anonymous said...: >True. However, in Central Oregon, the overall sales volume (all stores combined) remained fairly constant. Granted, that was being spread over a greater number of stores, given that several more stores opened/expanded over the past 18 months or so.

I would like to see these numbers, which I know isn't possible. I know people in the furniture industry and have seen similar drops (-50% or so) for them. I find it very hard to believe that with the economic problems that Bend is having - worse than the nation on average - that the furniture sales her would remain constant. New furniture is mostly a want, not a need. I WANT a new couch because this one is old. That's not the same as I NEED food. Look at the number of failed furniture businesses in town over the last year. I can't even name them all - Rising Star, Aaslands, McMahons, those fucking guys under Jokers, Urban Domain, and many many smaller ones.

Maybe the new management made bad decisions that sped up their demise. I'm not saying they didn't - I believe you completely that they did. What I am saying is that to make a furniture store work in Bend in these times they would have needed to have paid so little for the business that they had operating cash for a couple years until most other stores died and they were the last gig in town.

I can't see Mountain Comfort lasting, nor the Let's Make a Space store. At some point enough will fail that the ones remaining can make it.

Maybe it wasn't unavoidable that Rising Star would fail, but the cards were stacked very much that they would.

I'm surprised that we haven't had a bike shop failure yet. I know lots of people that are spending a lot less on their toys this year. I believe a couple of those will go away in the next year.; March 2, 2009 at 4:08 PM
Bewert said...: More calls to the BULL, and it is just getting weirder...

Anybody recognize the name Sean Tate?; March 2, 2009 at 4:13 PM
PopGoesBend said...: That Rising Star comment was mine.; March 2, 2009 at 4:13 PM
PopGoesBend said...: Bend next year:

Expert: Some residential lots have virtually no value

"Some Las Vegas residential land has no underlying value, and it's only going to get worse, one land expert says.

The slowdown in home construction that saw builders close on 284 homes in January and fewer than 10,000 in 2008 is depressing the market to the point some residential land in essence already has no value once improvements are excluded, says Craig Cherney, director of Western operations of Philadelphia-based American Land Fund, a private equity land acquisition group that buys raw land and entitles it.

Cherney says he's seeing finished residential lots sell for $25,000, which is a 20 percent to 30 percent discount to the underlying land improvement costs. What that means is that finished lots are trading at a discount that gives it a value of zero, he adds. The underlying land values on many of the nonprime locations for residential land has virtually no value in today's distressed market, Cherney says.

"Until the valley works off the immense overhand of foreclosures of resale properties, I see no reason why residential land demand would improve or otherwise increase in value," Cherney says. "

continued; March 2, 2009 at 4:24 PM
Bewert said...: Hi Nancy,

I've been chasing this down. Worked my way through the Bulletin staff and still haven't found the ad. A Sean Tate said he would call me back, my fourth contact.

Talked to Bryan Iverson and he stated it was a one-page both-sides insert on
Saturday, Oct. 31, which I and others cannot find searching the libraries.

Mr. Iverson is going to try to find me a copy tomorrow.

It's only $4K.

Just an update.

Regards,

Bruce E
Bend
541-408-2987; March 2, 2009 at 4:29 PM
Bewert said...: Actually FRIDAY, Oct. 31, 2008...; March 2, 2009 at 4:35 PM
Bewert said...: Tomorrow:

C. Authorize the City Manager to sign the 2008 Oregon Department of Transportation Fund Exchange Agreement No. 25407 in the amount of $584,683 (Issue Summary) (Agreement)
The Surface Transportation Program (STP) is a federal multi-modal block grant-type program. The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) distributes a portion of its STP funds to cities, counties, and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) through a cooperative process. In the past, these funds were directed to the city and the city determined how to best spend the funds. These funds are now funneled through the Bend MPO. At the February 2008 MPO Policy Board meeting, the Policy Board authorized the city to use the STP funds for street overlay work. The use of these funds is determined by the Bend MPO. These funds have typically comprised a large percentage of the annual budget for roadway overlays. Staff recommends that the City Council authorize the City Manager to sign the 2008 Fund Exchange Agreement No. 25407 in the amount of $584,684.

###

a ha;f-mil in jobs. Funny how the City lost control over it, though.; March 2, 2009 at 4:43 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; March 2, 2009 at 5:29 PM
Anonymous said...: Understanding the Zionist Corporate Network Linking 9-11 and the Financial Crisis

By Christopher Bollyn

The current financial crisis, like 9-11, did not just fall out of the sky. Rather, both 9-11 and the financial melt-down are the results of decades of planning and preparation. President Clinton's denial of responsibility for the current economic crisis notwithstanding, it was his administration, indeed, his special adviser, the Israeli son-of-a-terrorist Rahm Emanuel, who took credit for single-handedly pushing the economically treasonous NAFTA bill through Congress. That a president from the pro-labor Democrat party would support a bill designed to destroy the jobs of millions of working Americans as it devastated the U.S. manufacturing sector is something that the mainstream media has never addressed.

Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief-of-staff, is seen here at the inauguration. Emanuel was President Clinton's special adviser in the White House and the key person who pushed the disastrous NAFTA through Congress during Clinton's first year in office.

What Americans are reaping in 2009 are the real economic consequences of that "giant sucking sound" that the anti-NAFTA candidate Ross Perot warned of during the presidential debates of 1992. Seventeen years later, however, no one is laughing about Perot's phrase that he used to describe what NAFTA and other free trade agreements would do to the American economy.

Americans are now suffering from having accepted the big lie about NAFTA and "free trade" with China. Ross Perot was right about how NAFTA and other "free-trade" policies would destroy America's prosperity by devastating our manufacturing sector.

Millions of U.S. jobs were lost as American companies moved their factories to Mexico, China, and elsewhere as a result of the disastrous free trade policies enacted during the Clinton administrations. Nowadays in American stores one rarely finds clothing, shoes, or other products that carry the label "Made in America." Such original American symbols like blue jeans and Converse sneakers are no longer even made in the United States.

H. Ross Perot ran a valiant campaign as an anti-NAFTA independent candidate to protect American jobs, our manufacturing sector, our way of life and national prosperity. Clinton won and the American people lost.

The ever increasing trade deficits suffered since the early 90's are the clearest evidence that America's wealth was being sucked out of the nation at an incredible rate. Ross Perot was right: the U.S. dream could not be sustained solely by the service sector. I wonder if they still teach that lie in American universities. Perhaps they will rediscover the wisdom of the writings of the founding fathers, such as Alexander Hamilton on the importance of manufacturing and the economic causes of the American Revolution.

Behind such massive criminal hoaxes as the "false-flag" terror attacks of 9-11 and the current financial crises and government bail-outs are years of planning and preparation by high-level criminal organizations. Such immense crimes are designed to steal huge amounts of money, shape public opinion, and facilitate drastic changes in society and government. The so-called "War on Terror," the PATRIOT ACT, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the trillion-dollar bail-outs and stimulus bills are all examples of such pre-planned responses. Fear is the main tool used by the controlled-media and politicians to force these pre-planned radical changes onto the skeptical and patriotic public.

THE TYRANNY OF LIES

Maurice Greenberg, who is tied to 9-11, is the head of the criminal insurance company A.I.G., which has received some $150 billion of U.S. taxpayer funds. The first plane that struck the World Trade Center flew straight into the secure computer room of Marsh, a company run by his son Jeffrey. A coincidence?

Who is behind such huge lies and massive hoaxes? While some of the key culprits behind the current financial crisis are known, e.g. Bernard Madoff and Maurice Greenberg of A.I.G., there has been no investigation by the mainstream media of the criminal networks they operate within. On the other hand, there has been a great deal of discussion by the media about the alleged Islamic network behind 9-11. The official - but unproven - version of events, which has been promoted without question by the media, is that Al Q'aida, a non-state entity supposedly headed by Osama Bin Laden, with the support of some state actors, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, planned and carried out the 9-11 terror attacks for some reason which has yet to be articulated by the perpetrators - or explained by the U.S. government.

