American Visionaries
Instead of a bits bucket, let’s have a look at some interviews from Las Vegas.
More to come, I’m told.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
April 3, 2009
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Nice. Well done. Who is leading the NYC? Contingent???
That was really well done! Ben, you made your points perfectly, in a calm and rational way.
Great job everyone.
Absolutely well done. I assume the remixing and editing was done by you and not the filmmaker, right? If so, kudos.
No, I didn’t do anything but sit down for the interview.
Ben, not only did you look great, you came across as the good, reasoned and involved citizen you truly are. With this documentary, perhaps the PTB will take note of your efforts and give you the larger forum you deserve…and that our Country needs.
Kudos to the camera and sound guy here for such clean footage of the interviews. Given that they were conducted in a hotel suite with minimal lighting and lots of background chatter, they came out beautifully. Ain’t we all hot?
so did you ahansen, IMO.
“With this documentary, perhaps the PTB will take note of your efforts and give you the larger forum you deserve”
LOL
That was funny! The PTB cannot stand people like Ben. Anyone actually trying to get out the truth is scorned and ignored. You don’t actually think there were no bears in the run-up? There were plenty, but their opinion was not wanted. How many times have we read stories from people that were called to comment, or asked to be on TV, and when the people heard what they had to say…it was THANKS BUT NO THANKS.
These people only want to hear opinions that support their ability to make money.
But few are as deserving as Ben. His voice should be heard.
I love you, Banana…you know that, don’t you?
But ultimately, WE are the Powers That Be.
When making money involves listening to and acting upon what we have to say, “they” will listen.
And apparently they are.
Someone went to the time and expense to come to America and make a documentary about Ben’s blog. And a number of us cared enough about the topic to come to Las Vegas to represent for him.
Presumably all this didn’t happen in a vacuum?
Enough drops make a puddle, enough puddles make a brook, enough brooks can breach a dam and make a terrible mess of everyone’s living room.
Your words and efforts matter more than you might imagine….
‘ WE are the Powers That Be.’
I’ll go along with that. I was listening to one of my favorite bands this AM, and they had a lyric,
‘Do you know where the power lies?
It starts and it ends with you’
Enough drops make a puddle, enough puddles make a brook, enough brooks can breach a dam and make a terrible mess of everyone’s living room.
Your words and efforts matter more than you might imagine….
———————-
Amen, ahansen!
BTW, you looked and sounded great! You’re an amazing woman.
That documentary has great production quality! I’m impressed.
Awesome videos! I hope these bubble up to be watched by dozens of millions of people!
Very interesting!
Which one of the HBB crowd is that playing the guitar?
Great videos and interview, Ben, and thanks to the posters who participated. An “I told you so” for posterity.
Bravo! Well done! Kudos to all involved. Look forward to more.
Excellent job, HBBers!
Thanks for posting this, Ben.
I especially like the part about Wall Street and the journalists getting it wrong, but **THEY** got it right! Wish the politicians would finally listen to someone who got it right, instead of the same clowns who got us into this mess. Still, the tin foil hat gets a bit tight at times.
**THEY** being the HBBers.
Politicians only listen to people with money and/or fame. This is a celebrity and media driven culture. Are any of us actually wealthy or famous enough to get any attention?
Instead of land mines and obscure diseases, some movie star should take up the cause of affordable housing and banking transparency. I wonder if Halle Berry or Clive Owen have been snatched up by any other causes yet?
do you mean ’snapped up’? I only speak realtor.
I disagree with you here, NSO.
Politicians listen to people who can help get them (re)elected. Money and celebrity are part and parcel of the process, but ultimately those people represent a public mood or opinion– and give it voice.
A good number of us here have powerful ears, and you can believe our opinions are noted, if not incorporated into policy. Yet.
That said, I’d love to see Hugh Laurie represent our movement.
Except that Wall Street did not get it wrong - they succeeded in their plan to shear a goodly number of the sheep.
