Pouty princess refuses to visit soldiers because she can’t get a private jet. Maybe the English princess should ask Pelosi for a private jet. Also, the US is bankrolling a foreign bank which is buying a Texan bank that went bankrupt. Good grief, talk about insane. Housing bankruptcies continue to relentlessly rise faster than house purchases. Nearly half of all housing in Florida are ‘underwater’ which reminds me that half of Florida housing will be literally ‘underwater’ if global warming continues..
First, another news story about my favorite ‘real ruler’ family: the British Royals. They pretend to not rule but legally, they can and will, if they have to.
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Princess Royal cancels on veterans after RAF leaves her grounded – Telegraph
“The RAF aircraft we had lined up is no longer available and, unfortunately, with taxpayers’ money etc, we are unable to justify chartering a private aircraft on this occasion as this option is extremely expensive,” Fran Eason, the Princess’s secretary, had emailed the organisers.
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“I am truly sorry to give such disappointing news at this late stage and send our sincere apologies to all those attending.”… .
…”The Princess Royal was obviously the main attraction and, without her, there would seem little point in going ahead with it,” he said. “If the Princess Royal is at Balmoral, I would be willing to pay for her easyJet flight to London myself.
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Note how this spoiled brat of a princess can’t just hop into her own Range Rover and drive the heck to another part of the UK. No, she has to go in style. Even as her own prince brother, the Wailer, is screaming about how we are all doomed if we don’t shrink our carbon footprints, this lazy broad can’t travel unless she is doing this with an immense carbon footprint.
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So she brushes off the chaps who are sent out into the far reaches of the American Empire, to die for her and her icky family. I keep saying, England is one of the few countries that hasn’t finished off their own royals. Time to roll out the guillotines and scare them away. Maybe they can move in with the Emperor of Japan. He can’t seem to keep sane or produce children. Maybe these two wretched inbred families can cross breed and produce some infants.
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Failing Texas Lender Sold to a Spanish Bank – NYTimes.com
Guaranty Bank, a deeply troubled Texas lender, was sold on Friday to Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria of Spain in one of the largest government-assisted deals offered to a foreign firm. .
Federal regulators seized Guaranty Bank and simultaneously brokered the sale of its branches as well as most of the deposits and assets to BBVA Compass, the Spanish bank’s American subsidiary. The government, however, agreed to absorb most of the losses on $9.7 billion, or more than 80 percent, of the Guaranty assets included in the deal. .
The failure is the fourth-largest since the financial crisis began, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation projects that it will cost its deposit insurance fund about $3 billion.
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Good gods! Not only is our government bankrolling and insuring everything here, we are doing this across the planet! Why are we bankrolling foreign takeovers of our own banking system, anyway? This is where philosophical riddles are so important: the concept of ‘patriotism’ is probably the only thing that protects nationalist systems. The US chose ‘imperialism’ after WWII. So we have an imperialist system that rewards this sort of business but does nothing to protect the home base.
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The right wing loves to wave flags and scream patriotic nostrums but then surrenders to foreign powers at the drop of a pin. The left wing simply hates the concept of patriotism, and this comes from the older ideology of internationalist revolutionary liberalisms. Between these two forces we have ‘honest patriotism’ which is where people really do want their home nations to prosper and be defended. But this is a poor political force because it is limited in scope.
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Real patriotism means one wishes to protect one’s homeland properly. For example, this week in Greece, the country is on fire. This is very dangerous and bad. California burns regularly. This is very bad, too. Australia also has similar dangerous fires. Controlling fires, putting in regulations and rules so that people build sane housing and structures so they won’t make fires worse, helping the victims of fires, etc are all ‘patriotic’. Patriotism is an emotion we attached to our political systems so we can work with some sense of unity.
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The US is not unified. We have two political parties which are both totally corrupt, running a national government that has been hijacked to be an internationalist military/financial system and we are terminally confused. Our own government spies on us and plots against us while spying on other governments and plotting against them and round and round it goes! We see from the British story above that the rulers there don’t give a fig about their own subjects. They care only about their own comforts and joys, for example.
