HCS and Gen’s Place

This Is How It Begins Wanton Violence – The Market Ticker.

This is an interesting perspective.  If this is true then it’s only the beginning of the people’s response to this loooooong term raping of the American public.

I am watching the news conference and the Austin PD is stone walling reporters even when Federal agencies are releasing more details.  This is a developing story.  Austin PD’s stonewalling is quite fascinating to watch.

*UPDATE* So this has made the anti-terroism update to Obama.  it will be interesting tos ee how the gov’t reacts to this.  they are scrambling fighter jets to “patrol” the area.

NTSB says IRS was the target.

*UPDATE2* Now this is supposed to be a single engine plane.  Take a look at the building and the amount of damage.  Unless that plane was packed with explosives there’s no way it could have caused that amount of physical damage..and I’m not talking about the burnt part i mean the physical damage to the side of the building.

*UPDATE3*  They are saying the plane struck first…blew out windows on the far side…smoldered and then exploded like a bomb had gone off.  They also showed video of the building nearly engulfed in flames.  Something just doesn’t square in this already.  There has been a large power interruption.  Most buildings of that size have a large outside box for isolation purposes so a large scale outage isn’t needed.

*UPDATE4*  Sure thing..the FBI has taken down the site of hte man who flew the plane into the building in texas.  The site comes up with:

This website has been taken offline due to the sensitive nature of the events that transpired in Texas this morning and in compliance with a request from the FBI.

Regards,
T35 Hosting

Following is the “homicide note” left behind by the pilot of the plane.  I am sure this is going to get taken down by the feds so i am going to post it here:

If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?”  The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time.  The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken.  Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it.  I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head.  Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy.  Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all.  We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers.  Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”.  I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood.  These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind.  Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?  Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies.  Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”.  It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!

How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system?  Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand.  Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand.  The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is.  If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s.  Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English.  Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions.  In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy.  We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God).  We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living.  However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0.  It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie.  It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father.  I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker.  Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement.  Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement.  All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time.  When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me).  I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread.  I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made.  I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.

Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL – Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. – This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. – The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

• “another person” is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.
• “taxpayer” is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
• “individual”, “employee”, or “worker” is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated.  The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d).  Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave.  Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time.  I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity.  This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”.  Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise.  The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists).  This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle.  If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks.  Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s.  Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that.  The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco.  However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall.  Again, I lost my retirement.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed.  Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare.  Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months.  This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive.  Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY!  After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change.  Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while.  So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done.  I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work.  The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA.  This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income.  I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need.  The sleazy government decided that they disagreed.  But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out.  Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

So now we come to the present.  After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again.  But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle.  After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order.  I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting.  Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit.  By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented).  Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone.  The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything.  Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”.  Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone.  The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government.  Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough).  In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand.  It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants.  I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after.  But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change.  I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less.  I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.  Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.  The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different.  I am finally ready to stop this insanity.  Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

Greetings to all,

I just had to comment on this. To find the story, here is the link: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35018#c1

I think I know the direction that Mr Buchanan was heading for. The problem is, I never agreed with his whiny words and policies. Even now, people are still blaming “W” for their woes. You want to know the true reason why for our decline? The fact is, the US has been pointing fingers at others for over 30 years. JB tries to make this point, but it is lost after recital of rhetoric garbage. The way the US can get out of this is for all of us to ‘take ownership’, stop the blame game, and do what needs to be done.

But here is the crux: what is it that needs to be done. You will hear “we have so many problems..”, “the issues are numerous and vast..”, “there isn’t a simple solution or steps of solutions..”. Dont you believe them. In order to figure out what the problems are, we need to figure out who we, as a people and nation, are.

So, what is the United States of America? Now, you may be thinking “Gawd, not another history lesson..”. Well, too bad. The reason why schools push for 12 years of history is two fold: to rewrite history for selfish malicious use, and to get people sick of history to forget about it. It is like navigating a ship, driving a car, or even just walking from point A to point B: if you don’t know where you are at and how you got there, how can you plot where you are going to go?

