When a Billionaire Has Fallen and Can’t Get Up
I hate to point out a silver lining in the housing collapse that’s fucked over so many millions of Americans. But Goddamn it, this just Feeels Sooo Fuckin’ Gooood.
The biggest real estate deal in American history has collapsed. Now I don’t care if a few filthy rich people find a way to make even more money and get even richer. But this particular scam — even though it was perfectly legal — would have made billions of dollars at the expense of thousands of renters who had been playing by the rules, doing everything right, and almost had the rug pulled out from under them.
Sometimes lightning strikes the right person.
In 2006, an investment group led by New York City real estate firm Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty Advisors purchased two huge Manhattan apartment complexes — Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. And of course the $5.4 billion price included the lives of the 25,000 people in those two apartment complexes.
$5.4 billion for 25,000 people. Well, at least that’s more valuable than the “ten dollars a life!” from the “In Cold Blood” murders — mostly because of inflation, not because of any sort of ethics or morals on the part of these wannabe robber barons.
The Crooks Who Would Be King are almost certain to default on their $3 billion mortgage and the $1.4 billion secondary loan they bought the property with.
Their plans for converting thousands of apartments into luxury condos — to be sold at market value — are up in smoke. Awww.
A few would-be oligarchs have fallen and they can’t get up. And twenty-five thousand middle class renters can keep their lives. Works for me.
In other news: this headline is asking Are Humans Still Evolving?
Are?
You?
Fuckin’
Kidding???
Labels: are humans still evolving, BlackRock Realty Advisors, Peter Cooper Village, Stuyvesant Town, Tishman Speyer Properties
posted by Tom Harper @ 12:49 AM
54 Comments:
"...state court ruled Thursday that about $200 million in the company's new rent increases were improper."
How long will it be before they get that judge in their back pockets? ;-)
The fact that pension funds will suffer as a result of this loss makes this kinda anticlimactic, But I'll accept the victory for the little guy anyway! Hooray little guy!
Now I wanna know how many Republifucks are going to be cheering for the regular working joes who beat the system and extended their regular lives in their regular apartments in their regular side of town. Prolly none.
P.S.
When the fuck are we going to be done with this kind of smoke and mirrors bullshit already:
"The mortgages that financed the deal were chopped up, repacked and sold as Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities to a variety of investors. "
I am a *huge* fan of rich folks schadenfreude, so this post brings me to tears of joy.
It would seem there is symmetry and justice in the world despite my jadedness.
Har, har, har, to Are You Fucking Kidding. One more theory down the pipes.
where are all the posts abOUT how many soldiers we lost every day? You know the ones we are losing in the "Good War" because Obama is too busy bullying and campaigning and can only make a decison based on which way the wind is blowing?
I was with you all the way up to the evolution thing. Are we not men? We are Devo!
Don't worry Lisa, our President will do his very best to clean another Bush/Cheney for you, I wonder what you complained about from 2000-2008, I bet everything was hunk spunky for those glorious 8 years.
Carlos: I guess that's one judge they forgot to bribe. No doubt the Repukes will think all those renters are just parasites who deserve to be evicted if they can't pony up the money for a luxury condo.
Randal: We all need more schadenfreude in our lives.
jadedj: Yes, sometimes things really do seem to balance out.
Lisa: Since this post isn't about Iraq or Afghanistan, what's the point of your comment? But as long as you brought it up -- I haven't been doing posts about Iraq or Afghanistan because I don't know how to get us out of there. Your retarded hero got us quagmired there, and then went back to Crawford with his tail between his legs. It's a lot easier to jump into quicksand than to get yourself out of it. So I don't know what Obama should do. If you have any solutions to these unwinnable wars I'd be glad to hear them.
Robert: That's right, good old Devo.
Holte: No doubt, the Right thought everything was just fine and dandy when Dumbya was president. Trillions for the Pentagon, endless taxpayer handouts to Halliburton and KBR and Blackwater, and then suddenly the Republicans are just shocked -- shocked! -- that we've gone into debt.
