Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For April 28, 2008
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
April 28, 2008
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City-WiFi projects failing across S. FL:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/palmbeach/sfl-flpwireless0428pnapr28,0,3902632.story
This, imho, is like free”er” healthcare that everyone seems to want. What a silly idea this was, just shows you how much money was flowing through these govt bodies during the boom. What business does the govt have in competing with the telco companies like this anyway? If they had ever become a real threat the telcos would have wiped them off the map anyway..
Ahh, what other free services can my govt provide me?
Dude, they wanted to break the “digital divide”. Facts are useless against the sloganeering.
In any case, think about the children; will someone please think of the children!!!
You’re right on the money.
The “digital divide” was breached a very, very long time ago for anyone who cares to have it breached. There are free Internet options everywhere now (libraries being the number 1 provider).
The children would probably prefer not to have to pay 50% of their salaries to taxes, rather then have a technologically flawed system implemented, that, as soon as complete, will be made utterly obsolete by the phone companies.
Science Fiction story included a character from a technological society being introduced to a slum on a backward planet.
“(aghast) But but… what about ‘Freedom of Information’? Back home it is enshrined in our constitution.”
If I may be so bold - city wifi projects are failing because people who approved them and budgeted them were -politicians-. They have absolutely no clue about what is involved in operating any kind of infrastructure. In Philadelphia Wifi that politicians approved was supposed to allow one to drive through Philadephia at 60 mph and never lose a signal.
Google deployed such a system in Mountain View, California, but for the most part it doesn’t work indoors. What a colossal waste of resources.
Its good to see that even the mighty private sector, including the “geniuses” at Google, can fail at thses things.
Yep, my sister’s puny modem kicks the cr@p out of the Google ones.
The only place it works, oddly enough, is in the shower not the pot which is next to it. It’s really great for all the times I need to be online while in the shower (don’t ask for details!)
It does work in some places. A friend in a small remote town in ND subscribes to a WiFi service that broadcasts from the very high top of a nearby grain elevator. He has no trouble receiving the signal inside his house. Most of the townspeople subscribe, since it’s faster & cheaper than dialup. A ND company provides this & similar services at other small towns. I believe the source internet pipeline is fiberoptic into the towns.
When I was a lad growing up in the 60’s, the 2 neighborhoods I grew up in, both had Mr. Fixits. You could take them a busted toaster, a transistor radio in trauma, or have them dissect your tv, and they’d make them well again.
Our technology today has far outgrown our ability to understand much of it, and/or fix it.
Hey, FWIW - Google and Earthlink (?) offered a free/low cost system to the City of San Francisco, but Supervisor Chris Daly (our brat in city leadership) told them to “get lost”, flatly refusing to approve it because he didn’t want the current mayor getting any credit whatsoever.
It was to have been a two tier service, as “slower” was to be free and “faster” something like $25/month.
‘Our technology today has far outgrown our ability to understand much of it, and/or fix it.’
Boy, you aren’t kidding. I like to tinker and fiddle with tools and can fix quite a few things, I even fix plumbing things, but those are, you know–right there, and respond to bangs and wrenches. Eventually I can figure it out, so far anyway.
But the big magic box that makes pretty pictures appear in my living room–that is purely incomprehensible. I may as well place Slim Jims and bottles of beer on a small dias as offerings in front of this precious magic object, for all I really understand of it.
‘Our technology today has far outgrown our ability to understand much of it, and/or fix it.’
This is on purpose. Its way cheaper to make a PCB with a $.01 microprocessor on it than it is to do it the old way, with vacuum tubes or whatever. The complexity of goods would never be affordable without these. The small downside is that they’re essentially disposable since the cost of fixing them usually outstrips the value of a new one.
friend in a small remote town in ND subscribes to a WiFi service that broadcasts from the very high top of a nearby grain elevator.
Are you sure its wifi? I use a microwave base ISP. I have an antenna on my house that looks like a paddle that aimed at the tower.
‘In Philadelphia Wifi that politicians approved was supposed to allow one to drive through Philadephia at 60 mph and never lose a signal.’
Well, that don’t make NO sense. How can I be driving along at 60 mph while I’m fiddling around with my computer, looking at pornography and bread recipes and email and stuff? I mean, I do that now as it happens, but other, stupider, less coordinated people shouldn’t be allowed to do this, nohow.
I know someone who saw the original document when it came out of the “working group” - I only saw a copy. Of course when the vendors said it was impossible to achive at the price Philadephia wanted it the city simply stated it was a vendor trying to force it pay more.
UC defends $2.1 million deal for police chief
UC Berkeley officials are defending an unusual arrangement that allowed Police Chief Victoria Harrison to retire last year with a $2.1 million package and then return to the same job right away for more money.
“No laws were broken,” Cal spokeswoman Marie Felde said Thursday. “That’s very clear.”
UC spokesman Paul Schwartz said the retirement package was consistent with university policy and reflected benefits she rightfully earned.
“She did not receive anything special,” he said.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/25/BALA10BJMH.DTL
The UC system is a trough and has been for decades. Nothing they do IRT compensation, perks, and pork for their top people surprises me anymore - yet, they keep raising tuition citing rising costs. Rising costs of what?
IIRC, tuition in the UC system is usually half of what in-state tuition is everywhere else.
It’s the fees and expenses that kill you. I went to Pepperdine for a year in the late 70’s, $9800 tuition. UCLA was $200 a year tuition as I remember - close to free. By state law actually, it was supposed to be free. They fixed that.
Jwhite, I attended UCLA in 1967-68 on a Student Loan/NDEA grant and the costs for room/board in the dorms, fees and texts books worked out to be approximately $1,000 for 3 semesters. This was bare bones expenses, nothing extra.
sorry, three quarters, not 3 semesters.
Bare bones is good. It’s the education that counts. Everything else is fluff.
IIRC, tuition in the UC system is usually half of what in-state tuition is everywhere else.
According to the UCSD website, resident fees are about $8000 per year. Contrast that with The University of Colorado (considered one of the “Public Ivies” where its about $6000. At the University of Wyoming (which has produced its share of Rhodes Scholars) its only $3000.
And through the Western States exchange program a California Resident can attend Wyoming for about $4500 a year (plus room and board).
UCSD tuition+fees: $5536.38 ($2768.19 per semester) for full-time in-state (Fall 2007)
UIUC tuition+ fees: $10,324 (8,440 + 1,884) for in-state 1 year
http://registrar.ucsd.edu/studentlink/regfeesUGFA07.html
http://www.oar.uiuc.edu/current/financial/ugrad_base.html
http://registrar.ucsd.edu/studentlink/regfeesUGFA07.html
UCSD is a quartely based school, not semester based. Multiply 2768 x 3 and you get 8300 per year.
I was, for a period of time in the early 1970’s, the security supervisor for student’s bookstore. At that time, I pulled down a grand total of about $9,000 per yr. The campus police only did the booking of the suspects that we caught. Primary cause for citizen’s arrest was the stealing of books.
Other than picking up detainees, you could not find a campus policeman anywhere within the Student Association’s bookstore protecting property. However, If there was a campus disturbance, every cop on the force showed up. Boy, It was a circus attending Berkeley in the 70″s.
Finally, no one and I mean no one needs or deserve this kind of renumeration for this type of job, imho.
If she was on the campus police force 35 years ago, she was no one important. I do not recall anyone in a high position in 1972-75 by her name. This sounds like a sweet-heart deal after she proceeded up the ranks. I would love to see her wage history over these years and the corresponding positions she held in the campus police department. I do not recall any women on the force back then. Was this a political appointment/ladderal transfer from another UC dept? I know that Berkeley was/still ultra liberal, however there is more to this story.
By the way, I even popped a Criminology professor for stealing a book! He thought he was clever. It went to court and he won because he didn’t deny he had not paid for the book, but he forgot he has carrying it out concealed behind a clipboard. Thus is defense was lack of intent.
Ah, the Berkeley days…
Isn’t that the problem in a nutshell? She receives a package deal that is totally insane and it is described as “not anything special” or “against the law”?
The whole gov’t appears to be vast pockets of corruption, graft and criminal malfeasance parading as do-gooders and legitimate enterprises.
I’m UC medical school faculty and I’ve calculated my lump sum retirement at age 65 versus defined benefit pension. My lump sum would be a little less than a million, versus her two million. The article says that she’s been at UC for thirty-five years - they probably had a sweeter deal back then than people do today. She also makes a big deal about how she’ll lose her lifetime medical benefits. All she has to do is work until age 65, and then it’s very easy and affordable to get supplemental insurance to combine with Medicare. The people who are at risk for losing everything are those under 65 who have to buy their own insurance.
I would not count on that retirement when you retire. I am afraid that all these promises will not be paid. Due to governments in general and institutions lack of funds, I see BK’s wherein they will deny payments.
Its sad to say but the system is broke. SS, Med care, pensions, etc. will not be paid in full or out right denied.
Sorry for being a “wet blanket” on this.
But there are still those who argue that MORE government is the answer!
I don’t see how this simplistic political things helps the bubble discussion at all. This “whole gov’t appears to be vast pockets of corruption, graft and criminal malfeasance parading as do-gooders and legitimate enterprises” usually comes about when people don’t make an ongoing effort to participate, to understand their government, attend public meetings, and provide written feedback when possible. Similarly the “there are still those who argue that MORE government is the answer” idea usually means not understanding that assigning importance to something means dropping something else.
Let’s be specific. Do you appreciate or use roads? For fairness and maximum utility public entities control permitting, building, and repair of roads. This used to be a matter of great civic pride in this country. Development of super highways and landmark bridges and all the rest was considered progress. Now all that is crumbling and we can’t even keep it all in good repair, let alone continue to build. So what you are saying is you want fewer roads, and you want them in worse condition with less safe bridges. So much for civic pride.
Not only are the roads the best example of what government does and how it works, they also factor into development. In the past roads pushed out from urban areas enabling the sprawl we see today. Now the failures of our road system are hurting rural communities and forcing cities and inner core suburbs to become more dense as more and more living and economic activities are done locally. This feeling that working together is creepy and inevitably doomed and thus a bad thing all around is changing the fabric of our communities as well as the shape of this bubble crash. Condo towers and new urban forms have always been problematic, but dense areas stand to win in part because the public have backed away from the vision of the Eisenhower years. We no longer seek more and better roads because we have lost all faith in the systems that we used to build this great nation.
Nevertheless, whole gov’t appears to be vast pockets of corruption, graft and criminal malfeasance parading as do-gooders and legitimate enterprises still rings true. Perhaps the scale of the USA has gotten too big for its Constitution.
So is government-supported WIFI comparable to road building and maintenance?
I agree 100% on your last two paragraphs and could not agree less on the first. The government IS the problem and it’s not that I don’t understand it. I understand it fine. The U.S. gov’t, along with every other government in the world, is corrupt. They are not public servants. They are servants of big business. They are bought and paid for by corporations from the bottom to the top - from the local school district all the way to the white house. The money they receive in taxes is earmarked for special interest projects that were promised when elected. And there is soooo much waste! Revolution is the only answer.
You first.
We’ll just make sure we save our shekels to bribe everyone in the government you set up.
This same nonsense is why San Diego is having financial problems. Police, fire and other city workers retiring in their 50s with gigantic lump sum payouts and huge COLA pensions. They typically game the system by working a large amount of OT just before retirement to inflate the pension even more. This is what happens when public unions are allowed to make campaign contributions to the very politicians who determine their salary and benefits. Its a problem in a lot of state and local governments all over the country.
Diet C.O.L.A.
It’s my understanding that OT does not count toward your “highest wages” calculations for retirement.
Am I misunderstanding how it works?
Copper theft @ UC Berkeley…
Why am I not surprised!
The bandit made off with quite a haul…
A good reason why I arrange my schedule to spend fewer than 180 days/yr in Calif, thus evading any requirement to pay Calif state income tax.
az_lender: I arrange my schedule to spend fewer than 180 days/yr in Calif if you did spend 181 days in Calif who would know? Do you have an ankle bracelet?
Some people believe that their word is worth something, and are unwilling to commit felony fraud even if there is scant likelihood of prosecution. If only today’s FBs had similar principles, the housing “crisis” would never have happened.
RE: Cop chief @ $2.1 mil.
Man, the public employee penison hauls gets bigger by the day.
And I thought the Mazzland cops with their $43. per hour flagman details were the complete pigs feeding at the do-nothing union trough.
They are complete pikers compared with this woman.
Bet policing all those dorm room pot parties must be a real bitch.
Worth every dime.
Don’t forget about that $300K+/yr NURSE in San Francisco. Unbelievable!
