It’s Wednesday, July 31st, 2013…and all the best to our middle son Mike on the occasion of his 28th birthday!
Now, here’s The Gouge!
Leading off the last edition of July, if there was ever a reason to pump the hell out of every fracking drop of domestic fossil fuel, this is it:
Alwaleed warns of US shale danger to Saudi Arabia
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire Saudi Arabian investor, has warned that his country’s oil-dependent economy is increasingly vulnerable to competition from the US shale revolution, setting him at odds with his country’s oil ministry and OPEC officials.
In an open letter addressed to Ali Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, the prince called on the government to accelerate plans to diversify the economy. “Our country is facing continuous threat because of its almost total dependency on oil,” he wrote in the letter, copied to King Abdullah, Prince Alwaleed’s uncle, among others.
The letter, which was accompanied by several others addressed to officials including the finance minister, was posted to Prince Alwaleed’s Twitter account on Sunday. The letters were dated May 13 and a spokesperson for the prince confirmed they were genuine.
…OPEC officials have sought to play down the threat posed to the kingdom from surging North American oil production, which saw US imports from Opec members tumble to a 15-year low last year.
Yet despite prices soaring at the pump, and the adverse impact America’s energy independence would have on those…without our nation’s best interests at heart…
…this is the only drilling…
…in which Team Tick-Tock seems interested:
Since we’re on the subject of Der Obafuhrer’s extralegal war on fossil fuels, submitted for your perusal, two related commentaries from the WSJ; first, we learn The Obamao’s nominee to head FERC leans as Left as his leader:
Ron Binz, now…
…and then:
Ya gotta love the deep-thinking-radical pose!
Second, Texas Congressman Lamar Smith offers the truth behind the Offal Office’s counterfeit claims of transparency:
Speaking of lies, Tom Bakke forwarded the following from one Joel Ross writing at GlobeSt.com…an online real estate publication:
The Impact of the “Phony Scandals”
You might wonder what does Watergate, the IRS enemies list, Benghazi and the cover up have to do with real estate. The answer is potentially a lot. For those too young to have lived through it, Watergate occurred in June, 1972, during the Nixon reelection campaign. It took two years and a whistle blower in the FBI, and a determined duo of reporters at the Washington Post, to uncover it and bring about the end of the Nixon administration. At the time the White House managed to cover up the break in and the involvement of the White House. As part of that whole scandal there was an enemies list and the IRS was used to go after those who disagreed with or resisted the Nixon White House. For a long time the mainstream media did not cover the break in that much, and the cover up was successful. Until a senior FBI official became the secret Deep Throat and gave Woodward and Bernstein the real story. As the scandal grew, the White House became more and more unable to function, and the government was badly hobbled during the process. Not unlike the Whitewater scandal and impeachment of Clinton, and not unlike Iran Contra. Interesting how Hillary seems to reappear in the middle of another major White House scandal. (Except to any member of the MSM!)
Now we have Benghazi and that cover up of the policy decisions by Obama and Hillary which led to the deaths of four Americans. If the policy had been much different in Libya, and had been robust, and if Hillary had not ignored near screaming pleas from her own people, including the ambassador, for more security, the whole thing would never have happened. If Obama had not wanted everyone to falsely believe that terrorism was over and he did it, then the cover up would not have happened. However, here we are with another major White House cover up, an initial disregard for it by the mainstream media, and suppression of evidence. Now we have an unfolding of an IRS attack on enemies of the administration. Just like under Nixon. It is not possible that some very low level IRS employees in Cincinnati undertook to go after conservative groups opposed to Obama on their own. Such action is illegal and we now know from Mr Hull that no low level bureaucrat does things like this of their own initiative. It came from the top and likely really emanated from the White House. This is far from over. Then we add the James Rosen scandal to try to suppress leaks to Fox and other negative press, and perjury by Holder to further that cover up.
