A Goody-Laden Battle For Buyers
KPVI reports from Idaho. “In Bonneville County in September, the number of offers to reduce a price in order to induce a sale tripled over the same month last year. The number that could prevent an overall record year in sales is the number of homes sold lately, in September and October, 189 this year, versus almost 100 more in 2006.”
“Jim Windmiller: ‘I don’t have the California and Nevada people buying many homes here anymore.’”
“And Californians and others were the ones buying homes of more than $300,000. Jim Windmiller: ‘Their market has come down a lot, so those people are not selling out, moving to Idaho and buying our bigger units.’”
The Gazette Times from Oregon. “Last August Lori DeBord sat down with a mortgage broker and stretched, taking out a subprime loan to buy her first home, a modest 1,200-square-foot condo in southeast Albany. The interest rate was high, 9.75 percent, but she figured she could swing the monthly payments.”
“It was a proud moment, but it didn’t last. First she lost her second job, then her son’s disability benefits. Now she’s six months behind on her mortgage payments and on the verge of losing her home to foreclosure. ‘I gave up,’ she said. ‘I just went, ‘I don’t have the money.’”
“Thousands of Oregonians have subprime mortgages, the kind that have been making bad-news headlines nationwide. In Oregon, subprime loans are 11 times more likely to be in foreclosure than prime rate loans, according to a recent study.”
“‘Oregon has actually fared better than many other states, and we believe it is in large part due to continued appreciation of home values in our state,’ said Berri Leslie, the mortgage lending program manager for the state Division of Finance & Corporate Securities.”
“But, she added, there are ‘pockets of concern’ in places such as Medford and Bend, where home prices shot up rapidly in recent years. In the mid-valley, the problem is worse in some places than in others.”
“‘It’s a little harder hit in Albany, Lebanon and Sweet Home, where incomes tend to be a little lower,’ said Tom Kosta, a senior loan officer with the Corvallis office of Meridian Mortgage.”
“Linn County, however, has 255 properties either in arrears, scheduled for auction or already foreclosed by the lender. Counselors at Willamette Neighborhood Housing Services say…they are getting more calls on the matter than they used to.”
“‘Most people don’t realize what they’re getting into until they’re at the closing table,’ said Ken Smith, homeownership program coordinator for the Corvallis-based nonprofit. ‘Yeah, people should know better. But people don’t.’”
“In Oregon, said Angela Martin of Our Oregon, there are roughly 40,000 families with ‘exploding ARM’ loans that will reset to a higher rate this year or next. ‘We’re looking at a large number of borrowers — who are about to face their first payment shock,’ she said.”
“‘A lot of folks went into this believing the person that was representing them to get a loan was representing their best interests,’ Martin said. ‘The market was going well. Homes were sold on the promise that, yeah, you can’t afford this now, but in a few years you’ll be able to refinance.’”
The Register Guard from Oregon. “Rather than selling the lots in his latest subdivision to builders, developer David Corey is looking to individual buyers to purchase the upscale home sites in Legacy Estates, south of the McKenzie River in the Hayden Bridge area of north Springfield.”
“‘Most of the time, developers sell lots in subdivisions like Legacy Estates to builders, but with the housing market the way it is now, too many builders have too much inventory, and they’re not looking for more,’ Corey said.”
“‘Most of the time, I’d be selling all 20 of these lots to builders — in fact, at one point I had all 20 reserved by three builders, but now only one of them’s still planning to go ahead,’ he said. ‘I’m prepared that things may move slowly over the winter and not pick up until spring, but that’s just the way it is.’”
“Meanwhile, the slower housing market notwithstanding, other developers in the Eugene-Springfield area also continue to bring new subdivisions to the market.”
The Seattle Times from Washington. “Puget Sound-area new-home developers, motivated by an increasingly soft real-estate market, are resorting to something they haven’t done in years. They’re enticing buyers with big TVs, motorcycles and other inducements.”
“Now there’s a four- to 13-month inventory in King and Snohomish counties of new houses, town houses and condominiums available, according to New Home Trends, a Bothell data-research firm. That’s spawned a goody-laden battle for buyers.”
“‘We got the mortgage flu, and got a few more homes on the books than we’d like to be carrying right now,’ confesses a local home builder who declined to be named because he’s prohibited from talking to the media. ‘There have been an awful lot of homes that came back to us’ after the initial buyers backed out.’”
