Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For November 9, 2007
Please post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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What colour will we paint this Friday?
http://money.cnn.com/data/markets/index.html
Green
sanguine
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Red suites the Scam Market.
Jas
I agree with red — at least, until 2:00. Maybe no magic even then, for a change.
How about black and red. Black for a bad day and red for the color of the ink on the books. I may be wrong, but I think we’re going to dip below 13k before long.
The DJIA is magically hugging the 13,100 level, despite another boatload of bad financial news today. I thought trading curbs were ended? What form of economic dark matter buttresses the DJIA in place against a never-ending stream of worse-than-expected financial news?
Gawd I sure wish I knew the answer to that one. I can only guess that one or more of the major securities outfits are acting as an unofficial agent of the US gubmint.
Maybe that’s the deal with the devil in action - The Fed “loans” them money with the POS MBS and other “steaming pile securities” as collateral with a condition that they then turn around and put that cash back into the market.
Sounds like a desperate ploy to me. Anyone else think this theory has any merit? Corrections/additions?
The DJIA is stuck on 13,100 like stench on excrement.
It just takes teamwork.
Not Right…
http://news.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/view.bg?articleid=1043326
“He said some appraisals are coming in 20 percent below what sellers thought their homes were worth.”
Which, in the Boston area, means appraisals are probably still 30-40% above what the market can actually bear.
Note to sellers: It doesn’t matter what laughable, wildly overinflated amount you think your McPOS is worth, it matters what prospective buyers are willing to pay for it. Reality sucks sometimes, huh?
Liquidity is a gigantic problem in matters real estate, presently…
How much longer before it contagions over to stocks and bonds?
But how do you REALLY feel about today’s asking prices?
Actually if there is an appraiser looking at the house that means a buyer did agree to the price. The fact that the appraisals are coming in lower than the agreed purchase price just means that neither party is aware of whats been happening in housing. Glad to see that appraisers are allowed to do their jobs again.
Appraisers - Yet another group of clowns whose soothsaying is intimately tied to their profits. Higher appraisals = more closings = more future business. Put’em all in jail.
I think it would be a crime for the Feds to suggest that government backed loans catch a falling knife by raising the limits from $417,000.00 to a million Someone should bring up the point to the government that it isn’t prudent for the government to back loans during a period when prices are crashing .The Senators should wait until the market bottoms before they offer government backed loans ,otherwise they are putting the taxpayers money at risk by opening up government backed loans .It should not be the government function to stop a correcting market after a bubble but rather the function of lending is to make secure loans in a stable market ,after all these are 30/40 year notes .
No lenders should be making low down loans until they figure out what the true market should be at price wise ,otherwise the lenders just make more bad loans ,especially if they are low down loans .
In a declining real estate market of this nature where you have this degree of over supply as well as foreclosures in the pipeline ,it would not be prudent to base loans on falling prices . So, are the Feds there to provide funding when the market is stable ,or, is the Feds there to change the bagholder of bad debt loans to the taxpayers ?
Cisco is reporting falling sales, the subprime problem is contained, move along, nothing to be concerned about, ya sure
The S&P 500 has fallen 2.3 percent this week, heading for its second straight weekly decline after Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley reported losses tied to subprime mortgage loans and Cisco Systems Inc. said a “dramatic” drop in sales to financial and automobile companies is curbing growth.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTTNlOhscAAs&refer=home
but Bobby brinker and the merry market timers are telling everyone to go all in at S&P 1450.
I wanted to know a while back who the bag holders were gonna be for this one, and its becoming clearer.
Most new houses don’t need enterprise routers or switches. (Mine will probably be the exception to this.) On the other hand, Cisco does have competition from some heavy hitting players like Force10 and Juniper, but still.. nobody got fired for buying Cisco.
Meet the original Cisco Kid, as dreamed up by O. Henry, one of my favorite authors…
http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/bookid.645/sec./
I just picked up a bunch of Cisco. It’s cheap IMO. Especially as the dollar gets killed. Overseas growth will still happen. Same thing with RIMM. I don’t know how well AAPL is because so many sales are in the US. Sonly just came out with some IMPRESSIVE Walkman’s. I think CSCO is a buy here. Companies of all shapes and sizes outside the U.S. will need networking equipment and CSCo has the best. They are also expanding other businesses inside and outside the U.S. Heck, even my company is still buying tons of CISCO as they upgrade the whole network and we are a fortune 500!
Microsoft is the one you want. As close to 32 as you can get it.
and just put my $$$ where my mouth is
May I ask, why 32??
That’s where it had that giant breakout.
RIMM is a Canadian company. The loonie is on a tear.
Cisco is considered mid-grade equipment now. I believe that both Force10 and Juinper blow the doors off of Cisco’s high end equipment. Don’t get me wrong, I still like Cisco equipment, and it is still pretty expensive, but the excitement is around companies like Force 10 networks. Compared the Cisco 6509 or 6513 switch (or whatever their latest and greatest is) to the Force 10 switches in backplane capacity and what not. I just looked, Force 10 isn’t public yet.
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Let us hope that you atr a nimble trader because CSCO and JNPR are both going to be below $5 before 2009 is out. I forecasted the same during 2001. CSCO bottomed at $8.12 and JNPR went below $5. I had deep in the money 20 puts on JNPR.
During 2002 the techs, and the Scam Market as a whole, got saved by the Housing Bubble; otherwise, my target of $5 on CSCO could have been met. This time there is no way to avoid depression. Don’t be surprised if CSCO and JNPR crack $1! I know, it is hard for most people to believe.
Jas
My grandfather once had the chance to buy US Steel for a $1 in 1934. He did not have the dollar to invest.
I would have expected a much larger fallout in U.S. stock prices from the sudden disspearance of two top banking CEOs from the picture. I guess the effect of all the bad news is contained?
The ultra wealthy must be flaunting their purchasing power on Wall Street. Add to the mix, a bunch of house flippers turned day traders gambling with their bubble gains, and there you have it. Still a lot of money sloshing around. I think we’re in the 2nd inning of this mess.
Dutch Housing Bubble update:
Despite an official veto in Dutch politics for even mentioning or discussing the HMD, today for the third time this year an influential group suggests that the Dutch HMD should be terminated (although they propose to do that gradually, in 30 years). This time the proposal comes from the home builders/developers organisation! Like the others who proposed changes, they suggest that not only the HMD, but also the huge subsidies for certain renters and starters should be abolished and the market should be allowed to do its work. The current subsidy system makes homes unaffordable for a large part of the population, it has done nothing to increase homeownership, new home construction has slowed strongly and despite this awful performance the system cost billions of taxpayer money every year (with the biggest part of that money flowing to homeowners with high incomes).
Apparently the writing is on the wall and everyone except 95% of the politicians can see that the current system is heading for disaster.
If Belgium dissolves, do you think Flanders will become a part of the Netherlands? I know they are very free-market oriented.
I didddly oh do.
hahaha
I don’t see that happening, the cultural difference between Flanders and Netherlands is bigger than that between the two parts of Belgium …
But if it happens I think it would provide a lift for homeprices in much of Belgium - except possibly the areas around Antwerp and near the coast, which are at least as expensive as the southern area of the Netherlands
No way the Flemish will become part of the Netherlands.
I think most Flemish are culturally closer to the French, although we find it difficult to admit.
Splitting up from the french speaking part will not make us richer, but at least we could define our own destiny.
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Hey, Chick, NASTYQ! Futures are trading close to yesterday’s lows. Another good session shaping up. It is probable that we may have bad Monday too.
I can’t time the market like a trader like you can but I do have a truckload of puts that I am willing to sell at ever increasing prices. I sell a position at 4-10 different prices on GTC orders. Accumulating those puts takes lot of patience and conviction.
Jas
I’m taking the day off unless a nobrainer appears in front of me.
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We just broke yesterday’s free-fall low on NASTYQ!.
Jas
My admittedly uneducated guess would be at this point that bonuses are in bad shape now. Very little time left to run em up.
That’s what I was thinking. I wonder how much bonuses factor into holding the price of stock up.
Call me a pessimist, but I read earlier this week that the investment houses set aside money for bonuses earlier this year.
Think shareholders down 20% and more for the year will stand for that?
Bonuses used to be paid based on the markets close of Sep 30. I do not know if that is still true. The GS bonus pool is about 10% larger than last year.
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Bonuses can wait. Now, they are worried about their jobs!
Depressions are very bad for Watt Street and we have one baked in the cake for 2008.
Jas
The Fed on the Dollar
http://www.stockmania.com/index.php?showimage=89
You sure hit the nail on the head with that one!
enjoy the toons.
Im beginning to hear the faint drumbeat in the MSM about not buying Chinese made goods….across the board.
Voz — I might be all alone on the idea, but I think a lot of what is going on between the US and China right now, in particular the Chinese rhetoric about diversifying currency, is more than a response to Snow’s and Paulson’s demands for more of a float. I think these are power plays related to the Olympics. We totally screwed the Soviet Union when they hosted the games and the Chinese want to be sure they have enough clout that if we played no-show, it wouldn’t matter — at least, not nearly as much.
Aside from banning religious objects, the Chinese also banned VIDEO CAMERAS from the Olympics! Can you imagine such a thing in any other free country? Will the althletes’ family and freinds NOT be allowed to tape their performance? How can this be enforced in the era of I-phones?
Unless the Chinese relent, they will be very embarrassed by this decree. I wonder how NBC will do with the “official People’s video feed”. Of course they are worried that the truth will get out about their “modern” economy and cities. The USSR fell 9 years after the Olympics were held there - and information moves about 1000 times faster now than in the 80’s.
China will do everything they can to save face next year, but no matter what I think 2008 will be one of the big years in modern history, like 1980 was.
They’re pretty creative totalitarians. If this is true, look for them to offer cheap or free DVDs of the games and ceremonies, to offset the “inconvenience” of not using your own camera.
