The Housing Bubble

Good one, PB!

Nothing squat-to-pee about YOU KKDM!
They just don’t make tirades like that anymore. Dang, girl!

Should you, Philly, and the Big V ever get together, the cowboys of this planet would hide their penknives in terror.
Thanks for sticking up for those of us who sit on the seat. Like normal people.

Good one Taxme, guess you got the response you wanted. That one must have hit bone.

“Good one”? “…hit home”? More like a revelation of your true inner self.

I…I’m so excited and impressed by your word skills, Kandy. I think I have to have a tinkle. Squatting, right here on the carpet, even.

I take it back, what I said yesterday, when I said ‘you posted smart words but your name smacks of frivolity.’

Although I do think that beautiful piece of work was wasted on taxmeupthebootay. I mean, he evidently hasn’t even heard of those fancy capitalization or punctuation thingies. He’s probably still working on the first paragraph, sounding out the words slowly while his lips move, getting stuck on the bigger words. He could call out to his girlfriend to help him sound them out, but I somehow suspect he doesn’t have one available.

“Squat to pee GOP.” C’mon now - that’s just damn funny there.

Thanks–I support your earlier position that that name is idiotic. It’s kind of you to overlook it.

On this question of squatting to pee, I admit I’m pretty passionate. I lose my head when I see squatpeeing denigrated on the Internet. It’s a proud tradition among lady pit bulls. It’s the way of elephants of the fairer sex. (Actually I don’t know that about elephants. Whatever–I’ll edit Wikipedia in a minute and then it’ll be true.) We don’t associate the squatpee devotees of the animal world with weakness. We never see them daintying out and taking offenses sitting down. Taxmeupthebooty wouldn’t go around teasing a womyn elephant just because he noticed her urination style was less gymnastic than that of her male counterpart. If he did he might get squatted on hisself. Though she’d more kneel than squat. What they do, they knock you off your feet and then kneel down in a leisurely way and just kinda rest their forehead on you and lean forward gently ’til you get all that elephant goodness resting on your torso area. It looks very feminine and motherly and loving, but it tends to make pate’ of the elephant teaser. I don’t have to edit Wikipedia to make this part true: I saw it on Spike TV.

Anyway, I’m sick of it: just because it doesn’t enable us to play sink the cigarette butt while we aerosol urine all over the bathroom, the menfolk want to laugh at our peeing and call it weak. Well, I call bullshit on that, menfolk.

Yes, it is. It wouldn’t have bothered me had it been dumb or unfunny. It’s a clever, funny, inaccurate statement of the problem. Is why I think he resembles Buckley, the late and lamented clever, funny, inaccurate destroyer of worlds. But a community college model rather than the Yale issue, which, of course, is in keeping with contemporary fashion.

You don’t like “sink the cigarette butt”? I thought that was kind of a universally appreciated endeavor, even for those sitting in the bleachers?

See, I thought it was a term that could just as easily apply to the MEN in the higher offices. Since guys like Rumsfeld and Cheney, and most of their cohorts never served in the military, but happily send the military to fight and die to serve their personal agendas, they really seem like the kind of guys who, when all is said and done, would squat down to pee.

But that’s just me….

I liked William F. Buckley.
There are many different persuasions and opinions. Civility should be a commonality however.

I liked him, too, Cracker Jim. He was hilarious. I just happened to mention in passing that he was a destroyer of worlds. Where are you seeing incivility in that? It’s not like I called him a squat-to-pee Republican.

Hey! How you d’wan, Acorn? You try and keep your head up, now.

I don’t know, I think panic may be happening later this year. It’s starting to unfold rather quickly.
Still, any significant investment probably shouldn’t be made until at least the year after next.

It’s not enough to afford to buy a house on either coast. Isn’t “renter” pretty much synonymous in this country with “lower class”?

I don’t put much stock in the figures at the low end, so I guess I can’t at the high end, either. The poverty line for a family of four is $18,850. So a family of four living on 25,000 dollars a year isn’t considered “poor”? Like unemployment and inflation figures, that’s so worthless as to be completely meaningless. So I don’t know what I make of the numbers on the high end, but I assume they are also out of whack and don’t reflect reality…

Oh, drat, I was looking at stats that were a few years old. The 2008 number for a family of four is 21,200. But, you STILL aren’t considered poor raising a family of four on 25,000 dollars a year!

