For those hunting high and low for the infamous hint of more quantitative easing, not given by Bernanke today, you might read this from the Cleveland Fed.
16% "trimmed" just means the outlinears are toasted out and then the median is calculated.
For the last 12 months the "trimmed" is up 2.2%. We noticed "some" are claiming this means inflation is seriously abating. Not from what we can tell, not on core, or this "trimmed" CPI value. It more simply looks like we've gotten a break from energy prices, relief from yet another oil bubble.
This Marketwatch article shows various estimates for Q2 GDP growth were slashed.
Estimates vary from +0.6% to +1.3% Q2 GDP.
I lean a little higher, but only for the advance report and this is the reason. Trade data is always significantly revised from the advance GDP to other revisions, due to data lag and IMHO, the estimates used for the advance GDP report are usually too optimistic.
All said and done, I feel confident, looking at the various partial estimates on this site for Q2 GDP contributions, we're looking at a Q2 GDP as stated above.
With the confirmation that HSBC was laundering $ by the Senate today, this just adds to the list of confirmed crimes by banksters like American Express, JP Morgan, Wells, and everyone else. So, these banks are all confirmed to have committed multiple counts of multiple crimes within 10 years. It's a giftwrapped package for any lazy prosecutor out there to do something with. Or, perhaps a foreign indictment from Mexico or Colombia or Russia or China for helping criminal activities by foreign criminals. When China wants to go after someone, they really do make an example. A criminal trial overseas and possible execution in China for corruption and/or facilitating drug crimes in C. and S. America would really clear banksters' heads and maybe, just maybe, get them thinking straight. But of course the State Dept., owned by banksters, would step in to protect them.
Very true. I have seen the steady spiral downwards working for several companies since the late 90s, through the 2000s until being laid off in 2009 and going free lance. Now I see it all across the spectrum of every type of American business.
As more and more automated programs were put in to put our skill sets into little boxes by the HR department in the mid 2000s, we protested (even while employed) but they carried on saying it would make us more flexible to fill other posts around the company (in the end it made you "easy to replace by someone cheaper who sounded on paper like a good copy of you" .. and we all knew that was coming, normally by someone in India.
I remember saying "Ok I can have English as a skill - but it doesn't mean I could write like Shakespeare - how can you tell who is a GOOD writer of code and who is a BAD writer of computer code if all you know is that we both write the same language ?" - where is the part where you judge the quality of someone's work and HOW they program, HOW they use that skill/knowledge to do their job ? Impossible to quantify that into little boxes. And you have American businesses getting worse and worse and worse. They will continue to get worse. Management are mostly bum kissing idiots - the manage by terrorism strategy of American business is what makes it this way. Middle management will never tell upper management anything that might get them fired. And up the food chain it goes. The blindest persons are closer to the top.
Europe is starting to be influenced by American business models. Let us hope the American models keep spiraling downwards very fast, so that Europe stops implementing these "strategies" before it is too late for businesses here too.
Apparently the feds can go after someone only after the CFTC repeatedly failed to catch wrongoing over many years, after a fraud has been ongoing, 100s of millions of dollars have been stolen, the key suspect tried to kill himself, AND HE IS NOT POLITICALLY CONNECTED to either party (Corzine and Dimon and other banksters are safe). Corzine still walking free after $1.2 billion went poof and much of it wound up with fellow bankster Dimon at JPMorgan? Really? I guess payoffs to both parties really do pay off.
Every single time these "best and brightest" do a press release, or an interview, or a regulatory filing, or enter into some civil settlement, they are just providing more and more evidence of their criminal conduct for the world to see (I gave up on the feds doing anything real). They can destroy all the documents and emails they want (last time I checked, that just proves obstruction of justice and doesn't destroy anything), the facts are there for all too see. Latest we have collusion with banksters' credit card fees and Wells Fargo entering into discriminatory loan practices, as well as JPMorgan helping launder $ for the Vatican (in addition to the LIBOR criminal collusion, and the white whale, aluminum price manipulation, Jefferson County, Alabam bankruptcy + bribery + fraud, etc., etc. going on for many years now).
Incredibly, I did see a bankster shill on Bloomberg "Rewind" saying Dimon did a great job this year, the white wale derivative losses were not that "bad" (not sure what bad would be, but why ask questions anymore), and Dimon actually deserved a larger bonus! Yes, you heard right, Dimon, head of a bankster criminal organization that settled a bribery case for helping destroy Jefferson County, manipulates aluminum and other commodities, takes part in LIBOR rigging, etc. deserves a bigger bonus. But hey, isn't anything he earns coming from our tax $ and FDIC back up of his losing bets and free money that primary dealers get from the Fed, etc., etc.? So you screw up and you deserve a bigger bonus? Truly epic crony capitalism. And once again, no shame, just more of the "gimme, gimme, gimme, the rest of the US and world be damned." SOCIOPATHIC, truly.
