Why Not Bet Big?
It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “Experts suggest that the inventory in Denver’s red-hot housing market is at an all-time low. But there’s no shortage of real estate agents looking to sell the homes that have been listed. Right now, there are more agents than there are properties on the market in Denver, and perhaps as many as ten times more. ‘Probably 15 percent of the licensees out there are driving in about 80 to 90 percent of the business,’ said Scott Grossman, board chairman for the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. That hasn’t stopped new agents from flooding into the market. ‘Everybody seems to know a real estate agent, or know somebody who knows one,’ Grossman says.”
“Defects, fraud and misrepresentation in mortgage loan applications jumped 3.9% in March, marking a four-month trend, according to new data from First American Financial Corporation. ‘After four consecutive months of increased defect risk, it’s fair to call this a trend. We are experiencing one of the strongest sellers’ markets in recent memory and the ‘speed-buying’ that is required for home buyers to make an offer and win a bid for homes they like may be contributing to the increase in defect, misrepresentation and fraud risk that we are observing,’ said Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American.”
“If mortgage fraud had a face during Tampa Bay’s last housing boom, it could have been that of Victor Thomas Clavizzao. In 2009, a federal judge sentenced Clavizzao to five years in prison for conspiring to fraudulently obtain nearly $6 million in mortgage loans. Now Clavizzao is out of prison and back in the loan business, this time using the names Victor Thomas and Victor Thomasino. In a phone interview this week, Clavizzao said that his current business is legitimate and has made ‘about’ 100 loans in the past two years.”
“Bonkers, nuts and crazy — those are just three words used to describe the Georgina housing market, the hottest in the GTA by a long shot. The prices in the municipality have risen by stupefying numbers — the average house has jumped 55 per cent in one year — from $439,603 to $683,373. One answer appears to be foreign buyers. Although no one would speak on the record about how many there are in the market, one mortgage broker in Georgina with more than 10 years experience said the number is staggering.”
“He added plenty of the money garnered to be able to afford these houses is coming directly from the Bank of China. ‘A lot of purchases are Asian, I would say 50 per cent or higher,’ he said.”
“Wayne Winch, a veteran real estate agent in the area and resident, said some rationality has returned to the market since the tax. He’s witnessed the situation switch back to more of a buyers’ market, with homes sitting for sale longer, providing further choice for people. Now prices are being listed between $50,000 to $100,000 less, he added.”
“The once super-hot central London market has turned into a ‘burnt-out core’ according to buying agents Garrington Property Finders, prompting developers to offer ever greater incentives to lure buyers. Property agent Henry Pryor estimates that there is a pipeline of 59,000 high-end apartments under construction in London alone, yet annual sales of new-build flats in the city are only 6,000. ‘Developers will sell their first-born to shift them. It’s last-chance-saloon stuff. About the only incentive they have not tried is a bogof [buy one, get one free].’”
“At yesterday’s Gladstone Regional Council meeting, Santoshi Development Consultants were given approval to develop a 22-lot subdivision. The approval sparked outrage in the Gladstone community, with residents questioning why the council would approve an application while many other housing developments were empty. ‘Wonder how it isn’t the Gladstone Regional Council’s responsibility to take into account the glut of empty houses, vacant land and plummeting land prices,’ said Peter Stone.”
“Tash Wallis said she couldn’t believe more houses were being built. ‘We have heaps of vacant homes…it may come in handy for another boom to keep rental prices down, but is there a boom in the near future?’ Paulette Flint had a different view of the argument, and said she couldn’t understand how a developer could be ’stupid enough’ to want to open a new subdivision in the region. ‘Don’t do it! You will lose all your money. Invest somewhere else,’ she said.”
“A 75-year-old man from China and his pet dog are the only gatekeepers of an abandoned ‘ghost villa’ located in eastern China. The Chinese man, surnamed Gao, gets paid 1,800 yuan ($261) per month to guard abandoned and unfinished luxury apartments that sprawl on a 130,000 square meters of land in Anhui Province. Gao was hired by the Sun Century Group in 2009 when the project first started. However, it was suspended two years ago.”
“This villa is just one of the many projects in China that has been left half-finished, usually the result of poor urban planning and hasty urbanization that’s happening all around the country.”
“Not my money? Not my problem. The City of Dallas is in the throes of learning that lesson the hard way as the Police and Fire Pension Fund approaches insolvency due to risky investments. The pensions of close to 10,000 civil servants and first responders are in jeopardy because someone else played poker with their money. A $200 million luxury high-rise has been beset with continual problems due to the glare it reflects onto a nearby art museum. Ultra-luxury real estate investments from Napa Valley to Hawaii comprise another $200 million of fund assets.”
“According to an article from the Dallas Morning News: ‘Together, these investments represent a $400 million bet by the fund on luxury residential real estate. It has been financed mostly with borrowed money. This leverage means that if it pays off, it could pay off big. But it could also lose big.’”
