Nature Abhors a Vacuum...

    But Politics is what you might call "shovel-ready" when it comes to throwing hats in a ring.
   I know, this is an economics blog, but I think viewing economics in a narrow scope is misguided.  Unfortunately, politics, finance, employment, religion are all interwoven in the Economy with a capital 'E'.  So, let's have a look at the mid-terms:


   As of this writing, I am profoundly disappointed in the Obama Administration.  It is my depressing belief that a potentially great leader has been purchased by the financial lobby and corporate interests.  Campaign promises are like so much dust on our unemployment checks.  I've touched on this in other posts, so 'nuff said.


   With that in mind, though, I, like other folks, am looking around at the melee that is our mid-term election cycle. What I'm seeing, frankly, scares the hell out of me.


   Yes, I believe we have a leadership vacuum; who the hell's in charge up there in DC, anyway?  I mean, besides Goldman Sachs?  You get my point.


   And, into the vacuum, filling it to overflow, comes...


   The Tea Party.  Lord help us all, these angry, pseudo-right wing Sarah Palin worshippers and their ilk are sure that the 'gov'mnt' is awful, and ought to be shot out in the barn like Old Yeller.  Greeeeaaaat.  And what, pray tell, do we do then?


  Why, the obvious!  We put the Tea Party in charge... they Take Back America!  They Protect Our Children!  They... what was that other thing?  Drill, Baby, Drill!  Yeah!  You gov'mnt types spend too much!  We'll... well, we won't, that's what!  Yeah! But, my cousin Bubba ain't had a job in a year, so we won't be cuttin' unemployment... and my uncle Earl's youngest, she's GOTTA have some dental work, and him with his back and all... so we won't be cuttin' Medicaid...and Aunt Tellulah, she's been 'on the county' for near thirty years now... so we best leave that welfare alone, at least till she passes on, God Rest Her Soul...


   Yeah, okay, I'm pokin' mean fun at the Tea Party folks.  Maybe it's not fair.  We should look at some of the real candidates that have been brought from the depths to "lead" us...

• John Ensign (NV): $550,000.00 in legal fees in the last 3 months, fighting a Senate Ethics Committee (now THERE'S a misnomer!) and US Justice Department Investigation into his cover-up of an affair.
• Joe Miller (Tea Party, AK)'s 'private security force' handcuffed and detained Tony Hopfinger during a Town Meeting event... Tony being the founder and editor of the Alaska Dispatch. Good thing the cops showed up to get him released.
• Rand Paul (KY) would "edit" the Civil Rights Act... remember that little nugget??
• Ken Buck (CO) thinks being gay is like being an alcoholic.
• Christine O'Donnell (DE) was a witch... or not... lied about which college(s) she attended, and thinks having Sean Hannity "in her back pocket" is good news.
• Carl Paladino (NY) thinks bestiality, pornography, and racist jokes are cool for e-mails.  These are his PUBLIC e-mails... just sayin'.
• Sharron Angle (NV) has recently attacked Sharia Law, a system of rules for Muslims that govern things from prayer times to inheritance law... FOR MUSLIMS.  Apparently she fears that we'll all be roped into Sharia Law if we don't watch out. <sigh>
• Carly Fiorina (CA) former CEO of HP, but by God, she's a political outsider!  Wants to extend the Bush tax cuts, and loses her ability to speak when asked how the government intends to make up for that lost revenue.

   Had enough?  I know I had... the list is actually longer than this; I just picked the most recent group of screw-ups to make a point.  My point, by the way?

   The best and brightest of us are no longer involved in the political arena.  Not that there aren't any good candidates out there, but as I, and my older friends have grown accustomed to saying, 'we're just trying for the lesser of the evils'.  

   At one time, public service was an admirable calling.  Now it's a great way to pad your bank account.  This is what happens when the leaders get out of politics, and leave it to idiots like these to run the show.

   Nothing good can come of this.

   Brutal Truth

Things That Make Me Go, WTF??!

    The good news in the financial markets is the beating the TBTF's are taking now that ForeclosureGate is getting wheels.  I'm glad to see it, for any number of reasons: an end to government-sanctioned fraud would top the list, but there are others.  As everybody from Neil Barofsky to Jamie Dimon wring their hands and attempt to see "just how deep the rabbit hole goes", some other things caught my attention.


