Real Estate will ROCK in 2014??

A naybob of realty, not rationality or reality, sends us the latest from la la land... Real Estate will ROCK in 2014.

The whole diatribe is hung on a single sentence: "These strong projections are based on a promising outlook for the overall economy."

The piece of propaganda is framed on a single paragraph dedicated to how much better the economic stats will be...

but fails to give any factual basis or empirical evidence for the projected improvements.

Toto, I dont think we are in Kansa's anymore, like a hot air balloon, the economy is just going to go up, and everything will be rosy when we get home from Oz.

Sounds like the latest group of statistical paid liars can't put down the crack pipe or stop drinking the kool-aid. So what else is new?

Again, to repeat and rinse your brain of this pollyannish claptrap of a fairytale...

until a durable economic base with decent paying jobs is repatriated, there shall be no recovery, end of story.

Class dismissed.

Elimination of the Entitlement State - Part II

A staunch right winger sends us this:

Top 100 Teacher Salaries for 2011: Phys. Ed Teacher Heads List with $203,154

In 2011 an amazing 14,866 public school employees made more than $100,000, up 18% from 2010’s 12,588. And then? Our brainwashed Naybob natters...

"This is the broken State of Affairs that Barrack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel brought to The White House, and want to bring to the rest of The US.

Yep, the same broken political system of payback that is threatening to bring ruin and collapse to all the cradle-to-grave Socialist entitlement nations of Europe."

We Natter Back...

From 2009: Wall Street banks Citigroup and Merrill Lynch paid 1,400 staff bonuses of $1m or more each, despite being kept afloat by US government money.

From 2011: Big bank compensation, which includes salaries, benefits and bonuses, will likely total $156 billion -- a 3.7 percent boost from 2010 -- and a record breaking number.

Goldman Sachs, which in October recorded its second loss ever as a public company. Still, Goldman employees will take home $362,862 in compensation on average, compared with the U.S. median income of $26,364.

Bankers Join Billionaires to Debunk ‘Imbecile’ Attack on Top 1%

The top 1 percent of taxpayers in the U.S. made at least $343,927 in 2009, the last year data is available, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

While average household income increased 62 percent from 1979 through 2007, the top 1 percent’s more than tripled, an October Congressional Budget Office report showed.

As a result, the U.S. had greater income inequality (The Grand Canyon) in 2007 than China or Iran, according to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook.

Billionaire Warren Buffett, 81, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has called for increasing taxes on the wealthy, as has Patriotic Millionaires,

a group whose supporters include Ask.com co-founder Garrett Gruener and Peter Norvig, director of research at Google Inc., according to its website.

“Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs,” Nick Hanauer, co-founder of aQuantive Inc., an online advertising company he sold to Microsoft Corp.

for about $6 billion, wrote in a Dec. 1 Bloomberg View article. “Let’s tax the rich like we once did and use that money to spur growth.”

Two out of three Americans support raising taxes on households with incomes of at least $250,000,

according to a Bloomberg-Washington Post national poll conducted in October.

The Nattering One muses: This is the capitalist way, bonus paid with our tax dollars.

Witness the new NAZI group think that feeble minded right wingers spew...

Non Christians, Homosexuals, Immigrants, Government Workers, Unions and Pensions... what do they have in common?

They are THE PROBLEM. If you eliminate them, you eliminate THE PROBLEM.

They are the NEW JEW. And nothing could be further from the truth.

This is political divisiveness and Goebbels NAZI credo at its best.

Divide and conquer the masses through propaganda. Tell a big enough lie enough times and the feeble minded will believe it.

If this behavior continues, what will it get us in the end? The rich attacking the poor and vice versa. Oh no, far, far more, baby ducks.

The rich own the lobbyists and the whores on the hill, aka the prostitutes in congress. How do you control the hill?

The rich employ their whores to start initiatives that deal with problems that aren't really problems.

Trying to solve problems that don`t exist is the specialty of the right wingers in congress.

And that is a way to serve some other agenda that is unspoken to by the fake problems.

Examples? Measures to combat voter fraud without instances of actual voter fraud.

Elimination of a proposed EPA farm dust regulation, when the EPA has no proposed farm dust regulation.

A resolution to affirm `In God we trust` as the national motto, when `In God we trust` is already the national motto.

And the latest is, blocking millionaires from receiving unemployment insurance or food stamps. (For those with ADD, refer to our previous post.)

Yeah just eliminate all the entitlements, the Non Christians, Homosexuals, Immigrants, Government Workers, Unions and Pensions, no more problems right?

Wrong. In fact, DEAD wrong. This diviseness over the last 50 years has us rapidly becoming a second class power and well on our way to being a third world country.

