San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

Daschle's wife is a big time lobbyist...Whenever a poiliticians wife is set up as a lobbyist or given a plum seat on some board of directors - it is nothing more than a "soft bribe"...The recently impeached Illinois governor was just blatant about it when he said "I got this f__ valuable thing and I am not gonna just give it away"...

Don't forget Hillary...

Clinton Gets Most Lobbyist Money.

This is from a year ago and she certainly has less pull as Sec of State, but I doubt those "undisclosed contributors" care what her title is.

It will be interesting to watch the reaction of the people who thought that Obama was the resurrection of "The Camelot Days" as Obama continues to break more of his campaign promises.
I'm not saying that McCain (or any of the other candidates) would have been any better but when you have a man like Obama whom so many so-called news journalists and t.v. talking heads swooned over and gave him a free pass while not treating all the other candidates in a similar fashion who is breaking his own rules and promises less than a month into his Presidency..............I just wonder how many of these same people (along with the people who crossed party lines with their votes and helped to put Obama in the White House) will think he's so wonderful if he keeps up this blatant, two-faced hypocrisy?

Bummer.

Too bad Phelps wasn't announced as Secretary of Swimming, because then we could claim that Obama has a "Cabinet Full of Stoners."

afx: You say it like it's a bad thing. Maybe a whole group of stoners running things ain't such a bad idea. We'd have a lot less (if any) wars, music would return to the heyday of the 1960s and 1970s (Jimi, Led Zep, The Rolling Stones) and we'd all be eating KFC and Hostess products on a much more regular basis.

I'm not sure that the last item is a net positive, but who doesn't like KFC and Twinkies? Or Ding Dongs?

http://chris-floyd.com/component/content...

How many times do you have to see it? How many times must it be shoved in your face, crammed down your throat, brought down on your head like a ton of bricks, before you get the picture? When it comes to the lineaments and methods of empire -- war, murder, torture, extortion, and deceit -- there is no difference, none whatsoever, between the hip, cool "progressives" in Team Obama and the gaggle of militarist goons who preceded them.

The comely mask of the new regime was torn away -- once again -- in a scandal that exploded in Britain on Wednesday. With unprecedented harsh language, two of Britain's high court judges revealed that both Bush and Obama officials have strong-armed the British government to quash evidence of the torture of a UK resident held captive in the American concentration camp on Guantanamo Bay. The judges said that the Bush-Obama officials threatened to stop sharing intelligence about terrorist threats against Britain unless the Brits played ball and stopped court hearings in the case of Binyam Mohamed.

Given this grave threat to British lives, the clearly angry judges said they had no choice but to stop the proceedings after the extraordinary intervention of UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who delivered the U.S. ultimatum. Once the story broke, the unctuous Miliband denied that his American masters had issued a direct threat. But the judges -- stalwart even stodgy Establishment figures both -- were clear about what had happened. As the Guardian and the BBC report:

The government was accused last night of hiding behind claims of a threat to national security to suppress evidence of torture by the CIA on a prisoner still held in Guantánamo Bay. An unprecedented high court ruling yesterday blamed the US, with British connivance, for keeping the "powerful evidence" secret...

Two senior judges said they were powerless to reveal the information about the torture of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born British resident, because David Miliband, the foreign secretary, had warned the court the US was threatening to stop sharing intelligence about terrorism with the UK.

In a scathing judgment, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones said the evidence, and what MI5 knew about it, must remain secret because according to Miliband, the American threats meant "the public of the United Kingdom would be put at risk"....

The judges said they wanted the full details of the alleged torture to be published in the interests of safeguarding the rule of law, free speech and democratic accountability.

...In a telling passage, the judges said: "Given (the documents') source and detail, they would ... amount to powerful evidence". None of the contents at issue could possibly be described as sensitive US intelligence, they said.

In further stinging comments they said: "Moreover, in the light of the long history of the common law and democracy which we share with the United States, it was, in our view, very difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.

"Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be." The judges said yesterday: "It is plainly right that the details of the admissions in relation to the treatment of (Mohamed) as reported by officials of the United States government should be brought into the public domain."

Ah yes, but our poor stalwarts are laboring under a tragic delusion: that they are dealing with democracies "governed by the rule of law." What they are really confronted with is an arrogant imperial power looking to protect its elites from prosecution for capital crimes, with the craven, sniveling collusion of bootlicking errand boys across the sea. If I were a British citizen -- as two of my children are -- I would be deeply ashamed of this display of subservience.