I’d much rather see a nurse earn $300K than see a hedge fund manager scam many millions or billions.
At least the nurse earns her money.
careful , many on this board plan on voting for FREE-er healthcare
same folks getting ready to send more in to ss and medicare for a safer future !
how about all the folks that plan on voting for a continuing FREE-er, safer world by spending 10 billion dollars a month in Iraq?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/talk/
We’ve been told universal healthcare is really bad news, but we rank 37th in the world for heathcare. It can work, as I’ve learned in this documentary.Bookmark this and watch it tonight. Palmento-Thank You for this wake up call.
I was speaking at an industry conference on Friday. People approached me throughout the day after the presentation to ask questions an make comments. One person wanted to know why certain public information wasn’t available on our (government) website in a searchable format. This information is easily available in the on-line legal research sites. I told her that, I could not see us spending taxpayer money on a system that would be in direct competition with a private business, especially under the current administration.
The sour look would have curdled milk.
Of course I remember when Rick Santoram tried to prevent the National Weather Service from making its forecasts available to the public at the behest of Acuweather.
There’s no such thing as free. Just a question as to how one wants to deploy tax payer money. Failure of any system, schools, healthcare, sewer system, wi-fi networks are either an indicator of ineffective management or under investment.
For me I want to see money going into universal healthcare, an equitable tax system. I agree that government supported wi-fi is fairly low on the priority list.
Guess how people pay for socialized medicine in socialist countries?
Hint: it isn’t the corporations who pay, the corporate tax rate in most industrialized countries is _lower_ than in the US at this point.
It’s paid for mainly by the consumers of healthcare, the people, via VAT, higher income taxes, etc. Most of these countries don’t have as many tiers of government to pay for either, US citizens typically have at least 3 tiers (fed/state/local) with TONS of overlap. Of course we can trust government not to waste $$$ on healthcare and not to make it a colossal boondoggle of biblical proportions. Nooo.. I trust the government. They want and know what’s best for me. I
You’re wrong. Wi-fi is so easy and cheap to setup. Right now, the telcos own the airwaves, whereas the people should be the owners of the airwaves.
I’m not saying private industry shouldn’t be competing. I’m say they should be competing. Right now they are colluding with one another.
Agree totally. What is of real concern to me is that ISPs are starting to control content. I would be very happy to pay someone for a cable connection and never see or hear from them again. Comcast cable is policing downloads and kicking out people who use too ‘much’ bandwidth; the zinger is that they won’t define too much. We seriously need some competition among high speed service providers.
Steve,
Here ya go:
http://www.comcast.com/corporate/business/small/HighSpeedInternet.html
There’s a cable connection with no policing, and no “too much” bandwidth. This is a non-issue, imho, if you want higher speed, you can pay for it; it’s not like the cable co is the only option. Get FIOS, or pay for business class DSL. Or, if none of them are available, get a T1 or fractional T3 line. It’s not like the service is not available, you just might not like the cost. This is not a case of the “big bad” cable company having a monopoly on Internet service. They are more then willing to sell you higher speeds, and there’s plenty of competition. You just have to pay.
Yeah, there are options out there. Guess my real beef is that ISPs shouldn’t be controlling content in any way. As I am sure you are aware, some ISPs will be slowing down downloads from sites that don’t kick some money back to them to be on the preferred lists. If you read the service contract from Comcast, they claim the right to terminate you for any reason, including complaining about service. Providers should be just that, without any ability to modify or censor content.
Well, I do see your point, but I also see the service providers side of this as well. They are in this business to make money, and they don’t make money on people that use the Internet in certain ways. I don’t think that we should legislate to them that they “must” provide access to people who are downloading 500 gigs a month. They will provide access to those people, but they should be allowed to charge as they see fit (what the market will bear) for that level of service.
Trust me, I’m no fan of the policies, I work from home, and am very likely to be caught in a higher class of service should one be created. But should my neighbors subsidize my dramatically high internet utilization? IMHO, the answer to that is no. Let the market figure it out.
As Verizon deploys FIOS they work to eliminate the copper cable plant used by competing telcoms (DSL providers, land lines). WiMax (which can use licensed frequencies) has been slow to roll out in the USA. WiMax could give the wired services some competition. As much as I totally hate Verizon the company, a friend and myself drove from San Jose, CA to Norfolk, VA. We had his Verizon EVDO card, and we had internet connection almost the ENTIRE WAY! We had two laptops, one was feeding by the minute updates of GPS Lat & Long to a website, and taking high resolution digital photos out of the front window every minute (stamped with cordinates). Friends were tracking us online. We didn’t plan to do it, because I never thought there would be data service in the absolute middle of nowhere on i-80 and what have you.
I understand what you’re saying, Michael. It would be okay with me if an ISP limited downloads. My beef is that Comcast won’t say WHAT the limit is. If they were upfront, that’s perfectly okay, but to shut someone down without setting a published limit is underhanded and not okay.
Steve,
Yup, right there with you on that one. It would be VERY nice if they would tell us what the limits are, and if, in fact, we have had our bandwidth limited. Frankly, I have no idea why they don’t; I am sure that many of the people being limited would like to pay for more speed, and don’t even know they are being slowed down. Stupid business model; but hey, its the phone/cable company, what do you expect?
The solution to all of this is not allowing one company to own distribution and control content. I would have the gov or a gov regulated company own the cable line, and then have open auctions for people/companies that want to produce content with a limit on the # of channels one entity could control. Same goes for transmission lines and electricity. Anyone who meets standards could then generate and sell electricity. Now utilities keep competition at bay by owning transmission lines. People and companies could set up their own solar production facility on their roof or buy small turbines or fuel cells to heat the house and provide electricity. Microsoft’s control over operating system is another monopoly that destroys competition. It’s a benefit to the world to have one operating system but not when one company controls it.
I would have the gov or a gov regulated company own the cable line…
A better solution would be the one we used to have before the FCC scrapped it. Companies that owned the lines were forced to share access to those lines with other providers at wholesale prices. This made sense because the phone/cable companies have benefited from government subsidies (rights-of-way, tax breaks, infrastructure), and because of the difficulty in having numerous companies put lines in the same trenches and damn near impossible to put multiple lines on poles. Companies using the same lines at the same prices would then be forced to compete on price and quality.
But then the FCC conducted a flawed study which concluded that there was sufficient competition in the broadband arena leading to the revocation of the line-sharing rules.
Rubbish.
Wi-fi was never designed for mass coverage. Just because you can buy a pair of linksys routers and cover a 3000 sq house does not mean that you can scale it. You issues range from power, to weather to backhaul capacity to channel hopping.
Right now it’s illegal for private citizens to setup Wi-fi networks in a lot of jurisdictions because the telcos have a ton of lawyers that make is so.
Wi-fi mesh networks could easily be everywhere right now if it wasn’t for the telco lawyers.
I agree that the telcos are against big WiFi deployments, and would likely use their legal muscle to keep others from deploying large scale networks.
However, if the technology is so good, why doesn’t the telco deploy it? The answer is that WiFi is not designed for large scale deployments; it’s a public band, and it’s impossible to prevent others from setting up more WAPs and crushing your signal. It will never be a “nationally deployed” system like the current cell technology; the telcos will make cell technology work at the speed of WiFI and that will be the end of all these small scale projects.
It’s just not a viable technology to compete against cellular; for all the reasons that I mention above, it will never be a national network. I don’t dispute the uses of the technology, I am writing this post from a WiFi link right now; however, this is the wrong application. If we really want to deploy something like this we need more transmitter power (so you don’t need a WAP every 100 feet) and a private (licensed) band, so that we don’t have a massive network infrastructure brought down by someone in his condo setting up a Linksys WiFi router.
It’s like trying to jam a square peg in a round hole, you might get it to work; but it will never be as elegant as the possible (and likely to happen soon) alternatives. 3G technology is already “pretty” fast, the next generation will run at WiFi speeds; which, imho will be the end of all these “grand” public projects.
Trust me, I have deployed large (full building) WiFi networks, and they are a wonderful technology. However, once you hit a certain size, the technology is just not up to the task; that’s not what it was designed for.
Please don’t talk sense. You might confuse the masses.
I don’t know all the details, but I believe WiMax is a lot more appropriate for this kind of thing than WiFi. It’s a lot longer range, and the technology is made to compete with cellular, to some extent at least. However that didn’t work out so well for PCS.
In the end - how many people really need to be working on their PC’s while driving in their car? Maybe on a subway or something, but even then the benefits seem slight.
In the end - it’s just not worthwhile to try to provide such universal internet access everwhere. Smaller WiFi access points provide 95% of the benefit at 10% of the cost.
sort of like the dearly departed CLEC
I do love telecom investing though. My favorite sector.
any thoughts on sprint running to 10?
This, imho, is like free”er” healthcare that everyone seems to want.
I would satisfied with cheap”er”. Nobody else’s cost per procedure/pill/etc. even comes close to ours. Just wait until Corporate America does away with health insurance (like they did with pensions) as a benefit and J6P sees what it actually costs. National health is inevitable, but it won’t be the socialists who will make it happen, it will be the capitalists looking for another way to cut costs.
I am willing to accept that possibly major surgeries based on bad health habits are personal, however I think public health (read nationalized health care should be provided for every American citizen.) Please note that I didn’t say everyone that shows up at the doctor’s office.
I see three tiers of health insurance. First, general public health that should cover everyone. Second, almost all other major procedures necessary to extend your life other than self-induced (read life style choices) illnesses and Third (self-paid) coverages for the unusual medical services (liver disease from alcohol abuse/heart attacks from over indulgence/lack of exercise.)
Finally, to repeat, for any medical service beyond public health issues, require confirmation of american citizenship.
All imho.
Please see opinion above about how (like I am g*d or have an open ended checking account) I see the most equitable way to handle health care in the US.
There has to be a basic health level, particular communicable disease control.
Just my humble opinion.
The problem with trying to regulate “lifestyle” in the healthcare industry is where does it begin and end?
Your idea of an unhealthy lifestyle (say smoking or overeating) might differ greatly from my idea (say drinking or not exercising). How do you quantify the risks of: motorcycle riding, bike riding, horseback riding, surfing, skiing, hang-gliding, tennis playing, football playing, etc.
Then, there’s the sticky widget of genetic predispositions — which, IMHO, can be even more indicative of future healthcare costs.
Best to cover everybody (agree that it should cover only citizens) for basic medical care. Everyone should be free to supplement with additional care either by paying out-of-pocket for extras or by buying extra insurance.
I disagree. When people have to pay for it themselves, they will consume less of it and drive prices down.
The reason we have never ending increases in health care costs is because for most people, their cost is minimal and they have no incentive to shop around for the best deal.
Anyone with an employer plan pays a deductible and co-pay that is in general quite cheap. If it costs $20 per doctor visit, well hell, you’ll be at the doctor every time you have a cold. And you don’t care if the doctor charges your insurance company $50 or $150 or $500 for that visit. To you it’s all moot as your cost is the same.
Or worse you’ll be at the ER with that cold. You pay a $50 co-pay yet the ER charges your insurance $1000. Again you don’t care.
Ideally I think health insurance should work like car insurance. You have a little fender bender, you pay for the repairs out of pocket. You total your car, you call up your insurance. You have a cold or sprain your ankle or get strep throat, you pay yourself. You have a heart attack, your insurance pays.
This would create competition among providers and lower costs over all.
If they had ever become a real threat the telcos would have wiped them off the map anyway..
Or just get the state legislature to make it illegal like they did in Texas. State-wide wireless internet will happen and will become crucial to society. The question is, will it be a toll road owned by a foreign company?
The Stock market is doing good again. I thought it would go down to 10,000 level for Dow. Is the economy doing that great again?
Will the house prices not go down anymore?
MM…. the housing price slide is just getting underway.
Yeah, tell me about it.. SKF is kicking my butt, I can’t believe the financials have held up this long.. Hoping for another “revelation” that seems to happen once/twice a month where the talking heads come out and tell everyone just how bad the loans these banks are holding are.. Should happen soon (hoping).
Picked up a few skf at 97.65. Bottom callers everywhere. Only what, 10-15% off the real bottom?
I’m in at 100.75 and 98.43; feeling the hurt a bit right now, but, again, I don’t think we are near the end of the “disaster” news hitting the wires.
I don’t think people have priced in the fact that this event is going to change the profits in the banking sector for a long, long time. The damage from the losses is only the first part of the problem. Next is going to be the fact that the banks are not going to be permitted (or want to) use the amount of leverage they have in the past.. This, imho, is going to dramatically reduce profits going forward.
My average price is 112. My next buy order is @95.