“In poker parlance, it seems that the trustees of the Dallas pension fund went all-in with a 2-7 off-suit. They bet big, and it hasn’t paid off. But then again, why not bet big? The pension officials had nothing to lose, proving that without personal risk, there is no personal responsibility. The problem in Dallas is not quite an example of the tragedy of the commons, but it is close. The shared theme is that, no matter how well intentioned, I will treat someone else’s property differently than I treat my own.”
“Speed buying”. I like it.
If pukes can be conditioned to speed buy then perhaps these same pukes can be conditioned to speed borrow.
Send them to me; The dotted lines are ready and they are waiting.
‘After four consecutive months of increased defect risk, it’s fair to call this a trend. We are experiencing one of the strongest sellers’ markets in recent memory and the ‘speed-buying’ that is required for home buyers to make an offer and win a bid for homes they like may be contributing to the increase in defect, misrepresentation and fraud risk that we are observing’
Fraud doesn’t cause a mania, it rushes toward it, makes it worse. Same with lower loan standards. There isn’t anyone at the helm. No one is watching out.
‘Bonkers, nuts and crazy — those are just three words used to describe the Georgina housing market, the hottest in the GTA by a long shot. The prices in the municipality have risen by stupefying numbers — the average house has jumped 55 per cent in one year’
This is the supposedly “boring but stable” Canadians. Jeebus, what in the heck is wrong with the government with this going on? And if the government isn’t going to police these markets, they should get the heck out of the way and let market forces (and the courts) kick some tail.
It’s more of the same: governments want this crap. They want money laundering, absurd house prices, shoe-horning people into loans they’ll never be able to pay back.
Thats because thats how the people in government operate. Joe SixPack cant get mad at their borrowing and spending binges and their rampant lies and fraud when Joe is doing the same thing. Hence the descent into lawlessness, where the most adept thieves sit at the top.
Morals and ethics developed over countless generations serve a community well for the most part in keeping destructive behaviors at bay. The people governing in Canada (just the present example) are amoral. I get a close look regularly. The young generation is going to be a very confused one.
“There isn’t anyone at the helm. No one is watching out.”
Why worry when the Fed stands at the ready with free bailouts to make gamblers whole on their insanely bad bets?
+1
http://endthefed.org
Are they insanely bad bets when people makes tons of money on them and the reason they were made was precisely because they knew the Fed has issued a put?
“…what in the heck is wrong with the government…”
Canada will be seen by the U.S. fed as, “Too Big To Fail.”
i.e. Rocket Mortgage!
A poster was saying that developers won’t lose much. I know, they set up LLC’s, get non-recourse loans.
‘Now Clavizzao is out of prison and back in the loan business’
This guy wasn’t deterred either. But isn’t that part of the problem?
‘The pensions of close to 10,000 civil servants and first responders are in jeopardy because someone else played poker with their money’
Ah, the poetry …
“The pensions of close to 10,000 civil servants and first responders are in jeopardy because someone else player poker with their money.”
… and while they were playing poker they were collecting some hefty fees.
Just the math is astounding $400 mill divided by 10,000 is a $40,000 gamble per person
Gambling with OPM proved to be a bad path resulting in the crisis that was 2008. These dopes ignored experience and just doubled down. Pathetic.
Pathetic for the Other People, less so for the guys collecting fees.
How many rolls of $100’s does it take to keep a nice fire going while you enjoy your Pinot Noir???
And these are pensions, not today’s checking account. If this $40,000 was seed money expected to grow enough to support the retired cop for 25 years, then it’s much worse than it looks.
I say “F*ck ‘em” if they can’t take a joke.
And now 321,000 retired Canadian medical pensioners may be left holding the bag if Home Capital Group goes under.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-27/crashing-canadian-mortgage-lender-bailed-out-321000-retired-ontario-healthcare-worke
Of course there is more to the Dallas pension disaster than bad investments. It is coming right on schedule based on what has happened all over the country.
Right at about the point where the better off, including police officers and firefighters, had moved to the suburbs, leaving an increasingly poor and minority central city behind, the STATE government imposed a MASSIVE, unfunded, retroactive increase in pension benefits for the city’s police officers and firefighters. The city’s future residents would have to pay for it. I’ll bet it was the suburban legislators that pushed it through, Republicans, Democrats or both, doesn’t matter.
Meanwhile, to make up for what prior police officers and firefighters grabbed, current police officers and firefighters are getting screwed.
This happens over and over and over. In older cities that went into decline sooner it happened decades ago. A state law prohibiting NYC from having residency requirements for its police, fire, teachers and other high-paid workers passed in the early 1960s. They all moved out. Then in the late 1960s and early 1970s you had all these massive retroactive pension increases — which led to the collapse of city services, near bankruptcy, and soaring taxes in the 1970s.
