Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For May 9, 2007
Please 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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“It all comes down to cheap money.
Cheap money is fueling the buyout boom.
Cheap money is prompting companies to buy back billions of dollars worth of their own shares.
Cheap money is fueling big increases in corporate dividend payouts.
Perhaps best of all — for investors long on the market, anyway — cheap money is keeping the current rally running, even as the U.S. economy runs out of steam, by convincing investors that stocks are undervalued even as they hit historic highs.
So how does cheap money work its magic?”
The Street.com
http://tinyurl.com/29bmtj
Thanks for the link, it’s one of the best stories I’ve read in a while.
Fascinating the games our economy can play.
Juback won’t get on Kudlow w that attitude !
wealth w/o effort from free money
And here is an interesting posting at indexcalls.com:
I’ve never liked the term stagflation. It was created during a time of high interest rates, high unemployment and high price inflation. For me that was anything but a stagnant situation.
Trying to apply that term to today’s world really isn’t a good fit. We don’t have (historically) high interest rates, we don’t have unemployment reported as near as high as then, but we do have rising prices in some areas - but certainly not all.
Energy prices are certainly higher, especially oil, but NG and electricity were much higher at the turn of the century than now, though we seem to have hit an elevated plateau compared to the 1990s. Food prices have risen - a lot of it thanks to the recent ethanol debacle ( I swear by the end of the year we will be drowning in the damn stuff).
Health care keeps rising because they can as long as insurance is the predominant method of reimbursement. Eventually that will collapse as the number of uninsured grows and secondarily I think the medical profession is about to discover the demographic sink hole between the “greatest generation” and the boomers.
Throw in a RE mania that drove prices well beyond any normal sane metric and then look at what the typical middle class household’s income has done over the last decade (especially if you discount the increase in employer supplied health insurance cost which is added to income but is not spendable) and what you have is the incredible shrinking middle class increasingly mired deeper and deeper in debt as they desperately try and claw their way out of a hole.
I think yesterdays consumer credit report is symptomatic of the times. Revolving debt shot way up. Imagine ho moaners putting house payments on their master card and you may be getting the picture. While they may not be doing that directly, if they are charging more of their daily expenses to free up money to make the mortgage the effect is the same. I find the report of non revolving debt rising a bit odd and hard to rectify. Two things come to mind in that regard. First with home prices leveled off, the house ATM is closing if not closed for most so if they must have that new Hummer (boat, RV,) they have to finance it direct and secondly, you might have some who are borrowing money against a car or boat that they originally purchased with a refi cash-out or HELOC. Then again the numbers could be just plain wrong since the car sales numbers were terrible, boat sales are sinking and RV sales are not showing any “surge”.
For me the middle class is getting murdered by a thousand cuts. I think a more appropriate term for today’s situation is stabflation.
Nice post…..
> the middle class is getting murdered by a thousand cuts
Are these not mostly self-inflicted wounds? Some might be sunk by unexpected medical expenses, of course, but for most, isn’t it their willingness to take on debt for consumption?
Imagine ho moaners putting house payments on their master card and you may be getting the picture.
Ho moaners… priceless…!
American worker: “Where do I sign up for free money? Oh — the 401(K) plan office? Avoid bond funds, go as long as possible in stocks — got it.”
There might be some wisdom to that now. Bonds are often mortgage backed securities, which have their well-known problems, and other bonds can be devalued in the current leveraged buy-out trend: The stock holders of Sally Mae could party after the buy-out while the bond holders suffered a downgrading of the debt of the now highly leveraged company. If they would have to sell now, either due to their own investment rules that exlude junk bonds or due to a need to raise cash, they would realize a loss.
I don’t know. I have a hard time taking advise from any publication that has Jim Cramer & LENNY DYKSTRA as their analysts.
Look at Lenny’s crime sheet. Seems he had a bit of a problem with one of his underage (Under 18 yrs. old female) employees.
Don’t know the end results. But you get the picture.
Roadside trees in Chester Co, PA still live in fear of Lenny Dykstra and Darren Daulton.
In this type of market of too much money chasing too few goods, it’s okay to throw a lot of $ into equities as long as you hedge your investing by going into tax deferred federal gubment securities. The best I know of are savings bonds. T-bills/notes/bonds are not tax-deferred (at the federal level), but are second best. If you have ten years of living expenses in those things, why worry about “overvalued” stocks?
Besides, look at the graph of the S & P 500 from 1990 to 2007. The top was in 2000 and we are back near the top again. But you average that out over 17 or 18 years and your average annual gain is not too high anyway. The S & P 500 index for the ten year period ending April 30 had an 8.05% average annual gain.
Mortgage apps.
http://www.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idUSN0919582320070509
Congress Debates Mortgage Reforms
“There is a very complicated web of contributors to this issue that makes it very difficult and unwieldy to unwind,” said Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., at Tuesday’s hearing of the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.”
Contributors - like GS, MER, BAC, BS, CFC. Yeah, I can see its pretty tough to balance all those competing interests. You can bet the ranch Congress wouldn’t have gotten up off its fat azz and moved this fast to get legislation in place if it was just about J6P…
http://tinyurl.com/285v2c
They had better hurry up, so the strawberry pickers earning $15,000 a year and the graduate students making $20,000 a year can avoid getting foreclosed on their $600,000 homes.
I think they are looking for a solution that doesn’t involve “prices falling 30+%” and “bankers losing $100s of billions”.
Problem: Defaults.
Casue: People using exotic laons to “buy” houses they can’t afford.
Solution: Stop the exotic loans.
Problem: Banks can’t dump the houses they are foreclosing on.
Casue: People can’t afford to buy the houses wihout exotic loans based on an assumption of ever rising prices.
Solution: FHA reform to turn back on the flow of money.
Push in one place, it comes out somewhere else indeed.
THE REAL problem: Houses are WAY overpricd.
Cause: Cash-back mortgage fraud created a bubble, which was fed by speculators, and by people that couldn’t afford, but jumped in for fear of being priced out forever, combined with a criminally neglient lending industry and a criminally dishonest real estate brokers industry.
Solution: Allow the mass foreclosures. Allow prices to fall massivly. Allow bankers to take hundreds of billions, if not trillions in losses.
