JustThinking.us

This from Reuters who unlike most of the rest of our national media, has recently awakened to the smell of coffee and is now rolling.

Ah well, better late than never.

Not a week goes by that somewhere in my reading somebody doesn't marvel that more than 3 years into this mess nobody is in jail or even under indictment for all of the fraud and basic malfeasance that has taken place at the banks.

Here's your likely answer.

As always click anywhere below for the entire story.

Highly educational.

Insight: Top Justice officials connected to mortgage banks

(Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington's biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.

Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn't brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.

The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks' offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.

Change you can believe in.

Never make predictions, especially about the future.

Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.

All right , line up alphabetically according to your height.

Don't cut my throat, I may want to do that later myself.

Being with a woman all night never hurt no professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.

I got players with bad watches - they can't tell midnight from noon.  

We are in such a slump that even the ones that are drinkin' aren't hittin'.

You gotta learn that if you don't get it by midnight, chances are you ain't gonna get it, and if you do, it ain't worth it.

Don't drink in the hotel bar, that's where I do my drinking. (To Whitey Ford)

I came in here and a fella asked me to have a drink. I said I don't drink. Then another fella said hear you and Joe DiMaggio aren't speaking and I said I'll take that drink.

I don't like them fellas who drive in two runs and let in three.

I was not successful as a ball player, as it was a game of skill.

Old timers games, weekends, and airplane landings are alike. If you can walk away from them, they're successful.

If we're going to win the pennant, we've got to start thinking we're not as good as we think we are.

Now there's three things that can happen in a ball game: you can win, you can lose, or it can rain.

Managing is getting paid for home runs that someone else hits.

The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided.

Son, we'd like to keep you around this season but we're going to try and win a pennant.

Nobody knows this but one of us just got traded to Kansas City.

I feel greatly honored to have a ballpark named after me, especially since I've been thrown out of so many.

You got to get twenty-seven outs to win.

Most games are lost, not won.

You gotta lose 'em some of the time. When you do, lose 'em right.

The Yankees don't pay me to win every day, just two out of three.

Without losers, where would the winners be?

You have to go broke three times to learn how to make a living.

There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them.

The trick is growing up without growing old.

This story has been flying around all day.

I've read three different versions of it.

As you might well expect the best, which is to say clearest and easiest to understand comes from NASA.

As always click the drawing to read the entire piece.

Be smarter than your friends.

NASA Announces Results of Epic Space-Time Experiment

 “Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.”

“When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take - choose the bolder.”

“If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good”

 “Either move or be moved.”

 “Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”

“There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and forty-eight.”

 “In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.”

“I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't irascible.”  What I've been saying.

“With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands.”

 “The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.”

“Why fight for a flag when you can buy one for a nickel.”

“Wars are made to make debt.”

“The real trouble with war (modern war) is that it gives no one a chance to kill the right people.”

 “But the one thing you should not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY.”

“The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity.”

From Business Insider, quick, easy and a revelation.

As alway, clicking on the photo will link you to the entire piece.

Way double highly recommended.

That's a very nice suit ..... seriously.

"Nearly everybody I read or talk to is convinced that we're in a new bull market -- a primary bull market which they claim started at the March 2009 low.

If the March 2009 was a bear market low, it was unlike any bear market low that I have ever seen.

Where were the "great values" that always present themselves at a bear market bottom?

Where were the juicy Dow dividend yields that we invariably see at true bear market bottoms.

For instance, back in 1981 the Dow dividend yield was 6.42%.

At the bear market low of 1974 the Dow dividend yield was 6.12%.

In 1940 the Dow dividend was 6.84%.

In the dark year 1931, the Dow dividend yield was 10.78%

Where were the fabulous values in March 2009?

The answer, March 2009 was not a true bear market bottom.

The next great bear market low lies ahead!"

Here's Richard Russell, publisher of the Dow Theory Letters, with yet another take on the Bond Market.

He offers this chart on the 30-Year Treasury Bond with the following comments,

"I've been keeping an eagle eye on the daily chart of the 30-year Treasury bond. As of yesterday, the "long bond" had sunk exactly to its support at around 114. If support breaks, interest rates will be heading dangerously higher. The chart shows a double top (first two red arrows). Then a break to the downside and a formation showing a triple top (second set of three red arrows). As of yesterday's close, the 30-year T-bond was sitting exactly on critical support. If bonds are down today, it won't be pretty.

Friday Alan Greenspan called higher Treasury rates "the canary in the mine" and forecast rising rates. Greenspan is almost always wrong, but this time I agree with the former "Maestro."

Might be just about time to get that 30 year fixed refi, if you're able.

Ok, in the first chart below, we see the ratio of workers to beneficiaries go from 41.9 to 3.3.

Then, in the table further below, we see the tax rate move from 2% to 15.3%.

Hmmmmmmm .............

The Heritage Foundation strikes again.

That sucker dove from 41.9 to about 9 in about half a heartbeat.

From The Tax Foundation

Click anywhere below to link up to the complete chart.

I like to troll through Dr.Mark Perry's blog every week or so.

Dr. Perry is a professor at the University of Michigan, Flint Campus, School of Management.

Here's a nice table that illustrates what might be the single most profound issue with the "Social Security Trust Fund".

We are living a lot longer.

But retiring younger.

Click anywhere in the chart for Mr. Perry's fine blog, "Carpe Diem"

The result?

James Turk founder of GoldMoney.com has created the following spreadsheet.

Mr. Turk also writes and publishes the Freemarket Gold and Money Report.

Click anywhere within the spreadsheet to link to the original article.

Recommended.

The two charts and excepts below link to a brief report from Josh Barro of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research titled,

Two Americas: Public Sector Gains in Recession

The problem:  During the recession, public employees have continued to see strong wage growth, well ahead of the private sector.

From the first quarter of 2007 through the last quarter of 2009, the average value of hourly compensation (wages plus benefits) rose by 9.8 percent for employees of state and local governments, compared to 6.9 percent in the private sector.[2]

After adjusting for inflation, public employees have seen a rise in real hourly income over this period, while private employees have not. 

What should be done? 

The trend in the third quarter—when public-employee compensation was flat—shows that a freeze on public-employee compensation is possible.

States and localities should take the following steps to get employee compensation under control:

Governments should freeze employee compensation at least until public-employee wages have returned to levels matching the private sector trend.

They should take this action when negotiating new public-employee contracts.

In some states, governments may have powers to freeze pay even in the middle of an existing contract.

States should also look at reforming binding arbitration laws that force governments to pay unaffordable wage increases.

Such laws should be repealed or reformed to properly take into account private-sector wage trends and the ability of governments to pay wage increases.

Unfortunately, the trend reverted to form in the fourth quarter, with public-employee compensation again rising faster than private sector pay.

Getting budgets under control will require state and local lawmakers to put taxpayer interests ahead of the interests of public-employee unions.