From the day of 9-11, President George W. Bush told the world that Al Q'aida had destroyed the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon simply because it hated America's democratic freedoms, as if that makes any sense. According to the unproven claims made by the Bush administration and distributed by the controlled media, an anti-democratic Islamic faction from undemocratic lands had committed the 9-11 terror atrocity in order to start a war between the Islamic world and the western democracies, headed by the United States.

Incredibly hot fires, hotter than the boiling point of iron, inexplicably raged beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center for more than three months as the physical evidence of demolition was furtively being removed and destroyed with the connivance of the U.S. government (specifically the criminal division of the Dept. of Justice headed by the Israeli-American Michael Chertoff). The Bush administration showed a callous disregard for starting an independent blue ribbon investigation of the worst terror attack in U.S. history as it eagerly took up the gauntlet against Afghanistan, governed by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban. The pre-planned U.S. military response, the so-called "War on Terror," began long before the fires were even extinguished at the World Trade Center.

The "War on Terror" is actually a long-planned Zionist war plan to dominate the Middle East first articulated by the right-wing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) in the mid-1980s. This radical Zionist plan became U.S. policy in the aftermath of 9-11 military campaign and provided the lame excuse for at least four on-going wars and/or military occupations in the region: U.S. vs. Iraq (19 years), Afghanistan (7 years), Somalia, and Pakistan.

President Obama recently ordered some 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, which, according to the government fairy tale about Bin Laden and the 20 hijackers, is the hot-bed of Islamic terrorism from which 9-11 sprang. Obama's strategy to expand and prolong this failed military campaign is extremely ill-advised. The Soviet Union had a land border with Afghanistan, more troops in the country, and killed more than a million people -- and still lost the war. How, or what, does Obama possibly expect to win? (Suggested viewing: Imran Khan interview with Fareed Zakaria)

The question remains: who really carried out 9-11? This is the key point where the official story diverges from the path of the evidence. It is also the fundamental question of culpability where "truth seekers" disagree. The U.S. government, which confiscated and destroyed tons of evidence, is actually holding the person alleged to be Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the "mastermind of 9-11," but refuses to put him on trial in the United States; how very odd. At the same time, grieving 9-11 relatives have been denied an open trial for 7 years in their tort litigation against the airlines and passenger screening companies who allowed 19 Arabs with weapons on the aircraft.

Meanwhile, very real evidence of Israeli involvement in the events of 9-11 has been completely ignored by the government and media as if it did not exist and has absolutely no meaning. I, on the other hand, have examined and investigated these leads for more than 7 years. This investigation has revealed a complex corporate and financial network in which high-level Zionists and Israeli intelligence agents have long operated in the United States and beyond.

Within this network the connections of Zionists and Israelis to both 9-11 and the current financial crisis can be seen. In my earlier research article, "The Architecture of Terror: Mapping the Israeli Network Behind 9-11," I pointed out some of the key individuals and companies in this corporate network and their connection to the events of 9-11.

While the huge U.S. government bail-out was being discussed and planned in the fall of 2008, I saw that some of the same individuals and entities, such as Maurice Greenberg of A.I.G., were involved in the financial crisis at the highest level. A.I.G., for example, a dodgy insurance company that has long engaged in criminal practices, has received more than $150 billion of U.S. tax-payer funds.

As I pointed out in my article about the bail-out, some of the key people behind the bail-out, Ben Shalom Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, for example, are themselves dedicated Zionists with histories of working with and for criminals. In Bernanke's case, he had worked for Alan Heller Schafer, the well-known Jewish criminal and political boss who ran a sprawling roadside gambling and drinking establishment called South of the Border.

Alan Schafer, Bernanke's criminal employer while he studied at Harvard, was convicted of rigging elections in South Carolina.

Bernanke's boss Schafer was later convicted of rigging elections in South Carolina and sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison. As I concluded in my article about Bernanke's ties to Schafer, it is simply not credible that Bernanke, a student at Harvard, was unaware of Schafer's legendary criminality.

The so-called "mainstream media," outlets such as The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, CNN, and FOX News, however, will never investigate the connections of the Zionist corporate network with 9-11 or the financial crisis because they are part of the same network. This is how the Zionist-controlled media works: shield Zionist crooks by blaming others. This is also why CNN and FOX sought to smear me as an anti-Semite rather than discuss the evidence of 9-11.

The situation with the Zionist bankers and corrupt Israeli banks like IDB is exactly like that depicted in The International, a current film about a corrupt bank which profits from Middle East weapons deals and war debt. As the Italian weapons dealer turned politician said: "It's not about the profits from the weapon deals; it's about control." Debt is the banker's instrument of control.

It is a fairly daunting undertaking for an independent journalist to investigate the sprawling criminal network behind such huge crimes. Apart from the very real dangers it presents, it requires a great deal of research. I have paid a very high price for my 9-11 research and activism and seen the lives and careers of fellow truth seekers destroyed because they dared to challenge the audacious lies being imposed on the public mind.

Although there is a great deal of research left to be done, I want to present a facet of the corporate nexus behind 9-11 and the financial crisis to illustrate the basis of my thesis that a high-level Zionist network is involved in both crises. This network is not simple; it is rather complex and spans a period of several decades.

Because of the limited scope of this article, some important aspects will not be discussed in detail. For those who wish to explore these subjects more deeply I have added links within the text and source articles in the bibliography. To help introduce this fairly complicated subject, I am presenting it as I discovered it.

SINGH: THE PTECH WHISTLEBLOWER

During the first year or two after 9-11 a woman named Indira Singh came forward with a series of claims that a Massachusetts-based enterprise software company called Ptech had played a key role in the events of 9-11. In 2002, Singh was described in the Boston press as "a former Ptech consultant." Singh, said to be a risk architect and IT professional with JP Morgan, certainly knew a great deal about Ptech and its dodgy spy software, which had reportedly been loaded onto the most critical computer networks in the U.S. government prior to 9-11. A Boston Globe article from 7 December 2002 described Singh as "a former Ptech consultant" citing an interview Singh she had done with WBZ-TV:

Singh said last night in an interview on WBZ that she told the FBI ''in no uncertain terms'' about the connection between Ptech and [Yasin al] Qadi. She said that weeks after talking to the Boston FBI, she was ''shocked'' and ''frustrated'' to learn that the FBI still had not alerted any of the government agencies using Ptech software that there were questions about the company's ties to suspected terrorist fund-raisers.

Indira Singh, the former Ptech consultant turned whistleblower, sought to put the blame on Arabs and the CIA.

The essence of Singh's 9-11 presentation was that the people behind Ptech were Arab Moslems tied to Saudi financiers of terrorism and a rogue element within the CIA, which included Vice President Dick Cheney.

Singh later did a series of interviews with Jamey A. Hecht, editor of From the Wilderness (FTW), a website that featured material written by Mike Ruppert. In these interviews Singh discussed Ptech's enterprise software, how it could have been used to manipulate data on critical government computer networks, such as the FAA, NORAD, and U.S. Air Force, and who she thought was behind the company:

Jamey Hecht, a graduate of Brandeis, taught English at Baruch College in 2005.

Hecht: You said at the 9-11 Citizens' Commission hearings, you mentioned - its on page 139 of transcript - that Ptech was with Mitre Corporation in the basement of the FAA for 2 years prior to 9-11 and their specific job was to look at interoperability issues the FAA had with NORAD and the Air Force, in case of an emergency.

Singh: Yes, I have a good diagram for that…

Jamey Hecht: And that relationship had been going on mediated by Ptech for 2 years prior to 9-11. You elsewhere say that the Secret Service is among the government entities that had a contract with Ptech. Mike Ruppert's thesis in Crossing the Rubicon, as you know, is that the software that was running information between FAA & NORAD was superseded by a parallel subsuming version of itself that was being run by the Secret Service on state of the art parallel equipment in the PEOC with a nucleus of Secret Service personnel around Cheney.

