Sunday, March 22, 2009

Ripoff Outrage Boils Over

Doesn't it seem like we're entering a sort of malaise period with this economic collapse? The biggest worry of the week, was the 1/10% of 1% of AIG's bailout is going to bonuses, so the DC scapegoating/grandstanding machine went into overdrive.

Funny that just about a year ago when I said they'd be perp-walking people out of their offices, I thought it'd be almost all real estate-based types, like Summit 1031... not Madoff. It's like this thing has turned into a roiling spectacle, like The Jerry Springer Show, everyday claiming some new victim.

I have some weeks where I don't really know what to write about because things seem to be going so irrevocably wrong. This is one of those weeks, so maybe I'll keep this short.

We are in a near-manic effort to get "credit flowing" again. Everybody says that the lack of credit is the problem, and in this de-leveraging nightmare, we have to get it going again.

And funny, but the purported solution is to borrow FROM OURSELVES (our future selves) via the government, in attempt to make us take the money, now.

It's like the governement is saying, "We will take everything you ever make, to force you to take it & spend it right now"!

Very strange. Strange because the reason it is not working is so obvious, that I can't help but think the current strategy is purposefully flawed. That this is being done on purpose to achieve some ulterior motive down the road.

The AmeriKKKan people are either, A) Credit Score depleted via default, and cannot borrow, or B) So tapped out & carrying such a heavy debt load now, that they are unable to borrrow anything else.

There's nothing left in the AmeriKKKan consumer pack mule, yet the government is piling on more with every monetary tool in its arsenal.

It's ridiculous. The government is flooding banks with money, and they are incredulous that it isn't being loaned. Of course not. The people who are showing up to borrow are the worst credit risks in The World. But the government wants them to be lent money.

Uhhhh, that is exactly how this debacle got started.

This is so blindingly obvious that I can only assume they are attempting to achieve other ends via this "stimulus". It seems a simple reallocation of wealth from future generations to the wealthy of today.

That's where most of the money is going. Most of the "stimulus" that went to AIG went to extraordinarily wealthy counterparties. Many in foreign countries.

We're making the rest of the World solvent, while bankrupting ourselves. And our kids. And their kids.

Most of the people who walk in to buy homes simply do not qualify. What did some one write in the comments? 9 out of 10?

Banks are simply returning to prudent lending standards. All else would kill them. Yet the government is trying to insist that they return the Gold Rush Days that have brought on this debacle.

We're a country at odds with itself.

I'm not sure how this will play out, but the fact that we are A) Borrowing from ourselves & our kids at a terrible rate, and B) Distributing it to the most wealthy all over the World, does not make me feel anything but sick to my stomach over this countries long term future.

Another statement I made well over a year ago was that the USA would lose it's predominant economic might on this planet, seems now a foregone conclusion.

As a segue to that, I read a little piece about how the US Debt Passed $11 trillion this week. What took GeeDub 3-4 years back in the early part of the decade, has been done in a couple of days now. We blasted through a TRILLION DOLLARS.

And it looks to get much worse before it gets better.

The dollar got crushed as a result.

Here's a good summary of what is going on with our government's attempt to rescue us (from the $11 trillion piece):

Monetary Policy Under the Bernanke Fed our monetary policy is to print massive amounts of currency in order to head off asset price deflation. Falling asset prices, combined with way too much leverage, are the chief reasons the financial system is in such deep trouble.

Over-leveraged banks have very little tangible common equity to absorb losses in the value of their assets. If asset values were allowed to fall to market clearing prices (say another 25% decline in home prices), this would mean banks’ remaining assets aren’t sufficient to pay off their liabilities.
Assets = Liabilities + Equity.

As the left side of the equation falls, so must the right. Liabilities are ostensibly fixed, so a decline in assets must be matched by a decline in equity. Again, financials are ridiculously over-leveraged, which means they have very little equity cushion to absorb losses on assets.


In other words, allowing asset prices to fall will bankrupt the financial sector, leading to systemic meltdown and worldwide bank runs.
To fight the fall in asset prices, Bernanke has made clear the Fed will print money at a very rapid clip in order to buy assets like Treasurys, mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities, etc.

The best way to track how much money is being printed by the Fed is to watch the expansion of assets on its balance sheet. (second chart above, click to enlarge)
The balance sheet equation (A = L + E) applies to the Fed just like it applies to banks.

The difference is the Fed has this magical machine called a printing press which means it can manufacture its own debt in order to finance purchases of assets. The debt it manufactures are simply electronic dollars that it puts in the accounts of those from whom it buys assets.


This is not hard to grasp actually. The Fed said yesterday that it wants to buy $300 billion worth of long-term Treasurys (in addition to another $750 billion of MBS). As an example, pretend you owned some Treasury bonds that you want to sell.

Since the Fed wants to buy them, it will conjure dollars out of thin air and put them in your bank account in exchange for the Treasury securites you’re selling.
As the Fed prints money to buy assets, look for total assets on its balance sheet to expand dramatically.

An Economist article published today (see links) included an estimate from Capital Economics claiming the Fed’s assets are likely to expand to $4.5 trillion. That’s an awful lot of new dollars!


As I’ve argued before, this strategy is badly flawed. The Fed thinks the economy’s problem is falling asset prices. That is wrong; the economy’s problem is too much debt, which over-inflated asset prices to being with.

The only “solution” is to let asset prices fall. Unfortunately, this will be very painful.
Pumping more borrowed money into the economy via fiscal and monetary policy won’t actually stop that from happening, it will just delay the day of reckoning and make it far more painful when it arrives…

We're attempting to stop the implosion of one bubble by replacing it with another.

This just makes it feel like there will be nowhere left to hide when we finally Man Up & just let the shit hit the fan.

I'm not sure what the ultimate outcome will be, but again, my old outrageous claims of olde seem to be apropos. Remember Zimbabwe?

I think I'm also a little "down" because I'm starting to know more & more people who are being sucked into this RE debacle.

They are decent people who did not go in over their head, kept their nose to the grindstone, and didn't go on spending binges.

But the one unfortunate thing they did was buy a house in Bend in the past 3-4 years.

And again, they are not having problems paying the mortgage. But they are becoming poor at an untold rate.

These are people who have slowly but surely just worked the the American Dream as methodically as possible, working 2 jobs, kids, etc.

But they bought a $350K house that is now worth under $200K.

That slowly but surely ascending line of net worth that took 20 years to get where it was, has plummeted to Less Than Zero in 18 months.

A lifetime of work, wiped out.

And these people are understandably upset. They are 100% broke, and they went broke engaging in the most Apple-Pie & baseball American Dream transaction that there is: buying a house.

That's what you're supposed to do when you've worked all your life in this country... you buy a house.

And so they did it, and the American Dream has turned into a nightmare.

And after going through the various stages of loss, I'm seeing a lot of these people simply resign themselves to 10 years of Bad Luck, and they are simply going to Walk Away, and Not Pay.

They have the money, mind you. But they are not going to throw 2-3X what it costs to rent each month for the priviledge of losing $2,000 per week. They're just walking away from their White Elephant.

Walk Away, Don't Pay.

Yet another prediction that seems to be coming true in spades today, that seemed ridiculous just 12 months ago.

And here's the reason:

Marge said...

The RE optomists quoted last month are from Mars:


March 09 sales to date

13 Sold @ $221k med


March 08 to date

47 Sold @284k med


I see that the steam building up in the market is just hot air.

Kinda like Dorn making a deal a day.

March 17, 2009 9:06 AM

This is just brutal. Not even 1 house per day is selling. We're starting to get to numbers that are so low volume-wise, that we're going to have to combine 2 or 3 months to get medians that even are meaningful.

My response to marge:

Wow, 70% REO & shorts.

So, the traditional 6% on those sales is $172,380, for about 17 days or $10,140 per day for brokers.


For 1,500 brokers (?), that's $6.76 per day.

Gross profit. Net might be a few bucks less.


HELLO iSKY!


The Realtor profession is going away in Bend. There is going to be a skeleton crew left when this is over. Gardner, DuBois, and a few others.

And even these people will be starving. RE will never return to it's Glory Hole Years.

But luckily we have the Doctrine of Bend Exceptionalism that will keep these people feeding this beast until it collapses of it's own weight.

Ahhhh yes. There is just no Good News in me this week folks. No bloodlust for the devouring of The Stupid, no outrage over bonuses, no disgust over our governments incompetence.

Just a general hazy malaise & despair that we are doing everything wrong. Just the unfortunate idea that as a country, as a state, as a town, and as people living in our neighborhoods with friends who are being steamrolled by this thing, that our futures are, at this very moment, being destroyed. And the same goes for our kids.

I'll end with a piece from The Bully:

The Great Depression
How they lived, what they learned — and what they say about today’s tough times

By Erin Golden / The Bulletin
Published: March 22. 2009 4:00AM PST


Vadabell Brumblay has always been careful with her money.

At 88, the Bend woman lives comfortably in the same home she’s had for decades, but she doesn’t take anything for granted.

She makes her grocery lists only after scouring the week’s advertisements and circling the best deals with a felt-tipped pen.

In a notebook, she carefully records each purchase she makes and charts all the bills she’ll need to pay during the month.


They’re the kind of habits that come from growing up in the midst of the Great Depression, a time when Brumblay watched her parents lose everything they had in a bank collapse and then rebuild their lives with the help of a small dairy business — a venture they eventually had to quit because so many people in Bend fell on hard times and couldn’t afford to pay for milk.


“You didn’t have much, but neither did anybody else,” she said.
These days, with the economy in a slump and people around the country grappling with unemployment, plunging stock prices and higher living expenses, the Depression has made its way back into the news and dinner table conversations with some people wondering how it compares with today’s economy.

For the most part, Brumblay — and other Central Oregonians who lived through the period — say we’re not in a crisis like the one that swept through the country in the 1930s. But as government officials and families make tough decisions about doing more with less, they say the lessons they learned from surviving those times have become more relevant than ever.


A tough time
In Central Oregon, as in other parts of the country, the Depression began in late 1929 and continued at least in part until the U.S. became financially involved in World War II more than a decade later, said Daniel Pope, a history professor at the University of Oregon who teaches a class on the subject.

At the time, many people in Bend and other cities in the region were involved in agriculture or the timber industry, including Rosanna Duberow, 86, of Bend, who lived with her parents and four brothers and sisters in a Shevlin-Hixon logging camp about 13 miles south of Bend.

For much of the Depression, Duberow’s father was able to keep steady work, but she remembers a few months when the company stopped cutting timber. Because he had a large family, Duberow’s father was given some money for taking care of company livestock, but it wasn’t always enough.


In town at Erickson’s grocery store, they let people charge groceries, and Mother had a huge grocery bill by the time (the loggers) were working again,” she said. “I know each month, she’d take so much extra to go pay that bill, and Mr. Erickson said when she finally did pay the last bit, ‘You wouldn’t believe, you’re one of the very few to even try to pay that bill.’”


Brumblay, who also lived in Bend for much of the Depression, remembers similar stories about people who were unable to afford food for their families and had to depend on credit from the grocery store owner.


“He eventually would take their homes,” she said. “They’d owe him so much, he’d have them sign their homes over. And the talk was that he owned half of Bend.”
Brumblay’s family avoided falling into serious financial trouble, but it wasn’t always easy.

In the late 1920s, the family was living on a ranch near Tumalo when Brumblay’s parents decided to sell nearly everything they owned and move into a house in Bend, where Brumblay’s father worked at a mill.
Shortly after they sold it all — the house, the cattle, even a player piano — the bank where they’d put all their money collapsed.

“My mother had a dollar and a little bit of change in her purse, and that was it,” Brumblay said. “They still had all their bills, and they had just sold all their assets.”


Brumblay’s parents got back on their feet with the help of a friend who was living with the family and had invested his money in a different bank. Her father kept working at the mill, but he had to compete with many other men who were also looking for jobs.


“I remember he would go down to the mill in the morning and take his lunch, and if there was work, he’d stay, and if there wasn’t, he’d come home again,” she said. “Then he’d go back at noon, because maybe there would be a half-day’s work.”


To supplement his income, Brumblay’s father purchased some cows and started a dairy business. Several days a week, her mother would pull down the seats in the family car and load it up with bottles of milk, which Brumblay would carry up to people’s doorsteps.

But as the Depression wore on, the business slowed down.
Brumblay said she remembers going to houses where she knew the families had fallen on hard times and couldn’t afford to pay. For a while, her parents tried to help, but eventually it got to be too big of a burden.

“The problem was, Dad had to buy hay and grain, and some of the people weren’t able to pay for their milk, and we couldn’t afford to give it to them, so (my parents) eventually quit that,” she said. “And how can you refuse to take milk to families that have kids?”


Without savings or job prospects, some people in the area resorted to begging for food or work.

Cora Houston, 100, of Prineville, spent some of the Depression working as a teacher at the Bear Creek School, near Paulina.

In the most rural parts of Crook County, she said, many families were able to get by because they’d raise and grow their own food.


But when she’d travel back to Prineville to visit her mother — who lived in the same house Houston now calls home — she saw many people in need.
“People came to the door asking for food, several times, right here,” she said.

Lessons learned
Though many people have been hit hard by the current downturn, Pope, the history professor, said it’s not quite on the same magnitude of what happened in the 1930s.

“I think people are talking about it as a potential depression, but I don’t think we’re there yet, and I don’t think most people would claim we’re there yet,” he said.
Some of the locals who lived through the earlier downturn agreed, saying the pain doesn’t seem to be quite as deep — or widespread — as it was when they were young people.

Art Welch, 90, of Prineville, said he volunteers at a local food bank and has seen an uptick in the number of people looking for help, but he doesn’t think the economic situation has reached a crisis point.


“As far as it being a depression? Not yet,” he said.
Welch, who was born and raised in New York City, came to Prineville at 17 as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work program for young men that was organized by the federal government.

He and dozens of other men stayed in barracks-style lodging and worked on a variety of projects, from cutting down trees to building houses for U.S. Forest Service staff.
In his time with the CCC, Welch made between $30 and $45 per month, though most of it was sent back to his family in New York.

With housing and meals taken care of, Welch said, the program provided a big boost to young men like himself who might have otherwise found themselves out of work and on the bread lines, waiting for a free meal from a charity group..
Welch said he thinks a similar program could be the answer to some of the current unemployment problems.

They put the people back to work, and that’s just about what’s going to have to be done here this time,” he said. Others who remember the Depression said they worry that people today might not have the tools to stay on track if the economy gets worse.


Georgia Gallagher, 87, of Sisters, lived on a ranch two miles outside of Sisters during the Depression. She said her family got by in part because her mother was skilled at sewing, cooking and other tasks — and knew how to make a little go a long way.

“People are quite a bit different now, been used to not doing any of those things. ... I think people would have a harder time now because they don’t know how to can, they don’t know how to sew, they don’t know how to economize,” Gallagher said.

“So many of them are losing their homes, and there’s no place to live that is really inexpensive now, so it’s real hard on those people.”
But some of the local Depression survivors said they think people dealing with the current downturn should follow some of the habits of people who grew up in the 1930s.

Gallagher said she canned food every year up until very recently, and Duberow said she and her husband still maintain a large garden, growing all of their own vegetables and some fruit.


Houston said she believes many people fall into trouble because they spend far more than they actually have in the bank.

Houston said she’s had just one credit card in her life, and she used it for a single purchase — $60 for a hotel room on a vacation to the Oregon Coast.
Saving, rather than spending, she said, is the way to stay secure, even when the economy takes a turn.

“I would say definitely to build up a savings account if possible; even if you only had $5 a year to put in, try to have a savings account,” she said.
Brumblay said she remembers a popular Depression-era saying that’s still as relevant as ever: “Make it over, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Though she said it’s hard to tell when the economy will make a recovery, Brumblay said the simple choices we make can go a long way in tough times.
“First there’s wants and then there’s needs, and you have to learn to separate the two,” she said.

I love spending on the essentials in life! That's why I live in Bend, Oregon!
Me so horny for AmeriKKKan Debt!

352 comments:

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IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Sidebar on that Bully piece, which is pretty damn good.

The Great Depression and the Pacific Northwest

In the U.S., the decade-long period known as the Great Depression was triggered by the collapse of the stock market on Oct. 29, 1929, a day referred to by historians as “Black Tuesday.”

Over the next several months, as businesses across the country closed and banks collapsed, many people found themselves out of work. By 1932 and 1933, unemployment had hit a high of about 25 percent nationwide, said Daniel Pope, a history professor at the University of Oregon.

The economy began to turn around after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, and implemented a group of new laws and relief programs known as the New Deal. The federal government began a series of infrastructure projects and hired workers through programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration (later renamed the Work Projects Administration). In Oregon, the CCC had camps in several national forest areas and built campground facilities, creek dams and ranger stations, while WPA projects included the construction of post offices, federal buildings and Mount Hood’s Timberline Lodge.

Pope said other areas of the country might have seen more visible signs of stress during the Great Depression, but life for many residents of the Pacific Northwest was still difficult during the period’s toughest times.

“It wasn’t particularly hard hit in the way we’ve been in the last couple of recessions because of wood products, but I don’t think it’s a place where we could say we were spared the impact of the Depression,” he said. “West Coast cities suffered along with other cities.”

The U.S. hit another downturn in 1937, when unemployment levels went up to about 20 percent, Pope said. The Depression came to a close at the end of the decade, as the country began spending money on World War II.

Pope said there’s no official definition of a depression but said the current situation hasn’t reached the level of the downturn of the 1930s. He said we’re facing something more similar to the downturn of the 1980s.

In February, the national unemployment level was 8.1 percent, according to Labor Department statistics, though the way unemployment is calculated has been changed since the 1930s.

“By quantitative measures, we’re approximately about as deep and as sharp of a decline as the recession of the early ’80s,” he said. “There, unemployment nationally reached 10.8 percent, so in terms of rapid decline and other measures of the severity, we’re very close, and we may very well supersede that one.”

— Erin Golden, The Bulletin

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

"...we may very well supersede that one.”

At least they're starting to admit that this recession is not at bottom.

Anonymous said...

The U.S. currently allows 1,200,000 legal immigrants into the country every year.
That is 12,000,000. every decade.
How about a 5 year moratorium on immigration, until the unemployment picture improves??

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Michelle Obama introduced the World to the next big growth market: planting your own food.

Maybe she should be running this country.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

How about a 5 year moratorium on immigration, until the unemployment picture improves??

Maybe. You'd have Leftorium Outrage.

But it seems strange to take this sort of "punitive" action, when LEGAL IMMIGRANTS were in no way part of the problem.

The Housing Bubble is the root cause. It's 100% deflation is the Cure. Or at least a wayside on the way to a cure.

And God help me, freewheeling Capitalism Gone Wild needs to be re-examined. I can hear hbm squealing with delight right now...

We could do a lot, like "Buy American" & all that, but those were not the Real Root Cause of this thing. It was a financial system gone crazy... not immigrants.

Anonymous said...

Yes, COSTA has re-invented himself. From the greatest ponzi promoter of Bend, to the savior of Bend overnight. Just like his cohort HBM, who with his conjoined twin Bob Woodward went from 24/7 Bend promoter, to muckracker @BB2, ... times are a changin, ...

The Great Depression
How they lived, what they learned — and what they say about today’s tough times

By Erin Golden / The Bulletin
Published: March 22. 2009 4:00AM PST

Vadabell Brumblay, left, and her sister, Eva, both grew up in Bend during the Great Depression — a time when, at first, “my mother had a dollar and a little bit of change in her purse, and that was it,” Brumblay says. A sepia tone was added to this photo.
more photos more photos

Vadabell Brumblay, left, and her sister, Eva, both grew up in Bend during the Great Depression — a time when, at first, “my mother had a dollar and a little bit of change in her purse, and that was it,” Brumblay says. A sepia tone was added to this photo.
Courtesy Vadabell Brumblay
advertisement:
The Great Depression and the Pacific Northwest

In the U.S., the decade-long period known as the Great Depression was triggered by the collapse of the stock market on Oct. 29, 1929, a day referred to by historians as “Black Tuesday.” Over the next several months, as businesses across the country closed and banks collapsed, many people found themselves out of work. By 1932 and 1933, unemployment had hit a high of about 25 percent nationwide, said Daniel Pope, a history professor at the University of Oregon.
The economy began to turn around after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, and implemented a group of new laws and relief programs known as the New Deal. The federal government began a series of infrastructure projects and hired workers through programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration (later renamed the Work Projects Administration). In Oregon, the CCC had camps in several national forest areas and built campground facilities, creek dams and ranger stations, while WPA projects included the construction of post offices, federal buildings and Mount Hood’s Timberline Lodge.
Pope said other areas of the country might have seen more visible signs of stress during the Great Depression, but life for many residents of the Pacific Northwest was still difficult during the period’s toughest times.
“It wasn’t particularly hard hit in the way we’ve been in the last couple of recessions because of wood products, but I don’t think it’s a place where we could say we were spared the impact of the Depression,” he said. “West Coast cities suffered along with other cities.”
The U.S. hit another downturn in 1937, when unemployment levels went up to about 20 percent, Pope said. The Depression came to a close at the end of the decade, as the country began spending money on World War II.
Pope said there’s no official definition of a depression but said the current situation hasn’t reached the level of the downturn of the 1930s. He said we’re facing something more similar to the downturn of the 1980s.
In February, the national unemployment level was 8.1 percent, according to Labor Department statistics, though the way unemployment is calculated has been changed since the 1930s.
“By quantitative measures, we’re approximately about as deep and as sharp of a decline as the recession of the early ’80s,” he said. “There, unemployment nationally reached 10.8 percent, so in terms of rapid decline and other measures of the severity, we’re very close, and we may very well supersede that one.”
— Erin Golden, The Bulletin
Vadabell Brumblay has always been careful with her money.

At 88, the Bend woman lives comfortably in the same home she’s had for decades, but she doesn’t take anything for granted. She makes her grocery lists only after scouring the week’s advertisements and circling the best deals with a felt-tipped pen. In a notebook, she carefully records each purchase she makes and charts all the bills she’ll need to pay during the month.

They’re the kind of habits that come from growing up in the midst of the Great Depression, a time when Brumblay watched her parents lose everything they had in a bank collapse and then rebuild their lives with the help of a small dairy business — a venture they eventually had to quit because so many people in Bend fell on hard times and couldn’t afford to pay for milk.

“You didn’t have much, but neither did anybody else,” she said.

These days, with the economy in a slump and people around the country grappling with unemployment, plunging stock prices and higher living expenses, the Depression has made its way back into the news and dinner table conversations with some people wondering how it compares with today’s economy.

