"University administrator says federal statute trumps the Constitution"

"[The Constitution] doesn't supersede it," Cook said. "Title IX is a federal compliance policy. Those policies supersede anything else."

The statement from Cook comes after a student satire paper, the Daily Bull, published an article titled "Sexually harassed man pretty okay with situation." The article included a list of "Signs that she wants the D," that contained such entries as "she only screams a little" and "she's underage and you're 21."

Disgusting? Yes, both for the nonchalant treatment of male harassment victims and the rape jokes aimed at women. But does it rise to the level of actual harassment or hate speech not protected by the First Amendment? No. 

Meantime... Federal student loans balloons over a trillion dollars.  There is just very little good news out there today.

"Say I'm 70 years old, only got a few years left..."

"...what's stopping me from spending a lot of money and racking up a load of debt?"

Top voted Reddit comments...

...when do creditors stop handing out credit? When do they start decreasing credit limits?
Let's say you're 70 and you have 5-10 credit cards with a combined limit of ~$100k. That's not very far-fetched. I'm 35 and have limits half that. What's to stop someone with that credit from spending a lot of that money and then making minimum payments until they die? Hell, what if they know they're dying within a year or two? Credit card companies can't see their medical records. Is there anything preventing them from running up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt before they die? IS THAT WHY MY INTEREST IS SO HIGH ON MY CREDIT CARDS?! I'LL MURDER YOU OLD PEOPLE!!

most older people want to leave money to their families, especially their kids. If you die with a huge debt, they get nothing, and all of your property (including your family home) will get sold to pay your debt.

The correct answer is nothing, but its generally risky and the reward is limited. Its basically the same reason that 70 years old don't do heroin. They just keep doing what they've been doing. They mostly try to enjoy time with their loved ones, have sex with other elderly people, stay healthy, and hope to live for another 20 years.

I've worked in credit cards in fraud and collections. Nothing stops you. A lot of old people have done it.
Usually, they run up their cards because of inadequate retirement savings and they charge a little each month to cover food, rent, or medicine. With those people we have little recourse as their assets are basically nil.
Once in a while someone does exactly what you are talking about usually buying a ton of stuff right before they die. But usually people are so ill can't actually get out to the store to buy the stuff themselves. So they give the card to relatives or give the relative their own card on their account as an authorized user or co-signer.
If someone racks up a ton of debt and has assets the Fraud dept will get involved.
One of two things happens.
1) We put a claim against their estate. While credit cards are unsecured credit we can still put liens against the estate. If their only asset was the home they owned that will have a lien on it. So if you want to pass anything on to your kids the card companies will make sure they get their share.
Unsecured debt is last in line for any payouts on assets with secured debt like mortgages and car loans having first cut on the assets they are secured with. Retired people have usually paid off their homes so we would could get first dibs if we file our lien before other debtors.
2) Once the person dies their account is closed as of time of death. Fraud has caught a surprising number of people using credit cards after death. Often they are authorized users who have a card but are not account holders so the charge is fraudulent. The threat of jail time if they don't pay often gets people to take on a large amount of debt they thought would be clear.
If you are a co-signer then you are now on the hook for the whole amount.

"Fear Grows in Greece as Decisive Hour Nears"

"Greece requested a new three-year bailout from its skeptical eurozone creditors and pledged some economic overhauls on Wednesday."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Greece’s debt burdens would overwhelm the country without eurozone lenders, particularly Germany, reducing its overall debt load.

“Greece’s debt is not sustainable,” Mr. Lew said. “The real question is, can [Greece] make the changes that will satisfy Europe to put in place the kind of debt restructuring that needs to be there.”

In the affluent suburb of Nea Erythrea, north of Athens, Iosif Perdikaris, a 72-year-old pensioner suffering from diabetes, was looking for insulin,

“How am I supposed to manage my diabetes without my insulin?” Mr. Perdikaris screamed at the pharmacist.

He said he was starting to regret voting against creditors’ terms for a bailout in last Sunday’s referendum.

