Welcome to Mumbai, Oregon!

Can't do a full-scale rant today, so I'll just post some interesting snippets, so we can all get right to the comment-goodness.

A Long Time Ago, In a Town Not So Far Away, I bought a really old Sci-Fi book at a place called The Bookmark. It was like a lot of buys that happen at places like this: It was a little treasure, a little gateway back to my youth, a book I read in my teens, a little reminder of the naive me-of-olde, and it was only $1.50.

It was a quasi non-fictional thesis called "A Step Farther Out" by Jerry Pournelle, an old 1970's era Sci-Fi writer who, when paired with Larry Niven, put out some good stuff. It was a survey of pop-tech and other sci-fi grandiose schemes that Pournelle thought would solve our problems.

Anyway, I guess what was sort of funny about re-discovering this book (it's been boxed up for 6-7 years now), is that Pournelle is addressing his audience as if there is this chronic & terminal disasterous condition with the World. It was written just after the Oil Shock, so I guess that's understandable.

But he writes also with the implied assumption that the Earth is going to become imminently unlivable due to pollution. He posits that population growth is completely out of control, and it'll lead to Standing Room Only within decades. He talks as if food-shortages in Africa are all but inevitable for the rest of the World.

He takes this stance that he is rebuffing The Pessimism Of The World. He's taking a stand, fighting back, and he's going to put out some Damn Pragmatic Solutions. Things such as mining asteroids, converting the Worlds oceans into farms, and quite a bit of other flying-car-in-every-garage-nuclear-power-plant-in-every-house stuff that never happened.

I guess what was really strange about this was the dissonance with what actually happened after Pournelle wrote this.

The malaise ended.

There was a huge explosion in growth, but it was not at all like Pournelle envisioned it. All the pessimism just sort of melted away.

But what's also funny is that some of the problems that he outlined as intracable, never went away. The Earths population has kept growing. Africa is still starving to death. We pollute more than we ever have.

The Oil Shock ended, but other problems of equal or greater importance remained. They're still here today.

But what fundamentally changed was The Attitude about our problems. They just changed. The pessimism just sort of went away. I guess other Feel Good topics like Growth just usurped the importance of Live Aid, and other stuff like that.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say about this, other than this planet has seen times when it looked like The End of Days before. It was just so long ago, no one except real Geezers remember it.

And I'm Not saying The Bad Times Manifested Themselves In 2 Years Just Like Now, So We Can Rest Easy because It's All Over. No. The malaise of the 1970's took a decade plus to work itself out. It took a long time. We're in the 2nd or 3rd inning.

I don't know, I guess it was sort of comforting to know that what is happening today is not totally unprecedented. We've been down before. We've been almost pathologically pessimistic about it, too.

But, it did end. After a long time, it did end.

Next --

We found out what we pretty much knew all along: Patty Moss & Co are frauds.

Cascade Bancorp posts wider adjusted fiscal 2008 loss

Friday, Cascade Bancorp Inc. (CACB), the holding company for Bank of the Cascades, said it made adjustments to its preliminary financial results to include goodwill and asset impairment charges, additional provision for loan losses, resulting in a wider net loss for the year.

Including the non-cash goodwill charge and other adjustments, net loss for fiscal 2008 was $134.6 million or $4.82 per share, compared to a net loss of $21.2 million or $0.76 per share reported in the preliminary unaudited earnings release dated January 29, 2009.

Right. All of a sudden, not in normal earnings season, MossCo woke up & found out that their Idaho acquisition of Farmers & Merchants bank was a 100% LOSER. They wrote off 100% of the F&M goodwill.

This is becoming Standard Op Procedure for MossCo. Last quarter it was "Hey, wow, whoa! You know we just found out due to SOFTWARE ERROR, we actually LOST A SHITLOAD MORE MONEY than we originally told you. Sorry."

Now it's a HUGE LOSS, that will result in the near-nuking of CACB's net worth:

Cascade Bancorp (Oregon) Announces Filing of Form 10-K Annual Report and Audited Financial Statements; Adjusts Preliminary 2008 Results Due to Goodwill Impairment and Additional Provision for Loan Loss

2008 return on book equity and tangible equity decreased to (47.90%) and (80.51%) respectively, from the previously reported (7.02%) and (11.79%). At December 31, 2008, the Company's reserve for credit losses was $48.2 million or 2.46% of total loans and NPA's are reduced by $22.9 million to $159.4 million or 7.0% of total assets.