Singh claimed that Ptech was connected to the CIA and Saudi millionaires, using terminology like "blowback," a term that is not commonly used:

"Ptech had all the markings," said Indira Singh. All the markings of a CIA front company. "I think there is a CIA within the CIA," Indira told FTW. "I think there is a Shadow CIA that does the Iran-Contra type of things -- they get funding from illicit methods--and that the Saudis are in on it. They might have trained some operatives, and later it backfired - it was blowback within blowback, perhaps."

In one of the FTW articles about Ptech by Michael Kane, a list of three suspect groups is presented: the Muslim Brotherhood, Christian Cultists, and Nazis. Kane describes Ptech as "the Alpha dog" in a relationship with Mitre, but the ownership of Mitre is never discussed. Elsewhere, Vice President Dick Cheney is named as a suspect, depicted as the mastermind single-handedly running the whole show:

Ptech was working with Mitre Corp. in the FAA and, according to Indira, Ptech was the Alpha dog in that relationship. Mitre has provided simulation & testing technologies for the Navy. They provide multiple FAA technologies and boast in their annual reports that their two biggest clients are DOD & FAA. Mitre knew the FAA's technological enterprise inside and out, including any simulation-and-testing (war game) technology operated by the FAA.

This was the perfect marriage to ensure that the capacity to covertly intervene in FAA operations on 9/11 existed - in the middle of simulated war games. It is also the perfect marriage to ensure that the command and control of these capabilities was readily available to Dick Cheney via Secret Service Ptech software in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the bunker to which Cheney was "rushed" by the Secret Service. As already pointed out in Part 1 of this series, Ptech does what Total Information Awareness (TIA, the DARPA program to monitor all electronic transactions in real-time) is supposed to do. There are an undetermined number of other software programs in the hands of an undetermined number of corporations also capable of this. Again, enterprise architecture software is designed with the express purpose of knowing everything that is going on throughout the entirety of the "enterprise" in real-time.

In the case of Ptech software, installed on White House, Secret Service, Air Force and FAA systems (as well as most American military agencies), the enterprise included all of the real-time data of the above mentioned agencies.

Hecht, senior editor of the FTW website, described Ptech as a den of thieves and murderers in the introduction to "Ptech, 9-11, and USA-Saudi Terror" (2005):

The human side of Ptech is where the thievery and murder come in: among the financiers and programmers of Ptech are apparent members of an international network of organized criminals involved in decades of narcotraffic, gunrunning, money laundering, and terrorism. Their personal and professional connections reach up into the highest levels of the American government, and their activities are still underway.

But who are these financiers and programmers of Ptech? Who are the "apparent members of an international network of organized criminals involved in decades of narcotraffic, gunrunning, money laundering, and terrorism?" What Hecht, Kane, and Singh overlooked in their investigation of Ptech was the conspicuous role played by Michael Goff, a Zionist Jewish lawyer from Worcester, Mass., who had suddenly left his law practice to manage Ptech, a start-up company headed by a Lebanese Muslim. How much sense does that make? Not much, unless of course one considers the idea that Ptech was an Israeli-controlled cut-out operation from the beginning.

Michael Goff was the first marketing and general manager of Ptech. He went on to work for Guardium, a similar enterprise software company owned and operated by Israeli military intelligence.

Goff wore many hats at the new company whose software found its way onto the most critical networks of the U.S. government. Goff, who was Ptech's first marketing manager, was also responsible for the procurement of all software for a company that supposedly wrote enterprise software. He was also responsible for the hiring and training of personnel. As I pointed out in my 2005 exposé about Ptech, Goff went on to represent Guardium, an Israeli software company founded and run by members of Israeli military intelligence. Goff was clearly not just a simple Jewish lawyer who wanted to help a Lebanese immigrant promote his software company. This is probably why Goff could not tell me the name of the agency which had placed him with Ptech; the agency was most likely a branch of Israeli military intelligence. In that case, how do Hecht and Singh fit in? Who are they and who do they really work for in their apparent disinformation campaign?

Why is Jamey Hecht spreading disinformation about Ptech? Who is he working for?

To me, the evidence indicates that Ptech was a cut-out, a company disguised to look Arab-owned but which was actually run by Israeli intelligence. Goff was Israel's point man within the company and the person who hired the right people and through whom the Israeli-manipulated software became Ptech enterprise software. Goff appears to have been the instrument through whom malicious Israeli spyware was loaded onto U.S. government computers. Hecht, Ruppert and Singh were spin-masters to pin the blame on Arabs and a nebulous cabal at the CIA - and distract the investigators from the Israeli connection to Ptech.

How else could it be that Singh, Hecht, and Kane only saw Arabs and rogue CIA agents running Ptech without noticing Mike Goff, the Jewish lawyer from Worchester, Mass., who played so many key roles running Ptech from the beginning? How is it that Singh knew so much about Ptech – but absolutely nothing about Michael Goff? Goff's name was on Ptech documents, after all.

Were Singh, Hecht, Kane, and Ruppert intentionally spreading disinformation about Ptech? With all due respect, this certainly appears to have been the case. But who were they working for?; March 2, 2009 at 6:07 PM
Bewert said...: Funny how we get an immediate sideshow after Marge...; March 2, 2009 at 7:08 PM
Bewert said...: Butter, "they" do seem to notice this place. Pretty weird, since none of us have much real power locally.; March 2, 2009 at 7:33 PM
tim said...: "Anybody recognize the name Sean Tate?"

Weird story, Bruce. I don't know of a Sean Tate. I do recall a Larry Tate.; March 2, 2009 at 8:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Foff
Deleted comment; March 2, 2009 at 8:03 PM
Anonymous said...: Bend Homes | Contact Us | Bend / Central Oregon Homes & Real ...
Sean Tate, Sales Manager. 383-0386. state@bendbulletin.com. Jan Even, New Media Director ... Published daily in Bend, Oregon by Western Communications, Inc.; March 2, 2009 at 8:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Pussy say's ... Juniper Ridge Info
This 1500 acres of land was sold to the City of Bend by Deschutes County for $1. .... Last week there was an Oregon Transportation Committee meeting at Eagle Crest, .... But later that day, Legg e-mailed: “I just spoke to Sean Tate, ... but that was over a year ago? How come pussy don't remember?; March 2, 2009 at 8:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Just three months ago our pussy wrote the following, and tonight after a few butt fucks at the 'D' he ask's who is 'tate', pussy read what you write, ...

Buying a Bulletin Ad Is Tough for Union

Bend’s Only Daily Newspaper must be so flush with advertising dollars that it can afford to be really picky about what ads it accepts – at least if they come from the union representing Bend Area Transit bus drivers.

Back in mid-April, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 tried to place an ad in The Bulletin urging the city not to raise BAT fares or cut service to cope with its budget crunch. The ad also claimed there is a “gross disparity in wages and benefits between BAT workers and every other city worker.”

The union originally wanted the ad to run on Tuesday, April 15, to publicize a press conference and rally to be held at Bend City Hall the next day. But when Catharine Alexander of the union submitted the ad to Bulletin account executive Lisa Legg, she was told the contents had to be vetted by the paper’s higher-ups before it could be printed.

“I sent your ad for approval to our management, who would like you to provide a back up for the claims in the ad,” Legg wrote to Alexander April 10 in an e-mail provided to The EYE.

Alexander responded by sending some supporting documents. Shortly afterward Legg e-mailed: “For each claim in the ad, we will need to know what page of the information you sent over pertains to that particular claim. We do not know how to look through each page and decide what goes with what.”

The next morning, Legg asked if the ad could run on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. “Can we still get Tuesday?” Alexander responded. “I can possibly get it in late, pending approval from management,” Legg replied.

