Category Archives: U.S.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Proof the housing market hasn’t fallen enough: Big Banks bulldozing smalltown America

“Things that were unthinkable are now becoming thinkable.”-James W. Hughes, School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University

If you want proof that the housing market still hasn’t hit bottom, just look at what Bank of America is doing, they’re bulldozing all those homes they foreclosed on.  Why? “There is way too much supply, the best thing we can do to stabilize the market is to get the garbage off.”-Gus Frangos, Cuyahoga County Land Re-utilization Corp of Cleveland

It’s not just BoA, but the other big banks that foreclosed (sometimes unjustifiably) on hundreds of thousands of homes across the U.S. are doing the same thing.

Essentially the big mortgage lenders shot themselves in the foot.  Now there is way too many homes on the market, compared to the decreasing number of qualified home buyers.

BoA is planning on bulldozing 100 homes in Cleveland, Ohio.  BoA is even giving away homes to local authorities: “No one needs these homes, no one is going to buy them. Bank of America is not going to be able to cover its losses, so it might as well give them away and get a little write-off and some nice public relations.”-Christopher Thornberg, Los Angeles office of Beacon Economics LLC

So far they’ve off loaded around 100 homes in Detroit, Michigan and 150 in Chicago, Illinois.

Even big cities are bulldozing their own.  Detroit Mayor, Dave Bing, proposed bulldozing one quarter of the entire city’s houses, and empty buildings, over the next three years.

Business/Economics, U.S.

Government Incompetence: IRS will not collect lost tax revenues caused by FAA shut down, airlines get away with not paying taxes

Recently it was announced that the U.S. Senate made a deal that would put thousands of FAA employees, and contractors, back to work.  This after it was revealed that the government was losing hundreds of million in tax revenues from the FAA shutdown.  Those loses far outweighed the savings from not having to pay the laid off FAA employees.

Now the Internal Revenue Service says they will not attempt to recover those lost airline ticket taxes.  IRS officials say they were ordered by the U.S. Senate not to collect taxes on ticket sales relating to flights made during the FAA shutdown.

Also, people who flew during the FAA shutdown, but bought their airline tickets before the FAA shutdown, will not get the taxes they paid refunded.  Since the airlines are not required to pay the IRS the taxes they collected, on tickets for flights that occurred during the FAA shutdown, essentially the airlines made some free money.

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Fannie Mae wants another $5 Billion bailout from taxpayers

The mortgage lender Fannie Mae reported a huge 2nd quarter loss of $5.2 billion. Now they want another $5.1 billion from taxpayers.

Let me remind you that Fannie Mae asked for $8.5 billion back in May!  So far the mortgage lender has gotten about $99 billion in bailout money from the U.S. government (taxpayers).

Fannie Mae officials say the answer to the continued housing finance crisis is jobs: “We’ve got to clear the mortgage market of the excess inventory and employment needs to recover, I believe, before we’re going to see a stabilization of home prices.“-Susan McFarland, Fannie Mae Chief Financial Officer

U.S.

United Police States of America: TSA deprives diabetic pregnant woman of insulin

“It made me feel upset and made me feel somewhat helpless.”-Aaron Nieman, husband of TSA victim

A pregnant woman flying from Denver to Phoenix, was deprived of her insulin by TSA officials.  They claimed the insulin could be used to make a bomb!

The woman even had a note from her doctor explaining her situation, the Transportation Security Administration official didn’t care.

What makes this even more alarming is that they let the woman keep hair spray, nail polish, and even the syringes used to inject the insulin!

Luckily, the woman managed to sneak half a vial of insulin past the TSA idiots, and she was able to arraign for more insulin when she got to Phoenix.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

U.S. Debt: The Big Three countries U.S. taxpayers are beholded to, U.S. government bonds drop in rank

Most people know that China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt.  Japan is the second biggest, and the United Kingdom (Britain) is the third.