Solution: Allow the mass foreclosures. Allow prices to fall massivly. Allow bankers to take hundreds of billions, if not trillions in losses.
Could this actually happen; will the PTB allow a free market to exist??!
The obvious, best solution.
The Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey is out:
The Purchase Index is 438.3 (4 week MA is up 2% YoY)
The Refinance Index is 2115.2 (4 week MA is up 37% YoY)
release: http://www.mortgagebankers.org/NewsandMedia/PressCenter/54186.htm
charts: http://www.recharts.com/mba/mba.html
Good news.
Combined with TOL’s earnings report today hopefully the HB’s will jump up a couple a bucks to set up a better short/put position to hold over the summer. IMO the Usual Suspects all seem to be in that dangerous “no-man’s land” position.
I don’t believe it — TOL is down .84 before the bell.
In the words of Mr. Toll himself: “Pinch me, I must be dreaming”
how desparate can you be to refinance now w/o any equity
to what, another 30 years of servictude ?
The WSJ, quoting Mr. Yun of the NAR, has an article on places where the housing market is strong — those with solid economies and no housing bubble. I’d say about 10% of the U.S. population lives in such places.
Hey Realtors, wouldn’t it have been great if the bubble never happened? Any chance of remembering that next time. After the 1980s bubble and 1990s bust, I assumed it would never happen again.
Since this is “good news” for the REIC, the article gets a front page spot (p. D1); bad news goes to the bowels (p. D3)…
———————————————————————————
Where Home Prices Are Hot Now
By Dean Treftz
Word Count: 1,017
The housing news isn’t all grim. Even as prices sag nationwide, there are several cities in the country where home values are climbing smartly.
Portland, Ore., Boise, Idaho, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Houston, Austin, and Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C., are among the cities bucking the national trend. Homes’ appreciation there between the fourth quarters of 2005 and 2006 far exceeded the national average of 5.9%, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. In some markets, like Boise and Seattle, the appreciation jumped well into the double digits.
“All real estate is local, despite the headlines,” says Lawrence Yun, the senior economist for the NAR. Nationwide, the median existing-home price fell 1.3%, to $212,800 in February from $212,700 in February 2006, according to preliminary NAR statistics.
—————————————————————————–
Didn’t Yun just forecast a 1% price decline? It looks like his forecast has already come to pass…
Here is the link to the leader on that article…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117867548776396773.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
I’m not sure I buy that figure. Something smells REALLY fishy with that. Just going by all the for sale signs that have “price reduced” cards added to them, this can’t be right. Either that or the only thing selling is really high end housing that throws the median off.
Meanwhile, the smoke smell seems to be gone here in this part of the Tampa Bay area. But the fire danger still remains. Part of I-75 around Sarasota was shut down temporarily yesterday due to a wildfire that started in the median. And I see there was a fire also in the middle of LA, in the Griffith Park area. Wildfires are actually a part of natural cycles and nature uses wildfire to cull old growth and underbrush and renew the soil. But that was before Cali and Fla got so built up. I don’t want to see people lose their homes to fire, I know what that is like and it sucks, but something needs to curb this over development. I am surprised that no developments have gone up in flames as yet.
Palmetto, The wind has shifted…The smoke is in the Orlando
area…Im getting black lung today:-)
That sucks, economist. That smoke is enuf to gag a maggot.
Yeah, its getting a little stinky over here. Hey, what about this- we keep hearing that forclosures are up 100+% over last year, but they have recently been unnaturally low due to credit availability and inflated appreciation. How prevalent WERE forclosures (as in xx per 1,000) when the previous bubbles burst? I’m looking for a historical yardstick here. Also, NAR is predicting home price declines for the first time ever, including previous busts- does this give anyone else a premonition of how BAD this is going to get or am I reading too much into that stat?
You can check out Notice of Defaults going back to 1982 in San Diego (updated monthly) below:
http://www.sddt.com/Finance/EconomicIndicators.cfm
Be sure to enter the years 1982 (left blank) through 2007 (right blank) to get the historical perspective. The rate of increase in NODs from 2005 to 2007 is historically unprecedented, and still accelerating off a record-high level.
Oh, goody! It looks like SD is already tied with historical highs of NODs from previous busts AND the rate of increase is indeed freakish.
I heard a news story on the local public radio station this morning (KPBS San Diego) quoting a guy from The London Group who said that “although San Diego NODs have hit a record level, we are not sure where they will go from here.” One glance at that chart provides a quick answer: They are headed straight up into the stratosphere.
“Hmmmmmmmmm, yeah, hmmmmmmm….I’m looking real hard and I just can’t see a trend…..hmmmmmmm”, said the idiot as he looked at the obvious.
holly #$%^&* !!
There’s also a fire in San Bernardino, CA which is right up against a residential area. I was watching coverage on the 2 CA fires and the FLA one and feel sorry for anyone being affected. The firefighters said the one in FLA is only 20% contained and that they really need rain to help them - not sure if they can get complete control with only manpower.
“the one in FLA is only 20% contained”
Which one? LMAO! We’ve got over 250 around the state, according to local news reports. They got the one in Sarasota tamped down, I’m assuming the one you are referring to is in Flagler County, it seems to be the most troublesome. I saw a graphic of fire locations on a map of Florida and it looks like a birthday cake loaded with candles for an 80 year old. Or a 250 year old. Sheesh. If those fires spread and merge, fahgeddaboudit. Idiot politicians, developers and residents in Florida have never learned how to live with the state’s environment, weather or topography. I really love Florida, I hate to see what’s happening here and I am torn between sympathy for residents in the path of the fire and a wish that FBs and developers get what’s coming to them.
Bradford County one.
Three fires merged in the county on Tuesday, devouring at least 16,000 acres, fire officials said. The smoke and flames caused evacuations of 1,000 people and closed Hampton Elementary School and Hope Christian Academy. A shelter was opened Tuesday night at Madison Street Baptist Church in Starke.
June Neats of the Bradford County Emergency Operations Center said the fire is moving toward a populated area of the county dubbed Speedville, near Southeast Eighth Avenue.
