Additionally, home sales are at a 20 year low. Of interest is the reports of some “bargain hunters” returning to the market.
When one looks at crashes, whether real-estate, or other assets, I think that this qualifies as a whistling in the dark.
We’ll have some more of that, and at least one dead cat bounce* before this is over.
*It refers to a short term spike in values during a bear market. It comes from the expression that “even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height”.
The 238+ page document, “Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures”, dated March 2003, was leaked and the whole document (pdf) is now at available at wikileaks.org.
Among the revelations:
Nice gulag you have there, Bushie.
And I’m not referring to the former President of Mexico. I am referring to Rupert Murdoch’s broadcast and cable empire.
It’s a story of payback to political friends, lawbreaking with the management of the New York cable system, and lucrative cable consulting gigs for Giuliani after he left office.
It’s why Fox is playing touch on his use of their debate footage, and that Fox has been so supportive of him, even when compared to other Republican candidates.
My congratulations to him and his campaign.
His goal is $12million for the quarter, and he is 2/3 of the way there at the halfway mark.
I’m still not voting for him though.
Un-dirtyword-bleievable.
Merrill Lunch had a new CEO selected, but they chose someone else because he wanted a full accounting of the subprime losses.
This says something about the general level of ethics in US financial markets, and it is not good.
It’s almost certain to get the votes to go on the ballot now.
Personally, I’m voting against it. I don’t approve of “Sin” taxes. It creates the meme that only bad people pay taxes. Everyone should pay taxes.
It looks like Harry Reid will keep the Senate in session over the weekend to force a vote on the Iraq withdrawal plan.
Good for him. To paraphrase Rob Reiner’s mom, “I’ll have what he’s having.”
They are now claiming that they have found enough volunteers.
Yeah, right.
[img]http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/3149/604nilees6.jpg[/img]
My comment on this entire affair is the following:
Whether one wants to consider his home run record real or not is up to them, but with, or without steroids, Bonds deserves to be in the hall of fame.
I have no clue as to whether race plays into this, but the fact that he never kissed sports writer butt appears to have made the coverage far more hostile than, for example the big wet kiss that the press continues to give Mark McGuire, and no one ever talked about an asterisk with him.
This is very good news, if true. Here is the report:
Here’s a bit more detail on what happened on the Judiciary Committee today. Sources say Senator Russ Feingold offered an amendment that would have stripped telecom immunity from the bill, but it was defeated. Then Senator Arlen Specter, the ranking GOPer on the committee, offered a “compromise” amendment saying that in these lawsuits the Federal government, and not the telecoms, would be the defendants.
But because of a procedural difficulty Specter’s amendment wasn’t voted on — and Senator Patrick Leahy, the chair of the committee, essentially went around Specter’s amendment and moved to have a vote to report the bill out of committee without any telecom immunity in it. That passed along strictly party lines. And that’s where we are.
The interesting thing is that this is a fight that Bush can’t win, if the Dems show some backbone.
If nothing passes, we are back to the old FISA bill. If he vetos over this, he has to explain why.
The decrease in commercial/multifamily lending activity during the third quarter was driven by decreases in originations for most property types. When compared to the third quarter of 2006, the overall decrease included a 31 percent decrease in loans for office properties, a 20 percent decrease in loans for retail properties, an 18 percent decrease in loans for hotel properties, an 8 percent decrease in loans for industrial properties, as well as a 149 percent increase in loans for health care properties and a 14 percent increase in loans for multifamily properties.
So the things that increased were our tremendously inefficient health care system, and apartments for people who are no longer buying homes.
Remember when I wrote that Harry Reid had decided to keep the senate in pro forma session to prevent recess appointments?
He backed off after cutting a deal with Bush, but it now appears to be breaking down, so it looks like the Senate will stay in pro forma session over the Thanksgiving recess.
Considering where Mukulski, Cardin and Webb live, and that you only need one of them to hold a pro forma session, why deal with the Avignon president at all?
Jobless claims hits 339,000, they were expecting about 10,000 less.
The rumors were something involving him in diapers.
Vote Democratic….Our perverts are far less disturbing.
It extends wiretapping further than I would like, but it requires at least some court review, and has no Telco immunity.
It looks like it will pass, the rule for the bill just passed, largely on party lines 224-192.
Pat Leahy has an ammendment stripping out the telco immunity from the FISA update. Michael Mukasey and DNI Michael McConnell, who believes that any discussion of intelligence will kill us all, have authored a letter to the Juciciary committee opposing the change:
“We strongly oppose the proposed substitute amendment. If the substitute is part of a bill that is presented to the president, we and the president’s other senior advisers will recommend that he veto the bill.
Who the hell cares if Bush vetos this bill?
If nothing gets passed, we go back to the old law, and the old restrictions, in a few months.
In 1994, Black home ownership was at 42.3%. In 2004, it was 49.7%. It has now dropped to 46.7%.
The rise in home ownership rates was really pretty meteoric, and the drop is even steeper.
Dean Baker makes the point, which I agree with, that the idea that increased home ownership is a good in and of itself is a bad policy with significant negative consequences, or as he so eloquently puts it, “In other words, the big push to increase African American homeownership rates was in reality a big push to increase foreclosure rates among African American households, but the ideologues of homeownership were too blind to notice the impact of their policies.”
Home ownership provides benefits, like the creation of equity, but it also adds significant risks to the equation. When something major breaks, roof, hvac, plumbing, the home owner can face SIGNIFICANT unanticipated expenses, and the downsides of foreclosure are worse than those of eviction.
This policy was a centerpiece of the conservative “Ownership Society”, and it is having disastrous consequences, and it appears that these consequences will become more dire for the foreseeable future.
I sense the Ghost of John Mitchell.
My heart bleeds at the thoughtthat Gonzales is facing serious legal costs in response to a DoJ investigation of potential perjury and witness tampering.
You know, telling the truth and being honorable might be cheaper in the long run.
Some Russians have developed a motorized, gyro-stabilized suitcase that follows you around.
Shades of Terry Pratchett.