But later that day, Legg e-mailed: “I just spoke to Sean Tate, our advertising manager, and Jay Brandt, our advertising director. They would both need to review every page of the documents that you sent, which wouldn’t be possible in time to run the ad. We would be happy to run an ad inviting people to come to the Press Conference and Rally.”

Alexander next asked Legg if Tate and Brandt could review the ad in time to get it into the Wednesday paper. Legg told her they wouldn’t be able to review it until Monday, when they both would be “on the road, which means we’d miss the deadline for Wednesday as well.”; March 2, 2009 at 8:26 PM
Bewert said...: Funny thing, Sean picked up after the first ring, and then I introduced myself and asked about the ad, and he was suddenly in a meeting...

###

Re: How come pussy don't remember?

My memory is bear trap. Don't fuck with me.; March 2, 2009 at 8:30 PM
Bewert said...: Re: Just three months ago..

###

Sunday, May 4, 2008
Please Support Stifled Unions

A little more than three months ago...

I knew I had heard that name before. Thanks for the memory jog.; March 2, 2009 at 8:44 PM
Bewert said...: Here it comes:

8. Consider a roll call vote on a Resolution Authorizing the Community Development Director to Grant Additional Approval Extensions (Issue Summary) (Resolution)

Due to the current economic crisis, many developers are unable to execute their approved planning permit, which requires the initiation of construction. These developers have indicated that they intend to build their projects and desire to keep their planning approvals active until the market allows them the financial ability to submit their building permits, pay their SDCs and commence construction. As the economic climate continues to stagnate, these developers are approaching the end of their one-year extensions. The proposed resolution will give the Community Development Director the ability to issue an additional extension to planning permit holders who have already applied for a one-year extension to apply for an additional two-year extension. The text of the enabling code language limits additional approval extensions to a total of two years. An ordinance allowing for this process was adopted by the Council on February 4, 2009. This resolution implements the process. We recommend approval of this resolution.; March 2, 2009 at 8:52 PM
Bewert said...: Dude, I got to admit, you remembered Sean Tate and I didn't. Good catch.; March 2, 2009 at 8:55 PM
Bewert said...: This one's for Dunc, one of the last items of the night:

9. An Ordinance Establishing an Economic Improvement District within the City's Central Business District Applying Only to Commercial Properties, and Establishing a Process for Imposition of Assessments (Issue Summary) (Ordinance) (District) (Ordinance Timeline) (Flowchart)

A. Hold a Public Hearing

B. Consider the first reading of proposed Ordinance

ORS 223.119 specifically authorizes the City to enter into agreements with associations of property owners for the purpose of implementing the Economic Improvement District (EID). The City Council approved the formation of an EID in 2007, with and expiration date of April 30, 2009.The EID allows the City to assess each commercial property within the District and collect the funding for the projects identified in the EID. The Executive Director for the Bend Downtown Business Association implements the programs identified in the EID. The EID is anticipated to raise approximately $115,000 per year, based on an assessment of $.15 per square foot of commercial space in the downtown area.; March 2, 2009 at 9:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Now my memory is being jogged as well -- popgoesbend is the guy that I thought was our "Tim".

Because popgoesbend told us what house he sold for a handsome profit -- in just the nick of time -- and when I looked him up, it was Tim.; March 2, 2009 at 10:31 PM
Anonymous said...: Good memory, but I'm not that Tim.; March 2, 2009 at 11:01 PM
PopGoesBend said...: Fuckin logging me out...

Yes I'm Tim, but not "Tim"; March 2, 2009 at 11:02 PM
Bewert said...: http://bend-gazette.blogspot.com/; March 3, 2009 at 4:41 AM
Bewert said...: Also, the biggest issue at tomorrows CC meeting is going to be the proposed fee changes. There are about eight attachments to download and peruse. This is the first thing to be taken up at 5 PM in the Work Session. Probably the only thing I'll report on.

At the end of the night is the downtown association fee ordinance first reading, vote to be held at the next meeting, and then consideration of an appointment of "someone" to the Planning Commission. No name is listed, so it's an end of the night slide them in thing...like the way our new council seems to like to work.

I might have to come back to see who it is after supper. I'm making a great beef roast with all the trimmings tonight :); March 3, 2009 at 4:46 AM
Bewert said...: "Currently, there are no shares of CACB available for shorting. Please call your local branch."; March 3, 2009 at 5:08 AM
IHateToBurstYourBubble said...: I put Bend Gazette at the top of the masthead...; March 3, 2009 at 7:44 AM
Bewert said...: Thanks :)

Looks like CACB is moving more strongly into consumer loans:

Bank of the Cascades Looks to Cypress Software’s Mark IV System to Automate and Grow Consumer Lending

Bank Also Bundles Mark IV with Several Additional Modules for Document Preparation, Core System Interface and New Account Setup

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bank of the Cascades, the principal subsidiary of Cascade Bancorp (NASDAQ: CACB), has chosen Cypress Software Systems LP’s Mark IV loan software to automate and grow the bank’s consumer loan operations.

Bank of the Cascades, based in Bend, Oregon, is a community bank offering a full range of financial services to its business and consumer clients, including trusts and investments. The organization employs about 550 people, operates 32 branches in Idaho and Oregon and has about $2.5 billion in assets. While commercial lending comprises the bulk of the portfolio, the Bank wanted to enhance its ability to grow and centralize the consumer lending function.

Ahjamu Umi, vice president of consumer lending for Bank of the Cascades, said he expects all branches to be up and running by April; concurrently, the bank is completing development of its lending policies and procedures that will be executed by Mark IV. Umi also said the rollout will enable Bank of the Cascades to expand the lending process from the traditional loan officers to its front-end employees, referred to as “relationship bankers.”

“The Mark IV software and its associated modules will enable us to provide a more sophisticated loan delivery experience,” said Umi. “It’s all about implementing our business strategy by combining outstanding service, competitive financial products, local expertise and advanced technology applied for the convenience of customers.”

In addition to Mark IV, the integrated solution includes the Harland LaserPro document preparation interface for downstream data flow; the Jack Henry-Silverlake interface to the bank’s core system; and Cypress’ new account setup module, which captures all the loan setup information within Mark IV.

Cypress’ Mark IV is a software platform that automates the consumer loan application and decisioning process, and helps institutions with risk management issues. With Mark IV, service associates electronically input application information while interviewing customers. The software then quickly retrieves credit reports, efficiently analyzes the capacity for repayment, and deploys the institution’s loan policies. The result is a fast, quality loan decision.

“Bank of the Cascades has been rated among the top performing banks in the nation for many years and we’re pleased to partner with them to help execute their business strategy,” said Stephen G. Sargent, president and chief executive officer of Cypress Software Systems. “Our Mark IV solution will help them grow their consumer loans and gain new efficiencies with their entire lending process.”; March 3, 2009 at 7:50 AM
Anonymous said...: I just want to say one thing about PGB ( pop goes bend ), but here on BB2 goes by PP (pop pussy).

PP says that this is a hole ( well thats true in the BEBB anal-hole sense ), but he means watering-hole.

BB2 is a rock that dogs piss on, BB2 is a toilet, nobody comes to a toilet to drink and take away information.

People come to BB2 to piss & sniff, and then every once in awhile they get new ideas. Every once in awhile FIFI pisses here and we all know she is heat.

But NOBODY here drinks from BB2,

Lastly, I remember PP as being one of the bigger boors over at BEBB in prior times, too bad because its a great 'handle', too bad that his writing smells like RDC or BENDBB (same).; March 3, 2009 at 8:14 AM
Anonymous said...: BP,

I thought the following was fascinating, and its from BET ( black entertainment ), the essence is that this Rush is running right is coming from no other than Rahm-Emmanuel whose grand-father help found the the original pre-1948 terrorists to create Israel ( Rahmbo holds dual Israeli/US passport ). Its interesting here that Steele the RNC chairman, a blackman himself has said bullshit to Emmanuel, that he is the leader of the RNC.

