Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For April 26, 2008
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Yipeee!!! I think this is my first-time, first comment ever, thanks to insomnia. The world food crisis is keeping me up at night. It’s not a good thing.
“….keeping me up at night…”
Yes, Cass, it does seem the overall state of the world is sliding more rapidly and precipitously over the brink. What seemed plausible a few years ago seems quite absurd today. You know, things like buying a $500,000 house, subscribing to a printed newspaper, taking a road trip in my SUV. My how the world is rapidly changing.
I am unclear on the whole food issue, whether it is hyperbole or not, but one thing is for certain, the housing market in California is continuing to tank. Each time I think we are getting close to the bottom, new leading indicators arise showing we are still headed into the abyss during the foreseeable (3-6 mon) future. It is starting to get very uncomfortable.
“the overall state of the world is sliding more rapidly”
We did go from, “that new dishwasher will icrease the value by at leasst $10k” to “one per customer” rather quickly.
Jim, I know you lurk here. I’m sure many of us would appreciate your input. I’m trying to imagine the Long Emergency, but keep returning to sudden collapse. How do you derail slowly over time?
Kunstler lurks here? He’s always good for a bout of worrying, keeps my good moods in line so people don’t shoot me.
Not to fuel your fire, but I had a great history professor in college and after my last class I stopped by his office and asked him what is the one thing he wanted me to learn from him.
He said, “learn to grow your own food.”
I wouldn’t worry too much. If it really hits the fan I plan on taking to the streets with shoulder pads, a purple mohawk, and a sharpened boomerang. I figure that’s the best chance of feeding my family.
Narrator: My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams. This wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called “Max”. To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time. When the world was powered by the black fuel. And the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel, they were nothing. They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed. Men like Max. The warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything. And became a shell of a man, a burnt out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again…
Nice writing, alad, thanks for another sleepless night…:-)
You have entirely too much time and caffeine on your hands…
Those weren’t my words…
Lifted from:
The Road Warrior, or as it’s known in the states: Mad Max 2
I repeat…
“I repeat… ”
JWhite, we all communicate differently. Can we move past the, “you have too much time” nonsense?
None of us has too much time. This is just how we prefer to communicate in the limited time we have to discuss these issues.
It’s called a “joke”…
“It’s called a “joke”… ”
I w a s n o t p r o g r a m m e d t o c o m p u t e h u m o r
“The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice”
If U alter a few items in that paragragh U just described what is transpiring in greater LA bain and the outer IE exurbs and deserts. A bit hyperbolic but this actually describes life in the ghettos of LA and the IE. If u can describe a possible riot scenario for LA this would be the perfect description. If Anyone thinks i am a tinfoil type think again. I have lived in and worked in the ghettos of LA, been thru the riots of 1992, and know LA inner ghettos quite well. This is how life is lived there : basically survival of the fittest, most ruthless, most cunning, every man for himself, steal, loot pillage, carjack, pouce on the unwary at opportune times .
Don’t take a wrong turn off the 110 or 105 and end up in some ghetto district in Compton or S Central, especially at night unless u are armed to the gills.
I you have to be armed to the gills then I’d say you were out of your depth.
Me, Mr. Whitey, makes routine dives into South Central with no more than a Leatherman and a flashlight. Situational awareness beats packing heat in an area where it could be 30 against 1 in the blink of gimlet eye.
Muggy:
My Mohawk will be green so we wont hurt each other on our Escape From New York….OK?
“so we wont hurt each other…”
No promises. You might have an iPod or a pair of Micheal Jordan’s I like.
I feel we need some expert opinion and guidance on the proper colors and etiquette of mohawks in the time of chaos and disintegration. There is only one who is capable of such wisdom and perception: Olympiagal!
Olympiagal, you have the floor.
Roidy
I saw a 6″ mohawk haircut on a Seattle bus once. (University district) It wasn’t pretty.
Looked like beaten down corn rows as he dripped into the bus. The Olympia area may not be the best area for mohawk haircut experts
Ah Ha! The gauntlet has been thrown!
Roidy
Oly’s down getting a mohawk right now so she can properly relate and answer your questions - I think she’s getting it dyed metallic magenta to match her cowgirl boots.
Comment by ACH
2008-04-26 08:05:15
I feel we need some expert opinion and guidance on the proper colors and etiquette of mohawks in the time of chaos and disintegration. There is only one who is capable of such wisdom and perception: Olympiagal!
Olympiagal, you have the floor.’
Wow! I am thrilled to be handed this signal honor! I better think hard and get it right. Losty has the right idea, I believe I’ll get out my electric buzzer and see what goes best. After all ‘waste not, want not’.
Wait, that’s not the right motto. I mean, ‘Always be prepared, like a cute little boy-scout with one of those darling yellow scarves’. That’s the motto I want here.
Is that the last of the Mohicans?
‘He said, “learn to grow your own food.”
Maybe the main reason I got a house was because I want a garden, and a good garden takes time to establish, fruit trees take a couple years to get going at least, and even building good soil for annual vegetables takes some time. When I first got here the soil was so bad, I could not believe it. Dig though I might, I saw ONE WORM the first year, ONE, and it was a skinny worm, too. I thought maybe Sweet Baby Jeebus had cursed the ground because He so strongly disapproved of the the last owners paint choices–and boy, I could see His reasoning there–OR, I wondered it if was a secret Indian pet sematary, where ‘the soil is bad here’ and full of zombies and such, but nope. It turns out that it just needed some terroire, composted waste I hauled in, and good hard work.
And NOW guess what? That’s right, when I go out to my garden, say to pick a giant bouquet of pink and red and orange tulips, why, I have to use one of them sherpa guide lines to help me over the buckling ground, because the giant vigorous worms are heaving the soil around so much it’s hard to keep my footing.
Yep. That’s right.
Stop worrying and go to the San Diego beach today. I don’t expect any problems finding a spot to lay your blanket. And the chance of shark attack is nil — other than yesterday’s little incident, there has not been a fatal attack for 49 years.
I usually can handle it during the day. I do all kinds of things with the kids. At night, it’s another matter. I have to say that this is for personal reasons too. The farmers strike in Argentina has hit home, and things are not getting any better…
Imagine what happens if the corporate food industry decides to sell it’s domestic-grown foodstuffs outside of the country, for an additional 30 Pieces of Silver?
I’s c a riot, Judas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Iscariot
A little more on Argentinian food woes + inflation in the Washington Post today.
It’s a summary, but the situation is a little more complicated than that. The government expects farmers to finance the government sector and to subsidize not only food but the monetary system. The increase in taxes was not only for soy, but for sunflower and other crops. Also, the government has forbidden beef exports for a couple of years now and recently ALL exports have been stopped. The irony is this is a country of 40 million that produces food for 300 million. With a good policy, the poor could eat for free and there would still be a lot left over to export. Unfortunately, the government cannot allow that, because it would empower farmers, so they are moving to basically confiscate their profits and put them into the hands of the federal government. The thing is, now the whole interior is pretty mad, and populists don’t take well to popular resistance. All the model is predicated on the stupid export taxes, which were bad enough at 35%. The increase to 44% did it for many small farmers. The very real risk is they will get wiped out and bought out by big agribusiness, which is what the government wants. They understand crony capitalism. By resisting, the farmers are aiming at the very heart of the system and I am very worried at what they could do….
I was there last week. Farmers burned brush around the city of Buenas Aires and the smoke shut the city down. We had to charter a plane and fly to another airport to get out since the domestic airports were closed. Pretty amazing times.
In the mid ’70s it was Watergate that kept people up at night.
In the late ’70s we got the Iran hostage crisis followed by the invasion of Afghanistan and skyrocketing gas prices.
In the early ’80s it was the Cold War, especially as movies such as “The Day After” came out.
In the late ’80s it was the end of the Cold War and the coming New World Order.
In 1990 it was Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait. A few years later it was the Branch Davidians followed by Timothy McVeigh and a nice economic recession.