Forestry officials said the Bradford wildfire likely will merge with a 100- to 200-acre fire in Alachua County and continue to grow southwest of the Santa Fe Swamp.
hopefull the named storm now sitting off Gorgia will help
SoCal fire risk is subject to a double whammy this year, given tinder-dry conditions plus FBs who might rather torch their homes and collect insurance rather than face the consequences of foreclosure.
I should add that there is smoke out over the coast today drifting down from a big El-Ay fire…
We’re in the hills on the far side of the fire, and it was snowin’ ash this morning.
Throw in a big ‘ol high pressure setting up in my neck of the woods for a classic Sana Ana wind pattern, and you’ve got a FB’s dream scenario. Find some brush up-wind and light a match. Problem solved……except for the jail part. But, if you get every FB in So CAl in on it, a massive collusion, they can’t throw you all in jail, right? It would just be a FB revolution - Financial Freedom Fighters unite! (too much allergy meds this morning)
I made a numerical typo in something I posted yesterday. Here’s what it SHOULD have said. (Sorry!!)
My friend had his home in Echo Park featured on that show called “How Much is My House Worth?” (or whatever it’s called). He was told it was worth about $950K. This was last month.
His house is beautiful, but it’s on a crappy little street with a bunch of Mexicans piled into at least on of the other homes on the block. His agent listed his house for $1.19M anyway, and it sold in five days for $1.13M. Amazing.
While I congratulated my friend, I feel sorry for the poor schmuck who bought the place.
“I feel sorry for the poor schmuck who bought the place.”
Stories like these make me wonder what will happen to GFs who bought property at outrageous prices and then find themselves in the middle of rapidly deteriorating neighborhoods. That’s gotta hurt. Seems like formerly decent areas are going downhill while pressboard subdivisions spring up close by. I don’t get why people want to move to those subdivisions and abandon lovely little older areas. Makes no sense to me.
Stories like these make me wonder what will happen to GFs who bought property at outrageous prices and then find themselves in the middle of rapidly deteriorating neighborhoods.
I won’t blame them for HELOC’ing and running.
This downturn will be… interesting.
Got popcorn?
Neil
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070508/NEWS01/70508027
MSM Home Grown Terrorists?
Thank you, Democrats and Republicans, for letting these guys and countless others like them into this country.
3 illegals.
On KYW radio I heard the waitress who had served them say that they were very pleasant until one of them picked a fight with a patron who was wearing an American flag themed bandanna. (some of their activities before arrest).
And the police found a suicide belt in the works amongst all the other terrorist paraphenalia.
I have friends at the Willow Grove Navy base so this story made me nervous. Turns out WG wasn’t on their list of potential places to hit, but still…too close for comfort.
Just for a goof, i’ve hung the flag upside down (a silent symbol of distress) @ the top of the flagpole, at the museum I volunteer for, today…
Nobody ever looks up, though.
A moot flag point.
In case you’re one of the few people who hasn’t seen it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubsd-tWYmZw
Suzanne and her husband recently mailed the keys in to their lender.
It’s funny, I forgot how MAD that commercial made me. And rewatching it brought the anger rushing back!
I wonder if Century 21 benefitted from that commercial, or if it hurt them?
It alienates 50% of the population!
The words “browbeat” and “pw” come to mind.
why throw away another 39 cents? shoulda left em under the mat.
By mailing in the keys, does he get his balls back?
Definately not!
I can’t do it. I CANNOT click on that link. I refuse to click on that link.
you must.
That commercial makes me glad that both me and my partner have celtic blood and solve all our disputes by yelling and hurling abuse at each other.
Also, I’m fairly sure she’d leave me if I handed my nutsack over like that.
As she should.
They’ve got a new commercial that’s also funny (but less so). I saw one during this new show My First House or something like that. Anyway one of the things the realtor brags about in the commercial is how she can tell “by the look in your eyes” (or some such) when you’re in love with a house — and this is why using a realtor is so important. As if we’re too stupid to know our own feelings about a house.
Yeah, she was saying the internet couldn’t tell they wanted that house by the look a realtor could see in their eyes.
Countrywide Reports 2007 Operational Results
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070509/law014.html?.v=99
Was this result of business picking up so much or, did they start to benefit from so many other lenders going under that anybody left standing will gain more market share?
Run-on sentence. Too early for engish!
I’m not an expert in accounting but - notice how the delinquency rate is rising. Sure they are making more loans but more of them are going bad. Also, yes the dollar value is going up but the “Loan Funding in Units” is going down. So, they are making less loans and more of these loans are going bad.
Am I getting this right?????
another quarter, another warning at toll…..
slashing guidance from feb……..(write-downs)!
An Irish Taste for Real Estate in Manhattan
With a weak dollar, Mr. McCann said, the New York apartments are relative bargains compared with real estate in Ireland and Britain…..
Give the Consumer Credit/minyanville
http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/
tol almost unchanged…….
At least they still qualify for plunge protection (unlike, say, NEW…).
“Let’s help soften home buyers’ blow”
http://www.sbsun.com/johnweeks/ci_5851112
Maybe they have to go away. But they don’t have to go away mad.
I’m talking about all the people in the Inland Empire who have bought houses they can’t afford, and now are facing foreclosure.
If there is something, anything we can do to soften the blow for these people, we should do it. It will be good for them and good for us.
[...]
Maybe we should give them fruit baskets.
You know, like welcome baskets, sort of, only these would be more like farewell baskets.
[...]
Naturally, each basket will include a nice card inscribed with some appropriate words, such as “Better luck next time,” or maybe “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
Or how about this: “‘Tis better to have mortgaged and lost, than never to have mortgaged at all.”
[...]
We even could put toys in the baskets. Let’s throw in a rubber ball with the message, “You’ll bounce back!” Or a boomerang that says “Many happy returns.”
[and more fun ideas for Foreclosed Buyers]
Wow, that’s cold. But funny.
“Gift items also would be nice. A mixed CD of music, for example, could include well-chosen songs like “Hello Goodbye,” “Happy Trails,” and “See You in September.”"
“Happy Trails”–LOL. Is that a real newspaper or some dude’s blog?
That is an idea from your post, “don’t go away mad”. Someone should make a tune to Motley Crue’s “Girl don’t go away mad, girl just go away” tune. Have the lending industry be singing to the fb. “FB, don’t go away mad. FB, just go away. ” LOL
with all the ethanol being grown, there’s not much room for the planting of fruit.
