WEEKLY NEWSLETTER FROM BULLSUGAR.ORG Florida’s sugar industry just posted one of the best years in its history, even as the Everglades and virtually everyone in South Florida suffered one of the worst. It’s not a coincidence. Managing water in Florida means picking winners and losers. When there’s a drought, losers go thirsty. When it rains, losers drown. In 38 years of public records, sugar has yet to lose. The Everglades lost on both sides in 2017. Barely a trickle flowed south into Everglades National Park and Florida Bay for the first five months of the year. River mouths dried up, brackish estuaries became saltier than the ocean, seagrass meadows collapsed. Guides reported miles of lifeless, stinking water where some of the most productive shallow fisheries had thrived for years. The Caloosahatchee and its massive Gulf coast estuary and the seagrasses that support it weren’t getting enough freshwater, either. But locks from Lake Okeechobee stayed closed, holding water back for the only customer getting all it needed. Even as residents around the region faced watering restrictions, sugarcane fields stayed wet all spring. As South Florida went brown, all signs in the Everglades Agricultural Area pointed to a record sugarcane crop. Meanwhile the Florida state legislature delivered more good news to the industry, rewarding its relentless lobbying campaign to block relief for the Everglades and estuaries by forcing the EAA reservoir to use public land and suspending eminent domain for the project. That limited the reservoir’s capacity to send more water to the parched Everglades and absorb discharges like the surge that wiped out the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries a year earlier. Then a foot of rain ended a six-month drought almost instantly, leaving the sugar growers with more than 100 billion gallons of water they wanted off their fields, because sugarcane can’t thrive in standing water for even a few days. Off it went, overwhelming treatment marshes and Water Conservation Areas, flooding into the Everglades, drowning everything that couldn’t swim, trapping the rest on a handful of tree islands without enough food to survive. Then-FWC Commissioner Ron Bergeron said at the time, “This event is so catastrophic that if we don’t act, we may not have anything left to save.” We’ll never know how much wildlife was sacrificed for the 2017-18 sugarcane crop. The chart below traces the water that the industry's 395,000 sugar-producing acres got, needed, and dumped during the 2017-18 growing year. Water levels stayed high as the industry needed to flush roughly 250 billion gallons of runoff into the Everglades between May and August. Then the hurricanes came. The estuaries had no chance. Lake Okeechobee had been rising all summer. The sugar industry didn’t need any more water--its runoff was already filling the flood control system. When Irma sent lake levels above the dike’s safety threshold there was nowhere else to put the water, so it went to the rivers. In the St. Lucie, lingering oyster populations that somehow survived the Toxic Summer of 2016 died off completely. The Caloosahatchee sent black water deep into the Gulf, pushing the estuary miles offshore. While continuing to pump runoff into the Everglades and into the lake--even as USACE conducted daily inspections for signs of a breach--sugar executives claimed their lucky run was over. They asked for almost $400 million in hurricane relief--more than half the total value of their annual crop. Doubts about the claim surfaced in December when a commodities trader told Reuters his firm expected strong production from Florida’s sugar industry, saying “I don’t think the hurricane had any impact.” Last week USDA confirmed it: the industry’s production of 1,992,000 tons was third-best in the past 15 years and seventh-best since USDA records began in 1980. Even better, the crop yielded 5 tons of sugar per acre--fifth-best on record. If 2017-18 turned out to be a sugar yield for the ages, it still didn’t stop the industry from keeping its hand out for federal aid. Add its reported $382,603,397 insurance claim to the annual take, and Hurricane Irma might have given the sugar industry its best year ever. Meanwhile the collapse of Florida Bay continues. Clearing water in the St. Lucie has revealed a sprawling moonscape where grass flats used to be. The Caloosahatchee is in crisis. And phosphorous levels on Lake Okeechobee are spiking with resuspended nutrients stirring to the surface after decades of accumulating in bottom sediment, providing far more fuel for toxic algae than in 2016. Florida’s water managers picked one winner and a host of losers last year, and their decisions will be felt for years to come. The sugar industry is a legitimate stakeholder in South Florida’s water management system, and no one seriously questions its right to protection. But we should question, at the highest levels, what and who should have to die for its profit? -Bullsugar.orgP.S. If you can, please click here to join Bullsugar.org today and become part of the solution.

Who is Running for Governor of Florida in 2018. By Geniusofdespair

Ron Bergeron has threatened to run as a Republican for Governor. He will make a decision this summer. Adam Putnam the Agriculture Commissioner appears to have the advantage. I would support Bergeron over that wimpy Putnam. At least Alligator Ron cares a bit about the environment. He is a mega-rich developer with 25 companies.

Ron Bergeron

Gwen Graham

For the Dems, Gwen Graham appears to be the front-runner. She is the daughter of former Senator and Governor Bob Graham. She has the connections and the fund raising capabilities. I can live with her as Governor.

John Morgan

Also in the Dem race, Philip Levine is expected to run, a no to that one. John Morgan, a personal injury lawyer who pushed for the medical Marijuana law, also wants to run and Andrew Gillum as well.

Qualifying is over in June 2018 so we have a long way to go. Scott was a surprise last minute  (waited till April) candidate. So expect more to enter.

