Thursday, October 09, 2008

Artificially Mandated Demand Consequences - Redux

I’ve mentioned the fallacy of artificially mandated, by the state, demand for ethanol previously here, here, here, and here. Today one can additionally read of the consequences of the state’s mandating of ethanol use.

It’s one of the newest buildings in this small agricultural town. Aligned between two city water towers, the 120-foot long biodiesel plant gleams in the sun. The paint on its sign hasn’t even chipped.

But weeds have begun to encroach on the Great River Soy biodiesel plant, which produced just 94,000 gallons over two weeks before it ran out of money and was shuttered.

It’s a scene that has been repeated throughout the United States: Clovis, N.M. Nevada, Mo. Hartsburg, Ill. Lamoni, Iowa. Evansville, Wis. Greybull, Wyo. Rock Port, Mo. Belle Fourche, S.D. All were supposed to have biofuels plants operating or under construction by now. None do.

This week, another ethanol plant, in Pratt, Kan., declared bankruptcy. Prospects for another in San Pierre, Ind., have grown dim.

These consequences are not without humor, though, as can be seen in various so called ethanol industry experts’ comments.  Here’s one Kerry Rose, President of Ozark Ethanol waxing authoritatively eloquent.

"The market just exploded and got so crowded,” said Kerry Rose, the president of Ozark Ethanol, which has abandoned plans for plant near the Kansas border.

Brilliant analysis Kerry Rose.

And here’s David Swenson, a researcher at Iowa State University.

"It was a perfect storm of opportunity for the ethanol industry, and a perfect combination of every single element that they have counted on turning against them,” said David Swenson, a researcher at Iowa State University. “The infrastructure isn’t there and wholesale patriotic demand for ethanol didn’t materialize."

“Wholesale patriotic demand.” Yeah, that’s a real economic force, Mr. Swenson.

State mandated demand of ethanol use is simply an empty bushel presented by the state as if it is full of corn.

Biofuel plants hit economic road block

Posted by John Venlet on 10/09 at 09:13 AM
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Monday, October 06, 2008

Barack Obama - Poster Boy for Cloward-Piven Strategy?

Is Barack Obama, the current golden boy of the Democratic party, and worshipped by millions of voting adherents desiring a more socialist society, a deep cover poster boy for Cloward-Piven Strategy?

Read this article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis, and decide for yourself.

Via No Watermelons Allowed.

Posted by John Venlet on 10/06 at 10:31 AM
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Thursday, October 02, 2008

A U.S. Scam Worthy of Nigerian Email Scammers

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury
Henry Paulson

Via Samizdata who got it here.

Posted by John Venlet on 10/02 at 04:25 AM
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Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Bribe Money, Sop, Subornation

Call it what you will, “sweetners,” “legislating-by-enticement,” “goodies,” or what have you, the state’s, and, despicably, alleged “business” leaders, lobbying for votes for a financial bailout of astronomical proportions is beyond the pale.

Bailout with ‘sweeteners’ heads toward Senate win

Posted by John Venlet on 10/01 at 04:51 PM
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Semantics

Call it what you will.  A bailout or a rescue, they both essentially mean the same thing, though rescue more prescisely defines the state’s role if indeed the state intercedes in the financial markets.  To wit,

a: to take (as a prisoner) forcibly from custody b: to recover (as a prize) by force c: to deliver (as a place under siege) by armed force

The Associated Press is freely utilizing both rescue and bailout.

Bold by ed.

Posted by John Venlet on 10/01 at 06:16 AM
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Sunday, September 28, 2008

Clear Message My Eye

Obfuscation is a high art in the disgraceful realm of political machinations.  The ongoing financial shenanigans are not an exception.

Here is a slight excerpt from a piece purporting to report on an alleged “deal,” conceived by the country’s professional jobholders, which will supposedly miraculously solve the financial difficulties currently afflicting financial markets.

Top U.S. policymakers emerged from hours of tense negotiations with a clear message just after midnight on Sunday morning:...

And what is this “clear message?"

A deal to bail out U.S. financial markets has been agreed on and all that remains to be done is to commit the legislation to paper.

This is not a clear mesage in any way, shape or form.  Until such a “deal” has been put down on paper, with i’s dotted and t’s crossed, it remains simply verbal spewings meant to soothe, and is hearsay.

