STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday August 4

Source: du

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday August 4, 2010

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Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold

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Handy Links - Market Data and News:Economic Calendar    Marketwatch Data    Bloomberg Economic News    Yahoo! Finance    Google Finance    Bank Tracker    
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    William Black: This Economic Disaster    Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn

Bush Administration Officials Convicted = 2
Names: David Safavian, James Fondren

Bush Administration Officials Charged = 1
Name(s): Richard Lopez Razo

Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 = 11

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This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.

Read more: du

08:15 ADP Employment Change Jul
Briefing.com 25K
Consensus 25K
Prior 13K

10:00 ISM Services Jul
Briefing.com 52.0
Consensus 53.0
Prior 53.8

10:30 Crude Inventories 07/31
Briefing.com NA
Consensus NA
Prior 7.31M

http://www.briefing.com/Investor/Public/Calendars/EconomicCalendar.htm

:eyes:

Sure it is.

SINGAPORE – Oil prices fell from a three-month high above $82 a barrel Wednesday in Asia after a report showed U.S. crude inventories fell less than expected last week, suggesting demand in the U.S. remains sluggish.

Benchmark crude for September delivery was down 46 cents to $82.09 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained $1.21 to settle at $82.55 on Tuesday, the highest since May 4.

U.S. crude inventories fell by 776,000 barrels last week, according to the American Petroleum Institute. That was less than a drop of 1.2 million barrels that analysts expected, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Supplies of gasoline and distillates rose, the API said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/oil_prices

Houston, Texas (CNN) -- A long-awaited procedure to permanently seal BP's crippled well in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be working and is being monitored, the oil giant announced early Wednesday.

The well-killing procedure, which began Tuesday afternoon, involves pumping heavy drilling mud down from above to push oil back into the well reservoir.

"The well pressure is now being controlled by the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling mud, the desired outcome of the static kill procedure," a BP statement said. "The pumping of heavy drilling mud was stopped after about eight hours of pumping drilling mud down the well. The well is now being monitored, per the procedure, to ensure the well remains static."

In the static kill operation, it's still unclear whether the mud will be followed by cement, according to BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells. Engineers will evaluate that as they proceed. They may decide to wait until a relief well is completed in an accompanying well-killing effort known as a "bottom kill" -- intended to serve as an insurance policy that the well is sealed. That could happen about a week from now.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/04/gulf.oil.spill/?hpt=T1

but I don't buy all this BOP happy talk. On the film, wells can hit gas pockets. Not uncommon so I am not overly concerned. Seismic reading are fairly good on this. What scares me...most sea life goes through larval stages. It is not the life you see covered in oil dying that concerns me (well, that is not exactly true either), but it is the fate of life unseen that worries me. A full understanding of the damage will not be apparent right away but in the future, in the decline of oyster beds, declining shrimp harvests, increase in algae blooms etc.

I thought it was like around $77 just last week???


Tansy Gold, who needs to pay more attention. . . .

Gas prices here are finally starting to reflect it, too. up to about $2.65/gal now.

Too bad the speculators don't take vacations...

NEW YORK – Worried about the stalling economic recovery, Americans remained reluctant to spend at stores in July, especially on pricier items like jewelry, though they let go of some money for travel, according to data released Wednesday.

Revenue from high-end jewelry, which had held steady in June, plummeted in July from a year earlier, when the figures already were dismal. Furniture also suffered as the boost from homebuyer tax credits wore off. Shoppers even pulled back on shoes and children's clothing, while luxury spending — excluding baubles — was virtually unchanged.

The figures from MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse, which include transactions in all forms including cash, signal that spending remains choppy as shoppers grapple with an almost 10 percent unemployment rate and tight credit.

Online revenue offered one bright spot, gaining for the 12th straight month. But travel spending — including airlines, trains, rental cars and hotels — also rose from July 2009, when it fell almost 2 percent.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100804/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_retail_sales

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Americans are saving more and spending less, putting a choker on the economic recovery, data showed Tuesday as the US government warned sky-high unemployment may yet worsen.