Morgan Stanley Says Sell Financials’ Rally, Risk Not Over Yet
Sell the rally in financial stocks, analysts at Morgan Stanley told clients Monday, saying more capital raising, dividend cuts and deleveraging are coming across the sector.
Financial stocks rose in last week’s trading as momentum investors rotated out of securities seen as safer, such as commodities and U.S. Treasury securities, and into investments that had been shunned, like corporate bonds and financial stocks. Financial stocks in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index are up more than 15% from their lows on the March 17 bailout of Bear Stearns Cos. (BSC).
The tentative movement back into risker investments shows that some investors are willing to test the idea that things are looking up for battered financial companies.
But Morgan Stanley analysts Betsy Graseck, Cheryl Pate and Justin Kwong aren’t convinced. They believe the difficulties in the credit markets are only in their “3rd inning,” and that the situation will be worse than the recessionary environment of 1990 and 1991.
“We think it’s a mistake to chase this rally,” they wrote. “The risk is much greater that credit deterioration will accelerate and banks will raise more dilutive equity and cut dividends [more] than expected.”
measure US homeprices in euros or gold and you can see they are down 50% or so over the last year. With Bernanke at the helm this policy will probably continue: nominal home and stock prices holding up pretty well while the dollar goes down the drain - so losses are much bigger than they appear.
Do note that massive inflation will NOT “fix” the housing Bubble: our wages are also donw 50% or more since last year vs. the Euro, Gold, etc. In other words, we still can’t afford the houses at the current prices.
The stock market is about one thing, hype.
Or to be more accurate, it is about manipulation of which hype is one of the tools used.
soaring prices:
Steven James, 43, works in finance, has multiple cellphones clipped to his belt and projects the air of a hardworking, successful sort of guy. And yet there he was last week, buying day-old bread at the Oroweat thrift store in South Pasadena.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus27apr27,1,4433493.column
Give up the “multiple cellphones”. And screw “projecting an air” too.
Jeebus, these news reporters, don’t really know much, do they?
Asking Exxon to donate oil cards? OK, yeah, that’s going to happen anyday now. I’ll just wait by my post box until it comes.
I’d love to take a peek at his balance sheet… Wonder what kind of lifestyle he’s been leading?
The lifestyle he “deserves.”
The lifestyle he “deserves.”
That’s probably the one he’s leading now…
He may be the millionaire next door.
With multiple cellphones? I don’t think so.
Right.. The millionaire next door isn’t trying to look like one. Even better - the corporate clowns with Blackberry’s and PDA checking email at the beach and on weekends because they are “so important”.
“Flood said a particularly troubling trend was that more people are showing up at food banks who don’t fit the usual profile of lower-income families trying to make ends meet.”
“He said free groceries are now being sought by middle-class people who may have lost their jobs or experienced some other economic upheaval.”
“We’re worried,” Flood said. “We don’t necessarily have the supply of food to handle this increase.”
__________________________________________________________
So what happens when the food banks run out of dough re mi, and ex-middle class people can’t make withdrawals, anymore?
Les miserables.
Tipped over SUVs should make for some decent barricades. They can fill the gaps between them with big screen TVs and Ethan Allen furniture too.
Don’t forget the topless chick. http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/delacroix/liberte/
“Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.”
Victor Hugo
‘Don’t forget the topless chick.’
Hahaha, you’re funny, jim A.
.. or when the usual customers are bumped.
How about a fuel bank, where struggling homeowners can get free gas for those big V-8 engines?
My son’s soccer team had an out of town match (260 miles RT). An SUV family (father and son) offered to pay my gas if they could ride with us in our car.
Hell, I own an Elantra and I would cheerfully offer gas money if I could get out of driving such a long way. Add in the environmental benefits and the logic does not rely on ownership of an SUV.
At one time, that was a big “reason” for owning a SUV - ability to carry kids sports teams for ice cream after a t-ball game…..(rolls eyes)
Those people are, simply, no longer “middle class” people.
Have people forgotten that “class mobility” can work upwards or downwards? In my book, someone with no income is broke and poor, no matter what “stuff” they still happen to own and wear.
Funny, that’s where my wife shops for bread. Why pay more?
fighting back:
WASHINGTON — The mortgage industry, facing the prospect of tougher regulations for its central role in the housing crisis, has begun an intensive campaign to fight back.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/business/28mortgage.html?_r=2&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Well, what did you expect?
But it won’t matter one bit. At the end of the day, someone has to buy that paper, and they won’t be buying the pie-in-the-sky paper. You’re going to see a cap on leverage, rules or no rules.
They will oppose any legislation, that might force them to be honest.
That’s precisely my point. You won’t need the legislation.
The complete lack of investor funding is doing the same trick faster. NINJA loans are not coming back, laws or no laws.
A friend of mine was telling me in 2007 how he was going to buy Bear Stearns if it ever dipped under $110/share. He said it would be a steal at that price. That is a funny comment, because it would be a steal…..he would be the victim. The same guy told me I better buy a house before they were “all gone”…..
Any way of finding out how many he actually bought when they went below 110? Schadenfreude-fuelled minds would like to know.
So did he???
You know what they say… with friends like that…
I read this last night. It made me sick. During the boom, these were the guys that showed little if any concern regarding their actions. They would be happy to put any warm body into any mortgage, grab their fee and say good day. Because of this, the economy is in shambles and an entry level buyer (ie young couple with a baby) is priced out of the market.
Now that these people will be required to actually do some income verification and honest property appraisals and they are complaining. Also, legally, they may actually have to say no one in a while - again they complain.
Instead of feeling a sense of shame and a spirit to reform. They complain.
“Instead of feeling a sense of shame and a spirit to reform. They complain.”
Too much Paxil
“Made you sick?” These brokers’ financial incentive was to sell mortgages. No one put a gun to the buyers’ heads. There is utterly nothing surprising here.
I agree there needs to be better financial education, but at the end of the day, if there was no fraud, the buyers are responsible for what they buy.
Reminds me of the words of Joseph Welch to Senator Joe McCarthy.
“At long last, sir, have you no shame?”
Jeebus Cripus, what exactly did the old man know?
Take a look at this article from Barron’s.
Heheh - “What did he know and when did he know it?”
And shame on NYU for pulling it from the shelves of the library to protect his “private life.” I’d say access to an economics paper by the country’s most public economist is the sort of public good that universities are there for.
Not available from UMI either. I checked; I went looking for it. Pulled, as well. Hmmm …
What about other committee members?
If you bring a gun, I’ll pay for the subway ride.
Aren’t you supposed to extend the forefronts of human knowledge or similar to be awardeed a Ph.D.? The concept of a hidden thesis seems to contradict the whole idea. It would have been easier for him to just apply to that University in West Virginia that is in the news…
So, sometime before 1977 he anticipated a bursting housing bubble. We did have locally-bursting bubbles both in the early 1980’s and in the early 1990’s. Nothing in the article suggests that Greenspan predicted events resembling those at present; however, if the outcome of his policies was obvious to us, it should’ve been obvious to him!!
It’s pre-securitization too so that makes it all a little trickier.
The point I took away from the article is that the man is no moron (read about the “anticipation” of Tobin’s Q.)
He fully well knew what the probable outcome of his policies was going to look like, and what shape it would take, and yet he pursued them?
Unbelievable.
[Greenspan] fully well knew what the probable outcome of his policies was going to look like, and what shape it would take, and yet he pursued them?
Here’s one explanation of this.
Sorry, I’ll keep the tin colander in the bottom drawer of my cupboards.
You don’t need a gold standard. All you need is a free floating “fed” funds rate, and banking would actually need to become competitive.
However, that would be too much for the tin foil crowd to actually understand.
These folks like Greenspan are among the brightest folks out there, and their goal is moving money from your bank account to theirs. If you step back and look at the demographic picture it becomes obvious what has been happening as the decades pass. The major players have been watching the 80M+ boomers moving along their age timeline and planning at least ten or more years ahead while Joe Sixpack is busy planning for next weekend or summer vacation. These bubbles are the result of years of planning.
Absolutely agree, rms.
I’ve noticed the maim stream media likes to mention “Ayn Rand disciple”
Alan Greenspan as of late, as they look for somebody to pin the tale on this Don Quixote, er Knight Errant.
Is anybody familiar with Port La Belle, FL? My FIL owns a lot there and isn’t sure what he is going to do with it. If anybody can give me some information on this area it would be greatly appreciated. It’s a rainy, nasty day here in Fantasyland. But it’s always sunny on Wall Street.
Ugh.. Well, if its the same place I am thinking of (Hendry County) it’s absolutely in the middle of nowhere.. I’m talking like, living in a sugar cane field, middle of nowhere. That entire area of FL (middle of the state) is so poor and backwards it will make your head spin. I have to make the drive from the E coast to the W coast of FL often for work, and that’s typically the way that I go across (through Hendry county). The only place to eat for ~50 miles is a restruant called “The Clock”, a truly awful place on SR60 at the bottom of the lake. The level of poverty in these towns needs to be seen to understand; I’m talking like “Deliverance” style poverty out there, along with a few immensely rich sugar farmers (who, actually, have almost all moved to the coasts now, particularly Palm Beach).
Let’s just say, I hope he got that home for a bag of magic jellybeans and a few paper clips… There’s nothing there, no tourist population; it’s a dangerous area, and you’re a solid 40+ miles from anything that even resembles a beach (and close to 100 to get to a good beach).
That about sum it up for ya?
Thanks, Mike. If you do move there you probably shouldn’t apply for a job in the Department of Travel and Tourism. Great info!
Holy……..
Sorry, just had to catch my breath, the tears are running down my face after reading that comment.
What, you don’t think that I would make a good public liason for “Insert sh**box overpriced area here”’s tourism board?
You could be the Putney Swope of tourism. oh, go for it!
Don’t worry.
There is no Department of Travel and Tourism in La Belle unless it is run by some Mexican coyote cartel. Any tourist is definitely lost and should accelerate to the maximum allowed by law.
sounds lovely
MF, I think you mean SR80.
I drive along SR70 a lot between the coasts and it’s a desolate, crappy area. I stopped at the better (of the two crappy choices) for gas at the corner of 70 and 27 in some crappy place called Lake Placid. I walked in the door behind a redneck wanna be who ripped a huge fart and turned around and smiled at me (without teeth, mind you).
Port LaBelle sucks.
Here’s a bunch of info:
http://www.city-data.com/city/Port-La-Belle-Florida.html
It’s right near Cape Coral FL, the poster child for the florida bubble.
It figures that he would have bought into a place such as this. Good lord.
“right near” Cape Coral suggests proximity to the ocean. But Port LaBelle is east of the actual town of LaBelle (I’ve been to LaBelle, love Michael Fink’s description), hence pretty much in the middle of a swamp/sugar plantation.
Similar to Jersey City is “right near” Manhattan.
Yeah, except that Jersey City is actually “right near” Manhattan compared to this place. I’m telling you, if you think of FL as all Miami/Palm Beach (big money) areas, you really need to take a ride out to Labelle.
That’s the thing that people just keep refusing to understand (here in FL).. We have SO MUCH land to build in this state it could choke a horse. There are even horrible areas right near the ocean (Riviera Beach for example) that are grossly underdeveloped. The idiots shouting “no more land” while standing in an empty city block in downtown WPB really need to take a drive across the state (or up the TPKE from Miami to Orlando). Only then do you realize that 90% of FL is EMPTY. Nothing there, not a single sign of man for 10 miles in any direction. Out of land? Not even close.
Anywhere in Florida more than 10 miles off the coast is Hell. People don’t live in Orlando (or LaBelle). People have died and gone to Hell. They just don’t realize it.
There’s so much land on just the island of Manhattan that it would keep a cap on prices for a century.
I’ll be willing to provide a guided tour to that effect.
Most of Manhattan is grossly underdeveloped and/or decaying hellholes even though this may not be immediately obvious.
Fixing the excesses of Wall St may hurt their profits… Hmm(do you hear a very small violin playing a very sad little tune?).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a2ow77PrJj14&refer=home
Those poor prophets of Wall Street. I think they will be okay.
Wrong NYCB. They need more taxcuts.
“The financial sector is shrinking to a new equilibrium,” Knight said. “It’s potentially decades before financial assets can garner so much of the nation’s economy.”
Be still, my heart.
The financial sector garnered 10% of our country’s gross domestic profits in 1970…
Now it’s around 40%
And there’s something wrong with that. The “financial sector”, theoretically, should exist only to support productive enterprise. But it has become a product unto itself. Can’t eat it, can’t drink it, can’t ride it, won’t cure disease, can’t live in it, can’t wear it. But, AHA! Money DOES enable you to get those things that you can eat, drink, ride, live in, wear, etc.