Philly, Detroit, wherever — you always set a couple of decades of white former residents, now in the suburbs and heading for Florida, sucking an increasingly minority city dry. Sunbelt cities are newer, and I guess it’s their turn. I wonder how pension benefits have been changing in Phoenix.
maybe they should work till 67 like the private sector shlubs
age 55 in my state/ county
ive said this for years to get full benefits you should be fully retired no w2’s otherwise partial or wait til 67
If it’s any help, if a Fed retires he doesn’t start getting a pension until age 62 no matter what he does in the meantime.
Exception military.
The entire pension calcs need to change.
What you are paid should be based on the whole of your career, not a small subset of your career.
If you work at a low level for 25 years, and then are the manager for 3, your pension calc should be based on 25 years of lower income (and paying into the system at the lower level), and 3 years at the high level.
NOT the last 3 years only (especially not including payout of unused sick pay, vacation).
#1. It’s unjust enrichment; and
#2. The payments into the system from that employee could never come close to paying the obligation…thus lumping the unjust enrichment on the backs of the rest of the rest of the population.
#3. Unused vacation/sick pay should be paid out as a lump sum, not essentially a multiple of the amount over the rest of your life.
I would like any supporter of public unions to defend the “high 3″ and “pension spiking” practices with a straight face.
These practices are robbery.
I would like any supporter of public unions to defend the “high 3″ and “pension spiking” practices with a straight face.
The only time I’ve worked for the govt was the military, but I assume the mindset is similar. I think their defense is that they feel they got screwed all that time, and this is just one way to make it more fair in the long run.
I don’t like these kinds of retirement plans because I think they encourage that kind of thinking. Instead of just going out and getting another job if yours sucks you gotta “do your time” and try to screw over the system in the process.
It’s for the children…
A promise is a promise…
These heros risk their lives every day…
Because we bought and paid for the democrats in power and they owe us.
—
“I would like any supporter of public unions to defend the “high 3″ and “pension spiking” practices with a straight face.”
The argument I used to hear was “their salaries are lower than in the private sector, so the pension makes up for it.”
However, this is not really the case now if you look at the data. The main argument I hear now is math impaired…”I paid into the system…I’m simply getting what I put in”…lol.
“maybe they should work till 67 like the private sector shlubs”
Skipped-over are the vast numbers of people who never worked a forty-hour week during their lives. The dull, the obese, ghetto rats, etc., the excuses are many, but they consume all the benefits they can discover. The income redistribution economy is vast and growing.
But, but, but…
Philly, Detroit, Chicago, wherever
HAVE BEEN RUN BY DEMOCRATS FOR 50+ YEARS
Why do they hate minorities and have all driven their cities into bankruptcy?
You answer will be found here (public union are the largest political contributors of all time):
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/
http://californiapolicycenter.org/how-much-do-calpers-retirees-really-make/
“In all, it is quite likely that California’s taxpayers currently owe over $1.0 trillion in total debt and unfunded retirement obligations incurred by state and local government, and most of that is for retirement benefits for state and local government employees.’
1T seems large IDK? Not being a government worker if I ever retire it will have to be somewhere else than CA, knowing that CA will be out for for all the available money of its residents by then to pay for this monster they have made.
“California’s taxpayers currently owe…”
As in you, your minor children, your yet to be conceived grandchildren…
All born into a massive debt so a select dew can keep and hold power.
Kinda summarizes the democrat mindset.
Aren’t we all born with debt? some choose to live high on the hog, others sit around on the sideline complaining until the show is over.
Namaste
Na’masteinbed.
Debt is a trap and a snare, a pit, like a lewd woman (or whatever) with STDs. A flash of fake wealth, then years and years of miserable poverty.
Current police officers in San Jose aren’t getting screwed. Two I know make over $300K per year in their mid-thirties (includes overtime pay). THAT is screwing the tax payer. Even if they only collect half their stipulated pensions - that’s a huge amount of income for them and excessive/undeserved, in my opinion. Cops, firefighters, and teachers are often mentioned in the same breath - but teachers in this same area would have to be in the higher end of the pay spectrum to make 1/3 what those cops make.
We need everyone to accept the fact that most pensions as originally structure and with current economic conditions are not sustainable and the prior generations are stealing prosperity from the newer ones when they demand full payment on a system that isn’t sustainable. I’m not opposed to the idea of pensions - but what was created did not evolve and these promises should be broken if it is bankrupting the rest of the community.
“You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.”
Yep I let it all go. There’s a chance I will a father soon.
LOL, you will easily spend a quarter of a million more than me on that over the next 30 years!
In ‘da hood they say, “never pull.”
YOLO!
“For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” — Alexander Pope, “An Essay On Criticism”, 1711
Here’s a story about some of those 3 story row homes being built in Dallas. One of the pics includes an elevator in the model homes.
This particular development is next to three large apt complexes that are going up at the same time. The story says $450k for 2200 sq ft. Seems like you should at least get a yard for $450k in Dallas right?
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2017/05/05/houston-developer-hines-hits-mark-dallas-area-home-communities
how do you lose money from 2011 to 2016?
takes talent
The developer that bought in 2011, Provident, has done really well with this piece of property. I’d be very pleased to lose that kind of money.