For the most part, Brumblay — and other Central Oregonians who lived through the period — say we’re not in a crisis like the one that swept through the country in the 1930s. But as government officials and families make tough decisions about doing more with less, they say the lessons they learned from surviving those times have become more relevant than ever.

A tough time

In Central Oregon, as in other parts of the country, the Depression began in late 1929 and continued at least in part until the U.S. became financially involved in World War II more than a decade later, said Daniel Pope, a history professor at the University of Oregon who teaches a class on the subject.

At the time, many people in Bend and other cities in the region were involved in agriculture or the timber industry, including Rosanna Duberow, 86, of Bend, who lived with her parents and four brothers and sisters in a Shevlin-Hixon logging camp about 13 miles south of Bend. For much of the Depression, Duberow’s father was able to keep steady work, but she remembers a few months when the company stopped cutting timber. Because he had a large family, Duberow’s father was given some money for taking care of company livestock, but it wasn’t always enough.

“In town at Erickson’s grocery store, they let people charge groceries, and Mother had a huge grocery bill by the time (the loggers) were working again,” she said. “I know each month, she’d take so much extra to go pay that bill, and Mr. Erickson said when she finally did pay the last bit, ‘You wouldn’t believe, you’re one of the very few to even try to pay that bill.’”

Brumblay, who also lived in Bend for much of the Depression, remembers similar stories about people who were unable to afford food for their families and had to depend on credit from the grocery store owner.

“He eventually would take their homes,” she said. “They’d owe him so much, he’d have them sign their homes over. And the talk was that he owned half of Bend.”

Brumblay’s family avoided falling into serious financial trouble, but it wasn’t always easy.

In the late 1920s, the family was living on a ranch near Tumalo when Brumblay’s parents decided to sell nearly everything they owned and move into a house in Bend, where Brumblay’s father worked at a mill.

Shortly after they sold it all — the house, the cattle, even a player piano — the bank where they’d put all their money collapsed.

“My mother had a dollar and a little bit of change in her purse, and that was it,” Brumblay said. “They still had all their bills, and they had just sold all their assets.”

Brumblay’s parents got back on their feet with the help of a friend who was living with the family and had invested his money in a different bank. Her father kept working at the mill, but he had to compete with many other men who were also looking for jobs.

“I remember he would go down to the mill in the morning and take his lunch, and if there was work, he’d stay, and if there wasn’t, he’d come home again,” she said. “Then he’d go back at noon, because maybe there would be a half-day’s work.”

To supplement his income, Brumblay’s father purchased some cows and started a dairy business. Several days a week, her mother would pull down the seats in the family car and load it up with bottles of milk, which Brumblay would carry up to people’s doorsteps. But as the Depression wore on, the business slowed down.

Brumblay said she remembers going to houses where she knew the families had fallen on hard times and couldn’t afford to pay. For a while, her parents tried to help, but eventually it got to be too big of a burden.

“The problem was, Dad had to buy hay and grain, and some of the people weren’t able to pay for their milk, and we couldn’t afford to give it to them, so (my parents) eventually quit that,” she said. “And how can you refuse to take milk to families that have kids?”

Without savings or job prospects, some people in the area resorted to begging for food or work. Cora Houston, 100, of Prineville, spent some of the Depression working as a teacher at the Bear Creek School, near Paulina. In the most rural parts of Crook County, she said, many families were able to get by because they’d raise and grow their own food.

But when she’d travel back to Prineville to visit her mother — who lived in the same house Houston now calls home — she saw many people in need.

“People came to the door asking for food, several times, right here,” she said.

Lessons learned

Though many people have been hit hard by the current downturn, Pope, the history professor, said it’s not quite on the same magnitude of what happened in the 1930s.

“I think people are talking about it as a potential depression, but I don’t think we’re there yet, and I don’t think most people would claim we’re there yet,” he said.

Some of the locals who lived through the earlier downturn agreed, saying the pain doesn’t seem to be quite as deep — or widespread — as it was when they were young people.

Art Welch, 90, of Prineville, said he volunteers at a local food bank and has seen an uptick in the number of people looking for help, but he doesn’t think the economic situation has reached a crisis point.

“As far as it being a depression? Not yet,” he said.

Welch, who was born and raised in New York City, came to Prineville at 17 as a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work program for young men that was organized by the federal government. He and dozens of other men stayed in barracks-style lodging and worked on a variety of projects, from cutting down trees to building houses for U.S. Forest Service staff.

In his time with the CCC, Welch made between $30 and $45 per month, though most of it was sent back to his family in New York. With housing and meals taken care of, Welch said, the program provided a big boost to young men like himself who might have otherwise found themselves out of work and on the bread lines, waiting for a free meal from a charity group..

Welch said he thinks a similar program could be the answer to some of the current unemployment problems.

“They put the people back to work, and that’s just about what’s going to have to be done here this time,” he said. Others who remember the Depression said they worry that people today might not have the tools to stay on track if the economy gets worse.

Georgia Gallagher, 87, of Sisters, lived on a ranch two miles outside of Sisters during the Depression. She said her family got by in part because her mother was skilled at sewing, cooking and other tasks — and knew how to make a little go a long way.

“People are quite a bit different now, been used to not doing any of those things. ... I think people would have a harder time now because they don’t know how to can, they don’t know how to sew, they don’t know how to economize,” Gallagher said. “So many of them are losing their homes, and there’s no place to live that is really inexpensive now, so it’s real hard on those people.”

But some of the local Depression survivors said they think people dealing with the current downturn should follow some of the habits of people who grew up in the 1930s.

Gallagher said she canned food every year up until very recently, and Duberow said she and her husband still maintain a large garden, growing all of their own vegetables and some fruit.

Houston said she believes many people fall into trouble because they spend far more than they actually have in the bank. Houston said she’s had just one credit card in her life, and she used it for a single purchase — $60 for a hotel room on a vacation to the Oregon Coast.

Saving, rather than spending, she said, is the way to stay secure, even when the economy takes a turn. “I would say definitely to build up a savings account if possible; even if you only had $5 a year to put in, try to have a savings account,” she said.

Brumblay said she remembers a popular Depression-era saying that’s still as relevant as ever: “Make it over, wear it out, make it do, or do without.”

Though she said it’s hard to tell when the economy will make a recovery, Brumblay said the simple choices we make can go a long way in tough times.

“First there’s wants and then there’s needs, and you have to learn to separate the two,” she said.

Anonymous said...

But it seems strange to take this sort of "punitive" action, when LEGAL IMMIGRANTS were in no way part of the problem.

*

Yes, it need to be said, cuz this group is the MORONS of Bend.

ameriKKKa is a nation of immigrants, what good there is in ameriKKKa is the immigrants, by 2nd, or later generation all become sloths.

I know when I used to run company's hire people the ONLY people who worked were immigrants, talk to any restaurant in the back kitchen 'immigrants'. Try to hire a 'Bend' meth-kid spawn? Worthless, want somebody who will work? Immigrants.

The country is FUCKED cuz its a PONZI. Made-Off was paying his 'secretarys' over $200k/yr, and everybody was happy, he was paying his son's $6M/yr not even to show up to work, for years and everybody was happy.

The average USA federal, state, or local worker that has a pension gets the annuity value of $3M in benefits, .e.g. a COMP PENSION would cost you $3M. Thus the real problem is that on WALL-ST all got paid like made-off employees, and of course that came from raiding 'investors'. Then in Government you have the situation where a few taxpayers are making every fucking gubmint worker into a millionaire.

It was NEVER sustainable folks, its a ponzi. Solution? Ban immigrants, the one fucking thing that makes this country tick.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw

Homer is now famous on U-Tube.

Anonymous said...

Portland city economist two weeks ago declared that Portland had entered a depression.

BULL fucking shit there is no definition of a depression. A depression is 10% or more un-employment and Bend is there.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Even BendBB seems to be hit by The Big Malaise: prices changes seems to be the only new posts over there anymore...

Anonymous said...

BB2 is strong, Bend strong.

Buster&Homer 24/7, and nobody else.

Life is good.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw


If you KUNT's haven't seen this video

It's amazing, as you know I'm an emma-goldman anarchist by political persuasion. But what's interesting about this, is all my YUPPIE DEM friends who voted for OREO, are telling ME to watch this video!!!

WOW, nothing I didn't know, retread of old tired Goldwater shit from the 1960's, what's interesting is that NOW that all these yuppies, or I should say CALI retirees in BEND in their late 50's are NOW wiped out per HOMER, home under-water, 401k gone, ... no-income, they're worried, and then find shit like the above 'The Obama Deception', and they start putting 2&2 together, ...

Hell this past week we even saw HBM come out and admit that OREO had simply picked up management of ameriKKKa for team-BUSH.

Then our BPussy is Bend-Gone, he came to promote, he came to fix Bend, he came to ban exec-session, but most of all he came to teach us about dailyKos, and even the BP has fucking given up on his dream.

The OREO isn't going to bring any CARGO ( google 'cargo cult' ) to the DEMO ho operatives here in Bend, this is why this week you have seen HBM&BP turn on the OREO.

Today you have COSTA getting people ready for the great depression. Interesting point about this entire article. Want to be secure? Live in Burns or some no place where you can grow & can, per MARGE.

Want to starve and BEG?? Live in Bend.

Anonymous said...

Below is a comment from 'kelly' on Ned Flanders blog, about fraud, ... I'll follow up on next but the POINT here is that here's another vocation for Bend,... add this to your list of HOT jobs in Bend, ...

"As a Certified Fraud Examiner working for a Sheriff's Office (not Deschutes County) I can tell you that we are starting to see a lot more embezzlement cases. Some people think it is the economy. I tend to think it is that people have not been paying attention to the books and now that they have to pay attention to the books they find the funny business.

We did a recent case where the office manager had moved to Bend and started stealing there. She just received 76 months. That does not include the Bend charges. Hopefully those will happen.

Lots of people don't want to press charges. They just want to get their money back (which is always dubious at best) and civilly compromise.

I eventually want to work for myself over in Bend doing fraud work. Unfortunately for business owners I think there will be plenty of work."

Anonymous said...

So what do we have in BEND?

Gubmint job

collections on deceased

fraud investigator

call ctr aka mumbai in bend

mtg foreclosure specialist, aka find buyers for homes banks can't don't want to hold

So there are 5 vocations for the future of Bend.

Anonymous said...

Here's something else to think about 'kelly' a CFE isn't even in BEND, but she's watching, and thinking about moving here, to get in on the 'action', and there will be tons of action.

Here's another prediction, Deschutes County Sheriff's office will explode in biz, they'll be hiring all kinds of CPA's, and paper grunts to handle all the complaints that will be filed.

Kelly makes an obvious point, that during good times people don't care, its like this GOD-DAMN 0.01% that AIG stole, so what they say that its only $220M out of $168B, that's only 0.01%, yea right $220M ( was 192M, now 220M ), but in the hey-days ( 2002-2007 ) nobody cared about losing $220M, nobody cared about 0.01%, but NOW, now in a depression folks care.

So for all you KUNTS that say 0.01% don't matter, all I can say is tell that to the judge, when times get BAD, and it will folks will be trying to recoup every nickel they can.

Yes, there will be TON's biz for folks like kelly in Bend, here is how it works, during the good times guy's like ned had employees who do the books and push a little here and there to private-accounts, then in the bad times they layoff the employees and go back to doing the books themselves, then they find the fraudulent 'accounts-payables', and like kelly says, they usually don't file a complaint, they don't want to make a problem, they feel that it was their fault for not paying a closer attention to their biz during the good times, ...

Such is the way of economic cycles.

Anonymous said...

RE: So there are 5 vocations for the future of Bend.


---


You missed the cell phone marketing ponzi currently sweeping Bend.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Here's that Tetherow piece from yesterday:

Tetherow course sells to golf pro for $10.5M
By Zack Hall / The Bulletin
Published: March 21. 2009 4:00AM PST

A partnership led by a former European PGA Tour player has purchased Tetherow Golf Club from Eugene-based Spring Capital Group.

Chris Van der Velde, who lives in Sisters and has been with Tetherow since its inception, and partner Willem Willemstein have purchased the golf course and clubhouse for $10.5 million under a partnership named Tetherow Golf Course LLC, Van der Velde said Friday. The course is just west of Bend’s gated Broken Top community.

The deal that closed Friday occurred one year after Spring Capital assumed ownership from developer Arrowood Development LLC to finish the course after Arrowood encountered worsening credit markets and slow lot sales.

“The golf course is in great hands with me as director,” said Van der Velde, who had a partial ownership stake in the Tetherow development and was its original director of golf development. “And I have a really strong cash partner (Willemstein) behind me. So I feel comfortable that we can weather this storm” from the slumping housing market and recession.

Tetherow has been almost universally lauded by the national golf press since the Scottish links-style course opened in July.

Van der Velde originally intended to buy the golf course from Arrowood, which still owns a block of lots at Tetherow, through his investment group, Dutch Pacific Golf LLC. Those plans were nixed with Spring Capital’s takeover last spring.

But Van der Velde began talks with Spring Capital last summer about possibly buying the golf course he had helped build since 2005. He eventually partnered with Willemstein, a wealthy Dutch businessman whom Van der Velde befriended in a golf tournament about a decade ago, to complete the cash purchase.

Willemstein, who founded European petroleum refiner and wholesaler Petroplus in the early 1990s, lives in the Netherlands but owns a residential lot at Tetherow, Van der Velde said.

“I think (Spring Capital) thought that it would be better for the golf course and the community to have myself, who was the original director of golf development from day one, and part owner on day one, (as partner in the golf course),” Van der Velde said. “We will go forward running the golf course in a first-class fashion, just like we built it.”

Spring Capital still owns about 160 residential lots around the golf course. Hayden Homes and Arrowood also own lots there.

Bill Bernards, Spring Capital’s spokesman and owners representative, said Friday that the company will lose money on the deal to sell the golf course. But Spring Capital took over the course last spring to complete it and get value out of its remaining lots, Bernards said.

“What was important to us was that when the time came, somebody needed to step up and finish the golf course for the community and what was going on out there,” Bernards said. “I think we did a good job.”

With Van der Velde at the course’s helm, Bernards thinks Tetherow’s lofty image will be maintained, helping the entire development, including the home lots.

“I think they are the perfect owners for the golf course,” Bernards said. “We are going to be working together for the next five-plus years, with the golf course and my lots. I am very happy that they stepped up and took ownership.”

The course will remain private, but Van der Velde plans to make at least some changes to the ways golfers can play it.

One change calls for selling memberships for $30,000, plus monthly dues of $425. Previously, memberships were only available with the purchase of a Tetherow lot. Currently, the golf course has about 60 members, Van der Velde said, adding that the new memberships will go on sale next week.

Also, Van der Velde said Tetherow will continue to make limited tee times available to the public, without membership, until the planned Hotel Tetherow opens, which could be years off. The public fee to play the course last year was $175.

Van der Velde considers increased access to the course critical for Tetherow to weather the recession.

“An important aspect for me is that we stay in touch with the community,” Van der Velde said. “I think when you have this nice of a golf facility that is getting recognition from all over the country and the world, that people have the ability to play it and see it.

“Membership has its privileges — they have first dibs to almost everything at the golf course. And then we fill it in with the community and other people around.”

Tetherow was designed by David McLay Kidd, who lives in Bend and has earned worldwide acclaim for designing the namesake course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the southern Oregon Coast and other high-profile courses around the world.

Golf Magazine named Tetherow the country’s Best New Course of 2008. And the magazine named Kidd the nation’s Best Course Architect.

In addition, Tetherow made Golfweek’s list of Best New Courses for 2008.

Van der Velde said those high standards will be maintained.

“It got best new course in America,” Van der Velde said. “And I plan to keep those accolades coming in one way or the other.”

Zack Hall can be reached at 541-617-7868 or at zhall@bendbulletin.com

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

“The golf course is in great hands with me as director,” said Van der Velde, who had a partial ownership stake in the Tetherow development and was its original director of golf development. “And I have a really strong cash partner (Willemstein) behind me. So I feel comfortable that we can weather this storm” from the slumping housing market and recession.

Deranged fucking foreigners. They seem to be trippin on Bend Kool-Aid.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bill Bernards, Spring Capital’s spokesman and owners representative, said Friday that the company will lose money on the deal to sell the golf course. But Spring Capital took over the course last spring to complete it and get value out of its remaining lots, Bernards said.

“What was important to us was that when the time came, somebody needed to step up and finish the golf course for the community and what was going on out there,” Bernards said. “I think we did a good job.”


Golf Courses are Philanthropy. Be prepared to lose everything.

notice how this guy talks like a philanthropist. "We did it for the Greater Good". Uh huh. You, like all golf course buyers, did it for the trophy property prestige, and were subsequently SPANKED, as will be the new owner.

Notice the new owner is already talking about HOW DEEP the pockets are on the new MARK. Why? Cuz they will soon plumb the depths of his pockets throwing money at this thing.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Also, Van der Velde said Tetherow will continue to make limited tee times available to the public, without membership, until the planned Hotel Tetherow opens, which could be years off. The public fee to play the course last year was $175.

A public course that plays for $175/round. Good plan.

They'll NEVER reel that back in. This fucker will become a shithole public course, and never return.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

With Van der Velde at the course’s helm, Bernards thinks Tetherow’s lofty image will be maintained, helping the entire development, including the home lots.

Perfect example of saying one thing in the local rag, and knowing DAMN WELL the 100% OPPOSITE is true.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

“An important aspect for me is that we stay in touch with the community,” Van der Velde said.

One change calls for selling memberships for $30,000, plus monthly dues of $425.


Again: DERANGED LUNATIC.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The course will remain private...

Van der Velde said Tetherow will continue to make limited tee times available to the public, without membership


See, these people don't know whether they're coming or going.

Tetherow will be a PRIVATE COURSE, it'll just be open to the public, that's all.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And now for Costa's Obligatory Cock Suckery:

Golf Magazine named Tetherow the country’s Best New Course of 2008.

...the magazine named Kidd the nation’s Best Course Architect.

In addition, Tetherow made Golfweek’s list of Best New Courses for 2008.

“It got best new course in America,” Van der Velde said. “And I plan to keep those accolades coming in one way or the other.”


Wow. This guy is truly insane.

"I plan to keep those accolades coming in one way or the other.”

WTF? THIS illustrates PERFECTLY the mindset of Bend: KEEP THE ACCOLADES COMING IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.

ie: Will LIE, CHEAT & STEAL to plotz out endless marketing & PR LIES about my new baby.

Jeebus H Christmas, I haven't read anything THIS SHAMELESS in a long, LONG time. I'm sure Costa will willingly oblige and WHORE OUT THE BULLY to this guy anytime, day or night.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

“It got best new course in America,”

Yes, and a rudimentary grammar check IT GOT WOULD HAVE BE NICE.

Anonymous said...

So there are 5 vocations for the future of Bend.

Do you think there's a any future here for "tea wallahs"?

I guess we already have "coffee wallahs" ("baristas").

Anonymous said...

I would say definitely to build up a savings account if possible; even if you only had $5 a year to put in, try to have a savings account

This is not very sound financial advice. If you put $5 a year into your savings account starting at age 20, by age 65 you would have a total of $225, plus whatever the interest amounted to (not much at the rate you can get on a passbook account).

Better advice would be (1) spend less than you earn, (2) save up to buy what you want instead of buying it on credit and (3) invest -- cautiously -- what you save.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery." -- Wilkins Micawber

Having said this, I resent the implication of this and many other articles that Great Depression II is the result of people spending wildly beyond their means on extravagant shit. Yeah, there are people who went crazy buying boats and McMansions and sports cars on credit, and they've gotten a lot of attention, but they do not represent most Americans. The reason most Americans stopped saving was that they didn't have any money to save. Their real incomes (adjusted for inflation) have been declining for the past 30 years. Just paying for the basics -- food, clothing, shelter, transportation, medical care -- has become a day-to-day struggle.

Anonymous said...

Clean out your storage locker, and save the money. Cancel your cable.
Stop eating out 3 times a week.
Get free DVD's, CD's, and magazines from the library.
This is going to get VERY,VERY bad.

Anonymous said...

>> Buster&Homer 24/7, and nobody else.


We're here. We're just quiet.

Anonymous said...

>>This is going to get VERY,VERY bad.<<

If you all read what I do, this is inning one, at one time we thought is was maybe the 4th. This is going to hurt alot in 3-5 years. Long drawn of out pain for the whole world.
If they go to one world money we aren't worth shit. My dollar won't buy bubble gum.
I know I have always seemed to be gloomy and proactive on preparing for hard times. I am even more so now. I assume I will have some almost homeless friends moving to my property when they lose their jobs. I will have to be able to feed them as well. The victory garden of Central Oregon isn't a great harvest. Lots of spuds, carrots, pickles and beans.. But the glorious garlic is a bonus here. Can't wait to learn how to can dill./garlic pickles this summer.
Times aren't bad yet and I really hope they don't get that way.
If there is any sign of bad, I saw it today after eating at the D. Three furniture stores with sign flingers on all corners of town.
Ausslands, Mountain Comfort, 50% off sale and Rising Star. Who the hell can afford more furniture right now?
Most of this won't REALLY hurt for more than a year or so. After that, it's everyone better be prepared.
I am not paranoid, just realistic. May not need the bullets, but the beans and booze will come in handy.

Bewert said...

RE: That scene from a popular movie 11 years ago reminds me of the Machiavellian tactics President Obama and his advisers are using today. These people, most of them Ivy-League graduates and diehard socialists, are very intelligent people. They realize that their policy remedies to fix the economy have no historical or rational basis and are only causing more economic uncertainty and chaos on Wall Street and on economic indicators throughout the world.

###

Ummm, there really hasn't been any historical parallels to this mess, other that the Great Depression. Forty days in and it's not fixed. Duh!

I'm still checking in. Will have the latest Deschutes County UE numbers tomorrow morning.

But I have to admit I'm happy to be heading for a place where the garden is already in, rather than having to get up and pull T's colorful flower planters in at 4 AM, when I realize how cold it is, the snow on the ground, while letting the Jack's out.

Yes, it has been building. I'm not tied here in any way, other than emotionally. My money comes in quarterly checks (mostly spent here) and a few barely above min-wage jobs. Because I like them. Teaching autistic kids. Roaming Widgi at dawn. Etc.

The CC voting to spend almost $400K by June 30th on a code update that even the builders didn't see as necessary is simply ridiculous.

So, what the hell. This "whiner" decided to move on.

And to the single homeless guy at Reed Mkt and 3rd with his two kids--I fucking hope Homer and his friends gives you enough money to live in a motel.

