patrick.net

one afghani warlord was upset he had to surrender 3 US-manufactured and supplied Stinger missiles to gain credibility. he said they would have been worth $150K each to a pakistani arms dealer... meanwhile, because some warlords are so nasty and have killed so many people they could never get into parliament, they put their wives up instead as representatives for the clan, who are there simply to represent their interests...

This is like Google revenues x 1000 being lost by our economy.

Remember also it's internal land-pricing inflation with no increase in economic productivity or output (not counting new construction). This also 'artificially' inflates GDP reports, creating the illusion of true 'economic growth' by a stupid or complicit press and unquestioning public. it is actually just borrowing against the future in what amounts to a giant Ponzi scheme, as per the alt text on the illustrious David Lereah pic above...

I am just glad the markets are closed for 2 days.

Otherwise, oil would already probably be over $80.

Yeah, but it may open at 85 on Monday.

well, that just goes to show how moronic the average uneducated but enfranchised voter can be, and why democracy clearly has its weaknesses.

DS,

I also don't agree with Joe's stand on the Bush Administration and our highly selective/self-serving 'War on Terror', but this comes dangerously close to a personal attack. Argue politics with other bloggers all you like --just keep it civil and attack positions, not people.

tsk tsk...

far be it from me to come dangerously close to a personal attack after the shocking mayhem of the interventions in the middle east in order to secure resources...

delete the para if you really must... at least i stood for something in this life...

This ain't Beirut fellah, and last time I checked you weren't Mother Theresa either ;-) .

During my early months as moderator, on those occasions when I tolerated gratuitous personal attacks (or wasn't around to actively moderate), I would witness the blog degenerating quickly into crude, pointless flame-wars. This would disgust and drive away other bloggers and "poison the well" so to speak. This is why the "don't get personal" rule stays in effect on my threads.

Now... OTH, if you'd like to author/moderate some of your own threads, then the cool part is --you get to set the ground rules! Last time I checked, you had authoring rights. Based on personal experience, I'd recommend you follow my rule too, but if ugly, rude flame wars are your thing --then, hey, go knock yourself out! It's a (mostly) free blogosphere, right? :-)

Oh, and btw, if you're hoping to bring someone around to your point of view, I've found that mutual respect combined with compelling arguments, supporting evidence and an open mind works a whole lot better than personal insults. It doesn't always work, but it's far preferable to the alternative (demagogue shouting matches a-la Anne Coulter vs. Michael Moore).

If people could just stop looking the other way, get their heads out of their ass, and see the truth about what is really going on, about illegals sucking the life blood out of the citizens of this country, we would all be screaming bloody murder at our elected officials to do something about this. In Hazelton, PA they did do something extraordinary about this situation. I applaud them and hope other local governments follow in their footsteps.

let alone living among 281 renters

What? It has 281 sub-human renters? It is going to be bitter. Fully of jealousy. :)

How many entrepreneurs, i.e. flippers, in the real estate market have gone broke and lost everything this year so far? The entrepreneurial loses must be astounding.

i would suggest it's somewhat inflammatory to post comments like 'i'm 100% behind george bush's foreign policy' which is designed to be a red rag to a bull, don't you think? there's bound to be differences of opinion on a blog which can range over any subject. but i think it's extremely provocative to post comments like that without rebuttal, given the huge loss of life and horrific maimings and ongoing terror inside iraq from the threat of suicide bombings, not to mention massacres of civilians and indiscriminate 'shoot first and ask questions later' policies of the US forces, in the interests of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. it seems when people get 'freedom' in some parts of the world, their first thought is to degenerate into internecine civil war and bring out the squabbles of the past. it's clearly not going well for the repubs and neocons, even tho they manage to sugar coat the situation fairly well thru the captive media and the clever use of propaganda and spin.

i guess if i were a citizen of the roman empire, i would be '100%' for the military invasion of persia to turn it into a vassal state also, or the conquering of gaul, so i could plunder their treasuries and start farming taxes. it's all good.

i would also suggest someone who was '100%' behind the policy would therefore be avidly signing up to patrol over landmines in a HWWMV, and shooting at anything that moved in the national interest.

it's not an attempt to get personal, but if i just said 'tut, tut, that's hardly the way' it wouldn't have much impact with your average died-in-the-wool unthinking militarist, would it now? maybe the poster might stop and think 'yes, i really am a moron' when they're actually challenged. your country is going down the gurgler and has already set itself back decades in international relations, and i guarantee the unpleasant after-effects will continue to reverberate for decades to come.