“One of the pics includes an elevator in the model homes.”
I window cleaned a Pacific Heights home that had an elevator with a red leather covered door. It was a remodeled mansion.
Since 90% of congress has sold out, can we drop the DEM and GOP labels and go with:
corporatists
religious fanatics
progressives
real libertarians
morons
or add your label
Socialist monsters?
White Man Monsters
Good thing the whites aren’t running the show in Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and North Korea…
So superficial Davey.
90% corporatists
10% socialist??
nah
Hollowed out, bankrupt enablers.
Criminal price fixers andarket riggers?
Political cultists
Sociopaths.
I call them lawyers.
⋏⋏⋏
For the win
“No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are No. 1 and No. 2. Whatever is No. 3 is far behind”. — Thomas Sowell
Politicians are decision makers and deal makers. People are constantly trying to influence them.
If the system needs saints in order to work, it will not work.
Currently the bearing that’s getting worn is the ease and effectiveness with which small lobbies with big pocketbooks are able to sway politicians. The “Obamacare Repeal Theater” is an example. AMA opposes ACA (Obamacare). The donors want to see their money work for them - they’re not giving to politicians and lobbyists to sway those politicians out of the goodness of their hearts. They want ROI. So the politicians put on “Obamacare Repeal Theater”. Senators have a broader donor base, which includes AARP. Now AARP has both votes and money. So AARP and its consortium wins the legislative battle. But that AMA money is big and sweet. So, more politburo-esque theater.
Houston: A Cautionary Tale From Texas About How Cities Hide Debt And Deflate The Economy
The Federalist | 05/05/2017 | Leslie Loftis
Cities and states, however, stuck with defined benefit plans for their employees because politicians could offer luscious benefits to entice union voters but wouldn’t likely still be in office when the bills for those benefits came due and the public discovered that they didn’t have the money to pay. It is a classic case of moral hazard. The politicians lied to the public employees and bought their votes with theoretical funds.
In my hometown of Houston, the big bump was under Mayor Lee P. Brown in 2001.
The decision by Mayor Lee Brown’s administration in 2001 to grant across-the-board generous retroactive benefit enhancements bankrupted the three pension systems. Lack of transparency around the process of recommending, pricing and approving the new benefit structures resulted in insufficient scrutiny awarded to this decision at the time. Computing benefits is technically complex, highly sensitive to assumptions and generally of little interest, if not at all boring, to the broader public. City administrators agreed to the proposed changes (from which many of them themselves benefited), based on erroneous cost assumptions and under pressure from pension boards also overwhelmingly staffed with beneficiaries.
When the systems showed signs of extreme stress just two years later, Brown blamed the actuaries. Suddenly the amount of money the city needed to pitch in to keep the funds funded threatened the city’s ability to provide current services. So the city did not make the required contributions, and the debt grew.
The problem is systemic across the nation. So are the continued games. Flash-forward 15 years to the present day, and the current mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, is having to deal with our pension debt problem. The accounting tricks mayors Brown, White, and Parker used are almost at the end of their ability to hide the truth that the benefit plans are not sustainable.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Contrary to her assertion that the conservative idea is an eleventh-hour play, that realization is the eleventh-hour revelation. State and local pension fix attempts have never worked because state and local politicians are hopelessly devoted to defined benefit pension schemes.
The Turner administration has shunned reason on anything that hints of defined contribution plans, and so has every other local pol or union boss touting defined benefit zombie plans all across the country. Under defined benefit plans, politicians and union bosses have power. In contrast, defined contribution plans may work for the employees—and the taxpayers who ultimately have to pay these debts, but who never seem to have a seat at the negotiating table—but at the expense of the politicians’ and union bosses’ power.
And that is why America’s states and cities are drowning in debt.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
For ’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard: and’t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon
The more government controls, the more it destroys.
Health care
Higher Educations costs
Housing
Etc.
And the young Bernie supporters go willingly into the showers…
—
Student Loans & Healthcare – The Two Issues That Will Define American Politics Going Forward
ZeroHedge - May 5, 2017
I support a real free market economy where barriers to entry are low, and in which small business and competition thrives. Unfortunately, this is not the case in today’s economy. Rather, America has largely become a neo-feudal society where a mass of debt slaves are lorded over by government protected, monopolistic, rent-seeking oligarchs and racketeers.
Going forward, I believe two issues will define the future of American politics: student loans and healthcare. Both these things (as well as the Federal Reserve intentionally reflating a housing bubble) have crushed the youth and are prevented a generation from buying homes and starting families. The youth will eventually revolt, and student loans and healthcare will have to be dealt with in a very major way, not with tinkering around the edges.
It’s hard for patients to research which doctors charge facility fees, since there’s no comprehensive resource to track it, said Chuck Bell, programs director for Consumers Union, the policy and mobilization arm of Consumer Reports.
Still, “why should patients have to do this?” Bell said. “Health care has become this outlier bad, terrible customer experience. Even a mechanic has to tell you up-front what the estimate is for working on your car.”
