Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For May 28, 2008
Please post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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I found this amusing but I have a sick sense of humor:
Hedge Funds Give Back
Posted by Bess Levin, May 27, 2008, 1:15pm
They made zillions shorting anything having to do with subprime and the housing industry* and now they’re investing the money they won betting those suckers would fail, earning the title of “unexpected saviors.” Reuters reports that many hedge funds are helping keep U.S. home builders out of bankruptcy court until buyers return, offering operating cash or long-term equity financing, as well as purchasing distressed land. Tiger Global Management has taken a 3.55 million share stake in Standard Pacific Corp, and several other unnamed but “notable” funds are following in suit, hoping to profit when the real estate market picks up again.
While Reuters may be christening these guys the next Mother Theresa, you should not be fooled by their charity. In reality, these stone cold bastards are spending a few shekels now to prop up these poor, unfortunate housing stocks until they rally, and when they do, will short these pigs to death one more time.
Struggling home builders find unexpected saviors [Reuters]
*Rumor has it Paulson was scouring regional newspapers about individuals getting foreclosed, and calling the local banks to see if he could get liquidity to short their bank accounts individually.
Whoh, take some blood while the patient appears healthy, and offer it back later, when it’s needed more, at a higher price. Not nice, not nice at all. But in a way, didn’t the banks/homebuilders expose themselves to this by overreaching in the first place? (much in the same way that the FB’s themselves overreached.)
I hate to dump on the rank on file who will lose their jobs, or the true vicitms. But the upper managment were certainly arrogant enough as they freely opened their own veins (in the form of underrating their risk, overrating their paper, and skimping on their safety net reserves) to securitizers on Wall Street, babbling all the while about their new paradigms.
So the hedgies’ shorting strategy is was caused builders’ stocks to go down?
it didn’t help
That’s actually a pretty good article, but he doesn’t take couple things into consideration. He mentions upkeep and taxes, however he doesn’t include them in his rent/own ratio. As a landlord you must include vacancy/upkeep in your decision to buy, sell, or hold a property as well as your cost basis, or in his case monthly mortgage. It only makes sense to include that same analysis in a decision to buy. It depends on the age of the house and the state, but an older property can cost you the landlord half of their rental income in maintenance, taxes, insurance, and vacancy. As a homeowner I know I spend something like 650 a month on my mortgage and 350 on taxes+insurance. I also have a list of honey-do’s coming out of my ears, and those plus the occasional pipe busting, drain clogging, attic insulating, furnace replacing comes up to some substantial money every year. I have yet to see a year where I don’t put 5 grand into maintenance. When I was a renter I usually spent 700 total a month for rent with NO maintenance.
Also he fails to address that rental prices in many areas right now are abnormally high throwing his ratio of “20 percent difference is a bubble” thing a little low. Right now in a lot of towns there are a lot of REO homes that haven’t come onto the market for investors to buy and rent out, so there actually IS a scarcity of rentals in some of the worse hit areas due to foreclosed people renting everything in sight, but the house they moved out of may take a year or two in some cases to come online as a possible home to rent.
Again, I liked his article, but he’s being disingenuous of blind sighted if he’s saying the numbers work out to less than 20 percent cheaper to buy over rent, but if he wants a house then he should buy one. I save money by renting tools in a lot of cases, but I buy the tools anyways. The stupid tools take up all the room in my garage and I’m reorganizing it all the time to find a place for just one more doodad. When the tools break I have to replace them etc, but the convenience factor, and the fact they are “mine” make it worth the purchase. Sometimes we all prefer the premium ice cream to the 10 gallon budget that costs the same.
The problem, IMHO, is people keep looking for ways to tweak the rent vs. own numbers while ignoring the real number: cost of ownership vs. income. That’s what really matters: if one can’t safely make the PITI + maintenance payments on one’s income, the rental cost of nearby places really doesn’t matter since the house, by definition, is unaffordable.
That is the situation that still rules the day here in Maryland, and while the media likes to dance around the affordability issue, it changes nothing. Houses at 5 times median household income (and up!) are NOT affordable.
“Rumor has it Paulson was scouring regional newspapers about individuals getting foreclosed, and calling the local banks to see if he could get liquidity to short their bank accounts individually.”
I could easily believe this rumor.
IMO the hedge funds are catching falling knives. It’ll be a loooonnng time before any money is made in real estate - like 6-8 years minimum, and more likely 12-15 years.
I disagree completely.
Example #1
Investor buys FINISHED residential lots for 40-50% of construction cost (assumes negative land value). When inventory has been burned through, these will be the next lots to be built on (since they will be cheaper than developing any raw land), and even if the price is 80% of construction cost, it will still be cheaper than being given land for free and needing to finish the lots.
I’ll buy dollars for $0.50 pretty much any day of the week.
The assumption is that homes will need to be built in that market again, and that the cost to finish lots isn’t going to drop 50%. A very safe bet. The only question in my opinion is time, which will differ market to market.
Example #2
Bank needs to unload paper to raise cash, and is willing to unload their best paper on commercial property (multi-tenant at 65% of value–with plenty of debt service coverage) at 80-85% of par on assets conservatively leveraged. Hedge fund buys the paper that today yields 9% to them because of the discount to par, and leverages using internal lines at Libor +200 to get their yield to the mid-teens.
The risk is that a huge number of tenants move out of the asset (better get the asset right), or that the value of the property falls 35% or more.
Risks worth taking if you underwrite correctly–Q: How is the cash flow from an office building leased to 20 different medical practices correlated with the housing market? A: It’s generally not.
Example #3
Company needs to raise money, and can’t in traditional debt markets. But they own real estate. So they sell their building to a hedge fund at a price that when leased back yields the hedge fund a 10% return on cost. The hedge fund owns the asset, and can leverage the asset to get the yield on cost up to the mid-teens.
This is quasi-corporate finance, with real property as secondary security. Better hope the rents you are getting are in line with market.
These are all deals that are happening in today’s market. This is the time when people who know how get rich in real estate.
You’re assuming that:
- Inventory will get burned through sometime soon (it won’t - see the still-incredibly-high inventories and the still-rapidly-rising foreclosure rates, adding to inventories)
- Values will stop going down soon, making discounted properties a deal (they won’t - see above)
Certainly there are better “deals” in today’s market than there were last year or 2 years ago - but there’s far enough to go down in values yet that such deals will at best break even in the long run.
Applauding The Ridiculous…R.Paul is right.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE28Dj01.html
From the article:
“… get a load of this; the dividends paid by the DJIA companies to their stockholders was $317.88, while earnings were only $149.16.”
Another reason to go to cash.
I wish I could write like that guy.
My laugh is nervous and dry, and for a little comic relief we go to this week’s Barron’s and look in their “Indexes’ P/Es & Yields” table to see that the price-to-earnings ratio for the Dow Jones Industrial Average is now up to 87.07! This is, incredibly, up from last week’s P/E ratio of 85.97! Hahahaha!
I must have missed some thing here. I just went and looked at the P/E’s of the Dow 30, and and only 2, MCDonalds and Coca Cola, have P/E’s > 20.
According to this website the Dow P/E is only about 15:
http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/index.cfm?event=showavgstats
marketwatch also shows the SP 500 P/E being 17.55
Well, I checked the Barron’s page he indicated, and they do in fact report the numbers he listed:
DJIA: 12479.63
P/E ratio: 84.59
Earns Yield %: 1.18
Earns $: 147.53
Divs Yield %: 2.55
Divs $: 318.41
Mkt to Book: 3.75
Book Value $: 3323.94
Year ago numbers:
DJIA: 13507.28
P/E ratio: 17.89
Earns Yield %: 5.59
Earns $: 755.21
Divs Yield %: 2.10
Divs $: 283.00
Mkt to book: 3.85
Book Value $: 3510.65
So either the situation has deteriorated very badly since a year ago, or Barron’s has got its numbers wrong, which would be a bit surprising considering they are a Dow Jones publication.
P.S. The Wall Street Journal’s “Markest Data Center” (”P/Es & Yields on Major Indexes”) gives similar numbers:
DJIA P/E 85.05, versus year ago 17.90
Nasdaq Composite 30.30 versus 34.88
Russell 2000 69.18 versus 42.49
S&P 500 23.10 versus 17.83
So either Dow Jones is out to lunch, or the data you guys are citing is a from a year ago.
Was there maybe a handful of Dow companies that reported stupendous losses that would offset a lot of profits from other Dow components this month? This really seems to be an out-of-whack composite P/E number.
There were a few, like Citibank. That might explain it. Like I said, I checked the P/E’s for every Dow 30 company and only Mickey D’s and Coke were > 20 (also < 30). All the others wer about 15 or so. The money losers showed 0.
There are many ways, and sub-ways, to compute a P/E. Which earnings do you use? At the top are trailing earnings (which could mean past 12 months or prior calendar year - they’re different), current year earnings (which includes a forecast for the remainder of the year, and next year earnings (all forecast). “Analysts” who try to push something choose the P/E that best suits their purpose.
My thought exactly. Forward looking, or backward looking? is the main question…
4 of these jobs yesterday on CL in Manhattan……sign of the future? Hire functionally illiterate people to work for a law firm? I guess they won’t hire me…
——————————————————–
paralegal/collections (Midtown)
Date: 2008-05-27, 11:24PM EDT
Looking for a profesional commercial collecter.We are a charmingly agressive and growing agency.You will recieve a daily wage plus a high commision.A benifits package is also available. Please fax resume to SHERMAN & DAVIS 212-268-0575.
Looks like I’ve been overqualified since about the second grade. Maybe I could fax them a resume signed with a crayon.
“charmingly agressive”
creepy
Sounds like a job for my 15 year old.
Unfortunately, her personality is perfect for a stripper, or a Used Care salesman…….she isn’t afraid of nothing or nobody, and she won’t take NO for an answer……..
Isn’t she the one that gives the one-finger salute to rabid drivers? I say she has what we call spirit. Prosperity preachers and mortgage brokers and other scammers hate people like that, independent types. Kudos to her parents.
One and the same……….:)
I blame myself…….as a responsible parent, I should have been sternly admonishing her from doing the crazy stuff she was doing, instead of laughing.
For better or for worse, she is not afraid to tell people (no matter who they are, me included) when she thinks they are full of crap.
Obama, Just another in a long line of wind bags with crap ideas to fleece the taxpayer. The repub-lo-dems really have a sad set of choices. Either way the lowly taxpayers will take it in the shorts.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121193017621124375.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
I’ve been trying to tell you all this. He’s a big govenment, big spending liberal with absolutely no experience running anything.
Whereas McCain is a big government, big spending liberal with a lot of experience of sitting in a small box.
a lot of experience sitting in a small box.
Is that a reference to his time served as a Prisoner of War?
“a lot of experience sitting in a small box.
Is that a reference to his time served as a Prisoner of War?”
Naw, it refers to him mind and character. He was at the bottom of his class in high school, dad got him into the naval academy. He was at the bottom of the Naval Academy, graduated 5th from the bottom out of 900. Dad got him into flight school…he was subpar pilot, crashing jets into Corpus Christi harbor, Norfolk Virginia and Spain, and caused a horrific crash on the USS Forrestal. He racked up more than 100 demerits every year at the Naval Academy, and was known for his aggressive temper.
He delights in calling Asians “gooks” and did it for decades after his return from Vietnam. He also opposed Martin Luther King, loudly and in an ugly fashion. Makes him popular with rednecks of all descriptions.
But he loves those illegal aliens…can’t get enough of them.
There will be no border with Mexico when he’s president.
Are you sure that’s what Lucy meant?
It was really kind of you to answer for her.
After that rant I find it hard to describe him as kind. In any case, its easy to answer questions for each other when they sing from the same sheet of music.
“Makes him popular with rednecks of all descriptions.”
I can’t stand John McCain but what exactly is a “redneck”. Are you another one of those open minded “progressives”?
Is OK to disparage white people but do you reel at the thought of offending “people of color”?
“and caused a horrific crash on the USS Forrestal”
The fire on Forrestal was caused by a misfired Zuni rocket.
Which hit McCain’s aircraft if I remember, as for “Gooks” consider what the NV did to him for 8 years (I’m of half Asian descent)… My Dad, who’s married to my Japanese mother, speaks and reads Japanese, and loves Japanese culture, still occasionally calls the Japanese “Japs” courtesy of his experiences at Peleliu, Saipan, and Okinawa starting as a 17 year old Marine infantryman…
So based on that excuse about McCain, I guess you find what Rev. Wright said okay as well considering he had to grow up in 1940s and 1950s America.
I’m not a big McCain supporter, I do believe in the truth though - for everyone.
I believe in the truth as well, but if everyone has to get over whatever they went through, that should mean everybody. I do not agree with McCain using the G word, if he did so. I don’t care what he went through. If that is the excuse, then a lot of people will start using that excuse.
Ummm, Rev. Wright isn’t running for office last I checked. As a wedge issue, it’s about as relevant as McCain’s wife stealing drugs from her own charity and getting high.
PC and the folks who subscribe to it will be the death of us all. There’s only one Human Race and we’d better learn that, or the coming years will be a heck of a lot harder than they already are going to be… Funny thing about it is that PC is pushed mostly by Caucasians.
Which I’m not…
50% Asian
37% Caucasian
6.5% American Indian
3.2% African
3.2% ?
but but…your handle is jWHITE!!
lol
see my post below re: unsubstantiated PC racism accusations.
(If it ever shows up.)
“DOH!!!!” Homer Simpson.
Should I use Taurean Blaque? 
I wanted to name myself PINK but that name is already taken.
At one time here in Utah they gave the condemned (to death) man a choice.
Death by hanging…………or by a firing squad.