The American consumer -- whose thirst for new products has been a mainstay of the global economy for decades -- trimmed spending in June as salaries stagnated and more cash was saved, according to the latest Commerce Department figures.

Americans stashed away 6.4 percent of their income, the highest savings levels in a year and nearly triple the rate seen before the recession began in December 2007.

The Commerce Department's figures also showed consumer spending decreased by 2.9 billion -- less than 0.1 percent -- while income increased by roughly the same percentage.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100803/bs_afp/useconomygrowth

is the way to starve the beast. Shrink corporations to such an extent, you can drown them in a bath tub.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As many as 50,000 struggling homeowners in five states with high unemployment may receive help from a special $600 million federal fund intended to head off some foreclosures.

State housing agencies in Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon and Rhode Island can use money from a so-called "Hardest Hit Fund" for foreclosure mitigation that was announced in March, a top Treasury official told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

Herb Allison, Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability, said each of those five states have had their proposals approved and are now eligible to begin receiving aid, though "the funds will start flowing in the next several months, state by state."

The five states have counties where the unemployment rate exceeded 12 percent in 2009. The national rate of unemployment is expected to tick up to 9.6 percent when the Labor Department releases its monthly employment report on Friday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100804/us_nm/us_usa_housing_foreclosures

If there's relief, it should be to all. The Greater GOP Depression isn't a local disaster--it's nationwide, as well as world-wide.

Of course, this isn't relief that's being offered, it's propaganda.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower open for Wall Street on Wednesday, after disappointing housing and consumer spending data released a day earlier prompted some worries over the pace of economic recovery.

By 5:07 a.m. ET, futures for the S&P 500 were down 0.4 percent, Dow Jones industrial average futures were down 0.3 percent and Nasdaq futures were 0.3 percent lower.

Shares on Wall Street slipped on Tuesday after Dow component Procter & Gamble (PG.N) posted lackluster results, and data showed U.S. home purchase contracts tumbled to a record low in June, while factory orders fell more steeply than expected, implying an anemic economic recovery for the remainder of this year.

Investors will closely monitor the ADP Employment figures for July, due at 8:15 a.m. ET, to gauge the health of the U.S. labor market ahead of non-farm payrolls numbers on Friday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100804/bs_nm/us_markets_stocks

(Up big. Good day.)
Residences. One with pokeyweed in the front, and the Sheriff came but did not notice it.
(Debt under Obama seems to jump up big then drop slowly maybe up a little and down a little for days--repeat.)
= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 8,771,691,103,893.80 + 4,525,135,555,495.73
UP 69,233,337,488.16 + DOWN 10,133,654,988.66

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 310-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.23 THAT'S 1B$, and $3,227.90 makes 1T$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.68, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 13 seconds we net gain another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 309,799,377 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 04/09/2010 15:49 -> 309,034,742
Currently, each of these Americans owe $42,920.77.
A family of three owes $128,762.3. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 21 reports in the last 30 to 31 days.
The average for the last 21 reports is 5,785,520,367.85.
The average for the last 30 days would be 4,049,864,257.49.
The average for the last 31 days would be 3,919,223,474.99.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 209 reports in 306 days of FY2010 averaging 6.64B$ per report, 4.53B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 902 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 14.5 and 18.0T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
08/02/2010 13,296,826,659,389.53 BHO (UP 2,669,949,610,476.45 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +1,386,997,655,877.80 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
Endof10 +1,654,425,308,481.69 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Linear Projection

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
07/13/2010 +000,353,392,256.51 ------------********
07/14/2010 +000,197,224,468.53 ------------********
07/15/2010 +047,740,634,202.02 ------------**********
07/16/2010 +000,234,726,558.99 ------------********
07/19/2010 -000,002,380,240.85 ----- Mon
07/20/2010 +000,028,467,145.72 ------------*******
07/21/2010 +000,002,455,391.44 ------------******
07/22/2010 +010,637,573,043.16 ------------**********
07/23/2010 -000,409,271,286.12 ---
07/26/2010 +000,027,014,896.10 ------------******* Mon
07/27/2010 +000,542,206,084.16 ------------********
07/28/2010 -000,094,171,033.04 ----
07/29/2010 +003,752,718,531.15 ------------*********
07/30/2010 +000,337,023,124.63 ------------********
08/02/2010 +069,233,337,488.16 ------------********** Mon

