Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For September 13, 2006
Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Does anyone know of a good source of historical data on real estate?
I’m taking a college class in “Statistical Graphics.” The focus of the course is to learn some of the tools in standard statistics packages such as S-Plus and SAS.
The course requires a final project that examines a dataset of the student’s choosing. I’d like to do my project on the real estate market.
At the moment I’m just fishing around to see what datasets are available. I’ll take national, regional, or local market data. In general, the more, the better.
If anything interesting comes out of the analysis, I’ll be sure to post the results here. Thanks.
gets tricky as you go pre internet
census and hud gov stats
is there an online learning link for graph making ?
tia
Yahoo Finance has historical data on the DowJones that goes back to 1928. I suspect there’s online data for real estate - finding it is the hard part.
I’ll let you know if I come across any good links for online learning resources.
Get ready to pay through the nose for the dataset.
The REIC keeps a pretty tight lid on the stats that they own.
You could go to piggington.com and ask Rich Toscano, he had to pay Dataquick for any usable data.
Take a look in Shiller’s “Irrational Exuberance.” If you need the actual numbers, look at his web site to see if he has any good links.
Other ideas:
- Look for the American Housing Survey or other data on the Census Dept web site (census.gov)
- Find the price history data on the OFHEO website
Good luck!
‘Take a look in Shiller’s “Irrational Exuberance.” ‘
Jackpot! His data is available for download in an excel spreadsheet:
http://www.irrationalexuberance.com/
This should get me started. Thanks!
I have a copy of Shiller’s graph showing historical home values, 1890-present, hanging on my wall at work. It’s an eye-popper.
And according to Schiller’s data, house prices did not appreciate at all relative to inflation in the entire 20th century. Of course they didn’t, and this is a very important point, since the “1 to 2% a year” often quoted would take the index from 100 in 1900 to 443 (that’s right, not a typo, I checked the numbers carefully) in 2000, using a midpoint of 1.5% appreciation compounded annually for 100 years.
The 1-2% appreciation is such absolute BS I can ‘t understand why it continues to get repeated. Any 15-second exercise of common sense can deduce this.
I remember (vaguely) from dynamic optimization exercises in econ grad school that there were always two steady-state solutions to every problem - roughtly, 1 and infinity; that is, everything reverts to sustainable trend. For example, “if I can think of a bigger inflation number than you can” than I can expand the money supply faster than you can increase your wage demands (I can continually fool you into thinking you are wealthier than you are), and the economy can keep expanding through monetary stimulus forever.
Housing prices long-term can not grow faster than incomes, not even 0.5%. If they did, they would quickly represent more than total income.
Wealth can not exceed wealth: real estate does not naturally appreciate!
OK, OK, sorry, I left out growth in real GDP, which has averaged about 1% (not 2-3%) annually over the past hundred years. So housing price appreciation could conceivably represent some percentage of this overall growth. But it doesn’t - houses themselves depreciate and any slight increase in the index of housing prices (I believe Shiller allows for 0.4%, although it depends on when you start and end your data) as a part of this overall increase in real GDP comes from new replacing old, not appreciation of molding walls and leaking roofs.
Although I know there have been huge increases in wealth (real GDP) recently I recall that as recently as 20 years ago that if you had taken all the annualized increases in real wealth per capita that had occurred since the Industrial Revolution and rounded it to the nearest whole per cent that that per cent was 0.
Here’s some pretty good data:
http://www.ofheo.gov/download.asp
OFHEO data gets my vote…
Also, it should be easy to look up historic mortgage rates, rates of inflation, employment rates, etc.
Bloomberg coming on right now with a negative RE report. 10:20 AM EST
Jone Laforge from SRQ Capital Management. He gave a fairly negative report on housing (he quoted Sarasota, FL inventory going up 9 fold in the past 18 months). He mentioned that to stimulate demand to return that price drops were necessary. Unfortunately he started off the report by pimping Telecom/Tech stocks for next year because he sees the FED cutting rates. He is calling for a 10-15% price reduction in RE. He sees consumers rebounding after FED cuts rates (apparently doesn’t see the link between equity withdrawals and consumer spending). To sum up I see this as a report about what is visible and easily extrapolated and then a dodge on the likely outcome overall while remaining bullish on the economy. In short, a shill piece.
Bloomberg sucks! I can’t sum it up any better than that. The only thing I give them credit for in the last year is having the balls to interview Schiff, who proceeded to let them have it. I stopped watching Bloomberg because of the damage my TV sustains from my hurling oblects at the talking-head-spin-doctors they employ.
LOL, I only made the announcement because before the commercial break on the intro it sounded like it might be someone like Schiff who tells it straight up. Unfortunately it was this peckerhead who was busy shining his seat thinking up reasons this crash won’t suck. Oh well.
new mba applications are out.
best summary as always from
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2006/09/mba-applications-rise-during-holiday.html
According to the Big Picture blog, there was a bounce in mortgage apps last year during the labor day week. Evidently, some people use the long weekend to make decisions or to fill out applications.
As I get it the mortgage applications were up on a “seasonally adjusted basis” but were down rather substantially on an unadjusted basis.
What kind of adjustments are made to get “seasonal numbers”? I understand if there was an extra day in the week or something but what other shenanigans are going on? What kind of adjustments are made to YOY numbers to get “seasonal” numbers?
Is it something like last week a year ago there was a only a quarter moon and this year there was full moon so we multiplied the figures by 4 to “seasonally” adjust them for comparison purposes?
socalmtgguy is back with a new post and a spectacular
bookcover!
http://housingbubblecasualty.com/?p=39
Good one!
i have a new story on the bubble in uk
“Some 770,000 people have missed one or more repayments in the past year”
http://www.immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/
How many people live on those islands (the ones occupied by the British empire)?
the image is not quite correct ( shit!)
should be only gb.
in gb live roughly 60 mio people
i fix it later
sorry.
the image is not correct. should only be gb not uk.
the pop is roughly 60 mio.
left in the image is ireland. ireland´s bubble is worse than the bubble in gb.
I didn’t see any comparative figures for prior years. Maybe the Brits are just habitual late payers.
unfortunaltly that was not mentionend.
i have found a graph that showes the individual insolvencies
not qiute the same as the late payment but the trend is skyrocketing! capital one has had massiv writedowns in uk relatet to their credit card business.
re to follow.
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/graphs-individual-insolvencies.php
Thanks.
Insolvencies have gone up almost exponentially since 2003 and are presently 200% higher than in 2003. You would think the bubble would have popped by now though London may be “different” than greater UK.
when you see their latest attempts on creative financing
like “the debt that never dies” or you realize that they have a housingminister
“Yvette Cooper, housing minister”
you know the endgame is near. here is my summary of the “bubbles world tour” so far. the us is really not alone…..
http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/2006/09/bubble-goes-global.html
The Brits are late payers no more than anywhere else in the western world. However, up until 25 years ago, the Brits didn’t suffer from the American disease known as easy credit. Credit cards were used by very few people. Along with that other great cultural addition America has given the world (junk food) they are now as fat and obese as Americans. Because they didn’t have a history of easy debt, they are probably in a more serious situation than the average American debtor. The only saving grace is they have not built up a massive (there isn’t a word to describe the actual size because even humongus doesn’t fit) a national debt and they have north sea oil and London is still the world center for financial dealings. Unfortunately, because of Bush’s poodle, Tony Blair, the Brits have followed the US into the Iraq mess. That’s a surprise because British history has scores of examples as to what happens if you send “organized military” into those regions including Iraq and Afghanistan. Those places are littered with British graves because, eventually, you get your ass kicked. I can only imagine that Poodle Blair was asleep during his history lessons……….but there could be another reason why the Brits have basically become the 51st state of the USA even if they don’t like to admit it. Bush has managed to secure Blair directorships with at least one large US corporation as a pay-off. There used to be a UCLA website which showed the work of a professor called, Didier Sornette. His work centered around looking for “earthquakes” in the financial systems. Unfortunately, his charts were either (A) Useless or (B) They were/are right but the timing is off. For example, Sornette and his associate by the name of Professor Wang, stated that the UK housing bubble was at extremes and would crash very soon. They both stated that the UK would crash but the US would decline and have a soft landing. That was in 2003/4. It didn’t happen and, in fact, prices of property in the UK doubled and tripled in some places. If you think American’s have used property as ATM’s, the Brits have got everyone beat. Consider this: An apartment I owned in a good part of London in 1972 cost $60,000. That same apartment sold last year for $2.4. Quite a jump…..