This fiasco is a disgrace, even that punk Chris Mathews has put away his knee pads and bib at this point. Even though I knew he was nowhere near qualified for the job, I could not have imagined he would make this many mistakes this quickly. God help us when he has to make a decision that really matters.

You people sound a bit 'sensitive'.

"Oh, the dishonesty!! <oooohhh...> Lobbyists!"

- 9/11 / Bin Laden...

- Iraq War / WMD...

- Hurricane Katrina...

- Terry Schiavo...

- Economic Meltdown...

Speaking to the GOP on behalf of the majority of this country? You lost. If you had any class you'd quit whining. At least for a little while. We've got real problems on our hands.

My money says you keep whining...

You mean the way the Dems didnt whine during the Bush Admin. ???? Now I agree that he efed up a lot of things and deserved to be called out. Tell me Gandalf..... why should Obama be any different? In a lot of peoples minds he has made some very poor decisions in his first couple of weeks in office and looks like he is to make some more. The freaking bipartisan hipocrisy is laughable.

See my post on 'interesting' thread. Honestly, I'm not that impressed with cabinet nominations, esp. Daschle and the tax-cheat Geithner. There were even problems with that Richardson guy, and he seemed like he was pretty capable. But I don't know that I care that much at this point. What's the moral? Nobody in D.C. is clean? It's pathetic.

However, what stands out to me more right now is the degree of outrage being generated on the right. The amplitude is just fake. It's having it's intended effect though, which is to influence the press negatively, which undermines a new President, which hurts our ability to cope with some MAJOR problems. We're facing unprecedented problems right now, we don't need to be piling on -- it's not helpful.

Just some background, I used to be GOP. I can't stand them anymore. They sold us out. I'm not an Obama-maniac. Libertarian and anti-repuglican. I like Ron Paul. It's a measure of our times when fringers like Kucinich and Ron Paul sound sane (half the time). And Ron Paul has been on the spot with Greenspan and this banking crisis right from the start. Ron Paul should get a medal.

Look, I'll be the first to admit if Obama's a big failure. I don't want him to be though. The magnitude of the shit we're facing is enormous, and the GOP should leave it alone right now, pitch in to try and make things work.

It's a measure of our times when fringers like Kucinich and Ron Paul sound sane (half the time).

That's the F#@K'n problem that they are considered fringers. The systemic choices are not different on major policies. They only main difference between the two parties are the constituants.

In the corporate-crafted and money-dominated swamp that passes for “representative democracy” in the U.S., concentrated economic and imperial power open and close doors in ways that preemptively suffocate populist potential. Big money is not in the business of promoting genuine social justice or democracy activists

Understanding public policy as a mechanism for the upward distribution of wealth, it promotes empire and inequality by underwriting the smothering K Street culture and the revolving door that feeds it—not just lobbyists themselves but the entire interconnected world of campaign consultants, public relations agencies, pollsters, and media strategists—without whose favor and assistance serious presidential bids are next to unthinkable.

I am starting to loathe Obama and the Democratic congress dearly, though not as much as I despite Bush.

If Bush had had the media in his back pocket like obama then he would have been a hero.

Obama is even more incompetent then I had feared. Its obvious to anyone that has ever ran anything that Bush was much more competent and professional then this Obama character.

Its a shame that this country elected a guy who has never had a real job other then teaching law or in politics, who never proved he was eligible, who never released any records associated with his college days, and who never released his sat or lsat scores.

My guess is that Obama's IQ is no higher then 110 or so and total dunce. A tool for the Socialist Democratics.

John

From Wikianswers: "What were Barack Obama's grades in college?"

Barack Obama has not released transcripts for his grades from Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law. He has also not released his SAT and LSAT scores. No explanation has been offered for not releasing them.
Per the Wall Street Journal September 11, 2008, "Obama's Lost Years," Obama graduated from Columbia University (to which he transferred after his first two years at Occidental College in California), with a degree in Political Science without honors, so had a GPA less than a 3.3. His roomate Sohale Siddiqi indicated Obama itially felt alienated, felt "very lost," and used drugs to get high, which could have led to low grades initially. The roomate indicates that he then turned serious and "stopped getting high." Obama transferred to Columbia because he was concerned with urban issues. Based on his overall undergraduate GPA of less than a 3.3, Mr. Obama's admission to Harvard Law School may reflect affirmative action statutes, low grades early, then higher grades later (purely speculation) and/or other factors.

