Decisions, Decisions

Poor Wall Street. They have such a hard choice this election year.

Should they vote for the candidate they own who occasionally makes tsk-tsk noises about them in speeches and only delivers 99% of what they want, but who makes them feel like they've done something morally daring, even hip, by voting for a black dude, or should they put their weight behind the candidate they own who loudly proclaims their greatness in speeches and will be even more obliging in policy, but who may wear goofy underdrawers?

Decisions, decisions, decisions....

Anglachel

Reality Check on Grocery Costs

In early January I put up a post Grocery Costs at Casa Anglachel, talking about my shopping habits and spending in 2011. A few days ago, an article was posted in the local paper, the Union-Tribune, about restaurant menu prices going up. The article included a table on wholesale food cost increases, courtesy of the Bureau of Labor.

Yves Smith's NYT Op-Ed

For those of you who would prefer to not give the NYT your traffic, Yves has posted the text of the op-ed on her own site.

Our New York Times Op-Ed: How the Banks Put the Economy Underwater

The opening paragraphs:

In Congressional hearings last week, Obama administration officials acknowledged that uncertainty over foreclosures could delay the recovery of the housing market. The implications for the economy are serious. For instance, the International Monetary Fund found that the persistently high unemployment in the United States is largely the result of foreclosures and underwater mortgages, rather than widely cited causes like mismatches between job requirements and worker skills.

This chapter of the financial crisis is a self-inflicted wound. The major banks and their agents have for years taken shortcuts with their mortgage securitization documents — and not due to a momentary lack of attention, but as part of a systematic approach to save money and increase profits. The result can be seen in the stream of reports of colossal foreclosure mistakes: multiple banks foreclosing on the same borrower; banks trying to seize the homes of people who never had a mortgage or who had already entered into a refinancing program.

Read the whole thing.

Anglachel