Anyways, what were our American ancestors? Here is a link describing “American Colonists” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_colonists . While I will not recite the whole page, I would like to copy the first paragraph: The term colonial history of the United States refers to the history of the land from the start of European settlement to the time of independence from Europe, and especially to the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain which declared themselves independent in 1776.^[1] Starting in the late 16th century, the English, Scottish, French, Swedes, Germans and the Dutch began to colonize eastern North America.^[2][3] Many early attempts—notably the Lost Colony of Roanoke—ended in failure, but successful colonies were soon established. The colonists who came to the New World were from a variety of different social and religious groups who settled in different locations on the seaboard. The Dutch of New Netherland, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the Puritans of New England, the English settlers of Jamestown, and the “worthy poor” of Georgia, and others—each group came to the new continent for different reasons and created colonies with distinct social, religious, political and economic structures.^[4]

^{Now, there is something very very wrong with this summary. Can you tell what it is? Is it incorrect? No. Are there any wrong references? No. The problem with this summary is that it is watered down. It does not have the heart and soul of what was done and accomplished. Let me explain.}

^{Imagine yourself a colonist. You board a ship, overcrowded with people, a ship that is maybe 80 ft in length and you are lucky if 12ft in width. You travel from one continent to another, that is, over 3000 miles of water that at any point, you could drown. Sickness was always rampant. If you were a woman, you always had to worry about rape. You were lucky you would eat once a day. You finally come over to America. You have very little with you, because of no space on the ship, or, you were poor and had very little to begin with. You are on a land that you have no familiarity with. You are melded into a society of people you do not know about. You have very little to no money, and if you had money, you could buy very little. There were homes with no heat save a fireplace, no air conditioning, very few clothes you could wear. And why would anyone put themselves through this? Because, for the chance. The chance of being free, free of clergy persecution, free of corrupt government officials, free of unfair tax levies, free of social miscreants and fools, etc etc. The concept of freedom. The thought of freedom, but derived from pure sacrifice, devotion, belief, and faith.}

^{Do you see the difference between the two summaries of American colonists? Which one has the heart? Which one excites the senses, the fears, the digust, the joy of hope? The first is definition through society’s acceptance of language. Mine, is a definition of the heart and soul. And, there is the basic problem/solution that we need in this country. Do you think the colonists pointed fingers at others for their problems? (well, in a way they did..hence why they were colonists..but other than that). Do you think they looked for handouts? Did they expect to be clothed, fed, sheltered, given money, health services, financial pensions, 3 cars in the driveway, cell phone for every family member, laptop and LCD plasma TV for each person, twittering their facebooks, worried about keeping up with the neighbors, going green while finance going red, etc etc? I know, I put in ‘modern everyday concerns’ with that of old. But I did this with purpose. Do you see what the average ‘joe’ now worries about vs even just 100 years ago? 100 years. That is simply 4 generations? Maybe 3?}

^{Ok, enough of the history lesson. I did mention that the steps to turn things around are simple. And they truly are: that is, IF you keep what our founding fathers/mothers went through.}

^{1: Only if you are a citizen, or going through the path of legal citizenship, STOP all entitlements. This means, no health care, no welfare, no government handouts of any type. These services have been paid for by citizens and soon to be citizens. We have over 12 million illegals in this country. If each one is given $10,000 of various handouts, that is $1.2 trillion dollars handed out.}

^{2: Those that are citizens and on welfare, cut out the fat. How many times has each one of us saw some woman with 2 or 3 kids, in a grocery store, with more gold bling on her body, looking like she just came out of a salon, driving a nicer car than you own, pay for groceries with food stamps? It is said that 1 out of 12 adults are receiving food stamps. If only 1% of them are cheating, that is still over 83,000 adults. Average amount of food stamps is $250 a month. That is almost 21 million a month, nearly $250 million a year.}

