Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For November 6, 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.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
January 2025 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Destroying the dollar as reserve currency…another rate cut wanted
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) — The dollar fell to a record low against the euro on speculation financial-company losses from subprime-mortgage defaults will grow, prompting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates a third time this year.
The U.S. currency declined versus all 16 of the most- actively traded currencies except the yen after Fed Governor Randall Kroszner said conditions for subprime-mortgage borrowers may worsen. It dropped the most against the South African rand. South Africa’s benchmark rate is more than double the Fed’s.
Gold at 820.
http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html
Might this be the first major homebuilder to go bankrupt?
” Beazer Homes USA said after the close on Monday that it’s planning to take a $230 million fourth-quarter non-cash pre-tax charge to abandon land option contracts, to recognize inventory impairments and to record impairments and land option abandonments in joint ventures. It’s cut 650 positions, or 25% of its workforce, and halted its 10-cents a share dividend. Preliminary figures showed home closings down 39% and new home orders down 53% on a 68% cancellation rate.”
“halted its 10-cents a share dividend”
March of Dimes, never more?
Yeah, they’re going down for sure, it’s just a matter of when. My bet is soon rather than later and they will be the first big one to go down. Too bad I couldn’t get any shorts on BZH, but it’s been unavailable for some time.
Way to save the housing market Mr. Bernanke. By taking more money out of American’s pockets in higher prices in an attempt to bailout Wall Street you are causing more homes to foreclose as people have even less money to make mortgage payments.
Testify! $4-5 a gallon gas next summer will do wonders for the housing market!
even the current $10 gallon gas does not hurt the EU housing market yet … don’t get excited to soon.
Yeah, but they don’t drive hummers in EU…
Very true, especially here in Sacramento. My wife’s British cousins laughed when they saw the size of the trucks around here. Massive monster-trucks driven by 21 year olds. Huge “Nor-Cal” stickers really add that touch of class.
and europeans don’t commute 2+ hours a day in a car. compact cities and abundant public transportation = lower gas usage. does the equivalent of CA’s inland empire, for example, even exist in europe?
It won’t be the price of gasoline that will kill the exurbs…it will be the rationing. 10 gallons / month +/- or?
The beautiful flaw of the lending practices of 2002-2006 was that bankers allowed people to pick their payment without reference to cash reserves or income margins.
Given the competition of getting the bigger house, better location, better schools, etc. plus the speculative premium of acquiring a leveraged investment vehicle, this drove mortgage payment to the gnat’s nuthair of unaffordability for nearly everyone.
Increase income taxes and/or raise living expenses, and there’s very little slack in the system for most people; the alligator must be fed first.
does the equivalent of CA’s inland empire, for example, even exist in europe?
Yes, eastern Ukraine
…
Yeah, but they don’t drive hummers in EU…
Heck, my 25 mpg sedan is probably considered a gas guzzler on the continent, and my 40 mile RT daily commute must be long. Plus I have no viable public transportation alternative.
they don’t drive hummers in EU they also don’t have nearly as far to drive. Compared to the EU, the USA is a huge & sparsely populated chunk of territory.
It won’t be the price of gasoline that will kill the exurbs…it will be the rationing. Testify, brother! I just hope hospitals, grocery stores, water purification plants, etc. get their regular deliveries along with their staff showing up on time every day.
Car pooling will once again become fashionable.
It’s all contained.
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3132507.ece
–
1 GOOG = 1 Oz. Gold?
GOOG is the greatest American story never told. Brazilian bombshell Giselle, who has refused to accept payment in US$ has agreed to accept GOOGs. A girl who knows the full value of her body surely knows what is precious and what is not. Even Iran and Russia are considering selling oil for GOOGs.
Sell you gold and buy GOOGs. More importantly, sell your home, a depreciating asset, and buy GOOGs that are appreciating faster than gold, crude oil, or any other hard asset. Gold can be mined and GOOGs can’t.
Buy GOOGs and keep America great!
Jas
LOL, good one!
Why does the Federal Resere have to ALWAYS bailout Wall Street from their excesses? They punish everyone to save the few elite.
Because the financial and monetary system is dominated by positive feedback loops, what economists refer to as vicious circles and virtuous circles. In reality they both refer to the same thing just one goes in the direction we like and the other goes in the opposite. We’ve been in a virtous circle for a long time and the system has been driven far from equilibrium. When the sign flips and the forces start pushing the system back to equilibrium it will drive it far past equilibrium in the other direction. That’s the nature of a positive feedback loop. Left to itself this effect would shut down the economy and stop even productive economic activity as we saw during the last great depression when farmers plowed their crops under even as the cities were full of starving people.
So, why does the FEd always bailout Wall Street? Because Wall Street has effectively taken the economy hostage. If we don’t bail them out then we get a great depression. If we bail them out then there is a nasty stagflation but the economy will still function. If you saw Blazing Saddles think of the scene where cleavon little takes himself hostage to escape the people of rock ridge.
This dynamic will continue until the financial system is reformed to take out the positive feedback loops. We can start with eliminating fractional reserve lending.
Left to itself this effect would shut down the economy and stop even productive economic activity as we saw during the last great depression…
The great depression occurred after years of Federal Reserve interference. The Fed got started in 1913, it only took them ~15 years to cause the first big credit/asset bubble.
Austrian economists argue that without a centralized monetary system, economic cycles would smooth and be less volatile.
We still had boom and bust with banking crises even before the Fed existed. The existence of the Fed just allowed the system to go farther from equilibrium before it corrected.
The 19th century was quite volatile and paper money very fragmented, local, counterfeited a great deal, and become worthless when the bank issuing it closed.
The scourge of American Finance, past (1776-1860) and future tense?
“Broken Bank Notes”
Definition: Currency issued by a now defunct bank. Also referred to as obsolete banknote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notaphily_terminology
Eliminate fraction reserve lending? That’s too simple. We need to eliminate fiat currency entirely.
Fiat money has it’s downside but it’s debt-money that is particularly egregious in terms of it’s positive feedback. Plain old paper fiat can create boom as the government prints it and then bust when it stops but not with anywhere near the positive feedback of debt-money.
anybody know of any good funds that take advantage of a crashing dollar?
I believe Rydex has a weakening dollar fund
RYWBX, I have held this for about a year. It does not always correlate well with the “basket”. You can also try the currency ETFs: FXA, FXB, FXC, FXF, FXS, FXY, etc.