“If God did not want them sheared, He would not have made them sheep.” -Calaveres
True. I didn’t understand that statement. Just because they convinced people to buy doesn’t mean they actually believed it was a great time to buy. They are salesman on commission. I can assure you that those at the upper levels were not clueless. Very rarely do fools make millions by selling a crapy product.
“Very rarely do fools make millions by selling a crapy product.”
They do when people live in a short-term bust-out era, such as the one now ending.
I was thinking Wall Street, but moving down to the homeownership level, the wise seller would have taken the opportunity to sell at the peak to rent, downsize or move to a cheaper area. The fool would have moved up and/or bought more (remember My House is Worth What? - why do you want to know what your house is worth? because i want to build a huge addition or buy another house and i want to tap the equity to do it - the fact that my house shot dramatically up in value means its more likely to continue doing so in the future not less likely - any idiot knows that - what in the hell is reversion to the mean - i never heard of that). Many that claim to be winners will actually find that they are in fact the losers. There were some people that lucked out, but fools and their money are often soon departed. Most people in high positions on Wall Street can retire today millionaires for life based on 5 years salary alone. They all had exit strategies. At least those that dealt with me.
Note that I wasnt trying to imply that the product wasn’t crappy, just that you have to wait to see who is busted after the cycle is over before you declare who was ignorant of what was going on. The smart ones were just working the system and always new the party would end someday. Don’t assume those passing out the Koolaid actually drank it, and don’t assume they believed what they told you they believed.
“(remember My House is Worth What? - why do you want to know what your house is worth? because i want to build a huge addition or buy another house and i want to tap the equity to do it - the fact that my house shot dramatically up in value means its more likely to continue doing so in the future not less likely - any idiot knows that - what in the hell is reversion to the mean - i never heard of that)”
That is an awesome parenthetical.
Tim wrote:
The smart ones were just working the system and always new the party would end someday. Don’t assume those passing out the Koolaid actually drank it, and don’t assume they believed what they told you they believed.
—————-
Absolutely agree with you, Tim. My comment above was referring to what the documentary said — not my own opinion.
Of course, some people were just going along for the ride, but the very top were 100% aware of the eventual outcome. No doubt about it, IMHO.
Nice piece. Funny how the last few minutes of part two tie in so nicely with todays NYT revelation that Fannie Freddie are paying Retention bonuses to their peeps.
WTH will someone take out their BOD and CEO/mgmnt and shoot them. For petesake.
Can’t wait for part 3.
Anyway, very nicely done.
Very cool. It adds a new dimension to the blog when you can visualize some of the people. I still get a little haired when there is a subtle implication that HBBers and their opinions are “fringe”.
Cabinet positions, professorships and journalism jobs for everyone in the video!
Excellent.
But I’d like to see a cast of characters added so I can put names with faces.
+1
But you recognize or can take a good guess about some.
Ahansen is beautiful as ever.
HWY is definitely HWY!
Some of us only consented to be interviewed with the condition that names not be put with faces.
But you mention Cassandra, right?
ahansen is a Cassandra, but not the HBB Cassandra–although we’re quite similar in many of our posts.
(Archetypes are like that….)
ooops.
[apologies]
I’m the one with glasses talking about PT Barnum at the beginning of Part I. I won’t out anyone else.
I was discussing the projects in Manhattan NY that were stopped. This includes a property from the Related Group at 42nd and 10th that has sat idle for many many months.
Hi No different then Long Island city 2 brand new buildings they are finishing up, and NO buyers…I wonder why?
———————————————–
Save for your future home while living there. Apply up to 6 months of rent to the purchase price
Rent-To-Own offers buyers the opportunity to live in a residence at L haus and apply a portion of their monthly rent to the purchase of the residence. Participants can choose to rent any of the homes available for sale at L haus and apply up to six months of market-rate rent to the purchase price. This built-in savings plan will accelerate a buyer’s ability to purchase the home by allowing them to save on rent payments that would otherwise be lost and live in their chosen home while deciding whether or not to purchase. Additionally, this program offers buyers the option to continue to rent for the duration of their lease. This unique flexibility offers potential buyers an additional level of comfort should their plans, finances or employment status change. Price Protection and a 3-2-1 Rate Buy-Down are not available in conjunction with Rent-To-Own.