132,580,950,630.56 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
DUer primer on National debt

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4489387&mesg_id=4489398

(Down a little. Good day.)
Three jobs, two should have been cancelled. Neighbor has 20's from 1950 that do not work for the yellow pen.
(Debt under Obama seems to jump up big then drop slowly maybe up a little and down a little for days--repeat.)
= Held by the Public + Intragovernmental(FICA)
= 8,771,462,133,533.12 + 4,530,175,683,617.83
DOWN 228,970,360.68 + UP 5,040,128,122.10

Source: Debt to the penny:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

THINKING IN BILLIONS: Think 3 or 4 dollars per billion in a 310-Million person America.
If every American, man, woman and child puts in $3.23 THAT'S 1B$, and $3,227.83 makes 1T$.
A family of three: Mom, Dad, Child: $9.68, ABOUT TEN BUCKS for a 1B$ federal program.
I hope that is clear. However, I'd suggest using $3 per 1B$ to underestimate it.
Use $4 per 1B$ to overestimate the cost when thinking: Is the federal program worth it?
Aid to Dependant Children: 2B$/yr =$8/yr(a movie a year) Family of 3: $24/yr(an hour of bowling)

PERSONALIZED DEBT:
Every 13 seconds we net gain another American, so at the end of the workday of the report, there should be 309,806,024 people in America.
http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html ON 04/09/2010 15:49 -> 309,034,742
Currently, each of these Americans owe $42,935.38.
A family of three owes $128,806.13. (And that is IN ADDITION to their mortgage.)

ANALYSIS:
There were 22 reports in the last 30 to 32 days.
The average for the last 22 reports is 5,741,231,158.46.
The average for the last 30 days would be 4,210,236,182.87.
The average for the last 32 days would be 3,947,096,421.44.
There were 252 reports in 365 days of FY2007 averaging 1.99B$ per report, 1.37B$/day.
There were 253 reports in 366 days of FY2008 averaging 4.02B$ per report, 2.78B$/day.
There were 75 reports in 112 days of GWB's part of FY2009 averaging 8.03B$ per report, 5.38B$/day.
There were 174 reports in 253 days of Obama's part of FY2009 averaging 7.33B$ per report, 5.07B$/day so far.
There were 249 reports in 365 days of FY2009 averaging 7.57B$ per report, 5.16B$/day.
There were 210 reports in 307 days of FY2010 averaging 6.63B$ per report, 4.53B$/day.
Above line should be okay

PROJECTION:
There are 901 days remaining in this Obama 1st term.
By that time the debt could be between 14.5 and 18.0T$.
It could be higher. It could be lower.

HISTORICAL:
President's term begins and ends on Jan 20.
(Guess who might want to hide the Reagan Bush years. Jan 20 data is missing before 1993.)
01/20/1993 _4,188,092,107,183.60 WJC Inaugural
01/22/2001 _5,728,195,796,181.57 WJC (UP 1,540,103,688,997.97)
01/20/2009 10,626,877,048,913.08 GWB (UP 4,898,681,252,731.43)
08/03/2010 13,301,637,817,150.95 BHO (UP 2,674,760,768,237.87 so far since Obama took office.)

