substitute

kniwt was kind enough to point out that I was right in March 2007, and others have been kind to point out that I was right in July 2003 about the oncoming subprime mortgage tsunami.

I'd love to call myself a prophet, but most of us in Newport saw that one coming. Too bad the financial journalists didn't get to reporting on it until it was too late. Wonder why that happened?

Current Mood: sleepy

I am the founder of Raising Kings Market Place Ministry, The Pastor of Sutter Baptist Church and author of Give Real Hope. I have worked in many industries. I was the owner of a Mortgage Banking company, Real Estate Agent, Painting Contractor Company. My focus is expanding the kingdom of God. Raising Kings is the Hub for many industries: Real Estate, Humanitarian Efforts, Arts, Movies, government, Entertainment and much more. We are a marketplace ministry. We'd like to help you connect with the right industry the right people and the right resources for you to live your dream. Within Raising Kings Market Place Ministry I am currently working on promoting a New Reality TV show, Promoting Sylvester & Jennifer Stallone's new company and expanding the kingdom of God. My vision is to empower people with tools and resources to expand the kingdom of God upon this earth. I work for God and I am here to serve you. What's your dream? It's all about empowering YOU with everything you need to live your DREAM. Do Rare Extraordinary Actions Mentally. Let's talk! Let's get connected. Let's Give Real Hope. GIVE....Godly Investments Valued Eternally. REAL....Real Estate Asset Leveraging.....HOPE....Helping Others Prosper Economically. So let's http://www.giverealhope.com today.

from Raising Kings Marketplace

Current Mood: jubilant

Current Mood: sleepy

My health "insurer," Blue Shield of California, just sent me a helpful note about anxiety.

They point out that we're all anxious because of "recent world events," and that's normal.

They then go on to suggest every possible solution for mental distress that does not cost them money. Included are: homeopathy (!!!) which can "bring temporary relief."

Also included are "Complementary and alternative health" solutions which are all very inexpensive and not covered by any insurance.

It's a wonder they don't just tell people to drink.

I await their instructions on setting your broken leg with reiki, wearing magnetic pants to reduce arthritis, and the magic of going overseas to get health care where they don't have to hear about it.

Fuckers.

Current Mood: annoyed

The job
by trescourt

Current Mood: sleepy

Favorite quote from the ad is a testimonial:

I DIG THE LUBE TUBE VIDEO LOUNGE WITH INTEGRATED CIRCLE JERK VIDCHAT

Current Mood: sleepy

From today's Wall Street Journal:

"The margin calls hit some chief executives who had borrowed to buy company stock. These included Chesapeake Energy Corp. Chief Executive Aubrey K. McClendon, who was forced to sell nearly his entire stake in the company, which he had accumulated in recent years, including a $43 million purchase in July. "These involuntary and unexpected sales were precipitated by the extraordinary circumstances of the world-wide financial crisis," Mr. McClendon said in a statement. "In no way do these sales reflect my view of the company's financial position or my view of Chesapeake's future performance potential.""

Current Mood: schadenfreude

Meet Henry T. Nicholas, local billionaire and James Bond villain. Henry was the head of Broadcom, a big microchip company. Henry stands six foot six, has a dungeon under his house, slips Ecstasy to unknowing dinner companions, does meth and coke, has a prostitution problem, has armed guards patrolling his home, and flies around in a private jet with the drugs and the prostitutes. At least, this is what the prosecutors and some angry associates say, and some of it is beyond denial, in particular the dungeon. He is also on the hook for securities fraud at his company.

Christ, what an asshole. But just look at the guy! Wow!

Details, lurid and otherwise, are in this nicely done Vanity Fair article

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: Newport Beach, CA

RESEARCHERS FIND LARGEST YET SUBPRIME NUMBER

WASHINGTON, DC (AP) — Economists working at the United States Department of Treasury and top Wall Street banks announced the historic discovery of a very large subprime number, the biggest yet seen.

The group, working in secrecy for years and using banks and real estate holdings worldwide as a laboratory, found the gigantic number some time in the last year and is only now releasing the information to the public.

"This is a win-win," said Gary Leukotomakis, the Treasury's Chief New Economist. "We've shown that subprime numbers far beyond anything previously imagined are now possible, and even likely." Subprime numbers, which may seem esoteric to the typical American, are used in complicated financial transactions such as derivatives, credit swaps, REITs, "Jumbo loans," nonconforming loans, and spectacular, heart-stopping international financial crises.