Lawmakers Reach Tentative Bailout Deal

Posted by John Venlet on 09/28 at 08:22 AM
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Nuanced View, I Guess

Though I consider both sex offenders, as defined by the law, and sheep sodimizers as equally reprehensible, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled that a sheep sodimizer is not a sex offender.

A Calhoun County man who sodomized a sheep will not have to register as a sex offender because the sheep cannot be considered a victim of sexual assault under Michigan law, a court ruled this week.

The sheep sodimizer, one Jeffrey Scott Haynes, I presume, is grateful not to be labeled as a sex offender and to be free of the onerous registration requirements of a sex offender.  Presumably, Mr. Haynes does not feel encumbered by being labeled as a sheep sodimizer.

Go figure.

Judges: Sheep sex doesn’t make man a sex offender

Posted by John Venlet on 09/28 at 06:39 AM
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Friday, September 19, 2008

Who Wants Candy? I Do! I Do!

As the nationalization of the financial services industry heedlessly stampedes onward, crushing not only the living but also those yet unborn, courtesy of years of foolishness when subprime lending was peddled as sound investment strategy, certain activities, in this case short selling of financial stocks, are deemed by the state as counterproductive to the nationalization effort.

Unfortunately, the state, in its all knowing strangling benevolence, has not curtailed the short selling of all financial stocks and now the rest of the children want in to.

Amex, GE and others may seek to be on short-seller ban list

Who wants candy?  I do!  I do!

Posted by John Venlet on 09/19 at 01:51 PM
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The American Devolution

America, led by professional jobholders such as Joe Biden et al, has turned its back on its historic roots of independence.

When individuals such as Biden have the audacity to stand up and proclaim

”...that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans...,"

and more voices applaud such a statement, rather than condemn it, total subugation of “we the people” is not too distant in the future.

Biden calls paying higher taxes a patriotic act

Posted by John Venlet on 09/19 at 05:44 AM
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Thursday, August 07, 2008

"Researchers discover why some smokers addicted with first cigarette"

The title to this post is a headline from the “London Free Press."

Upon reading this headline, I immediately thought of the following quote from the ""Introduction" to the Original “Junk” Manuscript" written by William S. Burroughs.

2. A drug habit is formed instantly, on first use, or at most, after three or four shots.  From this notion derive the stories of people becoming addicts after using a few “headache pills” given them by the Sympathetic Stranger...

And then I laughed.

William S. Burroughs, Junky, 50th Anniversary Definitive Addition, Edited and with an Introduction by Oliver Harris, Appendix 2, “Introduction” to the Original “Junk” Manuscript, pg. 141

Posted by John Venlet on 08/07 at 06:58 AM
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Obama Wama Ding Dong Ditch

Why did it take so long for Obama’s lustre to finally become like eating too much cotton candy?  I had way too much of Obama already back in October 2006, when Richard Cohen was just getting off on the Obama koolaid, and noted this in a post titled Obama Wama Ding Dong.

Now, surveys show, “Family Feud” style, individuals are evidently suffering from too much Obama, as the Google search link “too much obama” illustrates.

So Obama is off to the Hawaiian islands for a week of vacation, where just maybe the sun can outshine him.  It will be interesting to see if the “unbiased” press will paparazzi him, Britney Spears style, or ignore him, so the public will once again clammer for a fix.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/07 at 04:10 AM
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Monday, August 04, 2008

Heads in the Sand

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn has died, and this fact does not even rate a mention on the Drudge Report. Mentions of this giant’s death of course are being published, but they are simply platitudinous yawnings for consumption of ignorant masses who appear to hunger for the repression Solzhenitsyn lived through, and condemned in his writings, to be resurrected and made real, in a new and improved 21st century manner.

Rest in peace, Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, and thank you for all you have opened my eyes to.

Posted by John Venlet on 08/04 at 05:37 AM
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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Economic Stupidity

While economic stupidity is not the sole provenance of the professional jobholders in the State of Michigan, based on my state’s economic condition, they are at the head of the class nationally.

The most recent example of the State of Michigan’s economic stupidity is exemplified by the professional jobholders supposed solution to a forecasted drop in tourism for the coming season.  The projected downturn in tourism has been predicted due to the following.