In the mid ’90s it was Chechnya and Bosnia and Somalia and other localized wars that sprouted up after the end of the Cold War.
In the late ’90s it was the rising terrorist threat including the embassy bombings, the Cole, Khyber Towers, etc.
Along came 9/11 and that kept us up for years.
That led to the disaster in Iraq and the mess we are in now. Throw on top of that the potential for economic disaster and “global warming”.
But here we all are. When will you ever sleep if you let the world’s problems weigh so heavily upon you? Go get an ice cream cone, some Jack Daniels and hug your kids. This $hit will never go away. Think to yourself, “it’s alright ma, it’s life and life only”.
RE: “it’s alright ma, it’s life and life only”.
I think the lyrics go, “it’s alright, ma…I’m only dyin’…”
Wrong!
May I suggest a double-double w/ grilled onions, fries and vanilla shake, to calm your nerves?
..but not just before bed….
Why NOT! Makes ya sleep like a baby.
Waking up crying every two hours? No thanks.
-
“…Makes ya sleep like a baby.”
SURE DOES… WAKING UP EVERY COUPLE OF HOURS & POOPING YOURSELF =)
Uh-uh - not me - makes me sleep like I’m on air (you have to remember the ketchup - Tabasco sauce mix to dip your fries in. Extra onions too.
You’ve never lived till you’ve tried Utah’s famed fry sauce (a combo of mayo and ketchup).
Very European…
I can only relate to this as I did Viet Nam. I was in a place called Khe Sanh and the NVA had us pinned down for 77 days without resupply from anything but air drops. We took a pounding day after day from artillery. To this day I jump when the shuttle breaks the sound barrier over my home.
I see this as a similar incessant pounding of the senses and a lesson is being played out daily. We will come away from it one day and just as in Viet Nam we will learn from it and survive it. We will have lost our innocence but not our courage. Never doubt the strength of the average American. I have seen it under the most difficult of conditions.
In the end we will form up and do what has to be done. And for a time we will suffer but it only serves to sweeten the air and make us appreciative of all we have. And my friends, it is considerable. Like the line from the movie, “either get busy livin’ or get busy dying.”
Personally I am sick to death of the drama and whining I hear all the time. It surrounds us on TV, news, financials etc. Many here on this thread propose just what we need which is suck it up, take the ass whippin and move on. There is nothing wrong with saying “hey we f’d up”. Correct it and get back to business. This is no time for politicing and finger pointing. We are a unit and we rise and fall together.
As was said in Korea, “Hell we ain’t retreating just advancing in another direction.”
“Hell we ain’t retreating just advancing in another
direction.”
Chesty Puller right? My Dad served under him at Peleliu and Korea. I’m with you, stop whining, pull it together, and press on. Good job at Khe Sahn… Hell of a fight.
Thank you
Dimedropped, But you and the men who fought there were many more times braver than most men today. Thanks for all you did. My problem is with how we treat the wounded when they get home, just visited a VA hospital cple weeks ago, daughter interviewed ww11 vet for class, very humbling talking with them as we sat outside, yet they can’t get a coke out of a broken machine. Pisses me off!
This while the pigmen get 200 million severance pckge for taking our country into the near abyss. Our priorities our screwed up. Mcmansions that suck energy like a hungry baby getting the last drop of formula from a bottle. Greed is what killed america. Look to the top and follow it down.
“Personally I am sick to death of the drama and whining I hear all the time. It surrounds us on TV, news, financials etc. Many here on this thread propose just what we need which is suck it up, take the ass whippin and move on.”
I hear you, my fellow HBB’r.
Finding and maintaining peaceful balance, however, is not an easy task…especially when we come to the reality of the following:
(1.) Realizing what and/or who’s creating the environment for the “ass whippings” to take place in the first place. Is it our own greed, i.e, money-grubbing elites that control the media to feed on our inherent greed? Maybe it’s both. IMO The media, TV, mainstream news, etc. is clearly distorted, contrived and bent on controlling through fear, to simply keep us all scared and consuming. Now were looking at the first innings of the fallout, and it’s not pretty. IMO the only medicine is MINIMIZE WATCHING AND ATTENDING TO IT. I remember after 9/11 a Psychiatrist at a training I attended said he instructed his high stress clients to limit their TV news and news on paper reading to 15 minutes in the morning THEN STOP!
(2.) Interestingly, by doing #1, people might find themselves moving toward psychological homeostasis again; dealing with stressors more effectively, enjoying more simple pleasures–as opposed to debt-spriral consumerism, i.e., shopping like retail robots (the unfortunate side effect of media induced fear AND watching and listening to the thousands and thousands of advertisements for stuff they DO NOT NEED–stuff that alas, they find DOES NOT MAKE THEM HAPPY ANYWAY!!
(3.) Unfortunately, #1 takes a ton of discipline that I fear most folks can’t or won’t muster, until it gets so bad, they can’t even afford cable anymore. Then, interestingly, maybe their “fear fog” will begin to clear and they’ll start listening to those that assert someone’s been trying (successfully) to keep them “scared consuming robots” and why.
DOC
Animal style?
I remember when I made a wise crack a while back about how one day Ebay will decide who eats or doesn’t. I must say, it is a lot closer to that today than it was when I said it.
The Free Market, like everything else, decides if you live or die.
I offered this last fall and I think it’s worth repeating … The last great stimulus, home equity, if not completely gone, is going away quickly. If the government wants to stimulate the economy they need to get REAL money back in the hands of the average joe. $600 is not going to do it.
I say … Allow a one time tax free withdrawal, with a limit, from your 401K.
Save the “that’s a bad idea, it would kill people’s retirement” agrument as the live for today crowd far outnumbers the save for tomorrow one. We allowed millions of homes to be sold with zero down, which was a flawed idea. It is their money after all.
If, that were to happen, does that help or hinder wall street? What percent of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc. is comprised of 401K funds?
Disclaimer … I have 60% of my net worth “tied up” in my 401K.
I cannot disagree more with this idea. People need to be saving more, not less, especially for retirement. Withdrawing funds from a 401k to support current spending is a very poor idea and one that should not be supported by changes to the tax code. If one wants to commit financial suicide, they should do it without the support of the government.
Saving is a good thing. It makes the bankers rich on the spread between the miserable rates you’ll get and the loan rates the bank charges.
Won’t you be proud to be the patsy in this game?
And 401Ks make us the biggest patsies of them all. We “invest” in and support the very same megacorporations that move our jobs overseas, then import cheap products back here for us to buy, causing the our small businesses to go under. If you are middle class and have a 401K, you are in effect robbing yourself.
SD … I’m not a proponent of 401K withdrawal for frivolous spending. I can’t borrow money right now for my childs education at even close to reasonable rates yet I have sufficient funds tied up in my 401K earning 3% at best.
I agree, on free market principles, that you should have a right to your money… which you do. So why should your withdrawal be tax free?
I don’t know, if you have 60% of your net worth tied up in a 401k, I’d call that person a saver. It’s the people that have no 401k, no equity left in a home and consider themselves rich, that are a drain on society.
I support your idea because that money belongs to the people and no one on this board or anywhere else has ANY RIGHT to tell people what they can do with their own money. Also, the income tax is illegal, unconstitutional, and is not a sound law. No one can really know what the law says.
disclaimer… I know people with almost 1M in their 401K and having that much money in one bucket in this economy is a bad idea.
Are you willing to support other retirees in thirty years who did not bother to save a penny? Or would you rather smugly sit back and watch them starve?
I used to wonder how virtually everybody had no money during the Great Depression, and I see something similar coming along for us.
Does it really matter if you have Dollar denominated T-Bills, Stocks, Bonds or Cash?
Everything linked to the $, has the potential to be wiped out in one fell swoop…
History likes to repeat itself.
Where is your faith in BB’s infinitely-lived, unconstrained ability to run the printing press as needed?