It’s just a medium of exchange. It REPRESENTS value, theoretically.
Son’s coworker here in Ohio goes to his bank for a new car loan rather than pay the dealer’s 9 percenter. Denied; no explanation. Pulls his free credit report, not even a slight ding. Single guy, decent job, employed about a year out of school, no bills (worked his way thru college! No loans), low rent with room mate, decent savings account. Bank of America.
This, my friend, is the psychology of deflation.
A refusal to extend credit (and hence, expand the money supply) even when the Fed funds rate is so low. Now, how did that work out for Japan again?
This guy has “deadbeat” written all over his credit history. The bank figures he’ll just pay the loan off early and thus they won’t be making as much $$ compared to someone who will ride out the full terms. If this lad had a history of late payments (think extra fees) and was applying for an 84 month car loan, he would have been approved.
I’ve said this before, and I am sure that others have had different experiences, but this “we won’t give you credit because your score is too high, and you pay all your bills” thing just seems like BS to me.
The CC companies make big money even when you never pay them one red cent in interest, the interchange fees for some of these cards approach 3%; they are plenty happy to have use their cards and pay the bill every month.
I just don’t see this “good customer” bias that others claim exist. I get more CC offers all the time, don’t carry balances, and haven’t had a single CC canceled or credit limit lowered. I just think that this may be an “imagined” problem.
Did he have any history of other loans? About two years ago, I tried to get a 10K loan on a 16K used car from my credit union, and they said that I didn’t have enough credit history to get a good rate (my only credit history was paying off two credit cards on time). Had to get my dad to co-sign it with me.
Anecdotally, I have to disagree. I’m a guy with a high credit score, but I also have it because I’ve run up debt pretty high and then paid it off, a “rollercoaster” pattern, $20K on one occasion and $42K on another. Because of this, I seem to be able to borrow as much as I want whenever I want.
Other friends of mine have better credit ratings than I, but have never run up much debt; they have a lot of trouble getting loans, even with good incomes.
I definitely think they pay attention to your debt patterns. I’m a pretty sure-fire bet to pay back a lot, but they still have made a lot of money off me servicing the debt.
Of course, I shan’t ever do it again…
Tell him to put down 20% on the car and try again. He was probably asking for 100% financing.
Commie!
I’ll find out more; he only wanted to borrow 12k on a car I believe cost about 14K. I thought a bank had to give you a reason for a denial? Can they/do they deny without pulling a credit report? Maybe they will mail a formal reason for denial at a later date? Sure got my son’s attention as he was thinking about buying something similar with a larger down payment.
Yes, by law they have to send a letter stating the reason for denial. It will probably say something like “credit history too short” or “insufficent time at employment” or whatever. Some BS.
Well yeah, because “Shit! we don’t have any money left!” is not in their mail-merge file of excuses.
I have a 20-something friend who wants to buy a house (ugh). But it’s an ok decision in her case — very unique situation. Anyway, she had *no* credit history, and she had to build one fast to get a mortgage. Maybe the son is too clean.
Ya know back in ‘83 (when jobs were supposedly tough to come by) I spent about 6 mos waitressing before I found my first post degree position. Armed w/about $1600, I bought my own vehicle w/o a co-signer. Yes the 3 year old car was only $6k. But then again I was a newly hired waitress at year round lobster restaurant. It sounds like lenders were much less risk averse during that recession than they are right now. I think the difference is the bank’s fiscal health not ours. Oh, I had a small burden of student loans to pay off too.
True. In 1994, I had no trouble buying a house and a car at age 23. I had very little to my name. Nothing, in fact, except a job. Husband had the 3% down for the FHA loan.
Hi Carlos. They unintentionally did the young man a favor. Tell him to buy a used car he can afford to pay cash for - paying interest stinks.
Best. Advice. Ever.
The one below as well which is identical. Good grief, we’re all a bunch of ol’ farts, aren’t we?
I’d rather be labeled an ol’ fart than pay interest for buying a vehicle. Talk about a double waste of money!
Bought a new bike though - but not to impress Al Gore. Bought it for my own selfish betterment. I’m so cheap I even wanted to reduce my spending on bus fare.
The bank did him a favor. He needs to buy a reliable used car for cash and save to be able to buy his next car for cash. Keeps him out of debt and saves on the higher insurance, etc.
But that will again bring up the problem of having no credit history. Better to finance at least some of the car in order to build a FICO. It will be worth a few hundred dollars in interest now, in order to save a LOT of money in interest when it comes time to buy a house. And don’t you SAVE money on insurance if you have a high FICO?
(I know, the FICO may not be related to good driving, but that’s the way it is until someone changes it.)
I know it’s not fair, but we have to play the game these days.
He can keep, and fix the old car, for much less than just the tax and license fees on a new car. People are willing to throw a perfectly good car in the garbage can, just because they have been bitten by the new car bug, and the`re too lazy and stupid to fix up the old one. B of A did him a favor. Tell him to stop crying, and start acting like a real man, and he can save a ton of money.
It’s all about the FICO score. You can have a good looking credit report but a low FICO score, and that will kill your ability to qualify. When I was younger I tried to get a credit card and got denied. I was working for NASA, with no debt, and a decent income. Still to this day I have problems, I’m working to engineer a high FICO score. I can’t qualify for a lame credit card, but got a $5500 secured card through BofA. They don’t care what you make, they don’t care what your debt is… they just rely on computer modeled FICO score.
I think FICO is a crock. High fico score = debt slave, generally. If you want to qualify for something big, like a mortgage, can’t you go through a lender that does actual underwriting?
Duped and delusional:
“It’s very different now than it was then,” says Lyle Gramley, who served as a Fed governor under Volcker from 1980 to 1985 and is now Washington-based senior economic adviser for Stanford Group Co., a wealth-management firm. “Americans have confidence in the Fed.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aBid7AnvOvNA&refer=home
guess we’re un American
“Americans have confidence in the Fed.’’
Americans are largely uninformed about the Fed, and about its mandates. As they are learning to their cost.
“Confidence” as in “confident they’ll make a bad situation worse by helping out their banker buddies?” If that’s the question, then we’re “confident” for sure!
stimulus?
The government’s economic stimulus program begins today, and William Pearson of Los Angeles is ready to receive his $600 tax rebate — and hoard it.
“I’m too afraid to spend it,” Pearson, 63, said last week. “No one knows where gas or food is going to go, and I’m uncertain about making it through the summer.”
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rebate28apr28,1,4131034.story
Bernanke May Have to Follow Volcker to Avoid Being Tagged Burns
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aBid7AnvOvNA&refer=home
Since the start of the year, oil prices have risen 23 percent, while corn has climbed 27 percent and rice has jumped 76 percent.
Harvard University professor Jeffrey Frankel says the Fed’s easing of monetary policy may be contributing to the run-up in commodity prices. The low rates make it cheaper for companies to finance and build inventories; they also encourage investors to shift money from low-yielding bonds into commodities.
just maybe it was the lefty ethanol love that hiked grain
harvard wouldn’t like to admit that - it would be UNgreen
without high oil prices - courtesy of Bernanke & co - the bio-ethanol scam wouldn’t make any sense. It is just one of the many examples where the money printing of the FED is producing unforeseen consequences.
Alternate fuels make more sense when oil prices are rising, not when they are stable and all other costs align.
The lefty ethanol love pushed by non other than green GWB and his lefty cornies at mega-agri. This is the only form of alternative energy that this oil admin has endorsed.
Part of Bush’s plan to wean the country off oil includes big investments in ethanol.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/05/news/bush_ethanol/?postversion=2008030513
The energy bill passed by Congress and signed by Bush in December calls for refiners to replace 36 billion gallons of gasoline with ethanol by 2020, up from about 7 billion gallons today. About half of that will come from ethanol made with corn.
“That’s good if you’re a corn farmer, and it’s good if you’re concerned with national security,” Bush said.
Bush acknowledged some of the problems with ethanol, particularly its role in pushing up the price of corn. The price of corn has doubled since 2006 which has pushed up the price of chicken, beef and poultry - livestock fed with corn.
Also, crops like wheat and soybeans are becoming more expensive as farmers devote more acreage to grow corn as they rush to satisfy the demand for ethanol.
“I’m beginning to hear complaints from cattleman about the price of corn,” he said. “We’re going to do something about it.”
The ethanol issue involves more than just those pesky “lefty” types.
Trying out new Tex-isms:
All hat and no oil
All hat and no corn
All ethanol and no hat
All
just maybe it was the lefty ethanol love that hiked grain
Think again.
Big Ag, middle-of-the-road farm state pols & conservative politicians are entirely behind the ethanol boom. The alleged energy efficiency of corn-based ethanol was debunked long ago.
It it was about being green we’d import Brazils ethanol which is made from surgar cain and has an energy return that’s 4-5x that of corn based ethanol. This is just another way for elites to strip people of their wealth. Farmers actually aren’t doing that much better, because the cost of oil seed and fertilizer has gone through the roof. A small # of hands own production of oil seed and fertilizer. That and futures market is where the money has been made.
NPR is doing a series of stories about Americans and debt on Morning Edition. Just a little hostile on the week that the administration starts sending out the stimulus checks and desperately hopes that the money is spent right away.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89957723
The audio story has more to it than the text at the link.
thanks, Polly.
Can anyone here help me with No. VA? My sister wants to sell her condo and buy a townhouse. I need to convince her not to buy anything without selling the condo first. She thinks the area is “different” b/c her condo is across the street from the metro and very desirable.
Does anyone here have some good local articles on the area?
Condos are going down but they are selling in NoVa in areas very near the Metro. Her problem is that she is going to be in competition with tons and tons of new construction. And the new construction has ways to get 100% financing which a buyer of a used unit can’t access. Tell her to go in to a new building in her area posing as a buyer and see the prices and deals she is offered. That should convince her.
Alternatively, she could buy the townhouse and default on the condo. What’s good for CA should be good for….
I ain’t buying until the credit standards come back.
They are coming back, aren’t they?
Condos are dime-a-dozen in DC metro, and being near a metro helps, but doesn’t make it *that* special. If she was smart, she would sell, pocket the proceeds, and then rent for at least a year before looking.
Here’s an article from 2 years ago:
Reports Indicate Glut of Condos in D.C. Area
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/30/AR2006013001286.html
Or, she might want to go to Yahoo foreclosures, type in ‘Alexandria,VA’, and take a look at her competition:
http://realestate.yahoo.com/Foreclosures
Make her check out some real estate sites and see what condo inventory she is up against in trying to sell hers. I like the cbmove.com site - but there are certainly others that pull up nova listings.
Your instincts are dead on - she shouldn’t make an offer until she’s closed on her condo. The pain of putting stuff in storage, and/or getting a short term rental, or sofa-surfing with a friend is nothing compared to the pain of having two mortgages.
On the bright side, she probably can’t qualify for the townhouse until she get the condo sold, right? So, hopefully, she won’t even be able to screw herself up. Whatever you do, don’t let her take a the townhouse on some kind of “rent-to-own” deal where a desparate townhouse seller allows her to put off closing until she sells the condo - that would be a scenario where she would have rent in new place plus morgage in other while she tried to sell.
What part of NoVa is the condo located in? And where does she want to move? Just curious.
She can’t default in VA, the lender will come after her for the difference. (CA is non-recourse).
Where is she? Our landlord is a realtor & told us the condo market is dead along the Orange line in Arlington. Too much was built over the last two years, and most people who bought the condos now are young couples or families who want to trade up (like your sister) and can’t compete with the new builds.
She’s in Vienna. Yup, last stop on the Orange line. She wants to stay in the same area, just looking for a larger place. So she can easily wait it out.
I don’t know if she would get approved for a new townhouse. The condo is almost paid off and she makes decent money.
I don’t know a lot about the market in Vienna, but last year when we were looking for rentals, there were TONS of over-priced (IMO) townhouse rentals in Vienna. I’m wondering why someone would buy her condo in Vienna when there are a ton for sale closer-in in more urban areas? I would stay put if I didn’t have to move.
Go to the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors site and look for the market data links:
http://www.nvar.com/market/mktreports.lasso
I’ve been watching the news about farm land prices rising for the past several years. After reading some discussions on the blog about hedge funds and commodities, I know many of you have thoughts about this. Has the housing bubble caused the underlying fundamentals to change? That is to say, given the trouble in the credit markets, housing bubble and rising energy costs, isn’t it possible that many people are beginning to see that the current way of life is on a crash course? Is it possible that the value of farm land has been held artificially low for all these years because people have believed the stereotypes? For years, the media, entertainment etc have portrayed the agricultural lifestyle as backwards and ignorant. This reinforces a desire to escape. And thus depresses the value… At some point (probably now), many people will realize that the suburban way of life is doomed. At that point, farm land around small communities will probably rise in value. I have seen this first hand. Several 40-100 acre farms around me have been purchased by urban professionals. And they’re committed to make these work as farms. This is probably underway across the US. What are you seeing?