Nope just pointing out all the crap you guys spewed for 8 years miraculously doesn't exist any more.
You actually think Obama would give a hoot about your health care if the Unions weren't set to take over the whole system in order to give the dems more power? Or does unchecked power no longer matter?
It's truly amazing and ever so obvious.
If you think Bush/Cheney ruined this country I will quote Obama himself "You ain't seen nothing yet"!
If he wants to clean up with a mop he should make sure he changes the dirty water first.
Tom, I realize that this is not relative to the post, but it amazes me that Lisa is all in a wad about how we are going to pay for public health care, and never mentions the trillions spent by our last administration on blowing the shit out of other countries and people, and then spouts her "patriotic" concern for the boys over there. Boys who are there due to the shenanigans of HER heroes, Bush, Cheney, et al.
I'm with you, Tom. You can bet there are people in those apartments who've made their life there for decades. If forced to move, they don't have a lot of affordable options without moving far out of the city.
What those real estate sharks were up to might be legal, but it still adds up to pulling a fast one. What real value or benefit were they adding for anyone but themselves? New paint? New hardwood floors? Give me a break.
I'll say it again: We need to have a serious national discussion and some self-examination about greed in this country. We need to do that in homes, schools, churches, Scout meetings, etc. We especially need to have it go on in colleges, universties and even (gasp) postgraduate business schools.
Lisa, Obama will clean that mess up just like he has been methodically cleaning up the rest of the crud in his path. What about the stories when commander cuckoo bananas was in office. Oh I forget, it was wasting a beautiful mind on things like that and the folks during Katrina that were so much better off than where they came from.
When is bullying and getting things done the same thing? Um, I know NEVER. He needs to buckle down and clean the multiple messes he has been left.
Do you remember the last 8 years or are you like so many of your co-horts and it skipped from Clinton to Obama where shrub wasn't in the office? So many people on the right don't even want to claim his admin, you all voted for his ass, so you knew after the first term what a putz he was.
Damn, I got the vapors and needed to clutch my pearls and find a fainting couch, answering Lisa's WAY off topic post I forgot to give my two cents about the actual posting. So very sorry about that. These people deserve everything coming to them for being greedy at the expense of the people in those apartments. I do hope the rent increases are given back though, and that will take them down another peg or two. All the right, moaning and groaning about how much is being spent need to relook at the books. Pres Obama is actually putting the cost of the wars on the budget, the nerve of him, as he is with other things. They have no problems spending but only when they are in charge, otherwise it is a bad thing.
Tom they should pull out isn't that what the plan was?
Afghanistan is the war we were supposed to go to remember?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhPqmJynQPU
Hey Tom check this out and post it if you dare,lol!!!!!
In the infamous words of Nelson Munt: "Haw-haw!"
Lisa: Do people from your planet ever shut the fuck up? I mean really. The context of your comment is so not applicable. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries.
Lisa: WTF is it with unions? They've got less power and fewer members than ever, and you make it sound like they're this huge all-powerful group that's masterminding everything. Don't think so.
jadedj: I guess the money to pay for health care would come from those hardworking taxpayers, while money for wars grows on trees.
SW: This was common in the San Francisco area during the housing boom -- apartments being converted to condos. For renters who could afford to say and purchase their unit, it was "a chance for them to realize their lifelong dream of home ownership" according to all the real estate and property-rights slogans. Nevermind that for the renters who couldn't afford to make the purchase, it meant eviction.
But I've never heard of one of these conversion things on such a huge scale before. I'm sure glad the deal fell through.
Anon: Good answer to Lisa.
Jess: I agree, those landlords deserve that huge loss, and I hope they have to roll back those rents too. Obama has 8 years of shit to undo (or is that 28 years?), and all the wingtards can do is stand there sniping at him while he cleans up their mess.
Lisa: Yes we should pull out now. We went in there to topple the Taliban, which we did; and 8 years later we're still there. Bin Laden is probably dead; in any case we're pretty unlikely to find him.