    Anybody seen the recent "walkout" video from The View?  Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg actually leave the set during a shout-fest with none other than that flaming cretin, Bill O'Reilly.  Oh, yeah, they come back, and one would guess the interview wound down from there, but the "big" news is that they got so pissed off, they had to go take a powder.


    Two things bother me about this: One, Barbara Walters addressed as soon as the ladies had left stage.  Her words: "You've just seen what should not happen, everybody."  And, in a larger sense, she's right; walking out solves nothing, and keeps a solution from being reached during a conflict.  Excellent point from a class act, in my opinion.


    The second thing that got under my skin: WTF is Bill O'Blowhard doing on The View, anyway? Honestly, who in the wide, wide world expects reasonable discourse from this butthead?  He says to Ms. Behar, and these are HIS words: "Listen, you might learn something."  All while pointing his finger, raising his voice, drowning out all dissent while he pontificates - wrongly, in my opinion, but that's just me - about the issue at hand.  Which, by the way, turns out to be the Muslim Community Center.  I have had about enough of this crap about the Muslim Community Center, believe you me.  Even if I hadn't, do I need the school yard bully tactics of a guy like "One Note Bill" to convince me pro or con?  It saddens me that Barbara Walters has to sit on this panel with this fucktard; she deserves better, if not the entire panel.


    I'm watching the video clip (on Huffington Post), and I'm talking him right through the same "one note" routine he does everywhere, everywhen, every issue: Step 1: raise voice.  Step 2: wag that fucking index finger. Step 3: if anyone else is talking, raise voice again, insult them, see Step 2.


    I'm challenging anyone with the guts to apply this same One Note, Three Step formula to any of these wingnuts: Limbaugh, Hannity, any of them.  Turn the sound off, watch the body language, and... wait for it... here goes the fingerwag!  It's pathetic, and it's what's wrong with political discourse in our country.  The Tea Party grew out of this muckraking bully pulpit bullshit, and it disgusts me.  'Nuff said.


    Deep sigh.  Okay, better news, and maybe a lesson for the US as it follows the TBTF's "down the rabbit hole": Hungary - see The Christian Science Monitor for a detailed article - ARRESTED the company director of MAL, the aluminum pre-treatment plant that has, be losing control of its 'waste ponds', killed 8 people, caused mass evacuations of surrounding towns, and threatened to destroy the habitat within the world-famous Danube River.  Google "red sludge" and see some truly scary photos.  Yuck.


    Hungary's lookin' like they remember how to make a company director do a Perp Walk, and I respect the HELL out of that.  Not the maintenance guy, not his 4th in command, The Director.  Hell, I LOVE that.  I'll let you know how it unfolds, and I do dearly hope that our Federal Prosecutors are watching, too.


    And, to end on a positive note, Angelo Mozilo, former CEO of Countrywide, settled a suit with the SEC for misrepresenting the "health" of his company, for $67,500,000.00. This may be the first time since the onset of TARP someone - and the SEC, complicit as it has been in this entire sham, surprised me by growing a pair - has finally dropped the hammer, and said, "Ya don't getta keep the fuckin' money".  Admittedly, Mr. Mozilo certainly wasn't the biggest fish on the pier, but it's a start.  There's hope for us all.


Brutal Truth

The Currency Wars Crap You've Been Hearing About Explained...

    Sort of.  I walked myself through my notes, trying to make sense of what all this "FX Intervention", "IMF Meetings", "Currency Debasement" crap is about, and how it applies to you and me, the folks working our way through each month stretching our dollars until they squeal.


    Best way to start, I figured, was by defining terms.  The three that seem to be applicable here are "inflation", "disinflation", and "deflation".  Okay, so I was just curious as to what the hell "disinflation" really meant, so I'm sharing.  I couldn't think of a more politically neutral (in October of an election cycle, yet!) source than Wikipedia, so here we go:

• Inflation: "Economists generally agree that high rates of inflation, and hyperinflation are caused by excessive growth in the Money Supply." Think rising prices, decreased buying power.
• Disinflation: "...is a decrease in the rate of inflation - a slow-down in the rate of increase of the general price level [sic]... over time."  
• Deflation: "...amounts to an increase in the real value of money, allowing one to buy more goods with the same amount of money."  Sounds great, right?  Also: "...may be caused by a combination of the supply and demand for goods and supply and demand for money, specifically the supply of money going down and the supply and demand for goods going up."