Simple - GLD, CEF, maybe a little SLV
The dollar is toast.
the other currencies are toast too. Gold reached an all time high in euros today - maybe it is forecasting that Tricky Trichet, despite some hawkish words about fighting inflation, is going the same direction as B-52 Ben: trash the currency to bail out the big players.
Dominos dominated in days of denominated diswealth
They are all falling down…
There are a number of currency ETFs, including Dollar Bull/Dollar Bear (UDN), which basically track the dollar index.
FXA = Aussie dollar
FXB = British pound
FXC = Canadian dollar
FXF = Swiss Franc
FXY = Japanese Yen
There’s also FXS - Swedish Krona
Merk Hard Currency Fund and Prudent Global Income Fund. These are managed, opened-end mutual funds that invest in very short term sovereign debt of industrialized/developed nations (Canada, Sweden, UK, Euroland, Switzerland, Australia, etc.). Take this route if you don’t want to pick the currency yourself and want diversification. Of course you have to pay a management fee but it’s reasonable.
The Rydex funds use T-Bills as security for futures contracts at 100% of the contract price. The problem for these investments is that the T-Bill interest doesn’t cover the management fees and expenses and the contango. Accordingly, if the dollar stays flat you lose money on your investment.
RE: Merk Hard Currency Fund
Yup…went in about a month ago, as it became more and more obvious B52-Ben was gonna crash the dollar.
Colt handguns, oil stocks, silver Eagles, & hard asset currencies is about it for me at the moment.
Went in 18-months ago and have been adding regularly. BTW, I’m and S&W and gold Eagles guy.
RE: S&W and gold Eagles guy.
Picked up a mid- ’70’s “Dirty Harry” Model 29 w/ 8/3/8th barrel for $325.00 a year ago. It was in great condition.
I couldn’t believe it. Sittin’ right there in the display case.
Couldn’t never afford one in it’s time.
The gun shop seriously underpriced this one.
Here’s a question - with the dollar tanking, how come treasury yields haven’t gone through the roof? One would think that the demand for treasuries would be going down a lot (I know I’m getting out of some), and therefore drive the price down, thus the yield up. It’s not happening though.
People that think our government backed t-bills are sacrosanct and beyond the laws of losing money on, are investing like mad in them…
Would be my hazard of a guess.
That pressure is counterbalanced with the fear that other assets are unsafe and entities are piling into treasuries, maybe.
Treasury buys their own bonds (monetizing the debt) to keep yields down.
The big “locked in buyer” is the social security system.
Citibank: “The opaqueness as well as the stinkiness are greater…”
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc. named Richard Stuckey to manage most of its $43 billion of subprime mortgage assets, choosing the same executive who helped unwind Long-Term Capital Management LP’s bad bets nine years ago…
Rescuing the bank’s subprime holdings may be a harder challenge than Long-Term Capital, said Lawrence White, professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. New York-based Citigroup owns subprime mortgage securities that rarely trade and are hard to value. The Long-Term Capital hedge fund was holding derivatives tied to interest-rate and equities that readily trade.
“The opaqueness as well as the stinkiness are greater,” White said.
Citigroup said yesterday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the amount of assets it held that were hard to value rose 42 percent in the third quarter. The company’s Level 3 assets climbed to $135 billion at the end of September from $95 billion at the end of June, according to SEC filings.
Opaqueness and stinkiness.
Are these technical terms?
Disgusting article about how Citi has CNBC and Maria in its pocket:
http://tinyurl.com/ynluvv [New York Times]
I always suspected Bartiromo sported an underground storage tank and the picture in the article seems to confirm my suspicions.
Lol Popper, is that considered “OT”??
Still not bad though.
“thats a naughty bit o’ crumpet”
and her shoes are banging.
Never underestimate the power of a good-looking heel ; )
I made an unfathomable amount of money when LTCM had to unload a huge Ciena position in the fall of 1998. It traded at 92 in the summer of that year when it was “bought out” by Tellabs. IIRC, LTCM did the long Ciena, short TLAB arbitrage on that deal and had to puke up millions of shares of Ciena when it fell apart. I got mine in the 8s and by August of ‘00 it was over 200 I think. Ahhh, those were the days.
I love hearing tales like this.
What is “IIRC”?
“If I Recall Correctly?”
If I Recall Correctly. (I think)
If I remember correctly
Thanks to all. Thought it looked like a general internet thing, rather than a special HBB one.
IIRC, the ticker symbol no one can remember
Tx. I used my Ciena share losses to offset cap gains for family beach house sale in ‘05.
LTCM also had a gigantic exposure to Russia, just before it defaulted.
Wonder whose sticky fingers caused the stinkiness?
I found this information on another blog and nearly fell out of my chair! I checked the SEC site and the information below is accurate.
Warning: Fasten Seatbelt.
Leigh
Look at the info Citigroup just filed with the SEC today: they have $135 BILLION in LEVEL 3 ASSETS.
I have a neat idea.
Why don’t we take every single major financial institution out there and then divide their total Level 3 assets by their equity capital base and make comparisons?
This will give us a better idea as to which of them may really remain solvent at the end of the day. Shall we?
Let’s have a look at Citigroup. Their equity base is $128 billion. Therefore, their Level 3 assets to equity ratio: 105%
How about Goldman Sachs? Level 3 assets are $72 billion, equity base is $39 billion. Their Level 3 assets to equity ratio is 185%.
Morgan Stanley: $88 billion in Level 3, equity base is $35 billion. Ratio: 251% (WOW!)
Bear Stearns: $20 billion in Level 3, equity base is $13 billion. Ratio: 154%
Lehman Brothers: $35 billion in Level 3, $22 billion in equity. Ratio: 159%
Merrill Lynch: $16 billion in Level 3, $42 billion in equity. Ratio: 38%
Here is the Level 3 assets to equity ratio summary:
Citigroup 105%
Goldman Sachs 185%
Morgan Stanley 251%
Bear Stearns 154%
Lehman Brothers 159%
Merrill Lynch 38%
This becomes very interesting now, doesn’t it?
Looks to me like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are by far in the WORST situation among the investment banks.
And yet the media is focusing all of their attention on Merrill Lynch—which actually has by far THE LEAST EXPOSURE of all of them. What a joke.
As I said before, the media should stop diverting attention and trying to make this into a “Merrill-specific” problem.
All of the investment banks are in deep trouble. These numbers should make that extremely evident. The deception must be exposed.
Written by Bernard on 2007-11-05 11:33:55
http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/224871
P.S. Hoz,
You just might win that bet!