This is all going to grow into a major scandal and will likely begin to consume more and more of the White House time and further attempts to cover up. There is much more here than has become known as yet, about Benghazi and now the IRS scandal and enemies list. It is a replay of Watergate.
So what does this have to do with real estate. As these scandals unfold, they consume the administration of the moment. This is just beginning to unravel, and since Hillary intends to run for president and Obama is trying to push his liberal agenda, the Republicans know they have a great scandal on the hook and they are not going to let it go. Fox, which is the Woodward and Bernstein of today, is vindicated and is now going to be all over this. Cheryl Atkins of CBS News, who dug into this story and was told to be quiet, is now vindicated and is pursuing it further. Very soon the White House will be buried in trying to maintain the cover up. The new Obama line that the scandals are phony and stopping his economic plans is just a dumb effort to further the cover-ups and change the subject. It will fail. That effort will fail. That means there will be no ability of the White House to do deals of major magnitude with the Republicans. There will be no fiscal agreement, probably no tax reform passed, and no good news for the economy. With all the other bad things economically going on here and around the world, there will be no leadership by Obama to help get out of the economic doldrums. Result, low rates will probably go on longer than they otherwise, might, tax reform will not likely get passed, there will be no infrastructure bank or other infrastructure programs passed. If Obama could not get background checks passed in the Democratic senate with overwhelming public support in the polls to pass it, then there is no possible way he is going to get anything like deficit compromise, tax reform or much of anything else. (As if he’s interested in compromise on anything!) Sometime in the next couple of months Syria will expand, as it did yesterday into an attack on Turkey. Now we have Israel and Turkey in direct military confrontation with Syria and Iran and Hezbullah pouring in troops. Obama will have a crisis in the mid east explode in the midst of all the scandal. There is simply no way the White House has time to do much of anything for the US economy.
So rates stay low, rents will not grow much as the economy bumbles along, capital investment by companies remains muted, unemployment remains very high, uncertainty gets worse, and real estate as a result begins to flat line as the distressed properties are mostly dealt with now, and those opportunities are few and far between. This is going to continue for much longer than you may expect. By the time this all unfolds it will be 2014 election season and nothing will get done in Congress. You should just batten down the hatches and not forecast great upside to anything. Continued low rates will be here to help your current returns be very good, but big pops on rents or values is simply not going to happen.
In other words…
When you’ve lost the real estate industry, you’ve lost most of Boca. 😉
Next up in the “MSM Bias…WHAT Bias?!?” segment, James Taranto’s thoughts and analyses on two of the Left’s latest round of lies, damned lies and statistics; Exhibit A:
Faces of Poverty?
Don’t be alarmed by high rates of “economic insecurity.”
Barack Obama’s economy is many times worse than you ever imagined, to judge by this Associated Press headline: “Exclusive: 4 in 5 in US Face Near-Poverty, No Work.” The official unemployment rate is 7.6%, but the actual rate approaches 80% (79% to be exact)? Could that possibly be right? You’ll be relieved (unless perhaps you’re an extremely partisan Republican) to learn that the answer is no.
Reporter Hope Yen’s lead paragraph gives away part of the game (emphasis ours): “Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.” The source is “a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press,” whose author, Mark Rank of Washington University in St. Louis (An acknowledged bastion of junk science!), gave Yen the scoop.
You can immediately see the problem. The qualification “for at least part of their lives”–which turns out to mean their adult lives until age 60–means that this is a measure of economic conditions over decades that tells us little about the present day. “The gauge defines ‘economic insecurity’ as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line,” Yen explains. “Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent.”
Rank tells by email that a single period of unemployment is sufficient to meet the definition of “periodic joblessness” and that there is no lower limit on the duration of such a period (the same is true of welfare receipt). That means this columnist is part of the 79% by virtue of having been unemployed once in our life–for two weeks, in 1991. We blame George H.W. Bush.
