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Schwab foreign usually requires a phone call to the trading desk. Last time I checked if you spent $5K or more they would route the order directly to the foreign exchange. If it was less than $5K they would place it with the pink sheet symbol. This was for an Australian stock much touted on VMC which I am glad to have not bought at this point! Commission were a lot higher than your standard US based trade.
For some Canadian stocks you can purchase direct through the website, I however did not investigate it. Call the Foreign desk and they can walk you through all of this. 800.992.4685
dtt
Auto company plan of buying the float lacks a bit or reality. How exactly would you buy the float? Thousands if not hundreds of thousands of stockholders exist with various costs in the stock, mostly at much higher prices? What are you going to do, force them to sell at a major loss to the government?
Back to the drawing board - sorry!
Don't understand your logic - buying a Toyota helps what exactly?
I intend to drive my 98 Bmw for at least another 5 years and then give it to my son, if I can teach him to drive a stick. At that point I doubt if American car companies will exist without being owned by Toyota or ???
Careless proofreading ... they just take the prior Word document and change the numbers... obviously someone forgot to deal with the increase/decrease terminology.
Skeleton crew, lack of funds - still banging my head against the wall for not dumping it all back in the 80's, 70's, etc.
Someday a player will come along and pump it once more, Barchenko is useless.
You may be one of the early signs of capitulation - think about it!
Little angry about what?
LOL
go ahead and delete you own stupid post, spare us all - please get a life.
11/4/08 1:15 pm
OT
I would have guessed,
weird and talented
odd and no talent
weird, odd, talented & a drummer (favorite instrument)
and then George who was talented, gracious, a man of the world. Great songwriter.
Peace, love - groovy!
Nobody has any idea how to fix the problems and they will continue to throw $$$$ at it until it works.
Our current leaders can start handing off the problem next Wednesday to the transition team. Unless hanging chads are still hanging.
Currently investing for a three year time frame under the assumption that things will be better by then unless they are a lot worse. In which case having a lot of cash would not mean all that much. Can't expect to pick a bottom like last time as Brinker is no longer "The Man".
From 2003-2006/7 it worked well for me . . .
Why so negative? There is a long put off industry of alternative energy that should have been fired up in the 70's. The oil lobby effectively squashed that. Think of all the new jobs waiting for us to lead the world in new energy. If we wait much longer the rest of the world will take it on and leave us nothing.
Drill baby drill insures the end of US.
Many will make $$$ in the stock market choosing the right stocks, hopefully not Chinese ones.
dtt
lf,
Great post, perhaps one of the best posts I have read in a long time.
dtt
What is your solution?
Too many posters on IHUB criticize all day long about the candidates and the politicians, rarely has anyone offered a coherent solution to any of the problems.
All we read is doom/gloom scenarios.
Len OT (as if we have a topic)
Ah, one of my favorite subjects. You failed to mention if John Doe & Leroy Dipthong are in the same division, team, etc. Are they facing the same pitchers, teams, etc. How many games have they played? What is the sample size? Did either one of them spend some time on the DL or were they playing hurt? Did one of them play more night games? Is one of them a DH?
It is but one part of the puzzle. A stat guy who looks at the numbers and never saw the players actually play would be at a major loss for the truth.
This has nothing to do with the subject - but it is a ROTFL moment, at least for me.
The October 2008 edition of Bob Brinker's Marketimer is now available for subscriber access at http://www.bobbrinker.com
That should be an interesting read.
LOL
Fire Ants: From my 3 year prison term in Florida I can tell you that you spend a few hundred dollars and throw down the Ant killer & the stuff they carry back to the nest with them. All that happens is that they move to the neighbors lawn until the neighbor spreads the poison and then they come back to your property. The ones that only get a whiff of the poison seem to develop an immunity to it and eventually it does not work at all. Meanwhile the poison seeps into the water table and your kids start to glow red and make you itch, especially if they bite you.
I got attacked by ants my fist summer in Florida and while I was jumping around like a lunatic from the pain of the bites, I was set upon by the property owners dog who thought that I was surely a mad man. Things calmed down somewhat when the homeowner started dousing me with bleach to supposedly calm the pain of the bites. I should have packed up the family that night and caught a plane somewhere else.
Hurricanes, fire ants, and more - glad to be long gone!