“A Pierce County builder learned that when he tried to lure buyers to a $489,000 new house with a plasma-screen TV. There were no takers, so he lowered the price and threw in a new $23,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycle.”
“‘We didn’t get any bites, any low-ball offers, nothing,’ recounts real-estate agent Jeff Jensen.”
“‘As a first-time buyer in this market,’ says Brandon Smith, ‘not only would I expect an incentive to help pay closing costs, but I would also need to feel I wasn’t paying a price based on the real-estate frenzy of the last few years.’”
“That feeling caused Smith to cancel a recent deal on a new Everett condo. The developer offered a $7,000 buyer bonus, but Smith decided the asking price was too high.”
“‘Sure enough, just days after I backed out of the sale, the asking price of all units in the complex were dropped by 7 or 8 percent,’ Smith says.”
The News Tribune from Washington. “An ambitious deal between the City of Tacoma and a Seattle developer to create affordable housing for artists on a downtown parking lot site is crumbling.”
“The city has told Catapult Community Developers that it’s in default on its development agreement to create a 76-unit, 150,000-square-foot housing, retail and parking structure across Market Street from the Tacoma Municipal Building.”
“Catapult principal Michael Trower said the development company is discussing options with the city, including return of the land to city ownership. Trower said an oversupply of new housing units in downtown Tacoma, coupled with rapidly rising construction costs, put the project in deep freeze.”
“On the same block as the Art Lofts project, developers turned the former Tacoma YMCA into a condominium project and are selling units in the Roberson Condominiums next door. Nearby, the Walker Condominiums are also for sale.”
“Trower said Catapult caught the first wave of buyer interest with the other projects, but a surge in condominium and apartment construction, combined with a credit crunch, is slowing the market.” “‘There are some developers who are building now who wish they weren’t,’ Trower said.”
‘The Portland timber company Pope & Talbot has filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada. The slowdown in housing, the weakening U.S$., and U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber hurt the company. Analysts told The Oregonian newspaper that the debt hampered its ability to respond. It reported a $42 million loss in the second quarter. Pope & Talbot is 158 years old and the last publicly owned forest products company in Oregon.’
‘In the last few weeks, The Register-Guard has focused on the Lane County housing market, beginning with the rate of foreclosures, then on the ‘plunge’ in sales this September compared to last year, supplemented with an article on sales concessions. The news media do a disservice by treating monthly changes in the market like a horse race to be described in hyperbolic language. In reality, there is no bad news to report about the Greater Lane County market — except that overpriced listings will sit on the market longer and will expire in greater numbers.’
‘The market has also changed in the greater Portland area; however it still remains one of the healthiest in the nation. While sales have slowed, we are still on target for the fifth best year on record for existing home sales. We have all seen and read the ‘gloom and doom’ from the media regarding the downward spiraling of existing home sales and accumulation of builders’ inventory. We need to be careful not to confuse what is happening in other states with our own back yard.’
‘We are definitely in a transitional phase, which means we have a good supply of inventory on the market. What does this mean for the astute buyer? You could be sorry if you are waiting for a better price or a better mortgage loan.’
‘You could be sorry if you are waiting for a better price or a better mortgage loan.’
Sounds like you PNW housing bears could use some Joshua trees.
Indeed. Please send by overnight delivery.
A quick OTS report from coffee shop discussion a while back. My unofficial stats report there are A LOT of Pac NW coffee house refugees banging away on their laptops in Denver! Confirmation on the reasons was present, as well. It IS the 300 days of sunshine and ability to wear whatever you want, wherever you want that lures ‘em east. No one brought up the CO pro-ganga contention, but would you to a complete stranger?
sp… pro-ganja
damn laptop keyboard (from coffe shop)
Thanks for the update, I remember that discussion.
On that note, it’s gettin’ more cloudy and soon to be wet here. So get ready, another wave of the Prozac crowd will be looking for sun soon. And I thought we were known for being “green.” Apparently Denver has taken that from us as well.
Apparently not one house in Santa Monica,CA closed escrow this past week. SM is ocean front property. Highly valued, and therefore there is something always closing weekly, but guess it is finally hitting the highend RE sections.
Yeah… darn things won’t grow here. Too cold and rainy. Which is funny… it flippin’ RAINS half the year here! What is there to support the insane prices?