Defining “near-poverty” as annual income up to 150% of the poverty line also seems arbitrary. In what other context would a number half again as high as a threshold be considered “near” the threshold? A blood-cholesterol level of 300 milligrams per deciliter isn’t “near healthy.” Nor is an 8-foot-9-inch man “near average” in height. (To be sure, a large part of the problem is that the official “poverty” line is itself a good deal more arbitrary than these other examples.)
Yet another problem is that somebody can have a “near poverty” income without actually being anywhere near poor. The obvious example is an adult college student with a part-time or no job who subsists on parental or financial aid. His statistical “near poverty” is actually a reflection of affluence, or at least opportunity.
We sent Rank a follow-up email asking for further clarification of his definitions, and he responded by citing the results when the measures were applied to a narrower age range:
The cumulative risk of poverty/near poverty (150% above the poverty level) between 25 and 60 is 54.1%, so we can start with that relatively high risk which is an annual measure. It is true that unemployment can be a very short spell and someone will be counted, but that is not the norm. As you know, the median length of unemployment spells is much longer than two weeks. Likewise, although someone may use welfare for a few weeks, that is certainly not the typical pattern. Nevertheless, if someone does use welfare or is unemployment for a very short period of time, they are counted in the measure.
In terms of education, we also started the analysis at age 35 to 60 (obviously there is a lot of risk of economic insecurity at the earlier ages). When we did this, the overall cumulative risk of economic insecurity was 66.2% at age 60.
Of course Yen went with the more sensationalistic 79% figure, which the AP rounded up in the headline to “4 in 5.”
There’s also a problem with Rank’s proposed solution to the ostensible problem of economic insecurity. “Only when poverty is thought of as a mainstream event, rather than a fringe experience that just affects blacks and Hispanics, can we really begin to build broader support for programs that lift people in need,” he tells Yen.
According to Rank’s definition, if you ever receive welfare benefits, you have experienced economic insecurity. It is difficult to see how one could expand welfare programs without increasing the proportion of adults who benefit from them. Thus the problem is defined in such a way that the proposed solution is certain to make it appear worse.
For those still scratching their heads over Progressives’ pervasive perversion of probabilities, Liberals pose the following question:
Put another way…
Exhibit B:
Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc Diet
NPR.org presents another example of tendentious statistics designed to further a political agenda:
“People often rationalize that it’s OK to discriminate based on weight because it will motivate the victim to lose pounds,” Angelina Sutin, a psychologist at the Florida State College of Medicine in Tallahassee, tells Shots. “But our findings suggest the opposite.”
Sutin and a colleague checked survey data from more than 6,000 American men and women age 50 and older who were asked how often in their daily lives they experienced different types of discrimination. Examples ranged from discourtesy or refusal of restaurant service to not getting a job or promotion.
The survey then asked the respondents why they thought the discrimination happened. Was it was because of their race or age, for example, or their sex, age or weight? Researchers also measured the participants’ weight and height.
Four years later, a follow-up survey asked the same questions and checked for changes in weight.
Overweight people who said they’d experienced discrimination based on weight were more than twice as likely to be obese four years later than people who didn’t mention such discrimination. And those who started out obese were three times more likely to remain so if they’d been harshly targeted because of their weight. Other types of discrimination showed no effect on weight.
This is a classic example of the cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, or mistaking correlation for causation. In addition, one of the correlative factors–the feeling of being “harshly targeted because of their weight”–is largely if not entirely subjective.
It’s possible that Sutin’s conclusion is true, but she hasn’t proved it. Her findings, at least as described by NPR, are equally consistent with the hypothesis that people who tend to feel they are victims of antiadipose discrimination also tend to lack self-control when it comes to diet and exercise.
Our bottom line?