FISCAL YEAR DEBT CHANGE, Sep 30 prior year to Sep 30 named year:
(One "* " for each 40B$ reached)
FY1994 +0,281,261,026,873.94 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1995 +0,281,232,990,696.07 ------------* * * * * * * WJC
FY1996 +0,250,828,038,426.34 ------------* * * * * * WJC
FY1997 +0,188,335,072,261.61 ------------* * * * WJC
FY1998 +0,113,046,997,500.28 ------------* * WJC
FY1999 +0,130,077,892,735.81 ------------* * * WJC
FY2000 +0,017,907,308,253.43 ------------WJC
FY2001 +0,133,285,202,313.20 ------------* * * C&B
01-WJC +0,053,598,528,417.78 ------------* WJC 31% of FY, 40% of FY-Debt
01-GWB +0,079,686,673,895.42 ------------* GWB 69% of FY, 60% of FY-Debt
FY2002 +0,420,772,553,397.10 ------------* * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2003 +0,554,995,097,146.46 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2004 +0,595,821,633,586.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2005 +0,553,656,965,393.18 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2006 +0,574,264,237,491.73 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2007 +0,500,679,473,047.25 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2008 +1,017,071,524,649.92 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB
FY2009 +1,885,104,106,599.30 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * B&O
09GWB +0,602,152,152,000.60 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * GWB 31% of FY, 32% of FY-Debt
09-BHO +1,282,951,954,598.70 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO 69% of FY, 68% of FY-Debt
FY2010 +1,391,808,813,639.20 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * BHO
Endof10 +1,654,756,407,095.47 ------------* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Linear Projection

LAST FIFTEEN REPORTS OF ADDITIONS TO PUBLIC DEBT(NOT FICA):
07/14/2010 +000,197,224,468.53 ------------********
07/15/2010 +047,740,634,202.02 ------------**********
07/16/2010 +000,234,726,558.99 ------------********
07/19/2010 -000,002,380,240.85 ----- Mon
07/20/2010 +000,028,467,145.72 ------------*******
07/21/2010 +000,002,455,391.44 ------------******
07/22/2010 +010,637,573,043.16 ------------**********
07/23/2010 -000,409,271,286.12 ---
07/26/2010 +000,027,014,896.10 ------------******* Mon
07/27/2010 +000,542,206,084.16 ------------********
07/28/2010 -000,094,171,033.04 ----
07/29/2010 +003,752,718,531.15 ------------*********
07/30/2010 +000,337,023,124.63 ------------********
08/02/2010 +069,233,337,488.16 ------------********** Mon
08/03/2010 -000,228,970,360.68 ---

131,998,588,013.37 Total of 15 above reports.

Heavy borrowing seems to start after 09/18/2008 while Bush was in power JUST BEFORE fiscal year end.
Bush admin borrowed $962,245,245,654.01 in those last 124 days in office crossing two fiscal years.
$360,093,093,653.42 in last 12 days of FY2008, and $602,152,152,000.59 in subsequent 112 days before leaving office.

For a prettier and more explanatory view of our nation's debt:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
DUer primer on National debt

(Debt to the penny keeps changing. Stuff is missing. Best to keep our own history.) LAST REPORT:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4490797&mesg_id=4490814

BANGKOK – World stocks mostly fell Wednesday, led by a 2 percent tumble in Japan, following a slew of economic and earnings reports that provided a reminder the U.S. economic recovery remains fitful.

As trading got underway in Europe, France's CAC-40 was off 0.8 percent at 3,718.49, Germany's DAX was down 0.5 percent at 6,274.21 and Britain's FTSE 100 was lower by 1.2 percent at 5,333.03.

Continued strength in the yen hit Japanese exporters, dragging the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average down by 204.67 points, or 2.1 percent, to 9,489.34.

Stock markets were mixed elsewhere in Asia. South Korea's Kospi fell 1.3 percent to 1,789.26 while the Shanghai Composite Index added 0.4 percent to 2,638.52 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 0.4 percent to 21,549.88.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100804/ap_on_bi_ge/world_markets

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators said mutual funds aren’t telling investors enough about why they use derivatives, with some funds providing “generic” disclosures and others failing to explain how the products affect performance.

Regulators said they are concerned that the use of derivatives has increased in the mutual-fund industry without shareholders comprehending the risks or investment strategies. Some funds offer information that “may not be consistent with the intent” of required registration forms, the Securities and Exchange Commission wrote in a July 30 letter to the Investment Company Institute, the industry’s biggest trade group.

The SEC also raised concerns about “abbreviated” disclosures that give investors a false sense of security about how much funds rely on derivatives.

As a result of the inadequate disclosures, investors may not know which products are used to generate profits, Miller said in the letter. He advised all funds that use derivatives to “assess the accuracy and completeness” of their disclosures.