In the People’s Republic of Maryland, making $100K a year for household income is still not enough to buy anymore more than a run-down, Post-War rancher in a mediocre area of town if one follows traditional lending standards (Haha, yes, I know.)

Maryland is the land of $300K condos next to gas stations and adult video stores, the land of $400 to $500K “starter townhouses,” and $600K “entry-level McMansions.” It is the land where they send you a flyer for a fancy new development where the townhouses that lack parking start at $600K to $700K, but they include a coupon for free coffee or a lunch at a restaurant that may or may not yet exist in this development, thus you should go out and buy one of these houses… In short, it is a land of madness - high taxes, high prices, and high crime. $100K a year household income won’t get you far here, and most of us make a lot less than that.

PTM: Which, of course is why current prices aren’t supportable. I certainly had no problem buying a crappy post-war “Cape Cod,” in College Park in 1999 on significantly less income. If the reasonably well off can’t buy STARTER homes there’s only one direction for prices to go relative to incomes.

“Maryland is the land of $300K condos next to gas stations and adult video stores, the land of $400 to $500K “starter townhouses,” and $600K “entry-level McMansions.””

That should be the MD condo slogan: Half the price of a house a just a short walk to Big Wolf II video… Heh.

MrBubble

Right, at 3 times your income, 100k a year here will get you a townhouse, in the suburbs, in an area with a poor school district.

Same here in the People’s Republic of Maryland. They build some absurdly overpriced development over in one of the “rich folk” counties, with a few houses set aside for “lower income” people. Sadly, “Lower income” by their standards is making $20K per year MORE than the median household income for the entire state?! And even then, unless the state was going to pay for 3/4 of the house, you STILL couldn’t afford it on such a low income based upon traditional lending standards!

Yep, this Bubble really needs to come to an end.

Yep, incomes are meaningless when a “strawberry picker” has access to $700K credit.

The key for us has been staying debt-free and keeping one parent at home. Childcare and interest will eat you alive!

Doesn’t this calculus imply that the second parent won’t be able to earn more income than child-care costs?

You bring up a good point. I’m not really comparing apples to apples.

It is probably a great deal more difficult to live on a low six-figure income made up of two salaries than it is with one. In our case, childcare costs are non-existent, along with other work-related expenses, like transportation. We live within a mile of my spouse’s office, thus we have only one car. We live debt-free, so we have no interest payments at all. Those expenses add up fast and can take a huge chunk out of a dual-income family’s budget.

“Doesn’t this calculus imply that the second parent won’t be able to earn more income than child-care costs?”

A true learning environment (not a diaper facility) is expensive.

The economist magazine has published several articles that suggest women are more likely to stray while they’re young and ovulating. Better to have your wife at home with the kids rather than the office where some “Ricky Ricardo” is constantly trying to lift her skirt, no?

Are you for real, rms?

100k at least you can afford to take vacations.
The median? no way. Even the rates for movies mid day have gone up.

“Doesn’t this calculus imply that the second parent won’t be able to earn more income than child-care costs? ”

Does this mean they should integrate child care costs in to their budget comparisons so they can differentiate between the two scenarios?

“Are you for real, rms?”

Once worked at a repo company where the office ladies were hired based on cup size, for real! It wasn’t Caligula’s Rome, but it did raise eyebrows. I wasn’t an engineer yet, so I didn’t know how to estimate the possible number of permutations ahead of time.

Does this mean they should integrate child care costs in to their budget comparisons so they can differentiate between the two scenarios?

I should think so, but before anyone thinks that it’s an easy choice, remember that the lifetime earnings for the spouse will take a huge hit. And, in the case of divorce, the at-home spouse is taking a huge risk. In our case, we weighed our options and decided that it was worth it. For others, it may not be for the best.

Once worked at a repo company where the office ladies were hired based on cup size, for real!