^{3: Hand the bill to the country for every illegal we transport back to them. It is estimated that it costs over $80,000 per illegal we catch and transport back to their country of origin. This, is a service. If we merely catch and transport 25,000 illegals, that is $2 billion a year. The actually number is much higher, closer to a million. But think about that. If 25,000 brings in invoices over 2 billion, then a million would be over $80 billion dollars. Let us just invoice Mexico alone at 25,000 illegals. You know they would enforce and beef up their own border patrols just to prevent this!}

^{4: Invoice other nations. What do I mean? Invoice every other country that asked us for help on a military level since 1963. Every military base we have overseas, every military action we performed at the host country’s request, etc etc. Then, take these ‘bills’ to the UN and tell the UN to shove it up its arse, proving “we are doing the job you sworn to do”. Now, reality is, they won’t do a thing. But, show to others that we have been the ones shouldering the load with an ungrateful lot. But lets say payments do come through. Take every dime of those payments and pay to the veterans, current military personnel, and those survived by the military personnel that died performing their duty and love to this country.}

^{5: Present each bill/law on the table of House, Senate, and Presidency that is no more than 50 pages in length AND it can only contain material directly related to the bill. Too much pork in each bill, too much bureaucracy. Take again, military pay increase. That should be its own bill. A good subtopic is increasing the payments of veterans who have severe medical disabilities. That, would be a valid sub topic. Trying to get a grant for a farm in San Francisco area for 33 million dollars to grow soybeans and peanuts have nothing to do with this bill. It should be its own seperate issue. To enforce this, allow the people in each house and senate district to do a ‘recall’ of the person they elected every 6 months if 25% of the citizens agreed it is within bounds for review. What do I mean? If a senator is going crazy, not listening to their constituents, and causing severe distress and embarassment to their representative community, then, hold a vote and a meeting to see if that person should be removed from office. This would force elected officials to be more honest and stop wasting our taxpayer monies for their salaries and their personal agendas.}

^{6: Now, when it comes to voting, I personally feel that there should be a compentcy test passed. Not anything specific about the candidates or anything like that, but a test on basic government structure and process. So many people who are voting are ignorant of the jobs, dutites, and responsibilities for each branch of local, state, and federal government. So, an example of just 10 questions each about the local, state, and federal government, with a 70% success rate to pass would allow you to vote. People may say that this goes against the Bill of Rights. I say, the blatant stupidity among the public of not knowing their own government, party, and candidates that they are voting on is against my right as a US citizen. Example: The day of the presidential election 2008, a reporter asked 513 confirmed Obama voters simple questions that pertained to Obama, Biden, and top Congressional democrats. 12 questions were asked of each person (the same 12 questions). 0.5% got all 12 questions right. The other percentages of questions/answers were staggering. However, when asked about questions of McCain and Palin, and the questions asked had lies as answers, each one of these people answered those questions “correctly”. They were also asked about Sarah Palin seeing Russia from her backyard and I think 85% said that Palin did say that (it was actually Tina Fey in her famous SNL skit, Sarah Palin never ever said that). What this test showed, is that the general public, ignorant of their own electoral system, can be programmed of how to vote. This video does exist, a little bit of searching can find it. I went through the trouble and found the Zogby poll link for everyone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9htwW21K8s . Bill of Rights. I believe in it with all my heart. I just don’t believe in the people generally anymore. Not until this trend turns around.}

I could go onward with other points, and I shall in another post. At the moment, this is enough for everyone to digest all this information properly. Until then, take care.

W/R

Hause.

“HAFA” – Foreclosure Warning Dead Ahead! – The Market Ticker.

Don’t forget that we have a second wave of massive foreclosures coming Alt-A and Option-ARMS which are going to either reset or recast.  Now they are going to send another wave of defaults into the market as per a post I made back in December of 2008(courtesy of Barry Ritholtz and CBS).  Now on top of this the Fed is going to force(which they should have done YEARS ago) homes that are zombies or in first stages of default to flood the market.  Housing prices are going to crash.  I find this to be intentional by the Fed.  there is NO way they they did not know that this is going to crater housing prices.  This is going to exacerbate the coming wave defaults and foreclosures on top of the mortgages that are going to be defaulting this year.  Also signs in the credit market say something is affot..