The whole idea of a printing press madly printing money is so 20th century…
If you print up too much, the rest of the world catches on (Hello! Zimbabwe) and a race to the bottom ensues, if you do it the 21st century way though, you’re a sneaky bastard and leave no paper trail, and I suggest using the HAL 9000 model computer to do your dirty work, for you.
“I used to wonder how virtually everybody had no money during the Great Depression, and I see something similar coming along for us.”
Another reason to go to cash.
BTW, lots of people had money during the Depression, they just weren’t spending it.
And why should they? Prices everywhere were dropping thus adding to the buying power of their dollars.
Look around and you’ll see something similar happening today. Money is tight and is getting tighter. Those who have the cash rule over those who don’t.
This fact makes cash the king.
Mayonaise is six dollars for the big jar.
I use it in sauces and in soup.
I wish they could can it so I could stock up.
IF the jar is unopened won’t it keep a while - years ? Just store in cool, dark place.
You put mayo in soup?
I love creamy food. Mayo in pesto, mayo in salsa, mayo in curry, mayo in tomatoe soup, mayo on sandwiches,
mayo in brown rice with broccoli and parmesean cheese.
It’ the food crisis’s fault I have to eat rice and soup.
Im thin and fussy.
Use only a teaspoon.
Did I mention soy sauce in mayo?
It is the greatest dip on seafood, brown rice and any meat. Add lemon and minced garlic for the best veggie dip this side of Dallas.
I use it in sauces and in soup.
Mix it with a mild salsa and some lime juice, and water down as desired, to get a wonderful sauce you can put on fish tacos. For anyone who has been to Rubios, that is their “white sauce.”
Old battlecry for food storage: one year supply
New battlecry for food storage: two year supply
Found mayo at trader joes $314.00 for the big size.
I have stockpiled shoes, water, lipstick, but never mayo.
Got three.
F’that. let the F’in spendthrift fools starve.
I’ll take the latter.
The truly poor/infirm/disabled, I’m more than happy to help.
Ever heard of Ant and the Grasshopper
“smugly sit back and watch them starve?”
Rice-hoarder! Arrest that man!!
I confess — we do have a lot of rice in storage.
I bought the last three bags of premium Himalayan basmati on the pallet at Costco last night. Apparently they sell it to you based on your prior rice purchasing history. I felt kind of stupid actually but will hold two bags as an “investment.” Ha ha ha. Or maybe just eat them.
“Let them eat plebian California long grain” HA!
Potatoes are the tuber of the future. There are over 7000 varieties so at least one variety will grow where you live. They’re nutritous and not especially fattening until you load them with butter and sour cream. They dehydrate easily making long distance shipping cheaper and reconstitute equally well.
The lowly potato will become the new rice.
High on the glycemic index though. I’d love to eat more of them but getting older, I prefer to not gain weight.
‘I felt kind of stupid actually but will hold two bags as an “investment.”’
Be sure to protect the value of these “investments.” The last time I owned some of these, I had to make a subsequent investment in mouse traps.
Don’t forget that potatoes are prone to blight. Remember the Irish potato famine?
and reconstitute equally well
Errrrrr . . . no
I’ve been loading up on caviar, and was limited to 2 small cans @ the caviar store near me.
“Don’t forget that potatoes are prone to blight. Remember the Irish potato famine?”
The lesson here is that reliance upon a single crop is a recipe for disaster.
Fact is, the Irish during that period were net exporters of all sorts of produce–primarily to their British “masters”.
The potato blight affected all of europe–not just Ireland. The Irish were reduced to reliance upon the potato and suffered the most when the famine struck.
Beluga or Ossetra?
“Fact is, the Irish during that period were net exporters of all sorts of produce–primarily to their British “masters”.
Not just them. “Beyond Beef” by Jeremy Rifkin attributes US cattle industry growth to Britain’s craving for the steak. The outsourcing continues.
I don’t need rice. i can live just on pasta day and night.
I is amazing how many pasta dishes u can create. My favorite is throw in a can of sardines or anchovies right into the pasta and presto, complete nutritious meal.
Time to stockpile up some spaghetti. BTW i do like rice and it is a necessity for a family member but i can foregoe it and go to all pasta for that basic starch calorie component of the diet .
My wife mentioned this morning that her former country’s president, the tiny but feisty Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Republic of the Philippines, has told her people to eat more sweet potatoes.
re: potatoes: There are over 7000 varieties so at least one variety will grow where you live.
There are about 5,000 varieties, in fact. But most of those are not available outside the Andes region. A few dozen (at most) varieties represent the majority of commercially grown potatoes in North America.
The lesson here is that reliance upon a single crop is a recipe for disaster.
The other lesson is that reliance on a monocultural crop with a lack of genetic diversity is a recipe for disaster. (Our contemporary corn and soybean crops, perhaps?)
Support heirloom varieties and seed banks! They not only give us interesting fruits, vegetables, grains and tubers, they very well may protect us against the future equivalent of the Irish potato famine. Monsanto sure as hell won’t.
That would be cruel….
…so look the other way while they starve.
Not an attack on you, but do you think having people reach retirement with nothing saved is a better idea.
The fact the money is “tied up” in a 401k/IRA/403b/SEP/etc, doesn’t mean that the money no longer belongs to them, it’s just protected from their spendthrift ways. Most of these plans have loan or hardship withdrawal provisions, and there are a few other IRC rules that allow access to the money under special circumstances. The whole point of the tax advantaged retirement saving plans is to “lock” the money up and let it grow tax deferred, thereby maximizing the growth and encouraging it to be left alone to grow.
Have the folks you know with 1M in their 401k been complaining?
I have to encounter a single incidence of a friend, co-worker, family member, business associate, acquaintance, service provider (banker, doctor, atty, etc.) complain in my presence about their money being “tied up” in their savings acct.
I have “yet” to….
ok, fine, have it your way.. BUT..
Anyone taking this “withdrawal” has to sign a contract with me, stating that they are not going to go begging for a “bailout” during retirement, at which time they will be broke.
That should carry about as much weight as their mortgage contract.
a wise individual, seeing the significant chance of hyperinflation, would pull a good chunk of their money in paper assets and purchase tangible assets that they hold on their person.
Everyone is so focused on the “if we give them THEIR money then WE will have to pay for their retirement”. Instead we should all be promoting giving them THEIR money so that they can invest it how they see fit.
Shall I rob you today so that you don’t rob me in the future?
I agree we need to get people to save more. IMO we need to get CD rates back up to 10% or more so that the (smarter-than-average) Joe 6-pack can more easily decide to forego that trip to Applebees and put the money in the bank, without the shenanigans of manipulated stock exchanges. Also, some sort of matching funds dollar for dollar up to a certain amount. But this might cause a decrease in the number of slaves available in this country.
Remove the printing presses and CD and increase the reserve requirement to 100% and CD rates will climb dramatically as the cash supply of long-term savings to lend out is VERY SMALL and the demand for loans is VERY HIGH.
Does this mean I can take a tax-free withdrawal out of my 401k and invest the proceeds in my taxable investment accounts? I’m all for that.
It’s an interesting idea, WantsOut, but I think the politicians would totally screw it up. Every special interest group under the sun would have their lobbyists on it.
Where have all the Statesmen gone?
Maybe they should “rebate” $300K to every man, woman and child in the US. Sure, doing so would result in devalued dollars and a period of financial anarchy, but the economy would soar.
Crazy, you say?
Is it any crazier than giving the same money to the banks, shadow banks and military industrialists (the likes of which we were warned against by the last conservative Republican President - Eisenhower). We still have dollar devaluation, we still have financial anarchy.
Bet on this: Unless your’e “in” (and if you’re reading this, you’re not), your retirement savings will be “appropriated” away from you before all is said and done in this “correction” - by inflation, market manipulation, or malfeasance. No bail-out for you.
The middle class would be well served by voting it’s own best interests, for a change, and removing its nose from the upper class’ ass. You are NOT in the club.