Dearest Leigh,
Aside from the fact that I would rather lose the wager, I am unfortunately convinced that there is a concerted effort to keep losses hidden. These charts are relatively old news. The total CDO market has dropped an average of 60%. And not one major financial news media is making any effort to link the losses in the CDO market to the Financial network. The CDO market has lost $700B in value since Aug 1, 2007. Where are the $700B in losses? I assume that $420B is hedged, $78B is reported; so there are around $200B - 270B unaccounted.
The level 2 assets are large enough to cause most of these institutions to go BK.
Ergo, the government (us) will eat it. What’s a few hundred billion between friends?
I think a big chunk of the losses sits with EU pension funds; they will probably not report their losses at all and keep marking their CDO stuff to model. Part of this investments is held in hedgefunds and they are under no obligation to report their positions. In the best (unlikely) case they will report their losses far into 2008.
Aren’t those all voodoo numbers anyways?
What’s the real value of those level 3 assets?
Do those numbers include the skeletons in the closet, and all of the stuff their keeping off the books or trying to get their sister companies to hold for a year?
You think those numbers look bad now, wait ’til all of these things get cleared up and then compare.
oh sh!t
My grandmother, my cousins my aunt all have their money with morgan stanely.
I tried to explain this to grandma and since she 78 she just says well if I loss it so does everyone else. I dont understand these things. Granted most of her money is a genworth annuity, but still I was hoping my family would not get tied up in this mess
nobody is gonna be immune.
More pain…
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSL055834720071106
from the link…
“ill Gross, chief investment officer at the world’s No. 1 bond fund PIMCO, told CNBC Television the Fed could not afford to let U.S. housing prices fall sharply and would need to cut rates aggressively, perhaps to 3.5 percent.”
Explain to me please exactly when did the Fed mandate include setting the prices for the housing market? Clearly Gross longs for the ancien regime…a little Soviet style central planning, and all will be well in the debt markets. Capitalism is just too scary for him.
That’s what I was saying yesterday; Gross is talking like a nut-job. These high prices will only spur more over-building and how can he not know that? PIMCO investors, do you sleep well?
Gross is talking his book, and if his book is that bad his investors should be running for the exits. How much trouble is PIMPCO in?
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. No Volcker in sight. The war winds are blowing for an Iran war.
Gold may get above $1000 per ounce in the next 12 months.
I think Gross gets it 100%, but he’s got a 75 pound anvil tied around him, in the form of investors…
And they are all gonna go swimming in losses soon.
Hoz was saying something similar yesterday. But think about what it means for a person in such a position to get up and talk such nonsense in the hope of influencing events. Things may be worse off than they appear behind the scenes.
It’s his fear speaking…
It’s really hard for an intelligent man to admit that his reputation and all he’s worked for, will be for naught soon.
Anyone know what to make of this article on JP Morgan? Seems pretty suspicious.
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1194364920.php
Bingo, lad.
They all have more than enough money. They are generally clever enough to understand if they wanted to. It’s the ego talking.
parabolic “risk neutral” derivatives….
hmmm…how does one unwind such positiions, or does one just walk away.
I suppose its possible to hedge the hedge thats hedged against a hedge thats backing money in assets….
when does the game become, hedge an asset without all the financial mambo-jahambo?
The war winds are blowing for an Iran war.
Who is going to fight it? The US military is stretched as thin as an FB’s budget.
Opening the Pandora’s Box, that was closed shut on August 9, 1945…
Would be required.
They are now talking mandatory assignments in Iraq for state dept employees - ouch. Only way to go into Iran is open up the draft again and that will be the deathbell for whomever is in power at the time.
You are correct, a draft would be political suicide. Maybe they could offer greencards in exchange for enlisting? Still, potential foreign recruits know well where they will end up (and its not Camp Swampy), and figure “what good is a green card if you’re dead?”
Hessians didn’t work out so well for King George III, when he was trying to quell a rebellious mob here, way back when…
Did I miss something?
I thought if an foreigner joined our military service, they automatically became a us citizen. If a foreigner married a us citizen, that person also became a citizen. Am I wrong?
Years ago I worked for the Dept of Motor Vehicles in Long Beach, CA typing up driver’s licenses. Over half of the new licenses I issued were to illegal immigrants. They had licenses from Mexico, but the law said that if you lived in California, you had to have a California license. It was no big deal. This was in the late 70s, early 80s.
One of the other clerks in our office got involved with handing out licenses and IDs to middle eastern guys for big money. When the supervisor became suspicious, she stopped doing it. She was later gunned down in the parking lot. The murderer was never found. I think that was in 1989.
ps during the Long Beach riots, the only building that was burnt down was the DMV.
” thought if an foreigner joined our military service, they automatically became a us citizen. If a foreigner married a us citizen, that person also became a citizen. Am I wrong?”
Kat,
Yes. Too many “marriages for hire” that were entirely bogus, so rules have tightened. Nephew married a Polish woman 4 years ago, and they have two children. Had to leave Cracow this fall and move to the US, as she needs to live in the US for two uninterrupted years and pass the exam before she becomes a citizen. Kids are dual citizens.
Serving in the military does not get you citizenship. When there was a draft, foreign nationals who lived in the US were drafted and sent to combat in Vietnam–citizenship was not a reward.
Thanks for the update, Spike. Guess I’ve been out of the loop a little too long. My best to your nephew.
Bill Gross advocates things that are good for Bill Gross.
Regardless of the perceived impact on other players.
Propping up house prices must in some way be good for Bill Gross.
This guy does bonds. Bonds! Boosterism doesn’t really work in that world. Either he can call a direction or not.
These guys like him and probably even Buffett these days couldn’t operate in markets they can’t personally control or move.
Where was he when housing prices rose too sharply?
What a bunch of frauds!!! Free markets my a$$.
Mr. Gross was screaming murder and the world ignored him.
