Originally Posted by playwrite

Ah, you caught me.

Close in someways but not geographic. It's U.E.S.

yea, it's a long walk to WS, but I can take the 4/5/6 trains and be there in 10-15 minutes!

Do you live anywhere near the United Nations?

My uncle, who passed away last year, lived on the Commonwealth, a coop on East 58th Street, between 1st Avenue and Sutton Place. It was very close to the Queensboro Bridge. His unit had a spectacular view of the skyscrapers of midtown, particularly the Chrysler Building.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Do you live anywhere near the United Nations?

My uncle, who passed away last year, lived on the Commonwealth, a coop on East 58th Street, between 1st Avenue and Sutton Place. It was very close to the Queensboro Bridge. His unit had a spectacular view of the skyscrapers of midtown, particularly the Chrysler Building.

Eek, you all are zeroing in!

A couple dozen blocks up and I can't see the UN but I can see the Park - more so now that Solomon finished all the renovations on his 'house' a couple years back.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Maybe some bears can be allowed to live in these places, but not people. Recovery will take a lot longer than you say in both places, from what I've heard.

Let's do what is good; not choose between alternatives, "neither is good."

... Bears? With the deer likely to thrive, a more endangered species -- tigers -- might have a chance there. Of course one would need a tiger barrier as a perimiter. Tigers love ruins, and Chernobyl is about as good a ruin as there could be.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

... Bears? With the deer likely to thrive, a more endangered species -- tigers -- might have a chance there. Of course one would need a tiger barrier as a perimiter. Tigers love ruins, and Chernobyl is about as good a ruin as there could be.

There's like 400-500 radioactive wolves there now -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6sdQ59g_xg

- easy pickings for a tiger when alone, but as a pack, well, 'tiger meat's on the menu, boys!"

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

In October, when asked what should be done about the housing crisis, Romney told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom."

Romney is mainly right with this one. I could make a case of allowing homeowners who are current to be able to refi even if current appraisals will not support it, but in general, holding off foreclosure is only a way to prolong the agony.

James50

Originally Posted by playwrite

There's like 400-500 radioactive wolves there now -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6sdQ59g_xg

- easy pickings for a tiger when alone, but as a pack, well, 'tiger meat's on the menu, boys!"

Short of an elephant, rhino, or hippo, about anything is potentially on the menu of Canis lupus in a large pack. That includes familiaris subspecies as a pack.

That Aussie's post about Britain should be required reading, especially for "orthodox" economic thinkers like our own James. The Brits are replaying their experience in the 1920s-1930s. Incredible.

Originally Posted by James50

Romney is mainly right with this one. I could make a case of allowing homeowners who are current to be able to refi even if current appraisals will not support it, but in general, holding off foreclosure is only a way to prolong the agony.

James50

The problem with the housing recovery is the underwater mortgages. If someone just can't afford their house then foreclosure may be the only option. The problem with the underwater mortgages is people that CAN afford them are walking away after doing a cost-benefit analysis. Something major breaks, a roof leaks (or there is a job relocation) in an underwater home and sayonara, it is now the lender's problem, as the homeowner figures it just isn't worth the cost. They can't sell it. As the problems spirals downward more and more people find themselves at the point that they can justify walking away. Especially if they tried to work out a short sale or mod with the bank and got the runaround.

Originally Posted by James50

Romney is mainly right with this one. I could make a case of allowing homeowners who are current to be able to refi even if current appraisals will not support it, but in general, holding off foreclosure is only a way to prolong the agony.

James50

The whole problem here is that banks are being allowed to do what they want. They screwed all these homebuyers with mortgages they can't pay, and now the homeowners can't pay them. What is required is for the banks to be required to refinance these mortgages. That's the only way to deal with the housing crisis, which is a crisis of being not being able to pay mortgages with interest that is too high. This is the problem that caused the recession, and so dealing with it will help the economic recovery. Obama has made a start at doing this, and needs to do more. Romney and the Republicans are just creeps who don't want to help anyone, in order to preserve their stupid ideology. They all deserve to be thrown out of office on their behinds, and Romney should be buried in a landslide just for making this stupid remark.