However, I’ve not heard of a ban on video cameras for regular tourists. So why wouldn’t anyone be able to tape today whatever conditions they wish to record? I don’t doubt they would consider such a move as you described, but it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to be so narrowly applied. It’s unlikely, and they know it, that a viewer of smog in a Spring ‘07 tape of Beijing is going to be shocked that the smog is still there during the games, IMO.
The symbiosis is facing serious issues which may lead to its untimely demise.
What is “MSM”?
MainStream Media
Media that doesn’t report the perception of the person saying “MSM”
Another good blog definition: Sheeple = people who don’t agree with me.
….owned by/content controlled by….corporations
Nice job on the cartoon! I was a bit surprised by that reply from Bernanke to Ron Paul myself.
I hope (triple-bbb rated) doesn’t play much poker…
His “tells” are painfully obvious.
Minor nit - you probably should emphasize AREN’T instead of IMPORTED.
Another one bites the dust
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/us/09speculate.html?pagewanted=all
Folks…. take a look at the photo in Bob’s link and ask yourself who in the hell would pay for such a monstrosity no less live in it. I didn’t understand it in 2005 nor do I now. For me I would be embarrassed to own in live in a behemoth.
Y’all are gonna groan, but maybe Thomas Kinkade is on to something. Yeah he overdoes it, but the basic idea behind his art is sound. All his houses are small/medium cottages with genuine not-stuck-on decoration, probably good floor plans, some yard, well landscaped, houses not on top of each other etc — ideal for nesting.
If folks want the Kinkade, why not build it? You could easily do it for the $500-$600K they’re paying for a McMansion. (oh wait, not enough profit margin.)
Y’all are gonna groan, but maybe Thomas Kinkade is on to something. “Yeah he overdoes it, but the basic idea behind his art is sound. All his houses are small/medium cottages with genuine not-stuck-on decoration, probably good floor plans, some yard, well landscaped, houses not on top of each other etc — ideal for nesting.”
You got my wondering if Kinkade actually lives in a cottage. Well, yes and no. He has a small cottage that he works in on his large estate. And apparently he is now dabbling in building mcmansions.
“Last month, Taylor Woodrow Homes and Media Arts Group opened The Village, a Thomas Kinkade Community, a gated development in Vallejo, California. According to promotional material, it is a “magical community” featuring “meandering sidewalks, benches and water features, which are designed to enrich homeowners — lives with endless visual surprises and delights.” There are four house models available, and they are named after Kinkade’s four daughters — Chandler, Merritt, Everett, and Winsor — and will be priced from four hundred thousand dollars up.
Thomas Kinkade lives in a large handsome house in a magical suburban community the name of which I am not at liberty to disclose. It is easy to understand his wish for privacy: ten million people own some product featuring his name, and most editions are signed with ink containing DNA from his hair or blood, to prevent fakes. He likes to say he has a retro — “but not Amish” — life style. His children are homeschooled by his wife, Nanette, and they don’t watch television, but he owns “a hell of a lot of stuff, a nice car and so forth.” He works in an old stone cottage on the grounds of his house. The cottage is filled with his favorite paintings: an original by his idol, Norman Rockwell; a seascape by Glenn Wessels, who taught him art when he was a teen-ager; a pastel by his father, an amateur artist who, according to Kinkade, never made anything of his life. In the main room of the cottage are easels, shelves of reference books, and a high-tech color-balanced lighting system that provides the constant effect of overcast midday sun. At the time, Kinkade was working on a painting of two horses grazing in the yard of a trim stone cottage. The horses weren’t finished yet, and next to the easel he had pinned a photograph of a horse which appeared to have been torn out of a cigarette ad. The room was clean and orderly and didn’t smell of turpentine or brush cleaner.”
http://www.susanorlean.com/articles/art_for_everybody.html
He’s also been in trouble with the franchises that sell his so-called art. Many lawsuits from people that spent life savings to buy franchises and have lost everything due to being forced to buy inventory they don’t need and broken promises about how close another franchise will be set up.
I did read about the Kinkadian community and saw a few pictures. It was so disgusting. It was the same-old same-old fakery that I’ve seen a hundred times over. Put up a little gingerbread and a picket fence and pretend it’s a painting. Meanwhile, the houses are as stacked as close as ever with no room for trees.
Kinkade’s art is good for calendars and such, but no way would I buy a fakey highlighted thing. And that original Rockwell is probably worth more than anything else in the Kinkade compound.
“There are four house models available, and they are named after Kinkade’s four daughters — Chandler, Merritt, Everett, and Winsor”
Seriously? Those names work better for the house models.
Potemkinkade Village
From the article REhobbyist linked:
By and large, art critics consider Thomas Kinkade a commercial hack whose work is mawkish and suspiciously fluorescent, and whose genius is not for art but for marketing — for creating an “editions pyramid” of his prints, each level up a little more expensive, which whips up collectors’ appetites the way retiring Beanie Babies did.
Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.
I hope his real estate venture puts him in the red.
We all live in a Potemkinkade Village, of sorts…
Kinkaid is not art. He’s velvet Elvis schlock.
I’d sooner have black velvet dogs playing poker works of art in my house, than his brand of hoi polloi inspired insipidness.
I’m a sometimes successful artist and I think that Kinkade’s work is poor at best. However, let me say that Kinkade the “Painter of Light” (gag) is doing something many people in the field of art cannot do. He is making a living as an “artist”.
Much like the “Painter of Whales” (Wyland) he has found a way to make a buck(s) on his limited talent and if people are willing to fork over their money to buy his “stuff” more power to him.
While attending school in Pasadena I did a project that include a series of black velvet Elvis “Velvis” paintings that turned out to be unbelievably popular.
My husband painted when we were in school, and his paintings hang in our house. I keep bugging him to get back to it - he’s much better than Kinkade’s crap.
Old Salon article from 2002 about a Kinkaide tract built outside Vallejo, CA.
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/style/2002/03/18/kinkade_village/print.html
Nothing idyllic, charming or genuine about this place which might have eaten into the profit margins and buildable land. Inspired details = yet more stuck on stuff.
You can rent there for $2350/mo…LOL
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/apa/469241130.html
You can sugar-coat a turd like Vallejo all you like, but nothing can change that it’s Vallejo.
Wow, that article made it sound like The Place No Sane Person Would Want To Live.
I knew this was going to end far worse than most expected when I saw the rediculous price runups and McMansions being built in Missouri. I grew up in Missouri and most of the state is dirt poor (which actually figures into why I am in the process of moving back - the corrupt moneygrabbers give more attention to wealthy areas [Texas] than just scraping by areas [Missouri]). Just a few years ago you could still buy land for $350/acres near where I grew up. Now the asking prices are over $10k/acre. The cheap homes are in the $200k range. Sorry, that is simply unaffordable when annual household income is in the $30k range.
Now go back to when we purchased our farm 30 years ago: 24 acres, 1 barn, 2 sheds and a ~2,000 sqft+basement house all for $24k. And there was nothing special about that deal at the time. My step dad was making $24k per year at the time.
Now lets factor in 30 years of inflation. That’s funny, even accounting for inflation prices are way higher than they should be. And strangely, income has in no way kept even close to the inflation rate.
Storm clouds are gathering on the horizon…
That’s depressing. Not in the sense that I have sympathy for that guy (I don’t). Rather, it’s depressing to think that this is what America has become.
A nation of broke-dick wannabes, living on borrowed time in 5,000 square foot echo chambers in the middle of nowhere, sneaking out at night to siphon gas out of the neighbors car and working by day selling scam energy drinks for $6.00 an hour. That’s about as good as it is going to get for a generation of Americans.
You know what the problem is with all this? People never seem to know when enough is enough. Good grief, if you have all that this guy had at 32, why continue risking in an illiquid game? I saw this same thing with people in the stock market bubble. Their 200K account was worth 1M and yet they wouldn’t sell becaue they didn’t want to pay taxes or thought they had it all figured out and ruled the world.
It’s easy to fall into that thinking but at least for me, the first time I took a 20 point overnight gap down loss (lost 80K because I was too greedy to sell at the close), that cured me.
It goes to show you, the vast majority of people were not meant to have large amounts of money. They just can’t handle it.
Right on TX. I recall late 1999 on the morning commuter train into mid-town Manhattan, a group of us would all be yammering about how much $$ we were making day trading. One of these guys bought Corel at $5. 7 weeks later its trading at $40… I asked him “Did you sell?” He said “no I’m gonna let it keep going up”!!!!…. I told him he was INSANE. Of course he lost all of it because of greed.
I do agree and I’ve always said that if I obtained a good nest egg I was move entirely into conservative investments - especially if I had enough to live a moderate lifestyle indefinitely.
However, it’s a lot easier to say these things in hindsight. At what point are you just making money and at what point is it greed? Was the guy greedy for not selling at $15 or $20 or $25?
I sold my house in 2003. I’m comfortable with that decision and I did well on it. However, with hindsight I could have made a LOT more selling in 2005. My personality is to sell in 2003 though. The prices seemed ridiculous, I was changing jobs, and it just seemed right.
Yes, Warren Buffet has made a lot of money selling too soon but what’s too soon/too late/etc?
Exeter - I can actually claim that I bought Corel at $3 to $4, and sold at $44 in late 1999! The whole Linux thing was going to be their savior, and of course it was not. I even stupidly bought the $79 installation thinking I was “supporting my own stock” (and it never worked on my computer). Unfortunately I only sold 1/2 of what I had at $44, thinking the rest would “go Red-Hat” for me, to $1000 before splits. I dumped that half for around $12 about two weeks later.
All told I made about $8,000 on that goofy stock - and then watched and laughed as it crashed to under a buck.
Warning: This IS NOT a rumor or an Urban Legend:
The Kinkade Code:
Thomas Kinkade has painted in buried images of little St. Joesph’s statutes in some of his paintings…the “rumor” is this: the Catholic Church is secretly buying up his paintings…the one’s painted upside down…are going $$$$$$$$$ like…to the Moon…
As a lapsed catholic, I get some satisfaction in the idea that the Vatican could lose lots of money in depreciated Kinkade art!