For example: A one-bedroom one-bathroom home selling for $535,000 will cost a buyer approximately $2,400 per month to rent. When a buyer is ready to purchase the residence, they will have already saved $14,400 to apply towards their purchase.
http://www.lhauslic.com/index.php
Congressman wants emergency declared over drywall
PARKLAND, Fla. — A South Florida congressman is asking Gov. Charlie Crist to declare a state of emergency over problems attributed to tainted Chinese drywall.
Boca Raton Democrat Robert Wexler wrote Crist a letter Thursday. The congressman says the health and safety risks associated with the drywall are similar to the impact of a hurricane or other natural disaster.
Declaring a state of emergency would enable Florida residents to apply for federal funding to replace the drywall.
Crist spokeswoman Erin Isaacs told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that Crist was reviewing Wexler’s letter.
An estimated 30,000 Florida homes could contain sulfur-emitting Chinese drywall that reeks of rotten eggs, destroys residential wiring and appliances and could cause health problems.
April 3, 2009 - 6:20 a.m. EDT
Well, I avoid Chinese seafood imports, dog food, and wouldn’t buy their toys or formula for my kids. I mostly boycott Walmart except when I need TP or the odd small item. I have somewhat de-Chinafied my life. I refuse to give up Chinese food, however…as long as it’s made with domestic ingredients and lots of tasty MSG.
A few years back , a Chinese restaurant was shut down in Palm Beach Gardens Fl. because they were caught with skinned cats in the freezer. But I think they were domestic.
Anybody who has tried it knows dog tastes better than cat.
yeck!
Yeck??
Better watch out, or PETA (People Enjoying Tasty Animals) will dump a side of beef on your front doorstep.
“PETA (People Enjoying Tasty Animals)”
That is funny
But I think they were domestic.
Oh, well—that’s okay, then.
Like NoSingy, I’ve attempted to de-Chinafy my life, rather casually in the past, but much more concertedly since the melamine scare.
I love trying interesting and bizarre foods and candies, but that surely DON’T mean ‘grow a new mutant head outta your neck while your liver simultaneously fails’ interesting and bizarre.
Nowadays I read food and candy labels and put it back if it says ‘Made in China’. Probably too late for me, though.
Soon I shall introduce you all to my new mutant head. I shall call it, umm….lessee…what would be a good new mutant head name, guys? Stephanie? Joyce?
(Oh, and I’m not really worried about the liver. My liver’s freakin’ bionic. )
Kimberley.
No. Freakin. Way.
I’m not even going to add exclamation points for emphasis, because I’m so gobsmacked.
We are separated twins, that’s just all there is to it. (Except you’re a boy and can add and are smart and such-like stuff.)
Kimberly was my very first choice! Yes, really! But then I remembered we have a Kim who posts here and I thought maybe she would not appreciate me announcing the decision to give my new mutant head the same name she has. Yes, we might also have a Stephanie poster here, but if so, she hasn’t said, so I figure that’s more okay. Also, I wasn’t going to have an ‘e’ in the ‘Kimberly’ of my new head’s name, and I was going to dot the ‘i’ in Kimberly with a little heart, instead of a dot, so that’s different, too.
Still—this’s like freakin’ Jungian! Or magic! Or just creepy! Cut it out, Fasty!
How do you know the new head is female? Maybe there was testosterone in your candy too.
How do you know the new head is female? Maybe there was testosterone in your candy too.
HAHAhahAHAHAHAaaa! That’s funny!