The eradication of the middle class, the widening of the Grand Canyon aka the Great Divide (the rich get richer, the poor get poorer) has the ultra rich upper 1% vs the rest of the serfs.

Occupy Wall Street is just the beginning, of the end. This is the end, my friend.

In South America, the Eastern bloc and most third world countries, kidnappings of the elitist rich are a common occurance.

MLB baseball player Wilson Ramos, of the Washington Nationals, had his Venezuelan ordeal and says he is thankful to be alive. In the near term, many here may be chiming the same.

Someday soon, in this country, holding the elite for ransom, will be commonplace. The rich will not venture far from their fortress compounds, without an armed entourage and escort.

Recently in Italy, letter bombs exploded in the tax collectors office. In the middle East public terrorist bombings are an every day occurance.

It would not surprise, if Corporate and government bombings (such as Oklahoma City) start to become commonplace here.

And unfortunately, in our lifetime, if they don't change their greedy, divisive and naughty ways...

You better watch out, You better not cry, Better not pout, I'm telling you why, the people's revolution is coming to town.

Their making a list, And checking it twice; Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice. The people's revolution is coming to town.

The elitist, sexist, racist, anti-humanist throats will be slit, and they will be hung, as they and their assets are bled out, like the greedy pigs they are.

They can't hide and they know who they are, so better to be on the good list, than the naughty list.

Some food for thought and a peak into a potentially bleak alternative future, in the Naybob Zone. Remember, its never too late and never, say never.

Season's Greeting, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

Elimination of The Entitlement State

We have certain entitlements in this country that have been around for generations and remained intact -- Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance.

These are programs that work politically in part because they apply to all of us. They are for all Americans.

When you`re 65, you get Medicare. You get Social Security. When you lose your job, if you have paid into the unemployment insurance program, you get unemployment insurance.

You are by definition entitled to these things, and these things have been a huge success in the story of America.

They are our social safety net. They have kept people out of poverty. They have kept food on the table. They`ve allowed us to retire one day instead of working our entire lives until we die.

But the thing about them is that they are entitlements. And that is as important to what they mean to us as Americans as it is to their political survival.

You get these things if you`re rich or if you`re poor. We do not discriminate by class. As Americans we get them.

The idea of ending unemployment benefits for millionaires is that you fundamentally change a program in order to eventually break it apart.

Making the unemployment insurance program a program that is not for everybody. It`s not for everybody anymore. Instead, it`s just for poor people.

When people with not very many resources are the beneficiaries of a particular program, those people don`t have many resources and that also means they don`t have much political power to protect that program once politicians try to tear it apart.

It`s also because when a program is seen as just being for poor people, that program is susceptible to losing broad public support when it inevitably gets attacked from the right as waste.

When you try to change entitlement programs so instead of benefiting everybody, they just benefit, say, poorer Americans, you set the stage to break those programs apart because the right has come up with really great politics for making the rest of the country resent programs that only serve poor people.

So, suddenly this means drug testing for unemployment insurance. That may seem like a throw-away line in a Republican proposal. That`s not a real problem, why are they working on that?

Well, it is a way to dismantle that as an entitlement. To make us think of unemployment insurance that only applies to poor people.

And that`s why the Paul Ryan kill Medicare thing really isn`t a lie.

But make no mistake. What the Republicans have proposed is actually ending Medicare. I mean, the whole idea of Medicare is that everybody gets it. It`s not something that divides America.

It doesn`t matter if you`re rich or poor. You as an American citizen are entitled to Medicare once you turn 65.

The Paul Ryan plan would end Medicare. It would make Medicare something that not all Americans get anymore, which means it`s not Medicare.

This is about changing the social safety net to make its politics more like welfare politics, and less like Social Security and Medicare politics.

Ask Americans how they feel about Social Security and Medicare. Those programs are more popular than a cold drink on a hot day. Look at that.

Now, if you make those programs just for some people, see how popular they become. Right now, House Republicans are playing chicken again. This time it`s not the debt ceiling or looming government shutdown.

This time it`s almost every adult American getting substantially less money in their paycheck as of January 1st, courtesy of a Republican tax hike on working people. Merry Christmas.

And Republicans are willing to bear the political cost of doing that for the prize of starting to rip our social safety net around the edges.

For the prize of making the American people see the social safety net not as something that we all have...

but instead seeing it as something that other people might need some day. Something that other people might use some day, but never us.

From the : Dec 20th Rachel Maddow Show

The Nattering One muses: more to come on the right wing divisiveness in our next post.

Recovery? What Recovery?

The Nattering One muses... Long Term Unemployment, Foreclosures and the Ghost Inventory are up. Well, at least one thing is going down, Housing Prices.

This is for all the pollyannas who think that a recovery is under way and the economy has turned the corner...