GREED KILLS THE PIG…………….
This is the brave new economy, as American outsources manufacturing jobs the unemployed will just switch to other more productive work……… like that guy building giant homes for nobody
This is what capitalism breeds. We reward speculation (read: gambling) over hard work.
People bet their lives on non-work-career dreams in sports, Hollywood, stock-trading, poker-playing, flipping properties, you name it. Most of these folks end up paying the piper in the end. Why not try contributing something worthwhile to the economy, parasites?
Those are all work if you do them right. The problem is, people don’t want to take the time to do them right. They want it fast and easy.
Tx, I thought I might hear from you on this. You and I disagree as to what is acceptable on the gradient between the multi-millionaire heiress who “earns” thousands and thousands of dollars doing absolutely nothing and the other extreme of the person who busts his hump doing landscaping or even medical research making $25K a year.
The fact that some idiots are willing to throw money at a dim witted heiress has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with freedom, however.
The only thing capitalism shares with the enrichment of a Paris Hilton is freedom. If people want to squander their money chasing her “fashion”, if people want to gamble at a casino, stock market or in real estate why shouldn’t they be free to do so?
Yes, sometimes freedom to do things results in bad outcomes. Particularly in the financial markets, the freedom to go to extremes seems to regularly produce some bad outcomes. Can regulation be managed to achieve a balance between financial innovation and untoward risks? Maybe but prices of everything are set by humans and a big component of many pricing decisions is based on emotion (greed to fear and everything in between). Can you cut emotion out of pricing decisions? Only by regulating prices and anyone with a whit of understanding of economic history knows whenever prices are fixed somehow the outcome is ALWAYS bad.
Mikey(2) you say it is not “acceptable” that an idiot is enriched while hard laborers are not. I don’t like it either but the alternative is for some power to IMPOSE a solution that takes power away from people to make sometimes silly choices. And once you give that power away, even though your aims are “noble”, I suggest you will soon find those you ceded such power to will be looking to “improve” your choices (by limiting them of course) more and more over time.
I don’t like people making “dumb” choices. But the alternative is simply to give up freedom. Maybe that’s an “acceptable” trade-off for you. Me, I’ll live with the “dumb” decisions as long as my freedom is retained.
jag -
Actually, when I referred to an “heiress” I wasn’t thinking about Paris Hilton - I was thinking about those rich people who don’t have to work because their money “works for them,” i.e., they have so much money that they can essentially shield themselves from risk and make more and more money without an iota of work.
“I’ll live with the “dumb” decisions as long as my freedom is retained. ”
Until you try to eat said freedom and realize there really isn’t much freedom at all. At that point, you’ll extend a hand upward and someone will be there to pull you up.
Now….. reverse roles my friend.
exeter,
I’ll take the freedom that exists today, thank you very much, long before I agree to let some “intelligensia” design a “system” that manages to feed me. You assume that by giving up freedom someone will be there to “pull you up”.
That’s a pretty big, historically dubious, assumption.
I don’t know, Mikey. I know people who have inherited money and most of them work very hard. Even the ones fortunate enough to just live off the money have to be very knowledgeable and careful. I’ve earned my own money so far, but I look forward to the day that I’ve saved enough to be able to live off it. But that won’t happen unless I educate myself to make wise investments.
It’s hard to draw the line between “worthwhile” work and “worthless” work. I admire people with musical talent and athletic ability, and don’t begrudge the ones who add work to it and become wealthy. I have a son who is very gifted athletically, but never practiced hard enough at his sports to succeed in college, let alone professionally. There’s always a work component needed. Now he regrets that he didn’t put the time in back then.
So when you’re groveling on the ground and can’t get up, you prefer we leave you there. Ok.
I’m reading this book “American Theocracy” by Kevin Phillips (the guy who wrote “The Emerging Republican Majority” in 1969.) He starts the book analyzing the rise and fall of the Dutch and British empires. He credits the decline of the Dutch in the mid-18th century to, among other factors, “the reorientation of many Hollanders towards investments rather than hands-on commerce, seamanship, or engineering.”
The year 2006 was a record year for output, revenues, profits, profit rates, and return on investment in the manufacturing sector.
http://www.freetrade.org/pubs/pas/tpa-035es.html
chris - I’m looking for your “snark” on this comment. Cato Institute? Really….bwahahahahahahahahahah!
The year 2006 was a record year for output, revenues, profits, profit rates, and return on investment in the manufacturing sector.
What’s your point? My company(a manufacturer) just had a record quarter, well above last year’s 3rd quarter EBIT and we still laid off 27 factory workers on Friday. Record profits, layoffs… I say we’ve entered bizarro world.
mwhaha… Cato? Can anything be counted as fact from Cato?
I don’t feel sorry for him either. At least he’s young and still has a chance to do some sort of labor. Sure hope he learned his lesson.
He now rents a small house for $1,275 a month. He became a born-again Christian in February, after his business and his marriage collapsed.
Funny how this type always finds Jesus. I’m sure he couldn’t have cared less as he was screwing folks on the way up. Now that he’s gone tits up it’s a different story.
Precisely. I’m still trying to retrieve my eyeballs from the top of my head. Did I do this without typos
Have you found Jesus yet, Gump?
Jesus saves, Buddha invests.
My feeling is that if something bad pushes you into re-evaluating your life, all the better. Money is not the goal of this life. If his screw-up makes him a better person, we have all gained.
I am more worried about the people that do not learn, and simply bide their time until they can screw someone else out of their money. Ironically, The Rev. Robert Tilton comes to mind.
Sometimes it takes financial ruin to shift one’s focus from lifetime to eternity.
“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” Mark 8:36
Lol, although I understand your sentiment I don’t see anything here where he screwed anybody (other than his current creditors of course).
I went through something similar including the whole finding Jesus thing, but even before that I can say I never screwed anybody doing real estate. I lost some deals because I didn’t screw folks, but I had to sleep at night too.
The problem I have is what txchick alluded to…..he didn’t know when enough was enough, to take some off the table for the inevitable rainy day. And this guy has been in the biz since the early 90’s….this downturn is really going to shake a lot of people out for good.
Nuttin’ wrong with finding Jesus. Its what you do with it after finding.
The predictable path: Judge and condemn others
The correct path: Do what He does.
Exactly. I’ll be the first to say too many do “predictable” and not “correct” even after finding Him.
OT, but I’m keenly interested in the Senate Committee that is investigating those televangelists. When the stink gets so bad it gets Congress’ attention, watch out.
Target #1 ought to be Tony “I’m not Alfred E. Neumann” Perkins”
#2 Dobson
#3 Robertson
The correct path: Do what He does.
How does one go about being a fictional character?
I have always asked myself “What would Jesus DO and NOT what would Jesus THINK” or even worse Jesus and God will forgive me for what I am about to do if I go to confession or pay a tiding.
“I can say I never screwed anybody doing real estate”
There have been many houses that I wanted but didn’t buy because of some guy “doing real estate” was willing ot ante up more than I could afford or more than I felt the place was worth. I equate those guys with used car salesmen: just another middleman who either adds no value or overcharges for repairs or renovations, all at the expense of the emotional buyer who oftentimes just wants a nice house to live in.
Same here. Too many bought a course or went to a weekend seminar and thought 10% off was a great deal. That’s one reason why I never did many deals, and finally decided to take a break from it.
I couldn’t “see” a bubble ’til I discovered this site, but I just spent too much time scratching my head and wondering what I was missing to think things were ok. The early innings of the game are a good time to relearn.
These flipper guys have been out there even when there weren’t bubbles, taking advantage of the unknowing public and inflating prices. If they were decent hard-working folk, they’d be in the rehabbing biz, not the RE biz.
that I wanted
Your envy isn’t any different than anyone elses.
Your envy isn’t any different than anyone elses.
Not envy. If I were envious, I might have been stupid enough to bid against those people. No, my wants are based on my own interest not on what others have. I think it sucks that the profiteers jack up prices, but my disdain for them is not because they get what I wanted; it’s that they jack up prices. In the end, I get the last laugh.
Yes you will, Mikey. You’re sure to get a great deal on a house in a few years. And it won’t be speculation - you’ll be prepared.
I know I have a church where I use to live….I call it the church of rejects…every person in there is like a former bum, druggie or lowlife..but hey they found Jesus..of course that was after 5-10 years…(in jail or busted).
Guiliani found Pat Robertson. He’s toast.
It’s the other way around. Robertson has been marginized to the fringe where he belongs. He wants to look mainstream, hence the Guiliani endorsement.
I agree with exeter. Robertson contradicted himself in his statement and will be called on the carpet big time, IMHO.
I’m sure Aladinsane has a quote for the fact that Robertson has chosen his wallet over his beliefs in supporting Guiliani. These evangelists are just another group of creeps profiting at the expense of the emotional and downtrodden.
I meant Rudy is toast for seeking Robertson;s endorsement. I was giving Rudy a look, but no more.
Mikey, You’re right on the money with one exception. They aren’t evangelical. Notice Billy or Franklin Graham are never clamoring for the microphone or out endorsing candidates. They are the Christian model. Not meathead creeps like Dobson, Perkins and Robertson.
exeter - right you are; I misspoke there. I always liked Billy Graham, btw.
“All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours.”
Aldous Huxley
Ah, you never disappoint, Mr. Stardust.
Funny how this type always finds Jesus. I’m sure he couldn’t have cared less as he was screwing folks on the way up. Now that he’s gone tits up it’s a different story.
The real test will be how he behaves when the next bubble appears. Will he ditch Jesus and become a born again speculator?
Can I nominate this for Comment of the Day or something?
I would be honored
Wifey couldn’t handle no more shopping sprees at Gucci and being able to “parade” to group of friends…Sure she is cruising the local area in his BMW looking for the next sucker…
This guy never owned any of the stuff all bank and creditor owened, however he claimed himself to be wealthy.