There is a liquor distributor in Fort Worth that include breast augmentation as part of their benefits.

I should think so, but before anyone thinks that it’s an easy choice, remember that the lifetime earnings for the spouse will take a huge hit. And, in the case of divorce, the at-home spouse is taking a huge risk.
———————–
This is why we drew up a nuptial agreement that would compensate the SAHP for lost income-earning capacity IF the income-earning spouse acted in a way that would cause divorce (adultery, drug abuse, physical abuse, etc. — very defined in writing).

Agree that the second income usually is a wash when it’s taxed at the higher rate, and you include all the costs of working outside of the home (clothing, cars, childcare, food from eating out more, and “entitlement” spending because you’re more likely to want to spend because you “work so hard” for it).

Additionally, a SAH spouse is insurance against job loss, as he/she can get a job if the other spouse is out of work and at least make some kind of income. It’s like having extra income-earning capacity that you don’t have with a second income-earning spouse — with expenses to match two incomes.

A friend that’s a ranger in a National Park in California told me last year, how do so many Mexican-American families with 4 kids, afford new Chevy Tahoes or Suburbans?

The new car dealers did the same thing the new house dealers did…

They “sold” to anybody.

A friend that’s a ranger in a National Park in California told me last year, how do so many Mexican-American families with 4 kids, afford new Chevy Tahoes or Suburbans?

The new car dealers did the same thing the new house dealers did…

They “sold” to anybody.

“Those of us doing well ($100K+ earners) don’t feel rich.”

It’s all about reference groups. My eight-year-old (paid off) luxury car may seem slightly shabby in the ritzy parts of town, but on my street, it’s the nicest by far. Feeling poor on a six-figure income is something we choose to inflict upon ourselves by making comparisons to people higher up on the economic ladder (or at least those who appear to be). Once I spent some time with people who were much lower on the ladder, I began to recognize how affluent I really am and became much more grateful for my blessings.

Our current government is all about fleecing those uppermiddle class people. You can’t get blood from a turnip and the elite run the country so it is the uppermiddle class and middle class that get fleeced.

The alternative minimum tax is the mechanism. Given the ramp up in inflation this will take a bigger and bigger bite out of the middle and upper middle class, but the elite will still have their dividend and capital gains tax breaks.

Inflation - kills the value of your paycheck, but CEO’s and investors of investment banks ect make out like bandits.

I loved John McCain’s plan for health care, tax employee health benefits to expand health care to those who are not offerred employee health benefits. ie tax the middle and upper middle class. Why not just roll back the dividend tax breaks that benefit the top 0.1%. Many who inherited their wealth.

I sense a second boston tea party at some point when the middle class realize that they have taxation and inflation without representation.

The envious are always poor.

You are much more succinct than I am, tresho. Well said.

“The envious are always poor.”

I like that. (the sentiment, not the envy)

Yeah - do tell me which doctors accept tax credits as payment. The whole idea of tax credits for health care shows a real disconnect with regular folks.

Hi MEaston: I can identify with your frustration with the AMT. Have you ever considered starting a side business as an independent contractor? That would permit you some deductions and allay the problem.

Another mild hit was Sugar town,
i got some troubles but they wont last
i’m gonna lay right down here in the grass
and pretty soon all my troubles will pass
cos i’m in shu shu shu, shu shu shu,
shu shu shu shu shu shu sugartown.

When you think about it, Nancy Sinatra didn’t do a lot of singing. Didn’t take after her father. The highest note she sang was E above middle C.

The magic was in Lee Hazlewood’s songwriting and production.

I find it somewhat troubling that there are people out there that know so much about Nancy Sinatra’s singing career…….. :)

“The highest note she sang was E above middle C.”

Sinatra was an awesome singer and entertainer, but it wasn’t as if he had the most dynamic vocal range either. Plenty of good singers are out there with limited vocal range.

Good point, sfv, but you must admit that she had no talent. Despite that, I liked her songs!

I think it was a joke. Well, I hope it was a joke otherwise I’m old, too!

howmuchamonth…. noobies…. I get the sense I know you from a forum PCat….