As The Clock (er, Worm) Turns… – The Market Ticker.

You know it’s going to be bad and that the media is lying about how we are done with the recession when they put this stuff out:

I like it how Karl Denninger calls cnbc cnbs..msnbc could be msnbs as well.  Along with fox, dnn, abc and cbs.  With many of our manufacturing jobs permanently offshored don’t expect us to come back anytime soon.  Remember Japan’s “lost decade”?  We are about to have one as well.  runaway gov’t spending along with domestic hostile policies are going to continue to send jobs offshore as wlel as our money.  If you think this was incompetence…think again.  This is purposeful.

A decade of high unemployment is looming

WASHINGTON – Call it the Terrible Teens.

The decade ahead could be a brutal one for America’s unemployed — and for people with jobs hoping for pay raises.

At best, it could take until the middle of the decade for the nation to generate enough jobs to drive down the unemployment rate to a normal 5 or 6 percent and keep it there. At worst, that won’t happen until much later — perhaps not until the next decade.

The deepest and most enduring recession since the 1930s has battered America’s work force.

The unemployed number 15.4 million. The jobless rate is 10 percent. More than 7 million jobs have vanished. People out of work at least six months number a record 5.9 million. And household income, adjusted for inflation, has shrunk in the past decade.

Most economists say it could take at least until 2015 for the unemployment rate to drop down to a historically more normal 5.5 percent. And with the job market likely to stay weak, some also foresee another decade of wage stagnation.

Even though the economy will likely keep growing, the pace is expected to be plodding. That will make employers reluctant to hire. Further contributing to high unemployment is the likelihood of more people competing for jobs, baby boomers delaying retirement and interest rates edging higher.

All this would come after a decade that created relatively few jobs: a net total of just 464,000. By contrast, 21.7 million new jobs were generated between 1989 and 1999.

Economist David Levy, chairman of the Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, says the country faces a new era of chronically high unemployment, averaging 8 percent or more over the next decade.

The “New Abnormal,” he calls it.

Levy thinks the New Abnormal also means average pay will dwindle, along with consumer prices. That would make it harder for households to pay down debt, he warns.

By the Federal Reserve’s reckoning, the jobless rate could remain as high as 7.6 percent in 2012. And it would take two or three years after that for the job market to return to normal, the Fed says.

It’s possible jobs won’t return to pre-recession levels at any point over the next 10 years, Levy says.

That’s mainly because the economy’s recovery, sluggish by historical standards, isn’t expected to regain its vigor over the next few years. As a result, companies will be in no rush to ramp up hiring.

Other analysts think the economy will recover the jobs wiped out by the recession by 2013 or 2014 but that the unemployment rate will stay high. They note that the healing economy will cause more people to stream back into the labor force, vying for too-few jobs.

In addition, baby boomers whose retirement accounts have shrunk could put off retiring and stay in the work force longer. That would leave fewer positions available for the unemployed.

Other contributing forces — businesses squeezing more work from employees they still have and relying more on part-time and overseas help — have intensified. And record-high federal budget deficits and the threat of inflation could drive up interest rates, which could hobble growth and restrict job creation.

All those factors could combine to keep unemployment high.

“It will be the mother of all jobless recoveries,” predicts economic historian John Steel Gordon.

On the other hand, it’s possible some technological innovation not yet envisioned could generate a wave of jobs. Yet at the moment, most economists aren’t betting that any such breakthroughs will rescue the labor market.

The last time the jobless rate reached double digits, in the early 1980s, it took six years to bring it down to normal levels.