Maybe we can give them US Gubmint Cheese baskets instead?
Oh, yeah, ethanol. Wonder if the guessworkers (guess if they are legal residents) will move en masse to areas with amber waves of grain. There was a special local news segment last night about an ethanol plant coming to the Tampa area. Florida could be a huge area for ethanol. The orange crops may be disappearing, but we can grow corn and we already grow sugar cane. Too bad we had to have all this over development. Using the land as crop land would have been a much better choice. I’m all for ethanol. It has sure helped Brazil and as far as I am concerned, oil can go the way of the dinosaur, for all the havoc it has wreaked in the world.
Do you know how much land it would take to supply enough ethanol for the US?
If we bought all of Brazil’s ethanol it would supply about 3% of our gasoline needs.
The US uses 7 billion barrels of oil a year, about 300 billion gallons.
and what is even worse is that crops AND biofuel can be produced from the same area of farmland, by using the parts that are unfit for consumption for the biofuel. In my area (Netherlands) an experimental factory is under construction for exactly this purpose. Subsidizing the stupid route to ethanol will make these much better second generation biofuel systems less attractive and make sure that the US gets even further behind on the technological side. Way to go …
of course, this will add another argument for bombing Iran in order for the US to get ’self-sufficient’
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010045
Wonder if the guessworkers (guess if they are legal residents) will move en masse to areas with amber waves of grain.
It’s not the “guessworkers” that are moving to the Midwest.
When corn goes to $10 a pound, and the price of everything you eat quadruples, you won’t be a big fan of ethanol.
The Great Ethanol Loot
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 at 11:33 PM
http://wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs/winter/?p=673
Yes, I have heard that it uses more energy to create ethanol than it creates in energy output. I don’t even know why we would look at ethanol as an option. The answer is in the question “who benefits from ethanol production and sales?”.
What a 180 from squirrel feeding and essay writing, eh?
We’re just getting started with the downward slide. Fun has only begun [i.e., the humor hasn't turned dark/black/morbid yet].
The best humour at this blog’s been dark/black/morbid for years already. Weren’t you around when RainMan was giving us new Bubblefucious gems every other day?
Bubblefucious was awesome!
Bubblefucious say:
“He who try to pick real estate bottom, usually end up with stinky finger.”
“Our contacts have officially declared the spring selling season a bust.”
Ivy Zelman, Credit Suisse, May 8, 2007
What this means is everybody from hence forward, is essentially locked into place, wherever they might be. It bodes worst for equity refugee locales, as if you can’t sell your house in el lay, you can’t move to South Carolina, can you?
don’t tell my wife, but I want to marry Ivy.
Can you imagine that Century 21 commercial if it were the husband, Suzanne, and Ivy Zelman?
————
That said, here in the upper midwest spring selling season is just beginning.
There is a house for sale on my block, it is getting over 5 viewings per day, and last weekend it had over 10. (not open houses, viewings). This rate of visitors just started 2.5 weeks ago. (prior to that, 0 per day)
“We are more confident that expectations for a 2007 rebound in demand are premature” because of tepid demand for new houses in the so-called `spring selling season’ ” Ivy Zelman Mar 12, 2007
She is a very attractive young lady…
A rare bit of non poison Ivy…
She’s a gem.
This quote shows up on a p. D3 WSJ article today (bad news always shows up in the bowls of the Journal, good news on the front page).
Also shown is the month-over-month rate of inventory increase, led by frenziedly-frothy SF bay area (up 18% in one month from March to April), but down in LA(!?) — what gives in subprime-dependent El-A?
—————————————————————————-
Supply of Homes Continues to Grow
By James R. Hagerty
Word Count: 394
The supply of houses and condominiums available for sale continues to grow quickly in much of the U.S., reflecting weak sales.
The number of homes listed for sale in 18 major metropolitan areas at the end of April was up 7% from March, according to data compiled by ZipRealty Inc., a national real-estate brokerage firm in Emeryville, Calif. The data cover listings of single-family homes, condos and town houses on local multiple-listing services.
…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117865978021996312.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
bowlsbowelsYay, no more chunky idiots moving here with their crappy cars and mouths agape.
“Maggie Hardiman cringed as she heard the salesmen knocking the sides of desks with a baseball bat as they walked through her office. Bang! Bang!”
Here’s what to do next time someone tries to intimidate you with a baseball bat, Margie. [From the 1979 cult classic, THE WARRIORS, where Ajax faces off with the leader of the Baseball Furies - "I'll shove that bat up your a** and turn you into a popsicle".]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB6XEAllPiI
“Maggie Hardiman cringed as she heard the salesmen knocking the sides of desks with a baseball bat as they walked through her office. Bang! Bang!”
Who was the salesman…Buford T Pusser?
Of course now I’m thinking that turnabout would be fair play….
“Bro-kers, come out and play!…”
This weekend in our local shill paper they had on the FRONT PAGE (of paper, not RE section) an article titled:
“Foreclosures Take a Toll on North Minneapolis”
It highlit a neighborhood where over half the homes are in foreclosure. they also highlit that it was SPECULATOR/INVESTORS who are the ones in trouble… and then it talks about those who still live there… they are afraid to go outside due to increased crime, their neighborhood is in blight.
It really is a very sad story. Nobody deserves to buy a home, have speculators “buy” the rest of the block and then foreclose.
The front picture was a big map showing all the foreclosures. IF that isn’t negative, I don’t know what is!
(FWIW, north minneapolis is our poor/dangerous neighborhood… it’s our “south central” if you will… that said, it’s nothing like most urban poor areas around the country… it’s the minneapolis-we-have-good-social-programs-so-even-the-poor-are-not-too-bad-off version!)