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20603037&sid=aOf0dgsLKm24

Last year, I questioned why people were bandying about the term “Great Recession” so freely, and wondered whether the dramatic designation was warranted. I had reason for skepticism: An informal search of news archives showed that every recession of the last several decades had, at some point, received this special nickname.

But it seems the most recent downturn really does deserve it. Here’s a look, from the Minneapolis Fed, at the change in output in each of the recessions since World War II... (see chart)

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/the-great-recession-earns-its-title/

---

In terms of economic decline, the currentRDepression has deeper legs than any since modern data was first recorded.

like you see it. It is a Depression. Never in my lifetime did I think I would witness a Depression like my Grandparents did.

Never in my lifetime did I think I would see economic times worse than under Reagan. I am now.

:donut: Gotta run.

:hi:

:donut: and lurkers. Happy to be the first rec.:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:
I am training myself to get up for the new school year. I got my letter yesterday. We start next week. :eyes:
Yesterday I went to my first Sheriffs auction. I learned so much and want to learn more. Hubby was off his schedule and was walking around like an Alzheimer's victim. He lost his drivers license and I spent as much time tracking him as I did watching the activities. He wanted for us to leave the car at home and take the bus. I threw a hissy wife fit. We are both on medications, getting up in years, and this is the hottest time of the year. The nice covered secure parking cost us $10 dollars and we live close to down town. After the sale we went to get the mail and do a bank errand (which we couldn't have done in a bus). I told him our time and safety was worth more than the $5 we would save.:eyes: When I put it like that-he knew I wasn't going to budge.

Now I have been to farm and livestock auctions but this was my first Sheriff's auction and hubby's first ever auction. Although we had money-we just watched. We met some folks asked some questions and learned a lot. Some homes were sold for taxes and some were fore closures. Where you can lose your shirt is by not doing title research. If there is a certain type of lien, you can be responsible and quickly become upside down or lose the property. I also saw attorneys for a RE company pick up properties for taxes (no offense to any here, but I can spot a lawyer a mile away). I also got the back stories on some of the properties.

We want to take a course on RE law and attend these more often. I won't be able to go as often as school starts up, but I would damn sure prefer do this than go back to school and get a Master's in Nursing and hope for a decent paying job. Or get a degree in education and pray. Corporate America is not working for us so we are going to take a different tact. Not having debt and doing cash has really been a blessing for us. We have more freedom to do these things. George Carlin was so right about wanting to keep the population smart enough to pull the switches but dumb enough not to question the shitty pay, declining benefits, and sorry working conditions.

So my question for you SMW is this,
"If presidents as diametrically opposed as George W Bush and Barack Obama produce the same political environment, is there any hope for change? Jason Kelly Financially Stupid People Are Everywhere (which gets my two thumbs up)

Happy Hunting and watch out for the bears.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/live_chat_chris_hedges_on_global_warming_20100721



The environmental catastrophe we are experiencing aside, the paragraph I find most telling is this:



DU discussion on the article here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8869989

We're going to have to do it from the ground up. Like Detroit bulldozing vacant blocks for urban farming. Like farmer's markets. Our governor just signed a bill allowing people to sell certain foods: baked goods, jams and jellies, at farmer's markets without having to have the commercial kitchen and health dept. breathing down their necks. How this will help individuals is anybody's guess. Some small enterprises got regulatory relief, is all.

Chris Hedges is increasingly gloomy.

Worse yet, I cannot fault his arguments:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25022.htm

I posted this late yesterday, so reposting today. The pictures are incredible in color!


These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.

70 photos, so it takes awhile to download

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943

I sent the link to a bunch of friends, including some who grew up in Montana and of course those of us who are former Chicagoans.

In the days before digital photography, I was a great fan of the 35mm slide. I still think nothing captures the play of light on texture the same way.

Thanks for sharing!!!!



TG

because nobody could make color photos that didn't look cheap and cheesy and controlling the process myself didn't result in much better.

I really love digital + Photoshop, I can be as finicky as I want without reeking of chemicals for the next month.

I'm barely old enough to remember a lot of this stuff from my early childhood. Things still looked much the same in the early 50s. One thing that struck me was that the pictures of Pie Town, NM stood out in one way: it was the only set of photos where the children were still poor enough to have no shoes, even though the Depression had eased enough in the other areas shown to keep people shod, at least in public.

