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CA renter
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=CA renter][quote=FlyerInHi]
By worse, do you mean that the next crisis will undo all the gains since 2009?
As long as we move forward in GDP growth, it really doesn’t matter if we have a next crisis or many more.[/quote]
Yes, undo all of the “gains” since 2009, and possibly more, as the economy was not allowed to realign and purge itself of the bubble-induced misallocation of resources.[/quote]
I think that you’re serious. Imagine what that would to portfolios and pension funds.
I don’t believe that it will happen in my lifetime.[/quote]
We can wish all we want, but if you look at the numbers, it doesn’t look good, IMO.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=spdrun]Why force anyone to do anything? Just charge slightly more to cover the labor costs of an in-person transaction that can also be done through other means.[/quote]
That’s what the post office does now. you get a slight discount if you print your shipping label online.
I believe that banks also charge for teller visits.
I just don’t understand why people insist on waiting in line for what they can do in the comfort of their homes.[/quote]
Some of us like to get outside and be a part of the “real” world. You know…actually talk to flesh-and-blood people.
ParticipantSince you’ve brought this up, scaredy, something that has long bothered me is the inability to fill out forms using a typewriter/computer. (Being a non-techie, if someone knows how to do this, please share!) Are we supposed to fill everything in by hand now?
We had an old typewriter some years ago that we kept around just for this, but it became almost impossible to get ribbons and other parts for it. I really do miss those old typewriters.
OTOH, I remember typing up reports on typewriters. Teachers would have a maximum number of white-outs, and if you went over that, you’d have to type up a whole new page. I was so excited to finally get an old word processor in the mid-late 80s with a floppy drive.
Something like this:
It was so exciting to finally have a way to type things up without having to manually re-type every single page that needed editing!
ParticipantEven if you transfer it to a trust, the individual owner’s name will be available to someone who’s looking for the individual because the transfer and prior owner’s information will be public.
Might want to talk to an attorney or talk to someone in public records. The best way to keep your name out of public records would be to never have the property in your name at all. Not sure that’s possible if you have a recorded mortgage of any kind, as most lenders require everything to be in your personal name.
Participant[quote=phaster][quote=CA renter]
Except that they have been using up all of their ammunition and there will be precious little left when the SHTF moment happens. They have masked the problem by *growing* the problem. The 2008 crisis was more difficult for them to manage than the 2000/2001 crisis, and the next one will be even worse because the numbers are growing larger and the problems are becoming more systemic with every new manufactured crisis.[/quote]to give ya an idea how bad I think it is consider that Fannie Mae and Freddie “The two GSEs have outstanding more than US$ 5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_takeover_of_Fannie_Mae_and_Freddie_Mac
BUT that MBS figure is dwarfed because the unfunded public pensions alone I read is in the 4.1 trillion dollar range, and the real “unfunded” public pension figure basically doubles if one considers health care costs
[quote=CA renter]
There is no smoke, nor any fire, from what I can see. If you have any evidence or reason to believe that there was fraud, please make your case.
[/quote]been checking back every once in a while to see if anyone had something to add/say
http://piggington.com/how_will_unfunded_pensions_affect_economy?page=4
so wondering have I made my case….
As usual, phaster, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You like throwing shit at the wall to see what will stick, hoping that the readers of your posts won’t actually know anything about the issues. Unfortunately for you, you’ve come to the wrong place. If you have some data to back up that $4.1 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities, I’d sure like to see it. Out here in the real world…
“You see, the $3.8 trillion figure was an estimate of total liabilities, not unfunded liabilities. Since the pensions have $2.8 trillion in assets, their unfunded liabilities are just $1 trillion. Or, to put this in terms that may be understandable to Post readers, the unfunded liabilities are 0.22 percent of projected GDP over the next 30 years. And, as I noted in my earlier post, most state and local governments are already funding at levels that are consistent with making up this shortfall so there will no required tax increases or spending cuts to meet these future obligations.”
Nothing like hyperbole and propaganda to work up the uninformed masses!
And this was written in 2013. The unfunded liabilites are even lower now for many public entities, and many of them have already taken steps to pay them off. Add to this the fact that many local government agencies have already eliminated retiree healthcare…back in the mid-90s.