Oh, and your Victicrat video was entertaining, and about as relevant as a Walt Disney movie. You could always post it at your blog, if you ever decide to post anything there.
Lew: My sentiments exactly.
Carlos: LOL.
Tom I thought I would mention, I clicked on Lisa's name...just wanted to take a look at her insights on her blog. No blog...no profile...blogger since 2007...she/he's a troll for sure.
"Afghanistan is the war we were supposed to go to remember"
Lisa, have you been in like a drug induced coma for the last 8 yrs or what? I've been in one, and it really is a mind eraser the time you are under. Cheney, Bush and the rest of the miscreants, took their eyes off the ball in Afghanistan and went on a desert adventure in Iraq, unfunded I might add. If you want to blame anyone for that you gotta look at the past admin.
Man, history being re written as it is being lived, must be a great place to be, in pixie land where everyone shits skittles and the pixies run free with all those crayons changing things so it looks better.
jadedj: Damn, you're right; I just checked. She did have a blog at that link, called "Lisa's Thoughts." There were no posts. But now there isn't even a blog there.
Jess: Good answer. I was reluctantly in favor of going into Afghanistan at first, since we had a clearly stated objective. (I've since become a lot more skeptical about who was really behind 9/11.) We toppled the Taliban almost instantly, never found bin Laden, the Taliban are more powerful than ever, and we're still quagmired there, worse than ever.
lisa dribbled,
where are all the posts abOUT how many soldiers we lost every day? You know the ones we are losing in the "Good War" because Obama is too busy bullying and campaigning and can only make a decison based on which way the wind is blowing?
Idiot. I posted on that very subject today. Unlike you and the rest of the limited-DNA crowd, I don't worship political figures-I recognize them when they do right and I disparage them when they don't.
Of course, as far as you're concerned your monkey is another Jesus, so I don't expect to see much in the way of criticisms from you. You can't even seem to remember that he ran up more debt than his 42 predecessors combined, or that he rigged the tax system to encourage American businesses to offshore, or that perhaps a trillion dollars just went bye-bye from the Defense Department for absolutely nothing while he sat in Washington.... I'll spare you the rest of it. I'm sure Glenn Beck has already told you everything you need to know anyway.
"Lisa's Thoughts" was a blank, and that was appropriate, since there ain't nothing there. Never has been.
Stuyvesant Town... Into condos?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
Oh--that hurt--OK now.
I read an article about this in the New Yorker some years ago. Would have been a tragedy for a number of New Yorkers who just can't afford to live in Manhattan any other way.
"She did have a blog at that link, called 'Lisa's Thoughts.' There were no posts. But now there isn't even a blog there."
Hmmm: no thoughts, no posts, no blog. Figures.
I took note that the money they used was from pension funds and they will lose very little on this deal. Isn't that typical? I'll bet they donate to the rethuglicans.
you guys are something. You justify everything this admin does and your excuse will always be Bush made the mess. Democrats always use that excuse but as we can see they are already geared for a 13 trillion dollar deficit when the big talking point during Clinton's' admin was the surplus he had.
You treat them like spoiled children and give them whatever they want. They want us to sacfrice and watch our energy use while they jet all over,have parties every week in the White House and keep that thermostat at 80 degrees because they are so much smarter than the rest of us that they deserve to live like the kings and queens they think they are. And you cheer them on like little lemmings.
You guys are the ones who are whacked not me.
I guess yoy'll wake up when it its you directly and you'll still be blaming Bush. Pretty sad if you ask me.
"You justify everything this admin does and your excuse will always be Bush made the mess." That pretty much sums it up. The Worst President Ever has left us with decades worth of shit to clean up. And while Obama struggles to clean it up, the wingtards are standing there sniping at him and trying to sabotage everything he does.
So basically no matter what Obam does that's okay with you regardless of what it is because now we have an honest government who says they are for the people and it makes us feel all warm a fuzzy that big daddy is going to come to the rescue and we will all just go about our lives except ti won't be our own lives anymore.
I am glad to see your government education taught you something.