Well - given that life insurance is not actually an asset - the only thing that *matters* is the monthly payment. When the term is done, if you don’t die - you’re left with nothing, that’s the whole point. It’s not like a car where a sleazy salesman tries to tell you “but your payments are only X per month”.

Kudos to your low monthly bills. You’re probably amongst the .001% of people in the U.S. who pay less than $50 per month. Certainly someone who pays $1M+ for a house doesn’t have such low bills. For someone who makes $100,000+ a year - yes I would say “only” $50 a month is a reasonable and easy thing to pay.

I certainly wouldn’t want my wife and kids to have such a huge sudden burden if I died. Sure they could probably scrape by, but it would be a huge reduction in living quality - it’s not worth the risk, if you can afford it.

FYI - My $1,000,000 10-year term policy (established just 2 years ago) only costs me $28 per month.

The only problem, is that in a few years that $1M may not be nearly enough coverage if BB continues to destroy our dollar.

dammit

Those thieves drive mercedes. Vulva’s and BMW’s are for flunky wannabees who need to display prestige no matter how little prestige or money they have.

I have owned a 72 2002, 82 320i, 00 328ci. All of them have been great cars and a pleasure to drive. Enjoy your rice burning Hyundai. Flunky? Hardly.

Concur, Left LA. Although I could drive a Mercedes (and pay cash), I chose a Volvo, which has great safety features and hasn’t given me a lick of mechanical trouble even thought I am now at 125,000 miles. In fact, the dealership that I selected my car from was a Mercedes/Volvo dealership so I had both to select from. I would not, however, begrudge a person who comes to the same dealership and selects the Mercedes, however. If you can afford it, who am I to tell you what to drive/buy?

I also rent a house, even though I could afford to buy a nice house on a fixed rate. Volvo-driving flunky wannabe? No way!

Don’t be dissing the Swedish bricks like that, at least not the real ones. (I got nothing to say about these imposter Fords.) Nobody would choose to drive one of these things for prestige, are you insane? It’s an oldlady car and always has been. It handles like a cement mixer and it has zero pickup. I happen to think the old boxy ones look great, like a Chanel suit, but I’m the only person on this planet who thinks that.

I used to have a shambly old 1983 sedan and I wanted to capitalize on the extreme honkin dorkiness of the Volvo. I had this idea that I could trick it all out like on Pimp My Ride–you know, with the insane sharkskin paint that changes color and the crazy rims and some undercarriage blacklight effects and a steereo to make it go boom but do nothing to the actual workings of it, so I’d be feebly driving around in this thing, all making its flatulant noises and drowning out the NWA. But I never get to do anything cool like be on Pimp My Ride.

I’m a serial Volvo leaser myself. I’m really dorky. By the way, I lease for the same reason that I rent a condo, to be free to return the car and spare myself the hassle of selling. But this last one is nowhere as good as my previous ones. The Ford thing has gotten to them. In fact, I think my next one is going to be a Honda or a Toyota. Too bad, they had one loyal customer in me but I’ll be jumping ship. I don’t want to drive a car that has worse gas mileage than my previous identical model.

My current one is pre-Ford. It gets wretched mileage because it weighs 80,000 pounds.

I can’t say that I was a big fan of the Volvo 1971 144-S that I used to own. Perpetual brake and carburator problems. Damn you Zeinth-Stromburgs! They’re the next worst thing to SUs IMHO. Sure it had 4-wheel disk brakes but they had to be bled regularly and they had 8 bleeding nipples. Underpowered too.. It WAS very comfy and roomy though.

I happen to think the old boxy ones look great, like a Chanel suit, but I’m the only person on this planet who thinks that.

Oh no, you’re not. My girlfriend has said similar things about Volvos. We have a ‘97 Volvo wagon (pre-Ford Joe Camel Grille), but we lust after the boxier ’80s wagons.

When I was in the Bay Area for work last month, I called her and said, “You wouldn’t believe all the beautiful old Volvos and Galaxie 500s I’m seein’ out here.”

Chicago winters are hell on cars — I’ve vowed not to indulge in a vintage machine unless we have a garage to protect it. Even then I’d feel a little guilty.