"People with good incomes do not go into debt." You nailed it.
Increasing private debt could be a sign of increased confidence about the future -- or it could be a sign of desperation, if people in dire straits feel compelled to use their credit cards as a last ditch effort to maintain their standard of living.
The problem with personal debt is that it has to be paid back. A private credit bubble can stimulate the economy for a few years, but it's not sustainable.
AOL Real Estate Blog says housing shadow inventory is 90%. In other words 90% of foreclosed homes are being held off of the market, sitting empty, not for sale.
RealtyTrak - only 15% of foreclosed homes are for sale, or 85% held off of the market.
Corelogic - only 10% of REOs are for sale, 90% held off of the market.
Aha! I am not surprised by this and in the original discussion I mentioned it was all about inventories, which officially have dropped like a stone.
If this is true, and I believe they are right, there is absolutely no way prices will increase as some claim or there will be this magic housing recovery. Foreclosures are existing homes and the economic activity their sale adds is in broker commissions, banking commissions and so on. It's not "new" or "added growth". They are existing properties changing hands.
I guess I should point out the law of supply and demand. When one has a massive supply with the same level of demand, prices drop. Econ 101.
Next time I overview housing statistics, I will try to add as much information as I can find on shadow inventories.
This is a huge story really. So, if these homes are kept off of the market, we'll see what we've been seeing in terms of volume, new construction, prices and so on, but as they are added and eventually they must be added to the market, no way will residential real estate, housing magically "save the economy", nil to none.
Around 78% of the problems a corporation faces is that management is not trained to do their job correctly and have to be dependent on technology to do their job. The hiring process means using management skills to interview and screen people for possible jobs. Instead some web site is used and requirements are set so high that it screens out most if not all of the applicants. Yes they enter low salary requirements on purpose to justify having to raise the H1B Visa hiring cap, who work for lower salaries as well or to justify offshoring work to other nations.
We got tons of qualified people with college degrees and experience. Yet somehow management adds stupid requirements like 10+ years experience in Visual Studio 2010 and MS-SQL Server 2008 when they haven't yet been out for 10 years yet. Nobody can qualify for that! Someone posts they have 10+ years experience in Visual BASIC 6.0 and Visual BASIC.Net 2002 and MS-SQL Server 2000 but get rejected because it is old technology but they could easily learn and adapt to Visual BASIC 2010 and MS-SQL Server 2008.
You have to remember that management does not want to train people to make them more valuable, because they are cutting expenses. management also rejects debugging and quality control as being too expensive and release bad quality products and services. So when they bleed money due to poor quality they downsize the only employees that can help them restore the product and service to better quality, the IT department. Just assign an employee a mentor that is more experienced, but no they don't want to do that either. Cut out analysis and design phases and fire programmers who do that. They end up with recent college graduates earning minimum salaries and doing crap quality work for little to no benefits and once they earn too much get downsized and replaced with another.
The companies and CEOs and politicians are getting extremely wealthy with the status quo - they have absolutely no incentive to bring any jobs back, improve the job situation here, or care about the destruction of the middle class. They are fine with temporary $8/hr. jobs and free internship here, bringing in visa workers, and outsourcing everything else. Hoping that someone is lucky enough to catch a crumb from their table will only lead to a quicker destruction of society and force people to get meaner and more aggressive to catch one of those plumb rare jobs that pays minimum wage. CEOs and politicians don't change based on hope, they only change when they see right in front of their faces they have no better option.
Folks, you might really check out this month's trade data overview. A couple of graphs for you this time, to show these trade "deals" perpetually touted as helping the U.S. economy, clearly are not. Look at those deficits.
Yes, they turned their back on us. Yes, I wouldn't go back working for them, IF I had another choice. Not everyone has the luxury of choosing their employer. At this point I'm really hoping corporations like them will re-hire us. I just read this report and it doesn't look like many of us will keep their pride and refuse a job offer. If the employment situation doesn't improve soon I'm more likely to accept the service agreement I got from http://debtsettlement.com/ than to say no to a job.
So, let us lay out RICO so that all feds and states can pretend it really isn't this easy. Given the # of unemployed, honest law enforcement folks out there, one wonders why they aren't being hired to go after banksters + corrupt corporations, but then I think that answers itself. How many govt. officials are being paid six-figures to absolutely ignore what an average Joe can see.