“I voted ‘no’ and now look at this,” he said. “I can’t get my medications, and next week we may be using drachmas.”

Greeks reject demands for more austerity

"Today we celebrate the victory of democracy," Tsipras, who gambled the future of his 5-month-old left-wing government on the vote, said in an address to the nation.

"'no' is a big `yes' to democratic Europe. It's a no to the vision of Europe an infinite cage for its people. It is a loud yes to the vision of the Eurozone as a common area of prosperity and social justice." 

"We don't want austerity measures anymore, this has been happening for the last five years and it has driven so many into poverty, we simply can't take any more austerity," said Athens resident Yiannis Gkovesis, 26, holding a large Greek flag in the city's main square.

"Today, democracy is defeating fear ... I am very optimistic," Tsipras said earlier in the day after voting in in Athens.

Big day for Bernie Sanders?

Are we going the way of Greece?

 

Jeffrey55, Sheffield, United Kingdom, said... 

This is your final final final final deadline......if you fail to adhere to Heir Angela's orders we will have another final deadline....there is no renegotiation until we try and renegotiate again....you will not be bailed out until we give you even more debt money and allow you even longer to never pay it back......now is that clear.......anybody ?

"It's time to hold physical cash"

"... says one of Britain's most senior fund managers"

The manager of one of Britain’s biggest bond funds has urged investors to keep cash under the mattress.

The best strategy to deal with this, he said, was for investors to spread their money widely into different assets, including gold and silver, as well as cash in savings accounts. But he went further, suggesting it was wise to hold some “physical cash”, an unusual suggestion from a mainstream fund manager.

His concern is that global debt – particularly mortgage debt – has been pumped up to record levels, made possible by exceptionally low interest rates that could soon end, and he is unsure how well banks could cope with the shocks that may await.

Chicago's Astonishing Debt and Pension Liabilities

It's mind a blowing $33 billion, according to this article in the Washington Post.

The City of Chicago has $7 billion of revenue each year, from which is it supposed to pay all city operating costs, service debt obligations, retire debt, and fund several employee pension plans.  But it can't do that, or more accurately won't do it because politicians lack the political courage necessary to make changes.  And because the amount owed is so staggering relative to Chicago's tax revenues.

The WaPo article lists $19.5 billion of unfunded pension liabilities and $13.9 billion of outstanding general obligation bond liability, a total of $33 billion.  All of these obligations are to be paid from revenues collected via the property tax and local sales taxes.

Decades of city government spending means that in 2039, Chicago will still be paying off bonds from 1993. Some of those repayments, the Tribune said, will be for debts on public housing developments that were torn down more than a decade ago. Generous pension contracts signed without allocating future money means the police union’s pension fund has just 31 percent of what it will need to pay out future liabilities; the firefighting union has just 25 percent of the money it needs.

The WaPo article is accurate as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough.  It doesn't look at ALL pension obligations that the Chicago must meet.  Taken from a publication of the Civic Federation:

Chicago has unfunded pension liabilities of $14.8 billion plus $27.4 billion, a total of $42.2 billion.  Add the general obligation bond liability of $13.9 billion and the total becomes a whopping $56.1 billion that Chicago owes.

And that doesn't count Chicago's portion of the $75 billion of unfunded state-wide pension liabilities.

The mayor of Chicago has five difficult choices from which he can choose:

1. Protect Chicago from pension liabilities by filing for bankruptcy.

2.  Seek payment of its outstanding obligations in part or fully by the federal government.  Obama can solve this with a stroke of his auto-pen.  And every other major city will expect the same gift.

3.  Restructure Chicago's labor union contracts to require that union employees pay a larger part of their own retirement funding.  Rahm doesn't have enough Kevlar to do this.  And his aldermen would not stand with him.

4. Impose and astronomical increase in property taxes and watch businesses and residents flee to other municipalities while tax delinquencies skyrocket. 

5. Do nothing and let the problem fester for the next mayor to resolve, or more likely, kick further down the road.  Seek higher political office and let some other schlub solve the problem next term.

