patrick.net

OO,

You have MANY options to go live in another country if you don't need to get a permit to work. If you're retired, or can manage your work remotely (renting out properties, for instance), then it is certainly worth considering. But you and your significant other must be culturally adaptable. You will find that the cost of living, healthcare, etc are affordable since the US$ still goes a long way in some places (not Europe). That way, instead of getting an ulcer railing at the government like some of the people here, you can say the hell with you and take off. Check it out.

While i am not a big fan of people who abandon thier country when its in trouble, i am still sympathetic to the retiree's who would want to consider the option.
The retiree's got a really bad deal. They worked hard, saved a lot only to loose it finally....its pretty sad. The current generation is anyway fucked up with debt and easy life so its doesn't matter if they lose job or salaries.
They anyway would squander away anything they get.The retiree's contributed a lot and used up very little as opposed to the current generation.

StuckinBA
You want a scrap? Let's go.

First, why do you have to invent stupid labels like specuvestor and permabull. I am a renter, actually sold my house because I believed very early on that this bubble was unsustainable. But that's not even relevant. I happen to believe that people who invent names for other people who are not like them (like the N word, sounds familiar?) manifest gross immaturity and stupidity.

Your words:
"those evil taxpayers who tried profiting from the bubble are either happy or sad based on how their gamble pay off. BUT - none of them is asking for a tax payer handout, at least directly".
Oh yeah? What do you call that $150 billion of pork they tagged on to the "bailout" in the last couple of days? "Hey, Mr. Congressman, if the banks are going to get a handout, what about us"????
By the way, I wrote to Diane Feinstein when I heard that one of the first things the Dems wanted to attach to this bill was to "help out the homeowner" who are in trouble. That's just not right. They have to be responsible for what they did. I feel the same way about the banks, I don't pity WAMU or Lehman, but my judgment is that if they all failed, or quit lending, I get hurt. I couldn't give a rat's ass about the 'homeowners. So don't give me any shit that people are not asking for a handout. Every one is looking for a handout.

Your words:
"These bankers are demanding that we pay them else we all will face Armageddon".
Name me ONE bank that have demanded that we pay them. When WAMU died, did they demand anything from you? When Lehman failed, did they knock on your door? I am not defending the banks and I don't like them, but I hate stupidity and falsehoods worse. Don't stretch the truth just to further your chest thumping.

"Paulson and his gang will loot you". I believe that Paulson's toenail, no, one of his butt hairs tower over you in terms of achievement. He made $500 million with Goldman. He is making maybe $200K now if that. Plus he had to go in front of these asshole congressmen who used the hearings to show how smart (and inadvertently reveal how dumb) they are. He's trying to do something that the feels his country needs, within months of leaving his job. If I were him, I would say get fucked and leave. And you, who's whole achievement is to spew crap on blogs like this, want to call names behind an anonymous screen.

Please.

Pshawn:

"I think you’re totally mixed up. You’re confusing everyday people with people who gamed the system. You’re saying everyday people who were honest, worked hard, paid their taxes, saved, invested, vacationed and partied with their own money somehow are part of these crooked scheme of things, but they aren’t".

You've missed my point, which is a whole lot of people did not party "with their own money". If the price of houses ballooned, and people took out money with a HELOC or by refinancing , and had a grand ol' time, and now am in danger of losing their house, would you consider it "their own money"? Well, a whole lot of people did that. My point is a whole lot of people benefited one way or another during this 7 year orgy of cheap credit and spending. Now they are screaming unfair because they have to pony up tax dollars, and it's all the bank's fault?? Now for the people who really worked hard, and saved (BTW, I am one of them), this is a cost of living in this fucked up country. Suck it up, or leave.

Kona_three:
"Now for the people who really worked hard, and saved (BTW, I am one of them), this is a cost of living in this fucked up country. Suck it up, or leave."

Kona_three , the above mentioned group is pretty big and they won't just suck it up. They will revolt in thier own way. Thats what makes a country better. Sucking up is what makes somalia not USA.

@OO

"In a word, where do you park your money for self preservation?"

I was hoping that you might have some ideas.

snmr,
I like your spirit. Revolution! Better hurry, we all are a little late. The Federal Deficit is already unimaginably large, and the Social Security and Medicare obligations will soon reduce this country to rubble. The time is coming, and soon, that this "economic crisis" that we are having will seem like a cakewalk.
Pity the children.