6 Mill in debt?? He was a lucky moron — for a time.
He didn’t own the assets, but he definitely owns the debt!
I know they did it to themselves, but if you watched the audio slide show it was very sad. One of the last pics was a child on the front porch watching the sheriff and crew clear out her house. It’s the kids I worry about. I know they will learn lessons, but I also know that trauma and insecurity can cause a lifetime of grief.
Those kids will be better off living in squallor as long as they don’t starve. It’s not by accident that public school policy is to eliminate the children’s exposure to competition and adversity. Adversity builds character. Doing without motivates individuals with character to try to better their situation.
I garuntee you those kids will amount to more because their dad lost it all, than if they grew up with a silver spoon in their mouth. Because I love my girls dearly I will never give them anything (other than the basic neccessities of life while they are young). Any inheritance I leave to them they will have earned many times over. I am already proud and amazed at what they can do at their age.
Perhaps you didn’t live through childhood trauma and abuse. I did and it effects you in ways you don’t even know your entire life. It’s not just about money - young children need security and love. I don’t believe you need adversity and strife in order to instill character. I’ve also had doctors tell me that major trauma in early years can change the way the brain develops causing PTSS. There is something between traumatized and spoiled rotten. My daughters also won’t inherit much because I enjoy giving and sharing now.
Hey D-Dog -
I think making kids do without is ok, but is must be balanced with parental guidance for how to achieve one’s goals. There are loads of drug dealers and wannabe-drug dealers in the inner cities who have learned to deal with adversity by survival tactics and thievery as opposed to education, work, and perseverence. These flippers’ kids, I’m afraid, will only learn to aspire to the greed of their parents but will try to protect themselves from failure: i.e., become thieves, but don’t get caught.
I call BS on your overly romanticized theory of poverty breeding better kids. You are obviously a supportive involved father with money to pay for say food and health insurance.
More often than not daddy will bail on the marriage and kids when he loses it all. There are a lot of parents who will take out their anger and frustration by beating the crap out of the most convenient target - their kids. There will be desperate parents who become alcoholics and drug users who do not bother to buy food for their kids. It is a truly rare person who can overcome a childhood of hunger and abuse. More often the cycle perpetuates itself because “daddy did it.”
You can’t have it both ways. Who said anything about poverty and abuse? Nice strawman… That guy is currently paying more for a rental than I am, so in spite of his screwing the pooch with his finances he seems to be doing OK in his day to day once he got out from under his overpriced McMansion. I am curious why you three equate renting with poverty. Shouldn’t this guy now be welcomed into the HBB savy renter brotherhood?
Sounds like maybe I hit a nerve on some personal issues, but just to reitterate: just because this guy is no longer living extravagently beyond his means does not mean the family will be abused or in abject poverty (and I did put a disclaimer in my original post assuming that the family has the basic necessities of life).
There will definitely be a lot of misery come out of this national economic mess. The re will be divorces and yes, soem children will undoubtably be abused a little more than if there hadn’t been a down turn. But someone who would beat up a kid would do it regardless of their economic circumstances IMO.
Maybe a better way to make my point is through comparisons. I’m sure no one wanted to go through the Great Depression. But it’s no accident that those that did have been called the greatest generation. Yes, some (many) of those people became hardened, but they were survivors, and families worked together to survive. They didn’t sit around wringing their hands waiting for someone else to do something - they worked to make things happen themselves.
Now compare them to the no work Play Station kids of today. I can’t stand the whiney, victimhood mentality that has become prevalent in our society. The coming downturn and the misery it will bring is necessary to make our country America again. It is only by passing through the fire that our society will come to value people and family over things and Chinese junk.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Never said anything about renting. Was talking about a bewildered child in the audio slideshow. Just talked to aunt about depression they other day - asking her why even though she’s very well off she still waters down shampoo and ketchup. She said no matter what she has now, she’s never forgotten having to pack up and move in the middle of the night during the depression. The discussion was about childhood trauma not children that have too much time and money.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Strength is good, but not at the expense of our morality. Poverty teaches us about the need to survive; but we also need to be taught about how to survive in a civilized society.
At 32, with just one semester of community college, he owned a BMW, a Corvette and a 5,000-square-foot house worth $1.2 million.
I love how they say he OWNED…to me that means he has no mortgage….he never owned any of those things…if he did even when things went bad he could have still kept the house by going and getting a job….I had this conversation with a friend yesterday…if I was making big money during the boom…I would not upsize I would pay off every debt and put money in the bank…for fear of when things would change…
I watched that video from the story and what caught my eye was the black lady was driving a new Volvo wagon and if you look a the storage photo there is a A/C unit sitting on the ground. To get the A/C unit you have to cut the copper lines and vent Freon to move it from the house so they are stripping houses before they leave. Sorry I’m not buying this sob story.
Yeah, what’s with the outside air conditioning unit in her storage unit? Did you also notice from the photos that the dishwasher is gone as well? And where’s the stove/oven in that kitchen? She wouldn’t be stripping that house, would she? Nah, didn’t think so…
Sort of a sad housing bubble tale: I stopped by one of my favorite junk outlets yesterday. The owners are two of the most decent people I’ve ever met, real salt-of-the-earth, give you the shirt off their backs type of people. Extremely hard working, but not very sophisticated. Their house was under contract to sell. They had purchased it pre-2000 and didn’t owe a whole lot on it, plus they’d agreed to a modest price. It was supposed to have closed on November 1, they had been frantically contacted by the realtor saying that the buyer had to close by then or the interest rate would increase. So they changed their schedule and everything.
Well, when I stopped by yesterday, the parents of one of the owners were overseeing the place. I asked if the sale of their home had gone through. No, it hadn’t. They showed up at closing, but the buyer didn’t. (mind you, this is all second hand information). Supposedly the buyer (who was from out of state, but moving to Florida) had some unexpected medical bills for one of their children. (I call BS on that). That the house didn’t close wouldn’t necessarily be a tragedy for these people, but here’s the real tragedy: according to their relatives, the transaction that never happened cost them $4,000.00. Apparently they paid for inspections, appraisals, surveys and all sorts of other things (including money to the realtor, I’ll bet) to make the deal happen. One of their relatives shook his head and said “That isn’t right, they work so hard for their money”. I about lost it, I asked if the buyer hadn’t put a deposit down and was told it had only been $1,000.00. Then I asked what the hell their realtor had been thinking, they should have made some sort of provision in the sales contract for an event of that sort. The guy shook his head and said “And she’s supposed to be a friend of theirs”. The whole story made me sick to my stomach. I hope I never find out who the realwhore is, because I’ll be happy to tell the tale around town.
They might have some legal recourse. The purchase agreement probably doesn’t have anything about paying the realtor until the escrow closes. Appraisal and inspection should total less than $1000.
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Debt Facts: A High level of Household Debt Growth Is Necessary For the GDP Growth
What is the secret to the US economic growth? PUSHING debt on the households. Fed knows this; yours truly knows this; and bankers and financiers of New York City know this. Anybody who knows anything about the US economy should know this.
Fact: Ever since the US economy came out of the Great Depression, whenever the YoY growth in the household debt has fallen below +5.5% the US economy was already in a recession. Approximately, or as a rule of thumb, nominal household debt growth minus 7% equals the real GDP growth.
When, and not if, the Peak Debt is reached, i.e., the total household debt, in nominal dollars, starts to fall the US economy will be in a depression and it would take lot more than the New Deal to get out of this deep hole of debt that the American households have dug for themselves. Thus far, the guiding philosophy by the US Federal Reserve, when it comes to household debt, has been: When in a deep hole keep on digging. Until you hit the water and drown in it?
Fact: In recent years, the primary source of pushing debt on households has been home mortgages and Home Equity Line Of Credit (HELOC).
Now that we do have the “credit crisis,” the Peak Debt is not just a possibility but a highly probable event. When that happens the US will be way past the recession level to the depression level. It is a good bet that the YoY household debt growth in 2007Q4 would be below 5.5%, which means, if 57 years of history is any guide, that the US economy is already in a recession.
Oh, BTW, the inflation rate falls between 2-12% several quarters into the recession.
Jas
Finally, proof that if you keep digging long enough in the US you’ll find yourself in China.
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Or, worse, in India!
Jas
I have zero debt and don’t want any. I pay cash for everything, so old fashioned I know. Froze my credit reports this week and don’t ever plan on unfreezing them. Sometimes I feel like a martian from outer space in this debt happy country.
It’s only a crisis for the debt pushers and dead beats, like our govt, fed, banks and bizillions of debt slaves.
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Nothing wrong with being ahead of the pack.
Jas
The actual guy portrayed by Leonardo Di Caprio in “Catch Me If You Can” recommends that everyone freeze their credit files and shred all your mail. ClarkHoward.com has sample letters you can use to write to each of the Big 3 credit Bureaus (each is a little bit different.) You can unfreeze them for a period of time for ten bucks if you need to.
To freeze your credit report files, just go to:
http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/003484indiv.html#OR
It has the rules for all 50 states - they vary somewhat state to state. $30 for all three credit reporting agencies is a bargain. And you’ll sleep much better knowing some sleaze ball isn’t looking over your credit history without your permission.
The currency of the United States is debt.
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Debt is the world currency! There few better ways to suck “wealth” from the general population. Debt pushers, like Mozilo, are leading a charmed life.
Jas
Heads UP! OT, but for anyone who has followed the jet “contrail” controversy, I can report that the phenomena is real, not some tin foil hat theory. Actually, it is more “aluminum hat”, as I’ll explain. I was watching our local NBC affiliate and the weatherman showed a radar image that looked as if there had been rain over Tampa and surrounding areas. Of course, we’ve been having clear sunny weather for the past few days. So he explains that the image is showing something called “chaff”, little metal particles, mostly aluminum, that the planes drop to measure “atmospheric conditions” or some such thing. So there ya go. Got Alzheimer’s?