Fire! by Mr. Bill Gross July 2005
“…The origins of this fire can be traced as far back as the mid-1980s when we declared victory over accelerating inflation, and a cascade of lower Reaganesque tax rates and Volker/Greenspanesque interest rate cuts were called upon to stimulate a potentially faltering economy. Our most recent matches were struck, however, during the aftermath of the 9/11 recession when it became apparent to policymakers that a combination of American fear/malaise and accelerating globalization might inhibit a normal economic recovery. It was “decided” that in such an environment, asset appreciation - a recovering stock market, and a thriving, “frothy” housing market being the primaries - would be the vehicle of choice to engineer a recovery until domestic investment and concomitant job growth kicked in. To produce that asset appreciation, policymakers came up with logical gasoline cans or “pumps,” as I’ve referred to them in recent Outlooks, to start the fire. They are displayed collectively below and their timing and stimulative trend are unmistakably correlated to the most recent U.S. recession in 2001…..”
http://tinyurl.com/3ymrz2
and
Mr. Bill Gross March, 2002
“…I want companies to face up to their owners and yes – their creditors. I want management to focus not on their options, but on mine and that of other investors. We have the option to buy or to not buy your securities. And that option should be based not just on the increasingly revealing financial statistics that have had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the bowels of corporate back-offices, but on the investor friendly/investor honest/investor first attitudes of management. My fear is that this newborn faux hostility in the investment attitudes of lenders and stockholders will go the way of many other short-term jiggles in the inevitable march of capitalistic excess. I sense we are not yet “mad as hell” nor are we to the point of “not taking it anymore.” But we should be. It’s our money – or in the case of PIMCO – the money of our clients whom we represent. Sure it’s got to go somewhere, but we should require some Buffett-like answers. Value and honesty should dominate corporate decision-making just like it does at Berkshire Hathaway….”
http://tinyurl.com/2jktgj
I agree that Gross was trying to wake the system up, and early. I recall the hooker heels comment, etc. But why does he now think this should all be papered over by the US taxpayer, which IMO would be doomed to failure anyway.
I agree with you that it is “doomed to failure”.
I happen to be of the persuasion (perhaps the same as Mr. Gross, I do not know) that the US GDP which has been stagnant or down over the last 7 years (in Euros) has a 50% chance of dropping 15% next year. This scares me. If I thought lowering the rates would stop this collapse, I would advocate lowering the rates to 0%. Inflation be damned.
I am not apologetic for Mr. Gross. I believe he is screaming the same as any reasonable investor should scream. Reasonable investors look at past history for similar events to try to forecast. Past history shows that there is no way to stop the credit bubble collapse - it has been tried many times and failed. Past history shows that every time there has been a recession. Past history shows that Central Banks actions could have eased the enormous suffering. He is calling it housing, he knows full well that housing will not be saved by a rate cut. He wants the rate cut because he has to believe that the impending collapse of the US economy might be prevented by such a rate cut. If it saves a few home owners, great! It will neither stop a housing market collapse nor reflate the credit bubble.
If there are 2 planets, calculating the effect of gravity on each planet from the other is simple. But when you add another 8 planets, the math becomes very difficult. Planetary math is easy compared to financial interactions. There is no financial model in existence that can forecast the interactions of economies. The best that one can do is guess. For a small example look at Argentina in 1998 -1999. Anything would be better than falling into an Argentina situation.
I’ve been practicing the Tango, in anticipation…
Cutting the rate to 3.5% (or 1.5%) won’t help housing one iota. May even hurt it by driving up long term rates.
More containment…liars all.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7070935.stm
That interactive map is something else. I wonder how the pig men at DB feel about the whole world getting a glimpse of their exposure in CLE? The DB boyz should send Al over in a clapboard sandwich sign to try to move some of those!
Greenspan:
“”The critical issue on the whole subprime, and by extension the whole financial system, rests very narrowly on getting rid of probably 200,000-300,000 excess units in inventories in the United States,”
Translation:
“If we can get housing prices to only go up again, we can mask the stupid lending mistakes that lenders made by having the collateral always go up in value, and make the problem just go away.”
Maybe he can torch 200,000 houses?
November 6, 2007
Borrowers Face Dubious Charges in Foreclosures
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
As record numbers of homeowners default on their mortgages, questionable practices among lenders are coming to light in bankruptcy courts, leading some legal specialists to contend that companies instigating foreclosures may be taking advantage of imperiled borrowers.
Because there is little oversight of foreclosure practices and the fees that are charged, bankruptcy specialists fear that some consumers may be losing their homes unnecessarily or that mortgage servicers, who collect loan payments, are profiting from foreclosures.
http://tinyurl.com/29c8bv
Great article. In my obsessive daily reading of Craigslist ads, I frequently come across employment ads from Countrywide for “bankruptcy specialists” - i.e., non professional people whose job it probably is to calculate these claims and the proofs of claim in the various bankruptcy cases. These jobs tend to pay very little - around 30K IIRC. I can just imagine the quality of work that is being produced.
and this statement by a really sleazy Houston firm is really something:
In Texas, a United States trustee has asked for sanctions against Barrett Burke Wilson Castle Daffin & Frappier, a Houston law firm that sues borrowers on behalf of the lenders, for providing inaccurate information to the court about mortgage payments made by homeowners who sought refuge in Chapter 13.
Michael C. Barrett, a partner at the firm, said he did not expect the firm to be sanctioned.
“We certainly believe we have not misbehaved in any way,” he said, saying the trustee’s office became involved because it is trying to persuade Congress to increase its budget. “It is trying to portray itself as an organ to pursue mortgage bankers.”
I suspect they will be sanctioned, probably pretty severely. If the UST is asking for more funding it is because it is needed to deal with all the extra garbage that has been generated by the law changes. They do a great job and are often the last line of defense against abusive filers.
I’d be skeptical that those jobs offers, even at 30K/year, are for real! I think it’s a lure to get people to pay for training on the chance of getting a job.
Why? Because every time I’ve worked with a company that needed a massive accounting or form verification project, it was farmed off to India where you can find trained accountants just out of school who will do a great job for very little $$$.
My experience with dealing with indians is that they are not that good at what they are doing and are little more trained monkeys.
I absolutely hate indian customer service. They are trained to deliver no customer service whatsoever. I think their mission is to frustrate the hell out of you till you hang up.
I’m no fan of outsourcing, but have to admit, the majority of Indian technicians & help desk guys I’ve had to deal with, have been professional & competent. Calling them “trained monkeys” is way out of line.
An amusing Norton debacle strangled my laptop. The Dell guy, Ismail, was terrific. Clear spoken. Patient. Interested in solving the murder. Worked with me for over an hour.