Farm land prices here in Ohio steady in areas I follow, but seems like an increase in ads for them in the local fishwrap. This smells like the early/mid 70’s again when Washington suckered farmers into planting fence to fence. Recall the result….FarmAid concerts to help the tremendous runup in farm forclosures when the Feds cut off credit because farms dropped in value.
Pennsylvania farmland might skyrocket. The mineral rights (marcellus shale) are the big story. I know farmers (DIRT poor) who have been offered $4,000 an acre for the initial bonus and royalties (if drilling occurs) of $1 mil. a year. Last year a farmer I know recently sold 120 acres for about $300K. This year he could have signed with a natural gas company and gotten the same amount, and kept the land. Of course, this might be a bubble too.
“At that point, farm land around small communities will probably rise in value. I have seen this first hand. Several 40-100 acre farms around me have been purchased by urban professionals. And they’re committed to make these work as farms. This is probably underway across the US. What are you seeing? ”
What your watching is a load suckers getting separated from their money. These guys buying bulk dirt are about the most clueless bunch I’ve seen in alot of years. Far more stupid than tech bubble buyers paying $700/share of NASDAQ junk. Don’t you think that farm productivity would be maxed out if there were a way to profit? What makes these idiots there is a payoff in a tiny 20 acre hobby farm? Recall the MotherEarth/hippy movement of the early 70’s? How many of those speculators got eviscerated? Alot of them. I know a couple guys selling junk dirt for $2000/acre only because they know they’ll never get that price again in our lifetime. At least not until we’re all wearing adult diapers. But go ahead…. “commit” yourself to “making it work”. Come back and see me after tens of thousands of dollars spent on “making it work” have evaporated.
Depends on what they’re trying to make it “work” to do. I was buying the most delicious water buffalo milk yogurt from a Vermont company run by people like that. Great stuff and then bam . . . . one day it was gone. Farm bellied up.
Now if you’re taking a big cash windfall from something and buying a hobby farm to live on and grow your own food, that’s different. I wouldn’t mind doing that either.
“Now if you’re taking a big cash windfall from something and buying a hobby farm to live on and grow your own food, that’s different. I wouldn’t mind doing that either.”
I’d be willing to wager you can earn far more on your regular job than I could offsetting food costs with my own labor. I know I can.
I often wonder where these loony ideas come from but I suspect it’s from lamebrains viewing too many pharma commercials and I think Fidelity or another retail broker has a commercial of some old dope pretending to farm. Whatever but I’ve haven’t seen pipe dreams this stupid in alot of years.
I don’t have a job and don’t care about that equation. I like sitting on the earth and digging in the dirt in the sun.
Yes, I know that sounds like I”m a moonbeam.
Well TX…. I’ll be calling the hall for laborers pretty soon. I have a few miles of ductile iron pipe to get in the ground and I’ll need some shovel operators.
txchick’s attitude about farming seems to connect to the old story about the farmer who was asked what he would do if he won millions in the lottery. He said, “I’d just keep farming until it was all gone.”
My husband’s family were Nebraska corn farmers. I do have some knowledge of the issue. My dad was a commodity reporter at the WSJ and I started trading with corn, soybeans and sugar. I do have some knowledge.
I think you are actually corroborating his point.
I’m with you on the delicious stuff coming out of local farms but it’s extraordinarily hard to make the numbers work. I talk to some of the farmers out here who I buy from regularly, and it’s absurdly hard.
For one, you are primarily selling to the “high end” who are notoriously picky. Not “high end” as in rich but extraordinarily discriminating in their taste.
I actually have these farmer’s phone numbers. Typically I call them at the end of summer when I make my own tomato paste so that they can pick the tomatoes, and know that I am going to pay them on the other end. Otherwise, they’re just guessing.
Agreed if it’s a hobby farm, and you have the dough but as a commercial enterprise, it’s a rocky road.
Did you ever try that water buffalo yogurt? I’m spoiled for life. I can’t stand that watery crap they sell in the stores.
Here’s another tiny company with a killer product. Whole Foods was selling this and then one day, they stopped. Now it costs $73 to have two cases of it sent here. Can’t justify that but this is great stuff. From the People’s Republic of Oregon.
http://www.smallplanettofu.com
I dunno if I’ve had that specific one but yeah, I have had the local stuff. It’s unreal.
Agreed on everything you say; I’d like a garden just for the same reason.
A whole farm? Probably not.
The guy that ran the Woodstock water buffalo farm took out a 1.25 Million grant from the state of VT in 2002 and then closed up shop early this year. It’s being reopened by a new owner but I think the guy running it swindled the state something fierce….I mean why else would he hire a CEO with a degree from Wharton to run the place?
I’ve heard Liberte yogurt’s pretty good but haven’t tried it for myself….I stick with Stonyfield.
Stonyfield is ok but still too thin. That Woodstock stuff was like cream cheese almost. Very thick.
Standard Greek (and some Indian) yogurt procedure is to “strain” the stuff with a cheese cloth.
I love the local Greek stuff out here. It’s made right here too.
Draining it really thickens it up. Have you ever had “Quark”? It’s an extra thick yogurt creme they sell over in Europe. Delish.
This hobby farm crap is a bunch of crap. There’s nothing wrong with people wanting to live on the land and make a couple dollars on the side but in the past 5-6 years hobby farming has became another way for yuppies to be parted with their money.
Around here they (hobby farmers) have driven up the cost of land so high that the true local farmers can’t even grow their plots. Hobby farmers screw with traditional supply and demands by competing the locals for everthing from fencing to hay. Their limitless 401k withdrawls has a part in helping the price of a round bale of hay rise from $30 to over $50 now. There’s also a Tractor Supply Store in every town catering to these folks, where the locals shop at the Farm store where you can get a bale of hay during the night in a pinch and pay for it the next time you’re in town.
It’s doubly bad when they try to practice husbandry. Around here lots are covered with Ford F350 pickup trucks, air conditioned horse trailers, saddles, etc because everyone wanted a house in the country with a couple horses. From what I hear, horses are now free too because the animal control will take them from owners who can no longer afford to travel to their weekend home and their horses are starving, and in some cases perishing because of mistreatment.
For the love of all of us who someday want to have a simple existence with a nice garden, I hope these “hobby farmers” move back to their McMansion subdivisions where they belong.
Liberty yogurt is fantastic. I love the mocha flavour. They also have a sub-brand of yogurts that come with grains and fruit stirred in. I was worried it might be a bit…mushy, but it is the perfect consistency.
If you strain your yogurt overnight (with cheesecloth) you can make very yummy cheesecake. I like it better than the fat kind, actually.
mmm.
My garden is 20′/20′ saves my family $3000 a year in food costs.
Everybody should try a garden. I even have a local mexican food restaurant buying my habonaros. Nothing like fress produce.
20×20 garden. There ya go. Point made.
Thank you pete.
Dude, you keep jumping ahead of me in the comments queue.
How can I agree with you when you keep stealing my thunder?
Back in the 70’s and into the 80’s some smart farmers were leasing out 10 x 10 and 30 x 30 foot plots to families to farm on their own.
Each plot was fenced and had irrigation and the families came out 2x a week to work it and pick their veggies.
On a per acre basis it was amazingly profitable for the farmers and the folks.
The kids had a ball.
Our arch-nemesis is the lowly gopher, and good luck getting through a foot of poured concrete in our new greenhouse…
Aurivoir gophers~
bahah…. woodchucks. Back home I turned roughly 5 acres around the house into lawn (yeah crazy huh?) and part of the process is getting rid of the gophers and woodchucks and it ain’t easy. They’re destructive little rodents and I tried many remedies until I called my buddy who has a septic pumping service. He hauled a full truck (4500 gals) and fill the maze of holes with septage. It was friggin’ hilarious. A half dozen or more gophers shot out of holes like rockets.. lmao… they were hacking and trying to shake the turds off. I guess you had to be there. It was hilarious.
They were running on biofuel?
Hey Faster. I don’t know how or why the posts get scrambled. Maybe UncleBen can explain.
This is extraordinarily different from running a farm. It’s a realistic venture aimed at a precise audience (your family + the restaurant.)
I agree that this actually works; you’re not the only one doing it.
However, this is totally different from the farm which I agree with exeter is just plain loonie.
I just planted 8 Tomato plants. I have no room for a 20X20 garden, so I focused on the one vegetable that is tough to kill and taste’s SO much better home grown.
Fresh tomatoes are the greatest…
At the end of the 70s movement, farmland in the midwest was $300-500 an acre. It was almost impossible to give it away and was selling only for the cost of yearly taxes.
It will be like that again once these city folks have their share of the ‘farming’ experience…(see post below)
“It will be like that again once these city folks have their share of the ‘farming’ experience”
lmao….. right on.
I’m in an area (outside Syracuse, NY) where the farms are still family owned, not corporate. I’ve watched quite a few of the larger ones go to foreclosure the last couple of years.
Farmland has been selling in one particular town but its being bought by people who build 4000-6000 sq ft Mcmansions on 20-30 acre lots that keep any pesky neighbors at bay. I’ve wondered if maybe more than a couple of them are bubble subscribers that are building up their food and arms supplies.
OTOH, This particular town does seem to draw retired gov types w/connections to the highest offices. They’d be armed with some major info for their decisions.
30 acres with an new McShack in Onandaga County? That tax bill has got to be ugly.
The worst tax bill I’ve come across in a local MLS listing is $37k/annum.
But tax bills appear to be incredibly inconsistent. I’d say there’s some evidence of discounts for the well connected if you know what I mean. Drives their neighbors w/the more modest homes who pay more nuts.
CarrieAnn:
Better half is from Ithaca — seems a few of the larger family-owned operations (family friends) have been applied for and accepted grants from NY state (or the county? not sure) to maintain family-operation and not convert to more McManses. Seems like a win-win — family maintains operation for next generation & local gov keeps sprawl to a minimum. Perhaps not a win for tax payers, but an incentive to keep farms operating.
Angus, I think there is money to protect and preserve the great expanses/farm culture the way a city might act to protect its historic architecture. There are several farms in my town that have filed for protected status. I believe you have to promise not to further develop the property yourself including any other family members building on it. And after your death the state keeps that status up in perpetuity. (Is this the same program you were referring to in Ithaca?)
Last time Hil and Bill were in town they had a big meet and greet w/the local aggies at one of these protected farms that had just received a grant.
CarrieAnn,
Do you have a way I can contact you to discuss land around that area?
Sure facedown, I’ll try to help. I have a few friends that are better at raw property questions than myself. So maybe you can give me a project.
Missgredenko@hotmail.com
I would say we’re likely experiencing a bubble similar to the residential one in farm land these days. There have been tremendous gains in prices in a short time, especially in the midwest and irrigated regions here in Texas. A lot of the buying is farmers who are riding high on the commodity boom and foolishly believing “it’s different this time” as prices can’t come down in the face of growing population, ethanol demand or whatever. There are also a lot of big money types and hedge funds buying land based on some inflated ROI numbers outperforming other assets. I think they’ll all get their a$$es handed to them when the commodities bubble collapses. As soon as the government pulls the plug on ethanol, corn will be back to $2.75 and we’ll see a repeat of the ’80s farm crisis. For those with minerals or wind rights, the situation is obviously different than those just buying dirt, as well as land close to town that can be developed. Also, those with high paying jobs can afford small farms near town if they’re into the hobby farm idea. It is quite rewarding to grow your own produce, but few can make a living on a small farm.
Well said TXfarmer. There is no question in my mind we’ll see another round of farm liquidations but this time is gonna be on a national level, every state, not just dairy states. And you hit the bullseye on small farms. I’ve seen more brothers split up large dairy operations and completely loses their asses than I care to. Milk is up per CWT so any of you MotherEarth types who want to compete with these long time dairy farmers, you’ll have your head handed to you. They haven’t seen price per 100# like this in 35 years and they aren’t gonna share. I’m glad they’re finally profiting but their attitude is just like the RE believers; prices will always go up.
Exactly!!
I know we’ve discussed it before, but it’s easy to point out the hobby farmers from the good ol boys. Look for shiny new toys and tractors.
I could take a Sunday drive around here and based on the houses, cars, and machinery on the farms point out which ones will be insolvent in the next three years. It’s quite simple. Real farmers know the value of a buck, hobby farmers know names of products “John Deere”.