****RICO LAID OUT SO ANY SIMPLETON COULD PROSECUTE IT
1) Need at least two incidents of these crimes (we'll just use the ones banksters engage in) -
- bribery (e.g., JPMorgan + Jefferson County);
- counterfeiting (e.g., robosigning on a mass scale);
- fraud (how many counts of wire and mail fraud do these folks engage in daily regarding insider trading, betting against own clients' interests, manipulation of commodities and/or stocks, etc.);
- obstruction of justice (how many emails and docs were destroyed, witnesses and possible whistleblowers fired and/or paid off);
- $ laundering (all of these banks keep settling cases for laundering drug money, + they launder own profits from their own crimes like robosigning and securities fraud)
- securities fraud (e.g., insider trading, lying about material information to investors and potential investors, betting against own clients with inside information)
2) Two acts need to occur within 10 years (no problem there)
PENALTIES - Up to 20 years in federal prison for each racketeering count (and these are real prisons, not fed camps); forfeit all ill-gotten gains AND any interest in business gained through the pattern of racketeering
So, now that it's been laid out, can we see how easy it is? Again, look at what the DOJ and state AGs ignore. See why the FED giving $ to banksters after it knew of LIBOR problems a few years ago is akin to giving money to a criminal gang that breaks heads and torches buildings.
There is no difference, these folks destroy more lives and destroy entire economies while getting obscenely rich and blaming fellow citizens who merely want to work hard and save enough to have something for their families.
They don't get prosecuted because they have willing people and organizations with no integrity who all can be bought and/or rented from localities all the way to the WH, DOJ, Treasury, ECB, IMF, World Bank, UN, etc. So, present and former organized crime members are now running the Treasury, national banks, representing them before assuming roles in DOJ or after leaving DOJ, take their $ before, during, and after working in Congress, etc. "But, but, RICO is hard to prosecute." No, it's really, really not. No harder than any criminal case with tons of written/recorded evidence, predicate crimes already established (e.g., these banks settled many cases), and tens of thousands of witnesses across the globe. But if you refuse to see something and do something, then no amount of prodding or proof will make the corrupt move or get out of the way.
You need to read their details. I am also saying "the housing bust is over" but what I'm not saying is some return to 2004. I also think there is slight lowering of prices, mainly some areas are still bursting, such as Atlanta and some are just so out of alignment with wages, income in their areas.
But claiming that residential real estate is going to "save the economy" and bring up GDP to even 2% over other factors, that I do not see happening. Also, in spite of the cliff dive being over, another recession should cause housing contraction for it always has, in spite of residential real estate massive balloon deflate already.
So, except an uptick in new construction, sales, questionable on prices, I still think there is room for prices to decline, but volume on new activities I think should increase, slightly. Not that smokin' crack NAR claims.
That's what I believe will happen. Once this story is off the front pages, we won't heard anything and then 1 year later we'll see some end paragraph blurb about how some reform has been dismantled or delayed. You can get we will see precisely zero criminal charges.
Which reminds me, we're gotten a lot of damning articles from Congressional testimony, but the one constant, no matter how damning that congressional testimony is, it's promptly ignored by Congress.
I mean world leading experts, economists and goes in one ear and out the other of Congress. This is discounting the "invited" Lobbyists, or their corrupted front men, who spew noise at these hearings, they of course should be ignored.
The Senate now is joining the fun to show just how useless, corrupt, and clueless it is in regulation and enforcement. Hey, if the UK can pretend to do something, so can the US Govt.! Everyone gets a turn at shadow boxing, kabuki theater, and puppet plays. It's just like one of their after-hours gatherings at Davos or a summer BBQ in the Hamptons or on the GA. or ME. coast, only without the open exchange of "gifts."
Prepare for more 20-minute questions/speeches by bankster-owned Senators, 1000s of phone calls between lobbyists, PR employees, and DOJ+Treasury+ White House Senatorial staff before one word is said publicly, and for the bankster-owned MSM to play stupid (or just be stupid) and go along with yet another charade.
By the way, Peregrine Financial under the CFTC's "watch" had $200 million + "vaporize" while the CFTC didn't do anything. I guess that's another episode of kabuki theater date TBA.
So much to pretend to do, so little time until another useless election to choose more people to get rich by being completely corrupt.
