Maybe it's Cleveland

Quote from a political activist in Cleveland:

“Families that used to sit in their homes around the kitchen table are now sitting around a steering wheel. Some children who should be in their beds at night are laying in the backseats of cars. Their closets are the trunks of those cars and what should be a personal bathroom is now a bathroom in any public area. It ain’t right.”

Okay, let me say this: activists who talk like this add to the problem. People getting foreclosed upon are very rarely becomming homeless. They're renting an apartment they can afford, exactly where they should be given their income and assetts. That's where they were before they got a toxic loan. Keeping them in an unaffordable home is bad for American policy and bad for the lender who is barely hanging on. What happens when their roof fails? Where's the money coming from? They'll get foreclose on then.

Let me also say I'm not unsympathetic. When all is said and done, this will be the equivelant of 20 Hurricane Katrinas. It's very sad. It will cost the person who loses the house. It will cost you and me in the form of taxes and reduced property values. But when we start trying to keep people in houses they can't afford we're really just chosing to bankrupt America or provide a very high-class for of public housing.

More evidence that California is to blame

Jackass has $2600 / month payment, interest only.
Then he walks away.
Bastard.

BTW -- I had done a rough number crunch yesterday - the guy had a $6000+ payment, 30 years. That yielded 2.5 ish million. Total, probably included interest, taxes & insurance . Sorry for my inability to reverse engineer a sale price from that value.
I took typing instead of consumer math.

I don't think this is a repost

Reminded by my trio of delinquent 14 year old girls who hold ME responsible for their lunch detentions. The detentions were given because I wrote them up for the harmless activity of throwing scissors at each other in a room full of other students and two teachers. Yep, it's my fault they're in trouble. . . Alcohol served with dinner at casa del Tbone this week. . Subject: School, Survivor Show

Next Season on Survivor

Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?
Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an elementary
school classroom for 1 school year. Each business person will be provided
with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 28 - 32
students.
Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three
with A.D.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three
students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.
Each business per son must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance,
with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create
their materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle
misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals,
correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report
cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent
conferences. They must also stand in their doorway between class changes to
monitor the hallways.
In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and [Code Red]
drills for shooting attacks each month.
They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, and attend curriculum
development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and
strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to
take the Terra Nova and PSSA tests. If they are sick or having a bad day
they must not let it show.
Each day they must incorporate reading , writing, math, science, and social
studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an
educationally stimulating environment to motivate students at all times. If
all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be
held responsible.
The business people will only have access to the public golf course on the
weekends, but with their new salary, they may not be able to afford it.
There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and
lunch will be limited to thirty minutes, which is not counted as part of
their work day. The business people will be permitted to use a student
restroom, as long as another survival candidate can supervise their class.
If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials
before, or after, school. However, they cannot surpass their monthly limit
of copies. The business people must continually advance their education, at
their expense, and on their own time.

The winners of this Season of Survivor will be allowed to return to their
job.

Pass this to your friends who think teaching is easy, and to the ones that
know it is hard.

Bear Rally is Caput?

So, the stock market has been lovely for the last couple weeks. I never understood but, then again, there's a lot of things I don't understand. Like why I'm invited/not invited to wedding showers. Anyhow, AIG posted a quarterly loss of something like $11 Billion. I guess investors forgot. Anyhow, ugly day for the market. Maybe down 200-300. The only thing that can save it is an interest rate cut.

Real Homes of Genius

Let's pick on the homes, not the home owners. We should be sensitive of their feelings:

Real Homes of Genius

How can you have ANY pity for this idiot ???

$100,000 down and agreed to pay about $6,900 a month for 30 years to buy the three-bedroom house in 2006

Let me repeat that: 2.584 MILLION for a house.

Ummm.... sorry. No pity.

Busy day at work

Blah blah blah, back and forth with a Brit, and .... ACTION!