We are being given roughly the same choice (as voters) this year.
Hence, I’m not voting.
Hopefully black people will feel empowered by Obama being in office.
That is about all I think we can get from the election.
Anyhow, thinking the government is going to solve things is part of the problem.
If the situation ever comes up, like next Christmas when I go to Utarrr to visit the family, I’m going to demand both end treatments at once. Then I can end up like a really nasty and leaky girl pinata.
‘Hence, I’m not voting.’
Just write in Ron Paul’s name for every write-in slot. Politics will never have any resolves, IMHO. I’d rather strike a chord of fear in the representatives’ status quo than to go with a lesser of evil choice. That said, none of the guys I voted for prez ever won. My bumper sticker tells folks to never blame me.
“At one time here in Utah they gave the condemned (to death) man a choice. Death by hanging…………or by a firing squad.”
That’s why Utarr is famous for its upstanding and outstanding scammer-types. Only the best, the consequences are too high to fail.
‘Hence, I’m not voting.’
that’s what a good republican will likely do.
“If the situation ever comes up, like next Christmas when I go to Utarrr to visit the family, I’m going to demand both end treatments at once. Then I can end up like a really nasty and leaky girl pinata.”
GAWD!!! The visual… GURK!!! LMAO
Bush had a bit of experience governing Texas, but still managed to wreck the US economy, foreign relations, fiscal policy, executive power, etc.
The “sky is falling” mentality that Obama is somehow less experienced than McCain and especially Bush refuses to convince me that he could do any worse, and his overall willingness to try new ideas in all these areas is good enough for me.
We desperately need to go on a new direction from the failed policies of Clinton and Bush, who snoozed and dithered while we went from bubble to bubble and crisis to crisis.
“and his overall willingness to try new ideas in all these areas is good enough for me”.
Sorry but socialism is not a ‘new’ idea!
Conflating government duties and obligations with socialism doesn’t seem to work anymore.
Deregule airlines? Nice mess they are.
Deregulate Banks? They’re in such wonderful shape too.
So what’s the solution? More Gov. intervention?
First identify the problem. ——>Deregulation=Failure.
Deregule airlines? Nice mess they are.
Deregulate Banks? They’re in such wonderful shape too.
It’s amusing how you anti-market guys always point at the most regulated/controlled industries in history (along with probably medical care and utilities) as examples of “deregulation”. I think you are confused.
The entire monetary system is setup by government. How do you figure that banks (federal) aren’t regulated? lmao
Anti-market? Conflating markets with monopolies is your source of confusion.
Nicely put.
Bush had a bit of experience governing Texas, but still managed to wreck the US economy, foreign relations, fiscal policy, executive power, etc.
And didn’t anyone in 2000 see this thing coming? I was in a wretched state seeing him ascend to the nomination, partly because of his record as a meddler already in Texas. His ideas even then of “getting things done” often meant more government. Big spending on huge government programs? Indeed, and those who bemoan it are spot on. But that seemed dead obvious even during his 2000 campaign and by 2004 was clear as day.
Gore had even more meddlesome tendencies, but in retrospect, who knows — Gore might have been less effective at cowing Congress, and hence he’d have got “less done”, which would probably be an improvement!
We desperately need to go on a new direction from the failed policies of Clinton and Bush
Yes indeed, but which direction we choose from there is the question. I see “no change” and “left” as the current options. Which of course is fine if you want one of those.
I concur. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could do a worse job than Bush has. I’d vote for a hippopotamus before I would vote for a continuation of this administrations failed policies, which is exactly what a vote for McCain means.
McCain worries me…he has all the charm and class of Bush and all the mental dexterity and brilliance of Ronald Reagan.
Obama is the new direction. No, he hasn’t the experience, but he has fired up our younger generations. Think about this. People are tired of the boomer generation and all the crap that came with it. Clinton, Bush…their old school. We need change. Ron Paul told the truth and was treated like an idiot by the press. Clinton ..more lies and tell em what they want to hear. I personally think Obama will do well…and this come from a very racist person..me. We need new ideas and approaches to the boomer ” I have to have it now “, mentality. Also, I think the middle class will come back strong under an Obama administration. I also believe, that his being elected will raise and strenghten the black esteem. As a boomer and a racist he has my vote, because he’s what this country needs.
Terry, I personally know at least a dozen who have expressed the very same sentiments but they happen to be boomers, ages 45-58. The common complaint among all of them is the health insurance issue. Using the socialized medicine hobgoblin for 30 years to delay implementing a designed system in place of the patchwork we currently have won’t fly anymore.
I’d like to actually hear about some of the actual “new ideas” Obama is looking to implement - rather than just be happy that he’s willing to try them. I find his campaign maddeningly short on specific ideas …. not that McCain is any better on this count.
I just wish we could extract promises as to what these guys would do as president (and for our Congressional candidates), and then judge their success accordingly. All we’re judging them on is how they present themselves, the soundness of their political organizations, some minor differences on social issues, and their enthusiasm for the Iraq conflict (the most pronounced difference between them).
It just feels like we’re making important decisions based on not-very-much information. Makes me feel like an out-of-state investor buying some lots I’ve never seen in Cape Coral, FL ….
promises means very little. imho, what we need to look for is the basic decency of the person. can you ever say that with our current beloved president. among the 3 candidates remain who do you think would have this trait best?
I couldn’t care less how much experience any of these yahoos have. What I care about is that Obama is extremely to left of center, thinks government is the answer to everything, has yet to meet a tax he didn’t like and is incredibly naive in his world view (ie if we just hug it out with Iran, N. Korea and OBL the world will be just swell).
And no I don’t like McCain either. But in a contest of pretty bad and god-awful, I’ll choose pretty bad any day.
“He’s a big govenment, big spending liberal with absolutely no experience running anything.”
Don’t forget that he’s anti-2nd Amendment too!
I’ve found that most people who strongly oppose Obama are fearful, and are either selfish and wealthy, or ignorant and racist. The selfish and wealthy group could care less about the state of the country, and are only interested in their own bottom line. As far as the ignorant racist folks go, there’s nothing more to say.
How do you draw these conclusions?
Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia and Jerry Mondesire, NAACP head, both stumped for HRC. They’re Black. Are they ignorant and racist?
This Black writer is skeptical about Obama. Since he can’t be racist against himself, does he fit into the selfish and wealthy category? Or no, maybe he’s just fearful.
I could just as easily generalize about the white people I know who support Obama. Not one of them has ever had a black person over to dinner, nor do many of them include persons of color in their personal networks. Oh well, it must be White Guilt that’s motivating them to vote for BO. One lady looked me in the eye and told me that only rich white people are Republicans, and implied I was racist because I did not support BO. That would be news to my black cousins - they’ve never experienced anything remotely prejudiced in my behavior toward them.
I asked this white lady if she’d voted for Lynn Swann when he ran for Governor in PA, against Ed Rendell. Of course not. Hey, white lady, Lynn Swann is black, does that mean you are a racist because you voted for Ed Rendell? How about Michael Steele when he ran in MD or VA or wherever he was. All the people who didn’t vote for him, oh I guess they were racist too. Maybe people are against a candidate because they disagree with POLICY. How’s that for a novel idea?
This whole race card baloney is just tedious.
gee. the words used are either/or not and.
phillygal-
My conclusions are based upon my own first hand experiences with a vast array of friends, family members, and business associates, as well as a lot of reading. Hardly scientific, but there is a common thread.
Also, I believe that “most” Clinton supporters will filter into the Obama camp should he secure the nomination. Some won’t, and most likely for the reasons I stated before. Furthermore, like josemanolo7 pointed out, I said “either/or”, and “many”, not “and”, and “all”.
“I’ve found that most people who strongly oppose Obama are fearful, and are either selfish and wealthy, or ignorant and racist.”
The 2nd Amendment is a Right, not a Privilege. BTW, McCain is not getting my vote!
Please can you really tar and feather democrats for big gov and big spending after the last 7 years of bushco and initially the GOP controlled congress. Take a look at the Reagan years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
Here’s one with presidents listed below
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
This is his plan
At a roundtable discussion Tuesday afternoon at the College of Southern Nevada in North Las Vegas, Sen. Obama laid out his plan to provide a $30 billion economic-stimulus package to help homeowners. The package would include a $10 billion foreclosure-prevention fund to help people stay in their homes and $10 billion in relief to state and local governments hardest hit by foreclosure.
You call 10 billion a bailout for home owners? Even McCain is proposing a similar amount in the article to guarantee home loans.
RE: Please can you really tar and feather democrats for big gov
LMAO…like Pelosi and Co. have been doing a tremendous job.
Their 12% public rating is 20 points below Bush.
Great defense of the GOP being fiscally conservative LD??
That was the topic of my post in response to another of your misinformed loyalists.
Public rating as determined by who?
Remember Congress is almost 50% republican. Thus they and the president can block all legislation.
We’ll see if that public opinion poll you posted holds true at election time. My guess is it won’t.
.
No worse than McBush who gets his financial advise from a UBS lobbyist…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24844889
We know Gramm very well around here.
Congressional experience aside, what do you think of his role as a lobbyist for the mortgage and banking industries?
Probably sleazy. But I’d rather have that kind of sleaze than Bill Ayers.
Lest we forget McShames odd truthfulness, “I know nothing about economic issues”.
he knows if you raise cap gains and div taxes we’ll turn into Japan
Yeah. We can’t expect the wealthy to pay any taxes on their capital gains. They might get upset.
The last time I checked Japan had a huge foreign account surplus, low crime, high standard of living, good relations with other countries, and wasn’t fighting an endless war of imperialist expansion.They must be so jealous of us.
why should they pay any capital gains tax? house flippers don’t either.
Why shouldn’t they? And isn’t the cap gains exemption the supposed tax advantage of residential RE hence the speculation? Aren’t we all cheering for the wheels to come off the real estate shortbus?
Turning Japanese?
You really think so?
NR
Hahaha. Great song.
House flippers SHOULD pay tax. People should pay slightly more capital gains.
I think I like how consistant and fair my stance is on this issue.
Pretty sure we all agree house flippers are a poor example of how we should be treating people. Saying that cap gains shouldn’t be raised because another bunch of speculators don’t get taxed is a bit of a circular arguement.
House flippers SHOULD pay tax. And the capital gains tax should probably be slightly higher than it is now. If you compare with other countries, US capital gains is quite low. Especially since the IRS differentiates between “short-term” and “long-term” capital gains.
Just because house flippers (and we all know how we feel about house flippers ont his blog) don’t pay tax doesn’t mean that should be used as an example of how to treat another group.
Gotta love the double post. Whoops.
–
Our political system of pandering to the stupid and irresponsible guarantees an ugly outcome for the economy. People are not told about the role Federal govt interventions played in causing and prolonging the Great Depression. Adjustments should be allowed to go on without any govt intervention so that they are over in a short period rather than prolonging the adjustments and making them worse by perverse govt incentives. Both parties are culprits.
Jas
I’d say we have become more of a “Banana Republic” than the real “Banana Republics”
Except we don’t grow no bananas.
Howz about “Bubble Republic”?
Or “Bullsh#t Republic” (one of the few things we produce in abundance)
i’ve said this before. one of the impetus for government to do something about the great depression was to prevent the event tha occurred in russia to happen here. what made you think that we were immune to the communist revolution.
Lest we forget the policies which are leading us into the greater depression…
“A society cannot be both ignorant and free.” - Thomas Jefferson
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. ” - Alexander Tytler
Too big to fail eventually becomes too big to bail.
–
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
~ Winston Churchill
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
~ John Adams, 2nd President of the United States
We are on the suicide watch!
Jas
Heh, well, perhaps reports of death are in fact, overstated.
But there are clear dangers to democracy and civil society. And they should regardless be watched for, and avoided.
memo to Jas
We are a constitutional republic; despite some of the best efforts of moleman, exeter and the other socialist scum.
please take in good humor from the conservative scum at the other end…
Booo!!!! I’m gonna get you!!!
words republic and democracy was used almost interchangeably by our founding fathers. republicans just wanted to emphasize the the former for obvious reason. silly to be arguing about this.
Correct Jose. It’s nother stupid ideological snag to debate so not to address more important issues.
Crude prices falling as demand weakens (that pesky free market).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axCOwkQK4V1w&refer=home
Yes, and the further crude prices drop, the more demand will strengthen. Once again, the free market at work. Any little drop in price and every Ford F-250 and Chevy Tahoe owner in the country is going to head straight to the Costco gas station to fill the tank.
I think there may be a paradigm shift underway here. Even in big truck luvin, 4 wheelin, drive lika batoutahell, 5 four wheeler and skidoo ownin, big tire envying, straight pipin’ South Alabama, the number of trucks and SUVs for sale on the side of the road and on dealer lots is just short of amazing, somewhere about 75% of used lots are the full sized trucks and SUVs that the locals have traded in on small sedans and pick-ups.
The slowdown in road speeds has been nothing short of amazing as well. I took a trip to NW Alabama and Memphis this weekend and with the occasional speeder, most traffic was at or BELOW speed limits. Especially the fuel gulpers. I couldn’t believe it.
I draft big rigs. Get 30mpg in my 1500 ram.
hypermiling work even in a big truck.
http://www.hypermiling.com
I draft big rigs. Better have lightning reflexes & expert timing to survive that sort of behavior for long. Also need good health, disability, & life insurance coverage.
I draft big rigs in my Honda Civic Hatchback but I DO have quick reflexes and that car is extremely nimble. I could probably turn the engine OFF and just get sucked along in the slipstream when I’m doing it right. It pisses off the truckers though.
drafting big rigs?
haven’t been hit by a big rock yet from the roof of those monsters? i wouldn’t mind paying extra for gas.
