Weirdness and beyond

The weird things we've found to eat.  Can you imagine how hungry we had to be to figure out how to eat them?

Wells Fargo.. foreclosing people one client at a time.

Hobby Lobby... going after birth control.  The definition of rape culture.

Anybody have an invention they'd like to have produced?

Women in the gaming industry.

Should we worry if the engineered bacteria making jet fuel (which is fantastic) escapes into the wild?

Ten cooking tips for the kitchen.

Maybe there's a Super Earth out there too?

And speaking of weird things... a spider as big as your face.  That's one more country I'm not visiting....

Where there is money or power...

There will be people figuring out ways to take it...

Going after public education.  Because that's where there's money to be had.

Vouchers sound like such a nice plan.  Because that's where there's money to be had.

The 99.9% can easily be squeezed for more.  Because that's how the .1% make their money.

Reoccupying your foreclosed house.  Because that's where the banks played fast and loose with your home.

Beating the tar out of the camping Occupy protesters instead of the teabaggers or overnight shoppers.  Because they are the biggest threat to the people who hold power.

Things that go bump in the night...

And it's NOT Halloween...

Unexplained radiation coming from a shipping container.

Snakes in Florida that can eat deer.

Bank of America forecloses on house lost in hurricane.

Living in an oligarchy.

Greeks and Germans and the world economy.

The House of Representatives proving they are completely unable to think of how to create jobs.

Learning what living on 30 dollars a week for food is like.

Getting excommunicated by the Mormon church.

Reaching 7 billion people on earth and realizing that number doesn't affect an attitude change in those demanding that every sperm/egg union is sacred.

Blog sprinkles

Welcome in the Year of the Tiger! Cautiously...

Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors remembers Presidents' Day.

Why words matter. (And why education matters... and why stupid people can be so easily manipulated....)

Speaking of manipulation, Wall Street is using reverse psychology and pretending to WANT regulation! So you will think voting against regulation will hurt the evil banksters! Which is what they want! Oh them cleverish evil doers!

That's why we need a Robin Hood Tax! (video is good, too.)

Via Steve Bates, the Christianists have decided to rewrite history from the school ground up.

Maybe losing their source for caffeine will finally wake up the climate change deniers.

It's clear the next logical step is to WiFi the ENTIRE WORLD!!

The banksters have really gotten out of hand. Bank forecloses on house that was paid for. With cash.

Rachel Maddow holds her own and hits Republican Rep. Schock with the truth. Very satisfying.

One way to deal with state debt? Cancel 12th grade!

Blog sprinkles

The best April Fool's pranks this year.

The top ten conservative idiots.

The GOP is the party of Beavis and Butthead:

I’d really like to see some genuine bipartisanship in America. But that can’t happen until we start having at least somewhat sane partisans.

Obama's polling:

For the third Friday in a row, Gallup's polling shows 62% of those surveyed saying they approve of the job the president is doing. Also for the third week in a row, 27% say they don't approve.

Joe the Plumber stumped about Employee Free Choice Act.

Moles:

“Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward,” asked Gross. “I’ll make it worse,” answered Hersh, adding that he believes Cheney “put people back” in government to “stay behind” in order to “tell him what’s going on” and perhaps even “do sabotage”...

When you are foreclosed, you may not take the built-in bathtub with you.

Politifact truth-o-meter site.

So never refer to someone as looking tasty:

There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government.

Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programme that humans had exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability".

The death of Tom Hurndall:

Hurndall was trying to save Palestinian homes and infrastructure but frequently came under Israeli fire and seemed to have lost his fear of death. “While approaching the area, they (the Israelis) continually fired one- to two-second bursts from what I could see was a Bradley fighting vehicle… It was strange that as we approached and the guns were firing, it sent shivers down my spine, but nothing more than that. We walked down the middle of the street, wearing bright orange, and one of us shouted through a loudspeaker, ‘We are International volunteers. Don’t shoot!’ That was followed by another volley of fire, though I can’t be sure where from…”

Tom Hurndall had stayed in Rafah. He was only 21 where – in his mother’s words – he lost his life through a single, selfless, human act. “Tom was shot in the head as he carried a single Palestinian child out of the range of an Israeli army sniper.” Mrs Hurndall asked me to write a preface to Tom’s book and this article is his preface, for a brave man who stood alone and showed more courage than most if us dreamed of. Forget tree huggers. Hurndall was one good man and true.