Lisa, I hate to call you out again (no, I really don't hate it, but it's polite to say so), however, I have to ask you to answer some questions without avoiding them. You say we keep putting the blame for our problems on Bush. Sooooooo,
Lisa, which party was it who didn't think Wall Street didn't need any regulation? Who was it who sent our troops to Iraq without a clearly defined mission? Do you honestly think Obama created all the problems he inherited when he took office? Will you agree, that even though you hate it, you know Bush is responsible, but you just can't stand us saying it?
Just what freedoms have you lost under Obama, Lisa?
Robert: Good questions, but don't hold your breath waiting for coherent answers.
jadedj: Her freedom of speech has been greatly curtailed. You should've seen some of her comments at Bring It On! when Dumbya was president and she was free.
There may be some here that don't like calling you out. I know there aren't, but just to let you know, I have no problem calling bullshit, when bullshit is hollered.
"They want us to sacrifice and watch our energy use while they jet all over,have parties every week in the White House"
As opposed to what, go shopping when 9-11 happened, or taking 3 out of your 8 yrs in office to clear brush at your pretend ranch?
You know, the one that makes you look all cowboyish, even though you are a skeered of horses. Reading books to kids, when the towers are falling even after you had been warned about it. Buying Ferragamo shoes, which not for nothing are great shoes, then getting all pissy because someone called you on it. Or maybe that itty bitty fact you went to bed every night at 9 o'clock. That doesn't make for good parties when the host ups and leaves. So Obama wants to open up the people's house. It is a nightmare, a tragedy he is doing this. I say we impeach him just because.*
Why o why are you taking up space when you could easily go somewhere else, where your views are very much part of the norm. Isn't that what all us dirty traitorous, treasonous, Volvo driving liberals were told for 8 yrs. Love it or leave it. I would rather you stayed, so we all can point and laugh for years to come.
*Disclaimer for the snark impaired.
Lisa actually wrote: ". . . we will all just go about our lives except ti won't be our own lives anymore."
Drama queen alert. Drama queen alert.
Funny, but they said that about Roosevelt and the New Deal. Same idiotic, sky-will-fall, we're doomed to a life of socialist mediocrity nonsense. In reality, we entered a period of economic growth and stability in which the middle class grew as never before, more young people finished high school, more graduated college, more started businesses, and so on, than in any nation in all of history. And, for the first time in history, growing too old to work no longer condemned millions to a life of poverty or near poverty. And yet no one — no one of any political stripe — moved away to escape the heavy hand of socialism in America.
Lisa, you're woefully ignorant of history or else so ideologically warped you can't make sense of history's lessons. To you, it seems, truth is a perfectly elastic substance to be molded and stretched for political purposes, and reality is whatever you claim it to be.
Obama's not a socialist. Nothing Democrats are trying to come up with is going to spoil people's medical care, quite the opposite.
The problem for you and people of your mindset is that some insurance companies might, just might, be curtailed from gouging the public and having everything their way all the the time, no matter who dies, no matter how many die, no matter how many are financially ruined.
Maybe you'll just have to live with that. I'm sure you'll find a way, just like right wingers found a way to weather the New Deal. Alternatively, you can seek out some country governed along lines Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and Grover Norquist would approve of. Good luck, because I'm at a loss to come up with a country foolish enough to go that route.
So Lisa, in other words, you don't have a problem with military adventure spending. Not surprised. I really am curious as to where you got the $13 trillion figure...but never mind, I don't really want to read another bullshit ramble by you. The real estimated figure for a public health care option is, $1.5 trillion. The cost of Iraq and Afghanistan? $2.2 trillion as of September 2007...sans interest. THAT WAS 2007 Lisa. And since you like figures, how about this one: Forget about Afghanistan, Iraq alone is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute. The money spent on one day there, could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children. But hey, fuck the children right? After all it's their minds we want to convert for communism, and the sick ones, who cares.
