Let me rephrase Mr Pethokoukis’s question for those operating in today’s post-Constitutional milieu: “Will Democrats (and certain very “progressive” Republicans) get away with buying votes by essentially stealing mortgage investment money that has always assumed to be secured — completely violating the spirit of eminent domain, even post-Kelo, and creating a 21st version of the all-encompassing Commerce Clause, while effectively moving toward the nationalization of mortgage lending?”
And having re-phrased that, let me then answer it for him: Just so long as John Roberts can figure out how to call it a tax, of course they will.
Government-sanctioned thievery is what they do.
Or is the whole gear shaft to the ass of secured bondholders during the auto company bailouts just so 2009 that we’ve forgotten?
They keep doing their best to kill the economy completely, but the damned thing just won’t die.
This might finish it off, though.
gear shaft to the ass of secured bondholders
I knew there would be more “anal hazing”.
Except good Establicans inform JHo that the way to grow stuff in a world mysteriously bereft of goods and services is inkjet money. Except…except that their Keynesian Multiplier, isn’t.
Or maybe they mean the velocity of the decline in velocity is increasing.
It’s almost like this guy is right. Except that he just can’t be.
On a Saturday (!!!) the California assembly met, and passed without debate, a bill that would gut a provision of Prop 13, whereby local cities/counties could pass local bonds on a 55% instead of 2/3rds vote.
Why does this matter? Because unlike State Bonds that are paid back out of the general funds (income/sales taxes that affect everyone), local bonds are secured by property owners only.
CA’s current total long-term debt is now measured in TRILLIONs so, yeah, the socialist Dems are bound and determined to fuck up capitalism and its mechanisms of private property ownership.
Extrapolating over a nation, it just may be that we really are about a quarter quadrillion over-leveraged. Except that there too, we just can’t be.
Because JHo’s blizzard of bullshit and like that.
push you into the water and then you are suppose to thank them for selling you an overpriced waterlogged lifesaver.
JH
There was all sorts of glad-handing and neener-neerying when it appeared our revenues exceeded our budget (for this year).
It is weird to have Jerry Brown actually fighting his own Dems to not spend this one-time-windfall.
The Dems purposely don’t talk about our long term debt, just what happens each year… or they only talk about the state-debt not counting what the cities & counties are doing.
The dishonesty is pretty damned breathtaking.
Well Roberts would probably find that unconsitutional, just to say “See, there are no black helicopters following me…”
Every Asset That Depends on Cheap, Abundant Credit (Housing, Bonds, Stocks) Is Doomed
But wait–isn’t housing an anti-inflationary hard asset? Given Obamunist “quantitative easing”, I can’t help but think the rebounding of housing is largely due to that.
My brother, who was unable to break out of California, is 55, spent his entire working life in construction, has issues with stamina and mobility due to work-related injuries, and no savings.
And his house is old and on a large lot close to a busy retail street.
He doesn’t want to move. The California legislature clearly wants him gone.
The housing rebound is a gutted middle class renting back their properties from the cartel: Banks having foreclosed them after the bust of their last fake money boom, other corporatist cabals are snapping up addresses by the thousands and thousands.
Ain’t representative govt great? Just remember that fake money can’t possibly redistribute wealth. That would be bullshit.
The housing rebound is a gutted middle class renting back their properties from the cartel: Banks having foreclosed them after the bust of their last fake money boom, other corporatist cabals are snapping up addresses by the thousands and thousands.
Ain’t representative govt great? Just remember that fake money can’t possibly redistribute wealth. That would be bullshit.
Be that as it may, if the Obamunists are making paper worthless, shouldn’t housing, like gold, take off?
Then again, lately gold isn’t doing well either. Perhaps in general the Obamunists are just killing off economic activity period.
Speaking as a child of the ’70’s…
From the link:
Just remember that everything is manipulated and anticipated movements are therefore frequently inverted, at least in the short term.
In the golden age of growth from 1991 to 2002, mortgages rates bounced between about 7% and 9%. The band from 1970 to 1979 was about 7.5% to 10%.
In other words, in eras of strong growth and low inflation, mortgage rates have been around 7% to 9%.
Uh, that’s either not worded right or flat out wrong. 1970-79 was NOT a period of strong growth and low inflation, although 1994-2000 was.
And when the Obamunists and Bernake first announced “quantitative easing” and “Stimulus” in 2009, my first thought was “OMG, Jimmuh Carturd again, stagflation.”
And real estate did very well then as a hard asset, like gold.
Global monetary collapse is right over the horizon. The Chinese just had a giant credit bubble burst. The Japanese aren’t far behind.
When giant power brokers start dumping metals (gold, silver, copper, et al) in the commodities market, bad things are afoot.
I don’t think anyone here is not saying a monetary collapse is coming. The question is, what kind of monetary collapse and how. Given the track record of liberal Demunists, I am betting on stagflation.
At the same time, however, I am trying to pay down all my debt, even though stagflation favors individual debtors, because the economic dislocations caused by stagflation (like losing one’s job) will wipe out the unwary.
The silver lining is that the rest of the country will have a chance to see what happens to the first few cities who abuse their powers to “renegotiate” private mortgages. One hopes they learn from others’ mistakes.