SO they went from a small ding to earnings to a near WIPE OUT of tangible equity. When you lose 80.51% OF TANGIBLE EQUITY, YOU ARE FUCKED. One good point to this is the tax benefits, but you have to BE ALIVE to recognize such benefits, and CACB's stock price telegraphs a different story.

So you'd think the CEO would have a pretty sobering & concrete response? Hell No! This is Bend!

Patricia L. Moss, CEO said, "We are in serious times and actions will influence outcomes. The challenges we face reflect the stress the economic downturn has caused to our customers, businesses, friends and neighbors, and community at large. We are resolved to play our part in helping the community address the challenges we share, and to progress toward an improving economic future together." Moss continued, "Local deposits from our communities are essential to the economic health in the markets we share.

We are encouraging the community to keep their money local to the benefit of our shared economy. Community banks effectively redeploy their deposits back into our communities." To this end, Cascade has provided additional assurance to customers by participating in the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program which provides unlimited FDIC insurance for all transaction account deposits through 12/31/09.

Commenting on loan quality, Moss said, "We continue to fund our reserve for loan losses to ensure we have provided resources under the current adverse economic conditions. In addition, we have written down a substantial portion of the residential development loan portfolio that has proven to be most negatively affected by the downturn.

Residential development now represents just 10% of our credit portfolio while the majority of the Company's loans continue to perform well. I am gratified that we have taken these actions on the credit side and exceed benchmarks for a well-capitalized bank."

OK, there are several statements of concern, but this is the most startling:

"We are in serious times and actions will influence outcomes."

What the fuck! This is where you know you are dealing with a truly deranged lunatic. Moss has just LOST 80% of the net worth of the biggest bank in Central Oregon, and all she has is some sort of whacky identity logic?

"We're in the shit, and if A= B, and B = C, then A = C. Thank You."

My God, what a fucking idiot. Everytime Moss opens her mouth, I realize that the banking system of Central Oregon as we know it, is 100% DOOMED. This vacuous dumbshit is at the helm of a sinking ship. Know that CACB at $1.22, is INFINITELY OVERVALUED. It is worth NOTHING.

I formally retract all my previous statements that it is "almost worthless". It is 100% WORTHLESS.

Next --

There's some scapegoating going on with some pretty unlikely characters lately.

Someone posted the Jon Stewart crucifixion of James Cramer in the comments. I saw it, and it was pretty good. Jon Stewart is a relatively clear thinking guy, and he tears Cramer a new corn chute. He backs Cramer down pretty well, something Cramer richly deserves.

Then Dunc posted the tut-tut-tut titled Jesse, Jesse, Jesse..., about Jesse Felders point of view on his blog, My Back Pages:

You've been talking this way for months now, and the market continued to decline that whole time. (Don't forget to leave out that little fact.) You started talking about 'bottoms' and then it would drop some more, and then you'd talk about 'bottoms' again, and it would drop some more.

Now you've even gone so far as to post an article in the Bulletin. Are you so sure it won't drop some more? Especially housing prices? Look at the Bend Economy Bulletin Board, and you'll see prices are still 99.9% down arrows.

Is it really your advice to ignore that and buy now? Really?

Jesse's been calling a bottom since I've started wiping my own bottom: About 6 months ago. And let's face it, he's been dead wrong.

And finally, the vultures have descended on Buffett himself, with articles like "Warren Buffett has lost his touch", "Is Warren Buffett Crazy?", "Bill Gates' foundation dumps shares in Warren Buffett's Berkshire", and it goes on and on.

And to add insult to injury, Buffett's Bershire (along with GE), has lost it's Golden Boy AAA status. There were only a handful of companies on Earth that had been bestowed that honor, and Buffett used it every chance he got to peddle more insurance.

So we're all supposed to jump on the Cramer-Madoff-Felder-Buffett scapegoat bashing bandwagon?

No. Well, Madoff, Yes. But Cramer is a dumbfucking stock tout, he doesn't know what else to do. The fact that the dumbshit fucks chickens on his show to get ratings is more a reflection of American tastes than anything.

He's an entertainer more than anything. If you don't get that, and you actually take his advice, You Are A Dumbass.