And indeed, the government can. The federal student loan program provides many options borrowers can use to manage their debts, but once borrowers default, the government has extraordinary powers to get its money back, including garnishing tax refunds, Social Security checks and wages.
A growing number of borrowers are losing out on a portion of their Social Security checks to pay back student loans. The number of borrowers over 65 facing this predicament jumped 540% between 2002 and 2015, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office in December.
It’s hard for patients to research which doctors charge facility fees, since there’s no comprehensive resource to track it, said Chuck Bell, programs director for Consumers Union, the policy and mobilization arm of Consumer Reports.
so they want more gov involvement?
Yeah, like there a huge government agency to compare and track auto repair, or housing repair, or dental work…etc.
But somehow all those are easy track.
Free markets work.
Anti collusion and anti monoply laws work
Fully disclosed pricing work
A massive government controlling a market FAILS EVERY TIME
I don’t know … auto mechanics charge an arm and a leg.
It seems like that with any service provider, they all charge the same: a lot.
Of course, you can attempt to fix your car yourself. But if you need your appendix removed, I’ve never heard of anyone trying to do it themselves or “shopping around”, probably because 1) it’s urgent and 2) they all collude to charge the same.
Of course, you can attempt to fix your car yourself. But if you need your appendix removed, I’ve never heard of anyone trying to do it themselves or “shopping around”, probably because 1) it’s urgent and 2) they all collude to charge the same.
You aren’t very knowledgable about healthcare. Most medical care is not done on an emergency basis. I’m having surgery next year at the Oklahoma surgery center:
http://time.com/4649914/why-the-doctor-takes-only-cash/
He didn’t claim that most medical care is done on an emergency basis.
I support a real free market economy where barriers to entry are low, and in which small business and competition thrives.
This person starts off by stating a personal preference but doesn’t give a reason. Barriers to entry can’t all be low and a real free market economy has never existed.
they promise to fee the squirrels
https://slo.craigslist.org/grd/6111642140.html
Why don’t they want to live next to illegals for diversity?
These kids need to gentrify. How narrow minded they seem.
Illegals cant afford my hood. Not up to me.
Make sure you have guarded gates to your California sanctuary neighborhood and that your house is well wired.
The last time I was in Orange County I found it interesting that the local Vons and Walgreens had armed guards on the premises.
“The last time I was in Orange County I found it interesting that the local Vons and Walgreens had armed guards on the premises.”
And their newspaper ads boast parking lot security.
Unfunded future liabilities are what will cause the death of government at every level in this country. It’s inescapable. Promises were made that cannot be kept. And once the money stops flowing, people will no longer be willing to subject themselves to all the myriad government’s rules and regulations. The end.
The $200K couple government pensioners that retired at 57 are gonna be pi$$ed!!!!
Goodnight Irene.
And yet we have known about this for 40 years.
And it will not stop until it all collapses.
But until it does, a certain political party will keep and gain power….
Parties have become irrelevant. There is only the Republicrat duopoly, beholden only to its oligarch donors.
Parties irrelevant???
The largest political campaign contributors of all time are unions.
And they give nearly 100% to DEMOCRATS.
Why is that if political parties are irrelevant???
Businesses and rich people give more than unions.
Businesses and rich people give to both Democrats and Republicans.
That’s because they’ve got enough money that they want to purchase both parties. More money means more influence for the one percent.
“Businesses and rich people give more than unions.”
A Lie.
But you knew that.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/
No, you’re making sh-t up again. First, the Top Contributors, 2015 - 2016 list only includes the top 11 contributors, not everyone. Also, if you actually look at that list, there are seven businesses and two unions.
That’s because they’ve got enough money that they want to purchase both parties. More money means more influence for the one percent.
No. It’s because only the Democrats will give the Unions what they want.
Corporations do not act collectively…nor to rich people.
George Clooney and Clint Eastwood do not team up to give money to both the left and the right in order to purchase both parties.
Clooney supports the left because he likes the left. Eastwood supports the right because he likes the right.
Unions have been paying for democrats for a hell of a lot longer than the last couple of years. The pension problems didn’t arise recently…they’ve been brewing for decades.
If you look at the top 10 contributors all time, there are plenty of unions represented…6 of 10.
And by pointing out what has happened in 15-16, you make the point even stronger…excluding that year, Renaissance and Sands nearly fall out of the top 10. Pre-Citizens United, Unions dominated donations.
Your argument is that COLLECTIVELY individuals and corporations give more than unions.
A union that gives $30MM in one cycle (and who has a history of giving to your party) has a hell of a lot more influence than 30,000 people who all give 1,000.
Remember unions just do not give money they give labor. Ten of thousands of people going door to door is priceless.
so true, 90% of them are corporatists working only for their master. Look at Pelosi and the watered down right wing written ACA she passed.
we should have had single payer medicare when the Dems had full control. no excuse.