    Ooookay. This is where the headlines will trip you up; on the one hand we have "runaway debt" that we're trying to "inflate our way out of".  On the other hand, we're in a "deflationary environment".  Sounds to me like you don't get to do both.  Let's break it down a bit more:
    
    The macro idea behind pumping bajillions of dollars off the printing presses, ala Mr. Bernanke, is to flood the world with dollars, creating an environment where there is so much stinking cash around, we can pay off the bajillions we owe to everyone else.  Sure.  Got it.  "Debase the currency" so that what we pay back with isn't worth what we borrowed.  What a bunch of slick willies we are, huh?  But, doesn't that lead to "inflation"?  Even "hyperinflation"?  


    Well, according to the definition... YES.  If you've watched the price of oil and other dollar-based commodities, you see it plainly: about a month ago, $74.00 bought you a barrel of oil; now it takes $82.69 to buy that same barrel.  For our purposes, I'm going to assume you shop for food, and fuel up your vehicle.  Where I live (in the Caribbean), our food bill has gone up by about 15% over the last two months.  We tend to be the first in line for price increases, since most of what we get has to be shipped to us by boat.  Feel free to comment if food prices are going up in your area; yours may be the most reliable barometer.


    The other headlines: We are currently in a "deflationary" environment.  This means, if our Wikipedia definitions are correct, that the prices of goods should be falling, and the money supply should be shrinking.


    Umm, to quote Mark Knopfler: "Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong".  Here's where I think the hose  kinks:  The CPI.


    The published Consumer Price Index is a neat little number, released however often the Fed feels like it, that gauges the "price of stuff". Cool enough.  However, the CPI - by its own admission - EXCLUDES food and fuel.  Hell, even if you heat your house with oil, it ain't in the CPI.  


    Well, if you put it that way, things are pretty good... <sigh>... if you're on Social Security, though, you're screwed, for the second year in a row.  Those COLA (Cost of Living Adjustments)'s have been suspended, because we're in a "deflationary" environment. "Hey, our CPI shows you don't need any more money; sorry, Grandma!"


    The only other reason to debase a currency is to make exported goods more affordable for those folks overseas.  Problem is, they're as up to their ears in debt - many more so - as we are. Hence the next set of headlines: "Blank (enter the name of a Central Bank here) Currency Intervention".


    As long as a currency isn't tied to a standard - a true FIAT currency, literally meaning "faith-based" - we, and the other countries playing at this, can do these kind of parlor tricks.


   Hence the term, "Currency Wars".  It is, literally, a race to the bottom.  The interesting part will be seeing who gets their first.  The sad part will be the sheer numbers of good folks who go down with these idiots.


    Don't be one of them.


    Brutal Truth

Hope Glimmers; But It May Be A While...

    In the "Bad News/Good News" Department, light has been steadily shining into the dark corners of Mortgage Servicing over the last week or so.  Not too many folks are left - at least here in the Blogosphere - who aren't aware of the term "Robo-signing".  The down-side? See my post, "The Title Insurance Stops Here". The upside? The stout-hearted 40 state attorneys general who are expected to announce legal action on a slew of our Too Big To Fail banks.


     I scanned briefly an article about Neil Barofsky, official "watchdog" for TARP, who wants a detailed accounting of GMAC's mortgage arm - now known as Ally - and its procedures.  We'll see; on one hand it's not in Treasury's best interest to possibly reveal fraudulent practices that may result in write-downs (they'd like to get their/our money back asap); on the other hand, if Treasury may be open to legal action (they/we own 40% of GMAC/Ally), it might be handy to know.


    Before I go further, I want to thank my early educators on this debacle; if I make a mistake in this post, the fault is entirely mine. Smart folks out in front on this issue: Zerohedge.com, 4Closurefraud.org, and (believe it or not!) Diana Olick at CNBC.  All sources available online.


    The big, gaping black hole in all this, the one that may, in time, blow the whole fraudulent mess that was the housing bubble apart, is MERS.  That's Mortgage Electronic Registry System.  You can find them on the web at Mersinc.org.  I did.  For a fee, I can become a representative officer of MERS. General titles issued were "Assistant Secretary" or "Vice President" (that's probably a bit more expensive than the Assistant Secretary package).