Walmart sales off. Yep, the economy is really shaking this off. LOL
Wachovia Sets $1.1B in Oct. Losses
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071109/wachovia_writedowns.html
Financial stocks have junk yields now; Wachovia yield is 11%, Citi is 6%.
Correction, Wamu yield is 11%. Posted too early in the morning.
“Dresdner Bank became the latest to write down losses triggered by rising subprime mortgage defaults when parent Allianz SE in Munich announced 575 million euros ($846 million) of losses and writedowns today. Morgan Stanley, the second- biggest U.S. securities firm, said it booked $3.7 billion in losses on Nov. 7.
…Collateralized debt obligations, bonds based on underlying securities including mortgage-backed notes, are triggering further losses for financial companies. Standard & Poor’s said yesterday that a CDO managed by State Street Corp. began liquidating its assets, prompting the ratings firm to cut the investment vehicle’s ratings as much as 18 levels. The CDO, called Carina, is the first to begin unwinding after a slump in the credit worthiness of the underlying assets, S&P said.
“Fundamental concerns about banks abound, particularly over the magnitude of further writedowns, the capacity to absorb such large losses, the ability to replenish capital ratios in the current market environment and a potential unwind of SIV assets,” Brickman and Bennett wrote. …”
Bloomberg
http://tinyurl.com/3xojte
This is going to get a lot more interesting… Over last four days 7 out of 11 banks that I deal with had their regional VPs call me to see if I want to have lunch with them. Normally I can’t get anyone above AVP to give me more than 5 minutes.
Can I ask why? Are you a bankruptcy guy?
They are fighting for deposit accounts for my company. Stable infrastructure/software business with decent cashflow.
Were they looking for a job?
lol
This is a good summary for folks wondering about this
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/10097878?f=home_featured
Oh yuck. FT friday morning:
“BB told Congress he would support raising the limit on the size of the individaul loans eleigible for securitisation by the GMEs from $417k to $1M. He suggested the Fannie and Freddie could pay insurance premiums on these loans to the federal government, which would “act as gurantor” by taking on some of the credit risk”
Charles Schumer … enthusiastically welcomed the idea and said he would try to insert into legistlation already before Congress.
The sum of all my fears.
Do you have that link?
They could make it a billion and it still wouldn’t matter. Un-afordable is unaffordable no matter how much they are willing to give.
So wait - there will be no private insurance with these loans. Instead Fanne Mae and Freddie mack will start picking up jumbos? How large of a down payment do you need to get a fannie mae loans?
He suggested the Fannie and Freddie could pay insurance premiums on these loans to the federal government.
At which point the price of a house would immediately increase by the exact insurance premium amount, anticipating this government handout. Are they gonna hand out 3% down payment assistance too?
And we all had such hopes for BB…:-(
I just hope that this causes a lot of politicians to get un-elected.
We just moved from San Diego to Santa Fe and I took my dogs on a walk up a hill and gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh there are several cranes towering above town. Also I guess all the yuppies who were flipping former ghetto homes where we are near the plaza put up these giant stucco walls around their shoebox-sized pseudo adobe houses and a lot of them are cracked and look like a couple winters will blow them apart.
Good thing we’re moving out to the boonies when our fabulous new rental McMansion opens up. Also, from our drive out here I can tell you that Arizona, and New Mexico are not, repeat, not, running out of land. Not even close.
I hate to hear that. I follow that market very closely and I fear that prices will never get real there. Too many rich Californians and NY types, movie stars, etc. Are you planning on staying a long time and buying there?
LOL. Every fourth house is For Sale in Santa Fe, never been a better time to buy. They’ll put up those last few condos and quit. They’ve totally overbuilt here so I’m sure in a couple years maybe you can buy a gorgeous place on the cheap. Santa Fe is your kind of place, very dog friendly and child hostile. However I’m told that while the locals don’t like Californians much they really dislike Texans.
It’s too soon to judge how long we’ll stay. We haven’t been aware of tons of rich people or movie stars (maybe they’re only here during summer?), but we have noticed many older lesbian couples and would be O’Keefe-dressed-in-black artists every time we go out. Santa Fe has a serious guy shortage. I really like Tesuque just north of Santa Fe.
I tried and tried to find something in Tesuque or Chupadero but both are in the stratosphere.
I’m actually a New Yorker by birth. Kind of a mutt with no discernable accent so should be able to assimilate on the sly
I’m interested in SF because they have a sister campus to my daughter’s college in Annapolis and they suggest she spend one year there. Many of the kids that have gone there did not like the area and said it was full of faux yuppies and faux artsy folks. These are a bunch of really smart kids that thrive on studying the great books and have little use for the usual college shenanigans. They also say way more drugs out there. Could I get a local perspective, please.
I like New Mexico for business meetings/vacations. Stayed once at the Bishops Lodge - great for the whole family. But Santa Fe was pretentious - all the white people were dressed “western style.” The only ones who dressed normally were the native indians!
“I’m interested in SF because they have a sister campus to my daughter’s college in Annapolis and they suggest she spend one year there.”
I have a couple of friends who teach there and they love it. There is a lot of interaction between faculty and students and a sense of shared purpose. Don’t know about the drug scene, though the kids I met the last time we were there did not seem particularly druggy.
Thanks Bicoastal. I just went to parents’ weekend in Annapolis and came home with some hope for the future. Sat in on classes and seminar and those kids and that unique program are amazing. The videos I’ve seen of the SF campus look beautiful, but I love all the history at the east coast campus. I think I need to take a trip to SF and scope it out.
However I’m told that while the locals don’t like Californians much they really dislike Texans.
LOL, newmexico, your comment reminded me of a friend in Houston who says that Texas is perfect except that they need to annex New Mexico for the skiing!
My best friend from high school has a house in Tesuque, right across the street from the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and down the street from one of Clint Eastwood’s ex-wives. It’s kind of already discovered (aka wrecked).
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I can assure you that California isn’t (running out of land) either.
Jas
The southwestern states will run out of water before they run out of land. Same difference, in any case, both are limits to growth.
FLASH! Press to blame for poor housing prices!
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/business/09toll.html?ref=todayspaper
at least Toll the Tool is telling it like it is, now that he’s pocketed his hundred of millions “The fact that I differentiate between F, F-minus and F-minus-minus” shows just how bad things are, he told analysts during a conference call. He said those grades “go from miserable to outright purgatory.”
I don’t believe in hell, but if there is one, may he and his ilk roast.
Some time ago I posted that I heard a radio advertisement for a builder “introducing” a Be-Confident 4 7/8 % fixed 30-year mortgage (as if a fixed mort is some new-fangled invention). You need
1. 20% down or 5% down with mort ins.
2. Buy an existing home fast.
3. No more than $417K.
4. Buy one of THEIR homes.
5. Use THEIR financing.
Here they are: http://www.mihomes.com They appear to specialize in low-end ugly starter homes.
I like that - the “Be Confident” mortgage. The only thing that would make me confident is if I could buy a house in a declining market for a lot less than $134/ sq. ft, which is what they want for the Rehoboth development.
Also, did you see the development in Avondale? It looks like they used the Naval Academy as inspiration.
Based on the stories I’ve heard, I’m not confident about anything built within the past 10 years or so.
“Be Confident” brings to mind adult diapers to protect you in case you poop your pants.
I would rather have the $113K discount on the house and finance at 6%.
canadian bubble:
The number of new housing starts in the London-St. Thomas area slowed in October for the fourth month in a row.
The decline was matched by a slowdown in Ontario and across Canada, said the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Business/2007/11/09/4642082-sun.html
I especially like the end of this article where Saskatoon is up by 47% from September 2006. No bubble there at all.
Have not been on much lately - got laid off due to decrease in sales, but already landed another, and better, job - but I am wondering if anyone else has had this thought. Since the dollar is becoming worthless compared to the Canadian $, have there been idiots suggesting that Canadians will be coming to the US en masse to snap up our “cheap” real estate? I know, as idiotic as the thought that “rich Californians” would prop up virtually every other market in the US, but still curious.
Chad,
there were comments posted last week, that Canadians are taking advantage of the strong loonie by doing retail shopping in the US, but nothing about buying US Re.
Chad: I live in CV where many Canadians winter. Not more than 2 weeks ago everyone was saying they will bring their dollars and buy all the superinflated mcmansions built here. Not really happening.
The sudden tightening of credit on high-risk sub-prime mortgages has led to a property price crash in the US, with devastating effects on the whole economy.
The unprecedented decline in US house prices may also lead to further pain for financial institutions, who collectively own more than $1 trillion worth of sub-prime debt.
One of those who has been hard-hit by the sudden change in the housing market is Suzi Savino, a real estate agent in the pleasant suburb of Westlake, to the west of the city of Cleveland, Ohio.
Real estate agents are independent professionals who get paid a fee for each house they sell.
During the housing boom, Suzi earned a six-figure income, which helped pay for the good things in life, such as a home in an upscale neighbourhood and a nice car.
But this year, Suzi’s earnings are down by 70% - and houses are just not selling.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7078492.stm
“Real estate agents are independent professionals”
Well I have news for you. To be considered “professional” in NY, you have to be bonded, self-insured or a partner in a P.C. and I know of not one realt-turd that meets any of those requirements.
A professional has an advanced degree. You don’t even need a college degree to be a Realtor ™.
Is that Suzannne?
I guess all that research didn’t work out so well, after all.
What is the BBC’s fascination with Cleveland housing?
If it bleeds, it leads. I guess Cleveland gives them the best (worst?) pictures.
It’s their second story this week on Cleveland.
Cleveland steamer?
In the “it’s different here” UK
House price raises slow or is that drop
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7084475.stm
Mortgage lendind slows
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7067170.stm
and you have to be rich to own that house
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7083446.stm
I’ve been waiting for years for that UK bubble to burst. Several of my good friends were hosed in the early 90’s debacle, and anyone who’d got another job and had to move city found themselves unable to sell, upside down on their mortgages. It took almost 10 years to get back even.
