Weekend Economists: Going where nobody has gone... lately. January 12-13, 2013

[Hugin]

Since Demeter has bugged out this Weekend and to maintain continuity... I shall start a WEE.

A warning though, I'm pretty sure I've got this flu bug which has been going around.



Our theme this week shall be the plethora of Abandoned Infrastructure we find described out there in Internet Land.



The first site is called "Forbidden Places" and has been a favorite of mine for awhile. It is associated with an International Group of Urban Explorers and
a Book of the same name.

But, do visit the site. The photography is excellent and the historical discussions of the former hubs of human activity is very enlightening.



Do you dare follow me to Forbidden Places?

[Hugin]

1. Oh, and if anybody has news or thought of an economic vein...

Please, POST AWAY!

[DemReadingDU]

2. Thanks for the weekend thread!

Need to run errands, but I'll try to post something when I return.

[Hugin]

3. You're welcome.

[Fuddnik]

6. You beat me to it.

I was going to start the WEE Counterfeit Edition.

Post all ya got on our counterfeit economy.

[bread_and_roses]

11. LOL at "our conterfeit economy"

that's perfect - kinda sums up the general thrust of SMW and WEE

[DemReadingDU]

4. Dead Malls

http://www.labelscar.com/


http://deadmalls.com/features.html



http://www.good.is/posts/More-Ghost-Malls

[Hugin]

5. Great!

I get a charge out of ghost malls.

[kickysnana]

7. Urban Ruins: Minnesota page

http://www.actionsquad.org/ruins.html

[kickysnana]

8. Abandoned Minnesota with favorite links

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CGQQFjAH&url=http%3A%2F%2Fabandonedmn.blogspot.com%2F&ei=oovxUKPQEtHbqQHJqoGQBg&usg=AFQjCNEcUxfG0dJ2tRGBLOqHi8XvIYjRFQ&bvm=bv.1357700187,d.aWM&cad=rjt

I've been to the Hastings mill as a child.

[Hugin]

9. Nice finds.

Thanks Kickysnana!

[bread_and_roses]

10. 7 Awesome Abandoned Factories, Mills and Mines

Good theme -

http://weburbanist.com/2008/11/20/7-intriguing-abandoned-factories-mills-and-mines/

Flour mills, paper mills, jute mills ....mines, others.

Seems to me we still need flour/jute/paper? Where do they come from now? (not that the old horrors of the industrial age should have been perpetrated .... I am just supposing that in all too many instances, they have been perpetrated - just in places like China, Azerbaijan, or wherever ...

We have huge old abandoned factories around here - I'll see if I can find some photos - the old EJ shoe factories. I was told by someone - I have no idea how accurate this is - that even demolishing them is impossible, as the dust released would be far too hazardous (they sit right in the middle of towns).

[Hugin]

12. The collapse of International Paper had a lot to do with that...

I've heard rumors Bain was in there, somewhere.

Thanks for your contribution.

[bread_and_roses]

24. Evidently, EJ's buildings can be torn down -

http://online.wsj.com/article/APca71c9eb710d4b1099eb4e2f8ff0bd3b.html

JOHNSON CITY, N.Y. — A demolition crew has begun tearing down one of the last remnants of the Binghamton area's once-thriving shoe manufacturing industry.

... The 450-foot-long building is one of four mammoth Endicott Johnson factories in the center of Johnson City, a village just west of Binghamton.

There's a photo of the demolishment underway here http://twitter.yfrog.com/obqi7trj

Here's what they look like http://www.myspace.com/sporkthis/photos/4086566

[Demeter]

13. Treasury, Fed kill idea of $1 trillion platinum coins to avert debt crisis

http://news.yahoo.com/treasury-says-not-produce-platinum-coins-avert-debt-213338954--finance.html

So much for the $1 trillion platinum coin idea.

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Saturday it will not produce platinum coins as a way of generating $1 trillion in revenue and avoiding a battle in Congress over raising the U.S. debt ceiling....The idea of creating $1 trillion by minting platinum coins has gained some currency among Democrats in recent days as a way of sidestepping congressional Republicans who are threatening to reject a necessary increase in the debt ceiling unless deep spending cuts are made. The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, both independent of one another, each concluded this was not a viable option.

"Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit," said Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley in a statement.

Congress' refusal in 2011 to raise the debt ceiling unless the White House agreed to large spending cuts brought the United States close to the brink of a debt default and dealt the weak recovery a setback. Another crisis is brewing as the United States is expected to reach its authorized debt limit of $16.4 trillion in February.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that with the platinum coin question resolved, the pressure is on congressional Republicans now to act to raise the debt ceiling.

"Congress can pay its bills or they can fail to act and put the nation into default," he said. "When congressional Republicans played politics with this issue last time, putting us at the edge of default, it was a blow to our economic recovery, causing our nation's credit rating to be downgraded."

THEY WILL BE SORRY....BECAUSE THIS WAS THE CHANCE TO KILL THE DEBT LIMIT, FOREVER. I SUPPOSE THEY THOUGHT THEY WOULD BE SETTING A "BAD PRECEDENT" FOR WASTRELS LIKE....VENEZUELA, CHINA, BRAZIL, ICELAND...

IOKIYAAR, OF COURSE!

There was also no change in Obama's opposition to another possible way to get around Congress that some Democrats support - that of invoking a line in the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Part of the 14th amendment says the validity of the public debt should not be questioned, which some Democrats take to mean that the president can raise the debt ceiling on his own. The White House says it does not believe that approach would stand up legally.

"Congress needs to do its job," said Carney.

The idea behind the platinum coin was that Treasury would mint a coin or coins from the precious metal and that the value would be placed at $1 trillion. For the plan to work, the Federal Reserve would have to deposit it in the Treasury account and credit the account $1 trillion that could be used to pay the nation's bills. But if the Federal Reserve does not believe that the coin is worth $1 trillion and refuses to buy it, then the plan falls apart. Some liberals, like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, had supported the idea and a petition submitted to the White House website had thousands of signatures. This kind of momentum prompted both the Fed and the Obama administration to consider the concept, and they ultimately decided it would not work.

COWARDS! WHO RUNS THIS COUNTRY, THE PRESIDENT OR UNCLE BEN?

[Demeter]

14. Thank you Hugin, for filling in the gap

I had a good Friday and Saturday...played euchre with the usual bad luck (I made more points during the hands I sat out...and still didn't place!) and did lots of work (sigh) but never enough to feel like I'd accomplished anything. Lastly, the Kid and I went to see Les Miserables, which was fantastic, so beautifully filmed, so lavishly staged, and the singing wasn't bad (although I am sure it was highly augmented by technology).

It was good enough to make me want to get a decent translation (not that bowdlerized, abbreviated version we read in 10th grade) and read it again. Not good enough to make me want to learn French so I could read Victor Hugo in his own language, though. Having successfully avoided French for 58 years now, I don't want to spoil the record.

I love the theme...I have been thinking on topic this myself. Especially the news that America's high tech trash is shipped to 3rd world landfills. How can you recycle a cell phone? They should last a lifetime...they aren't that complicated nor that difficult to build to last. And they should be reparable, not disposable! My first one, by Motorola, lasted 10 years, and the only reason I got a new one was that they decided to stop making the battery pack. Otherwise, people would still be using them!

Planned obsolescence is a cheat and a lie.

[Hugin]

19. No problem.

[Demeter]

15. BofA director settlement over Merrill triples to $62.5 million - source

http://news.yahoo.com/bofa-director-settlement-over-merrill-triples-62-5-020808507--finance.html

Bank of America Corp directors have reached a $62.5 million settlement to resolve investor claims over the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co, a person familiar with the matter said, after a federal judge expressed reservations about an earlier version of the accord. U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan on Friday agreed to increase the size of the settlement from $20 million, the person said. This came after Castel had indicated in a January 4 order that he had yet to be persuaded of the fairness of the settlement, which also includes governance reforms. Castel also suggested in that order that "some, most or all" of the $20 million cash payout would have been consumed by attorney's fees for the plaintiffs.