Because it's pretty fucking cold out to be camping.

###

Buster--sayonara. It's been fun.

Anonymous said...

>>while letting the Jack's out.<<

Good Bruce! I have Jacks too. They don't like cold. The Golden does well however.
Wish I could put my garden in now, I am jealous that you will have one already started.

Anonymous said...

For those of you that haven't entirely written off the U.S.A. yet, Mark Thoma at the University of Oregon has a nice analogy of the different banking plans put in place. Even if you think it's all going to hell, you can get something useful out of this:


Government Intervention in the Market for Toxic Cars


Imagine a car lot that has 100 cars on it. However, some of these cars have problems. Half of them will have engine troubles that total the cars - the engines blow up and the cars are then worthless - and this will happen just after purchase. The other half are perfectly fine. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell prior to purchase which type of car you will get no matter how hard you try. Thus, half of the assets on the car dealer's "balance sheet" - the cars on its lot - are toxic, and lack of transparency makes it impossible to tell which ones are bad prior to purchase.

If all the cars were in perfect shape, they would sell for $20,000 each. Thus, there are (50)*($20,000) = $1,000,000 in assets on the books according to one way of doing the accounting, but that doesn't necessarily represent the true value of the cars on the lot.

The town where this dealership is located relies upon this business for jobs, it is essential, but, unfortunately, business has fallen off to nothing. Nobody is willing to risk losing $20,000 by purchasing a car that might die just after purchase, so the price has fallen. The expected value of a car is $10,000, but it's an all or nothing proposition, the car runs or it dies, and since people are risk averse nobody is wiling to pay the $10,000 expected value. In fact, the highest price they are willing to pay, $6,000, is lower than the minimum price the dealer is willing to accept (I've assumed a reservation price of $7,500 for illustration, and a horizontal supply curve to make the illustration easier):


So how could the government fix the problem?

1. Government purchases of toxic cars

The government could buy the cars itself, say at $7,500 per car, or $750,000 total for the lot, drive them around a bit (stress test them), wait for the bad ones to blow up, then sell the 50 good cars back to the public (who will no longer be fearful since the bad cars are out of the mix). If they can get anything more than $15,000 for each good car, they will make money on the deal (well, there would be overhead and other costs to cover, but let's abstract from minor details). But if cars end up selling for less than $15,000, they will take a loss.

(In the graph, the government intervention shifts the demand curve outward until it intersects at the kink in the supply curve at Q=100).

The problem with this option is knowing what price to offer for the cars. There is no market, and the firm's reservation price may be too high, i.e. paying the reservation price will eventually lead to a loss. And it's worse. In this example the percentage of bad cars is known, but the percentage of bad cars would also be unknown in a more realistic example, so there's no way to know how many good cars there are for sure, and what price they will sell for after the defective cars have been culled out of the herd. If the government pays $7,500 per car, and more than 62.5% of them go bad (not that much more than the 50% estimate), then taxpayers will lose money even if they sell for $20,000. With the percentage unknown, there's no way to know for sure what the breakeven price will be.

This is, in essence, the original Paulson plan. The only twist is that the price - the $7,500 in the example above, would be determined by an auction among many dealers with the government accepting the lowest bid (which could be $7,500 in this example since that is the price the firm is willing to accept). As you can see by thinking this through, there are questions about what price such an auction would reveal.

One danger in this plan is that if you overpay for the cars, e.g. give $7,500 when the breakeven price was, say, actually $5,000, then you have given the owner of the car lot $250,000 more than the cars were actually worth (this will be the loss to taxpayers). The dealer may need this money to stay solvent and stay in business, but, nevertheless, it is a windfall.

There are a lot of uncertainties here, and lots of ways to lose money. But it's possible to make money too.

2. Subsidies and Public-Private partnerships

Here, the government offers a subsidy to private sector buyers. Suppose that the demand curve intersects the vertical line in the graph (at Q=100) at a price of $4,000. Then in order to sell 100 cars, the government must subsidize buyers by $3,500 so that the $4,000 offer is raised to the $7,500 the firm is willing to accept (notice that the buyer willing to pay $6,000 gets a $2,000 windfall, so, except at the margin, this plan gives surplus to people purchasing the assets - as with the first plan, this shifts the demand curve out until it intersects at the kink in the supply curve).



However, once again, the government will not know if it is getting this right or not. Suppose it offers a $1,000 subsidy thinking that is generous enough. In this example, that won't bridge the gap between the highest offer of $6,000, and the reservation price of $7,500. Thus, the subsidy would be too small to restart the market and the plan would fail. So the answer is to make the subsidy large enough to encourage buyers, but the problem is that if it is too large, the government will be giving money away unnecessarily.

And there's another problem. If there's a large gap between what people are willing to pay and what dealers are willing to accept(the gap between $6,000 and $7,500 in the example), this would be problematic politically since it would require subsidies that are unacceptably large.

And I should note that it doesn't have to be a subsidy. That's one way to do this - as a giveaway - but another way is through a no recourse loan (what is being called a partnership). Suppose that the government gives (up to) a $3,500 loan to a private sector buyer to purchase the car for $7,500. If it's a good car and the value rises above $7,500, say to $15,000, then government will get paid back (with interest) since the asset can be sold profitably (another option is for the government to demand a share of this profit through warrants or other means). But if it's a bad car, the price falls to zero and the loan is forgiven - it does not need to be repaid. So the private sector agents only have to put up a fraction of the price to control the asset, and their losses are limited to the amount they put up while the gains are potentially large.

This is, in essence, the Geithner Plan. If many of the loans are not repaid, or if the subsidy is too large, it could lose a lot of money, but it could also make money too.

3. Nationalization

Now for the Saab story. Another option is for the government to simply take over the car dealership. The dealership is essential to the economy of the town, without it people will struggle, and the government - for that reason - might consider temporarily taking over the dealership to prevent failure. In doing so, it would make an evaluation of the company's assets, pay off the people who loaned the business money up to this amount, which may require having them take a haircut, i.e. accept some percentage of what they are owed on the bad loans they made, and the owner would simply be wiped out (which is a benefit since the business is insolvent and this allows the owner to escape the loans that cannot be paid through liquidation).

After taking over, the government would stress test the cars it now owns, put the bad ones in the junk pile, and sell the rest back to the public. So long as it didn't pay the creditors too much when it took over, i.e. the haircut is sufficiently large, it ought to make money on the deal. But it could lose money here too.

The Point

But, and I want to stress this, the point of these plans is not to make money, the point is to keep the economy of the town going, to keep people employed. If people place a large value on security, then even if the government takes a loss on paper, it may not be an economic loss. That is, we must put a value on the jobs that are saved and the security it brings (simply imagine that the utility function has risk as one of its arguments - by lowering the risk of job loss and the associated household disruption, you have made the agent better off, and this must be counted against any loss from any of the programs above). There is value in economic stability and security over and above whatever the government makes (or loses) on the actual financial transactions, and this must be factored into the evaluation of the policy.

Trudy Truss said...

Re:
Good Bruce! I have Jacks too. They don't like cold.

###

The old one is almost crippled by the cold. Fifteen going on 90.

But the new one, about a month or so from her first heat, is a fucking handful. Not only does her rough coat shed snow and water like it's nothing, she has been driving me nuts digging up earthworms.

I though only robin's did that. And they don't make holes in the lawn.

Trudy Truss said...

...thought...

Trudy Truss said...

Oh, sorry, T checked her gmail and is still logged in.

BTW, the Drake Park story is the best yet.

Anonymous said...

So, rather than wade thru all of last week's bullshit to find the nugget that BP is bailing out on Bend, give us here the quick update:

Where are you going? Utah?

When?

Will you be back in town to hound the elected idiots on the council?

Will you be back here virtually to give us our daily dose of DKos, and tell us how the OREO is fixing everything?

The Pussy has left the bldg, Long live the Pussy!!

Trudy Truss said...

When?

###

End of May.

You should start hounding the elected idiots. Someone needs to. Damned funny how $400K can suddenly be pulled out of the budget hat when we can't afford to hire police or firemen.

Anonymous said...

Then our BPussy is Bend-Gone, he came to promote, he came to fix Bend, he came to ban exec-session, but most of all he came to teach us about dailyKos, and even the BP has fucking given up on his dream.

+++

Say it ain't so...

Don't leave us....

Please don't go...

Bend needs you...

====

Where you going?


Spill the details...

Anonymous said...

he came to fix Bend, he came to ban exec-session

***

Yeah, I seem to remember something about a complaint he was going to file on the Exec Sessions...

...but he did not want to ruffle any feathers, since he was going to be the next Mayor, or Finance Committee member, or whatever.

Now that he is busting on outta here, does anybody thing he will do anything with that fine piece of prose he works so long and hard on?

Anonymous said...

These people, most of them Ivy-League graduates and diehard socialists, are very intelligent people. They realize that their policy remedies to fix the economy have no historical or rational basis

Yawwwwnnnn.

This is exactly the same bullshit the right-wingers spouted about FDR.

And today they claim that the New Deal prolonged the Depression and that if we'd just stuck with Hoover's laissez-faire, thumb-up-the-ass policy it would've been over sooner.

Of course the beauty of that hypothesis is there's no way to test it.

Reputable economists agree that the New Deal reduced unemployment and mitigated the human suffering of the Depression. Of course, the right-wingers say they're all "Ivy League socialists."

Anybody with a functioning brain is perceived as a threat by the right-wingers. And with good reason.

Anonymous said...

But I have to admit I'm happy to be heading for a place where the garden is already in, rather than having to get up and pull T's colorful flower planters in at 4 AM, when I realize how cold it is, the snow on the ground, while letting the Jack's out.

Maybe you should go to Portland, Bruce. Fewer right-wing rednecks, and it's spring there already too. If you can put up with all the rain.

Anonymous said...

>>I though only robin's did that. And they don't make holes in the lawn.<<

This is a Bend GOOD NEWS story:

Mine was inherited a few months ago. Always lived on concrete and on a leash, raised by an 80+ year old woman. This shortie is in heaven, the deer and bunnies drive her crazy, can't wait til the chipmunks come out.
Enough bad shit out there, but Jacks and others can take your mind off the bad and change your heart to happy very quickly.

Well, Goldie is beggin for dinner, must make her happy.

Anonymous said...

hbm writes:
"Maybe you should go to Portland, Bruce. Fewer right-wing rednecks, and it's spring there already too. If you can put up with all the rain."

===

Hey you ignorant socialist piece of excrement, pay closer attention to what is being said around you.

BP already said that he was moving back to Utah to live in the house his wife previous sold to her brother, who goes to Alaska every summer. I don't think his wife has another brother in Portland with a free house to mooch off of!

No wonder you were fired from the Bulletin... you don't pay attention to the facts that people already told you.

Or should we have pity on you since you are a retarded, socialist POS?

Anonymous said...

===

And that's what BB2 is all about!!

Complementing one another.

I completely agree, for 1-1/2 year BP has told us virtually everything about himself, we know more about BP than ourselves, I think '===' needs to remember, that like BP, HBM is quite new to this board, but I do agree it was only a few weeks ago BP told us about his mooch deal in JooTah.

Anonymous said...

In the UK they're preparing for large scale riots all over the country. How are you preparing??


Recession 'could trigger unrest'
Frank Field


Frank Field said the government must take a decisive lead

Former Labour minister Frank Field has told the BBC the financial crisis is so severe that if not properly handled it could trigger civil unrest, even riots.

"I can't underestimate how terrible the financial crisis is even if it doesn't get a penny worse," he said in an interview with Panorama.

"No sensible person would sit in front of this camera and tell you there is no possibility whatsoever of disorder."

Mr Field spoke to Panorama for Monday's programme on Britain's pensions crisis.

In Who Will Save the Savers? Panorama looks at how the credit crunch is pushing Britain's long-running pensions and savings timebomb to a critical new stage.

Massive change

Mr Field, a Labour MP who served as welfare reform minister under former prime minister Tony Blair, told Panorama that "the pension crisis is part of a bigger crisis of public finance".



We can either try and get in first by leading the way about getting out accounts into order or we'll be forced to do so by unrest
Frank Field

On sharp end of pensions crisis

He said the situation was so severe that even if the government is correct in its handling of the overall crisis, "getting back into order now involves such change of such magnitude that for the first time for generations issues of public order will be a key part of the political process".

However, he added that if the government takes a lead, unrest can be avoided.

"If we are quick enough we will start to get the changes through and a commitment made to our voters before we have quite widespread disorder. There will be change, it's whether we lead the change or whether we're actually pushed into the change," he said.

"We can either try and get in first by leading the way about getting our accounts into order or we'll be forced to do so by unrest," he added.

Uncertain future


In Panorama's programme on Monday, Adam Shaw - an expert on finance who presents Working Lunch and the business reports on Radio 4's Today programme - examines what awaits people who, despite being prudent, face an uncertain retirement, and asks what can be done to help.

Elderly couple
Monday's Panorama looks at Britain's worsening pensions black hole

Many of Britain's biggest companies are abandoning their final-salary pension schemes, private pensions are drastically underperforming, and the state pension is still one of the lowest in Europe.

So for millions, the chances of being able to retire at 60 or 65 with a decent standard of living are very slim.

This raises questions about the government's ability to find the tens of billions of pounds needed to plug a gap which is set to widen further because of Britain's ageing population.

The government insists it can sort out the pensions crisis.

Three years ago Pensions Secretary John Hutton said the government would introduce a compulsory Savings Scheme on top of the state pension - but only from 2012.

He also said it would restore the state pension earnings link which was removed 30 years ago by Sir Geoffrey Howe.

But as Panorama reports, maintaining the value of our pensions in the future is going to be a major headache.

Research conducted for Panorama by the Pensions Policy Institute suggests that by 2037 we will collectively have to spend an extra £34bn a year just to maintain the relative value of our pensions.

Anonymous said...

Clean out your storage locker, and save the money. Cancel your cable.
Stop eating out 3 times a week.
Get free DVD's, CD's, and magazines from the library.
This is going to get VERY,VERY bad.

*

This is where I disagree with HBM, he seems to think that folks don't save cuz they have less money, but I think it is the cable bill, where all have a $100/mo cable, I don't have cable, where all have a new car ever 2-3 years with the $800/mo payment, ... too many 'white trash' have tried to live the fucking 'riche' life, sure there are good people, but I see tons of people that took on tons of credit card debt, and pulled all the equity from their $200k crap shack that went to $500k, and they knew would go to $1M by 2010.

Sure in some places there are good people who lived within their means, and got fucked, but those people aren't in BEND, and BB2 is about BEND.

Anonymous said...

BP wrote last week:
"Yeah, we made the decision to leave. The last CC meeting brought it home--this place just doesn't face reality well. Spending $700K to update construction codes when we have no money and there is no construction going on is patently ridiculous.

Trudy bought a house near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon in the Salt Lake area years ago. She sold it to her brother after we moved here. They move up to Homer, AK every summer, so we can move back, take care of the garden, and figure things out. We want to live in a place with an economy and and a knowledge of the outside world."

===

A little help for the retarded idiot savant hbm, who not only forgot that BP explained his exodus, but also forgot that he (hbm) previously commented on BP's exodus plans.

Hey hbm, get a clue, or get outta here!

Anonymous said...

1st inning or 4th inning?

*

No marge, I think all of us old timers here have always said that resets will keep going until 2012, and then add in the extra 2+ years to Bend lag, and that be 2014,

Yes this is the first inning. Perhaps it isn't even an inning, perhaps this is still the warm-up.

I think that 2010 will be 1, 2012 2, ... it will take many years to bring back good times, and certainly not Bend, hell this is volcanic ash, shit doesn't even grow here, at least in the valley people can grow shit.

It will be interesting going forward now to watch the shelves at your stores, say walmart and note if & when food stock's start running low.

At some point the lack of cash flow here, will drop the quantity brought in, the problem with Bend is that everything has to be trucked in,

Never been a better time to can and grow your own food.

During the great depression the government destroyed food to keep the price up, and people starved because they had no money to buy the food.

HBM likes to portray FDR as benevolent, the fact is there was little benevolence. You had money or you starved, your grew your own food or you starved, or you knew somebody that did grow food.

Anonymous said...

Went to a potluck today in Salem, Bureau of Prisons, state and federal potluck at somebody's house, rather interesting.

These folks are VERY-VERY afraid, most of the talk was of the four cops down in Oakland getting shot. They see OREO confiscating guns very soon.

Everybody seems to know one of the cops shot.

The lack of information I found was interesting.

My point is, you think you guys here are negative, of course these are guys that work our State & Federal prisons, and that is depressing work, but they feel that the future is going to be terrible, and these guys are great jobs, tons of security, and great pensions.

Something is in the air, and it is FEAR.

Anonymous said...

My first thought on the shooting in Oakland was that the guy must have been a recent IRAQ vet, cuz it was obvious this guy had been taught the fine art of urban combat shooting, but it turns out, he was simply a graduate of prison training USA ameriKKKa.

Well some of you may not appreciate this subject, but BB2 is not about honesty, last week was about AIG-BONUS this week will be about gun-control, we'll be told that an idiot with an 'assault-rifle' took out the OPD 4 to 1. But the fact is Mixon was a trained killer, trained by the ameriKKKan prison industrial complex.


SWAT cops wear t-shirts that say 'two to the chest one to the face', its called a double-tap in the business, you shoot two in succession to the chest, and a third to the face. This way even if the person is wearing a vest they're still dead, but a head shot is harder than a chest shot, and because of recoil a gun tends to rise.

What's interesting about the initial shooting is the cops were shot in the face, this is commonly known these days that cops wear vests, thus the shooter didn't waste even trying to shoot at chest level. Often vests contain a ceramic plate that will stop any kind of bullet.

However a direct shot to a face any kind of bullet can cause death.

Most interesting in this case is that that Mixon ( the perp ) was well trained, that he was quick and issued direct shots to the face. The type of gun used had nothing to do with the outcome, this is a case of pure martial training. My guess is that he did a lot of 'dry firing' while in his cell getting his PHD in prison.

Indoors cops are trained to keep the muzzle down, outdoors high. Again upon entry in the room, all the suspect had to do was start face shots and continue horizontally, it takes time to get the muzzle up for the cops to recognize the shooter.

In training a cop enters an indoor room, muzzle down and looks for bad-guys, but he also has to look for a mother holding a baby, in that instant the bad-guy can do face shots and get a few off. Most likely 2-3 cops were in the room to clear it, not all even looking in the same direction. A patient shooter could have been waiting in the closet and got off 2-3 head shots while the cops in their helmets were turning around towards the closet.

Regarding the street, the cops are used to pulling people over, but obviously the shooter had been training for such an occasion, and pulled off his shots before the cops were even ready.

My guess is all this will completely change the way cops pull cars over in Oakland , and the way that SWAT teams clear buildings.

Remember the PERP had just got out of prison, and got his PHD in shooting, robbery, a little money bought an assault rifle and some pistols,...

What's interesting about this story is the outcome. Nationally SWAT teams will now shoot-first and look for women&children later, and on the street you'll most likely see cops covered during routine stops.

Welcome to ameriKKKa.

What came first? The totalitarian state or the criminal?? Why was mixon willing to die rather than going back to prison?

The essence of government is beating, killing and imprisoning, those asking for more cops and government, are asking for more totalitarianism.

Anonymous said...

Idiot Anon 8:57pm writes:

"Welcome to ameriKKKa.

What came first? The totalitarian state or the criminal?? Why was mixon willing to die rather than going back to prison?

The essence of government is beating, killing and imprisoning, those asking for more cops and government, are asking for more totalitarianism."

===

What he is really saying is:

America sucks shit.
Let's not imprison any more criminals.
It is not the criminal's fault.

Anon 8:57pm is a fucking idiot. And also probably a whiney ex-con himself. Bleeding Heart Idiot.

Anonymous said...

Is this a new malevolent right-wing troll?

Or our old favorite right-wing troll?

If it's someone new, he hasn't earned the right to tell hbm or bruce to "get out."

Anonymous said...

Does any one have any info on what banks are better than others?

Trudy Truss said...

New Feb UE numbers out today at 11 AM.

Just to refresh our memories, here are January's:

356 Bend, OR Metropolitan Statistical Area 14.6
356 Monroe, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area 14.6
358 Flint, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area 14.8

Links:
http://www.bls.gov/web/laummtrk.htm

http://www.employment.oregon.gov/EMPLOY/COMM/news/2009_Release_Schedule.shtml

http://olmis.emp.state.or.us/olmisj/AllRates

Trudy Truss said...

Re: Banks--if you want policies that aren't designed to suck your money out in fees--Liberty is by far the best.

As far as financial strength--they are all pretty bad. But Columbia and Cascade are in the worst shape.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Good stuff in the Oregonian today:

Slapped by recession, can Consumer Nation rethink?
Posted by jhays March 22, 2009 14:00PM

ROSS TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- The first thing you see is the enormous boot.

Atop a ridge north of Pittsburgh, towering over customers at the entrance to Ross Park Mall, the giant L.L. Bean boot seems to shout: No buy is too big, no shopping dream too outsized. Come on in. Retail nirvana awaits. "Please do not climb on the boot," says a sign, as if we all might.

Associated PressMen's clothing is on sale at Macy's department store in the Ross Park Mall in Ross Township, Pa. Such sales feed the contradictions that confront 21st-century America. We love to shop, but we need to save.

Inside, along buffed corridors freshly retooled to ramp up the aura of luxury, storefront signs spin a tale of a culture in conflict. "More choices coming soon," says a store under construction. "Unmounted Diamond Event," trumpets Littman Jewelers.

Yet selected items at Ann Taylor and Morini are 60 percent off. Le Gourmet Chef exhorts everyone to "Buy More $ave More" -- a truth and a paradox that distills America into a bumper-sticker slogan. And just past the front door is the place that touts "Great Deals Inside." That would be Citizens Bank.

These are the contradictions that confront 21st-century America. We love to shop, but we need to save. We want it all, and we want it now. No matter whether it's a new pair of $100 jeans on your Visa, 90 days same as cash on that new car, a subprime mortgage. Psychologically, they're of a piece: Buy now, pay later. Shop 'til you drop.

Now we're paying. Now we're dropping. Credit -- personal and institutional and national -- is overextended into the absurd. Money that didn't exist in the first place is now frighteningly, heartbreakingly real. And the temples of our consumer choice are starting to crumble.

Chrysler and General Motors are wondering aloud if their century-old tanks are empty. Starbucks, home of the $4 venti latte, is laying off thousands and has -- et tu, Brute? -- launched a cheap brand of instant coffee. Circuit City expired two weeks ago, leaving 567 stores dark and Best Buy as the main place to shop for the 60-inch flat-screen HDTV you can't afford.