Ben(07:51:59): Hi Kevin, no problem
Ben(07:52:04): Is that a gerbil?
KH(07:52:40): hahaha -- its chinchilla, my totem spirit, which guides me through life's most difficult decisions, but only on Tuesdays.
Ben(07:53:07): is it just A chinchilla or actually yours?
KH(07:53:16): oh -- "A"
KH(07:53:22): my cats would eat it
KH(07:53:35): They guide me Wednesday - Monday.
Ben(07:53:50): they have a Yoda quality yes
KH(07:54:06): Oh, if only they were bald and green !!!
Ben(07:54:23): would reduce that cute factor though

I feel bad that I JUST discovered this

The Sidekick has been yelling "LEROY JENKINS!!!" for quite some time now whilst we are playing video games. Hindsight being what it is, apparently it might have been in reference for my devil-may-care attitude for direct frontal assault of heavily fortified positions.

1300 posts

Apparently, this is how I sound when Im trying to weasel up to my manager after a major etiquette cluster fuck.

My daily dose of fear mongering

The FDIC - otherwise known as the people who save everyday citizens from bank failures - is a little worried right now. In the last week they're offering to pay retired employees [with bank failure experience] ungodly sums to come back to work and they ran a newspaper classified ad seeking people who will manage assets of failed banks.

Fixed LINK

Do make sure your Money Market accounts are FDIC Insured. Many are not. And if any of us has more than $100,000 in a single bank, change that. And since you're so wealthy, buy me something special for the good advice.

Standing athwart history, yelling STOP!

William F. Buckley has died. Thats a damn shame.

"Editor, columnist, novelist, debater, TV talk show star of Firing Line, harpsichordist, trans-oceanic sailor and even a good-natured loser in a New York mayor's race" -- the man led a hell of a life. He's basically Dr. Evil.

My personal fave - after being called a Nazi by Gore Vidal:
“Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I will sock you in your goddamn face, and you will stay plastered.”



KH(12:15:38): sniffle -- Bill Buckley has passed.
KH(12:15:42): Sad day in mudville
Gee(12:17:07): your love of all things reagan is both admirable and disgusting.
KH(12:17:45): so reagan died like 40 minutes after my grandmother -- i cried for like 3 days
KH(12:17:49): for reagan
Gee(12:18:06): i standby my previous comment.
Gee(12:18:31): with a minor addendum: --utterly disgusting.

Should we be concerned

For the first time I can recall, an article about American, written in America, and with all figures pertaining to Amercia has decided to include Euros. Does this mean msnbc.com thinks of the US Dollar on par with the Peso?

Notice the use of Euros

Spectacular Article

Harpers has a sprawling history the economic bubble as well as a compelling forecast for the bubble that saves us from the housing bubble. And, as much as it pains me to say this, it appears economic fortunes will be made by buying everything Al Gore touches.

File this under 'what were they thinking'

Elizabeth City State holds student shooter simulation but they don't tell the hostages it is fake. An entire class was held hostage at gun point while other classrooms barricaded themselves in. The shooter was a cop testing the response time of campus police department during a planned drill. Everyone was in on it except the hostages.

What is best in life ???

My day in a very succienct nutshell.

Florida Hit With Major Power Outages
MIAMI (CBS4) ― CBS4 has learned that a substation equipment failure may have tripped two FPL power generator units Tuesday afternoon, creating a domino effect in the South Florida power grid which caused a massive outage along the east coast, from the Daytona Beach area into Monroe County.

CBS4's Michael Williams says FPL sources told him the failure was likely the reason for the failure, but FPL is still trying to determining the cause of the failure.

Florida Power & Light is reporting massive power outages throughout South Florida, including Miami, Doral, Westchester, and Pembroke Pines. Reports of outages extended into Palm Beach, and across the state of Florida.

The outage hit shortly after 1 p.m., and at first appeared to be a local issue in South Florida. However, calls from across the state south of Orlando started complaining of power problems, and the scope of the problem quickly widened.

The Miami-Dade Police Department said it is hearing that FPL is experiencing a massive transmission failure from Daytona Beach to Miami.

Is It Worth Watching This Year?

Mayweather to fight Big Show at Wrestlemania!

Just in the instance something goes wrong and Mayweather accidentally gets hurt. I mean the Big Show is 430lbs. He could accidentally fall on him, or something to that effect.