My apologies for the pre-ford Vulva owners but you’d have to be a moron to pay 3x for a re-badged Ford Taurus.

I own a real Volvo (1995/Sweden) 940 sedan box. Pushing 280,000 miles and still going strong.
Practical, and what a steering radius. Paid up for 8 years, and still going strong.

But the truth is you don’t have two dimes to rub together. But maybe if you just work a little harder, someday you’ll be rich too.

“I’d do it until I had chance enough to cut their throats ear to ear. ”

Jeez. Remind me to stay on your good side ex.

Yep, unfortunately for them, their own crop is not “sustainable”.

Many go into teaching or academia, grooming the next generation. And so the cycle continues …

Exactly.

Why do few seem to understand this?

Sorry that the facts don’t support you. Medicare averages 3% in administration cost and spends less per capita for the same health costs than any private insurer. Which spend 20% to 40% for administration overhead.
You also suggest that our healthcare is superior to other countries. Our lifespan and general health stats fall in the lower half compared to other countries that have universal care.
I am accustomed to battling my insurer over every penny for whatever healthcosts I incur and still have big out of pocket expenses.
And I’m better off than friends that have no insurance.

Our healthcare is not expensive because doctors are paid too much, it’s too expensive because all the “middle men” (insurers, healthcare executives & administration, advertising, pharmaceutical companies — who get their “patented” drugs from PUBLICLY-sponsored entities, etc.) scam the system.

Doctors are not the problem, patients are not the problem. The problem is a capitalist system that profits by prolonging illnesses so that drug and medical companies can shackle patients to life-long “treatments” instead of cures.

Nowadays I can only laugh at the “we have the best healthcare system in the world” propaganda. Same old tired worn out lies, same old tired worn out mantra. I can’t wait to see the excruciating pain on their faces when the entire HMO crime syndicate gets ripped apart…. piece by painful piece.

You’ve got that right. WHO ranks the U.S. 34th in quality of overall health care. Granted, we do run a spectacular catastrophic injury system, but we flat suck where chronic illness, the greatest expense, occurs.

Information will not be suppressed (unless government wants it that way ala- China & youtube recently-, a possibility)

Unfortunately, I anticipate exactly this.

Already is - and by private sources. For example, I subscribed to “Truthout”, an anti-war site with many esteemed contributors. It stopped coming. I assumed their website failed. I re-subscribed. Same thing.

Fast forward several months. I am forwarded a copy of an “undeliverable” notice sent to Truthout by Microsoft…. only on further examination, find out not only M.S., but Yahoo and AOL routinely eliminate some sites they apparently object to. Astonishing.

A few other sites come with “protecting your computer” notices. Sheesh. Collecting what I’m able by way of evidence, and plan on trying to get an op-ed published where it might get a touch of traction. (ever the optimist)

The big unionized factory is dead. But there are still lots of little factories around. Minimum wage, no benefits, no guaranteed 8-hour day. Just like the bad old days.

My wife has a ‘99 Mustang 6 cycl we bought new in I think it was March of 99. She’s got over 100k on it (I’m not sure of the milage) and it still runs good. Someone kicked a dent in the door while parked at WalMart. Other than that it’s still in good shape.

I’ve been surprisingly pleased by how well that car has done considering I think it cost us 15k back when we bought it. Still runs great, no engine noise or anything like that.

“driven Fords all my life”
Then to what are you comparing your experience?
Consumer Reports, the unbiased bastion of auto evaluators?

Hi Cracker. I was agreeing with HD that Ford and the other US automakers will go extinct. Their market share has been dropping for years. They all lost billions last year. Their managements seem to do everything wrong. But each one makes a couple of good vehicles. I’m partial to the Ford Focus, so I’ll keep buying them until Ford goes under.

His parents (and you) would be amazed to see what happens if the parents had the balls to say that they are not driving him places anymore. My boss is still driving his kid to work at 21 because the kid always got chauffeured everywhere and never had to learn to do it himself.

USA = learned helplessness.

MrBubble

When we ventured onto the street part of driver’s training, there was 3 of us in a car, with an instructor. All 3 of the other 15 year old classmates had driven quite a bit, as opposed to me, who’d never done it.

