Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Snyder is all about real estate, it is obvious from his emergency manager laws to his demand for management plans of Michigan lands.



Snyder is messing with tourism, stability of natural areas, adds to the heating of the waters of the Great Lakes, increases the evaporation of the waters and increases drought conditions.

9:01 PM, August 7, 2012

Gov. Rick Snyder has signed legislation (click title to entry - thank you) that makes the first significant changes to Michigan's sand dune law since the state established protections for critical areas more than two decades ago.

The law signed Tuesday cleared the Republican-controlled state Legislature last month. It gives builders an easier time gaining approval for houses, driveways and other projects on private land.

Environmental groups say the law will allow overdevelopment by weakening regulators' authority to block projects or require changes to reduce their impact.

Pro-development interests say the previous law was tilted heavily in favor of dune protection and prevents landowners from using their property....

Heavily favored in dune protection. 

Ah. Yeah. How about that, huh?

Snyder is destroying democracy in cities and natural resources while real estate values are in the doldrums. What does Snyder think he is doing to the depressed real estate markets in Michigan? Improving them? 

Snyder has got to be the worst Governor Michigan has ever seen in modern day economics. The worst! Nothing he is doing makes sense, only monies and exploitation to cronies.

I might add, the real estate values were recovering in Michigan before Snyder started his takeover of democratically elected government. Even Detroit was seeing increases in their real estate values.

By James Sunshine Posted:  Updated: 08/03/2012 5:18 pm

...The arrangement allowed Macomb County (Michigan) to bundle up unwanted foreclosed homes (click here) with wanted foreclosed homes; McMachen is taking the unwanted property off the county's hands in exchange for paying all back taxes owed, an average of $7,500 per property, according to the Detroit Free Press.
"By packaging the good with the bad, it's in the center for somebody to come in and buy it all," Macomb County Treasurer Ted Wahby told Fox 2 in Detroit.
But some investors who wanted to bid for certain properties didn't like how the sale went down. One investor told the Fox affiliate that he was prepared to bid up to four times more on some properties than McMachen eventually paid. "I feel bad that it went that way," the investor said.
Too bad, argued Wahby. "People who are going to buy five or ten houses weren't buying them because they wanted to move in," Wahby told Fox. "They wanted to make money on them, and God bless them, I wish they could have, but that's not my mission. I have a job to do. I have to collect the taxes, and that's what we did."
There were 7,057 new foreclosures -- the majority bank foreclosures -- in Macomb County in June, or one in every 348 housing units, according to data from RealtyTrac....

And, oh, by the way. So, why not depress home values in Michigan if friends and cronies can cash in.

July 18, 2012

LANSING, MI - Michigan would spend the bulk of its $97 million share (click here) of a national settlement with banks to help homeowners hurt by the foreclosure crisis and reduce blight under legislation sent to Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday.

The bills, approved overwhelmingly by the House and Senate, would create the Homeowner Protection Fund.
Michigan was among 49 states to join the federal government in signing a $25 billion settlement this year with the country's five major mortgage lenders - which faced allegations of mishandling millions of foreclosures and loan modifications nationwide. It was the largest consumer financial protection settlement in U.S. history, according to the Justice Department, and involved Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally Financial....

The Soptic ad is accurate. The media is playing with semantics. This has been exactly the problem with the entire health care debate.



No one at the Super Pac is chuckling at the falsehoods, they are compelled by the truth.

To begin with, the woman discussed in the video is no simple, everyday woman, this is Mrs. Soptic. Mrs. Soptic was a beneficiary to her husband's insurance as well as her own while he was working in the steel industry.

The media loves to divide and conquer. They have sought to do that for decades to fight health care reform.

This is no different.

Mr. Soptic was well employed. At no point in time did he ever believe he would lose his job due to an industry outsourcing. He had been with the steel plant long enough to never have concerns about the future. He didn't quit from his job. He was fired when Bain Capital destroyed the steel plant's operation and raided its worth.

The footprint of 'job security' extends far past the demolition of it. The fact Mrs. Soptic died of late stage cancer speaks LOUDLY to the fact they could not afford preventive care. The Soptics neglected their optimum health because they didn't have the benefits or the income from Mr. Soptic's employment any longer. His job security was sold for profits.

Why is it the media and Republicans like to think the future of citizens are disposable to the whim of Wall Street? 