Did that cheap shot at Southerners make you feel good?
I disagree with your observation observations of slow driving. I go into Alabama - granted it’s NE not NW part of the state, and I have seen nothing of what you say. Drive on I-59 sometime and if you see anyone driving under 75 take a picture, you may not see it again.
As for SUV/truck sales..when it comes down to it, people like to bitch about gas prices, but will not change their lives because to save money on gas. Yeah it’s easy to say drive a Prius or Civic. Good luck in a Civic when you have 2 or 3 kids a couple of dogs and are going away for the weekend. Or good luck with a Prius if you have a boat to tow. Or good luck with a Sentra if your livelihood involves moving heavy objects from point A to B (construction, farming, electrician, plumbing, landscaping, etc).
People who need a truck/suv are still buying trucks/suvs. People who own a Tahoe and use it to commute every day in bumper to bumper traffic…well they may be changing their habits to something more practical. But what is happening is instead of mom and dad both driving a Tahoe, mom still keeps the Tahoe to drive the kids around and dad trades in his Tahoe for a Camry.
“Even in big truck luvin, 4 wheelin, drive lika batoutahell, 5 four wheeler and skidoo ownin, big tire envying, straight pipin’ South Alabama”
Hey, that’s a cheap shot? It describes the Alabama I drove through not too long ago.
Come to think of it, it describes where I live…and parts of Colorado…and Texas…and shoot, half the country, I suspect.
I need my truck. I’m out of business without it. Of course, being reliant upon clients discretionary spending, I may be out of business anyway. People are really pulling back, and I’m seeing it first hand. A lot of griping about money going on. The first thing people talk about now, is price.
“Did that cheap shot at Southerners make you feel good?”
Er… I’m Southern and have been for 30 years…?
Think the sellers’
ballsegos will shrink a bit if they’re forced into smaller cars?Maybe……but the big truck/SUV fad was showing signs of having run it’s course, even before gas prices started going crazy.
The buying public is looking for something “new”…..crossovers aren’t it, too much like minivans. I personally think that something like the Chevy “Nomad” concept shown at the 2004 Detroit Auto Show (if they could keep the weight down, where it would perform with a 4-cyl. engine) would kick everyone’s butt.
Unfortunately, with the new fuel mileage laws passed by Congress, us regular joes are going to be forced into driving pieces O S like the Toyota Yaris, or the Honda Fit……cars for people who hate cars. Bitch about SUV all you want (I was never a fan), but they were popular because they WORKED for a lot of people. The choice to own one was easy, because gas was inexpensive. Now, everyone is going to have to reorder their priorities.
Far be it from me to be an SUV fan. But I have this longtime friend who co-owns a construction company, and ya know what? He can’t find a car that carries everything he needs at his job sites. So, for Randy, it’s an SUV…
As usual, a voice of reason… (now GIT MY AEROPLANE READY fur me! No ugley Stews like last tiame!)
Not sure if you’re aware of this thing called technology, you were probably too busy bashing econobox cars to recall ever having heard such a thing.
Any car company can manufacture and sell a hybrid SUV (Lexus and Ford currently offer “mid-size” SUV’s) and clearly they are all going to start doing so with $120-130 oil here to stay.
The public hasn’t “wanted” these crossovers because they had HELOCS and cheap gas to subsidize their wasteful habits. Believe me, now that they’re paying 600$ a month in gas they’ll start to like the crossovers more and more.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=gm
GM at a 26 year low…and going lower today due to downgrades
Drove by the harbor in Long Beach, CA yesterday and counted eleven tankers anchored and empty. Four more have been anchored off Seal Beach for weeks.
Domestic demand for crude has dropped off. Prices should follow if/when prices become re-connected with fundamentals, IMO.
Fundamentals? What’s that?
a new pro basketball team
(that pesky free market)
I was wondering if anyone thought the German threat of eliminating its oil futures market had anything to do with the price drop.
No, but they should really pass a law against gravity in Germany. People could fall down and be hurt.
or perhaps we should all keep dreaming about the myth of “perfect gravity.”
–
Germans remember the speculators and market manipulators from their economic problems in 1920s. All human institutions succumb to abuses by manipulators.
Jas
German problems in the 20s had more to do with war reparations imposed by foreign nations.
–
Yes, of course, there were no other problems in Germany duirng 1920s. Financial manipulators are patriotic and were doing all they could to help Germans during a tough period.
Jas
Germany is trying to maintain a sound fiscal balance in a rapidly stressed Euro economy.
jhamilton@ucsd.edu
Department of Economics
University of California, San Diego
May 22, 2008
Revised: May 26, 2008
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the factors responsible for changes in crude oil prices. The paper reviews the statistical behavior of oil prices, relates these to the predictions of theory, and looks in detail at key features of petroleum demand and supply. Topics discussed include the role of commodity speculation, OPEC, and resource depletion. The paper concludes that although scarcity rent made a negligible contribution to the price of oil in 1997, it may be an important feature of the most recent data.”
http://dss.ucsd.edu/~jhamilto/understand_oil.pdf
Caution pdf
If I speculated in the oil market, I would be a buyer based on this paper. It is no longer speculation of a bubble, it is rental scarcity. This does not mean the price of oil will not come down, it just means that at every lower price there will be more buyers.
We will find out soon I guess. If the current price is way too high because of speculation and market manipulation (as many officials in the US claim), a temporary plunge in oil prices could bring the price further down, because speculators (especially those late to the party like pension funds etc.) would probably run for cover. I doubt if that will translate into much lower prices at the pump though (well, maybe until the elections …).
If the current price is mostly the result of supply/demand imbalance, acrude price drop will be only temporary because indeed it will bring new buyers into the market.
–
One thing we know from history is that high oil prices never lead to recessions and slackening in demand. The 130 years of history of oil prices is irrelavant today. We are definitely in a New Era.
Jas
I may be wrong, but didn’t the petroleum industry initially develop as an answer to high-cost whale oil?
I’m betting on somebody, somewhere coming up with a cheaper replacement, if oil stays at/close to the price it is now. The chance to make the “big bucks” is a great motivator.
Russian markets learning the hard way.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=azi4ShRWVZ70&refer=home
Japanese exporters hedging their risks in currencies outside the dollar.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/japan-exporters-hedge-risks-invoicing/story.aspx?guid=%7B13297178%2D483D%2D43BC%2DBAA4%2D044C80B835D3%7D
Online brokers win a big one against the NAR.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/realtors-must-allow-online-brokers/story.aspx?guid=%7B2B60ADF4%2D18CC%2D4EB8%2DB72F%2D09E798D5A650%7D
And we see the end of the six percenters’ reign of [t]error.
I found out last night that a co-worker is still telling people, behind my back of course, that I am a fool not to buy. Oh, what is a CityBoy to do?
Put a horse head in his bed.
He who laughs last…
Tell him, NYCboy’s wife like hot steamy romantic weekend getaways, which we can’t do, if we are paying double our rent to “own” a home.
DJ: I would still like to know about your wireless cameras you use to shoot bands.
Ask the guy who’s talking behind your back to come in with you on a sweet deal - in Jersey City.
Jot down the prices of a handful of properties. A year from now, note the difference in those prices and send him a note telling him about the great Memorial Day vacation you just had on the money you saved by not buying any of those properties now.
This past weekend I actually did the calculation of how much money I saved by not purchasing in 2006, when I first started looking.
It was more than I had thought. Even taking into consideration the (relative) discomfort of sharing a small TH instead of having my own spread, waiting to buy was well worth it.
Would be interesting to see how you went about determining this– like what sorts of numbers you used for, say, a typical property and income in your area.
I used the conservative figures from the National City housing valuation spreadsheet and housing tracker.net (-6%), which is about four per cent less of a drop than I”ve observed in the houses I’ve tracked.
But I used the smaller figure for the depreciation.
As for typical property and income, I’m only looking at places in the $200k range. Not getting a mortgage, so I didn’t have to consider the annual income multiplier as it applies to affordability.
The savings so far aren’t huge, but at least I know I didn’t watch 20k go down the crapper.
Wife: “The house I want can’t go down much more!”
Me: “Well, 10 years ago it was selling for 50% of what it is now.”
(off the cuff, but I’d be happy to be wrong if she would look it up)
Then Me: “Local averages suggest our house is losing value at a rate of $20k/yr”.
Only losing $20k per year? You lucky dogs!!! Come to the DC suburbs and taste the disaster! It’s double those losses in the very *BEST* cases.
What is funny is that I read this blog almost every day and hadn’t noticed that the curve had bent so far so fast already (excepting the obvious hot spots, of course. Insert chorus of: There but by the gace of God go we).
I’m thinking that this quarters C-S update is huge.
“Jot down the prices of a handful of properties.”
But that’s using logic. That doesn’t get people anywhere in this situation. I’m being told the same thing in San Francisco because here lately there has been a run in upscale properties that I have no explanation for. I suspect it might have something to do with easy credit coming out of the Fed through TAFs and low interest rates, and increases in FHA limits (except that wouldn’t cover upper end prices here), either that or it is a dead cat bounce, except that prices haven’t dropped very much.
So, Cityboy– short of violence as a perfectly reasonable but unfortunately illegal solution– sometimes, once in awhile, you just gotta take a few knocks before this is all over. Wait for the Alt-A resets then you’ll be sitting back and laughing.
Just drink more.
Hahahaha! Comical!
nycboy is the laughing stock of his office now
bitter renter he is
whatever happend to talking about seinfeld at the water cooler?
he must be pissed his “investment” is losing value
misery does love company
f- him nycboy
TOTALLY a case of misery loves company and co-worker is pissed that you’re not miserable.
Invite him to one of your special Christmas parties.
Are there any of those people still left? We are in the last refuge of bubble denyers.
Meanwhile, check out the New York Magazine profile of the Brownstoner real estate blog. The poster known as The What has been predicting real estate doom for Brooklyn for years, and lately people aren’t laughing at him so much anymore.
“Are there any of those people still left?”
He’s a financial moron. And there are plenty of those.
there was this nasty rumor that the “what” is actually nycboy
but the spelling is a dead giveaway it is not him
the guy is funny as hell and those brownstoner people
think he is a idiot and crazy
i like his rants actually
Give him a Joshua Tree for his birthday.
I guess these are the people who are buying now. It’s funny how everyone’s perspective is so different. When I look at these home prices, I remember what they were just a few short years ago, just as prices were ramping up. And it’s somewhere around there that I look at the true value of a home. Other people look at the peak as the measure of a home’s true value –and if they own a home they also see it as a measure of their own value. So if the value comes down from $400,000 to $350k they think “wow, what a bargain!”
I was at a party over the weekend, and it was the first time where everyone was in agreement that prices vs. rents were making it far more favorable to rent. In fact one person joked we were practically being paid to rent when you considered the property taxes and such… and this is in the California Alt-A Bay Area. There are folks with high income, and the news is spreading more quickly now. True there are plenty of idiots still buying, but there is definitely a growing group of us who have done the math.
the first time where everyone was in agreement that prices vs. rents were making it far more favorable to rent
This is the real tipping point for a housing price disaster because this is what really starts making buyers pause. And that will slam sales, and the cycle feeds itself, possible into overshooting on the other side of the equation. It’s not over yet by any, any means.
o brother:
LAS VEGAS — Sen. Barack Obama is hoping the housing mess can help sway the November election. The Democratic front-runner pitched his plans to stem the crisis during a visit on Tuesday to Nevada, the state with the highest rate of home foreclosures and a swing state that President Bush narrowly carried in 2000 and 2004.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121193017621124375.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
Obama bailout plan = $30B in the hole. McCain bailout plan = $10B. However, McCain’s economic plan changes almost weekly and the fact that he will keep us in Iraq another 4 years means McCain economic stimulus plan = $510B in the hole.
We will be in Iraq for many many many years regardless of who is elected next pres. For one, Iraq sits on one of the largest untapped easy to get at oil reserves, and for another, when we finally do pull out, there will be genocide on a historic scale as the sects carve each other out.
However … McCain’s publicly spoken Iraq War position is very unpopular and will most likely lose him the election. To be credible, each needs to come up with a realistic long term solution that makes real sense, as if being there to begin with makes any sense at all.
“We will be in Iraq for many many many years regardless of who is elected next pres.”
Absolutely. With the exception of someone like Ron Paul no one will do anything to remove us from the ME or anywhere else around the world for that matter.
We are not condemned to stay in Iraq. Mideast turbulence is a direct result of Anglo-American imperialism. Get the US out–and I mean totally out–and the region will find its own solutions. (But cheap gas to fuel thirsty SUVs from Walmart to the McMansions has a way out distorting the typical American’s perception.)
the free marketers should note that pillaging sovereign nations in an effort to safeguard their oil for our use at a discount is a market distortion.
Hear! Hear! So which third party candidate do I vote for to implement that policy?
“Mideast turbulence is a direct result of Anglo-American imperialism.”
You can’t be serious.
You do realize that mideast turbulence was prevalent before Angles even *existed*, right? (And I don’t mean just American Angles after 1492).
Everything in the area was under control, but the US did not like the leadership of iraq(the claim was they were comunist) so the CIA support saddams cou to oust the gov and take over as a dictator friendly to US intrests, and for 20 some odd years the US supplied him with weapons and experties and weapons, and overlooked his violent oppression of oposition, but then Saddam got bold and disobeyed his master and tried to take Kuwait, Bush senior was smart enough to know killing him would lead to civil war and unrest in iraq for decades to come so he left him to rule iraq as a relitively powerless despot, and this aragment worked fine for everyone, the iraqi poeple did not have a great life but they had buisnesses and reliable water and electricitity and could go to the market without worrying about being killed by a car bomb, after 5 years of US occupation they are still far worse off then they were under saddam…Do you really think they want the US there anymore…The power vacume has to be desided without outside influence, that means no outside influence from the CIA or NSA, or any other outside influence and give the poeple there atonomy and things will sort themselves out…
Everything in the area was under control LOL!