Tips on how to survive the depression.

Wingnuts eating their own.

Is this a dogwhistle to fundamentalists who think a one world currency is another omen of the incoming END of DAYS?

Controversial British MP George Galloway has been denied entry into Canada by a federal court judge.

And now it's Chinese and Vietnamese pepper.

Defrocking a priest:

The Episcopal Church has defrocked Ann Holmes Redding, the Seattle Episcopal priest who announced in 2007 that she is both Christian and Muslim.

Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island, who has disciplinary authority over Redding, informed the priest of her decision in a letter today.

Wolf found Redding to be "a woman of utmost integrity and their conversations over the past two years have been open, honest and respectful," according to a press release from the Diocese of Rhode Island.

"However, Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim."

Oh, and by the way:

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East, General David Petraeus, warned today that Israel might attack Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, Bloomberg reports.

Why can't we bail out the homeowners

Who would then pay off the bank loans and everybody would be happy?

Brave New Foundation Asks 1.3 Million Supporters to Urge Congress to Pass 'Helping Families Save Their Homes' Act

LOS ANGELES - Yesterday, Brave New Foundation asked its email list of 1.3 million people to call their Congressional Representatives and ask them to support H.R. 1106, Rep. John Conyers' new bill authorizing judges to modify home loans in bankruptcy proceedings.

As part of its "Fighting For Our Homes" campaign, Brave New Foundation has released a new online documentary video featuring a former subprime lender speaking anonymously about the mortgage sales industry, describing club promoters and drug dealers being hired and trained to deliberately mislead people into taking out loans they could not afford.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNBqP5j1FZQ

Over the last several weeks, Brave New Foundation's "Fighting For Our Homes" campaign has collected dozens of stories in text and video of people all over the country who are impacted by the housing meltdown. These stories are aggregated at FightingForOurHomes.com, a website that seeks to put a human face on the foreclosure crisis.

Now, the Fighting For Our Homes campaign is encouraging people to take action in support of struggling homeowners.

Congressman John Conyers, the author of the new bill, was recently interviewed by Brave New Foundation about his legislation in a state-of-the-art newscast that appeared exclusively online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9GTqpTKddk

Prior to that interview, Rep. Marcy Kaptur from Ohio also spoke to Brave New Foundation about the foreclosure crisis, stating that if not repaired soon, the housing crisis "will crush finance in this country for years to come." See video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHl_tXvBmO4&feature=channel_page

Contact:

Nathan Havey
310-204-0448 x231
nhavey@bravenewfoundation.org

Falling through the cracks

Paul Krugman warns us that we are entering into the most dangerous period of all: the transition:

There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 — namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis. The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now.

How much can go wrong in the two months before Mr. Obama takes the oath of office? The answer, unfortunately, is: a lot.

[snip]

Most obviously, we’re in the midst of the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression: the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has now fallen more than 50 percent from its peak. Other indicators are arguably even more disturbing: unemployment claims are surging, manufacturing production is plunging, interest rates on corporate bonds — which reflect investor fears of default — are soaring, which will almost surely lead to a sharp fall in business spending. The prospects for the economy look much grimmer now than they did as little as a week or two ago.

Yet economic policy, rather than responding to the threat, seems to have gone on vacation. In particular, panic has returned to the credit markets, yet no new rescue plan is in sight. On the contrary, Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, has announced that he won’t even go back to Congress for the second half of the $700 billion already approved for financial bailouts. And financial aid for the beleaguered auto industry is being stalled by a political standoff.

How much should we worry about what looks like two months of policy drift? At minimum, the next two months will inflict serious pain on hundreds of thousands of Americans, who will lose their jobs, their homes, or both. What’s really troubling, however, is the possibility that some of the damage being done right now will be irreversible.

Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride....

But homelessness can be fun!

You don't have to worry about mowing lawns and stuff!:

One in every 519 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing in April. Foreclosure filings increased from a year earlier in all but eight states.

You can take your family to live in discarded shipping containers!



Because of the Republican policies, 99% of us are the have-nots:

(CBS) There have always been "haves" and "have-nots" in the United States, but over the past three decades, the gap between them has gotten a lot wider, statistics from congressional numbers crunchers show.

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, income for the bottom half of American households rose six percent since 1979 but, through 2005, the income of the top one percent skyrocketed - by 228 percent.