During the 50s, you'd get your new shoes in September, bought half a size too big so that you walked funny for the first couple of months. By June, they were largely shot and you'd go barefoot everywhere but to church on Sunday, when you stuck your feet into the too-small, beat up shoes.

The Pie Town kids were singing on a stage, and still had no shoes.

what a treasure trove. I have been to those places in NM and Texas. Look carefully at the children's shoes and clothes. They are reworked hand me downs. You learned to make something out of nothing. Kids did not have crap from China-you got a hammer, nails, some tin, and if you were lucky, an old loose fence board and built your own fun. I am not that old but I remember making micro cars for my brother out of discarded razor blade containers (Gillette was my fav). They made dandy convertibles. We made skateboards out of discarded wheels and boards.

I have a studio and a workshop full. . . . . .


TG

You come over to my house, you will see all kinds of re worked things, and I am not talking about recycled jars.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/dubai-debt-crisis-halts-building-of-worlds-largest,2886/

DUBAI—Representatives from the emirate of Dubai announced with disappointment this week that its recent debt crisis has forced developers to halt construction on the city's long-planned 22-mile-long indoor mountain range.
Planners continue to take future reservations for the mountains' 9 and 10-star hotels...The culmination of a decade's worth of ambitious and expensive building projects, Dubai's estimated $100 billion debt officially brought work on the artificial mountain range to a stop on Tuesday....

With only seven of the planned 19 peaks completed and the artificial glaciers only partially frozen, the real estate firm Nakheel now says the landmark Alps Dubai development will miss its planned April 2011 opening date, and with it, the controlled volcanic eruption that would have commemorated the event.
Enlarge ImageSome of the more conservative construction projects completed before Dubai's financial meltdown.

"Everything had been progressing right on schedule," said project manager Zayed Kemaar. "The plate tectonics were almost in place, we were getting good vulcanism, and we had helicopter-loads of marble and schist arriving every day from Switzerland. We even had herds of pure-white albino bighorn rams standing on five of the peaks. Then, of course, the bottom fell out, and now we barely have the money to keep the air conditioning on."

Added Kemaar, "It just goes to show you that, when the economy is down, vital infrastructure projects like this are always the first to suffer."
...................

"And mark my words," he added, "We will still put a man on the artificial moon we're building by 2025."

"Added Kemaar, "It just goes to show you that, when the economy is down, vital infrastructure projects like this are always the first to suffer.""
Vital infrastructure! :rofl:
And in the USA we have crumbling bridges, 100 year old sewer systems and interstates full of potholes.....

I wouldn't want to get your dream vacation plans in a knot....

Went right by me. But with the other things Dubai has been building, an indoor mountain range sounds plausible. To me, anyway....

Is right after they tell you not to panic.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-03/blythe-masters-says-don-t-panic-over-jpmorgan-commodities-loss-job-cuts.html


Blythe Masters, head of commodities, sought to reassure her team on an
internal conference call after "extremely difficult"
dismissals, defections and a first half in which some results
were as much as 20 percent below expectations.

"Don't panic," she said in summing up the 35-minute call,
a recording of which was obtained by Bloomberg News. No one's
going to get screwed. We're not going to do crazy things on
compensation at the end of the year."

(TD NOTE: When she says nobody is going to get screwed, she doesn't mean the little people who don't work for her)

Masters, who was named to run the business in late 2006,
said the bank began dismissals on July 21, a day before the
call, to trim overlap after buying parts of RBS Sempra
Commodities LLP. The bank cut less than 10 percent of the
combined front office, even as the oil unit lost key people
who needed to be replaced, she said. She was discussing results
with top executives after "we made a bit of a rookie error"
that left the firm “vulnerable to a squeeze," she said.