LIBOR. JP Morgan white whale FDIC-backed massive derivative losses in positions that should ideally net $0. Aluminum price manipulation by JPMorgan and Goldman. Oil price manipulation by banksters. Hedge funds making money for losing to the market through exorbitant fees. Silver and gold manipulation. MBS-nightmare (all banksters) that destroyed the US. Cooking Greek books so Greece could enter Euro (GSucks). Banksters rolling in the dough with CEO and political buddies while 22% of Americans cannot find work in their own country. Corzine looting farmers' segregated funds and destroying lives. Etc., etc. Anyone in shackles? Anyone in Rikers or Cook County awaiting a state trial? Anyone in Leavenworth doing time with people that destroyed fewer lives? Anyone suffer criminal and/or civil forfeiture or suffer one day like the average American does in this Depression? Anyone arrested in the US for running a US-headquartered media company that bribed police overseas, hacked thousands of phone accounts, intimidated politicians, interfered with police investigations, etc.? Anyone from WalMart going to prison for bribing officials (I guess bribing a police officer by a regular US citizen in the US would result in no arrest too, right)? No, because the system is now officially a joke.
Party on Corzine, Murdoch, Dimon, Diamond, Blankfein, the public knows you belong in prison, but your paid-for puppets in both parties have no integrity or shame, so it's all good in the banksters' and "job destroyer's" neighborhood.
Added Dr. Doom, after all what would a recession prediction be without him, but also, tonight China imports were half of what they were the previous month. The problem is finding out specifics, obviously we do not import oil to China, but do import soybeans, raw materials....so how much that negatively impacts our trade deficit and correspondingly GDP, unknown.
Q2 GDP advance is released July 27th, but investors are focused on China GDP which is out soon. Since our problem is a China problem, too many jobs offshore outsourced and so on, I question the heavy emphasis put on slower Chinese growth to the U.S. economy, beyond all of those Banksters making sure our manufacturing base was moved there.
DOJ? SEC? Congress? State AGs? FINRA? Ha ha ha! Jokers all! Capone + Escobar wish they owned the govt. and enforcers like banksters and CEOs do. Capone and Escobar probably had more shame than these clowns. "Best and brightest, best and brightest" - makes me throw up everytime I hear a shill spout that trash.
One of my major beefs for years has been hedge funds, one of the major symptoms of this economic rape of the hoi polloi. Every public servant is forced to participate in these scams through "no fault of their own." They are not for rich idiot billionaires and their trophy wives and drooling children only who couldn't figure out how where a BRIC country is if you had a map composed of only Brazil, Russia, India, and China. So, you work fighting corruption as a local or state member of law enforcement that actually cares about the 99%. But lo and behold, some idiot hedge fund manager gets to take your money because the bought-and-paid for state level execs (including AGs and Governors) are okay forcing pensions to invest in them with managers that cannot beat a Vanguard index fund ever (especially after fees are included) taking 2% of all assets under management and 20% of profits. The people that are clued in to this crap cannot opt out and, despite writing repeatedly to the people investing the money + AGs, they are ignored because they are not that important to the 1%, it's only the 99%er's money after all enriching the 1%. And this isn't bashed within a minute of inception as complete garbage that pillages public servants? Hmmm, I wonder why. Because these deals are made at cocktail parties and secret clubs that George Carlin's unwashed masses will never be invited to - we ain't in them. Until hedge funds are treated like the thieving schemes they are and managers treated as social pariahs + fraudsters for being the epitome of leeches that get rich for literally losing to the market, we will continue to see the destruction of America's middle class.
And I know this matter has been brought to the AGs' and pension administrators' attention repeatedly - and been blown off - so many of us out here are aware, we do care, but we are utterly powerless to stop the rape and theft when the criminals control all of the power. So what's a law-abiding citizen to do? When the systems is completely owned by criminals and crushing the law-abiding citizenry, F THE SYSTEM, ITS PUPPETS, AND ITS PUPPETMASTERS.
For those hunting high and low for the infamous hint of more quantitative easing, not given by Bernanke today, you might read this from the Cleveland Fed.
16% "trimmed" just means the outlinears are toasted out and then the median is calculated.
For the last 12 months the "trimmed" is up 2.2%. We noticed "some" are claiming this means inflation is seriously abating. Not from what we can tell, not on core, or this "trimmed" CPI value. It more simply looks like we've gotten a break from energy prices, relief from yet another oil bubble.
Events move so swiftly, I am literally writing updates in groups, about every 3 days.
Mexican drug laundering has actually been known for some time and it's just another example of nothing done.
This Marketwatch article shows various estimates for Q2 GDP growth were slashed.
Estimates vary from +0.6% to +1.3% Q2 GDP.
I lean a little higher, but only for the advance report and this is the reason. Trade data is always significantly revised from the advance GDP to other revisions, due to data lag and IMHO, the estimates used for the advance GDP report are usually too optimistic.
