What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

What's worse, it's not clear that GM actually repaid what it's gotten credit for repaying. Check out this note buried in the inspector's report: "As part of a credit agreement with Treasury, $16.4 billion in TARP funds were placed in an escrow account that GM could access only with Treasury's permission."

So an anonymous author of an opinion piece says that he found a "note" buried in some report. And he/she wont say exactly which report, where in the report it is, or provide any context.

Vette says this kind of source should be immediately taken as fact and not questioned. Just like his "unnamed Indian man" in Mumbai saying that Obama spent $2 billion visiting India and deployed 12% of the US Navy because he's "opulent".

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

No, brain dead dunce, Re-read the article.

So you didn't quote the article when you posted this??

Sometimes we call it picking fly shit out of pepper.

Merc is trying to discount this fact:

"As it turns out, GM got Treasury's OK to "repay" more than $6.7 billion "using a portion of the escrow account that had been funded with TARP funds." So GM is merely paying the government back with government money, not money GM is earning selling cars, as the administration has claimed."

Stating very plainly that GM used TARP funds to repay part of the bailout (also TARP funds put in escrow) that it turned out not to need, presumably because their sales were up.

Since the WSJ says that GMs sales figures have been higher in the US (The HIGHEST actually) for quite some time I'm thinking I presume correctly.

But you can look for yourself.
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html

 

[mercury14]

So you didn't quote the article when you posted this??


Stating very plainly that GM used TARP funds to repay part of the bailout (also TARP funds put in escrow) that it turned out not to need, presumably because their sales were up.

Since the WSJ says that GMs sales figures have been higher in the US for quite some time I'm thinking I presume correctly.

But you can look for yourself.
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html

The escrow fund given to GM was in exchange for stock. Vette thinks it was a handout.

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

The escrow fund given to GM was in exchange for stock. Vette thinks it was a handout.

Apparently if Vette loaned someone $20 (assuming his socialist retirement check came in) and they turned out not to need it after all he would refuse the original $20 as payment and insist that they spend it and make another $20 to repay him.

My money is no good here! Go make some of your own money to pay me back!

Yeah... That makes perfect sense.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Apparently if Vette loaned someone $20 (assuming his socialist retirement check came in) and they turned out not to need it after all he would refuse the original $20 as payment and insist that they spend it and make another $20 to repay him.

My money is no good here! Go make some of your own money to pay me back!

Yeah... That makes perfect sense.

If Vetty's grandparents refinanced their home to get a lower mortgage rate, he'd call that a prudent business decision.

If Vetty's parents consolidated their credit card debt onto one card with a very low interest rate, he'd call that a prudent business decision.

If Vetty found a rent-a-center that only charged him 50% interest instead of the usual 100% or more that he pays on his big-screen TV, he'd say switching was a prudent business decision.

But...

If GM refinanced their debt to get a better rate of interest and/or more favorable terms, Vetty would splutter and bitch and moan about how wrong that was!

 

[eyer]

What happens when the world's #3 economy totally collapses?

Tom Coburn, M.D., of Oklahoma is arguably one of the Senate's most economically-interested members; he is on record as seeing Japan's long-swaying financial house of cards collapsing within the next three years.

Now, another doctor, Helen Caldicott, thinks the totally unstable nuclear radiation situation at Fukushima #4 "means the end of Japan financially."

They don’t know how to clean it up. It’s not in cold shutdown.

The corium — the mass, hundred tons of melted uranium lava — is laying on the floor of the containment vessels.

It hasn’t finished and will never finish.

I think it means the end of Japan financially."

- Dr. Helen Caldicott: The Medical Implications of Fukushima, Nuclear Power and Nuclear Proliferation, address to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 23 May 2012

And yet another health professional, who has worked at the Fukushima plant, says he believes "the country will be evacuated if No. 4 fuel pool collapses."

There are several reasons why I believe the country will be evacuated if the #4 SFP collapses. The amount of radioactive material in the fuel pool dwarfs the total amount at Chernobyl by a factor of 5 to 10. Chernobyl’s core was still mostly contained in a building (although heavily damaged), and most of the radioactive material melted downward and became lava like. If #4 SFP collapses it will be lying on the completely open ground, probably going critical on and off in portions of the pile for years. The dose rate from this pile will make dropping sand or anything from the air much more lethal than anything at Chernobyl. And probably impossible. The entire site at Fukushima will be uninhabitable and unworkable because of the dose rate coming from this pile of fuel. That means there will be no control of the other fuel pools, and we could lose control of them.