    When you become a representative officer, you don't go on the payroll, and according to some killer testimony (please see Reggie Middleton's great article on Boombustblog.com), many officers didn't know where the offices of MERS were, had never attended a board meeting, weren't sure who worked for MERS, and further, never collected a dime from them.  Why should they? THEY WERE STILL WORKING IN THE MORTGAGE SERVICING FIRMS AND BANKS FOR WHOM THEY HAD ALWAYS WORKED.  They just had this cool seal... and maybe a t-shirt. 


    And, who formed MERS?  Who are the major shareholders?  A short list: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac... getting the picture?


    
So... why? Really, after all is said and done, whether or not we do face the financial collapse some are predicting, why did we start this thing?


    Recording fees.


    County Recording Fees... for emphasis: COUNTY FUCKING RECORDING FEES.


    I used a fee calculator on the website for Clark County, Nevada, certainly one of the biggest booms in the bubble.  If I want to record a mortgage that runs to, say, 25 pages (a bs guess on my part; I remember signing mortgages that ran MUCH longer), the fee for this would run to $38.00.  Not a big deal if you only do it once, right? Throw it in with the other line items on the big sheet at closing, and recording fees are the least of the expenses.  Here's where it gets interesting:


    If I (say, JP Morgan, or Bank of America, etc.) want to securitize this loan, I'm going to assign it to a Pooling Service.  That pooling service is going to slice and dice this note, via Mortgage Backed Securities, and it goes into a Trust.  I might have sliced/diced maybe 25 times for this step.  Then, I (the Trust) am going to sell pieces of this to investors.  Let's say I find 20 investors for my Trust business. Multiply this by the 25 other slices, and I've racked up a MESS of recording fees.  In fact, if everyone who was involved in this deal had to be recorded ( as, legally, they SHOULD), the two entities would be out $19,000.00 on ONE mortgage.  Yikes!  We'll never make a bajillion dollars a year doing that!


    And then, the water gets murkier: when title is assigned, it conveys "all right, title, and interest" to the assignee.  How to get around this?  As the bundles went out all 'round the world, the Assignation of Title paper work read "Assigned to _________".  THIS causes serious problems in the world of foreclosure, as you might guess (!).  Just to cloud your brain, think of the possibilities of "splitting the baby": There are two parts to your mortgage: the Promissory Note, and the Deed of Trust. 


    The legalese (last one, I promise): If you hold the Promissory Note, and don't have the Deed of Trust, you have no right to foreclose. All of a sudden, your mortgage isn't a mortgage, it's just another unsecured debt. If you hold the Deed of Trust, and not the Promissory Note, you don't get any payments. Hmmm. Please see recent articles by the good folks I mentioned above for the fine print, and a more detailed explanation.


    If you have a mortgage, now would be an EXCELLENT time to find out if the people to whom you make out your checks every month have any right whatsoever to the money they say you owe them. 


    Okay, that's all pretty bad news; for the TBTF's, for the courts, for MERS, all sorts of folks.  Heads are gonna roll, attorneys are gonna get rich, and a lot of folks are gonna be gettin' "free" mortgages that maybe they shouldn't.  Most of the "ouch" is in the wallets of the overpaid butt-head area, so really, the bad news for us renters, and the economy in general, is that while this slogs through the courts ( I admit, I'd love to see Lloyd Blankfein do a perp walk, but that's just me), the depression we're in will not get any better.  But, I promised you a "glimmer":


    This fraudulent fiasco may finally flush an awful lot of toxic debt out of our financial system.  Economic collapse?  It's a remote possibility; our TBTF's are gonna scream when they miss their record bonuses (yes, this year was going to surpass last year's record in executive bonuses; we'll see about that!), and Uncle Ben's going to have to wind up the printing presses; it's going to be a big old bailout Part II.  Having said that, this presents us with a unique opportunity in the legal system.


    This may be the ONLY way to force the dismantling of the TBTF's.  Along with them, the GSE's (Fannie and Freddie), and put banks back in the Human Banking Business.  Remember it?  Banks provided capital to businesses and people who could then use it to do things like... create jobs?  What a concept! Keep in mind that this gets exciting because right now, this year, the financial sector of the US is currently on the receiving side of 40% of the GDP.  That's a lot of loans to small businesses and cities... and counties... and states...