Let's see...the boogieman big government interferring in our lives and the profit motive corporate hallowed halls...has forced on us, the FAA which oversees safety in the skys...The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile seat belts AND communistic airbags...provide partial funds for the people's interstate system...created the socialist FDA to oversee the production of safe drugs to keep the drones in line...wasting money on satellites for the fascist National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to determine daily weather across the U.S...delivers anti-capitalistic literature via the U.S. Mails...forced cleaner gasoline on us through the Environmental Protection Agency and then had the balls to force us into using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank to pay for that same gas...forces us to maintain dumb shit ideas such as police and fire protection, building codes, traffic lights, road maintenance and other Marxist innovations...oh, did I mention the ferking csarist run Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which insists that we not get killed and maimed on the job...and then that damned evil US Consumer Product Safety Commission which dictates that children not be harmed by poorly constructed toys and such...and one of your favorites Lisa, the Department of Defense which has the audacity to maintain a national armed force for our protections. Yessiree indeedy. On the road to perdition Lisa.
Incidentially Lisa, nothing at all to do with your non-response, but one more statistic for you. 157 members of Congress are enrolled in Medicare. 55 of those members are Republicans who are against health care reform. What do you suppose that's all about?
Tom said:
"And while Obama struggles to clean it up, the windwards are standing there sniping at him and trying to sabotage everything he does."
Oh right Tom all those Whitehorse Parties really seems like he is struggling to clean up the mess.
SW said:
"The problem for you and people of your mindset is that some insurance companies might, just might, be curtailed from gouging the public and having everything their way all the the time, no matter who dies, no matter how many die, no matter how many are financially ruined."
Hey insurance served us well over the years, they actually provide a service. You actually get more back than you pay in. Maybe if medical cost weren't' so high there could be more compromise. But we can't do any real kind of reform now can we? You pay mandatory house and car insurance . Do you want the government to take over those companies too when they drop you for too many claims? You want to sermonize them fine but why do you use them then?
All those so-called profits they were supposedly making is only almost at 2% so don't blame them for doing what they do.
If Universal Health care id supposed to lower costs why is the Canadian system imploding and why is the UK's government so broke?
Jess that is an old argument about reading to school children when the buildings are falling. I mean really what should he have done scared the kids?
Parties in the Whitehouse actually cost money.It really doesn't look good when you hire professional musicians to entertain the staff when we are in a recession when we have to tighten our belts and have 100 per ounce beef imported from Japan. That's a statist mentalitity.
Glad though to see you all put so much faith into this administration of transparency.
Lisa: I'm not by nature a violent person, but I will be overjoyed the day I hear you've self-destructed.
Lisa: You ignorant, amoeba-brained, misguided slut: You said “They want us to sacfrice [sic] (is that a Yemeni dish?) and watch our energy use…” God forbid you do something good for humanity and our country, like conserve. And speaking of sacrifice - it was the office pussies of the Bush administration who sent thousands of our citizens and patriots to their deaths in Iraq for reasons that will never be adequately explained to the multi-brain-celled of our population. Bush will get the blame for our woes for generations, as our descendants sacrifice time and money to dig us out of this Bush/Cheney-built pit of fecal political mismanagement. And by the way, what in the ever livin’ fuck does sacrificing energy have to do with Tom’s post anyway?
You also said: “…because now we have an honest government who says they are for the people…” Isn’t that what the government is supposed to be – for the people? Bush sure as fuck wasn’t.
And: “I am glad to see your government education taught you something.” My government education, and 27 years of service in the military and federal government have taught me that uneducated, narrow-minded dimwits like you are dangerous and just a plain ol’ pain in the fucking ass.
The last few lines killed me, hehe. I'm still laughing. I'll have to show that to Mr. Bee.
And even though I'm in commercial real estate banking (which I hate, btw), I have ZERO sympathy for the developers. None. NONE. Because I like it when the little guy wins.
Lisa, what, nothing to say about the deal of the century that went straight into the toilet? Gee, I wonder why...