Baby Goalie Punisher - Curser is here!

Auntie SCW's coworkers are pissed she's not handing out cigars, so she's buying a round of beer at lunch instead. Wish y'all were here!

Granted, its easier to just BUY a Tivo....

But "certain people" love themselves some 'Smallville' and have to fill up their 200G hard drives every week.
Anyhoo - How to turn old pcs into DVRs.

Gold, Jimmy, Gold!

You may not be aware of this.

Sweet Dee was in a plane "crash" many moons ago - bad landing, I believe.
Anyhoo, he scored basically a decade of free travel.
I have no idea how muchTHIS GUYis gonna score.

Welcome to the Party, Comrades

BTW -- I did a set of Bottoms Up Clean & Press, 5 each arm.
I can ALMOST understand the overblown sense of narcissism that dudes who are in great shape have.

Yikes. MSRB complicating war wounds.

Nasty shit.

Good times at work

Gee(11:28:23): http://www.blinkingline.org/?p=1100
KH(11:30:03): hey hey hey!! I DONT have a singing voice!
Gee(11:30:11): i know...
Gee(11:30:27): but i think you should give it a go...see how desperate they are for talent.
KH(11:32:26): sounds like my dating life

Woo hoo!!! Closer every day to the CCNP

Finished up second of four routing protocols for the CCNP exam.
So thats 2 of 7 topics for 1 of 4 tests.
Only took 3-ish months.

Brain hurting.

Best Housing Point Ever

I found a real academic paper on this by a Havard Economist and it has two points worth bringing up: First, the US Subprime crisis, empirically, is tracking very closely with (albeit worse than) the five biggest financial disasters among industrialized nations since WW II (Spain 1977, Norway 1987, Finland 1991, Sweden 1991, and Japan 1992) and is definitively worse than 'minor' financial disasters like the Savings and Loan debacle. I would like to emphasize Japan because it was a major economy that took 15 years to reset. It gives a provides a little gloom by saying that Spain, UK, and Ireland are in same predicament.

The second point, and the one that is the most interesting, is that the sub prime crisis really is a third-world loan fiasco. There are two Americas, after all. The subprime crisis actually collected the worst of the American economy and lent them a trillion dollars. The paper's thinks we found all the bad risks in America and created an economy that is effectively a third world nation within America. This, in my mind, provides hope because when third world nations melt down it usually is a contained financial disaster that doesn't effect the general population.

Maybe we'll be okay after all. Or maybe we'll repeat Japan's lost decade.

I don't ask much

But can you write our representatives to oppose this because it's a horrible idea. Basically, some Democrats want to give a bankruptcy court the power to re-write a mortgage and lower the amount owed. This is great for the 3% of us who declare bankruptcy but it will be bad for everyone else. If a bank can't count on recovering the full value of their loans, they have to charge higher interest rates to assure profit. That means the people who buy a house the right way and don't get banged by a once-every-hundred-year housing decline will be screwed when they buy their next house. I feel bad for a percentage of the people getting repossessed and this would be a good solution for today's envirnoment but in the long run it will make the US weaker, make housing cost more, further lower property values, and make all foreign investors worry that we just change the rules in business when things go bad.

My Nizzle!

Lest You Think Others are More Bearish than I...

May I point out that in January, more Pheonix homes were foreclosed upon than bought and in San Diego, 40% of all sales were bank repos.

And, might I also point out, that most bad mortgages were written in 2005-2007 with two-year ARM resets beginning in 2007. After the first missed payment, it takes the about 15 months for a house be sold by the bank.

That means that a bank foreclosure sold today was probably from a sub prime loan originated in January 2005. So, basically, this is the first month of this.

Gangs in Suburbia have nothing on this problem

This is what has me worried: banks hiding their losses more quietly than before.

Banks Secrectly Borrowed $50 Billion

Can someone tell me how to label the link with the chain button...I couldn't get it to work last times.

Oh, and we might as well get pissed off about Americans depleting their 401K:

It's Socially Accepted to Deplete 401K

This dunderhead bought a BMW in April and borrowed from his 401K to do it.