The most expensive cohort of public sector retirees, especially in California, are those who retired/will retire between ~2000 and ~2025 because they get both retiree healthcare AND the enhanced pension benefits in most cases. After that, the elimination of retiree healthcare for many public employees (largely phased in by the mid-90s) will result in an increase in retirement ages — irrespective of when they are technically “allowed” to retire — as these employees work longer in order to maintain healthcare coverage. This is a factor that has NOT been included in many (any?) of the pension forecasts, at least not yet.
Additionally, many employers have enacted a two-tier retirement system, and those employees will have lower retirement benefit formulas in addition to not getting retiree healthcare (though, in many cases, they cost more when they are working).
BTW, that link at the bottom of your post is for PRIVATE DB pension plans, not public (though I would fight every bit as hard to defend these workers/retirees, as well).
From your WAPO link:
“A measure that would for the first time allow the benefits of current retirees to be severely cut is set to be attached to a massive spending bill, part of an effort to save some of the nation’s most distressed pension plans.
The rule would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers, many of them part of a shrinking corps of middle-income employees in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets.
The measure is now before the House Rules Committee and is likely to be moved as an amendment to a massive $1.01 trillion spending bill, perhaps by late Wednesday. It is expected to pass the Senate by Thursday.
If passed, the change would apply to multi-employer pensions, where a group of businesses in the same industry join forces with unions to provide pension coverage for employees. The plans cover some 10 million U.S. workers.”
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=CA renter]
Except that they have been using up all of their ammunition and there will be precious little left when the SHTF moment happens. They have masked the problem by *growing* the problem. The 2008 crisis was more difficult for them to manage than the 2000/2001 crisis, and the next one will be even worse because the numbers are growing larger and the problems are becoming more systemic with every new manufactured crisis.[/quote]
By worse, do you mean that the next crisis will undo all the gains since 2009?
As long as we move forward in GDP growth, it really doesn’t matter if we have a next crisis or many more.[/quote]
Yes, undo all of the “gains” since 2009, and possibly more, as the economy was not allowed to realign and purge itself of the bubble-induced misallocation of resources.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=CA renter]
No, I’m sorry brian, but the *type* of growth does matter. And if it’s the government’s job to protect and improve our standard of living why are so many people worse off today than they were ~30+ years ago, before TRILLIONS of dollars have been pushed into the system in order to manipulate things one way or another. [/quote]You have to distinguish between the Federal Reserve and the Federal government.
The Fed acts through banks to adjust the money supply to economic conditions.
The Federal government has the power to affect GDP distribution.
When the Fed acts alone and provides liquidity, a lot of that is invested abroad for higher returns(good for pension plans). That improves standards of living worldwide. In fact world standard of living keeps on improving.
US GDP and world GDP are standard measures of well-being as imperfect as they may be. First priority, we need to maintain GDP growth. Then there are other ways to improve standard of living that require government coordination.[/quote]
They work in concert. There is no central bank independence.
The surplus money is being used for speculation, it’s not being invested as much in productive ventures that will benefit society, either here or abroad.
Selling existing assets (or their derivatives) back and forth at ever-higher prices is NOT productive. Hoarding commodities and keeping them off the market in order to extract the highest possible gains is NOT productive. Betting on currency moves is NOT productive.
Yes, the govt could be doing things that would help to allocate some of this money to more productive uses, but they are owned by the speculators. The government does not work for the vast majority of US citizens/workers.
Participant[quote=FormerSanDiegan][quote=CA renter]
This fully planned economic event (the Great Recession, and even the stock market bubble, IMO) …
[/quote]
This is the sentence where I stopped reading. Anyone else read beyond this ?[/quote]
If you believe that “nobody saw it coming” or that people in high levels of the finance industry and government didn’t know *exactly* how things would end up, you are incredibly naive. There is plenty of evidence showing how people who were trying to warn regulators and executive-level decision makers about the dangers of what was happening (both WRT the stock market bubble and the housing bubble) were silenced and tossed from their positions.
The wealthy/powerful decide how laws and our economy work; they pick the winners and losers and they design the system to make things happen in particular ways. The economic crisis made them even wealthier and more powerful. Coincidence? Not a chance.
Learn to connect the dots. It’s all right there before your eyes.
Participant[quote=AN][quote=spdrun]
So let’s nationalize the entire American banking system!
Wouldn’t be a bad idea to kick the Wall Street scum to the curb.[/quote]Maybe then, the line to talk to a teller will be as efficient as the lines at the DMV.[/quote]
When you consider the volume that they are dealing with, along with the variety of issues they handle (commercial licenses, testing, health exams, etc.) the DMV is extremely efficient.