This is economic crisis. And in Washington and on Wall Street, they're scrambling to fix it with economic cures -- useful ones or misguided ones, depending upon your perspective. But however effective they are, they remain attempts to impose a financial solution upon a dilemma that, in many ways, is cultural and behavioral.

Because in America, we consume. It is what we do, what we have been told to do, what our government usually tells us to do, what we love to do and what we must do. It has built us into a behemoth and undercut us at inopportune moments. Viewed from a distance, it's easy to see us as a nation of economic 5-year-olds, spending our allowance before we get it and demanding more, more, more, then being shocked when the money runs out.

Well, our revels now are ended. And at the edges of any economic recovery that might lie ahead lurks a question that few seem inclined to contemplate: At the dawn of the administration that swore it would bring change to us, can we bring change to ourselves?

The Jan. 29 White House daily briefing offered a telling moment when the question of what to do with federal stimulus money came up. "The point of an economic stimulus plan," presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "is to get money into people's hands and into people's pockets so that they use their hand to reach in their pocket and spend that money."

But wait, someone said. Hold on. What about savings? Wasn't it the nationwide lack of savings and overextension of credit -- institutional and personal -- that got us into this mess? Gibbs was quick and emphatic: "I'm not discouraging savings," he said.

And therein lies the tension. It's like the old Warner Bros. cartoons in which Daffy Duck or some other character has miniature versions of himself on his shoulder -- one a gentle angel, the other a pitchfork-wielding devil -- giving him polar opposite accounts of what to do next. Shop? Save? Shop more?

The conundrum of America has long been thus -- thrift and parsimony vs. capitalism and acquisition. Both are virtues. One is seen as small-town and heartland, and thus appealing. The other, on an institutional level, elevated America into an economic giant and, on a personal level, made us a nation of debtors with really cool toys and houses we can't pay for.

They can seem irreconcilable. Even as Calvin Coolidge was cautioning that "thrift and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they create character," John Maynard Keynes was insisting that "the engine which drives enterprise is not thrift, but profit."

When bad things happen, the instinct is to batten the hatches and not spend. That's why George W. Bush had to tell us to get out and shop after 9/11. As absurd as it sounded, the message was solid: Don't quit the economy or it will quit you.

But the genius of America has always been its penchant for believing in better days ahead, not worse ones, so it's difficult to justify saving for a rainy day when the national narrative expects sunny skies. That's why about the only thing that made sense in Jim Cramer's comments to Jon Stewart earlier this month was when he said that of course he thought the market would keep going up; hadn't it been doing so for years?

Is it any wonder we're confused?

Slowly, though, signs are emerging that suggest the recent months of economic free fall and attendant angst have gotten our attention. Luxury shopping -- goods bought at places like Coach and Neiman Marcus -- was down 19.2 percent in February from a year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. And an AP/GfK poll last month showed that 65 percent of Americans questioned worried about whether they'd be able to pay their bills.
Associated PressIn this file photo from the winter of 1932-33, a long line of jobless and homeless men wait outside to get free dinner at New York's municipal lodging house during the Great Depression. We see ourselves today in the Depression's mirror, beginning the painful process of self-examination. Leaders of AICPA, the professional organization for American accountants, were alarmed when they learned three years ago in 2006 that the national savings rate in the U.S. was a negative figure for the first time since the Depression.
"Mentally, it's already changing. We always wondered, what were they like, those people of the Great Depression -- how did they learn how to save? And now we're becoming like them," says Amity Shlaes, author of "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression."

Amid the encouragement to buy, encouragements to save -- truly save rather than just buy one and get one free -- are emerging.

Feedthepig.org, a savings advice site, enlists a straight-talking pig in a pink suit named Benjamin -- alarming but effective -- to encourage young adults from 25 to 34 to stick coins into the slot in his head. Its Web traffic soared by almost 40,000 in January as the recession deepened. Its all-ages counterpart, 360financialliteracy.org, which doesn't use talking ham, breaks down financial common sense into life stages with a depth and breadth that would make Ben Franklin's penny-saved heart soar.

What's particularly interesting about these initiatives is who's behind them: the professional organization for American accountants, AICPA, whose leaders were alarmed when they learned three years ago that the national savings rate was a negative figure for the first time since the Depression.

"As a nation, economically, I think we got very soft. It just got too easy," says Carl George, CEO of the Illinois accounting firm Clifton Gunderson and chairman of the National CPA Financial Literacy Commission.

"The message has been let's revitalize or make the economy more vital, and the way to do that is to insert your own personal capital into the economy," George says. "And I think, 'OK, that's a good message IF you can afford it.' But you know what? If you can't afford to go out and buy that widescreen ... you haven't done anybody any good."

Americans are not known for being introspective, but rage at the Bernard Madoffs of the world may be encouraging even that. People look at the CEOs and the big-bank bailouts and the private jets, and suddenly Gordon Gekko saying "Greed is good" doesn't sound all that cinematic anymore.

Lydia Perez-Carpenter, an actress and waitress in New York, sees some of that. At 25, she has seen many friends in recent months "finding the cheap way of doing what we want to do" or, even, contemplating savings and frugality. She has put a rubber band around her credit card to remind herself that it's money she doesn't have.

"Most of my generation has this concept that, 'Oh, I'll just put it on my credit card.' Then we're sitting here paying hundreds of dollars a month on credit-card debt, and it'll never go away," she says. "We definitely need an attitude adjustment. The American way of thinking in my mind is wanting whatever we want now with very little long term-thinking. Hopefully that's changing."

Wishful thinking, but perhaps realism's moment is at hand. Can it be we didn't realize that our instant-gratification culture ran so deep that it permeated not only our wallets and our attitudes but our financial institutions as well? Can it further be that the vaunted indicator of "consumer confidence" is a double-edged sword, and that buying -- pardon, "infusing money into the economy" -- isn't the best starting point from which to view our lot?

Tod Porter, who heads the economics department at Youngstown State University in Ohio, one of the country's most struggling areas, sees us struggling through the cloudy waters of what economists call "the paradox of thrift." In this model, savings operates like a daily multivitamin. In sensible doses it is a virtue that fosters stability and keeps the system strong. But in excess, it can be poisonous to the system by reducing the demand for goods and services -- and making bad recessions worse.

For the moment, though, we are reaping the aftereffects of not taking our vitamins. The system is broken, and many of the vandals are, in fact, us.

"It was like Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff, and for a while he doesn't realize there's nothing underneath him. And that can only last so long," Porter says. His voice trails off, and he poses a question.

"At what point does everybody realize the game is up?"

So can we change? Or will we be forever captivated by the enormous shopping-mall boot and the retail booty that lies beyond? For some answers, let's look to a movie in theaters right now called "Confessions of a Shopaholic."

It is about Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher), a young professional who's addicted to shopping, considers $200 underwear a "basic human right" and offers pop wisdom like this: "A man will never love you or treat you as well as a store."

This is documentary masquerading as frothy screwball comedy. For Rebecca slowly begins to realize that her lust for purchasing is leading her to lie, ruin her finances and alienate the man she loves. Because she buys, her world comes crashing down. And it bewilders her. "When I shop," she says, "the world gets better. The world IS better. Then it's not anymore. And I need to do it again."

Funny thing, though, how the film's contradictions so starkly reflect our own at this moment in history. Rebecca's parents frequent thrift stores and flea markets, the out-of-touch but heartfelt vestiges of an America that once saved and reused. A debt collector who stalks Rebecca is an obnoxious nerd, because responsibility, after all, isn't cool. And at the end, when Rebecca makes her choice between shopping and love, her moral compass points right at the North Pole of traditional values.

Then the credits roll. And in the acknowledgments, the producers thank Prada and Fendi and Anna Sui.

"We have lived," Barack Obama said last month, "through an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity, where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election." Is it any wonder that a society always so obsessed with the excitement of tomorrow somehow neglected the reality of it?

Something is at hand here. What it is -- well, we are the ones charged with defining that. Where do we find our answers? In understanding better why we do what we do and buy what we buy? In the anger that hey -- those government and corporate guys are spending beyond their means, and whoa, so are we?

Or is it all, in the time-honored American tradition, just a blip that we'll forget when the Dow rises and the banks resume lending and the leading economic indicators are once more pointing toward the sky?

Decision 2008 is behind us. Decision 2009 is of a different species. It is not either-or, not a horse race, not a sound bite. It is about how society -- and that means he and she and, yes, you -- is going to think about things like instant gratification and the hunger for newness and the envelopes with the glassine windows that keep arriving in the mail.

Carl George, the accountant, is what some of the TV financial talking heads like to call "cautiously optimistic" that we'll learn something here. "This is going to be permanently embedded in our minds -- and should be," he says. "The key is to remember those lessons and pass those lessons on to the next generation."

In other words, thinking about the future, one of the most American things of all. It can save us or destroy us, depending on what we do next.

-- The Associated Press

Anonymous said...

Blogger Trudy Truss said...

Re: Banks--if you want policies that aren't designed to suck your money out in fees--Liberty is by far the best.

->

I thought this bitch had left the building?? Is this the corpse??

Anonymous said...

"The essence of government is beating, killing and imprisoning, those asking for more cops and government, are asking for more totalitarianism." - Von Mises

*

I love this, the above quote of from Von Mises, the intellectual father of Ayn-Rand, but to PUG's in this group its liberal.

Go figure.

The lack of intellectual history and real knowledge is why BB2 will always be 100% moron.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Oregon housing slump creates ripples of job losses
Posted by jhays March 22, 2009 13:27PM

EUGENE -- The story isn't dramatic when one home builder after another goes idle. It doesn't make the front page or the top of the newscast like the momentous, 1,000- and 2,000-employee layoffs at Hynix last fall or Monaco Coach this winter.

But the effects on a local economy from the attrition of home builders are arguably larger, said Elliot Eisenberg, the Washington, D.C.-based senior economist with the National Association of Home Builders.

At peak construction pace in recent years, Lane County home builders finished about 1,500 houses per year and that sustained as many as 6,000 jobs while it lasted -- more than the University of Oregon and more than PeaceHealth employ, Eisenberg said.

"When you build 1,500 homes, you are the largest employer in town, bigger than health care," he recently told a gathering sponsored by the Home Builders Association of Lane County.

Now the annual house production has plunged to about 400, and the loss of employment locally has been devastating, he said. "It's a two-thirds decline. You're losing tons of jobs."

Using an economic model that he created, Eisenberg estimates that every house creates four jobs though the first year of construction.

Two are the tradespeople working on site, one works in retailing or wholesaling building materials or as a member of the professional support team, such as a banker, land surveyor or architect.

The fourth works in either government, the general wholesale or retail trade or in health, education or social service sector. And the latter have no idea their job is dependent on new construction, Eisenberg said.

Eisenberg's model also predicts that each new house built supports one-half of a job ongoing, each year out into the future as new occupants live, shop and pay their taxes.

This is all part of the ripple effect of work that home construction stimulates as the money it generates circulates around and around in the community.

"I'm a builder. I go to a restaurant," Eisenberg said. "The restaurant buys wine from a local vineyard. The vineyard hires students from a local high school to pick the grapes. That's the ripple effect."

And it works in reverse, he said.

"When things are good it brings the ripple with it. And when it's bad, like now, not only do you suffer the loss of direct construction activity, you also lose the ripple effect. For every dollar you lose (in construction) you lose 50 cents in the ripple effect," he said. "It turns the fuel injector off. It magnifies the impact."

Eisenberg said he has witnessed the effect in Eugene.

"I walk downtown and this restaurant is closed, and that restaurant closed and that restaurant closed. I bet half the restaurant closures are due to this lack of money floating around. A lot of restaurateurs are gone," he said. "There's so many little tentacles here that we just don't think of."

Each new house brings along $191,220 of income to Lane County, including $27,940 in taxes and fees paid to local governments in the first year, according to Eisenberg's calculations.

In fact, new construction, he said, creates income and jobs for Oregonians and additional revenue for local governments, Eisenberg said. But he doesn't go so far as to recommend building houses to prime the economic pump.

But Eisenberg does suggest that local governments back off on the fees, taxes and systems development charges they levy on builders. This would lower house prices, stimulating demand and construction, he said.

Lane County saw 199 fewer homes built in 2008 than in 2007. Eisenberg's model predicts a job loss the first year of 796, a $38 million drop of income circulating in the community and $5.6 million in taxes and fees for local governments.

A snapshot of February housing starts shows a continuing decline in home building. Lane County builders applied for 13 single family home permits from local governments in February, compared with 49 in February 2008, a 73 percent decline.

"Another person in the economy loses a job," Eisenberg said. "It could be a hairdresser. It could be a waiter at a restaurant. It could be an auto mechanic -- and they aren't even going to be aware of why they are laid off. They're just going to know their employer laid them off because the economy is not good."

Lane County faces a double jeopardy situation because local woods products companies that supply home builders nationally are in a slump. Wood products employment was down locally by 500 jobs in 2008.

The overall Lane County jobless rate was 11.9 percent in January, the most recent data available. The state rate, meanwhile, climbed to 10.8 percent in February while the national rate was 8.1 percent.

"Construction -- both residential and commercial -- has really carried our state's economy for many years. When we collapsed, the state's economy collapsed," said John Chandler, executive director of the Oregon Home Builders Association.

As bad as it is in Lane County, Eisenberg said, it's much worse in other parts of the country where home builders far overshot the market during the housing boom and demand is sharply down.

"You're about average. You really are dead average," Eisenberg said, "What's going to happen to you guys is you're going to be buffeted by the national trends. If the banking sector gets unwound and starts lending again, things will get better. If the banking system stays clogged up, the arteries are very tight and you will suffer along like everyone else."

-- The Associated Press

Anonymous said...

Does any one have any info on what banks are better than others?

*

There are ton's of sites that rate banks. Simply google 'Bank ratings', and find the sites.

There are many good credit unions, that were very conservative during the bubble years.

The Pussy's assertion that CACB&CBOO are the worst are simply un-informed bias. Not objective in terms of rating and ranking CACB is mid-level in toxicity.

It really depends what your looking for. 'Better Bank' what the fuck does that mean? Well there are many rankings and ratings where you can compare the banks, but its like comparing mortgages in Bend where most are under-water.

Are you simply looking to save? Then T-Bills through 'treasury-direct' may be the safest avenue to avoid 'banks' altogether. Are you looking to do business? Then I would say US-BANK which is very solid, and if you have a FICA of 800 they'll give you all the money you want for less than 4%.

CACB only sucks dick because the bitch that run's it has used Bend to buy ky-jelly via MDU, but the bank itself is simply average in the venue of US toxic banks.

Anonymous said...

And that's what BB2 is all about!! Complementing one another.

No, BB2 is all about a collection of alcoholic mentally deficient psychos making up lies and flinging insults other people from behind the shield of anonymity.

Fuck them all and fuck this blog. It's long since ceased to offer any information of interest or value, and hanging out here is toxic to body, mind and soul. I've had it.

Anonymous said...

Look below there are 100's of way to 'rank banks' it all depends on the attribute of 'better'. You must have a mission or objective. Like the 'great depression' story yesterday in the BULL, if you had all your money in one bank you may have lost all, but a nieghbor in another bank lost nothing. Thus its essential to have MANY fucking bank accounts, have 1/2 accounts and keep money in each.

You decide what is important, and then find the 'better' bank by your metric, for instance @bb2 historical homer has felt that non-performance is important, and that is in the list ...

http://www.americanbanker.com/ranking-the-banks.html

BANK RANKINGS ...