DTT
"It was a minority of intelligent and fair and thoughtful people that founded our country."
LOL - slave ownership among their many fair "traits"
WASHINGTON — An enormous, taxpayer-financed program to buy up bad mortgages and other distressed debt is necessary to protect the savings and aspirations of millions of Americans, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said on Friday.
-----
Amazing transfer of wealth once again. The tax cuts of the last 8 years benefit the upper tier of income earners. Those same greedy pigs screwed up big time and now the rest of us go on the hook and will be covering the screw ups.
Why not require all the CEO's and employees who earned over $50K per year to give back all the salary and options & profits they took in creating this mess. Maybe next time they won't be so anxious to do it again if they know they will be disgorging the profits.
So we have to give them money so they can turn around and lend it back to us at higher rates so we can send our kids to college at ever increasing rates of inflation.
I am tired of bailing out the crooks. If they keep this up I fear I might start sounding like ....
msgi, my wife wants a mini clubman - and nobody is giving those away. waiting list and overpriced imo.
i told her to keep driving what she has. i drive so little now that i can drive my car for many more years (i hope).
i figure i will wait for Lentiman to sell his car to me. LOL
Len - Brinker - thanks for the info.. it is the same old story with him. As you said Dollar cost averaging is the mantra for timers who have been wrong for a long period of time.
Cash is burning a hole in my pocket, I figure I will just have to buy a new pair of pants for the time being.
DTT
Brinker: I don't follow him anymore, nor do I subscribe. Just curious if anyone knows what his special bulletin said yesterday to his subscribers (sheep)? Did he tell them to buy buy buy??
Thanks
Len, is blood starting to trickle into the street? or is that just a drop of red sauce?
"New York Allows Big Insurer to Borrow From Itself"
- Hey I have done that myself. Trouble is that I decided after a time not to pay myself back.
It can be troublesome.
Looks like they finally dumped Winning IR (losing IR) for a real firm
CCG Investor Relations, Inc
Mr. Crocker Coulson, President
Phone: +1-646-213-1915 (New York)
E-mail: crocker.coulson@ccgir.com
http://www.ccgir.com/
Added some shares today as I refused to buy more with the prior IR firm representing them.
I hope that we don't retrace all the way back as Japan has done.
See this blog for a hopeful & not so hopeful slant.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct06/japan-bubble.html
It's Only Going to Get Worse
By Lawrence B. Lindsey
Posted: Monday, June 9, 2008
ON THE ISSUES
AEI Online
Publication Date: June 9, 2008
On the IssuesDownload file This document is available here as an Adobe Acrobat PDF.
A version of this article appeared in The Weekly Standard on June 9, 2008.
June 2008
The housing market crash is far from over, says Lawrence B. Lindsey, and its ending is hard to predict because so many of its features are unique. A dose of modesty about what is ahead is called for in this situation. Lindsey sketches what parts of the solution may look like and says that policymakers need to remain flexible about actions that may be needed to augment the normal functioning of the market.
America has not had a nationwide housing crash since the 1930s. At one point during that calamity, an estimated 60 percent of all mortgages were in technical default. The rather primitive housing credit system of the time, which relied on five-year balloon mortgages, certainly exacerbated the problem, but the bulk of the problem was related to the general economic downturn. There have been some regional housing crashes that were short and relatively mild, most notably in California, Texas, and New England in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of those were caused by declines in key local industries: oil in Texas, aerospace and defense in Southern California and Massachusetts.
The current downturn, by contrast, is due almost exclusively to a change in the housing credit cycle from excessively easy to modestly restrictive. Housing turned down before the economy, and even now, nearly eighteen months into the housing recession, the national unemployment rate is still at what economists consider full employment. That is unlikely to last as credit problems spread into the consumer sector, layoffs spread, and the resulting rise in unemployment makes the consumer credit situation still worse.
It is the uniqueness of the current housing crash that adds to its intractability. Policymakers have not been here before, so they are not certain of the way out. Many of the institutions that underpin the industry are relatively new--actually created since the last downturn in the early 1990s--and untested. We also know that many of those institutions were far from transparent, and some were fraudulent. As a result, everyone needs to be suitably modest about predicting how the housing crash will end and remain flexible about the policy actions that may be needed to augment the normal functioning of the market. Some basic facts about supply and demand offer a good, if sobering, place to start.