The omission is... the economy flipped over three times, struck a tree and burst into flames.

Read em, weap and NEVER FORGET, dangling chads in Florida, shady Diebold machines in Ohio, and ALL the IDIOTS (now politically reinventing themselves) that voted for Shrub Jr and Chaney's eight year reign of terror are DIRECTLY to blame.

Now, Now, baby ducks, you do have something to look forward to, as we've nattered all along, we haven't bottomed yet and the worst is yet to come.

Long Term Unemployment Up

The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.

The number of unemployed has been roughly stable this year. Yet the number receiving benefits has plunged 30 percent.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent — a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

The Census Bureau says unemployment benefits kept 3.2 million people from slipping into poverty last year. It defines poverty as annual income below $22,314 for a family of four.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that each $1 spent on unemployment benefits generates up to $1.90 in economic growth.

Foreclosures Up

The U.S. foreclosure rate has climbed to its highest level in seven months, suggesting that lenders are moving beyond a "robo-signing" scandal that had temporarily slowed bank takeovers, according to a private firm that tracks the activity. This could dry up the pipeline of inventory and improve the market for a time, but a major uptick in foreclosures might hurt the market later.

Home Prices Down, Ghost Inventory Up

Record low mortgage interest rates appeared to have put a floor under home values this summer. After falling steadily last winter, the CoreLogic index flattened out this summer.

But the latest drop leaves home prices 4.1 percent lower than they were in September 2010.

The outlook for home prices remains clouded by the continuing wave of foreclosures that has left the market with many more sellers than buyers.

Some banks have slowed the pace of foreclosures to avoid adding more unsold inventory to their books. As lenders slash prices of foreclosed properties, those “distressed” sales force prices of all homes lower.

"The acceleration in the rate at which the CoreLogic house price index is falling reflects the slowing in the pace of job creation and wider economic growth earlier this year," said Paul Diggle, a housing economist with Capital Economics.

Though mortgages are cheap for those who qualify, banks are only lending to those with top credit scores. Some would-be buyers are waiting for signs that prices have bottomed.

Demand has also been held back by the millions of American households that are “underwater” –- owing more on their loan than their house is worth.

“Against this backdrop, we don’t think house prices will post consistent gains for at least another two years,“ said Diggle.

There were 3.5 million homes on the market in September, or about 8.5 months’ worth of supply based on the current level of demand, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Housing analysts generally figure that supply and demand are well balanced with about a six months’ supply of homes.

But with millions of foreclosures stalled in the courts or on hold by banks, there is a large “shadow” inventory that continues to weigh on prices. Diggle figures there are about 4 million homes in that pipeline.

Credit Based Inflation or Why We're Not in Kansas Anymore?

Credit inflation helped inflate home prices and in turn forced people to borrow even more money to make home purchases. This is the web of debt that caught the population in a never ending loop.

Why does the FED target 2% inflation but not 0%? Inflation makes sure that savers are punished. If people are allowed the save money to buy their homes, then the cycle will end. Thus SAVING and paying CASH must be blocked at all costs.

Never forget that the FED works for the banking industry and makes sure that bankers earn interest at the expense of the rest of the population.

The best thing Americans can do to improve their life style is to avoid taking mortgages.

This is going to prevent the financial industry from making a claim on people’s 30 year earnings for simply creating money out of thin air.

This is outright robbery of the people. This practice of usury must be declared illegal. This is no different than slavery.

But bankers are organized where as the people are not! Individuals and not a powerful lobby which faces the bankers. Thus each individual is helpless and at the mercy of usurers.

All of the prices, and salaries you see around you were based on inflated credit that happened over 50 years. It is based on a money supply that is almost entirely bank credit.

People borrowed and borrowed and spent. The amount of money borrowed reached sky high. You earned in good times! Now, everything is reversing course!

What’s going on with the world’s economy? Foreclosures are up, unemployment is skyrocketing - and this may only be the beginning.

Some think the cause is reckless government spending. Bur even financially conservative countries like Ireland are in trouble.

The true cause of the economic problem is the debt based monetary system.

Could it be that solutions to the world’s economic problems are embedded in the most beloved children’s story of all time, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”?

The yellow brick, the emerald city of Oz, even Dorothy’s silver slippers were powerful symbols of author L. Frank Baum’s belief that the people (not the big banks) should control the quantity of a nation’s money.

The bottom line: No More National Debt. All our money is created out of debt. But nations don’t have to borrow money from banks.

Sovereign nations can create their own money (debt free) just as Abraham Lincoln did. But will it not cause inflation if we let the government simply print money?

Well, banks are already creating money out of nothing and it is causing inflation as we all know it. We might as well collect the interest ourselves!