All said and done, I feel confident, looking at the various partial estimates on this site for Q2 GDP contributions, we're looking at a Q2 GDP as stated above.
With the confirmation that HSBC was laundering $ by the Senate today, this just adds to the list of confirmed crimes by banksters like American Express, JP Morgan, Wells, and everyone else. So, these banks are all confirmed to have committed multiple counts of multiple crimes within 10 years. It's a giftwrapped package for any lazy prosecutor out there to do something with. Or, perhaps a foreign indictment from Mexico or Colombia or Russia or China for helping criminal activities by foreign criminals. When China wants to go after someone, they really do make an example. A criminal trial overseas and possible execution in China for corruption and/or facilitating drug crimes in C. and S. America would really clear banksters' heads and maybe, just maybe, get them thinking straight. But of course the State Dept., owned by banksters, would step in to protect them.
Very true. I have seen the steady spiral downwards working for several companies since the late 90s, through the 2000s until being laid off in 2009 and going free lance. Now I see it all across the spectrum of every type of American business.
As more and more automated programs were put in to put our skill sets into little boxes by the HR department in the mid 2000s, we protested (even while employed) but they carried on saying it would make us more flexible to fill other posts around the company (in the end it made you "easy to replace by someone cheaper who sounded on paper like a good copy of you" .. and we all knew that was coming, normally by someone in India.
I remember saying "Ok I can have English as a skill - but it doesn't mean I could write like Shakespeare - how can you tell who is a GOOD writer of code and who is a BAD writer of computer code if all you know is that we both write the same language ?" - where is the part where you judge the quality of someone's work and HOW they program, HOW they use that skill/knowledge to do their job ? Impossible to quantify that into little boxes. And you have American businesses getting worse and worse and worse. They will continue to get worse. Management are mostly bum kissing idiots - the manage by terrorism strategy of American business is what makes it this way. Middle management will never tell upper management anything that might get them fired. And up the food chain it goes. The blindest persons are closer to the top.
Europe is starting to be influenced by American business models. Let us hope the American models keep spiraling downwards very fast, so that Europe stops implementing these "strategies" before it is too late for businesses here too.
I hope it's turned into a song complete with youtube. Surely would go viral, esp. for today's poetry is yesterday's horror show.
"A pocket full of posies; Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down"
the Bible tells us not to steal
it’s there in black and white
our laws are based upon it too
do not do wrong - do right
but somehow since these laws were writ
we've seen the system fail
but things will change for all the best
when the bankers go to jail
when the bankers go to jail my friends
when the bankers go to jail
we’ll finally see justice done
when the bankers go to jail
when the vampire squid has been deep-fried
in the slime of Bernank’s words
when politicians tell the truth
and not be lying turds
when "austerity" applies to them
and fairness does prevail
we’ll finally see justice done
and the bankers go to jail
when the bankers go to jail ee-hah
when the bankers go to jail
we’ll all be dancing in the streets
when the bankers go to jail
if all was as it ought to be
when any business fails
investors take a haircut
amid their tears and wails
but in our mean kleptocracy
that the MSM does hail
the working class pay all the bills
and no banker goes to jail
when the bankers go to jail dear God
when the bankers go to jail
the haircuts will be number ones
when the bankers go to jail
we’re predators i must admit
it’s human nature too
to seek a better living for
our wives and children too
but animals we’re not you see
it not just fine detail
we keep the law, control ourselves
and the bankers go to jail
yes you bankers go to jail you thieves
all you bankers go to jail
you’ll be some brother’s jail-house bitch
when you bankers go to jail
you may think it’s a silly dream
to think of their demise
they’re oh so very powerful
and every banker lies
but one day soon we’ll overthrow
and have them by the tail
we’ll tar and feather all of them
and send them all to jail
when the bankers go to jail for good
when the bankers go to jail
we’ll hear the bells of freedom ring
when the bankers go to jail
Apparently the feds can go after someone only after the CFTC repeatedly failed to catch wrongoing over many years, after a fraud has been ongoing, 100s of millions of dollars have been stolen, the key suspect tried to kill himself, AND HE IS NOT POLITICALLY CONNECTED to either party (Corzine and Dimon and other banksters are safe). Corzine still walking free after $1.2 billion went poof and much of it wound up with fellow bankster Dimon at JPMorgan? Really? I guess payoffs to both parties really do pay off.
