XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Thursday, 3 March 2011

Fecal Matter Found on 72 % of Grocery Carts - 50 % had E. coli - and reusable shopping bags are a “bacterial swamp.” -

A University of Arizona researcher says you may want to grab one of those disinfectant wipes right before you grab a grocery cart.

Professor Charles Gerba, the lead researcher, swabbed the handles of 85 carts in four states for bacterial contamination.

Gerba says 72% of the carts had a positive marker for fecal bacteria. When they examined some of the samples, they found Escherichia coli, also known as E. coli, on half of them.

Researchers say they actually found more fecal bacteria on grocery cart handles than you would typically find in a bathroom, mainly because bathrooms are disinfected more often than shopping carts.

Since most stores do not routinely wash and disinfect their carts, it's up to you to do it.

Scientists say this study helps explain why earlier investigations found kids who touch the handles, are more likely than others, to get infected with bacteria like salmonella.

Gerba also says you should pay attention to what you put in reusable shopping bags. Make sure your meats and veggies are wrapped because bags that are not washed on a regular basis can become a what he called a "bacterial swamp."

97% of All U.S. Mortgages are Backed by the Government -

I heard a recent talk by Richard Wolff - Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (PhD in Economics from Yale) - where Wolff said that 97% of all U.S. mortgages are either written or guaranteed by the government.

As Bloomberg explained last August:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled companies that issued and guaranteed more than 71 percent of mortgage-backed bonds last year. Between those companies and Ginnie Mae, which guarantees loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, the government backed nearly 97 percent of U.S. mortgages in 2009.

And Dwight M. Jaffee, Lawrence J. White, Peter Wallison, Arnold Kling, Anthony B. Sanders, Michael Lea note:

During 2009 and 2010, GSEs guaranteed as much as 70 percent of mortgage market activity. Other government programs guaranteed an additional 25 percent.

There are supposedly plans in Washington to wind down Fannie and Freddie. Critics say that would destroy the "recovery" in housing.

If continuing to throw money at Fannie and Freddie would stabilize the economy, I might be for it - even though it is not free market capitalism. I am not wed to either liberal or conservative ideologies, and am instead simply motivated to do whatever will work to stabilize the economy and help the most people.

But as I noted in January:

Most independent experts say that the government's housing programs have been a failure. That's too bad, given that the housing slump is now - according to Zillow's - worse than during the Great Depression.
Indeed, PhD economists John Hussman and Dean Baker, fund manager and financial writer Barry Ritholtz and New York Times' writer Gretchen Morgenson say that the only reason the government keeps giving billions to Fannie and Freddie is that it is really a huge, ongoing, back-door bailout of the big banks.
Many also accuse Obama's foreclosure relief programs as being backdoor bailouts for the banks. (See this, this, this and this).

***

And Freddie and Fannie's recent settlement with Bank of America - a couple of billion - has been criticized by many as being a bailout.
In "BofA Freddie Mac Putbacks Resolved for 1¢ on $", Barry Ritholtz notes:
Bank of America settled numerous claims with Fannie Mae for an astonishingly cheap rate, according to a Bloomberg report.
A premium of $1.28 billion was paid to Freddie Mac to resolve $1 billion in claims currently outstanding. But the kicker is that the dealalso covers potential future claims on $127 billion in loans sold by Countrywide through 2008. That amounts to 1 cent on the dollar to Freddie Mac.
In "Is Fannie bailing out the banks?", Forbes' Colin Barr writes:
Someone must be getting bailed out, right?

Why yes, say critics of the giant banks. They charge that Monday's rally-stoking mortgage-putback deal between Bank of America (BAC) and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is nothing more than a backdoor bailout of the nation's largest lender. It comes courtesy, they say, of an administration struggling to find a fix for the housing market while quaking at the prospect of another housing-fueled banking meltdown.

Monday's arrangement, according to this view, will keep the banks standing -- but leave taxpayers on the hook for an even bigger tab should a weak economic recovery falter. Sound familiar?

***

[Edward] Pinto says truly holding BofA responsible for all the mortgage mayhem tied to its 2008 purchase of subprime lender Countrywide would likely drive it into the arms of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has enough problems to deal with. Though BofA would surely dispute that analysis, it's easy enough to see where the feds don't want that outcome.

***

But how sharp is Freddie if all it can do is squeeze a $1.28 billion payment out of a giant customer in exchange for relinquishing fraud claims on $117 billion worth of outstanding loans? The very best its million-dollar executives can do is claw back a penny on each bubbly subprime dollar?

That seems pretty weak even given that this is Congress' favorite subsidy dispenser we're talking about.