Bullsugar explains it all for you

Did sugarcane growers flood the Everglades last week? Few reporters seemed curious about how much of the wildlife emergency in their headlines was preventable. No one asked what it cost to keep fields dry in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). Or how much water came off sugarcane fields. The answer--assuming 424,000 acres of sugarcane, and 15 inches of rain--is 173 billion gallons. Roughly the volume of polluted water that poisoned the Treasure Coast during 2016’s Toxic Summer discharges. Where did it go this time? Some went into the lake, of course. (SFWMD claimed the back-pumped water had been treated because it came from flow equalization basins… where sugar growers pumped it days or even hours before it went to the lake.) As a qualified engineer told Bullsugar.org, the phosphorus levels in that water exceeded 200 ppb - 5x the allowable limit for the lake, and 20x the allowable limit for the Everglades. That didn’t stop a massive amount of sugar runoff from going into the Everglades. How much? Enough to raise water levels south of the EAA to the point where animals drown or starve. Enough to pressure federal agencies into allowing water onto the nesting grounds of the endangered Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow. The total drainage from sugarcane fields was more than ⅓ of the total capacity of all three Water Conservation Areas (WCAs), which combined are bigger than Rhode Island. Enough to pile almost an extra foot of water onto WCA-3A’s entire 915 square-mile area. Enough to flood this photo op (above) with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissioner “Alligator” Ron Bergeron (left) who might otherwise have kept his shorts dry, while Executive Director Nick Wiley could have just worn boots. Should sugarcane growers have kept an extra foot of water on their fields to protect wildlife and human health? That’s debatable. The problem is that water management officials, despite having the explicit authority to order this, never mention the possibility. And no one asks them to. So it’s never debated. Should US Sugar's and Florida Crystals' $579 million sugarcane crop get bailed out at the expense of Florida's $9.7 billion fishing industry, $10.4 billion boating industry, or $89.1 billion tourism industry? No one asks. Our news media, politicians, taxpayers, and voters need to start asking. When a rainstorm prompts sugarcane growers to pump off hundreds of billions of gallons of pollution--enough to cover Delaware in 4 inches of water--triggering human health crises and wildlife die-offs so severe that Ron Bergeron warns, “there may be nothing left to save,” we need to question whether it’s worth it to protect this year’s sugar yield. Maybe we’ll decide it is. But right now, we don’t even ask. -Peter Girard Bullsugar.org http://www.bullsugar.org/ P.S. Bringing water policy out of the shadows helped Bullsugar.org supporters win the biggest clean water victory in years. If you can, please click here to make a donation to help us keep shedding light on how our public resources are managed.

From the ejectum of the Great Destroyers: County Commission backs off Ron Bergeron plan to jeopardize Miami-Dade drinking water … by gimleteye

"Mr. Everglades" Ron Bergeron had a plan to shrink the size of Miami-Dade's well field protection zone. Last November, we offered our acidic commentary about the petition to reduce its size. That is the opposite of what elected officials should be doing.

There is never an end to the war on the environment in South Florida. It is a battle of attrition lightly reported in the mainstream press between miners, sugar billionaires, developers, their lobbyists and proxies in elected office against neighbors, civic activists, and environmentalists. Those with profit motives normally prevail for the standard reasons. Until now, protections for the well field in Miami Dade County have been sacrosanct. Why are they being battered down now?

Of course, the Miami Dade planners have a rationale: "we don't need as much land as we thought we did when we expected to use much more water." But this flies in the face of the history of Miami-Dade begging the state to give it permission to draw MORE water. (And no where, by the way, has the county mentioned the need to preserve more fresh water supply for FPL Turkey Point's massive expansion plans: on the order of 90 million gallons per day.)

How the county and state government conspired to substitute highly engineered, chemically treated and expensive water for taxpayers in a region that once afforded the cleanest, most abundant fresh water in the United States for free is a long, winding and mostly unwritten story. (You can pick up the threads in our archive.)

The claim of developers and rock miners on the region called the West Dade well field is one of the starkest examples how baselines of what the public deems acceptable comprise between development and environmental protection are constantly shifting despite the best science and evidence calling for strict and stringent protections for our water supply. For example, during the term of county mayor Carlos Alvarez in 2006, evidence from tests by the USGS (US Geological Service) that underground water moved much more rapidly from the Everglades to the well fields, through faults and openings in the Biscayne aquifer, caused the rock miners to press their case to limit future financial exposure to water treatment costs by successfully ramming through the state legislature caps on their liability.

Apparently, our argument held. Last week the county commission listened to science and not bullshit sponsored by the Great Destroyers. Next step: county commission make clear that not a single dime of taxpayer money should be spent on the idea of shrinking the well field protection zone. Drop it, county commission!

The commission's first concern must be protect our drinking water quality and making nearby billionaire rock miners pay for the jeopardy their activities introduce to our water supply.

From the annals of the Great Destroyers: our Drinking Water in Peril … The County Wants to SHRINK the Wellfield Protectection Zone. By Geniusofdespair and Gimleteye

If you read one post this year: Make it this one. Some at the County may tell you that the push to update the wellfield maps came from litigation by Ron Bergeron/Kendall Properties Inc.

210 days (outer circle) my ass. More like a few hours

There is never an end to the war on the environment in South Florida. It is a battle of attrition lightly reported in the mainstream press between miners, sugar billionaires, developers, their lobbyists and proxies in elected office against neighbors, civic activists, and environmentalists. Those with profit motives normally prevail for the standard reasons. Until now, protections for the well field in Miami Dade County have been sacrosanct. Why are they being battered down now?

Of course, the Miami Dade planners have a rationale: "we don't need as much land as we thought we did when we expected to use much more water." But this flies in the face of the history of Miami-Dade begging the state to give it permission to draw MORE water. (And no where, by the way, has the county mentioned the need to preserve more fresh water supply for FPL Turkey Point's massive expansion plans: on the order of 90 million gallons per day.)

How the county and state government conspired to substitute highly engineered, chemically treated and expensive water for taxpayers in a region that once afforded the cleanest, most abundant fresh water in the United States for free is a long, winding and mostly unwritten story. (You can pick up the threads in our archive.)

The claim of developers and rock miners on the region called the West Dade well field is one of the starkest examples how baselines of what the public deems acceptable comprise between development and environmental protection are constantly shifting despite the best science and evidence calling for strict and stringent protections for our water supply. For example, during the term of county mayor Carlos Alvarez in 2006, evidence from tests by the USGS (US Geological Service) that underground water moved much more rapidly from the Everglades to the well fields, through faults and openings in the Biscayne aquifer, caused  the rock miners to press their case to limit future financial exposure to water treatment costs by successfully ramming through the state legislature caps on their liability.

For those readers unfamiliar, the West Dade well field is best observed from an airplane window seat on the approach to Miami International Airport. The large green, variously colored squarish lakes are rock mines. The rock is ancient coral reef that is not only the bedrock of South Florida, but the substrate used for cement and pavement in its many forms.

This limestone is extraordinarily porous. It is like a sponge or sieve. The reason that water from the Everglades was once so pristine -- requiring no treatment at all -- is that the sawgrass meadows and limestone beneath acted as a perfect filter. The reason so many ancient, indigenous tribes settled at the mouths of Florida's rivers (Miami River) and bays is that the interface between fresh and salt water provided extraordinarily abundant wildlife and (then) a limitless source of food.

Today, the Everglades are the background for bitter conflict between billionaire sugar growers, their proxies and lobbyists, and environmentalists. Over decades, these acid relationships have been smoothed out by government interventions that sadly fall short, always, of what the environment and ecosystem needs.