Gee Tom, you were right! Lisa has refused to answer the questions. Of course, she knows if she answers honestly that it will throw a monkey wrench into her arguments. Then again, it would be tough to answer with lies without looking like a complete moron, so her sole recourse is to ignore the questions.
"Parties in the Whitehouse actually cost money.It really doesn't look good when you hire professional musicians to entertain the staff"
Um, no they don't cost any money other than the electricity and perhaps the staff to set up the venue. *Gasp* most of these artists are doing this for free so they can be a small part of entertaining the country if the country chooses to watch on PBS. So costing money *big buzzer sound here* wrong.
Just so you know, home and car insurance are entirely different birds. You don't need to drive a car, you don't need to own a home that would require you paying those types of insurance. Last time I checked you do need your body to stay alive, so comparing those types of insurance to health insurance is just a right wing talking point.
When insurance companies are making obscene profits at the expense of people's lives they provide no useful purpose. I guess when you are a wink in daddy's eye you are okay, once you become a fully functioning person you are out there on your own at the mercy of some insurance CEO that makes roughly 468k a minute. That figure right there could provide many people with life saving care. So tell me now, do you still think insurance companies that provide "supposed" health care are serving a useful purpose?
Google this Cigna and Nataline Sarkasian(sp) tell me they had this childs family feeling they served a useful purpose. Go to Brave new films website and see some horror stories about families and how they are denied care for the tiniest of things. Last year I had to be put in a medically induced coma and when I cam out of it and put in a regular room, it cost almost $40 for one pain shot of what was basically Tylenol/ codeine for pain. In what world is a pill worth that much? I'll tell you in what world, in the CEO world that thinks this is ok and has no problems sleeping at night when you may go bankrupt having to deal with medical bills. I am very fortunate, this will never happen to me, but it happens to thousands of people every year and it is disgusting.
As far as the UK and Canada where are the facts saying that their medical situations are going down the toilet? You won't see that because they pay extra in taxes to get health care. It's like your real estate taxes and local taxes. I pay for schools and have no children, we all pay for fire, police, garbage, roads and so forth. This new reform will be relying on premiums from the folks that but into it.
Damn girl, you need to get in some research time, so you don't come to talk with something other than right wing talking points that Rush et al have told you to use on any given day.
I agree with Lisa, and why do you (meaning everyone else who has posted) attack her personally? You sound like a bunch of angry third grade school children, who are mad at Lisa because she doesn't agree with you. That's what's great about this country, we don't have to agree with everything or anything the president says, thinks, or does. Go ahead and call me all the names you want, you know obama is screwing things up worse than ever. You won't be satisfied until government controls every single aspect of our lives.
lisa the village idiot drooled,
you guys are something. You justify everything this admin does and your excuse will always be Bush made the mess.
No, cretin, as has already been pointed out, not a few of us have had some harsh words for this President. That doesn't change two facts, however. (1.) is that you continue to worship your monkey, even though his record shows that none, ever, have been any worse, and (2.) this President is mostly trying to clean up the mess your monkey left us. I don't agree with a lot of the steps he's taking, but I understand all too well WHY he's taking a lot of them. It's too bad that you're too stupid to understand.
lisa the village idiot burped,
Hey insurance served us well over the years, they actually provide a service. You actually get more back than you pay in. Maybe if medical cost weren't' so high there could be more compromise.
I am trying to not go the misogynist route on you, but you are about as ignorant a frigging dolt as I've ever seen.
Your first premise is demonstrably false; medical insurers rake it in a whole lot faster than they pay it out, and the reason they have to keep jacking up their rates might be because their profit margins have gone through the roof and their executives live better than Roman Emperors. Only a troll, a psychopath, or a complete fucking idiot would post otherwise, because even a child can divine the truth within minutes.
So tell me-which are you? One of the three possibilities, a combination of more than one of them, or ALL of them? There are no other answers that could possibly fit.
Carlos great now you can join the National Security Force. I will thank you for your service though because I have a niece and nephew are in the Air Force and my brother,2 Uncles.Aunt and 2 cousins and my Dad were all military. One cousin who we lost in Viet Nam. So that I respect.