Banks, finance and insurance profits should be made by the people and for the people. Not by the elite and for the rich.

Excerpts above from Web of Debt.

The Nattering One muses... A debt free monetary system is the fix. If you want the truth, dare to watch this award winning 2 hour documentary "The Secret of Oz".

Take the time to learn how the bankers going back to Christ have put the screws to the populace. History keeps repeating itself.

As Col. Nathan Jessup nattered: "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth."

The Rise Of The Planet of The Apes

The Nattering One muses... The Autumn of Protest has sprung into full winter discontent...

what started last month in Spain, has gone viral and global.

It seems we are not the only ones sick and tired of the ascendancy of the house of finance and the same old song spoon fed by the elitist ultra rich.

It also seems that perhaps we are moving one step closer to what we have heralded in these pages as "necessary" many a time.

The status quo of those in charge will always do as the song says, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss "...

If you want change, real meaningful change, there is only one way to get it and perhaps we are closer than most want to think or believe.

Remember PLANNING IS ESSENTIAL and UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.

There is power in numbers, NOW is the time to "COME TOGETHER RIGHT NOW".

A day of worldwide protests inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States began Saturday with the hundreds of people gathering in cities from Japan and South Korea to Australia.

Organizers had hoped to see non-violent demonstrations in 951 cities in Asia, Europe, South America and Africa in addition to every state in the United States.

A website called 15october.net urged the people of the world to "rise up" and "claim their rights and demand a true democracy."

"Now it is time for all of us to join in a global non violent protest. The ruling powers work for the benefit of just a few...

ignoring the will of the vast majority and the human and environmental price we all have to pay. This intolerable situation must end," the website says.

Minority of violent demonstrators stretch into evening, hours after tens of thousands of people join global 'day of rage' against bankers, politicians.

Hundreds of hooded, masked protesters rampaged through Rome in some of the worst violence in the Italian capital for years Saturday...

torching cars and breaking windows during a larger peaceful protest against elites blamed for economic downturn.

Sydney: "I think people want real democracy," said Nick Carson, a spokesman for OccupyMelbourne.Org.

"They don't want corporate influence over their politicians. They want their politicians to be accountable."

The crowd cheered a speaker who shouted, "We're sick of corporate greed! Big banks, big corporate power standing over us and taking away our rights!"

Danny Lim, a 67-year-old immigrant from Malaysia, said he moved to Australia 48 years ago in search of opportunities.

Now he no longer trusts the government to look after his best interests. He thinks Australia's government has become too dependent upon the U.S. for direction.

"The big man — they don't care. They screw everyone. Eventually we'll mortgage our children away," Lim said.

Taiwan: "we are Taiwan's 99 percent", saying economic growth had only benefited companies while middle-class salaries barely covered soaring housing, education and healthcare costs.

They found support from a top businessmen, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp Chairman Morris Chang...

who told reporters in the northern city of Hsinchu that Taiwan's income gap was a serious issue. "I've been against the gap between rich and poor,"

"The wealth of the top 1 percent has increased very fast in the past 20, 30 years. 'Occupy Wall Street' is a reaction to that. We have to take the issue seriously..."

Korea: The protesters, who have adopted slogans and imagery used by those in the U.S., say the rally is designed to...

motivate "99 percent of Koreans" to complain about the actions of the wealthiest "1 percent," the paper said.

"The situation is the same in South Korea (as the U.S.), where the financial institutions have speculated to earn high profits in a short time, creating victims," the coalition said in a statement, the Herald reported.

London: Spyro, a 28-year-old who has a well-paid job and did not want to give his full name, summed up the main target of the global protests as "the financial system."

MSNBC: Protests go global

October 15th.net

The New Kid - Wish Me Luck Part II

Our last post elicited this response from a Naybob of Transport...

Hey *********, I am amazed you found that commercial or that I even still remember it as vividly as I did. It still gives me the creeps.

I hope you did not take my comments on my observations at McDonalds as Racist because nothing could be further from the truth, but rather as you stated, an observation I have witnessed over the years.

I do have to tell you that I do take personal exception to some of your comments.

In particular

“This is why UNIONS are a necessary evil, TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL against the profit motive AKA GREED, and no Gordon Gecko, greed is NOT good.

Workers must unite in all industries and at all levels, to prevent management from abusing the populace under the profit motive and outsourcing to labor at the margin.

Unchecked and left to their own devices, management will ALWAYS abuse the rights of the individual in favor of the capitalist creed.”

You knew I had to comment on that. Some management will abuse the rights of the individual that has been proven, but not all.

I do more for my employees than any employer I have ever worked for. I pay well, I provide great benefits, I treat everyone equally. I provide free insurance...