Some Facts about the Housing Market
There are 129 million housing units in the United States, comprising owner-occupied, rented, and vacant units. Of these, 18.5 million are empty. This vacancy rate is 2.5 percentage points higher than it has been at any point in the half century the data have been tracked, translating into at least 3 million too many empty housing units in the country. This number, moreover, is rising. This is the most intractable part of the real estate bubble, for we cannot find a true bottom to home prices until this inventory of empty units starts to clear, and we cannot find a bottom to the mortgage finance market until home prices bottom out.
The worst type of inventory is an empty house, which people in the industry like to say has about the same half-life as a head of cabbage. As the former chairman of the Neighborhood Investment Corporation, I have seen the damage done to neighborhoods by vacant homes. They are never maintained adequately, depress surrounding property values, and can quickly become temporary retail space for drug lords and a playground for juvenile delinquents. They are also the homes whose owners have the least incentive, and usually the least ability, to service the mortgage or pay the property taxes. So whittling down the inventory of empty houses should be the first economic, social, financial, and political objective.
The math of the housing market is fairly clear. Each year, roughly half a million homes are destroyed to make better use of the land on which they sit. Population growth also helps whittle down inventory. The household formation years--ages 25 to 34--have 39.5 million people in them forming 19 million households, a group that creates demand for 1.8 to 1.9 million units each year. On the other hand, households pass from the scene later in life, and the homes they used to live in go onto the market. There are 11.6 million households of 65- to 74-year-olds and 9 million households of 75- to 84-year-olds. Their departure increases supply by around 1.1 million units per year. On net, therefore, demographic realities add about 850,000 units to demand on top of the half-million homes that are destroyed and removed from supply.
The home building industry is in a deep recession, with additional yearly new home supply cut in half since 2006. But homebuilders are still adding nearly a million units per year. The math is simple: build a million, tear down half a million, form 850,000 households, and the country only whittles down its excess inventory by 350,000 units per year. This is one reason to expect a further drop in new home construction, but it will still take years to get our housing inventory back to normal. The economic, social, and financial damage over that time could be staggering.
Washington to the Rescue?
Faced with this situation, politicians are rushing to do something, anything, about the problem. One of the first efforts was to provide relief--$25 billion over the next two years--to the homebuilding industry in the form of "net loss carryback" tax provisions. (Note that if the real problem is a glut of vacant housing on the market, one of the least helpful things Congress could do would be to keep the homebuilders in business so they could increase supply still further.)
But most legislative activity merely ignores the vacant home problem rather than making it worse. Congressmen do not want to appear to be helping speculators, liars, or cheats. The trouble is, a good part of the problem was caused by people who might be considered speculators, liars, and cheats. Speculators by definition bought vacant properties in the hope of "flipping" them for a higher price. A vacant home is therefore a good sign of speculative activity. Moreover, some studies of foreclosed homes indicate that a majority of the foreclosures involved misrepresentations by the borrower. The most typical misrepresentation was that the borrower intended to live in the property; an owner-occupied property generally receives a lower interest rate than one that will be rented out.
The case of Representative Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) illustrates a number of these problems. According to reporting by Capitol Weekly ("The Newspaper of California Government and Politics"), the Wall Street Journal's online edition, and DailyBreeze.com, Richardson was delinquent on three personal home mortgages. Her Sacramento home was recently sold at auction, and as of May 23, foreclosure was pending on a home in San Pedro. A home in Long Beach went into default on March 28--no payment had been made since November--but Richardson "was able to bring her payments up to date." Her lender on the Sacramento mortgage, Washington Mutual, lost some $200,000, and the home's buyer agreed to pay the $9,000 in property taxes she had in arrears on the property. On the San Pedro house, she owed $367,436 on a $359,000 loan made in 2005 and had not made a payment since last June. The Long Beach home was the collateral for a $100,000 loan she in turn lent to her campaign for a state assembly seat in 2006, and though she raised enough to pay herself (and presumably the bank) back, she plowed that money into her 2007 race for Congress.