"How Freddie can justify this decision to settle 'all outstanding and potential' claims before any of the private-label putback lawsuits have been resolved is beyond comprehension," says Rebel Cole, a real estate and finance professor at DePaul University in Chicago. "This smells to high heaven and they should be called out."
In "Bank Of America Just Admitted That Its Fannie And Freddie Settlement Was A Bailout", Business Insider's Joe Weisenthal writes:
Bank of America has basically confirmed that the critics are correct: It was the beneficiary of a bailout.
According to Bloomberg, BofA's Jerry Dubrowski said: “Our agreements with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are a necessary step toward the ultimate recovery of the housing market.”
Get it? This was not about settling mortgage putback exposure at the legal level. It was about helping the greater good. It's the same too-big-to-fail logic all over again: What's good for Bank of America is good for America.
As the Washington post notes:
“This is a gift” from the government to the bank, said Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics. “We’re all paying for this because it will show up in the losses from Fannie and Freddie,” he said.
Congresswoman Waters said:
I’m concerned that the settlement between Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Bank of America over misrepresentations in the mortgages BofA originated may amount to a backdoor bailout that props up the bank at the expense of taxpayers. Given the strong repurchase rights built into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s contracts with banks, and the recent court setback for Bank of America in similar litigation with a private insurer, I’m fearful that this settlement may have been both premature and a giveaway. The fact that Bank of America’s stock surged after this deal was announced only serves to fuel my suspicion that this settlement was merely a slap on the wrist that sets a bad example for other negotiations in the future.
And see this, this and this.

And Chris Whalen - who has been hailed by Nouriel Roubini as one of the leading independent analysts of the U.S. banking system - points out that Fannie and Freddie helped to create the epidemic of mortgage fraud in the first place, and Whalen argues that Fannie and Freddie must be restructured:

The invidious cowards who inhabit Washington are unwilling to restructure the largest banks and GSEs. The reluctance comes partly from what truths restructuring will reveal. As a result, these same large zombie banks and the U.S. economy will continue to shrink under the weight of bad debt, public and private. Remember that the Dodd-Frank legislation was not so much about financial reform as protecting the housing GSEs.

Because President Barack Obama and the leaders of both political parties are unwilling to address the housing crisis and the wasting effects on the largest banks, there will be no growth and no net job creation in the U.S. for the next several years. And because the Obama White House is content to ignore the crisis facing millions of American homeowners, who are deep underwater and will eventually default on their loans, the efforts by the Fed to reflate the U.S. economy and particularly consumer spending will be futile. As Alan Meltzer noted to Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio earlier this year: "This is not a monetary problem."

***The policy of the Fed and Treasury with respect to the large banks is state socialism writ large, without even the pretense of a greater public good.
***
The fraud and obfuscation now underway in Washington to protect the TBTF banks and GSEs totals into the trillions of dollars and rises to the level of treason.

***
And in the case of the zombie banks, the GSEs and the MIs, the fraud is being actively concealed by Congress, the White House and agencies of the U.S. government led by the Federal Reserve Board. Is this not tyranny?

But the bottom line is that money given to the big banks and government-sponsored entities like Fannie and Freddie does not trickle down to Main Street or the bulk of the American people. See this and this.

As Steve Keen points out, money given to debtors (i.e. the American citizen) provides much more bang for the buck than money given to the creditors (i.e. the big banks) or GSEs.
Read more - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/97-of-all-us-mortgages-are-backed-by.html

Saturday, 26 February 2011

Elephant has sex with a car - leaving the passengers inside with a jumbo-sized problem -

THIS horny Dumbo mounted a car he mistook for a mate leaving the passengers inside with a jumbo-sized problem.

The randy elephant got on with the tusk and went bumper to bumper with the saloon car before tyring of the chase and rolling the vehicle on to its back into the bushes.

Irishman John Somer and terrified friend Carina Lowers were driving the Volkswagen Passat through the Pilanesberg Game Reserve in South Africa when they came across the five-ton bull, called Amarula.

John, 66, who lives in nearby Rustenburg, said: "I never thought I would be killed by an elephant. When I turned the corner there was another vehicle in the road in front of us.

"The driver started reversing and stopped next to us. I'm Irish and he was speaking Afrikaans, but I could make out the word 'elephant'."

John was unable to back up out of a ditch so turned the engine off hoping to avoid Amarula's attention.

But the elephant came straight for them and began rubbing up against the car.

John, who was visiting the reserve to celebrate his 66th birthday, said: "It really did seem to regard the car as a female elephant and was making advances on 'her'.

"When the bull started flipping the car over my life literally started flashing before my eyes.

"The car landed on its roof and we were lying inside it.

"Carina was very scared and wanted to crawl out but first I wanted to see where the elephant was.

"When we saw it was walking away we crawled out through the window."