Michigan’s unemployment rate, 7.2 percent in February, was the nation’s highest…

The housing crisis has hit Michigan harder than many states, which will cause some consumers to cut back on travel. And gasoline prices are relatively high, a factor in travel prices that are projected to be about 3 percent to 4 percent higher this year.

The tough economic times likely will lead to reduced travel as people cut back on discretionary spending, the report said.

So what does the State of Michigan propose to boost tourism?

The state may attempt to counteract some of the economy’s negative effects on tourism through more advertising.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm has proposed increasing funding for business and tourism marketing by $60 million over two years. Current funding is about $15 million per year after an increase in 2006.

Spending tax dollars, money filched from every Michigan individuals’ pocket, on advertising the State of Michigan as a tourist destination is NOT a solution.  If the State of Michigan professional jobholders actually wanted to increase the possibility of individuals traveling to Michigan, instead of spending filched money on advertising, they should eliminate the state’s gasoline tax so the individuals they propose to advertise to could instead afford to get in their cars and drive to the Great Lakes State.

Report: Michigan Tourism to Decline

Posted by John Venlet on 04/16 at 06:25 AM
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Subprime Wholesaler Tells All?

It appears that I am not the only individual who has been writing about the subprime lending industry follies from the inside.  An individual by the name of Richard Bitner has self-published a book titled Greed, Fraud & Ignorance: A Subprime Insider’s Look at the Mortgage Collapse.

Bitner was a partner in a subprime mortgage wholesale company, and, while I have not read his entire book, and do not own it (even at a used price at Amazon they want $19.95), I have read Chapter 1, which you can also read here (see link at this site for pdf format download).

I stumbled upon news of Bitner’s book via The Dallas Morning News.

Maybe individuals who are reading Bitner’s words on this subject, will be interested in reading my input which begins here in 14 parts.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/16 at 05:47 AM
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Stripped Bare - Beneath the Feel Good Veneer of Subprime Lending

Chapter 14 - Full Disclosure

As I mentioned when I first started posting this series on subprime lending, I first got into the mortgage business in 1987.  The corporation I began with was a small, four (4) man mortgage broker shop, writing strictly “A” paper, prime, mortgage loans.  In 1989, I became a partner in this closely held corporation, and we grew the company into a full FNMA/FHLMC seller/servicer.  Meaning, instead of selling our loans off to larger lenders, brokering, we now held our loans and our customers made their monthly house payments to our corporation.  Additionally, we created a wholesale lending division wherein we marketed our corporation to mortgage brokers who now sold their loans to our company, we also serviced these mortgage loans.

I sold my interest in this corporation in January 1995.  At that time we had over one-hundred and twenty (120) employees and sales of just under one billion.  It was a profitable venture.

After selling my interest in this company, I originated loans for a short period of time for a smaller mortgage lender which folded not long afterward.

Upon the closing of the previously mentioned shop, in 1997 I marketed my mortgage talents to an individual with no mortgage experience who desired to startup a new mortgage broker business, on a contract basis.  I remained with this small broker for two and one-half years.  The first full year with this company was dismal, but in the last year we had sales of forty-one (41) million.  It was when I was with this company that I first originated and closed a subprime loan.

After this venture, I spent the years of 2001 through 2003 in the banking software industry.

In 2004, I joined Countrywide’s Full Spectrum Lending Division, Countrywide’s subprime lending behemoth.  I initially filled the position of assistant branch manager for this organization, and six months later I was made branch manager.  It was while with this national company that I saw just how deep the rabbit hole went in subprime lending.  Though I was initially impressed with Countrywide’s ethical statements regarding lending to subprime borrowers, I soon formed the opinion that this was mere window dressing.  I did not mesh well with this organization.  I attempted to have my staff facilitate prudent subprime lending, i.e. making my people correct bad debt issues which the company’s underwriting guidelines stated did not need correction, not pushing borrowers’ debt income ratios, etcetera.  Because this conflicted with the company’s volume goals, I was asked to resign in mid 2006.  Which I did.

I still think subprime lending could be a viable and profitable business concern, if done ethically, and with sound underwriting.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/15 at 08:20 AM
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