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So it is with everyone at the top: they are focused on their own comforts. Like the British royals, they do worry a tad about insurrections, revolutions and riots so they throw sops to the masses. But they also are clever which is why much of the internet opposition is funneled into either the ‘conspiracy theory’ trap or the ‘you must support either the GOP or DNC or the Conservatives or Labour Parties’ trap. The main thing to remember at all times is, the ruling elites are CONSERVATIVE by nature and want PEACE AND QUIET.
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These desires are thwarted by the nature of all dynamic systems: these are unstable. Weather is unstable, whole continents are unstable, the earth is unstable. No status quo can last forever. Indeed, the time of stability is always very short, by the very nature of the dynamics of the systems. Whatever system anyone sets up, it will degrade over time and require resetting and changes.
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The present banking system is very unstable! It needs to change! The central bankers want as little change as possible. The rich investment bankers want a return to the old status quo which made them very, very rich! Even as the system is collapsing, instead of moving on to a better system, we see only attempts at returning to the old system!
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This begs the question concerning the concept of ‘collapses’: OBVIOUSLY, a system is not working if it collapses! Ergo: one must change it! But the parties who benefited from the previous, collapsed system, don’t want to change. They want to continue. So we have a conflict: sane people want change, insane people want the old status quo that failed already. When US banks fail, they must be absorbed into the US financial rescue system, not sold to aliens. These banks should cease to exist and not be kept going so they become profitable for foreigners while we pick up all the risks! This is just a no-go situation by definition.
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CIT Debt Sold to Widows Has Fine Print Pimco Resists (Update2) – Bloomberg.com
As the world’s biggest bond investors cut off funding to CIT Group Inc., the commercial lender turned to retirees for debt financing. .
CIT sold $827 million of debentures designed specifically for individuals between December 2007 and March 2008. At the time, “disruptions” in credit markets led to “the loss of access” to unsecured debt markets, “historically significant sources of liquidity for the company,” the New York-based company said in a July 21 regulatory filing. .
It turns out the professionals were right to stay away. The 101-year-old lender said last month it may go bankrupt after $5 billion of losses in the past nine quarters. Retired salesman Sam Pons of Metairie, Louisiana, said he bought $220,000 of the notes through a broker in February 2008 at 100 cents on the dollar. The securities have since tumbled to as low as 44 cents.
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Governments are supposed to protect investors. That is, government REGULATION is REQUIRED. The infantile ideology of the Friedman Religion claimed that the mysterious forces of nature were sufficient protection for all systems. That is, you take your chances and if you lose, you are a sucker and deserve to die. Only, when the big guys lost, they didn’t die, they shoved their losses onto the backs of the public who are being treated as suckers. This sort of activity can be countered only with INCREASED GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE.
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Now, some radicals online claim, ‘Let the losses happen, who cares?’ This is crazy. History is clear: any government that refuses to save its own people will fall. That is, there will be riots, revolutions and disorders. We see prison riots spreading, a Riot and fire at California prison raged in California this month. Inmates set Kentucky prison ablaze the other day. As states get into financial trouble, there are many cut backs and since the US is a big ‘Law and Order’ nation, we have one of the biggest prison populations per capita, on earth.
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So, while our government is restoring the banking system, other parts of the system are in full collapse. Much of our prison system is due to the war on drugs. Which was launched by Nixon who thought this was a clever way to deal with insurrections in the cities. That is, our major cities were being convulsed with violent riots. After the war on drugs put a major part of the lumpen proletariate into prisons for drug dealing, US cities no longer see mass riots. But this is hideously expensive and is one reason many states are in financial trouble.
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The defrauding of innocent investors who are trust financial advisors is something governments should be worried about. That is, our government exists to protect us. The claim that drug dealers are endangering us is why we basically support (barely) the war on drugs. This is why we also (again, barely) support the wars we are waging against peasants in Afghanistan.
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The majority of Americans are NOT investors nor do they hold gold, for example. So the majority of Americans are not directly interested in what happens to investors. On the other hand, a large proportion of US workers do have 401k programs and so are indirectly interested in what happens to investors. But not enough to agitate to have greater regulation of the sellers of investment vehicles.
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That is, there is no political movement to curb the investment SELLERS. At least, not yet. The investment sellers are very anxious to not have regulations and are pouring money into Congress to prevent any reforms. Just like the healthcare insurers don’t want any changes to healthcare. They fear socialism that works.