Richardson's situation--while unusual in that she changed jobs and cities three times in a short space of time--highlights a number of the problems Congress must wrestle with. She had three vacant homes, and news reports of neighbor complaints suggest they were not being kept up and taxes were not being paid. Reportedly, one home loan was used for "consumption"--political campaigns--that involved no improvement in the value of the collateral, a bit like taking out a home equity loan for a trip to Vegas. The home values declined drastically--27 percent over 17 months in the case of the Sacramento home, whose ultimate buyer was a speculator. Until recently, congressional action and most press coverage of the housing market have adopted the premise that innocent home buyers are struggling to meet payments so as to stay in the family home. But on a scale of one to ten, where one represents a person victimized by an unscrupulous lender and ten is the delinquent owner of three vacant homes, most people defaulting on a mortgage fall in the range of five to eight.
The best-thought-out bill in Washington is sponsored by Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. He is intellectually honest and one of the few chairmen who puts his bills out in the light of day for people to evaluate before he jams them through. Under Frank's proposal, participating mortgage holders would have to write down the value of their loans to 10 percent below current market value and pay a 5 percent fee. With home prices already off 20 percent in troubled areas, this would mean writing off a third of the original mortgage, assuming the 94 percent loan-to-value ratio typical for first-time home buyers in 2006. In return, the homeowner would receive a government-backed FHA loan--ideally at a low enough rate that they could afford to stay in the home. And, of course, vacant homes would not qualify.
Lenders and borrowers willing to take the Frank option would have to fit in a fairly thin slice of the market in which home prices have already stabilized so borrowers do not expect to go underwater again but have not declined so much as to have already wiped out most of the value of the mortgage. Note that the bill would require a reappraisal in the midst of a plummeting housing market. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that this plan would help five hundred thousand people over four years. But by the time the plan took effect, we would likely have had an additional 2 million foreclosures beyond what would be expected in normal times. The most valid criticism of the Frank plan is that by itself it would not put a bottom in the housing market. Frank admits as much, saying he wants to slow the pace at which home prices are falling, not impede the adjustment.
But politics being what it is, opponents of the Frank bill have cried "bailout." His plan is estimated to cost $1.7 billion, which in Washington is a rounding error as "bailouts" go. Consider for example the Senate's overwhelming support for a $25 billion bailout for homebuilders or the fact that a majority of House Republicans joined with Democrats to override President Bush's veto of the most pork-laden farm bill in history, as did all but fourteen Republican senators. That legislation contained such high national priorities as $170 million for accelerated depreciation of race horses, the pro rata equivalent of stopping fifty thousand foreclosures under the Frank plan. Frank's bill is narrowly targeted to avoid the political and moral problems involved in bailing out the undeserving. It is hardly a bailout. But that is also what makes it far from a panacea for the housing problem.
Back to the Market
If Congress is therefore unlikely to "solve" the problem any time soon, that leaves the market, and it must deal with three simultaneous and interrelated excesses: homebuilders made too many houses, prices rose too high, and credit standards dropped too low. Each is unraveling at its own pace. As noted, homebuilders have cut new construction in half, but that is still probably not enough. The credit markets reacted fastest and with devastating effect. The Federal Reserve had to take a series of extraordinary measures to keep the financial system afloat during the credit tightening. A full 40 percent of the mortgage market has disappeared since August, and most of this will not come back in the new era of higher down payments and real credit scoring.
Markets correct huge inventory overhangs and declines in demand due to the scarcity of credit by lowering prices. Home prices are correcting, though more slowly than the credit market shrank. Prices are down over 14 percent in aggregate since their peak in 2006--having adjusted in a year and a half as much as liquid markets might in a month. The pace of decline, about a 30 percent annual rate in recent months, is still accelerating. The California Association of Realtors reports that the median price fell that much in just the last year. Futures markets are predicting that home prices will fall over 30 percent in aggregate on a national basis, with 70 percent of the drop happening by year's end. I personally think the decline will be less, but just as 2007 was the year that mortgage credit dried up, 2008 will be the year that home prices plummet.
Just a 20 percent decline in home prices would place a quarter of mortgages under water, and a 30 percent decline still more. The great uncertainty is how homeowners will respond: do they walk away from an asset that is worth less than what they owe on it? The foreclosure prevention activity by Congress and a somewhat different approach proposed by Harvard's Martin Feldstein are designed to keep as many people in their homes as possible, despite the lower prices.