Fellow nature lover Riaan van Wyk managed to catch the incredible scenes on camera.

He said: "Amarula is one of the largest bull elephants in the reserve.

"To make a bad situation worse, he was in musth - a dangerous time where bull elephants become randy, aggressive and pumped full of hormones.

"As Amarula made his way closer to the VW Passat I sat quietly in a nearby car.

"Realising what was about to unfold I nervously grabbed my camera."

Riaan was then left shocked to see the elephant turn towards him.

He added: "Amarula then proceeded to focus his attention on me and only after a 15 minute chase did he finally lose interest and wander off into the bushes."

Friday, 25 February 2011

FWD - Minnesota Man Arrested After Caught Deep-Frying Wings While Drunk -

A 21-year-old former criminal justice major is accused of FUI -- frying under the influence.

The troubles for man started about 1:25 a.m., when he tripped the alarm where he works, Pizza Hut in the 100 block of 7th Avenue S., authorities said.

"He had access to the building, but he just didn't reset the alarm," said Police Lt. Jerry Edblad.

Officers arrived and found the restaurant's back door open. They came upon the man inside and saw that he had tried to deep-fry some boneless chicken wings, police said. The marinara sauce must not have been to his liking. Police say he threw some on the wall.

After his arrest, the man was given a preliminary breath test for alcohol. His blood-alcohol content reading came back at .22, police said. That's nearly three times the legal limit for driving in Minnesota.

The suspect was jailed on suspicion of third-degree burglary, but Edblad suspects that the man could end up being charged with a lesser offense, possibly theft, given that he is an employee.

The man had been studying criminal justice recently at St. Cloud State University but was not enrolled this semester, said school spokesman Michael Nistler.

Voodoo sex ceremony spawns fatal fire -

Candles used in voodoo sex ceremony caused a fatal five alarm fire after they tipped over and ignited bed sheets in a Brooklyn, New York, apartment, authorities said Friday.

The fire left an elderly woman dead and injured 20 firefighters and three Brooklyn residents, according to a New York Fire Department statement.

A voodoo priest allegedly placed the candles on the floor around the bed on Saturday after a woman paid him $300 to perform a ceremony with a sexual component, that was meant to bring her good luck, fire department officials said.

The candles were accidentally knocked over during the ceremony prompting the man to douse the flames with water and open a window in an effort to clear smoke from the room, the statement said.

Forty mile-per-hour wind gusts instead shot the flames back inside the room, it said, creating a "blowtorch effect" that whipped through the open window and pushed the fire into the building's fourth floor hallway.

"Time and time again we respond to tragedies that could have been so easily prevented," Fire Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano said in the statement. "This fire had so many of those elements ... hopefully others will learn from this tragedy."

The occupants fled the apartment, leaving the door open, the statement said.

Nearly 200 firefighters from 44 companies took seven hours to bring the fire under control.

Authorities are currently investigating the incident.

Fed Owns 37% More Treasurys Than China - total bank reserves held with the Fed current record $1.29 trillion -

There are two key datapoints to present in this week's Fed balance sheet update: the surge in excess reserves, and the comparative Treasury holdings between the Fed and other foreign countries. But first the basics: the total Fed balance sheet hit a new all time record of $2.5 trillion. The increase was primarily driven by a $23 billion increase in Treasury holdings as of the week ended February 23 (so add another $5 billion for yesterday's POMO) to $1.214 trillion. With rates surging, QE Lite has been put on hibernation and there were no mortgage buybacks by the Fed in the past week: total MBS were $958 billion and Agency debt was also unchanged at $144 billion. The higher rates go, the less the QE Lite mandate of monetization meaning that the Fed will be continuously behind schedule in its combined QE2 expectation to buy up to $900 billion by the end of June. Yet most notably, as we touched upon yesterday, the Fed's reserves with banks surged by $73 billion in the past week, as more capital was reallocated from the unwinding SFP program. As noted previously, we expect the total bank reserves held with the Fed to jump from the current record $1.29 trillion to at least $1.7 trillion by June.

FBI being sued for crashing a Ferrari - fishtailed and slid sideways shortly after leaving the FBI storage warehouse -

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice have landed themselves in hot water over the destruction of a Ferrari F50. According to The Detroit News, the vehicle was reported stolen from a dealership in Rosemont, Pennsylvania in 2003, and the dealer made and insurance claim for the sum of $750,000 at that time. Michigan-based Motors Insurance Corp. shelled out the cash, and in August 2008, the FBI recovered the vehicle in Kentucky. At that time, the FBI stored the vehicle while waiting to prosecute the thief, at least until someone at the bureau decided to use it for a little local arbor work.