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Editorial – Debit Card Trap – NYTimes.com
Moebs Services, a research company that has conducted studies for the government as well as some banks, reported recently that banks will earn more than $38 billion this year from overdraft and bounced-check fees. Moebs also estimates that 90 percent of that amount will be paid by the poorest 10 percent of the customer base.
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Federal regulators who stood idly by while this system evolved are considering new overdraft rules that could provide more transparency. If they do not move quickly and aggressively to protect consumers, Congress should step in. .
Banks have historically covered bad checks for valued clients, who were invited to opt in to overdraft protection or to link their checking accounts to savings accounts or to lines of credit. But as more people began to use debit cards, the banks started to view overdraft fees as a major profit center and started to automatically enroll debit card holders into an overdraft program. Some banks instituted a tiered penalty system, charging customers steadily higher fees as the overdrafts mount.
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First credit card companies were ‘deregulated’ so they could charge usurious fees if one overused a credit card. In the old days, when there was greater government control over credit cards, if you reached your limit, the card was rejected. Now, they don’t do this right away so you end up paying huge fees and higher interest rates if you make a mistake.
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Fees and failures feed the system. That is, people who are prudent, pay on time and careful with their credit lines are not profitable. People who make mistakes, spend too much and are careless are huge revenue makers for the banks. So the banks want few controls and no protections for borrowers. They want borrowers to be barely unable to pay the bankers. These are the people who fork over immense payments in the form of penalties and punishing rates!
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The solution is very simple: NATIONAL GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS! Period. There is no other real solution.
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Troubled Mortgages Hit Record High – washingtonpost.com
The proportion of homeowners delinquent on their mortgage or in foreclosure rose to its highest levels in at least four decades, according to industry data released Thursday, despite extensive government efforts to help borrowers and signs that the economy is starting to heal. About 9.24 percent of borrowers were delinquent on their mortgage during the second quarter, according to the survey, and 4.3 percent more were somewhere in the foreclosure process. Overall, one in eight, or 13.16 percent, of mortgage loans were delinquent or in the foreclosure process during the quarter, according to the group.
. That is the highest level ever recorded by the survey, which has been conducted since 1972, and breaks the high mark set during the first quarter. It is up from about 9 percent during the second quarter of 2008.
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Back when the housing market began to falter, I said that it takes a minimum of 5 years for a real estate market to hit bottom and then finally begin to rise again. So it is here: we are in year 3 of this process. Housing in some sectors has finally fallen far enough to be attractive to buyers again. But the default rate is still higher than the buy rate. That is, more people are going into receivership than are becoming new owners. In two more years, it will finally reverse.
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This is a case where the government regulation isn’t on the side of regulating what sort of real estate loans we have but rather, regulating how much capital bankers must use to make real estate loans and where these loans end up. Right now, over 80% of all real estate loans are ending up in the hands of the government via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If our government is going to own these damn loans, then it might as well WRITE them, too. Why have these stupid middle men who don’t even bother to be slightly careful in screening homebuyers?
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47 percent of South Florida homeowners underwater on mortgages – Breaking News – MiamiHerald.com
As home values continue to show declines compared to a year ago, the percentage of South Florida homeowners underwater in their mortgages grew between the first and second quarter of the year, figures from Zillow.com show.
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Forty-seven percent of all single-family homeowners with mortgages in Miami-Dade and Broward were in a negative equity position at the end of the second quarter, meaning they owed more on their mortgages than their homes would likely fetch on the market.
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And this is why huge real estate bubbles are dangerous. And why government regulations (yikes, that scary concept!!! HAHAHA) come to mind. Bankers want real estate bubbles because it makes them richer! But governments should be leery of these because they are dangerous to life and limb. True, the rising tax base is lots of fun for governments. But they should resist this temptation. Controlled growth and spending is all about balancing all sorts of economic and natural forces. Florida is grossly and dangerously overbuilt. It is a sitting duck for natural destruction via hurricanes and global warming (most of Florida is barely above sea level).
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Right now, I am in them middle of Hurricane Bill. It is raining furiously outside, the raindrops are HUGE. They are splatting to the ground making a lot of noise. Very little wind, though. But lots of floods here. Florida isn’t having any hurricanes so far this year. But you can bet, when the storms resume hitting Florida after this el Nino event is over. Our national government has bankrolled the building of houses right on the edge of the ocean. And these have to be regulated because they are easily destroyed. Just like housing can be easily destroyed by rampant fires as we see in Greece this week. That is, global warming is making it very wet in places like where I live while making it very dry in the Mediterranean, Californian, Pacific Northwestern systems, just for example.