White House has no answer for 7 million veterans who stand to lose health care.
gonna get expensive!
What is deferred maintenance?
“Promises were made that can’t be kept.”
At, but promises are so easy and are (especially) so cheap to make so why not use them instead of something a bit more … substantial?
Substantial = actual money.
But who (one should ask) would be so stupid to accept promises - UFUNDED promises - instead of some of these substantial thingies?
Bahahahahahahahahahahaha… perhaps a visit to the schoolroom is in order.
Two steps are at play here:
1. Dumb ‘em down.
2. Profit.
At = Ah
So there’s yet another doom and gloom prediction. It may not before the sun blows up and destroys the entire planet.
Get yourself back on the shortbus. And don’t forget your head gear.
Your angry content-free animosity adds nothing to the debate.
Housing my good friend…. Housing.
Boulder County, CO Rental Rates Crater On Skyrocketing Housing Supply As Demand Tanks
https://www.zillow.com/boulder-county-co/home-values/
The list of municipalities that are running into severe problems due to pension promises continues to get longer and longer.
And this is during a meaningful economic expansion.
Brushing off these issues as hyperbolic “doom and gloom” is ignoring the facts in front of your face.
Look at the remark that I commenting on - “death of government at every level in this country”.
Guy called in to Dave Ramsey and was torn about buying or renting something close to the beach when he retired. He also mentioned that if he worked a couple more years after his retirement eligibility it would mean $x more dollars a month in retirement and he wasn’t sure what to do.
Dave asked him where he worked. New York State public school teacher. Asked him how old he was. I swear he said like 52 or something, maybe 55. Asked him how much his retirement income was going to be and it was like $80k or something.
This was probably 10 years ago so I don’t remember all the specifics, I just remember being shocked, and thinking, New York’s gotta pay this guy 80k a year for like the next 30 years at least! How does that work at scale??
Yellen’s flying monkeys confirm QE-to-Infinity.
http://www.businessinsider.com/fed-official-qe-is-inevitable-when-the-next-recession-hits-2017-5
Realtors are liars:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/is-denvers-real-estate-market-a-bubble-ready-to-burst
Denver is up in smoke anywho.
Nooooooooo! Pain is brewing for the goofy looking midwestern millennials
El Cajon, CA Housing Prices Crater 9% YOY
https://www.zillow.com/el-cajon-ca-92020/home-values/
Nothing improves the economy like faster and faster rising asset prices. Nothing.
there u go. Debt and leverage r the key to your prosperity! Get in the casino while you still can.
It sucks being a bear in a bull.
We’re here to learn something and you don’t have it.
when u pukes are working at walmart during your golden years, thx to the fed suppressing rates, I will throw a couple fed notes your way.
Maybe not poet. We are debt free and have magazines of cash. You have been HELOCing yourself into decades of servitude. We’ll see how you do with what’s coming.
You will have to compete with mid 20 year olds with a college degree and $150,000 in debt for those jobs…
Plano, TX Housing Prices Crater 7% YoY
https://www.zillow.com/plano-tx-75074/home-values/
U.S. Trade Gap With Mexico Widens Amid Weak Peso
U.S. trade deficit in goods with its southern neighbor has leapt 14% this year compared with the first quarter of 2016
By Josh Mitchell
May 4, 2017
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s tough talk on Mexico might have had an unintended effect: Fear of a trade war pushed down the value of the Mexican peso, increased the U.S.’s appetite for subsequently cheaper Mexican goods and widened the U.S. trade deficit with its southern neighbor, the opposite of Mr. Trump’s objectives.
The trade deficit with Mexico leapt 14% in the first quarter this year compared with the first quarter of 2016. That is due at least in part to a decline in the peso. The currency is down about 6% against the dollar over the past year and more than 3% since Mr. Trump’s November election win, even after a rebound in recent months.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-trade-gap-with-mexico-widens-amid-weak-peso-1493917883
“The problem with all of this is that these actions are ENTIRELY based on algorithms, NOT human decision making. Put another way, whatever the VIX does, these funds will be buying or selling stocks and bonds without judgment.
All told there are over $400 BILLION allocated to these funds globally. So… if you want to force a stock market rally, all you need to do is push the VIX lower and BOOM! you’ve got $200 billion or so in buying pressure hitting the stock market.
You can see this scam in the chart below: anytime stocks begin to break down, someone SLAMS the VIX lower. This is ridiculous because the VIX should be RISING when stocks are breaking down. Instead, it suddenly reverses for no reason leading to indiscriminate buying of stocks.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-05/bubble-watch-risk-parity-funds-are-going-trigger-another-1987-type-crash
you guys real need to learn how this is done.
Whoever said, “Price takes the path of least resistance” has obviously never seen a typical Apple rally day up close. Huge sell orders get placed on the market, at higher and higher price levels, and the market is *attracted* to them. The market rallies toward the big sell orders. There is a big buyer who doesn’t care about price.