The 41-year-old banker, who helped develop credit-default
swaps while at JPMorgan in the 1990s, delivered her talk from a
conference room in New York, where the bank is based, less than
a month after the firm closed its $1.7 billion RBS Sempra
purchase. The deal almost doubled the number of corporate
clients the bank can serve for commodities,Jes Staley, Chief
Executive Officer of JPMorgan's investment bank, said in
February.

you didn't lift this from the funny pages :rofl:

I have come up with an excellent franchise. I want to open a tomato and rotten egg franchise at all these stock holder meetings. The only people that have been enriched are the CEO's and their cronies.

My brain kept blinking out, with little flurries of doubt....oooo start of a poem

anyway, I finally realized it is indeed Wednesday.... whew!

it is hard to re-adjust your schedule. I noticed it but thought I was out of it.:spray:

for Tuesday's SMW kept showing up as "unread"

We went out of town for 3 days, and took Monday off to recoup and catch up.Which threw me off a day to begin with.

Tip: It's never a good idea to leave town for 3 days when you cucumber vines are doing "exceptionally well".

Exhausted. Little better today. I think tomorrow's code sheet needs to be updated while I am still somewhat clear-headed.

I don't know how they can expect little kids to go back to school in this weather. Let alone the big ones.

Could the government create a backdoor stimulus?
Refinance idea could inject cash into economy; but critics worry about costs
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/could-the-government-create-a-backdoor-stimulus-2010-08-04

I'm not going to provide the details, though.

:spray:

Kentucky Jelly?:spank::evilgrin:

He starts out talking about Japan, but goes on to explain how this applies to other countries, including ours.

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug10/Japan-doomed07-10.html



Japan muddled through the past 20 years because its vast domestic savings self-funded its stupendous public debts. That dynamic has reversed, and the consequences cannot be pushed aside for much longer.

Japan's debt crisis has been building for a decade. Back in 2001 I wrote an essay on Japan's exploding debt and the dire consequences of what I called Japan's Runaway Debt Train (2001):


Imagine, if you can, an economic Hell in which the U.S. government was borrowing 40% of its annual budget, creating annual deficits of 900 billion dollars a year; where 65% of all tax revenues were gobbled up by interest payments on a mind-boggling $13 trillion public debt; and where there was no conductor in sight to stop this runaway debt train.

Welcome to Japan, where that Hell is reality

thanks to the conservative nature of all politicians in wanting to paste a bad system together rather than scrapping it in favor of a previous system that actually worked.

Commodities markets, bid up once again by Golden Sacks and other hedge funds, are showing signs of volatility, swings becoming wider and more frequent. That includes currency markets. That was the early warning sign in the summer of 2008, so hold onto your hats, folks, it's likely to be another bumpy fall.

The national debt is not the problem, not yet. Continuing profligate military spending is the problem as well as shutting down the revenue stream from the plutocracy and their corporations.

Anyone who shrieks that the debt alone will kill us is shrieking out of the wrong hole, not the one his cake goes into.

n/t

in all ways (efficiency, cost, job creation :puke: ) than any government service could ever be... Yes, I'm weak.

I finished a MORNING LONG call to my local (Hahahaha! Sounded like somewhere in the Sub-Continent I was talking to) phone conglomerate trying desperately to get some sort of service on my rapidly failing phone/network connection. Mind you... I pay a pretty penny of my meager resources for the luxury of information.

Anyway, after an hour on the phone during which (under protest) they made me DO.THEIR.WORK.FOR.THEM. by hooking and unhooking things... Until it was clear I wasn't going away that easily and yes there was probably something wrong with my over 30 years old phone wires. Well, I waited on the phone for another hour while the off-shored underpaid sweatshop customer service slave tried to connect me to someone who actually had some sort of ability to physically come to my residence and FIX.THE.FRICKING.PHONE!

Yet, another, in an ever increasing mountain of Corporate Cluster Fuck Fail!

How is this better than... Say, a socialized system? More efficient? HA!

:spits:

Phone remains as screwed up as ever. :bah:

The CSSlave told me to call again, TOMORROW!

What time is it there?

or whichever regulatory body it may be. Fry them up.

It's not worth my time.

I've tried it, before.

The PRC's job here is to hold us while the Chamber of Commerce's Brown Shirts gut punch us.

Nice thought tho, Demeter.


Edit to add: 'gut'