Along with all the other stupid remarks he's made... now let's see if I can remember some of them. Oh yes, corporations are people. I'm not interested in the poor people; they are already taken care of. I'll bet you $10,000, and yes the $350,000 I got for speaking engagements last year was just a little money. I think someone needs to keep a list. Oh, and "I like firing people;" that's another good one!

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It's decisions and policies like this that illustrate what I mean about the Repubs:


quote:

Obama took veiled aim at the Republican front-runner on a potent issue for voters in Nevada. In October, when asked what should be done about the housing crisis, Romney told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom."

The president, not mentioning Romney's name, told an audience in Falls Church, Va.: "It is wrong for anybody to suggest that the only option for struggling, responsible homeowners is to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom. I refuse to accept that, and so do the American people."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,2242057.story

Boehner said the same thing yesterday. Trickle-down economics ideology prevents them from doing anything to require banks to clean up the mess they caused and help the people. We must let things take their course. Don't interfere with the free market. This is ALL the Republicans offer, and they don't offer it just because someone pays them money to offer it. They offer it because they are hooked on Reagan ideology and think it works to their political advantage.

"Trickle-down economics" is an archaic concept on the right. Unlike in the 1980s, today there isn't even the pretense of anything trickling down - it's all about punishing the "lazy" poor who aren't paying any federal income taxes (even though they are paying the brutally regressive payroll and state sales taxes, except in Oregon and maybe one or two other states), not having any wealth trickling down to them.

Back in the 1960s the Czech Communists glowingly spoke of "Communism with a human face." The trickle-down rhetoric represented Social Darwinism with a human face - but today's Republicans have dispensed with the cosmetics.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The whole problem here is that banks are being allowed to do what they want. They screwed all these homebuyers with mortgages they can't pay, and now the homeowners can't pay them.

I think there should be some level of personal responsibility. Many people lied about their income to get loans and that is the other part of the problem. The left and the right both have something to blame the housing crisis on.
Left- Banks were irresponsible
Right- Government policies to get everyone a house led to the recession.
The funny thing is they are both kinda right.

What is required is for the banks to be required to refinance these mortgages. That's the only way to deal with the housing crisis, which is a crisis of being not being able to pay mortgages with interest that is too high. This is the

I think you are correct about this and I'm surprised we, as a nation, haven't done anything about it. I guess the 1T gets here when everyone realizes they are dependent on everyone else. On the whole America isn't there yet.

Originally Posted by James50

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

... In October, when asked what should be done about the housing crisis, Romney told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom."

Romney is mainly right with this one. I could make a case of allowing homeowners who are current to be able to refi even if current appraisals will not support it, but in general, holding off foreclosure is only a way to prolong the agony.

James50

Just by way of reference, this sounds remarkably like the comment by Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, that we should allow the depressin to liquidated everything and the system will be restored to health.

No matter how much things change, they still remain the same.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Just by way of reference, this sounds remarkably like the comment by Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, that we should allow the depression to liquidated everything and the system will be restored to health.

Or like any doctor, ever, with his diagnosis that a gangrenous limb must be amputated. Of course, it's no guarantee of health just to clear off the rot, but keeping the rot attached is a surefire way to make things never get better. One step at a time, and all that..