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ems
of course spot on with your analysis..
the constitution a guide for mans hapless flounderings,,, yet disgarded on sometimes a whim’
regulation and laws (which should be upheld by the courts backed by goverment) slip sawed away for the elite
huge pockets of wealth drained from the working class..by a corrupt and compromised congress, and judicial branch.
even the voting booth is corrupted for any change ..
those who could change things from the very top .. brought down with death, \\
what is it the individual can do.?
make some noise lol kick scream .. sometimes on a very local basis a neighborhood can clean up a couple blocks .. or even a local government ,
each in their own way can influence their own environment. Being honest in dealings, washing hands with ivory lol
lifting some local burden, preparing for the eventual effects of lifes happenings. Living yes even in a tent or a shelter and life style that is conducive to thrift and proper management ,
some sort of savings. food stuffs, willing to learn and work with the hands. every one can slip a silver coin into the empty jar,, and in five years be glad they did .
ems
as an aside
the costs of running your site ,,
are you getting some fee=back from the posters. actually this is better than TV which i never watch,, and a hook up for most deals are now $60 a month for basic,
blue
don’t put much faith in those polls that say Americans are as dumb as dirt.
nor do i .. dirt is not dumb.. lol
An old joke about Princess Anne.
Twenty-questions-style tv game show called Name That Object, wherein celebrity panelists are blindfolded and have to guess the object. The panelists tonight are Dame Margot Fonteyn, Richard Burton, and Princess Anne.
Emcee: Right then, let’s bring on our first object and announce it only to the audience.
Whispered voice to audience: The object is – a horse’s cock. A horse’s cock.
Emcee: Ok, let’s start our questioning. Margot Fonteyn.
Margot: Let’s see – is it bigger than a breadbox?
Emcee: Yes – yes, it’s bigger than a breadbox. Richard Burton.
Richard (stroking chin): Hm .. is it – is it something that can be eaten?
Emcee: Er – we need to check with the judges – one moment please. [pause] Yes, our judges say it IS something that can be eaten. Princess Anne.
Anne: Is it a horse’s cock?
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ELAINE: HAHAHHA.
Yeah, the super rich cannot abide any discomfort at all, even for a “good” cause, but they can find ways to bleed a petrified tree trunk even more. From Yahoo News:
“Seniors may perceive that they are being hurt because there is no COLA, but they are in fact not getting hurt,” said Andrew G. Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. “Congress has to be able to tell people they are not getting everything they want.”
Whoa! What did he say? Congress needs to learn to say no? Where was this “think tank” when a bunch of Wall Street con men came to Congress and demanded 5+ trillion or “else”?
Was it hermetically sealed at the time?
This is the same path the Roman Empire took. It gradually, in small increments, crushed each class of citizens financially to pay for its bloated empire, royal family (and hangers on), and the soldiers who propped it all up until no one had anything at all.
I think I understand now why the Roman Empire fell so easily. After hundreds of years of oppression by their own government, even barbarians are viewed and welcomed as “liberators”.
Tea Party Express
The Roman empire hired barbarians to be its mercenary armies. Sort of like the US is doing now.
Global Swine Flu fatalities over the last ten days are averaging about 25/day.
http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/
Yep. A repeat of 1918. Plovering, I hope you and your other suckers understand how things work after people explain them.
The flu season isn’t even supposed to start here and already, young people are dying from it. Only a few a day….250 in the last 10 days….and do you want to be in the next 250? If so, I wish there was somewhere you could volunteer to replace one of the future victims.
Whoops !!!!!!!!!
Canada Considering Healthcare Overhaul With Private Insurance
By Noel Sheppard
Created 2009-08-16 23:36
As President Obama and his Democrat-controlled Congress try to force healthcare reform on an American population largely pleased with the current system, our neighbors to the north are actually considering improving their structure by — wait for it!!! — welcoming additional competition from private insurers.
I kid you not.
Within hours of the Obama administration saying that it might consider a reform package without a government option, the Canadian Press inconveniently reported [1] the following:
The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country’s health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country – who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting – recognize that changes must be made.