Sellers, in vain, keep dumping even more massive sell orders at ever-increasing prices, all day long, and the buyer still doesn’t care — no matter how much supply is on the market, it simply does not matter.
The buyer wants it ALL. There is no stopping it.
I feel bad for the short sellers. They try and try…
I wonder how many retail investors are trying to short? They have been used and abused. I think there are a lot of weak hands there.
Wall street sees all the trades. They know when to flush and steal their cash.
I doubt there’s a huge amount of retail mom+pop shorting. The (so-called) big boy hedge fund guys get screwed just as easily. They are like waves crashing on rocks.
70-80% of the volume in these rigged, broken, manipulated markets is HFT algos buying and selling to each other.
How much of that is Apple itself buying back its own shares?
Posted in a strange place was a response to Financial Moralizer and his comment on how Apple trades.
There’s two types of trading days.
“Normal” days. They can be up or down days, but generally behave like you’d expect — at the various price levels, a big crowd of either buyers or sellers usually acts as a repulsing force to price.
“Wild Pig” days. These are the rally days, like today in aapl, when supply/demand means nothing. All the rules get thrown out. They could offer a trillion shares for sale, and the buyer would take it all, at any price, and then come back for more. It’s really amazing, actually.
slamming the VIX:
https://financialreality.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/vix-slam/
Surreal images from Ordos, Inner Mongolia - China’s biggest ghost town (and an epic fail for the central planners).
http://www.raphaelolivier.com/china/architecture/photographer/ordos/failed-utopia/
So many buildings…so few people.
Uber hires famed FIRE sector defense attorney and former US Attorney General Eric Holder to look into claims of sexual harassment.
He’s a good choice if you want a coverup.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/02/21/uber-hires-eric-holder-to-investigate-sexual-harassment-claims/
Very clever. He’s gonna go after like he did against the banksters.
When are the dems gonna recognize that Obama presidency was nothing more than a cruel joke on them?
Maybe after obama collects his 20th $400,000 speech check…
Dewey Beach, DE Housing Prices Crater 9% YoY
https://www.zillow.com/dewey-beach-de/home-values/
“Here’s how the scam works.
Whenever stocks roll over, which should force the VIX to rise, someone slams the VIX lower. This FORCES risk parity funds to buy stocks, ramping the market higher.
I can tell you point blank that this scam is occurring numerous times throughout the day. I’ve literally watched these VIX slams take place to force the stock market higher on days in which stocks should be weakening and the VIX rising.”
http://gainspainscapital.com/2017/03/07/careful-stocks-vix-manipulation-scheme/
What is wrong with America?
Top Lobbying Organizations, 2016
Rank Organization Total Lobbying
1 US Chamber of Commerce $103,950,000
2 National Assn of Realtors $64,821,111
3 Blue Cross/Blue Shield $25,006,109
4 American Hospital Assn $20,970,809
5 Pharmaceutical Rsrch & Mfrs of America $19,730,000
6 American Medical Assn $19,410,000
7 Boeing Co $17,020,000
8 National Assn of Broadcasters $16,438,000
9 AT&T Inc $16,370,000
10 Business Roundtable $15,700,000
That’s an interesting list. A certain kind of organization is present at all.
+1 Mike. I guess outsourcing will do that to ya.
Hey Donk
“Right now, there are more agents than there are properties on the market in Denver, and perhaps as many as ten times more.”
Let the used home seller hunger games begin. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Time to break out the DVD recording of Glengarry Glen Ross? ‘Put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers.’
“A 75-year-old man from China and his pet dog are the only gatekeepers of an abandoned ‘ghost villa’ located in eastern China. The Chinese man, surnamed Gao, gets paid 1,800 yuan ($261) per month to guard abandoned and unfinished luxury apartments that sprawl on a 130,000 square meters of land in Anhui Province. Gao was hired by the Sun Century Group in 2009 when the project first started. However, it was suspended two years ago.”
That’s a haunting, surreal image from the central planning dystopia across the Pacific Ocean.
http://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/passenger-vehicle/cars/ford-expects-sales-volume-in-china-to-cross-28-2-milford-expects-total-industry-sales-volume-in-china-to-cross-28-2-million-in-2017lion-in-2017/58545299
MA Housing Demand Collapses 54%YOY
http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/State/State_Turnover_AllHomes.csv
Time to back up the truck (again)?
MarketWatch dot com
Goldman says oil prices on the brink of ‘capitulation’
By Mark DeCambre
Published: May 5, 2017 5:32 p.m. ET
Is Goldman rethinking its forecast for Brent crude at $50 a barrel?
Getty Images
Oil rigs in the U.S. keep pumping.
After crude-oil prices took a beating over the past week, falling to their lowest level since before OPEC-led a deal to curb output in November, analysts at Goldman Sachs say crude may reaching a “capitulation” point.
…
It’s a good thing the Fed and its printing press has the backs of all the reckless corporate gamblers out there.