Gangs in suburbia ???

WTF??? Somebody should do something. Hahahaha

BTW -- If I'm correct, Bears have predicted 12 of the last 10 recessions.

T-Bone. Your Long Wait is Over

Blu-Ray Wins!

Am I wrong to get pissed off about "New Math"

Why is it that the shit that worked for lets say Euler, Reimann, the people that sent men to the moon, built the Empire State building, etc... isn't rote memorization good enough anymore ?

Am I wrong ? I thought children were stupid barbarians that cant think for themselves, and if you allow them to, they eat the fat kid ?

I think this is a good example of why I would go ape shit if I had kids - they only have a limited amount of time to learn before we chuck them into the service industry to sit at a desk and not really do anything. If something gets in the way of that, they are completely fucked and will end up doing something productive like farming or working in a shoe factory.
Down with New Math !!!

My <3 of the Diet Pepsi is apparently very obvious

IM chat with Admir0l ver. 2.0, my new trainee (who is working nights, trying to stay awake):

BC(07:53:39): does caffeine on a constant drip iv sound like a good idea?
KH(07:53:52): hmm....
KH(07:53:57): not a big fan of needles
BC(07:54:18): hence the 2 liter
KH(07:54:43): if they made a 2.7 liter, that would be perfect for 9 hr days.
KH(07:54:51): 2 ltrs is good for 8 hrs, spot on the nose
BC(07:55:04): lol, you should write them
BC(07:55:20): tell them you demand a 2.7 liter

Easiest Way to Understand the Mortgage Crisis

Linkified bebbe

And wtf can't I ever get the chain link buttom to actually change the name of my links?

BTW - next time we drink

I recommend we leave the iron on the floor.
My deltoids and traps are, to use the vernacular, "blown the fuck up".

Knight Ridder

Anyone notice they're re-doing this? Saw the first one and it wasn't bad. It was definitely fun, but more like a GI Joe episode than quality programming. The new KITT is awesome. The Hoff is in it, too, since it's a really sequel and not a re-do.

Reason 21,356 why I married my wife.

We were discussing the Greg Oden commercial for ESPN the magazine(reason 18,312) and she mentioned a commercial that Garnett had done with Starbury for the mag. I couldn't remember the exact commercial, but through the magic of youtube...

HFS

I now, for the first time, understand why retailers tell you to spend your tax returns on things that cost more than $18. As you may or may not know, my family uses my low income to run tax fraud schemes so that I always end up paying taxes and they don't. Except last year when I got an $18 refund, I always thought radio commercials asking you to spend your refund on anything but a DVD were a joke of some sort. That is, until my first full year owning a house and getting interest credits + $7,000 in tax deductible improvements (Yay Energy Star and preventing global warming). All I can say is HFS, I got a tax refund.

Gee-sus. I've got the hangover shakes.

The fact that the G.P. never reads the blogs means that someone will have to communicate with him what a good time was had by all last evening.
A certain lady friend who lives west of the Rio Bravo has mentioned that I attack my first 4 beers like Im scared they're going to be taken from me. 50 minutes might be a personal record for me. Anyhoo, its nice to have added at least one convert to the cult, and as soon as we sell the fucking Soloflex and buy the G.P. a kettlebell, we'll have a second.
I gotta say, being able to do something physically (bottoms up clean & press) that the 'Uar could not made me feel like a man.

BTW -- moms just showed up 9 hours early and is chipper as a fucking lark.

Woooooooo!!!!

Good for us!

Bad for the SCW. Sorry SCW. We are here to support you and of course will welcome you back with open arms to the Mecca of housing.

We're #1!, We're #1!

This is awesome.

Wow. Just... Wow.

I sincerely wish I had ever done anything in my life to deserve a nickname like Caunotaucarius.

Hat tip Cracked via Digg

I would assume several bands have to be lining up

Aerosmith appears to be ahead of the curve

Can AC/DC be far behind ???