According to the most recent information, China holds a little more than $1 trillion in U.S. government debt (bonds), Japan holds $912 billion and the U.K. holds $346 billion.  Those bonds are held not only by foreign governments, but by private banks and corporations.

Standard & Poor’s downgrade means that U.S. government bonds are now ranked 2nd place.  Germany, United Kingdom and France still hold their triple A 1st place ranks.  Interestingly the Federal Reserve Bank (not a government agency) says the drop in ranking will not change how they handle U.S. bonds.

The problem is that foreign banks will surely change how they handle U.S. bonds.

The majority of U.S. government debt is still held within the United States, by banks, corporations, individuals and taxpayers via the U.S. Treasury.

 

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

S & P’s says Debt Limit Deal not enough, downgrades the United States anyway, U.S. officials cry foul

Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. from a triple A credit rating to double A plus.  They cited three main reasons.

Reason one is that the GDP to debt ratio is too high for triple A.  They estimate the U.S. has a 74-79% debt to GDP ratio.  Some European countries have higher debt ratios, but S & P’s says those countries have implemented plans that give them a better chance at getting their debt under control (why do you think there’s so much rioting going on over there).  S & P’s says there are no signs the U.S. can get its debt undercontrol.

This brings us the the second reason for the downgrade: The Debt Limit Deal won’t bring down the debt.  The Debt Limit Deal aims to cut government spending by $2.1 trillion over ten years.  Standard & Poor’s says that doesn’t even come close.  They claim at least $4 trillion needs to be cut, and they say $4 trillion would be just a “down payment” against U.S. debt.  Obviously the elected officials in Washington DC still don’t realize the seriousness of the situation.

That brings us to the third reason: Government incompetence.  S & P’s says the lack of performance by elected and appointed federal government officials proves they are not taking the issue seriously: “The effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned.”-Standard & Poor’s

Of course officials at the U.S. Department of Treasury are crying foul.  They claim there are mistakes in the official S & P’s notice of the credit rating downgrade.  S & P’s says they will review it for any mistakes.

 

 

International, U.S.

Russian envoy to NATO reveals planned NATO attack on Syria, says Iran is next

“This statement means that the planning of the military campaign is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa.”-Dmitry Rogozin, Russian envoy to NATO

The “statement” refers to the recent UN Security Council’s statement against Syria.

Rogozin also says the U.S. led NATO attacks on Libya, and the build up against Syria are all part of the “west’s” plan to invade Iran, and finally take total control of the oil rich region: “The noose around Iran is tightening. Military planning against Iran is underway.  And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region.”


U.S.

United Police States of America: Anonymous political cartoonist to be arrested for posting cartoons about bad cops

Mr Fiddlesticks is wanted by the Renton Police Department, in Washington state.  The anonymous cartoon poster’s crime?  Stalking police by making cartoon parodies of real life cases of bad police behavior.

A local Washington media source broke the story.  The actual court documents show that the local police department is simply out to avenge the parodying of actual cases of cops who got caught misbehaving: “…discussed a past incident that has already been investigated….regarding a dating relationship (a female detective) had with a suspect.”-from the actual search warrant

An attorney who specializes in cyber law says the police action is pathetic and the case won’t stand up in court: “The cyberstalking angle doesn’t pass the laugh test.  It’s a serious stretch and I’d be surprised if somebody looked at it and realistically thought these acts actually fit the statute and we could make somebody criminally liable.”-Venkat Balasubramani

This tells me that the Renton Police Department are afraid that Mr Fiddlesticks might reveal some bad cop behavior that has yet to be made public, and they want to stop him before it happens.

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Ford, GM, Chrysler; can we trust their sales and profit reports? U.S. auto sales actually stagnating

Ford and GM reported profits in July.  They also reported increased U.S. sales.  Ford claims 9% increase, GM an 8% increase, while Chrysler claims an incredible 20% increase in U.S. sales.

This while Japanese car makers Toyota and Honda reported that their U.S. sales crashed by more than 20% each.