The Ferrari F50 lost control and struck a tree with an FBI special agent behind the wheel in May of 2009, and Motors Insurance Corp. subsequently filed a claim to both the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice for the full $750,000. Both parties rejected the claim under the pretense that the Ferrari was being detained by the FBI at the time of the incident.

The insurance company then set about submitting Freedom of Information Act requests for documents pertaining to the storage, transportation and handling of the Italian exotic, most of which were denied under federal exemptions or outright ignored. The company did manage to get a hold of one email that said that U.S. Assistant Attorney J. Hamilton Thompson rode with Special Agent Frederick C. Kingston on the day of the accident and that the vehicle fishtailed and slid sideways shortly after leaving the FBI storage warehouse.

Motors Insurance Corp. is now suing both the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to release the rest of the documents pertaining to the vehicle.
Read more - http://www.autoblog.com/2011/02/24/fbi-being-sued-for-crashing-a-ferrari/

If he runs for president, Donald Trump is likely to spend $200 million of his own funds - in his latest publicity stunt -

If he runs for president, Donald Trump is likely to take a page out of other recent billionaire political aspirant's playbooks and cut himself a check to the tune of $200 million to finance the expensive endeavor.

That's according to longtime GOP operative Roger Stone, who is currently an informal adviser to Trump.

"I would imagine he would be a self-funder," Stone told Politico Thursday.

"I think he passes up public finance because he then could say, 'I don't answer to anybody but myself and the American people, not special interests,'" Stone also said.

"He's sitting on $2 billion in cash. That's what he says. And if that's true, he could write a check for $200 million if he wanted to."

Trump would be the latest in a string of wealthy individuals who have completely self-financed their campaigns with mixed results. Most recently, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman dropped close to $150 million of her own fortune in her unsuccessful bid last year to become governor of California.

In 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent $90 million of his own money only to narrowly squeak out a re-election victory over the poorly funded city comptroller William Thompson.

Of course, it remains to be seen if Trump is actually serious about running for president, or, more likely, stringing the media along in his latest publicity stunt.

But MSNBC's Joe Scarborough reported Friday Trump told him his current presidential deliberations are no joke.

"I talked to him yesterday on the phone ... and he said, 'Most people out there think this is a joke – that I'm doing this for publicity. Imagine what happens the day I announce I am actually running for president,'" Scarborough aid on his program Friday.

Pelosi edits honorary resolution...on Pelosi - its praise wasn't good enough for the House minority leader -

The Democratic National Committee wanted to honor Nancy Pelosi Thursday -- but its praise wasn't good enough for the House minority leader.

When the DNC's Resolutions Committee brought up a resolution commemorating Pelosi's years as speaker of the House, Pelosi's daughter sought to alter the proposal at her mother's behest, adding some of the accomplishments that the elder Pelosi felt the committee had overlooked.

"I have some friendly amendments," said Christine Pelosi, a political strategist, at the committee's session during the DNC Winter Meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel Thursday afternoon. She is a member of the committee.

"You think I'm kidding," Christine Pelosi added, to surprised laughter from the room. The proposed changes, she indicated, came out of a discussion with her mother.

First, Pelosi wanted to add a mention of her fight against HIV and AIDS, because it was "why she went to Congress." Then, she wanted to insert a paragraph on her "accomplishments for equality," mentioning the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 and the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" in December.

"Finally, since, as she said, 'I'm not going anywhere,' she wanted to add, in the final 'whereas' clause, '...and will continue the fight for America's working families,'" Christine Pelosi said.

The committee applauded that point, and approved the amended resolution on a voice vote.

The Pelosi resolution, submitted by a roster of Democratic luminaries headed by DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, was one of dozens of ceremonial acts considered by the committee, on such topics as praising President Obama's State of the Union address, honoring the victims of January's Tucson shootings and memorializing Elizabeth Edwards. Most of the resolutions were approved without changes.
Read more - http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0211/Pelosi_edits_honorary_resolutionon_Pelosi_.html?showall

Thursday, 24 February 2011

U.S. Government Gift Shops Import Patriotic Products -- from China... -

Tens of millions flock to the Smithsonian museums in Washington each year to see Americana -- everything from Abraham Lincoln's top hat to Archie Bunker's chair.

But one thing you'll have a hard time finding is something American in the gift shop.

Take the miniature sculptures of presidents sold at the National Museum of American History, located right on the Mall in the nation's capital.

From the busts of George Washington to Barack Obama, they were made in China.

Last month Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, was so outraged by the situation that he fired off a letter demanding that the museum sell products made in the USA.

"It appears that a museum owned by the people of the United States, celebrating the history of the United States, cannot find companies in this country employing American workers that are able to manufacture statues of our founding fathers, or our current president," Sanders said in a letter to the museum.