When this plant was closed the steel industry was no longer within the borders of the USA which threatened its national security. The steel the USA would need after the steel industry was destroyed and outsourced would have to come for Japan or Canada. Luckily, we didn't have the need we did entering WWII.

Mr. Soptic's ability to provide for his wife ended when he lost his job. His job security sold to the highest bidder. Then when she lost her employment and her health insurance; their health fell into peril. That is the truth and it matters. 

There are deaths happening everyday in the USA because of inadequate or no health insurance. This is another story about THAT TRUTH.

Mrs. Soptic died due to lack of health care, both her own and her husband's. Because that happened over five years makes it no less an assault against the American citizen and their condition.

Being this is a Super Pac Ad, the Obama campaign or White House staff cannot comment. They would implicate themselves in illegal behavior to comment on the activities of Super Pacs.

I suppose the White House Press was more interested in a "Gotcha moment," than the rules.

"It was a clown question, Bro."

The chart below comes from the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). This is what will happen to the National Debt when the Bush Tax Cuts expire.


This chart is percent of GDP as it exists today.

Report written by Reuters and cited by The Huffington Post. The chart was generated by the CBO. We are not in a hopeless scenario if the decisions regarding the elections of 2012 guaranteed the Bush Tax Cuts expire and the current cuts to military spending and domestic spending are maintained.

This chart is without the benefit of The Buffet Rule. It is based on the world as we know it today.

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) - U.S. public debt would balloon (click title to entry - thank you) to twice the size of its economy in 25 years if current tax and spending policies are extended, Congress' budget referee said on Tuesday, delivering fresh fodder for a year-end budget brawl.

The Congressional Budget Office said in a new report that if tax cuts enacted under George W. Bush are allowed to expire as scheduled on Dec. 31, along with some other tax and spending policies, U.S. public debt would shrink significantly, falling to 53 percent of gross docmestic product by 2037 from 73 percent this year....

The outcome to the complaints from Delphi non-union employees may yet to be determined.


DELPHI HRLY-RATE EES PENSION PLAN (click here)

Date of Plan TerminationJuly 31, 2009
Date of PBGC TrusteeshipAugust 10, 2009

STATUS
Liability

4: PBGC has completed calculating pension benefits, subject to legal limits, owed to all participants and beneficiaries in the plan. We are now sending formal determinations of pension benefits to participants and beneficiaries.

The trusteeship started August 10, 2009. 

The PBGC has applied its rules to the outcome of those without unions and are sending letters to those people. It is now when they can file lawsuits to challenge those decisions. 

Non-union employees are on their own. They don't have anyone to mitigate for them. Their process will be ongoing and it will be a burden to the people involved, but, what do they expect? 

Unions only represent their members and not others. 

There are rules and standards GOVERNING this. It may be the non-union employees will receive less than they wanted, but, the short fall to the companies promise is due to the bankruptcy, not the government. If there were improprieties I am sure it will show up, but, to compare the outcome of non-employees to union members is comparing apples and oranges.

When PBGC takes over as statutory trustee of your plan, (click title to entry - thank you) we will send you a letter informing you that we are now responsible for paying your pension benefits.

PBGC reviews your plan's records to determine what benefits each person will receive.
We will continue paying you without interruption during our review. These payments, an estimate of the benefits that PBGC can pay under the insurance program, may be less than you were receiving from your plan but will be paid in the annuity form you chose at retirement....
...Please note that this may take two to three years from the date we take over as trustee of your plan....

September 25, 2012 (click title to entry -thank you)


If you can't vote for any reason, don't forget to file an Absentee Ballot.

Bain still practices Romney's Business Model. A business model destroying American jobs while seeking low tax levels.


TUESDAY, JUL 17, 2012 12:38 PM EDT
While Mitt Romney struggles (click title to entry - thank you) to explain his retroactive retirement from Bain Capital, the company he created keeps offshoring U.S. jobs.  Among them: the jobs of 170 workers in Freeport, Ill., now training the workers who will replace them when Sensata moves their jobs to China. SEC filings reveal that the U.S. share of Sensata’s workforce has been dropping ever since Bain acquired it in 2006.  And the Sensata workers aren’t Bain’s only recent casualties.
Some Sensata employees blame Romney for their impending layoffs. “He designed the business model for that company,” says production associate Tom Gaulrapp. “Venture capitalism, where they’re out for every last dollar, no matter what … that’s the attitude they still have.” (The Romney Campaign and Bain Capital did not answer inquiries from Salon.)...