Contrary to the propaganda and rhetoric, public institutions are very efficient. Look up the data on public vs private services and which ones are more cost-efficient and which deliver better, more seamless services.
The number of regulations and laws they have to deal with is what makes public institutions look less efficient. But when we look at countries that don’t have these laws and regulations (and even I will admit that there are too many regulations), things like this happen:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/269649/earthquake-deaths-by-country/
(Japan has extremely good regulations, but they have more — and more severe — earthquakes in high-density areas than just about anywhere else.)
Not just earthquakes, but workplace injuries and fatalities, fires, floods, disease transmission, etc. Regulations exist for a reason.
Participant[quote=The-Shoveler]”when the SHTF moment does occur”
They will have learned a lot from the last time and be much better able to mask the issues the next time IMO.
Although IMO they pretty much knew exactly how it was going to play out in 2008 and it was planned for as well.[/quote]
Except that they have been using up all of their ammunition and there will be precious little left when the SHTF moment happens. They have masked the problem by *growing* the problem. The 2008 crisis was more difficult for them to manage than the 2000/2001 crisis, and the next one will be even worse because the numbers are growing larger and the problems are becoming more systemic with every new manufactured crisis.
Participant[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=livinincali]
You’re arguing that the math doesn’t matter. You might be able to postpone the realization that the other side of the balance sheet holds nothing for awhile but eventually it’s going to matter. Of course there’s another crash baked into the current bubble and people are falling for it again. That’s what;s surprising to me. This unwavering faith in the fed having your back. It’s worthless to argue about it now, most won’t see it until it becomes hindsight.[/quote]What other side of the Federal Reserve balance sheet? Please elaborate. Are you saying the assets are worthless or that there are unknown liabilities?
Let’s look at the math.
Scenario 1:
– Say prior to recession peak GDP was 1.0.
– 2008 Great Recession occurred and GDP hit a low of .90.
– After government intervention, GDP is now 1.1. Success!!Scenario 2:
– Had the government not intervened, GDP may have dropped to a depression low of .70. Terrible suffering and drop in standard of living.
– Digging ourselves out the depression, we may have experienced faster growth and are now at .95.Scenario 2 is clearly less appealing to the country and represents self-inflicted pain. I doubt anyone is glutton for punishment.
So what if an other recession is baked into government intervention? Does it matter? So long as GPD remains above .95 + some annual growth (all else being equal, of course), then government intervention was clearly preferable.
The government’s job is to protect and improve our aggregate standard of living.[/quote]
No, I’m sorry brian, but the *type* of growth does matter. And if it’s the government’s job to protect and improve our standard of living why are so many people worse off today than they were ~30+ years ago, before TRILLIONS of dollars have been pushed into the system in order to manipulate things one way or another.
The wealthy are better off today, but most workers are not. This fully planned economic event (the Great Recession, and even the stock market bubble, IMO) has been extremely damaging to our economy, and it was all *caused* by Fed/govt manipulations. If the Fed were to stop working for the speculators and asset traders, we would all be better off (except, perhaps for those traders/speculators), IMHO. What the Fed is creating is not sustainable growth; they have instituted a zero-sum economic system where everyone is forced to play, and most of us will end up the losers.
This is not success:
“(Reuters) – The gap between the richest Americans and the rest of the nation widened after the Great Recession, a survey by the Federal Reserve showed on Thursday, suggesting deepening U.S. income inequality.
Though incomes of the highest-earners rose, none of the groups analyzed by the Fed had regained their 2007 income levels by 2013, underscoring deep scars from the financial crisis and its aftermath.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/04/us-usa-fed-consumers-idUSKBN0GZ2DU20140904
…
“To explore the question further, our study estimated a relationship for GDP per capita in which a change in income inequality was added to standard growth drivers such as physical and human capital. The idea was to test whether the change in income inequality over time has had a significant impact on GDP per capita on average across OECD countries, and if this influence differs according to whether inequality is measured in the lower or upper part of the distribution. The results show that the impact is invariably negative and statistically significant: a 1% increase in inequality lowers GDP by 0.6% to 1.1%. So, in OECD countries at least, higher levels of inequality can reduce GDP per capita. Moreover, the magnitude of the effect is similar, regardless of whether the rise in inequality takes place mainly in the upper or lower half of the distribution.”
http://www.oecd.org/forum/oecdyearbook/growth-and-inequality-close-relationship.htm
Participant[quote=moneymaker]CAR I think like you do, recently reaffiliated my party registration but will not vote party line…ever![/quote]
Thank you!!! 🙂
Nothing bothers me more than people from either side of the political spectrum who vote the party ticket without even understanding the issues or understanding what the candidates are advocating for or against. These idiots void the votes of those who research everything and try to make informed decisions.