Big garage sale weekend in my sisters nieghborhood. Some lady pulled up in a late model toyota with license plate SDRLTOR and started picking through the wares. I wish I would have had a camera…a sign of the times and a true Kodak moment!
She probably was once in the Millionaire’s Club next door.
Well, long-o-phobia strikes again. Gonna dump long call positions at the open, bid for puts. I’ll never make it in this game, considering the market goes up 80% of the time.
Hi txchick, What software package do you use for charting?
the one that comes with Realtick. I don’t need a lot of fancy indicators and studies. It gives me everything I need.
TX, I took you seriously (but did not act) when you said you thought the rally would stick. I bought a few long-dated, long shot calls cause they were as cheap as lottery tickets with better odds. I even bought a few long calls on the airline stocks for five bucks apiece.
Long-o-phobia is not irrational in a long-term down, or sideways, market. Why didn’t you wait until after the FOMC pronouncement? I expect no cut and that equity investors will view such inaction as confirmation that the economic and financial troubles are behind us.
Cause I want time to get my put positions lined up.
4 Investigates: Floodwalls stuffed with newspaper?
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl042408tpleveepaper.98095b74.html
Instead of an airplane, it’s a floodwall, and instead of a Band-Aid, the witness says two years ago, he saw the contractor filling the expansion joint or opening between the floodwalls with newspaper.
“The whole length of the wall was stuffed with newspaper.”
And when he confronted the contractor, the contractor blamed Washington for the substandard work.
“He basically told me when Congress sent down the money, it would be repaired the proper way.”
But during a recent trip to the area, two years later, it was apparent that didn’t happen. Much of the newspaper had deteriorated or been eaten by bugs, but some still remained. In fact WWL cameras even captured the date May 21, 2006, on a page of the Parade magazine from the Times-Picayune.
Fraud in New Orleans? Who would have thunk?
OK. Has anyone bought a Ford lately? Anyone. Can you cut physical plant and personnel continuously to prop up your stock? I must admit I’m in the market for a used six cylinder Mustang convertible - But, would I buy a new one? The tiny Ford dealership here is wall to wall mega trucks and their inventory keeps shrinking (not because they’re selling any). They can’t compete against the big dealers only 60 miles from here. The price of regular is $3.47 here. The median income $31,000. Tank size on these trucks - 30-90 gallons depending on model. Price? About $41,000 + (wayyy plus) for tricked out models. Has anyone you know bought a new full size lately? Will Ford survive? The world wonders.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/tracinda-bids-850-share-20/story.aspx?guid=%7B976261D3%2D2795%2D442B%2DA3EC%2D0293F285F19F%7D
they have a decent line compared to chry and gm
imo
http://www.newsweek.com/id/134316
Good read tx, thanks.
I like the Fusion, the Mustang, and the Focus. Everything else leaves me cold. A basic six clylinder F-150 would be helpful in some situations. I just can’t justify a V-8 anymore. We have one, but it’s exceptionally good on the milage and we have years of service left on it. From now on though, it’s 6 and 4 cylinders.
Compare the V6 against the small V8. The V8 has more power for hills and I have heard that the V6 has lot of problems. Not much miles/gallon between the 6 and the 8. Own two V8 F150 with no problems. Yrs: 2001 and 2006.
My father was a mechanic for a ford dealership and he said, “Son no matter what you do, never buy a ford.” I thought I was living up to his wisdom when I bought a Lincoln thinking I was getting something of better quality, when I was really getting a mexican make POS that was just a slightly luxed up ford. In less that 2 years of ownership my Lincoln LS ate two batteries, had several sensors blow out, bottomed out over the slightest speed bumps & pot holes and guzzled gas like there was no tomorrow. The only thing people liked about it was the smooth ride, and that was because they were using Jaguar technology for the suspension. I gave up and went Japanese, Subaru and could not be happier. For less money I got everything the Lincoln had plus a BETTER interior, heated seats, wood inlays, AWD, a more powerful/more fuel efficient engine etc. Even Ford has given up on making/designing cars and is just taking the Mazda 6 and slapping the Ford/Lincoln/Mercury name on it.
Never again will I buy anything made by Ford, a.k.a. Fix or repair daily. The cost more and they give you less in terms of features/technology and quality. Never again. Moving on to Subaru and getting rid of the lincoln was well worth the money I lost after less that 2 years of ownership. The Subie is a keeper that will last a very long time.
My first car was a used ford escort. Replaced two head gaskets, one transmission, two alternators, gas pedal fell off while driving and the steering wheel caught on fire. Other than that it was a great car. I have convinced probably 100 or more people in the past twenty years to never buy Ford or for that matter any American car. That escort was probably the costliest car ford ever made (loss of future sales). Honda is the only way to go.
I think Hondas declined in quality very bad. I see many Hondas with screeching bearings, wailing gears, weird sounds coming. My mother’s Honda, a ‘97 Accord, turns off by itself, happened to me on a highway.
Toyotas are built like tanks, very solid all-around vehicles. It is very rare to hear a Toyota wailing and screeching. Even though they have maybe more initial defects, but in the long term, Toyotas outlast Hondas, especially late Hondas (since about 1998).
My experience with Toyotas is that they are inferior to Hondas. I’ve owned 2 Toyotas and 5 Hondas over the past 15 years.
I have 2 Fords. The eldest is a F250HD with 6.9L diesel, which I bought new for $11K in 1983. It gets 21-26 mpg when I drive it around town without the camper in back. Best vehicle I ever owned. No matter what you do, never buy a Ford. As always, your mileage may vary.
Love my Subaru too. Looking forward to getting another one soon. My problem is that Subaru still hasn’t released their fuel efficient (Hybrid/Diesel) models that they’ve been working on for quite some time, though they are releasing the diesel in Europe this year. Ridiculous mileage on that thing!
Personally, I’d recommend buying a good used one vs. a new one. To me, the extra cash out the door for new isn’t worth it.
I love my ‘03 F-150 4-door, even though the mileage isn’t great in city driving. IMHO and ‘05 or ‘06 would serve you just as well.
I’m looking for a silver /charcoal Mustang droptop w rollbar and a 6 banger for a present for myself since the kid gets my Taurus this year. I’m going to buy an 07′ this fall after the 09’s are out and the summer convertible season is over.
I had a 90′ F150 for years. Good truck, I had no complaints
Jwhite - buy used. I bought a new Ford Mustang GT convertible (V8, silver/charcoal - no rollbar) and it took 3.5 years just to not be underwater on the loan (for a 5 year loan).
Mustangs have HORRIBLE depreciation. I wouldn’t even advise taking out a loan on one. Never had much problems with the car but it was horrible on gas. Ford’s are not known for their gas mileage or resale, so be warned.
I think I can get one for about 15K - used, I don’t buy new for just the reason you cited. I’m going for the V6 since it’s much better on gas. I’d just like a convertible to drive down to the beach in on nice weekends and the Mustang’s just the ticket in larger size and low price.
I tend to keep cars for years, when the kid’s done with school, the Taurus will be 16 years old if it’s still running. I’ll sell it to him at a “special” price… Heheheh
Thanks for the words
Sounds great and good luck, I would have been a lot happier with mine if I bought it used. Didn’t help that Ford created a lot of bad feelings in me for coming out with 0% for 60 months right after I bought mine…..reduced resale by 20% in one stroke.
Blano, any other time I’d say you’re spot on but there is some serious deflation going on with autos right now. Considering the fantasy prices on used stuff, it would be a difficult case to make to dissuade me from buying something new.
Interesting….even when you consider the hit you take as soon as you drive that new one off the lot. I wasn’t aware used stuff was so high, I’m rarely a buyer anyways either way.
I purchased a new 2008 Mustang Pony V6 in 12/2007 for my high school age daughter. We are very pleased with the car. My daughter really likes the multi-color selectable instrument lighting and the mood lighting. I like the standard side airbags and ABS brakes.
I also purchase the fleet vehicles for my business. I have purchased (2) F250 service body trucks and (2) F150 extended cab trucks since the first of this year. The cash back rebates were very good, particularly on the Super Duty F250’s.
My company has 42 vehicles, all Fords, 80% F150. We get excellent service and dependability from the Fords. We regularly get 120k-150k out of them before turning them.
I always owned Ford trucks until I got in a 06 duramax crewcab. It’s like driving a big-assed couch down the road. The SuperDutys are no daily driver. Considering I was a loyal Ford guy for 20 years, it seemed wierd driving a GM but I don’t think I’d buy another Super unless I needed a day truck or yard rig. Nothing is as durable as a Super. Nothing.
Lucky daughter! I may let the tyke drive mine - in a couple of years after he has demonstrated a record of consciencious driving and adherence to the rules. Till then my old and uncool Taurus will be his ride (he doesn’t mind, he just wants four wheels that locomote…)
Lucky girl! If my tyke displays consciencious driving and adherence to the rules, he may get to drive mine in a couple of years. Till then, it’s the uncool Taurus (he doesn’t care, it has four wheels and it locomotes).
Doh! A post I made an hour ago showed up! Sorry!
Jwhite
Your comments apply to my tyke also. There is a laundry list of reasonable requirements that she must meet to have continued use of the car. She is my “mid-life crisis red corvette” so I admit I do tend to spoil her (slightly).
I often get accused of being the “World’s most old fashioned Dad” to which I proudly reply: “Yep”…
Sports cars are the deal of the decade used. First off, everyone seems to have decided that “cool” is a huge luxury SUV, so go fast cars (or cars that look like they go fast) have been out of favor for a very long time.
And, sports cars depreciate like MAD when you drive them off the lot. let someone else take the hit; and get a great car that’s fun to drive at a seriously reduced price. I have bought new cars, but never a new sports car. The depreciation is just mind boggling; and then quickly (1-2 years) settles down. Just not worth it, imho, especially since most of these cars are sold to people who never drive them hard anyway.
If I could justify the upkeep, I’d buy an 03′ Beemer 530i. I loved the E39 and despise the current “eyebrow” look. But, I can’t justify the maintenance expenses. *sigh*
Cool WAS a luxury SUV, in this phase of the fad cycle those people look like dolts.
Sports cars have always had high depreciation. The only sector not experiencing this is the 60s muscle car mania where middle-aged men sit in their cubicles and see their McMansion payment and SUV payment and reminisce about their youth days when they were driving around in a 68 ‘Cuda and banging high school chicks.
This fad will be the next to blow, and those cars will be recycled into beer cans, as they outta be.
Come on down to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We have a some brand new vehicles with “minor” hail damage. I hear they’re going cheap.
http://video.nbc5i.com/player/?id=241658#videoid=242030
Jwhite — I was at a Ford dealer the other day and he had 4 repossessed late model Mustangs on the apron in front of his door. Introduce yourself to the local guy and tell him to call you when he gets a repo 6-cylinder — you can get a 2005-2007 on the cheap this way, low miles, low price, makes you look even cooler in my book [at least in the mirror].
Not a bad Idea, I’ll have to look into it. I know he had a repoed’ GT500 out there the other day.
Reckless.
Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co., Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. and Sumitomo Life Insurance Co., three of the nation’s four-biggest insurers, would rather accept the world’s lowest bond yields in Japan than buy U.S. debt.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=adQ8ReGYJ.D8&refer=home
Ode debt…
Where is the loan,
you said was mine all mine, till the end of time
was it just a lie
where is the loan?
If you had had a sudden change of heart
I wish that you would tell me so
don’t leave me hanging on the promises
you’ve got to let me know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sl-MHhEJxI
Curious…….whatever happened to Bye FL ???
The Florida Association of Used House Salespersons kidnapped him and fed him to the sharks.
I thought Oil City, PA made him Director of the Tourism Board.
lol
oil city or bust!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh crap… Time to stock up on ammo; I think about 10% of my community is used house sales people. I am seriously outnumbered!
I have to be next on the used house salespeople’s hit list in FL.
He bought some Oil City dirt and has a rig set up on it drilling for black gold.
Maybe he bought an old house for $30K with an already-drilled oil well in the yard which turns a profit when oil goes over $100 a barrel.
I’m betting Mom & Dad grounded him and suspended his internet privledges. No HBB for you!!
Some municipalities are raising property taxes to recoup losses due to decreasing property values, further decreasing values. Why not just cut jobs and decrease salaries?
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/104940/Rising-Property-Taxes-Fill-Gaps,-Pinch-Homeowners
As for NoVa, several counties (Fairfax, Loudoun) cut their mil-rate several years ago from 1% to 0.9% as a form of tax-relief during the rapid run-up in house prices (and appraisals). Even if they raise the rate back to 1%, rates could go up, but the amount you pay could go down if the appraisal went down.
