Court orders adult children visitation schedule for elderly parent

Three “childen” ages 55, 57 and 60 have a 90 year old dad and 87 year old mom. The 60 year old lives with mom and dad and is their caretaker. Mom gives the 60 year old 100 dollars for groceries. The 60 year old buys 90 dollars worth of food and pockets the ten “for her troubles”.

The three “kids” are always fighting and just cant seem to get along. The confict is causing mom and dad to “act out” and get in trouble. The 57 year old “child” files a lawsuit.

The court, after a three week trial, orders a visitation schedule for the three adult kids and mom and dad. And they lived happily ever after.

Greece considers running away from its Euro-parents

The world cannot fix the Euro-crises. Europe’s failure will impact the United States. It has decreased the price of gasoline. The Dow Jones has dropped. It may determine the next U.S. president. It may slow down the local economy. You may talk to someone about it this weekend. It may affect your marriage.

You want us to pay back our loans? well guess what, not only are we defaulting, but we’re leaving and forming our own country- just like America.

Greeks may vote in a government that chooses to leave Europe. Bankers in Greece are praying that won’t happen. Leaving the euro is a nightmare; the economy would instantly revert to barter.

The Euro-crises is made by people. It is not the result of natural cycles in global temperatures. It was created by the people in Europe. It is their fault. They caused it. Only they can fix it.

Stop it Euro-zone, just stop it!

EUROPE IS BEYOND OUR CONTROL
THE pattern is eerily familiar. We start the year in a blaze of optimism, hoping that the euro zone has been stabilised and that the American economy is growing strongly. By the late spring, the latest example of euro-zone “make and mend” policies shows signs of fraying and the American recovery is proving less robust than hoped. The same description of events applies to both 2010 and 2011.

According to John Maudlin, the endgame is coming for Greece and the eurocrats who have been kicking all those cans down the road, and it will probably be enough to tip the U.S. into another recession. The good news, though, is that after that recession (and who knows how nasty it’ll be,) the whole nasty crisis will be behind us for good, and a new bull market will start.

I disagree. The U.s. economy, while appearing to go into another major slow down, is not. Other signs suggest the economy is strengthening after its early spring lull.

Home construction rose to near a three-year high in April. And factory output has risen in three of the year’s first four months.

The gains, highlighted in data released Wednesday, suggest growth in the April-June quarter is off to a good start.

Consumers are also finally seeing some relief from high gas prices. The average price of a gallon of gas was $3.72 on Thursday, according to AAA. That’s 18 cents less than a month ago.

So consumers should have more money for other purchases, which could also boost second-quarter growth and help lift hiring. Consumer spending drives roughly 70 percent of economic activity in the U.S.

Domestic violence- effects lesbians and gays the same as heterosexual couples

Studies show that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender victims experience domestic violence at roughly the same rate as the general population.

After a fierce fight, full of gender politics, the House passed a Republican bill on Wednesday to combat violence against women, over objections from President Obama and other Democrats, who said it would reduce protections for many battered women, including lesbians, American Indians and illegal immigrants.

Representatives Sandy Adams, Republican of Florida, and Gwen Moore, Democrat of Wisconsin, both said they had experienced domestic violence, but they took radically different positions. Mrs. Adams, a former deputy sheriff in Orange County, is the chief sponsor of the House bill, while Ms. Moore was one of the most outspoken critics.

But Democrats said major provisions were opposed by groups representing women, law enforcement officers and churches. The American Bar Association also opposed the House bill, calling it “a retreat from the battle against domestic and sexual violence.”

Democrats said they were dismayed by the House bill, but delighted at the prospect that Republicans would alienate female voters by pushing the legislation in this election year — after battles over contraception and other issues of concern to women.

The House bill omits three provisions of the Senate measure. One would allow Indian tribal courts to try certain non-Indians accused of committing crimes of domestic violence on reservations. Another would expand the number of temporary visas for illegal immigrant victims of domestic violence. The last would extend protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender victims of domestic violence.

Leaders of 31 religious groups, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Association of Evangelicals and the Episcopal Church, opposed immigration provisions of the House bill.

These provisions “would actually roll back protections in current law for battered noncitizens, making them more vulnerable and, in some cases, endangering their lives,” the groups said in a letter to House leaders.

Democrats tried unsuccessfully to expand protections for gays and lesbians.

