Nasty Election already starting

[redblack]

If it’s good enough for the rest of us.. who have to live through 401K fluctuations… it’s good enough for civil servants.

hold it right there, pahdner.

retirement is not a cheap parlor game. we’re talking about americans’ lives. and what you’re telling me is that it’s better for wall street if we invest our old-age futures there, and, well… if your old-age futures succumb to market forces and run dry… well, tough luck, pal. you should have studied harder and worked 80 hours a week, ’cause it’s a dog-eat-dog world…

especially in the land of the free and the home of the brave. yeah, boy. if you don’t file those incisors down nice and sharp, you’d better be plenty ascairt.

and, by the yea, it’s your own fault for expecting what you didn’t earn and pay every last nickel for.

and, kootch, brother man, i’m betting that you’ll probably have the temerity to complain about the taxes for paupers’ funerals, too.

disgusting.

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[JoB]

Geez Louise Kootch…

we need to get a gong

and bang it every time you utter another one of those totally erroneous soundbites…

like.. Business hating democrats

i’d ask where you get this stuff

but i already know

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[kootchman]

You can’t get defined benefits, with assumptions that your annual rate of return is going to be 6 per cent or more. So, that assumption becomes a public liability, a contractual one. The safety net is not a contractual one, school facilities are not, public parks are not, libraries are not. The public good becomes secondary to civil servant benefits packages. And they are indeed very generous. The system is rigged. The very reason CalPers is playing the wall Street game is they HAVE to… they backed themselves into over promising on the benefits for the labor votes..they promised more than T Bills could deliver and are now having to take market risks … sorta like sitting in Vegas with 50 bucks at the blackjack table… knowing your 500 rent is due on Monday and all you have to your name is the $50… ah what the hell deal the cards.. No redblack only business owners do the 80 hour week thing, year after year… and you balance your portfolio for less risk and more stability as you get older. IPO’s on “hot companies” are not what you do at 60 .. unless you have it to lose.. maybe at 35 you allocate some to higher risk. NY finally hit the wall. Yea, ya get yer defined benefits… but you don’t get em at 58 anymore.. you start drawing the benefits at 65… and it is indexed to SS… and you no longer get 100 per cent medical… the wells can and do run dry. Business Hating Democrats? Like war on woman? Irritating isn’t it?

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[miws]

100k.

Well, isn’t that generous?

How long would that last the average widow, and a couple of kids, when she might either have to quit her own job to stay home with them, or pay for care during non-school hours, in these times?

And SGLI? The 400k coverage costs $27.00/month.

Let’s say a soldier is on active duty, and he’s sending his paycheck home.

“A soldier is on active duty, and he’s sending his paycheck home“

Now, he has a wife and a couple of kids; pretty average family. They have a decent house, and live within a budget, but can’t quite afford that extra $27.00/month.

He’s KIA.

Are you willing to go up to that grieving widow, after the flag draping her husbands coffin has been folded and presented to her, and say: “Sorry, Ma’am. You’re only getting $100k for your husband giving is life for his country….“?

And really, what the hell is even $400k worth these days, and decades into the future, to a 20-something year old widow?

Miie

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[kootchman]

Here’s why we are sick of giving more and more… another mind numbing case under this administration. At 3.6 trillion government is soooo big, corruption is rampant.. GSA, Medicaire.. all well compensated upper management civil servants but the sense of entitlement to taxpayer funds is a cultural norm in government.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/05/01/Ex-ICE-official-pleads-guilty-to-fraud/UPI-92651335898871/

The U.S. Justice Department said in a statement James M. Woosley, 48, former acting director of intelligence for Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, participated in a scheme involving fraudulent travel vouchers and time and attendance claims.

Ahmed Adil Abdallat, 64, a former ICE supervisory intelligence research specialist, pleaded guilty in October 2011; William J. Korn, 53, a former ICE intelligence research specialist, pleaded guilty in December 2011; Stephen E. Henderson, 61, a former contractor doing work for ICE, pleaded guilty in January 2012; and Lateisha M. Rollerson, 38, a former assistant to Woosley, pleaded guilty in March 2012. Abdallat pleaded guilty in the Western District of Texas, while the others pleaded guilty in Washington.

why in would you send more of your tax money for this crap? It NEVER gets to who needs it.. a few dribs and drabs to give the appearance… now these folks are LAW ENFORCEMENT… border security… the vanguard.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/05/01/Ex-ICE-official-pleads-guilty-to-fraud/UPI-92651335898871/#ixzz1vHkX9e5h

