Why do we wait 10 years with no price hike and then suddenly spike the price through the roof in one year?

screwbacca said:

who the fuck can just out of the blue pull 17k out of pocket?

Caz1982 said:

my guess is that your local govt is in charge took out shitloads of municipal bonds to pay for everything up until last year, and now the money isnt available to continue, or their bond rating has become a fucking disaster. Thats a very typical story these days.

Thats assuming your local government is in charge of water there. If it's a private company, then maybe its the same thing with normal bonds or something. In any case, I bet they put themselves into debt. Everyone was doing it. When the cool kid jumped off the bridge...

SwimFan said:

well, not everyone fell for the housing bubble

screwbacca said:

if it weren't for my horse i wouldn't have spent that year in college

MisterZero said:

Lewis Black. +5 for you sir!

Bloomberg.com said:

Stocks, Industrial Metals Drop as Yen Strengthens; Gold Gains

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Stocks fell from Sydney to London and industrial metals slid, while the yen and gold advanced as investors retreated from riskier assets after three of Europe’s biggest banks showed the industry is still far from recovery.

The MSCI World Index of 23 developed markets sank 0.9 percent at 10:19 a.m. in London and futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index decreased 0.8 percent. The yen climbed against all but one of the 16 most-traded currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Copper dropped 2.4 percent in London, while gold futures rose to within 1.2 percent of a record.

UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, posted a wider loss than analysts estimated, while Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc received a second bailout from the U.K. taxpayer. Jon Greenlee, associate director of the Federal Reserve division that regulates banks, said yesterday that defaults on commercial real estate still threaten institutions.

“The basis for the correction seems to rest on three legs” said Bill O’Neill, a London-based strategist at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management, which has $1.1 trillion in assets. “Worries over prospects for holders of equity in banks; concern that interest-rate hikes are imminent; and paradoxically, that recovery in 2010 will be crippled by a U.S. consumer unwilling or unable to open his or her wallet.”

Financial shares led the retreat in Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index, which slumped 1.7 percent. UBS slid 4.4 percent in Zurich after posting its fourth consecutive quarterly loss.

Europe’s biggest banks showed the industry is still far from recovery.

The world's top manufacturing country is the United States, as has been the case since before WWII. In 2007, the United States' manufacturing output was $1.831 trillion US Dollars (USD).... Important goods manufactured in the United States include, in order of percentage of exports in 2007: production machinery and equipment, 31.4%; industrial supplies, 27.5%; non-auto consumer goods, 12.7%; motor vehicles and parts, 10.5%; aircraft and parts, 7.6%; food, feed and beverages, and 7.3%; and other, 3.0%.

In 2007, the top manufacturing countries besides the United States were China ($1,106 billion USD), Japan ($926 billion USD), Germany ($670 billion USD), the Russian Federation ($362 billion USD), Italy ($345 billion USD), the United Kingdom ($342 billion USD), France ($296 billion USD), South Korea ($241 billion USD), Canada ($218 billion USD), Spain ($208 billion USD), and Brazil ($206 billion USD)

Elite1484 said:

OMG NO WAI!

THEY TOLD US EVERYTHING WAS FINE WTF!!!!!

This thing that you dumbshits do every week or so where you come in and post an article showing that, well, the economy is still in the shitter, and you say "wtf?! i thought the recession was over! hyuk hyuk hyuk!" is more baseless than when people ask where the quotes are from in the bash.org thread, and just as annoying.

Government Helped CIT Limp Along Long Enough To Keep From Ruining Christmas

By Chris Walters, 7:57 PM on Mon Nov 2 2009

According to SpendMatters, one big reason the government burned through $2.3 billion in TARP funds for CIT even though it was buckling under debt was to try to avoid ruining everybody's Christmas this year.

Jason Busch at SpendMatters writes,

    ...had CIT originally filed for bankruptcy earlier this year — around the
time the US government bailed them out — it could have had a disastrous effect
on the retail supply chain for the holiday season. But fortunately, the original
delay — which we can thank the Feds for — allowed "both buyers and
suppliers in the retail sector to get their shipments in and get paid,"
Kurt notes, in time for the holiday season.

That doesn't make the bankruptcy "good," since there could still be problems for stores. The Associated Press points out that this means retailers are going to have problems in early 2010 trying to get inventory, noting that "about 60 percent of the apparel industry depends on CIT for financing," and that retailers "still need a reliable source of lending to prevent shipping disruptions and to restock after the holidays." But it does mean that retailers were able to prepare for the shopping season without having to worry about how to get merchandise on the shelves.

Pensions for top executives rose an average of 19% in 2008, with more than 200 executives seeing pensions increase more than 50%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

Inspector General Admits SEC Pretty Much Sucks At Its Job

By Meg Marco, 2:26 PM on Mon Nov 2 2009

The SEC's inspector general has released a jailhouse interview in which his royal Ponziness, Bernie Madoff himself, explains that he got away with his scheme because the SEC basically sucks.

From the NYT:

    In the interview, Mr. Madoff said that the young investigators who pestered
him over incidentals like e-mail messages should have just checked basics like
his account with Wall Street's central clearinghouse and his dealings with the
firms that were supposedly handling his trades.

    "If you're looking at a Ponzi scheme, it's the first thing you
do," he said.

    Those simple steps, he added, could have revealed years earlier that he was
running the largest Ponzi scheme ever, a crime that has now dragged the S.E.C.
into the worst scandal in its 75-year history. "It would have been easy for
them to see," he added.

We are reminded of a Frontline episode about Madoff in which they cover how someone entirely unrelated to the SEC or Madoff figured out the Ponzi scheme and was ignored.

Bernie Madoff said:

lol the SEC is retarded.

How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash

By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.

"The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very interested in any financial company that secretly decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out and actively markets that product or very similar products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing its true opinion," said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor who's proposed a massive overhaul of the nation's banks. "This is fraud and should be prosecuted."

John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor who served on an advisory committee to the New York Stock Exchange, said that..........(MORE)

In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

India said:

You're welcome.

We really, really need to export if we want job creation.

fenris said:

We've been taking one for about 20 years now, at least

A five-month investigation by McClatchy Newspapers has revealed that Goldman Sachs made secret bets against the housing market while simultaneously selling off billions in soon-to-be worthless securities. In 2006 and 2007, the bank reportedly peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in US housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. We speak to McClatchy reporter Greg Gordon.

And it will keep going down until the price of producing a good here is on par with the cost of producing goods overseas (plus shipping, of course).

An ABC News investigation has exposed how one of the country’s largest blueberry growers uses child labor on its fields. Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company in South Haven, Michigan is at the center of this scandal.