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/05/06/self-sabotage-what-are-us-oil-producers-thinking/
Oil below $40 a barrel? Would US shale plays still be viable at that price?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/suddenly-oil-below-40-a-barrel-doesn-t-seem-so-far-fetched
Don’t fight the Fed’s ability to make the stock market rise and don’t fight the Saudis ability to raise oil prices:
http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Saudis-Cut-Oil-Exports-In-April-Not-Just-Production.html
Have a link addressing this but it has not posted basically showing that now Saudi Arabia is cutting not only production but actual exports so it has stopped running down its storage, it should be reflected in the markets soon.
Sure, because they said so? How many OPEC members are cheating on their quotas?
Read the article again, it is not based on what they saying but actual exports monitored by a company called clipperdata.
http://krqe.com/2017/05/05/albuquerque-realtor-facing-murder-charges-after-hitting-man-with-car/
Ballooning mortgage approvals – another property bubble?
Mortgage approvals are surging and house prices rocketing – but Central Bank governor Philip Lane this week insisted there is no property bubble.
Lane said the regulator’s mortgage-lending rules will ultimately act as a drag on property prices and had placed a number of “self-correcting brakes” in the system that would make it difficult for house prices to rise “persistently”.
However, Lane did acknowledge the State’s housing market remains extremely volatile and that prices were still adjusting from the boom-and-bust cycle of the past decade.
Less than 24 hours after Lane’s comments, figures released by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland showed mortgage approvals rose 62 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period last year.
Furthermore, the value of the loans approved is rising even faster – by 77.5 per cent year on year. The number of loans actually drawn down to close home purchases in the same period was just 27.4 per cent up year on year.
Separately, high-profile debtor advocate David Hall is said to be planning a scheme that would involve purchasing the houses of people who are deep in arrears with their mortgages while allowing the owners to stay in their homes.
I Care Housing, a not-for-profit approved housing body, is believed to be in advanced discussions with a number of banks about acquiring loans that are in arrears.
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/republic-battens-down-the-hatches-for-a-hard-brexit-1.3072631
No bubble in Eire.
Oh dear…Shake Shack crashes. No one could’ve seen that coming.
https://news.thestreet.com/independent/story/14120186/1/shake-shack-gets-pounded-this-is-the-one-number-wall-street-isn-t-liking.html
One should go “all-in” on Shake Shack because it is selling for only 5.92 times its book value, it has a very, very low price-earnings-ratio of 69.42, and its dividend of zero is guaranteed to not be lowered at any time in the foreseeable (or even the unforseeable) future.
http://finviz.com/quote.ashx?t=shak
Also doing quite well is the Grilled Cheese Truck Company, Inc.
Go here for Exhibit A.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GRLD/financials?p=GRLD
(Note: All those red numbers that you see indicate that the stock is “HOT” and hence is a reliable buying signal.)
commodities are kind of saying the economy is in a slump aren’t they?
I was thinking of making a dart board of the s&p stocks and just start throwing darts and buying where it lands. Its that easy thanks to auntie yellen.
Isn’t it amazing our economy is based on pieces of paper and homes going up in price?
The Chinese are the world’s largest imported of virtually every commodity. In some commodities they import more than 50% of the exports of that commodity. The Chinese have an interest in keeping commodity prices lower to increase their trade surplus. Do not underestimate their ability to manipulate commodity prices lower to achieve this aim and do not overestimate the indicator of falling prices. Often rising and falling commodities now shows whether the Chinese are stockpiling or de-stocking a particular commodity and not the underlying demand for the commodity. Additionally, the Chinese may be crashing the market by dumping paper barrels of oil on the futures exchange to get cheaper real oil.
Recently, higher commodity prices have halved the Chinese trade surplus so achieving lower prices has become more important than achieving higher GDP particularly when they have exceeded the goal the first three months of the year.
An alternative view would be that in the terminal phase of a bubble, liquidity and credit start to dry up, as does demand for financially non-viable “investments” in housing, ghost cities, bridges to nowhere, etc.
China is one of the poorest countries on the planet and it is choking on debt.
Yeah, you can call poverty, over capacity, bad investments and cascading loan defaults evil genius manipulation if you want to.
Yet we allow then to use their fake Yuan to buy up the USA and our companies.
And down through the floor goes a craterin’ crude……. Prices that is….
“US crude plunges 4.8% to $45.52, posting worst close in more than five months”
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/03/oil-eases-near-weakest-since-late-march-on-small-u-s-stocks-decline.html
There is a surplus of everything in a world where the biggest debt donkeys on the planet are tiring of pulling the slavery wagon.
Here’s some Peking Crow. Enjoy.
Drop the CraterTaters Az_Donk cuz the drive-thru is backed up with DonkeyCarts.
Chinese binge-buying of massively overpriced real estate in the world’s priciest markets continues apace. Heckova job, Chinese central planners.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/05/03/chinese-property-firm-confirm-1bn-cheesegrater-deal/
Would-be FBs are starting to get cold feet about buying at the peak of Canada’s housing bubbles.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-real-estate-market-1.4096043