Until now, the West Dade well field has been isolated from that conflict. Why? Because what protects the Everglades also protects drinking water serving over 2 million residents and visitors. But the pressure of rock miners, land speculators, and developers on the well field is relentless.

Some of the worst, most congested suburban sprawl in Miami-Dade county is pressing up against the open space called the well field protection zone; determined to be the area necessary to provide enough filtration so that the water in our well fields is relatively clean. And they -- the Great Destroyers -- want more.

It would take a much longer report to describe what the well field protection area is sized as it is, and how the science of water quality and wetlands has imposed limits that developers now want to knock apart. After successive political victories at the polls, insiders have apparently determined this is the time to assault the well field protection zone.

Below are comments about shrinking the well fields protection areas (shown above) made by a host of Environmental Groups in response to the initial wave of attack against legal protections that have been supported, for decades, by county planning staff and experts.  Also read our previous blog on this subject from Monday.

These comments were sent to the County Commission as this well field protection area shrinkage will likely be scheduled for the December 16th meeting of the Board of County Commissioners.

The county is suddenly arguing that a big area of protection is no longer necessary because Miami Dade Water and Sewer is drawing less than permitted water from the wells. A smaller area would reduce the limits on developers (who may be failing agreed upon stipulations  regarding the impacts of their developments on the operation of nearby water drainage canals operated by the state.) A smaller area would also allow rock mining and development to blossom even further.

There are very good reasons the well field protection area should not be changed, and some of these are highlighted by engineering and environmental appeals to the county commission and county planners.

Joint Wellfield Comments 6.30.14[1]

(view in Scrib)

Scientist on the Environmental Review Committee for the County:

Below: Complaint from Kendall Properties Inc. -This is a complaint from Kendall Properties against Miami-Dade County.  Some at the County may tell you that the push to update the wellfield maps came from this litigation. Ron Bergeron is Kendall Properties Inc.. We have a whole file on him. Rock mining, Republican, pretender of Everglades protection, he wrestles alligators for fun and headlines and drives a huge black Hummer trimmed in gold. His fortune is based on exploiting the arbitrage at the edge of the Everglades: rock mining, land clearing, construction and development -- he is the most visible advocate for letting developers determine what is best for the Everglades.

It’s also important to note that the west wellfield protection area that would be eliminated is in the Bird Drive Basin where expansion of 836 outside of the UDB is proposed.

20130806141211559

Read on scrib

Also read BENEATH THE PINK UNDERWEAR in Miami New Times:

But beneath the pink underwear lay another story, which though less sexy, is much more important. It involves a complicated test by WASD, the Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to find out how quickly water moves through limestone near the Northwest Wellfield. The preliminary results of this test provoked nothing less than shock in the scientists who performed it. Their reactions had more to do with drinking water, taxes, and the multimillion-dollar limestone mining industry than with the color of folks' unmentionables.

And:

On the morning of April 22, one day before people noticed their underwear was stained, USGS scientists drilled a test well about 100 meters from the Northwest Wellfield and injected what is indeed a harmless dye known as rhodamine into the limestone. Based on previous DERM water models for North Miami-Dade, they expected the dye would take two to three days to appear. The first traces showed up in about four hours.

Next installment.... Beating a dead horse.

New Strange Magazine in South Forida: "Executive". By Geniusofdespair

Don't quite understand this new glossy magazine, who it is geared for? Is it just a vehicle for wishful thinking and ego building?

The cover type was: "Legends 2014".  Here are their picks for legends:

Ron Bergeron, Alicia Cervera Sr., Burton Landy, David Lawrence, Jr., Stanley Tate and Monty Trainer.

They had a 9 page pictorial article on Ron Bergeron...torture. We have a lot to say about him too. None of it good.

Ron Bergeron

 Monty Trainer?  Wasn't he in jail?  How did they pick these legends? With Cervera, she had ads, so that makes the choice of Alicia Cervera easy to figure out. I guess the criteria will never be clear to me on the choice of the others but I suspect money is involed . Stanley Tate was pictured with every Republican known to man including Ted Cruz.

Perry Ellis International said that they wish to congratulate these business legends "For their dedication to building a better community and entrepreneurial spirit." Barf.  Anyway, I won't be reading this magazine again. Ron Mann is the publisher. (Here is a file photo of Bergeron's Hummer.)

Don't you just love who they call ENVIRONMENTALISTS in the Miami Herald. By Geniusofdespair

Ron Bergeron

Reporters not in the know should at least do some basic research. Uber Republican, alligator wrestler, rich rock miner Ron Bergeron is not an environmentalist by a long shot. The article was in the Miami Herald -- good luck finding it online. Quick Fixes Urged for Glades was the title by William E. Gibson. He referred to Bergeron as an environmentalist. I did a search for the article:

As you can see the Herald SEARCH sucks. I also searched for the reporter got the same "0"

I previously reported from the South Florida Business Journal:

"Today, Bergeron owns multiple businesses including Bergeron Land Development, the largest road contracting and site development business in the state; Bergeron Sand Rock and Mining, which produces materials for development companies; and Bergeron Properties, a real estate company that develops housing communities, shopping centers and industrial parks."

Who you calling an environmentalist Gibson?

The Thrilla From Mi-a-muh ... by gimleteye

Who hasn't cherished the fantasy that opposing political leaders would meet in the boxing ring instead of the TV talk show circuit where duking it out is clothed in niceties? Harry Reid v. Mitch McConnell. Debbie Wasserman Schultz v. Michele Bachmann.

According to the Herald, two Miami politicians are showing how: Miami Lakes Mayor and EOM favorite, Michael Pizzi v. Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez. These two are not political adversaries although the blood between the two communities is hot. According to the Herald, Pizzi and Hernandez are climbing into the ring for charity. I'm betting the 50-something "Thrilla from Mi-a-muh" will draw a cigar chomping crowd.

Just the image leads to other fantastical ring-side combats, although the fact that most Miami city and county commission are stacked with elected officials who share the same ideological purities somehow dilutes the impact. Lynda Bell v. Cindy Lerner, officiated by Katy Sorenson. Once we are bringing back former elected officials to spice up the mix, I'd pay to see martial arts student, former county commissioner Miguel Diaz de la Portilla v. weight-lifter and former Miami Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez.