I match their contributions on their 401k plan, I pay for time off, and I have a great bonus plan that have paid every employee every year at year end.

i.e profit sharing, and everyone gets it including the janitor. No union does what I do for my people.

I even lend money to my employees interest free when they need it and no one else will, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Not all management is evil and corrupt or only make decisions in favor of capitalist greed. We are a capitalist system, and unlike the government if I don’t make money we go out of business.

Making a profit is not evil. When I make money I invest it back into the business. One day if I’m lucky enough when I sell my business I will make a little money.

Having worked with the UAW and the Teamsters, I can tell you that not all unions work in the best interest of their members either.

Deals and trade offs at the expense of one or many is a common practice on their part.

Some things we can control and others we cannot. However, people do have to think for themselves, and the Government cannot be the sole answer to every problem.

I cannot think of one government agency that is run efficiently, can you? Every single one of them is inefficient.

In the private sector, inefficient businesses go out of business. In the public sector, inefficient businesses just keep on keeping on.

The last group of people I want making decisions for me are government bureaucrats and Unions are no better. If you have ever served on a labor committee like I have, you know what I’m talking about.

Somewhere in our not too distant past our generation was never taught basic economics from our parents or teachers, and ignorance spreads more ignorance to our children following in their parents footsteps.

Our teachers don’t understand it, and now most parents it seems. The Government certainly can’t.

If businesses or individuals spent like the government we would all be locked up behind bars. I took the initiative to learn on my own as I know you did.

Every Government regulation breeds more regulations, and when it comes to corruption I have yet do work with a union boss that was not corrupt. Most are still behind bars.

On a personal note, I don’t work 12 hours a day 6 days a week and invest everything I have in my business and employees so that I can perpetuate socialism...

so that the next guy who is not willing to take the risks and responsibility or work the hours needed to achieve success required then earns the same as I.

I’m also sick and tired of hearing that I’m not paying my fair share when I am taxed to death as it is and if the Obama administration has it’s way I am going to be paying a whole lot more.

You see I’m one of those greedy rich people that does not pay his fair share.

I did not become successful off the sweat and backs of others hard labor without rewarding them handsomely and doing the same in return. I am right there with all of them.

As you known, my business is a capital intensive business and heavily dependent on labor. I have more than quadrupled my employment workforce with high paid wages...

i.e. averaging over $50,000 a year and I do strictly with Americans, using strictly made in America equipment.

Interesting to hear and feedback you receive on today’s rant from an unnamed trucking guy.

The Nattering One muses... Our system (which is neither democratic, nor purely capitalistic)...

is run by and geared for the big corporations. Draconian in nature, they control the political and economic system.

My Naybob of Transport is a Republican, nobody is perfect. Neither are unions, greed and personal gain often trump the common good.

Moreover, this Naybob is a small businessman, one whom the system is becoming increasingly unfriendly and discouraging towards.

The system needs to be geared toward small domestic business, not big global multinationals.

If only all large corporations would treat their people the same as my friend treats his, we would have far less qualms about the abuses inherent to the system.

The New Kid - Wish Me Luck

Click here to first to watch the one minute commericial: The New Kid - Late 80's McDonalds Advert, then come back and read below.

In response to yesterdays post's - Recession's Act Two & The Double Dip, a Naybob of Transport notes...

Good morning *********, or should I say Mr. Naybob

I always enjoy your nattering’s as depressing as they may be, and I agree with you most of the time.

I too feel that we are already in a second recession. If it looks, feels, smells and tastes like sh*t, there is a good chance it is, even if the Government wants to call it something else.

Anyway you cut it, it’s still sh*t, and Obama’s jobs bill is an utter joke as well. There is not one thing contained within it that would prompt me to hire someone that I wasn’t already going to hire anyway. Sure I’ll take the credits but they would be better off leaving as is.

When you use the terms Gutless and spineless, you are being way too nice in my opinion.

My personal net worth has dropped by more than 50% in the past 2.5 years, so forget about my prior plans for retirement.

I just might be that 90 year old man in the old McDonalds Commercials walking out the door in his new McDonalds Uniform walking to work on this first day on the job with his new employer, waiving to my wife with my cane saying “Wish Me Luck”.

I don’t know if you ever recall that commercial but it gave me nightmares. They were trying to recruit older folks that needed a little extra income, but to me it was a nightmare. A total failure of the system.

They tried to make it look like fun, you know get out of the house and be productive. I looked at it as work your ass off all your life and then what do you have to look forward to in your final days?

Wiping down tables at McDonalds, working with people that don’t even know how to count change unless they look at the picture buttons on the register and earn top dollars at minimum wage.

(The Nattering One muses... the next passage may seem racist, but it is just an observation of this individual.)

Stopping at McDonalds and observing who is working there is one of the many gauges I use to determine how bad the economy really is.