    With luck, as the TBTF's get fractured back into less dangerous components, maybe, just maybe, we can de-couple Wall Street from Washington, DC.  I know, I'm an optimist; but without all that pent up capital, maybe we could have some issue-based policy and maybe... gulp!... an honest election cycle in 2012?


    Take heart, oh fellow gutted middle class warrior... the rebellion may come without a single shot fired... and really, how cool would THAT be?




Brutal Truth
     

Will People Sit and Let Things Disintegrate?

     Hat tip to Alexis for posing a thoughtful question that deserves a thoughtful answer.  Unfortunately, I think the answer is "maybe".
    
    A Brief History: with thanks to Professor Robert Reich, and Professor Elizabeth Warren. Their work on this subject, particularly Reich's, is much more erudite than my synopsis.


    Beginning in the 1970's... some say with the passage of ERISA in 1974, which began the shift from Defined Benefit (pensions) Retirement to Defined Contribution (IRA's, 401 (k)'s, etc.) Retirement. Some say it really started when President Nixon de-coupled the dollar from the gold standard.  The upshot is, that the standard of living in this decade was about as good as it was gonna get for the middle class. Everything after has been a decline, and the middle class has been systematically gutted. In the '70's, if there was an added expense, Dad could work overtime for a while, or work a second job, and the savings would add up, and the purchase - say a car, or a vacation - would be paid for, and things would then normalize.

    By the 80's, women began joining the workforce to add to needed income.  There's some evidence that this tipping point was hit in the late 70's, for those of us old enough to remember mortgages with 18% interest rates, and the oil embargo. Either way, women entered the workforce in greater and greater numbers during this decade, and as the culture adapted, it became expected that both spouses would work - think "latch-key kids".


    By the 90's, the Great Run Up in credit and house prices got wheels.  Why? Because the concentration of wealth had sped up.  Sure, you can buy a new car and a new house this year with your millions in executive pay, but can you really buy a new house EVERY year? These folks, the top 3% of earners, needed some investment vehicles, and the demand grew.


    And grew.


    By the first of the "aughts", the credit frenzy was on, and every house was an ATM.  Liar loans, securitizations, and many, many other investment vehicles had been generated.  And then you had the other shift reaching a tipping point: we began out-sourcing - like crazy.  What better way to shift the concentration of wealth than by hiring some 6 year old with NO standard of living to make your tennis shoes? An American worker would want health care, a living wage (remember, there's that McMansion that has to be paid for!), and some vacation time, and an 8-hour day, etc.


    All the alarms went off in my head the day I read that Wal-Mart was the country's LARGEST PRIVATE EMPLOYER. I could go on about that for a while, but won't. The year was, I believe, 2006, and it marked the end of our base of employment in manufacturing. We had become a series of Service Workers, from grocery stores to mortgage brokerage houses. 

    No one needs a long explanation of the beginning of The Great Recession at this point... but I will clarify one issue: it began in the spring of 2006, when all of a sudden credit started to tighten up. By mid 2007, the "velocity of money" was slowing to a crawl, and it really hit the fan in 2008 when everything froze.


    I draw all this out because the question seems to demand it.  Folks, we sat idle for FORTY YEARS of declining standards of living.  We got mad, we got drunk, we got depressed, but we kept on pushing, grumbling that "something should be done". We had recessions, we had booms, we had - and have - a series of "jobless recoveries". 


    Enter the Tea Party.  Some folks are standing up and shouting; the problem is their shouting vitriol and obscenity, not reason.  As I said in another post, I agree with them on one issue (and one ONLY!); we SHOULD be mad. Two generations of proof that the American Dream is a farce, and will be visited upon our kids and theirs in greater and greater hardship.  Aside from that, however, the only thing I've seen the Tea Party do is inspire uneducated folks to be venal and atavistic. Rage is NOT a long-term solution to anything.


    Some further bad news: The US Treasury is now the largest holder of national debt in the world.  The upside: at least it's not China anymore.  The downside: we're just printing money, and other countries are beginning to doubt us as a good credit risk. I say, what took so long?  But, the risks increase the more we monetize (print money) our debt, and recycle it back into our economic engine.  Think sugar in the gas tank.