Every single time these "best and brightest" do a press release, or an interview, or a regulatory filing, or enter into some civil settlement, they are just providing more and more evidence of their criminal conduct for the world to see (I gave up on the feds doing anything real). They can destroy all the documents and emails they want (last time I checked, that just proves obstruction of justice and doesn't destroy anything), the facts are there for all too see. Latest we have collusion with banksters' credit card fees and Wells Fargo entering into discriminatory loan practices, as well as JPMorgan helping launder $ for the Vatican (in addition to the LIBOR criminal collusion, and the white whale, aluminum price manipulation, Jefferson County, Alabam bankruptcy + bribery + fraud, etc., etc. going on for many years now).
Incredibly, I did see a bankster shill on Bloomberg "Rewind" saying Dimon did a great job this year, the white wale derivative losses were not that "bad" (not sure what bad would be, but why ask questions anymore), and Dimon actually deserved a larger bonus! Yes, you heard right, Dimon, head of a bankster criminal organization that settled a bribery case for helping destroy Jefferson County, manipulates aluminum and other commodities, takes part in LIBOR rigging, etc. deserves a bigger bonus. But hey, isn't anything he earns coming from our tax $ and FDIC back up of his losing bets and free money that primary dealers get from the Fed, etc., etc.? So you screw up and you deserve a bigger bonus? Truly epic crony capitalism. And once again, no shame, just more of the "gimme, gimme, gimme, the rest of the US and world be damned." SOCIOPATHIC, truly.
"People with good incomes do not go into debt." You nailed it.
Increasing private debt could be a sign of increased confidence about the future -- or it could be a sign of desperation, if people in dire straits feel compelled to use their credit cards as a last ditch effort to maintain their standard of living.
The problem with personal debt is that it has to be paid back. A private credit bubble can stimulate the economy for a few years, but it's not sustainable.
AOL Real Estate Blog says housing shadow inventory is 90%. In other words 90% of foreclosed homes are being held off of the market, sitting empty, not for sale.
RealtyTrak - only 15% of foreclosed homes are for sale, or 85% held off of the market.
Corelogic - only 10% of REOs are for sale, 90% held off of the market.
Aha! I am not surprised by this and in the original discussion I mentioned it was all about inventories, which officially have dropped like a stone.
If this is true, and I believe they are right, there is absolutely no way prices will increase as some claim or there will be this magic housing recovery. Foreclosures are existing homes and the economic activity their sale adds is in broker commissions, banking commissions and so on. It's not "new" or "added growth". They are existing properties changing hands.
I guess I should point out the law of supply and demand. When one has a massive supply with the same level of demand, prices drop. Econ 101.
Next time I overview housing statistics, I will try to add as much information as I can find on shadow inventories.
This is a huge story really. So, if these homes are kept off of the market, we'll see what we've been seeing in terms of volume, new construction, prices and so on, but as they are added and eventually they must be added to the market, no way will residential real estate, housing magically "save the economy", nil to none.
and depends on technology to screen applicants.
Around 78% of the problems a corporation faces is that management is not trained to do their job correctly and have to be dependent on technology to do their job. The hiring process means using management skills to interview and screen people for possible jobs. Instead some web site is used and requirements are set so high that it screens out most if not all of the applicants. Yes they enter low salary requirements on purpose to justify having to raise the H1B Visa hiring cap, who work for lower salaries as well or to justify offshoring work to other nations.
We got tons of qualified people with college degrees and experience. Yet somehow management adds stupid requirements like 10+ years experience in Visual Studio 2010 and MS-SQL Server 2008 when they haven't yet been out for 10 years yet. Nobody can qualify for that! Someone posts they have 10+ years experience in Visual BASIC 6.0 and Visual BASIC.Net 2002 and MS-SQL Server 2000 but get rejected because it is old technology but they could easily learn and adapt to Visual BASIC 2010 and MS-SQL Server 2008.
You have to remember that management does not want to train people to make them more valuable, because they are cutting expenses. management also rejects debugging and quality control as being too expensive and release bad quality products and services. So when they bleed money due to poor quality they downsize the only employees that can help them restore the product and service to better quality, the IT department. Just assign an employee a mentor that is more experienced, but no they don't want to do that either. Cut out analysis and design phases and fire programmers who do that. They end up with recent college graduates earning minimum salaries and doing crap quality work for little to no benefits and once they earn too much get downsized and replaced with another.
The companies and CEOs and politicians are getting extremely wealthy with the status quo - they have absolutely no incentive to bring any jobs back, improve the job situation here, or care about the destruction of the middle class. They are fine with temporary $8/hr. jobs and free internship here, bringing in visa workers, and outsourcing everything else. Hoping that someone is lucky enough to catch a crumb from their table will only lead to a quicker destruction of society and force people to get meaner and more aggressive to catch one of those plumb rare jobs that pays minimum wage. CEOs and politicians don't change based on hope, they only change when they see right in front of their faces they have no better option.