Oh DS, you are far too easy to troll. Grow some thicker skin.

What about all the risk-takers who stuck their necks out too far and had their heads cut off? I'm sick of the news media glorifying entrepreneurs and risk-takers, as if prudence is not a virtue.

Oh DS, you are far too easy to troll. Grow some thicker skin.

who's trolling? 8O hee hee

I do feel sort of sorry for these people. They were buying into a condo conversion so they probably couldn't do a proper inspection prior to signing a contract, and most of their woes are due to the shoddy nature of the conversion. Of course, they should have gotten an thorough inspection before the handover.

Still, what the hell were they doing buying a new car when "Michael" quit his job, "Heidi" and the cats are sick, and their condo was an obvious money pit?

That dog "Lucky", he doesn't sound so lucky.

You can make your donation to Mike and Heidi here.

http://www.powerinfusion.com/condo.htm

Much as I tried, I couldn't get the thing to accept the bullet I was trying to donate.

Maybe someday he’ll wake up, look at Heidi and say, “I make poor decisions and avoid responsibility. I screw myself.”

yeah, internalise all the risk and lead a life saturated with contingency. that's why there are no building standards or rights of redress through the law. it's all his fault he chose a dodgy developer.

why is brad pitt the guy who formulates public policy for rebuilding new orleans?

Pitt urges New Orleans to go green - People - Entertainment

I have no pity for them at all! It's people like them who caused the bubble in the first place! To donate money for them would be supporting stupidity! Sorry to be so blunt, but someone has to pay for what has happened, and it may as well be the ones who caused it.

How do you even know that this story is real? These people are probably just flippers who found out they didn't get out in time and now they need to come up with $$ right away so they try to play up on peoples sympathy to bail them out. Don't feel sorry for them, I'm sure they deserve what is coming to them. They need to learn a lesson and anyone bailing them out will prevent them from learning that lesson. None of us would get into a situation like that because we aren't financially retarded like them. Let lifes hard lessons teach them not to burn!

they seem to be oscillating between life threatening illnesses from toxic mold to paint chipping off and being forced to live with renters and not owner-occupiers, and want to whinge about everything... altho the work sounds a bit dodgy - not clear whether it's a refurb or new construction... maybe they should go on one of those tabloid 'current affairs' shows on TV highlighting the issues against prometheus - they love stories like that here - or just get a lawyer on a 'no win, no fee' basis if the developer is so badly in the wrong... hard to ascertain legitimacy, except for the overall vibe of the website... how do they know the dog and cat have migraines???

Slightly off topic, but.....

...this year, more US students obtained Batchelor Degrees in Sports Fitness than in Electrical Engineering...

In other words, the US populace is slowly becoming illiterate and innumerate.

I do feel sorry for the Average Guy in the Street, who just wants a roof over thier head and a fairly decent lifestyle. A lot of people are going to get burned by this, who really don't deserve to.
And, I'll put money on the fact that a lot of them got suckered into 'bad' mortgages simply because they didn't have the skills to be able to cost-price it out for themselves. Not saying stupid by any means. Simply without the skillset to be albe to do it themselves.

If I Were Queen...all kids in High School would have to take a mandatory class in "Living".
Topics would include basic Numeracy, so that you can figure out your cost of living compared to what you earn.

How to rent a place.

Where to buy the cheapest and best food (and how to calculate this yourself).

The tricky, tricky world of Loans - be it for cars, boats, etc... how to calculate what loan is right for you, and which ones should be thrown in the garbage.

The world is a hell of a more complicated place that it was when I was a kid, but I bet that no one in education (or has the power and influence to change school curriculum) has considered that.