Admittedly this was my first totally positive experience with an Indian tech, but it made up in spades for the earlier ones. I raved about him to his supervisor (a woman)
We had a grest story in the Salt Lake news last night. Its about a college student getting 1mil in restate loans. Kid says that a financial adviser duped him. Its a classic Casy/fliper story.
http://www.kutv.com/content/news/topnews/story.aspx?content_id=a72d7bc0-9182-4158-b811-acc4bd61f2df
real estate not restate. Duh
I’m sorry but as sleazy as that “accountant” was, those people should have done their homework. I’m sorry, but if I made $11k a year and some one told me to sign on the dotted line and I would be on the hook for $1 million bucks, you better believe that I would at least look at the paperwork (and personally I would do a lot more than that). I mean seriously. What did he think would happen? Did he really think that he could go from making $11k to becoming an instant millionaire without doing anything? Given his numbers this kid might have our strawberry picker beat.
I think it clearly shows the mindset of many young people today. Same story in my country, when they are in their early twenties and just applied for their first job, they already feel entitled to own a million euro home (why start with some 200K euro POS home if the bank will gladly lend you 1 million and your real risk on the deal is zero?). Let them burn and they will get some real education.
I have a question to throw out to the crowd. What do you guys think of trying to get a lower rent by offering to pay the entire year in advance?
I’m a little concerned about doing it with an individual condo owner, because the person who takes the deal might be desperate, but since the lease goes with the unit, I guess all I risk is having to move at the end of the lease.
I’m not sure if a developer (condo builder who is renting to try to get some cash flow out of a building where nothing is selling) will even go for it. Once they check my FICO it is going to be painfully obvious that I pay my rent on time. But they might go for it if they want some kind of cash right now as they wait for the market to pick up (in the spring, right?).
I’d need to do quite a bit of modifying of the lease - make sure I get a proportional amount of money back if I leave and they get a new tennant or sell the unit. I imagine it would be hard to actually get the money back with either an individual or a commercial landlord, but I wouldn’t be thinking about this unless I was sure that I wasn’t going to want to buy or have to move in over a year (my job is not going to disappear or move).
I easily have 6 times a year’s rent sitting in the bank. And not having rent will have no effect on my spending habits.
Any opinions?
Why would you want to pay that far in advance. Put the money some place were it will earn some money. Unless he is willing to take 75% off the rent, I would not do it.
I’ve thought about doing that too at times but I don’t trust people and can make a return on the money anyway.
“9/10ths of the law is possession
You have to be careful with the assertion that “The lease goes with the unit.” This is going to depend upon local laws. After all, he agreed to allow the condo to be foreclosed upon if he didn’t make payments BEFORE he gave you a lease. Sometimes local tennant law gives a priveleged position to a tennant, sometimes not. It’s also possible that he’s listed on the mortgage as an owner-occupier.
I would make an offer of a certain amount of rent but I wouldn’t pay a year’s rent in advance. What if the owner goes bankrupt? What if the building becomes uninhabitable? It’s bad enough to lose first/last/security. A long time ago I read a book by Helen Gurley Brown. She talked a landlord down on rent by putting down on paper the amount he would lose by having an empty apartment for a single month.
Don’t take the risk. Invest your money somewhere else.
I’d be wary… if the building goes into foreclosure, you stand a good chance at loosing it all (or at least a very, very difficult time getting it back). If the discount is good, I might pay 3 months in advance, but no more.
Paying for a year in advance gives you no recourse if the landlord doesn’t deliver on his end of the deal, such as doing timely maintenance.
But in the circumstance of a building owner (not a unit owner) they are still trying to sell the building. They will have to keep up the maintenance on the common areas and even little things in the building (like a backed up drain) could damage other units.
I agree with an individual unit owner. Good point.
Anyone who would give you a really good deal for 1 year advance rent is likely to be exactly the “desperste for cashflow” landlord you should avoid. Keep your money in the bank, would be my advice.
There are far too many unethical people to contemplate such an arrangement.
Even if you could trust the landlord not to get foreclosed on (which you can’t), you’ll be paying a premium even with a discount. Think about it. The dollar is deflating even as we speak (write). Landlords are going to be unable to raise rents for quite some time due to demand and supply problems. That means rent will be going down when inflation is taken into account. So why pay up front in dollars that will be worth less as time goes by? Wait and pay with depreciated currency.
If landlords start demanding payment in Euros all bets are off.
2 suggestions: Offer to put it in an escrow account - for a discount or write out all of the checks at once (post-dated of course) and give them all to him/her upon signing.
No! No! The law was changed three years ago–there are no post-dated checks. The bank will cash them all today.
Bad idea!! if you pay one month at a time, you can move any time for any reason with loss of deposit at most. You can also threaten or actually delay payment of rent of maintenance is not done.
I would also advise readers to avoid pre-paid hotel room deals, you lose the ability to depart early or walk away from a hotel. If your plans change or there is something you dont like about the room or hotel. Travelocity calls them “Good Buy”, i prefer the “good bye” rate.
RE: What do you guys think of trying to get a lower rent by offering to pay the entire year in advance?
From my experience I never let anybody get ahead of me dollar-wise; from contractors, insurance, to landlords.
Too many variables out there in today’s world for something to go wrong, creating a mess down the road you couldn’t have even imagined occuring.
JM2C
“…as they wait for the market to pick up (in the spring, right?)”
Of what year???
Sorry for not putting my comments in the right place. I’m referring to Polly’s offer to pay a year’s rent (just above here now, but, by afternoon, it will be several hundred feet above).
Skiing with SuperModels
http://www.stockmania.com/index.php?showimage=86
It may help to read the previous toon to put this one in context:
http://www.stockmania.com/index.php?showimage=85
and this article:
Supermodel Gisele rejects the dollar
Funny~
About 10 years ago one day when we were skiing @ Heavenly, Jenny McCarthy was learning how to ski and wearing the most shocking pink ski outfit that allowed everybody’s eyes to follow her progress quite easily, as we were on the slopes or going up the lifts. ha
RE: The newswire said that when she signed a new contract in August with American company Procter & Gamble to advertise Pantene hair products, the deal included the stipulation that she be paid in euros. P&G declined to comment on the terms of the deal.
P&G outta ship her skinny azz back to Brazil and hire some gal from the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.
Shame on you, Tom Brady.
Seriously, if it buys you a reduction of even 5%, your not doing too bad - and I always like the idea of minimizing the number of checks that I write.
Overall, I like the idea, but be prepared to lose the remainder, should something unexpected happen…you just never know.
Hovnanian home deliveries, contracts slide
Homebuilder says October sales pace ’significantly deteriorated,’ reports a 19% decrease in fiscal fourth-quarter home deliveries.