The Petroleum Industry is disgusting.. More pollution, higher gas prices. It never stops.



The industry is a pain in the ass. There is no nice way of saying it. One calamity after another across the board. This time it's Chevron.

Why, in god's name, does the USA want to continue to achieve energy dependence on petroleum? Makes no sense. Even the USA military is seeking alternative fuels for their jets.

HOUSTON | Wed Aug 8, 2012 12:16am EDT


...Crude distillation unit No. 4 (CDU), (click title to entry - thank you) the only one of its kind at the refinery, begins the process of turning crude oil into motor fuel in the atmospheric tower. The CDU supplies feedstock to all other production units, which are now using feedstock made before the fire.

The refinery is the second biggest in California and the CDU is expected to be shut for up to three months for repairs, West Coast refined products traders said on Tuesday.

A similar fire earlier this year at BP Plc's Washington state refinery lifted gasoline prices by more than $1 a gallon....

I swear they do this intentionally. Mo' money.

The Fed was annoyed at sanctions with Iran? Really? So, basically, when it comes to banks and money damned USA Sanctions?


What else is new? Banks sincerely have no integrity. They covet monies no matter the nature and could not care less about the security of the global community. 
These are not just funds from or for Iran, these are the methods to insure Iran take its nuclear activities with brevity. I suppose understanding that paradigm of international law and consequence is beyond the ability of regulators and the Fed to comprehend. Destabilizing the Middle East and eroding international nonproliferation efforts just doesn't seem to be a 'money thing' I suppose. 
You know, the global economy and how it can't be touched for the recovery and everything. It would seem to those that are complaining, the sanctions should be able to wait until 'conditions in the market are perfect.' Not that nuclear proliferation and the real threat of a nuclear exchange would do anything to secure the global economy or anything like that. 
Hm? I wonder what Wall Street would look like after a few nuclear exchanges in the Middle East?
Geeze! The banks are pathetic.
...By going it alone through the order he issued on Monday, (click title to entry - thank you) Benjamin Lawsky, head of the recently created New York State Department of Financial Services, also complicates talks between the Treasury and London-based Standard Chartered to settle claims the transactions, several of the sources said.
Lawsky's stunning move, which included releasing embarrassing communications and details of the bank's alleged defiance of U.S. sanctions against Iran, is rewriting the playbook on how foreign banks settle cases involving the processing of shadowy funds tied to sanctioned countries. In the past, such cases have usually been settled through negotiation - with public shaming kept to a minimum....
...But, given the content of the order - which described Standard Chartered as a "rogue institution" that "schemed" with the Iranian government and hid from law enforcement officials some 60,000 secret transactions over nearly 10 years - the bank may need to come up with a strong defense....
...New York's attack on Standard Chartered's integrity, and a threat to revoke its state banking license, wiped $17 billion off the bank's market value on Tuesday....

Mr. Romney lies. He always lies. The 'story' about the changes to TANF (welfare) is no different.

July 12, 2012

Purpose: HHS is encouraging states to consider new, (click title to entry - thank you) more effective ways to meet the goals of TANF, particularly helping parents successfully prepare for, find, and retain employment.  Therefore, HHS is issuing this information memorandum to notify states of the Secretary’s willingness to exercise her waiver authority under section 1115 of the Social Security Act to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families....

The majority of recipients are women with dependent children. The percentage is about 78%. So this is about putting women back to work. Or, as in some recipients case, to work for the first time.

The changes to the program came from the Department of Health and Human Services. It was not an executive order, it was from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The REFORM to the USA Welfare Program known as TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) is to expand the possibilities of finding work for these families. The recipients are Heads of Households. They have a lot of responsibility. Their options for finding work can be limited by many factors, but, in considering the current economic recovery, the place where they would normally find jobs may be contracted. So, to facilitate their ability to find jobs in a timely fashion, Secretary Sebelius opened options to the States.

If the States are finding their recipients are floundering, they can institute programs that will work for their best interest. In other words, training programs in Technical Schools with programs such as computers, nursing, automotive technologies and others can provide not just a job, but, a career. There is nothing wrong with a woman on welfare completing a training program and beginning a career as a nurse that would pay more than $45,000 per year to start. It would be an overwhelming success and would insure the future of her children.

So, Secretary Sebilius did not simply eliminate the job requirement of TANF, she improved it along with the chances the recipients will have a better opportunity when moving off the program entirely. 

The Romney attack on Secretary Sebilius is another attack on women and their families.