Kona_three wrote :
"I believe that Paulson’s toenail, no, one of his butt hairs tower over you in terms of achievement. He made $500 million with Goldman"

Please don't worship him because he made $500 million without knowing how he made it.
I know dozens of low-lives who have made millions but i have zero respect for them because they just don't deserve it. money does not equal accomplishment especially when you are working for paper shuffling company like Goldman sachs. Its a parasite company making money from money and adding zero value to the economy. This is an imperfect world and money does not automatically get distributed based on exactly how much people contribute to the society/economy. There are too many other variables.

My only measure of monetary accomplishment is : how much worth of dollars did you add to the economy in terms of goods/services?
I would consider patrick a millionaire just by that one measure. I think most people here would agree.

@Danville and Stuck,

One thing that I hate about the current financial situation so much is, after looking at everything, the only logical conclusion that I can arrive at is gold, physical gold. And I hate putting money in gold, although by asset allocation I am probably qualified as a gold bug.

Gold is the most unproductive and unimaginative investment (if you can call this investment) of all kinds. It is NOT investing for the future, it is admitting defeat, and a resigned gesture of acknowledging that I have no trust in the system, I have no idea what is going to happen, and I am a moron who contributes nothing to the society except for the cyanide pollution in gold mining. You don't get ahead or behind with gold, you are just doing pure self-preservation with nothing else to look forward to. And by parking your money in gold, you are basically expecting a lot worse to come.

It sucks.

The H.4.1 statistical report seems to be getting more coverage these days so I'm sure most of you have heard about it already. I'll try a different tact. So what does $700Billion buy these days? Let's check out the Fed's balance sheet.
$344B from the Treasury of Supplemental financing
$150B TAF
$235B TSLF
--------------
$729B
I'm sure Ben would be happy to get this out of the Fed and into the hands of the American taxpayers.

OO says :"have no idea what is going to happen, and I am a moron who contributes nothing to the society "

I disagree with you. By withdrawing you investment , you are sending a clear signal that there are no good oppurtunities for capital allocation in the current system. If people don't withdraw investments, the system will never create a meaningful investment oppurtunity and will keep stinking with the current inflated investment oppurtunities.

By doing what you mentioned , you are doing a sound capital allocation service to the society. This country would be different if everybody did the same and punished bad investment choices instead of propping them.

OO Says:
I always believe in global citizenship if you can help it, instead of getting stuck in any country.

Absolutely - having lived for significant number of years in different countries, I have pretty much no illusions about being a citizen anywhere. Best to go where you can live happily with dignity.

Having friends/family/contacts across borders is the most important thing. Takes time to build this, and some professions are easier to do this with.

The second thing is being able to store your accumulated savings in a place that is relatively stable and unlikely to restrict its movement in and out. Traditionally, Suisse and English banks have been the most popular choice, but I am not sure about the stability of English institutions this time.

The third - especially if you are still young and have relatively smaller savings - is to have or acquire skills that are universally in demand and require low capital to restart a profession. Doctors, engineers, small traders.

Having said that, I am cautiously hedged on this. Being part of an extended family that is spread over more than a dozen countries is handy. And out of habit, I am skittish about keeping too much money in a place that does not meet the second criterion, so it is out for the most part. But I am not packing my backpack just yet, because I think that the US will pull through - once we shake of the bubble mentality and get back to actually being productive, things will still be pretty good. Just need to get through this phase of intense manipulation of public policy by the pigmen.

EBGuy,

here is an interesting observation. The Fed's total reserve bank credit (total balance sheet as I understand it) increased $253B compared to a week ago, and $527B compared to a year ago. The annual growth is 50%!

Does that mean extra $xxxB of printing? How can it grow its balance sheet so fast?

WTF is this
U.S. Treasury, supplementary financing account

that grew from nothing a year ago to $266B?

snmr
You want to take things out of context? I don't respect Paulson because he made $500 million. I point out that he went from that to take a job paying next to nothing, and is a better man than me to grind through this process. You want to win arguments that way? Ok, you win.

SP
Go fuck yourself.

kona_three, I apologize. I think i didn't get the point you were trying to make in your earlier post.
I am very skeptical on why paulson took the new job though ;-)

kona_three,

just to make sure you respect Paulson enough, as the CEO of Goldman, he couldn't have cashed out a significant amount of his shares (total $450M then market value) without raising eyebrow.

Therefore, he took the Treasury job so that he was *required by law* to cash out all his shares, tax-free. He pumped MBS sales at Goldman to clients while shorting them at the same time, making GS very profitable on these big trades.

Please do not mis-under-estimate the intelligence of our Secretary of Treasury.

kona_three :

You seem to know a lot about Paulson's butt hair. Are you his asshole or a turd that came out of it ?