What happens when the GOP builds its entire election strategy on a jobless economy and opps -

Unemployment rate hits 8.3 pct. after hiring burst
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Economics Reporter – 3 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers went on a hiring spree in January and drove down the unemployment rate for a fifth straight month to 8.3 percent, its lowest point in nearly three years.
The economy created 243,000 net jobs, the most in nine months, and the unemployment rate fell two ticks.
Employers have added an average of 201,000 jobs per month in the past three months. That's 50,000 more jobs per month than the economy averaged in each month last year.
The Labor Department's January jobs report was filled with other encouraging data and revisions. Hiring was widespread across many high-paying industries. Pay increased. And the economy added 200,000 more jobs in 2011 than first thought.
And the unemployment is nearly a percentage point lower than over the summer, when feared a recession was imminent. The last time the unemployment rate has dropped for five straight months was in late 1994.
Lower unemployment is a positive a sign for President Barack Obama's reelection hopes. Still, he's likely to face voters with the highest unemployment rate of any post-war president.
The unemployment rate fell even as more people began looking for work. But a much larger number said they found work.
More jobs and higher incomes should help consumers boost spending and increase economic growth.
Job gains in November and December were revised upward to show that an additional 60,000 jobs were created in those two months.
The government also issued its annual revisions to jobs data going back five years. They showed that hiring was stronger over the past two years than previously thought. The economy added about 1.82 million jobs last year, nearly twice as many as in 2010.
Even with the gains, the job market faces a long way back to full health. The nation has about 5.6 million fewer jobs than it did when the recession began in late 2007.
Several reports signaled this week that the economy is improving gradually. Manufacturers expanded at the fastest pace in seven months in January, a private survey showed.
And fewer people sought unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said. The four-week average of applications fell to its second-lowest level since June 2008. The drop shows that companies are cutting fewer jobs, which usually leads to more hiring.
Americans spent more at big chain retail stores last month compared with a year earlier. And automakers began 2012 with a strong sales gain in January. Healthier auto sales can boost a range of companies, from steel makers to parts suppliers to shippers.

I guess they go back to complaining about two guys on the wedding cake, hey?

Originally Posted by playwrite

What happens when the GOP builds its entire election strategy on a jobless economy and opps -



I guess they go back to complaining about two guys on the wedding cake, hey?

Or Obama's "appeasement" of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Originally Posted by pizal81

I think there should be some level of personal responsibility. Many people lied about their income to get loans and that is the other part of the problem. The left and the right both have something to blame the housing crisis on.
Left- Banks were irresponsible
Right- Government policies to get everyone a house led to the recession.
The funny thing is they are both kinda right.


I think you are correct about this and I'm surprised we, as a nation, haven't done anything about it. I guess the 1T gets here when everyone realizes they are dependent on everyone else. On the whole America isn't there yet.

Everyone is irresponsible in a 3T (which is also proof that 9/11 was not the start of the 4T).

Originally Posted by pizal81

I think there should be some level of personal responsibility. Many people lied about their income to get loans and that is the other part of the problem. The left and the right both have something to blame the housing crisis on.
Left- Banks were irresponsible
Right- Government policies to get everyone a house led to the recession.
The funny thing is they are both kinda right.


I think you are correct about this and I'm surprised we, as a nation, haven't done anything about it. I guess the 1T gets here when everyone realizes they are dependent on everyone else. On the whole America isn't there yet.

Sometimes, the bank lied for them. Why not, when the bank that originated the loan didn't really have worry about repayment. It was other people's money; other people's problem ...

Originally Posted by pizal81

I think there should be some level of personal responsibility. Many people lied about their income to get loans and that is the other part of the problem. The left and the right both have something to blame the housing crisis on.
Left- Banks were irresponsible
Right- Government policies to get everyone a house led to the recession.
The funny thing is they are both kinda right.


I think you are correct about this and I'm surprised we, as a nation, haven't done anything about it. I guess the 1T gets here when everyone realizes they are dependent on everyone else. On the whole America isn't there yet.

I agree everyone was looking for a free ride all the way around. No, the mortgage companies should not have enticed people with risky, ARMs. No, the real estate agents shouldn't have pushed properties on people that really couldn't afford them. No, the appraisers shouldn't have overvalued the properties so that the deal would go through. But there comes a point when people do have take responsibility for their own personal actions. The buyers were greedy and unrealistic too. There is plenty of blame to go around. But there does come a point when people need to stop pointing the finger at others when they make a bad decision for themselves and say "they made me do it."

