Home prices are falling now that the home buyer tax credit has expired:
More U.S. home sellers cut their listing prices in April, aiming to seal deals in the waning days of federal tax credits meant to revive housing, real estate web site Trulia.com said on Wednesday.
Monetizing housing, i.e. using artificial means to inflate prices, was never a good policy, and it is a transparently bad policy now.
After all that has gone on with the Euro over the past year, and the fact that the Baltic Republic is suffering through a brutal recession, which its government has made worse by implementing an austerity program, Estonia has announced that it will adopt the Euro next year.
While I understand the issue here, national pride basically, anyone who joins the Euro now, when the state of the currency, and its central bank are currently in flux, is dangerously reckless.
It turns out that 76% of the American public believe that we are still in a recession.
Considering that unemployment, even by the rather low U-3 number is around 10%, this is not surprising.
The reality is that we are still in a hole, and 2% annual won’t get us out of this hole for at least a decade.
Of course, the very serious people in Washington, DC think that the deficit is over, so now they are going to slam on the brakes to get the deficit down.
There have been persistent problems with lead levels in Washington, DC’s water supply.
While correlation does not prove causation, it does make one wonder.
If there is anything that you can depend on, it is that whatever bill goes through Congress, it will either be killed, or weakened significantly.
Well, it appears that the reform of financial regulation is actually getting better and stronger in the Senate, which has added:
Seriously, I think that people inside the DC Beltway are beginning to realize just how unpopular the finance industry is, and the Senate is moving this way, because it wasn’t quite so obvious when the House passed the bill.
That being said, there were still things that show that Washington, DC is still the same as it ever was, specifically that they are looking to create a carve out for an industry that is notorious for cheating consumers, car dealers:
A measure under consideration in the Senate would shield auto dealers from a package of proposed financial rules aimed at protecting consumers.
Currently auto dealers are regulated by a host of state and federal consumer protection rules that prohibit practices such as “bait and switch” lending and loans packed with undisclosed extras such as extended warranties.
This is hardly surprising.
Car dealers are, as a whole, perceived by the public as an unsavory and dishonest lot, and so they have have consciously inserted themselves into government and elections as much as is possible, spreading largess, and making them patrons of politicians from dog catcher to Senator.
To his credit, and my surprise, Barack Obama is against exempting car dealers from the consumer financial protection agency.
These things go together
.On the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS, Neophyte said, regarding Palins intellect, or lack thereof, “I’m not sure if it’s dumb or clever. She caters to the far right evangelicals. She gives them what they crave.”
The parallels between Palin and Brawndo, which has, “got what plants crave,” are striking.
And it’s pretty clear that Bernie Sanders gave too much up, because the vote was unanimous.
If he could not get even 10 Republicans, and 3 Corporate-Democrats, to vote against it, it is clearly too lenient.
I’d like to see it fixed in conference committee, but I doubt it, since Barack Obama and His Evil Minions™ will be doing a full court press against that.
John Stewart asks the right question, why, if these are “perfect storms,” do they happen every few weeks?
I don’t care who Elena Kagan f%$#s, just so long as it is not the American public.
And Andrew Sullivan, whom I declare wanker of the day, can go Cheney himself.
Gordon Brown has announced that he is stepping down as head of the Labour Party, which should improve Labour’s chances of forming a coalition with the Lib-Dems and the small fry parties:
Gordon Brown has announced he will step down as Labour leader by September – as his party opens formal talks with the Lib Dems about forming a government.
The PM’s continued presence in Downing Street was seen as harming Labour’s chances of reaching a deal.
Labour and the Tories are both trying to woo the Lib Dems with promises on electoral reform as the battle to run the country reaches its critical phase.
Still, we are in for a time of minority government, with either Labour or the Tories in the lead, and no small amount of instability.
The EU has set up a rescue fund to avoid situations like Greece in the future, to the tune of nearly a trillion dollars, and the ECB has agreed to purchase sovereign debt, basically printing money, in order to provide stability in the markets.
I’m beginning to think that everyone in the EU is beginning to realize that the way to do things is to hear what the Germans want, and then do something else.
Transocean, the firm operating BP’s oil rig that exploded and created a blowout that is threatening most of the US Gulf coast, will make $270m from the loss of the rig because it was insured for more than it was worth.
I thought that this has been illegal since the Marine Insurance Act of 1746.
Moody’s just disclosed that it received a Wells notice from the SEC in March.
This means that they are in the SEC’s cross-hairs, and that a potential “enforcement action,” is likely.
You have to figure that once the SEC starts turning over rocks, they will find more, and for a company whose only capital is their credibility, it could be in trouble very quickly.
Seeing as how we already have evidence that all the major credit rating agencies are corrupt, there could be a domino effect.
This is going to make the collapse of the monoliner bond insurers look like a picnic.
The army will be deploying the XM-25 Individual Airburst Weapon to Afghanistan, and many good things are expected of it.
I am not at all surprised that they have decided that a personal grenade launcher would be necessary for the conflict.
The Soviets came to the same conclusion when they were in Afghanistan, which is why the AGS-17 Plamya (Russian: Пламя) is a Soviet-designed automatic grenade launcher used in Afghanistan to such a degree that the unmounted infantry squad was largely built around the weapon in the same way that a squad is built around the LMG in US service.