Unemployment hit a post-World War II high of 10.8 percent at the end of 1982 as the country was emerging from a severe recession. The rate fell to around 5 percent in 1988. It took less than two years for the number of jobs to return to its pre-recession level.

In this recovery, the economy is far more fragile.

Hard-to-get credit is exerting a drag. Wounds from the banking system’s worst crisis since the Great Depression will take years to fully heal. People and companies, scarred by the crisis, are likely to restrain borrowing, spending and investing.

Some analysts think the jobless rate might have already peaked at 10.2 percent in October. But most economists predict the rate will peak at around 10.5 percent by the middle of next year.

“We are digging out of a very deep hole,” says Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego and chief economist for the National Association for Business Economics.

Reaser estimates it will take until 2015 for the unemployment rate to drop to 5.5 percent.

A sputtering job market carries other consequences. One is flat wages. When many people compete for few jobs, employers have no incentive to raise pay.

The economic shocks of the past decade already have cut into Americans’ incomes. That’s among the reasons why people feel they’re standing still economically.

Median household income, adjusted for inflation, fell to $50,303 in 2008, according to the U.S. Census. That gauge combines wages and salaries, investment income and government benefit payments like Social Security. It’s down 4 percent from a peak of $52,587 in 1999, when incomes were bolstered by stock gains from the dot-com boom.

That bubble burst in 2000. Since then, workers have seen meager wage gains. Adjusted for inflation, wages grew about 13 percent in the past 10 years — the slowest pace in five decades, according to calculations made by Scott Hoyt of Moody’s Economy.com.

That trend is predicted to continue.

“There will be a continued hollowing-out of the middle class,” says H.W. Brands, a historian at the University of Texas.

He points to productivity growth, which has let companies produce more with leaner work forces, the offshoring of service-sector jobs and the shrinking of factory jobs.

That’s why Vicki Adriano, 51, who works at a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, looks ahead to the coming decade with trepidation.

The economic wreckage of the past year means she’ll probably have to work longer than she had expected at the factory —  at least seven more years. She frets about the loss of economic security.

“Everything you worked for all those years can be gone in a minute,” she says.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34601256/ns/business-us_business/

When, not if, it is you will discover the what I have said all along is the truth purpose of this so-called “reform” – a single-payer system.

Here’s how it will happen.

1.

Congress will pass and Obama will sign something containing this “individual mandate.”

2.

This will generate immediate lawsuits which will begin their way through the system, headed for the United States Supreme Court. That process will take several years. Note that the so-called “benefits” of this reform will also take several years to show up. This is not an accident.

3.

Meanwhile, the taxes begin immediately. This is exactly what happened in the 1930s by the way – taxes were raised right into the maw of an economic recession, and helped turn it into a Depression. Such it will be this time as well.

4.

Young, healthy people will pay the “fines” under protest and refuse to buy coverage (it’s cheaper than complying with a $15,000/year mandate to pay the $750/year fine!) and join said lawsuits in Step #2. This will in turn begin to force private companies out of the system (remember, there are also price controls in there!) as adverse selection will not be eliminated as promised.

5.

At some point the courts will strike the individual mandate. Free to not pay the fine or buy insurance and prevented from raising rates adverse selection will collapse the remaining private health insurers.

via The True Intent of Health “Reform” – The Market Ticker.

Did you ever wonder why the United States isn’t even hinted at in the Bible?  OPEC is getting their own currency, China is going to head that way.  It is only a matter of time now before there is a truly one world currency.  To think I saw this on a financial blog hwo is worried aobut hte US currency pretty much going to zero.  What he misses is hte ramifications of the moves other countries are making.  Hang onto your hats folks…this is no longer an earthly thing..this is a heavenly thing!

Today’s lesson in falsity is the announcement, long rumored, by the Gulf States that they will be forming a common currency, breaking the formal and informal dollar pegs that have controlled the price of oil and kept the petro-dollar recycling mill operating, allowing The United States to force our inflationary policies down the Arabs' throats.