November 6 2007: 7:27 AM EST
RED BANK, N.J. (AP) — Homebuilder Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. said Tuesday it delivered 3,969 homes during its fiscal fourth quarter ended Oct. 31, down 19 percent from last year, while net contracts fell 10 percent to 2,781 homes.
Hovnanian (Charts, Fortune 500) said the preliminary figures exclude home deliveries from unconsolidated joint ventures.
And ARA was on CNBC talking about how they will be fine. Buy HOV stock he said! All while he was selling his.
Can you say PUMP AND DUMP!
These interest rate cuts also bail out these private equity companies since they load companies up with debt to buy them. What better way than devaluing that debt.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7070935.stm?ref=patrick.net
Cleveland becoming an apocalyptic foreclosure wasteland scavanged by vandals, thieves, and house strippers. Coming to a neighborhood near you.
Detroit is competing with Cleveland in the “Apocalyptic Foreclosure” category. See this story in the Detroit Free Press today. Pit bulls just hanging out in a vacant house attacked & critically injured a man on the street there. A neighbor “said the dogs have been in and out of the vacant house for several months. She said she boarded up an exposed front window out of fear of them escaping.
“The door to that house is open, there is dog poop all through the house, you can tell the dogs have been in there a long time,” she said. “It’s scary around here.”
There is a neighborhood in Detroit that the Post Office will not deliver to due to the large amount of roaming stray dogs. The residents have to drive to the Post Office to pick up their mail.
There’s large swaths of Detroit where the roaming stray dogs are terrified by the roaming stray people.
Everyone listen to this:
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2007-1103-3a.asx
Jump to 29:10 into the podcast. Should hear two Brits.
Hee, hee.
Dodgy debt!
After concern about credit crunch, investors appear positive going into Tuesday’s session, despite oil again near record high.
“It’s a relief rally, because nothing has gone wrong today,” said Silvia. “That’s the words we’re hearing - relief rally.”
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/06/markets/stockswatch/index.htm?postversion=2007110608
These people are idiots.
A little alliteration.
“people are idiots”
Tell me about it.
I own the domain peopleridiots.com and have been wondering what to do with it. I’ve thought about just going around my neighborhood and taking pictures of all of the stupid things people do, (i.e. one of my neighbors put a trampoline in the front yard right behind a wrought iron fence with pointed caps on the pickets. Another neighbor just completed what has to be a $500K remodel to a home on a triangular shaped lot. The house is now a modified pie shape. I call it “Winchester South”).
and it’s not a rally when measured in euros anyway, just a little bounce because of another 1% shaved off the dollar.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/01/real_estate/Countrywide_bail_out_bashers/index.htm?section=patrick.net
So Countrywide is adjusting loan terms to borrowers who took on arm’s, hybrids,teasers. Bailing out the irresponsible reckless borrowers and punishing the responsible and prudent borrowers(such as on this blog).
Screw it. I am going to scream to the Gov’t to adjust my car loan, CC’s, HOme equity loan, yada yada!. I want my bailout!!
But this should be emphasized:
“…Scott Keegan, executive director for National Association of Mortgage Professionals…predicts the credit crisis will worsen over the next few years. The leap in foreclosures “is not even close to what’s going to happen in the next 12 months.” “
New York area HBBers are getting together this Friday in Manhattan after work at a midtown pub.
If you want to join us, drop me an email for details at;
kanapali@gmail.com
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2007/11/a_monty_python-.html
Wonderfulness…
Thinking person’s comedic turn~
Ex-possible President Colbert
You had my vote, but now you’re out of the running…
Whom should we swing our votes to?
ron paul.
A.B.A.R.
It would have been a step down from my Lord and Saviour.
Comment by polly
2007-11-06 05:28:05
I have a question to throw out to the crowd. What do you guys think of trying to get a lower rent by offering to pay the entire year in advance?
______________________________________________________________
I would just counteroffer a lower rent. In this market, I don’t think you have anything to lose by doing this; let the “owner” keep his money tied up in the property, while you retain all the advantages of liquidity. I don’t know what rental inventory is like in your area at this point, but in most places, a condo owner should be happy to get anything at this point.
doin’ the Tighten up…
“Large US banks have tightened up their requirements for all types of loans during the past three months, according to a Federal Reserve survey.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7080437.stm
really? no sign of tightening up in Europe, including US companies like GMAC.
Was watching the PBS newshour yesterday and the segment on citibank almost seemed like a wake, stick a fork in em’ they’re done, time.
Scary story about shady realtors and toxic mold -
http://consumerist.com/consumer/bad-news/family-finds-a-secret-room-filled-with-toxic-mold-in-new-house-319249.php
Yes! Sue them into oblivion!
I’ve gotten sick from mold myself. The grungy fungi is no joke at all.
Secret room in the house? That’s some Webster stuff right there.
Requiem For many a Heavyweight…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzKaEI-Bt_w
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble! Join our HBB Meetup on the double!
The first-ever Tucson HBB gathering will take place at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, November 7, at the Yoshimatsu Japanese restaurant. We will have a special guest, Tango In Uniform, who you know and love from this site, and also from his Billings, Montana Housing Bubble site. If you haven’t watched his Billings Bubble videos, you’re in for a treat.
Location of our gathering:
Yoshimatsu
2660 N Campbell Ave
Tucson, AZ 85719
(520) 320-1574
Look for us at the table with the “It’s Different Here” sign.
Read more about this establishment at its website. And sushi-phobics, fear not, there are many non-sushi items on the Yoshimatsu menu.
Wow, what a cool place. I love Japanese food. Wish I could be there.
Aw c’mon, Chick, where’s your sense of adventure? You’re only a two-hour flight away.
This is pretty funny. The U.S. Bonar
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?p=19070#post19070
Crumbling pipes and broken hydrants–new condos and biz strain DC resources…
Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) — Washington firefighters had to string together a mile of hose, run it over a bridge and connect directly with water mains in the next neighborhood to put out a blaze engulfing an apartment building.
They couldn’t get adequate water pressure from nearby hydrants. So after reaching the fire in a minute and 48 seconds, firefighters took more than seven hours to control the inferno last month in the Adams Morgan district, a center of nightlife in the U.S. capital…
The predicament underscored the crumbling infrastructure in Washington, where the transit authority proposes to raise prices to pay for maintenance to the aging rail system. .. Fenty said the Water and Sewer Authority, or WASA, must speed up its 20-year plan for replacing antiquated water mains, which are straining under the city’s growing population and development. Businesses and condominium buildings have been crowding into gentrified neighborhoods.