I don’t think a bunch of Iraqi sects “carving each other out” is worth the life of one more American youngster. Go ahead, let them.
Already burned by bad mortgages on their books, lenders now are feeling rising heat from loans they sold to investors.
Unhappy buyers of subprime mortgages, home-equity loans and other real-estate loans are trying to force banks and mortgage companies to repurchase a growing pile of troubled loans. The pressure is the result of provisions in many loan sales that require lenders to take back loans that default unusually fast or contained mistakes or fraud.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121193306681924605.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”
Proverbs 26:11
LOL
“The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way, but the folly of fools is deceit.”
Proverbs 14:8
I have been waiting for the lawsuits on the repurchasing of bad loans . According to the article ,30% of the loans went bad within the repurchase period and Lenders like New Century misrepresented their reserves or ability to buy back their junk loans .
I keep thinking about how the 30% bad loans pushed up the market and created a extended false market and inflated the market even more . I keep thinking about how a number of new home tracks had a high percentage of investors buying, which created the false demand and pushed the prices up .
When you see loans go bad so quickly you just know they were straw buyers that were given money or they were investors who couldn’t even pay for a teaser rate . I think about 2006 when the real estate industry and the lenders were doing anything to keep the party going when cash back fraud became the popular incentive to unload real estate .
Look at Countrywide Funding and the default rate for 2006 and 2007 and you can see that the CEO was pumping up earnings for his stock dump .
The problem with these bad actor lenders is that the appraisers and property tax assessors use their comps and so the whole market gets tainted based on fraudulent loans .
Is is not acceptable to have default rates that are this high .I remember when default rates were under 1%.
The market corrects itself ,but thats making the assumption that you have arms length transactions and fraud isn’t widespread .There were serious crimes committed against our society on so many levels .I am amazed that the problem solving by the powers that be does not take into account that they can’t hold up a fraudulent market and its a cover-up if you do not address crime .
……….and all the while, the executive branch of the Government of the United States sat idly by watching the miracle of modern finance…..with idiot Greenspan being acclaimed by Time Magazine as the Maestro and President Bush taking credit for the high level of “home ownership”.
At the same time, folks like us, without a voice in government or the media had taken to the blogs to aire our disapproval with this whole scam…..but until quite recently, we have been a small minority.
As we said: “This will end badly!”. And Soon.
I love Proverbs!
LOL. Thats like trying to cram the $hit back into the goose. Good luck with that one. The only people who are going to come out of this smiling are the lawyers.
But it is another example of the fact that it be YEARS before the ultimate bagholder for some of this toxic waste is detirmined.
Indonesia quits OPEC
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20080528&id=8695898
Because they no longer produce enough oil to export.
No: they don’t want to be sued, obviously.
Matt: No: they don’t want to be sued like they care
I’m gonna go out on a limb and speculate that Matt was being sarcastic.
Gee, O is a candidate any FB could love:
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
BARACK OBAMA
How Did the Obamas Accumulate That Debt Again?
Recall how both Obamas, emphasizing their modest roots, periodically tell us that they are only a few years out of debt. Here’s a typical example from when Obama was campaigning in Van Nuys, California:
Obama told the gathering that he no longer had credit card debt, but that was not always the case. “Five years ago, before I had spoken at the convention, before my book sales took off, etc., we were in same situation,” he said.
“My wife and I borrowed to go to college and law school because we don’t come from wealthy families. When I got out of law school and we got married, our combined student loan debt was higher than our mortgage,” Obama said. “And so it took us 10 years to pay that off, which meant that we couldn’t save.”
Or Michelle Obama, campaigning in Pennsylvania:
Michelle Obama is pretending to take a call, thumb and pinkie finger up to her face, telling how she and her husband used to get calls from loan debt agents not that long ago.
“I remember those days clearly, sweating to get that mail,” she said. “That collection agency, the loan debt people calling you telling you that you’ve got a few more days before you’re in trouble.”
David Mendell’s Obama: From Promise To Power, page 144:
He and Michelle were living a middle- to upper-middle-class, white collar existence, going home to a spacious town house in Hyde Park and employing a caregiver to help with child care. But despite their combined incomes, which topped $250,000 a year, Obama had personal debt. He had maxed out his credit card, partly on campaign expenses, and the couple were both repaying student loans from Harvard.
Lots of Americans have student loans; lots of Americans have more debt on their credit card than they would like.
But not many Americans make a decision to challenge an incumbent member of the House of Representatives.
Obama took a fairly significant financial gamble, taking on credit card debt to finance his effort against longtime Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush in 2000. Obama’s friends and colleagues in the state legislature had urged him not to challenge Rush. Obama was 38, and had been in the state legislature for four years; Rush was a five-term incumbent with 90 percent name recognition.
Obama has said several times that challenging Rush was the wrong race at the wrong time. But perhaps as the Obamas tell of their financial hardships, they could at least mention that part of their tough times was driven by an unwise decision on the candidate’s part, a decision few Americans will ever make.
05/27 02:56 PM
Plan B:
Lose election File Bankruptcy, get a job in law firm….oops they check your credit report….
Plan C:
Work for an Ambulance chaser PI storefront “firm”.
So if the empty suit had not spoke at the convention, and wrote the book, he would be a deadbeat?
Wow, this is the guy the american people are looking to to get us out of this mess?
We are so screwed!
Don’t worry. He’s completely unelectable. Bubba’s out to get him.
Enter the Bubba.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that the same people criticizing Obama voted for Shrub twice.
Hmm, let me see…who is the real FB here?
child of single mother who incurred debt on the way to Harvard Law, Senator, then Presidential nomination, then discharges debt by writing a book (just like Hillary) that made him a millionaire
or…
functionally illiterate trust fund baby who managed to avoid military service, get admiited to Yale and avoid jail time for drunk driving through family connections while intervening in foreign policy on behalf of oil companies and still quadrupling the price of gas in 8 years.
“functionally illiterate trust fund baby who managed to avoid military service, get admiited to Yale and avoid jail time for drunk driving through family connections while intervening in foreign policy on behalf of oil companies and still quadrupling the price of gas in 8 years”.
You must be talking about that socialist sot Teddy Boy?
Wow, this is a lot of energy, picking one candidate over another. All the candidates (including the Pres.) seem like bozos in their way to me. The only one I was interested in (Ron Paul) raised a ton a money he apparently did nothing with.
I doubt that GB has ever taken a call from a collection agency.
I doubt that GB has ever taken a call from a collection agency.
No, his daddy and Jim Baker swoop in whenever he’s in trouble and distribute cash and/or political favors.
Problem solved.
True, though I doubt very many kids of millionaires have taken calls from collection companies. Doesn’t make them responsible spenders or fiscal geniuses.
Yeah, Txchick, because his family pays for everything for him. That’s the best you can do? It’s fine with you that Bush lies to people about 911 , Iraq, WMD, etc, but as long as he has never taken a call from a collection agency, then he’s “upper class” and your kind of people . . . .
NoSingleOne, Hillary didn’t write anything; her books are ghostwritten, and set-up by publishing firms to cash in on her name (they hire the ghostwriters). Bill didn’t write his best-seller, either.
The Democratic Party played a huge role in getting both Clintons’ books on the NY Times best-seller lists by sending out e-mails and other notices telling Democratic operatives and activists not only to buy the books, but from which specific stores to do so (the sales at particular stores are used to determine what is and isn’t a best-seller). Their success was cynically orchestrated for political reasons, and had nothing do with talent or spontaneous human interest.
Stop giving credit where it isn’t due.
The point to the previous Obama comments you are taking issue with is that Obama pretends to identify with the little people, but, in fact, has held himself aloof from them for many, many years. He, Clinton, and McCain are all tying to buy votes with their bubble rescue plans, and to pretend he’s somehow better because he uses the word “change” is illogical.
Some of us on this blog are tired of politicians in general, and don’t believe them. They all promise everything, but most deliver nothing. And remember, nearly ALL of the Democrats in Congress (excluding a few insane pacifists who would never agree to any war, even if their own families were under attack) voted for the war. Many, including Hillary, got up and spoke passionately in favor of it, citing exactly the same intelligence reports Bush cited. But, now they all pretend to have opposed it from the start, and call Bush a liar for saying the same things they did. These pandering cowards never take responsibility for their mistakes, but always take responsibility for anything good that happens.
Obama doesn’t need you to defend him. Most likely, he wouldn’t do the same for you.
Incredulous,
I appreciate your POV, but this is a democracy and your greatest responsibility to it is to go out and vote. I have had several ancestors who fought and died so that I could have that right, and I fully intend to exercise it.
Would you prefer to live in a dictatorship like Iran, Saudi Arabia or North Korea where that decision is made for you? If you want to behave like a spoiled child who can’t get exactly what he wants and therefore takes his toys and goes home…then IMO you have no right to complain about whomever gets elected. Zero. Zip. None.
There is no perfect candidate and there never will be, but that is a poor excuse for not making an informed best choice.
And remember, nearly ALL of the Democrats in Congress (excluding a few insane pacifists who would never agree to any war, even if their own families were under attack) voted for the war.
Dead wrong. 126 Democrats in the House (i.e. a majority of the caucus) voted against the war, as did 6 Republicans (including Ron Paul), and one independent voted against the war.
In the Senate 21 Democrats, one Republican and one independent voted against.
Iraq War Vote 2002″>
Sorry for letting the facts get in the way of your argument.
Your point was probably taken, but Sorry for letting the facts get in the way of your argument was of course just an additional poke in the eye, I guess? Hmmmm… Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. (Let’s be civil.)
wwbz,
For the record, Teddy Kennedy served in the Army and was honorably discharged.
I’ve noticed a pattern on the part of Obama supporters. Goes something like this…
Non-Obama Supporter: Obama is a poor candidate because XYZ
Obamanut: Yeah well Bush did XYZ even worse therefore Obama will be a great president.
Debating with an Obamanut is quickly approaching the same level of futility as debating with my dog as to whether or not jumping into a muddy puddle is a good idea.
On the other hand……you’re telling me that the BEST the so-called “grownups in the room” can do is JOHN McCAIN???????? Or any of the other limp-di#ks that were running in the primaries???
The Republican Party is intellectually and morally bankrupt at this point in time. Until the party gets sent to the political equivalent of a Siberian Gulag for a few election cycles, that won’t change.
Since 1976, I’ve never voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate, but when the real campaign starts, I’m at least going to listen to what Obama has to say.
I’ve noted that the Bush/McCain wingnuts are full of criticism of Obama over what he might do, and have extremely selective memories when it comes to anything the Republicans have done. Not a surprise from the party that gave us the whole doctrine of “preventative warfare” in Iraq. Facts are a mere inconvenience.
Especially comical is when they wring their hands over ‘tax and spend’ democrats, then flounce when they are gently reminded that Bush II has created a bigger deficit than all previous presidents combined.
But that’s fine, as long as he gives you a tax cut today and passes on the bill to your children, right?
Arguing with a Bush/McCain supporter about Republican propaganda is like arguing about real estate with a FB Realtor: “It’s always a good time to buy”.
“Bill didn’t write his best-seller, either.”
I call BS! The dead giveaway is that it was so friggin LONG, just like one of his interminable speeches.
Hey Spike66 Teddys record… WOW impressive!
Kennedy earned C grades at the private Milton Academy, but was admitted to Harvard as a “legacy” — his father and older brothers had attended there, so the younger and dimmer Kennedy’s admission was virtually assured. While attending, he was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him. While expelled, Kennedy enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up for four years instead of two. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England, pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years, and to ensure that he served in Europe, not Korea, where a war was raging. Kennedy was assigned to Paris, never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged.
wmbz.
you posted that he avoided military service. False.
As for old man Kennedy pulling strings, he’d already lost one son and one daughter to World War2, and his second son was badly injured in the Pacific. With 2 dead and 1 injured, you could see that he would try to shield a fourth child. Doesn’t make it right, but I can see his point.
the new hero to the free market appears now to be the guy who never takes any chances and just stays at home making snarky comments on the internet all day.
jeezus, the guy risked something. it paid off. there’s nothing wrong with that. it is part of the entrepreneurial spirit. and in fact if no one steps up and fails, success becomes too cheap.
He could always get a loan from the uncle that helped liberate Auschwitz.
Hmmm…. he got Buchenwald and Auschwitz mixed up but his statement is truthful. His assertion that his uncle helped liberate a nazi death camp is factually correct.
How bout Scott Mclellan?;)
Fair enough, if that’s the case. That wouldn’t be as bad as Bosnian sniper fire.
From what I’ve read SM has more positives than negatives to say, though you’d never know that in the MSM. If he had NOTHING bad to say, I’d be suspicious.
Buchenwald/Auschwitz
Stalin enemy/Stalin ally
Sunni/Shia
Potato/potatoe Ehh.., so what, who cares.
My great-granduncle liberated Petersburg, VA from the Confederacy in 1865. That and $1.65 will get me a cup of Starbucks.
I doubt Petersburg felt very liberated.
I doubt Petersburg felt very liberated. I am sure a certain ethnic minority in Petersburg felt extremely liberated, nay, emancipated.
I’m sure that there was a similar split opinion on my great great grandfather’s work in ‘63 outside of Chatanooga.