I was in the UK this summer and many were talking about the house that the Blair’s had bought in London a few years back. Apparently it is public knowledge that the Blair’s are in a desperate situation in that they are unable to rent out the house for anything close to their carrying costs and are struggling to meet these costs. This could, in part, explain their extensive speaking schedules and the need for the directorships.
On another topic… my English father-in-law always operated on the principle that the house he could afford was the one he could pay cash for!
after reviewing the earnings from goldman yesterday i think it is fair to say that you can/should call them no langer a bank.
it is clearly more a hedge funds.
Total Investment Banking 1,288
Total Trading and Principal Investments 4,720
Total Asset Management and Securities Services 1,455
Total net revenues $ 7,463
over 60% comes from their trading desk and under 20% from their investmentbanking.
How is their hedge fund operation doing these days? And for that matter, does anyone have information on how Fannie Mae is holding up? (Given the absence of financials, I have a hard time judging Fannie’s intestinal fortitude against the backdrop of a housing bust.)
A p. C1 article in today’s WSJ is captioned “Hedge Funds Miss Their Target — Some Prominent Names Are Coming Up Short of Benchmarks”
(more on this below)
Fannie and Goldman are not discussed, though…
Sorry — I missed the next article down the page before typing (”At Goldman, Top FUnd and Earnings Drop”). But I guess Fannie’s hedging activities will remain a mystery, unless some insider lurking here would care to shed light on the question…
Goldman’s hedge fund dropped 10% in NAV in August.
http://nnjbubble.blogspot.com/2006/09/lawmakers-to-meet-on-housing-bubble.html
Hey, they gotta be able to say that they tried to stop it.
OK, I tried this on a couple of yesterday’s threads, but due to time zone differences they may have appeared too late to be noticed.
Does anyone know, given that this is an economics meeting, why the FDIC, OFHEO and HAHB witnesses are their respective chief economists but the NAR witness is the President rather than Lareah?
-HAHB
+NAHB
Lareah would have to be sworn in and could subsequently face either perjury charges or shill charges by putting uninformed people at severe financial risk.
-
look at this sweetheart realtor, draping herself in the flag. what a load.
http://www.michelleleonard.com/
most realhores look like that
doughy math challenged cows that say
bright and airy- great buy- good schools(whitey)
It’ll take more than a patriotic statement to sell a house today…
Almost as bad as theflga, Is that smile she has? Looks like a SNEER to me. Yikes! What an expression.
Will someone please gouge-out my eyes… Thank you.
ROFLMAO!!!
That Realtor(tm) is so fat that you could split her in half and make two normal-sized Realtors(tm) out of her.
That Realtor ™ is so fat that when she hauls ass, she has to make two trips.
Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!
The perfect “poster child” for today’s real estate market.
I think she ate Betsy Ross.
LOL. I nearly pi$$#d my pants.
I’m throwing the flag though. 15 yard penatly. Improper use of a historical figure.
We’re a more mature crowd than this.
No, not really.
SERIOUSLY, THAT WAS GREAT!!!!! I almost burst my gut laughing.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
Who in their right mind would buy Re from someone that made the village idiot look like Einstein?
Under her real estate education courses, this one really stood out-
->December 1990 Philadelphia, PA
Floyd Wickham Course “Sweathogs”
FYI, I have some familiarity with the “Sweathogs” course. It was run by a realtor who realized he could make more money telling other realtors how to sell than by selling himself. The key principles include a 13-step rigid sequence of how to list properties. It begins with cold-calling neighborhoods until you find someone who vaguely admits to being interested in selling their house. Then, it continues through a rigid approach to listing the house, beginning with complimenting the homeowner when you arrive (pick something about the house and compliment), feign interest in the homeowners’ life while tyring to figure out their “motivation”, once you understand this (i.e., how desperate they are) then you can decide how aggressive you can be on pricing and commission, etc. It’s a formula.
“Buy a home from me, or I will eat you.”
Hopefully, she humanely kills her victims first by sitting on them.
I can see slamming realtors because of their ethics, but the comments about her weight/physical appearance are cruel and unnecessary. I thought we were better than that in here.
Good for you, Sammy!!
I for one, am not. I’m putting her picture on my website.
Story:
I went to the Mpls “Parade Of Homes”. It happens in a few cities, but it’s HUGE here. Basically, all of the builders open up their new models all around the major metro area, and people come and guffaw. It has low, mid and high range stuff.
Typically, there are TONS of people out. In any given house you might have from 10-60 people milling around (onlookers).
It happens in spring and fall. (spring is usually more popular).
I like it because it gets us out of the house, it’s free, and it’s very low stress. Due to the volumes of people, the sales people just leave you be and you can walk around without impediment. Wifey likes it (and our close couple friends) because they can see “what’s the latest”, and we all like it (me too), because we love to look at how much stuff costs… it makes us so happy to own OUR house instead. (a new 1 BR condo costs more than my home near Lake Harriet)
Anyway, we went on Sunday. For the first time ever, it was DEAD. We went to 6 different places. All were empty except for us. And for the first time ever, the developers/realtors/whoever basically attacked us and asked us to sign in, who our realtor was, when we were buying, and they followed us around the units.
This has never happened to me the 10 + Parade Of Homes that I’ve done.
There was one condo building we went to, actually beautiful, but they had built 1 building. The second building was half finished (the outside was done, but no interior stuff like walls/wood floors/etc). The 3rd building was just a concrete slab. the developer told us 12 of 24 units were sold in Bldg 1. They were HOLDING any more construction until Bldg 1 sells out, THEN they’d finish with Bldg 2. The developer said “IF” *(yeah, he said if) Bldg 2 sells 75%, then he’d go ahead for Bldg 3.
The desperation is palpable.
FWIW: all of the places we looked at were IN Mpls, except for the last place, which was by the Interchange Bldg on Highway 394 and 169.
danke / thanks.
sounds really like the market hit the wall in 2006.
Same thing in the Northeast. I smell soap.
I remember in March of 1991 I stopped on a whim to check out an open house in the suburbs of Boston. I found the realtor lying on the kitchen floor asleep. After waking him with some throat-clearing, I found out he had been there for over an hour snoozing peacefully. I realized then that the regional housing bubble of the 1980s was over.
LOL!
You should’ve picked his pocket. He’d have done it to you.
I didn’t personally attend our local Parade of Homes outside of Syracuse but the 1st day did get media coverage. I had to say I was stunned. It was mobbed. I was expecting low #s.
The NYS Fair numbers were good too, even with lots of rain the 2nd week. I guess (at least for now) our local economy is “stable”. I think the locals are aware of what’s going on elsewhere I’m not so sure most think it pertains to their lives. The restaurant I went to the other day was packed at usual.
If building 1 is only half sold they may be in real trouble - all the condos in the building have to close at the same time if the developer borrowed the money. That’s why condo developers like to pre-sell, and why condo development can be so tricky.
The trick used in Seattle after the dot.com bust was to build as an apartment building, but to condo standards, and then sell as soon as the market turned up. Tenants can then be given priority to get things rolling, and you make the most money on the last units you sell.
From our Milwaukee paper this morning:
New home construction down 20% in region
Houses being built are bigger, more expensive
New housing construction has dropped by more than 20% in southeastern Wisconsin for the year through August, according to a report by MTD Marketing Services LLC.In the Milwaukee metro area, new home starts are running 21.6% behind last year as of the end of August. In the Kenosha-Racine area, starts lag 20.2%.
http://tinyurl.com/fv55f
can folks post how much SFH have gone down in their hood ?
in mine 22151 it’s 8-10% w peak 6/05
It’s really hard to tell, because volume has been down the last few weeks.