The card could start, by the way, with contests of "lobbyists for charities". Ron Book v. Ron Bergeron. Maybe you have some dream match-ups to share.

Joe Biden's Visit: The Side Show. By Geniusofdespair

That is Senator Bill Nelson peaking out from the back of the Vice President's shoulder, Also in attendance was U.S. Rep Alcee Hastings.

Mac-Kinley Lauriston Administrative Director for Commissioner Jean Monestime

Eddie, Lynda Bell's Chief of Staff was there for Lynda Bell.

Also there from Lynda Bell's Office: Lynda Bell herself.

Kerri Barsh, Rock Mining's favorite Lawyer and Lynda Bell hanging out. Either Lynda got her  the water or Lynda is hogging two. Look a Kerri's body language, what is she hatching? She attends all of Lynda Bell's wetland advisory task force meetings. I would say this is a love fest. Of all the people who shouldn't show their faces at an Everglades event, these two couldn't care less --- by their actions. Lynda is propping up the 8 1/2 square mile people now, the biggest, single headache to Everglades Restoration.

This Picture of Ron Bergeron wouldn't be as interesting except that is Bob Graham's finger on his belt buckle. Also the Wildlife Commissioner embroidered on his shirt "Commissioner ALLIGATOR Ron Bergeron. That is because he at one time  wrestled with the animals. This guy is a big Republican donor. While he touts the importance of the Everglades, I think it is only for his rock mining enterprises.

State Senator Nan Rich -- Like her a lot -- is running for Governor.

The two stars of the event: Joe Biden and Robert is Here.
Robert is the most famous guy near the Everglades, he runs the best Fruit Stand around.

As I said this is the Side Show of Vice President's Biden's visit. Go to the Miami Herald for the actual story. To recap Biden said something about the plan to increase the size of the Tamiani Bridge to create more water flow to the Everglades -- everyone cheered (was I listening? A bit). That will make Lynda Bell's 8 1/2 square mile buddies angry. What was she doing there as she has single-handedly done more to hurt Miami Dade County's environmental arm (formerly DERM) than anyone else on the Commission. I would suppose you can read one of her 40,000 press releases to find out. I asked where President Obama was and Joe said he didn't know. I found out later he was spotted at Crandon Park beach, see photo:

Vice President Joe Biden on Monday visits Everglades National Park

For real: Ron Bergeron is making an appearance at the Joe Biden visit to Everglades National Park. Here are photos of his ride (Bergeron's, not the VP's). Ron is a very wealthy rock miner (exploiting Everglades limestone for cement), land speculator (exploiting Everglades wetlands for suburban sprawl), and claims to know more about the Everglades than anyone who drives a Hummer like his. By Jove, I think EOM has finally discovered who Ron Bergeron aspires to be. (Note: Bergeron is wearing his "black hat". His "white hat" remains in the Hummer on the dashboard.)

You really have to hit this car to increase the size to get its full impact.

Rock mining in Palm Beach suffers rare defeat ... by gimleteye

Rock mining is one of the wealthiest, most secretive industries in the state of Florida. It is an industrial activity involving the dynamiting and harvesting of ancient corals to make the base materials for cement and concrete. When you fly out of Miami International Airport, or pass by old lakes in South Miami, what you are seeing is an industrial activity that substantially helped destroy the Everglades. By allowing rock mines in the Everglades, local governments have drastically complicated restoration by the state and federal government and, in the case of Miami-Dade, imposed huge risks (and potential costs) on anyone who drinks water -- that means, everyone.

The laws protecting wetlands in Florida have proven ineffective against special interests that specialize in the lucrative game of lobbying and pushing loopholes into legislation. The best book written on the subject and a very good read: "Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss".

Palm Beach County is a special example. The county is run by sugar billionaires (the Fanjuls) and rock miners. The sugar barons invite whatever economic activity will keep government at bay, especially government that seeks to restore the Everglades by forcing them to clean up their pollution. The sugar barons are deeply burrowed into protective farm programs protected by Democrats and Republicans alike. The Palm Beach County Commission -- like all county commissions -- have proven eager accomplices in the business of converting wetlands for profit since everyone is doing it.

Push back by environmentalists in the courts consumes an enormous amount of time, money and effort: commodities in increasingly short supply as waning public interest combines with economic and personal financial insecurity to create a laissez faire political climate where any sort of demagoguery attached to the word "jobs" gives momentum to the money changers, lobbyists, and sycophants.

That is why yesterday's news that a district appeals court ruled against a mine expansion in West Palm Beach is so rare. The PB Post reports, "In a decision that environmentalists say could affect the future of rock mining in the county's rural western area, the court ruled the 470-acre expansion planned by Bergeron Sand and Rock Mine Aggregates did not meet criteria spelled out in the county's comprehensive plan -- a long-term blueprint for growth and development." (Ron Bergeron, self-proclaimed Everglades defender, is behind the rock mine.)

What you will see, now, is an effort on many fronts to re-write comprehensive plans across the state of Florida. Why is that going to happen? Because Gov. Rick Scott gave carte blanche to local government when he beheaded the Florida Department of Community Affairs, the beaten-down agency with the sad, difficult task of trying to protect Floridians quality of life and environment from crappy development schemes. The schemers, won. If only people knew. (Click 'read more' for the whole Palm Beach Post story.)

Lobbyists: a novel way to remove pythons from the Everglades ... by gimleteye

"If we can send someone to the moon, we can figure out how to get rid of these snakes." Florida Wildlife Commissioner Ron Bergeron. ('Open Season on Glades Python', St. Pete Times, May 28, 2009)

I like the idea of a bounty for snake hunters to extract Burmese python from the Everglades. Here's an idea that even Ron Bergeron could embrace: include the bounty as part of the licensing fee for lobbyists in any of the counties ringing the Everglades.

Lobbyists get a bad rap. They are called snake oil salesmen. Or, oily as a snake. Think of how the lobbyists' reputation could be enhanced by capturing snakes as a condition of their registration to lobby.

Here is the plan: for every registration, one python is part of the fee. Now being a realist, I would never expect a lobbyist to get his wing tips wet chasing Burmese pythons. Let lobbyists pay for and hire bounty hunters from their own bounty fees.

I would add the condition that the lobbyist must produce a photo, with a time and date stamp, taken with the killed snake at an Everglades National Park weighing station. Maybe the penalty for faking the photo could be a night spent in the Everglades hunting snakes with one of the guys in the picture, above. Does it sound reasonable to you, too?