Tables Period Date
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Largest Home Equity Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2008
March 19, 2009
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Consumer Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2008
March 18, 2009
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Business Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2008
March 12, 2009
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Deposits Q3 - 2008
March 11, 2009
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Assets Q3 - 2008
March 11, 2009
Highest Loan/Deposit Ratios Among Bank Holding Companies Q3 - 2008
March 4, 2009
Bank Holding Companies with Largest Credit Card Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2008
February 27, 2009
Most Efficient Bank Holding Companies Q3 - 2008
February 24, 2009
Banking Companies with Highest Multiples of Net Income to Salary, Benefits Q3 - 2008
February 20, 2009
Bank Holding Companies with the Most Employees Q3 - 2008
February 20, 2009
Banking and Thrift Companies with the Most Domestic C&I Loans Q3 - 2008
February 10, 2009
Bank Holding Companies Ranked by Commercial Real Estate Loans Q3 - 2008
February 10, 2009
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Announced in 2008 2008
February 11, 2009
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Completed in 2008 2008
February 11, 2009
Largest Branch Deals Announced in 2008 2008
February 11, 2009
Top Lead Financial Advisers by Value of Deals in 2008 2008
February 11, 2009
Top Lead Financial Advisers by Number of Deals in 2008 2008
February 11, 2009
Top Lead Legal Advisers by Number of Deals in 2008 2008
February 11, 2009
Top Lead Legal Advisers by Value of Deals in 2008 2008
February 11, 2009
Top Line-of-Business Deals Announced in 2008 2008
February 11, 2009
Bank and Thrifts with Highest Nonperformer Ratios Q3 - 2008 February 4, 2009
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Highest Noninterest Income Ratios Q3 - 2008 February 3, 2009
Credit Unions with the Largest Portfolios of Loans and Leases Q3 - 2008 January 28, 2009
Community Banks with Largest C&I Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2008 January 27, 2009
Community Banks with Largest First Mortgage Portfolios Q3 - 2008 January 27, 2009
Credit Unions with the Most Deposits Q3 - 2008 January 22, 2009
Credit Unions with the Most Assets Q3 - 2008 January 22, 2009
Bank Holding Companies with the Most Employees Q2 - 2008 January 20, 2009
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies by Most Deposits Q2 - 2008 January 15, 2009
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies by Most Assets Q2 - 2008 January 15, 2009
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Returns on Average Equity Q3 - 2008 January 15, 2009
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Returns on Average Assets Q3 - 2008 January 14, 2009
Credit Unions with Largest Portfolios of Home Equity Loans Q2 - 2008 January 8, 2009
Community Banks with Largest Portfolios of Home Equity Loans Q2 - 2008 January 8, 2009
Credit Unions with Largest Portfolios of First Mortgages Q2 - 2008 January 7, 2009
Community Banks with Largest Farm Loan Portfolios Q2 - 2008 December 30, 2008
Credit Unions with Largest Credit Card Portfolios Q2 - 2008 December 23, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Largest Portfolios of First Mortgages Q2 - 2008 December 18, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with Largest Credit Card Loan Portfolios Q2 - 2008 December 18, 2008
Banking Companies with Highest Multiples of Net Income to Salary, Benefits Q2 - 2008 December 17, 2008
Foreign Companies Ranked by Deposits of Their U.S. Banks Q2 - 2008 December 11, 2008
Foreign Companies Ranked by Assets of Their U.S. Banks Q2 - 2008 December 11, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Consumer Loan Portfolios Q2 - 2008 December 10, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Largest Home Equity Loan Portfolios Q2 - 2008 December 1, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with Highest Home Equity Loan Concentrations Q2 - 2008 November 26, 2008
Thrift Company Subsidiaries with Highest Home Equity Loan Concentrations Q2 - 2008 November 26, 2008
Highest Loan/Deposit Ratios Among Bank Holding Companies Q2 - 2008 November 25, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Highest Noninterest Income Ratios Q2 - 2008 November 20, 2008
Community Banks with Largest C&I Loan Portfolios Q2 - 2008 November 17, 2008
Community Banks Ranked by First Mortgage Portfolios Q2 - 2008 November 17, 2008
Bank and Thrifts with Highest Nonperformer Ratios Q2 - 2008 November 14, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Business Loan Portfolios Q2 - 2008 November 11, 2008
Banking and Thrift Companies with the Most Domestic C&I Loans Q2 - 2008 November 5, 2008
Credit Unions with the Largest Portfolios of Loans and Leases Q2 - 2008 October 30, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest Small-Business Loan Balances Q2 - 2008 October 29, 2008
Most Efficient Bank Holding Companies Q2 - 2008 October 23, 2008
Top Subprime Servicers 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Top Subservicers 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Top 'Alt A' Lenders 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Private Mortgage Insurers Ranked by Policies in Force 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Top Residential Retail Lenders 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Top Residential Originators 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Private Mortgage Insurers Ranked by Number of Policies Written 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Private Mortgage Insurers Ranked by New Policies Written 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Leading Residential Servicers 1st Half - 2008 October 20, 2008
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Returns on Average Equity Q2 - 2008 October 16, 2008
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Return on Average Assets Q2 - 2008 October 15, 2008
Credit Unions with the Most Deposits Q2 - 2008 October 8, 2008
Credit Unions with the Most Assets Q2 - 2008 October 8, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Domestic C&I Loans Q1 - 2008 October 2, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Largest Portfolios of First Mortgages Q1 - 2008 October 1, 2008
Credit Unions with Largest Credit Card Portfolios Q1 - 2008 September 25, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Highest Noninterest Income Ratios Q1 - 2008 September 18, 2008
Credit Unions with the Largest Portfolios of Loans and Leases Q1 - 2008 September 17, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q3 - 2008 September 15, 2008
Banks and Thrifts with Highest Nonperformer Ratios Q1 - 2008 September 11, 2008
Community Banks with Largest C&I Loan Portfolios Q1 - 2008 September 4, 2008
Highest Loan/Deposit Ratios Among Bank Holding Companies Q1 - 2008 September 3, 2008
Credit Unions with Largest Portfolios of First Mortgage Loans Q1 - 2008 August 28, 2008
Community Banks with Largest Farm Loan Portfolios Q1 - 2008 August 27, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Consumer Loan Portfolios Q1 - 2008 August 21, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Business Loan Portfolios Q1 - 2008 August 20, 2008
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Announced in the First Half of 2008 1st Half - 2008
August 19, 2008
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Completed in the First Half of 2008 1st Half - 2008
August 19, 2008
Largest Branch Deals Announced in the First Half of 2008 1st Half - 2008
August 19, 2008
Top Lead Financial Advisers 1st Half - 2008
August 19, 2008
Top Lead Legal Advisers 1st Half - 2008
August 19, 2008
Top Line-of-Business Deals Announced in the First Half of 2008 1st Half - 2008
August 19, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q3 - 2008
August 19, 2008
Most Efficient Bank Holding Companies Q1 - 2008
August 13, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with Largest Credit Card Loan Portfolios Q1 - 2008
August 12, 2008
Community Banks with Largest Portfolios of Home Equity Loans Q1 - 2008
August 7, 2008
Community Banks Ranked by First Mortgage Portfolios Q1 - 2008
August 6, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q3 - 2008
August 5, 2008
Bank Holding Companies Ranked by Commercial Real Estate Loans Q1 - 2008
August 1, 2008
Top Bank and Thrift Holding Companies by Deposits Q1 - 2008
July 30, 2008
Top Ten Financial Servicers in 2007 2007
July 29, 2008
Top Twenty-Five in Financial Service Ad Spending 2007
July 29, 2008
Category Spending in 2007 2007
July 29, 2008
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Announced in the Second Quarter of 2008 Q2 - 2008
July 24, 2008
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Completed in the Second Quarter of 2008 Q2 - 2008
July 24, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Assets Q1 - 2008
July 23, 2008
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Return on Equity Q1 - 2008
July 17, 2008
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Return on Average Assets Q1 - 2008
July 16, 2008
Credit Unions with the Most Assets Q1 - 2008
July 11, 2008
Credit Unions with the Most Deposits Q1 - 2008
July 11, 2008
U.S. Bank Holding Companies with Highest 5-Year Return on Assets 2007
July 3, 2008
U.S. Bank Holding Companies with Highest 5-Year Return on Equity 2007
July 3, 2008
Largest Home Equity Loan Portfolios 2007
July 3, 2008
Top Residential Originators 2007
July 3, 2008
Top Residential Servicers 2007
July 3, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Assets 2007
July 2, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Deposits 2007
July 2, 2008
Largest Portfolios of Commercial and Industrial Loans 2007
July 2, 2008
Largest Portfolios of Construction and Land Development Loans 2007
July 2, 2008
Credit Unions with Largest Credit Card Portfolios 2007
July 1, 2008
U.S. Banking Companies with Highest Multiples of Net to Salary, Benefits Q4 - 2007
June 26, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Highest Noninterest Income Ratios 2007
June 25, 2008
Banks and Thrifts with Highest Nonperformer Ratios (Corrected) Q4 - 2007 June 19, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with Largest Credit Card Loan Portfolios Q4 - 2007 June 18, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q2 - 2008 June 13, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Largest Portfolios of First Mortgages Q4 - 2007
June 12, 2008
Highest Loan/Deposit Ratios Among Bank Holding Companies Q4 - 2007
June 10, 2008
Credit Unions with the Largest Portfolios of Loans and Leases Q4 - 2007
June 5, 2008
Community Banks with Largest C&I Loan Portfolios Q4 - 2007
June 3, 2008
Most Efficient Bank Holding Companies Q4 - 2007
May 29, 2008
Bank Holding Companies Ranked by Commercial Real Estate Loans Q4 - 2007
May 28, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Most Employees Q4 - 2007
May 23, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Consumer Loan Portfolios Q4 - 2007 May 22, 2008
Community Banks with Largest Farm Loan Portfolios Q4 - 2007 May 20, 2008
Largest Receivers of Automated Clearing House Payments 2007 May 19, 2008
Largest Originators of Automated Clearing House Payments 2007 May 19, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Business Loan Portfolios Q4 - 2007 May 15, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q2 - 2008 May 13, 2008
Credit Unions with the Largest Portfolios of First Mortgages Q4 - 2007 May 7, 2008
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Return on Average Equity Q4 - 2007 May 1, 2008
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Return on Average Assets Q4 - 2007 April 30, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q2 - 2008
April 30, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Most Domestic C&I Loans Q4 - 2007
April 24, 2008
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Completed in the First Quarter of 2008 Q1 - 2008
April 23, 2008
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Announced in the First Quarter of 2008 Q1 - 2008
April 23, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Deposits Q4 - 2007
April 16, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Assets Q4 - 2007
April 15, 2008
Community Banks with Largest Portfolios of Home Equity Loans Q4 - 2007
April 10, 2008
Community Banks Ranked by First Mortgage Portfolios Q4 - 2007
April 9, 2008
Credit Unions with the Most Assets Q4 - 2007
April 3, 2008
Credit Unions with the Most Deposits Q4 - 2007
April 3, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Largest Portfolios of First Mortgages Q3 - 2007
April 2, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q1 - 2008
March 31, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Concentration in Home Equity Loans Q3 - 2007
March 26, 2008
Community Banks with Largest C&I Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2007
March 25, 2008
Credit Unions with Largest Credit Card Portfolios Q3 - 2007
March 19, 2008
Banks and Thrifts with Highest Nonperformer Ratios (Corrected) Q3 - 2007
March 18, 2008
Highest Loan/Deposit Ratios Among Bank Holding Companies Q3 - 2007
March 12, 2008
U.S. Banking Companies with Highest Multiples of Net to Salary, Benefits Q3 - 2007
March 11, 2008
Bank Holding Companies in Total Construction and Land Development Loans Q3 - 2007
March 5, 2008
Credit Unions with the Largest Portfolios of Loans and Leases Q3 - 2007
March 4, 2008
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Return on Average Equity Q3 - 2007
February 28, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with Largest Credit Card Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2007
February 27, 2008
Community Banks and Thrifts with Highest Return on Average Assets Q3 - 2007 February 21, 2008
Most Efficient Bank Holding Companies Q3 - 2007 February 20, 2008
Financial Services Employment Trends 2007 February 14, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q1 - 2008
February 13, 2008
Bank Holding Companies Ranked by Commercial Real Estate Loans Q3 - 2007
February 13, 2008
Line-of-Business Deals Announced 2007
February 12, 2008
Largest Branch Deals Announced 2007
February 12, 2008
Largest Bank and Thrift Merger Bids Announced 2007
February 12, 2008
Largest Bank and Thrift Merger Bids Completed 2007
February 12, 2008
Top Lead Legal Advisers by Deal Value 2007
February 12, 2008
Top Lead Legal Advisers by Number of Deals 2007
February 12, 2008
Top Lead Financial Advisers by Deal Value 2007
February 12, 2008
Top Lead Financial Advisers by Number of Deals 2007
February 12, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with Highest Noninterest Income Ratios Q3 - 2007
February 7, 2008
Community Banks with Largest Farm Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2007
February 6, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Consumer Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2007
January 30, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q1 - 2008
January 29, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Largest U.S. Business Loan Portfolios Q3 - 2007
January 29, 2008
Credit Unions with the Largest Portfolios of First Mortgages Q3 - 2007
January 24, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Deposits Q3 - 2007
January 23, 2008
Bank and Thrift Holding Companies with the Most Assets Q3 - 2007
January 17, 2008
Bank Holding Companies with the Most Domestic C&I Loans Q3 - 2007
January 16, 2008
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Completed in the Fourth Quarter of 2007 Q4 - 2007
January 10, 2008
Bank and Thrift Merger Deals Announced in the Fourth Quarter of 2007 Q4 - 2007
January 10, 2008
Community Banks with Largest Portfolios of Home Equity Loans Q3 - 2007
January 9, 2008
Debt Securities Issuance by Commercial Banks and Thrifts Q4 - 2007
January 3, 2008
Community Banks Ranked by First Mortgage Portfolios Q3 - 2007
January 3, 2008
Credit Unions with the Most Assets Q3 - 2007
January 2, 2008
Credit Unions with the Most Deposits Q3 - 2007
January 2, 2008

Anonymous said...

Fuck them all and fuck this blog. It's long since ceased to offer any information of interest or value, and hanging out here is toxic to body, mind and soul. I've had it.

- hbm

*

For 1-1/2 yr the 'B' pussy has been here promising to leave, and he has not.

For six months the 'H' pussy has been here promising to leave, and he has not.

Why now should we take either of you seriously that you'll leave??

Oh, the old anonymity thing comes back, lets see these days all bloggers that don't kiss ass lose their jobs. Let's see we have three public bloggers here HBM a loser reporter idiot drunk, that can't remember where BP left the condoms. Then there is BP the moocher, who keeps promising to go back to UTAH to live in the mother in laws home. Then there is our Dunc-Ned-Flanders, the nauseating kiss ass doo-gooder in public that never says anything.

Then for real fun on blogging go to the SORE-EYE the blog ran by HBM @ the SORE, and there you'll find the most boring fucking drivel in BEND, and god forbid anybody comment or mention 'bob woodward', cuz you'll have your IP blocked in a nano-second by the people who own the SORE, aka the richest people of Sisters, OR.

HP-bm is part of the problem of promoting BEND, and he sticks around on BB2 in order to 're-invent' himself, cuz he knows the tide is turning.

BP came to Bend to 'mooch', and it hasn't worked out.

Then there is Ned Flanders, who brags that a good day selling used comics is grossing $12/day, most amusing when you consider his rent is $50/day.

Lastly, old hbm who never had an orginal idea of his own hangs out on this site to get ideas for his sore-eye blog, if one bother to read the bile&vile, they'll notice that most of the shit he posts he found on BB2 days earlier, ...

Anonymous said...

Fuck them all and fuck this blog. It's long since ceased to offer any information of interest or value, and hanging out here is toxic to body, mind and soul. I've had it.

- hbm

*

For 1-1/2 yr the 'B' pussy has been here promising to leave, and he has not.

For six months the 'H' pussy has been here promising to leave, and he has not.

Why now should we take either of you seriously that you'll leave??

Oh, the old anonymity thing comes back, lets see these days all bloggers that don't kiss ass lose their jobs. Let's see we have three public bloggers here HBM a loser reporter idiot drunk, that can't remember where BP left the condoms. Then there is BP the moocher, who keeps promising to go back to UTAH to live in the mother in laws home. Then there is our Dunc-Ned-Flanders, the nauseating kiss ass doo-gooder in public that never says anything.

Then for real fun on blogging go to the SORE-EYE the blog ran by HBM @ the SORE, and there you'll find the most boring fucking drivel in BEND, and god forbid anybody comment or mention 'bob woodward', cuz you'll have your IP blocked in a nano-second by the people who own the SORE, aka the richest people of Sisters, OR.

HP-bm is part of the problem of promoting BEND, and he sticks around on BB2 in order to 're-invent' himself, cuz he knows the tide is turning.

BP came to Bend to 'mooch', and it hasn't worked out.

Then there is Ned Flanders, who brags that a good day selling used comics is grossing $12/day, most amusing when you consider his rent is $50/day.

Lastly, old hbm who never had an orginal idea of his own hangs out on this site to get ideas for his sore-eye blog, if one bother to read the bile&vile, they'll notice that most of the shit he posts he found on BB2 days earlier, ...

Anonymous said...

Re: Banks--if you want policies that aren't designed to suck your money out in fees--Liberty is by far the best.

*

If you wish NOT to be sucked by 'fees' then use a good credit union. I like First-Tech, they never charge fee's for anything, and they're basic credit card is less than 10% interest.

Almost all banks fuck you with 'fees' even WAMU advertises no-cost checking, but they have lots of ways to fuck you, like holding deposits for 7 days, and then letting your checks 'bounce', which means they cover your check with your money, but charge you $37/check for their service of using your money for 7 days. ...

Most credit unions don't play these games, if you can get into a 'good' credit union like 'teachers' or some other 'government' credit union, you'll get treated very fair.

Anonymous said...

356 Bend, OR Metropolitan Statistical Area 14.6
356 Monroe, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area 14.6
358 Flint, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area 14.8

*

Shit Bend is no longer #1, Flint-MI is kicking our ass in the race to the #1 un-employment in ameriKKKa.

Anonymous said...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7535755025025800195&ei=ma3HSdaROoX8qAOE5qzQBA&q=obama+deception+full+movie&hl=en

BP&HBM release new movie they made over the weekend.

Anonymous said...

America sucks shit.

[ that's why here on bb2 we call it ameriKKKa, so yes ameriKKKa is a nation of shit eaters, ameriKKKa doesn't suck shit, ameriKKKa is shit, its the #1 killer in the world, everything in the world that ameriKKKa touches turns to shit ]


Let's not imprison any more criminals.

[ ameriKKKa takes good people, and usually in the name of the 'drug-war' turns them into criminals, by institutionalizing them in a system of rape, and demoralization. In this recent Oakland shooting the 'criminal' preferred to die rather than go back to prison for probation violation, the only real news here is that he decided to take four cops with him. ]

It is not the criminal's fault.

[ it take a village to raise a child, and it takes a village to raise a criminal, Oakland is a village of criminals, un-employment for the city is 24%, crime pays in Oakland, and it been that way for years, ]

Duncan McGeary said...

if hbm, bruce-pussy, flanders leave this site will drown in it's own toxic waste.

with the new humorless rightwing creep added to the mix....

Duncan McGeary said...

I've seen marge lately, but where's Tim? Lava Bear? Quimby?

Is it just the monkeys throwing shit at each other?

Is it time to go, hbm and really mean it?

I'll miss it, but....

Anonymous said...

I've seen marge lately, but where's Tim? Lava Bear? Quimby?

*

Everyone has gone anonymous. Except for the pussys ( hbm, bp, dunc ).

Anonymous said...

Is it just the monkeys throwing shit at each other?

*

Since fall of 2006 was it ever anything else?

Are you anti-sapien and anti-semitic? Are you anti-feces to boot?

Get a life comic man.

Anonymous said...

"Everyone has gone anonymous."

Then they've gone stupid and anonymous.

Anonymous said...

So the fake names have gone anonymous? Because they don't want to be seen here under their fake names?

How pathetic is that?

Anonymous said...

Is it time to go, hbm and really mean it?

####

This is such a stupid fucking rhetorical question, you yourself here dunc on a dozen occasions over the last two years has said "I'm leaving this nut-house", especially back last fall during the great OREO debate.

Note that Apu(tim) is simply reading and not posting, and so for marge, and barney(lavabeer),

There really isn't much new to say about Bend going into the toilet, its not even an argument any more, I mean two years ago we would argue with realtors, and now they're starving,

Historically this GROUP talks about sundays post, and by monday bashes each other the rest of the week, well today is monday.

Newbie right-winger? Probably not, probably barney as anon, what about the new 'java-element' and his financee, another faker most likely.

Remember that homer has this site with 'no-follow' enabled, and the comments are invisible to google-search, nobody NEW can find this site, this is still the same old 1/2 dozen people fucking with each other forever, ...

The only newbies in the last year were hbm & bp, and they keep promising to leave.

In the fall of 2006 BEM said 'we have become redundant', yeh, nothing needs to be said, bend was a bubble.

So here we are 2009, and we're still 'debating the bend economy', well we try.

Like yesterday, homer went into detail on the purchase of tetherow, it does happen, but historically mon-sat is bashing, and sunday was debate, lately even sunday debate has fell off.

My personal guess is that as we all know this 'blogging' and 'commenting' is highly addictive, and most of these people found a way to get back to their 'real life' like BEM, long ago.

To me, its sort of like digging in a mountain of shit looking for a ring, or treasure, every once in awhile some treasure in found in BB2, but you got to wade in a lot of shit, but Bend is 100% shit, so its just like being home.

Lastly, an observation. Pussy's talk about leaving but never do, KUNT's just exit, which is why lava, & quim are busy doing other shit. My guess is that HBM&BP haven't found any other venue to get attention.

Anonymous said...

Then they've gone stupid and anonymous.

*

I think it was the realization for a few bone-heads and that when BENDBB mandated registration, that banned anonymous that people realized that a 'handle' is registration even here on BB2. Thus for most people here that want 'privacy' they choose to use a proxy, and run anonymous. It's the smart thing to do, and more people have realized such in the last few months.

The only idiots like our BP, HBM, and DUNC, who truly are all EGO 100% and love the sound of their own names, but for most of us our privacy is essential. BP loves attention and wants to be mayor and to be loved by all. I despise the media, and thus I know its essential to be invisible, but BP is media whore, and of course the media doesn't give him the time of day, same for hbm. It's KARMA.

Stupid is Bend. This is site has always been 100% moron. This is NOT a revelation. Our leader Homer is the king of the Bend Morons, this is an old truth.

Jobs are getting fewer in Bend, smug KUNTS here one year ago are now afraid, yes never been a better time in Bend to be anonym-ass.

Anonymous said...

So the fake names have gone anonymous?

[ Fake tits and dicks in Bend, by another name. ]

Because they don't want to be seen here under their fake names?

[ It's fake, but you want to leave a little mystery. ]

How pathetic is that?

[ Everything about Bend is pathetic? Are you a newbie to this town? ]

Anonymous said...

I've always hated when someone wants to leave a group and sets out to destroy the group while he's at it.

If you want to leave, just leave.

But I know that when I do decide to leave, it will happen. I still enjoy Paul-doh's Sunday screeds, though.

Anonymous said...

At least the fake names gave me an idea of who I was talking to. A sea of anonymous is just irritating and pointless.

LavaBear said...

>>>I've seen marge lately, but where's Tim? Lava Bear? Quimby?

I've been up to my eyeballs with work and I just got back from a long ass trip to China. If I had more time and energy to write more I would but in summary: Buster hasn't got a clue about asia. This last trip was on the verge of scary in some ways for how much and how fast it has gone bonkers. We couldn't leave the hotel without security which even a year ago was unheard of. They are unraveling at a rapid rate. One factory we went to had over 500 people lined up outside looking for work. One down the street the "owners" didn't bother to show up the previous Friday to hand out paychecks. Just padlocked the gates and vanished. Shanghai has more empty condo towers than Miami and LA combined. Nutty shit going on that makes Central Oregon look ok and we know that's not so true.

Anonymous said...

My personal guess is that as we all know this 'blogging' and 'commenting' is highly addictive, and most of these people found a way to get back to their 'real life' like BEM, long ago.


Could be, but I bet their life now sucks in some way -- perhaps financially they're distressed losing money in stock market or whatever.

Blogging is a 'luxury' for those who have the time to do it.

When you're deeply worried about your future you don't spend your time blogging.

Blogging is for 'hope' and 'entertainment.'




I love this, the above quote of from Von Mises, the intellectual father of Ayn-Rand, but to PUG's in this group its liberal.


What is a republican? They are united mostly by their dislike of some element of the left?

Who is a democrat? Again, they identify with the left, mainly out of intense dislike of some element of the right.

WITHIN Republicans, there are so many inconsistencies that they would fight each other endlessly if there was no Lefties to unite them.

Same with the LEFT -- you've got free traders, protectionists, environmentalists, Wall Streeters, and Naderites all mixed in together.

These two big factions (DEM and PUG) are way too blunt.

*

We'd be better off with a parliamentary system with lots of little parties.

Bewert said...

16.1% Unemployment in February

http://bend-gazette.blogspot.com/

That's an increase of 1.7% from January.

Jelement said...

Well, at least I have a better idea of who everyone is now since the Monday bashing started.

I agree with whoever mentioned BendBB not being anything but price changes anymore. I considered starting to post there instead of here but it doesn't seem like there's any real discussion there. The price changes should be renamed price drops, I don't know when the last time was that something went up. But it does make a good reference to check in on some properties daily.

Give it a few more months and I think you'll see more people jump in and buy. There's enough of us who didn't buy during the last bubble because we knew things were too expensive. Of course everyone else was saying buy now because it will keep going up. Funny how much better banks like you when you don't have a foreclosure or BK too.

On the bank subject, the big banks do have way too many fees for things, I've stuck with credit unions for the past 10 years. My basic banking is with Northwest CU here in Bend, I liked that they haven't wasted money on opening a branch at every major intersection like CACB.

Bewert said...

RE: I still enjoy Paul-doh's Sunday screeds, though.

###

I'll always come back for the titties ;)

Anonymous said...

Buster hasn't got a clue about asia.

*

Well I used to go there every year from 1985 to 2004, so ... things are going to hell so they say, but have you watch Oakland? Or Bend? Or Flint, MI??

Whenever I hear people talk about Asia going to shit, I think they're trying to make it sound worse somewhere else.

Your probably right, last night a guy told me that Asia ain't like it was three years ago.

Regarding security it has always been that way, I guess your lucky, but when I'm in China I have always hung out with military martial-artists, who are generally secret-police and armed, and they're job was always to protect the white managers from the employees. Nothing new as far as I'm concerned, anytime there is a massive factory explosion, all the employees want to kill management, and if they don't have a private armed security, which is hard cuz you got to military or secret-police to get guns.

So LB ( Barney ), you tell us what its like, you say that MY asia is gone, what is your Asia??

First of all as I told you before I used to live there ( many places in china ), and I pretty much traveled there every year from 1985 to 2002, but NEVER for fucking biz, always to train, so my Asia I'm sure is completely different from your asia cuz I lived with people mostly out in the sticks, and out in the sticks you never see army or cops.

Anonymous said...

I'll always come back for the titties ;)

*

If it means cutting off the fake-tits to get rid of bruce, please do it homer.

Anonymous said...

We couldn't leave the hotel without security which even a year ago was unheard of.

*

See that just sounds bizarre, I know shanghai very well and have walked most streets 24/7.

Probably YOUR company didn't want to pay for your security or your hotel policy.

Sounds like Bullshit to me, sure on many occasions I was told when staying in Hotels to quit going out at night, know what I did? I quit staying in Hotels, and I found a home by making friends.

Sure the hotels will tell you all kinds of scary shit.

Your telling me that hoards of people are killing whites now? Did you even bother to ride on the brand new subway in Shanghai??

So you sat in your fucking HOTEL in China, like you were in KABUL, or Baghdad, and never went out, ... and your telling me you know CHINA?

Sure it sounds to me that your working for one of those company's people HATE, no wonder your fucking AFRAID of your own fucking shadow LB.

I know on many of my travels, I met bullys and thugs, and I would just show them some moves, or speak to them in Chinese and they would leave me alone, and I'm certain today, your partially right, that the masses of china are pissed at business, and YOU LB are a business man, but in all my travels I always made it clear to everyone I met that I was only in China to study GUNG-FU, and that always creates respect.

Lastly, over the years I have hung out with lots of real gangsters in China my hsingi-i days, and always felt comfortable with those folks.

But yes, I can see where your coming from, hiding in a hotel, and working for companys that are destroying people lives, that would make you a fucking target, but LB, that be your fucking problem, not mine, or anyone else.

KARMA LB, KARMA.

tim said...

>>There really isn't much new to say about Bend going into the toilet, its not even an argument any more, I mean two years ago we would argue with realtors, and now they're starving...

Yep. Even the "I told you so's are done, so what's left?"

LavaBear said...

>>>But yes, I can see where your coming from, hiding in a hotel, and working for companys that are destroying people lives, that would make you a fucking target

Ah yes...you are an idiot I see. The more you type the more ignorant you sound but we are all used to that around here. So please spew away and keep making up those stories we all love to hear. Love it that Buster's gone China Gansta. Do you have a cool gansta nickname? It's ok...I'll wait while you make it up. You are good at that so this out to be good.