Thad Labbé, a senior economician at Goldman Sachs, credited new financial technologies for the breakthrough. "We had always theorized about the power of a regulatory vacuum, but when we were able to produce one in the field everything took a quantum leap," he enthused. "Everything else we needed — weightless real estate, risk-free quantum risk, low-viscosity greed-through liquidity, and unpoppable Hyper-Bubbles — all of that stemmed from this revolutionary new postregulatory paradigm."

"In layman's terms," said Labbé, "it was like free money. But forever, because it's government science."

Tiara Hampton, a professor of Freedom Science at the Guthy-Renker Institute for Postscientific Study, agrees. "This proves what we've been saying all along, what naysayers have pooh-poohed. There actually is no hard limit to a subprime number, and the actual risk to researchers is nil." "In fact," she remarked, "risk in this quantum environment is entirely reversed, so that it's not possible to suffer consequences from so-called financial risk unless you're unrelated to the experiment completely."

Sources close to the team estimated the subprime number as nearly 700 billion, but cautioned that this number was not exact. "You have to understand," said one source with first-hand knowledge, "that the actual number will be the product of rectal extraction for some time. The important thing is that it's big, and bigger by a big number than the last big number."

Spokesmen for the research group said they did not yet know what would produce the next large subprime number, but that they were confident it would be discovered in much the same way.

The research group, which until now had been working behind a veil of secrecy, was funded by the Freedom Science Foundation, the Goldman-Sachs/Treasury Revolving Door Society, and subscribers like you.

(tip o'the hat to

mcbrennan for the inspiration)

Current Mood: sleepy

This just in via email:

With summer coming to an end, it's time to gear up for school at the Official Hives Store. Swing by now through Labor Day (September 1) and you can save 25% off everything in the store. Pick up men's and women's t-shirts, posters and keychains and more to get ready for all that the rest of the year brings. Pick out a new Hives hoodie now for the cooler months to come and save big! Shop the store by September 1 so you don't miss out

A one-size-fits-all note covering all their music properties. Substitute your favorite, such as Godspeed you! Black Emperor or Anal Cunt (thanks zeb).

Ad pitches in the form "THING is happening! So buy our stuff" are by definition desperate, and seasonal appeals approach bathos. In a 30 second radio pitch you can be dragged from "Spring is almost here" to "complete garage door service only $169.95."

Between that and being told that I'm a busy mom, I wonder how they ever sell me anything.

Current Mood: sleepy

IndyMac Bank, a prolific mortgage specialist that helped fuel the housing boom, was seized Friday by federal regulators in one of the largest bank failures in U.S. history. The thrift was one of the largest savings and loans in the country, with about $32 billion in assets. It now joins an infamous list of collapsed banks, topped by Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Co., which failed in 1984 with $40 billion of assets. The bank will be run by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., a federal regulator, and will reopen Monday.

Via Wall St Journal

Edit: Additional comedy from the full article: IndyMac specialized in Alt-A loans, a type of mortgage that can often be offered to borrowers who don't fully document their incomes or assets. SO THERE'S NO CTRL-Z AMIRITE???

Current Mood: drained

Current Mood: impressed

CALIFORNIANS:

If you're a renter, or you might be one, or you know and like people who rent, you should vote against Proposition 98 next Tuesday, June 3.

gordonzola has done a fine job of explaining why at this post and previously at this other post. I'll summarize here with cut and paste bits from his post:

State Proposition 98 on the June 3 ballot will change your life and change our city forever if it passes. This dangerous measure would end all rent control in California. Worse, it would also end just-cause eviction protections. If it passes, landlords will be able to raise evict tenants for no reason other than that they want to raise the rent.

Besides attacking tenants and rent control, Prop 98 will also end a number of environmental regulations as well as zoning and land use laws. Under Prop 98, developers will be able to ignore height limits in residential neighborhoods, build on environmentally sensitive areas and bring chain stores into neighborhoods where they are now prohibited. Prop 98 will also end requirements that developers build a certain number of units which are affordable to people with low and moderate incomes.

Also likely to be ended by this language will be laws requiring landlords to give 60 day notices for large rent increases or no-fault evictions, as well as laws requiring relocation benefits for no-fault evictions. Laws limiting the amount of security deposits or limiting when a landlord can hold on to a security deposit will also end. Prop 98 is a constitutional amendment so its provisions will override all other local and state laws (and make challenging it in court especially difficult).

Please vote. Without a good showing it's likely to pass, because they put it in a boring election between two important ones.

Current Mood: determined

“VH1 Rock Honors: The Who” is sponsored by Taco Bell Corp and Garnier® Fructis®.

gggh BUY

Current Mood: sleepy

Ex-Chief of UCLA Willed-Bodies Program Indicted

LOS ANGELES -- The former head of UCLA's cadaver program and a businessman were indicted Friday on eight felony counts involving black market sales of donated human body parts in a scheme that allegedly cheated the university out of more than $1 million.

