Last Week's Biggest Sales

slopefarm,

ok let’s take this one by one,
-the myth of the Clinton “surplus” is well deflated by now.
Clinton benefitted from Reagan and Bush I’s tax cutting measures and unprecedented SSI tax revenues. These increased tax revenues were used by the Clinton Administration as intergovernmental holdings(by law, SSI surplus is transferred to the US debt side) making it appear that there was a budget surplus. Look at the treasury website right now and you will notice that not one of the Clinton years shows a decrease in national debt.
-the conclusions of the 9/11 were well publicized and well known. There was a clear effort by Clinton and his cronies to absolve themselves of any guilt. In fact one Sandy Burger, former NSA advisor threw himself on the sword to protect the democratic legacy. Remember he pleaded guilty. In short, the commission findings were that the Clinton administration set up a disasterous wall of information between internal and external intelligence gathering agencies.
-The clinton recession started in January of 2001.
-oh and let’s not forget the Clinton legacy of the 1993 bombing, khobar towers, somalia, tanzania, kenya bombings and the USS cole.

“What kind of example does it set to the rest of the world that we are bending over backwards to accomodate confessed enemies of our nation?
Lack of resolve, in my opinion.”

What kind of example does it send to the rest of the world if we kidnap people and take them to secret undocumented prisons in Eastern Europe? Lack of a moral compass, in my opinion.

Yes, let’s get back a little bit on topic, Guys.

Yes, BHO is correct: if we use gold as the standard, the St. James house did, indeed, lose gold-value. But then, even though houses cost money (and gold costs money to manufacture, to store, to protect, etc.), they’re their own kind of commodity and have a use.

To some extent I can accept the “price of gold” as a standard, but there is only so much gold out there, BHO. There is a heck of a lot more cooper, iron, corn, etc. out there and they might be more “valuable” in certain situations.

For instance, I’d rather have a 10-pound sack of corn rather than a 10-pound gold brick if we’re nearly starving and I have to feed the family. I’d rather have house to live in than the equivalent dollar equivalent in gold unless that gold could be pulled and hammered into a viable shelter (!). When it’s 20-below outside, I’d rather be sitting in my house than sitting next to a big cube of gold the size of a coffee table…no?

🙂

So, yes, yes, your pointing out the Clinton Hill house essentially sold for less than it cost in 2005 if linked to a fluctuating gold-dollar equivalent is understandable. But salaries haven’t been tied to that fluctuation. Food prices (though they’ve gone up) haven’t been tied to that fluctuation…the basic face dollar amounts of all things have gone up, but still, not by 260% since 2005.

Or am I missing something?

So, if the seller of the St. James house receives a taxable profit from the sale, that profit can be carried over to buy a house some place else (i.e., it’s an exchangeable commodity of a sort).

wait, permabull is anyone who questions whether housing prices will decline more or less continuously for the next 64 months or that we will end up at 50% off? I actually don’t have a strong opinion about where the housing market will end up. I do note based on the data that you rely on that the road to 50% is a slow one. That is really all I said. But I think you need to come forth and define what you mean by “permabull,” and then I will gladly tell you whether I am within that definition or not and why.

>>stevieb, I don’t agree with your politics

Miss Muffett, do you mean to say that you agree that the gap between the haves and have not’s is narrowing?