This summer if you recall I was opining as to the situation, a TON of homes were sold in my neighborhood, and quickly. (over half of “for sale” signs had “sold” on them, and they did sell). But things just stopped the last week of July. Literally.
Since little is moving now, it’s hard to see what the clearing price actually is. But looking around, I’d say SFH’s in my area UP YOY (about 6-7%), but down maybe 2-3% since the end of July.
However, the market in my actual neighborhood literally hit a wall the end of July, so that’s a guess at best.
And unlike in SoCal, WINTER really means something here. Almost nobody buys in winter ever here. (way too cold and snowy). So I doubt we’ll really know what our market is until spring of 07. (Total guess, I think it will be down by around 7-8% by next spring)
Duh…. i’m in Mpls!
“This summer if you recall I was opining as to the situation, a TON of homes were sold in my neighborhood, and quickly.”
If I recall correctly, by “a TON” you mentioned 4-5 homes or something along those lines, and you were claiming Minnesota was different based on those handful of sales. I guess a few California families moved to your area, and then the bubble burst.
“Almost nobody buys in winter ever here.”
What is inventory like (compared to last year)?
flatffplan: Don’t know if you care about SE Pa (Philly/NJ bedroom). Our busy county recorder doesn’t give the public the sales data for about 6 months. Zillow stinks (currently shows weekly increases every week.)
Our 19067 SFHs are down a little more than yours, maybe 15%…same peak, maybe a month later, but the percentage varies between price levels. For example, a median home (3/2; 60yr old; .25 corner acre; solid) that is on the market in one of the best school districts (top elementary school) was FSBO last Sept. at $305, just below comps. In the Spring, dropped to $300, then $295, gave up on FSBO in April, signed with CB and relisted. Dropped to $289. This week, mls says “Just Reduced!” and it’s at $270k.
In a less than perfect school system (the private school is great, though), 4/2 capes were $260 last year, down to $240 in the spring, now similar ones (some with more land) are at $200.
Hope this gives some perspective on the medians over here.
Your right about Zillow. The numbers are all over the place and basically rubbish. I checked out 2 properties I owned in Southern California. One in West Hollywood and one in Northridge. I know the one in West Hollywood sold about a year ago for $550,00 (a condo) but Zillow has it listed as $900,000. I suspect Zillow isn’t independant and the realtor business is in there somewhere. Gee! What a surprise!
Oddly enough I noticed a discrepancy today - when I looked at what my realtor contacts send me in listings, the prices look down. When I look just through for instance foxton’s website, those prices are insane. When I look at Realtor.com, I see alot higher prices too, plus my listings I’m sent. And is any of this selling? I presume none seeing as the good value ones, realtively speaking, are still sitting, many going on a year after having been dropped in one case (I like it, but its still not cash flow positive) 25%… so who knows. (Monmouth Cty, NJ)
its down 20 to 30% in Boston. That’s why they’re begining to auction condos. MA has been losing population, quiet business and income growth and a LOT of building of homes and condos in the last 3 years.
Here in South Santa Barbara County (SB, Goleta, Montecito, Summerland, Carpinteria):
August 06
178 Sales
Avg: $1,748,282
Median: $1,055,000
August 05
250 Sales
Avg Price: $1,400,466
Median: $1,050,000
The Realtors(TM) are loving these numbers, telling everyone they know that “it’s different here” and that the media is blowing things out of proportion.
But the real rub is in the volume and the detailed sales. Sure average and median went up. Why? Because in Santa Barbara, it really is different here. Last month, there were 14 homes (SFHs) (out of 178) that sold for over $4,000,000, including $7,700,000, $7,712,273, $11,600,000 (780 Riven Rock Road- prime Montecito real estate), and a mind-blowing $27 million even (3389 Padaro Lane - world class prime real estate)) I heard that if you sliced the top ten sales off Santa Barbara’s real estate, prices have actually been going down for quite awhile.
I love how the Realtors factor these in to show how great things are.
tracking land on ebay - looks like raw lots going at 50-70% off peak - WOW !
now if that isn’t a statement! We have a 15% decline in sales for september in North Jersey
http://nnjbubble.blogspot.com/2005_09_25_nnjbubble_archive.html
sorry i meant to add my source
urr. that was last year?! i thought it was strange the the blog noted it was the “top of the bubble”…heh. back to the drawing board.
http://www.realtor.org/PublicAffairsWeb.nsf/Pages/SeptemberForecast07
Home Sales Forecast Lowered, Prices To Dip Temporarily
WASHINGTON (September 7, 2006) – Home sales during the rest of the year will be lower than earlier projections as the market works its way through an inventory and price imbalance, according to the National Association of Realtors®.
David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said the most obvious effect in the near term will be with home prices. “A year ago we had record home sales and tight supply with buyers bidding over the asking price,” he said. “This year sales are slowing, homes are plentiful and sellers are negotiating. Under these conditions, we’ll probably see prices dip temporarily below year-ago levels as the market works through a build up in housing inventory.”
“This is a normal pattern during a market correction, but home prices should return to positive territory within a few months and annual appreciation will be slower than historic norms,” Lereah said. “Keep in mind that over time, home prices rise at the rate of inflation plus one-to-two percentage points – buyers in most of the country who plan to stay in their home for a normal period of homeownership can pretty well bank on those historic averages, but people who purchased last year with the intent of flipping are likely to get burned.”
That was last year, here is the most recent data for North Jersey (August residential sales)
North Jersey August Residential Real Estate Sales
grim
“..buyers in most of the country who plan to stay in their home for a normal period of homeownership can pretty well bank on those historic averages, but people who purchased last year with the intent of flipping are likely to get burned.”
NAR trying to keep their core buyers in line and get out in front of the issue before the dreaded “year on year national decline” hits the tube. They know that the flippers are out of the market and are not coming back so might as well burn them.
The propoganda machine at NAR is second to none. Bush needs to hire this guy.
When DL says “prices will dip temporarily,” does he mean like over a period of four+ years, like the examples he showed fellow Realtors (TM) in his August 06 powerpoint slides?
Lereah is 100% correct….homes appreciate in the long run at 1-2% above inflation — So, Mr. Lereah, how much do they have to drop in order to get back to that long run average? (If So Cal went up 30%!!!! in 2002-2003 and inflation was 3%(?) then it looks like we were out of whack)
Pull a simple graph comparing home price apprec against inflation from 1996-2006 and you’ll see the “froth”, “bubble”, “exuberrance”, “stupidity”, “FB” — whatever you call it.
Good call STK. Follow the “curve”.
I also agree with the above post that states the NAR is cutting the flippers loose ’cause they know it’s end of the line for investors. I believe we’re moving through the the fall-out of the f—ed flipper stage and just entering the fall-out of the FB stage.
“homes appreciate in the long run at 1-2% above inflation..”
I do not believe that is true. I remember seeing a chart that showed nationally that house prices appreciated at the long term rate of 0.4% above inflation. This included taking out all rural properties otherwise housing would be down over the last 130 years. Kansas is still 30% below its 1890 values.
It’s NRA double talk. Notice he doesn’t mention anything about the percentage increase. I thought lawyers were bottom feeders. Realtors are 10,000 leagues under the sea below them.
“I remember seeing a chart that showed nationally that house prices appreciated at the long term rate of 0.4% above inflation.”
Oh man, Hoz, if that number is true, I’m not sure I’ll ever buy again! I’ve already gotten accustomed to renting and not being responsible for anything — kinda’ like being in college again.
LOL omg. - NRA + NAR. Beleive it or not, i had coffee.