Ok, and Steele says that Limbaugh is just 'entertainment' OMG ...:) now there is a fucking 3-way rape going on between Rahmbo(obama)&Steele&Limbaugh.

I hope HBM is reading this stuff, this is a KEEPER for his sore-eye.

...

Mar. 3, 2009
GOP Cat Fight?

Hold on! So who’s really leading the Republican Party these days?

This past weekend, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel insisted that Rush Limbaugh – the bombastic, liberal-baiting, Obama-hating shock jock – is the heart and soul of the conservative movement in America. Emanuel’s comments came a day after Limbaugh repeated to a GOP gathering that he hopes Obama fails in his efforts to reform the economy and transform American politics.

But Michael Steele, the bona fide leader of the Republican Party, isn’t feeling Limbaugh, or those responsible for crowning the radio host king of the right wing.

"I'm the de facto leader of the Republican Party," Steele snapped to CNN on Sunday. “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly."

Of course, the vociferous Limbaugh didn’t take the comments in stride. Lashing back on his radio show Monday, he accused Steele of being in cahoots with the honchos of the opposition party – President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Steele seems like he’s "obsessed with seeing to it President Obama succeeds," Limbaugh bellowed. "I frankly am stunned that the chairman of the Republican National Committee endorses such an agenda. I have to conclude that he does, because he attacks me for wanting it to fail."

He apparently got to Steele, who wasted no time extending an olive branch to the mighty Limbaugh.

"My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh," Steele told Politico. "I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. ... There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership. There are those out there who want to look at what he's saying as incendiary and divisive and ugly. That's what I was trying to say. It didn't come out that way. I went back at that tape, and I realized words that I said weren't what I was thinking.”

Huh? What do you think of Steele’s apology to Limbaugh?; March 3, 2009 at 8:20 AM
Anonymous said...: Homer,

Great that you put BP's BG on mast, pls put BEBB on bottom?

Note that BG isn't real until BP uses some real newspaper SW, and we already gave him the info, the blogspot.com can never be used, as its too difficult to navigate multi-story's at a glance.

Any volunteers want to help BP? How about TT(Apu,TP) ???; March 3, 2009 at 8:22 AM
Anonymous said...: Well Buffetteee the BULL-SHITTER has now lost all BRK.A gains in the last ten years. Anybody that bought in 1997 and tripled their money, is now back where they started.

De-Leveraging, time for a lot of 401K money to get out, before its all gone.

Yep, CACB moss signs up for new software. This is the real fucking problem, she just might pull this fucking thing off, and keep her fucking racket intact???? Even CACB is hold well today up a couple penny's.

I love it when they have to keep repeating that CACB is one of the best banks in the country, yet a penny stock, what do the 'good' banks look like? and what the fuck is a bad bank if MOSS is one of the best??

Well too me its all just like 'BEND' being rated #1 for this or that, Bend is exceptional, and MOSS/MDU/CACB is exceptional, why? Because somebody said so, and others can quote them.

It's only 2009, and we got YEAR's before we hit bottom, enjoy the ride.; March 3, 2009 at 8:29 AM
Bewert said...: For anyone who wants to read Buster's favorite book of all time, all about life as a bum in the Paris and London:

http://www.george-orwell.org/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_London/0.html; March 3, 2009 at 8:30 AM
Anonymous said...: BP,

I'll just say one thing about this Software purchase and CACB since you brought it up.

It's NOT always a good thing.

About 10+ years ago there was a fine company in Portland called "Great Western Chemical", one of the largest suppliers of raw materials to high-tech in the PNW. A company that had been around FOREVER. Then MOFU's update their accounting and the entire system all at once, and the entire company collapsed, orders collapsed, revenue, accounts receivable,... It's never quite clear WHY 'if something works the need to fix', BP say's that new SW will help CACB do more 'individual lending' come on this is a podunk bank, and we're talking about a fucking string of bytes.

MOSS has been SOLD, a better BET knowing what we KNOW about MDU(knife-river) is to look closely and see if MOSS is on the board of this SW company, or one of its spawn.

But honestly, does ANYBODY here think that NEW SW can help CACB? At best it just means training for employees and nobody will no what their doing for the next six months, and perhaps that's what this is all about 'cover', perhaps in the coming months they'll say, "We're putting up a new system, and can't help you today", and they'll play it out as another fucking excuse.

What we do know is that MOSS has non-performing loans above her fucking nose, HER TITANIC is going down, and she got NO fucking CARP.

It's clear that UMPQUA couldn't be FORCED to buy her. The FDIC can't afford to pay off the depositors, and thus MUST find buyers for these dead banks. Perhaps the NEW SW is the emperorers new clothes that will wrap up the dead-moss fish with a wrapper just good enough to sell the dead fish to some stupid fucking bank??

The deal today is that we need new banks with CLEAN P&L, and CLEAN balance,... Any bank that survives 2009, why in the FUCK would it want to absorb CACB on its good books?? NADA ain't going to happen.

In perfect capitalism, CACB would already be closed, and if FDIC actually had any $$$ they would pay depositors, my guess is that CACB will go down like Ben-Franklin of ORYGUN back in 1987, they'll go down a horrible slow painful death, and it will take depositors 20+ years to get their money back.

To date the FDIC has been lucky, they haven't used reserves much, they have found buyers for the bad banks, and the depositors have been comforted. I myself use WAMU for my property management, and I didn't feel one iota of pain in the transistion.

But CACB is sitting on the toxic epicenter of the biggest credit bust in world history, who in the FUCK would want that on their balance-sheet?

Look yesterday @.61 CACB had a Market-Capitalization of $18M, where are the buyers??

BofA was forced to BUY Merrill and what of it? It has killed BofA, the US-GOV strong armed BofA to buy Merrill, todays WSJ has a great story about Merrill, and its NOW a BIG ZERO.; March 3, 2009 at 8:41 AM
Anonymous said...: CACB is prepping for a takeover...it's a lot easier for UMPQUA to take over CACB if CACB is using the same software as UMPQUA; March 3, 2009 at 8:48 AM
Anonymous said...: For anyone who wants to read Buster's favorite book of all time, all about life as a bum in the Paris and London:

*

Not my favorite BP, and I HATE ONLINE BOOKS, and I HATE TV, and I HATE Radio, and especially NPR ( national petroleum radio ).

I guess that's why PP(pop-pussy) set me off yesterday, the fucker is telling us to listen to podcasts from NPR about banking. Well read the fucking book about banking, its called "A primer on Money", US-CONG 1962. Talks about money from dawn of civilization, and how paper money is always made insolvent. Who would have guessed?

My quote was that compared to Ayn-Rand, I would rather turn a kid on to Orwell and learn something.

I don't really have a favorite book, I could tell you what I keep by my bed, but honestly me & wife were just talking about this last night, with these fucking laptops, its like we read less&less. So yes I have my favorite books, but for the past 3+ years they collect dust-bunny's. The laptop has got to go.

I can read a couple dozen pages in a few minutes on a laptop, but I'll never fucking read a book, or buy a kindle, I own an iPod cuz somebody gave me one, and never use it.

Over the years here I have mentioned dozens of essential reading books BP, and just the other DAY, I told you to read Seldes, if you want to know about Journalism, read Seldes.

Orwell's "Down & Out in Paris" is topical today, cuz I think its essential reading for what life was really like in those times, as we all know Orwell was one of the few who TOLD IT LIKE IT WAS. Much like we try to do at this rock we piss on.

But don't drink from this rock, or you'll be poisoned to death. I think PP is already fucked, whether it be bend-kool-aide ( cocaine&wine ), or BB2 rock-piss, they'll both rot your fucking mind.; March 3, 2009 at 8:51 AM
Anonymous said...: CACB is prepping for a takeover...it's a lot easier for UMPQUA to take over CACB if CACB is using the same software as UMPQUA

*

Well then let's HOPE to fucking HELL, that MOSS is smart enough to HIRE a Umpqua IT guy and soon, because with her level of historic fucking incompetence and stupidity, she will FUCK this up like all she touches turns to shit.; March 3, 2009 at 8:52 AM
Anonymous said...: Dude, I got to admit, you remembered Sean Tate and I didn't. Good catch.

