The Housing Bubble

RE: America’s Money: In Their Own Words

I read all the stories.

America’s in deep “poo-poo” (as in the diaper variety)

What’s most interesting is the insidious mention of the threat of “divorce” by currently married women as a solution to their financial woes.

Sure honey-we can’t make it on 2 income-so let’s go it alone.

Lots of logic operating here.

Memo to Loeslin s: Stop breeding

Businessmen they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth…

“Wasn’t it just a few months ago that people were saying that decreases in consumer spending can’t bring on a recession by itself,”

And people were flipping houses in Florida right up until the moment their market crashed. The past 2 years have shown us just how quickly stupid things can die. The pace at times can be absolutely breathtaking. Pretty cool!

…and greater fools are loading up on the foreclosure bus tours. Continuous wave of foreclosures continue as those new ‘deal’ prices continue lower and they walk away from those.

Yes and for good reason, in the past most got laid off in a recession, So why not game the system until the recession ended?

But this time is different a lot the jobs will not come back, so it buys time to figure out what to do next in life.

I said this before and i’ll say it again Pres Bush is the GREATEST president in creating underground jobs we have ever had.
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But in my lifetime I have seen a huge number of people game the unemployment system. They accept jobs under the table and continue to collect those unemployment bennies

Throw good money after bad.

I know there is a lot of support, even on the HBB, for the extension of unemployment benefits. I have not given this topic a whole lot of thought. But in my lifetime I have seen a huge number of people game the unemployment system. They accept jobs under the table and continue to collect those unemployment bennies. I am not as quick as others to view this as some great idea.
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IMO. we should be worrying about the big time crooks (WS and the pols). they affect the system whole lots more than some poor numbnuts padding his unemployment bennies. Hey, JPM just got 39 bill gratis from the taxpayers.

The unemployment system is a joke. I was laid off one time in my life (10 years ago) and briefly collected. It is very exclusionary as to who is allowed to collect. Many people who should be allowed benefits, are not. And, conversely, many who should not be afforded benefits, are. Another wonderfully run government program - not.

RE: gaming the system

Gamemanship?

You haven’t seen gamemanship until you’ve seen the public employee pigs working in Mazzland.

This chuck should have been publically flogged on the Beantown Common.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/05/big_dig_officials_firing_led_to_windfall

Then take the risk of starting your own business. I’m an employee and I never complain about being owned. I know that my alternative is to start my own business and take the risk. That is capitalism. But I hear so many employees cry that it makes me sick.

It’s also a wake-up call for those with high-income, high-expense lifestyles, employed in a volatile market (such as tech) that you are owned by your job unless you build adequate savings reserves.

Show me a tech worker who doesn’t save enough (and there are many, especially if they bought Silicon Valley houses and chose to reproduce), and I’ll show you someone who needs his employer, instead of the other way around. The latter being the correct order of the universe in my opinion.

She was trying to make those dancing ads look more realistic?

Why? Her parents might’ve emigrated from India.

You can’t possibly be this stupid.

I know plenty of people of Indian origin working for the CIA, DoD, etc. Mathematicians, mostly.

This makes NO sense to me..what everybody who moves to SoCal MUST buy a house for the new job? I have never done that in my life and never will…..i mean what is wrong with renting in a new area when you get a new job?
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I used to work in aerospace in SoCal in the mid 1990s, and still have friends there, mostly in management now, who lament that they have many open requisitions but can’t fill them because of, what else, the insane cost of housing.

Good idea, muggy. So truly ‘a propos’.
And then Ben should take allllll that money and buy beer and then go on a rampage, standing in the street and shouting ‘I told ya! I TOLLLLLD YA!’, and ‘Bernanke is a butt-marching, simpering, dewey-eyed mumchancer! Scholar my bum!’ and ‘I love unicorns!’ and ‘Make Al Greenspan into a collapsible canteen!’ and ‘Eskimos are pretend!’ and things like that.
Is my thought.

Oh, blah, blah, you critics; Eskimos ARE pretend. Like the moon-landing. Have any of you ever met an Eskimo? Or landed on the moon? No?
Well–there you go, then.

I lurk a lot and I just sent mine in! I couldn’t get through my cofee in the mornings without it!

doh!

I tried the other day at worked, and I was having paypal difficulties. I owe you cash Ben, I will donate today.

Many of us owe this blog many x’s what we will contribute - that is for sure.

Thanks. I hope. My sister is like me and most of the folks here, she knows how to manage money. You are very correct, I is big corp. america now. I was a fan in the 70`s as a young teen, but no more, too much like WWF, IMO. He used to fly for Dale Earnhart inc. and still has some connections in nascar. Those guys live a hard life and one I would not trade, even with their pay scale. Away from home every weekend.