“The price change of existing housing is the result of inflation and is a hedge against inflation. However, real estate prices actually increase at a rate below inflation instead of at a rate above inflation. Real estate does not preserve inflation-adjusted value because it depreciates in value from use and obsolescence.”
http://tinyurl.com/e7fpa
Totally off-topic — forgive me — but the other day some moron was talking about the video LOOSE CHANGE that purports to show how the US Gov’t orchestrated 9/11. This most excellent, scathing response from the truly legendary Maddox echoes my own sentiments on the subject.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=911_morons
i agree 100% with you sammy
the fact/probplem that those videos like “loos change” gets attention is that the us gouverment (doesn´t matter if rep or dem) has almost no reputation.
way too much skandals and “interventions” in the past decades.
Sammy,
I followed the link you provided, and I have to tell you, it really didn’t address any of the legitimate questions about 9/11. The main reason given for why the 9/11 truth activists are wrong is that the Loose Change director is still alive. That’s hardly hard science.
The core of the 9/11 truth movement is concerned with questions about things such as the melting point of steel and whether jet fuel fires are capable of reaching that temperature, what caused a 47-story building that was not hit by planes and had only minor damage and fires to collapse in a manner totally consistent with controlled demolition (WTC7), why did NORAD and FAA lie to 9/11 commission, what are the ties between CIA-Pakistani ISI-Al qaeda? Colin Powell promised a white paper that would detail the evidence linking Al-Qaeda and 9/11, yet it was never written and no hard evidence has ever been provided. In fact, the FBI has admitted it has no evidence linking Bin Laden to 9/11 and their poster for Bin Laden does not include 9/11 attacks (only embassy bombings). Who financed the attacks? Who placed the large put options on American and United in days before attacks?
These are all legitimate questions that most American’s don’t know the answer to.
Instead of Loose Change, I recommend all concerned citizens watch 9/11: Press for Truth, available for free on Google video. Just do a search for 9/11: Press for Truth. This film focuses on the story of the 9/11 families and the way their many questions have been ignored or lied about by our government.
Here’s a short video that one of my friends (conspiracy guy) sent me. Cool music.
http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm#Main
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
You must not have read the linked article; it states:
“For anyone interested in a point-by-point debunking of some of the most popular conspiracy theories out there (like the fact that steel melts at 1525° C, and although jet fuel burns only at 825° C, it doesn’t have to burn hot enough to melt to cause the buildings to collapse, since steel loses 50% of its strength at 648 ° C)”
Also, you seemed to ignore the entire alien Elvis connection.
Yes, when the steel reaches 648 degrees, it loses half of its strength. But how much energy does it take to bring that amount of steel to that temperature? It takes prolonged exposure (more than one hour) to sustained temperatures well in excess of 825 degrees to bring steel to that temperature. That’s why no steel-framed structure in history (except on Sept. 11 when 3 fell) has ever collapsed due to fire. Even when the buildings are engulfed floor to roof in flames for 20 hours or more, they don’t collapse.
We have been given three different explanations for why the towers fell in three different reports (original FEMA report, Silverstein insurance report, and NIST report) and none of them offer a believable explanation of what happened.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html
The light weight steel floor trusses had lost their fire proofing (blown off at impact) and sagged until they had pulled the exterior wall columns in 5 feet. At which time the exterior wall columns snapped and the whole thing came roaring down (watch PBS’s Nova http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/).
Heat does weaken steel, it doesn’t have to melt. These buildings were designed to be as light weight as possible and still meet the poor building standards of the late 60’s.
Nova is crock of shit just like Popular Mechanics. First it’s the columns, then it’s the floors pancaking, then it’s floor trusses. They keep grasping at straws to make this story fly. The official story is the conspiracy theory, no doubt about it.
This film focuses on the story of the 9/11 families and the way their many questions have been ignored or lied about by our government.
This is the circus part of bread and circuses.
Focusing on whether jet fuel melts steel, whether grainy images represent 737s or cruise missiles, or whether the accused terrorists could fly planes just keeps you from paying attention to what’s happening in front of your nose, today, in YOUR town. The cause of 9/11 is irrelevant. It is irelevant whether the terrorists did it alone, whether the government simply complicity ignored an existing terrorist plot, or whether it was all cooked up by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Does it matter whether the Reichstag fire was started by Communists or not? Not so much. It is what was done afterwards that showed the true nature of the respective governments.
This whole thing is “American Idol” for people that think they are clever.
I think 9/11 provides the context to what is happening in our towns. That is why it is important. It helps explain how the corrupt system works and why our communities are going to hell.
For those people who don’t believe that flight 77 crashed into the pentagon I say why not call the relatives of the people who “supposedly died” on this “non existant” flight and let them know where they can find their loved ones. Because it would be nice to reunite these people after five years.
Bad idea. Those families have been through enough without fielding calls from loons with crackpot theories about what happened on that day. I guess all those passengers who called their families to say goodbye from the doomed aircraft were just voice doubles, right?
I have a friend I was talking to while the disaster was happening. She told me the buiding was going to collapse about 20 mins. before it did. She is a saftey engineer for an insurance company and it is widely known that steel frame buildings are unsafe in high temperature fires, even just normal fires let alone jet fuel accelerated ones. She says insurance companies reccomend that steel griders be wrapped with a fire proof substance.
You can see some test results for wrapped and unwrapped beams at
Fire Test. Even if the wtc had wrapped beams the impact of the planes may have exposed the bare steel. Also, don’t forget that with all the weight above the fire it may not have needed many beams or much area on them to weaken enough to begin the collapse.
Please go to Popular Mechanics, they shred all the “theories” completely. Please, inform yourself before you join the lunatic fringe.
Popular Mechanics is a joke. What do they say about WTC7? They say 30% of it was destroyed by falling rubble, even though separated from twin towers by another building. They provide no visual proof of this. In fact, the only photo of WTC 7 they provide shows NO DAMAGE to WTC7.
Someone please explain how this 47-story building came down in a manner completely consistent with controlled demolition?
Someone please provide even one other example of a steel-framed building collapsing from fire. Just one.
Bubbleviewer, look at the photos that show the south side of WT7. Popular Mechanics got it right. NYPD Fire Captain Chris Boyle, Engine 94: “on the north and east side of 7 it didn’t look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn’t look good.”
More here.
I still don’t see significant damage to WTC7. Damage on the south face, yes, broken windows, yes. Doesn’t it stand to reason that a building that sustained only damage to one side, would fall to that one side?
If you combine this with Silverstein’s admission that they decided to “pull it. And we pulled it and watched the building collapse” ….
You’re misrepresenting Silverstein’s remark, which was about pulling the NYFD personnel from the building because it was about to collapse–and it collapsed on the damaged side, first. It was more than broken windows, it was multiple-stories-high holes in the side of the building.
You clearly didn’t look at the link I pointed you to.
The 9/11 conspiracy theories are garbage. See the links at this blog post (esp. the Loose Change detailed critique, the 911myths.com website, and the Popular Mechanics article which has now been lengthened and expanded into a book).
The main legitimate question about 9/11 is why the heads of the CIA and FBI weren’t fired for criminal negligence and direlection of duty.
As far as the conspiracy theorists, I think they’re really straining to make the facts fit their pat theories, rather than looking at the totality of the evidence. I don’t believe for a second that the timid, middle-aged clock watchers and ticket-punching careerists who make up our intelligence and military bureaucracies are remotely capable, or inclined, of pulling off such a vast and complex conspiracy as some of the tinfoil hats are claiming.
Questioning this administration, especially these days is hardly a “conspiracy theory.” Wasn’t it just less than a year ago that the housing bubble was also considered a “conspiracy theory”? Who was right and who was wrong about the housing bubble?
The discussions on this blog should actually open up your mind to other possibilities of deception instead of shutting it out. Your first logic check should be to ask yourself two questions:
1. Did the govt lie?
2. Who would stand to benefit from such a lie?
The truth is starting to be revealed about the housing bubble. Can other hidden truths also start coming forward? Once you started connecting the dots from the housing bubble didn’t things start making more sense?
Why can’t this same line of reasoning/questioning be used for other areas in our lives and not just the unusual behavior of the housing market and economy for the past 6 years or so?
Well stated, huggybear.