No way I’m voting against gay marriage and flag burning, that economic stuff is too complicated.
It’s worth pointing out that we didn’t have these problems 8 years ago, when Clinton was President. You might want to remember this when November rolls around. There is no better contrast to be made than the 8 years under Clinton vs. the 8 years under Bush.
If you believe you are not better off than you were 8 years ago, vote accordingly.
your partisan world view will be your undoing. Kerry would not have done anything different to halt the federal reserves policies and loose lending standards. We would still be in Iraq. There is no difference in the ultimate destination that both parties are leading us to. Only how we get there and which special interests pocket the money and gain power. Both parties want complete economic control and as much power as they can obtain.
Testify, brother!
It’s about to get very interesting. Banks are being forced to mark the real estate holdings to market. Many banks are heavily concentrated in Real Estate.
You think the S&L crisis had a lot of failures?
Bank of America advising clients to sell the dollar and buy the euro.
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&sid=acl87s1UKZx4&refer=currency
How’s that for gratitude, after the Fed has so generously set up new lending facilities offering super-duper-below-market interest rates for big banks, only?
“Biting the well manicured hand that feeds you…”
Probably a great buy signal for the dollar.
My thought exactly. Watcher and Aladin, would you like to weigh in here?
My least favorite weigh of measuring is Avoirdupois, although I like saying it…
Just rolls off your tongue…
Expect the euro to crash.
Shoeshine boy advice from a major bank?
Yeah, something’s up.
What else can it do? It’s killing the poor economies of the EU.
This tells me it is time to sell the euro. Dollar must be ready for a big rise.
or perhaps BoA is dastardly enough to know you will do the opposite of their advice and has set a trap for contrarians everywhere seeing as how the contrarians are the only ones with any money left…
They know. We know they know, and they know we know they know it.
Bank of America advising clients to sell the dollar and buy the euro.
Ditto above: probably this is because BOA is buying dollars and selling Euros.
How is the Clinton tag team holding up against Obama? Seems unfair that Obama has to campaign against an ex-president who is (supposedly) not even running for office.
I predict this strategy will look bad through the lens of the rear-view mirror. Hillbury is a big girl — can’t she stand up on her own two feet?
PAGE ONE
He’s Back
Bill Clinton gives his wife’s campaign
new momentum as he seizes a bigger role
By MONICA LANGLEY
April 26, 2008; Page A1
GREEN THUMB
First-Time Home Buyers’ Few Options
By JEFF D. OPDYKE
April 26, 2008; Page B1
Homeownership, the bedrock of the American Dream, is a bit of a nightmare these days for many first-time home buyers.
Lenders are demanding higher credit scores, mandating private-mortgage insurance on many more loans, and requiring larger down payments. Fewer first-timers qualify for the house they want, or they’re paying a larger monthly amount to own it.
…
There are still some programs for first-time buyers that offer slightly more lenient underwriting standards that make it easier to get into a home, or discounted interest rates that make homeownership more affordable. But even these are tougher to qualify for.
Freddie Mac requires a solid credit score of at least 700 for a low- or no-down-payment mortgage through its Home Possible first-time buyer program. Previously, it imposed no minimum. Freddie saw “an influx of business” amid the subprime bust, says Patricia McClune, a vice president, because it’s the only way to obtain 100% financing. Loan volumes are still up, but the tightened standards mean fewer first-timers qualify.
WHY WOULD A GOVT-SPONSORED LENDER WANT TO ENCOURAGE BORROWERS IN THE 700+ CREDIT SCORE CLUB TO BUY HOMES WITH NO SKIN IN THE GAME? IS THIS A GOOD WAY TO ENCOURAGE SAVING? OR TO HELP THEM KEEP THEIR GOOD CREDIT HISTORY INTACT???
The lending industry seems to be acting on the mistaken impression that plankton is a sustainable food source, and hence to stay fed, they need to produce more plankton.
P.S. Plankton is only a productive food source during boom years. During bust years, plankton die-off leads to bank failures. D’oh…
‘The catch: The loan is subject to a federal recapture tax. If you sell within nine years, you could be required to give up as much as 50% of the profits, depending on various factors.
“That’s the problem” you need to be aware of with some first-time buyer programs, says Michael Menatian, president of Sanborn Mortgage, a mortgage bank in West Hartford, Conn. “You get the lower rate, but you’re potentially robbed of a big part of the equity to buy your second house. But in this market, it’s better than nothing.”‘
What if you catch a falling knife? In my hood, prices are dropping at double-digit annual rates. Would you get some of your “stolen equity” back if prices fell during your fewer-than-nine-years of ownership?
It is amazing to me that so many people are in utter denial about the deleveraging episode that is currently underway. Haven’t the masses (including myriad financial journalists) taken note yet that housing prices are falling across the country? How long does it take for denial to give way to bargaining and acceptance? Not to mention an adjustment of financial strategies to a world where real estate does not always go up?
Keep the hope alive!
Keep encouraging knifecatchers to commit their money to the System. Support the Nar!
The money needs to keep flowing else we are all doomed.
This is a MAJOR problem when you factor in inflation. If we inflate our way out of this mess and the dollar somehow survives then you will be taxed on 50% of your nominal gains which will ultimately represent a tax on 50% of your equity leaving you in a situation where if you put 50% down today and your house doubled in dollar value due to inflation then you would only have 33% to put down on a new house.
Very few people stop to think about the fact that the falling dollar results in a tax on real equity and not just real gains!
The VA still has relatively lenient standards for 100% financing - you do pay a higher interest rate and a 10% fee (for first time buyers) though. I know several Vets back form Iraq who used the program to buy homes.
I am all for housing subsidies to vets, provided they do not turn out in retrospect to be knifecatcher encouragement programs. But this is not a large enough segment of the market to have much impact.
It’s still about 20% of the adult population that qualifies due to the draft for so many years (most bought years ago). The younger vets (my era) are probably about 3-4% of the population.
Just looked it up,
http://www.homeloans.va.gov/docs/funding_fee_tables.doc
it’s not a 10% fee, it is 2.15% for no down payment. 1.5% for 5%-10% down and 1.25% for 10+% down.
Presumably the funding fee is waived if one is receiving disability compensation. Also, one ends up not having to pay PMI - which is a fairly good deal.
“Homeownership, the bedrock of the American Dream”
As opposed to things like family, health, meaningful relationships, purpose…
Pure schadenfreude, for a Saturday morning. The super luxe Palm Island development in Dubai, having a few problems. Buyers complain the houses are too close together, the landscaping nonexistent, the few “palm” trees are cell phone towers with palm fronds affixed, and central air conditioning not included in costs. It’s sad, really.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/apr/26/travelnews
Can someone explain to me what the point was, of raising interest rates in 2006 (especially BB’s rate increases) given that they knew the endgame was to cut cut cut once the stuff hit the fan? I mean, do we really have more information today than we did 2 years ago? I think about this, and I can only conclude that those rate increases were designed to strangle the smaller lenders, Ameriquest et al, so that the big boys could get a bigger piece of the pie. Crooks.
“purpose … raising interest rates in 2006…”
Get Flipper
To re-load — so they had more room to cut rates — in anticipation of these difficult times.
Paid 3.40 for gas yesterday. I got to thinking about it. All the stories you read, blah blah blah. It’s annoying, yes, but doesn’t change my life or anything I do at all. If it went to $5 it would be more annoying but still wouldn’t change anything.
I guess that’s what happens when you don’t lien yourself up to the eyeballs.
Same here. I don’t see what all the fuss is over. Gas, adjusted for inflation, isn’t much more expensive than when I first started driving.
Adjustment costs make it an issue. Think of the poor mopes who moved sixty miles from their jobs in order to save on high housing costs. Of course, many of these used some of these savings to purchase bigger cars than they would otherwise have been able to afford, with poor fuel economy to boot.
Keep in mind, the price increase in gas is in everything, not just your tank. Everything you buy is transported with fuel, and many things are actually made from petroleum products. There is a compounding effect.