Conversely, you could be sorry if you buy a house for 20-30% more than you could buy it for a year from now.
I know several FB’s who purchased in the last year, against my advice. They are sorry.
Yeah Portland will go negative YOY before the year is over. You can follow the crash at:
http://www.portlandhousing.blogspot.com
Spent nearly all my life in Albany. I can’t wait for it to go down - way down - in price so I can buy back in.
Pope and Talbot? I believe my ol’ grandpappy held some kind of record for being the oldest shareholder of record or something like that. I’ll have to check to see if the estate sold it after he died. Wish he were hear to talk Pope and Talbot and their Canadian bankruptcy.
“And Californians and others were the ones buying homes of more than $300,000. Jim Windmiller: ‘Their market has come down a lot, so those people are not selling out, moving to Idaho and buying our bigger units.’”
Jim:
You are living in your own private Idaho, now…
On the ground like a stale potato
A B-52’s ditty, for you all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7t7cGwN7_0
The Idaho market is the guy in Kill Bill who gets his heart ripped open, but can take 8 steps before dying.
All you potentially FB in Idahole, WAIT A YEAR!!!! Californication money is drying up and there isn’t anything below to support prices but lava rock, barley, and spud rows.
Brother lives in ID and says it’s come to a complete halt. Even high end construction (he does high end finish wood stuff) has come to a near standstill in Sun Valley.
There are a few people on the HGTV boards in ID complaining that they have lookers but no takers - scroll to the bottom
http://tinyurl.com/3dxmob
I think I’m addicted to housing schadenfreud.
dumb question…what is FB?
Sorry, trying to catch up on abbreviations.
It’s an abbreviation of “f*^#^ed buyer”!
Are we witnessing the extinction of the Equity Locust?
We can only hope.
If I hear another realtor say “The Californicators are coming to CO and will keep values(i.e. prices) high!”, I’ll make the evening news……
In our the bigger they are, the harder they fall world…
Californians are the most numerous, of anybody in the entire country~
Your $350k nice house, in most anywhere America…
Got up to $800k here.
Timber!
Realtor: “But, the Californicators ARE coming to CO and WILL keep prices high.”
You go, denverlowballer.
Ha, I’ll join you!
An Underappreciated Housing Number
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/index/a/14698/from/yahoo
I went to drop off my lease to the realtor who manages the house I rent. His office is a nic nac store, kitchen stuff spices ect. He’s a nice guy runs his own company. He told me not much was going on in real estate so he bought the store a few months ago. My guess is things will pick up for the property management side of his business as no one is buying at the moment, but just shows you that things are not going well in the world of real estate.
At least people actually buy spices and kitchen stuff, as opposed to making $12 candles.
You laugh at these candle peddlers! I predict a candle bubble in the next couple of years as more and more FB get their electricity turned off.
I have a feeling that the holidays are going to be more of families reconnecting as opposed to gift giving. Just my suspicion. Food, Family, Football and a Fifth…. of Black Label. No green and no blue…maybe some red but thats about it.
Single malt Scotch & various flavors of:
“Neil’s Natural Hot Buttered Derivative Popcorn” munch, munch,…while I continue my “economic” education at Ben’s HBB 24/7 school for learning. Tuition contribution via PayPal…”How tough is it?”
I can relate to the “fifth” part. It’s a complete boozefest whenever I go visit my folks, them *and* me. I need lots of booze to make my time with them tolerable… they must feel the same way.
Mike, is that you?
Wow - are you serious? I wouldn’t bother visiting your folks if you actually have to drink to make it through. Just send each other Christmas cards and do something more productive with your short time on the planet.
“‘As a first-time buyer in this market,’ says Brandon Smith, ‘not only would I expect an incentive to help pay closing costs, but I would also need to feel I wasn’t paying a price based on the real-estate frenzy of the last few years.’”
Smart move Brandon. we are both in the same boat and I refuse to pay the phoney articifially high prices of the housing bubble based on free toxic loan party.
“Now there’s a four- to 13-month inventory in King and Snohomish counties of new houses, town houses and condominiums available, according to New Home Trends, a Bothell data-research firm. That’s spawned a goody-laden battle for buyers.”
