Last week brought unprecedented spam and hack attacks to this website so I spent many hours since then making this website more secure. I even overdid it on the security because I found out that I was not allowing some valid users access. Yesterday I took out a script that I know was blocking some people from viewing this website. I still retain 3 spam checkers and 3 other powerful security checkers and a .htaccess file that is designed to block most bad robots.<\/p>\n
The security I set up might inadvertently still block a few valid viewers but the security is also quite necessary.\u00a0 If you cannot view this website on certain devices or browsers you should have success if you use one of the main web browsers like Explorer, Foxfire, Safari, Opera, Chrome etc. This is even more important when trying to comment on this Blog. Some that try to post from behind proxies are simply going to be blocked. For example, AOL is not really a web browser it is a portal that goes through a proxy server. Some proxies send a blank referrer in the header. Blank referrers are blocked because webmasters cannot determine where the spam came from so they cannot take action against it.<\/p>\n
By the way, about half the comments to this blog never appear because they do not read or abide by my comment policy. I really have no interest in posting the views of pagans and obvious heretics. Arguments with these people are a waste of time and mislead Christians that are not well grounded in the Word. I think the “don’t cast your pearls before swine” passage applies.<\/p>\n
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Are you thrilled that unemployment declined from 9.8 to 9.4 percent in December? Don’t be too hasty with your celebration they are just playing with the figures again. What actually happen is that they adjusted the way they figured unemployment and also some people dropped out of the count. I can’t tell you how much impact their new adjustments had on this number but I do know they do not count the people that gave up and dropped out of the workforce. Many apparently exhausted their unemployment benefits and dropping out.<\/p>\n
There certainly was no large increase in employment. In fact, the number of new jobs created in December was far less than was even forecasted by the experts. About 100,000 jobs were created in December. That does not even keep up with the number of new people looking for jobs due to U.S. population growth. That is why the stock market did not jump for joy over the unemployment figures today.<\/p>\n
The Gallop Poll just did a poll on unemployment and underemployment. They said it is 19 percent. That is up about 2 percent from the prior month, so the job situation is not getting better.<\/p>\n
Want to know where the little job growth is coming from? Places like your local Dollar Store. I bet you can get about minimum wage there. Try supporting your family on that.<\/p>\n
Also realize that many of the job cuts will continue. The state and local governments are going to have to make severe job cuts to meet their budgets and so will the federal government if the projected cuts are realized. In addition, the proposed huge cut in the defense budget with the reduction of bases,\u00a0 personal, and defense expenditures are going to have a real impact on jobs. So don’t expect any lasting long term employment gains any time soon.<\/p>\n
So what’s with all this prosperity in the financial markets? Gee, maybe it is because Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is giving out almost free loans to banks so the banks can loan the money out at higher interest rates. However, even optimist Helicopter Ben says that it will take five years for employment to become normal again. Sure it will, Ben, if the economy grows as fast as you think and there is no recession in the next five years. Is that even possible under this administration? I sincerely doubt it. I do not even know how the Federal Reserve bank is even going to stay solvent because they now hold over a trillion dollars in overvalued mortgages.<\/p>\n
I might as well get into the topic of home mortgages before people get overly delusional. There is not going to be any housing recovery in the next few years and I will tell you why. There is now about 4 million houses listed on the market and there is a shadow inventory of 6 million empty houses just waiting for the market to improve. So, as some of the 4 million are sold off some of the six million will be added. There will also be another 2\u00a0 million houses each year that people will simply have to sell because they relocated or the owner died. Only about 4 million houses are bought each year. So not even counting future foreclosures there will be a surplus of houses for about four more years. The normal inventory in a balanced housing market is about 2 million units. So do the math. The inventory will take four years to get down to normal. But, even a balanced housing market in four years is out of the question because in reality there will be about four million new foreclosures during the next two years.<\/p>\n
There is a big bubble of new interest rate resets for adjustable rate mortgages coming this summer and it will last through most of 2012. People that were given teaser rates simply are not going to be able to pay the higher rates and then since almost all new buyers are underwater many of them will walk away or be foreclosed on. Also, do not forget that new houses continue to be built each year. So there will be a surplus of housing for the better part of this decade. In the next two years house prices are likely to continue to fall in most areas. Housing is still 30 percent overvalued when it is compared to the long term rise in housing prices. Some of that thirty percent will be erased by future inflation but housing prices will not be going up in most areas until the dollar falls in value about that much and\/or there is that much future inflation.<\/p>\n
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The Pope just said that God created the big bang. Before he gives Catholics his infallible Bull, I wonder how he even determined that there ever was a big bang? The big bang theory is out of vogue with even many cutting edge astrophysicists. Nevertheless, here you have the world religious leader buying into the world’s bull. Macro evolution starting from the Big Bang has become like global warming. No matter how much AGW is debunked it keeps on going like the energizer bunny.<\/p>\n
To give equal time to the Protestant Popes. Let me tell you about what a speaker at Rick Warren’s Christian Apologetics Conference at Saddleback said.<\/p>\n
Now I see that God prefers to work through intermediaries\u2013Mary and the saints . . . He wants us to pray through Mary and not only directly. (p. 154)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
[Mary] may bring the churches together again and heal the tears in her Son’s visible body on earth, she, the very one who seems to divide Catholics from Protestants. The most distinctive Catholic doctrines, especially those concerning the Eucharist and Mary, may prove to be the most unifying and attracting ones. (p. 158)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
Consecrate your life to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She is the one who will win this war. She is the one (as the Bible says) who triumphs over Satan. (p. 169 \u2013 parenthesis in original)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
Full article<\/strong><\/a>
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