    Social Security/Medicare went cashflow negative in the 2nd Quarter of THIS YEAR. Not 2025, or 2040, but 2010, and we're not into the bulk of the Baby Boomers retiring for 2 more years (tapering off by 2016).


    There are growing signs that the US is de-coupling from the larger world economy.  We are beginning to be shadowed by other economies.  This does not bode well for the value of the dollar as the world's reserve currency.  Watch oil prices; they are great indicators not just of supply and demand, but of the clout of the US Dollar.  I believe oil capped out at $84.00 a barrel this morning, from a mere $72.00 a barrel a few short weeks ago. Add in a couple of unfinanced wars without end, and you've got a hell of a set of problems.


    On the flip-side, up to 40 states' Attorneys General are banding together to bring legal action on what is becoming known as Foreclosure-Gate.  While this process will actually put a drag on the economy in the short term, the sooner it flushes out the Bad Actors, the better things will be in the future.  This debt, and everything with it, eventually has to be flushed out of the system.  This is the slow, painful way to do it, but it is a move in the right direction.


    President Obama did a brave thing: he pocket-vetoed HR 3808, which basically would have let every one of those 'Robo-Signers' off the legal hook. What scared me about it was the fact that both the House and Senate passed this piece of crap WITH NO PUBLIC DEBATE WHATSOEVER.  I'm glad the President decided to step up.  Score one for the "good guys".


    I would suggest a google search of The Coffee Party.  They have quietly grown a large following, and are dedicated to civil discourse in government, and issues-based voting versus personality and party-line.  Will they get the publicity they should be getting?  Probably not, but it refreshes me to know that smart, educated people are starting to have a dialog about the problems and potential solutions.


    And, there is always the possibility of open rebellion... the seeds are spreading, and while I'm not a nihilist, I quote a dear friend when I say, "Bureaucracies are NEVER fixed from within". What form will that rebellion take, and when?  I don't know, but I do know that not all rebellions are violent, and not all leave a power vacuum.  If we come to that, I hope those things would be true for all of us.




Brutal Truth

Some Things You May Want to Do... Just In Case...

       Good evening, all!
     It has occurred to me, as it has to my three - count 'em, three! - I'm actually fairly excited about this! - readers that I'm going through an awful lot of labor without "the baby".  I promised you a point, and tonight I make it... I'd like to continue giving you the history lessons, but really, so many much smarter people than I can do that... I'll continue to distill what I'm reading, to keep you informed, but here are some simple, low cost things you can do to prepare yourself for what may come next.
     And, what may come next may be a hurricane, a tornado, a blizzard, a drought, or the entire economic collapse of the American Empire.  Either way, it doesn't suck to be prepared, right? <G> Really, what's the alternative?  If you're prepared for a storm, and it doesn't hit, you've invested in peace of mind.  If it does hit, you're ready.  If not, hey, there's always next year, right?  I'd rather be ready for bad stuff than not ready; it's okay for me to laugh at myself at the end of hurricane season; it's NOT okay to go hungry after one... and I've been on both sides of THAT coin, believe me.


     As I said in my opening post, I am what's now popularly called a "prepper".  What that means is I'm "shorting" the American Dream.  So be it.  I think we're on a bad road to a bad place, and that's basically that.  Here's what I recommend, and you can take my previous posts - and future ones, for that matter - as an opinion, hopefully based on good facts, but an opinion none the less - and decide as you will.  I can lead you to water... <G>  I have no 'movement' to sponsor or build; I don't claim to be a leader - see the name of this blog - but I AM worried, and worried enough that I post these pieces and hope someone, preferrably someone I know that needs them, will read them and understand.  Here are the bullets:

• IMO, you should not have more than $500.00 in ANY bank, at any given time.  I love the Huffington Post's campaign, "Move Your Money", but the fact is the most vulnerable banks in the nation are the small/regional ones... they're up to their ears in Commercial Real Estate, and that's a sour bet.  Yes, your money's insured to infinity, but the FDIC has been broke for a minimum two quarters, and has almost 500 more banks on its "troubled" list.  Ever waited for an insurance check for your car after an accident?  It can be a long wait.  I'm not betting on the FDIC, especially if that's money I need to pay bills.
• You should probably own a safe.  A good place to put cash and important papers.  Said safe should be anchored to something REALLY strong - like concrete.  If you're holding cash, you need a safe, unless you feel like mason jars in the backyard are a good thing.  And you SHOULDN'T think that, just fyi.
• Unfortunately, once you have stored cash, you probably should own a gun. I'm not a gun fan, but I think in the proper circumstances, a gun's a good - but deadly - thing.  Here are my three laws of gun safety: 1. always assume it's loaded, even if the person handing it to you says it's not. 2. Never draw a gun unless you want a hole in something - or someone. 3. Never draw a gun if you don't have the training to use it.  Period.  If you can't shoot straight, don't get a gun.  If you're not willing to take the required courses in gun safety, and go to the range (at least) once a month, don't bother; you'll hurt someone (most likely yourself or a loved one), and you won't be there to 'stand, and be true'... that's the land you enter when you own a gun, and you'd better be ready for it.  Your call.
• You may want to consider the idea of defaulting on your credit cards.  If you have the means to pay them, by all means, do: these are obligations you took on, and morally you should pay them.  What I'm saying is this: if the means are there, fine.  IF they crimp your ability to stash 6 months' worth of cash - a year is better - then dump 'em, and FICO be damned.  You may find that FICO becomes a lot less important in the years ahead, so preserve your cash whenever you can.  When bread is $15.00 a loaf, will MasterCard care?  
• If you are particularly cash-strapped, you may want to consider 'strategically defaulting' on your mortgage.  This depends on many things: are you underwater?  Are you out of work? Are you looking at draining your savings/IRA/401(k)? If so, I'm telling you, with the current wave of moratoria on foreclosures, you may want to consider the idea of living rent-free for a year... or more.  I don't recommend this if you have the means to pay and it isn't hurting you financially; if it's the difference between putting food on the table and raiding your savings, you may want to consider it.  As said by so many others: corporations do it all the time; it's considered "good business" to default on obligations that no longer serve a purpose... all that "moral obligation" crap is just that: CRAP.  Consider long and hard, as it will alter your credit rating indefinitely, and may influence hiring decisions about you down the road, but take the blanket off the baby and give it a hard look if things are that tough.
• I think you should learn to garden... remember the "victory gardens" back in the '40's?  Most of us don't, but they made a crucial difference to families tightening their belts because of shortages here due to the "war effort". You shouldn't be eating all that processed crap anyway; what grows in your climate that you use all the time? Peppers? Garlic? And, if gardening is too intimidating, what's going on with the neighbors? If they're gardening, maybe there's something you can barter with them, some skill set they don't have... I can only grow a rudimentary bit of plants we use, but I can build garden-houses and green-houses until my eyes fall out.  What about you?
• The next "Big World War" IMO, will be about water.  Google the Pentagon's research papers about water and food shortages, and you'll see for yourself - this is IMPORTANT STUFF, folks. Can you capture water for later use?  If not, for God's sake, MOVE.  Communities in the southwest in particular, do not exist except for the fact of re-routing the California River into your neighborhood.   We're talking 2020, not so long from now. When you google, use "Pentagon Papers" and "2020" in your search.  If you can capture water for later use, you are a hundred steps ahead of the game.  If you can't, you need to utilize the barter world to make sure  you can secure enough water to meet your needs for a VERY long time.
• Last Point: Can you go "OTG" (Off the Grid)?? As our infrastructure ages and fails, power outages and 'brown-outs' will become the norm.  Can you make sure you generate enough power to free yourself from this crap?  You should be looking into it; it's more important than you now think.  We were raised in an era of cheap and endless power; that time is now coming to it's end.

      You can do this; you can preserve your standard of living... but it's going to take a lot more work on your part than it ever has before. This is 'the baby' that all these articles - past and future - point to.  I'm warning you now so you won't be lost when the coming changes happen.


     Remember that bit about "safe and happy"?  I meant it.  You can do this. It's just gonna take a lot more work than we were ready for.  Here's our chance to get ready... time to turn off the TV, and get busy.  Again: You Can Do This.


     Brutal Truth

I Agree With The Tea Party On One Issue...