Doesn’t help the situation to put food into the gas tank, especially when lots of fuel is consumed (through mechanized ag and oil-based fertilizer) to produce the food.
Thanks, PB, you beat me to it. That is one thing that will set me off even more than a housing troll…
RE: the price increase in gas is in everything
Pint glass of Guinness Stout up 10% in last week to $5.00+!
Hmmm…
4 pints plus a measily $8.00 pub burger. High rollers can do the clam patter @ $18.00-Add 10% meals tax & 20% tip.
$36.96-$50.16….and that’s with no date!
Think I’ll stay home with some store-boughts and watch “The Road Warrior”. I won’t be alone.
Gas could go to $10 per gallon and it wouldn’t mean much to me, either…
But it isn’t me and you that are under the gun, financially.
It’s those other few hundred million people in our country…
I was discussing this with my lovely wife yesterday. How do the millions of mopes in this country with no savings, aside from their rapidly vanishing home equity, manage to put fuel in the gas tank to drive to work?
A hose and bulb arrangement…
“A hose and bulb arrangement…”
How obsolete. In Kansas City, MO the police there are taking more gas theft reports where the thiefs are using cordless drills on car gas tanks. They just drain the gas out. It’s only a matter of time until…. “BOOM”.
In virtually every Hollywood movie/tv show, the moment a car veers off the road, it explodes, especially if it’s going over a cliff. special effects…
Imagine it happening in real-life, with still-life cars instead?
i think most americans are oblivious to how much things cost. Put it on the credit card/HELOC/2nd mortgage.
If you spend $40,000 for a monster truck, suv, BMW or whatever, thats 40 cents a mile over the life of the vehicle. Whats 15 cents a mile for fuel? The real question is why are people still buying giant suvs and giant houses. Because they arnt thinking about the cost, just trying to get the biggest car the bank will let them have.
Here is a related question. If the cheapest air tickets were 20 cents per mile, or $1000 to fly cross country round trip; would you fly less? I think if the airlines were pricing based on their true costs; air travel would drop by half. My realtor friend who makes tons of money, priced tickets to hawaii at $1000 when they were formerly available for $500; she wouldnt have gone except for using miles. Imagine the changes to travel and tourism if the use of leisure air travel declines by 50%, or even 20%.
Why do airline pilots still wear military style uniforms, anyway?
I was in Norway two weeks ago. Gas is the equivalent of $10/gallon there. You still see a lot of full-size American trucks and SUVs - the only ones I’ve ever seen in Europe.
Gas prices in the US aren’t high.
I drove down to Pensacola ( took the Kid and buddy to the Naval Aviation Museum) yesterday, the price of gas kept going UP the further we went South. $3.56 was the final price I saw. LOTS of “For sale”, “Brand new construction”, and “Buy NOW and SAVE”
Signage out there on the coast. The water was beautiful though, I always did like the Panhandle.
At what price would it stop being annoying and begin being an issue for you?
For me, it would have to be around $12/gallon. I figure it this way. Currently, I drive 12,000 miles per year, but I probably don’t truly have to drive more than 7,500 miles per year. At 25 mpg, that’s 300 gallons. At $12/gallon, that’s $3,600 per year. Surely not enough to ruin my finances, but it would impact places that I drive to, as that driving would cease.
I bet most people could cut their driving substantially, if they had to.
Maybe $20. Then it would cost $300 to fill up my Honda Element. That would piss me off enough to start riding a bike to the grocery store, etc.
I used to put 500 miles/week on my car commuting. At that time it was costing me about $120/week in gas. Then there’s the extra maintenance on the car, sets of tires, higher insurance rate, quickening depreciation. That’s not counting the value of your time. It was adding up to over $600/month. Even with the price of gas, I’m down to around $100/month. Best part is I have my life back and health. It’s just not good on the body to sit in a car 2 or 3 hours/day.
So many people don’t get this.
I’ve never understood why some people will commute for over an hour each way, just to get to a $10/hr job.
They can usually get a closer job for $7 or $8 (hypothetical here), but don’t consider the value of their time and commuting expenses.
Glad you managed to get away from the commute!
“I bet most people could cut their driving substantially, if they had to.”
I second you. If prices went to $12 a gallon, I would telecommute as many days a week as my employer allowed. Traffic would lighten up, leading to better gas mileage and shorter driving times. People would dump their Hummers and SUVs and buy Priuses and Honda Civics. The pain of adjustment could actually lead to some improvements in the quality of life down the road.
In Australia I paid the equivalent of $US5:50 per US gallon the last time I filled up. I have changed my driving habits a little over the last couple of years, but for me also that price is an annoyance rather than a life-changer.
However, we may all be guilty of the sin of the Pharisees here. I read somewhere the US Federal minimum wage for a 40-hour week is $239:00. I could see how people on that sort of money could be hugely affected by petrol price rises.
Hybrid driver checking in. Since my little Insight gets 70mpg and work is only 3 miles away (with grocery stores and most everything else within 10 miles of here) gas would have to get pretty expensive to keep me off the roads.
On the other hand, most businesses and stores would be out of business if motor fuel was up in the $20/gallon range.
Ben, this blog is fantastic. Have been lurking here for more than a year.
Perhaps I am missing your point? The price of gas in and of itself is not really the issue is it? The MSM may rail on as if it is but if gas goes to $5,$6 or $7 a gallon while it may effect driving it is the cost everything else, no? Then again maybe really all you are saying is that you personally can withstand price increases no matter what they are or where they are?
I can’t say that my food costs have increased greatly either. I don’t buy milk or meat so that eliminates most of the big cost increases. Gun to head, I’d say maybe we spend an extra $50 per month for the higher cost of things like rice, produce, etc. Again, enough to be annoying but not a dealbreaker. I see the stores about “families have to choose between food or fuel.” Give me a break. Maybe they should have thought about how close they were skating on the edge before they had that 3rd or 4th kid.
Here they get a check for every extra kid. Not enough kids? Borrow one (or their social security number) and step up to the trough. Families have 6-7 kids living with them (the foster kid racket is big here too) and they make a nice chunk every month ( for lower Alabama) and don’t have to work.
Well, I’d rather work than chase 6-7 kids around. And that’s saying something considering how much I hate employment.
Oh - They don’t either - which accounts for the sky high petty crime, truancy rates, and drug dealing that goes on in the juvenile population in the projects.
Chasing 6-7 kids is work. The foster system is a disaster, it makes me sick to think people take in kids just for the money.
If I could only tell you about one sad foster case last week at my Wife’s campus… Sickening.
My timing couldn’t have been better. Only have to feed myself and I eat mostly fresh foods and lots of produce. I could live on salads, sandwichs, fruit, yogurt, PBJ, cerial and coffee/tea. Buying only for 1 is pretty cheap and easy. Between that and no debt, I live pretty well on a median salary.
At the risk of being really nasty, many of the folks that I see waddling around my parts, could benefit from buying and consuming less food to help offset the higher prices.
Do we really need 32 oz vats of soda to wash down double crust, triple cheese, four meat pizzas?
That’s a big “YES” for a significant chunk of our population.
Drove down to Pensacola yesterday (went to the Naval Aviation Museum) - $3.56 a gallon on the coast - Huge amounts of real estate for sale. The water was beautiful though, I always did like the Panhandle.
‘Drove down to Pensacola yesterday (went to the Naval Aviation Museum) - $3.56 a gallon on the coast - Huge amounts of real estate for sale. The water was beautiful though, I always did like the Panhandle.’
Did you drive by that huge tube of toothpaste near the highway?
I went via Interstate 10 > Exit 7 (297) > Blue Angel > Ft Barracas. Don’t recall the Toothpaste though. Is it on 98?
While it may not affect you directly, IMO you will feel the effects of higher fuel costs in some manner. All kinds of behaviors will change as petro energy becomes more expensive. Some of the changes won’t be obvious as they will come from indirect linkages and as millions of people make many small decisions.