The degree to which our experience in Afghanistan is a rerun of the failed Soviet script is striking.
“I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend,” he said. “But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me.”
–Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) in his commencement speech at Emory University
Not surprising.
Basically, they are choosing her because of her ability to get ahead in legal academe without saying, or publishing much.
She was tenured at the University of Chicago, and later Harvard, where she became Dean of Harvard Law, but her record of publications is remarkably sparse, though I think that Paul Campos’ comparison of her to Harriet Miers is a big much:
Yesterday, I read everything Elena Kagan has ever published. It didn’t take long: in the nearly 20 years since Kagan became a law professor, she’s published very little academic scholarship—three law review articles, along with a couple of shorter essays and two brief book reviews. Somehow, Kagan got tenure at Chicago in 1995 on the basis of a single article in The Supreme Court Review—a scholarly journal edited by Chicago’s own faculty—and a short essay in the school’s law review. She then worked in the Clinton administration for several years before joining Harvard as a visiting professor of law in 1999. While there she published two articles, but since receiving tenure from Harvard in 2001 (and becoming dean of the law school in 2003) she has published nothing. (While it’s true law school deans often do little scholarly writing during their terms, Kagan is remarkable both for how little she did in the dozen years prior to becoming Harvard’s dean, and for never having written anything intended for a more general audience, either before or after taking that position.)
On the other hand, the fact that she has not been a Federal judge, or worked as a US Attorney, and she made the prima-donnas at Harvard Law play nice.
Still, I think that it is her lack of a record that has put her in this position, which I think is a bad idea.
It will just push Obama’s opponents to look harder, and they will find something eventually.
Appointing a real liberal would be day 1 news, but instead, we will have a drip, drip, drip, about her.
I also think that this is a real attempt to avoid a fight, and once again, because the Republicans understand that unreasonable opposition is their best political tactic, it will fail.
Color me unimpressed.
So says the latest tracking poll, which has Joe Sestak leading Arlen Specter by 46% to 42%. (PDF)
If you assume that the numbers go the wrong way for Sestak on the margin of error (±5%), and figure in the 2:1 undecideds going for the challenger, then Specter wins a 51%-49% victory, but this is really grim for Specter, and the numbers also now appear to imply that Sestak is stronger in the general election against Neanderthal Pat Toomey.*
Basically, Sestak has started hitting Specter as being a political opportunist, and it works because it’s true.
Here’s hoping that Blanche Lincoln suffers the same fate.
*My apologies to Neanderthals for the comparison.
Obama would only replace him with someone even more hostile to the idea of the rule of law in the pursuit of terrorism cases.*
Money quote:
GREGORY: So, let me– let me unpack that a little bit. What you’d like to see happen is that Congress would pass a law that would say to judges, “Hey, look, in this environment, if we extract information that could be valuable intelligence about another terror plot, about who they’re involved in. Whether they’re connected to the Pakistani Taliban. We want to get all that without them lawyering up and still be able to use that against them in a court of law.” And you need more flexibility to do that, you think?
HOLDER: Yeah, we certainly need more flexibility. And we want the public safety exception to be consistent with– the public safety concerns that we now have in the 21st Century, as opposed to the public safety concerns that we had back in the 1980s.
GREGORY: So, that’s news. I mean, that’s an important development. Would you work with Congress to try to get that new law passed?
HOLDER: Yeah, we want to work with Congress to come up with a way in which we make our public safety exception more flexible. And again, more consistent with the threat– that we face. And yes, this is in fact the big news. This is a proposal that– we’re gonna be making and that we want to work– with Congress about.
GREGORY: So, a new priority for the administration.
HOLDER: It is a new priority.
It’s clear that Barack Obama has made a purely political decision to ape the worst aspects of the Bush administration, because he thinks that it will defuse criticism from the right, which it clearly hasn’t anyway.
This is venal, craven, and just plain un-American, as well as being stupid, because it does not work from a political perspective.
Would that we had some Democrats who were not a bunch of cowards.
H/t Crooks and Liars
*But remember, the Cossacks work for the Czar.
Landing an aircraft with an engine gone is one thing, but with a wing gone?
That’s what IAF pilot Tsvi Nedivi did, and he managed to land it safely.
Note that the live footage seems to be studio tricks, but the pilot’s account is compelling.
Or more precisely, it shows an order to prepare to fire, which explains why the guardsmen wheeled in unison to turn on the demonstrators before opening fire:
“That’s clear as a bell,” Owen said at one point as he and Allen replayed the phrase “Prepare to fire” on two large wall-mounted loudspeakers.
The two audio engineers didn’t add anything to the recording or fundamentally alter its contents. Instead, they boosted what was present to make it easier to hear. “It’s like putting on eyeglasses,” Owen said.
The order to prepare to fire is, according to the experts who analyzed the tape, “As clear as a bell,” and there is an an “F” sound heard immediately before firing started, which might be the order to fire.
Of interest is the fact that he first 3 gunshots are probably from 45 caliber pistols, and the remainder from M1s, which would be consistent with whoever was in charge giving the order to fire, and firing himself, as sidearms would not have been carried by the grunts.
The enhanced audio is below, and I can hear, with ordinary hearing, “Guard,” and “Prepare to fire,” quite clearly.