For more on the geometrically-challenged, we turn to this headline forwarded by Speed Mach:
Congressional Black Caucus recommends Sheila Jackson Lee for Homeland Security Secretary
Remember, this is a woman who thinks there are still two Vietnams:
For more on large Leftists, Best of the Web comments on the latest clucking from the Clintons:
Hypocrisy and Hypergamy
Behind the Huma-Hillary double standard.
Who the heck does Huma think she is? That’s the question “a top [New York] state Democrat” is asking about Anthony Weiner’s wife, according to a report by Fred Dicker of the New York Post. “The Clintons are pissed off that Weiner’s campaign is saying that Huma is just like Hillary,” Dicker’s Dem declares. “How dare they compare Huma with Hillary? Hillary was the first lady. Hillary was a senator. She was secretary of state.”
Being called low-class by the Clintons has got to hurt. But we don’t see how Dicker’s source’s comparison works to Huma’s disadvantage. Yes, Mrs. Clinton was a U.S. senator and secretary of state–but that was after Bill hid behind her skirts during both the 1992 campaign and the 1998-99 Monica Lewinsky scandal. Before 2001, she had never held a job in politics or government–in contrast with Huma, who was already a top State Department aide when, in 2011, Weiner was first exposed as having exposed himself.
And Hillary’s defenses of her husband were far more outlandish than Huma’s. “I’m not sitting here some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette,” Arkansas’s then-first lady told “60 Minutes” in 1992. Her denial was literally accurate, since to sit standing is a contradiction in terms. But even as she literally sat, she figuratively stood by Bill, making her denial reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s “I’m not a crook.”
Her 1998 defense called to mind Nixon’s attack dog, Spiro Agnew. In an interview with NBC’s “Today,” she waved away Bill’s Oval Office hanky panky by denouncing his political detractors: “The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president.”
We suppose it would be an even greater strain on credulity for Huma to posit a vast right-wing anti-Weiner conspiracy. In famously liberal New York, right-wingers would be lucky to assemble a half-vast conspiracy. Even so, it seems clear that Huma has conducted herself with considerably more grace and dignity than Hillary did. We say that not as a Huma admirer, merely as an observer sufficiently fair-minded to credit her with living up to a low standard.
Yet Dicker’s anonymous source isn’t alone. Prominent members of the media elite have joined in dumping on the Weiners while expressing their admiration for the Clintons. Here’s the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn (no relation, as far as we know, to Weiner rival Christine Quinn):
Though [Huma’s] friends say she is strong and resolute and defiant, sadly she makes all women look like weak and helpless victims. She was not standing there in a position of strength. It was such a setback for women everywhere.
Did Hillary deal “women everywhere” a “setback” back in the 1990s? Quinn doesn’t say in this post, but in another one last month she was considerably less judgmental:
Hillary Clinton is well known for her faith. She went to Sunday school and attended church all of her life, taught Sunday school, was a member of the altar guild and youth groups. When she came to Washington in 1993, she joined a Bible study group. She says she was sent daily scriptures from her group. She was dubbed Saint Hillary at one point for her religious leanings and even made a speech referencing Rabbi Michael Lerner’s “The Politics of Meaning.” When she became a senator, she joined the Senate Prayer Breakfast. She has always been supportive of federal funding for faith-based initiatives. When asked in an interview after the Monica Lewinsky scandal how she had gotten through it, Clinton referred to her “very serious” grounding in faith and talked about her “extended faith family” who helped her out, as well as “people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer circles, who were prayer warriors for me.”
By contrast, Quinn is dismissive of Huma’s faith: “So why has Abedin done this? Some have suggested that her Muslim background and growing up in Saudi Arabia have skewed her views of how women should be treated. But she’s been away from that for too long.”
Here’s how Daily Beast editor Tina Brown concludes a denunciation of Weiner:
The trouble with Carlos [Danger, Weiner’s nom de net] and his ilk is they’re not just a danger to themselves, but a danger to everyone else. One look at the humiliated face of the elegant Huma Abedin, spear-carrier for Hillary Clinton’s women’s-empowerment message, will tell you that.