Some examples? Increased shipping expenses will feed in to mail order company prices as they see delivery costs increase. Postal rates will increase cutting down on junk mail (good thing!). The market area for small businesses will shrink as customers will be willing to drive less distance, forcing marginal players out of business. Increased emphasis on production (think farm stands) locally and sold into local markets. When people move they will seek out shelter close to their place of work or public transportation, in turn affecting the make up of local neighborhoods and real estate markets. Used vehicle prices will reflect their fuel consumption. Flying might even become pleasant again as airlines cut back on routes and raise ticket prices.
Plus for me - I gave up commuting. Used to fill up 2.5 times/week. Now it’s 1 every 3 weeks. Work is less than 5 miles from home. Paid $3.99 for mid grade out here in Coachella Valley this week. And yes, I tried the low grade and car did not run as well. It’s getting hot and I’m running the air conditioning in the car.
Except for trips like yesterday’s, I fill up the old “Tarbaby” once a month. No where to go in this tiny place.
My precious Honda Accord 06 was half full and it cost $35.00 to fill it up at Costco.
One thing about gas…
We all use it, but almost never see it or touch it, as it makes it’s transit from pump to tank.
Such a delivery system!
If you ride a MC, chances are you’ll see gasoline pretty frequently… I actually had a slight overfill last time I filled up, ran a minute or two with the gas cap open
And yeah, fillups gone from $14 to $18 :/
I paid approximately $8.00 a gallon while driving through Europe in 2000. Strangely enough, there were OTHER people in Europe who could afford to drive cars, too! Strangely enough, they did not look like characters from Mad Max, either. The era of the American Divine Right to cheap petroleum is over.
Yeah, I got mine! Everyone else can eat cake.
Does everyone realize how stupid the idea of our current “economic stimulus” package is?
Just send out money to the people and hope that they spend it (they even asked those receiving it not to save it)?? That’s how we “stimulate” an economy now? Not job creation, not higher education/training, not by retaining our big employers?? We simulate the economy by dumping $$ into the hands of those who don’t already make too much $$ to qualify for this?
WTF, this is a seriously stupid idea.. Please, everyone getting a rebate, do me a favor. SAVE IT. But no, we all know that only a fraction of those getting the rebates will save it. And, because of this, it will be “effective”.. Money from heaven getting spent by many who were too busy/shortisighted to save for a rainy day, being provided by those who are already paying more then the median income in this country in income tax.
Great system. Let’s just become socialist; it’s easier, and that way we can stop working so hard.
Most people I know are turning their stimulus into precautionary savings or debt repayment. I am looking for an expensive, long-lived, underpriced real asset to buy as an inflation hedge. Any suggestions (other than gold coins)?
Tires?
Both our cars already have new tires, and I have no use for more nor any place to store them.
Oxygen sensors?
Paying off a debt may count as a type of purchase of a real asset.
If dollars are available to you today to reduce debt then it might be prudent for you to do so. It might be tough to get these same dollars tomorrow thus you may end up forfeiting any asset collateralizing the debt.
We are using ours to put in a huge garden and greenhouse. Growing all my own veggies/fruit is the best use of that money!
High quality pistol with ammunition.
High quality straight razor.
Nice. I just started using one in Feb. I love it and won’t go back. I’ve got a wade&butcher I’m working on restoring now.
My guess is we create more jobs in China with this stimulus plan than in the US.
I think the banks are going to be the ones who will benifit the most.
So much bank collaterial has been destroyed, so much of their reserves has been written off, that many banks solvency is questionable. Money dumped into the hands of the public will eventually work its way to the banks, replenishing the bank’s coffers. It is at the banks where the money will stay.
Thus money dumped into the system by the government will eventually be sucked out of the system by the banks.
But as the Great Unwind rolls on even more writedowns by the banks will occur necessitating more money drops by the government.
This process will continue to make cash difficult to get and difficult to hang onto.
IMO.
Yep.
Michael, the whole idea is so stupid that I fell for the NPR April Fool’s prank about it. They had a fake story on how the government wanted to make sure you would spend the stimulus, so they identified people in financial trouble and sent them an air conditioner, or a toaster, or whatever, instead of the money. I was so worked up about the stupidity of this plan that I started fuming “NO WAY. I want the money, so I can save it, etc.”. The following day, of course, they said it was a joke.
I hate April Fools Day now. I used to enjoy myself quite a bit, but THIS year my stupid best friend told me he had gotten a job in Washington, he’s in government affairs, it was entirely plausible, and he was all excited and had to get packing right away… I cried so hard I got light-headed and subsequently barfed on my couch. It’s a leather couch and has enjoyed life quite a bit, but you know, that’s not easy to recover from. I didn’t feel so hot, either. Then April 2 he reminded me what day it was.
Let’s see, what’s today? April 26th? I might forgive him pretty soon. Maybe.
Is this too much information to share with you all? I don’t care. I’m still grouchy about April Fools Day, and I DON’T CARE if it was one of them ‘just dessert’ things, either.
My point is, no more April Fools prankishness for me.
Olygal, I know it was a tough one, but you must admit it was funny…
Here is yet another reason to question the highly-touted benefits of overzealous banking deregulation. Does anyone have the comprehensive list of the “several large U.S. banks that have come under scrutiny for their relationships with such companies”?
Having an irrepressible conjectural bent, I cannot help but wonder whether residential real estate purchases are part of the drug money laundering scheme. This explanation could help explain persistently high housing prices in areas where almost nobody with a legitimate occupation in the local economy can afford to purchase any of the myriad overpriced homes.
P.S. Did anyone else see this movie? I recall that San Diego housing played a starring role.
Wachovia Is Under Scrutiny In Latin Drug-Money Probe
By Evan Perez and Glenn R. Simpson
Word Count: 1,068 | Companies Featured in This Article: Wachovia, Union Bank of California, American Express
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are investigating Wachovia Corp. as part of a broad probe of alleged laundering of drug proceeds by Mexican and Colombian money-transfer companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
Wachovia is one of several large U.S. banks that have come under scrutiny for their relationships with such companies. It is in discussions with the Justice Department about reforms in its compliance system and faces a possible deferred-prosecution agreement that would require extensive federal oversight.
Law enforcement costs money: investigators, police, attorneys, judges, prisons… Let the free market sort it out. We got better ways to spend the treasury.
Hi. This is more a local market observation than bits. But have seen a couple places here on capitol hill that had sold signs - now the sold signs are gone - contract fall through? Each place was on the market over a year and WAY overpriced. One was a house for $700K should have been $450K tops one was a condo for $425K should have been $250K tops. Each about a block from Eastern Market - a popular farmers market / butcher / baker / market. In other parts of the city and suburbs still seeing crazy prices. There’s a couple of neighborhoods in Fairfax, VA of town house - very old but prefectly fine - place that really were starter houses before bubble. Now lots for sale with price differces of over $100K which is about 30% difference as the lower priced ones are about $225K. Prices in the suburbs have dropped much faster than I thought. I am tempted to catch a knife ! Saw on internet a nice 1960 rambler in good location (couple of miles from metro and near George Mason Univ. for $300K. This seems to be about a 2002 - 2003 price. $300K is asking is I could get for $250K very tempting.
Here in MA, the pricing all depends on whether or not the seller “gets it”.
For example, two house in the same development..
#1 Asking $1,000,000, previously bought for $1,000,000 in 2002 (gets it)
#2 Asking $1,500,000, previously bought for $950,000 in 2004 (doesn’t get it)
These are bought really nice homes, built in their respective years of previous purchase, not added on to or improved since built.
just two examples of what I’m seeing
Back in the early nineties in upstate NY I saw the same thing, “But have seen a couple places here on capitol hill that had sold signs - now the sold signs are gone - contract fall through? Each place was on the market over a year and WAY overpriced. One was a house for $700K should have been $450K tops one was a condo for $425K should have been $250K tops” (with different prices) but the idea was the same.