LavaBear said...

>>>So you sat in your fucking HOTEL in China, like you were in KABUL, or Baghdad, and never went out, ... and your telling me you know CHINA?

No, I'm telling you that for more than a decade of travel security has never ever been a thought. Now it is in a BIG way. Shit has changed rapidly. And it's not really mobs attacking white people. It's more poor people not having jobs and doing crazy shit to survive.

Buster, just stop making up stupid ass stories and jump on a plane and go visit all of your gansta friends. You'll see first hand what I'm talking about.

Anonymous said...

hbm said...
And that's what BB2 is all about!! Complementing one another.

No, BB2 is all about a collection of alcoholic mentally deficient psychos making up lies and flinging insults other [sic] people from behind the shield of anonymity.

[hey hbm, learn to write correctly, you moron!]

[Fuck off and leave, already!!]

Fuck them all and fuck this blog. It's long since ceased to offer any information of interest or value, and hanging out here is toxic to body, mind and soul. I've had it.

Actions speak louder than empty words.

If you really were going to leave, you would just go do and tell us about it. But you have already promised to leave many times, last month, last year, and yet, here you are, still, in Mar09.

"Fuck them all and fuck this blog." WTF? Leave already, asshole.

And you too, Duncshit.

PS To the Anon idiot, no I am not a newbie, so Fuck you too. I have been around here for years; and I can tell the hbm idiot to take a hike, not because I am an oldtimer, but because hbm keeps PROMISING to leave. Get it? Got it? Good!

Duncan McGeary said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

You are new. I can tell. Your humorless creepy tone hasn't been here before.

Conservative pinhead telling others to shut up.

Why don't you get the fuck out, instead.

Duncan McGeary said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Duncan McGeary said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Either that, or you're a plant sent to blow this site up.

You're not buster, who has a certain goofy psycho charm but also an occasional insight.

You're not Lava Bear or Quimby or Marge or Buster or Paul-doh or Tim or any of the other essentially conservative, but intelligent commenter.

You're just a creep. A humorless ideologue.

Anonymous said...

Sorry about the deletes...I kept forgetting to hit the anon. bottom.

But this new guy is pissing me off. He's the kind of mindless twit most right wings sites are full of, but which we've managed to avoid.

He's even correcting our grammar, which just makes me want to misspeaalll every othe rword.

Shudder.

Anonymous said...

Did you see on FOX today that Crook and Harney counties have the highest umemployment in the country? It's over 20%.
Shit, Bend lost the #1 position again.
Let's get back to being #1 in something.

PopGoesBend said...

Realtors getting NODs today:

Tami Sawyer (2)
Fran McCormack
Brook Randall
Josh Rutter (formerly of Abacus, moved to Seattle)

Hi (insert realtor name here). Here's a basket. Please insert all eggs.

Anonymous said...

Dunc, Where did your post go that I just read? Do you think it was to harsh coming from you? You only said shit once I think and no f-bombs..
I put the FOX thing on just for you.

Duncan McGeary said...

Marge,

Shhsssss. You're giving me away....

Anonymous said...

>Realtors getting NODs <

Friday it included:
LA Judd
Tim Buccola
another Saywer
John Mortorano (was Realtor now contractor)

and Caldera Springs has filed HOA non payment liens on some of the brightest Sunriver Brokers.

Anonymous said...

"Sorry about the deletes...I kept forgetting to hit the anon. bottom. "
===

Anon bottom? Can't find your ass from a hole in the wall?

Talk about a new fucking idiot who has to delete his posts because he can figure out the anon button...

"But this new guy is pissing me off."

I was here long before the Pussy showed up, and I was online during Dunc's famous melt down. But keep thinking whatever BS floats your boat.

"He's even correcting our grammar, which just makes me want to misspeaalll every othe rword.

And I happen to love shoving hbm's spelling and grammar errors down his throat... knocking that twit off his high horse.

And no, I am not buster, nor any of the other named folks. I prefer to be anon, but some of those named folks have recognized me most of the time.

And I do feel that if hbm says he's gonna leave, then it is okay for me to shove his words back up his ass if I still see him posting around here. And if the Pussy says he is gonna leave, or gonna publish his Exec Session Manifesto, well, you can expect me to shove his fucking words up his ass also.

Both hbm and BP are full of shit... all talk, and no action.

So, with all due respect, Mr. Can't Find The Delete Bottom, Fuck Off and Die, you retarded dumbshit!

Shudder yourself, asshat!

Bewert said...

Dilbert re: derivatives--an analogy

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/20000/3000/700/23765/23765.strip.gif

Anonymous said...

OK, no more nasty talk Mr.Anon newbie. You can leave through the same door you came in.

Bewert said...

Re: Shudder yourself, asshat!

###

Mike, got the drink on a little early tonight?

PS You will receive a present of sorts before I head back to MoTah. Least I can do.

Bewert said...

Actually, the term "asshat" has never been heard from Mike. So forgive me if I'm mistaken.

Anonymous said...

From the BP Gazette comment section:

"Anonymous said...
WOW Ferry @sos DEMAND's that the BEND PUSSY's step to the PLATE and FILE a COMPLAINT!!!!!!!!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT, the NERVE of these State Fucking public servants, ...

This is has been Busters point for 1-1/2 yr, since the pussy showed up here, and HP&BP both are the exact SAME. NEWBIES who don't know how ORYGUN works, its a complaint driven system, YOU WANT FUCKING ACTION, FILE A COMPLAINT, ... What's MOST interesting from the MOST recent HBM sore-eye, is NOT a word about the missing page from one of dunc's 120k comic books??? How come that angle dropped? Now the issue is that Ferry has thrown the shit back to one of the BRUCE-SIAMESE-TWINS, "FILE A COMPLAINT, OR SHUT THE FUCK UP".

IS FERRY and/or BUSTER RELATED??


Good stuff, that comment.
(BTW, nobody ever comments at the 'zette, why so?)

So, if Orygun only works if you file a complaint, then maybe if you want to see some change, maybe just FILE THE DAMN COMPLAINT already, eh?

Then maybe I'l stop complaining about the complaint, and shut up already.

Anonymous said...

"Actually, the term "asshat" has never been heard from Mike. So forgive me if I'm mistaken."


*

Tricky guy, that Mike dude. Always throwing out curve balls, screw balls and change ups. Did he once play in the minor leagues?

PS word verification: monee

Good advice, BP, follow it.

Anonymous said...

"I was here long before the Pussy showed up"

Why don't you crawl back into your hole.

"Fuck off and Die..."

What are you, ten years old? Why are you telling everyone else to shut up?

See...you haven't earned the right to tell Bruce, or Hbm, or Dunc what to do.

You're a newbie. And...you're kind of creepy.

Anonymous said...

See...you haven't earned the right to tell Bruce, or Hbm, or Dunc what to do.

*

Glad to see hbm, dunc &/or BP defending themselves under the banner of 'Anonymous'. That way people will still think you are not here anymore.

Sockpuppet.

Bewert said...

Finally, some vitriol. BB2 is nothing without it.

Anonymous said...

Whatever you say, anonymous.

Could you bring just a tad bit of good humor to this?

Or are you just empty mean.

Anonymous said...

Vitriol.

Yeah, but from buster it's amusing.

He tells bruce to get lost, but you know inside he's crying, cause really he just love hbm and brucy and ned.

This newbie can dish it out but he can't take it.

Bewert said...

Newbie may harden up. Knowledge would help.

I still think he's a plant from COBA.

Anonymous said...

Could you bring just a tad bit of good humor to this?

Your wish is my command. Read on.

Glad to see hbm, dunc &/or BP defending themselves under the banner of 'Anonymous'. That way people will still think you are not here anymore.

===

I should have read upstream much closer. Hear, Marge exposes Dunc in his Anonymous posting.

Comment deleted
This post has been removed by the author.

March 23, 2009 4:39 PM


...and then...



Marge said...
Dunc, Where did your post go that I just read? Do you think it was to harsh coming from you? You only said shit once I think and no f-bombs..
I put the FOX thing on just for you.

March 23, 2009 4:58 PM

Duncan McGeary said...
Marge,

Shhsssss. You're giving me away....


===

Now, come on, tell me that doesn't make you want to LOL just a bit?

Sorry for accusing hbm and BP for posing as Anonymous. I was wrong, as Marge outted Dunc all by herself.

I am still laughing as I write this.

Dunc busted by Marge... LOL.

Duncan McGeary said...

Just saying, don't be so mean. Don't take it so seriously. We don't care if you're conservative or liberal or whatever...

Say what you want.

But be amusing.

You seem to want everyone you don't agree with to walk the plank, and what fun would that be?

Anonymous said...

I still think he's a plant from COBA.

===

Nope.

Hint provided: Hey, BP, when you gonna file that ES complaint?

Duncan McGeary said...

better.

go along with the joke, though. the gotcha was given.

Anonymous said...

Dunc, Where did your post go that I just read? Do you think it was to harsh coming from you? You only said shit once I think and no f-bombs..

Yeah, Dunc... was that 'too harsh' coming from you?

Shit once and no F-bombs? Too harsh?

Just saying, don't be so mean.

F-bombs are mean?

How FUCKING mean are they?

Say what you want.

But be amusing.


Well, between you are Marge, there is plenty to laugh at, doncha think?

"You seem to want everyone you don't agree with to walk the plank, and what fun would that be?

Could that be a parody of hbm?

Fuck all of you Fucking Repuglicans!"

Anonymous said...

More downtown goodness coming up...

Duncan McGeary said...

I don't think you're getting it. But...well, I don't think you're capable of getting it.

Duncan McGeary said...

You see the world in very simple terms, my friend. With a black heart.

I think I know who you are. Only one person has ever come in a referred to my rather spirited discussion with Mr. Bilbo during the election as a 'meltdown.'

What was clearly a decisive victory on my part. What was Buster's argument again? That Palin was an untouchable jewel and McCain was clearly going to win?

Anyhow, hopefully you'll get what I'm doing this time.

Or I give up.

Bewert said...

Re: Or I give up.

###

Dunc, you are as incapable of giving up as I am. Although you are anchored here, while I am not.

Fight the good fight. Not the one that wants to increase our housing inventory.

Hell, we got years of inventory currently available. And many more emptying out as we watch. Reality.

Fucking sucks sometimes.

Anonymous said...

>>I should have read upstream much closer. Hear, Marge exposes Dunc in his Anonymous posting.<<

Wrong!! Dunc did not post anymouse. His name was on it and he obviously had a change of mind on his post.
Dunc, sorry but I don't think you post as an anymouse. My lips are sealed on the whole post.
Newbie Mike can go peeeess up a rope. Can't stir the core here. These boys can talk bad on many subjects and to each other, however, newbie is not invited to piss on this rock. I figure he wants to be mean and can't do it at BEBB.

Anonymous said...

YOWZA KUNTS ANOTHER "GOOD WOMAN" of the Ned Flander's ILK - GOES ABAD in DA BEND!!!!

Employee theft done by women on the rise


DA urges companies to be cautious about fiscal powers

By Nina Mehlhaf, KTVZ.COM

Deschutes County District Attorney Mike Dugan said Monday he is seeing more cases lately of employees allegedly cooking the books and embezzling money - and, he says, it's more women doing it.

Over the weekend, it was learned that a medical office manager in Bend was arrested for allegedly embezzling $214,000 from a pediatric office.

"We have seen an increase in employee theft," Dugan told me. "Some of it's not really big, and some of it is huge."

It's even happened to Dugan, back when he had his own law firm. A long-time receptionist was trusted with making deposits - and for three months, he says, was stealing from him to the tune of $2,000. She was fired, but he says he didn't think to call police and just handled it himself.

If it can happen to the DA, it can happen to you, and Dugan says the big cases involve the most trusted employees.

Like 51-year-old Michele Luck, who's now bailed out of jail, but is preparing to plea May 18 to charges of embezzling over $214,000 from Central Oregon Pediatric Associates in Bend, where she worked for 17 years as the office manager in charge of payroll.

Directors tell NewsChannel 21 that business was steady but revenues were down, and they knew something was fishy - but were shocked when an investigation revealed it was Luck.

Before her, it was a woman we in the media knew well, St. Charles (Cascade Healthcare Community) Communications director Shelly Brooks, charged in August 2008 with theft and fraudulent use of a credit card for over $10,000. She's set to enter a plea March 30th.

Then just recently, Troy Bowen of Redmond's Cascade Concrete Solutions was arrested, charged with stealing $50,000 from his company.

Business owners are catching on now, because these economic times have them really watching their bottom line. Dugan's advice: Watch who controls the cash.

"Make sure nobody has the sole authority to sign checks, nobody has the authority to transfer cash from an operating account to other accounts without the approval from the owners," he said.

NewsChannel 21 looked up every big embezzlement case that made the news over the past two years. Of the eight we reported on, six allegedly were committed by women who had been trusted employees.

Dugan agreed, saying for whatever reason, it is women who are doing more of the ID theft, forgery and white-collar type crimes.

"The Oregon state prison system has to develop more space for women than ever before, because they're becoming more adept at committing crimes now," Dugan says.
You must be logged in to rate this story.

Anonymous said...

Contrary too, you all lovely Marge, but I have a different take than that of you on your 'mike', I see that the powers that be over the past year tried might hard with 'contractor bruce', and loser-hbm to destroy this site with daily-kos vile&bile, and now they're trying to make this site a bastion of right wing anti-semitism.

Just my humble opinion, fuck them either way, they didn't destroy us with they're end-less bruce-pussy, and they'll not destroy us with an end-less rush-limbaugh clone, both are non-thinkers. So long as we can think we'll beat the enemy.

Anonymous said...

That Palin was an untouchable jewel and McCain was clearly going to win?

*

Hello Ned Flanders, ... what I said was that Me Like YOU voted for the OREO cuz he wasn't BUSH.

What I said was that a kluster-fuck tie, that OREO held the prez, but NOT the senate was a good thing, cuz the DEM-PUSSY's not having the full-deck would keep them from doing bad shit.

For the record, the quim, and lb agreed with me at the time, that keeping the DEM's away from total power was a good thing.

Lastly DEM BP,HP,DP are fucking pussy's to the bone. But da pussy is a good thing cuz we need liberal idealists in our midst, and as you know I'm an old curmudgeon who has seen to much of man's ugly side to ever be an idealist.

Anonymous said...

Watched Krugman on NPR tonight, debating the new TARP plan with a financier from Palm Beach, FL.

Makes the point that the plan might do a little bit of good, but at too huge cost of taxpayer money -- and ignores the central problem of banks that are irrevocably insolvent.

It's not just a liquidity problem -- it's an insolvency problem. The banks as we know them have got to be dismembered.

Prevailing wisdom that says that investors are simply in an irrational "panic" and need a boost of confidence to get loans flowing again. By contrast, they are right to not touch the toxic shit.

Way too many "assets" are worth jack squat - as opposed to just "misunderstood." Kind of funny that Krugman sounds a lot like our own Homer.




Tim: Yep. Even the "I told you so's are done, so what's left?"


A bit bored, Tim? Carpe diem.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Wow... amongst the bickering, UNEMPLOYMENT HAS TOPPED 16%!

Holy Jeebus, help us all, 16.1% unemployment in Bend. Luckily the Doctrine of Bend Exceptionalism will save us all.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

1 in 6 of our friends, family & neighbors is out of work.

It's BETTER IN BEND.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

You'll find the unemployment Bad News buried in the Bully today, as a minor subsription-req'd piece.

Nice. 1 in 6 people in Deschutes County out of work, and the Bully headlines a piece on feral swine. Apropos.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Ratings bring mixed results for banks in the region

By Andrew Moore / The Bulletin
Published: March 24. 2009 4:00AM PST

Bank ratings issued last week by BauerFinancial Inc., a private bank analysis firm based in Coral Gables, Fla., paint a mixed picture regarding the financial health of banks operating in Central Oregon.

At the top of the list is Klamath Falls-based South Valley Bank & Trust, which garnered a five-star rating, the firm’s highest. It was the only bank of the fifteen banks with branches in Central Oregon to earn the top rating.

At the bottom are Community First Bank, based in Prineville, and Columbia River Bank, based in The Dalles. Both earned the firm’s lowest rating, zero stars.

Bank of the Cascades, which is based in Bend, earned two stars.

Regardless of the ratings issued by BauerFinancial, all deposits at member banks of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are insured for up to $250,000 by the FDIC.

The BauerFinancial ratings are issued quarterly and reflect bank data reported to and available from the FDIC, according to the firm. The ratings released last week are based on bank data as of Dec. 31, 2008.

According to the firm, the ratings take into account several financial measurements, including capital ratios, profitability, liquidity, market value versus book value of an investment portfolio and a bank’s level of delinquent loans, charge offs and repossessed assets.

“Of the banks that fail, they are extremely likely to come from the zero-star category, but in no way will all zero-star banks fail,” said BauerFinancial spokeswoman Karen Dorway. “Many will work out of it or get bought, but zero stars would indicate they have significant challenges ahead of them.”

What the banks say

Terry Cochran, president and CEO of Columbia Bancorp, the parent company of Columbia River Bank, said the ratings’ usefulness is debatable.

“Money in our bank is just as safe as (if it were in a) five-star rated bank,” said Cochran.

However, Cochran said Columbia River Bank remains hindered by a number of poor performing real estate development loans, including many in Central Oregon. Cochran said banks are required, through federal regulations such as the Community Reinvestment Act, to meet the credit needs of the communities they serve.

“Certainly in Bend, loaning for housing was meeting the credit needs of the community, so we really got penalized by meeting our CRA needs because we did make a lot of those types of loans and a lot of those loans are challenging right now,” said Cochran.

Cochran assumed the bank’s presidency last October after being summoned out of retirement by Columbia Bancorp’s board of directors. He previously retired as the bank’s CEO in 2000.

The bank is operating under a supervisory agreement with the FDIC to increase its capital ratios by early May.

Robin Freeman, president and CEO of Prineville Bancorporation, the parent company of Community First Bank, said the bank is working hard to meet its customers needs and is loaning money but that ultimately, it’s a community bank whose fortunes are tied to the community.

Prineville Bancorporation lost $6.5 million in 2008 compared with a profit of $1.7 million in 2007.

“In 2007, we just finished up our best year in history and we had a thoroughly solid loan portfolio, and while we knew the economy was slowing, the rapid downturn that occurred in the beginning of early 2008 impacted consumers and banks significantly,” said Freeman. “We’re not spread in any other markets, and we know what’s going on here. Our results are going to be tied to the local economy.”

Community First Bank previously earned a five-star rating from BauerFinancial for the bank’s quarter ending Dec. 31, 2007. For the same Dec. 31, 2007, reporting quarter, Columbia River Bank earned four stars and Bank of the Cascades earned 3.5 stars.

Patricia Moss, the president and CEO of Cascade Bancorp, the parent company of Bank of the Cascades, would not comment on the bank’s rating, only to say that BauerFinancial sells its ratings based on criteria it chooses and that its ratings have no regulatory impact.

High Desert Bank, which opened in September 2007 and is based in Bend, was labeled as a startup, meaning there is not yet enough operating data to issue a rating.

Regarding the newest bank bailout announced Monday by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner, Columbia Bancorp’s Cochran said he is guardedly optimistic about it. He said he has not seen enough of the plan’s details — which include public-private partnerships to purchase the so-called toxic assets, or bad mortgage debt, burdening banks’ balance sheets — to know if it will work, but he is hoping it will be more than a flash in the pan.

“So many times, they get our hopes up (with bailouts,) but they target the Wall Street crowd and big banks, so I’m hoping there will be something to allow community banks to get rid of some of their toxic assets,” said Cochran. “It could be very helpful for Bend.”

Joining in Monday’s Wall Street rally on the heels of the Treasury announcement that saw a nearly 500-point gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Cascade Bancorp (CACB:NASDAQ) shares rose 23.08 percent to close at $1.60 and shares of Columbia Bancorp (CBBO: Nasdaq) climbed 3.09 percent to close at $1.

Shares of Prineville Bancorporation (PNVL:OTC), which are traded over-the-counter, remained unchanged at $3 after Monday’s trading.

Andrew Moore can be reached at 541-617-7820 or amoore@bendbulletin.com.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bend couple gets judgment in suit against Sawyers

By Sheila G. Miller / The Bulletin
Published: March 24. 2009 4:00AM PST

A Bend couple who filed a lawsuit alleging one of real estate broker Tami Sawyer’s companies owed them more than $808,000 got one step closer to getting their money back Monday.

According to Martin Hansen, the lawyer for David and Laurie Redwine, Tami Sawyer signed a confession of judgment on behalf of Starboard LLC on Monday that conceded the claim in favor of the Redwines.

Oregon’s online judicial information system stated the case was settled Monday.

David Redwine filed a lawsuit against Starboard LLC in May alleging he and his wife, Laurie, loaned the company about $800,000, then never got the money back. The lawsuit states that the company borrowed the money from the Redwines, and David Redwine’s pension plan. It also seeks payment of interest.

Starboard is associated with Kevin and Tami Sawyer, whose companies are the subject of an FBI investigation.

The company has four civil suits open against it in Deschutes County Circuit Court. Kevin Sawyer is a former captain in the Bend Police Department.

The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial Thursday.

“We got the judgment; now we just have to collect it,” Hansen said.

The next step, Hansen said, will be a debtor exam, in which the Sawyers will go to court with their bank records to show any funds or properties they have that could go to the Redwines as payment. Hansen said he’d try to seize assets from a variety of the Sawyers’ companies, not just Starboard.

Brian MacRitchie, attorney for Starboard, said the company did not dispute the amount of money owed.

“It’s just that Starboard doesn’t have any money,” MacRitchie said. “They’re caught in the real estate downturn like everyone else.”

Starboard owns 18 lots in the South Briar development on the southeast side of Bend.

On Monday, David Redwine said the settlement didn’t make him feel any better.

“There’s nobody that’s a winner in all of this,” he said. “We feel kind of raked over the coals, and I’m sure Tami and Kevin feel raked over the coals, and we just hope that it ends for all our sakes. We’re just kind of waiting for the next steps, whatever they may be.

“We’re sorry it all happened. They used to be our good friends. We wish them well because they’re going to go under the knife, so to speak, a lot in the future.”

Redwine said he had hoped to avoid going to trial, and hopes he and his wife will be able to collect some of the money they lost in the process.

In unrelated matters, on Friday and Monday, the Sawyers defaulted on three properties: lots in The Bluffs at River Bend, Eastbrook Estates and Deer Pointe Village, according to Deschutes County records. Since January, the Sawyers have defaulted on a total of eight properties.