Before you say ‘But they’ll never lower appraisals’, several of the places I’m tracking have lower appraisals (2008: 88%, 92%, 96%) than they had in 2006. A few are also unchanged.
Of course, the appraised value also increased by 120% from 2001-2006.
Alexandria did the same thing. My neighborhood has seen asessements drop about 2.5% each of the last two years - although the rate did go up by a similar amount this year. I also managed to get about 40k knocked off my assessment in 2004 by appeal. My folks neighborhood actually had an increase in assessment last year.
The outer burbs - PW and Loudon - raised their rates a lot this year, to compensate for much-lowered assessments.
I would like to see my taxes decreased, of course - but, Alexandria has always seemed pretty consistent, at least.
Oh, here we go. I can’t wait till this happens in FL. I hope that when it does, it will finally unify the SOH and non SOH crowd against the insane taxation in this state. Many of the SOH crowd does not even realize they are not protected against mill rate increases. This, imho, is the best hope for getting spending caps into the FL mindset; the solution (again, IMHO) to the “tax crisis” in our state.
I am not sure how it works elsewhere, but here in MA these arguments are pretty futile. Towns need X dollars. If values are high, the Mill rate can stay steady, or most years go down. When values drop the mill rate has to go up to produce X dollars to run the town. The Mill rate is simply the amount of total tax dollars they need, divided by the total valuation. Look at the total tax bill, not the mill rate. If there is uniform assessment, then thats all that matters. Complaining about the mill rate or assessed value wihout looking at the total picture is futile.
http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/04/24/fed-revamp-transparency-oped-cx_pmo_0425fed.html
Rethinking Fed Policy
I’m looking forward to the day Forbes writes on “Rethinking the Fed”.
Washington Post: Brokerage Barons See Washington Making a Slow Recovery
Interview with head of Long & Foster and McEnearny Realestate. Read and see how out of touch these two ‘barons’ of industry are.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042600166.html
or tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/4ks9pq
Anyone want to comment on the rental situation in NYC? Ugh … just got hit with a 10% increase to renew, so I’m looking around. Seems 3K is the new mendoza line for 2-beds in decent parts of Brooklyn. The other rule I came up with after seeing a few places is: If it’s in the Slope and I can afford it, it sux! Looking around Windsor Terrace more, but the 3K infection is spreading to 3-beds there. Nuts.
leave brooklyn it is way overpriced
i know you hate queens but i have 1300sq ft of 3 beds 2 baths
for $1700 a month 2 blocks from x-bus (15 mins to midtown) and 12 blocks to subway
and no problem parking too
brooklyn is overated and overpriced
if you are not buying a year or 2 in queens will not kill you
we live in a sweet place and save plenty of cash
just renewed for $0 increase
i know i know queens is not for you
good luck with the 3k 2 bed in bk try bed stuy
Hey, not writing off Queens at all! I like Sunnyside and have managed to sell spouse on it. We’ve made a few trips to see things. And if kindergarten is above my favorite poolhall, that’s a plus! But 3 kids and lack of parkland there is a minus, and prices for 3-beds there are creeping toward 2500 now, it seems. Forest Hills seemed kind of down in the mouth … further out’s a tad too isolated. Also most of wife’s friends, also with young kids, live in a semi-circle around Prospect Park. But WT seems fine, if we could get something not crazy-priced. Where do you live?
i live in middle village -
neighborhood kind of trapped in a time warp-
but there is a beautiful park 3 blocks from my house
and you can find some good deals for 3 beds from 1600-2200
or you could probably rent an entire house for 2k or or so
sunnyside is good for subway access but if you are willing to take an x-press bus into midtown or downtown middle village is not bad- a bit of a hike (12 blocks) to subway
for me but i like the quiet and safety
if you have a car check it out-
there is a local paper the ridgewood times that has tons of lisitngs and you may get one without a broker fee
good luck -
pretty safe and quiet-no opposite side parking but not the most hip neighborhood
and btw screw park slope
try forest hills in queens
yep, screw that! Middle Village … not far from where I lived in Glendale until I was 8, 74th Ave. & Woodhaven. Crabby Mrs. Dinklemeyer would be about 115 by now.
Reading that just made me even gladder to have left NY.. Makin NYC money but got the 3/2.5 end-unit with all mod cons and garage for $1300/mo.. PLUS my new work location is within bicycle range, so I can lose some of this spare keg…
Dollar’s fall forces new standard of frugality
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/27/MNUJ109A76.DTL
IN OUT
Saving Borrowing
Cooking at home Eating out
Fixing the old car New car
Staying at home Foreign vacations
20 percent down No down payment
Debit cards Credit cards
Working past 65 Early retirement
Library Bookstore
Tap water Bottled water
BART Bay Bridge
Patching Remodeling
Public park Theme park
Eyeglasses Lasik surgery
Poker night Weekend in Vegas
Uh oh, does this mean I’m in? I hate being in.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Census Bureau reports a new record in the for-sale vacancy rate.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/hvs.html
At 2.9%, it had never been above 2.0% before a couple of years ago.
The big gains weren’t in vacant for sale, which is all that counts for the rate, but in vacant and not on the market.
Forget renting — the rental vacancy rate is close to a record too and over 10.0%. It was never that high from 1960 to 2004.
I’m seeing a fair number of empty windows around Brooklyn these days, but owners & brokers seem to be pushing spring fever rents right now! Wonder if there is more negotiation than in the past. I’ll be trying, for sure … gotta move by June 1.
In/telligence - Out/landish
Most predictable article ever.
These surface during every recession. I guess it’s been so long everything old’s new again.
Boring. NEXT.
here’s a funny for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Pjo0WjBcs
That’s the best!!!
Superman is dancing; awwwwwwwsum.
And you can see the “blue screen”. Isn’t that what is NOT supposed to happen with that technology?
Anyway, this may not be obvious to everyone but at some point in time in the 80’s the whole Bollywood model split into two: the mainstream, and these really really cheap movies that these people would churn out really quick.
They were done outside the studio system, and since you didn’t need lots of dough, there was no need for the mafia to get involved. What they all had in common was lots of song and dance, dialogue laden with sexual innuendo (that would get past the censors), and lots of fights and naked women.
This was all marketed to the hicks for virtually nothing, and there are a zillion hicks in India all wanting to see the naked women.
The ROI on these babies was OFF THE CHARTS. By comparison, the mainstream had to deal with the fickle tastes of the middle class.
The smart money all became gazillionaires off of it (including the dude who’s dancing above.)
Public park Theme park
FWIW, attendance is still strong at Disney parks.
Gosh, we’ve been ahead of the power curve for years… I’m willing to bet a majority here have been too. I know our acquaintances have often puzzled over why we don’t own all the “Keep up with the Jones” stuff. Now, maybe WE are the Jone’s!
Thank God that breast enhancements didn’t make the “out” list!!
And grunge has been lurking around the fashion world for a few seasons, too. The early 90s is back, get our your flannel and your hair bleach.
The best part is that whenever frugality comes back in fashion, rich people start sporting fake “poor” things. I’m going to quickly start up a factory in Rumania to make ripped jeans which I can sell for $400…(running off with glee).
Census data for Q1 came out today.
(warning pdf) http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/qtr108/q108press.pdf
If anyone tries to tell you that we’re near a bottom - point them to that. We hit a new record for homeowner vacancy rate - 2.9% nationwide.
Surprisingly the homeownership rate remained level at 67.8%.
Personally I’m using those two pieces of data to time the bottom. Homeownership rates will bottom first, when foreclosures start tapering off. (Despite the current quarter being level, IMO we have ways go to down to the historical norm around 64%). The vacancy rate will then start to decline as people start buying up unsold homes faster than they’re being built and foreclosed. Only after the vacancy rate goes back to historical norms - around 1.7% - will prices finally reach bottom; nationwide-average-wise, at least. I’m thinking that’ll be around 2012-2013.
Only housing units identified as “for sale” count for the vacancy rate. The number vacant and not for sale is going up much faster.
And the rental vacancy rate, though not at a record, is close. Other vacancy rates you hear are based on surveys of substantial rental properties. Only the Bureau has the resources to identify individual homes and condos for rent.
Offers taken. Whew, I always feel like I got away with robbing a bank when I sell long index positions.
I bailed on friday. Hit on some puts today, mer, rth and unp.
I got a few on that last surge but would like to see 1415 - 1420 to get fully short.
Don’t know if this was mentioned in the past couple of days, but the Irish developer of Calatrava’s Chicago Spire paid property taxes late … again.
A spokeswoman for the 150-story Spire at first insisted that the property taxes had been paid. But later she confirmed that the taxes were past due and blamed an error in the address for the tax bills.
The 2,000-foot-tall Spire project would challenge even the most seasoned developers. And the failure to manage a routine task like property taxes raises questions about Mr. Kelleher’s ability to complete a multi-billion dollar project that demands the highest level of concentration.
Full article is here.
Here’s a question, why would anyone buy a house now knowing the gov is going to basicly be paying poeple to buy them later, on top of them being cheaper later as well…That’s my dilema, I have my 20 percent down perfect credit, but why buy now when I know out fiscally incompotent gov is going to start giving money to poeple to buy houses….Boggles the mind but I do know of multiple knife catchers still buying, however most of these have no money or little money down and are getting FHA loans, it’s only a matter of time till the FHA needs to be bailed out along with fredie and fanny….
According to case-shiller, the average person believe that home prices will still be higher in 5 years than now, I think.
Speculation isn’t over.
This is a bit off the point, but I really find it interesting how popular the term “kool-aid” is these days. It’s like we’ve accepted that a lot of what we believe is hype (hype that will kill you!!), but we believe it anyways. Similar to replacing the old fashioned term “lie” with “spin”.
“Speculation isn’t over”
Boy, you sure said something there. In Eureka, CA, a neighbor’s house went on the market this weekend (the price was reasonable for the comps, but still 2X higher than 5 years ago). Poof! On the way home from work tonight, it is adorned with “Sale Pending”
Eureka is certainly an outlier for the state of California, though, as no one here believes there is a RE crash.
I’m still dumfounded when I meet people who think the bubble is bursting everywhere except where they live.
Last week I talked to a friend with a house in Austin that he rents out. Even though I pointed out that houses on his block are selling for considerably less than they did two years ago, he still swears his house is “different”. (With members of a rock band renting out the house for the past year, the house is probably “different” all right….)
And yesterday, I met someone who is trying to buy an odd-lot one-acre in Los Altos Hills, convinced that it’s a “gold mine.” It’s been for sale for nearly two years (it would be tough to build on this because of planning/zoneing restrictions in LAH….). I just rolled my eyes. Of course, Los Altos Hills won’t become Sacramento. There are true $15M homes there. But even if there’s an ample supply of Google Millionaires, even they’re not going to be buying without negotiating hard these days, and weighing their options.
Yeah. The denial is still pea soup thick with alot of people although some of them are backpedaling. Now when I make disparaging, sarcastic comments about housing, the common reply is “but its a long term investment”. I just laugh and say riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
It’s a dangerous thing, the ability to market something a person would want (ie a house with nice decor, or some pretty tulips) as a sensible financial investment. If you can get people to drink the kool-aid and/or the pea soup, there, you’ve got the makings of a first-class mania.
April 28 (Bloomberg) — Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain’s second-largest bank, may cut about 7,000 jobs following the purchase of ABN Amro Holding NV’s securities unit and credit market losses, said two people with knowledge of the plan.
Wall Street Grain Hoarding Brings Farmers, Consumers Near Ruin
By Jeff Wilson
April 28 (Bloomberg) — As farmers confront mounting costs and riots erupt from Haiti to Egypt over food, Garry Niemeyer is paying the price for Wall Street’s speculation in grain markets.
Commodity-index funds control a record 4.51 billion bushels of corn, wheat and soybeans through Chicago Board of Trade futures, equal to half the amount held in U.S. silos on March 1. The holdings jumped 29 percent in the past year as investors bought grain contracts seeking better returns than stocks or bonds. The buying sent crop prices and volatility to records and boosted the cost for growers and processors to manage risk.
Niemeyer, who farms 2,200 acres in Auburn, Illinois, won’t use futures to protect the value of the crop he will harvest in October. With corn at $5.9075 a bushel, up from $3.88 last year, he says the contracts are too costly and risky. Investors want corn so much that last month they paid 55 cents a bushel more than grain handlers, the biggest premium since 1999.
“It’s the best of times for somebody speculating on grain prices, but it’s not the best of times for farmers,” said Niemeyer, 59. “The demand for futures exceeds the demand for cash grains.”