Four to thirteen month supply? That’s quite a spread. My statistics professor would never have tolerated such a huge range. Granted, that was ten years ago, so maybe times have changed.
Either that or these people are just pulling numbers out of their noses.
Numbers that smell that bad don’t come out of one’s nose.
LOL!
did you see the papers crowing how Seattle still had the only Y-o-Y housing price appreciation. Makes me sick.
Me too. Grouchy.
Fall, Seattle! Fall! Fallllllllllllllllllll!
“Four to thirteen month supply?”
In my attempts to advise little bro in Idahole I’ve run into the significant hurdle of limited to nonexistant access to data. If anyone knows where to find detailed sales data ala DQNEWs for smallville USA, please let me know.
–
“Jim Windmiller: ‘I don’t have the California and Nevada people buying many homes here anymore.’”
Californicators and New-idea-ns are hitting dry holes after they blew all their liquidity.
Jas
“Last August Lori DeBord sat down with a mortgage broker and stretched, taking out a subprime loan to buy her first home . . . . It was a proud moment, but it didn’t last. First she lost her second job, then her son’s disability benefits. Now she’s six months behind on her mortgage payments and on the verge of losing her home to foreclosure. ‘I gave up,’ she said. ‘I just went, ‘I don’t have the money.’”
I’m truly sorry for this person’s misfortune, but even more, I’m stunned a lender would provide a mortgage to someone who was such an obvious risk.
I hope the stories of this sort of behavior are close to bottoming out on the ethics-o-meter, or the housing market is even more f’ed than I thought.
This is the kind of crap Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Citigroup etc are holding onto. And Congress wants to offload this crap to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to eat?
everyone from j6pk to lenders had stars in their eyes.. it was patently obvious that prices could only rise further..
it’s what bubbles do..
Hey Rally - Like I said on some thread yesterday, seems like most of the sob stories are gone and we’ve moved on to blame the lenders - coming from both sides, realtors and public.
Don’t feel too sorry. It’s not like she’s out a downpayment or anything. She got to live in a nice house for a while and will be able to walk away and be no worse than she started.
This is also quite puzzling
First she lost her second job, then her son’s disability benefits.
She was spending her son’s disability payments on things other than care for her son? No wonder they “took them away”. She obviously didn’t need them. I’m sure she’ll find another story that SSDI can swallow and get on the gravy train again.
“confesses a local home builder who declined to be named because he’s prohibited from talking to the media.”
WTF? Does the Washington Association of Home Builders have it’s own Gestapo?
this one is for the gold bugs:
NEW YORK: Gold barreled above $800 an ounce Wednesday for the first time since 1980 as investors cheered the Federal Reserve’s decision to lower its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point.
The Fed lowered its federal funds rate to 4.50 percent, as the markets widely anticipated. Lower interest rates tend to undermine the dollar and raise the allure of precious metals as an investment alternative. The dollar stumbled to another low against the euro ahead of the Fed’s decision on Wednesday, helping drive gold higher.
The Associated PressPublished: October 31,
Oil and food also jumped. More Americans will now have less money to pay their mortgage payment. Way to save Housing Mr. Benanke.
Oooops meant Bernanke… this laptop sucks.
It might be easier to type “Clueless Academic Dumbass Fiat Currency Devaluator Who Should Be Waterboarded As An Economic Terrorist Who Will Regularly Declare War On Savers,” which I regard as the literal translation of “Bernanke.”
Better yet:
Better
Ease
Regularly
Now
And
Not
Kill
Economy. (equities).
‘Oooops meant Bernanke…’
You probably meant Bukake.
In the energy market, light, sweet crude for December delivery gained $4.13 to $94.51 in electronic trading on the Nymex
Paid 610.00 for 200 gallons today, this might be the push that gets the bubble ball really rolling…
It won’t matter about those price increases because the goobeermint has everything under control. Their CPI says so…it shows that inflation runs about 2-3% annually.
It’s all good, here. Move along sheep, er, I mean people.
2% to 3% annually is just about right, if all you measure is socks and gerbil food.
Damn, you mean I can’t even afford Purina anymore?
Please don’t give the BLS any ideas for new hedonic deflator inputs. Steak-to-chicken was bad enough.
OH yea, and THEY say that the economy Grew 3.9% , so much more than THEY expected.
First, who are the THEY
second, GREW compared to what?