At Harvard Law School, Obama graduated Magna Cum Laude, which, according to the Havard Law School website, is awarded to the top 10% of Harvard Law School students.

Also at Harvard Law School, Obama was accepted as one of 85-90 Editors of the Harvard Law Review, out of an estimated 1,000 students from the 2L and 3L classes that might have sought this honor. Obama was also elected President of the Law Review, which according to a Harvard Law spokesperson is not based at all on academics, but on other measures as would occure in any club.

Hah I love you John.

Name one thing that your hero Bush ran so successfully.

Oil company? Nope
Baseball team? Nope
The USA? Nope

And remind me, what was Bush's GPA again? 2.35? Was he accepted to Yale on affirmative action as well? He was accepted because of his last name. If that's not affirmative action, I don't know what is.

Lets recap what you've brought out against Obama: he's Muslim, he's not American born, and now he was a bad student? What next, his dog is a secret gay satan worshiping illegal alien from Mars? Is that all you've got?

That made me laugh out loud...

I think it's more of an indictment of the defense contractor industry that you can't find someone that can take the no. 2 position without some lobbyist connection.

But don't let logic get in the way of how defense procurement works.

Ah, John. Showing that typical ignorance on-line. It's good to be anonymous eh?

So you post that Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law, i.e. in the top 10% so that proves that he's not smart?

I would say that I'm surprised at your logic, but considering that you're quite impotent at formulating your arguments, I'll just let that slide.

And let's not even go into Bush's grades and how that works out for Ivy League legacies. What's more offensive: affirmative action or legacies? Oh, yeah, you're a Republican, so buying influence is A-OK. Got it.....

And I'd rather be a Socialist Democrat, then an anti-science, creationist loon, but hey you picked your party.

Fair enough, but name one thing Obama ran at all.

A campaign that blew everyone else out of the water, including the all-but-crowned first female president in US history.

Besides being able to form basic sentances, I see one primary difference so far between Obama and Bush.

Obama's cabinet is being filled with dishonest politically connected self serving cheat, who at least initially appear to be highly qualified for the job that they are appointed to do.

Bush's cabinet was filled with dishonest, politically connected self serving cheats, who absolutely didn't have a clue how to do the job they were appointed to do.

I think the lesson here is that any and every politician is going to be surrounded by the stink of corruption and lobbyist influence. Not a single one of them will smell like a rose in this environment. But some politicians will actually make an attempt to legislate in a way that actually benefits the most Americans, not just a few well connected Wall Street buddies. Obama at least for now, appears to be trying to fix some things, even if he is still a true politician, and therefore inder the influence of "the interests" to borrow a phrase from Homer J. Stokes.

John, does this look to you like Obama has the media in his pocket?

That goes with this...

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?dia...

I just got laid off at ABC
and my best friend works at CNBC.
They don't want Democrats on air. We've been only booking Republicans because "everybody already knows where the Democrats stand"
After all, what are the Democrats going to do? complain? It's the liberal media, right?
I was in a meeting last week where our producer flat out said we needed to "bring Obama's approval ratings down"
Everyone who got laid off this week was an Obama supporter.
Surprised?

Strange goings on in the empire...

Well if Obama was a scion of a political family with millions of dollars, I'm pretty sure he would have had the opportunity to run an oil company into the ground with the family money and to invest in the Rangers with said money.

And when did being a failed businessman become a necessity on the presidential resume? Oh, wait, is there a cause and effect about not being able to take care of your own money and not being able to take care of our country's money. Hmmmmm.

Shoot, we also forgot to mention that he was pretty good at avoiding duty in Vietnam. Guess you guys are proud that all those chickenhawks that didn't serve were brave enough to send our boys into Iraq on a lie? Kudos!!

Duke: The irony here is: So what? Who cares how smart Obama is or how stupid Bush was? The problems we're facing now are so far outside of our capabilities to handle them it beggars description.

In case no one has noticed, the FED has been throwing stupefyingly large sums of money at this problem, and to no avail. This is a worldwide problem and there are no easy solutions, in point of fact, there may be no solutions at all that work.

I think Obama is no different than any other politician, but that really doesn't matter. The fact that I think he's doing his level best doesn't matter, either. All of the lofty rhetoric in the world ain't gonna talk us out of this one. He could be friggin' Pericles of Athens giving the finest oration the world has ever seen and it doesn't matter.