When the economy is bad, you will find mostly white people working there. When the economy is a little better you will see mostly white and some african american.

When it’s doing ok you will see a mix of african american and some hispanic. When the economy is humming along you will find hispanic supervisors, an almost all Hispanic work force...

with few african americans and virtually no whites unless of course you are in the middle of corn field USA. I have been observing this for years.

As you know, the majority of my employees are blue collar. I pay on the very high end of the scale but from what I see of these guys in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s are living check to check to check with no savings.

They have no skills other than driving, and they have no money. A nice flat screen TV, but no money.

Very few employers offer any sort of pension program and 401k’s have surely shown what can happen. It’s amazing how many people don’t even have a 401k.

The vast majority of our generation will be looking to Washington for handouts when they get older because they have not saved a penny, or we will be an economy of minimum wage geriatrics.

The meat wagons will be coming by daily to pick up the dead bodies as we drop like flies on the job from old age. “Wish me Luck”.

The Nattering One muses... Tonights offering for your acceptance, submitted for your approval....

Most often heard phrase at Walmart or McDonald's, often being uttered by an employee over the age of fifty...

"Welcome to Walmart, how can I help you?" ; "Would you like to Supersize that order?"

We have noted many a time in these pages about the new world disorder in which one is expected to work till they die...

This is why UNIONS are a necessary evil, TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL against the profit motive AKA GREED, and no Gordon Gecko, greed is NOT good.

Workers must unite in all industries and at all levels, to prevent management from abusing the populace under the profit motive and outsourcing to labor at the margin.

Unchecked and left to their own devices, management will ALWAYS abuse the rights of the individual in favor of the capitalist creed.

What part of FOR PROFIT, did you NOT understand?

We defer to the Grass Roots song "Live for Today":

When I think of all the worries people seem to find
And how they're in a hurry to complicate their mind
By chasing after money and dreams that can't come true
I'm glad that we are different, we've better things to do
May others plan their future, I'm busy lovin' you (1-2-3-4)
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
And don't worry 'bout tomorrow, hey, hey, hey

This is also why PENSION plans, public and private MUST exist. Left to their own devices, individuals will NOT plan for the future.

Again, individuals as a group can muster better placement, control and return's on their nesteggs.

Individual 401K's are nothing more than a Wall Street broker scam to make more managment fees off the individual.

Remember PLANNING IS ESSENTIAL and UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL. There is power in numbers, NOW is the time to "come together right now".

Recessions Act Two

Recession's second act would be worse than the first

By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer

Fresh evidence of a global economic slowdown has raised fears that governments around the world may be powerless to reverse it. If the world does fall into back into recession, it could be much harder to escape than the contraction that ended in 2009.

With banks still recovering from a decade-long credit bubble, governments slashing spending to cope with unsustainable debt, and unemployment at levels not seen in decades, a new recession would be “disastrous,” according to Roger Altman, a senior Treasury official in the Clinton administration.

“We could be in for a repeat of the experience of 1937, when America fell back into recession after three years of recovery from the Great Depression,” he wrote in the Financial Times.

Altman was referring to the fact the global downturn of the 1930s technically included two U.S. recessions, from 1929 to 1933 and again from 1937 to 1938. U.S. unemployment peaked at over 20 percent in the 1930s, according to historical estimates, and did not decline significantly until factories began gearing up for World War II.

Two years after the latest U.S. recession technically ended, evidence continues to build that the weak recovery is stalling out. The U.S. economy stopped producing new jobs in August after a string of mostly meager monthly job gains that failed to bring the unemployment rate below 9 percent.

On Thursday, fresh data showed the Eurozone's service sector contracting for the first time in two years; a separate index of the manufacturing sector, which has provided much of the region’s growth, slowed for the second month in a row.

A global stock sell-off that dragged market indices to their lowest level of the year spread to the U.S., where the Dow Jones industrial average was down nearly 400 points.

Until recently, there were hopes that emerging economies in places like China and Brazil could prop up global growth until a stronger recovery took hold elsewhere. But China’s two biggest export markets -- Europe and the United States -- are struggling, and that has cut into demand for Chinese goods. A report out Thursday showed that China’s factories slowed for the third month in a row.

"There is a global slowdown,” Jeavon Lolay, head of global research at Lloyds Banking Group, told Reuters. “There is no doubt the risks of a global recession have grown."

That’s also the opinion of Federal Reserve policymakers, who said Wednesday they saw "significant downside risks" to the U.S. economy after deciding to launch an unusual program of reshuffling $400 billion in Treasury holdings to try to push interest rates lower.