Back then, driving was a rite of passage…

LOL
You’re funny, and a great mother.

I strive for “wreckless” driving myself. Doing pretty well so far.

Bravo to you Wittbell.

Friend’s son drove me to a train station(chicago) and he never stopped at stop signs and was always inching his way into crosswalk before light changed.
I asked his mother if she knew he was driving that way.
Nope.
He drives differently when she is in car, or when his gf is in car(which she was with us). So, I suggested that she pray, and get more insurance.
I think there was a talking to…18 yr old with absent dad.

I strive for “wreckless” driving myself. Doing pretty well so far.

How are others on the road doing? Are they alive?

(smugly) Thaaaaannnkkksss!

My older son was pretty happy to sit around and let us take care of him. I told him he’d have to work at sixteen, and he thought I was kidding. The day after his sixteenth birthday I told him to go get a job and not come home until he had one. He did it! Best thing I ever did. I didn’t have to say the same thing to the younger one - he went right out and got a job.

One of my favorite shows to watch is Super Nanny. I get to see what happens in homes where children are raised with few/no boundaries or limits. They do things like ignore their parents’ instructions, hit their parents, cuss at their parents, make messes and somehow get their parents to clean up after them. I spend the better part of the hour with my mouth wide open, gasping and shaking my head. My kids learned very early on, before they were big enough to fight back, that Mommy’s got just enough crazy in her that if they EVER pulled any cr@p like that, they would be opening up a HUGE can of whoopass. I’ll say no more.

Spankings were paid for and delivered-once in awhile, when I was a lad.

That commodity bubble collapsed years ago. This was caused by British Columbia… British Columbia…

Wow - complete alliteration failure here.

I thought you had a moment there with the “OK, you guys were right” post.

‘“OK, you guys were right” post’

I haven’t figured out how to use the sarcasm tag yet.

Oh, thank goat! I, too, took you seriously, PB. My relief is palpable…but please don’t.

For those of us who have PB-posts, short term memory, please repeat the short version of what you, PB were professing on commodities.
Thanks in advance.

PB thought there might be a correction coming up with commodities ,if I remember correctly . Course, gold and other commodities could go back up again based on wherever you think the trend is going .

The thought that sticks in my mind is that one ounce of gold, in any given year, would buy a man a nice suit. I don’t know what the going prices of a good European style suit is these days. And if I did, I’d wonder if either the material or the labor in making the suit has been depressed for quite awhile and if the price of the suit is about to take off!

I’m continuing to buy gold in one or two ounces at a time the next few years.

In 1964 a silver quarter got a gallon of gas. In 2008 that same quarter will also get a gallon of gas.

Wow! I did not take you for a sorority girl at all.

txchick, you were in a SORORITY?

Afraid so.

You must be less than age 50, Chick. Sororities and fraternities were not popular when I went to school. They made a comeback. They are very expensive nowadays to join.

Overall. Low estimate was 10% high was 25%.

Maybe you could get a job at the WSJ, it looks like they could use your insight.

“He’s calling for immediate massive government intervention.”

I’ll buy that, but my idea of massive government intervention would include: immediate shutdown of Wall Street and nationalization of the FED. Enthusiastic mass prosecutions and incarcerations of daBoyz, while freezing and seizing their assets. Get rid of the current administration. End of foreign aid, since charity begins at home. End of the Iraq War and bringing our troops home from around the world. Withdrawal from the Olympics. Bring alternative energy sources on line NOW, and I don’t mean that ethanol crap. I’m talking Tesla’s magnetic field, solar, etc. Immediate cutoff of ANY benefits to illegal immigrants. Release of strategic oil reserves. Plowing under of useless crapbox developments. That’d be some shock and awe, lemme tellya.

Testify P!!!!!

You had me until the Tesla thing.

(I know what you’re talking about - just think it’s too risky. And I’m a strong proponent of nuclear power.)

Right on, Palmy!!! You Da Man!

From the South Florida Business Journal:

“Florida regulators have approved Florida Power & Light Co.’s petition to build two new nuclear plants at its Turkey Point facility.