Despite Chrysler reporting a 20% increase in sales, they claimed a net loss in profits, from buying back stocks from the U.S. taxpayers (interestingly the U.S. taxpayer also lost money).

Ford reported a small 9% increase in sales, but a big increase in profits.  One reason is because they jacked up the prices of their cars.  According to one report, the price increases accounted for $900 million of Ford’s profit.  Profiting by inflation.  Ford’s Chief Financial Officer, Lewis Booth, said they expect a drop in U.S. sales in the second half of 2011.

GM reported a small 8% increase in July sales, with a profit of $2.5 billion.  Remember GM still owes U.S. taxpayers for the bailout.  However analysts say now would be a bad time for taxpayers if GM decided to buy back its taxpayer (U.S. Treasury Department) held stock.  Just like the Chrysler buy back taxpayers would lose big time.  Most of GM’s sales came from pickup trucks.  The problem is that GM still has a surplus of pickup trucks, equal to a 115 day supply.  In order to get the surplus inventories down GM will continue with planned factory shut downs, that means more people out of work.  GM officials also expect the second half of 2011 to be hard on sales.

Mitsubishi reported an amazing 41% increase in July sales, while sales for most other Japanese companies stalled or crashed.

German car makers did well: Volkswagen reported a respectable 21% increase (not counting their AUDI brand).  Mercedes had a 13% increase.  BMW increased by 11%.

British companies Jaguar and Land Rover went in opposite directions, with Jaguar down 0.3% and Land Rover up 22%.

The problem is that you can’t go by percentages.  Here’s an example: Even though Toyota’s U.S. sales for July were down 22.7%, they still sold 130,802 vehicles in one month.  Compare that to Chrysler’s huge gain of 20%.  In July they sold 112,026 vehicles, still less than Toyota.

For another example of how percentages can deceive, let’s look at Mitsubishi and GM.  Mitsubishi reported an amazing 41% increase in July, but the actual number of vehicles sold that month was only 7,972.  GM reported a 8% increase in U.S. sales.  Sounds small, but the actual number of vehicles they sold in July is 214,915.  That makes GM the sales leader, however GM officials pointed out  they’re still stuck with a surplus of vehicles to sell.

So, is the auto industry on the rebound, or not?  Overall light vehicle (cars & pickup trucks) sales indicate that the auto industry stagnated in the month of July.  Car sales down 3%, pickup truck sales up 4.8%, almost cancelling each other out.

Data from Autodata Corp

 

International, U.S.

Proof that the U.S. military is controlled by Christian Crusaders: USAF “ethics” course is an in your face course on Christianity

30 U.S. Air Force officers revealed that a nuclear “ethics” course they were required to attend was nothing more than a promotion of Christianity, and a bad one at that.

The course constantly referred to biblical quotes, and quotes from Christian saints.  Most of the justification is based on versus from the Old Testament. I like to point out that there were no “Christians” in the Old Testament.  Also, the course uses Saint Augustine’s “Christian” justification of war.  Augustine was born more than 3oo years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth.  Augustine made the statements in order to justify the continued war mongering of the newly Christianized Roman Empire.

One part of the ethics course even stated that Christians view nuclear war as a good thing.

I’d like to remind people that no Hebrew official can speak for Moses, just as no Imam can speak for Mohammad.  And definitely no Saint can speak for Jesus of Nazareth.  Here’s a quote from the New Testament: Mathew 5:39; “But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”-attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, New American Standard 1984 edition

Amazingly (well, from my experience, maybe it’s not so amazing) USAF officials claim they never realized there was anything “Christian” about the ethics course.  The U.S. Air Force has been teaching the officer ethics course for nearly 20 years.

The USAF says they’ve stopped teaching the course.  There is a detailed report at truth-out.org.  Also the original USAF powerpoint presentation was made available online, you can find it at the Washington Post website.  It was after the presentation hit the internet that the USAF stopped their nuclear “ethics” course.