I have been attempting withdrawal in the Chinesian Detox Clinic Mode for several years. Not that I’m addicted, it’s just that my US pushers don’t want to give me a choice of Chinese lead, poisons or quality junk for my consumer fix.
I second FPSS’s pick of Kimberly for Oly’s mutant head’s name. If you have to wake up in the morning with a hangover and a talking head, she might as well be a Kimberly.
Kimberly with a little heart
I actually thought of dotting the `i’ with a heart too but, of course, I conceived of it satirically.
I admit that I didn’t think about dropping the `e’. That never crossed my mind.
You know what, maybe it could be ‘Kimberli’.
See, then that way there’s TWO chances for adorable little heart ‘i’ dotting.
Plus that spelling makes it wayyyy more exotic-like.
I second FPSS’s pick of Kimberly for Oly’s mutant head’s name. If you have to wake up in the morning with a hangover and a talking head, she might as well be a Kimberly.
….Oh, sweet mercy, mikey. You’re right. And that’s double the hangovers. And it’ll probably talk a LOT.*
This is gonna totally suck!
*Maybe even argue with me and demand to use my favorite barettes! Dam*mit!
It makes it sound like an out-of-work Realtor™ who is now augmenting her income at a local downmarket strip-joint.
But maybe that’s exactly what your mutant head actually is.
But maybe that’s exactly what your mutant head actually is.
Maybe that’s what my REAL head actually is, except for not the out-of-work-realtor part.
After all, I am coy about what I do, and I talk about my high-heels and love of sparkles a lot. Huh huh huh!
*crooks eyebrows in a knowing and down-market stripper-like sort of way *
Hahahahaah!
(Actually, I just said that to sound cool. I am not a stripper. Much.
And I CERTAINLY would not tolerate any mutant head of mine naming itself ‘Kimberli’. The very idea!)
I see Olympia, WA is #2 for bad hair. You’ll have to take your second head out of state to get her hair cut.
Corpus Christi is #1!
You may not be a real stripper Olygal but you may have problems when Kimberly wants to pole dance in the Greatest Dive Bar in Washington
but you may have problems when Kimberly wants to pole dance in the Greatest Dive Bar in Washington
How can that possibly be a problem? We’ll get money and also probably some free beer.
Well, Bink, I went to that website and I declare it to be a buncha errant hooey!
‘The website made its list based on annual averages for the following criteria: humidity, sunshine, wind, rain water hardness, pollution levels and the number of beauty salons per capita.
Maybe we’re so naturally radiant here that we don’t NEED beauty salons. And sunshine parches us. And rain makes our hair nice and supple, and mossy. So there!
*tosses fluffy green supple head *
Anyway, I ain’t going to somewhere else to get a mutant haircut. He/she/it can just do it the same way my main head does it: Drink beer and grab some scissors.
“when I need TP or the odd small item.”
Nosingleone, be really careful, if there is sulfur
emitting from drywall, you have no idea what is
in the TP and soon your will be emiting sulfur??as well?
Better ask Olygal to send boxes of leaves, broad leaves.
Better ask Olygal to send boxes of leaves, broad leaves.
And for you, NoSingy, I would do it. (Although you probably know that leaves don’t actually work that good.)
So, you like maple or would you prefer alder?
The “Chinese Brand” started out “tainted”: poisonous Heparin, toxic baby formula, leaded paint in toys, merchandise that doesn’t work or is not worth the price, truly dangerous products. China as a world power? An economic juggernaut? Sure, when they start being more responsible. For example, when America lost its sense of responsibility (9/11, Iraq, housing, debt, tech bubble, stock bubble, trillions in bailouts, etc.) we then begat an ongoing world problem with this “crisis”. What problems would a leader like China begat? Hmmm. China would be a beacon of liberty and progressive thinking no doubt.
Who takes our - USA’s & The Western Democracies - place? That’s the problem. No one does.
No, I don’t understand the implications of that statement. It may be that there is no leader for the first time in many centuries… OR it may be that there is a totally new way of doing things. We have never been able to communicate like now.