But prices must still decline to clear the excess inventory. Private sector players must be induced to hold more housing than they currently do, and that can only happen at lower prices. This can take the form of more second home purchases or investment in rental property. The latter only makes sense if the price is lower because with more units around, the property is likely to be vacant more of the time. Finally, price declines can convince speculators--those politically dreaded beings--into buying houses in the expectation that prices will recover in the future. Recall that a 27 percent price decline induced one such speculator to buy Representative Richardson's foreclosed Sacramento home.
The problem with this is that the wealth loss to the household sector and to the financial services industry would be huge. A 30 percent drop in prices would shrink household assets by about $6.5 trillion. Under normal economic rules of thumb, that would permanently lower household spending by $200-300 billion, or between
1.5 and 2 percent of GDP--not enough for a recession by itself, but the collateral damage to the financial system would likely be sufficient to induce a downturn similar to those in the 1970s and early 1980s.
More Exotic Buyers
Optimists hope that new types of buyers will emerge, with three types leading the pack: foreigners, inflation hedgers, and the government itself. Some have said that laxer immigration laws are the way to absorb excess houses under the theory that immigrants need homes. In its popular version, this view is actually quite naive. It is harder to imagine an easier immigration situation than the one that existed in the past few years, with its negligible enforcement. But what one might call "volume" immigrants are not the answer. They are here to make money and save it and crowd themselves into housing, making them poor absorbers of excess homes. Moreover, many of them worked in the home construction, remodeling, and maintenance industries and are now unemployed and leaving the country. Opening the borders further to this type of immigrant is not only politically problematic, but also runs counter to current economic reality.
By contrast, "targeted" immigration might just do the trick. Imagine a hypothetical immigration program that gave a provisional green card to anyone who invested at least $10 million in residential property and held it five years. To stop them from buying just their own expensive Upper East Side apartments, one might cap the value in each property toward the quota at $1 million.
A mere one hundred thousand people signing up would not only pump a minimum of $1 trillion into the housing industry, they would also absorb at least one-third of the current excess inventory. Trouble is, such high-end immigration is just the type that a Democratic Congress finds most objectionable ideologically.
But foreigners might also be part of the solution thanks to the falling dollar. Not only are house prices likely to be down significantly from their peak, but so is the dollar. The cumulative decline in, say, condominiums in Florida or Las Vegas is at least 50 percent to a European, Japanese, or British buyer. So even without legislation to encourage them, foreigners are likely to provide some of the solution to the housing overhang.
Inflation hedgers are another potential source of demand. They are speculators who are willing to bet that borrowing at low, fixed, long-term interest rates on real property that will in the long run grow with inflation may be a good investment. True, Federal Reserve governors are correctly expressing their concern about gathering signs of inflation. But it is certainly not out of the question that the political, economic, and banking system pressures might induce the Fed to follow a more inflationary path. The Fed's first job is to preserve the banking system, and a 30 percent national home price decline would certainly prompt it to take action. This would cost money, which the Fed can create, albeit with a risk of further inflation. Now is probably not the moment to place that bet, but if home prices continue to decline at their current rate, late this year or early next year might be.
Finally, there is the government itself. During the last real estate collapse in the early 1990s, the government was forced to acquire a large amount of property as it worked to rescue the financial system. The chances are reasonable that at some point late in 2009 a similar approach might be adopted. The last time around it was called the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC). It was, as one would expect from government, far from surgical in its approach. A lot of investors, bankers, and property holders probably lost more than they deserved to in the process. But it got the job done. It is the ultimate last resort, using the balance sheet of Uncle Sam to save the housing market. If nothing else works, a new RTC is in the cards, and those who think Barney Frank's bill is a "bailout" will be shocked by its size.
The housing market crash is far from over, and its ramifications will be with us for some time. The combination of excessively easy credit, a rapid run up in prices, and overbuilding set the stage for the current mess. Prices must fall to correct oversupply, and that, in turn, will further adversely affect both consumer confidence and financial solvency. The unique nature of the problem makes a precise ending hard to predict. But it seems likely that some combination of speculative buying, inflation, and purchases by both foreigners and government entities will correct the situation. Now is not the time for ideology, of either the left-wing variety (soak the rich, punish speculators, and conduct a witch hunt through the financial community) or the right-wing variety (stave off government involvement of any form). Pragmatism is a conservative virtue. It is time for everyone to start practicing it.