Take care,
Lane

NYC Boy-It took me about 2 seconds to get this humor. Need my caffeine.

Her hair has never been shinier.

Most everything I like to do is unaffected by financial matters…

There is some inflation involved in taking a hike up into the mountains, countered by steady deflation on the way down.

The competition sends its kids to U.S. to get their higher educations. Once enough human capital is obtained at top U.S. grad schools, we will not be needed. The outcome need not be that dire, though, as many academics from abroad decide to stick around instead of returning to their home countries.

And you would be one of those people that should go to college. Notice that I didn’t say nobody should go to college. I think a college degree can be a huge help. I just pi$$ed around enough not to get one. I may get one some day but I might not. The, “everybody must go to college” attitude that is so prevalent is a real waste of resources.

I’m glad you are not the focus of a Big Love episode.

Olygal as usual is right. I loved college too…3 meals a day and all the books you could read. I have a Ivy B.A. in history, which does not translate into vocational training. But it has enriched my life every day. But, finding a job, navigating corporate America or starting your own business–these are things you teach yourself.

thank you for this reminder of what education can be…much, much more than targeted technical/vocational training.

You don’t hail from Hildale, do you?

Very Dear Olympiagal. Having survived the Hell that must have been your childhood with your sense of the absurd intact, your reward is that you can and do share all your truly wonderful literary snippets with (at the very least,) an appreciative blog audience. We are honored. Thank you!

I am a tad late to the party, but here’s my $.02 anyway. So There.

For folks who value thinking clearly, a higher education at a tough school is beyond price, for which you should be willing to sell your soul. It is not supposed to be trade school or vocational training. Recruiters only go to the rigorous schools anyway, with good reason, so a commodity college education will not “get you a job”.

But an education at a rigorous school is essential to develop clear thinking. Go to Colorado State, Eastern Missouri State or Western Connecticut State University, or some such, and all bets are off. These schools - I know for a fact - rely heavily on multiple choice tests. Not much value added beyond what the hapless students got from the education lobby thugs posing as teachers in their public high schools.

On the value of clear thinking. Try cobbling together a coherent briefing on ANY subject if your preparation is a 12th grade public school education. It can’t be done.

I agree that there are far too many mediocre schools, serving hordes of mediocre students. They are also a scam for foreign students, whose student visas are an easier route to illegal immigration than parajumping from an Air India / Pakistan airliner. A critical mass of mediocre students maintains/ed a profit center for the student loan industry, and provides classroom hours for PH.Ds unable to compete for jobs in places where they need to develop a reputation. “Publish or perish” is anathema to these folk. Peer review means you have to be willing to have your ideas analyzed and evaluated in closed session, by a bunch of folks with global networks who have run the same gauntlet and passed.

Those who don’t value thinking clearly above all else do not belong in college. Personally, I think far too many native born kids are forced into it. Consequently, the trades have lost their stature as honorable professions. This has greatly diminished our society - the bulk of the people in our workforce are made to feel that they don’t measure up to The Plastic Standard. The college educated look down on the trades, for the most part, and are repaid in kind at the moment of truth.

The Europeans have a good system, although it is loudly decried in this country. Bottom line - nobody goes to college who doesn’t belong there and want to be there, there are far fewer mediocre colleges, college graduates actually get jobs because there are fewer of them, and the trades are respected. What’s wrong with that picture?

Kudos to the Canadians for putting mediocre colleges out of business.

My Wife is a senior community college administrator and she literally has had to deal with death threats from disgruntled “children”, yank students out of her classrooms due to disruptive behavior, and chase down gun wielding thugs while in performance of her duties as the head of her campus. Simply unreal.

Yes because people dont understand the world has changed. If you dont have a degree your looked down on, If you do get a degree you have crushing dept.

Also parrents dont let childern fail or handle theur own affairs, why do you think doctor phil was calling britney an “adult child”

“Their maturity level is also very strange. At times I think I’m dealing with tenth graders.”

I recently moved my family to a new house, partly because I tired of living next to a house loaded with University of Washington girls. Outside of the 4AM parties, the final straw was when a pitbull escaped from their house and ran through my yard, growling at my wife. When we confronted the girl who took care of the dog, her response was at the maturity level of a little girl. In a near-stream-of-consciousness blather, she whined that her football playing boyfriend made her take care of it, because he was always on the road with the team, and her roommates didn’t actually like living with a pit, and on and on. I just stared at her, dumbfounded. She’s graduating soon, and she’s a complete imbecile. I told her I didn’t care why she had the dog; I didn’t want it eating my daughter. They got rid of the dog, but I decided to get the hell away from them.

