patrick.net

Holliday - it's a good idea, but frankly, i'm not that crazy about the idea. First, balloons feel weird. Second, they're always popping. Third, there are enough ppl doing that and I don't want to break their rice bowl.

Frankly, I'm not all that crazy about doing caricatures, but it's something I have a knack for, and it's always been something I 'should' do. This is where it comes down to "should" versus heart. The heart is with music, but I'm not very good yet. Um, not very good at all yet. Um, not at all anything yet. I'm probably doing great for a beginner, but just not ready for prime time. Where prime time means out in front of the local micky-D's or something. This is why I'm practicing every day and it's really pushing limits, I can't afford to get kicked out of here, but so far so good (crossing fingers).

empty-houses --- All are equal but some are more equal than others, and they ain't us!

This somewhat repeats Malcolm's post, but just so his response does not seem like an anomaly, I will answer Monkframe's questions, too.

"When was the last time that any of you applied for a job to clean a house?"

I cleaned houses from 1989-1990--the year after high school. Hard work, great money at the time.

"How about being a nanny, or bussing tables, or picking fruit in the fields?"

I worked as a part-time nanny from 2005-2007. Great job for a mom--community building for the kids. I personally know three women who worked their way through college as nannies. Oh, and my husband used to pick fruit as a summer job during college in the 1990s, as did several of my cousins.

"Not too recently I’ll wager."

This argument assumes that citizens genuinely don't want these jobs and that we have to import labor in order just to get them done. In fact, young people starting out, moms who want time with their own kids, adults with seasonal winter jobs, etc would be happy to do this work. Who do you think used to clean the houses and pick the fruit and take care of the toddlers?

I think US$ is a perishable item and should be date marked like:

US$, Best if used by August 2008

Gold hits record above $900

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Gold hit a record high above $900 an ounce on Monday as turmoil in financial markets, expectations of aggressive U.S. rate cuts and a falling dollar helped raise the metal's safe-haven appeal.

Platinum also hit a record while silver touched a 27-year peak.

Spot gold hit an all-time high of $909.30 an ounce, against $895.70/896.50 in New York on Friday.

COMEX gold futures touched $911.20 an ounce, surpassing Friday's record high of $900.10. The most active February contract was later quoted at $910.0, up $12.3 an ounce.

Japanese gold futures were closed for a holiday.

"There is blue sky ahead of us and there is room for gold to go higher. We are in an uncharted territory, really," said Darren Heathcote of Investec Australia in Sydney. "We have a weaker dollar and that's encouraged people to buy gold."

Investors have bought gold as a safe-haven asset after the dollar dropped on expectations the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates by an aggressive half-percentage point at its January 29-30 policy meeting to rescue the U.S. economy.

Fears of further subprime mortgage-related write-downs in the U.S. financial sector and inflation fears driven by record-high crude oil (CLc1) also attracted buying from investors and speculators.

"I can see there's some short-covering here and there," said Ronald Leung, director of Lee Cheong Gold Dealers in Hong Kong.

"Nobody knows what the next target is -- $910, or $920 and even $950. We don't know. There's short-covering everywhere."

The euro jumped to $1.4880 on electronic trading platform EBS, its highest level since late November and within sight of a record high of $1.4968 hit that month.

Mozilo, the son of a Bronx butcher, would be able to have some fun in style thanks to some perks in his severance package. In addition to the huge payout, Mozilo can take free rides on the company jet and have his country-club bills paid for, according to a Friday report in the Los Angeles Times.

Mozilo raised eyebrows by selling progressively larger amounts of company shares prior to a rash of bad news that drastically reduced the value of those shares. Mozilo made around $150 million in the stock sales. Shares of Countrywide have plummeted 82.5% over the past year.

Angelo Mozilo made nearly $150 million selling Countrywide shares before they tanked. The mortgage lender's chief executive can nearly double that windfall and also earn some luxurious perks if he leaves his post following the struggling company's acquisition by Back of America.

ex-sunnyvale renter: hows the kkk meetings going? you and the other mullet racists coming out to az to patrol the border?

I'm glad to see that we have working people looking at this site.

I heard an interview with a Florida citrus grower who was decrying the new policy of going after so-called "illegal immigrants."
He said that he'd never seen a white person show up to apply for a job in his orchards.

The empire's economy will collapse if all these people coming here for work in the jobs we largely don't want, are asked to leave.

"I saw an entire row of houses for sale. But only one home was listed in mlslistings.com. I discussed this with a broker, she told me only 1 in 27 homes are listed in mlslistings.com. If you want to get the full list, you need to go to RE Max, Prudential Realtors, their web sites. The realtors play this game to avoid public panic."
The mlslistings.com is not the prime MLS service for Stockton. mlslisting.com is one established by bay area realtor associations. Contrary to general misconception, the mls is local and run by the local realtor association board, though many (such in the bay area) band together to save cost etc. That said today there are 572 listing for Stockton on mlslisting.com. When the sellers agent put listing on mls they can set if it can be seen on the local free mls site operated by the local service, if it can be propgrated to the national realtors association website, and if it can be shared with other mls. Can't say what a realtor does, they all seem to do what they want since they are independent. Generally they want to sell the home quick so whatever they think will do that they do - its not like they're all one mindset following NAR since they all are independent tryting to make a buck (and to most of them NAR is just something that collects a fee from them every year so they can call themselves realtors). And contrary to popular views they are not interested in the highest price for you (or the lowest price if you're the buyer) - they interested in getting the deal closed and moving onto the next, that's the way they make money (do you really think that few percent price difference means diddle to what they get out of that vs. what they get if the deal falls through).