The accord is separate from a $2.4 billion settlement that the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender reached in September to resolve securities fraud litigation over the Merrill takeover.

Bank of America said in a statement about Friday's developments: "We support the terms of the settlement, and are gratified that the matter has been resolved."

The case was led by two pension funds, the Louisiana Municipal Police Employees' Retirement System and the Hollywood Police Officers' Retirement System in Florida...The settlement resolved claims that Bank of America directors including former Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis misled shareholders about Merrill's losses, which peaked at $15.84 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, and that Merrill was paying $3.6 billion of bonuses at the time. Payouts would go to the bank, not to shareholders. Directors of publicly-traded companies typically have liability insurance to cover a variety of payouts in derivative lawsuits.

[Demeter]

16. AIG sues NY Fed over right to sue Bank of America, others

http://news.yahoo.com/aig-sues-ny-fed-over-sue-bank-america-020011346--finance.html

American International Group Inc has filed a lawsuit against a vehicle created by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to help bail out the insurer, in a bid to preserve its right to sue Bank of America Corp and other issuers of mortgage debt that went sour. The complaint filed in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan seeks a declaration that AIG has not transferred billions of dollars of "litigation claims" to Maiden Lane II, including many related to the insurer's $10 billion lawsuit against Bank of America. Maiden Lane II was created in December 2008 to buy residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) from AIG and ease liquidity strains.

According to the complaint, New York Fed officials in December told Bank of America that Maiden Lane II had, by agreeing to buy the securities, assumed from AIG all litigation claims relating to what it bought. AIG said this included more than $7 billion of damages claims against Bank of America. AIG is not seeking monetary payments in the lawsuit, but wants the court to clarify that the New York-based insurer still has the right to sue issuers of securities in Maiden Lane II.

New York Fed spokesman Jack Gutt declined to comment. Bank of America spokesman Lawrence Grayson also declined to comment.

The lawsuit is part of the fallout from AIG's $182.3 billion federal bailout that began in September 2008, and which was fully paid off last year. It came after AIG provoked a firestorm in Congress and from the American people this week as it mulled whether to sue the government that bailed it out by joining a $25 billion lawsuit by former Chief Executive Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. AIG eventually decided to stay out of that case.

When it sued Bank of America in August 2011, AIG accused the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender of misrepresenting the quality of more than $28 billion of securities it had bought from the bank and its Countrywide and Merrill Lynch units. An AIG spokesman said Friday's lawsuit "narrowly seeks a declaration from the Court that a 2008 contract between AIG and ML II did not transfer to ML II AIG's right to sue Bank of America and other financial institutions for the billions of dollars of damages they caused AIG and its shareholders in connection with the fraudulent sale of RMBS to AIG." According to Friday's complaint, Maiden Lane II paid $20.8 billion for a variety of subprime and other mortgage securities from AIG, barely half of their estimated $39.3 billion face value...

[Demeter]

17. ONION: AIG Nearly Blows All The Goodwill Built Up By Wall Street In Recent Years

http://www.theonion.com/articles/aig-nearly-blows-all-the-goodwill-built-up-by-wall%2c30845/?ref=auto

Wall Street narrowly dodged a devastating blow to its reputation Wednesday as insurance giant American International Group seriously considered suing the federal government over the terms of its 2008 bailout, a move that experts agreed would have destroyed the tremendous amount of trust and affection the U.S. populace currently feels toward big banks.

Sources said if AIG had decided to join a $25 billion lawsuit over the assistance it received from from taxpayers following a devastating economic crisis for which no one has been held accountable, then citizens who now feel a deep fondness for the nation’s financial institutions may have become outright angry with them instead.

“Wall Street really won me over in 2008 when it veered toward total collapse after years of predatory lending practices,” said Jessica Woodward, 37, a Cincinnati-based software engineer. “And the banks definitely had a special place in my heart after they continued foreclosing on homeowners they shouldn’t have loaned money to in the first place.”

“But if AIG had gone ahead with this lawsuit—well, I’m not sure that’s something I could have turned a blind eye to,” she added.