*

Everything I posted about Sean Tate was from things that BP had written back in Oct 2008.

This is my fucking point about getting some REAL fucking URNALIST Sw for your online newspaper, you need to be able to search. We all know that blogspot.com is a fucking shit-hole for search, and we know that ALL content of BB2 is in the BLACK-HOLE cuz of 'nofollow'.

You want to solve this 'sean tate' problem, get off your ass and get some decent software that does a good job on online-news and has a search-button at the top of the home-page, and a toilet button on the bottom for all the HBM vile&bile comment.

Note the 'toilet-button' isn't a trash-can, its just a bath-room, where you can sit on the toilet and read the good stuff on the walls.; March 3, 2009 at 9:01 AM
Bewert said...: Re: Note that BG isn't real until BP uses some real newspaper SW,

###

I've got campsite downloaded, but it's not recognizing my MySQL daemon...; March 3, 2009 at 9:02 AM
Anonymous said...: Well then let's HOPE to fucking HELL, that MOSS is smart enough to HIRE a Umpqua IT guy and soon, because with her level of historic fucking incompetence and stupidity, she will FUCK this up like all she touches turns to shit.

I am always amazed that the larger employers in Bend don't find better IT help. SCMC, Mt. Bachelor, Banks all seem to hire crappy IT folk while the good ones work for crap wages at service companies around town...Bendtel, ect.

Mt. B's IT budget is stunningly small...you get what you pay for.

SCMC...WTF? How hard is it to get IT done in a small/med sized hospital?; March 3, 2009 at 9:07 AM
Anonymous said...: Dude,

Your talking about the 'bend problem', and its nauseum, but obviously your a newbie.

Been this way forever in this shit-hole of a little town. Good people just don't work here, Bend is a town of 2nd tier at best, and 3rd tier by default.

Much of this is cuz there is ONLY one chip plant, one bio, ... folks come over from PDX, and think they're going to fish, but they get worked 12hr/day 7days/wk, and get burned out, and quit, but guess what NO fucking jobs, so they move back to PDX, or SEA, or SF, always been that fucking way here.

Smart people, good people who went to good schools, say CMU, UMW, MIT,... they want to be with peers they talk.

My gang I run with are all founders of bay-ahrea high-tech, and we have a rule here in BEND, we play we don't work, Bend has never been a working town, waste of fucking time.

So BEND can only recruit 2nd or 3rd tier IT,... the pay is also shitty here to boot.

It's way better if your "GOOD", to make your money else-where, and play here.

I have been here 40+ years and the only people that make money here are those that take worthless land and sell it to Cali's, but even that is cyclical, we just came out of a 20 yr boom, and now we'll go into a 10 yr bust, ...

Make Bend your base-camp, or have a 2nd home here and make your money elsewhere.

HELL yes, and insult to injury, lets say you are 'good', do you really want to work side-by-side with idiots??

Hell, this is why kids go to work for GOOGLE R&D or MICROSOFT R&D, its where its not only fun, at night, but you get to be surrounded by teir-1 people and that's what it is really all about, especially if your young and want to be an entrepreneur.

Yeh, come to Bend, and put together a team of retards and see what you end up with, its all quite sad, cuz even when I came here in the early 60's to this day there is NOT even one single decent UNIV in the state of ORYGUN.

Bend is HAIR-LIPS, in the most recent years, all ships rise on GROWTH, its funny but in growth, a biz can survive with retards, but when things go BUST, well its like WARM-BUFFET says, "You get to see who is naked when the tide goes out".

Nope, in all my years in BEND, I have never seen any semblance of competence, nor do I ever think it will arrive. Bend is what it is a remote desert ISL, inhabited by shit eating parasites. Fortunately most spend their live @home in front of TV, so the trails are empty for me to hike, bike, and ski.; March 3, 2009 at 9:21 AM
Anonymous said...: I've got campsite downloaded, but it's not recognizing my MySQL daemon...

*

Perhaps somebody willing to help bewert@gmail.com???; March 3, 2009 at 9:24 AM
Anonymous said...: So I called Bryan Iverson, of the Iverson Group that the amended Orestar filing now states actually paid for, produced and placed the ad. He stated that it was a single-sheet, two-sided ad that was inserted into the Oct. 31 issue. I said I haven't been able to find it and asked if he could produce a copy. He said he might still have one around and that he would take a look. I plan to call him again tomorrow.

*

That's interesting, because BP & HP said that a page had been torn out of the missing paper, and now we're told it was a free standing insert.

HERE is the deal MOFU's all papers are invoiced for ad's, and all invoices keep a copy of the ad attached, all you got to do is go to the BULL ( western-comm ) billing, and ask them to pull that invoice for the $4k to Iverson, and you'll see the ad attached, what is the problem?; March 3, 2009 at 9:41 AM
PopGoesBend said...: >I guess that's why PP(pop-pussy) set me off yesterday

I've been setting you off for years, just as anonymous. It's not my goal, just a nice bonus.

I didn't post the NPR link for your benefit. I knew YOU wouldn't listen as you already know fucking HISTORY, and that' all that matters.

I posted it so people would know it's out there, so that we know some of the media actually has a true grasp on what is going on. So people can forward it to their cousin who doesn't quite get it, or their co-worker that thinks everything is going to be fine. So people could ignore it if they wanted to. So fucking ignore it. I'll send it to everyone I think will be receptive of it as I think that as more people understand it we can have more intelligent conversations about it.

Sorry Buster, the blog isn't about you and your needs.; March 3, 2009 at 9:44 AM
Anonymous said...: PP,

Why don't you tell us why its so fucking important?

See PP, BB2 pissing isn't about dumping and running, its more like a book club, where we piss, and comment on each others scent.

You seem to never fucking a fucking opinion about anything. Tell us what fucking significant thing about banking you learned from the NPR report?

IMHO PP assumes that because he's a fucking idiot, so is everyone else, and ergo needs to be fed NPR dribble. Tell us fucking PP, was there even ONE fucking thing in the report that you didn't know? Or do you assume that we like you don't read and get all our info from TV&RADIO?

That's what really irks me, like these fucking YOU-TUBE posts you fucks always dump here, I get my info from 'reading', thanks very much, no tv, or radio, no talking heads, send me to the editorial source, and let me decide.

In a book-club folks read the book, and then sit around and discuss the book, you now allege to have listened to the report did you? Or are you just telling us to? If you didn't then drop the issue, if you did listen, then tell us what did you fucking learn?; March 3, 2009 at 9:50 AM
Anonymous said...: Your talking about the 'bend problem', and its nauseum, but obviously your a newbie.

i'll agree with you that most of the issue stems from lack of good pay. There is no other reason why we can't find quality professionals in any trade.

Newb?...sorry kook, not the BB2 or Bend.; March 3, 2009 at 10:14 AM
PopGoesBend said...: >See PP, BB2 pissing isn't about dumping and running, its more like a book club, where we piss, and comment on each others scent.

See, once again it's all about you, your needs and the rules that you set for a hypothetical rock. That's how you use this blog and that's fine. There are other people here, and they use it differently. I hate to see dumps of information and would rather see the link to the article so I can put it in context. Often the place where the article came from has a comment section where other people are having opinions about it that are much more varied than if it gets dumped here. We can use it however the fuck we want.