Lawrence B. Lindsey is a visiting scholar at AEI.
OT C T B G
Seems like you skipped the transfer agent in this process. They would be a key in the chain of events and the smallest and easiest player to go after for a solution.
When I have had transfer issue problems I would find the talkative one at the transfer agent and then go back to Schwab with the facts. If you don't have a local Schwab office contact person you should develop that relationship for the future as they can guide you through the maze.
Apparently he was off course - that's his story anyway. LOL
Today's news - I predict McCain will be blaming Obama for the LA Earthquake!
Important events going on all the time. Normally I like dogs, but in this case those little dogs can really hurt a fella. LOL
Nude Sunbather Attacks Man With Baton, Police Say
Naked Suspect Accused Of Hitting Chihuahuas With Stick
PORTLAND, Ore. -- A naked sunbather used a collapsible baton to attack a man on a clothing-optional beach east of Portland last week, police said.
State troopers said Donald Kenney, 74, of Vancouver, Wash., had been sunbathing at Rooster Rock State Park when two Chihuahua dogs ran up to him.
The dogs' owner, who had just landed on shore in a raft, said Kenney began hitting the dogs with a stick.
Kenney is accused of walking toward the rafter and four children who were with him, and holding up a can of Mace.
The rafter backed up, causing him to fall backward. Kenney then struck the victim in the head, torso and leg with a collapsible baton, authorities said. After the alleged attack, which police said happened Thursday, Kenney walked away.
The victim later gave police a license plate number of a car belonging to Kenney. Officers arrested him Friday and booked him into the Multnomah County Jail on charges of assault and menacing.
Police said the victim had initially thought he was several hundred feet away from the clothing-optional area of Rooster Rock park. He was with three girls and one boy, ages 7 through 10.
The identity of the victim is unknown, but police said he's a 45-year-old man from southeast Portland. His injuries weren't life-threatening.
Rooster Rock State Park is located in the Columbia River Gorge.
"Anyone stupid enough to believe a single syllable out of these hucksters deserves what they get!"
Even if we the non-stupid don't believe, we still suffer the consequences of those liars, hucksters, etc. The continue as we have been doing group will make a strong effort this year to keep on keeping on!
Good luck
Peeker, You would be amazed at the options available to those with big bucks to protect.
Basically the tax system is unfair and skewed to those with money, so if you are coming into $10 million and seeking counsel with those used to dealing with $100K's you are missing the potential savings that really add up. The average CPA/lawyer is not usually well versed in these matters.
I will email you a name of a tax lawyer.
No wonder EKCS can't get funding of military contracts!
Anti-terror money sought for luxury
But the Air Force has run into congressional objections to its 'comfort capsules,' designed for top brass.
By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post
July 18, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The top Air Force leadership sought for three years to spend counter-terrorism money on "comfort capsules" for military planes to ease the travel of senior officers and civilian leaders -- with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs -- according to internal e-mails and budget documents.
Production has begun for the first capsule -- two sealed rooms that can fit in the fuselage of a large aircraft -- and four mobile pallets containing plush, swiveling leather chairs with footrests.
Air Force officials say the new capsules are necessary to ensure that leaders can talk, work and rest comfortably in the air. But the top brass' preoccupation has alienated lower-ranking Air Force officers familiar with the effort, as well as congressional staff and a nonprofit group that calls the program a waste of money.
Air Force documents spell out how each capsule is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table and a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers.
The effort has been slowed by congressional resistance to using counter-terrorism funds for the project and by internal deliberations about generals' demands for modifications.
One request was that the leather for the seats and seat belts in the mobile pallets be Air Force blue instead of brown and that seat pockets be added. Another was that the table be darker.
Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240.
In all, for the last three years the service has asked to divert $16.2 million from the war on terrorism to the capsules. Congress has twice told the service no, including in an August 2007 letter from Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to the Pentagon ordering that the money be spent on a "higher priority" need.
Officials say the Air Force nonetheless decided last year to take $331,000 from counter-terrorism funds to cover a cost overrun, partly stemming from the design changes, although a senior officer said in response to inquiries that it would reverse that decision.