Nuclear experts will soft sell the ramifications because that is how the industry works. When the experts “have concerns” about the situation at #4 that means they are pooping their pants. My experience at Fukushima was 30 years ago. I worked in the industry for about 15 years as a health physics technician. I was also referred to as a “nuclear gypsy” because I traveled from plant to plant working outages. That meant I was always in the middle of the hottest jobs in the heart of the plant. The engineers will talk about this part or that part of a plant, but I have been all those places wearing full gear.

- Chris Canine, Former Fukushima Daiichi Worker and Health Physics Technician, Chemist and Radiation Safety Instructor, 15 May 2012

With America's financial situation somewhat stagnantly stable at the moment and Communist China's spreading fears of its own receding, what will it do to the international market if Japan's economy totally collapses?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Green, green, my world is green...

There is a big problem with high-mileage cars -- from the point-of-view of the government.

Less revenue.

Imagine an 80 MPG car -- which could be built right now, easily, with existing technology. (Several current European models are already pretty close to the 80 MPG bar.)

Such a car could cut the average person's fuel costs by two-thirds -- in effect, putting things back the way they were circa 1986, when gasoline still cost about $1 per gallon. It would do a great deal to ease the economic pressure bearing down on the average person. But if tens of millions of Americans were suddenly using two-thirds less fuel, they'd also be paying two-thirds less in motor fuels taxes.

You don't have to be a conspiracy nut to wonder what effect contemplation of this possibility has had on government policy.

Even assuming the most benevolent, public-spirited intentions, the situation is a debacle in the making. If revenue derived from motor fuels taxes declined by 20-30 percent, there would be that much less revenue available to maintain existing roads -- and build new ones. Meanwhile, the population is galloping upward -- more people, more cars. Where will the money come from to keep pace?

There is always the possibility of making up the shortfall some other way -- but the beauty of the motor fuels tax, historically, is that it's a largely hidden tax. The average motorist is not made to confront the bill in the same way that he's made to confront, say, the sales tax on the food he buys after gassing up. Because unlike the food on which he pays a tax in addition to the cost of the food itself, the motor fuels tax is discreetly folded into the cost of the fuel. One does not pay $2.40 a gallon -- plus 80 cents per gallon in taxes. One just pays the $3.20 per gallon.

Thus, "big oil" takes most of the heat -- rather than big government.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/05/24/the-problem-with-high-mileage

Political Realists see the world as it is: ... In this world laws are written for the lofty aim of "the common good" and then acted out in life on the basis of common greed...; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral; a world where "reconciliation" means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation.... In the world as it is, the solution of each problem inevitably creates a new one.
Saul David Alinsky
Rules for Radicals

 

[eyer]

Debt crisis now taking toll on German economy

Euro-zone PMI points to steeper downturn; German Ifo tumbles

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/debt-crisis-now-taking-toll-on-german-economy-2012-05-24

Demand For Business Equipment In U.S. Falls For Second Month

...“There has been a legitimate loss of momentum in manufacturing recently,” Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said before the report.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...-equipment-in-u-s-falls-for-second-month.html

.....

 

[NeverEndingMe]

So remember how obama based Wall Street for all the chaos during the crash?

Why isn’t obama going after Merrill Lynch over their involvement in the criminal activity and scam of the Facebook IPO?

Oh that’s write, obama is a whore for money and as long as Merrill’s people will pay off the obama campaign aka regime reelection fund, no Merrill people will go to jail.

 

[koalabear]

One in three mortgage holders still underwater

Got that sinking feeling? Amid signs that the U.S. housing market is finally rising from a long slumber, real estate Web site Zillow reports that homeowners are still under water.

Nearly 16 million homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their home was worth in the first quarter, or nearly one-third of U.S. homeowners with mortgages. That’s a $1.2 trillion hole in the collective home equity of American households.

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_...-three-mortgage-holders-still-underwater?lite

 

[Sean Renaud]

Got that sinking feeling? Amid signs that the U.S. housing market is finally rising from a long slumber, real estate Web site Zillow reports that homeowners are still under water.