We admonish those who do not look beyond what they are told to believe in the housing (and other financial) markets. But for some reason, we are supposed to believe everything the govt tells us to believe. We are “wacked-out, unpatriotic nut cases” if we should question the govts stated explanations for everything. Haven’t we already learned that the govt is more than willing to lie about most things (Iraq/Saddam Hussein, CIA “torture” prisons”, etc.)?
Huggybear,
I didn’t say that the gov’t doesn’t lie. The culture of CYA and spin and disingenuousness is all-pervasive in Washington…and the media…and big business. It doesn’t automatically follow that the gov’t lies about everything, all the time, or that that should automatically give credence to the conspiracy theorists.
“purports to show how the US Gov’t orchestrated 9/11″
Brought to you by the same crowd that suggests the Apollo moon missions were really telecast from a Hollywood movie set?
Well you might think with all the satellites flying around taking pictures someone might have aimed a camera at the moon and taken a picture of the flag flying up there. Haven’t seen that one on net yet!
…well if there is plausibility… If you were to look at this as if it were a court case, evidence is necessary for plausibility. if they can’t be disputed, then I suppose then the case would be won.
What can one “SEE” going into the pentagon?
There were eyewitnesses to the plane hitting the Pentagon. The video footage isn’t great, but it does show the plane. The pattern of light pole damage puts a minimum width (wingspan) on the object that hit the Pentagon which rules out a missile, a theory which also fails to explain where Flight 77 and its passengers went (or why identifiable body parts from Flight 77 and pieces of the plane were found at the Pentagon crash site).
Some of the evidence IS irrefutable. I try to keep an open mind about things like this. Does anyone still think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? OUr history books still say he did. I think there is always information our government has that we should not know about for reasons that we don’t need to know about. I guess for our own protection??
….Keep an open mind…..just not so open your brains fall out. Still - refusing to respond to the myriad valid questions which CAN be answered ref. 9-11 hardly makes the neo-nuts appear guilt free.
Maybe New York is different.
“Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Wall Street’s most profitable firm, said it set aside as much as $542,000 in pay per employee for the first three fiscal quarters, already beating the total for the whole of last year.
“Goldman said today it provided $13.9 billion in compensation for its 25,647 employees, compared with $11.7 billion for 22,425 employees at the end of last year. The firm, whose $27.9 billion of revenue has already exceeded last year’s record, typically allocates 50 percent of revenue to pay for the first three quarters and about 36 percent in the final quarter.
“Wall Street bonuses will jump 15 percent this year, with investment bankers and equities traders reaping the rewards of rising stock markets and record mergers, New York compensation- consulting firm Johnson Associates Inc. said last month. Goldman last year earned more than either Morgan Stanley, the biggest firm by market value, or Merrill Lynch & Co., the No. 3 firm.”
Is there any wonder that the average bonus is about the price of a one bedroom in Manhattan? Does a 15% increase in bonuses mean a 15% increase in RE, too?
Can I also add that this news makes me miserable?
I have a question about ARMs. I understand that the interest rate resets after a certain amount of time. How is the new interest rate determined? Do they usually have lifetime caps? What happens to them if interest rates go down instead of up? Thanks
The initial interest rate is roughly determined by the bank, and can be a teaser (artificially low) or at market rate. I have even seen instances where the initial rate was ABOVE the rate that it would have floated to if the mortgage adjusted immediately.
The adjusted rates that you get after the initial fixed period are based on a set margin above a money index, like LIBOR or one-year-treasury-maturities; usually this margin is about 2-3%, though I have seen 4.x% and higher for fools (FB’s).
There is usually a lifetime cap, but I wouldn’t say that’s guaranteed. Often it is 6% above the initial rate. There is also usually a maximum adjustment in any one year, often 2%. Note that I say often — not always!
Hence an ARM starting at 5% often has a 2% per year maximum adjustment, and an 11% cap. But not always. Be careful and read the mortgage docs thoroughly.
If interest rates go down, your payment adjusts downwards as well, assuming there is no “floor rate” in the loan document, and within the annual rate change limits (often 2%).
Each time your rate adjusts, usually on that yearly anniversary, it is usual to reamortise the mortgage out at the new rate over the remaining term. Hence, when your 5/1 adjusts after year 5, they reamortize at the new rate for 25 years.
There is also sometimes a prepayment penalty, especially for the mortgages with the higher margins (e.g. higher rates). Definitey be careful of these, as the penalty is in the many-thousands.
This simple description I just gave does NOT cover all the other details of IO and option-payment ARMs, which have further payment adjustments in them for later years when they force you to catch up if you’re accumulating interest and to start paying principal after a given number of years.
as i said above.
these huge bonuses are not safe in the next years.
gs and the other “banks/hedgefunds” are relying more and more on the trading part of their business. when the markets get rocky theses bonusses will disappear to a larage part.
Total Investment Banking 1,288
Total Trading and Principal Investments 4,720 (over 60%!)
Total Asset Management and Securities Services 1,455
Total net revenues $ 7,463
VaR (a measure of its maximum one-day loss on its trading positions, with a 95% confidence interval) increased year over year from $76 million to $92 million
http://www.immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/
maybe this is the beginning. i hope so
Goldman hedge fund lost 10% of its value in August:
Goldman Sachs’10 billion Global Alpha hedge fund lost nearly 10% of its value in August, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, citing a draft of a letter sent to the fund’s investors. The newspaper said the loss likely had an effect on the investment banks results, in particular at its asset management unit, where third-quarter net revenue dipped 4% from the second quarter to $918 million. The Journal added that the loss occurred across many different trading strategies, including negative bets on 10-year U.S. Treasuries and Japanese government bonds,
The investing syndicates of the early 2000s are exhibiting the side-effects of a dying conundrum. A p. C1 article in today’s WSJ is captioned “Hedge Funds Miss Their Target — Some Prominent Names Are Coming Up Short of Benchmarks
By Gregory Zuckerman
Some of the most hallowed names in the hedge-fund world are producing very human returns this year.
They’ve been dogged by confusion about where interest rates, stocks and commodity prices are heading, and poor bets on emerging markets and housing-related shares.”
It sounds to me like they have been dogged by confusion about what their managers should have learned in Finance 101, including the ideas that asset price movements are unpredictable but eventually revert to fundamental value, and that arbitrage opportunities are quickly exploited to the point of exhaustion (including the opportunity to form your very own highly-lucrative hedge fund when the sector is already over-crowded with recent entrants).
Those bonuses are disproportionately allocated to the very very few at the top. The average bonus is far less.
Wonder if they took out a home equity loan to pay for all this wasted litigation.
http://www.mortgage101.com/partner-scripts/inman.asp?ID=56623
When Debbie Tufts put her Eden Prairie (Minnesota) house on the market in February, she figured she’d easily net $30,000 on the sale. Never did she imagine that, after three markdowns, she’d sell it for less than she owed and have to write a $4,000 check at the closing last week.
“It’s just a waiting game,” she said. “It’s a vicious cycle that you get trapped in and you don’t know what to do.”
During August, closed sales were down 27.2 percent, compared with August 2005, and median sale prices were up only 0.04 percent. Pending sales, an indication of future activity, fell 23.2 percent.
Full article at
http://www.startribune.com/535/story/673013.html
There were some comments the other day about high-end TV sales as a potential market indicator. Here’s an excerpt from an article about how well flat-panel TV sales are doing for Best Buy:
Strong sales of big-screen televisions and laptop computers drove Best Buy Co. Incorporated’s sales up 22 percent in the second quarter, quelling fears that consumers are pulling back spending on big-ticket electronics in the face of high interest rates and a cooling housing market.
The Richfield-based retailer said demand for flat-panel TVs was robust, as consumers responded to falling prices and the addition of more home theater departments in Best Buy stores. The retailer saw a triple-digit spike in flat-panel TV sales.
The strong television sales more than offset weakness in other categories, such as home appliances, and helped Best Buy beat analysts’ expectations and deliver its sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth. The company said net income rose to $230 million, or 47 cents a share, from $188 million, or 37 cents a share, in the same quarter a year ago.