But with interest rates already at record lows, few expect the program to do much to increase the demand for loans. Businesses face weak demand for their products and services and consumers are continuing to work to pay down their debts. Though mortgage rates remain at record lows, millions of homeowners are unable to refinance their higher rate loans because they owe more than their home is worth.

Some analysts argue that the Fed’s latest move (dubbed Operation Twist because it “twists” the relationship between short- and long-term rates), will hurt economic growth because it will squeeze bank profits and lower the income consumers earn on their savings. Public and private pension funds, already under strain, will be even more badly underfunded because they’ll have to set aside more money to generate the same amount of cash to pay retiree benefits.

“In a couple of weeks (Operation Twist) will be a subject for economic history, and the main discussion will be that the Fed is grasping at straws,” former Fed governor William Poole told CNBC. “I think that they have thrown lead into the life preserver, and they are sinking.”

‘Slow motion train crash’

European central bankers appear increasingly unable to contain a widening banking crisis, sparked by the threat of bond defaults in Greece and Italy, Europe’s third-largest economy.

The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that Europe and the United States could slip back into recession next year without bold action

"We are seeing a slow-motion train crash in the euro area, where credit contraction risks leading to a new recession by Christmas unless governments face up to the task swiftly and forcefully," Martin Enlund, market strategist at the Swedish bank Handelsbanken told Reuters.

Policymakers in China, the world’s third largest economy behind the U.S. and EU, face their own set of tough choices. Rapid growth rate has fueled inflation that is running at a double-digit rate, according to analysts -- much higher than official targets. To contain inflation, Beijing has raised interest rates five times and lifted banks' reserve requirements nine times since October. If it clamps down too hard, though, a deeper economic slowdown could reverse China's efforts to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

China is also coping with a banking hangover of its own, after years of massive government lending for expansion of state-owned enterprises an infrastructure upgrades.

"There is a two-tier system within China and I think the lending that's taking place and the percentage of nonperforming loans is now at a level that is disturbing," David McAlvany, chief executive at McAlvany Financial Group told CNBC. "Ultimately, (China's banks) will have to see some comeuppance."

Recessions Act Two

The Double Dip

The Nattering One muses... long ago in these pages we predicted the double dip.

We keep hearing all these stories about recovery from the pollyannas we know. We quip, what recovery?

The markets are jury rigged and contrived, witnessed by the stock market level and real estate prices being completely false.

As stated before, the equation is simple...

Bail out all you like... until real durable economic jobs are created domestically, there shall be no recovery.

We differ with Mr. Altman in only one aspect, inflation is anything but negligible and tame.

Much like the guvmints unemployment number at 9%, the inflation number at 3% is missing something... the truthful number one in front of it.

19% and 13% would be accurate numbers for unemployment and inflation respectively.

In Greece it's reported that something like 50% of ALL jobs are Government or Government related. Outside of tourism and olive oil they produce NOTHING.

Greece have been in technical default fo something like 100 of the last 150 years. They have no industry that exists anymore that they can even tax to make it look as if they are even trying.

We have institutionalized and fed a dysfunctional and corrupt, gluttonous, slothful, over-paid and under-performing Government for decades. WE ARE GREECE.

We have stated many times that globalization and outsourcing to labor at the margin are nothing more than euphemisms for global corporate rape and pillage.

This is what happens when the special interest lobbyists run everything, and our government is no longer for the people and by the people, but for the corporations and by the rich upper 2%....

you outsource everything and turn to globalization, you wind up with a soft non durable service based economy...

dependent on the largess of others to patronize you with loans and tourism.

We can't come to a budget deal because the layers of corruption overlap on so many levels, and we have no national will to self-correct.

Everything is broken, and the leadership we've elected whether they be Republican, Democrat, Tea Party, Libertarian or Independent...

are just spine-less jellyfish and pawns of groups that don't want to compromise on anything that they have control over.

It's a total catastrophe, a failure of epic proportion. We have failed at every level, Main Street, Wall Street, The Financial System, everybody and every institution is corrupt and lazy.

As Jonathan E.(James Caan) said in the original Rollerball: "It's like people had a choice a long time ago between having all them nice things or freedom. Of course, they chose comfort."

Bartholomew (John Houseman): "The game was created to demonstrate the futility of individual effort."

"Corporate society takes care of everything. And all it asks of anyone, all it's ever asked of anyone ever, is not to interfere with management decisions."

There are no heroes. We're just spineless sputem of our forefathers and we've squandered the whole deal.

Ladies and gentlemen, will you stand please for the playing of our Corporate Hymn.

America and Europe are on the verge of disastrous recession

Roger Altman

September 21, 2011

Interest rates on US, German and UK government bonds have fallen to all-time lows. Yields on 10-year US Treasury securities, for example, are below two per cent.

That is the lowest recorded since the Federal Reserve began publishing market data in 1953.