While it’s possible Brown means to be sarcastic about “Hillary Clinton’s women’s-empowerment message,” we doubt it. The cover story of Brown’s inaugural issue of then-magazine Newsweek (then a magazine) was a puff piece about “how she’s shattering glass ceilings everywhere.”
What accounts for the contrast between the disparagement of Huma and the reverence for Hillary? It won’t do to say that Mrs. Clinton is more accomplished now than Mrs. Weiner, for Huma’s now-critics treated Hillary no less kindly back then. No, the only possible explanation is the one the Washington Post’s Eric Wemple puts forth:
The distinction may have more to do with political gifts than marital particulars. Despite his high media profile, Weiner is a former House member who was the the lead sponsor of only one bill that actually became law. Clinton was a successful two-term president of the United States, and he went on to be the head of a global philanthropic enterprise.
So Hillary is admired and Huma maligned because Hillary married better. Isn’t feminism wonderful?
For those of you unfamiliar with the faces from Hillary’s husband’s predatory past, they’re Juanita Broaddrick, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and Monica…and those are just the ones about which we know!
Continuing the theme of sexist Socialists, courtesy of Marc Katz, we learn…
San Diego Mayor to Enter Rehab Over Allegations of Sexual Harassment
Filner said he will be briefed while in the behavioral counseling clinic and plans to return to the job on Aug. 19
In other words, since my initial sorry-ass explanation for my sexual predations didn’t fly, I’m trying Plan B.
And in the Religion Section, brought to us today by Newsbusters.org, here’s a wish which can easily be granted:
Archbishop Tutu Would ‘Rather Go to Hell Than Worship a Homophobic God’
Among those now joining the liberal media elite in waving farewell to the Bible and other apparently outdated religious texts is…an archbishop. “South African peace icon Desmond Tutu has said he would rather go to hell than worship a homophobic God, likening the fight against gay prejudice to the anti-apartheid struggle.”
Al-Jazeera relayed Tutu made the comments on Friday at the launch of a United Nations lobbying campaign against traditional “homophobic” religion in Cape Town. “I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place,” the retired archbishop said.
“I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this,” he said, condemning the use of religious justification for anti-gay prejudice.
We can only imagine…
In a related religion revelation…
Pope Signals Openness to Gay Priests
Pontiff’s Comments Suggest Greater Acceptance of Homosexuality Among Clerics
Pope Francis opened the door Sunday to greater acceptance of gay priests inside the ranks of Roman Catholicism as he returned to the Vatican from his maiden trip overseas.
Fielding questions from reporters during the first news conference of his young papacy, the pontiff broached the delicate question of how he would respond to learning that a cleric in his ranks was gay, though not sexually active. For decades, the Vatican has regarded homosexuality as a “disorder,” and Pope Francis’ predecessor Pope Benedict XVI formally barred men with what the Vatican deemed “deep-seated” homosexuality from entering the priesthood.
“Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?” the pontiff said, speaking in Italian. “You can’t marginalize these people.”
No, Pope Francis is neither endorsing homosexuality nor the knowing ordination of gay priests. He’s simply pointing out that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that a homosexual who has turned away from his sin is no different than any other truly repentant human, whatever their past. But that’s not how the MSM is doing their darnedest to spin it!
On the Lighter Side…
Then there’s this bit of brilliance from Balls Cotton:
And in the Food Section, we learn…
Celebrity Chef Mark Miller joins Boneheads
We wouldn’t know Mark Miller dead in a ditch; but given the description of his recent affiliation, we can only assume he’s the new White House chef.
Finally, we’ll call it a day with another sordid story ripped from the pages of the Crime Blotter, aka the “Just When You Thought You’d Heard It All…” segment:
All Big Sis had to do was announce her resignation and the TSA goes to hell in a hand basket!
Magoo
Loading ...
You must be logged in to post a comment.