My 19 year old niece is a very small gal, must weigh all of 100 lbs. She’s a certified welder and makes good money, loves it. Dropped out of high school cause it was boring and went to VoTech school. She’s also taking courses at the local college to be a teacher someday.

One instrument places complete utter financial faith in our government, the other doesn’t.

Choose a side.

Disclosure time, Stucco. Do you own any PMs? I’m just curious. You are probably the most anti-PM on this blog and Alad is probably the most pro-PM on this blog.

the volume increase in that chart illustrates nothing more than the june contract becoming actively traded one on the comex. as a pm bull myself i am heartened by such skepticism — time to worry is when everyone believes.

Ummm… I say they should all sit idle for a week and then come back and tell me another great idea…. umm.

That’s what I was saying. This meme of truckers unjustly overwhelmed by fuel costs appears every time diesel spikes.

“Um, if truckers aren’t getting paid enough it means there’s an oversupply of truckers. Simple supply and demand.”

Actually there is alway a demand for truckers. I work in the transport industry and am near the LB/ LA ports where i see 1000’s of trucks whizzing by daily going to and from the port. Every sign on back of the truck always advertises for class A drivers. TSA, Fed, State transportation rules, regulations,stiff requirememts for maintaining that class A/B eliminates quite a few drivers . One accident or citation and you are finished. Class A is so taxing and physically draining an occupation that many truckers burn out or drop out /take time due due to stress. That keeps the supply of available class A truckers in check.

Average pay for truckers is $30,000-$40,000 /year for beginners. More experienced or expert truckers who hustle their ass off can make much more . Trucking depends on No of jobs u can do : the more jobs u get or hustle for the more money U make.

“Um, if truckers aren’t getting paid enough it means there’s an oversupply of truckers. Simple supply and demand”

Thre is no shortage of applicants and those eager to get into trucking. The problem is that stiff requirements for qualifying to drive a class A rig ferrets out quite a few.
The medical requirements, TSA rules, too many points on 10-year DMV/MCR reports , A single 2-point citation, and background checks alone eliminate 60% of all first time applicants.

“OVerpaid” I doubt it. Remember George has allowed Mexico truck drivers to drive past the border.. Hence different much lower pay.

I have done work for the USPS every penny rise in fuel=$19,000,000. Stamps are going up.

There is a point beyond which customers are unwilling to pay for excessive fuel surcharges. And are those customers going to stop shipping their goods? I doubt it. They will attempt to find cheaper carriers Sure, who wouldn’t. But the shipper must be paid at some level. There are no free lunches and no free shipping.
Stamps are going up. Yes, and the higher they go the less mail there will be. To combat this, be sure to return every single prepaid business envelope back to the original junk mailer, whether or not you put anything in the envelope, to support the US Postal Service’s every shrinking business and to harass the junk mailers.
W-2 salaried truckers not getting sufficient fuel surcharge compensation for driving their rigs My trucker friend is employed by a small midwestern carrier, and pays absolutely nothing for the fuel he burns. The truck itself is modified with a engine governor and an auxiliary power unit to save on fuel, all of which was paid for by his employer. He even gets a bonus when his truck gets fractionally better mileage, due to his driving skill and use of aux power.
Of course the solution is to increase the price of transport along with the price of fuel. Inflation is an economist’s term which is not synonymous with higher prices. When consumer goods get too expensive to consumers, they’ll buy less. Not even the government can conjure up diesel for 30 cents/gallon a la 1973.

The Dollar didn’t plummet 60% in value from 1929 to 1933 against other stronger currencies, as it has in recent years.

wake up…

“Critics lodge five main arguments against CRA: First, they argue that the CRA is unwarranted in theory because market failures and discrimination are not significant problems in credit markets and CRA is ill-equipped to address them if they are. Second, CRA provides little benefit to low-income communities and is costly because it forces banks to make unprofitable, risky loans and compliance costs are high. Third, CRA’s use of a legal standard rather than a rule is lawless, and contributes to its higher costs. Fourth, the scope of CRA harms banks and thrifts as well as the low-income communities it is intended to serve. Lastly, other alternatives are better able to overcome market failures and discrimination, and to help low-income and minority households.”

In retrospect, 2005 was a spectacularly unsuitable time to assess the validity of any of these criticisms. I suggest waiting until at least 2015 to look at the effects of CRA through the lense of the rear-view mirror.

Thanks for the reference.
I am learning as I go here on this blog.
Some of this stuff gives me a headache though.

What’s funny is that I’ve never met more people so deathly afraid of snakes as the folks down here…