We also bought a home during the peak of the housing bubble because my husband's got transferred. And yes, the mortgage company did approved us for twice the amount of what we bought our home for, but we also knew the mortgage company was full of it. We knew we couldn't afford a house for what they were willing to loan us.

Originally Posted by ASB65

I agree everyone was looking for a free ride all the way around. No, the mortgage companies should not have enticed people with risky, ARMs. No, the real estate agents shouldn't have pushed properties on people that really couldn't afford them. No, the appraisers shouldn't have overvalued the properties so that the deal would go through. But there comes a point when people do have take responsibility for their own personal actions. The buyers were greedy and unrealistic too. There is plenty of blame to go around. But there does come a point when people need to stop pointing the finger at others when they make a bad decision for themselves and say "they made me do it."

We also bought a home during the peak of the housing bubble because my husband's got transferred. And yes, the mortgage company did approved us for twice the amount of what we bought our home for, but we also knew the mortgage company was full of it. We knew we couldn't afford a house for what they were willing to loan us.

You have provided a good assessment. Many people and groups are at fault, not just one.
If any crimes were committed , I hope that justice will be served.

Originally Posted by radind

You have provided a good assessment. Many people and groups are at fault, not just one.
If any crimes were committed , I hope that justice will be served.

If people haven't been brought to justice by now, I doubt they ever will be.

I do think the ones who will really pay the price are all the people who are living in areas in the biggest boom areas during the bubble. Places like Florida, Nevada and California which had the largest rises in prices, have also had the biggest drops in home values. Making it much harder for these areas to recover.

As we go through recovery from the recession I think these will be places that will take longer to recover. Generally not all areas of the country recover from a recession at the same rate. There were plenty of areas in the middle of the country or in rural areas which didn't have big housing booms. Although their real estate values did increase, it wasn't anything like real estate values we saw on the coasts or in major cities. Even during the height of the bubble there were still plenty of place in US where housing didn't skyrocket. For those places, I guess slow and steady does win the race.

And speaking of recovery, it's all over the news about the unexpected, very good, drop in unemployment. Thanks to the numbers from January, the unemployment rate dropped from 8.5 to 8.3. Still high but that is an improvement from the 10% back in January of 2009. They showed a chart of how many jobs were lost due to the recession back in 1/09. Of the 4 million (something) jobs that were lost, we have gained back 3 million (something) jobs...sorry I can't recall those exact figures. But at any rate, the net we have to still make up is 1.2 million jobs. Economist says they think if we continue on with the recovery at the pace we have been on the past 5 months, most of those jobs could be made up by the November election.

And wouldn't that be rather ironic if the red states and areas recover from the recession faster than the blue states and areas recover under a Democratic president?

And finally, if we are back on track and the economy does come back to pre-recession numbers in the next year or so, does that mean the crisis is over? Just wondering...If not, then this crisis is not about the economy or the recession.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

"Trickle-down economics" is an archaic concept on the right. Unlike in the 1980s, today there isn't even the pretense of anything trickling down - it's all about punishing the "lazy" poor who aren't paying any federal income taxes (even though they are paying the brutally regressive payroll and state sales taxes, except in Oregon and maybe one or two other states), not having any wealth trickling down to them.

That's just what Reagan said in the 80s. It's all the same philosophy, and it's very simple and well-defined.

Back in the 1960s the Czech Communists glowingly spoke of "Communism with a human face." The trickle-down rhetoric represented Social Darwinism with a human face - but today's Republicans have dispensed with the cosmetics.

They are certainly even more extreme and unfriendly. But they still spout the same idea that their policies will create jobs and bring growth, and they spin miles of talking points saying exactly that until they are blue in the face. So I don't see any difference.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Just by way of reference, this sounds remarkably like the comment by Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, that we should allow the depressin to liquidated everything and the system will be restored to health.