As far as what I learned, I learned that in bank accounting a loan is an asset and a deposit is a liability. No, I didn't fucking know that. Now it all makes sense. You keep asking "where did the money go? Where did the money go that that we gave to B of A?" It was gone years ago, before the bailout money was sent to them. The money went out the door when the loan was given and it went into the asset column as the loan+6%. Now the recipient of the loan stops paying, forecloses and the house is only worth half of the loan value. Their asset sheet becomes imbalanced and they are insolvent, so the bailout money comes in to bring it into balance. Then every month more people default and the balance sheet gets more out of whack. Where did the money go you ask? It went out the door years ago. We can give them billions more that they sit on - do NOTHING with it, and because of the non performing loans it will go away. The robbery that you talk of happened years ago and the taxpayers are on the hook for it. Where did the money go? I sold a house and made money on it. Some of that money went to the real estate agent, most is in the bank getting a shitty 3% return, some went to the gold dealer. The money exists. If the person I sold the house to stops paying the mortgage in two years the money "disappears" from the books then, but it "disappeared" into my bank account long ago. That's what's happening over and over and over.

Maybe if you had listened to it you wouldn't keep asking "where did the money go?"

As far as an opinion, I think it's time to nationalize the fuckers.; March 3, 2009 at 10:27 AM
Anonymous said...: The 'bend problem' ain't about PAY, money solves NOTHING.

The 'bend problem' is lack of competition, one hospital, one tire manufacturer, one bio-warefare plant, one paper, ... when it don't work out cuz they work people to the bone, they flee from this shit-hole town, always been this way.

See in order for ABT ( now microsemi ) to compete in the desert wilderness, they have to work with fewer people, with low pay, but with longer hours, and more shifts in order to compete with CALI, its always been this way in BEND,ORYGUN.

NEVER come to BEND if you have to work. Bend is a place for 'rich' people to play, or for welfare parasites to collect, and now its a place marketed for old farts to die in poverty.

But work? NO.

It's NOT about PAY.

It's about bad schools, bad government, bad boss-hoggs, its about PUG philosophy. Like metolius this week, where nothing is sacred.

By saying 'newbie' what is MEANT is that if you had been on this blog for over 2 years you would know that we have peeled back this issue to the bone.

'Good' people talk, and good people know. It's like St-Charles, they got they're rated as the most over-subscribed for needless surgery in the state, insurance companys are at the point where their eye's roll if you try to get a 'back-surgery', too many fucking surgeons in Bend want to live here, and not enough work, ... Its the BEND-FUCK its been discussed ad-nauseum.

Folks come here on vacation and say, I think I'll start biz here, or move my company here, and then they lose everything, or even if they do run a biz for 20+ years they sell out like Bend-Sci sold out Suterra to Resnick, cuz nobody here can compete in the real world.

Good people, smart people no better than trying to get a marginal existence in Bend.

Want to ski or hike in BEND? Get a job in PDX, and spend your weekends playing here. Work in BEND? The fuckers here will make you work weekends!! It's always been that way here.; March 3, 2009 at 10:30 AM
Anonymous said...: Maybe if you had listened to it you wouldn't keep asking "where did the money go?"

[ I never asked that, I know where the money went. ]

As far as an opinion, I think it's time to nationalize the fuckers.

[ YES, read the current bendbubble2.blogspot.com, the UofO prof concludes exactly that its time to quit covering the back-side of the richest people in the USA. ]; March 3, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Anonymous said...: YES, read the current bendbubble2.blogspot.com, the UofO prof concludes exactly that its time to quit covering the back-side of the richest people in the USA. ]

*

Whoops bendbubble3.blogspot.com; March 3, 2009 at 10:33 AM
Anonymous said...: The great thing about 'nationalization' is overnight MOSS would be on her ass in the streets of Bend having to HO.; March 3, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Anonymous said...: Dunc calls it the BIG-BAD, but Today Bernie Sanders of Vermont is ASKING the right fucking questions.

U.S. senator wants Fed to name loan recipients
Tue Mar 3, 2009 4:49pm GMT

WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - A U.S. senator berated Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday for refusing to name banks that borrow from the central bank, and said he would introduce legislation requiring public disclosure.

In a testy exchange at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who usually votes with the Democrats, said he found it "unacceptable" that the central bank risked taxpayer money without detailing where the funds went.

"My question to you is, will you tell the American people to whom you lent $2.2 trillion of their dollars?" Sanders asked, referring to the size of the Fed's balance sheet.

Bernanke responded that the Fed explains the various lending programs on its website, and details the terms and collateral requirements.

When Sanders pressed on whether he would name the firms that borrowed from the Fed, the central bank chairman replied, "No," and started to say that doing so risked stigmatizing banks and discouraging them from borrowing from the central bank.

"Isn't that too bad," Sanders interrupted, cutting off Bernanke's answer. "They took the money but they don't want to be public about the fact that they received it."

He said businesses in his state were in trouble and needed loans, but were not permitted to borrow from the Fed.

"Do you have to be a large, greedy, reckless financial institution to apply for this money?" he asked.

Bernanke said the Fed's lending programs were not gifts or subsidies but rather over-collateralized loans. He said the law restricted the types of firms to which the central bank can lend.; March 3, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Anonymous said...: sanders - part 2

"We have never lost a penny doing it," he said.

Sanders responded: "Let me just say this, Mr. Chairman. I have a hard time understanding how you have put $2.2 trillion at risk without making those names available, those institutions public."

"We are going to introduce legislation today, by the way, to demand that you do that. It is unacceptable to me that that this goes on," he added. (Reporting by Emily Kaiser, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama); March 3, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Anonymous said...: BP/HP

I think the most interesting story today the Steele/Rahmbo/Limbaugh circle-jackoff.

Rahmbo says limbaugh runs RNC, but new PUG-NEGRO says he's the man, and then new pug-negro now on his knees asking white-massa limbaugh to forgive his black ass, that nigger mis-spoke about who be the leader of the RNC.

Anybody want to place bets on how long Steele lasts??

It's really too bad, as steele may have re-invented the RNC, as DR-DEM did a few years ago with the DNC.

It's too bad that Steele didn't & couldn't bitch-slap Limbaugh in public, and that can't be, cuz after all its all theater, and what would it really mean to the RNC if the masses even knew that a nigger was running the klan(KKK)????

This is some of the best shit I have seen.; March 3, 2009 at 10:45 AM
Anonymous said...: For those with pencils stuck up their dicks, and still sore from last night, lets recap what Jim Rogers said about OUR ECONOMY back when OREO got elected...

Put away your Graham books, Buffett quotes and momentum trading advisors etc....In case you missed it, Buffett is in trouble and Graham lost 70% of his money during the Great Depression.

It is simple: people do not trust Obama, the FED, SEC and the markets. Nor should they given all the information unloaded in the last year. Obama and Co, likely only care about re-election, people will likely forget what is happening now. So Obama and Co are "swinging for the fenses", a 1 trillion++ "bail out" to their supporters.

Yep, that was true Nov08, and true today, OREO only cares about giving trillions to those who got him in so he can win a 2nd term, and the US public is so fucking dumb they'll never even know.; March 3, 2009 at 11:01 AM
Anonymous said...: Above is Rogers three months ago, and today ,...?

Jim Rogers Doesn't Mince Words About the Crisis
Maria Bartiromo talks to global investor Jim Rogers

By Maria Bartiromo

David Hartung

In 1970 a young Wall Streeter named Jim Rogers hooked up with George Soros to start the legendary Quantum Fund. The ensuing decades have seen Rogers build an iconoclastic career as an author, adventurer, and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index. And throughout, Rogers—now based in Singapore—has remained an outspoken global investor. Today is no different. He has harsh words for former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, suggests President Barack Obama and his economic team are not up to the task, and thinks tough love is the answer for America.
MARIA BARTIROMO

What do you think of the government's response to the economic crisis?
JIM ROGERS

Terrible. They're making it worse. It's pretty embarrassing for President Obama, who doesn't seem to have a clue what's going on—which would make sense from his background. And he has hired people who are part of the problem. [Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner was head of the New York Fed, which was supposedly in charge of Wall Street and the banks more than anybody else. And as you remember, [Obama's chief economic adviser, Larry] Summers helped bail out Long-Term Capital Management years ago. These are people who think the only solution is to save their friends on Wall Street rather than to save 300 million Americans.