Full article at
http://www.startribune.com/535/story/671426.html
The consumer is still feeling pretty good about himself/herself despite gas prices, insurance, property taxes, interest rate resets, housing depreciation, low raises, inflation, war in Iraq, etc., etc. The consumer must be punch drunk by now. When does he/she hit the wall?
That’s probably because most people know nothing about market actions (be it stocks or property) and are being convinced that we are seeing a temporary dip in property values. Thus, they are still using their houses like ATM’s. People (sheeple) do not think for themselves and when they buy they look at the payments and nothing else. They let the media do the thinking and absorb what the experts say (think the NHA for property or people like Jim Cramer or Larry Kudlow for stock market advice). The real estate experts are all saying this is just a temporary lull in the property market and prices will rebound so sheeple buy stuff like $4,000 t/v’s because, next year, their property values will be back on top and that $4,000 t/v will be paid for. Back in 2000, when the tech bubble burst, most of the “investors” held on all the way down. In the stock market, the QQQQ’s reached a high of $120 and eventually, 2 years later, ended up at $20. A large percentage of people rode those stocks all the way down, hoping they would zoom up again. They didn’t. QQQQ’s are currently around $39. Then, as we will see with property when the decline is well and truely entrenched, sheeple will come in and buy (dip buyers) thinking it’s the bottom. Then they will get trapped. A close friend who is a successful stock market trader, says that trading markets is 85% psychology and 10% knowledge and 5% luck.
Could mean that more people are planning to stay at home instead of going out so much in the future. Also easy to get low interest financing on consumer electronics from the store.
My husband and I just bought a flat screen, but we rent. I guess that was fiscally irresponsible. We should have put that money toward a down payment on a house when the market hits bottom again in five years or so… But we couldn’t wait that long since hockey season starts next month!
look at the financing term from best buy for homecinema.
that explains a lot…. can you say neg arm / optioan arm…..
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2006/09/why_i_think_cra.html
“There were some comments the other day about high-end TV sales as a potential market indicator.”
I think even high end TV’s, compared to real estate, are as cheap as they’ve ever been. If people keep buying them I don’t see it necessarily as an overall positive sign for the economy.
I could buy a nice new LCD TV every month just with the money I save by renting.
Yes but a bunch of builders and realtors bought TV’s for incentives ,remember .
lol
News from Michigan:
Forclosures are up 143% in my county.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060913/BIZ03/609130382
Sorry if already posted / discussed, but here is more on SD’s ongoing streak of YOY price declines from the SD Union-Tribune. Note the compulsory denial that SD prices are in free fall mode. With prices off 7% since Nov 2005 (falling at a 9% annual rate thus far), I would say it is too early to tell myself; ever hear of a dead cat bounce?
“Real estate market sizzle grows fainter
By Emmet Pierce
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
11:41 a.m. September 12, 2006
SAN DIEGO – No longer sizzling, San Diego County’s residential real estate market continued to cool down last month, as overall prices declined 2.2 percent from August 2005.
It was the third straight month of year-over-year price declines, the DataQuick Information Systems research firm reported Tuesday. It also was the slowest August in terms of sales since 1997.
The median price for all homes in August was $482,000 for 3,666 sales. That compared to a median price of $493,000 and 5,379 sales in August 2005. August sales totals rose 8.8 percent from July of this year, compared with a 12.9 percent gain from July to August in 2005.
The county’s median price for all types of housing peaked in November 2005 at $518,000.
Despite the slowing pace of the market, DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage said the region doesn’t appear to be headed for a steep drop in home prices in the near future.
“You are not in free fall,” he said. “There was a big decline in sales between June and July that begged the question. The answer for now is ‘no.’ ”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060912-1141-bn12homes.html
P.S. If you earned the SD median HH income of $65K, bought the median price home in Nov 2005, and it fell in value from $518K to $482K, you could have already lost $36K, or 55% of your annual pre-tax pay by now. Ouch!
Not to mention probably all of the downpayment (if any).
100% of $0 is an infinitely large amount
Oops — 100% of $0 = $0 (need more caffeine!)
Still working through my first cup of coffee in SD, but given that so much less is selling in SD, doesn’t that distort the median sales price (in addition to the number of multimillion dollar beachfront home sales further complicating things)?
Is there a somewhat logical way to project what the median would be if all the sellers were asking market price instead of Wishing Price™?
Why is Wall Street partying over falling oil prices like it is 1999? Didn’t anyone give them the memo that falling oil prices and home prices in conjunction with an inverted bond yield curve all point in the direction of bursting asset price bubbles and incipient recession? Maybe this time will be different, with no recession and ever-increasing stock prices…
“Stocks close up on Goldman earnings, oil drop, sending Dow industrials up more than 100 points
By Tim Paradis
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:37 p.m. September 12, 2006
NEW YORK – Wall Street rallied for a third straight session Tuesday, propelling the Dow Jones industrials up more than 100 points after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reported results that beat expectations and investors grew more confident that the continuing drop in crude oil prices would boost consumer spending.”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20060912-1437-wallstreet.html
Oil prices falling - stock market in full rally mode! Gee! Could the oil corporation Republican’s (and Paulson and his Wall Street pals) be attempting to put the voters in a happy mood with the election just a few weeks away? Nahhhh.
And then there’s one from Peter Grandich. Doom and gloom, but unfortunately I agree…
http://www.kitco.com/ind/grandich/sep122006.html
If the housing bubble pop won’t do us in, the Medicare and Social Security mess will certainly do us in. We can expect tax rates to go up to Swedish (1970s era) levels to pay for all these socialist programs.
danke
that is wunderbar / great!
worth the long reading.
Manhattan average prices reportedly down, per The Real Deal blog.
http://www.therealdeal.net/breaking_news/2006/09/12/1158102762.php
Check out avg. & median prices. The full report is here:
http://media.halstead.com/pdf/Halstead_QuarterlyReport_2Q06.pdf
“The hearing, ‘The Housing Bubble and its Implications for the Economy,” will be held in an open session of the Senate Banking Committee at 10 a.m.. Next week, the same committee will hold a hearing on the growth of innovative mortgage products that have mushroomed along with the housing sector.”
I guess it is hearing time now. Are the HBB sentinels posted?
Ugh. The panel of “industry experts” will no doubt be a fright show.
Here’s two bubble-related questions I’ve been pondering that I’ll toss out to the group:
1. If the scientific consensus predictions on global warming and sea level rise prove true over the next 50 years, where is the BEST place to invest and/or relocate? We all know the worst places. Florida, the Gulf Coast will face increasing hurricanes and then submerge. The central plains are predicted to get hotter and more drought-stricken. But where are the Safest places? My money is on southern Chile.
2. In massively overbuilt cities, where will the shrinkage occur? In cities here in Central Texas, almost all the growth has been on the periphery. One thinks that with rising fuel prices, this will be unsustainable and that city boundaries will retreat somewhat leaving stranded unsustainable subdivisions to rot far out in the exurbs. But I’m not so sure. I’m no convinced that rising fuel prices will make much difference in the face of all the other social factors that are pushing development further out to the fringes. Here in Waco Texas, which has a metro population of around 250,000 I don’t see any sign that the exurbs are going to dry up. If anything, it will be the central areas that get abandoned by both residents and retailers. And if gas goes up to $10/gallon like in some European countries, people will just buy smaller and more fuel efficient cars and carpool rather than abandon their suburban home, schools, and neighborhoods.
“where is the BEST place to invest and/or relocate?”
It is the right time to invest in real estate in beautiful Greenland, but be sure to select a lot at least 100 ft above sea level.
North Dakota, Montana, maybe into Canada’s Yukon where it could be a balmy 72 degrees in Januarys!
Watch out for that huge ozone hole over southern Chile!