But you are right. Neither WaMu nor LEH came to my door asking for my money. They simply decided to die quietly. Just like all other banks who are never going to expect a dime in help from the Govt. No bank is asking for Govt help. And even if some banks do take money from Govt, that's fine - because they are not the only ones. Lot of people/institutions steal money from Govt. Big deal. Everything is fair.

All hail King Henry ! He deserves a medal of honor - wait, let's just hand over our country to him.

OO says : Therefore, he took the Treasury job so that he was *required by law* to cash out all his shares, tax-free

excuse my ignorance but why is tax free ?? WTF is going on in this country.

This news is first uncovered by Economist a couple of years back and then caught on fire over the internet.

There is a special rule only applicable to government officials if they have to sell shares to avoid conflict of interest. Of course there would be HUGE conflict of interest of Paulson still held on to his Goldman shares not that there is none after his divestiture.

So the rule has it, if the person is required to divest due to conflict of interest, he is exempt from paying the tax arising from such sale (because obviously the government made him do so).

Here is a more detailed description of this transaction
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/43xRFhd1RRlnqg1H1BkmTP4?siteid=google&dist=TNMostMailed

Economist has some quite juicy stories for the US.

It once talked about a wacky tax loophole that the super-rich enjoys so that they pay almost no tax. If you make $200K, you probably hit AMT. If you make $200K to $1M, you are probably screwed pretty hard, but once you make over a $1M, you are home free.

Somehow the tax law has it that if you make over $1M a year (which I never experienced for obvious reasons), the your capital gains tax rate reverts back to...5%. And, better still, if you make very little in normal income, your capital gains tax is 5%. Now you understand why all the CEOs are taking $1 pay? the $1 determines their capital gains tax bracket, only we the worker bees have to pay $15% to 20% capex tax, the CEOs only pay 5%. In fact, the richest people in the US make almost all their income from capital gains.

Now you understand why all the CEOs are taking $1 pay?
During the dot com bust era, the CEO at our company in an all hands said we (the worker bees) are better compensated than him since he only makes $1, he basically said we were lucky to have jobs so we should not expect any raises. What an a**hole.

excuse my ignorance but why is tax free ?? WTF is going on in this country. It is tax free to entice these people to take government posts. Otherwise, there is no incentives to work for the government (how patriotic is that).

After seeing many corrupt and lawless countries in the developing world, I'd say the difference between the US and these countries is, corruption is formalized and legalized at a much higher level, but the scale of corruption is just as rampant if not more.

Among the developed countries, the US is certainly not the beacon of light for economic and political morality, quite quite far from it, you probably need to look at Scandinavia for best practice. American politics and businesses are extremely corrupt, just that everything is packaged as a part of the "process". Political contribution by businesses can be labeled as "bribing" in the developing countries, but this is part of the political process. Funding a research report that says what you want to say could be "outright misinformation" in the developing countries, but here, we are just presenting another angle of the "scientific fact".

Developing countries are also more "primitive" in their practice of corruption, the officials and businessmen just break the laws outright. Here we are playing a much more sophisticated game, because you can actually pay to influence the law to your liking! So you don't even need to break the law to accomplish the same purpose of injustice, you can observe the law very strictly to still get away with what you want, and that is what the lawyers are for.

OO :
Thanks for all the info. It further strengthen's my belief that the system is completely rigged. Now i know why obama is always screaming that the system is rigged in favor of rich. noway i am voting for mccain.
time for making the system more fair.An unfair system san never be productive. It needs to be fair both to the rich and poor.
These republicans have raped the country for the past 8 years using thier trickle down bullshit theories.

I knew about the capital gains tax but i am surprised at how paulson got tax free $450 million. Its disgusting. no doubt , paulson is a crook.

While i am not a big fan of people who abandon thier country when its in trouble, i am still sympathetic to the retiree’s who would want to consider the option

This is all relative, just look at what transpired in the last 2 weeks. The leadership of this country is a joke, the bail-out bill is now over 400 pages with all kinds of pork in it. The government is so corrupt that it is amazing, if this is the Titanic, people should not think they can save the ship. I am not close to retirement but I have a sizable 401k, it could easily get cut in half when the USD is devalued.

OO says : Developing countries are also more “primitive” in their practice of corruption, the officials and businessmen just break the laws outright. Here we are playing a much more sophisticated game, because you can actually pay to influence the law to your liking! So you don’t even need to break the law to accomplish the same purpose of injustice, you can observe the law very strictly to still get away with what you want, and that is what the lawyers are for.