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1164625.html
I recommend looking at the pictures with the article:
here:
http://www.startribune.com/10072/rich_media/1164848.html
and here
http://www.startribune.com/10072/rich_media/1164854.html
All the do-gooder evangelical Christian churches in Minneapolis took pity on the starving Somalis in the early ’90s, and sponsored thousands of them to resettle in the Twin Cities. They promptly formed mosques and signed up for every entitlement program they could, while bringing over their entire extended families, clans, and tribes. Of course the good Christians just cluck-cluck and wash their hands of any moral responsibility for bringing Mogadishu to Minneapolis - it’s too bad churches and their congregations can’t be held liable, in criminal and civil proceedings, for the long-term damages wrought by their do-gooder cluelessness.
happened in Maine too, but it is welfare from the state
welfare destroys everything it touches
Testify, Brothah Sammy!
I’m tellin’ ya, Sammy, people in the US have no idea how to handle “refugees” from countries in which the US has had a hand in war, destruction and unrest. I cringe when I think about it. If they can carry grudges for centuries against their own tribes and sects, imagine what can happen here. Very bad social experiment all around. That’s what we get for sticking our noses in the business of other countries. We should have left them alone.
The Somali crime wave is nothing to laugh at, either. They’ve made the U of Minn campus their territory. It’s gotten so bad the U’s locking down buildings and implementing other higher-security measures. People are being mugged left and right on campus. The U asked for a meeting with Somali community leaders to explain to them that people shouldn’t behave like that.
A female graduate student who used to live in a neighborhood taken over by them told me females weren’t allowed in the neighborhood coffee shop anymore. The Somali men had taken it over and threatened women who tried to patronize the shop.
The woman told me she’d given up on America, put her house up for sale, and was moving to Europe.
Nothin that a platoon of Rangers couldn’t solve.
OK…Please tell me that the last few post on this “Somali” stuff is somewhat exagerated ?? This realy can’t be happening is it ??
Dave,
I have no idea what it is like now but when i worked in Columbus,Oh a couple of years ago it was pretty bad.
Our building was right next to a public housing project that was all somali. They would walk right into the warehouse and DEMAND that they be hired that day !!!
Our corp finally hired a full time security guy to run em off so we didn’t have to get involved as employees.
God i don’t miss it at all…
Chris
The U asked for a meeting with Somali community leaders to explain to them that people shouldn’t behave like that.
“oh please, Somali immigrants, please don’t be that way…”
What a joke.
The woman told me she’d given up on America, put her house up for sale, and was moving to Europe.
That’s rich. Where’s she going to go…to France, where the French police don’t dare venture into Muslim no-go zones?
Or maybe to the Netherlands where you end up with a knife through your gullet if you publish anything that can be construed as remotely anti-Muslim.
Roll with it lady, just pack up and move to Yemen. Maybe we’ll all look good wearing the chador.
Netherlands? yes, ONE guy was killed but he really asked for it, for several years. He made a habit of offending and humiliating muslims in the worst possible way; sooner or later someone is going to respond to that, no surprise. That was a bizarre incident and totally untypical of normal life in the Netherlands. Anybody who would say similar things about Jews or Christians would have been arrested by the Dutch authorities right away, and probably receive some serious death threats (and maybe see those threats realized as well).
I’m glad that his partner in crime Ayaan Hirsi Ali has now moved to the US and joined the rangs of the neocons. I guess she is now preparing for the invasion of Iran and will demand to be crowned the next emperor of Persia when the US is done with the bombing. That woman is an excellent example of the type of Somalian people that I would not like to have in my neighbourhood, and certainly not in my government.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book “Infidel” is a chilling account of Somali (and Islamist) culture. We better nip in the bud this country-within-a-country crap from immigrants or we’ll lose our civic culture of tolerance. Europe is already up a creek in this regard.
Anybody who would say similar things about Jews or Christians would have been arrested by the Dutch authorities right away, and probably receive some serious death threats (and maybe see those threats realized as well).
So why didn’t the authorites arrest the guy who was offending and humiliating Muslims in the worst possible way? (sorry I don’t recall his name, he was a playwright, wasn’t he?) And what do you mean, “he asked for it”… from time immemorial that’s been the classic defense from rapists in the USA.
I know it was only ONE incident of Islamic terrorism against a Dutch citizen, but you’ve got to admit, it was a pretty heinous incident.
I remembered the guy’s name -
Theo VanGogh
johnfromia:
read what you want, but miss Ali is a total fraud. All here ’sad experiences’ are blatant lies; there have been several TV documentaries and articles about that in the Netherlands (despite all the chearleading in most of the press, of course). Those lies were the major reason why she had to leave the Netherlands (but of course all her supporters don’t want to know). This woman has only one agenda and that is Ayaan on top of the world and revenge on all the people that have at some time stood in her way (including most of her family). I’m sure her books are full of lies just the same, she just writes what fits here agenda.
philligal:
van Gogh was asking for it in the proverbial sense; I’m not sure if he was expecting someone to take the bait but sometimes it looked like it. I’m not defending the crime, but please don’t suggest that this is ‘normal procedure’ in the Netherlands. The guy who killed him will be one of the most securely locked up prisoners in the country, that’s for sure. The authorities in the Netherlands have a blind eye for discrimination of muslims, that is extremely clear (and they are extremely sensitive for discrimination of Jews). Apart from that, van Gogh was considered the ‘village idiot’ by many people (including himself ?) so they figured he could just shout what he wanted without doing any harm. Well, apparently not.
As sad as the Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali situations are, one could try to see them as isolated incidents (or hope for that at least). The part that concerns me most is the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that caused the widespread riots and violence across Europe (and that so many supposed “holy men” of Islam preach violence in the name of God).
I think Enlightenment values are worth defending, and foremost among them is tolerance for opinions different than your own. Like liberals and conservatives in the US may totally disagree with and think the other are idiots, yet we don’t resort to violence. This is the basic social contract in modern Western culture. The radical Islamist ideology doesn’t allow for detente (or peaceful coexistence). You either convert, submit, or die. This is what concerns me for the future, and the chilling effect on free speech of violence and threats of more violence (both express and implied) is the first indication of the friction and difficulty that may lay ahead.
I personally don’t want to give up my right to free speech for peace. That is the road to slavery. I would love to be proven wrong by a mass movement within Islam to confront and oppose the intolerant, but I won’t hold my breath.
the basic social contract in Western culture that thinks it is OK to have 1 million muslims killed to get some more oil for their Hummers? And I don’t think there is much Enlightenment or ‘free speach’ to be found in current American culture anyway. There are dangerous extremists on both sides, not just in islam. Btw, I certainly value the freedom of speach, but not the freedom to insult.