It would be safer to invest in San Diego condos than trying to invest based on predictions of global warming. Global waming is only the latest scientific cause de jour - wait a 5 or 10 years and we will be back to ice-age predictions.
central Waco was already abandoned when I was living there in the 1970s; the only viable fringe was near/past the mall and along Lake Waco. Central-city Austin, on the other hand, continues to add business, services, residents and residential units. Central Dallas? it’s a toss-up; pragmatically it’s now at the southern edge of the growing metropolitan area, rathan than in the middle, and is surrounded on several sides by low SES areas, with worsening traffic, so I’m not optimsitc for its future.
Cool bungey action on HB stock prices this morning. Krikey!
http://tinyurl.com/enszk
“But where are the Safest places?”
Great Lakes region. Access to abundant supplies of fresh water will demand a premium. Places like the US Southwest will die of thirst.
I do not know about the great lakes region, but I agree with you that fresh water is going to be at a premium and will continue to be the cause of international strife as well as domestic turmoil. As the Ogalalla gets wasted on agriculture and reliable sources for Southern California, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada and Nebraska are depleted, there should be a tremendous migration from those states to states that have abundant fresh water - I have no idea which states will have water. Water is also one reason that ethanol production will never work.
“Water is also one reason that ethanol production will never work.”
Good point. Beyond the other economic reasons given, using water to irrigate the corn (presumably your point) when water is scarce is a natural loser, politically.
Too bad we can’t just run a big transmission line from China and buy electricity from them, once they have their hundreds of new reactors on-line.
It is the right time to invest in real estate in beautiful Greenland, but be sure to select a lot at least 100 ft above sea level.
Actually the arctic regions will be the most devastated by global warming. You can see it happening in Alaska today. For a variety of reasons, the arctic ecosystems are extremely sensitive to climate change.
My guess is that one of the safest places to be will be temperate coastal regions that lie at reasonable elevations and are backed by large mountain ranges. For example, the Pacific coast from Northern California to British Columbia. Once you are off the immediate beaches the elevations quickly rise into the foothills and valleys that are far above aything that would be threatened by the most severe sea level rise. The elevation changes in these regions mean that the ecosystem is fairly diverse. Plants and animals can adapt by moving upwards in elevation. Something they can’t do in say Florida. And the Sierras and Cascades serve to trap moisture coming off the ocean so there should always be reasonable supplies of water and rain. Changes in weather patterns could turn the central plains of the US and Europe into deserts. But the oceans will always produce moisture along the coastal regions, and even more of it as the climate warms. Regions of the world that might be similiarly situated include northern New England, the southern cone of South America (Chile and Argentina), New Zealand, coastal Canada, Norway, etc. etc.
James Lovelock interviewed recently said
Q. What’s your perception of where we’re headed with even conservative predictions for growth of both populations and energy use?
A. I think we’re headed straight back to the Earth’s second stable state, which is a hot state that it’s been in many times before in the past. It’s about 14 degrees warmer than it is in these parts of the world now.
It means roughly that most life on the planet will have to move up to the Arctic basin, to the few islands that are still habitable and to oases on the continents. It will be a much-diminished world.
Oil may save the economy!
“Some 99% of the questions I get these days are about the size of the drag from housing, and I think that far too few people are thinking seriously about the boost from lower oil,” said Robert Mellman, senior economist at J.P. Morgan Chase. He predicted the retail gasoline price should soon hit $2.30 a gallon, based on declines that already have occurred in the wholesale price.”
-from WSJ, 9/13/06
Comments - looking at the past three recessions, they were induced by a spike in oil prices. If oil is dropping, it may provide enough cushion to offset some housing market pain. At least that’s my hope!
Better reduce future t-bill volume hitting the market as there will be fewer petro dollars available to Russia, Saudi, etc. to recirculate back to the States.
Falling oil prices went hand-in-hand with the housing bust of the early 1980s. I expect the same sort of situation this time, with falling oil and housing prices representing proximate symptoms of bursting bubbles and a collapsing conundrum.
Sorry, but that was when the US was pretty much the only big consumer of oil. Now, China and India will pay literally any price for oil.
Yesterday and today are the bottom in oil, IMO.
For the next three or four years, expect ever higher highs and higher lows in oil, before things start to “wild”.
More and more of our income will be devoted to gas and energy and less will be available for housing.
Wen: China capable of meeting 90% of its own energy needs
(People’s Daily Online )
Updated: 2006-09-13 11:03
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday said China’s energy strategy was to rely mainly on domestic supply and that the country had been able to meet 90 percent of its total energy needs.
In a speech entitled “Enhance Cooperation to Make Win-win Progress” at the 2006 China-Europe business summit, Wen elaborated on China’s strategy on energy.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attends the start of the EU-China Business Summit in Helsinki September 12, 2006. [Xinhua]
Wen said the main thrust of China’s energy strategy was to rely mainly on domestic supply, laying equal emphasis on conservation and development, while giving top priority to conservation.
The Premier added that China would promote technological progress and pursue a new path of industrialization to ease the shortage in energy supply.
“China is both a major energy consumer and a major energy producer,” he said.
“Since the 1990s, China has always been able to meet over 90 percent of its total energy needs by itself,” he added.
http://tinyurl.com/he35x
China is also building 400 Nuclear power plants, coal to gasification plants and should be completely energy independent by 2030.
That’s total energy. The oil crisis is primarily a liquid fuels for transportation crises. Let me give you another way of viewing the Chinese premier’s words and what it means to the world our children will inherit: Every 7 to 10 days, China begins construction of a new coal-fired power plant capable of servicing electricity needs for a city of Tampa, Fl. Within a few years, we will be breathing the soot from all these plants, and a lot of good their “energy independence” is going to do us.
“… China begins construction of a new coal-fired power plant capable of servicing electricity needs for a city of Tampa, Fl. Within a few years, we will be breathing the soot from all these plants…”
That’s why I laugh when people say electric cars are more environmentally friendly. If we could snap our fingers and make every car in the country 100% electric we;d be burning so much coal to power them that we’d all have black lung by the end of the decade.
Sorry, 40 nuclear power plants. My typing fault, and a lot of energy to replace!
IMHO China is belatedly doing something about its coal/environmental problems. If they do succesfully build these new nuclear plants then they certainly have eliminated much of the smog problem. In the US when are we going to recognize that burning natural gas for electricity is counterproductive and that making ethanol from grain products is a complete waste of resources. When was the last US nuclear reactor built? Why is our national energy policy built around burning hydrocarbons? We are already getting soot from our own coal fired plants and oil and gas fired plants. Acid rain is not coming to us from China (although it will in a few years) and we are stuck with state of the art 1930’s technology.
“To meet that growing demand, China’s leaders are pursuing two strategies. They’re turning to established nuke plant makers like AECL, Framatome, Mitsubishi, and Westinghouse, which supplied key technology for China’s nine existing atomic power facilities. But they’re also pursuing a second, more audacious course. Physicists and engineers at Beijing’s Tsinghua University have made the first great leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor. A reactor small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts. A reactor whose safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete. And, for a bona fide fairy-tale ending, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is labeled hydrogen.” Wired Magazine September 2004
http://tinyurl.com/5fcu6
I think you forgot to factor in the big speculative demand that smart Peak Oil guys like yourself have fostered. Your wild-eyed scenario is already priced in, and when it does not materialize, my guess is that oil prices will continue falling in response.
The math is relentless. The only reason more people don’t know is because it’s in no one’s interest for you to know. Burgan in Kuwait (#2) and Cantarell in Mexico (#3) both in confirmed 10%+ decline per year. Ghawar probably similar. the sad truth is 120 large oil fields account for 50% of our oil. 14 Super Giants account for 20 % and they are all OLD. It doesn’t matter how much oil is in the ground. What matters is how much flow you can get on a daily basis and what is the energy cost to extract the remaining oil. If a barrel of oil is so deep in the earth/sea and so difficult to extract that you must expend more than one barrel’s worth of energy to get it out, the game is over.
Then why the “F” are we building ethanol plants! Look at the amount of energy expended to get a bbl of ethanol. Obviuously the game is over. Just another government boondoggle. or as GS says “Nothing to see here, just move along.”