I look now and see that some of these same people are still renting! I guess they learned a lesson. But most of the rest of my friends are still of the mind that property always goes up, and especially in London, “it’s different here”. I even know people whose ENTIRE retirement plan consists of only the flat they live in! (They can afford no other savings, I guess, and they keep saying they’ll cash out at retirement and be a millionaires. Yikes.) It will end in tears, even worse than the last crash, I fear.
Bernanke: the federal government should ensure Jumbo Mortgages. Schumer agrees.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21694890/
This is a nothing more than a redistribution of wealth upward, and from younger generations to older generations. Just like everything else Bernanke and Schumer’s generation has done.
Why? Future generations would be taking on goverment credit risk in order to ensure that older generations can sell their houses to younger generations for more than $500,000 (the $417K limit plus a downpayment). People in homes worth less than $500K would be taking on risk as taxpayers to keep up the property values of those who have bigger houses (or try to).
Forget it.
You want to trade up to an $800K house? Pay down the mortgage on your $500K house so you have a big downpayment and a conforming loan.
Schumer is from Brooklyn. This is an (desperate) attempt to have his generation of Brooklynites sell their houses/condos for more than the next generation can afford. Hey Schumer, you’ll make enough of a profit even if prices return to normal.
this is similar to the system used in the Netherlands; having government ensure all the downside risk is an easy way to keep people buying overpriced RE, especially people with reasonable income but no savings / assets. It can prolong the boom (or slow the downslide) and delay the inevitable. But of course it will not cure the problem and will make the final correction worse.
And yes, it’s a redistribution of wealth from the bottom (renters or owners with little or no mortgage) to the top of the market (high income people and especially the big speculators). So you can bet that Bernanke (just like the Dutch government) is in favor of such plans.
As long as the down payment requirement is kept, this will have little effect.
true
really? I think that brokers and loan agents are creative enough to work around this rule (they are in the Netherlands, I can assure you: officially the government guaranteed mortgage only applies if you use some downpayment, but in reality people get 10x income, I/O, 110% loans with zero downpayment AND full mortgage guarantees from govt.).
I thought Ben requested yesterday for us to stop the generational warfare.
Just like he loves a strong dollar.
This talk of raising the 417k limit burns me. Makes me want to wait longer to buy until market forces prevail. ALL I WANT IS A HOUSE TO LIVE IN OF MY OWN!
I look at all of the people around me that feed off of the system. It will be interesting to see how they do with a downturn. I might only be in my mid 30’s but I remember my uncle and his struggles in 79-82 when he worked (or I should say, didn’t) for Chrysler.
experience from the Netherlands shows that every time they raise the government-ensured limit, the median home price catches up. So, within a short time the limit needs to be increased again, otherwise all homes that are a little ‘above average’ become unaffordable (because then the buyer assumes the risk, instead of the taxpayer). Sure way to keep the housing market inflating a bit longer.
nhz, thanks for those insights from the Netherlands. It seems that a lot the situations and potential “solutions” to economic problems here in the USA are already underway in some place or other, at some time or other. And it’s good to have someone like you who can lay it out to us like that. It might not stop the powers that be from reinventing the (square) wheel over here, but at least those of us on Ben’s board can see what happening, and the likely outcome, and prepare for it if they do embark on some mad scheme.
It’s what always happens when the government intercedes with the free market. The unintended consequence of trying to make things affordable for some is to drive up prices for all.
The great ramp up in medical expenses starting with medicare/medicaid. The ramp up in tuitions as government provides more and more funding to schools.
In effect, it raises the minimum bar. Just because the government contributes a greater degree, the institutions see no reason to reduce the margin it charges consumers.
And so it goes. The consumer is taxed more. Government has more money to give to institutions ‘on behalf of citizens.’ The institutions take that government money, yet maintain the margin contribution by the consumers.
Now the consumers pay more and more: more to the government and more to the sink of government funds. And the more the government contributes, the higher the cost and the higher the taxes.
It enrages me, too.
The housing market is horrible in most parts of the country, says the chief executive of the luxury home builder Toll Brothers, and he fears it will not get better until the newspapers stop saying how bad it is.
Toll Brothers, which has operations in 22 states, said yesterday that it expected to take a write-down of $250 million to $450 million because of declining land values when it reports results for the quarter that ended Oct. 31. The company said sales for the quarter fell 36 percent, to $1.17 billion, and that customers backed out of 39 percent of their orders, the highest rate ever.
Robert I. Toll, the chief executive, handed out grades for 37 markets that the company operates in, and most got a mark of F or worse.
http://tinyurl.com/2568r9
BOB Toll, CEO of Toll Bros yesterday : “Perhaps, as the presidential campaign heats up and moves to the front page, negative articles about housing will move off the front page”
- POOF! -
Today’s Phila Inquirer (Chairman, BRUCE Toll (Bob’s bro) front page headline: “Fed: Relief Possible By Spring”
Funny thing is, the Inquirer never reported that there was a problem in the first place. I am so done with the corporate-owned media. I can’t recall a time when I’ve felt that I can believe almost nothing of what I read or hear. Scary.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
“I understand…”
But what if we have had 3 spring and summers in a row, then what, Chauncey?
Morton Hull: Do you realize that more people will be watching you tonight, than all those who have seen theater plays in the last forty years?
Chance the Gardener: Why?
Mikey(2):
What I’ve done is kick the old media in the rear. I use an ad-blocker that I only enable on old media sites. That way, I can visit their site, but give them zero income. Also, if I am forced to register for the site, I always put my income level as $0-$5000 or whatever the minimum is — I’m the guy advertisers don’t care about.
I _do_ enable advertising on all the blogs and forums I visit, unless they are owned by the old media. This way, my advertising dollars help the new media, and my visits cost the old media bandwidth without giving them one red cent.
I’ve nothing against corporate media, per se; I just want them to do their 4th-Estate job like they used to. The public media is too hard to sort out, and many of us (me included) are inclined to read those sites they say what we want to hear. I want objectivity and scrutiny of the government.
he’s kidding right?
the housing collapse is goinng to be THE issue in 2008.
as predicted here in the spring/summer of 2005
Get real — BB said it would all be contained by mid-year 2008!
Inquirer makes most if not all its money of RE ads.
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Fannie Mae out with bad news. One of the Scams that I have lots of puts on (on my Top 10 list). My luck seems to be on a roll, at least for the timebeing.
Jas
Will the fact that the GSEs are under subpoenas from Mario Cuomo raise suspicions about the ulterior motive behind the Fed’s sudden interest in putting in place a taxpayer-funded guarantee behind GSE-securitized loans up to $1m? My personal scam-meter is flashing red.
Fannie Third-Quarter Loss Widens Amid Housing Slump (Update1)
For the sake of FNM shareholders, I sure hope the new BB $1m guarantees can be put in place before Cuomo’s GSE appraisal fraud investigation gets very far off the ground.
Fannie Third-Quarter Loss Widens Amid Housing Slump (Update1)
By James Tyson
Enlarge Image/Details
Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) — Fannie Mae, the biggest source of money for U.S. home loans, reported that its third-quarter loss doubled and said credit costs will increase as the housing slump deepens, sending the shares down as much as 11 percent.
The net loss of $1.39 billion, or $1.56 a share, was caused by a $2.24 billion decline in the value of derivatives contracts used to protect against defaults linked to its $723.2 billion of home-loan and mortgage-bond holdings, the Washington-based company said today in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ao9L5ClKH8TM&refer=home
Tonight is the NY area HBB meet up in Manhattan.
For the info email me at;
kanapali@gmail.com
Perhaps the reason most people are unaware of what is going on, is a natural bias against thinking in this country?
Last week, citibank claimed $70 Million worth of exposure in subprimes, and this week they said it was more like $11,000 Million…
That’s more than 157 times as bad~
I was hanging out with a friend that doesn’t get it, and as we were talking, I noticed that one of his windows had a dozen panes, and perhaps he had 160 window panes in toto, in his house.
The way I described what was happening, was this:
Imagine you were on an extended vacation and I was looking after your house, and you called every now and then and asked how things were going, and I told you that I was throwing rocks around inside the house, and I broke 1 window pane, my bad.
When upon your return, you realized that I had broken 157 window panes in your house, by throwing rocks at them…
I’d know you were one of my sons ex girl friends.
What did your son do to her? (I left town after leaving my ex-girlfriend
)
‘HERS’ - plural - multiple dating in the same week, “I’m busy Friday, lets go out Saturday” Then to 2nd date “I am busy Saturday lets go out Friday”. Friday comes and he and date go to the bowling alley where Saturdays femme is waiting. Serves the pig right! Lost both girl friends and I liked them both, good sensible girls. Oh well.
What is it with young men nowadays? My 22-year-old son has a new girlfriend who he likes very much, as do I. But he told me that he keeps taking phone numbers from other girls and feels guilty about it.
‘multiple dating in the same week’
That’s what I was doing before I left town…
Interview this morning on Wisconsin Public Radio about Ron Paul.
Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief, Reason magazine, discussing Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.
http://clipcast.wpr.org:8080/ramgen/wpr/jca/jca071109b.rm
I viewed Ron Paul lecturing Ben Bernanke yesterday on C-SPAN. He was complaining that the plunging dollar hurts Americans. Bernanke countered that if they save or earn in dollars, and spend in dollars, then it doesn’t affect them that much except when they buy imports from countries that aren’t pegged to the dollar. Mr. Paul stammered and changed the subject. To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with him.
Some of the other representatives were more on the mark - especially the one from New Hampshire, who managed to elicit a “you were right, I was wrong” from Bernanke regarding his earlier predictions of ballooning housing inventories. Bernanke nonetheless opined that they aren’t likely to rise much from here. I think another “I told you so” is in the cards six months hence.