“The Gulf monetary union pact has come into effect,” said Kuwait’s finance minister, Mustafa al-Shamali, speaking at a Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) summit in Kuwait.

The move will give the hyper-rich club of oil exporters a petro-currency of their own, greatly increasing their influence in the global exchange and capital markets and potentially displacing the US dollar as the pricing currency for oil contracts. Between them they amount to regional superpower with a GDP of $1.2 trillion (£739bn), some 40pc of the world’s proven oil reserves, and financial clout equal to that of China.

Potentially displacing my tailfeathers. That displacement is now assured.

Oh, and it doesn’t stop with just money either:

The GCC also agreed to create a joint military strike force – akin to the EU’s rapid reaction force – to tackle threats such as the incursion of Yemeni Shiite rebels into Saudi territory earlier this year.

They nevertheless repeated on Tuesday that “any military action against Iran” by Western powers would be unacceptable.

Well there you have it.

China will be next with a Pan-Asian common currency and exchange system. The rumblings have been coming from there too, and they’ll be followed by action – if for no other reason than that with the unpegging of oil from the dollar there is no longer any reason for China to continue to maintain a dollar hegemony of its own, and in fact doing so could be extremely damaging to China's economy.

via Calling The Time “Person Of The Year”: Jackass – The Market Ticker.

After pointing out “three out of five jobs in the state are created by small and family-owned businesses,” O'Malley outlined plans to help businesses gain more access to credit by creating the Maryland Small Business Credit Recover Program which offers loan guarantees; proposed a Job Creation and Recovery Tax Credit to give businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every unemployed worker it hires; and pledged to introduce emergency legislation to resolve the increased rate impact small businesses face next year for the Unemployment Trust Fund.

via Governor unveils plans to help small businesses.

It looks good on paper but i can guarantee you it costs much more than 3k/yr to hire an employee.

The Environmental Protection Agency took a major step Monday toward regulating greenhouses gases, concluding that climate changing pollution threatens the public health and the environment.

The announcement came as the Obama administration looked to boost its arguments at an international climate conference that the United States is aggressively taking actions to combat global warming, even though Congress has yet to act on climate legislation. The conference opened Monday in Copenhagen

via EPA: Greenhouse gases are harmful – Climate Change- msnbc.com.

The real second wave doesn’t hit until the 2010 resets of the rest of the sub prime market(which includes quite a bit of commercial) resets in 2010.

‘Second wave’ of foreclosures continues to rise

Wheaton homeowner saved moments before his home goes on the auction block

In a matter of months, Wheaton resident Constantine David lost his wife of 23 years through divorce, his job as a private translator when he was laid off and therefore both the incomes that were paying for his split-level Connecticut Avenue Estates home.

He approached his bank, which was then Chevy Chase Bank and is now folded into Capital One Financial, in late 2007 to refinance his loan. He figured that a more affordable loan could help him better support his two children while he searched for a new job, David said.

But Chevy Chase wouldn’t negotiate. In the meantime, David paid too little too late and fell behind on his mortgage three months in a row. He received a foreclosure notice in January 2008. By June of that year, a lawyer advised a still-unemployed David to file for bankruptcy. That didn’t move along talks either: By filing for bankruptcy, David took the case to court, so the court must decide the outcome, David said bank officials told him.

“The bank is not talking to me, because I became the enemy,” David said.

A former diplomat unversed in the nuances of mortgage loans, David scrambled for help from area nonprofits and county agencies. All were too overwhelmed to take his call, so it took weeks for someone to return his message and months to assign him a counselor, he said.

Despair eroded his hope as the knocks on his door became louder.

“Foreclosure became imminent. It seemed to be the only way out of this situation,” David said.

David is one of a rising number of longtime homeowners whose cushy lives have been turned upside down by the foreclosure crisis. Dubbed the “second wave” of foreclosures by housing experts, many homeowners who made all their payments on time are suddenly struggling after losing their jobs in the cascading economy.