Or my favorite.. NOAA in has 3X the rate of fines to fisherman… what do they do with the taxpayer money? They buy a $300,000 pleasure boat for department parties… Get caught, lied to investigators…

Federal fish cops in Seattle bought a $300,000 luxury boat to spy on whale-watching tours — but didn’t go through an appropriate bidding process, held barbecues onboard, ferried friends and family across Puget Sound to restaurants and resorts, and used the boat for what one visitor called “a pleasure cruise.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017537782_noaaboat18m.html

See.. it’s not tugging at my heart strings that the government is underfunded… it’s pissing away taxpayer dollars like they are entitled to a lifestyle of excess.

One NOAA officer decided to take his family on a weekend trip to a posh resort. He took the undercover NOAA party boat to get there, but he was untrained in how to operate it and blew out a $30,000 engine. Rather than turn back and write the taxpayers a check, he simply abandoned it and took a marked NOAA law enforcement boat the rest of the way to their resort. Nothing could get between this NOAA employee and a good time

Another NOAA officer used the undercover NOAA boat to take his wife to lunch in Seattle. On this trip, the boat engines stalled in a shipping lane because the boat ran out of fuel due to another operator error. The guy didn’t know how to switch the tanks. So they were stuck drifting in a dangerous shipping lane. The officer and his wife apparently found the situation comical.

Show us “something” fire a few of these bozos.. starting with the NOAA Regional Director.. Imagine.. a regional office that has more government vehicles than employees… sell one of those big black Suburbans.. and say…. donate the cash to N’ville? See how it works Mike… we don’t begrudge the safety net.. it’s the waste, the fraud, the abuse… and the little crumbs than finally filter down to the bottom feeders… only after the top of the food chain gets their bite.

Getting the picture here? Yea it’s nasty… where is the Commerce Secretary? The Presidential Appointee that overseas this? No one fired yet, no one fired, no one repaired the boat they broke…. see JoB… the Marine biologist friend of yours working at REI?…. this is why.

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[redblack]

NOAA? a $300,000 boat? that’s nothing. does it leak?

an entire pallet full of $100 bills disappeared in iraq. i don’t recall any outrage then. or demanding that heads roll.

giving more and more? did your taxes go up?

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[JanS]

did it look like this?

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[JoB]

kootch…

my

mind

just

went

numb

trying

to

read

your

last

post

struggling

to

find

words

words

fail

me

:(

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[kootchman]

So your solution is give em another plane load? Glad to hear 300K in skins and a blown engine doesn’t phase you. Or the sworn agents of federal law enforcement, particularly drug tafficking are so easily bribed…ah a few million here or there… small stuff. Yhat pallet of hundred dollar bills…? It’s not even a minute of federal debt and borrowing… but the point is well taken.. they have so much taxpayer dough.. they can just leave pallets of it laying around.. and then.. they have a chorus of stooges singing tax the 10% more. Ah… yes.. No Jan look at the link, the custom leather interior and wet bar…. not hardly research vessels… read about the shredding document party. Not a dime more. Not one centavos. TEA Party rules.

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[kootchman]

miws .. outta yer depth here.. they get housing allowances, medical care… a responsible man would indeed pay insurance for the coverage of his family. Dude… they pay the 27..They make fair living nowadays… base housing or off base housing allowance? They get combat pay, $225 per month, AND imminent hazard pay and basic pay is tax exempt in theater… all specifically to cover the SGLI … and any First Sergeant makes sure all his troopies sign the deduction from pay authorization…. before they deploy. Has ever been so.

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[JanS]

kootch…I was joking…you do know what a joke is, right? Actually, I took that picture on Lake Union last Sunday

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[redblack]

back to the retirement thing…

actually, i can start drawing my defined benefit at 62. and fortunately, whoever administers our pension is doing a fine job.

but since republicans decided to start meddling with everything that involves money in this country, they’ve convinced americans that defined contribution is the way to go. “you can retire rich!” they say, while they know that by shifting to defined contribution, the banks can skim more in fees from individuals than they can from pension plans. divide and conquer. they’ve also convinced public employee pension funds to invest more heavily in the “hot” market and less and less in more stable, lower-yield securities.

it’s win-win for them, especially with their fancy new derivatives market. they can make a killing just betting against the very pension funds they handle, not giving a rat’s patootie what that means for the people who will draw from that pension fund.

and do i have to mention that the money that they gamble with – and skim percentages from – isn’t theirs?

so this is the result. $1 trillion in pension fund liabilities – in an over-inflated market – instead of $1 trillion in assets.

but it was all devised, you see, to get people away from defined benefit plans, whether you’ll admit it or not. someone decided that pensions were just too generous for the average peasant, and the powers that be went on a wildcat strike to stop funding their employees’ retirements. so they broke the model intentionally, and are now trying to convince anyone who will listen that defined benefit is a sucky model anyway.

plain and simple greed wins again and the peasants get to eat dirt. again.

welcome back to 1929.