Bernanke came across as rather oblivious during most of the testimony, but then again enduring hours of grandstanding from Congress with only occasional on-topic questions might do that to anyone.
i watched it twice, and it looked as if Ron Paul was frustrated. when it was his turn, people started talking and i hear snickers from people (how rude). you cany judge him on one senate meeting, you have to view the collection of meetings where he brings out alot of very good points. here is a link:
Ron Paul ripping into Ben Bernanke.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=xTBrJNipytg
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Yen up 1.5% today! I think it is at a multi-year high. The Yen-carry trade will blow many a hedge funds and it would be especially bad for debt-addicted consumers on America and India.
Jas
Giving the markets the one fingered salute
https://image.minyanville.com/assets/FCK_Aug2007/File/linkschartslinkscharts/JYNov%209.jpg
That Yen chart is one of the most bullish I’ve seen in a long time. Perfectly defined reverse h&s and it has not broken over the previous resistance. Nothing but air above that.
For once I agree with you; carry traders are bleeding like stuck pigs.
One of the reasons is the collapse of Junk Bonds this week, the collapse of Dow credit default swaps this week and China showing up with a record monthly surplus.
As US companies such as Matsushita shut down because they cannot compete with China on prices, the trade deficit gets worse.
30yr treasury at 4.6%
expectations are over managed at the momment.
Hoz - “As US companies such as Matsushita…” - LOL. Read a good quote yesterday about gallows humor but failed to write it down. Something along the line of the humorous recollection of a reality.
Gallows humor.
Columbus, OH
Panasonic Primary Battery Corporation of America is shutting down one of its Columbus plants and laying off about 250 of its factory and office workers. “We are no longer competitive with Chinese imports,” said a vice president of administration at the company. “Those products are coming into the U.S. at a lower price.” Job cuts at the alkaline battery manufacturing facility will go into effect March 31, 2008. Panasonic’s two other Columbus facilities, a materials division and lithium division, will not be affected. Panasonic will employ 125 locally after the plant shuts down. Panasonic Primary Battery is a division of Panasonic’s parent company, Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, based in Osaka, Japan.
Approximate Affected Workforce: 101-500
Source: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer - November 6, 2007
Housing bubble or no housing bubble? not for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan War! 1 in 4 of the homeless folks roaming our streets is a VET!!!!! I can’t think of HOW this is happening!!!!These men and women are our heart, our soul, our GUTS!!! and they can’t find relief!!! over 100 thousand of our best, in the gutter. Today. Maybe we can write to people like Schumer and Feinstein and inform them of this fact, that all those empty McAtrocities should be GIVEN to our SOLDIERS who have risked their LIVES. Housing bubble? I’d say we have a MORALITY vaccuum. rant off.
A quarter of a million g.i.’s/blackwaters will be coming back to our country sooner of later, defeated.
And they’ve all seen what an i.e.d. can do…
I object to equating GIs or Marines with blackwater mercenaries.
The former are servicemen and women who for minimal pay put their lives and futures at risk. The latter are simply businessmen and women who are enormously well paid for the risks they choose to assume. For them, war is a profitable opportunity. Screw them.
Melvin,
You must hate amerika. You’re not supporting our troops. If you don’t like it here, move to russia. /sarcasm off
exeter says-”You must hate amerika.
No I don’t hate America at all, and by asking for homes and hospital care for those who are homeless who sacrificed limb and mental stability is supporting our troops right down the line.
We can’t do that Melvin. Such expenditures might redirect money from contracts with blackwater and haliburton.
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If this bothers you then you are in a wrong country — the highest rewards, with zero risk to life and capital, go to the manipulators of Wall Street.
There are manipulators who EACH made more money during the past four years than THE TOTAL LIFE-TIME COMPENSATION OF ALL THE MILITARY MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE DIED IN IRAQ.
Yeah, yeah, tell me about risks and rewards. The “secrets” of success are deception and manipulation, even bordering fraud. There aren’t very many ways to get ahead by deception in the military, are there?
A supporter of veterans (my neighbor is one and Tehachapi has lots of them),
Jas
so time to bring back those vets and blackwater guys from Iraq and tell them there is some loot to be found on Wall Street (especially in bonus season). Please install some webcams first so I can enjoy; contrary to Iraq, I’m not going to worry about some ‘innocent’ casualties.
Schumer and Feinstein ??
Excuse me…??….Who’s at the helm here ??
Of the US Senate and House, it’s the democrats. Remember when in 2006 they said “elect us, and we’ll make everything better”? Still waiting.
az_owner…. Clarify what you’d like to be better.
“Schumer and Feinstein ??
Excuse me…??….Who’s at the helm here ?? ”
Must blame this on Bill Clinton. It’s always Bill Clinton. We must be living in the Twilight zone since the 2000 election.
sc -i know what ya mean. i got it in my craw for those two, di and chuck today. yeah the retardican prez and his vice schmuck party are in charge. i’ just ticked at di and chuck for approving that cat for attorney general.they must not have a concept of life beyond their privelage. or something. no guts? no foundation. i don’t know.
I’d say we have a MORALITY vaccuum.
I’d suggest you look at the top. The Decider has decided our vets are worthless.
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“I’d say we have a MORALITY vaccuum.”
This is my turf. Most Americans are offended by mere mention of the term morality. To them, legality is all that matters. legalism is a morally bankrupt philosophy.
Jas
legality is all that matters. legalism is a morally bankrupt philosophy.
And if it isn’t legal, make it legal.
Merely collateral damage in the class war.
Whither the plunge protection team? Or are they planning another deux ex machina end to the weak around 3pm EST?
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary/
They will wait for the ex next friday, cant’ jump too soon to bail out the WS banks. My FRE puts got taken out this morning.
That is likely due to the effect of BB’s $1m bailout remark at the Senate inquisition yesterday.
Be ready for the 3 pm stick save; the Fed has a great goalie.
It looks like the DJIA plunge is contained at around 13,100. It appears to have established a trading range from which the market can magically climb back up to the opening bell level by day’s end…
IMHO it is a long weekend, most traders made a lot of moneys this week. Good traders are going to take some of their profits. Unfortunately most investors have no clue about the severity of the problem (or they would be screaming bloody murder). Today a lot of moneys are going into Index Funds (pension plans, 401Ks and IRAs) and since 40% of the index funds are financial, I expect a little short covering.
“…the severity of the problem…”
The Fed’s plan is apparently to downplay the severity of the problem while trying to respike the punchbowl. Do you envision a way for them to succeed?
I think the S&P 500 is about 20% financial. last year about 22%
Way off topic…
Check out our next furniture we are going to buy in February when we are in New Zealand, made from 36,000 year old “Swamp Kauri” wood.
http://www.kauricraft.co.nz/
I got the impression that they are priced at around 1 $ for every year they have spent in the swamps …
It does seem like a lot of money for “old” furniture, until you see it up close, in person…
Amazing texture, look and feel
Say, who here the other day called for JPY @ 109? Wow, am I seeing this right this groggy morning JPY under 111?
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My call is JPY at 100 and Swissie at parity with the dollar.
Jas
Purchasing parity would be 85 Yen to the dollar.
I wonder what kind of intervention the BOJ can manage. They must be running out of bullets.
How far will the dollar rout have to go before it starts supplanting news of the daily close on the DJIA in the MSM financial headline news?
probably until the US median home price is $ 1 million, so they have something new to cheer in the headlines
Must really svck big time about now to be a foreign infester in the U.S. stock market, facing the double-whammy of bear markets in the $US and in share prices!
Double-svck for foreign infesters in the U.S. housing market. How do these greatest fools feel about catching the double-edged falling knife of a declining dollar and vanishing home equity?
OT Observation-
In the last 2 weeks, wifey and I have noticed RE for sale signs getting swapped out for FSBO. I just checked inventory on OSG hardtack and they are showing a miniscule drop in inventory nearly everywhere.
On minyanville it is noted that the credit insurers are all up. That might be telling.
Wow! A lobbyist tells the truth.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/wall-street-lobbyist-calls-reality/story.aspx?guid=%7B78C7795F%2D7994%2D48AC%2D9EB9%2D300D63AA20BD%7D&dist=hplatest
Just one typo in that article:
“The industry has written down more than $30 billion in bad assets from its books and more could be coming.” Should read, “…more IS coming.”
Update on my former neighbor the cheating jeweler. Today National City Bank takes him back to bankruptcy court to force him to change from Chpt 13 to Chpt 7 liquidation, so they can get some of their money back. There’s a 1.5M creditors on the list for that, which doesn’t include anyone under $100k.
Also last night the foreclosure of his McMansion was in the paper. National City Bank, once again. They’re going to get a blood bath from this guy. A realtor friend of mine is going to find out today how many liens are against it. I’d bet anything, it’s way more than the value of the house. Of the people who will not get paid for things done to the McMansion are:
$30,000 for a pool house
$50,000 for a finished man-cave basement with all the amenities
$20,000 for construction started on another lot beside him, that got halted because
of non-payment
Then there’s the $25k for restoration of 8 antique cars, a house he bought with 8 garages to store the cars in & the $100k motor home he bought only for tailgate parties at football games. I’m sure he’s not making the payments on any of this also.
There’ many, many small businesses around town that got stuck with large balances on his revolving accounts.
One guy who rented him storage for the motor home, also was not paid. He said the jeweler’s mother was going to pay the contractors for the work already done on the house that was being built for her(2 brothers who only build 2-3 homes a year just to make a living on). They had to pay the sub contractors for excavation and the laying of the block for the basement out of their own pockets. But his mother discovered since she’d turned her finances over to her son to handle, he had used all her money too. Sleeze does not even begin to cover this guy and his ex-wife. Yet he still runs around town and spouts bible scripture to anyone who’ll listen, and he sits in church every Sunday. Waste of a pew, if you ask me. I’d hate to go to that church, because I’m afraid some day God’s going to strike it with lightning.
Man cave. That sounds exciting! What happens down there?
I’d hate to go to that church, because I’m afraid some day God’s going to strike it with lightning.