My Great Grandfather actually witnessed the surrender of my wife’s Great Great Grandfather at Appomattox. Mine was in the Vermont Brigade, Her’s was in an Alabama Regiment blasted down to less than a company in strength.
My cousin’s adoptive great grandmother’s next door neighbor was on hand for the first known inflation of a balloon used solely for entertainment.
And things in entertainment have gone downhill since then…
I asked my grandaddy what he did in the Great World War Two……
He said,
“Well, son……….I shoveled Horsesh#t in Louisiana……”
Must have been at the beloved “Camp Swampy” (Ft Polk) of “Beetle Bailey” fame…
Just joking…….stole that line from “Patton” Thought someone might get a laugh from it.
Actually, my family tree is not even that illustrious.
Dad spent the Korean War at the Elmendorf AFB Base Exchange. Trained to keep the Marlboros and Lucky strikes safe for Democracy.
I am sure many people in the 57 states will vote for him anyway… *sigh*
My plan is fast becoming voting for the candidate I feel is least likely to be elected. The only good thing that will likely come of the election is my being able to say “I didn’t vote for them!” while complaining over the next 4 years…
Falling knife catchers or are some areas getting affordable?
As Home Prices Drop Low Enough, a Committed Renter Decides to Buy
All this time, I have been a renter myself, first in the New York suburbs and then in Manhattan. But my wife and I will be moving to Washington this summer. And the housing market has, obviously, changed quite a bit since our last move, in 2005. Nationwide, prices fell 14.1 percent from early 2007 to early this year, as Standard & Poor’s reported Tuesday. Home prices almost certainly still have a way to fall, but they’re now well below their peak.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/business/28leonhardt.html?pagewanted=all
This is a buncha hoo-ey.
The New York Times always has this garbage. When prices were rising, everyone were fools if they didn’t buy. Now that they are falling, it doesn’t matter?
Gimme a break.
It’s just silly “rationalization”. If you look at the archives, you will see a whole lot of articles like that around 1990. By 1994, you saw the real pain.
Yeah well, Jos. A. Bank regularly has 30% off sales, after they raised their $299 suits to $599.
I couldn’t hold myselfb ack from sending him a quick letter-to-the-author on this story; here it is:
——————
David,
I enjoyed your article, but there is one serious flaw in your analysis of the price-to-rent ratio as a metric for when to buy: you assume that rents will be static. In reality, rents will be falling in many markets over the next few years as the housing market continues to de-leverage from its bubble state. We currently have by far the highest national vacant housing inventory in history due to rampant speculative building. Much of that vacant inventory is not currently in the rental pool, since it is tied up in other ways: owned by people who are still holding out for a market turnaround, currently in the foreclosure pipeline, or owned and being marketed by banks. However, much of that vacant inventory will end up in the rental pool over the next few years, resulting in diminishing rents.
While your analysis that buying will cost you only a little more than renting today may be correct with today’s pricing, that will not be true when you consider today’s purchase price with tomorrow’s reduced rents. When rents and prices continue heading down, you will find that you have likely overpaid by more than you would have thought. I hope that you are happy in your new home, and don’t experience a need to move in the next ten-or-so years; I expect that is how long it will take for the negligible appreciation subsequent to the bust to regain for you what you will lose in the next two or three years.
I completely agree with your premise that there are many reasons to buy that can make the decision to purchase a house something other than a strictly financial analysis. However, for me, the “cost” of renting for another 3-4 yers to wait for the housing shake-out to complete is negligible–I can wait to have a living room that I can paint–and the potential gain is dramatic.
Regards,
…
Gee, what a surprise. We were misled about Iraq, according to Scott McClellan. Oopsie!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7423099.stm
Nice that he comes clean now, when he has the opportunity to make money off the lies he aided and abetted. There’s a special place in h*ll for people like that.
Basically agree (I’m reminded of McNamara, who I believed was shamed into donating the profits), but I’m also happy to have him turn on the others and tell his tales for all to see.
Bush is this generation’s Nixon. Wouldn’t it be nice if these things skipped generations?
As I’ve said many times before, The Decider makes Nixon look like a benign, thoughtful, forward-thinking man.
How Much Campaign Debt Did Obama Put On His Credit Cards?
In light of the Obama’s tales of financial woe from earlier in their career, there’s something else that doesn’t quite add up.
The Chicago Tribune noted some oddities on this topic, noting:
As for income, they earned a combined household total of slightly more than $240,000 in 2000, according to tax records they have since made public. (Their income fluctuated in that range until 2005, when they reported earning $1.6 million.)
But it’s unclear how much their college loan debts were, and aides to the Obama campaign said last week that they could not immediately provide records to clarify.
However, Michelle Obama graduated from Harvard Law School in 1988 and her husband graduated in 1991, around the time when the school’s dean estimated the cost of a Harvard law degree at $62,200. They both also earned undergraduate degrees from Ivy League schools.
That article also notes, “In 1993 they bought a condominium in Hyde Park for $277,500, paying about $111,000 as a down payment, according to county real estate records.”
By 1993 they have $110,000 as a down payment? (Assistance from relatives is possible, I suppose. And perhaps part of that number reflects part of his book advance? Obama graduated Harvard Law in 1991, and that year he got his book deal to write Dreams From My Father. Although I had figured he had burned through his advance, as profiles of Obama state the “modest advance allowed him to set aside six months after he graduated to write.”)
The Tribune notes that “Michelle Obama tells audiences, the couple’s college loan payments cost them more than their monthly mortgage.” Well, when you put down a down payment of 40 percent of the total price, your monthly mortgage payment ought to be pretty reasonable.
But they still have such debt from their school loans, and are in such financial dire straits, that Obama’s credit card is rejected when he goes to rent a car at the 2000 Democratic Convention? With a household income of more than $240,000? They’re two ivy-league educated lawyers with much of a Hyde Park condo paid down; just how much credit card debt did they have?
There’s one possible explanation that would explain a great deal… if Obama put a lot of campaign expenses from his 1999-2000 run for the House of Representatives on his personal credit cards. Below, I mention what a longshot effort it was, and how many people had urged him against it. If Obama did indeed put large amounts of campaign expenses on his credit cards, it’s easy to argue that Obama gambled rather recklessly with his family’s financial future.
This is personal stuff, many might argue, and irrelevant to evaluating him as a candidate. But considering the themes of his campaign — judgment is more important that experience, I can restore fiscal discipline, I am the candidate who is wiser in evaluating risk and determining the best course of action — this is a potential landmine.
any person or family can risk as much as they want to up to and including their own life (lives). the only qualification is that they truly take the risk on themselves and do not pass it on to others in a deceitful way. that is a personal decision that in no way reflects on a candidates political judgment.
his credit card allowance was an amount agreed upon by the credit card company. if they thought it was an unwise risk, they were under no obligation to extend the credit to him. if he had been forced to default on that debt, it would send a message to his creditors to revise the cost of risk. if they continued to mis-price risk with other such creditors, they would be driven out of business and companies more capable of doing their jobs would replace them. this is part of the Darwinian selection of the credit market and is entirrely healthy.
so now i ask - what on earth is your argument against his actions?
No kidding aflurry!
The guy risked HIS OWN MONEY (well, credit) to run! How many millions of times better is that than what we talk about right here on this blog every day (fb’s, HELOCs, paying for SUV’s and plasma screens?)
Conservatives, (txchick57 especially): I thought you guys RESPECTED those who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps? How is going into debt to run for president, and having it pay off, not the perfect all-american example of that? Geez!
No, BIll Clinton is this generation’s Nixon. A brilliant, ambitious man from a poor background who made it to the highest office in the land and then got into trouble over a coverup.
Both centrists too.
Nixon and Bush have nothing in common, other than a lack of respect for the truth.
Nixon a centrist? LOL!
“Nixon a centrist? LOL!”
He was. He signed much of the major environmental legislation, went along with affirmative action and more civil rights legislation, went to China, pursued détente.
Hmm, you’re right. He was quite the leftie wasn’t he.
Wow, scary times when someone’s human rights (ie civil rights) become a partisan political issue. Mighty generous of the right wingers to let blacks vote without having the dogs and firehoses turned on them!
Going to China was an opening for industrialists to exploit their labor market before Europe did…hardly a “leftist” charity move.
Pursuing detente/peace? that’s a stretch. By that calculus, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushes were centrists too.
Signing an environmental bill when DDT was shown to be a major health threat was hardly centrist.
“There’s a special place in h*ll for people like that”
Is that on the hill or in hell?
LOL! Definitely the hill, hopefully in hell too.
I agree…..McClellan’s only trying to separate himself from the toxic Bush after gleaning all he could off of that situation. I’ll award him the “opportunistic hanger on” label.
May 27 (Bloomberg) — Enjoy your next steak, because prices from Shanghai to San Francisco are only going up.
The highest corn prices since at least the Civil War, based on Chicago Board of Trade data, mean U.S. feedlots are losing money on every animal they sell, discouraging production as rising global incomes increase meat consumption and a declining dollar spurs exports.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=axIrowbBQ7fo&refer=australia
How about frozen pizza..a staple from my college days…last week was in walmart buying those individual pizzas from California Pizza..they were priced at $2 even..yesterday in Walmart..went to get some more..price $2.78(Almost a 40% increase in price)! For a little nothing with nothing pizza man..I mean the pizza is all box..I love they way they taste..but I can do without it!
“I mean the pizza is all box..I love they way they taste..but I can do without it!”
Some people enjoy eating boxes.
When do we start seeing manipulation of the cardboard market?
My wife’s CPK favorite is the BBQ Chicken, I replicate it at home for a fraction of what it costs at the restaurant. I have to say it’s a pretty good version of it too.
i have never eaten at california pizza kitchen
i hate chains -tgi fridays-chilis- applebees etc they suck
being from nyc my whole life i am quite the pizza snob
lots of good pizza to choose from here in nyc
due to the cost of flour and cheese the prices are going thru the roof. i slice is around $2.50 and with a topping it is around $4.00
1 pie = 8 slices for those who are not in the know regarding the nyc style pizza
I would kill for a slice of just plain greasy cheese, genuine old school, city pizza. With the burn marks on the bottom from the coal fired oven… MMMMmmmmmm.
Your body will not appreciate all that “pie” later in years.
Having come from Montreal, I was eager to try NYC bagels, but they were awful compared to Montreal’s. I had similar expectation of NYC pizza…it was actually quite good, but CPK is actually healthier and tastier.
last week was in walmart buying those individual pizzas from California Pizza..they were priced at $2 even..yesterday in Walmart..went to get some more..price $2.78(Almost a 40% increase in price)!
I bought a couple of those yesterday. They were still $2 here. Guess I should have hoarded some more of them.
All pizza markets are local.
“The job of the market now is to create a price high enough that provides the industry with profitability.”
Which means that consumers will cut back even more and find a substitute for beef. Got grass???
Gas, grass, or ass. Nobody rides for free.
LMAO…. What a blast from my past. Good one Faster!!!
Not being a Toker™ I give you how “grass” almost brought down funny finance
I have that bumper sticker. I put it on the truck when the parents come to visit. It sits right over my “WORK HARDER: Millions on Welfare depend on you” sticker.
A neighbor has that “Millions on Welfare” sticker on the back of his truck. And it’s so fitting. There are more than a few “downtrodden” types in Tucson.
Got Grass?
Could YOU survive on Social Security?
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/PlayingCatchUp/CouldYouSurviveOnSocialSecurity.aspx
Yep. No problem.
“Yep. No problem.”
In a home that inspires?
He’s got maneuvering room if he’d be willing to make some changes to his lifestyle. Paying off $40K in debt, however, is just wishful thinking on $12k a year.
At any rate, it won’t be a problem for me because SS will be bankrupt by the time I get there.
I believe it is good to assume that as a worst case. More likely to my mind is needs testing cutbacks that make it essentially the same for anyone who has been prudent.
Home is free and clear, no debt of any kind; my monthly expenditures are $200 + less than my check.
And that’s the way I planned it.
“And that’s the way I planned it.”
Ditto.
The NYtimes is working overtime to quiet the noise…yesterday they sent up the Homeland fear flags flying…today, it’s a front page piece on Bernanke and how his “bold moves” and “rewriting the rule book at the Fed” have “quieted his critics”.
The NYTimes has a new mandate…inventing the news that suits the power brokers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/business/28bernanke.html?hp
That’s hardly a new mandate for the NYT.
“quieted his critics” = the boyz are makin’ money again…so it’s all good. Until the next “crisis” at least.
Total NYTimes puff piece. He is called “bold and innovative” because he is a Republican who supports the same housing bailouts as the congressional Dems…but no mention of he and Greenie cheering on housing speculators for damn near 8 years. Whoop-de-doo.
In Housing, the Strong Turn Weak
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/business/28housing.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
In Manhattan, prices do not seem to be falling, even though sales dropped 23 percent in April and the first half of May, compared with the same period a year ago, according to Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm. The number of units available for sale has risen by 11 percent, to 6,859.
Some other cities, like Dallas, Houston and Charlotte, N.C., where home prices did not surge this decade, are not hurting as much either. Charlotte and Dallas were the only areas out of 20 key markets that registered higher prices in March than February.
Charlotte is imploding.
so is Dallas
Oh, cool: Downsize Opportunity Here!
I love how they don’t talk about the massive overbuilding in Charlotte or the complete dependence of the city on the banking industry. The lake areas (Norman and Wiley) rose at ridiculous paces. It was a complete boom. And now Charlotte is the ultimate in suburban hell. Traffic is outrageous.
I would have been a journalist but my intelligence and common sense would have gotten in the way.
If Charlotte has any strength at all, it is because housing prices stayed relatively low during the credit boom, while area incomes rose over the same period because of the financial services industry. Once the banks fall, Charlotte falls. There’s nothing magic about the place otherwise.