No wonder then, that people find themselves in a financial hole, when the only people who seem to have answers are exactly the same people who are trying to part them from thier money...

I don't feel sorry for any part of their predicament except for the shoddy condo conversion work. Even there, the only major issue is toxic mold (why are they still living there if the toxic mold is making Heidi and the cats sick) and nothing seems major enough to get this guy to quit his job to tackle.

They really really shouldn't be buying anything with that credit rating. I wouldn't buy anything with that kind of credit rating even if the prices were 50% lower. Having such a bad credit history significantly increases the cost of borrowing and makes "owning" a much worse deal than for someone with a credit rating in the 700s.

I think the odds of Heidi going bankrupt is at 75% and the chance of their relationship surviving two more years at 25%.

lilll,
nice find!

Bap33,

Extremism is the mental disorder, not any particular political view. There is plenty of opportunity to be offended by both far-ends of the political spectrum if one bothers listening. But so long as the majority are content to allow the minority extreme partisans on both sides to run the agenda then we all get what we deserve.

And the Right?....

…….back to housing

Good idea! New thread: ……back to housing :)

the interesting thing is, my views are pretty much mainstream in oz, uk and europe, it's important to realise that. it's not extreme at all. i've researched aspects of it a little more than the average, and thought it through a little more in terms of respecting human rights and rights of sovereignty. and also analysed the 'discourse' of propaganda that has been used to underpin the invasion. but the decision of the aust govt to act as a deputy sheriff in sending a handful of elite crack troops to iraq as part of the dodgy 'coalition' is not supported by the majority of the people. further, there are a hell of a lot of middle easterners living in oz as citizens who vote. most people here feel uncomfortable being put in this position, recognise it for what it is, and are most definitely not doing any flag-waving. it is creating further tensions in what was a peaceful, tolerant, multi-cultural society, due solely to pressure from foreign interests.

the situation between israel and lebanon is also a little tense. 25,000 people currently in lebanon have australian citizenship, and some of them are now facing conscription while they are there and are unable to leave. if there are 25,000 oz citizens actively in lebanon, think how many more are residing in australia with family still in lebanon. there is going to be a clash of alliances soon.

of course bap is wrong in that the beheadings of westerners are a response to a perceived invasion -- he's conveniently reversed the pattern of causation. i don't think that that's a very moral response to the situation, but it is the real world response that has been adopted, over which i have no control. clearly those people have been rounded up and held for ransom or killed and so on because the locals feel they are a resistance force. some may even be cashing in on a situation, or using it as an opportunity to build up arms for a faction. who can tell.

i, for one, would not go anywhere near those countries in such a time. i would think two and three times about travelling in the middle east even in peacetime. i have no reason to, i have no relatives there, and i have no abiding interest in studying the cultures in person. i am happy to leave them to their devices and study their politics from afar. however, westerners in the form of oil companies have chosen to deal with them, and govts and their militaries in collusion with oil concerns have chosen to engage with middle eastern cultures in certain ways. we now see the outcome of that engagement. i would do it differently if i was in those govts or oil companies making diplomatic, moral and ethical decisions about how to conduct trade.

i find it more than a little disturbing when ordinary common sense and decency are portrayed as 'extreme' and 'ideological' positions.

apparently everyone is going crazy in perth, western australia, right now, as the boom rolls around there, and peters out everywhere else. they have benefited from the commodities boom there, being a mining state, particularly iron ore to china, but that is all. it's a very remote city of about 1M people, and most young people try to leave, which leaves the rental market shaky. spruikers and developers are doing their best to cash in while they can on the phenomenon.

an article in the paper last week bemoaned how sydney is 'losing ground' against other states in 'price growth in property' -- not only is it already 40% more expensive than the next city, but has lead the boom for 2 decades. the article presents the situation as though it is mass unemployment or a recession, and the state is falling behind in the economy. naturally, it's completely unproductive growth, and it's more a signal to voracious investors to tear off and look for new turf... none of that ever gets a mention of course. it really is a sick society...