     You SHOULD be mad.  You should be mad as hell; unless you're what's now become known widely as a "bankster" or a politician, or a CEO,CFO, COO, etc., with a multi-million dollar golden parachute.
    Here's what got me boiling this morning:
    Remember Health Care Reform?  Better term: Health Insurance Reform? There are provisions kicking in in January, and the ripples and rumbles from the Big Boys are already rolling in. In January 2011, your insurance carrier HAS to allow you to keep - or add - your dependent child, to your family policy, up until the ripe old age of 26.  It currently ranges from 19 to 23. If you have a dependent child, your carrier cannot deny or stop coverage, even if that child is seriously ill. A number of preventive screenings - think colonoscopy, mammograms, etc. - are now required to be "free" to the patient. There's also some mumbo jumbo about lifetime limits on payout... it's unclear, but from my reading, the limits start to go up this year, and will be phased out completely by 2014.
    And who was first in line to dig in their heels and say, "No way"?
    Fucking McDonald's.
    Seems they offer their "restaurant" employees (this implies that they serve food, but that's a subject for another day) what are commonly known as "mini- meds"... medical insurance that, for a smaller premium - they'd HAVE to be at McD's notoriously low pay scale - offer medical coverage that limits out at $2,000 to $3,000 a year. I don't know about you, but even $3k at my age (43) is pretty easy to hit... all it takes is a knee injury, a bad flare up of tendonitis, a few quick trips to a sports medicine clinic, and I'm done for the year.
    Their response to the new regulations?  "We'll have to stop offering health care coverage for our restaurant employees" if they're required to, I don't know, obey the new law. 
    First of all, they cannot legally do so... McDonald's  - at it's roots, before the franchisees kick in - is a 'C' Corporation... US corporate law states that if even ONE officer of the corporation is entitled to benefits, ALL employees  must be offered benefits (although they don't have to be the SAME benefits, as many corporations have illustrated).  But, they told the Obama Administration this was just too much of a hardship... in fact, complained to the Office of Health Reform, headed by Nancy deParle, and became one of THIRTY - count 'em, THIRTY! waivers to the new requirements.
    Wanna see more? Check The Business Insider and/or the NY Times for the full accounting, and yes, major insurers are some of the ones being waived. A paraphrased quote (un-credited): "We can't be covering all of these sick children!"  (Emphasis mine).


    That was during my first cup of coffee.  Resisting the urge to add Bailey's, I spied an article on ZeroHedge.com, verified by HuffingtonPost.com, about corporate share buy-back.  See, corporations have now cut expenses - read, JOBS - to the bone.  Every 'productivity leap' you've seen since the end of 2007 is just another poor schmuck doing the work of 3 people since the other 2 got laid off.  As they burn out, they are replaced, and another poor slob goes on the unemployment line.  As a result, these large corporations have HUGE stashes of cash just sitting on the sidelines.  What are they doing with it?  They're buying their own shares back.  When stocks are low, corporations often do this; it's a cheap way to gain control of their own company, and it makes the options look good on paper.  With the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq in crack-smoking bliss numbers, it's not really that good a deal.  According to ZeroHedge.com: The number of "insider" - read, those who are exercising stock options, or their minions - was at one point last week 2,341 to 1 selling.
    HuffingtonPost.com backs this up with an article titled "What a Waste" that's worth a read.  This money could have been used to create JOBS, you over-moneyed buttheads!


    Finally - I broke and had a beer for this one - Poor Old Goldman Sachs is gasping - gasping, I say! - at the idea of having to pour more money into its capital reserves, with an eye to future losses... like, maybe in their real estate holdings, their CDO's, their MBS's, all based on 2006 values that are still showing up on their Balance Sheets since we decided to suspend Mark to Market accounting rules - oops!.  They're saying they can't lend! (They're not, by the way). How will they make any money? (They are, as if you didn't know).


    My take - I've now had a long day, and am currently working on a vodka cocktail - is that, in all honesty, and you're hearing this from someone who wept with joy at Obama's Inaugural Speech, our president has now been co-opted, purchased, and wears the same collar that Chris Dodd does: it says, "Owned By Wall Street".  It breaks my heart; I had such faith.


    Our hero has feet of clay, and I am truly sorry that he has bowed to the pressures that ARE our New Corporatocracy.  That doesn't, however, absolve him from accountability, and I'm afraid the one man I thought could help us change the horror that our government has become, has now become part of our government, and a single-term president.  


    I would weep, but I'm too pissed off.




Brutal Truth