The Lion’s Share of the water used to fight the California wildfires, had to be freshwater, and they used an awful lot of it.
The same stuff that comes out of your faucet, the same stuff that is in dwindling supply, because of a lackluster Sierra snowfall…
Connect The Dots
Are you saying DC gets their water from California?
(tongue somewhat in cheek)
North Carolina and the worst drought in the whole USA, is just down a piece from DC…
The infrastructure in DC is absolutely atrocious — just a step above Third World.
DC can’t tax Virginia and Maryland residents who work there, it has no legislative voting power (in Congress) or state’s rights, and the clowns in Congress perpetually deny the city additional funds for basic infrastructure.
When I moved to Chicago a decade ago, I was astounded by the number of public works that’re actually completed around here. The Windy City is by no means perfect, but my only other metropolitan point of reference is DC, the City That Just Sort Of Barely Works.
And DC is a lot better than it used to be, I think …
Completely agreed, ET.
DC is pretty good. I comment on it all the time now. But this is home and I remember well the Mayor Marion (Crackhead) Barry days. It was really third worldish then. So much of the city’s NW quadrant and Capitol Hill are every bit as good as the suburbs in Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD. DC Schools still iffy.
So much of the city’s NW quadrant and Capitol Hill are every bit as good as the suburbs in Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD. DC Schools still iffy.
NW has been an upper-middle class enclave for 50 years or more.
What about the other 75% of the city?
Even without additional revenue, the DC government would be just fine if it wasn’t totally corrupt. It really is a Third World level of corruption in terms of having friends and relatives in $100k+ city jobs etc. DC spends more per child than almost any other school district in the country and has crumbling building and insufficient textbooks. It has gotten better since Marion Barry was kicked out of the mayor’s office, but it still has a long ways to go.
The DC government has been moaning for years about not taxing commuters. The Feds pay for a ton of the city’s infrastructure - the mall and museums and policing and upkeep on them. The taxes on the office buildings where the commuters work bring in much higher rates than residential buildings would. And healthy commuters who go home at night do not need any city social spending nor send their children to school in the district. Just another example of spendthrift goverment wanting more money.
Problems with the water mains are nothing new. When I was living there in the early 90’s, a large water main burst over the winter holidays not far from where I was living off Logan Circle. I’m glad I was out of town at the time. Adding the demands of more homes/businesses on top of aging infrastructure that’s now another 15+ years older can’t be good as this shows. However, problems with aging infrastructure are hardly unique to DC. The problem with the sewer system in San Diego is nearly as bad, though perhaps not yet as quite severely overtaxed as that in the District. Shiny new stadiums make better photo-ops than new water mains, hence the skewed priorities.
So can we add this 46 billion to the mess? Can’t blame the shoddy construction on illegals this time. This is American engineering and “can-do” spirit on display.
“More than a year after the Parsons Corporation, the American contracting giant, promised Congress that it would fix the disastrous plumbing and shoddy construction in barracks the company built at the Baghdad police academy, the ceilings are still stained with excrement, parts of the structures are crumbling and sections of the buildings are unusable because the toilets are filthy and nonfunctioning.
The project, where United States inspectors found giant cracks snaking through newly built walls and human waste dripping from ceilings, became one of the most visible examples of a $45 billion American reconstruction program that is widely seen as a failure.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/world/middleeast/06police.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
But the TRILLION dollars is worth spreading “freedom and democracy”…. lmao
If we had used the money already spent grabbing iraqui oil on alternative energy research, I ‘ll bet we would be filling our tanks with seawater today.
???
We would be economically extracting hydrogen from H2O.
That’s simple. Just send an electric charge through water. The hydrogen and oxygen separate.
Wall Street firms see recession nearing
Tue Nov 6, 2007 8:31am EST
By John Poirier
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The economy might be edging toward a recession in the wake of mortgage-related credit woes plaguing the financial markets, bankers and analysts said on Monday.
“I think that the risk of a recession is greater than people realize,” James Dunne, chief executive of Sandler O’Neil & Partners, said at the Reuters Finance Summit in New York.
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN0554066820071106
“IndyMac Bancorp Inc (IMB), one of the largest independent U.S. mortgage lenders, posted a quarterly loss more than five times as big as it had projected while Commerzbank’s profits undercut forecasts due to a big subprime investment write-down.”
The stock is up almost 10%…. makes perfect sense!
Your local government at work in the Sacramento Bee this morning.
“Scared by growing numbers of bank-owned houses and for-sale signs in their neighborhoods, a handful of local cities are launching moves to help homeowners threatened with foreclosure.”
http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/474085.html
On Minyanville, a repeat of the Friday rumor that Goldman is going to announce a 15% “provisional” write down on level 3 assets or around 11B worth.
Watch their stock rally because all the bad news is out!
In October, Goldman was saying that level 3 was 7% of their total assets, $72.05B. This was up from $54B in the second quarter.
“Level 3 assets are those that trade so infrequently that there is no reliable market price for them, and valuations for these assets are based on management assumptions.” (MarketWatch)
Management Assumptions =
voodoo?
wishful thinking?
models with silly assumptions?
Thanks for the tip, TX, I will buy one put contract and see how it goes.
As if builders didn’t have enough trouble…
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5740414,00.html
City of Mpls. has spent over a million just boarding up the foreclosures…
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1530780.html
Thanks for cluing us in to another “boom” industry! Plywood and padlocks!
One realtor is getting testy in LA’s Playa Vista neighborhood (this is the mls listing):
“**short sale - pre-foreclosure** a split 2 bedrm layout w/ hi ceiling & dble deck balcnis, marbled flrs thruout. Move-in cond. Unit faces a 4evr wetland vu along lincoln over the bluffs of westchester.Sbmt pq & proof funds along w/ offers. As of 10/29/07, appraiser went out, it’ll take 2wks 4 a report, then 5 days 2 negotiate, then 10 days 4 mgmt’s final approval & from this point on, a 30 day escrow if ur lucky says the bank! I don’t grade the finals so stop asking questions i’ve no answers to.”
Was that written by a 12-year-old via text message?
“One realtor is getting testy in LA’s Playa Vista neighborhood (this is the mls listing”
That is one of those newly-built condos stacked in rows like gigantic legoland blocks. From the now dessicated extemely shriveled up ballonia wetlands the condos look like frowning fortresses running along lincoln-jefferson blvd. Folks were paying $600,000+ last year to get into these legoland stacked condo clusters. This is one of those which is now a pre-foreclosure short sale and boy that Realtor shows his level of education with that 3rd grade chicken scratch, or is extemely agitated ! Lots of that these days as commissions and sales in RE are evaporating and realtors are losing their marbles.