Felder. Again, here's a guy just posting his opinion. And for the time being, he's wrong. Fuck, I threw my retirement in 100% a few months ago. 100% WRONG. So far. Sure as hell did not and will not buy at the bottom.

So Felders wrong too. Big fucking whoop. Again, if you take someone's advice to heart, it's not their fault, it's yours. Man the Fuck UP, and admit that you are responsible for your life.

I lost my retirement money, not Felder. Conversely, when (if) things turn around, I will not be sending Felder a commission.

This same thing goes for Buffett. He touted GE right before it took a huge dump, he even bought a shitload of it. So Buffett ate his own cooking, and he's now paying. Big F-ing Deal.

Everyone Loses In A Black Swan.

But we're starting to go after people indiscriminately.

OK, Madoff deserves to die. I mean he just deserves to be stoned to death, nude, over the course of weeks. With his dick in a meat grinder. And maggots eating out his eyes.

But Buffett, Felder, and Cramer are just fallible. Shit, that goes for all of us. These guys are just wrong, that's all. Is Felder digging his own grave deeper by the day? Hell yes. Nobody's perfect. Remember the Opening Of The Second Comic Book Store On 3rd? Hey, but for the grace of God....

That's the one thing ALL THESE PEOPLE have in common: NONE saw THIS coming. Look at Cramer's video: He calls this episode "one in a million". It's not that, but it's still pretty damn rare.

And by "THIS", I mean the utter meltdown of the World's financial system. Which brings us to...

Next --

I saw on NBC's nightly news that the total Worldwide toll of the financial meltdown has been approximated at $50 TRILLION.

$50,000,000,000,000 is a lot of money. That's like $8,000 for every single person on this planet.

I know, you're thinking, "I got way more than that!". OK, good. But the vast majority of the planets population doesn't even have a fraction of that. If you started at the bottom, and just systematically wiped out the net worth of the Earth's poorest, moving towards the wealthiest, with a $50 trillion dollar vacuum, you would probably wipe out well over 95% of all individual net worth on this planet.

95% of the World would be flat-ass broke. Probably more like 98-99%. 95% is extremely conservative. Extremely.

Just an illustration of The True Total Cost of What The USA Housing Bubble Really Is. It's set us back 2-3 decades. It's set others back 2,000 years.

ECONOMIC REPORT
Household net worth plunges 18% in 2008

Consumers pay down debt for first time on record in fourth quarter
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Last update: 2:35 p.m. EDT March 12, 2009
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Hit by a double whammy of declining home prices and a falling stock market, U.S. households saw their net worth fall by $11.2 trillion, or 18%, to $51.5 trillion at the end of 2008, wiping out four years of gains, the Federal Reserve reported Thursday.

In the fourth quarter alone, household net worth fell by $5.1 trillion, a record 31% annualized decline. Consumers lost $937 billion on the value of their real estate. Their direct holdings of corporate equity dropped by $1.68 trillion, while holdings in pension and life insurance reserve dropped by $1.46 trillion. Mutual-fund holdings fell by $730 billion.

Net worth has fallen for six straight quarters since peaking at $64.4 trillion in the second quarter of 2007. Net worth -- defined as assets minus liabilities -- is down 20% from the peak. The decline in wealth was accompanied by a sharp pullback in consumer spending at the end of the year.

According to Commerce Department data, real consumer spending fell at a 4.1% annual rate in the final six months of 2008, the sharpest decline since 1980.

Economists figure consumers will spend about 5 cents out of each additional dollar of wealth, or cut spending by about 5 cents for every dollar lost. "Consumers have turned a lot more cautious and are saving more," said Richard Berner, chief economist for Morgan Stanley.

In the longer term, Berner sees a "sea change in consumer behavior" that will bring the personal savings rate to 7% or 8% within the next few years as consumers begin to understand that quick and easy increases in wealth aren't likely. "Households are being forced to rely less on rising asset prices and more on their paycheck to fund everyday living expenses," wrote Drew Matus, an economist for Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. "In other words, frugality is coming back into fashion."

The decline in net worth raises the risks of deflation, Matus said. He said money supply growth turned negative in the fourth quarter, based on more complete information about the shadow banking system.