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[kootchman]

Too bad too.. cause NOAA actually along with USGS, .. were agencies that gave great value and infrastructure support to business and individuals.. but.. the culture is anything goes. Liek I said.. the skim is off the top… the crumbs are issued monthly… a 189K per year, full pension civil servant, sworn officer, has to embezzle 600K AND finds willing participants … and then they have the audacity to ask for more? I U physician does the miraculous, bills medicare for office and consulting services. rendered while in Italy on vacation for 10 days… being a neuro surgeon … I imagine is knocking down a 600K or better living… and then you wonder why we ain’t going to play socialized medicine? No even a day in jail. Kept his job too.. produced so much revenue they overlooked his malfeasance. Your poster child at GSA? Suspended… with full pay. Union work rules for a senior manager? It goes on and on and on…..

So you think redblack, so you think. Tell ya what, if you think it is secure.. ask for it all in cash… the day you retire. Ask the Delphi pension funds that were “solvent”… it all get thrown on the pile. Your pension is attached to income producing assets. Even SS is attached to the measly returns of T Bills…. as long as the world recognizes the currency…. and that would be in doubt at 22 Trillion of deficits… Just ask any Spainard, Greek, Italian …

This is pure BS… “they’ve also convinced public employee pension funds to invest more heavily in the “hot” market and less and less in more stable, lower-yield securities.” Pure BS…. the pension promises made far outpace the yield of T Bills… THAT is why state pensions funds are invested in the market. It’s the pension fund managers who are scrambling to find any way they can to deliver what politicians promised and contracted for. wait… Illinois and CA are going to pull bankruptcy.. and “poof” those promises are going up in smoke…. we are talking almost a trillion dollars … I wanna see how Gov. Moonbeam taxes 500 billion out of his population. Above and beyond what they are being taxed now. The best, the brightest, are leaving the state.

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[JoB]

kootch..

do you break your contracts when you find they no longer benefit your short term goals?

and do people continue doing business with you?

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[waynster]

its like my mind tries having a melt down trying to see were kootch is going hmmmm…..its ok thats why we have sunny days ahead so we can escape his mind bending traps are you sure your not a politician kootch….. makes me enjoy that cold one even more……lmao

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[redblack]

Even SS is attached to the measly returns of T Bills.

see, little by little, i can get you to admit the truth.

retirement funds and real estate are, by far, the biggest assets held by average americans. correct?

now, wall street squeezed the money out of our real estate, didn’t they? then they came to us with their hands out, saying, “sorry. we lost the money. pay up or we’re going to crash this sucker.”

and, little by little, they’ve been getting their mitts (no pun intended) on our retirement savings. read the dean baker article i linked.

and, of course, the long term goal is to bankrupt social security. $16 trillion in deficit spending should accomplish that, eh? ’cause congress has to borrow money from the SS trust fund to cover their expenditures.

so we’ll lower taxes and destroy government revenues, and we’ll loosen the rules around the social security trust fund, and… wait. where’s alan greenspan? i don’t trust that guy.

this isn’t just retribution, though. social security brings in – what? – $2 trillion per year?

wall street wants that money.

and they have the players in place to seize it if they want to. as you point out, treasury, fed, and DOJ are all covered by their men. they’re also sitting on $2 trillion in cash while we cover their debts with our debts.

all they need is someone like willard romney to pin the power grab on. but maybe a guy like willard is too obvious and stupid. “corporations are people. my friend.” they might back obama again. i keep hoping that he turns on them and bites that hand and just seizes that $2 trillion, for the sake of 90% of us and for your kids’ futures. although with a cabinet like that, i don’t see how he can.

but i know for a fact that willard romney is going to keep on making their beds for them, and he’s planning on appointing their rooms with silk and gold, bought with our money.