GetStucco:
Falling oil prices went hand-in-hand with the housing bust of the early 1980s.
This confuses me. Which is cause and which is effect?
That is the problem with the bull case — they don’t understand the identification problem, which means that you cannot tell whether to attribute a drop in oil prices to better-than-expected supply, or lower-than-expected demand.
Given the recent speculative runup in housing, oil, gold, and, well, just about any real assets into which one could plow one’s personal share of the massive global liquidity glut, and the fact that there is at least talk of tightening the reins on inflation (not to mention a measured series of FF rate increases and an inverted treasury yield curve to back it up), I would be inclined to attribute the contemperaneous drops in oil prices, home prices, and long-term treasury bond yields to a withdrawal of liquidity. And usually, tighter money also leads to falling stock prices, although I realize the advent of the Greenspan put may have changed this.
I was watching “Fight Club” last night. A line in the movie I never really noticed before, “Condos…filing cabinets for young professionals.” I’m going to use that.
Here’s one for Kent. Washington Post, 9/11/06
An Inconvenient Truth About Youth
By Laura Wray and Constance Flanagan
Monday, September 11, 2006; A17
“An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s movie on global warming, is now the fourth-largest-grossing documentary of all time. But apparently it isn’t young adults who are paying the price of the ticket — or, more important, taking the truth about the environment to heart. In fact, the inconvenient truth today is that youths’ willingness to conserve gas, heat and energy has taken a precipitous plunge since the 1980s.
According to data from Monitoring the Future, a federally funded national survey on trends in the attitudes, values and behavior of high school seniors since 1976, there has been a clear decline in conservation behavior among 18-year-olds over the past 27 years — although we are not yet sure whether these attitudes follow youths into adulthood. This decline, interestingly, is coupled with a rise in materialistic values.
In fact, trends in materialism and conservation are highly related: At times when youths place higher value on material goods, they are also much less likely to say they would conserve resources. And when youths are more materially driven, they are also less likely to believe that natural resources will become scarce in the future.
Since the 1990s, the trends in materialism seem to have topped out at a steady high level, while willingness to conserve keeps declining. These opposing values should raise a red flag about the consumer culture and its influence on youth.
Youths also consistently believe that government is more responsible for the environment than they are personally. Importantly, when they perceive that the government’s role in solving environmental problems is declining, so does their belief that they, personally, must do their part to save the environment.
Conservation is a collective responsibility. Likewise, in the minds of youth, their own actions to preserve the environment are inextricably linked to their perception of the government’s role in environmental conservation.
Indeed, environmental attitudes of youth seem to mirror the opinions of those in the White House at the time. The highest levels of conservation occurred in the mid- to late 1970s, at the same time President Jimmy Carter was publicly petitioning citizens to take individual responsibility for conserving resources. The steepest decline in conservation occurred during the Reagan administration, which has been widely criticized for its environmental policies. Willingness to conserve enjoyed a slight surge around 1992-93, when Bill Clinton first took office, but this increase was short-lived. (Al Gore must not have been speaking up too loudly about the environment back then.)
The good news in these trends is that when government responds, so do youth. If our country’s leaders follow the example of Al Gore and start to genuinely explore sustainable solutions, it’s likely that young people will follow suit.
Policymakers and elected officials might also want to note that when youths embrace conservation and pro-environmental attitudes, they are more likely to engage in conventional politics, from writing to officials to giving money to a political campaign, or working on a campaign.
Gore argues that in America, “political will is a renewable resource.” Perhaps one way to renew this resource is to start focusing more on young people and their understanding of, as well as contribution to, environmental problems.
OK, you guys that want 1999 prices:
“WE WILL EXCEPT ANY OFFER AT THIS POINT ARE GETTING DESPERATE TO SELL HOME”
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/rfs/203811063.html
Wait a sec… they will EXCEPT any offer???? Is that why they can’t sell?
That poses a problem: If any offer is excepted, than I guess no offer would be accepted.
zillow estimate is $452k. They bought in ‘95 at 126k.
Assessed value: 151k
U.S. MORTGAGE DELINQUENCIES UP SLIGHLTY YEAR-OVER-YEAR: MBA
U.S. MORTGAGE DELINQUENCIES EDGE LOWER FROM FIRST QUARTER
MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSOCIATION SAYS 4.39% OF LOANS DELINQUENT
PERCENT OF U.S. HOMES IN FORECLOSURE AT 0.99, LITTLE CHANGED
PRESSURE ON HOLDERS OF SUBPRIME ARMS, MBA’S DUNCAN SAYS
HEALTHY ECONOMY OFFSETTING SLUMPING HOUSING MARKET: DUNCAN
U.S. mortgage delinquencies edge up year-over-year
The percentage of homeowners falling behind in their mortgage payments inched up in the second quarter from a year earlier, although the number was down slightly from the first quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. Delinquent loans, those more than 30 days past due, represented 4.39% of outstanding mortgages in the second quarter, up from 4.34% a year earlier but down from 4.41% in the first quarter. The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process was 0.99, up from 0.98% in the first quarter but down from 1.0% a year ago. Doug Duncan, chief economist for the mortgage bankers’ group, said a generally healthy economy has countered a decelerating housing market to keep bad loans in check. But he noted pressure on holders of subprime adjustable-rate loans, those made to the riskiest borrowers, and said that could spur modestly higher delinquency rates in the months ahead.
to be honest. i cannot belive that the rate is so low. after reading all the surge in foreclosures the last month. maybe there is a time lag.
quite a disconnet with the no increase in foreclosure……..
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — With real estate markets slowing and mortgage rates well above levels of recent years, times are getting tougher for homeowners - the number of homes entering into some stage of foreclosure is surging, according to a survey released Wednesday.
In August, 115,292 properties entered into foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure sales. That was 24 percent above the level in July and 53 percent higher than a year earlier.
It was the second highest monthly foreclosure total of the year; in February, 117,151 properties entered foreclosure.
Some of the bellwether real estate market states are among the leading foreclosure markets. Florida, had more than 16,533 properties in foreclosure in August. That led all states and was 50 percent higher than in July and 62 percent higher than in August 2005.
California foreclosures are increasing at an even faster annual rate, up 160 percent since last year to 12,506. And the formerly red-hot Nevada market recorded a spike of 24 percent compared with July and a whopping 255 percent increase from August 2005.
http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/
At this point, we have an inkling of where Robert Toll’s $500 million dollar income came from last year, but we are still unsure exactly who paid it.
A recent posting that I read, probably on this blog, but I can’t keep them straight, talked about 50% increases in foreclosures in some states, including CA, between July and August this year.
Yes, the new data on foreclosures in the posting just above, with a title about NAR, says that foreclosures are up over 50% between this July and August in FL and CA
Any thoughts out there about Ford’s expected announcement today of jacked-up cuts, including an apparently very soon cut of 30% of its white collar costs? Didn’t see any indication whether this is an expansion of, or an addition to, the cuts aready announced.
Revised article said that this is the topic of a major meeting at Ford today, so there may well be no announcements for a while.
OK, here’s some chum in the water – the lead paragraph at the mortgage-touting site below:
“If you are concerned about protecting your identity and your right to privacy, a no doc mortgage loan could be right for you. No doc mortgages allow you to borrow without disclosing sensitive personal information about your finances. Here is what you need to know about no doc mortgages.”
http://tinyurl.com/ga238
Uhhh, the inventory in the zips I track in ziprealty just went from 42 exact matches/212 almost matches to 27/138 in just a few hours. That’s pretty much impossible. Anyone else have the same issues?
a friend of mine was called by Pulte (in Silicon Valley, CA) and offered 300K (no typo, 300K) off the list price if he signed papers that weekend, the house was a1.5Mil craphouse. Friend refused to fall for it..
Pulte seems to be in trouble, or else is desperate to get out while the going is good……
I know it’s late,but I could not resist this Lewis Grizzard quote.
Real estate agents are God’s plague on mankind when locusts are out of season.”
IMF warning in the Guardian that UK house prices are overvalued.