My conclusion at that time was that the Realtor placed a “sold” or “contract pending” on their signs towards the end of the listing contract. This would purport to those who saw it, that #1 the listing sold and the Realtor was very good, and that # 2 this is the Realtor to use to sell. The Realtor was selling themselves, not the product.
Sorry if not clear. The listing contract must not have expired because the for sales signs are still there, but the sold part of the sign is gone.
Oh, but the traffic around GMU and downtown Fairfax is hellish!
Lots traffic but everywhere here. I can telecommute most days. When I lived out there before selling in 2005 during rush hr it would take me 15 minutes to get to metro.
One Guy Who Has Seen It All
Doesn’t Like What He Sees Now
By E.S. BROWNING
April 26, 2008; Page B1
Peter Bernstein has witnessed just about every financial crisis of the past century.
As a boy, he watched his father, a money manager, navigate the Depression. As a financial manager, consultant and financial historian, he personally dealt with the recession of 1958, the bear markets of the 1970s, the 1987 crash, the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s and the 2000-2002 bear market that followed the tech-stock bubble.
Today’s trouble, the 89-year-old Mr. Bernstein says, is worse than he has seen since the Depression and threatens to roil markets into 2009 and beyond — longer than many people expect.
MHO: The Keynesian bubble, which began around 1935 or so, is receding.
Keynesian economics call for governments to be counter-cyclical, running budget deficits in bad times to boost the economy and running budget surpluses in good times to reign in the animal spirits and restore their own fiscal balance.
OK, name me the governments that have been following Keynes and running significant budget surpluses over the last few years. Offhand, I can think of one.
Sorry to confuse you, but I was not referring to dogmatic technical details of Keynesian remedies, but rather to the deeply-ingrained Keynesian-inspired conviction that an economic slowdown always be solved by fiscal and monetary stimulus, as evidenced by the current episode. Unfortunately, repeated application of hair-of-the-dog stimuli in the hangover periods following economic booms eventually can lead to cirrosis of the economy’s liver.
but rather to the deeply-ingrained Keynesian-inspired conviction that an economic slowdown always be solved by fiscal and monetary stimulus, as evidenced by the current episode.
It wouldn’t be a bad prescription, if only the other half (budget surplus during good times) was ingrained as well. There was some surplus in the 90s, but it should have been larger (which might have ameliorated the tech bubble as well.)
JP –
I agree with you, but how could the financial sector play such a rollicking game of “heads we win, tails you lose” if governments built precautionary savings during the boom years?
I posted a comment on here in Dec. from Woody Dorsey at Market Semiotics who really knows his stuff saying that the next great buying opportunity might come in late 2010. That is, one you can buy and hold for more than a month or two.
Thx. I assume you are talking about buying and holding stocks, not real estate?
Yeah. He talked of “equiphobia” in March of ‘03 and how that was a great time to buy. Was it ever.
I think JP Morgan’s time-tested strategy is still valid, whether purchasing stocks or real estate: “Buy when everyone is selling, and sell when everyone is buying.”
Not everyone is selling yet in either asset category.
Is any one else having posts/comments being eaten this morning?
I didn’t realize the food shortages had spread to this site yet..
Bytes are being rationed, like rice.
Yep, hope I don’t double post ( I always wait a few before I re-post). We had a major cell phone outage yesterday in AL, GA, and LA. I was down in FL and couldn’t call the Wife (or anyone else) for the rest of the day.
The RE storm in FL is over? Don’t count on it, the eye of the hurricane is over the FL RE market, soon the backside will hit, destroying everything that lays in its path:
http://tinyurl.com/47cxdc
This is such bullsh!t. If Wall Street were truly fearful of an end to rate cuts, wouldn’t the stock market have gone down the past few days instead of always going up? The stock market’s ability to efficiently price in rational valuations is broken.
April 26, 2008 9:40 A.M.ET
BULLETIN
Wall Street dreds the Fed
Federal Reserve increasingly expected to pause easing next week
That drive in the final hour yesterday afternoon towards 1400 seems telling. The little engine that couldn’t.
A pause in Fed Funds target rate cuts will be interpreted by equity investors as a sign that the worst of the economic/financial troubles are over. I expect stock indexes will go up 2%. My take is that the Fed is looking to maintain “market confidence” and this can be done by not cutting. Later on, when the Commerce Department announces positive, first quarter GDP growth, say 0.5%, equity investors will take this as confirmation of no recession. It’s all part of an attempt to “fix” the economy through PR.
A large California land partnership involving one of the largest U.S. pension funds has received a notice of default on a $1 billion loan after failing to meet certain terms of its lenders.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120916479361446151.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news
cocaine bank:
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are investigating Wachovia Corp. as part of a broad probe of alleged laundering of drug proceeds by Mexican and Colombian money-transfer companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120917664876446995.html?mod=hps_us_whats_news
Is Wacked-over-ya one of the banks that qualifies for special below-market lending rates from the Fed?
Real estate myth #3: Real estate prices in Greater Vancouver can’t keep going up; they’re too high already.
MYTH: With the average detached-home price in Metro topping $918,000 in March, it is hard for many to envision real estate values climbing even higher. The blogosphere is populated with anonymous bloggers calling for an imminent end to the record upswing.
Realtor Robert Chipman, who administers a bylined blog on the state of real estate hears from a lot of those who think the market is overvalued already, “but they’ve been saying that for two years.”
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=9847fa32-86a2-488d-be93-392312b0a299
Things are differentin B.C. (for now).
Housing starts running at an annual rate of 947,000???
New home sales are running at an annual rate of 526,000, the lowest number in almost two decades. The supply of new homes, in terms of the amount of time it would take to work through the inventory available for sale is an even 11 months. (source for data: http://www.weldononline.com)
How many homes did the home building industry start building last month? Housing starts running at an annual rate of 947,000. Permits for new homes was 927,000. That means the industry is building over 400,000 more homes than they are selling. Add in a million or so foreclosures. Kill the subprime market. Really make it hard to get a loan securitized for anything but government backed mortgages.
Homebuilders are freaking doomed!
Don’t forget to adjust the 526,000 figure downwards for order cancellations.
We all agree that it was the financial as well as the housing bubble that has brought this country to its knees. US being the economic superpower and the world’s growth engine my humble question is what will be the stimulus to the economy that will get us out of this mess. A $600 govt tax rebate check can only have a short but a limited effect to boost this economy. We know ethanol is a scam. Programming jobs are going to India. Manufacturing jobs have been given to China. Food is imported.
Have we come full circle? Will Americans wake up smell the java, put their pants one leg at a time and reverse this trend. I personally think corporations should have some degree of social responsibility.
Thanks you’re your thoughts
Rant Off
1. Infrastructure (yes, deficit spending, if necessary)
2. Innovations in energy — both increasing efficiency and finding new sources.
3. Innovations in healthcare. Maybe even reconsidering the entire healthcare process in the U.S. and making it more efficient. Also, there are some exciting innovations WRT gene therapy and specialized (individualized) medicines.
4. Increasing water efficiency and filtration/purification processes.
5 Grammy’s to this?
At the exclusion of the “Boss”?
We’re toast…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=561864&in_page_id=1773&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=picbox&ct=5
No idea who this woman is, but what impressed me most is that she looks like a 50-year old butt-ugly bar skank but the article says that she is 24??
Since this is the off-topic thread.
My sincere congratulations to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission for their handling of the Parliamentary poll. According to Reuters, they have CONFIRMED the results in 14 of the 23 seats where the count was protested by the ZANU-PF (Mugabe’s party and the current government).
That took great courage (literally). The ZEC must have been under IMMENSE pressure to reverse enough of these results to return ZANU-PF as the majority party.
Zed’s dead, baby.
Isn’t it interesting how the food shortage is hitting @ precisely the same time manna from heaven is descending upon the masses, in the form of a $600 check?