There are five other lawsuits open against the couple and their businesses in Deschutes County Circuit Court.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Note: Health Care, the only REAL industry left, is starting to to be the primary target of EMBEZZLEMENT.

David Redwine filed a lawsuit against Starboard LLC in May alleging he and his wife, Laurie, loaned the company about $800,000, then never got the money back. The lawsuit states that the company borrowed the money from the Redwines, and David Redwine’s pension plan. It also seeks payment of interest.

Over the weekend, it was learned that a medical office manager in Bend was arrested for allegedly embezzling $214,000 from a pediatric office.


They're raiding the only piggy bank left around here...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

High Desert jobs picture got uglier in February

Posted: March 23, 2009 11:41 AM

But local expert sees 'glimmer' in recent uptick of job listings

From KTVZ.COM news sources

Central Oregon jobless rates for February were released Monday, and they were just as ugly as in past months, if not uglier, breaking records going back almost 20 years.

Deschutes County's rate rose to 12.6 percent last month - just under double the 6.4 percent rate seen a year ago, and the highest figure since at least 1990.

But that was nothing, so to speak, compared to the 16.1 percent figure in Crook County (up 1.3 points) and 14.4 percent rate in Jefferson County (up almost two full points from January.

However, Jan Swander, workforce analyst in Bend for the state Employment Department, said things have begun getting a bit better.

"We're beginning to see job listings kicking back up again," Swander told KTVZ.COM, calling it a "little glimmer" of hope in difficult times.

Here's the text of the news release from the state:

Seasonally adjusted unemployment rates in Central Oregon continued to rise in February. Individual county rates ranged from 12.6 percent in Deschutes County to 16.1 percent in Crook County. The statewide rate also increased, from 9.8 percent in January to 10.8 percent in February.

Crook County: The county's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased by 1.3 percentage points in February, to 16.1 percent. One year ago the rate was less than half the current rate, at 7.9 percent. February's rate is also the highest since at least 1990.

The county lost 110 jobs in February, which is less than the 400 jobs lost in January. Normally, however, employment increases in February by about 20 jobs.

Construction was the only major industry to post employment gains in February (+10), although several industries held steady over the month. The industry with the largest job losses was manufacturing, due entirely to a decline in wood product manufacturing ( 70). Employment in this industry has decreased since August 2008. Other private industries with job losses in February were wholesale trade ( 20), retail trade ( 10), and educational and health services ( 10).

Within the public sector, local government lost 20 jobs in February, while federal and state government employment held steady.

Overall, the county recorded 820 fewer jobs this February than in February 2008 - a decline of 12.1 percent. Employment in the county has been declining for the past 19 months. Wholesale trade lead the job losses ( 47.1%), followed by mining and logging ( 25.0%), and wood product manufacturing ( 22.6%). Only one industry continues to show year-over-year job gains: state government (+5.6%). A few industries reported no change over the year in employment.

Deschutes County (Bend MSA): The county's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 12.6 percent in February from a revised rate of 11.9 percent in January. The rate is slightly less than twice the rate of one year ago, when it was 6.4 percent. February's rate is also the highest rate since at least 1990, when the seasonally adjusted series begins.

The county gained 100 jobs in February, after losing 1,900 in January. Typically the county sees an increase of 250 jobs in February, as the winter tourism season ramps up. Thus employment gains this month were less than expected.

One private-sector industry showed a large employment loss in February: retail trade (-200). Other employment losses included a drop of 80 in manufacturing; 20 in mining, logging, and construction; and 10 jobs each in information and financial activities.

Two industries reported no change over the month: wholesale trade and transportation, warehousing, and utilities. The industry with the largest gains was professional and business services (+40). A gain of 20 jobs each was reported in educational and health services, leisure and hospitality, and other services.

All levels of the public sector posted jobs gains in February. The largest gains were in local education (+240), with much smaller gains in federal and local government (+30, total).

In February, Deschutes County posted a 4.0 percent over-the-year decline in total employment. Although industries such as federal government (+5.3%), educational and health services (+2.0%), and leisure and hospitality (+1.7%) showed year-over-year job gains, losses in other industries offset these gains. The largest losses were in mining, logging, and construction ( 17.6%); durable goods manufacturing (-14.3%); and transportation, warehousing, and utilities ( 10.2%).

Jefferson County: The county's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 14.4 percent in February, up nearly two percentage points from January's revised rate of 12.6 percent. One year ago the rate was 7.3 percent. The unemployment rates in the last several months have been the highest since at least 1990.

Jefferson County lost 80 jobs in February, when normally the county gains about 20 jobs. The largest loss was in wood product manufacturing ( 140). Minor losses were reported in wholesale trade, retail trade, and information ( 10, each). A few private-sector industries managed to increase employment in February. Educational and health services, leisure and hospitality, and other services gained 10 jobs each. The public-sector saw a net job gain over the month of 80, with an increase of 90 jobs at the local level slightly offset by a loss of 10 jobs in state government.

For the seventh month in a row, the county reported an over-the-year job loss. Currently, employment is 7.5 percent lower than February 2008. The industries that lost the most jobs over the year were manufacturing ( 36.5%), retail trade ( 8.9%), and educational and health services ( 8.3%). Some industries also showed employment growth since February 2008, including construction (+10.0%); transportation, warehousing, and utilities (+9.1%); and other services (+5.9%).

As of January 2009, seasonally adjusted unemployment rates are available at the county level in Oregon. Adjusting the unemployment rate for seasonality eliminates the fluctuations caused by seasonal hiring and layoffs, making the rate more comparable from month to month. Local, seasonally adjusted rates are also directly comparable to the commonly reported state and national rates.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Deschutes County (Bend MSA): The county's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate increased to 12.6 percent in February

Note the UNADJUSTED RATE is 16.1% in bend

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

You won't hear it elsewhere but:

UNADJUSTED UNEMPLOYMENT:

CROOK COUNTY 20.1%

JEFF COUNTY: 18.9%


WELCOME TO CENTRAL OREGON. WE ARE EXCEPTIONAL.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I would say that Crook County has reached what almost anyone would agree is DEPRESSION LEVEL UNEMPLOYMENT RATES.

More than one in 5 people are not working in Priney.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

CORRECTION:

CROOK COUNTY UNEMPLOYMENT: 20.7%


Eyes are going....

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I do believe that 20.7% mark for Crook County now marks a New High (low?) for the state.

Even such perennial unemployment havens such as Harney (20.5%) & Grant (18.0%) counties now have rates lower than Crook.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Another Sure Thing:

AS sure as local media is NOT printing the HOORIBLE UNADJUSTED FIGURES now, they will almost certainly print them this Summer. Why? Of course, when ADJUSTED, the unemployment figures will be higher in the Summer & Fall. So they will print The Good News, The unadjusted figures (THE REAL NUMBERS) are FAR LOWER than these UNRELIABLE ADJUSTED NUMBERS.

GUARANTEED.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

And note how the ADJUSTED ONLY World has conveniently lopped-off comparisons to all periods prior to 1990.

"Don't have the info".

So we'll NEVER KNOW where we stand with respect to The Bad Olde Days (1980's). The Bully will make up whatever they want. Most likely, they'll just say it CAN'T BE AS BAD AS IT WAS BACK IN THE BAD OLDE DAYS, and leave it at that.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

REDWINE:

“There’s nobody that’s a winner in all of this,” he said. “We feel kind of raked over the coals, and I’m sure Tami and Kevin feel raked over the coals, and we just hope that it ends for all our sakes. We’re just kind of waiting for the next steps, whatever they may be.

“We’re sorry it all happened. They used to be our good friends. We wish them well because they’re going to go under the knife, so to speak, a lot in the future.”


Interesting choice of words. UNDER THE KNIFE.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Brian MacRitchie, attorney for Starboard, said the company did not dispute the amount of money owed.

“It’s just that Starboard doesn’t have any money,” MacRitchie said. “They’re caught in the real estate downturn like everyone else.”


"Gosh and golly gee, we just got caught up in the tsunami LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE."

Uh huh. You greedy fuckers are using the EVERYONE ELSE WAS DOING IT defense. It's still criminal, you lying shyster motherfuckers.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The Oregonian is cutting... can the Bully be far behind?

The Oregonian responds to ailing economy with cuts
by The Oregonian
Monday March 23, 2009, 1:20 PM

The Oregonian this morning announced an expense-reduction plan that includes pay cuts, furloughs and layoffs of part-timers in response to the difficult economic conditions facing newspapers and all businesses.

Publisher Fred A. Stickel and President Patrick F. Stickel announced the steps in a letter to employees (PDF) and in company meetings.

"We are responding to economic conditions, trying to preserve as many jobs as we can. The Oregonian can -- and will -- survive this financial crisis, which daily takes a toll on so many Oregon businesses. We are also vigorously reacting to the changing media landscape.," Fred Stickel said in a statement.

"Despite the difficult economy, our commitment to quality journalism is unabated. We're deeply tied to this community. The Oregonian is the oldest continuously operated business in the state. We started in 1850 and expect to be publishing long into the future," Stickel said.

In staff meetings, Patrick Stickel said "steeply declining advertising revenues" created an operating deficit of "more than $10 million" in 2008. While crediting employees for more than $30 million in spending cuts since 2007, "we still face a multimillion-dollar operating deficit in 2009" and the cuts announced today were necessary to keep the company profitable.

"We do intend to keep publishing The Oregonian," Pat Stickel said to applause from employees.

Among the steps:

• Pay reductions of 5 or 10 percent depending on pay level, effective May 3. Fred and Patrick Stickel and editor Sandy Rowe will take 15 percent pay cuts.

• Unpaid furloughs of four days to be taken between May and September for full-time employees.

• Freezing of pension benefits in the company's traditional defined-benefit plan, but an increase in the company match of its 401(k) plan that effectively doubles the company match for employees contributing at least 6 percent of their income to the plan. The Oregonian offers both plans to its employees.

• Layoffs of some part-timers in the news and production areas of the company and some job reassignments in production. Severance packages of a minimum of six months pay and 18 months of health care will be given to those losing jobs. Nine part-time press operators were informed of their layoffs today. As many as 28 others will be affected and will be reassigned to other duties. About 24 part-time positions are expected to be lost in the news operation.

• Significant restructuring of circulation and distribution operations.

The company's long-standing job guarantee against layoffs of full-time employees for economic or technological reasons remains in place.

"The Oregonian has been an important part of living in Portland and Oregon for 159 years. I regularly hear from readers, as I know you do, concerned about the state of our industry, people who can't imagine a day without the Oregonian. Neither can I," Patrick Stickel said in staff meetings.

"In my 42 years of association with this company, I've never been more proud of the hard work, dedication and, indeed, sacrifice you put forth to continue that tradition. I am confident in our shared commitment and determination as we go forward together.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Of course, The Bully is already cutting jobs & hours... they just aren't reporting it.

WELCOME TO BEND.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

In staff meetings, Patrick Stickel said "steeply declining advertising revenues" created an operating deficit of "more than $10 million" in 2008. While crediting employees for more than $30 million in spending cuts since 2007, "we still face a multimillion-dollar operating deficit in 2009" and the cuts announced today were necessary to keep the company profitable.

"KEEP THE COMPANY PROFITABLE"?

They just admitted that the company LOST MONEY in 2008. These cuts won't KEEP it profitable... they MAY return it to profitability (doubtful)... but the beast IS LOSING MONEY & HAS LOST MONEY.

Woof... are these writers from Bend?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Marge said...

Did you see on FOX today that Crook and Harney counties have the highest umemployment in the country? It's over 20%.
Shit, Bend lost the #1 position again.
Let's get back to being #1 in something.


Well, traditionally Feb is Rock Bottom, so they will officially announce we've HIT BOTTOM when next months numbers come out improved.

It is that time: List your shitshack, list it now, and list it for 20% lower than comp's if you even want a prayer of selling.

99.99% are doing the opposite. Bend is Exceptional, after all.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Shit shacks on THE EASTSIEEEEEEEDE are going for $66/sf and sinking. If you can't beat that, don't even go thru the motions. Shorts & foreclosures are running the comp's. You have no choice but to play against them anymore.

The Eastside will soon be at $50/sf. It only broke below $100/sf late last year... I said so, and only heard the wind whistle... well, the wind, and COBA shrieking that it was the best in 20...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Wow, here's a Pronghorn listing that has been marked down 52%!

Starting list was $2.5MM, now $1.2MM. Now sitting at a rather unglamorous $256/sf.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Sad commentary on the state of RE:

http://www.burkleyrealty.com/listings.htm

This is a page of agent names who have listings, and of the 9 agents listed, only 2 are actually links... the others have nothing listed. And of those 2 links, 1 agent has 2 listings, the other link goes to an error.

1 RE Redmond office, 9 agents, 2 listings.

Anonymous said...

They're raiding the only piggy bank left around here...

*

Yep, Bend is about people stealing from people.

Now that there is very little money left, the robbers will be going to where the money is at, ... NEVER been a better time to park that expensive car in the garage, and ride a bike or walk in Bend, and dress down and look poor.

The lawyers, and CPA's, ... doctors, ... dentists are going to start looking for sheep to sheer, and the judges will back them up 100% to keep their system running.

Anonymous said...

Funny above to read that today that the BULLY had an article about 'bank ratings', just yesterday AM or night before somebody asked 'what is the better bank', stupid fucking general question, but I posted over a 100 ratings of banks, and different ways to compare them.

Then today the BULLY does a story and points out that CACB has 'two stars' a pasty of each of MOSSES fake tit's.

Comparing CACB to CBOO which has no pasty's makes CACB look vanilly-vanilly in COMP, like I said, in terms of toxic fucking shit and death in BEND, CACB is just fucking average, there are ugly zombies, and fairly attractive corpses in BEND.

The point is that like HBM-SORE, its fairly clear that the BULLY is now getting their 'NEWS' from our site.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Tetherow lot prices starting to crumble:

This Tetherow lot, initially listed at $450K, is now $300K, down a third.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Community First Bank previously earned a five-star rating from BauerFinancial for the bank’s quarter ending Dec. 31, 2007.

From 5 stars to ZERO in one year. Welcome to INSOLVENT BANK CENTRAL!

20.7% UNEMPLOYMENT will hurt the old loan portfolio.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 8:02am MDT
Wells Fargo CEO: Pessimists will like 2009
Denver Business Journal - by Mark Calvey San Francisco Business Times

John Stumpf -- CEO of Wells Fargo, Colorado's largest bank -- says this year will see more borrowers under distress, higher unemployment, more bankruptcies and loan losses.

“If you’re a pessimist, there’s a lot for you to like about 2009,” Stumpf wrote in his letter to shareholders in the company’s latest annual report.

Stumpf says credit quality on consumer loans, including home equity loans, will run higher than normal until the nation’s housing market stabilizes.

But don’t put Wells Fargo and its top executive in the pessimists’ camp.

“We continue to believe in the spirit, ingenuity, work ethic, creativity and adaptability of American workers. We’re capitalists and proud of it,” Stumpf said.

He also provided some insights into the growth opportunities Wells Fargo expects to pursue with its merger with Wachovia, which closed at the end of 2008.

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage’s national lending, for instance, can take advantage of the Wachovia branch network to win more home owners’ banking business.

“This opportunity alone could generate millions of dollars of added revenue because we have about three million Wells Fargo Home Mortgage customers in the 15 states we enter with community banking through the Wachovia merger,” Stumpf said.

He anticipates that the combined bank will learn from Wachovia’s record for good customer service, while Wells Fargo’s strong sales culture will spread throughout the larger organization.

In credit cards, for example, one in 10 Wachovia customers hold a Wachovia credit card compared with four in 10 Wells Fargo customers holding a Wells credit card.

Stumpf said the bank will take its traditional go-slow approach in integrating Wachovia into Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), which proved successful in its 1998 merger between Wells Fargo and Norwest of Minneapolis. There was some thought given to quickly rolling out the Wells Fargo stagecoach into Wachovia’s markets, according to company insiders.

Stumpf took the opportunity in his letter to reiterate the San Francisco-based bank’s strategy of selling more products and services to existing customers.

“All we do is try to create the best customer experience and then keep count: How many financial products do our customers have with us, and how we can earn all their business?” Stumpf said. “This vision does not require any complex mathematical models.”

Anonymous said...

So, if Orygun only works if you file a complaint, then maybe if you want to see some change, maybe just FILE THE DAMN COMPLAINT already, eh?

*

I have a theory on this, its the same reason OUR public PUSSY has NEVER put his name on anything publicly. I have always assumed he's some kind of operative. If he were to actually have put his name on a ballot, which he should of if he was serious about getting involved with, but he didn't. A complaint only takes about 1 minute, and I told that to the PUSSY on day-one when he arrived. But again a complaint is a public record, and its obvious that the PUSSY don't want his john-hancock, on no complaint or ballot.

From day-one I told the pussy to write a complaint on any issue and send it to the governor, that way the agency couldn't ignore the complaint. I told the pussy to PUT his name on the ballot, any ballot from day-one here of his arrival, he never did anything. Sure he's filled the INTERNET with lots of bytes, but so fucking what.

For all his talk about anonym-ass, and how brave he is, its interesting that he'll not put his name on anything of substance.

It's NOT my war, and ZERO of pussy's issues interest ME, so don't ask me to file a complaint, I'm done with that shit, I'm done trying to patch sinking ships. Leave that shit for young idealistic pussy's.

Regarding the 'comments' on all the pussy's blogs both JR, & BG I think I'm the only one, and it always been to keep the pussy honest. I do think he has a good heart.

Regarding 'complaints' I told the pussy from day-one he had better be ready to go all the way, cuz if you file a complaint, and it goes to court, and you lose, you have to PAY all the defendants courts costs, and the courts costs. Thus this shit is NOTHING to play with, but its NEVER been US that brought up this subject, it was always the pussy.

YES, I have said this 'over&over', ORYGUN is a complaint driven system, the people in SALEM can do NOTHING unless somebody files a fucking COMPLAINT.

Lastly, there is HBM PUSSY@LARGE, he talks a lot of shit, but I handed him on a plate the issue that BEND1031, which is all FRAUD MONEY was funneling that MONEY to the RNC, and NOT a fucking PEEP for all his bashing smith-frozen-foods, he seems to be terrified of FUCKING with the RNC, but that makes perfect sense, as the RNC is BEND to the BONE.

IMHO so what 'complaints', its all tired shit. Pick your wars very carefully boyz, in all battles you only got some much ammo and energy and time. Pick battles that you can win.

Bend is a town of psychotic stepford wives, where the vast majority don't even want to hear the truth, thus is there even a point of fighting for this town?

I think my point has been we can fix Bend, but first Bend has want to be fixed. To date the same people leading Bend off the cliff still run this town, of course many of them have killed themselves, and slowly the BULLY/SORE are imploding, which leaves an information vacuum.

We already see HBM/COSTA/MOSS re-inventing themselves, and selling themselves as people who saw the BUBBLE-TSUNAMI coming all along.

Going forward? Who knows. From day-one on this blog fall of 2006 I demanded who is staying, who is leaving, figuring that those staying would want to fight, and be worth even engaging, to this day almost three years later the pussys and kunts on this blog are just as vague and powerless ( learned helplessness ) as they were in 2006.

Thus in many ways homer is right, there is NOTHING in Bend worth fighting for. Look today as we near the bottom in the coming years, the status quo has brought our OWN ECKMAN a PALIN cheer-leader clone, which of course brings irrational bullshit to the process. "KEEP LOOKING GOOD, and GOOD WILL COME TO BEND". Even HOLLERN isn't being quoted anymore, he'll not talk directly to the bully, his last interview was done intermediary with his lawyer.

The saddest thing today about BEND is that good men/women don't even come forward. It good simply be that there are no good people in Bend, that this town is sodom&gomorah, and really just needs a fucking Phuket-Tsunami to cleanse the fucking town of wasted life.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I also like the near-perfect negative correlation oflocal Bank CEO's opinion of the ratings & how valuable they think they are.

Bet a million bucks Community First's guy LOVED these rankings last year when he was 5 STARZ.

Anonymous said...

RE sales start to zoom zoom.
Month to date sales are now surpassing ONE-A-Day. 36 sfr sold to date at $218k med. In 08 there were 68 sold at $291k.
I thought 08 was hystericaly bad, this is soooo much worse than I thought it might be. Can it get any worse than this?
It is common for sales to start picking up in April, but this is an uncommon time.
Quick, Jele, go buy a house.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Awesome!

Unemployment Rate: A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis

Anonymous said...

SOLUTION-s??? BPussy asks (BGaz) "Is there a solution to Central-ORYGUN unemployment?? How can a load of cargo-cultist CALI's dumped on a small desert island survive? How can they create the perfect 'pussy' economy??

...

Let's understand the problem. Man lives on deserted island. No jobs, no food, no water.

Man either figures way to make boat to exit Isl, or builds big fire to attract rescue, but #1 is getting off the fucking ISL.

There is no way in hell that a person can survive on a desert ISL when there is no food, water, income, or stores to provide food even if you had the money.

Survivors will simply move to where there is food & jobs. Desert rats will stay on the ISL, because they like subsistence living. Most of those that moved to Bend in the last 20 years, didn't come here to live like a hermit in a shack.

So there is the essential choice. Do you want to grovel in a shack, and cut your own firewood for heat?? Or do you want to live like where you came from, in the custom to which you feel comfy? The solution for 99% is get the fuck out of BEND.

Anonymous said...

I also like the near-perfect negative correlation oflocal Bank CEO's opinion of the ratings & how valuable they think they are.


*

Yes, but given there are over a HUNDRED different kinds of 'bank ratings', all you have to do is cherry-pick, the ranking list that shows you in the top 1/3, and your gold, and all the BULL has to do is pick the RIGHT ranking that shows that Central-Orygun banks look average or better.

The above said, like you said long ago homer, 'non-performing' loan is a damn-good measure of the future, and especially if you track the acceleration of that metric. There are bank-rankings for non-performing-loans, the problem with bank-rankings is that given there are so many different ways to rank, who gets to choose which list of the day is relevant?

From the S&L days ( mid 1980's ), the great and deep thinkers of that day saw a correlation of the 'texas-ratio' being highly reliable with the future indicator of death. History repeats itself. Smart fuckers should be watching that ranking methodology.

In summary, pick a ranking methodology, or 2 or 3, and stick with it, but be very leary of any fucking RANKING of the week that the BULLY pulls out of its ass, given that the banking-industry keeps 100's of different kinds of methodology's to rank banks.

Anonymous said...

A fair comparison: sale vs. Nod's.

Year to date in Deschutes County, all types of properties, except commercial.