Being of Dutch origin myself, I don’t think ‘Theo had it coming’. It’s called ‘freedom of expression’. A big part of dutch society is tolerance. You can ignore things, you can protest against them, you can sue them, etc. You just don’t kill somebody because you don’t agree with them or what they say. No matter what they say.
Have any dutch islamic leaders spoken out against the heinous crime that was Theo’s murder? I’m not in touch enough to know, but I sure hope they did.
nhz, your choice of words describing Ali and van Gogh seems close to a justification of the crime against van Gogh (”asking for it”). You do not agree with what they said and their style and neither do I, but saying something wrong is part of the liberty that we enjoy in Europe and the US (antisemitism is treated differently in Europe due to the Shoa).
I’m reading the basic social contract and no where does it say bus in religious brothers to blow up our own people. I think that clause is only in Muslim social contracts.
I wasn’t in Minneapolis in the 90s, but I am here today. There are problems with the assimilation, but at least in our suburbs the Somali behave as other immigrant groups have, some adapt better, some worse. The Italians brought also more than pizza and lasagne, but I wouldn’t hold the Mafia against all of them. Some Somali groups have tested the limits of Minneapolis’ tolerance and denied service as taxidrivers to people carrying alcohol. They have learned that the tolerance is NOT unlimited and that they have to adapt to their environment, too. What homoaner writes of the university, however, is discouraging - a university campus lives from its openess, too, and doesn’t thrive in a climate of suspicion.
this is a REAL ESTATE BLOG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Demographic trends, economic trends and political trends are all part of the housing bubble. One cannot separate the parts from the whole.
Homebuyers, in recent years, had little understanding of the whole picture (that there was a global credit bubble). If they were aware of things outside of their immediate environment and interests (houses in my ‘hood are going up because EVERYBODY wants to live here), we wouldn’t be where we are with the housing bubble.
We all need to understand how everything fits together.
Home Prices Fall in Rich New York Suburbs Once Immune to Slump
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHBopkXhEA24&refer=home#
“Whales eat plankton. If the plankton disappears, what will happen to the whales?”
Great quote. Maybe the hedgies and da Boyz ought to think about that one. I think they’ve hoovered up all the plankton and sucked the oxygen out of the atmosphere.
Red Tide coming to a neighborhood near you.
LMAO, Popper! Good one!
Since when do whales eat plankton?
Krill (a type of shrimp) eat plankton.
Whales eat krill; they’re the world’s largest ever carnivores.
“Since when do whales eat plankton?
Krill (a type of shrimp) eat plankton.
Whales eat krill; they’re the world’s largest ever carnivores.”
Better check your facts, whales eat both krill and plankton.
I want to start a new campaign to right all the wrongs in the economy. It’s called “Give A Hedgie a Wedgie”. Where’s NYCityBoy? We need to get a gang together, go to Wall Street and start giving “flash wedgies” to Da Boyz as they sashay down the street, all full of themselves. Heck, maybe we can follow them out to the ‘burbs and find them when they’re shopping or at “The Club”. “Turn the economy around: Give a Hedgie a Wedgie Today!”
Better yet get the vote out for Ron Paul so he can put his boot up their azz!
Speaking of hedgies, wish I could find my post here from a couple of months ago telling someone to stay away from the DNDN hype. I actually made a few bucks on that flipping it on the long side but no way in hell do you hold through the FDA thing.
Here ya go chick.
Boot to the head Wall Street
Hey PDX, I didn’t know you could use Google like that.
Thanks. I’ve seriously considered volunteering to write a damn search function for Ben - the one on the side bar only searches articles, not posts - but it looks like Goog will do just fine.
Google’s very good at precise search.
Ah, but the pesilence can never reach Brooklyn, let alone Manhattan, can it? It’s different here! The Irish are buying because of their potato, er, property famine.
immune-? they fell big 1990 to 95
Mexico Hitting the Fan
http://wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs/winter/?p=754
Fascinating early warning sign of recession here, Russ. As goes the U.S. residential construction industry, so goes border crossings.
‘Fewer people are trying to sneak across the US-Mexico border. As a result, US border officials are nabbing fewer illegal immigrants – 30 percent fewer for the first quarter of this year compared with the same period a year ago.
The connection is straightforward: New illegal immigrants hold some of the economy’s most marginal jobs, which are some of the first to be left unfilled when a slowdown looks imminent. When jobs are scarce, word quickly gets out to would-be immigrants. “Because it is difficult and dangerous to cross the border, they’re not going to come unless they have a job lined up,” McLaren says. “If they get a call from someone saying it’s a good time to come, they do. If the caller says wait for the times to get better, they do that.”’
They should hurry to finish that border wall, just to keep those immigrants …in the USA
Hmm, I thought the border walls were to keep the U.S. citizen INSIDE the U.S., much like walls around ex-USSR, former communist East Germany, etc….
I’ve lived in NoVA since 2002. I noticed this spring that my development’s landscaping had been a little lax, and that the grass in the common areas was looking pretty ragged. Last week, I saw a landscaping crew: the crew was much smaller than in years past, and for the first time I saw a white guy on the crew.
I’ve never, ever, seen a white guy on the landscaping crews. That, combined with the much smaller crew and the poor maintenance lately makes me wonder if they’re having problems finding workers.
So…we never needed a wall…we just needed to enforce our own lending rules. We just couldn’t do that while making the rich richer. Figures.
I’d be a bit worried if I was in the Twin Cities. Last time I was there a couple of years ago the housing market was taking off and I couldn’t figure out how in the hell anyone could afford these houses. The job market for a large city seemed weak and there really wasn’t anything great about the houses being built there since many of the Twin Cities suburbs are literally miles and miles of McMansions/McCondos. It’s sad since the Twin Cities used to be a pretty cool place before the housing bubble. Now, it’s been overrun by hordes of yuppies and zimbobs from all over the country, and they in turn are invading the smaller cities around the state. I don’t know what in the world happened to the whole country to allow this mess to happen, and I think we will see a really bad ‘crunch’ in this country, maybe even later this year judging by the numbers I’m seeing.