I didn’t get a pay raise, still struggling with the -35% taken away 5 yrs ago.. and yet, still driving the 95 Toy, and wearing Targe’ clothes bought 3 yrs ago +…
I am looking at people not buying stuff.. so WHERE is the growth?
so WHERE is the growth?
See Merrill Lynch/Golden Stacks year-end bonuses. Oh, and all the commodities that are shooting up, thanks to rapidly devaluing USD.
Milwaukee proposing 16% INCREASE on property tax..Happy Halloween
http://www.wisn.com/video/14464632/index.html
The FED gov’t can cut taxes and go deeper in to debt but then the local gov’t will be there to tax you for the slowdown in their revenue.
You don’t want to know what Chicago is trying to do.
If the bursting bubble doesn’t deep six all those condoze, the coming property tax hikes will. The county and the city - a double whammy.
I expect this will happen elsewhere, too. Most local governments already spend the projected “windfall” from planned construction that never happened, property taxes based on assessments that haven’t gone up as projected, etc. So they’ll stick it to the hard-working taxpayers who actually bought houses they could afford.
Front page article in the Mail Tribune here in Medford OR just announced the same, admitting at the end of the loooonnng article that tax evals lag actual valuations by about a year. Sigh.
Wow. We get violated by the Fed again. Its just fricking sick.
And yeah, I have money in the market.
Nice to hear some SE Idaho news after all of the Boise news. I have relatives in Idaho Falls and most of them are in the building trades. They’ve been really busy building homes for Californians, wonder how many were spec homes. Most of the kids have been going straight into building houses instead of going to school.
When the home building business dies off there is very little other industry in that part of the state to keep them busy (farming, gov’t work on the nuclear research site). I think hard times are coming back to Idaho Falls).
A lot of speculation is associated with luxury housing up near Island Park/Ashton/greater Jackson Hole area. Every farmer up there is planning on selling out to millionares who are being pushed out of Jackson Hole by the billionaires. I just noticed a new land development by billionaire John Huntsman east of Ashton to attract those California millionaires. Won’t hurt my feelings to see this fail, given the blight this is putting on a really cool area.
I figure they are about 6 months behind Utah in the housing cycle, with Utah being about 9 months behind Nevada/Arizona.
Have a feeling it will be even colder than usual there this winter (my dad was raised there and couldn’t handle the cold/wind in the winter).
jb
I haven’t seen Jackson since 1974 and I couldn’t bear to see it now.
Last time I was in Jackson I came in by way of Driggs. Twenty miles over the saddle between the Tetons. There are/were glacial lakes up there so clear and cold it almost made you want to cry.
Ditto with Park City. Couldn’t believe after seeing it last April how much development has occurred due to the Olympics and the RE bubble.
If I bought Gold at $500 an ounce and now sell for $800 an ounce, do I have to pay taxes on the $300 or can I claim that it is inflation and that I don’t have to pay taxes since the FED made the money worth less than when I bought it?
Could this be how Dick Cheney envisioned pulling in more tax revenue while cutting taxes?
you should really have an offshore account setup for all that.
Sorry, the entire reason for the FED and graduated income tax is to rip you off. They mostly count on people not noticing, the fact that you have noticed is no excuse for not playing along nicely. Leona Helmsley may have thought that only “little people” pay taxes, but look where it got her.
Just take heart in the fact that you’re better off than you would have been without the gold. Dollars suck, but jail sucks worse. Democracy offers little hope to fools.
You really need to track every gold purchase and what you paid to establish your “basis”, otherwise you’ll be in trouble come tax time.
It’s important to speak to an accountant about these things!
Now, of course, you can stroll into a gold dealer with a Krugerrand and he’ll give you cash, with no messy paperwork to fill out. Below a certain dollar amount (I don’t remember what it is, but it’s lower than the general 10K amount for cash transactions), the dealer doesn’t have to report.
However, the law requires YOU to report it, on form 1099B.
Still no sales on friends’ coastal WA. homes. The one in Seattle listed at 629K in May, now down to 480K and has one offer but no sealed deal yet. The other, in B’ham, started at 360K in May now down to 315K. It had a half-hearted 300K offer -sight unseen! - from some idiots from Hawaii (they saw pix of it emailed from their realtor, then came a couple weeks ago to view it in person). It’s still on the list so I guess, once they saw the place for real they decided it wasn’t worth 300K - big surprise! I don’t care anymore whether my friends sell their houses or not. They bought them cheap years ago and could lower the prices for a quick sale if that’s what they *really* wanted. Apparently they prefer to stay delusional and reap whatever the consequences.