The second wave continues to rise even as the first one, comprised mostly of sub-prime mortgages, has yet to subside, creating fresh chaos for already overworked home-counseling agencies and uprooting longtime residents of solid neighborhoods, experts say.

But where the new foreclosure dilemma truly lies is in many banks’ unwillingness to renegotiate loans for people like David, some experts say.

“The banks don’t bring anything to the table,” said Farida Muhammad, a foreclosure counselor with the Montgomery County chapter of Home Free USA, a nonprofit homeownership development organization.

“We don’t have the power,” added Muhammad, who worked with David. “The power’s in the investor and what they decide to do with the loan.”

David and Muhammad struggled to reach a Chevy Chase official who could hear out his hardship case. In the meantime, David found a $12-an-hour job stocking shelves at CVS. But what little money David could save to start paying off his mortgage didn’t help, because the bank refused to take partial payment, David said. As the delinquent payments piled up, Chevy Chase announced it was putting his house up for auction Nov. 18 on the steps of Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville.

Situations like David’s are complicated and demand an equally complex answer—preferably before foreclosure is imminent, said Richard Nelson, the director of the county’s Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Unfortunately, banks are reluctant to sit down with homeowners before a foreclosure notice is sent out—and oftentimes just as reluctant after, he said.

“The banks are the last ones to realize what new approaches are necessary to solve this problem,” Nelson said. “The question I have is: … When do they realize it cost them more to go into foreclosure than it does to help settle with the borrower?”

In late 2008, Capital One purchased Chevy Chase. Julie Rakes, a spokeswoman for Capital One, wrote in an e-mail to the Gazette on Nov. 23 that “…it has always been our policy to work with borrowers who experience financial distress and to offer relief alternatives when appropriate. For customers experiencing financial challenges, we work to reduce the monthly repayment burden for those who qualify for assistance.”

She declined to elaborate on how and when Capital One offers to renegotiate loans.

Since 2007, some 2,060 Montgomery County homes were foreclosed on and purchased by banks, and more than 12,000 were at some stage of the process, Nelson said.

But banks have been even more difficult to work with in the second wave of foreclosures, Nelson said. In the third quarter of 2009, which began in July and ended in September, 864 properties received notices they were late on their mortgages, 986 homeowners were told by their bank that their home would be sold in an foreclosure auction and 368 were acquired by the bank, according to Nelson’s stats.

David awoke the morning of Nov. 18 prepared to become yet another number.

“I was not just angry. I was devastated,” he said. “I thought I would go to the highest building possible and … pretend I was going to jump.”

But a phone call from his foreclosure counselor confirmed what he hadn’t dared to hope: Capital One had suddenly agreed to make a new offer at the very last minute.

He arrived at the foreclosure auction anyway, just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

“They were highly unpredictable,” he explained. “For nine months, they weren’t willing to speak with me.”

When investors skipped over his home at the auction, his taut face relaxed into a loose smile.

But he remained hesitant to accept his good fortune: “One thing is they can tell you that [they'll negotiate],” he said. “Another thing is they can stab you in the back.”

Several weeks later, a happy David answered his home phone. Capital One had made an offer he could afford. If he made every payment on time for three months, the offer would become permanent.

“People in good faith did not know me but had sympathy,” he said on how his problem got solved. No one involved in his case really understood the bank’s change of heart, David said, and Capital One declined to comment on individual cases.

Many housing officials know David’s story is a rare success.

The only way to ensure there are more cases like David’s is to engage in full, pre-emptive talks among banks, homeowners, local governments and foreclosure counselors. At least one of those entities is usually unwilling to cooperate and the rest are overwhelmed, he said.

And if unemployment continues to rise, there’s no limit to how many more people could be in his shoes and just how big this second wave of foreclosures could be, Nelson said.

“I don’t think we’re at a crest,” he said. “I think we’re going to see a lot over the course of the next year.”

hte rest of

‘Second wave’ of foreclosures continues to rise.