The state Public Service Commission determined that there is a need for the additional power.”

I agree with everything except releasing the strategic oil reserves. My understanding is that the oil is there for emergency military purposes, in case we suddenly need to go to war, not to ease prices. And perhaps a little foreign aid would be okay.

Tesla “thing” is the safest way for energy.

Bingo Oxide. Me too.

Can we find a party w/palmetto’s platform?

“Tesla ‘thing’ is the safest way for energy.”

I don’t believe that. Putting out high-power EM waves into the atmosphere would be an incredibly huge risk, mostly for medical reasons. Tesla was a physicist, not a medical doctor.

Plus Tesla’s idea has nothing to do with power generation, only distribution. You still need to generate it (via fossil fuels, nuclear, etc).

Point taken, though I submit that budget constraints ultimately dominate psychology.

Budget constraints dominate everything.

And while you’re at it, explain why the short term T-bill rate plunged (IRX) to 0.2% this morning (now at 0.375).

“And while you’re at it, explain why the short term T-bill rate plunged (IRX) to 0.2% this morning (now at 0.375).”

There is a shortage of dollars relative to demand. This drives the value of the dollar up relative to other assets (such as gold).

Any more questions?

And btw, that really low s-t T-bill rate can also be taken as a signal that the market is pricing in deflation. Stuff some dollars under a mattress before it is too late.

“There is a shortage of dollars relative to demand. This drives the value of the dollar up relative to other assets (such as gold).”

You don’t know where China is do you PB? Shortage of dollars?! Are you kidding? So, the shortage of dollars is causing yields to plunge? Sorry, exactly the wrong answer.

which hand would buy you the most food? The hand with the gold in it would soon be emptied by the hand with the gun in it. The hand that can raise a crop might be able to feed itself.

That’s deep….

“The hand that can raise a crop might be able to feed itself.”

Unless you’re white–then that option is out (in Zimbabwe, that is). Gold, however, is colorblind and would be accepted everywhere.

Personally, when I carry gold I’m ALSO carrying my gun. Robbery, as a career path, carries a significant degree of risk. As ol’ Clint would say “dying ain’t much of a living”.

‘The hand with the gold in it would soon be emptied by the hand with the gun in it. The hand that can raise a crop might be able to feed itself.’

Good one, tresho.

In case anyone thinks I’m making this $hit up:

http://tinyurl.com/26z72u
Zimbabwe’s last white farmers face final push

“Before the onset of the land grab, Zimbabwe had about 4,000 white farmers. Perhaps a few hundred are left — and the great majority are only able to cling to portions of their land.
Hardly any still possess all the acres they owned before the seizures. The latest deadline could dislodge the remaining handful.
‘The military are heavily involved now,’ said John Worsley-Worswick, spokesman for the pressure group Justice for Agriculture. ‘We always knew that eventually the government would go for the final push, and here it is.’
[b]The United Nations says that about four million Zimbabweans will need food aid next year. Until the land grab, Zimbabwe exported food.”[/b]

Irony . . . so thick you need a knife.

“The United Nations says that about four million Zimbabweans will need food aid next year. Until the land grab, Zimbabwe exported food”

Starving, but In Charge, By God!

I don’t take offense at stupid remarks.

I’m not an all-or-nothinger here, but the greater the government nationalizes the economy - and I think it’s going to be massive - the greater the increase in nominal demand that can be orchestrated and therefore the greater the trend toward inflation. The less government intervention, the greater the trend toward deflation.

I’m betting deflation, until I see real incomes in the US start to rise, or a substantial helicopter drop (160 billion ain’t going to cut it). Saving the banks won’t increase consumption unless they loan that money out, and the US consumer is not worthy of more loans. You are seeing credit card and mortgage rates rise, and credit availability shrink. I sold all my oil stocks earlier this year, and 1/3 of gold at 1000.

(PS great show on Frontline last night about credit card companies and all of the tricks they use to trap borrowers, and the complete lac of regulation from Washington, infact Washington has fought state regulators efforts to reign this crap in)

All currencies have their swan song eventually…

The Dollar has outlived it’s usefulness, on the world’s stage.