I’ve written about this before (I live in Mpls), but there are 2 completely different markets. New and Used.
The used market took off in a few select areas (like Uptown Minneapolis, some of the near-in southwest suburbs), but much of it remains reasonable for the middle class. Most older neighborhoods you can find a very nice home for $250k to $350k. The worker bee neighborhoods you can get for $200-250k.
The “hip” older neighborhoods are overvalued, but affordable for the most part for those who live there.
Where the dislocation really happened was in new construction. This happened in:
1) downtown core, especially the old warehouse district- all condos and highrises
2) downtown St. Paul- all condos and mid sized highrises
3) far flung suburbs (mcmansions)
4) Uptown (Minneapolis) highrise condos.
these are out of control. small condos start at $500,000 and up to the many $Millions. the ones by my house are small, and $2-3 Million. They are very basic (oh, we’re calling unfinished cabinets and pergo floors or regular concrete and exposed HVAC “modern” now) and the price rapidly elevates.
This is the segment that is out of touch with reality, and will fall HUGELY. There is massive oversupply in all the new segments, and it is massively overpriced.
Most people don’t know this, but Mpls has very high salaries compared to the nation (some of the highest). Our RE is not that out of control, at least if you compare it to the out of control areas.
That said, it is higher than it has been historically, and especially the new home/condo segment.
we will see pain, but nothing like the bubbly areas… we had steady growth for 5-6 years, no mania for the most part.
the new markets though, and the condos are toast.
I personally see 20% max decline in most neighbohoods, 30-40% decline in our worst offender areas (warehouse district, etc)
I won’t speak much on the North Minneapolis debacle… except to say that it is our poorest area. there, RE will fall but it is cheap to begin with. A starter home in North Minneapolis will run you $100k.
Sometimes it is better to have 100% LTV, such as when negotiating forebearance…
—————————————————————————-
Troubled mortgage borrowers find help
Lenders get creative to avoid foreclosure
By Dina ElBoghdady
THE WASHINGTON POST
May 9, 2007
…
If you are a financially troubled borrower, there are a few steps you should consider before contacting your mortgage company, especially if you have not missed a payment. Think about refinancing or taking out a home-equity loan, if you have equity in the property.
If refinancing won’t work, identify every opportunity to raise cash. Sell your childhood toy collection on eBay. Rent out a room. Seek help from your church.
“Do whatever it takes to raise money. You don’t want to tell a creditor that you’re having a problem if you can avoid it,” especially if all you need is a one-time fix, Edelman said.
Telling a lender about your financial woes could put you at a disadvantage if you have equity in your home, said Jack Guttentag, professor of finance emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and author of the “Mortgage Professor” column.
“The lender may tell you to come back after you’ve missed two payments,” Guttentag said. By that time, your credit is shot, making it tough to borrow money elsewhere. If the lender then forecloses, that lender is protected against loss because the equity in your home could cover the loan balance and foreclosure-related costs, he said.
“It’s a paradox, but the borrower who gets into trouble and has no equity is in a stronger negotiating position with the lender than the borrower who has equity,” Guttentag said.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070509/news_1n9mortgage.html
Now that is a great quote. Who is the victim here? Those who saved and were hearded into overpaying in 2004 to 2006, not those who had nothing to start with.
That’s exactly why nobody with savings and a credit rating should buy a home at the peak of a mania, or anytime soon thereafter.
And that’s exactly why a prudent lender should not accept a mortgage without downpayment. The borrower’s problem becomes the lender’s problem.
Unless the lender can resell the paper to Fannie Mae or an investment bank that repackages high risk loans into toxic waste MBS…
“financially troubled?” Is that the new PC term?
Maybe “economically challenged”?
The poster Dan asked me in yesterday’s Wall Street thread to re-post the soft landing/hard landing/crash scale I devised last October.
Soft Landing = Real Median Price decline
Hard Landing = Nominal Median Price decline
Category 1 Crash = Nominal Median Price decline of 10% or more
Category 2 Crash = Nominal Median Price decline of 20% or more
and so on, where the severity of the categories of crash equate to hurricanes.
(And in fact my post yesterday incorrectly stated a 1% nominal fall was into crash territory rather than a hard landing on my own scale.)
And ajh = ozajh
Consumers May Be Getting Tired
By Christopher Conkey and Phil Izzo
Word Count: 998 | Companies Featured in This Article: Sears Holdings, Wal-Mart Stores, Target, Circuit City Stores, Talbots, Bebe Stores, McDonald’s, CVS/Caremark
Signs are emerging that American consumers may be getting tired of carrying the economy. How much they pull back will be a major factor in whether the U.S. economy keeps slowing or whether the pace of growth perks up.
Consumer purchases of goods and services increased at a robust 4% inflation-adjusted annual clip in the past two quarters. But economists and retail executives now see signs that the anticipated slowdown is at hand. Gasoline prices are pinching, the housing slump continues and the labor market, which has provided significant support, is showing signs of fatigue.
Yet stock prices are buoyant, …
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117867281866096704.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
(It looks to me like stock prices are propped up on a quasi-permanently high plateau, but I am admittedly a bear…)
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary/
Headline stock market indexes are again skyrocketing after opening weakness, and gold (= the middle-class’s inflation hedge) is getting hammered. Methinks I detect a pattern here…
Gold is getting hammered? They must have some tiny hammers these days.
If those headline stock index graphs were seismograph readings, I would conclude that the market experienced a magnitude 5.0 quake at around 2:15 pm today.
I noticed that too. Makes you wonder if they really fixed the problem that caused the 250-point glitch in February.
Are people investing in stocks at the moment for any reason besides “the stock market always goes up?”
Who’da thunk the subprime implosion could have had any effect on McLuxury builders like Toll, who presumably target non-subprime buyers with sufficient bank to pay $800K on up for a house ($400K+ in flyover country)? Plankton strikes again!
———————————————————————————-
Toll cites trickle-up effect of subprime
Stricter lending affects housing ‘food chain,’ luxury builder says
By John Spence, MarketWatch
Last Update: 9:13 AM ET May 9, 2007
BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Toll Brothers Inc. said Wednesday that it doesn’t expect to meet its full-year profit outlook and that more stringent lending standards as a result of problems in subprime mortgages are reverberating in its own luxury-home market.