Many Americans echoed Woodward’s disapproval, saying it would have been “terribly unfortunate” if the company had gone ahead with its plan to sue the government just a few years after receiving a $182 billion bailout package, considering all the work Wall Street had done to rebuild its good name by granting top-ranking officials obscene bonuses, systematically lying to investors, and failing to reform its practices.

“Thankfully, AIG has avoided any action that might have sullied the public’s view of the financial industry as a whole,” said Sam Kerr, a father of three in Boise, ID. “Their decision today showed a tremendous amount of respect for the American taxpayer.”

“Honestly, they deserve a round of applause for this,” he added.

[Demeter]

18. YOu could read the recent WSJ article, or

[DemReadingDU]

20. Abandoned buildings and forgotten places in Ohio

The most impressive pieces of Ohio's history are those which are still standing: abandoned buildings and forgotten places.

http://www.forgottenoh.com/abandoned.html


Pictures of more abandoned buildings and structures in Ohio
Ohio - Abandoned Buildings & Structures
http://tinyurl.com/abzp6sh
with descriptions
http://tinyurl.com/ccmjnbg


and additional images of abandoned places
http://tinyurl.com/bxgfhtr


and more...
http://illicitohio.illicitohio.com/illicitohio/


oops, needed to correct links

[DemReadingDU]

21. Cuyahoga Falls: Rex's Erection

Rex's Erection is what is left of a big plan by the recently deceased Rex Humbard. Rex was a well known televangelist who once resided and practice his craft in the Cuyahoga Falls area. He had a television show and a Cathedral called the Cathedra of Tomorrow that sat 5400 people in which the show was filmed. He is known for having one of the first weekly televangelist shows and is widely accepted as the guy who your grandmother started giving her money to around the time she stopped giving you a dollar every time you came to visit.

Over time Rex's show grew very big, and he eventually decided to expand in to other areas... including the tower you see pictured here. The tower was originally supposed to be a rotating restaurant. I'm not sure on the exact years of construction, but I'm assuming it would have been in the 1970s?

Today the tower looms over the Cyahoga Falls area housing cell phone equipment and other communications equipment. You can't access it, and even if you could, there isn't much to see. The rest of Rex's complex has been run by the Ernest Angley Ministry since the 1990s.




click for more pictures
http://illicitohio.illicitohio.com/illicitohio/rexserection.html



First I ever heard of this tower. I've lived in SW Ohio most of my life, and early years in Indiana.

[Fuddnik]

32. We used to drive by there in the early 70s, on our way to Kent.

The Giant Phallic Symbol.

Ole Rex was probably the least charismatic of all the TV preachers. He kept a low personal profile, but had a houst that would make Mitt Romney envious.

[xchrom]

22. thanks hugin! it's nice to see the crew pull together --

[DemReadingDU]

26. The Loretta Young show

[xchrom]

27. ...

love her!

[xchrom]

23. Chris Hayes' Explanation Of Money Is One Of The Best Things We've Ever Seen On TV

http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-hayes-brilliant-introduction-to-the-trillion-dollar-coin-2013-1



I was fortunate enough to be invited onto Up W/ Chris Hayes this morning to talk about, yes, the trillion dollar coin.

I'm not going to be so arrogant as to say that I said anything brilliant, but Chris' introduction to the whole discussion was marvelous.
In addition to a crystal clear explanation of the politics and mechanics of the idea that a platinum coin could avert the debt ceiling crisis, Chris did something that we've never seen done before: Peel back the curtain a little bit and talk substantively about the fact that money is an artificial creation of government, and that this has profound implications.

He showed a cartoon that was made by Abraham Lincoln's critics, showing him creating cash with a magic money machine, that looks so much like a lot of the anti-Bernanke stuff you see online today.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-hayes-brilliant-introduction-to-the-trillion-dollar-coin-2013-1#ixzz2HrfgBel4

[xchrom]

25. Global Warming Is Changing Life In the US

http://www.businessinsider.com/report-says-warming-is-changing-life-in-the-us-2013-1



WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is already changing America from sea to rising sea and is affecting how Americans live, a massive new federally commissioned report says.