Yep, you are right. I have lived here all my 42 years and things have stoped. I hope it never comes back. Hey city boy what industry were you in when you lived in Charlotte? I`m really tired of the place for the first time.
Lane
Banking!
“Charlotte is imploding.”
No way, in gawd’s country?
Up until now, in all but the seriously overbuilt markets, sellers could have sold their houses for an affordable price. The demand was there, but it was crushed by ridiculous pricing.
A recession could change that for a couple of years. Those who held out for 2005 prices are toast.
And even more ridiculous, A Good Time to Buy, a Renter Changes His Mind.
So, get out there and buy. Says the author…no point in trying to time the market, the metrics are good enough…right now. It may not be the exact moment, but close enough.
Could the corporate interests at the NYTimes be any more obvious in their efforts to get the housing market jump-started? In Manhattan, sales have slowed and inventory is building…just like SD and Florida a year or so ago…
The corporate and political power brokers are getting a tad nervous…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/business/28leonhardt.html
I don’t agree with his analysis, but it is several times more coherent than a lot of other stuff I’ve read. Heck, he even makes a comment like this at one point:
I’m still not sure how good our timing was. Based on the backlog of houses on the market, I fully expect that our new house will be worth less in six months than it is today. I’m also not sure that we would have been willing to buy in Boston, New York or much of California, where the rent ratios remain above 20, according to data from Moody’s Economy.com.
In fact, if you’re now renting — almost anywhere — and do not need to move, I’d probably recommend that you wait to buy. The market is still coming your way.
Hardly the sort of comment that is going to get Suzanne to make an appointment for a boob job.
REIC “Stakhanovites”.
“Comrade Suzy Doe did her part in our nation’s glorious struggle against affordable housing when she bought her first overpriced house yesterday. Comrade Suzy hopes soon to buy five more condos so that she can do her part in providing affordable housing to others as well. Comrade Suzy adds that she would like to thank our glorious congress for making her dreams possible.”
It’s fun when propaganda is so easy to spot.
I think we should go with: Citizen Suzy. Culturally, the language of the French revolution would be more palatable, even if the hair styles were about on par.
I like it: Picture Suzy as Marianne holding the US flag surrounded by FBs storming the doors of the NYSE, bared breast and creamy complexion, ushering in the inception of the New Republic.
This is America pal! There will be no breast bare-ing HERE!
That’s actually a pretty good article, but he doesn’t take couple things into consideration. He mentions upkeep and taxes, however he doesn’t include them in his rent/own ratio. As a landlord you must include vacancy/upkeep in your decision to buy, sell, or hold a property as well as your cost basis, or in his case monthly mortgage. It only makes sense to include that same analysis in a decision to buy. It depends on the age of the house and the state, but an older property can cost you the landlord half of their rental income in maintenance, taxes, insurance, and vacancy. As a homeowner I know I spend something like 650 a month on my mortgage and 350 on taxes+insurance. I also have a list of honey-do’s coming out of my ears, and those plus the occasional pipe busting, drain clogging, attic insulating, furnace replacing comes up to some substantial money every year. I have yet to see a year where I don’t put 5 grand into maintenance. When I was a renter I usually spent 700 total a month for rent with NO maintenance.
Also he fails to address that rental prices in many areas right now are abnormally high throwing his ratio of “20 percent difference is a bubble” thing a little low. Right now in a lot of towns there are a lot of REO homes that haven’t come onto the market for investors to buy and rent out, so there actually IS a scarcity of rentals in some of the worse hit areas due to foreclosed people renting everything in sight, but the house they moved out of may take a year or two in some cases to come online as a possible home to rent.
Again, I liked his article, but he’s being disingenuous of blind sighted if he’s saying the numbers work out to less than 20 percent cheaper to buy over rent, but if he wants a house then he should buy one. I save money by renting tools in a lot of cases, but I buy the tools anyways. The stupid tools take up all the room in my garage and I’m reorganizing it all the time to find a place for just one more doodad. When the tools break I have to replace them etc, but the convenience factor, and the fact they are “mine” make it worth the purchase. Sometimes we all prefer the premium ice cream to the 10 gallon budget that costs the same.
–
With Bold Steps, Fed Chief Quiets Some Criticism
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/business/28bernanke.html?ref=business
“I am tempted to think of him as somewhat Buddha-like,” said Richard W. Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. “He’s developed a serenity based on a growing understanding of the hardball ways the system actually works. You can see that it’s no longer an academic or theoretical exercise for him.”
With all of these “things are getting better” stories of late, I am thinking that the worst is yet to come.
“He’s developed a serenity based on a growing understanding of the hardball ways the system actually works. You can see that it’s no longer an academic or theoretical exercise for him.”
*Or* he’s realized and accepted that he’s (and the economy) is screwed no matter what he does, so he’s making the maneuvers that would keep him in a job as long as possible and make him a hit with cocktail crowd on Wall Street.
That’s Budda-like, right?
The only way “serenity” should be used in a story about what the Fed has been doing is in reference to people like me who cope with the rampant and ongoing stupidity by waking up each morning and yelling “Serenity NOW!!!”
Wow, grit, I feel more serene just listening to you. I’m about to levitate, even.
That’s pretty funny! You should submit it to one of the television networks, maybe they can work it into a sitcom.
“Today, Mr. Bernanke appears to have quieted many critics, especially on Wall Street, who earlier said he was overly academic and slow to react to market conditions.”
this is what makes me SICK! why should he give a rats a$$ what they think! talk about coruption from the top all the way down! and to make it so obvious to all the mindless drones, that will just sit back and keep letting it happen over and over again.
Remember the property tax discussions from the weekend? Well, here is one way for municipalites to raise additional money from that source.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/us/26tax.html?em&ex=1211947200&en=5184187ab49c5c6d&ei=5087%0A
Can you imagine what would happen to revenue in Boston if the hospitals and universities had to pay property taxes? Or NYC? Or DC?
You do realize that universities pay their municipalities anyway, right?
The Catholic church is the largest property owner in NYC. Imagine the potential tax revenues there.
Assignats for everyone!
Keep in mind that churches do pay property tax on non-hhurch real estate. So if someone where to bequeath an apt. building to his church, the church would pay property tax on said proprty.
Definitely.
Catholic Charities should be taxed til it bleeds.
Together, with the local, diocesan Catholic Charities affiliates, Catholic Charities is the second largest social service provider in the United States and it is only surpassed by the US Federal Government. Often, this means that the CCUSA network is able to provide assistance which other agencies are simply unable to provide or in circumstances where the other assistance is insufficient to provide the necessary aid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Charities
I call them the “non-profiteers” in NYC. If nothing else, these organizations should not be able to pay their executives more than the President and still be untaxed as charities, while acting nothing like charities.
Or Syracuse. Those industries are the city’s 2 largest employers.
Wouldn’t this allow governments to control religion through taxation?
I guess the ole constitution means nothing particularly concerning “those Catholics”.
FWIW, Catholic Charites operrates independently of the church, with a few exceptions.
Danielle Lancaster makes $28,000 a year as a bank employee in Richmond. She owes almost twice that on her credit cards, student and car loans.
Add to that day-care expenses for her 2-year-old daughter, rent and utilities, and she uses up every cent she brings in. She has cut costs any way she can, suspending luxuries such as restaurant meals and movies. But that didn’t stop her car from getting repossessed. “I work to live,” she said. “I see my check, and it’s gone right away.”
Lancaster is 26 and bankrupt.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052703330.html
Keeping her legs crossed would have helped.
LOL - true, but not PC
think of the children!!!!!!!!!
i was broke at 26 too
she will survive
I wish I was as well off as “broke” at 26 years old! I was way underwater, what with car loan and credit cards and the like. I do know that by the age of 32, though, I was back up to “broke” and quite happy to get up to that level.
Oh wait, she’s way beyond broke, as in twice her annual income in the hole? And student loans, the inescapable kind? Oh my, not even Dave Ramsey can help her out of this. She better find a sugar daddy.
“At least three more refinances followed — Jerome Smith said he has lost count. The couple’s monthly mortgage payment more than doubled to $1,600, excluding taxes and insurance. “I’m not dumb, but sometimes we do dumb things,” Jerome Smith, 52, said. ”
LOL - I’m not gay but sometimes I have sex with dudes
The Middle Class Crunch page.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/HomeMortgageSavings/MiddleClassCrunchConundrum_SeriesHome.aspx
“The rise in bankruptcies is not about something that happened last week or last month,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor and a bankruptcy expert. “It’s about the fundamentals. It’s about declining wages, rising costs, inadequate health insurance, job instability. More hardworking middle-class families simply can’t make it in this economy, and it’s only getting worse.”
BULL HOCKY! Its about countless people spending and living beyond their means.
Yeah, there’ve been times when my means weren’t great and lemme tellya, living within them really sucks, because you find yourself living in places where gunshots are heard both far and near in the evening and where it seems like everyone around you is having a domestic quarrel. I did it and kept my head down, but man, it can be rough digging yourself out of a hole and hoping you come out of it intact in both body and spirit.
I agree, there was a low point in my life after my divorce where I had 7 cents left to last the rest of the week and no milk in the fridge to feed the kid. I couldn’t believe I was at that point at 42. I was still in school and taking care of an elderly mother on top of that. After tearing up for a minute, I went out and push mowed a couple more lawns in the 110 degree the next day and earned some more cash. It was a low point and I’ve never forgotten it.
sometimes being broke and feeling helpless can motivate someone to great things
i had some really hard times in my 20’s but now things are pretty damn good
it drives my wife crazy but we will never ever live paycheck to paycheck again (god willing that is )
she really never had to worry because he parents always bailed her out (i never had that luxury)
they love me even more for getting her off that path
and sometimes that can be a bad thing
adults need to be responsible for their own financials
and not run to mom & dad all the time
From your lips to God’s ear!! I had my lean, rough years too .. and it made me financially frugal. Check out the cars at the high school parking lot. Think those kids will have furniture made of cinderblocks and boards? When others repeatedly bail out their kids [so they don't experience the consequences of bad financial decisions] they don’t learn and we ALL get hurt in the end.
I always enjoy your posts, Jwhite, and you seem neat-o. It made me sad to read this one. I hope you’re just rolling in tasty things to eat, good wine, your bookshelves creaking under the burden of great books, and all other such-like good stuff nowadays.
Also, your kid’s lucky.
Thanks Oly! Life is a breeze nowadays, my bookshelf does groan with good books, I can take all the college courses I want, my cooking is famous, and I haven’t killed the kid - yet. All I need is Ron Paul to be President and life would be spectacular (with a Led Zepp reunion of course).
Groaning bookshelves suck when you are trying to figure out how to move them. I still haven’t read a bunch of paperbacks I bought as a last gasp of bachelorhood and now I should just get rid of them.
You know, there’s nothing like having been there to make you know you can survive. Like the old saying, “You don’t know what you can do until your back’s up against the wall.”
When I was in college, I used to walk the RR tracks looking for aluminum cans to sell…never did find any, but the experience did me good. I was really poor.
Right now, being a squatter and all, I sometimes wonder what my life’s come to, but I know things will work out. You know how I know? I’m going to make them work out.
(As soon as I get done reading this book called “The Secret”)
Address please, I’m reporting you to the authorities in the best interests of society…
101 Stock Tank Way,
No Name, Utarrr
Send ‘em in, they’ll give me a medal…
Hey, JW, did you know there actually is a No Name, Colorado? It’s right outside Glenwood Springs. Pretty place. One of my book artists lives there.
One of the first things they taught us in Boy Scout railroad groupies (Explorers) was to be careful walking down tracks (as in not). Besides sticking your foot in places it shouldn’t be, there is the sneakiness of rolling stock on the loose. Of course, this was in the context of a noisy railroad yard, still… amazing what you might not hear coming at you depending on the direction of the wind.
That was supposed to be a joke, I can’t imagine anyone who thinks they’d find aluminum cans by a RR track…a highway, yes…
And Matt, you are so right, we just had an oilpatch guy here killed a few weeks ago - walking down the tracks wearing headphones. I’m actually still bummed out about it and I didn’t even know him. He was in his 20s. It took the train something like 5 miles to stop (a very long freight). The train was screeching its brakes and honking and the guy didn’t hear it…makes you wonder.
On a brighter note, did you know they call RR groupies “foamers” - as in foaming at the mouth with enthusiasm…
“Hey, JW, did you know there actually is a No Name, Colorado? It’s right outside Glenwood Springs. Pretty place. One of my book artists lives there.”
Would you believe that there is a “Poverty Point” State Park in Louisiana?
http://www.stateparks.com/poverty_point.html
I was a Life Scout back in the day, I grew up in my teen years along the RR tracks in San Clemente Ca, we knew better than to walk along them (too) stoned…
Life really was better back then… (or am I getting too old?)
“Life really was better back then… (or am I getting too old?)”
Um, maybe both?? I know that applies to me.
No, she is right. Read her books or her blog, she is a longtime chronicler of this. I bought and read her first book on the root causes of consumer bankruptcy back in about 1989, “As We Forgive Our Debtors.” It was very enlightening.
http://www.creditslips.org to read more of her writing
Yeah, here’s another transcript where she talks about how credit cards are the unique entity that are basically “above” contract law.
Wow. Just wow. And that was 2004.
Isn’t she the one interviewed a lot on “Maxed Out”?? If so, she’s spot on.
BULL HOCKY! Its about countless people spending and living beyond their means.
Yep. Very few articles in the MSM are written with the slant of “these people created their own problems.” It’s almost always a “victim” piece - anyone and everyone else is to blame. The idea that people create some of their own problems apparently, is an “opinion” that ends up on the editorial page.