Folks, you might really check out this month's trade data overview. A couple of graphs for you this time, to show these trade "deals" perpetually touted as helping the U.S. economy, clearly are not. Look at those deficits.
Yes, they turned their back on us. Yes, I wouldn't go back working for them, IF I had another choice. Not everyone has the luxury of choosing their employer. At this point I'm really hoping corporations like them will re-hire us. I just read this report and it doesn't look like many of us will keep their pride and refuse a job offer. If the employment situation doesn't improve soon I'm more likely to accept the service agreement I got from http://debtsettlement.com/ than to say no to a job.
So, let us lay out RICO so that all feds and states can pretend it really isn't this easy. Given the # of unemployed, honest law enforcement folks out there, one wonders why they aren't being hired to go after banksters + corrupt corporations, but then I think that answers itself. How many govt. officials are being paid six-figures to absolutely ignore what an average Joe can see.
****RICO LAID OUT SO ANY SIMPLETON COULD PROSECUTE IT
1) Need at least two incidents of these crimes (we'll just use the ones banksters engage in) -
- bribery (e.g., JPMorgan + Jefferson County);
- counterfeiting (e.g., robosigning on a mass scale);
- fraud (how many counts of wire and mail fraud do these folks engage in daily regarding insider trading, betting against own clients' interests, manipulation of commodities and/or stocks, etc.);
- obstruction of justice (how many emails and docs were destroyed, witnesses and possible whistleblowers fired and/or paid off);
- $ laundering (all of these banks keep settling cases for laundering drug money, + they launder own profits from their own crimes like robosigning and securities fraud)
- securities fraud (e.g., insider trading, lying about material information to investors and potential investors, betting against own clients with inside information)
2) Two acts need to occur within 10 years (no problem there)
PENALTIES - Up to 20 years in federal prison for each racketeering count (and these are real prisons, not fed camps); forfeit all ill-gotten gains AND any interest in business gained through the pattern of racketeering
So, now that it's been laid out, can we see how easy it is? Again, look at what the DOJ and state AGs ignore. See why the FED giving $ to banksters after it knew of LIBOR problems a few years ago is akin to giving money to a criminal gang that breaks heads and torches buildings.
There is no difference, these folks destroy more lives and destroy entire economies while getting obscenely rich and blaming fellow citizens who merely want to work hard and save enough to have something for their families.
They don't get prosecuted because they have willing people and organizations with no integrity who all can be bought and/or rented from localities all the way to the WH, DOJ, Treasury, ECB, IMF, World Bank, UN, etc. So, present and former organized crime members are now running the Treasury, national banks, representing them before assuming roles in DOJ or after leaving DOJ, take their $ before, during, and after working in Congress, etc. "But, but, RICO is hard to prosecute." No, it's really, really not. No harder than any criminal case with tons of written/recorded evidence, predicate crimes already established (e.g., these banks settled many cases), and tens of thousands of witnesses across the globe. But if you refuse to see something and do something, then no amount of prodding or proof will make the corrupt move or get out of the way.
You need to read their details. I am also saying "the housing bust is over" but what I'm not saying is some return to 2004. I also think there is slight lowering of prices, mainly some areas are still bursting, such as Atlanta and some are just so out of alignment with wages, income in their areas.
But claiming that residential real estate is going to "save the economy" and bring up GDP to even 2% over other factors, that I do not see happening. Also, in spite of the cliff dive being over, another recession should cause housing contraction for it always has, in spite of residential real estate massive balloon deflate already.
So, except an uptick in new construction, sales, questionable on prices, I still think there is room for prices to decline, but volume on new activities I think should increase, slightly. Not that smokin' crack NAR claims.
That's what I believe will happen. Once this story is off the front pages, we won't heard anything and then 1 year later we'll see some end paragraph blurb about how some reform has been dismantled or delayed. You can get we will see precisely zero criminal charges.
Which reminds me, we're gotten a lot of damning articles from Congressional testimony, but the one constant, no matter how damning that congressional testimony is, it's promptly ignored by Congress.
I mean world leading experts, economists and goes in one ear and out the other of Congress. This is discounting the "invited" Lobbyists, or their corrupted front men, who spew noise at these hearings, they of course should be ignored.
The Senate now is joining the fun to show just how useless, corrupt, and clueless it is in regulation and enforcement. Hey, if the UK can pretend to do something, so can the US Govt.! Everyone gets a turn at shadow boxing, kabuki theater, and puppet plays. It's just like one of their after-hours gatherings at Davos or a summer BBQ in the Hamptons or on the GA. or ME. coast, only without the open exchange of "gifts."