The internal Air Force e-mails, provided to the Washington Post by the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight and independently authenticated, make clear that lower-ranking officers on the project have been pressured to create what one described as "world-class" accommodations finer than a business-class flight.
"I was asked by Gen. [Robert H.] McMahon what it would take to make the [capsule] . . . a 'world-class' piece of equipment," an officer at the service's Air Mobility Command said in a March 2007 e-mail to a colleague, referring to the command's top officer then. "He said he wanted an assurance . . . that we would be getting a world-class item this week."
Air Force officials say the program dates from a 2006 declaration by Air Force Gen. Duncan McNabb that existing seats on transport planes, including some that match those on commercial airliners, might be fine for airmen but were inadequate for the brass. McNabb was then the Air Mobility commander; he is now the Air Force's vice chief of staff. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates nominated him in June to lead the military's Transportation Command.
Explaining his instructions to subordinates, McMahon said he used the term "world-class" "in just about everything I discuss. . . . That represents an attitude." He said he wanted to "create an environment" that passengers "would be proud of," the government would be proud of and "the people of the United States" would be proud of.
Construction of what the Air Force initially termed the new Senior Leader Intransit Comfort Capsules began under a contract paid from general Air Force funds. One of the 18-by-9-foot capsules has been partly completed.
McMahon said the program has recently been downsized from 10 capsules to three, plus the four pallets fitted with swiveling leather chairs, known as Senior Leader Intransit Pallets.
Because of the cutback in the number of capsules and pallets, the program is currently estimated to cost $7.6 million.
Len - don't take my word http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/Deposits/insured/basics.html as the government is more reliable. LOL
I could argue that as the trustee of a revocable trust the $500K is all mine until I die, therefore it is one person. You can revoke the trust at any time. The kids would only be placeholders until that time that they pulled the plug on me.
But I won't argue.
ps- things are so bleak I actually bought something from Walmart.com
If this is a real company, it sure is being given away for almost nothing. If I was a buyer of stocks I would be buying.
Can't imagine buying anything at the moment.
Len: FDIC insurance is no longer limited to $100K per account in several instances. For example an IRA account is $250K. A revocable trust also gets the $100K for each named beneficiary of the trust on top of the owners $100K. So if I had $500K in my trust and 4 kids named, we would be covered for $500K.
I can't even begin to tell you how many times I had to prove that to banking officers by showing them the FDIC website.
HOWEVER I am afraid your last point about running out of money is starting to look somewhat plausible. YIKES
I have my boots on to protect me from the blood in the streets.
It's election time. They will do what they feel is needed to buy votes.
"Here is a novel idea... Send everybody a check that is not late with their mortgage payment or that has has paid their mortgage in full as an incentive for doing the right thing and being responsible. Reward those that are not contributing to the problem and use that as an example for others to get their act together."
Let's not do your novel idea. Stop paying people with other peoples money. Paying off your own mortgage is reward enough. Having a stable home that you can afford is a good thing, I don't need to contribute to that. Those that will not do the right thing are paying no attention to the example set by others as they are too busy trying to make ends meet or don't give a rats arse.
OT BRINKER: After 10 years of being a subscriber my annual sub runs out this month. Brinker has been sticking to his wrong timing model and for the past year plus I have pretty much ignored him.
No more Brinker updates from me. Switched to Growth Fund Guide for a one year spin.
Cash has been good this year!
swtx - hweb : "The company cannot assess the impact at this time" - What would they PR?
8K filed 7/1/08 - they don't know what it means, I sure don't.
Item 8.01 Other Events
In September 1995, Pilkington filed a patent application in Germany for XIR film characteristics. Southwall challenged the patent. This patent was revoked by the German Patent Court on April 20, 2004. A separate patent application had been filed by Pilkington in the European Patent Office on September 13, 1996, and a patent was granted. A separate opposition has been filed by southwall; however, the European Patent Office did not allow the opposition and maintained the patent. The Company cannot assess the impact at this time.
What does Arnold know? Did he do an action picture where he played an economist? Don't think it matters what he says as he is no Dirty Harry!
dtt
BBWPF, too much effort for me through Schwab. They told me that under $5,000 in principal amount is automatically done as pink sheet trade, over $5K is routed to Australian exchange with the additional fees. However they told me the price per share would be better when done directly. There were some other factors as well but I tuned out by then.
I buy American.