Absolutely right. Thats what i realized over time in this country.
When i first landed here, i was amazed by the apparent corruption free society.
My instincts were always saying its too good to be true as people cannot be so different in any country.My instincts were right.

3000 years ago, Confucius said, if the king doesn't act like a king, you as his subject do not need to act like his subject.

What he said was, in any country there was an implied social contract. The government (king) is supposed to look after its people, and in return, the people should respect and fight for their government (king).

However in today's America, such a social contract is broken. Obviously Bush or Cheney or Paulson or anyone of the power to be doesn't give a f*ck to us the people. Then why should we fulfill our part of the social obligation?

That is why it is completely noble and legal to look after our own interest and our own interest only, there is no abandonment, because we are abandoned at first. There is no betrayal, because we are betrayed first.

OO says : "That is why it is completely noble and legal to look after our own interest and our own interest only"

I thought thats how america and american capitalism is supposed to work irrespective of whether the govt(king) acts like a king or not.

I learnt the lesson in my company when it laid of bunch of workers and one of the top management guy told me that there are no loyalties in a bussiness contract ( employement) ...its pure business. thats the basic assumption. People who have other assumptions are fools. now i guess the same assumption holds true for the country as well. everybody is for themselves - the american mantra esp republican one. If you assume something else , you are apparently a fool.

Wow - watch whatever you can of Sherman's debate last night. He is opposed to THIS bailout and he revealed at least some of what was discussed in the closed door session. Amazing stuff.

@ TOB re: one week shutdown

I saw this from a friend who lives on Kitco, and um, I have my doubts:

1) Odd wording in the supposed closure sign quotes.
2) The last thing you do is let the mail clerks at 10,000 branches see your intention to take a holiday weeks ahead of time. No security. Can we say "Bank Run" class? Goood...

Kaptur and Sherman are heros.

The Original Bankster Says:
pics of Russia in the 80s

They seem happier and less stressed out than sheeple in the Bay Area. :-)

This is an article and a video that shows the ecological disaster associated with foreclosure:

People are literally leaving houses full of perfectly good belongings that are simply dumped in a big container and carried to the landfill.

http://kcet.org/socal/2008/09/foreclosure-alley.html

Foreclosures will someday end, and people will recover, but landfill is forever.

Presumably: Chaney, Paulson.

StuckinBA
How would you like to see this in your household:

BA Jr: Pa, it ain't Halloween yet. Why is there a head on a pitchfork in the yard.
BA : Son, you must learn this good. When something real bad happens, there's always someone to blame. And in these United States, you'll get ahead by making sure it ain't yourself. And when you find someone, skewer em' but good. Pops is just stickin' Hanky Panky Hank here.
BA Jr: OK Paw. Mrs. Johnson gave me detention yesterday and it wasn't my fault. Can give give me a pitchfork so I can stick her? Can I, Pa?

The biggest problem in this country is that everyone is looking for someone to blame. Some members of Congress are just a reflection of the deteriorating values in this country. So I did not join in the discussion in this site to debate the value of the bailout, or moan about the $3K it's supposed to cost each of us. I just hate the pitchfork at the start of this discussion. It makes me wonder when they will break out the noose and white hoods.
Anyway, I am done with this site. Disappointed, since I have followed it for a while now.

Kona_three,

I agree we should not ONLY blame Paulson. Why, the real estate agents and the rest of the REIC(tm) are primarlily to blame. The real estate agents were the foot-soldiers of greed, and the ultimate weapons of mass depression.

A housing site is certainly irrelivant in the broader context of what is now happening.
However, there ARE real bandits here. And they are still making money in THIS bailout. UP TO NOW they created and gamed a system. NOW they have moved into making us look likechumps and idiots.
Try RGE monitor.
Try Mish.
Read anything put out by Sherman.

Of course, you are free to choose your own media sources and draw your own conclusions.

But let me leave you with one last bit of housing on this housing site:

Even if the government offers fixed 5.25% loans, the market MUST return to historic levels. Buying anytime in the near future will mean this:

1. You will lose at least 20% as the market continue to correct (well, depending on where you buy). This will make you not be able to sell or move unless you want to realize that loss. This is very risky in the current job market.

2. The looming global contraction will reveal a number of businesses that could only exist in world of cheap credit. Even state governements will be under massive stress. I say this because everyone must seriously assess just how safe their emplyment is.

We are officially in the next inning...

http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/081003/100308_california_crisis.html