So what should they be doing?

What would I like to see happen? I'd like to see them let these people go bankrupt, let the bankrupt go bankrupt, stop bailing them out. There are plenty of banks in America that saw this coming, that kept their powder dry and have been waiting for the opportunity to go in and take over the assets of the incompetent. Likewise, many, many homeowners didn't go out and buy five homes with no income. Many homeowners have been waiting for this, and now all of a sudden the government is saying: "Well, too bad for you. We don't care if you did it right or not, we're going to bail out the 100,000 or 200,000 who did it wrong." I mean, this is outrageous economics, and it's terrible morality.

You have said Bear Stearns and Lehman (LEHMQ) would still be around if Greenspan hadn't bailed out Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. Can you explain?

Well, if Long-Term Capital Management had been allowed to fail, Lehman and the rest of them would've lost a huge amount of money, their capital would've been impaired, and it would've put a terrible crimp on Wall Street. It would've slowed them down for years. Instead of losing capital, losing assets, and losing incompetent people, they hired more incompetent people.

Should AIG (AIG) have been allowed to fail, too?

First of all, banks and investment banks and insurance companies have been failing for hundreds of years. Yes, we would've had a terrible two years. But you're dragging out the pain. We had 10 years of the worst credit excesses in world history. You don't wipe out something like that in six months or a year by saying: "Oh, now let's wake up and start over again."

What about Citigroup (C)? What about the car companies?

They should be allowed to go bankrupt. Why should American taxpayers put up billions to save a few car companies? They made the mistakes! We didn't make the mistakes! I'm sure they'll give them the money, but I'm telling you, it's a mistake. It's a horrible mistake.

I totally understand what you're saying, but the banks are under massive pressure.

They all took huge, huge profits. Who was the head of Citigroup? Chuck Prince? I mean, how many hundreds of millions of dollars did Prince take out of the company? How many hundreds of millions of dollars did other Citibank execs take out of the company? Wall Street has paid something like $40 billion or $50 billion in bonuses in the past decade. Who was that guy who was the head of Merrill Lynch (MERR)?; March 3, 2009 at 11:06 AM
Anonymous said...: Obama Is More Dangerous Than Jim Cramer

By Chadwick Matlin Posted Tuesday, March 3, 2009 - 1:56pm
The Sausage

Barack Obama is gunning for Jim Cramer’s job. Until now, Cramer has been the people’s investment adviser, explosively giving investment advice to hundreds of thousands of people a night. But now he’s got company, and his competition has a much larger bully pulpit (no pun intended). At a mini-press conference today, Obama told reporters, “What you're now seeing is ... profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it. ...”

Obama giving America investment advice is like a father telling his teenage grandson to use Twitter. It’s unclear whether he knows what he’s talking about, but respect for the source makes one dwell on the advice a second longer than normal. So, do we have a reason to trust Obama’s read of the markets?

Probably not. Nobody actually knows where the bottom of the market is, as evidenced by predictions that the Dow’s bottom was at 8,000. And here we stand at 6,800. Obama hedges his bottom prediction by saying it looks good if you’re thinking long term. But what’s long term? Five years or 50?

If Obama is determined to hype the markets, it’s worth wondering the best way to do it. Should he make all investments sound safe again? It may attract some badly needed capital and stem the panic, but then what if the market sinks further and folks feel like Obama cheated them? The other option is hyping the stocks that we’re all invested in, since that would help reclaim taxpayer investment more quickly. AIG could use some love. So could Citigroup, Chrysler, and GM. Think of it as a modern-day equivalent of war bonds. Except in this case, there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever get paid back.; March 3, 2009 at 11:21 AM
Bewert said...: Re: DR-DEM

###

Heeee's baack!

Join Me

Gov. Howard Dean, Democracy for America
to me

Plan Your DFA Birthday Party Today

Bruce -

It's been five years since we started working together to build our movement for change, and Democracy for America is stronger now than ever. We've elected progressives up and down the ballot, we've trained a new generation of activists, and we've changed the course of legislation from state houses to Washington D.C.

It's time to celebrate.

On March 25, DFA members will come together for a nationwide Birthday Party and conference call. I'll be there joining my brother Jim, some special guests, and DFA members across the country to celebrate the past five years and look forward to the successes of the next 50.

Will you host a DFA Birthday Party in your neighborhood?

SIGN UP TO HOST A BIRTHDAY PARTY NOW

Four years ago, your hard work elected me to Chair the Democratic National Committee. While I was there, you never stopped working to make change happen.

Your work has elected over 575 DFA-endorsed progressive candidates to all levels of office. You've held over 50,000 events taking action on everything from protecting Social Security to ending the war in Iraq.

With thousands of phone calls to Congress, you've helped pass important legislation to expand healthcare to 11 million kids. You've delivered hundreds of thousands of petition signatures and DFA even became the first PAC in America to go carbon neutral.

We're not going to stop working now. We're going to celebrate five years of success and look forward to powering DFA for another 50. Can you host a house party to celebrate DFA's 5th Birthday with other DFA members in your neighborhood?

IT'S EASY TO HOST A PARTY, JUST SIGN UP HERE TO LEARN HOW

That's right, hosting a party is easy. Once you sign up, the DFA Field Team will contact you right away with tips on what to do and how to do it. You just need a place to meet big enough for a few friends, a speaker phone or computer with internet to hear the nationwide conference call, and pens and paper to write letters to the editor in support of a healthcare plan that will cover all Americans.

So let's get together on March 25 and have some fun while we continue to make change happen. Hard work deserves its rewards -- and you've earned it.

I look forward to celebrating with you.

-Howard

Governor Howard Dean, MD
Founder, Democracy for America

P.S. Yesterday I sent you a message to say how excited I am to be coming back to DFA. Your response has been tremendous. It's clear DFA members understand we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Please chip in today and make sure we have the resources to get the job done.

###

Dem grassroots organizing continues.

Meanwhile, the Pugs managed to recruit a crowd of over 200 in a city of 8+ million for a "Tea Party" protest of the bailout and Obama's "socialism". And they were "very enthusiastic".

Now that's impressive!

And I love the knowledge of recent history by some of the speakers:

Patrick Gibson, host of the Evil Conservative radio show on WVOX in New Rochelle, said "the same government that gave us the welfare state, the same government that created the problems that we're in right now, is the same government that says, 'Give us all the power and we'll solve the problems for you.'" His proposed solution was "tax cuts for business."; March 3, 2009 at 11:27 AM
Anonymous said...: No cash, or safe, investments are paying anything right now. - dunc

*

Not the right way to look at it, had you had all your money in stock you would be -50% DOWN, if your in cash, your even which means your 50% ahead of the stock folks, everything is relative.

It just drive's me nuts to see people bitch and moan about not making money on money.

Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in world history that built US steel once said, "Making money is easy keeping it is hard".

In todays economy Carnegie is a as correct as ever, FOOL's will take 'chances' to make money, but most will lose their principal. Smart folk know that Capital Preservation throughout history is damn near impossible let alone the existence of a perpetual money tree.; March 3, 2009 at 11:31 AM
Anonymous said...: Well BP, both partys are owned by the same people,...

We have two solutions,...

1.) PUG: No taxes

2.) DEM: Print tons of money, and give it all to MOSS&Co.

Wow what a choice.

How about none of the above.

Just like SDC's Pug's just don't seem to realize where sewage treatment systems come from.

On the other hand, DEM's think that money is just something you print and hand to bankers, so they can buy whores, wine, and cocaine. Oh, and contribute money back to the DNC.; March 3, 2009 at 11:35 AM
PopGoesBend said...: Seasonally adjusted unemployment rates in Central Oregon increased in January. Individual county rates ranged from 12.0 percent in Deschutes County to 14.9 percent in Crook County. The state rate also rose, from 8.3 percent to 9.9 percent.

http://kohd.com/news/local/94928; March 3, 2009 at 11:37 AM

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