We have never been here before. Still, history rhymes. I wonder what this chorus is?
Roidy
I live in Parkland - and I think the only “state of emergency” at Parkland Golf and Country Club is that the developer, WCI Industries, is in bankruptcy. And the development is a bust. You can’t give a house away in there - most pre-construction buyers were flippers and the place is turning into a dust bowl.
I live in a neighborhood nearby - in 2007 (after prices began to tank) WCI’s pet lenders continued to write loans for ridiculously inflated purchase prices. *Real* appraisers would shake their heads about the “comps” in Parkland Golf and CC. They wouldn’t use them for the other Parkland neighborhoods.
Now Chinese drywall is going to save these flipper’s arses. I don’t discount that it’s going to be a huge pain to replace it, but I’m not so sure about the “state of emergency” designation.
They should just build sand bag walls in front of all the drywall in homes, like when a flood comes, holding back the tide of chinese drywall and rotten egg stink.
They should use American sand for the sand bags.
Send them truckloads of drywall torn from other foreclosed/abandoned neighborhoods and tell ‘em to hang it themselves if they want to. Emergency my ass. New T-shirt idea: “I survived the great drywall disaster of 09″.
Federal funding - Holy Crist!
Of course, this is for a European TV documentary. No American TV doc would report on this hot potato.
Vegas is ugly, btw.
It leaves it to the viewer to fill in the blanks. OK if you already know the story I guess.
I wish they’d ID the commenters (who are not “bloggers” BTW). I recognize only ahansen at the beginning and Hwy50 the end.
I wish they’d ID the commenters (who are not “bloggers” BTW) ??
Huh…How did you conclude that ?? Who do you think they are aspiring actors…
Ben is the blogger here.
Yeah, they need to Id the people as they are speaking. Easy enough fix.
How very appropriate that the two of us most removed from the whole mess would also be the most recognizable. Curiously, we turn out to be “neighbors” in the same obscure wildlands. Must be the unrepentant hippie-freak gene….
You guys are cool.
+ Infinity
Lostie!
First Alad, now you resurface. Life is good!
Alad? Where is he??? I miss the rascal, gold teeth and all…
Lostie, a big hug gal. Glad to see you posting. Alad posting was an April Fools Day prank.
Big hugs back to one of this blog’s coolest posters!
I could tell you and Hwy were neighbors.
joshing.
Howdy neighbor!
Mr. Cole & I are going to catch x1 of those $20,000 Bucky Fins @ the lake this weekend. 50% payout to Ben’s HBB for an America regional beer tasting/HBB autograph signing tour/party!
Ben, your so damn SENSIBLE!
Bernie Mac ( Miss you
) : “You see America, that’s what I’m talking ’bout…you LISTENING AMERICA! Ben Jones, …he’s THE MAN! That’s right America, that’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout… dang, give those HBB posters…The… “GOT IT RIGHT!” medal of honor, see America’s O.K., plenty of good folks left, plenty…That’s right America, …America, land that we love…dang.” 
Dress warm, honey, or you’ll freeze your patooties off in this wind. Isabella was a madhouse this morning. (Redundant, I know….) Looked like every bass boat in East Yahoo had converged on those poor fish for the weekend.
Go git ‘im! (And don’t forget the G&T’s)
Vegas is ugly, btw.
No kidding. Is that the way it mostly looks or was the footage edited to make it look especially crappy?
Vegas is, at least to me, the epitome of phony. My wife loves it, I can take it or leave it. The only exception I have found was Hoover Dam. If you’ve never taken the hardhat tour put it on your to do list.
Mike
But Vegas was never ment to look great? It’s a theme park in the desert. With lots and lots of car accidents. The few weekends I’ve been in Vegas for various Defcon conferences, I’ve seen the most car accidents in my life.
Vegas is not just ugly. It’s a pock mark. Vegas is a pock mark.