“We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press. [...]
[Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA] has been saying since his return that “a health-care revolution has passed us by,” that it’s possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and “that competition should be welcomed, not feared.”
In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.
Oh my! Canada’s government-run healthcare system is in a state of disarray, so much so that they’re considering increasing competition by allowing folks to buy private insurance.
That’ll surely help Obama’s cause!
But here’s the money quote:
“(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now – if it keeps on going without change – is not sustainable,” said Doig.
“They have to look at the evidence that’s being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada’s doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you’re getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it.”
It’s going to be absolutely delicious to see how this gets reported by Obama-loving media in the next 24 hours.
Stay tuned.
WHO KNEW ?????
International Swine Flu Conference held in Washington, DC August 19-21, 2009, including workshops.
“The International Swine Flu Conference reaches the midpoint of its three-day meeting at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill, with panels that include “Limiting the Spread of Swine Influenza Through Effective Swine Carcass Management” and breakout sessions on topics such as “Mass Fatality Management Planning.”
http://www.cesa.net/DOCS/08192009.PDF
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ELAINE: Both bird and swine flues have been around quite a while. The present variant we are worried about this year is just one of several. So it should be no surprise, they talked about this virus in the past. As well as this year. The ‘mass fatalities’ they are discussing is all about a repeat of the 1918 epidemic. They have to worry about this because this is their job. I hope you understand this.
The Canadian Medical Assoc director quote is being grabbed onto by the US insurance industry as proof that private insurance is the way to go. Hahaha. It is a hilarious thought that Canadians (most of whom defend their healthcare system) would approve of a profit-bloated US style system to replace their universal health program.
Are there problems with Canadian system, sure. But she assures in the full piece that there are good points to current system – universality. The problem with their system is the problem with all healthcare systems – public and private …..IT COSTS TO MUCH.
But at least in canada there is a universality of coverage. If you think this piece means they want our system …you are a dimwit.
and no plovering I’m not saying you are a dimwit. My point is that it is erroneous to think that because they are looking to reform their system that they’ve prefer ours.
CANADA HAS A TRADE SURPLUS.
They can pick and choose whatever their hearts desire. We have seas of red ink. We are going to have NO healthcare system at all in the future if we don’t fix this.
END OF STORY.
@charlottemom
Actually, I thought you kind of clever, slipping that personal zinger right past that All-knowing Libra person who runs this asylum.
Maybe you’ll own up to Freudian slip.
I think the present Canadian system is inefficient and unsustainable. An injection of private insurance money couldn’t hurt, and might work wonders.
Canada still pay less on a per capita basis for health care because insurance companies aren’t involved. Our elites have been trying to ruin the system for the past few years with added layers of bureaucracy and cuts to front-line care; however, a HUGE majority of the population still supports universal coverage.
On the other hand, I will admit that I have felt angry taking my ill child to the emergency room only to find it fillled with the dregs of society seeking treatment for self-induced conditions on the taxpayer’s dime.
Charlottemom and PLovering.
I got the following statistics off the B.C. Government’s web site “B.C Conversation on Health” approximately two years ago.
“As baby boomers age, demand on the system increases
$1.47 billion – total of all MSP premiums expected to be billed this year
$3,157 – amount spent by the province annually per person on health care in B.C.
$2,364 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 45 – 64
$5,224 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 65 – 74
$9,841 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 75 – 84
$20,878 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 85 or older
14% – percentage of B.C. population over the age of 65 today
24% – percentage of B.C. population expected to be over age 65 by year 2030″
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ELAINE: The elderly vote. The young goof off. So the elderly get good healthcare while people of productive age get the shaft. At least, here in the US.
CANADA HAS A TRADE SURPLUS.
We also have something odd, at least here in Vancouver, a real estate boom [sort of] supported by chinese money, its playland for wealthy chinese.
Canada pay much less on a per capita on health care because insurance companies are not involved. Our elites have tried the system in recent years, with additional layers of bureaucracy and cuts to the line advanced decay, but the vast majority of the population continues to support universal coverage.
Unable to perform Translation:invalid textOn the other hand, I must confess that I felt angry to see my sick child to the emergency caused to be filled with the dregs of society, the conditions for self-treatment on the taxpayer dime.
Even dregs of society deserve healthcare.
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