Comment by sweeny texas
2007-11-05 15:55:29
Seattle, you’re on a noble mission. But, alas, it’s too late to try and change the establishment by e-mailing the establishment.
We need to vote every single incumbent out of office and start over. All we have to do is convince every citizen to vote against all incumbents. Whether you vote Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter. There’s no difference between the two these days on big picture issues.
IMO, it’s the first step in bringing real change to the system.
ST -
I think you’re absolutely right and this is exactly how I’ve been voting for the last couple elections.
It still doesn’t hurt to let the ones that are there now know that they are being watched. We need them to take action now - next election cycle may be too late for the US Dollar. Congress has been known to do an about face when public sentiment lights a fire under their a$$, so I say lets get the ball rolling.
It can’t hurt, and who knows, maybe they will catch a whiff of their political careers going up in smoke and actually act. It HAS been known to happen, though rare.
But I can’t emphasize how cool it is that as long as the net exists, so will the memory of their actions in office. This is basically unprecedented and I believe will serve to increase their ultimate accountability, although they don’t seem to have quite figured that out yet. Give it time…..
i am with you all the way. we need to bombard congress with e-mails!
My thinking was flawed in the idea that $97 a barrel for oil would be a huge problem for the ecomony
Look what the oil companies ” really ” pay for oil
http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/05/news/companies/exxon_oil/index.htm?postversion=2007110612
This is way to big to fix.
Read The Wile E. Coyote Economy by Ian Welsh I cannot post it because it is copyrighted.
http://tinyurl.com/yudsyx
…And I always liked the Road Runner Show. Now this editorial on Huffington has me even more worried. Like I have been saying, Ben and Co. cannot do anything about it. The problem is too big.
Roidy
great article, thankyou for posting it. i tried to tell my aunt about what is going on, and it was hard to explain to her. this article explains it so well. i printed it and sent a copy her way.
Bugs: “eh, Martin the Martian what’s me to take him to our “leader”…I’m thinking… Daffy Duck or Wiley E. Coyote?…decisions, decisions.”
last place i expected to read about the housing crisis…
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/071106&sportCat=nfl
Schwarzenegger may order deep spending cuts
http://tinyurl.com/2n2fkr
“His administration has warned for months that the continued housing slump and credit crunch were cutting into state revenues.”
But Schwarzenegger’s order indicates the state’s fiscal outlook may be even worse than predicted.”
The bigger impacts will be in FY09 and beyond, especially with property taxes.
” Schwarzenegger’s order indicates the state’s fiscal outlook may be even worse than predicted.”
That state of Ca cannot cut state spending! How will the millions of ilegal aliens /green carders survive without their free schooling,free ER county health care, lost cost fraudulently-billed medi-cal, fake fraudulent disability /workman comps claims, state-subsidized mass transit: free ambulance , justice, and police services :free state-subsidized health insurance for their kids(healthy families initiative), free birth services, ect.
The illegals demand the right to continue to filch Ca taxpayers out of 10 billion + per year in services. Watch out for protests in dwtn LA by the noisy pesty activist groups demanding no cuts in social services.
The idiots may scream, but try getting blood from FBs. The free ride is over, and watch sympathy for illegals disappear when it becomes clear what a disastrous fiscal state Cali and it’s army of mortgage serfs are in.
“How will the millions of ilegal aliens /green carders survive without their free schooling,free ER county health care, lost cost fraudulently-billed medi-cal, fake fraudulent disability /workman comps claims, state-subsidized mass transit: free ambulance , justice, and police services :free state-subsidized health insurance for their kids(healthy families initiative), free birth services, ect.”
Oh please. If all the reactionaries who moaned about this myth actually switched off the talk radio and tried to blag their way into these benefits they’d see how impossible this story really is. The idea that “illegals” (A noun? Really? Back to school for you.) abuse these programs en masse is just embarrassingly, idiotically xenophobic. I thought this blog was smarter than that.
$319900 St. Joseph Says! ” MY FEET ARE COLD SUPER SALE!!!”
http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/rfs/470789423.html
One should get “cold feet” just reading the ad.
Woman wants to swap homes so she doesn’t have to give up her tall christmas tree and large din. rm table???
5br - Perm. Swap-Sugar grove 4 Geneva,Aurora, Batavia, Naperville, etc.
“I have a tall Christmas tree and large dining table that I cannot part with, and want room for both”
http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/swp/469926887.html
It’s late in the thread and late in the day. But if you will come over to my
o-so-small corner of the world and post a bit, it makes for some local fun.
http://www.azdailysun.com/articles/2007/11/06/news/opinion/20071106_opinion_26.txtSorry
Sorry, small town, take what thrills we can get!
Anyone how the GMAC loans had a material effect on the 39B from GM?
I am curious that such large sums of money are evaporating, seemingly overnight. Under the radar? To stupid a stock price to care? yet they lend.
Home resales fall by 56% on Kauai; Big Isle drops 36%
http://honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071106/BUSINESS04/711060339/1071/BUSINESS04
Even paradise is not immune. Outlying areas of Honolulu county are experiencing price erosion (not median price). Some sellers already throw in the towel.
http://www.oahure.com/UpsideDownSingleFamily.php
I figure there’s going to be a huge glut of condos in downtown Long Beach, CA, what with Aqua and City Place Lofts and more going up. I had no idea Lennar had plans to replace the SeaPort Marina Hotel (NOT downtown) with a big project. (Which just fell through.)
http://www.gazettes.com/seaport11012007.html
This old article is hilarious.
It recites all the current cliches about “everyone wants to live here”, “the rich can always buy”, “prices don”t go down” , “prices won’t get any lower” , “prices will never drop 40-50%” and “foreigners will come into the market” and demontrates that they were as false then as they are now.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E3D71538F93BA35751C1A962948260
Dollar make lousy house pet….. you no want dollar…. dollar make lousy house pet! Bye bye now….
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — The dollar slumped to a record low against the euro after Chinese officials signaled plans to diversify the nation’s $1.43 trillion of foreign-exchange reserves in response to a falling U.S. currency.
For those interested in energy investing, Vestas Wind Systems (VWDRY) was upgraded by several European analysts today. This is a holding in the New Alternatives Fund (NALFX).