Big V –
Been trying to get a hold of you about tonight’s gathering, but I don’t have your email here. I’m in SF sick today, so I won’t be able to make it tonight. Sorry for the late notice, but I’m at the library (all dizzy) and doing the best I can…
MrBubble
Have some extra beans for me tonight, Bay Area HBBers. I have to work.
Mr. Bubble, why in the world are you at the library when you’re all dizzy? Think, man! Think!
Books aren’t that soft and cozy to fall on. You should go to the ‘Fluffy Cushion and Squishy Baby Ducklings’ store right away! Go! Go!
WHAT? You were one of the people bugging me about this. Fine, be that way.
How about Vegas is an inflamed boil on the buttocks of the world?
Question for Ben and/or the HBBers who were in Vegas:
Did you guys happen to go to a property called Manhattan West, or haven’t you linked articles about it here?? Just curious, ’cause the name sounded familiar and the developer was on “Millionaire Matchmaker” last night. He described himself as someone with a net worth of about 40 million and who “builds small cities.” Quite the character, but not in a good way IMHO. Anyways, this is his baby:
http://www.previewvegascondos.com/condo-cancellations/64
How could you go wrong investing with someone with that kinda hair?
Did you guys happen to go to a property called Manhattan West ??
I believe we did but the picture on your link does not look familiar….
Oops. Previous link wrong.
Right One
blano, I caught that too last night. OMG. what a ‘winner’.
I saw that and thought, wow, if only the hbbers could see this guy.
Did you guys happen to go to a property called Manhattan West…
The picture in that article is just a generic skyline shot of Vegas.
Here’s a link to the shots I took during the “Magical Misery Tour”.
Wow Ben…That was terrific. Man, that must have been a lot of work putting that all together. Very Impressive!
Congratulations to everyone including the film and production crew. I was smiling like a cat watching the clips and I am proud to kind of know you guys. The Ben Jones Blog speaks for a lot of people and allows us to have a voice, opinion and a little fun too…Thx again for being the front man and having the dedication to do all of this .
Ben and the HBBer’s “KNEW IT”…and now, it’s finally… really documented for everyone to see
Ben:
Good start to the piece….But I do have to give a little constructive criticism:
The Music has got to be at a much lower volume or at least faded in…..
It would have been nice to see a lot picture of the abandoned complexes,( instead of MGM) with signs Luxury Town houses stating low $700’s the crossed out Low $600’s then mid $500″s i think you have a few pictures like that in your photo gallery. So those should be used in a cutaway.
Plus shots of brand new never lived in homes vandalized, we see enough of Detroit.
I think the pawn shop music is great, maybe a shot inside a pawn shop with all the “luxury” items. Or yard sales with the skidoo, boat all the MEW money tossed away.
We all want this to be spectacular so that everyone will finally “get it”.
I appreciate the input. But this isn’t our film. I’m sure the director will read these comments and see what you said.
BTW, I’m very proud of everyone involved. We didn’t discuss what we were going to say beforehand, so what you see is straight from the posters hearts.
“…so what you see is straight from the posters hearts.”
And some motivation from that bottle of:
red, red wine! 
The same thoughts came to me after I saw the videos.
From Office of Thrift Supervision report, last quarter data:
“Nearly one in four loan modifications in the fourth quarter actually resulted in increased monthly payments. ”
Last line of article is an eye-opener:
Delinquencies are increasing the most among prime loans made to borrowers with strong credit, it said.
Good credit isn’t worth $100,000-$200,000 to most people especially when the government is pushing to keep banks from foreclosing (so 90 days free rent becomes 270 or more).
Absolutely, bluto. I think we are going to see a tsunami (overused metaphor?
) of delinquencies. Only chumps pay their mortgages now-a-days. The govt is practically telling everyone to stop paying their mortgages. If they want fraud and graft, they’ll get it.