The debt crunch was a long time in the making. I didn’t realize debt freedom until this year, and was in the hole since the early ’90s. The only reason I am not a FB now is because I have driven the same beater for almost 10 years, paid off my credit cards when it wasn’t sexy, and didn’t buy a house I couldn’t afford (though I would have had I known they would essentially triple in price in 5 years, then sold at the peak and rented).
Every adult in Britain should be forced to carry ‘carbon ration cards’, say MPs
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1021983/Every-adult-Britain-forced-carry-carbon-ration-cards-say-MPs.html
Every adult should be forced to use a ‘carbon ration card’ when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.
The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.
Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.
Worrying about greenhouse gases/CO2 footprint = a “positive” way to do something about peak oil.
Worrying won’t do anything about peak oil, but it will enrich a few people with ‘carbon trading’ schemes.
what will WWW weather scolders like Angelina do w their new castle !
hope they don’t see this BB
More nanny state BS to combat a problem that doesn’t exist.
“…carbon trading scheme…”
Click!
Makes me want to reserve a seat on a lightly booked flight to Tokyo…and stay for only a day.
sure, a personal carbon trading scheme is probably the best way to boost the huge profits of some City scammers even more. A few small carbon trading companies made more than a billion last year. And it is going to get worse, without doing ANY good for the environment (because the big companies get all their carbon rights for free and still charge them to the customer).
Loans Gone Wild
http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2008/05/the-magical-mys.html#more
Unbelieveable. Wow.
The mess gets uglier and uglier.
When I had a mortgage loan I checked every monthly or quarterly statement to make sure the balance was within 1 cent of what my HP-12c said it should be. Lucky for me I wasn’t screwed with. Also checked all of the payoff statements. Things worked out OK there (except for the annoying fees like $75 for a satisfaction piece, $25 courier fee, etc). I don’t think I’ll ever borrow again though I may run up my credit card balances shortly before death.
test
Global warming = root of all problems
Food price inflation is just the beginning
Grim U.S. report predicts effects of warming on natural resources
By Mike Lee
STAFF WRITER
May 28, 2008
Soaring food prices are very likely to become even more unstable because of global warming’s effect on farming, federal officials said yesterday.
too cool for the pool this mem day
try ethanol = food shortage
Ethanol + opening of monetary spigots on high blast = food and energy price inflation
P.S. My wife commented that this was the coldest Memorial Day she could remember in over a decade…we did not break 70 degrees F.
Finally warmer than SD up North! 80% on Memorial day and sunburned my red neck at the helmet line. A two tone head, lol
Funny with a 200″ snow fall this winter, we are still in drought conditions.
Not only cold, but I noted there is again rain in our forcast for next week, which for here is very unusual for this time of year.
Climate is a >= 30 year average.
Also, higher enthalpy (heat) in the climate system increases entropy (chaos), so we have greater variability about the mean.
strange that we keep reading those stories. I have been checking agricultural commodity indexes for some time and they keep going down; not much of a bubble to see there.
e.g. if you check Jim Rogers RICI Agri certificate (based on a mix of agri commodity futures) it is down strongly from the early March peak, and at a level that is just average for the last three years or so. Note: that is in euros, maybe it looks slightly different in US dollars.
Global warming = root of all problems
Cheney - Shrub = root of most American problems
test
Txchick57,
Wasn’t Gramm a major force in the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act separating investment from banking? Also, once he left the senate, he became a shill for the finance industry?
Finally, wasn’t his wife, Windy, somehow also involved in the Finance industry as an attorney, if I recall?
The public would like to know!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act
What did modernization rot in the financial services and where we are today?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_subprime_mortgage_financial_crisis
Contents
* 1 Background information
o 1.1 Understanding the causes and risks of the subprime crisis
o 1.2 Understanding the effect on corporations and investors
* 2 Causes of the crisis
o 2.1 The housing downturn
o 2.2 Role of borrowers
o 2.3 Role of financial institutions
o 2.4 Role of securitization
o 2.5 Role of mortgage brokers
o 2.6 Role of mortgage underwriters
o 2.7 Role of government and regulators
o 2.8 Role of credit rating agencies
o 2.9 Role of central banks
* 3 Effects
o 3.1 Effect on stock markets
o 3.2 Effect on financial institutions
o 3.3 Effect on insurance companies
+ 3.3.1 Effect on municipal bond “monoline” insurers
o 3.4 Effect on home owners
o 3.5 Effect on jobs of the financial sector
o 3.6 Effect on minorities
o 3.7 Effect on tenants
* 4 Actions to manage the crisis
o 4.1 The Federal Reserve
o 4.2 Loan modification / Hope Now Alliance
o 4.3 Bank financial health
o 4.4 Credit rating agencies
o 4.5 Regulation
o 4.6 Litigation
o 4.7 Media
o 4.8 Economic Stimulus Act of 2008
* 5 Expectations and forecasts
* 6 See also
* 7 References
* 8 External links and further reading
Phil Gramm: What a peach. Johnny Maverick picked a good ‘un there.
Turns out that Gramm, who’s a top adviser to McCain, was helping shape McCain’s economic policy (including policy on the “mortgage crisis”) at the same time he was a lobbyist for the Swiss bank UBS. He was still active as a lobbyist at the end on 2007, and remains on the UBS payroll.
In other words, Gramm is a paid shill for the mortgage and banking industries.
Sweet.
yeah Windy was on the Enron board.
I’m no fan of Philbert but he’s a smart guy.
I seem to recall that some Texas US senators relative owns a lot of the Driving Schools you go to in order to increase the immediate cash flow for small cities (e.g.: pay the traffic ticket and go to school and we won’t mention it to your insurance).
It’s win win win cronyism, subsidized by rate payers.
Wendy Graham headed the CFTC when the CFTC decided not to regulate the energy contracts that Enron traded. After she left the CFTC she got a board position with Enron.
I don’t know how the economists quoted in this article came up with their predictions, but the graph suggests SD prices are quickly reverting to 2000 price levels, with a further 46 pct (85/185*10) drop needed to get there. I also don’t see why 2000 is a natural stopping point on the way down, given that SD prices were already high relative to incomes as of 2000, and that a large number of McMansions were subsequently built in the $500,000+ price range?
The wild card would appear to be inflation, but since income inflation has been far lower than consumer necessities inflation (food and gasoline), inflation this time could make the correction worse (unlike in the 1970s when wages were tethered to a more credible CPI calculation).
Home-price index continues free fall
San Diego metro area’s March total down 20.5%
By Roger Showley
STAFF WRITER
May 28, 2008
An important home-price indicator was down a record 14.1 percent in March compared with a year earlier in metro areas around the country and down 20.5 percent in San Diego, Standard & Poor’s reported yesterday.
The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index for San Diego has dropped for 30 straight months on a month-by-month basis and 20 straight months year over year. “The steep downturn in residential real estate continues,” said David M. Blitzer, Standard & Poor’s index committee chairman, in a statement. “There are very few silver linings that one can see in the data.”
…
James Hamilton, an economist at the University of California San Diego, called the Case-Shiller findings “pretty serious” but “not mysterious.”
“There is still a very big overhang of unsold homes on the market,” Hamilton said. “That’s going to bring the house price down.”
The San Diego Association of Realtors most recently said that more than 18,300 homes were listed for sale earlier this month, an eight-month supply at current sales rates.
Hamilton said prices are likely to keep falling, but probably not to their 2000 levels.
Marney Cox, an economist at the San Diego Association of Governments, predicted the Case-Shiller index for San Diego will drop about 25 points to around 160 before bottoming out – roughly a 35 percent drop from peak to trough.
“That’s not too bad,” since prices still would be 60 percent higher than in 2000, Cox said.
me likey wild cards…stepped off oil at 130′ish
swapped it for natgas, food, and base metals.
Barbara Corcoran on the Today show this morning talking about real estate. One thing she said ticked me off. She said that buyers are being greedy by waiting for prices to fall further. Listen up you so-called real estate experts - greedy is what sellers have been for the past several years. Greedy is what has gotten us into this mess.
On the other hand, FRUGAL would be the word for a buyer who is taking their time. Or perhaps WISE. Or CONSERVATIVE. But definitely not greedy. How dare she!
Barbara Corcoran needs spend some of the money she stole at the orthodontists office.
Good lord, I saw that too. I despise her. To her, everytime is a good time to buy. At the top, at the almost bottom (but don’t try to time it of course). Just go out and buy buy buy. Value be damned! She was rather twitchy though if you saw how her hands were jumping around. Deep down inside she knows that she is full of it.
Of course they talk about the month over month increase in sales, but don’t mention that the previous month was revised downwards OR that sales have plummeted year over year.
I only watch TV to see what the jerks are doing to pull the wool over our eyes.
On the other hand, I love her! Keep insulting buyers, call them names. See how it improves your business!
Name calling?
Renters are treasonous.
Savers are fifth columnists.
Maybe the NAR needs its own Gitmo?
It’s almost like interviewing the wolves about the shortage of chickens, and how selfish the chickens are for not wandering out of the henhouse more often.
Perhaps she should mock would-be FBs when they don’t qualify for any mortgage products. How quaint that she thinks the American consumer has suddenly become sensible. If banks started issuing option ARMs like the “old days”, FBs would be lined up around the block to bid the prices right back up.
Greedy……guilty as charged. I feel so ashamed. And her point is?
Being called “greedy” by a Real Estate shill is like…..oh I dunno……sorta like…….wait for it……
Mr. Pot……I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Kettle.
The Fading of the Mirage Economy
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
“…Most of us understand that an overabundance of cheap, easy credit created a housing bubble that artificially inflated the price of land and housing, produced too many homes and homeowners, and persuaded too many Am ericans to dip into their home equity to support a lifestyle their income could not sustain. Now that the bubble has burst, we are coming to accept the reality of lower prices, reduced production, declining homeownership rates and the wisdom that a house is not an ATM or a substitute for a retirement fund.
Put another way, residential real estate is finding a new equilibrium, that magical place in the economist’s imagination where supply and demand of houses and mortgages come back into some sort of rough balance at a lower price. …”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052703077.html
Home prices nationwide plummet 14.1%
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/28/BUSN10UEP0.DTL
The 14 percent plunge nationally is five times larger than the biggest annual drop in the 1990-91 housing recession, which was 2.8 percent. The index uses January 2000 as a benchmark of 100. The current number for the San Francisco area is 168.38, meaning prices are still up 68 percent from eight years ago. The last time the local number was at that level was in May 2004. Thornberg said he thinks prices could return to year 2000 levels.
Come on year 2000 levels!!!!! (Nationally, that is…not just SF.)
UBS tells ex-private banking team members to avoid US
http://www.cnbc.com/id/24849266
What could they possibly be afraid of????? /sarcasm off
Ah, with all the talk in EU political circles (and elsewhere) I’m wondering when S&P, Moody and Fitch will start advising their team members to avoid going outside the US
Orders for durable goods edge down slightly with surprising strength outside transportation
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080528/economy.html
However, excluding transportation, orders rose by 2.5 percent last month, the biggest gain in 9 months. Orders for electrical equipment and appliances surged by 27.8 percent, the biggest increase on record, with strong demand also registered for primary metals, machinery and communications equipment.
So people are buying stoves and microwaves built off shore instead of cars built in US? Not sure where all the good news is in this report.
I too have always wondered how buying imported consumer goods is supposed to be “good” for our economy.
Part of that was me ordering 30 cots for my new Squatter’s B&B, really boosted the economy on that one.
A few really disturbing trends from the report:
March numbers were revised down to -0.3% from +0.1%
Unfilled orders rose to 14% (canceled orders) YoY from 2%
http://premium.econoday.com/reports/US/EN/New_York/dgo/year/2008/yearly/05/index.html
A very good graph of the trend
Squatter’s update:
(I found out yest. I was elected the resident HBB squatter…LOL!)
Anyway, I’m still trying to figure out who owns the house I’m renting for free, after discovering it was owned by Home 123, a branch of New Century, who went bankrupt.
But…got a knock on the door this morn - sort of wondering who it might be, this early…
The UPS man (no, Oly, not wearing a loincloth), with my new handy dandy Alps Mountaineer cot for when the LL comes in a week or so to get her furniture. Don’t want to get any of my stuff out of storage, so bought this. It’s better than the bed I’m using! I can close my eyes and pretend I’m a kid, as we always camped in a huge army tent with cots.
So…things are looking up! Thinking about buying a few more ($50 each) and opening a Squatter’s B&B!! Maybe I can make some cash off this thing, and then of course there’s always the book…
Hey, thought of a book title: “Squatting in the 21st Century” - whattya think???
How about “The Squatter’s Handbook - The Guide to Squatting with Panache and Style”… (OK, OK, sorry…)
The New Homesteaders
“The Squatter’s Handbook - The Guide to Squatting with Panache and Style”…
If anyone could write it, you could. I’m convinced of this.
I just ordered a set of 600-Thread Count Egyptian Organic Cotton Solid Sateen Bedding for my cot.
(Sorry, Ben, I’m having too much fun here…)
: )
funny to read these happy US squatting adventures.
On the other side of the pond (Netherlands) authorities are getting less amused with squatters every day. In the last few years they have already sent the marines a few times to remove squatters (squatters have worked on their defenses, so local police force sometimes will not do). There is now talk in government circles about a new anti-squatting law (squatting is officially allowed in Netherlands under certain conditions, e.g. buildings are left empty for more than a year).