This may have been posted before: In the October 16 “Seattle Post -Intelligencer”, there was a front page screamer headline- “Sellers Trying it All to Hook Choosy Buyers”.
The article had quotes from realtors with side businesses of “Staging Properties”. That’s still a big business here as sellers are only in the beginning stages of accepting the RE “slowdown”. So the dopes are throwing good money after bad to stage properties. My Seattle friends dumped over 30K into their place in June/July in an effort to get their original 629K AP.
Anyway, the realtor/stager said she was having to buy a lot more furniture because, since houses aren’t turning over, she needs more to fill all the new places she’s got. Since there aren’t any sales, she can’t recycle it around from place to place.
Guess the stagers will hold up the furniture industry for a while.
The article also mentioned that Windermere RE Agency is beginning to use the “Step Rate Mortgage program” in Seattle under which sellers buy down a buyer’s interest rate for the first 2 or 3 years, lowering the buyer’s initial monthly payments.
Between that brilliant innovation and the adjusting of option ARM mortgages (Seattle’s in the top 10 nationwide) in the next couple years, Seattle should be poised for a long, drawn out fall.
Hey - whatever happened to SeattleEric - the guy that quite his job to become a professional house flipper in Seattle? Did he get stuck with some depreciating houses??
I believe he wrote one last post about it - you can find a link at Seattle Bubble. He got out basically breaking even, he says.
does that include his opportunity costs?
“got out basically breaking even, he says”
Bullshit filter translation: He got out too late as a result of his own greed and blind optimism, losing whatever tiny amount of cash he put down (if any) plus eating the transaction costs, taxes, interest and other carrying costs for the time he ‘owned’ the properties, and anything else he might have put into them.
Here’s a link: Seattle Eric’s final post
Guess the stagers will hold up the furniture industry for a while.
Which is all made in CHINA anyway, so, it sure won’t help the masses who want jobs here in the good ol usa.
meanwhile gold blasts through $800…….
Portland is closed, sorry. We have a builder offering a trip to Maui for LEASING one of their new unsold homes (starting at only $1100 a month). We’re j-u-s-t starting to prove it’s not different here. Now Bend, on the other hand - former destination of SoCal equity locusts - it’s hosed. If you’d like to read more about that market, visit bendbubble2.blogspot.com
Thanks for the Bend reports. As I have said numerous times, I have a “wealthy” business associate in Bend who was a rude ass when we went skiing in February of this year.
He claimed Bend was “different” because of blah, blah, blah.. I am so glad to see this happenning…We had a very heated argument and I am going to rub it in the next time I see him
I get sick just thinking of that place. Shame what’s gone on there. Some good was happening late 90s, but it got outta hand quickly.
Then again, there’s still Deschutes Brewery.
I share your pain. Bend was a lovely place, once.
By the way, Crispy, if you need some help with him, I’d be happy to make a snowboarding trip over there and tag team him.
I’d just “happen” to be on the same chairlift with you guys and could resurrect my bad cop role.
Oh, the housing bear merriment.
LMAO!!!!!
Also - Who is the blogger who runs that site? I thought my blog got out of hand, its nothing compred to that one. LOL. The heated exchanges are hilarious
Okay, I did my good deed/karma injection for the day. I wrote this person and urged her to come here and read this blog for at least two weeks before “investing” in the gawdawful Dallas market:
http://dallas.craigslist.org/com/465303071.html
Wow, she only wants to clear $5K per deal? That’s pretty slim margins on a product with shaky (highly subjective) valuations to begin with. Not a good business plan out the gate….
As a related aside, I’ve posted (ages ago) that one of my subjective measures for showing interest in RE again was to monitor membership in our local RE investing clubs. (My level of interest is inversely proportional to the number of members in the clubs) Well, one of the two local investing clubs ceased to exist as of yesterday. Seems that the masses might be moving on….yes, even in the chosen city of Portland.
Same thing happened after the stock market went blooey back in 2000. The number of stock market investment clubs decreased markedly.