Participant[quote=AN][quote=CA renter][quote=AN]CAR, you sound exactly like those AM talk show hosts on the right, except, you just replace liberal with conservative. I find it quite amusing actually that you vilify conservatives just like those AM talk show hosts vilify the liberal. I’m neither a liberal or a conservative, so I get a good chuckle watching both extremes vilify each other.[/quote]
I believe that our two-party system has been structured in a way that best enables the PTB to manipulate the masses. Party affiliations don’t mean much to me. I vote for (or against) individuals from either party, and am extremely conservative in some ways, while extremely liberal in others. I’m not vilifying anyone, just noting some differences that keep popping up over and over again.
FWIW, I can be extremely intolerant, too. Don’t get me started on criminals who prey on innocent people…I have zero empathy when it comes to people who do that.[/quote]Here’s the difference between empathy and sympathy: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Empathy_vs_Sympathy. I don’t believe most people who were never poor can really understand how poor people feel or what they’re going through. So, I don’t believe most of them are empathetic to poor people. I believe most of them are sympathetic, but not empathetic. Just because you vote to take other people’s money to create these social safety net doesn’t make you empathetic. Empathy goes beyond sympathy and I don’t believe most people, from either side are there.
You stated that liberals are more empathetic than conservatives. But you say you’re both liberal and conservative. So, are you more or less empathetic, since you say you’re both? Don’t you think most people in America are the same as you? So, to say liberal are more empathetic than conservative doesn’t make any sense. Whether you think calling conservative non-empathetic is vilifying or not, that’s up to you. My point is, I’ve heard AM talk show hosts talking about liberal the same way you talk about conservative. You and them make it seem people are so black and white instead of acknowledging that the majority are grey. Such as yourself as an example.[/quote]
Yes, I’m aware of the differences between empathy and sympathy, and believe that some people are able to empathize with others even if they haven’t had the same experiences in their own life — they will find similar situations, account for the differences in experience, and will literally try to see things from the other person’s perspective.
I believe that most things in life lie somewhere on a spectrum, and this includes the ability to empathize with others. A person who regularly and naturally sees things from the perspectives of others is quite empathetic. IMO, if we could line people up in order along this empathy spectrum, I believe that the side that leans most empathetic would have a higher percentage of liberals, and the side that is less empathetic would have a higher percentage of conservatives. No, I don’t think we are all the same. We are all different, and our ability to empathize is no different than anything else — we all lie somewhere on a spectrum.
Nobody’s talking about empathy being related to “taking another person’s money,” we’re talking about doing what seems fair and right when people find themselves in circumstances over which they have little/no control (both good and bad). In my case, I’ve often advocated for and voted for things that are detrimental to my own personal situation; but I understand the role of luck, both in my own (lucky) circumstances, and the unlucky circumstances of others. I’m probably on the more empathetic side of the spectrum, but not at the extreme. I do try to always take into consideration the experiences and conditions of others, and strongly desire to see the greatest possible number of people have the greatest possible quality of life (including wealth/income/power). This is more of an empathetic stance than desiring to see myself succeed at the expense of others, like advocating for Dawinian capitalism, for instance.
Participant[quote=all][quote=CA renter][quote=no_such_reality]
Does that include spraying over 100 rounds at a bright blue Tacoma with a 71 and 47 year old Hispanic women in it delivering newspaper when looking for a large black man in a dark grey Nissan Titan?[/quote]
Who’s defending that? FWIW, they got a nice settlement, and the police chief agreed that the officers who shot at them violated policy. Yes, the cops were on edge as they were defending the home of a captain who was specifically threatened by Dorner. Yes, they thought the sound of the newspaper hitting a driveway was a gunshot. Still, the women won a settlement without much effort…the cops knew what they did was wrong.
Why would not the LAPD settle? It is not their money. Are the shooters still on desk duty?[/quote]
From what I understand, they are trying to figure out how to punish them. Of course, it’s a bit tricky because they were asked to protect this captain because there was a very real death threat by someone who proved he meant business, and they did hear what they thought was a gunshot. It was a mistake, but it was a very big mistake.
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