Well... Cheney never did like California anyway

Filled as it is with dirty fucking hippies and stuff. The Enron thing exploded before California was taught its place, so how are we doing with the foreclosure/subprime disaster? Click the pic to enlarge.



Ain't deregulation fun?

The Bush administration approved of making more poor

By supporting banks and predatory lending practices.

Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York for the Washington Post:

Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.

What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.

Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.

When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.

Hurtling towards the finish line

On October 11, 2007, Bush said:

"The deficit today is at 1.2 percent of GDP, which is lower than the average of the last 40 years. In other words, we have told the American people that by keeping taxes low we can grow the economy, and by working with Congress to set priorities we can be fiscally responsible and we can head toward balance," said President Bush in a statement to the press. "And that's exactly where we're headed."

Did you read that quote really carefully? Did you catch the 'non-action' words he always uses? He's 'telling the American people', 'can grow', 'set priorities, 'can be fiscally responsible', 'can head toward balance'. Nice, Georgie. You've covered your ass by telling us. So the incoming recession just can't be your fault, can it?

And if we're 'headed toward balance', doesn't that mean we are out of balance right now with your borrow and spend policies?

Well... The US economy can withstand much if we keep the consumer confidence high.....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Consumer confidence fell to an all-time low as worries about jobs, energy bills and home foreclosures darkened people's feelings about the country's economic health and their own financial well-being.

According to the RBC Cash Index, confidence tumbled to a mark of 56.3 in early January. That compares with a reading of 65.9 in December - and a benchmark of 100 - and was the worst since the index began in 2002.

"People are anxious because everything sounds pretty awful these days," said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services Group.

Well, at least we had a good Christmas season?

Credit card usage and other data showed a disappointing shopping season for US retailers after consumer spending rose 3.6 percent over the holiday spending period, the slowest growth rate in four years, media reports said Wednesday.

The figure, calculated from Nov 23 to Dec 24, rose 6.6 percent in 2006 and 8.7 percent in 2005, according to MasterCard's SpendingPulse data.

The report was cited by The New York Times and Washington Post in their online editions.

The US economy has been sluggish all year, and consumer confidence has been eroded by the crisis in the mortgage industry. Tens of thousands of homes have been repossessed by banks after high-risk borrowers could not keep up with interest rates that were jacked up after initial low rates.

The SpendingPulse report cited high fuel and food costs as also working against holiday spending. It was based on credit card purchases made by more than 300 million MasterCard holders and cash and cheque use, the reports said.

About 20 percent of annual revenues for the US retail industry depend on Christmas holiday shopping.

Ah. I'm sure Bernanke is right on this, and Bush is doing a heckovajob:

The White House is exploring a rescue plan, possibly including a tax cut, to aid the ailing economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, criticized for not doing enough, pledged on Thursday to keep lowering interest rates. They are expected to drop by as much as one-half of a percentage point when central bank policymakers meet later this month.

The public is giving President Bush low marks for his economic stewardship. His approval rating on the economy dipped slightly to 33 percent in January, from 36 percent in December, according to a separate Associated Press-Ipsos poll. His overall job-approval rating was 34 percent, compared with 36 percent last month.

Um, just an aside, but if you keep lowering interest rates, aren't you in danger of a liquidity trap?:

In monetary economics, a liquidity trap occurs when the economy is stagnant, the nominal interest rate is close or equal to zero, and the monetary authority is unable to stimulate the economy with traditional monetary policy tools. In this kind of situation, people do not expect high returns on physical or financial investments, so they keep assets in short-term cash bank accounts or hoards rather than making long-term investments. This makes the recession even more severe.

But I'm sure Bush is listening to his advisors:

The White House is more sanguine than several of the nation's most prominent economists, who have been urging the federal government in recent days to adopt a much more vigorous fiscal policy to head off the possibility of a damaging long-term recession.

Martin S. Feldstein, a Harvard economist who was an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, has said that he thinks there is a 50 percent chance of a recession next year and that Congress should pass a tax cut that would depend on how much the economy slows. Lawrence H. Summers, who was Treasury secretary in President Bill Clinton's administration, called this week for a temporary tax cut, longer-lasting unemployment insurance benefits and additional money for food stamps. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has said that he thinks the considerable risk of a recession warrants making emergency aid available to homeowners at risk.

But in an interview this week, Bush's outgoing economic policy adviser, Allan Hubbard, said the White House does not see the need for such measures at the moment. "We just don't see any reason why the economy won't continue to expand," he said.