The Horsham, Pa.-based company reported preliminary results ahead of its full financial results for the second quarter, scheduled for release on May 24. For the quarter ended April 30, Toll said home-building revenue fell 19% from a year earlier, while net signed contracts dropped 25%.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/toll-says-stricter-loans-disrupting/story.aspx?guid=%7BD1A91D47%2DD203%2D4137%2DB90C%2D006539F240F8%7D
Everyone moving up even to McMansions have to sell houses along the way. When the bottom tier are not buying because they don’t qualify, the middle class can’t move up from starter homes to bigger houses, and the people who want McMansions can’t sell theirs to the middle class. And so it goes right up the food chain.
Back door deal time…
———————————————————————————
For Immediate Release
April 17, 2007
Federal Regulators Encourage Institutions to Work with Mortgage Borrowers Who Are Unable to Make Their Payments
The federal bank, thrift and credit union regulatory agencies are encouraging financial institutions to work with homeowners who are unable to make mortgage payments. Prudent workout arrangements that are consistent with safe and sound lending practices are generally in the long-term best interest of both the financial institution and the borrower. Institutions will not face regulatory penalties if they pursue reasonable workout arrangements with borrowers.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/bcreg/2007/20070417/default.htm
Institutions will not face regulatory penalties if they pursue reasonable workout arrangements with borrowers.
So, they’ll be penalized if they foreclose on the deadbeats and flippers?
I guess the bailout is gaining speed …
That’s right, and like the LTCM bailout, it will be executed through a series of undisclosed or (at best) minimally-disclosed backroom deals.
Lennar pulls the plug on northern Colorado.
http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070509/BUSINESS/705090332
I guess every cloud has a silver lining. They fire saled their remaining inventory and stopped building.
Did anyone else see this very disturbing article in the L.A. Times Real Estate section (p. 7) on Sunday?
http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/news/la-re-harney6may06,0,345286.story?coll=la-class-realestate-news
It mentions new proposed legislation to allow specuvestors to pay no taxes on forgiven debt! Now, they would almost totally eliminate any incentive at all not to speculate at 100% down, since what the heck, if your option loses money, you can walk away with no financial consequence whatsoever! Color me outraged, and I’m hoping we can get a letter campaign going against this madness… See quote with relevant details below, assuming I can get the quote syntax right…
Ok, apparently not, here’s the quote:
The Mortgage Cancellation Tax Relief Act of 2007 (HR 1876) would amend the tax code to exempt debt forgiveness on principal home mortgages from being treated as income.
Introduced in mid-April by Reps. Robert E. Andrews (D-N.J.) and Ron Lewis (R-Ky.), the bill would allow lenders to restructure delinquent mortgages so that they wouldn’t hit borrowers with income-tax hand grenades the following year. The legislation potentially could assist many other homeowners in financial trouble who negotiate pre-foreclosure “short sales” or deeds in lieu of foreclosure, or whose foreclosure proceeds are insufficient to pay off their mortgage debt.
Principal is the key word. That is only the house you live in.
Lots of specuvestors live in the homes they were hoping to sell for huge profits later, which is why they took out mortgages they would not be able to afford a few years later - these are many of the foreclosures you are reading about in the paper. The fact that they spent some time living in their purchases doesn’t make them all that much more sympathetic than flippers who never moved in, IMHO.
Some of them like Casey Serin live in all five homes, which gives even greater tax savings!
Wow! Now all some folks need to do is wait until it passes, then run and “buy” something with a cashback and send the keys to the lender…
I cannot even begin to think of everything that is wrong with this bill and the potential for abuse and fraud at the taxpayers expense. Whomever lives in NJ and Ky and elsewhere - we’d better start sending angry letters to those reps…
one wonders why all other people with a mortgage don’t spend all their money / equity (or better, spend it all with maximum leverage on real estate) and choose the same procedure? It sounds too attractive …
What makes you think this is not exactly what a large number of Americans have already done?
Best to buy stuff that can be trailered.
Congress hears currency manipulation complaints on China, Japan
“…Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told the panel that the 857-billion-dollar US trade and investment deficit has boosted US debt to other nations to 14 trillion dollars.
“The global imbalances probably represent the single largest current threat to the continued growth and stability of the US and world economies,” Bergsten said.
Bergsten said that China, by keeping its currency artificially low, is “exporting unemployment to other countries.”
He said an “orderly” correction of the imbalances could be achieved by an increase of at least 15 percent in the value of the yuan against other currencies, “which would imply an appreciation of about 35 percent against the dollar.”….
http://tinyurl.com/34tyda
A long time ago in a country far, far away…
Trade Wars coming to your area soon.
“which would imply an appreciation of about 35 percent against the dollar.”
…which would imply a very loud collective exclamation of “OUCH!” from Asian holders of U.S. dollar-denominated debt.
Just keeping up with inflation in other areas.
“…The average cost of one year’s tuition, room and board at four-year public institutions in 2006-07 was $12,796, according to the College Board. For private schools, the one-year cost was $30,367. Tuition and fees at all schools have risen 35 percent in the past five years, while the highest GI Bill monthly payout has increased only 20 percent since 2002….”
http://tinyurl.com/2v4to2
So “Tuition and fees at all schools have risen 35 percent in the past five years” and I have 2 kids in college, 2 more still to go and one out of college. What, me worry? I’ll just send the others to Beijing or Tokyo.
Hyperinflation never goes hole hog, out of the starting gate…
It needs a well intentioned shove to get it going, like say a 35% cut, for starters.
Mexico 1976: 12.5 Pesos to The $
Mexico 1991: 10,000 Pesos to the $
It was 22 to a dollar in 1982. At that point Mexico’s central bank could no longer prop up the peso. I don’t recall it going to 10,000 to a dollar. IIRC it was around 3000 when they introduced the “New Peso”, where 1 new peso was equal to 1000 old pesos. The current rate is about 11 new pesos to the dollar.
Pastor screws overe everyone in real estate:
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070508/BUSINESS/705080322/1007
Don’t know if this has been posted already.
David Lereah (pronounced La-Ray, never knew that) on NPR