What I am saying, poorly I guess, is that the US is not an isolated economy any longer. It hasn’t been for years. What happens here isn’t necessarily only an effect of our monetary policy, it is an effect of the global monetary system. When the whole world banking system collapses, it doesn’t matter who has a sterling credit rating. There won’t be any creditors because there won’t be any money.
It’s a part of what JHo speaks of often: fiat money that is tied to promises made on butterfly kisses and crossed fingers. Not tied to a gold standard or even a silver standard, our money is two-ply bathroom tissue.
A lot of this is tied to energy policy, as well. Our government is trying to keep us cursing the darkness when we don’t have anymore candle-watt. Japan has been buying oil rather than getting their nuclear power program back on line. They aren’t going to continue to do so for much longer and neither are we.
Yes.
Money is debt. Money is debt. If all debts sought settlement, there’d be no liquidity whatsoever but many hundreds of trillions in debt entries would still exist.
Money is also policy and policy is progressive and progressive policy moves worlds.
It’s all Jenga, I’d say, but I’m lost in that blizzard of bullshit of mine and no, this would never constitute power. Influence. Manipulation.
Because.
Jenga is correct, JHo. That tower is looking pretty shaky from here.
What I am saying, poorly I guess, is that the US is not an isolated economy any longer. It hasn’t been for years. What happens here isn’t necessarily only an effect of our monetary policy, it is an effect of the global monetary system. When the whole world banking system collapses, it doesn’t matter who has a sterling credit rating. There won’t be any creditors because there won’t be any money.
It’s a part of what JHo speaks of often: fiat money that is tied to promises made on butterfly kisses and crossed fingers. Not tied to a gold standard or even a silver standard, our money is two-ply bathroom tissue.
A lot of this is tied to energy policy, as well
But again, how is this different from the 1970’s, save the lack of Soviets, and a more global economy? (Although what happened in Europe, the Middle East, and Japan certainly affected the USA back then too).
At least we don’t have energy price controls and the resulting shortages. I am sure the Demunists are ready to dust off those too….
Start here.
OK. Again, I’m not saying we aren’t screwed. My question is how we are screwed. I suppose the rest of you think we are screwed with a deflationary crash. I am thinking it will be a stagflationary one.
Our national debt is actually about 3 times what we are told it is. Congress is crafting new and more expensive legislation every minute that it isn’t giving itself and the president a pay raise. Yes, Obama gave himself a $200,000 a year raise. The fat cat. Half the country doesn’t pay any federal taxes at all and enjoys the EITC as well as many state and federal programs that enrich their lives and impoverish ours as tax payers.
Home loan interest rates are at historic lows. Good news, right? Wrong. Banks lend money to make money.
We are engaged in three or four not-wars and will become involved in Syria in the near future. Yes, we will. Don’t listen to those who say we won’t. We’ll go in in an advisory capacity and it will end up being another Vietnam. How are we going to sustain all of this global spending on not-wars? Well, we sure aren’t making a killing selling munitions and aircraft or ships to other countries. We’re Uncle Sam’s discount war goods over here.
Let JHo tell you some more. He has graphs and everything.
I expect it to be the cornerstone of the Liz Warren presidential campaign in 2016.
Again.
Gold-standard money was a promise too — only actual gold could be anything but a debt instrument.
Sounds like “blizzard of bullshit” has caught on.
Let’s try a new one, “Gulling the rubes.”
See, some theories aren’t falsifiable. When they run into problems, all it really shows is a far, far deeper conspiracy. Buy the newsletter, buy it now.
Here’s a piece from the newsletter of that rube-gulling conspiratorialist Peter Schiff about unnatural causes and effects. I’ll post the whole thing to spare you the inconvenience of absorbing it as well.
Wait, so mortgage rates jumped a point and gold lost 5% in a matter of hours because the possible Magical Keynesian Multiplier of $85 billion new dollars a month — that’s 1.02T a year for jeenyuses — might at some future date a year from now maybe not be there?
Get out!
Damn, it’s almost like…like everything is manipulated and anticipated movements are therefore frequently inverted.
Demonstrating your own point isn’t how you do this, bh. Probably you won’t follow that rationale either.
Round two coming up.
Then there’s also that wonderful idea where cities, counties, etc. simply use eminent domain to confiscate any property with an underwater mortgage, tell the mortgage holders (including Fannie, Freddie, etc.) to suck the Big Green Weenie, and give the houses to the occupants.
That one would be interesting……
There’s nothing quite so amusing as watching someone pretend to know what’s going on when they can’t even use standard terms correctly.
Anyone want to guess where JHo is talking out of his ass above?
It’s not particularly complicated.
Here I thought it’d already been determined that Leigh was this blog’s Official Ass-Talker-Outer.
“There can be only one!” — for reasons never adequately explained.
According to Highlander, it’s because of the whole “only beheading one’s foes makes one truly immortal” tournament.
Is it related to — assuming you have a spare “afternoon” to do it — threatening to disprove all the proofs for God never submitted?
Or might it relate to having arguments against money by progressive, Keynesian, industry-warping policy pared down to the exponential instability of its system, there to be denied anyway because because, conflating them with goldbuggery and well, we can’t have that either?
I mean, since we’re guessing.
Related: et tu, Davis Stockman, you wrong-end-talking deformationalist?