I'm dangerous? I bet the disabled person who I shop for and clean for and Mentally challenged adults I volunteer my time for fund raisers to would beg to differ.
Not to mention rescuing stray cats.
I am only a pain in the ass to liberals.
Whew! This little ol' blog hasn't had so many comments in eons. I'll be back to answer them as soon as I can. "Discuss. Talk amongst yourselves."
Tom, you can blame Bee and Jolly for my comments. I frequent Bee's blag and she turned me to Jolly's and he got me coming here. It is their fault, they are a really bad influence.
Janeyace, why would you come to a blog, where it is obvious to everyone, it is a left leaning person writing the posts and think right wing points would not be put down with those pesky facts?
I only suggested to Jess that she enjoy this fine blog and its thoughtful writing. Anything further than that, she does independently of me :)
SW: You're right, that's exactly what the Right was saying about FDR's New Deal 80 years ago. And Heaven forbid insurance company profits should be curtailed just because of a few million whiny sick people.
The 1950s were certainly a nightmare for America. Unparalleled prosperity, record homeownership, the G.I. Bill, the minimum wage, V.A. home loans, labor union membership being higher than ever -- oh the agony.
jadedj: The FAA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the FDA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration -- I'm sorry but that's exactly the kind of big government nanny fascism that decent Americans don't want :)
Screamin' Mimi: I hear you.
Carlos: You tell her. And WTF is a "government education" anyway? Even if somebody goes to a private school, the education is partially funded by all the tax writeoffs enjoyed by the school's donors.
Bee: Yup, score one for the little guy. It's all too rare.
Robert: You weren't really expecting an answer, were you?
Jess: Great information. Unfortunately you're talking to a wall.
Don't worry about "blame." I'm glad to have you comment here. I've seen your comments at Bee's and Jolly's blogs.
Janeyace: (Are you sure you aren't Lisa?) It's true, Lisa's gotten some harsh responses here. But try going to rightwing blogs and leaving a liberal comment. You'll quickly relearn all those junior high cusswords you'd forgotten. If you know of a conservative blog where liberal comments are answered civilly, I'd like to know about it.
JR: Good answers. We all know (or most of us anyway) that the health insurance industry is a parasite, turning sick people into a gold mine. Likewise with Obama trying to clean up 8 years of Bush shit -- most of us already know that, and the 20 percenters probably never will.
JR: Cool, the more the merrier. This place hasn't been so lively in a long time. I can think of maybe 2 posts, from 3 or 4 years ago, that had this many comments.
Lisa, you're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. There's a fairly high level of competition in car and home insurance across the country. Not so for health insurance. What's more, people can survive without car or home insurance. Medical insurance is another matter entirely.
Canada's health care system, like its banking system, is getting along quite well -- in no small part by refusing to mimic U.S. policy mistakes. Good for the Canadians. The U.K.'s government is suffering from an international financial implosion and subsequent deep recession originating guess where, Lisa. (Hint: it's not Cuba or Venezuela.)
As for health insurers making 2 percent profits, I don't doubt a company or two might make that little for awhile, in the depths of a stock market dive. I don't believe that's typical of the industry. The CEO of United Health hasn't raked in $700 million over the past seven years out of a 2 percent profit margin.
Begging for a slapdown, Lisa wrote, "I am only a pain in the ass to liberals."
That must mean returns aren't in yet from moderates, independents, Whigs, Know-nothings and the rest.
I will say that if you're decent enough to rescue stray cats, there's hope for you.
I will say that if you're decent enough to rescue stray cats, there's hope for you.
Nah. Stray cats are the only creatures that can stand any proximity to her, and they only do it for the food.
Hey I got my dog from a rescue group too. I'm the only one who would have him.
Lisa, you're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. There's a fairly high level of competition in car and home insurance across the country. Not so for health insurance.
SW-this is one of the proposals Reblican made. Th be able to have more access to more companies to make itt more competitive but noooooo the democrats wat no part of any logic jus to get their Oscar award from the left.
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