More, on Parkland and Krome Gold ... by gimleteye

As I was trying to explain to a friend last night—in the restaurant that last year at this time would have been bustling and this year was struggling to fill a quarter of its seats—we have a local analogy to the Hank Paulson multi-trillion dollar bailout of the corrupt financial system. It is called Krome Gold Ranches and Parkland.

These developments virtually connect with each other and have interlocking ownership outside the Urban Development Boundary. Now, they are pushing their way in a few short weeks to zoning decisions at the county commission, after bouncing around at lesser show events in committee meetings and community councils.

My friend is a sophisticated real estate developer. Over the years, we’ve talked about what the economy would look like when the asset bubble in housing and commercial development finally cratered. It looks a lot like this.

We agree that the essential feature emerging from the commitment by the Bush White House to trillions of dollars of socialization of the financial industries is that insiders— investors with experience and especially those close to the Wall Street geniuses who created the mess in the first place, are now in top positions either at the US Treasury or close enough to be the first to profit from the chaos.

As I stated in an earlier post, banks are so frantic to preserve capital that at the top level they are writing off loans to whatever their customers (developers) will pay. In the case of trillions going to support financial institution balance sheets, the cherry-picking of toxic assets will create new billionaires if the markets reverse in a couple of years.

So how does this tie into Krome Gold Ranches and Parkland (click on our archive feature to read about the specific investors)? My friend long ago gave up doing business in Miami-Dade, but here is the substance of what we talked about.

For one, recognize the foolishness in a zoning change putting more sprawl in open space (excellent quality farmland) to create yet another 150 acre rock mine (Krome Gold Ranches) and a new community of more than 16,000 people within shouting distance of the Everglades, far from either transit or places of work.

Both these projects are owned by hubristic developers of suburban sprawl including lobbyists like Rodney Barreto and Sergio Pino who act like THEY run Miami Dade County and the county commissioners they help elect. (ie. the unreformable majority lead by Natacha Seijas).

Krome Gold wasn’t supposed to be a rock mine. Back when the project was conceived—only a few years ago—the housing boom was proceeding apace; sprawl developers were taking easy money and recruiting buyers off to South and Western Miami Dade to take their houses. It was called “the ownership society”. No one calls it that, anymore.

What Krome Gold and its panoply of local luminary investors was supposed to be was the battering ram for development past Krome Avenue, where US Century Bank founder Sergio Pino had set his sights to build out sprawl into Miami-Dade just like Miramar did for Ron Bergeron and GL Homes and for other speculators who share hanger space for their private jets at Tamiami or Opalacka Airports.

What Krome Gold and Parkland both turned into was the kind of anchor that no land speculator wants to be tied to in an economic hurricane, with its flood of foreclosures, bad news, and no end in sight.

The Krome Gold investors want to mine lime rock to help pay their carrying costs until the housing markets revive, and much—if not all—of that lime rock could be used across the street at Parkland, to provide fill for low lying sections of the planned “green” subdivision/traditional town/clustered development/flavor-of-the week.

In both cases, the zoning changes sought by their owners add value that will be readily appreciated by vulture funds scouring Miami and Miami-Dade to invest for cents on the dollar.

Who knows: as the current crisis drags on, and a Republican administration dives deeper into the biggest socialization of the financial sector since the Great Depression, the Republican investors in Krome Gold and Parkland may get to take their mortgages back from the banks at a lower price.

The pity here is that there is no day of reckoning; no mea culpa; no catharsis yet or acknowledgement of wrong by the investors like those of Krome Gold or Parkland for their roles in creating an unsustainable Miami Dade County. And no penalties (except perhaps for the new Planning Director if he doesn’t support these applications: we were told that lobbyists threatened his job “in 90 days” if he doesn’t fold.)

Hank Paulson, the architect of the Multi Trillion Dollar Socialization of the Financial Sector, did say the other day that “mistakes were made”. Easier to say, knowing that your hundred million dollar fortune is safely tucked away.

But the local pit bulls will appear at the county commission in a few weeks and the local county commissioners will open the meeting as though nothing had occurred in the past six months to change the “need for jobs”, or “supporting construction”; in other words, the dais talk will ricochet with the rationales of predetermined outcomes; just like it did in the last round of CDMP applications—the horrible Lowe’s application, approved by the county commission, rejected by Mayor Carlos Alvarez and the State of Florida, and headed for court; the application on distant Kendall Drive by Brown family interests whose campaign contributions show up like confetti of the same color in accounts of the unreformable majority of the county commission; the concerns of the Redland Civic Association and other community activists like the coalition to “Hold The Line” will be brushed aside by polished “environmental” attorneys supported by the cast of stock players that provide “expert testimony” the way elementary school thespians mount the stage for a Thanksgiving pageant.

It is all about money. More for them and less for you, the taxpayer.

So this is the local version of the phenomenon that is playing out on the national stage: a financial system in crisis turns to the same insiders who caused the crisis in the first place hoping for a different result. No wonder there is a crisis of confidence rippling across the American landscape.

It is too bad that the county commission elections took place months ago, because the opportunity of giving citizens the chance for the one action that is meaningful—throwing the bums from office—has passed and gone; the one measure that citizens could have rallied around, to demonstrate state-wide displeasure at the ravages of unsustainable growth called Florida Hometown Democracy (an amendment to the Florida constitution that would force the investors of Parkland and Krome Gold to persuade the electorate and not 13 Miami Dade county commissioners that their plans were worth supporting) was drowned like a baby in a bathtub by local supervisors of elections who refused to accurately and speedily process the 611,009 petitions gathered to qualify for the state-wide ballot in two weeks.)

But this, my friends, is part of the general disarray; contracts busted at whim and no one pays the price; it is every man and woman for himself while government staggers along until the pain of ordinary people grows too deep and too harsh and too meaningful. We are on the cusp of something new here, but by the time it manifests, the real estate speculators will have vanished, fled to hermetically sealed and tight security of private ranches, New England country retreats, or safe houses—but certainly not in the Redland and certainly not Parkland. Those were just investments.

Developer Ron Bergeron Begs for Everglades Help. By Geniusofdespair

In today’s Miami Herald Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Ron Bergeron begs for help for the wildlife at risk because of flooding in the Everglades:

''If we don't start doing something, we're going to end up with a total massacre...''