Well... at least everybody will share in whatever is coming at us:

The increase in incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans from 2003 to 2005 exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of Americans, data in a new report by the Congressional Budget Office show.

The poorest fifth of households had total income of $383.4 billion in 2005, while just the increase in income for the top 1 percent came to $524.8 billion, a figure 37 percent higher.

The total income of the top 1.1 million households was $1.8 trillion, or 18.1 percent of the total income of all Americans, up from 14.3 percent of all income in 2003. The total 2005 income of the 3 million individual Americans at the top was roughly equal to that of the bottom 166 million Americans, analysis of the report showed.

The report is the latest to document the growing concentration of income at the top, a trend that President George W. Bush said last January had been under way for more than 25 years.

Earlier reports, based on tax returns, showed that in 2005, the top 10 percent, top 1 percent and fractions of the top 1 percent enjoyed their greatest share of income since 1928 and 1929.

Apparently Bush thinks another Gilded Age is a good thing, but 1929? Didn't something interesting happen around that time?

Don't think Bush will be too happy about having a really painful recession tagged onto his legacy... But if the recession truly kicks in after January 20, 2009, it can't be Bush's fault, can it?
(crossposted at SteveAudio)

What is that whistling sound?

Via Sorghum Crow at Sorghum Crow's General Store, The Telegraph:

Saudi Arabia has refused to cut interest rates in lockstep with the US Federal Reserve for the first time, signalling that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom is preparing to break the dollar currency peg in a move that risks setting off a stampede out of the dollar across the Middle East.

[snip]

"This is a very dangerous situation for the dollar," said Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas.

"Saudi Arabia has $800bn (£400bn) in their future generation fund, and the entire region has $3,500bn under management. They face an inflationary threat and do not want to import an interest rate policy set for the recessionary conditions in the United States," he said.

The Saudi central bank said today that it would take "appropriate measures" to halt huge capital inflows into the country, but analysts say this policy is unsustainable and will inevitably lead to the collapse of the dollar peg.

As a close ally of the US, Riyadh has so far tried to stick to the peg, but the link is now destabilising its own economy.

[snip]

There is now a growing danger that global investors will start to shun the US bond markets. The latest US government data on foreign holdings released this week show a collapse in purchases of US bonds from $97bn to just $19bn in July, with outright net sales of US Treasuries.

The danger is that this could now accelerate as the yield gap between the United States and the rest of the world narrows rapidly, leaving America starved of foreign capital flows needed to cover its current account deficit - expected to reach $850bn this year, or 6.5pc of GDP.

And also from The Telegraph, China gets in the act:

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

[snip]

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

Via JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie, the Canadian 'loonie' dollar:

TORONTO - Boosted by high commodity prices and a weakening U.S. dollar, the loonie reached parity with the greenback Thursday for the first time in nearly 31 years, promising to boost the energy and import sectors and give consumers cheaper vacations but spelling more trouble for Canada's industrial heartland.

The loonie, which has been gaining on its American counterpart since bottoming out below 62 cents in early 2002, has recently been on a spectacular run, up from 95 cents at the start of September and from under 90 cents last spring.

And via Atrios at Eschaton:

Losses from sub-prime mortgages have far exceeded "even the most pessimistic estimates", US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has said.

His comments to a US finance committee come two days after the Fed cut base interest rates to 4.75% from 5.25%.

[snip]

Mr Bernanke told the committee that US mortgage woes were set to continue - especially with adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs).

Proceedings for about 320,000 foreclosures - or repossessions - were begun in each of the first two quarters of 2007 he said, against an average of 225,000 per quarter in the past six years.

"With house prices still soft and many borrowers of recent-vintage sub-prime ARMs still facing their first interest rate resets, delinquencies and foreclosure initiations in this class of mortgages are likely to rise further," he said.

Mr Bernanke added that it was difficult to be precise about how many repossessions would take place, but he said that in normal circumstances about half of homeowners who were given repossession notices ended up losing their homes.

"That ratio may turn out to be higher in coming quarters because the proportion of sub-prime borrowers, who have weaker financial conditions than prime borrowers, is higher," Mr Bernanke said.

Do we start stuffing our mattresses with Euros? Or do we start burying jars of gold coin about our backyards?

Can anyone tell us how much trouble we are in?