My drunken M-I-L, during 1999, actually joined a “Day Trading Club” where, after 1 day of training, got to sit at a computer screen and make trades with Cash Advanced $$$ all day long. She got about $12K in debt (the advance limit on 4 cards combined) and then shortly after went BK for her third time, IIRC.
Crude hits new record above $95 in after-hours trading.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/barrel-oil-hits-new-record/story.aspx?guid=%7BBF4BE17A%2D4051%2D4DA6%2DA1EF%2D8B7900AD3528%7D&siteid=bnb
NYMEX takes a licking, and keeps on ticking
Washington shifting more and more costs on the states
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-10-30-uninsuredvets_N.htm?csp=1
The number of uninsured veterans jumped sharply in the first half of the decade to 1.8 million in 2004, a new study shows.
Conducted by researchers at the Harvard Medical School, the study shows the uninsured veteran population rose twice as fast as the uninsured in the general population.
RELATED: Bush nominates new VA chief
PATTERN: War vets at risk for homefront suicide
The increase in veterans lacking insurance coincides with Bush administration policies aimed at limiting the number of veterans eligible for VA coverage, according to the study published online Tuesday in the American Journal of Public Health.
In 2002, the administration stopped marketing veterans health care and, in January 2003, cut off access to future veterans earning more than $30,000 to $35,000 annually on average. Both times, VA officials cited budgetary constraints and backlogs in untreated patients.
Tax cuts for elites, printing money for the elites, cutting service and shifting taxes to the states (state taxes are more regressive ie sales, property, ect) This gov is run for the benefit of a very small group of people. Not sure the next one will be any better.
Does anyone have a good graf of fed funds and overnight lending vs LIBOR or 30 yr mortgage.
Make that graph
This note from Monty Guild was posted at jsmineset.com today and might help explain today’s dramatic rise:
“The IEA [International Energy Agency] hints that its new crude oil forecast to be announced soon will be much higher than the previous price forecasts have been.
Long failing to buy the peak oil thesis, the IEA has been making low ball estimates of global energy prices for the whole 5 years we have been shouting about higher oil prices. This was because they believed what the oil producing countries told them. Of course, the oil producing countries had a vested interest in trying to sell the world that they could increase production and keep oil prices down so consumption would stay high.
Now even the IEA has seen through this paper thin argument and will announce that oil prices can go much higher because the AMOUNT OF OIL WHICH CAN BE PRODUCED IN THE WORLD HAS PEAKED.
This will undoubtedly fuel demand for Gold and other assets with which to hedge oil demand.
THIS IS BULLISH FOR GOLD AND OIL.
Respectfully yours,
Monty
Catapult Community Developers
Come on gang. You can’t just let a name like that lie!
@ Burning Man this year they had a trebuchet, that was going to launch a flaming piano quite a distance, but I missed seeing it…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet
All week on the news have been stories of kids in Physics classes launching pumpkins at ‘87 Oldsmobile Cieras using homemade versions. ‘Tis the season, I s’pose….
You think that’s scary, how’d you like to do business with…
http://www.catapult.com/home.htm
Of the dollar, gold, stocks, and bonds, only bonds looked ready to cry uncle after the Fed move. Who in the world would go out from 30 days to 30 years in this environmment and not demand a premium? There are only two parameters to bonds - credit and duration. The market is right now in the process of punishing those who idly underpriced credit risks; it has yet to punish those who merrily park their money for 10 years or longer. (Gold is in lockstep with oil right now - I still think it is likely to break before a fully convincing move through $800, but, who knows, it may park itself well north of that by the weekend.)
Oil & Gold are the 2 perfect forms of wealth…
Both 100% fungible and in constant demand, everywhere in the world~
Physically one is the ultimate micro-commodity and the other the ultimate macro-commodity. Black gold both helps create the conditions for wealth and lets one enjoy wealth; yellow gold also lets one enjoy wealth and helps preserve wealth.
$10 a barrel or $20 worth in a wedding band? Them days is gone.
Oregon announced today, all new building permits statewide, are going up 4%.
keep on building..
What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place ’cause it was bogus; so if we don’t get some cool rules ourselves - pronto - we’ll just be bogus too! Get it?
Jefferson was right! Leave England. What is our choice? Vote and get the right people in office who do not steal us blind. Our educational system is so poor that the average person can not see what is happening to them as there is no common sense any longer.