Bergeron, an engineering contractor, is president and owner of Bergeron Family of Companies, based in Ft. Lauderdale. Hey, wait a minute, wasn’t it Ron Bergeron that developed to the edge of the Everglades in Broward? As we previously reported on January 20th, The South Florida Business Journal, said of him:

"Today, Bergeron owns multiple businesses including Bergeron Land Development, the largest road contracting and site development business in the state; Bergeron Sand Rock and Mining, which produces materials for development companies; and Bergeron Properties, a real estate company that develops housing communities, shopping centers and industrial parks."

What do you think? Multiple Personality? And, what were you thinking Charlie Crist when you appointed him? Maybe you were trying to outdo your other bad appointment: Rodney Barreto.

Newspaper die-off... by gimleteye

We depend on the free and independent press for speaking truth to power, even though the mainstream press has been neither free nor independent for a long time.

The industry's death-spiral began with the advent of television and info-tainment but quickly accelerated with the 1990's dot.com boom. Audiences were migrating to internet based sources of news at the same time Wall Street demanded that newspapers compete, head-to-head, in terms of profit.

As newspaper profits became more and more difficult to inch up, executives (with compensation packages calibrated to profit) turned increasingly reliant on advertising revenues from the real estate industry; especially from production home builders and automobile manufacturers.

Discerning readers understood that the toxic reliance on real estate advertisers was a killer-- skewing editorial bias toward Chamber of Commerce values, against the public interest in sound quality of life, clean air and water, and good government, and losing readership in the process.

The Florida landscape-- and not just Florida-- is etched with evidence. Just a few days ago, the Associated Press reported, "Chesapeake watermen fear blue crab not coming back" (July 16, 2008). " Crabs have thrived in the bottom muck of the Chesapeake and its tributaries even as centuries of overfishing harmed oysters, fish and other species in the nation's largest estuary. Now blue crabs are in trouble, too, and when they go, a way of life is sure to go with them."

"Thomas Courtney, who sells Kellam the alewife fish he uses for bait, laughs when asked whether state efforts to revive blue crabs will bring them back. "It ain't what we're pulling out of the water. It's what we're putting in the water," says Courtney, 62. "You've got a cornfield, 20 acres, you put 80 or 90 houses on it, hook 'em up to sewer pipes, put roads and ditches down. That's what's destroyed the bay. It ain't us. They let development take over and then, that's it, we're done."

Mr. Courtney is right. It is the same in Biscayne Bay. Or the Everglades. "They let development take over."

Print media executives found themselves on the same side of the ledger as the housing industry and land speculators. At The Miami Herald-- where opinion writer Carl Hiaasen has been the snarling pitbull for the other team-- in-depth, page one stories on the calamitous effects of the housing boom in South Dade farmland were suppressed by top editors. To the extent these stories existed, they were relegated to the neighbors section or a few paragraphs in letters to the editor.

In its place are puff pieces and outright BS, like painting Broward's Ron Bergeron as "a conservation activist" or yesterday's incredible story in the Sun Sentinel: describing the chief apologist and advocate for Weston, Roy Rogers of Arvida, as an environmentalist: "How does a man with his environmental credentials reconcile turning 25 square miles of Everglades into a town? "The two can co-exist, and I'm proof positive," Rogers said. "You don't get to do that kind of thing [lead environmental advocacy groups] without being what you purport to be."

The crawl of suburbs and deformation of representative democracy, turning local government into permitting mills for sprawl, enriched developers and created a permanent incumbency in local and state legislatures.

Some Florida papers, like the St. Pete Times, have excelled at reporting the underbelly of the beast. Notably, the St. Pete Times is owned by a charitable foundation; a step removed from Wall Street's influence.

An economy based solely on real estate speculation is a ticking time bomb. Now that the bomb has gone off, reports are emerging-- as in the Herald's excellent story today-- "Ex-convicts active in mortgage scams". This multi-part series shows the powerful capacity of journalism.

Nevertheless, the criticism of the mainstream media's performance stands: while the sacred cow, real estate development, was being fattened there were very few stories of the slaughtered public interest.

On Saturday, The New York Times put the story above the fold, "A slowdown at every turn".

"On Every Front, Anxious Questions and Discomfiting Answers" is the subheading of the full page story in the A section. Those questions were being asked long ago by keen civic activists, observers, policy experts and even brave scientists, but the mainstream media ignored them.

The Times writes: "The downturn has its roots in the real estate frenzy that turned lonely Nevada ranches into suburban ranch homes and swampland in Florida into condominiums."

For the past year, the Times and The Wall Street Journal have been stalwart anchors, reporting the implosion of trillions of dollars of toxic debt, foreclosures and malfeasance. But the underlying forces that created this economic nightmare are stories yet to be told to the general public.

The press has failed to surface the historical facts how the rise of Jeb Bush in Florida and W. was tied firmly to condominiums (ie. Al Hoffman, WCI Communities) in swampland. The Times article provides a neat summary that could have been cut and paste from this blog, but that could also have been written years ago. "Now comes the day of reckoning."

A further reckoning might look at the pattern and distribution of campaign contributions from executives of leading Wall Street financial institutions, like Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns or Merrill Lynch, who originated billions in toxic debt, reaping commissions in the billions in aggregate and tied to local politics through lower level operators and developers and land speculators in states like Florida.

Today, jobs at newspapers are following job losses in real estate and the housing sector down the drain.

Florida papers are suffering major cutbacks as profits dwindle and stock prices plunge. (click on "read more") The Orlando Sentinel reports of staff reductions, too.

Yesterday, the St. Pete Times observed that not a single Florida reporter is accompanying Governor Charlie Crist on a European trip with nearly 100 representatives from aerospace, real estate and Big Sugar.

The only dim light in Florida's economy are bargain basement hunters bearing Euros. It's the lead story on Yahoo this morning, from AFP: "MIAMI (AFP) - Reeling from a real estate collapse and battered by hurricanes, Floridians can at least take heart from one economic bright spot: European tourists are coming to spend, spend, spend. As the dollar sinks against the Euro, more and more European travelers are arriving on Florida shores. And whether it's a mojito at a swanky South Beach club, a swim with dolphins in the Keys, or a spin around a massive retail mall, they're finding their money stretches further. "What we see is Europeans taking even short holidays to get some sun and take advantage of the great value," said Bud Nocera, president of Visit Florida, the state's tourism promotion agency. "People are actually coming over without any luggage at all, and they not only buy clothes, but the suitcases to take it home in. That gives you an idea what a great bargain it is."

