Get yours cargo container while you can. The collapse of America will start in 2013.
From Business Insider:
A) The Bush tax cuts on those making more than $200k will expire.
B) The Bush tax cuts on those making less than $200k will also expire.
C) The Patch on AMT will expire.
D) The 2% payroll tax holiday will expire for all workers on 12/31/12 (I’m sure the current holiday will be rolled for another year)
E) The 99-week extended unemployment benefits die on 12/31. (The emergency benefits will also be extended for 2012)

F) There will have to be a budget that is approved. Alternatively, a series of continuing resolutions is required to avert a government shutdown. We have not had an approved budget in over 900 days.

G) 2013 is the first year that there will be mandatory caps on discretionary spending. These limits will result in a YoY decline in government spending.

H) The Federal Reserve has promised to keep interest rates at zero into 2013. While it is possible that the Fed could continue the madness for even longer, the reality is that interest rates have nowhere to go but up.

I) By January 2013 it will be painfully evident that the country’s key social programs, Social Security and Medicare will be running in the red at a pace that is far higher than anyone considered possible. The need for dramatic changes in these programs will have to come onto the table. The implications of this will be significant.

J) In 2013 the issues of Fannie, Freddie, FHA and the Federal Home Loan Banks must be addressed. The problems at the housing agencies has festered too long.

K) The country will face another debt ceiling extension. The last time cost us our AAA.

L) At some point in 2012 economic events (Probably Europe) will force the Fed into yet another round of QE. More LSAP and another increase in the Fed’s balance sheet. But when completed the Fed will have fired it’s last bullet. QE-3 will not achieve any better results than QE-1 or 2. The policy will be discredited as it achieves nothing positive and causes inflation. There are no credible options left for the Fed to fight the slowdown that HAS to occur when the effects of A – K are felt.


America looks like Mexico of the 70’s – 90’s. The last election cycle brought us the biggest economic crisis in 70 years. The next election will be no different. Dozens of landmines have been planted. They are timed to go off in 2013. Some may be fixed, others kicked further down the road. However the odds of the country addressing all of the things that have been programmed to explode is, in my opinion, close to zero. One or more of these things is going to trip us up. There are too many big issues to confront.

Get a good look Occupoopers, here's one of the thieving sacks who raped you (well, the taxpayers among you) all night long. If there were any justice he'd be in an orange prison jumpsuit for his role in the Free Houses for Poor People Who Won't Pay Back the Loans Act housing collapse. Don't worry, he's already collected millions from Fannie's corpse his actions created.

It was not Republicans pushing the Community Reinvestment Act, it was Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Even W warned that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in danger of insolvency.

Also no one in gov't has anything to do with the cost of higher education, which has been a sore point for the '99%'. You can blame your multi-million dollar university presidents for that boondoggle.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Jamie McCartney, vagina, labia, sculpture, casting, pussy, fanny man' to 'Jamie McCartney, vagina, labia, sculpture, casting, body issues, surgery' - edited by bareboards2

wurdz cont diescreyeb, ho nutt fanny dis iz

>> ^silvercord:

Here is that link again. I don't know why it crashed earlier.
It absolutely supports the argument for the very reason that UPS is unionized. Corporations exist to turn a profit. Many of them can support union employees. The government, on the other hand, does not exist to make money. It simply cannot fund the same types of benefits the private sector does.

The title of the article you're linking:

USPS made $76M profit in April (before $458M retiree health charge turned it into a loss)

Part of the issue that I didn't even delve into before is that USPS isn't really a good example of a public sector organization to begin with. It's not taxpayer funded, and hasn't been for 30 years. It's a lot closer to Fannie and Freddie than it is to the fire department.

But even setting that aside there's no causal link between unionization and the USPS financial problems, even according to the article you linked. Hell, they point out that wage and benefit costs have dropped.

So why tout the USPS's problems as another strike against public sector unions, its problems have nothing to do with unions, and would be profitable if it weren't for the stupid pre-paid benefits rule?

But that's just nitpicking, really. The real problem with the argument you're making is that it assumes that unions universally make unreasonable demands, and then usually get those unreasonable demands met.

Public sector benefits aren't generous because unions have fleeced the American people, they're generous because the private sector has drastically curtailed benefits (and unions!), while the public sector has been much more gradual in reducing them. Even still, public sector jobs generally pay people less than the private sector would offer them at their education and experience, even after you factor in benefits.

And even if that were not the case, and this was a matter of unions asking for too much, it is still a negotiation. Government employers can negotiate benefit cuts and wage cuts -- and in fact in most places the unions have agreed to rather sharp cuts during the recession!

Taking away the ability for public sector workers to organize is a political maneuver, not a budget concern. The idea on offer is to use a temporary crisis to put in place a permanent change in policy, in order to further their longer-range ideological and political goals.

Uhh, Cenk really needs to source his info, because he's wrong about a few things.

For one, HARP is only offered to people whose mortgages are owned by Fannie and Freddie. No Bank of America mortgages are eligible.