Welcome to the decline of a once-great American city.

"Will U.S. Public Debt Reach $22 Trillion by Feb. 2014?"

"Just imagine an undisciplined out-of-control spender whose credit limit has just been extended. In other words, they can continue overspending without any accountability. That “they” is the U.S. government."

It’s been almost a week since Congress reached a temporary deal to suspend the U.S. government’s debt ceiling and the Treasury department has already wasted no time by adding another $375 billion in new debt."

Suspension of a cap on U.S. debt, which was previously fixed at $16.69 trillion, means the Treasury department, headed by Jack Lew, can effectively spend whatever amount of money it needs or wants."

How much debt can the U.S. government rack up by the next debt ceiling deadline on Feb. 7, 2014? At the current spending pace of $375 billion per week, U.S. public debt would reach $22.70 trillion." 

"When you are the largest economy in the world, when you are the safe haven in all circumstances, as has been the case, you can't go into that creative accounting business," said International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde in an interview with NBC News' Meet the Press."

What does the bond market have to say about this?"

After reaching a yearly high of 2.97%, the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries (NYSEARCA:IEF) has since fallen by 12.5%. Put another way, the bond market is saying that it doesn’t care about the fiscal realities of the U.S. government’s unmanageable debt load."

etfguide

When Negotiating Becomes Impassé

From an email by Darrell Issa to his constituents:

This is not the first time that our country has had a divided government or experienced a shutdown due to disagreements between the President and congressional leaders of opposing parties.  However, in prior instances, both the President and respective leaders have found ways to engage in regular discussions to resolve issues. 

President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich were fierce opponents publically, as were President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neill, but they always found ways to work together to advance our nation's interests and their respective policy agendas. 

What's different today is that President Obama has repeatedly and preemptively announced his refusal to negotiate with congressional leaders about operations of the federal government or the level of spending under his Administration. 

Congress has a constitutional responsibility and authority to oversee federal spending and the Executive Branch’s execution of the law, including addressing our nation’s unsustainable debt levels and the problems associated with ObamaCare and its implementation.   

The President himself has acknowledged some of the failures of ObamaCare by granting waivers to big business, big labor and other special interests, but insists on leaving individual Americans and families exposed to its serious flaws. He has granted these waivers unilaterally even though they are neither authorized by law nor consistent with his enumerated powers in the Constitution.

The solution is to negotiate, not hunker down.

“I don’t think (Obama) wants to compromise”

"[S]aid Victor Davis Hanson of the conservative Hoover Institution. “In the past, he’s always done better when he can accuse somebody of some terrible thing and go campaign against them. I think he wants to say that Obamacare is working ... He’ll want this war to continue.”

Democratic strategist Jason Stanford said the latest offer is a sign of GOP weakness, “tacit-ly admitting that they’re not getting what they were going for.”

“The president has said he is not negotiating on this and the House continues to try to negotiate on this,” Stanford said. “I think the government’s going to get shut down and Republicans will initially say, ‘See, this is no big deal.’ The stock market will have another opinion. This will hurt the economy and people will feel it in their 401(k)s.”

The Boston Globe, Bloomberg video, via Intapundit

money is illusory

So says Bloomberg. 

Actually, I'm reading Ed Driscoll and he says Bloomberg says that. I haven't looked because I'm easily confused and right now I'm hungry.

But there is a very telling paragraph that kills me all over the place. Because, where do you even start if not, "Well, you must be thinking of Star Trek economics then, aren't you?" 

As economists have come to understand that money shortages are essentially illusory, if infinite and unlimited money is made available to some but not others, then only racism can be the reason.

Shortages illusory, money infinite, it's only just a number, this is the same understanding I extracted from the young grocery checkout clerk with the body shaped like a cone, honestly, in less than 60 seconds idle conversation, with the unfortunate effect of drawing the hipster behind me in closer. The young clerk doesn't make any connection between his grocery store work and that kind of money either. It's meaningless. And since it is meaningless withholding it is racist.