Different Sean said...
the interesting thing is, my views are pretty much mainstream in oz, uk and europe, it’s important to realise that. it’s not extreme at all

Nurries, mate :-)

Despite being an American, I've spent most of my life in London and have the political outlook to show for it. Over in the UK I seem to have fairly middle gound views, but over here I seem to be left of Stalin...

I find it harder to have political/religious "discussions" over here n the US too. I think Americans in general have less exposure to the idea of debates about stuff like that. Many over here think you're attacking them, rather than trying to show the other side of the story. When it gets like that, I just tend to say silent and let them get on with it.

Not enough pints and chewing the fat down the Pub is my guess.

chewing the fat daahhn the pub.... ;)

where in london did you live the most? i used to be at putney... you've relocated to US?

while i have a lot of left wing philosophy, which is based on grounded reasoning and a lot of study, i use my judgement also. if i see that something isn't going to work, then i don't suggest it -- i don't espouse 'impractical' social-ist measures that 'go against human nature' where it really is quite unfair, as in the way mao tse-tung collectivised all the farms, etc and disincentivised all the farmers in the process. and tried to make iron products in low grade furnaces, causing a famine and mass starvation and nearly bankrupting the country, etc. but in reality, no 'communist' country has ever really been communist, and they have instead retained a top down, dictatorial 'command capitalism' structure with human rights removed. i don't agree with any of that, hence i tend to point to a healthy balance of the state, the market and the family in functioning social democracies. i don't agree with many woolly thinking lefties i meet, really the lunatic left, who protest everything, oppose right wing govts on everything on principle and see a conspiracy, and have a utopian but unworkable solution for everything, and i sometimes debate them on it, which makes me centre left, i suppose. (not to say the govt doesn't often have a right wing conspiracy on a lot of things, because it often does.)

but the US types tend to be very fatalistic, have not had a strong union movement historically as a plank under wages and employment conditions, and have been raised to worship 'success' (narrowly defined as economic success) regardless of how it is achieved. plus somewhat unique excesses of religion, libertarianism, etc. different posters are coming from those angles, so you get shot at from different directions by free marketeers, fatalists, rugged individualists, survivalists, libertarians, religious fundamentalists, confused republicans, just plain brainwashed people, utilitarians and even australians by golly...

Try being anything but a muslamic type in thier land and you are dead.

don't go there then. i won't be going there. america comes a close second in terms of religious fundamentalism and religious intolerance -- the ol' clash of fundamentalisms...

Nobody with half a brain can miss the fact that the closed societies are taking atvantage of America, Canada, Oz, and Europe.

this is to miss the point that the last 2 centuries has been one of colonialism of those territories, in order to get hydrocarbon resources for the west to conduct wars of their own as often as not. first, direct colonialism by military invasion, then careful manipulation and placement of puppet leaders, and now back to direct military invasion again.

the history of american interference in innumerable countries is a most unpleasant one indeed, particularly post-WWII.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was returned to power in Iran after he had fled the country in 1953. This was achieved by overthrowing the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, done through the aid of a joint CIA and MI6 covert operation, codenamed Operation Ajax. Pahlavi maintained good relations with the United States, but his government came to be criticized for its political corruption and the brutal practices of SAVAK that, in response, witnessed protests in Iran and elicited condemnation from many parts of the international community.

Strong opposition arose in many sections of society during the Shah's reign. Of particular importance in this respect were the religious figures that had long grown to be an important voice of opposition in Iran. Since the 19th century Tobacco Protests, the clergy had been steadily growing in political as well as religious influence.