Nearly 16 million homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their home was worth in the first quarter, or nearly one-third of U.S. homeowners with mortgages. That’s a $1.2 trillion hole in the collective home equity of American households.
http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_...-three-mortgage-holders-still-underwater?lite

If that changes anytime soon be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Got that sinking feeling? Amid signs that the U.S. housing market is finally rising from a long slumber, real estate Web site Zillow reports that homeowners are still under water.

Nearly 16 million homeowners owed more on their mortgages than their home was worth in the first quarter, or nearly one-third of U.S. homeowners with mortgages. That’s a $1.2 trillion hole in the collective home equity of American households.

http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_...-three-mortgage-holders-still-underwater?lite

Those sub-prime people are almost as evil and corrupt as the pimps running higher education. what is the nations tab for student loan?

this is the next big ass bubble to explode on the democrats. oh wait, they don't want to address the issue as how education is raping students they only want to forgive student loans.

democrats are like a merry-go-round. never really wanting to solve the issue, only offering crack (welfare money) to keep people happy enough.

we need to stop the insanity & vote NO on obama

 

[Sean Renaud]

^^^ So Republicans can raise interest rates on students and rape our children. Vote Romney!

 

[koalabear]

^^^ So Republicans can raise interest rates on students and rape our children. Vote Romney!

You ran out out of Zoloft again didn't you, chill.

 

[unregistered]

 

[NeverEndingMe]

You are a dunce. Why don't you ask instead why the cost of education escalates every year?

yes, SeanR highlights the ignorance of obama supporters with the only solution is to forgive debt and toss more tax payer money.

I can see obama using $1,000 bills to light his cigar. But obama has no Monica maybe he has a Michael or barney frank to moisten his cigars the way that Monica did that for Bill Clinton?

 

[Sean Renaud]

You are a dunce. Why don't you ask instead why the cost of education escalates every year?

Because the answer is simple. But if you refuse to do my homework I'm not really in the mood today.

 

[NeverEndingMe]

Because the answer is simple. But if you refuse to do my homework I'm not really in the mood today.

no, you are one of those lazy people who go rabbid with the thought of spending other people's money

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

The first word out of your mouths when the price of gas goes up is to investigate the oil companies, but when the cost of education goes up all of a sudden nobody cares why, they just want the taxpayer to pay for it.

Who said they wanted to investigate oil companies because the price of oil went up? I recall people saying they wanted an investigation because of suspicion of price gauging, price fixing, commodity investment shenanigans, etc, but I've never heard anyone want an investigation simply because the price changed.

 

[benschup]

Because the answer is simple. But if you refuse to do my homework I'm not really in the mood today.

Please share that simple answer.

 

[RobDownSouth]

You are a dunce. Why don't you ask instead why the cost of education escalates every year?

Congress has no control over the cost of education.

They do, however, have control over the rate of interest on federally subsidized student loans.

Nice deflection attempt though. Better luck next misdirection, homo.

 

[eyer]

Real 2011 federal deficit was $5 trillion, not $1.3 trillion...

...read it and reap, golddiggers:

Real federal deficit dwarfs official tally

The typical American household would have paid nearly all of its income in taxes last year to balance the budget if the government used standard accounting rules to compute the deficit, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Under those accounting practices, the government ran red ink last year equal to $42,054 per household — nearly four times the official number reported under unique rules set by Congress.

A U.S. household's median income is $49,445, the Census reports.
The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules.

The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion. Liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other retirement programs rose by $3.7 trillion in 2011, according to government actuaries, but the amount was not registered on the government's books.

- more @

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-05-18/federal-deficit-accounting/55179748/1

 

[Ulaven_Demorte]

Please share that simple answer.

You really need it spelled out for you?

Several reasons.

The simple answer?
Higher education is a service industry requiring highly skilled and highly educated labor. Highly skilled and educated people do not come cheaply.

Colleges are continually upgrading with new technological advances in order to educate and train their students in it's use. There are huge capital expenditures involved with not only buying the latest technolgy, but in hiring or training staff in it's use on order to educate others.

The simplest answer?
Colleges are for-profit institutions. They, like any other business, will charge as much as the market will bear. As long as people are willing to pay exhorbitant amounts to get an education at their facility the price will continue to rise.