( and Knox the boy that buys the beef... )

Current Mood: groggy

The hybrid car is a lie. Do not purchase one.

The only reason the hybrid car exists is to allow auto manufacturers to continue selling grossly wasteful and polluting vehicles to consumers. Because California law requires an overall emissions target and minimum quantity of zero emissions vehicles, a manufacturer has to sell hybrid or electric powered vehicles in order to continue selling large commercial trucks to consumers as toys, and other sins.
Purchasing a hybrid vehicle pays off the owner's conscience in the best American way: with a unique product. The buyer feels a sense of moral superiority, the seller makes some money, and the essential problem continues. It's no wonder the name of the most popular one sounds like "pious."
Buying a hybrid car means buying a new car. Don't buy a new car. It's true that as your hybrid car runs it will put less direct pollutant material in the air and water. It's also true that it will use less gasoline. However, you have just bought a very large machine which was manufactured new. Add up the steel and aluminum, the machining and casting of parts, the chemicals used and dumped, the nonrenewable resources consumed or used to build the car, all the energy used to build a car and carry its materials around, the energy used to move the car around by ship and truck to the dealer, all of it. Making a car is a very top heavy resource-hungry industrial process.

And your car doesn't go away. Unless you have it artfully crushed into a cube as a coffee table, or personally supervise its recycling, your car is sold to another person and stays on the road. And that person's car is sold down the line too, until we arrive at unusable or junked cars, which then go to a graveyard to be broken down. Everything about the car is toxic too, just in case you're curious.

So now you've brought a new car into the world (they'll make more!) and given a nice big fat gut punch to Mother Nature in doing so. Failure.
Keep your old car instead. If it's not so run down that the mileage is shot, and it's passing the emissions tests, it's a better deal for "the planet" and for you also. It is not as demonstrative of your love for the GREEN GAIA to continue with your serviceable older car, but trust me, she appreciates it.
nstead, do things that don't burn fuel, or burn less. If you're physically able, ride a bike more to short drives. Use public transit. Even in Southern Californian Heck, where I live, I can (and now I do) take the train into Los Angeles when I am able.
It will be a great day for this country when Americans can look at a serious problem and do something other than pick up a lifestyle magazine and look for some product guides. Buying things is a terrible solution to so many things.

Current Mood: sleepy

No, we're not running out of rice in the U.S. We are particularly not running out of rice in California, where we grow it. We're also not running out of wheat. If the Costco isn't selling you rice, they probably messed up their order and some junior manager is lying to you about rationing.

The price of food is indeed high and rising. People in less fortunate countries are rioting because they can't afford to eat. Here in the U.S., poor people are being squeezed. People like me don't even notice because we make good money.

This is a good time to think about what you eat. It's an even better time to take a good look at where the food comes from, how it's produced, and how it's distributed. As usual, the root problems are about money: farm subsidies, water subsidies, tariffs, big agricultural companies who control all of those things, and bad government all over the world.

And in the U.S. particularly it's about oil. Because you can't grow food the way we do without artificial fertilizer, which is made of energy. And once we have all that bounty of soy and corn, we have to sell it somehow. And so we convert it into ethanol and celebrate our new energy, free from foreign oil! ...that's made from foreign oil. And up go the grain prices.

For me the threat is not rice rationing at the supermarket. The threat is endless war to keep our own food prices low with cheap oil.

Funny how it comes back there every time!

Current Mood: tired

As I left the supermarket tonight, the voice overhead intoned this command:

NOW IS THE TIME TO PUT YOUR DESIRE INTO ACTION.

Current Mood: nietzschean

Someone recommend a bike store around here.

Current Mood: tired

Suit alleges waterboarding used as motivational technique.

...SECOND PRIZE IS A SET OF STEAK KNIVES. THIRD PRIZE IS YOU'RE FUCKING DROWNED

Current Mood: impressed

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

In which I totally say "I told you so"

Paragraph cut and pasted without comment

Whew!

Also we recommend feng shui if your teeth fell out

The Job

I got LJ email spam for a bear site

Gatsby 2.0

I expect you to die, Mr. Bond!

RESEARCHERS FIND LARGEST YET SUBPRIME NUMBER

Advertising notes from all over

Throw me the whip! No, throw me the mortgage!

A Conflicted Nation Shops for DVDs

No on 98: Remember on June 3

accept no substitute

Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief

Critical Thinking: Don't get a Prius.

Pilaf with light sweet crude

Brothers and sisters, the hour and the day are here

local attention

THIS OXYGEN IS FOR CLOSERS!

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May 2009

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