Stinky wine & beer night was a raging success

At least from my point of view, it was a valid replacement for the Thorsday night drunk.
We partook of Beck's Dark & St. Pauli Girl Dark, bottle of Echelon vino.
Havarti
Goat - sorry for not having any figs
Mozerrella
Camberbet (sp?)
"Bleu" -- really the only "stinky" cheese

According to Gee, next time I need to go to Trader Joe's in Cary and get a couple of crazy cheddars. The Sidekick & VoR 1.0 both agreed.
Will do.

Put it on your calendars, beeches.
Looks like March 6th or 20th.

So i talked to Ken Lewis Yesterday

Yesterday I talked to Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, and he says we're fucked.

So watching Beerfest last evening....

We came up with a couple of games for this weekend:
Depth Charge

Beer pong - the sidekick has decided to never party again without beer pong

Quarters

Volume drinking -- the 1 liter chug

Das Boot - speaks for itself

My day @ work, describing networks to customers

This dude had me laughing my drunken ass off...

BUNCH MORE LINKS TO THE REST OF THE SHOW

Novel, ala Family Guy

Normally, not a fan of the Family Guy, but I thought this was fairly funny:

I MIGHT be rejoining the ranks of the living.

Knocked on my ass by the SARS.
7 days of walking around in a daze, unable to concentrate enough to even watch a movie, much less do my taxes.
Sleeping 12-16 hours.
Generally feeling like shit.
Apologies all around for not being my general chipper self, and for going all Howard Hughes.
But let me just say, beeches - Kleenex box shoes are mui comfortable!!!

Well, thats a damn shame.

Chief Brody has passed.

Some of you may not have heard the yarn about my dear departed brother. He told my mom we were going up to the base theater (at night) to watch "Elephant Man", a touching love story about a horribly disfigured man and his quest for acceptance.
Ummm.... NO.
Jaws II.
Did I mention the walk up to the base went past a cemetery?
And I was 5 ???

Good times.

Best wishes to the Admir0l in his time of illness

Answering Sidekick Economy Question & Angering the Rear

The Sidekick asked if the economy is too big to be derailed and my answer is "Yes" (by that, I mean the Joads won't be packing up the family into a '72 Chevy and driving from their busted homestead in suburban LA to start farm in Oklahoma). But a thought I had this morning is very closely related to this.

The Bush tax rebates are the right thing to do and we need more of them.

The American Economy is too big to be brought down but the American banking system is not. American banks will be nationalized, destroyed, and/or bought by Saudis. The problem lies in how the Federal Reserve manipulates the economy: they feed US banks currency and expect them to stimulate the general economy by sending the currency into the economy. But, for the foreseeable future, the banks need that money to stem loses so very little will actually be introduced to the economy. Thus traditional economy stimulus will be ineffective.

To actually stimulate the economy, banks need to be bypassed and the money must bypass the banks to get into circulation. That means tax cuts and/or tax rebates.

I'll Leave this to the Comedic Minds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xr6dgHasBI

I'm not as funny as some posters so, until the post gets another name, I call it The Deer Curler.

If only Heath Ledger had made it to Lent!

Oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam, and doxylamine.

That reminds me.

So, my last label reminded me of this link:

Linky

Just listen to it; if you're at work, put on headphones. It's not necessarily NSFW, but it's kind of a 'touchy' subject matter (pr0n).

Anyhoo, it's quite amusing and worth the listen. Enjoy yourself people!

Goddammit, now I'm pissed!

Jack Johnson has gotten all political on his new album. I don't need that shit, I need banana pancakes! I need bouncy summertime music, not cunting ruminations on war and the current administration! Jack, you're not fucking Bob Dylan, this isn't the 60's, stick with the formula and fuck your own opinions. In fact, that should have been the title of the album, 'Fuck Your Own Opinions'.

The album itself is still catchy, but it just hurts that the innocence is lost.

This, mon freres, is called a Bottoms Up

Yes, that is 44 pounds.
No, it is not touching the ceiling.

Duke-UNC tonight

Apologies to Tray for following up such a well thought out post with one that says the following.

Any interest in this from anyone?