Lost decade

At the end of the year, households owned $9.9 trillion in equity shares outside of pension plans, less than the $11.3 trillion they owned in 1998. At the end of 2008, assets fell by $11.3 trillion to $65.7 trillion. Liabilities fell $87 billion to $14.2 trillion. Home owners' equity in their houses fell to a record low 43%.

"It's an old lesson: Asset values can fall quickly, but debt lingers!" wrote Bill McBride on his blog, Calculated Risk.

At the same time their assets were falling, households were taking on less debt, deleveraging their balance sheets after five years of double-digit growth in debt.

In the fourth quarter, households paid off more debt than they took on for the first time since at least 1952, when the Fed began reporting the information in its quarterly Flow of Funds report.

Household debts fell at a 2% annual rate in the quarter, including a 1.6% decline in mortgage debt and a 3.2% decline in consumer credit, including credit cards and auto loans. For all of 2008, household debt rose just 0.4%.

Since the early 1950s, debt had never risen less than 5% in a year.

Businesses also took on less debt.

Total debt grew 4.8% in the corporate sector after a 13.4% gain in 2007.

In the fourth quarter, corporate debt increased at a 2.2% annualized rate, the slowest since early 2004. The federal government made up for the deleveraging by families and businesses, however.

Federal debt increased 24% in 2008 and rose at 37% annual rate in the fourth quarter. Total nonfinancial debt -- individuals, businesses and government -- rose 5.8% in 2008 and increased at a 6.3% pace in the fourth quarter. It was the slowest annual increase in debt since 2000.

I know hbm likes to think of the poor in America as being crushed by unfeeling corporate behemoth monsters. And that's fine. But in the grand scheme of things, WE are the richest 1%. America is ridiculously wealthy by global standards.

If you actually suctioned up the $50 trillion in losses, the losses suffered by this country as a whole have been miniscule. Worldwide wealth decimation by the poor has been catastrophic. And I mean people with only a few hundred bucks to their name after a lifetime of toil.

The poorest American's are 1,000X better off than them. At least we have something to lose.

Next --

Just a little note about the min wage dogshit jobs that iSky is bringing BACK to Central Oregon.

I mean, I don't want to look a gifthorse, and apparently neither do a lot of other hungry folks, from the 200 applicants TRG got on Day 1.

But let's face it: NO ONE CAN SURVIVE ON THESE SHIT WAGE JOBS. NOT HERE.

Central Oregon always has been and always will be about the EXPLOITATION of locals. You are dogshit to the machine. You're the fucking pigs anus, cat entrails, hobo arm, and leather boot that goes into Central Oregon's LOW WAGE SAUSAGE FACTORY.

This place takes YOUR LIFE & turns it into SAUSAGE. You are dog shit. If you went to iSky, you are on the road to DOG SHIT.

Please, even a single person tell me otherwise. PLEASE! iSky doesn't have a single Family Wage job available. Nada. They have SAUSAGE JOBS. They turn lives into DEAD DICKS.

That is REAL BEND. I don't really want to pick on iSky, when this same fundamental truth applies to about 107% of Central Oregon Employers. They are a meat grinder, and you are a horses asshole.

It's a commentary on the nature of this place. It's where we are going. The Bend of Olde. If you don't like the sound of working for peanuts, losing your house, and living on China Hat Road turning tricks with donkey's, then you need to get the fuck out.

Finally --

In what may have been the event that Turned Things Around, we all found out that Bristol Palin broke up with her longtime boyfriend, and father of her illegitimate child.

This could not be better news for borderline-perverts like me (borderline?) who love Gigantosaurous Boobs. I mean, Mom was doing pretty damn good in the jugular department, but daughter looks like Bend's balloon guy stuffed something under her dress.

Those are the biggest gat-damned teeny-bopper, single mom, mega-jugs I've ever seen. I'm drawn to that shit like hillbillies are drawn to all-you-can-eat buffet's, tractor pulls, fucking yer sister and alcoholism.

So in tribute to all the Mother-Daughter mega-hottie gang-bang 2 on 1 clusterfucks that I hope to have in Heaven, I present Bristol's now-single huge mega titties, swelled by many months of suckling for your viewing pleasure.

Bristol Palin's titties being crushed into all sort of unnatural shapes due to Milk Bustout.

"My hobbies include Mother-Daughter gang-bangs, 2 on 1's, and fucking liberals and eating them."
Hey hbm, when are we gonna fuck? I'm hungry!