(In 1890 Nasir al-Din Shah granted a tobacco concession to a British company. This concession gave the company exclusive rights to produce, sell, and export all of Iran's large tobacco crop in exchange for a loan. The shah was badly in need of money and had granted many such concessions to Europeans before. Tobacco, however, was widely consumed in Iran and a thriving domestic industry was going to be destroyed by the shah's actions. At the time the Persian tobacco industry employed over 200,000 people. Mass protests against the concession were held, many of the organized by Shi'ite ulama, the most prominent was Grand Ayatollah Mirza Shirazi, who issued the famous fatwa against the usage of tobacco. The clerics had a strong independent power base to attack the shah's position. Theological arguments were made that the shah was violating the rules of Islam and was selling the nation to the western Christians. The merchants of tobacco, in a show of solidarity, responded by shutting down the main bazaars throughout the country.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_revolution

Maybe these terrible islamists who will murder bap as soon as he steps onto their shores have their reasons:

A weakened and bankrupted royal court under Fath Ali Shah was forced to sign the notorious Gulistan Treaty in 1813, followed by a second Turkmanchai treaty after efforts by Abbas Mirza failed to secure Persia's northern front against Imperial Russia. The treaties were prepared by the notorious Sir Gore Ouseley with the aid of the British Foreign Office in London. Sir Gore Ouseley was the younger brother of the British orientalist William Ouseley, who served as secretary to the British ambassador in Persia.

In fact, Iran's current southern and eastern boundaries were determined by no other than the British, after deafeating Nasereddin Shah in Herat in 1857. The British government assigned Frederic John Goldsmid of the Indo-European Telegraph Department to determine the borders between Persia and India during the 1860s.[2]

In 1872, the Shah signed an agreement with Baron Julius de Reuter, which George Nathaniel Curzon (who was one of the greatest statemen of his day) called:

"The most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that have ever been dreamed of..."[3]

The Reuter Concession was immediately denounced by all ranks of businessmen, clergy, and nationalists of Persia. And the concession was quickly forced into cancellation.

Similarly, the "Tobbaco fatwa", decreed by Grand Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi was an incident which raised popular resentment against the British presence in Pertsia in lieu of a diplomatically decapitated and apathetic Qajar throne. Concessions such as this and the 70 year contract of Persian railways to be operated by British businessmen such as Baron de Reuter became increasingly visible. The visibility became particularly pronounced after the discovery of oil in Masjed Soleiman in 1909 and the establishment of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the "D'Arcy Concession".

By the end of the 19th century, Britain's dominance became so pronounced that Khuzestan, Bushehr, and a host of other cities in southern Persia were occupied by Great Britain, and the central government in Tehran was left with no power to even select its own ministers without the approval of the Anglo-Russian consulates. Morgan Shuster, for example, had to resign under tremendous British and Russian pressure on the royal court. Shuster's book "The Strangling of Persia" is a recount of the details of these events, a harsh criticism of Britain and Imperial Russia.

One result of the public outcry against the inability of the Persian throne to maintain its political and economic independence against Great Britain and Imperial Russia in the face of events such as the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 and "the 1919 treaty" was the Persian Constitutional Revolution which eventually resulted in the fall of the Qajar dynasty.

The great tremor of the Persian political landscape occurred when the involvement of General Edmund Ironside eventually led to the rise of Reza Pahlavi in the 1920s. The popular view that the British were involved in the 1921 coup was noted as early as March 1921 by the American embassy and relayed to the Iran desk at the Foreign Office [4] A British Embassy report from 1932 concedes that the British put Reza Shah "on the throne". For sources on this matter see [5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-Britain_relations

Ok, SOMEONE here needs to develop a sense of humor ;-) . I'd recommend reading The Onion on a regular basis.

You can't tell me this wasn't funny:

“I don’t know what’s more depressing,” said Ginger Bohland-Aliotta, “being a potential murder victim, or having to sit around all day staring at empty rooms while my youth and will to live slowly drains out of me. Frankly, I think I’d rather take the bullet.”

Dear BAH,

gofuckyourself.

Lovingly

Surfer-X

yes, that's right, they take advantage - continually and serially colonised for resources, run by western-appointed puppet governments... that wouldn't breed resentment, of course...

the west has only been interested in taking out their resources by whatever means necessary -- and we're all reaping the whirlwind. this discussion wouldn't even be happening if they weren't sitting on at least half of the world's known hydrocarbon resources, cos they would be staying put and minding their own business...

i can see you closely read what i wrote and quoted...