383 sold properties to 738 NOD's

5205 active listings.

2008 ytd 516 sales to 296 NOD's

LavaBear said...

>>>Unemployment Rate: A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis

ZOINKS!!! Fuckin funny. I know you said stats don't lie, people do and yes I agree. This just shows it nicely. ZOINKS!

Anonymous said...

Brian MacRitchie, attorney for Starboard, said the company did not dispute the amount of money owed.

“It’s just that Starboard doesn’t have any money,” MacRitchie said. “They’re caught in the real estate downturn like everyone else.”

*

Think about the above. You know that MacRitchie is billing at least $250/hr, is he telling us he's working for FREE? Right, his client has no money.

This is the problem with our entire system, and even in a court room the chatter would go like this ...

"Your honor, my client cannot possible pay back his debt, he has no money, well he has just enough to pay me & you, my honor"

A more honest statement would have been "My client has money stashed away for himself, and has put a large sum on retainer for me, but my client has NO intention of returning any money to any party either than me, the court, or himself".

Welcome to amkeriKKKa. Where the law, the laws, the lawyers, and the court embrace the criminal, cuz crime pays in ameriKKKa.

Anonymous said...

OREO appoints another Goldman-Sach's CDS bitch 'GENSLER' that created the MESS to 'fix' the MESS... A crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and those that created the crisis will be justly rewarded with public policy promotions. I love ameriKKKa.


Sen. Sanders Attempts to Block Obama Nominee


In news from Capitol Hill, independent Senator Bernie Sanders is attempting to block President Obama’s nominee to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs employee. Sanders said Gensler had worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in US history. He also worked to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron. Sanders said, “We need an independent leader who will help create a new culture in the financial marketplace and move us away from the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior which has caused so much harm to our economy.”

Anonymous said...

Homer, you posted the OREGONIAN story today, but for the record as you be a newbie, that the OREGONIAN is owned by NEWHOUSE [ #1 JOOWISH child-porn holding-companys in the country ], for a better picture the following tell's how NEWHOUSE is pulling the plug, so no wonder the OREGONIAN has gotten off its ass, and I know lots of people that took early retirement their last year... Lastly, back in the 1980's for the record, the OREGONIAN was the MOST profitable daily that NEWHOUSE held in is portfolio of daily's. My how times have changed.


Newhouse to Close Ann Arbor News


In media news, the Newhouse family has announced plans to lay off the entire staff at the Ann Arbor News in July and then replace the daily paper with two new companies: a website called AnnArbor.com and a newspaper that will come out only two days a week. The Ann Arbor News has been a daily newspaper for the past 174 years. In addition, three daily Michigan newspapers —the Flint Journal, the Saginaw News and the Bay City Times—will soon be published only on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Anonymous said...

Harry Reid of the SENATE has shelved the AIG-BONUS tax-bill for months. It's dead, Bend dead.

Geithner today is lobbying for the greatest power grab in US history of the US treasury, the power to grab any US business he wishes, Hugo Chavez, MUST be as jealous as hell, as even HE wasn't able to pull that one off.

"NEVER LET A GOOD CRISIS GO TO WASTE"

Anonymous said...

On the justice of roosting chickens and dead cops

March 23, Oakland

Lovelle Mixon killed three police officers and left one brain dead

On Jan. 1, 2009, in Oakland, CA, Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old unarmed black man, was shot and killed in cold blood, as he lay on his stomach, by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer.

One week after the shooting, protesters gathered peacefully, but quickly turned violent, with fires set, cars vandalized, and windows smashed just hours after the officer who shot Grant resigned. Well over 100 arrests were made and mass vandalism, assault and property damage has been reported from the city of Oakland.

Two months and 13 days later, four officers, Sgt. Mark Dunakin, 40, Officer John Hege, 41, Ervin Romans, 43, and Sgt. Daniel Sakai, were shot by 26-year-old parolee Lovelle Mixon. Dunakin and Hege were killed after pulling Mixon over for what appeared to be a routine traffic stop and Romans and Sakai were shot after tracking him to a nearby apartment building after he fled. Mixon was gunned down after he fired on Romans and Sakai, but the damage had been done.

What makes the story that much more disturbing is reports coming from Oakland that the police were taunted at the scene, where their fellow officers had been shot down, by numerous Oakland residents. Reporters attested to seeing close to 20 people who jeered and ridiculed the police at the crime scene.

To say these two incidents were unrelated would display a clear ignorance and lack of understanding about the situation between the police and residents of inner-city neighborhoods.


Many may see this most recent incident as “chickens coming home to roost,” and there is a very grave danger in such thinking.


I think it’s safe to say we have a problem now. Not only do we have a crime problem, we also have a police problem. It appears that the often contentious relationship between city police and inner-city residents has once again reached a tipping point and it’s a story we’ve seen before.

In the wake of the four police officers being gunned down, the general American public is beginning to get a sniff of a problem that has been plaguing inner-city neighborhoods for years.

Certainly, to say that this shooting may have been a form of retribution or retaliation for Oscar Grant’s death would be oversimplifying what happened. However, one could easily draw a connection between the shootings that occurred on New Year’s Day and the feelings of antipathy that were so callously displayed by some of the city’s residents after the officers were killed. One might also see how such a climate could easily trigger some form of backlash from either the police or dejected residents still abhorred by what they consider to be unjustified killings of members of their neighborhoods.

On October 29, 2008, newlywed 20-year-old and father Julian Alexander was shot and killed by police after he stepped outside his home to confront suspected burglars. The police called it a case of mistaken identity, as they assumed Alexander was one of the burglars they were chasing. In Los Angeles, for just the year 2008, there were at least 27 killings perpetrated by police officers that fit a similar bill. Most of them were unarmed and many were shot in the back.

On March 16, it was determined by an independent panel that the Orange County police officer who shot and killed Julian Alexander would not be subject to administrative or criminal discipline. The officer, who has never been publicly named, was put back on his beat in December and will continue on it.

In California and in other states from Colorado to New York and New Jersey to Texas, the number of inner city residents – almost exclusively young, black and Latino men – abused, harassed and murdered by police officers has been steadily rising.

The cases of the 27 victims all serve as reminders that for too long the police have been killing seemingly without conscience and almost certainly without recourse. Now that the police have seen four of their own perish – a number that has not been seen in California on a single day since April of 1970 – how will they react?

Disgraced former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill began his now infamous “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” essay by writing:

“When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously -- and quite charitably, all things considered -- replied that it was merely a case of "chickens coming home to roost.” On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens -- along with some half-million dead Iraqi children -- came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center.”

Churchill quite famously went on to blame the victims for being attacked on September 11, 2001, by essentially saying that the “little Eichmanns” working in the World Trade Center that morning had, in many ways, played a part in the deaths of more than 500,000 Iraqis and others around the globe. Like Churchill, many may see this most recent incident as “chickens coming home to roost,” and there is a very grave danger in such thinking.

No one deserves to be murdered in cold blood; not the four officers who were shot in Oakland and not the cadre of unarmed young men who have been getting gunned down by police in astounding numbers for the past decade and beyond. This situation needs to be addressed on both sides and a new system of accountability needs to be upheld for police who kill civilians. There also needs to be a mechanism whereby inner-city communities can see some form of justice and resolution for the young men and women who are killed by police officers.

The war between police and the people they have been sworn to protect appears to be at a powder keg stage and the next move will most certainly prove to be paramount. If some semblance of conciliation is not at least attempted soon, this situation could rapidly intensify into something very, very ugly.

Anonymous said...

In the wake of the four police officers being gunned down, the general American public is beginning to get a sniff of a problem that has been plaguing inner-city neighborhoods for years.

*

This is a BEND problem.

1.) Bend is going to become an LA, cuz city-hall see's it as their only salvation to empire build.

2.) Bend cops have long been out of control.

3.) Cali's escaping LA from Bend, just bring that which causes these problems to Bend.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

2.) Bend cops have long been out of control.

Go to The Big City if you wanna see Cops Gone Wild.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

2.) Bend cops have long been out of control.

I've been pulled over twice in 8 years, both were for rolling down Revere (?) towards Albertsons (25mph). Both times got warnings. Neither time did I fear for my life.

Big City? Almost every time I have feared for my life when I confront a cop. I trust crooks more than cops in Big Cities.

Anonymous said...

Wild Cops in Bend

1-Sawyer, went on for years

2-Bend Cop going 120mph over santiam pass, captain, child on the motorcycle, failure to stop, no problem, cop arrested by state-police.

3-Last year in Walla-Walla a Bend cop DUI refused to stop, caught and busted.

4-The 'dog off leash' busts went wild in the summer of 2007, with regular fights breaking out in Drake Park over the $350 tickets. In 2008, the Bend Police found something else to do.

In all of the above cases, nobody lost their job, or had any problem.

Yes, so far BEND cops haven't killed many citizens, but in PDX its a regular occurrence.

5-Homer speeds around Bend, and never gets a ticket only a warning, homer is white and looks like a cop, cops don't write tickets to their own, homer doesn't like Oakland he's afraid. Perhaps its color?

Anonymous said...

Homer,

If the New city-hall folks have their way and build all the Apartments they have planned for Bend in the next 2-3 years, your going to see 'big-city' living here in quiet little Bend.

The fact is we're going to become the Mumbai, its the perfect place, tons of white-trash willing to work for $10/hr and pay $500/mo for a 'compartment'.

I love Bend, ... Welcome to the new BEND. Meth capital of Orygun. Meth is cheap, and white, and home-grown. The crime will come homer, just be patient.

Anonymous said...

2.) Bend cops have long been out of control.

*

My point on this issue, is the REFUSAL of the police-commish, or city-hall to come down on the bad cops of Bend.

Just recently Sawyer 'resigned', so some progress is being made, but it took fucking ten years to even see this, ... again its a newbie problem, ... but like homer say's "what do I fucking care? They let me speed, and never write me a ticket, ... I'm good and white, ... I look like a cop."

I think just a few months ago, the cops stopped DUNC, and it was the same thing, they just gave him a warning, ... must have been a father in law moment.

Anonymous said...

Neither time did I fear for my life.

*

The cops are killing white folks in Oakland homee.

The cops are killing niggers, and last a week one nigger took out four white cops, and the crowds on the street were cheering for the nigger ( well no surprise in Oakland ), ... black hood, patrolled by para-military white cops.

Who would have guessed.

Don't even think of driving while Mexican going No or So on I97.

Anonymous said...

The cops are NOT killing white folks in Oakland homee.

tim said...

I've never been stopped in Bend. Where are all these bad Bend cops at?

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Don't even think of driving while Mexican going No or So on I97.

Noted. Do NOT where sombrero on I-97.

LavaBear said...

>>>Noted. Do NOT where sombrero on I-97.

What about 20 heading East? Is Millican too close to put it on? Should I wait till Hampton or is it all the way till Burns? That would bum me out if I couldn't wear it at all.

Jelement said...

The asshat who killed the cops in Oakland was pretty much a career criminal. A parolee with previous charges for assault, carjacking, robbery, and suspected in another murder and a rape. The asshats in Oakland who taunted the cops while their fellow officers were dead in the street are the reason that big city cops have to act the way they do. Oakland is a shithole, there is no reason to go there for anything, and it is because of these fucking retards who think it is cool to taunt police, or cheer for the criminal who kills four cops. Absolutely pathetic, and probably only the tip of the iceberg, big city crime will skyrocket if we truly end up in a depression. Back in the 1930's people had more respect for each other than they do now, this time around will be a sad indicator of where we have come as a society.

Fuck the people in Oakland. If any one of those stupid fuckers who were taunting cops happens to turn up dead in the next several weeks I could care less.

Given that, I don't think being a hermit and cutting my own firewood sounds all that bad. Marge is right, I need to buy something but it needs to be away from other people, and the $8k homebuyer tax credit can go towards a large fence.

LavaBear said...

>>>2.) Bend cops have long been out of control.

You need to get out more. I spent some time in New Orleans and if you want to see how professionals do it go there. These Bend cops are out of control in a Barney on Mayberry kind of way.

Anonymous said...

>>>2.) Bend cops have long been out of control.

*

I have already defined what was meant by out of control, which is that bad-cops are never punished.

PIGS must be held at a HIGHER standard than the common fuck little person.

We have had BEND PIGS refuse to stop with DUI and 0.20% blood alchohol, who kept their job, pigs flying 120mph over Santiam who refuse to stop, who kept their job, and then we have BEND-PIGS who feed at the Real Estate PIG trough who kept their job for years.

A BEND PIG must be held to a higher standard than the common farm animals of BEND.

Anonymous said...

The asshat who killed the cops in Oakland was pretty much a career criminal.

===

Yeh, but he was good, he dusted four of Oakland's finest and set the bar that it can be done, and now albeit dead he is a nigger's nigger, aka a real fucking HERO.

Anonymous said...

I've never been stopped in Bend. Where are all these bad Bend cops at?

#

Sawyer, the little piggy that flew over Santiam last summer @120mph and refused to stop for state-police. The little piggy in walla-walla last year with a 0.20% BA that refused to stop for traffic cop.

Pig's need to be held to a higher standard than the mutt's of Bend.

Anonymous said...

Noted. Do NOT where sombrero on I-97.

###

Senior HBM, are you paying attention??

Bewert said...

China takes another baby step away from the dollar:

China suggests switch from dollar

"China's central bank has called for a new global reserve currency run by the International Monetary Fund to replace the US dollar..."

China ‘Super Currency’ Call Shows Dollar Concern

"March 24 (Bloomberg) -- China’s call for a new international reserve currency may signal its concern at the dollar’s weakness and ambitions for a leadership role at next week’s Group of 20 summit, economists said.

Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan yesterday urged the International Monetary Fund to create a “super-sovereign reserve currency.” The dollar weakened after the Federal Reserve said it would buy Treasuries and the U.S. government outlined plans to buy illiquid bank assets..."

Anonymous said...

Hope springs eternal--even when you have several years of inventory already on the market:

Building homes for a new market
Founded just as boom turned to bust, Equity had to get creative

By Jeff McDonald / The Bulletin
Published: March 24. 2009 4:00AM PST

Not everyone has stopped building houses in Central Oregon.

That is obvious at the southeast Bend site of the former Orion Greens Golf Course, where three new homes are under construction by Bend-based Equity Homebuilders LLC.

One of the houses is 4,300 square feet, with a 2,700-square-foot garage. Another home is a more modest 2,032 square feet including a three-car garage, according to Charlie Harp, sales manager.

The latter home and lot, which would have cost between $600,000 and $800,000 during the housing boom, sold for $302,000 to an out-of-town buyer who wanted larger rooms than he normally could find on the market to accommodate his furnishings, Harp said. The home and lot appraised for $412,000 at the start of construction.

“We do a full range of stuff,” Harp said. “The developers came to us to put these lots (up) for sale. We don’t own the land. That is why we are still in business.”

While home sales appear to have stabilized in Bend, sales prices continue downward. The median sales price of a single-family home in Bend fell to $215,000 in February, down from $233,000 in January and $318,000 in February 2008, according to the most recent Bratton Report, an analysis of single-family home sales in Deschutes County produced by the Bend-based Bratton Appraisal Group.

Gone are the days of production building, when builders would create mass subdivisions out of sagebrush, Harp said. But developers and banks still need to find ways to sell the lots that were once planned for homes.

Equity Homebuilders’ customers can get a good deal because the company sells the homes at below appraisal values, which are being influenced by short sales and foreclosed properties, said Steve Savage, one of six partners. This gives customers equity in their homes from day one, he said.

Appraisal prices are based on a number of factors, including comparable home sale prices, Savage said.

“We are able to build a house that still holds its appraised value because the houses that are comparable to ours are still holding that higher price,” he said. “When you are looking for comparisons, it’s still in that range.”

He and his partners started the company in 2007, just as the housing boom had ended, he said. But thanks to some creative restructuring, the company remains strong. Savage noted that the company has designed and built homes or is in the process of doing so on roughly 60 percent of all lot and land sales under $150,000 in Bend in the last year,

“It was a terrible time to open up a residential construction company,” Savage said. “We saw the writing on the wall. The higher-end expensive homes were going to be difficult to sell. We needed to make a new model that would work in the new economy.”

Lot prices have dropped. So have design and subcontracting costs — to the point that new homes are becoming more affordable, he said. Customers decide what floor plans, colors and fixtures they want for the house.

Profits from sales may not be anywhere near where they were during the housing boom of 2004-06, but that’s not the point, Savage said.

“The challenge is staying ahead of the market, which is dominated by short sales and foreclosures,” Savage said. “But we have managed to cut our overhead and keep people employed.”

Savage and his partners responded via e-mail to the following questions:

Q: Explain your model of homebuilding. How are you building homes differently from how they have been built in the past?

A: In the past, homebuilding seemed to be focused a lot on speculation. Therefore, builders were building homes on what they thought the general public wanted in a highly inflated market. Equity Homebuilders does not build on speculation, but rather on what the homeowner wants (and)... what they can afford. Our process of meeting with clients helps to streamline this process so they can see how much house they can buy and start customizing it to their liking in that budget.

Q: You say you are trying to cut costs and build homes according to customer specifications. What makes you different from a typical custom homebuilder?

A: We started out with six plans that were designed to minimize material and labor costs. For example, the placement of the plumbing or determining room dimensions to minimize waste of materials. We call these the Equity concept. By using this concept, we can revamp one of our existing plans or take a design a customer has and help them realize that house at an affordable cost. We now have approximately 75 house plans, most of which are named after our customers.

Q: How does your company overcome lending hurdles that have made it difficult for prospective homebuyers to get financing?

A: We have been able to pair up with a mortgage broker that has found a niche in this market. We work together with him and a construction lender that lends off of appraised value instead of cost of acquisition, which is the biggest hurdle to overcome. If nothing else, it allows the customer to come in with less money than typically needed to purchase a new house, and that is key right now.

Q: Assess the Central Oregon market compared with the rest of the state. How much of your business is occurring in this region? Do you plan any expansion outside of the state?

A: We started with most of our business in Central Oregon, but outside the (Bend) city limits. With property prices coming down the way they have, we build at least half our homes in the city of Bend itself. We also have an office in Woodburn and have built a handful of houses in the Portland, Salem, and Forest Grove areas. We are also in contract to build in Springfield and Medford.

We have had some interest to build in Washington, but we are only just looking into that now.

PopGoesBend said...

>A: We started out with six plans that were designed to minimize material and labor costs. For example, the placement of the plumbing or determining room dimensions to minimize waste of materials. We call these the Equity concept.


And the rest of us call it the way you were supposed to be designing them all along.

Anonymous said...

If I eat dog shit does that mean I'm a Bend cop in control?

If I beat the pooch does that mean I'm a Bend cop?

Anonymous said...

USA is the BIGGEST #1 ASS-HOLE in the world!!! Who would have guessed???


U.S. immigrant detentions violate human rights: report


Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:16am EDT


By Deborah Charles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The detention of hundreds of thousands of immigrants every year in the United States represents a violation of human rights, Amnesty International USA said in a report on Wednesday.

On an average day, the rights group said, more than 30,000 immigrants are in detention facilities. That's triple the number that were in custody a decade ago, according to Amnesty's report "Jailed Without Justice: Immigration Detention in the USA."

"America should be outraged by the scale of human rights abuses occurring within its own borders," said Larry Cox, director of Amnesty International USA.

"The United States has long been a country of immigrants, and whether they have been here five years or five generations, their human rights are to be respected."

Amnesty said more than 300,000 people are detained by U.S. immigration officials each year. They include asylum seekers, torture survivors, victims of human trafficking, longtime legal permanent residents and parents of U.S. citizen children.

"The use of detention as a tool to combat unauthorized migration falls short of international human rights law," the report said.

According to Amnesty, tens of thousands of people languish in American immigration detention facilities every year -- including a number of U.S. citizens -- without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted.

Amnesty called on the U.S. government to ensure that all immigrants and people seeking asylum in the United States who have been detained receive a hearing to determine whether their detention is necessary.

Sernata Reynolds, Amnesty USA's policy director for Refugee and Migrant Rights, said U.S. officials stepped up detentions after the September 11 attacks.

LONG WAITS FOR DETENTION HEARINGS

"Although the law permitted it, it hadn't been used in the way that it was," she said in an interview. "Then, in the climate of fear, it was exponentially growing, and continues to grow. This year ... they expect to detain 400,000 people."

"No one comes close to detaining the amount of people that the United States does," she said. "I don't know of another country that detains hundreds of thousands of people as a normal policy every year."

According to the report, there were about 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States as of January 2007. The top five countries of origin were Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Philippines and China.

The Department of Homeland Security can detain people at the border or during raids if it suspects them of an immigration violation.

People detained at the border are not entitled to a review of their detention by an immigration judge, Amnesty said. Those apprehended inside the United States have the right to appear before a judge, but the wait can be long.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

I knew this one was doomed:

Blue Moon closing

March 25, 2009 4:00 am

Blue Moon Marketplace, located at 61 N. W. Oregon Ave. in downtown Bend, will close April 11, said....MORE

Anonymous said...

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...
I knew this one was doomed:


As it should be...

Bewert said...

"We've got a property we've got to monetize. We can't just walk away from what we already have." Shane Lundgren, investor in Metolian "eco-resort".

Metolian plan may have hit big snag
State board wants its presence severely restricted in the basin

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

"We've got a property we've got to monetize. We can't just walk away from what we already have." Shane Lundgren

Is that a real quote? That is disgusting.

I can't wait till they MONETIZE Yellowstone, Crater Lake & Yosemite.

Bewert said...

Yep--it's set off in big type on the top of A-5.

The funny thing is there are a whole bunch of properties Lundgren and others have already lost their ass on trying to monetize. Just drive around Sisters and Bend...

It amazes me that a group of people will piss of most of a state just to "monetize" a speculative property.

I love that term.

AIG "monetized" paper promises. The Sawyers "monetized" dozens of properties. Bauhofer "monetized" Tetherow. The list could go on forever.

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

The Sawyers "monetized" dozens of properties. Bauhofer "monetized" Tetherow. The list could go on forever.

Bend was monetized really. SMART GROWTH.

Call doing stupid shit SMART, and you got Bend CC wrapped around your finger.

"Wow! Mike Hollern just said we git into Mensa if we cancel all SDC's! Woo Hoo!"

IHateToBurstYourBubble said...

Bauhofer "monetized" Tetherow

Speaking of which, I think we're starting to see the disintegration of the super high end stuff.

Pronghorn, Tetherow, etc all are COLLAPSING. They are finally dropping price to sell properties.

The bastards would go thru BK, but they'd never dropped price... till now.

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