Let's also be clear and fair about one thing: This economic train wreck has been approximately three decades in the making, so let's not throw it at Bush's feet. He has plenty that he should answer for, but not this.

Allan, my turn. What's your take on this stimulus effort? Part-congress, part-Fed. Part quantitative easing, part jobs support. Nobody serious believes Obama or anybody else is going to 'save the day'. That's talking point bullshit. We're in a big mess.

I guess my question is, what do you think will happen? Obviously, they're trying to monetize the imbalances, bring the system back into balance. Do you think it will work? What do you see for 2010? 2011? Is it the new Great Depression? Dictatorship "Arraya-style"? Perhaps things turn a corner by 2010?

Let me ask this another way, when will San Diego housing start to appreciate again? And I need a specific month and year... <ha,ha>

Dictatorship "Arraya-style" haha

I suggest that everybody watch this.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

This is strictly a scientific look at our monetary system. No economic dogma or tinfoil.

Money and energy are too sides of the same coin. The fed can't print energy and that is all that matters. There is no "turn-around" we are in for a transformation. I suspect it will be bumpy.

Yeah, I'm with ya', Arraya. All in good fun.

And I agree, BTW. We do have a bit of a problem with facism. It's manageable though, correctable. Obama's taking things in the right direction. There will be resistance. And eventually progress.

And I'm a little more optimistic on the economy long-term. I think we're going to invent our way out of the underlying energy constraints, and when we do it's going to be a huge economic boom.

Short-term is a disaster though.

Gandalf: Short answer? I have no friggin' idea. We appear to be playing out of the Japanese playbook, circa 1990, and we all know how that worked out.

I believe that large-scale infrastructure spending is definitely needed in this country, especially in light of the fact that much of our highway and road network dates back to the Eisenhower Administration. However, if you look at the stimulus package, much of the spending isn't big enough or well targeted enough to have the necessary impact.

As far as "quantitative easing" goes: Well, that's just short hand for printing money, right? From an Econ101 standpoint, I do remember that running the printing presses long enough would probably generate sufficient inflation to enable significant debt destruction. It seems that Bernanke and Company are trying to kickstart M0 (the so-called "power money") and break through or out of the credit crunch and they're gonna run the printing presses till they do, or die trying.

Will any of this work? Like I said, I have no friggin' idea. But I will say that I don't see the US going fascist. Not to draw any odious comparisons to the 1930s, but they're instructive at least in the sense of the divergent directions that the US and most of Europe took.

The US possesses the world's largest military, we are still the world's reserve currency (for as long as that lasts), we have abundant natural resources and enjoy (to steal the British term) "splendid isolation".

I think that life as we know it will profoundly change and for the better. I think a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle will do all of us some good, especially the Lexus driving, latte quaffing, narcissistic pricks in the group.

I think San Diego RE rebounds fully on the 2nd of March, 2012 at 11:17a. Just guessing there.

Gandalf-I come to piggington with a radical voice for a reason. To let everybody know things are not going to be the same in the future. Despite the tone of my post I am very optimistic. However, optimism is contingent on where you place you bets. I don't bet on this current zeitgeist to last.

We need creativity to devise a new type of economy. It's not coming out of DC. My fear is the USG is not as keystone cop-esque as perceived at least not in the depths of the Pentagon, federal reserve and intelligence agencies. I think the people should have a say what ever social and economic structure emerges. It should not be stumbled upon via crisis.

We are a myopic species via our evolutionary successes. It just is what has worked for us in the 200K+ years this hybrid hominid species has been wondering the earth.

That needs to end. It's time for us to grow up and realize the earth has limits and that very much affects our quality of life.

Okay, now is that Pacific Standard Time? GMT?

Yeah, none of us know obviously. For what it's worth, I think you're not far off. I'm guessing 2011. I underestimated the severity of the current situation though. I'm probably early on the turn-around.

I don't think the stimulus or quantitative easing is going to work out very well. It'll mitigate the downturn to some extent. But I don't think it's going to change the course of events. The numbers are just too big.

This economy is really scary. I know a couple of people in trouble already through no fault of their own. We're not immune either, our particular situation. Business is still going well, but I'm not taking anything for granted.

Hey, one more question... Lexus out of the question, I know. I never liked them anyway. But okay to drive a Volvo? I'm ready for that XC90. Got my KPBS plates and everything. I want it to burn hemp though, alternative energy source. Forget ethanol.