Commodity investors control more U.S. crops than ever before, competing with governments and consumers for dwindling food supplies. Demand is rising with population and income gains in Asia, while record energy costs boost biofuels consumption, sending grain inventories to the lowest levels in two decades.
I guess now we see where all that TAF money ended up, and it is not in the mortgage lending market…
Buffett says recession may be worse than feared
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080428/buffett_recession.html
“This is not a field of specialty for me, but my general feeling is that the recession will be longer and deeper than most people think,” Buffett said. “This will not be short and shallow.
“I think consumers are feeling gas and food prices,” he added, “and not feeling they’ve got a lot of money for other things.”
John Bogle was on marketplace over the weekend talking about getting out of the market for the time being (except for long term investments and money you can afford to risk).
The oldies sure have furrowed brows these days. ai yi.
Leelanau County MI foreclosure rate at record pace 28 Ar 2008 -
A retired Leelanau County sheriff’s deputy, [Phil] Will[i]ams supplements his income by conducting “sheriff’s sales” of properties whose owners have failed to make mortgage payments…“I’m doing a lot more of these sheriff’s sales than usual,” Williams lamented. “It’s sad. My impression is that too many people earning $12 an hour around here are trying to pay for $400,000 homes – and it just can’t be done”…Leelanau County Register of Deeds Sue Stoffel said her office has never processed so many mortgage foreclosures.
Often referred to as “sheriff deeds,” there were only six recorded in 2000. In 2007, that number jumped to 43.
Meanwhile, the real estate market in Leelanau County remains “flat” and is declining slightly in some areas, according to county Equalization Department manager Pam Zientek. “People still ask why their taxes go up if their property values have stayed the same or even gone down,” Zientek said. “It’s important to understand that the taxable value goes up according to the CPI no matter what. And this goes both ways,” she added. “When property values were rising much faster than the CPI, taxable values rose only by the amount of the CPI.”
The rate of inflation for consumer goods so far in 2008 appears to be substantially ahead of the CPI increase for last year – so taxable values are expected to rise next year even if property values remain flat or decrease, Zientek explained.
Gas hits $3.60 average, oil - $119.93
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080428/oil_prices.html?.v=10
Some stations in Chicago have now topped the $4 mark for regular gas.
No worries — energy prices are not part of core inflation, and thus higher gas prices are ignorable.
lol PB
Same with food, right??
I walk pretty much everywhere, so I am only really concerned with shoe inflation. I do spend a bit at the cobbler every year.
I really feel like the government should subsidize shoes. Especially attractive one which beautify the neighbourhood. No taxation without representation!
In Los Angeles, too, here and there. Most places still holding just under $4 for regular, but at ($3.99 9/10) or over $4 for super and premium.
I’ve never contributed something like this before, but I think we need more Madison Wisconsin-based stories.
http://madison.craigslist.org/rfs/658311611.html
This house down the street from me is going through its second not-quite-auction short sale in a year. The first time last May the high “bid” (I had placed an offer) was $180k and the bank never let it through. The displaced homedebtors have been out of the house since July and only rented it for a few months this winter.
The starting MLS list price in Spring 07 was $239,000 and gradually fell to $204k in August. It reappeared at $215k in January and then expired before this Sell it Sunday program.
Take a look at sellitsunday.com. They don’t seem to have a whole lot of success stories to post or even listings. As I recall, the site was different last year (same name) and was affiliated with an agency. Almost all of the homes that went through this process (it’s not an auction, it’s not a sale because nothing sold, is it anything?) were still listed on the MLS.
http://madison.craigslist.org/apa/655104045.html
Oh, and the house is simultaneously being listed for rent. I feel bad for these non-owner, non-occupants because they seemed to accept that they couldn’t afford it and found a rental in their price range but the agent keeps stringing them along with hope for a BS short sale.
That’s not exactly what I think of when I think of Madison WI. That place could be in any crappy suburb of Texas.
Of course. A crappy suburb is a crappy suburb.
Sorry to flood the comments, but I wonder if this is what you think of: http://madison.craigslist.org/rfs/654530255.html.
Not quite the brick and stone Tudors I admired when I was going to school at UW, but in the University Heights neighborhood. I’ve always wanted to live in that area and am hoping all the old folks fall in love with condos and prices drop to my range. Oh well.
Or maybe you were just looking for a boring house under 40″ of snow with beer cans on the lawn. I’ll keep my eye out for one of those.
Right, Brick and stone Tudors, crafstman type places, Frank Lloyd Wright, etc.
I don’t think you could pay me to live that close to Camp Randall, but at least it looks like that street isn’t packed with student rentals.
The Art of Dumpster Diving
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-zaleski/the-art-of-dumpster-divin_b_98923.html
Ha!
http://www.despair.com/viewall1.html
They should market that to corporations instead of the “motivational speakers”, etc. Might get the minions working harder.
Isn’t this a description of most corporate managers?
http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/104821/What-to-Do-With-a-Boss-Like-Michael-Scott
Perhaps some enterprising hedge fund manager could invest in starting up an umbrella factory?
Leaders
Bank capital
Joseph and the amazing technicalities
Apr 24th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Adjusting banking regulation for the economic cycle
Illustration by David Simonds
BANKERS have a bad habit of making economic cycles worse. They are notorious for lending people umbrellas when the sun is shining and asking for them back when rain starts to fall. When the economy is strong and asset prices are rising, banks are only too eager to lend to those wanting to buy assets, helping to push prices higher. In bad times, when prices are falling, banks ask for their loans back, forcing the borrowers to sell assets and driving prices down further.
The aged trees of the forest are calling my name…
adios~
Here it comes - $10.00 a gallon? That would be $200 to fuel my Wife’s car and $300 for the locals and their P.U.s
http://www2.nysun.com/article/75363
Oil at $120 now.
At 10 mpgs that would be $1 per mile! Like I said a few days ago, expect the big pickup makers to eventually introduce small, low horsepower diesels for their pickup trucks. Also expect a lot of trades people to downsize to compact trucks (again with small diesels).
There won’t be much trading going on since there will be no buyers for the trades. It will be more like pay someone to haul off their F250 V10 and start over with smaller truck.
Or gosh - how original???? Buy a small car and rent a truck when necessary.
I meant tradesmen, people who actually use the pickup as part of their job, as opposed to a status symbol.
Morgan Stanley see big bank woes just beginning
Monday April 28, 10:45 am ET
By Joseph A. Giannone
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080428/banks_research_morganstanley.html
In aggregate, Morgan Stanley reduced its estimates for 2008 large bank earnings by $17 billion, or 26 percent, and reduced 2009 forecasts by $13 billion, or 15 percent. The analysts expect higher loan losses and expenses, offset by higher net interest income, though profits could fall further still if the Federal Reserve stops lowering interest rates.
NYC Officials Brace for Recession.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/nyregion/28york.html
I can’t imagine, being taxholders in the same state, that this is good news for any New York state resident.
Yikes! Japan is “avoiding” US Treasuries. Is the US Gov’t the next Bear Sterns?
Roidy
I need to post URL.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=adQ8ReGYJ.D8&refer=home
Roidy
ACH: Yikes! Japan is “avoiding” US Treasuries. Is the US Gov’t the next Bear Sterns?
Roidy
There will always be buyers for Treasuries. The real problem is for the lower quality stuff. When Treasury yields go up because of the lack of foreign demand (i.e. domestic buyers pick them up, but only at these higher yields), every non-Treasury debt security requires higher yields - munis, mortgage-backed, other asset-backed and corporates. My feeling is that a lot of borrowers who did not lock in the record low rates of the past several years will soon be regretting their short-sightedness.
Warning, a little bit dirty. But I had to do it, I figure the erotic services industry will go through the roof with all these REALTORs looking for alternate sources of income.
http://tucson.craigslist.org/cas/659630202.html
Flagged and removed! I hate craigslist.
“KB Home’s Broad Says Home Prices May Drop Another 20%”
http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aGKDdHK2T9eo&refer=home
“KB Home’s Broad Says Home Prices May Drop Another 20%”
What’s her name???
Must Read Housing Bailout Q&A
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Bill Steigerwald posted a great Q&A interaction with Heritage housing expert Ron Utt this weekend. Excerpts include:
…
Q: If you could wave a magic wand, what would you do to end the crisis? Or do you just let it unravel?
A: I don’t have anything specific, but what we have to recognize is that in 1995, the homeownership rate was a little bit below 65 percent. That’s essentially where it had been in the 30 years up to that point. In 2004, thanks to the subprime market, it reached 69 percent, and that was a homeownership rate that was sustainable only through fraud and risk and irresponsible lending activities. Now that we’ve returned to normal credit standards — and that is you actually have to prove you can pay back the loan in order to get it — we’re going to be drifting back to the 64 percent or 65 percent homeownership rate. That means that over the next couple of years, somewhere between four and five million people who are now homeowners are going to be “un-homeowners.” … What Congress is essentially trying to do … is to figure out how can we sustain that 69 or 68 percent. And the only way you can do that is by perpetual bailout because we simply got to that rate by allowing unqualified people to become homeowners.
“Allowing?!” Try “encouraging.”
Personal impression: “Expanding liquidity operations without limit” sounds like a license to print money, taxing anyone who is owed fixed dollar obligations (e.g., retirees on fixed pensions) as needed to prop up whatever assets the Fed decides they want to prop up (especially housing values). Is this legal? Does it matter? What is expanded liquidity if not just a cranking up of the virtual printing press to print away all financial difficulties associated with excessive debt buildup?
Fed looks to extend debate on liquidity
By Krishna Guha in Washington
Published: April 29 2008 01:13 | Last updated: April 29 2008 01:13
Federal Reserve policymakers will discuss paying interest on bank reserves in a closed door meeting on Wednesday. Such a move could in theory allow the Fed to expand its liquidity support operations without limit.
The discussion will take place alongside the Fed’s regular meeting on monetary policy, at which officials are expected to agree to cut rates another quarter point (25 basis points) to 2 per cent and hint at a possible pause in June.
Under a law passed in 2006, the US central bank will gain the authority to pay interest on reserves in 2011.
The meeting on Wednesday is based on that timeframe and will not be followed by any announcements.
However, the meeting could spark an internal debate as to whether the Fed should consider asking Congress to bring forward this authority to help it deal with the current credit crisis.
Many experts think that would be a good idea. Vincent Reinhart, former chief monetary economist at the Fed, said paying interest on reserves would allow the Fed to “expand their liabilities to support more asset purchases”.
Traders pin hopes on Fed’s new liquidity programme
By Michael Mackenzie
Published: March 26 2008 21:37 | Last updated: March 26 2008 21:37
Wow! 369 posts on the Bits Bucket thread.
It wasn’t so long ago that 300 was a record breaking number. Now it seems to be normal.
Ben, have you ever tracked the number of posts on this daily thread?
New York magazine on the firing of Zoe Cruz…largely because of losses on MBS…a long read but fascinating to read that not until July 4th, at her vacation home in Aspen did she become aware of trouble in mortgage land. Yup, July 2007. And she collected a bonus of 30m in Dec. 06, based on mortgage trades..funny to read Mack the Knife in “risk assessments” meetings in fall 07 trying to catch up on the mortgage issue…It was all news to them…so busy with their personal strategies that they had zero focus on the reality of the market…dolts.
http://nymag.com/news/business/46476/
when the timers dont signal.
slight equity pullback for digestion of unusually hawkish disspapointing rate cut; signalling the commodity bulls to count the money. Bond market bi-polar behavior continues. Housing finds a bottom when txchick buys the dream house….whatever that means.
Hoz posts last evening big money monkeys run back to the emerging for sustained long term growth predicated on currency appreciation, high growth, and current account surpluses.
Fed’s Bailout Is Questioned by Ex-Staffer
By GREG IP
April 29, 2008; Page C3
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve’s rescue of Bear Stearns Cos. will come to be seen as its “worst policy mistake in a generation,” a former top Fed staffer said.
…
Mr. Reinhart said the bailout “eliminated forever the possibility the Fed could serve as an honest broker.” In 1998, the Fed coaxed private creditors of Long-Term Capital Management to bail out the hedge fund but didn’t have to put up its own money. If it ever tries a similar maneuver on a Wall Street cohort, he said, “The reasonable question any person in the room will ask is, ‘How much will you contribute to the solution?’”
That is the exact question I have regarding my little ole’ household: How much will the Fed contribute to our solution? Because we still cannot afford to buy a San Diego home, despite drastic price reductions off 2005 unaffordable pricing. I want my personal bailout, and the stimulus check won’t cut it.