Since when did a superpower's assets go begging on the discount rack?

The die-off of the coral reef, of Florida Bay covered in slime, of ratty suburban tracts and how newspapers stood by idling or scared to death, as their proponents like Arvida's Roy Rogers touted sprawl as "what the market wants": these seem to me chords of a new national anthem.

With those chords in my ear, I listen to webcasts of the county commission with shock, the dissonance of our so-called representative democracy.

I think of Charlie Crist in Europe, with no reporter covering how the gamblers and high rollers are selling the State of Florida like chop shop owners.

If that is a silver lining, America is in much deeper trouble than our government is admitting, or, that newspapers report.


300+ Accept Post Buyouts; Layoffs Lurking

Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 10:53:23 AM

More than 300 Palm Beach Post employees have applied for buyouts and all
have been accepted, according to an internal memo obtained by the Pulp.

Though the newspaper announced it would cut 300 jobs, there will be
additional layoffs. According to the memo:

The number of applications was more than expected. However, we
received too many in some areas and not enough in others, So we still
expect to begin a small number of involuntary separations, or layoffs,
the week of Aug. 18 in some departments as needed. Thanks to all
who applied. You have greatly reduced the number of involuntary
separations needed. Your contribution to PBNI over the years and
your dedication and patience during these recent difficult times is
greatly appreciated.

Those layoffs, according to sources, are expected to hit the newsroom, which
had 81 buyout applications by the initial deadline on Friday. The newspaper
plans to cut a total of 130 from the newsroom. Sources say that since the
Friday dealine, several newsroom staffers have applied for the buyout and
been accepted. The buyouts become official on August 11.

#######



NEW YORK TIMES
July 19, 2008
Uncomfortable Answers to Questions on the Economy

By PETER S. GOODMAN
You have heard that Fannie and Freddie, their gentle names notwithstanding, may cripple the financial system without a large infusion of taxpayer money. You have gleaned that jobs are disappearing, housing prices are plummeting, and paychecks are effectively shrinking as food and energy prices soar. You have noted the disturbing talk of crisis hovering over Wall Street.

Something has clearly gone wrong with the economy. But how bad are things, really? And how bad might they get before better days return? Even to many economists who recently thought the gloom was overblown, the situation looks grim. The economy is in the midst of a very rough patch. The worst is probably still ahead.

Job losses will probably accelerate through this year and into 2009, and the job market will probably stay weak even longer. Home prices will probably keep falling, shrinking household wealth and eroding spending power.

“The open question is whether we’re in for a bad couple of years, or a bad decade,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, now a professor at Harvard.


Is this a recession?

Officially, no. The economy is not in recession until a panel at a private institution called the National Bureau of Economic Research says so. Unofficially, many economists think a recession started six or seven months ago, even as the economy has continued to expand — albeit at a tepid pace.

Many assume that if the economy expands at all, then it isn’t a recession, but that’s not true. The bureau defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months.” If enough people lose their jobs, factories stop making things, stores stop selling things, and less money lands in people’s pockets, it is probably a recession.

Whatever it is called, it is a painful time for tens of millions of people. Indeed, this may turn out to be the most wrenching downturn since the two recessions in the early 1980s; almost surely worse than the recession that ended the technology bubble at the beginning of this decade; perhaps worse than the downturn of the early 1990s that followed the last dip in real estate prices.

But, despite what some doomsayers now proclaim, this is not the Great Depression, when unemployment spiked to 25 percent and millions of previously working people woke up in shantytowns. Not by any measure, even as your neighbors make cryptic remarks above dusting off lessons passed down from grandparents about how to turn a can of beans into a family meal.

How bad is housing?

Bad in many markets, awful in some, and still O.K. in a few.

The downturn has its roots in the real estate frenzy that turned lonely Nevada ranches into suburban ranch homes and swampland in Florida into condominiums. Speculators drove home prices beyond any historical connection to incomes. Gravity did the rest. After roughly doubling in value from 2000 to 2005, home prices have fallen about 17 percent — and more like 25 percent in inflation-adjusted terms — according to the widely watched Case-Shiller index.

Even so, most economists think house prices must fall an additional 10 to 15 percent to get back to reality. One useful measure is the relationship between the costs of buying and renting a home. From 1985 to 2002, the average American home sold for about 14 times the annual rent for a similar home, according to Moody’s Economy.com. By early 2006, home prices ballooned to 25 times rental prices. Since then, the ratio has dipped back to about 20 — still far above the historical norm.

With mortgages now hard to obtain and speculation no longer attractive, arithmetic has replaced momentum as the guiding force for housing prices. The fundamental equation points down: Even as construction grinds down, there are still many more houses on the market than there are people to buy them, and more on the way as more homeowners slip into foreclosure.

By the reckoning of Economy.com, enough houses are on the market to satisfy demand for the next two-and-a-half years without building a single new one.

The time it takes to sell a newly completed house has expanded from an average of four months in 2005 to about nine months, according to analysis by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

And many sales are falling through — more than 30 percent in some parts of California and Florida — as buyers fail to secure financing, exacerbating the glut of homes, Mr. Baker said.

No wonder that in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix and Las Vegas, house prices have in recent months declined at annual rates of more than 33 percent.

When will banks revive?

So far, they have written off more than $300 billion in loans. Many experts now predict the toll will rise to $1 trillion or more — a staggering sum that could cripple many institutions for years.

Back when home prices were multiplying, banks poured oceans of borrowed money into real estate loans. Unlike the dot-com companies at the heart of the last speculative investment bubble, the new gold rush was centered on something that seemed unimpeachably solid — the American home.

But the whole thing worked only as long as housing prices rose. Falling prices landed like a bomb. Homeowners fell behind on their loans and could not qualify for new ones: There was no value left in their house to borrow against. As millions of people defaulted, the banks confronted enormous losses in a bloody period of reckoning.

In March, the Federal Reserve helped engineer a deal for JPMorgan Chase to buy troubled investment bank Bear Stearns. Many assumed the worst was over. But, this month, the open distress of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — two huge, government sponsored institutions that together own or guarantee nearly half of the nation’s $12 trillion in outstanding mortgages — sent a signal that more ugly surprises may lie in wait.