No matter how much things change, they still remain the same.

Same free market philosophy, aka trickle-down economics, social darwinism, "classical" liberalism, libertarian economics, laissez faire; same animal, no matter what name you call it. People are spouting the same philosophy that didn't work in the time of Hoover, and that doesn't work today.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Same free market philosophy, aka trickle-down economics, social darwinism, "classical" liberalism, libertarian economics, laissez faire; same animal, no matter what name you call it. People are spouting the same philosophy that didn't work in the time of Hoover, and that doesn't work today.

I think "trickle down" can only avert disaster when there is a shared sense of responsibility, a strong social contract voluntarily upheld by the elites who disproportionately benefit from it.

In the 1980s the social contract hadn't been torn to shreds yet. Some liberals will insist that Reagan was the catalyst, and sure, maybe his presidency was a factor -- but it takes decades for the implied social contract to break down from its post-WW2 1T and 2T responsibilities to the "fuck everyone else, I have mine" mentality among today's elites.

So given there was still *some* sense of shared social responsibility 30 years ago, there was *some* trickle down effect as many working/middle class households were getting raises above inflation, unemployment was still low, and social services hadn't *yet* been slashed to the bone. (Reagan's years started slowing the growth in social spending here, I think, but it took many years to bring it to where we are today.)

Today there is very little social contract left. It's become social Darwinism to a significant degree. And with that comes a mentality that folks who are economically down on their luck are only that way because of their own bad choices in life (as witnessed in Herman Cain's statement about the unemployed). With little social contract left in place -- with today's "everyone for themselves" mentality -- trickle down is a failure. Helping the elites make more money is only a viable economic plan as long as those elites return the favor with looking after some who would otherwise be left behind.

If under-regulated capitalism has no conscience, it becomes plutocracy.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

I think "trickle down" can only avert disaster when there is a shared sense of responsibility, a strong social contract voluntarily upheld by the elites who disproportionately benefit from it.

In the 1980s the social contract hadn't been torn to shreds yet. Some liberals will insist that Reagan was the catalyst, and sure, maybe his presidency was a factor -- but it takes decades for the implied social contract to break down from its post-WW2 1T and 2T responsibilities to the "fuck everyone else, I have mine" mentality among today's elites.

So given there was still *some* sense of shared social responsibility 30 years ago, there was *some* trickle down effect as many working/middle class households were getting raises above inflation, unemployment was still low, and social services hadn't *yet* been slashed to the bone. (Reagan's years started slowing the growth in social spending here, I think, but it took many years to bring it to where we are today.)

Today there is very little social contract left. It's become social Darwinism to a significant degree. And with that comes a mentality that folks who are economically down on their luck are only that way because of their own bad choices in life (as witnessed in Herman Cain's statement about the unemployed). With little social contract left in place -- with today's "everyone for themselves" mentality -- trickle down is a failure. Helping the elites make more money is only a viable economic plan as long as those elites return the favor with looking after some who would otherwise be left behind.

If under-regulated capitalism has no conscience, it becomes plutocracy.

Yes, it is getting worse and the social contract is fraying badly, worse now than in the 1980s. But... trickle down had "some" effect???

I have to trot this out again; it's still the best:

http://youtu.be/z5CCRI1vdwE

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Yes, it is getting worse and the social contract is fraying badly, worse now than in the 1980s. But... trickle down had "some" effect???

In the short term I think it did, at least in terms of middle class prosperity (at the expense of debt and the *start* of a long dilution of the social contract). Again, this was before the social contract was so devastated that the elites didn't immediately keep all the economic growth for themselves. Now they do, and then some. Thirty years of whittling away at it is what put us where we are today. They couldn't immediately get from the 1960s social contract to today's; people wouldn't stand for it. But like the proverbial frog in a pot, you turn up the heat very slowly so it doesn't realize it's being boiled alive.