In addition, yields on the inflation-protected 10-year Treasuries are zero. These are nearly incomprehensible levels whose implications are profoundly negative. Namely that Tuesday’s International Monetary Fund report is quite correct to warn that America and Europe are on the verge of renewed recession.

It is only the anticipation of negligible demand for capital and negligible inflation ‑ both hallmarks of recession ‑ that could drive rates this low. For the American and western European economies to decline again, when unemployment levels are already so high, would be disastrous.

It would shock consumers, businesses and financial markets. Fearful, they would retrench further, causing the economic decline to accelerate. Weak labour markets would get even worse, as would the already swollen government deficits and debt.

Overall, we could be in for a repeat of the experience of 1937, when America fell back into recession after three years of recovery from the Great Depression.

How do we know that another recession is approaching? For starters, there is no other credible explanation for the relentless fall in interest rates.

Yes, monetary policy is on maximum ease and that controls short-term rates. Safe haven psychology also is at work. However, these cannot explain such low yields on longer-term government and corporate bonds.

Further, bond markets usually signal recession through an inverted yield curve, when long-term rates are lower than short-term ones. Technically, this is impossible now, as short-term rates are zero. But, the recent movement in long-term rates is the equivalent.

Moreover, recent US and European economic data conveys serious weakness. US household net worth has begun to fall again, and jobless claims have been rising for several weeks.

Retail sales are flat and consumer confidence is hovering around modern lows. Onshore corporate liquidity has reached a record $13,000bn, which signals that businesses are uncertain over the outlook.

Across the Atlantic, the trend is also poor. Neither Germany nor France grew in the second quarter. Household consumption in the eurozone actually fell during that period.

Moreover, the European Commission is forecasting only 0.2 per cent and 0.1 per cent growth across the region for the third and fourth quarter respectively. The worsening of the sovereign debt crisis surely means that actual results will be worse.

It is the debilitating sovereign debt crisis in Europe that is pushing both regions back towards the brink. It is causing credit conditions to tighten again for sovereign credits, weaker borrowers and small and mid-sized business. It also is suppressing consumer and business confidence and the export outlook.

The never-ending nature of this crisis was avoidable. At every opportunity Europe’s leaders have delayed, taken the tiniest steps possible and generally averted their eyes to the elephants in the room.

Yes, everyone knows that the country-by-country politics are difficult, starting with Germany. But the risk of another Lehman-like market collapse and subsequent economic contraction is huge.

Faced with this, European leaders must confront the politics. Instead, their grudging incrementalism is deepening the risks. Implicitly, this was the message behind Treasury Secretary Geithner’s presence in Poland last week.

A single currency representing 17 separate nations inevitably requires a unified balance sheet behind it and, following that, a form of fiscal union. The time for denying the latter is over.

The European financial stability facility must be enlarged exponentially so that it can stand behind nations such as Italy or Spain. In addition, the mandate of the European Central Bank must be expanded.

Just like the Federal Reserve, it should be responsible for maintaining a sound banking system and stable capital markets. This requires a permanent capacity to finance banks directly, just as a group of central banks did last week.

It also requires the flexibility to buy and sell sovereign debt securities in secondary markets. These reforms must be accompanied by tighter, eurozone-wide bank regulation and supervision.

It also requires IMF-like conditionality to accompany direct EFSF loans to member nations. Finally, the ECB should ease monetary policy now as there is no visible inflation risk.

America also must stop its own partisan bickering and undertake one last round of fiscal stimulus. The $447bn job-creation plan by President Obama, or another quick-acting plan of similar magnitude, should be enacted immediately. The Fed should also initiate further moves to promote credit availability and lending.

Another recession would be profoundly damaging to labour markets and public confidence. It would take years to fully overcome.

We must try to avoid such an outcome at all costs. That requires the type of far-sighted leadership that we haven’t seen much of lately.

The writer is founder and chairman of Evercore Partners and former US deputy treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton.

Roger Altmans Financial Times Op-Ed (Registration Required)

The Big Default

Shhh... pay no heed to the man behind the curtain...

Unless an agreement is reached by Aug 2nd, the US Treasury will run out of money to pay its bills.

Most likely, only defense contractors and social security payments would be delayed.

However, in the event an actual default occurs, then a downgrade on US debt ratings will occur.

Those required to hold AAA rated securities must then liquidate non AAA assets.

The cascade created by this public/pension liquidation on CDO and CDS would be like Lehman Brothers 10X...

"The irony of the situation at the moment ... is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few right-wing nutters in the American Congress rather than the euro zone,"

British government minister Vince Cable said on Sunday.

The Nattering One muses... We warned in the past about this. Greece just got its second bailout package. Will Japan and China bail US out?

Read details here.