After Bear Stearns, there are still 6 huge Financial Corp’ses ahead, that need to be planted, along with 6 behind it.

Confidence in our financial acumen will be questioned all along the way by outsiders, that will call the shots in valuing our money downward.

Add in a bunch of bank runs into the mix, just for spicing it up.

Another bright bulb.

Reality and truth. It’s on the menu.

I don’t make one-sided bets.

A general trend seems to be if suburban moms are doing it, its peaked.

Here’s the kicker…

Their piddly amounts of scrap, mixed in with hundreds of other piddly amounts, get melted into a 400 Troy Ounce bar, that gets sold to an oil rich concern, overseas.

The housewives got money to pay their bills, nothing more.

“…its peaked.”

or perhaps….jumped the shark?

I don’t understand what is happening either, but I dumped all my S&P500 index funds in August & went into cash. You don’t need to know the reason why the wind blows in a certain direction. In August I had the same feeling I had in 2000 before the dotcom bust. Didn’t do anything about it then, but I wasn’t going to let it happen the same way twice.

I think its a rally in a bear market. It will last until its clear RE is still falling and another bank blows up and needs a FED bailout.

I suppose that would be more “fair”, but if it were up to me, I’d shoot down Ben and his damn helicopter altogether.

I”m ready to when the dollar rallies some more and platinum drops.

Platinum to 1550 and gold to 800?

Yeah, but you would be, er, “stimulating” the European economy though.

nah. Buying through a U.S. conduit.

At least the Euro will be back to $1.17 in four months.

In Colorado;
I think I responded to your post a few days ago regarding engineering salaries:
If it was you that I was responding to, and out of curiosity, how did those salary ranges compare with your section of the country and difference in company size (My company 11-13M per year)?
If it was not you, sorry for the bother.

Engineers here where I work make around 90-100K. But for many there have been no raises in years. Smaller companies pay less, say 70-80K. One thing I have noticed however is that most of the jobs I see advertised are typically 3 month contract jobs that pay 30-40/hr, no benefits.

“Not if employers are colluding to keep wages low. For instance, they keep lobbying for more H1-B visas, claiming that there is a labor shortage, when the real reason is to flood the market with workers to push wages down.”

Exactly. Labor is easy to come by for the right price.

That’s the point. They are flooding the market (by lying about the alleged shortage).

An honest manager at work told us that the goal is to reach wage equilibrium with our 3rd world divisions.

And there you have the big picture. Wage deflation thru globalization.

Thats why RE will continue to fall taking many banks down with it. I told my boss if I got a big raise I could buy his house hes tring to sell ahhh no I guess not

Like “office space” funny movie

Imagine if a big whale jumped out of the ocean high into the air, then landed on its belly. The impact would suck down a lot of liquidity.

I am having a whale of a panic attack.
I am so conservative in investments and now they are in peril.
I have some assets, but how ’bout the seniors?
No yield on their fixed income!!!
They will just die early just from stress.

Thanks for mentioning the effects on fixed income seniors who are eating it on FDIC insured accounts . It will force some of the seniors into higher risk accounts to survive ,and it’s questionable if that risk is wise for some of these seniors .

Seniors who can never be employed again ,cannot take risks because they cannot make wage income to make up for any risks taken ,or do they have the time to make up losses .

I know a lot of seniors right now that are being contacted by
the “commissioned salespeople “, to switch to higher yield accounts ,that in some cases are backed by mortgage backed securities . When the “commissioned salespeople “start to mess with income flow that is needed for food by some of these seniors ,than the seniors will be eating dog food if that investment fails .

Another senior I ran into told me the “commissioned salesperson ” wanted 18k to do a reverse mortgage on his property .

How many seniors own treasuries?
How many of them will have no income?
Did BB think about this before he saved JPM?

Seniors who invest in treasuries also have the option of FDIC-insured CD’s, which currently are paying much better than s-t Treasury paper. When the Treasury pays better, their s-t CD’s can be transferred there as they mature.

It’s a Gambler’s Ruin chart.

The one who wants to go to Mexico.