Law of Unintended Consequence and the Next Phase of the Unraveling

Remember when all the bleeding heart politicians moved together to remove the tax penalty for having a house foreclosed upon? Remember how good everyone felt. Well notsomuch anymore.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/06/real_estate/walking_away/index.htm?postversion=2008020610

Back in the day - 2006 to be precise - if you walked away from your mortgage there were three penalties: 1) credit score destroyed, 2) you lost any equity you had, and 3) the IRS said the bank's losses were also your income and you had to pay taxes on it. Well the bank got rid of #2 with no down payment loans, the government got rid of #3, and a little gamemanship will remove barrier #2. Mainly, you buy another house before your first is foreclosed or you keep current on all other bills and it only takes ONE YEAR for your credit score to return to normal.

That means the next phase in the unravelling has begun. Home prices are dropping so more people will voluntarily have their house foreclosed upon. But foreclosures drop property values even more so more people will want to walk away from their homes.

So when does the cycle stop? When an investors being to buy a houses and rent them out for an immediate profit. But here's the rub: overbuilding means there are literally more houses standing than people who need to rent them.

So what do we take away from all this? (1) The Federal-bang-me-in-the-ass pounding banks will take is just now starting up. (2) People will no longer have the ability to borrow (no assetts, low credit scores, and banks taking it in the ass) so consumption will dip short term causing a nice little recession. And, wait for it, wait for it, wait...(3) how will the government react? They will feel the need to do something but will it only make things worse (like removing the IRS penalty) or will it actually help? That's the wild card.

Anyone giving up anything for Lent?

Strippers and blow for me.

Good Gawd, Was Anyone Even Thinking

Duke University students hired a bunch of strippers to come to a school sanctioned event and the faculty...came to watch and show their support!? That's right, strippers. At Duke University. Have they even finished paying the bill for the last time Duke students hired a stripper?

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/926673.html

My whining plea to US Airways

My concern and request - I was attending a bachelor party this past weekend and the contents of my luggage, including my clothes, were quite integral for the celebration but didnt show up until Saturday.
Even then, it arrived 2 hrs after delivery was promised, which caused even more inconvenience and missed events.
All in all - not a very enjoyable weekend.
My request -- since the bachelor party was a complete bust, yet I did enjoy the hop to Phoenix, would US Airways be willing to comp me a ticket back to Vegas for the wedding, which is planned for March 12-17th. I promise to only take a carry on to avoid any future inconvenience.

Craziest of All My Econonmy Predictions:

Microsoft is unable to acquire financing to buy Yahoo and that causes a stock market crash.

Nelly Beer

5 minutes into "Knocked Up" and I have 2 thoughts.

#1 -- Why aren't we smokin' it up ???
#2 -- I've only met one person who would ever google "murder". And he's a cop now.

***SITE ADMIN QUERY***
Is childbirth really that loud, with all the cursing ?

Yes, Virginia, railguns are kind of cool.

But US naval superiority shouldnt depend on something that wont be ready until 2018.

Pet peeve of mine has been the Navy mothballing our big gun battleships.
Any country with cities within 20 miles of the coast should ALWAYS twice about fucking with us.

Relatively cheap to equip & maintain - training costs are related to MANUAL skills, so we can put all them immigrants who are "doing jobs Americans wont do" onto our fleet.

Otherwise, we're left tossing expensive Tomohawks.
Much like Bismarck, I prefer blood & iron.
Beeches.

Guess the punchline...

A British father of two who had been out drinking with friends...

Its the way I move and the things that I do.

Thats right.
The Beech is back.

Because the Kids Love It!

Well, the worst social experiment since

The Stanford Prison one has begun, I'm home with the baby for the next six weeks. Fortunately, I've got my wife as my Sherpa this week, but after that it's just me and bebee!

Hopefully, I will have amusing video or pics to share (not schmaltzy crap like 'oooh, she's crawling' or 'oooh, she's driving a tractor'), but we'll see; more than likely, the less remembered about this time, the better.

For those of you who don't spend as much time as I do on the tubes...

AND (this one is really funny)