Second, all of Fannie and Freddie's loans are guaranteed by the government. Pre-crisis people assumed that was the case, and post-crisis that's been explicitly stated by the government.

Third, "loan guarantee" doesn't mean you can commit fraud. One can make a moral hazard argument, and say that loan guarantees will encourage banks to make loans it thinks are likely to fail, but it doesn't make actually doing so legal. It also ignores that Congress has always been fastidious about Fannie and Freddie's lending standards for exactly this reason.

If I didn't know better, I'd guess Cenk got this from some sort of right-wing spam e-mail, not from actual due diligence research.

The English call pizza "Italian Fannies"

>> ^Asmo:

>> ^xxovercastxx:
Then I suggest you check yourself for confirmation bias. I'm not suggesting that either way is right or wrong. I was just saying that Jinx pointed out that fanny means butt in US English and was told he/she was wrong. All I said was that Jinx was correct in his/her statement. Why the attacks on me? If you've got an issue with anyone bringing up US English, maybe you should attack Jinx.

Eh, fair point, although my first post was actually in reply to Jinx... ; P
I should have phrased it better, I didn't mean to infer that fanny wasn't US slang for butt. =)


Perhaps I shouldn't have commented in the first place, but I figured it's a public thread and all, so why not?

Appreciate the level reply.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
Then I suggest you check yourself for confirmation bias. I'm not suggesting that either way is right or wrong. I was just saying that Jinx pointed out that fanny means butt in US English and was told he/she was wrong. All I said was that Jinx was correct in his/her statement. Why the attacks on me? If you've got an issue with anyone bringing up US English, maybe you should attack Jinx.


Eh, fair point, although my first post was actually in reply to Jinx... ; P

I should have phrased it better, I didn't mean to infer that fanny wasn't US slang for butt. =)

>> ^Asmo:

>> ^xxovercastxx:
>> ^Asmo:
>> ^Jinx:
Or Butt Smeller if you happen to be American

Incorrect, fanny (in the UK and Australia) is a euphimism for vagina as correctly noted by bareboards2.
It's why we colonials get such a laugh out of yanks and their fanny packs. ; )

So how is Jinx incorrect? In the US, fanny is a kid-friendly word for butt, exactly as he/she said.

Probably because the show isn't in the US... (there's this quirky concept, it's called 'the rest of the world').
He's changing the meaning of the word. If it were a US show with a US compare, then butt smeller would be contextually what the guy is laughing at. It's not. And context is everything.
Side note, this isn't doing a lot to diabuse the perception that American's are so self centered that everything else on the planet has to conform to their world view... = P


Then I suggest you check yourself for confirmation bias. I'm not suggesting that either way is right or wrong. I was just saying that Jinx pointed out that fanny means butt in US English and was told he/she was wrong. All I said was that Jinx was correct in his/her statement. Why the attacks on me? If you've got an issue with anyone bringing up US English, maybe you should attack Jinx.

Gives "Take a load off Fanny" by The Band a whole new context..

>> ^xxovercastxx:

>> ^Asmo:
>> ^Jinx:
Or Butt Smeller if you happen to be American

Incorrect, fanny (in the UK and Australia) is a euphimism for vagina as correctly noted by bareboards2.
It's why we colonials get such a laugh out of yanks and their fanny packs. ; )

So how is Jinx incorrect? In the US, fanny is a kid-friendly word for butt, exactly as he/she said.


Probably because the show isn't in the US... (there's this quirky concept, it's called 'the rest of the world').

He's changing the meaning of the word. If it were a US show with a US compare, then butt smeller would be contextually what the guy is laughing at. It's not. And context is everything.

Side note, this isn't doing a lot to diabuse the perception that American's are so self centered that everything else on the planet has to conform to their world view... = P

Was that the Trunchbull? And to wade into the argument, it makes fuck all difference what Americans use fanny for, the point of the video is to show his reaction and it certainly didn't happen because it inferred bum sniffing, did it

>> ^Kofi:

Ok, granted. But the reason it was so funny to the presenter, and therefore funny to us, that is it means "vag smeller" which is infinitely more funny than "butt smeller".
Americans can be such parochial solipsistic homunculai.
>> ^xxovercastxx:
>> ^Kofi:
Because the show was made in Britain. Context does matter.
>> ^xxovercastxx:
>> ^Asmo:
>> ^Jinx:
Or Butt Smeller if you happen to be American

Incorrect, fanny (in the UK and Australia) is a euphimism for vagina as correctly noted by bareboards2.
It's why we colonials get such a laugh out of yanks and their fanny packs. ; )

So how is Jinx incorrect? In the US, fanny is a kid-friendly word for butt, exactly as he/she said.


"Fanny means butt to Americans" remains true no matter where this video was made.



You're the one who's bent out of shape because someone pointed out that a word means something different to people of another culture. Reconsider your parochial solipsistic comment, black pot.