This sounds soo much like the end of the seventies, when squatting was a Dutch export product and tanks were running through the streets of Amsterdam to protect the housing mob from angry civilians. A real revolution was barely avoided (’geen woning, geen kroning’ = no home, no new coronation of the queen). In the next two years the housing market collapsed, average price down 40%. Can’t wait to see the replay, it’s about time after nearly 30 years of unlimited profits for the housing mob.
Well, here in the good old USA, my neighbors now know what’s going on and are enjoying the adventure along with me. They know the yard will turn back into desert if I don’t stay. One even offered to help me mow and water it if I’d stay.
But after reading your post, NHZ, I think I’ll go down to the local sheriff’s office (no police dept. here) and tell them I’m having a big party for law enforcement this weekend, steaks, beer, and frisbee. That should do it (this town has only 900 people on a good day, so everyone knows everyone, a blessing or a curse).
(But now I’m getting worried, what if they send in the Marines - man, I can’t afford that big of a party…)
This is really great reading. You might need your own blog for this. It’d be a good jump on a book at the very least.
excellent preemptive strategy
So your cops don’t have guns? Or do the squatters have bigger and better guns?
Let’s call these special forces the SQWAT forces!
Not so new. They’ve been doing it in Detroit for decades, they’re doing it in Cape Coral now for 2-3 years and pretty soon, any speculative place will be prime. The problem is getting the room with the view.
oh please please please somebody do this! Sue your squatting roommate to evict him, or for some type of trespass. Call the local rag to send an intern reporter to the trial. Tell the judge that even if you have no standing to sue because you’re a squatter, the law must provide a remedy since there are so many properties and squatters, and the banks are deliberately not foreclosing. Bring relevant newsprint articles that back your point. Even better, get it on Judge Judy.
Sounds good, but I gotta go take a nap on my new squatter’s cot first. Be back.
“BURN HIM!!!! He who would live cheaply while the rest of us suckers… er, line toeing consumers pay the REAL price of life. By GOLLY! If I get kicked out it will be the HONEST way, by not paying my BILLS!!!… Ummm… Hysterical enough Utah?
Hey, all that enthusiasm woke me up!!!
opening a Squatter’s B&B!!
Is the second week of August fully booked yet? And is an inner tube ride down the Green River included? Please forward weekly rates and a sample menu. Many thanks.
Will the Fed Use a ‘Two-by-Four’ to Whack Oil?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/79171-will-the-fed-use-a-two-by-four-to-whack-oil?source=yahoo
Oil is up $5 from the overnight low.
Oil is whacking the FED. ‘Drop it like it’s hot’ Mishkin resigned earlier today.
–
http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/FeaturedCommentaryHome
The End of the Beginning – Developments in the Credit Crisis
May 27, 2008
Satyajit Das is a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives (2006, FT-Prentice Hall).
Equity markets believe the worst is over. Banks also seem to have convinced themselves that the worst is behind us. An alternative and, arguably, better view of the current state of the financial crisis is that stated by Winston Churchill: “… this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.Nuclear De-leveraging There is acknowledgement that an extraordinary level of debt and leverage precipitated the problems. However, there is limited recognition of the massive de-leveraging of the global financial system that is under way. Leverage amplifies returns but also accelerates de-leveraging.
…
Jas
Tech summit in Carlsbad today.
I wish I could crash that party. Maybe I’ll go walk Pico over by the lagoon. I could bump into the guys who own all my tech stocks.
I walk thru craigslist every day at least once. I mainly look for steals of deals under musical instruments, or scuba equipment under the sporting category. While I haven’t seen killer deals on that electronic drumset I don’t need, or a pro level alto sax… I do see tons of grand pianos. There are quite a few for sale, and they are normally $5K, $7K and even some are over $10K. The only thing I can figure is that people bought them to look good in their McMansions, and now are trying to dump them.
No, I’m not going to try to move one into my apartment.
Just an observation. My toys that I’m trying to sell to generate cash to take advantage of other good deals aren’t moving, either.
I don’t check Craigslist as regularly as you do, but I haven’t seen too many screaming deals on musical instruments or electronics yet (though I’m somewhat picky about what I buy).
On the sell-side, my better half says the domestic market on eBay for the kind of things she sells (vintage women’s fashion and mid-century modern ceramics, glass, jewelry) has been fairly soft, but she’s sold some items to Swiss, Japanese and English buyers recently for good money.
Yea, I’ve found that selling it international is where it’s at for the moment. Other than the money transfer fees, and shipping costs.
Txchick,
Did you ever get to check out my listing?
(been awol from the HBB for a few days)
Yeah, it’s a really nice looking place. I thought I’d call the realtor and ask him to have a look.
I would get calls all the time from recruiters in California (or Seattle, or Boston) wanting me to come work for their company/client. (I’ve very senior/accomplished in my industry, plenty of talent poaching goes on). I’d string them along, let them make their pitch, then tell them “Well, I have a stay-at-home wife and 2 kids, and a house (then describe house specs in annoying detail) …which I bought for under $300K” ($299k + ~$90k I threw into it, but I don’t mention that). Then I’d ask, “And I’ll be able to comfortably buy something just like that on the salary you’re offering? right? right?”. That would be my entertainment for the day.
Let me know if you do. I’m still waiting on some repairs scheduled for the next couple of weeks to clean it up some more (mostly paint, fix damage from the kids)
“…For years, Washington has failed to address the issue of rising energy costs and, as a result, the country now faces a true energy crisis, one that is causing se”For years, Washington has failed to address the issue of rising energy costs and, as a result, the country now faces a true energy crisis, one that is causing serious harm to America’s manufacturing sector and all consumers of energy,” Chairman and Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said in a statement.
“The government’s failure to develop a comprehensive energy policy is causing U.S. industry to lose ground when it comes to global competitiveness, and our own domestic markets are now starting to see demand destruction throughout the U.S.”rious harm to America’s manufacturing sector and all consumers of energy,” Chairman and Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said in a statement.
“The government’s failure to develop a comprehensive energy policy is causing U.S. industry to lose ground when it comes to global competitiveness, and our own domestic markets are now starting to see demand destruction throughout the U.S….”
AP news
Cassandra rules:
When representatives govern poorly, you don’t re-elect them, or their party.
When your political system ceases to function properly, carefully consider what is broken, and fix it.
When an investment is no longer attractive, you sell it.
When bread is cooked you take it out of the oven.
When you cannot afford a discretionary purchase, you don’t buy it.
“When bread is cooked you take it out of the oven.”
And eat hot with that great Mormon Cricket Stew.
LONDON, May 22 (Reuters) - The over-the-counter derivatives market grew 15 percent in the second half of 2007 to $596 trillion, slowing from a 24 percent increase in the first half as the credit crisis took hold, the Bank for International Settlements said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7532421
OMG thats half a QUADRILLION.
It’s all just bets that are placed against bets that are placed against bets. There’s very little real money in the game (as a percentage of the 500 trillion) and what there is belongs to the taxpaying J6P who will get the final fleecing.
It’s a whole pathetic house of cards built up to puff up the banks earnings reports. Good luck with that.
How much would that be in Zimbabwe $ ?
Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” said ex-Press Secretary Scott McClellan.
Isn’t this obvious without saying it?
There’s nothing wrong with the permanent campaign. The problem lies with the President’s being prevented from serving more than 2 full terms (or whatever that Amendment allows) If Bush (or Nixon, or Reagan) knew they would have to face the voters again in year 8, they wouldn’t go all apeshit in years 3 and 4.
Ten year spiking above 4% this afternoon. Some LI(E)BOR and inflation jitters? Hate to be holding an ARM.
That LIBOR report on the 30th should be interesting!
2:00 pm : Pessimism has prevailed as stocks have fallen back into negative ground after rallying to the unchanged mark. The financial sector (-1.8%) is near its worst level of the session and continues to weigh on the broader market.
Treasuries remain strongly out of favor. The benchmark 10-year note is down 22 ticks and yielding 4.0%, which marks the first time since last year its yield has gone this high.
question: if stocks are out of favor and treasuries are out of favor, where is the money being invested? a mattress?
Fed Governor Mishkin to step down this summer
Wednesday May 28, 1:58 pm ET
Mishkin, who been on the Fed board since Sept. 5, 2006, submitted his resignation to President Bush. His exit would leave the Fed with just four of its seven board seats filled.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080528/fed_departure.html?.v=4
wow, i wonder why he is jumping ship?
gotta cut the book deal and hit the lecture circuit…..
Gotta run from the “ELE”…
Mr. Mishkin is one of the better governors.
“…At some point, however, the bubble bursts. The collapse in asset prices then leads to a reversal of the feedback loop in which loans go sour, lenders cut back on credit supply, the demand for the assets declines further, and prices drop even more. The resulting loan losses and declines in asset prices erode the balance sheets at financial institutions, further diminishing credit and investment across a broad range of assets. The decline in lending depresses business and household spending, which weakens economic activity and increases macroeconomic risk in credit markets.5 In the extreme, the interaction between asset prices and the health of financial institutions following the collapse of an asset price bubble can endanger the operation of the financial system as a whole….”
Mr. Frederick Mishkin
May 15, 2008
If I felt that way, I would resign from the Federal Reserve.
Mr. Mishkin is the only governor that regards the economy as a global engine. The Taylor Rule is not applicable for a global economy; Mssrs Bernanke etal believe the Taylor Rule. The long term implication is loss of trust in the Federal Reserve world wide. Can you say hyperinflation? More data points are coming into place and the chances of deflation are almost non-existent.
Every Breath You Take Bernanke
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3u2qRXb4xCU
“I keep crying Benny, Benny please.”
“How my poor heart aches when prices escalate.”
A Whiter Shade of Pale
“We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray…”
Just keep dropping more money, the crowd wants more; why stop at one drink when you can have a whole tray. More, more I’m still not satisfied.
Hozzie baby,
USS Inflation has left drydock, told Swabie last week HMS Bubbles has sailed….
Bernenake, Bernanke…hey, that guy owes me money.
Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water (Isa. 1:22).
Im not sure the message is getting through:
Plaza Accord, google it…
otherwise known as ABANDON SHIP.
I took his class in “Money Banking and Financial Markets.” He may be toeing the party line in official speeches, but in unguarded moments in class, he told us he became an economist to understand what caused the Great Depression. He remembered talking to his older relatives about living through it.
Interpret as you choose.
one may think that the playbook is not part of the solution set for ALL the students of the great depression.
Today 52 dollars to fill up my 98 Subaru !! Lots of larger vehicles at the filling station their owners looking grim. One lady kept repeating “oh my God” over and over. The station attendant, a kid, looked worried about the outburst maybe she would freak out right there what would he do? Getting werid out there.
I like the price one poster saw the other day on the gas station sign that said:
LOL 9/10
$OMG.99
Lots of larger vehicles at the filling station their owners looking grim.
And mumbling to themselves “Why the hell did I buy this 12 mpg pig?”
And mumbling after they get back into the monster to leave: “I still owe $40K on it, and smilin’ Joe at the local dealership only offered me 20K for it….I’m screwed”
I know a few people who have not so new (paid for) Suburbans who basically leave them parked most of the time. They are worth so little as trade ins that they keep them for the occasional road/boat towing trip. I would take one oof their hands (for cheap), except that I have no need for a Suburban.
Gawd! I think some of the Hummer owners would be estactic for 12MPG…
(I hate HMMPWV’s after dealing with them for years in the military)…
I drive a full size Chevy Silverado. My buddy says gas must be killing me….oh yah….killer. He says that he gets 28 mpg. I reply with “I get 15 mpg”….ah GASP! My commute is 15 miles round trip, his is 100 miles. He still feels like I spend more in gas then he does as do most people who see us in full size vehicles. I will admit though, any longer of a commute and I would own a more economical vehicle.
“Lots of larger vehicles at the filling station their owners looking grim.”
I wonder if any are scraping off their Cheney-Shrub bumper stickers…;-)
“I wonder if any are scraping off their Cheney-Shrub bumper stickers…”
and those stickers of Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) with Calvin peeing on Toyota…or Chevvy…or Ford…or whatever brand threatens the driver’s great big…er…ego, I guess it’s called.
http://WWW.hydro4000.com
Finally…..a protest worth participating in:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/compliance/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208400325
Mish’s post yesterday on “Quantifying Commodities Speculation” - A very good read. It helped me better visualize some of the forces at play.
Don’t Buy This Housing Report
Unexpected is right. Undeserved too. Take even a passing glance at the joint news release from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and you’ll see just how undeserved it is.
Guess what? The very first paragraph will turn you from unexpectedly upbeat back into a Gloomy Gus. Why? Well for the very simple reason that you’ll be told that the March figures were revised downward. Got that? April was up because March was down. April earned those excited headlines about being better than expected, in large part because March was worse than first thought.
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/media/10418634.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Go Crissy Cox, Go Crissy Cox , Go Crissy Cox…only 7 more months to go before your U-Haul is loaded and headed back to “The O.C. “… sit back in your “cottage” in Newport Beach and await the next job application from Jeb Bush in 2012
SEC examining errors by credit-rating firms
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sec28-2008may28,0,3982517.story
View from RV land:
Boobs taking their teensy weensy
Suzuki tow vehicles off the back of their 10 mpg land yachts to use as principal driving vehicles, and moving those thirsty trucks off to the side of the house to collect dust.
In near future - RV & boat salesmen: “The going rate is 20 cents on the dollar, take it or leave it, those things are depreciating four times faster than Starbuck’s stock.”
Just got off the phone with a telemarketeer trying to hook me into a “free”
Discover card. It’s being offered to new businesses.
Taking the bait, I noted that I’ve been in my current biz, for, oh, 15 years, and that I already have one credit card. Don’t need any more of ‘em.
Before I rang off, I told the caller to get debt-free — it’s the best way to be.