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[kootchman]

They are attached to T Bills.. because the federal government desperately needed the money to meet current account deficits. It’s also a very, very distressed system with none of the actuarial underpinnings and assumptions left intact. It’s just another underfunded liability, courtesy of the federal government. SS was supposed to take care of a small demographic slice…. those that can’t climb the competitive ladder of opportunity. It was not designed to be for the middle class, much less the 10%… it was a safety net for the least productive. Look at it now! But tell, me, if it is such a great deal… why did federal workers fight and resist having to contribute to it for years? In fact most years.

And tell just how did Wall Street “take” your real estate? This should be good. Your Democratic Party with the aid of Republicans set fire to credit standards and risk.. and ya had a real estate bubble. Now ya’ll are bitching cause the very system you vilify, is trying to buy the downside of a bubble created by cheap credit stimulus inflationary spiral and restore some order and establish a market again. Or, you can do as the Japanese did when their real estate crashed… hang on for two decades and avoid doing the mark downs.

JoB… a bankruptcy discharges all manner of contracts all the time. It’s fine to make a contract, AND if it is possible to honor the contract the courts will enforce it. But when you can’t meet those obligations… cause you are financially unable… poof… they are discharged in bankruptcy court. GM certainly didn’t honor it’s contracts as part of the bail out package…… now did they? YOU picked up the tab for the UAW portions, You can promise to deliver a multi-hued unicorn as part of a contract.. trouble is finding one. And a judge will call you an idiot for signing the contract…one so patently absurd. No, I never make contracts with deadbeats.. so I never have to break them… and all my contracts are performance contracts… I perform, they pay. I don’t perform, they don’t pay. Simple. Neither I or those I contract with can leverage your status as taxpayer to make good on bad contracts.

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[redblack]

Now ya’ll are bitching cause the very system you vilify, is trying to buy the downside of a bubble created by cheap credit stimulus inflationary spiral and restore some order and establish a market again.

bollocks. wall street is doing no such thing, because there’s no money in it. they have no altruism, and they don’t care about the american economy outside of how it benefits them with as little risk as possible.

how do they own our real estate? seriously? who do you think holds the notes on our houses? they were begging to give us the loans, because they wanted that interest, courtesy of bundled mortgages.

yep. they squeezed the money out of the american housing market, but there is still plenty of money in our retirement funds. and they aim to get it. and they don’t give a crap if it bankrupts the states or not.

they looooove that $16 trillion in debt – even at low interest – and they’re pushing for more.

that debt is the same lucrative product that they’re selling american consumers.

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[JoB]

kootch..

you are old enough to know that employees and pensions once got priority protection in bankruptcies by law.

now who was it that changed that?

joB scratches her head

and wanders off to check the food she is cooking for people who didn’t have their homes or their jobs snatched by wall street..

after all it’s only business..

the business of making money..

nothing personal..

besides it’s good for America even if it’s bad for Americans..

but still..

they have no jobs

or houses to go to tonight.

Pork roasts and mashed potatoes won’t solve that problem..

but they will make the people at the bottom of our hill living in mud today feel better.

it really is sad that you can’t see the connection between those two things kootch

it’s as plain as……….

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[kootchman]

how do they own our real estate? seriously? who do you think holds the notes on our houses? (redblack)

Since you asked…

“Taking out the exceptions, the overwhelming majority of mortgages being funded across the country are either Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or FHA loans following the guidelines set forth by one of those three agencies. So who owns your mortgage? Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae most likely-these are known as GSEs or Government Sponsored Entities. You may be paying the original lender or a new servicer every month, but your mortgage is owned by one of the conforming GSEs.

wanna link to that buddy?

See redblack? That’s how simple it is. Banks, mortgage companies became the orginators.. gathering in the sheaves so to speak… for FHA. Some banks, of course, kept those 20% per cent down, paid on time mortgages… and rolled the rest to the FHA or sold them off as quick as they could dump em’…. not equity home loans at 100% of asessed value? No bank would do that.. only your federal government is that stupid. See in real estate.. the property secures the loan… when you have no equity and you default.. the only recourse the bank has is to take back the property.. with no equity… it’s all loss. Even in repo… the banks gets what it is owed, less legal fees.. and if you have equity, you get any surplus.

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[kootchman]

As evidenced… by inaction and behavior…are you really going to try and convince me that your government gives a shit about the bottom of the hill? No. They don’t. what they do admirably well, is convince you the bottom of the hill isn’t their fault… it’s the 1%.. it’s the 10 %… it’s the economy… it’s anything else but them. And.. for you that’s credible? Their solution…. ? Tax more. But I assure you no more of the revenue will do to the bottom of the hill then has over the last 10 years… good times or bad. It goes to more government to serve more special interests… and their bigges special interests? Unions with bloated benefits packages that they can’t fund, can’t keep pace with… but they will promise even more in November… please.. I can remember when government was not 25% of GDP too.