One of my favorite books about the way we act, is “The Crowd” and while there isn’t a shortage of food for purchase in our country right now, imagine what happens when the crowd decides to hoard it all, stimulating shortages?
Read “The Crowd” for free online:
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/BonCrow.html
Rate uncertainty hangs over U.S. stocks
“If the GDP comes in well above consensus expectations and the Fed stays on hold, then the market reaction will probably be positive because it shows maybe the crisis is over and the economy is not heading into recession,” said John Praveen, chief investment strategist at Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, in Newark, New Jersey.
If “the GDP number is zero or negative and the Fed remains on hold, the reaction will be negative,” Praveen said. “But I don’t think the Fed will want to disappoint the market, so they will probably cut by 25 basis points.”
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080425/column_stocks_outlook.html?.v=1
this is just so WRONG !!!!! we just have to keep the crooks on wall street HAPPY!
Liar Loan Documents = Pulp Fiction
*uck pride!
Get a job!
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/84523.html
Good report for a local station. I never give these people money. Bah humbug.
Posted by watcher:
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are investigating Wachovia Corp. as part of a broad probe of alleged laundering of drug proceeds by Mexican and Colombian money-transfer companies, according to people familiar with the matter.
* * * * * * * *
How much of the business/real estate in America has been funded by, and/or corrupted by the dope trade? Were there’s a market, there’s always someone to fill it - and American is the #1 dope consumer.
Dark Vader: Governator/Knife Catcher/Whatever
“California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and wife Maria Shriver have bought a 10ha tract in an exclusive coastal enclave in Santa Barbara County for US$4.7 million ($5.9 million).”
“The Santa Barbara area has long been a magnet for celebrities, from Oprah Winfrey to Michael Jackson.”
“Schwarzenegger snapped up a parcel in the Rancho Monte Alegre project, a former ranch in Carpinteria dotted with waterfalls and lush canyons that is being transformed into privately owned estates.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=76&objectid=10505639
No worries — between movie money and Kennedy wealth, they have monies to burn.
OK, for those of you worried about everything, here’s something that will bring REAL fear (especially if you don’t like heights), not just the low-level anxious kind…Aladinsane, you’d love this…(sorry, I haven’t figured out how to do HTML headers with links, someone care to give detailed explanation?)..
http://tinyurl.com/3z826r
I liked the gaping holes of crumbling cement, underfoot…
ha
Is it a bad sign that I was shouting “turn around” at the video?
No, it means you’re sane…
That was literally like a nightmare. Oh my goodness.
One of the things I’m doing while considering a career move is looking at rentals. What might cause me to riot is looking into the rediculous property tax assessments I’m seeing on some of these rental properties. 1600 sqft (with pool) rental wishing price of 1550/mo with a assessed value of $130,000 in Houston or maybe Harris county.
I find it hard to believe that people are only paying 83 times monthly rent for houses in Houston. Assessment jumped in 1999 (a purchase?) and hasn’t moved much since so I wouldn’t think it is an assessment capping issue.
I think they need to fire their assessor. Or maybe I’m just seeing the instant value bump from adding granite countertops.
The Gray Lady is taking on water and off-loading passengers…
“THE New York Times’ news room is bracing for a bloodbath in the next 10 days.”
“The word from inside is that approximately 50 unionized journalists have accepted the buyout proposal, and only another 20 non-union editorial employees have gotten on board.”
“That means the ax could fall on as many as 30 editorial people in the company’s first-ever mass firing of journalists in its 156-year history.”
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04252008/business/the_worst_of_times_108073.htm
“Virtually everything you read in the major press about the economy is wrong, reflecting either deliberate lies or a lack of competence, and often both. There are often elements of truth in the reports, but the reports themselves paint a false picture designed to confuse and mislead the reader. We are living in a virtual “1984″ where the “news” departments have become the propaganda arms of the elite. On a daily basis, people are bombarded with falsehoods and trivia, designed to get them to focus on themselves and their fantasies, while crucial decisions affecting their lives and the future of the nation are made in the salons and executive suites of financiers and corporatist cartels, and carried out by their bought-and-paid-for politicians.”
John Hoefle, “The Big Lie” (April 4, 2008 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.”
The NYTs is reaping its just reward as its more intelligent and perceptive readers are turning elsewhere, like this blog, for real news, real commentary, unfiltered and unspun information, and THE TRUTH. Astute readers are seeing right through the Orwellian propaganda being disseminated by the MSM at the behest of their corporate cartel masters, and are refusing to continue subsidizing their own brainwashing.
Isn’t that new $5 bill the ugliest piece of crap you’ve ever seen?
They used the same color on the back for the “5″, as what Iraqi voters had their thumbs dipped in, post election…
Lad, the pigment has counterfeit deterrence properties. (Not trying to be funny here.)
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2008/3517keystone_cops_fascism.html
Banksters and their asleep-at-the-wheel regulators falsely claiming that “the worst is behind us.”
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2008/3514reject_big_lie.html
“Virtually everything you read in the major press about the economy is wrong, reflecting either deliberate lies or a lack of competence, and often both. There are often elements of truth in the reports, but the reports themselves paint a false picture designed to confuse and mislead the reader. We are living in a virtual “1984″ where the “news” departments have become the propaganda arms of the elite. On a daily basis, people are bombarded with falsehoods and trivia, designed to get them to focus on themselves and their fantasies, while crucial decisions affecting their lives and the future of the nation are made in the salons and executive suites of financiers and corporatist cartels, and carried out by their bought-and-paid-for politicians.”
http://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2008/080425cent_amer_famine.html
Central American famine looming - stand by for a tidal wave of unrest and new economic refugees.
‘He said, “learn to grow your own food.”
Maybe the main reason I got a house was because I want a garden, and a good garden takes time to establish, fruit trees take a couple years to get going at least, and even building good soil for annual vegetables takes some time. When I first got here the soil was so bad, I could not believe it. Dig though I might, I saw ONE WORM the first year, ONE, and it was a skinny worm, too. I thought maybe Sweet Baby Jeebus had cursed the ground because He so strongly disapproved of the last owners paint choices–and boy, I could see His reasoning there–OR, I wondered it if was a secret Indian pet sematary, where ‘the soil is bad here’ and full of zombies and such, but nope. It turns out that it just needed some terroire, composted waste I hauled in, and good hard work.
And NOW guess what? That’s right, when I go out to my garden, say to pick a giant bouquet of pink and red and orange tulips, why, I have to use one of them sherpa guide lines to help me over the buckling ground, because the giant vigorous worms are heaving the soil around so much it’s hard to keep my footing.
Yep. That’s right.
OT - When I lived in Moab, my cat would bring in Giant Desert Centipedes (Google it, they’re real) and always in the dead of night. They bite like a scorpion sting. Freaked my sun-burned mind.
When I moved back to Colorado for awhile and she brought in earthworms, they seemed so benign and wiggly, I loved them (in comparison). I always rescued them and took them back outside.
Now that I’m back in Utah, she has tried to catch a real-estate salesperson or two, scary, but they always get away, thankfully.
Instructions for the care and keeping of Giant Desert Centipedes: “Feed crickets and roaches once a week. Once a month feed a small pink mouse.”
Well… yuck… but not as yuck as what the care and keeping ofa real estate salesperson entails.
Sorry–repost.
I just wanted to be sure you all heard about my lovely and majestic earthworms, as I’m so proud of them. In fact, soon I’m going to select the biggest ones and train them to slither me around in a chariot, like in Ben Hur.
Gassing up a Gulfstream V for it’s last one-way voyage to a extradition-free locale, is going to cost a bit more in the future…
“U.S. business-jet owners would pay 65 percent more in fuel taxes to finance federal air-traffic control upgrades, under an agreement among Senate leaders.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=al2zrlr93×1M
Someone is mad at this realturd and their Craigslist ad has been there for a little while now.
http://orlando.craigslist.org/rfs/657375320.html
Oh, foo. I missed it. It has been ‘flagged for removal’.
same here. did you archive it B & C Guy?