To calm markets, the government last weekend hurriedly put together a rescue package for Fannie and Freddie that, if used, could cost as much as $300 billion. The urgent need for a rescue — together with another round of billion-dollar write-offs on Wall Street — has unnerved economists and investors.

“I was a relative optimist, but I’ve certainly become more pessimistic,” said Alan S. Blinder, an economist at Princeton, and a former vice chairman of the board of governors at the Federal Reserve. “The financial system looks substantially worse now than it did a month ago. If the Freddie and Fannie bailout were to fail, it could get a hell of a lot worse. If we get more bank failures, we have the possibility of seeing more of these pictures of people standing in line to pull their money out. That could really scare consumers.”

In one respect, Mr. Blinder added, this is like the Great Depression. “We haven’t seen this kind of travail in the financial markets since the 1930s,” he said.

More than two years ago, Nouriel Roubini, an economist at the Stern School of Business at New York University, said that the housing bubble would give way to a financial crisis and a recession. He was widely dismissed as an attention-seeking Chicken Little. Now, Mr. Roubini says the worst is yet to come, because the account-squaring has so far been confined mostly to bad mortgages, leaving other areas remaining — credit cards, auto loans, corporate and municipal debt.

Mr. Roubini says the cost of the financial system’s losses could reach $2 trillion. Even if it’s closer to $1 trillion, he adds, “we’re not even a third of the way there.”

Where will the banks raise the huge sums needed to replenish the capital they have apparently lost? And what will happen if they cannot?

The answers to these questions are unknown, an unsettling void that holds much of the economy at a standstill.

“We’re in a dangerous spot,” said Andrew Tilton, an economist at Goldman Sachs. “The big threat is more capital losses.”

Banks are a crucial piece of the economy’s arterial system, steering capital where it is needed to fuel spending and power growth. Now, they are holding tight to their dollars, starving businesses of loans they might use to expand, and depriving families of money they might use to buy houses and fill them with furniture and appliances.

From last June to this June, commercial bank lending declined more than 9 percent, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Goldman Sachs.

“You have another wave of anxiety, another tightening of credit,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the research and trading firm ITG. “The idea that we’ll have a second half of the year recovery has gone by the boards.”

Is my job safe?

Economic slowdowns always mean job losses. Unemployment already has risen, and almost certainly will increase more.

The first signs of distress emerged in housing. Construction companies, real estate agencies, mortgage brokers and banks began laying people off. Next, jobs started being cut at factories making products linked to housing, from carpets and furniture to lighting and flooring.

But as the real estate bust spilled over into the broader economy, depleting household wealth, the impacts rippled out to retailers, beauty parlors, law offices and trucking companies, inflicting cutbacks throughout the economy, save for health care, farming and energy. Over the last six months, the economy has shed 485,000 private sector jobs, according to the Labor Department. Many people have seen hours reduced.

The unemployment rate still remains low by historical standards, at 5.5 percent. And so far, the job losses — about 65,000 a month this year — do not approach the magnitude of those seen in past downturns, particularly the twin recessions at the beginning of the 1980s, when the economy shed upward of 140,000 jobs a month and the unemployment rate exceeded 10 percent.

But Goldman Sachs assumes unemployment will reach 6.5 percent by the end of 2009, which translates into several hundred thousand more Americans out of work.

These losses are landing on top of what was, for most Americans, a remarkably weak period of expansion. From 1992 to 2000 — as the technology boom catalyzed spending and hiring — the economy added more than 22 million private sector jobs. Over the last eight years, only 5 million new jobs have been added.

The loss of work is hitting Americans along with an assortment of troubles — gasoline prices in excess of $4 a gallon, over all inflation of about 5 percent, and declining wages.

“In every dimension, people are worse off than they were,” said Mr. Roubini, the New York University economist.

Are consumers done?

That is a major worry.

The fate of the economy now rests on the shoulders of the American consumer, whose spending amounts to 70 percent of all economic activity.

When people go to the mall and buy televisions and eat out, their money circulates through the economy. When they tighten their belts, austerity ripples out and chokes growth.

Through the years of the housing boom, many Americans came to treat their homes like automated teller machines that never required a deposit. They harvested cash through sales, second mortgages and home equity lines of credit — an artery of finance that reached $840 billion a year from 2004 to 2006, according to work by the economists James Kennedy and Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman. That allowed Americans to live far in excess of what they brought home from work.

But by the first three months of this year, that flow had constricted to an annual rate of about $200 billion.

Average household debt has swelled to 120 percent of annual income, up from 60 percent in 1984, according to the Federal Reserve.

And now the banks are turning off the credit taps.

“Credit is going to remain tight for a time potentially measured in years,” said Mr. Tilton, the Goldman Sachs economist.

This is the landscape that has so many economists convinced that consumer spending must dip, putting the squeeze on the economy for several years.

“The question is, will it get as bad as the 1970s?” asked Mr. Rogoff, recalling an era of spiking gas prices and double-digit inflation.

Long term, Americans may have no choice but to spend less, save more and reduce debts — in short, to live within their means.

“We’re getting a lot of the adjustment and it hurts,” said Kristin Forbes, a former member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, and now a scholar at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management. “But it’s an adjustment we’re going to have to make.”

Who’s to blame?

There is plenty to go around.

In the estimation of many economists, it starts with the Federal Reserve. The central bank lowered interest rates following the calamitous end of the technology bubble in 2000, lowered them more after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and then kept them low, even as speculators began to trade homes like dot-com stocks.

Meanwhile, the Fed sat back and watched as Wall Street’s financial wizards engineered diabolically complicated investments linked to mortgages, generating huge amounts of speculative capital that turned real estate into a conflagration.

“At the end of this movie, it’s clear that the Fed will have to care about excesses,” Mr. Barbera said.

Prices multiplied as many homeowners took on more property than they could afford, lured by low introductory interest rates that eventually reset higher, sending many people into foreclosure.

Mortgage brokers netted commissions as they lent almost indiscriminately, offering exotically lenient terms — no money down, no income or job required. Wall Street banks earned billions selling risky mortgage-linked securities around the world, aided by ratings agencies that branded them solid.

Through it all, a lot of ordinary Americans borrowed a lot more money then they could afford to pay back, running up enormous credit card bills and borrowing against the value of their homes. Now comes the day of reckoning.


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