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[JoB]

kootch…

i am not trying to convince you that my government cares about the bottom of the hill

never-the-less

i do

and the people at the bottom of the hill have a lot better chance of moving up and out of the mud with even this liberal president than they do with the great white Republican hope.

and i care about that too.

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[redblack]

yeah. i want that link. buddy.

nonetheless,

You may be paying the original lender or a new servicer every month

follow the money. at the very least, the banks are getting their cut after wrecking the economy and then being bailed out by taxpayers.

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[waterworld]

You should want the link, Redblack, because when the quote is put in context it should be clear that it refers to loans issued and funded AFTER the collapse of the market, post-2007. Prior to the collapse, the market reached the point where there were more non-conforming loans (meaning those that did not adhere to the agency rules — jumbo, sub-prime, or Alt-A) than conforming loans. The number of conforming loans peaked in 2003, and low interest rates spurred the continued growth in the non-conforming market.

At that point, non-conforming loans were not the “exceptions” Kootch’s article references — they were well over half the market. These were the crappy loans that banks bundled into their own mortgage-backed securities and sold on the market to investors who did not know, and likely could not know, were bad investments. That process had nothing to do with Fannie and Freddie’s guidelines, because by definition, the loans were non-conforming at the time they were made.

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[kootchman]

You’ve had a Democratic state since forever, JoB arguably one of the most liberal county and cities in the country. Jobs, jobs, jobs,…. economy, economy, economy…. the number 1 and 2 concerns of US voters. YOU may care, but your government doesn’t. we are the land of enhanced breast feeding, plastic bag banning, green painted bicycle boxes, legislation. As long as it hires a new government worker, adds a fine, fee, or tax Seattle is on it. Take a long gander at that government worker in the GSA hot tub suite in Hawaii …. or the break dancing Gumbi costumed GSA worker, mocking the Inspector General and their immunity from oversight. That’s your current government. At every level. what is being proved over and over again… when states restrict collective bargaining of government employees the people win. The states will prove it first… the federal government will be the last. Funny… remember when Obama promised (so many promises) he would restrict the power and access of government lobbyists…. who was the #1 lobbyist to visit the White House… . Bill Samuel, lobbyist for the AFL-CIO, for example, has been to the White House more than 50 times since Obama took office.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/05/21/Visitor-Logs-Show-Lobbyists-Welcome-at-White-House.aspx#page2

http://huntingtonhomes.ocregister.com/2010/12/07/who-really-owns-your-mortgage/122966/

The question was… who owns your morgages.. and the simple fact is… about 80 per cent of them are owned by a GSE. Slice it anyway ya want waterworld… and who was issuing loans after 2007… the party was over. Fannie was the biggest purchaser So a few non conforming loans fell through the cracks and got wrapped with other loans that were conforming….. what was the Fannie max? 795K before it became a “Jumbo” loan?

Like it has been said over and over… it was a no brainer… the banks had lessened risk and the green light from the federal government to write the loans. who was the largest purchaser of mortgage backed securities? If you don’t have a customer, you don’t have a market for any product.

“On Tuesday, November 25, 2008 the Federal Reserve surprised almost everyone when it announced that it would initiate a program to purchase up to $500 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) backed by the housing-related government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and backed by Ginnie Mae.

1

The goal of this new program was to “reduce the cost and increase the availability of credit for the

purchase of houses.”

That was gasoline on the bon fire.

Not to worry though… cheap credit is still around.. federal cheap credit… this time the education industry that has amassed a trillion in debts… I wanna see how college graduates, 50%, unemployed, are going to pay off this bean. It makes mortgages look like the pinnacle of restraint… this one won’t be masked by loann services though.. these are direct federal loans…. yeee haaaa the cowboy rides again.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57436775/dropping-out-is-college-worth-the-cost/?tag=pop;stories

no redblack… we are bailing out not the banks…. we are bailing out GSE’s who are the underwriters. who were obliged… and the Federal Reserve just turned on the printing presses… to the tune of 7 trillion dollars.. instant money. But the question you asked…who owns the mortgages… 80% of them are owned by GSE’s. And that’s a fact. And the cooked the books … big time… banks had to have a partner, a customer.. and Franklin Raines was their man.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052300184.html

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[Author]

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