A special panel of scientists convened by the government issued Friday a 1,146-page draft report that details in dozens of ways how climate change is already disrupting the health, homes and other facets of daily American life. It warns that those disruptions will increase in the future.

"Climate change affects everything that you do," said report co-author Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. "It affects where you live, where you work and where you play and the infrastructure that you need to do all these things. It's more than just the polar bears."

The blunt report takes a global environmental issue and explains what it means for different U.S. regions, for various sectors of the economy and for future generations.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/report-says-warming-is-changing-life-in-the-us-2013-1#ixzz2HrhjMyUy

[xchrom]

28. WITH ALMONDS' RISING REVENUES, LAND VALUES SOAR

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FOOD_AND_FARM_FARMLAND_INVESTORS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-01-12-15-39-35

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Bill Enns, a central California real estate agent specializing in farmland, fields dozens of calls every week from potential buyers. Many want almond, pistachio or walnut orchards - or any land suitable for growing nut trees.

This summer in Merced County, Enns brokered the sale of 1,200 acres of open ground lacking a good source of water. Listed at $12,500 per acre, the land attracted dozens of buyers and sold within a month for a whopping $15,000 per acre. The buyer will plant it with almond trees, a notably water-intensive crop.

"It was one of the highest sales per acre that we've seen for that kind of land," said Enns, vice president of the Farm Lands Department at Pearson Realty. "We've seen some numbers that would just blow your mind."

In recent years, farmers in California's Central Valley have seen record-high revenues, buoyed by high demand for fruits, nuts and vegetables in the U.S. and abroad. Investors both foreign and domestic have taken notice, buying up farmland and driving up agricultural land values in a region with some of the highest residential foreclosure rates

[Demeter]

30. They are nuts!

(Well, someone had to say it). Paying money like that for land without water? California, it's a state of never mind....

[bread_and_roses]

29. Seismic Imperialism ... Haiti ...and the Disaster of Neoliberalism

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/12-3

this is so sick - making ... tell me again how "our" Dems are soooooooooooooo much better than the Repubs. All our favorites in this mix - current administration/both Clintons

Published on Saturday, January 12, 2013 by Common Dreams
Seismic Imperialism: Haiti’s Buried Cry for Help on Third Anniversary of Earthquake
by Jesse Hagopian

"When you look at things, you say, 'Hell, almost three years later, where is the reconstruction?' If you ask what went right and what went wrong, the answer is most everything went wrong." –Former Prime Minster of Haiti Michèle Pierre-Louis

The PM is far too generous - it's going exactly right for the Ghoul servants of our Corporate Vampires - said servants being those named above.

if only Haiti was lucky enough to have been deserted by "interested" outside parties after the earthquake.

Instead, the U.S., UN and other international financing organizations decided that mere inattention was too good for Haiti. The world's most powerful governments and institutions have imposed policies that have compounded the damage done by the earthquake--a man-made economic and social disaster that in many ways has caused more damage than the natural one that came before it.

Election Puppeteers and the Disaster of Neoliberalism

Take, for example, the 2011 Haitian presidential election...The U.S. supported Michel Martelly, a former supporter of the U.S.-backed dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.

... With the help of the international puppeteers and their manipulation of the election, Martelly was able to ignore the mass protests against election fraud and capture the presidency. As Haïti Liberté journalist and editor Kim Ives said in a speech:

Martelly only won through U.S. intervention into the Haitian elections. The first round of the election was complete chaos--a total mess in November ...

...Martelly's pledge to make Haiti "business friendly" made him the clear choice for U.S. interests. Not content with simply leaving Haiti to suffer, the U.S. has used Martelly as a pliable figurehead, behind whom it can control Haiti's economy.

I had read much of this in bits and pieces before - but none of us - except maybe my hero, Noam Chomsky - can keep clear in our minds constantly the multitude of atrocities our bought and sold leaders commit in our names around the globe. Put together like this its just crushing - and this is only one example.

[snot]

31. Posting to make sure I can find this (re- Haiti; disclosure by Wikileaks) – good god.