2012 archive
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Foreclosures help you get back in touch with nature:
(snip)
The property, which is under foreclosure, is perhaps one of the most spectacular examples of blight caused by the collapse of Miami’s real estate market. But it’s not the only one.
QOTD 0
Charles Dickens, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.
Stray Thought 0
Once upon a time, I thought it shock rhetoric to gain publicity; but, as I watch the antics over birth control and women’s health care from the old white men who run the Republican Party and the Catholic Church, I begin to muse that the thought of being in the presence lady parts which are not under their direct, dictatorial control does, indeed, induce in those old white men some sort of visceral Freudian terror, which compels them to seek control said lady parts.
Taxing Reality 0
At Bloomberg, David Abromowitz points out the the history of the Boys from Bain directly undercuts Republican orthodoxy that taxing capital gains deters investment:
Bain’s haul is further evidence that fair tax rates don’t hold back profit-seeking capitalists, at least until those rates reach a point that no one is proposing. From 1984 until 1999, the top rates on capital gains — the profit from investments as opposed to compensation for work — were often at 28 percent, and never lower than 20 percent. Indeed, in 1987, under President Ronald Reagan, the 20 percent rate rose to 28 percent — a 40 percent increase in potential taxation of Bain investment profit. (Yes, Reagan did raise taxes, even on capital.)
This will, of course, have no effect on Republicans, since their tax policies are founded on one principle: the principle that wishing will make it so.
Great Moments in Wrong Ideas 0
More like “anger mismanagement”:
Talking about picking the wrong place to act out . . . .
Dustbiters 0
I forgot to check whether the FDIC was dining out on the town yesterday evening.
It was. Two more blanked banks:
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Foreclosures still going strong:
“Prices are falling not just at the lower end, but prices have decreased in almost all price ranges,” said Vinod Agarwal, an economist at the university.
Despite the steadily declining number of homes on the market, sales of foreclosures and distressed properties are driving prices down across the region, Agarwal said. Such sales accounted for 37 percent of all sales across Hampton Roads last month.
If I had sold (in)securities that were made up out of thin air liberally mixed with whole cloth, or if I had had unnamed third parties sign my name to applications for mortgages, loans, and other legal papers, then failed to have them legally filed, I would be in the pokey.
We’ve gone from “Too big to fail” to “Too big to jail.”
QOTD 0
Otto von Bismarck, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
From the website:
In 2008, Arturo de los Santos, a former Marine who lives with his wife and four children in Riverside, CA, fell victim to the economic crash caused by the greed of those on Wall Street. Like millions of Americans, he faced the prospect of mortgage default. Arturo was then encouraged by JPMorgan Chase & Co. to deliberately fall behind on his payments in order to modify his loan.
Then, natch, the bank foreclosed.
It’s the best catch there is.
Whistlin’ Dixie 0
Jeffrey (not Jonah) Goldberg analyzes the music from the chorus of Republican racist dog whistles. A nugget:
Mr. Kennedy offers the theory that this campaign’s dog-whistling may be prompted by a realization by right-leaning provocateurs that voters have become inured to charges of racism. I suspect another phenomenon has hastened this realization: A handful of black Republicans have abetted dog-whistling by making their own bombastic statements about the degraded moral health of the black community, the putative foreignness of the Obamas and the Democratic Party’s plantation-like qualities.
“I Never Saw a Purple Cow . . . .” 2
From the Inky:
Before long, the squirrel came back and found itself trapped.
“Even the inside of its ears were purple,” Percy Emert said Thursday.