Four Reasons Why We Failed to Forecast the Great Recession

GREASE IS THE WORD
Our best plan is to plan for constant change and the potential for instability, and to recognize that the threats will constantly be changing in ways we cannot predict or fully understand.– Timothy Geithner

The economics profession has been appropriately criticized for its failure to forecast the large fall in U.S. house prices and the subsequent propagation first into an unprecedented financial crisis and then into the Great Recession. Here are four possible explanations of why economists got it so wrong:

1.Misunderstanding of the housing boom. Increase in house prices did not find convincing evidence of overvaluation. Thus, we downplayed the risk of a substantial fall in house prices.

2.A lack of analysis of the rapid growth of new forms of mortgage finance. Here the reliance on the assumption of efficient markets appears to have dulled our awareness of many of the risks building in financial markets in 2005-07.

3.Insufficient weight given to the powerful adverse connection between the financial system and the real economy. Despite a good understanding of the risk of a financial crisis from mid-2007 onward, we were unable to fully connect the dots to real activity until 2008.

4. Complacency affecting forecasters in the wake of the prior economic boom.

The worst is over for the U.S. housing market

The shifting nature of housing demand
According to the white paper, The Shifting Nature of U.S. Housing Demand by the Demand Institute division of the U.S. Conference Board, after six years of declining sales and falling prices that wiped $7 trillion from the value of housing assets, a turning point has been reached. The Demand Institute sees average prices rising by up to 1 percent in the second half of 2012 (in seasonally adjusted terms), marking the start of a housing recovery.

As the market revives, so will consumer spending: the business of building, buying, and selling homes generates enormous expenditure in a wide range of industries, including those associated with the transaction, those that produce goods and services for the home itself, and those that provide goods and services in the neighborhood around the home.

This housing recovery will be different in nature from previous recoveries because it will be shaped by new market conditions and expectations.

This will be a two-stage recovery. Seasonally adjusted average
house prices will increase by up to 1 percent in the second half of
2012, rising to an annual rate of increase of 2.5 percent by 2014.
Between 2015 and 2017, they will rise by 3 to 3.5 percent a year
on average.

The recovery will be led by demand from buyers for rental
properties, rather than, as in previous cycles, demand from buyers
acquiring properties for themselves. More than 50 percent of those
planning to move in the next two years say they intend to rent.

Young people—who were particularly hard hit by the recession—
and immigrants will lead the demand for rental properties.
Developers and investors will fulfill it, developers by building
multifamily homes for rent (that is, buildings containing two or more
units, such as apartment blocks or townhouses), and investors by
buying foreclosed single-family properties for the same purpose.
Rental demand will help to clear the huge oversupply of existing
homes for sale. In 2011, some 14 percent of all housing units were
vacant, while almost 13 percent of mortgages were in foreclosure
or delinquent—increases of 12 and 129 percent respectively over
2005 levels. It will take two to three years for this oversupply to be cleared, and at that point home ownership rates will rise and returnto historical levels. More than 70 percent of those planning to move three to five years from now say they intend to purchase their home.

The housing market recovery will not be uniform across the
country. Some states will see annual price gains of 5 percent or
more. Others will not recover for many years. The deciding factors will include the level of foreclosed inventory and rates of unemployment.

Home building continues to pick up

Builders have grown more confident since last fall, in part because more people have expressed interest in buying a home. In May, builder optimism rose to the highest level in five years, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index. Homebuilders reported improving sales and higher traffic from prospective buyers, the survey showed. A gauge measuring confidence in sales over the next six months also rose to 34 from 31.

Mortgage rates have fallen to record lows, making home-buying more affordable. Still, many would-be buyers are having difficulty qualifying for home loans or can’t afford larger down payments required by banks.

Builders in many markets are reporting that buyer traffic and sales have picked back up after a pause this April,” said Barry Rutenberg, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Gainesville, Fla. “It seems we have resumed the gradual upward trend in confidence that started at the beginning of this year, as stabilizing prices and excellent affordability encourage more people to pursue a new-home purchase.”

“While home building still has quite a way to go toward a fully healthy market, the fact that the HMI has returned to trend is an excellent sign that firming home values, improving employment and low mortgage rates are drawing consumers back,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “The pace of this emerging recovery could be stronger were it not for the significant impediments that the market continues to face with regard to builder and consumer access to credit, inaccurate appraisals, and more recently, rising materials prices.”