Prepare for more 20-minute questions/speeches by bankster-owned Senators, 1000s of phone calls between lobbyists, PR employees, and DOJ+Treasury+ White House Senatorial staff before one word is said publicly, and for the bankster-owned MSM to play stupid (or just be stupid) and go along with yet another charade.
By the way, Peregrine Financial under the CFTC's "watch" had $200 million + "vaporize" while the CFTC didn't do anything. I guess that's another episode of kabuki theater date TBA.
So much to pretend to do, so little time until another useless election to choose more people to get rich by being completely corrupt.
LIBOR. JP Morgan white whale FDIC-backed massive derivative losses in positions that should ideally net $0. Aluminum price manipulation by JPMorgan and Goldman. Oil price manipulation by banksters. Hedge funds making money for losing to the market through exorbitant fees. Silver and gold manipulation. MBS-nightmare (all banksters) that destroyed the US. Cooking Greek books so Greece could enter Euro (GSucks). Banksters rolling in the dough with CEO and political buddies while 22% of Americans cannot find work in their own country. Corzine looting farmers' segregated funds and destroying lives. Etc., etc. Anyone in shackles? Anyone in Rikers or Cook County awaiting a state trial? Anyone in Leavenworth doing time with people that destroyed fewer lives? Anyone suffer criminal and/or civil forfeiture or suffer one day like the average American does in this Depression? Anyone arrested in the US for running a US-headquartered media company that bribed police overseas, hacked thousands of phone accounts, intimidated politicians, interfered with police investigations, etc.? Anyone from WalMart going to prison for bribing officials (I guess bribing a police officer by a regular US citizen in the US would result in no arrest too, right)? No, because the system is now officially a joke.
Party on Corzine, Murdoch, Dimon, Diamond, Blankfein, the public knows you belong in prison, but your paid-for puppets in both parties have no integrity or shame, so it's all good in the banksters' and "job destroyer's" neighborhood.
Added Dr. Doom, after all what would a recession prediction be without him, but also, tonight China imports were half of what they were the previous month. The problem is finding out specifics, obviously we do not import oil to China, but do import soybeans, raw materials....so how much that negatively impacts our trade deficit and correspondingly GDP, unknown.
Q2 GDP advance is released July 27th, but investors are focused on China GDP which is out soon. Since our problem is a China problem, too many jobs offshore outsourced and so on, I question the heavy emphasis put on slower Chinese growth to the U.S. economy, beyond all of those Banksters making sure our manufacturing base was moved there.
DOJ? SEC? Congress? State AGs? FINRA? Ha ha ha! Jokers all! Capone + Escobar wish they owned the govt. and enforcers like banksters and CEOs do. Capone and Escobar probably had more shame than these clowns. "Best and brightest, best and brightest" - makes me throw up everytime I hear a shill spout that trash.
One of my major beefs for years has been hedge funds, one of the major symptoms of this economic rape of the hoi polloi. Every public servant is forced to participate in these scams through "no fault of their own." They are not for rich idiot billionaires and their trophy wives and drooling children only who couldn't figure out how where a BRIC country is if you had a map composed of only Brazil, Russia, India, and China. So, you work fighting corruption as a local or state member of law enforcement that actually cares about the 99%. But lo and behold, some idiot hedge fund manager gets to take your money because the bought-and-paid for state level execs (including AGs and Governors) are okay forcing pensions to invest in them with managers that cannot beat a Vanguard index fund ever (especially after fees are included) taking 2% of all assets under management and 20% of profits. The people that are clued in to this crap cannot opt out and, despite writing repeatedly to the people investing the money + AGs, they are ignored because they are not that important to the 1%, it's only the 99%er's money after all enriching the 1%. And this isn't bashed within a minute of inception as complete garbage that pillages public servants? Hmmm, I wonder why. Because these deals are made at cocktail parties and secret clubs that George Carlin's unwashed masses will never be invited to - we ain't in them. Until hedge funds are treated like the thieving schemes they are and managers treated as social pariahs + fraudsters for being the epitome of leeches that get rich for literally losing to the market, we will continue to see the destruction of America's middle class.
And I know this matter has been brought to the AGs' and pension administrators' attention repeatedly - and been blown off - so many of us out here are aware, we do care, but we are utterly powerless to stop the rape and theft when the criminals control all of the power. So what's a law-abiding citizen to do? When the systems is completely owned by criminals and crushing the law-abiding citizenry, F THE SYSTEM, ITS PUPPETS, AND ITS PUPPETMASTERS.
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