Good one! That says it all.
What’s really bad about situations like the one he’s creating is how many small businesses and independent operators who are going to get sucked down in the spiral. A friend of mine does a lot of electrical work for “rich people”, as he puts it. I warn him to keep his eyes open and get early payment, but he’s convinced that these customers are great to work for (”they say spare no expense!”) and he’ll have no problem collecting, ever. I hope he’s lucky, but I think this is another way the housing bubble effects will spread far and wide.
Oh my goodness. He is evil personified.
World War 1 ended on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, and it looks as if the timing of the ending for this debacle, will be similar…
At the present time the perceived wisdom pushed by our lords and masters is that the housing bubble is a US problem. They even seem to infer that if you discount Florida, California and a few other places everything in the garden is rosy, all be it getting a little less rosy by the minute. I tend to believe that the hosing bubble is more of a global problem than they think or are willing to let on. From my perspective I can see housing bubbles through out much of Western Europe especially in Spain, Ireland and especially in the UK. Are any other countries experiencing similar bubbles?
almost every nation with an anglosaxon banking system has a severe housing bubble, often much bigger than the US bubble. In Europe only Germany has no housing bubble (but they are working on that …). The US bubble is currently the only one that is seriously deflating; a few markets like Oz and Ireland are experiencing some pain (often locally, not for the whole market) but are still very bubbelicious. Most of the Old Europe markets have not started to deflate at all; you should definitely add the Netherlands to the three you mentioned above (probably biggest % gains of all).
In India the property prices in the capital New Delhi are up 10,000% in five years and teh stck market is up 4000%. Accident waiting to happen
Now here’s a chart like the one I posted yesterday developing (possible double bottom). We’ll see how this one plays out
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SPY&t=1d&l=on&z=m&q=c&c=
Amazing! On the WSJ online edition which I subscribe to, there’s a headline about Wachovia’s losses, next to a banner ad for Wahovia’s option-ARMs
(it linked here)
http://wachovia.com/misc/0,,1384,00.html
WTF?
cognitive dissonance.
Website designer with a sense of humor.
CFC rumor of possible JV with HUD.
I like Warren Buffett rumors better.
What’s a JV?
joint venture
Wow, financials have gone from a disaster this morning to almost recovering.
..
You guys out there that do the fancy tradin’, I would not want to be shortin’ anything out there. Way too unpredictable for me.
There is no rhyme or reason to these markets. None.
My Dad, a seasoned day-trader, margin chaser, whatever you will call him, has (almost) completely pulled out most his long-time stuff and is now into Forex, gold, silver, water companies, utility companies and mining companies. Not as diversified as he would like, but “safe”, according to him.
Anybody that tries shorting anything, especially based upon news / insider reports, is likely to get thrown under the bus.
People out there playing with margins and such are likely to get thumped. There is no longer any reason to this stuff; and hasn’t been for at least 9 months.
Unless you are extremely savvy and seasoned, you try and short this market and you will be punished accordingly.
..
And to be right with your prognostications and get beat by a cheap whore masquerading as a viable 2 way market, could only add insult to injury…
Shorting on insider reports is an easy way to make moneys - a horrible way to go to jail….Ask Ms. Martha Stewart.
Shorting because of the news is an easier way to make moneys than buying for any hope of appreciation.
Anybody who buys because of lack of news is more likely to get hit by a Mack truck.
Stocks go down a lot faster and harder than they go up. As your father is experienced he knows this (as do all the former and current share holders in Enron, Worldcom, Pets.com etc. It was amazing to me how many peoples bought stock as opening positions after these companies declared BK.)
You can buy the bankruptcies on the first day but you must also sell them that day.
And I love short selling. It’s long positions I can’t hold.
Somebody has to sell the shares to the mopes and there are a lot fewer people that learn to trade from the short side. LOL
..
I like reading txchick57’s posts; as they are quite informative. My Dad has read some of the stuff over here and he agrees with me. ( BTW he is quite the trader and books over six-digits a year, most years, playing with his own funds….he was in the auto business for a very long time and is a hardened old coot )
I didn’t know much about shorts, puts, etc until I came to this blog….I still have alot to learn…My Dad has been trading like this for years, but isn’t very patient when it comes to explaining the complexities of these types of trades to me.
I am a Chemist by trade ( mass spec operator ), make an above median salary, but nowhere near six figures. I am going to try this type of investing after the Big Bust goes down and some sanity returns to the markets. It may be awhile.
Till then I’ll stick to my Joe SixPack Investor Ameritrade account. I don’t know enough about day trading to even attempt it and my father says I shouldn’t fool with it until I can reason it with my own mind.
He refuses to do short sells with money that I would give to him…..says its the thing that people must do for themselves; as there can be significant pain involved.
Like poker, you must play your own hand in this game. Nobody should play it for you. Or so he tells me….
..
There is no rhyme or reason to these markets. None.
Sure there is why else would you Dad be buying commodities? because its a dollar hedge and the FED has to lower interest rates to bail out the financials. Doing that will weaken the dollar when so many other currencies pay better interest.
Day to day movement, I don’t have time to watch it.
The 4th Estate hasn’t been very forthright, have they?
An open apology to anyone I might have offended this week with any comment:
I have to take some medication every month or so and it makes me extremely testy, irritable and mean. I reread some of my comments and realize they might be interpreted as insulting. By no means did I intentionally mean to insult any one.
This does not mean that I won’t insult you, I’ll let you know when I do! LOL
“If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.”
Johannes Brahms, upon leaving a Viennese social function
I think that you are the most gentlemanly, Hoz.
Hoz, everybody digs your stuff here.
At times I think you may be too honest and open. Certainly nothing to apologize for. You seem so human, yet humble and brilliant…similiar to txchick…and Palmetto.
weird how it feels to know someone on an utterly cold and heartless machine forum.
Hey, if I pissed anyone off recently, sorry bout that.
i did get a long postion today.
out of the money call.
the sprott mention this week, set off my this is so radar, and I was forced to act.
Is it time to buy the dip on Monday? Because after a tough weak like this one, a bottom is clearly in at this point. Stocks can only possibly go up from here on out.
bulletin
STEEP FRIDAY DECLINES LEAVE NASDAQ DOWN 6.5%, DOW 4%, S&P 3.8% ON WEEK
U.S. stock indexes closes with weekly losses of 4% to 6%
By Kate Gibson
Last Update: 4:12 PM ET Nov 9, 2007
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks fell sharply Friday for the fourth day this week after Wachovia Corp. stirred more subprime concerns by hiking its loan loss estimates, and Qualcomm Inc. offered a disappointing forecast. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 223.5 points, or 1.7%, to 13,042.7, a decline of 4.1% for the week. The S&P 500 dropped 21.07 points, or 1.4%, to 1,453.70, a weekly decline of 3.7%. The Nasdaq Composite shed 68.06 points, or 2.5%, to 2,627.94, a 6.5% drop from last week.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BF5CB23F0%2DBE51%2D4CBF%2D8200%2D82E3DC89C9DA%7D&siteid=mktw
Why are these gloomsters so pessimistic? To read the current financial news, you would think that a major wild fire had just ravaged Wall Street.
It is time to buy the dip — the stock market always goes up!
Lookahead: Can It Get Worse?
By ANNELENA LOBB
November 9, 2007 6:21 p.m.
Stocks toppled this week, as all three major indexes closed with their biggest three-day percentage declines in five years. Will things get any better next week?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119464529104088359.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
Hillary Clinton wants to have lunch with you!
She’s having a “contest”
https://contribute.hillaryclinton.com/campaignlunch.html?sc=1447&utm_source=1447&utm_medium=e
where you can “win” the opportunity to have lunch with her “on the campaign trail”. On the bottom of the page is a link to enter w/o contributing.
I recommend we all enter! Maybe one of us will get the chance to ask her how any of her policies will help Americans who have savings accounts and didn’t buy houses they can’t afford.
I seriously doubt she is coming to Texas. I’d go to Arkansas though. (My wife wants to see Walmartsville.)
If you are so fortunate as to have lunch with HC, please remind her to leave a tip for her waitress, like all we little people normally do.
‘Nobody Got Left a Tip’
“I wished I would have been asked first,” the waitress, Anita Esterday, said of Clinton’s decision to insert her in a speech. “I wish she would have asked if she could talk about me later. I didn’t like it when someone called me up and said Hillary Clinton is talking about you. It’s like, what’d I do now? What’s she saying?”
When I returned to the Maid-Rite a few weeks later, Esterday said the senator had caught her off guard. But once they got talking, she was honest with Clinton about her need to work two to three jobs.
“I’ve been doing it all my life. Why should it change now that I’m old,” Esterday said.
Esterday does not think Clinton got it. “I don’t think she understood at all what I was saying,” Esterday said. “I mean, nobody got left a tip that day.”
Clinton may have decided not to tip. She was also never given a bill — her meal was on the house. Still, Esterday said Clinton might have left her something: “Maybe they don’t carry money. I don’t know.”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16099751
P.S. David Cee, please feel free to throw away some more of your hard-earned money down the rathole of HC’s campaign coffers. I can’t believe anyone truly thinks anyone so plastic is electable.
My wife and I looking to move to Austin from CA and are interested in a couple of houses in Stablewood at Slaughter Creeks (Pedigree Drive - 78748). Does anyone have any opinions on that area? How easy is it to get downtown during rush hour? Does it feel a bit isolated in that area or are you pretty close to things like restaurants, stores, and clubs? From walking through a few, it seems like the houses are really well-built - is that true? What is the HOA like? Is it in a flood area? We don’t have kids, but tend to like neighborhoods that seem kid-friendly and active, but we didn’t see a lot when we were there; anyone know about the make-up of that neighborhood? I know I’m asking a lot of questions, but we don’t really know anyone in Austin yet, so any information at all would be a real big help. Thanks a lot!
Check out the city data website.
citydata.com or google the info.
You will get more there…..