The increased fees language in the article appears to be very misleading. The reason stated was “fees or past-due interest.” Why in the hell should past-due interest be deemed an increased cost? You had to pay it yesterday, so amortizing it over time actually puts you in a better position. Also, if you were in a teaser rate or a variable rate mortgage that is about to go up or may go up in the future, you would expect a modification into a fixed rate to be at a higher rate. Because the higher payment is fixed, however, it is actually safer with respect to risk of future defaults because it can’t jump up unexpectedly, especially when you are locking in at an all time low for interest rates and certain inflation in the future. Just seems like bad reporting to me.
Increased fees = increased payments.
“Delinquencies are increasing the most among prime loans made to borrowers with strong credit, it said.”
I don’t find this surprising at all. Most that bought near the peak of the bubble overpaid significantly and stretched to do so. The issue is more of when one bought than the credit profile of the buyer. It’s mostly not the loan type that’s ultimately the problem. Those that had prime credit just had more means to delay the inevitable. On a strictly financial basis, most of these people should just walk away.
Agree, SDGreg.
I tried posting this last night but either I screwed up my username or it is just too stupid a question. Whether or not I see the post today will provide much insight!
http://market-ticker.org/archives/923-FLASH-AIG-CALLED-CRIMINAL-SCAM!.html
Can someone explain the concept of “side letters” to me? It seems like a “side letter” is a way of giving preferential treatment to one investor over another. Is this sort of thing illegal on its face? This is what the author of the post at the link I provided seems to be saying.
I read (PDF!) http://www.dechert.com/library/FS_Update5_6-06.pdf
and the conclusion reached by the authors is that the SEC has not declared “side letters” to be illegal but that they should be disclosed.
I tried posting this last night but either I screwed up my username or it is just too stupid a question. Whether I see the post today or not will provide much insight!
I posted something with a link in it. Not sure when/if it will show up. My reinsurance studies are a bit on the old/rusty side.
In order for a reinsurance agreement to meet with regulatory approval, it must actually transfer risk. The reinsurance agreement is presented to regulators, and the side letter is not. Therein lies a whole can of worms.
The side letter thing is making the AIG mess more understandable to me.
http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=5325
Ben mentions Manhattan West on that page.
The list goes on and on!
Chinese Imports?
When are Americans going to wake up? Whats it going to take to stop buying this crap? Oh, I forgot, we’re a world community now.
Nevermind about quality, Americans have no sense of quality, just name brands. Americans are self centered. So, if I’m a contractor and use Chinese drywall and it kills or injures health wise so what!
The same for food processors. Clothig from China, quality, who cares its cheap. Toys loaded with lead. How about that FDA? Geeze, IRS auditors that can’t add. High School grads, who can’t tell you who Reagan was, or need GPS to find Texas.
America, land of the sheep, waiting for the next food handout.
Pistachios and lettuce from California! Peanuts from Georgia!
Wait, who are we complaining about again?
Krugman puts it in perspective.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/opinion/03krugman.html?ref=opinion
At some point our economic relationship stopped being mutally beneficial, and became mutually destructive.
China might blame U.S. overborrowing; me implied we went on a consumption binge because we could (people are not rational actors with free will) and China caused the problem by not allowing the yuan to float.
The newest thing is that China wants to become a world leader in manufacturing electric cars. I’m afraid that the cars will be good quality.
Here’s a link. It will show up eventually:
————-
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/global/02electric.html?_r=1&hp
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: April 1, 2009
TIANJIN, China —
Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.
To some extent, China is making a virtue of a liability. It is behind the United States, Japan and other countries when it comes to making gas-powered vehicles, but by skipping the current technology, China hopes to get a jump on the next.
————-
Nice going, Rick Wagonner.
Concentrate on the profitprofitprofit — putting all you eggs in one SUV basket — while other companies leave you in the dust. No wonder Obama threw you to the wolves.
Ok…..
Here in the NorthEast polar regions, the most expensive and inefficient way to heat up your home is via electric heat. The reason for this is severalfold, but it generally involves either huge capital investment in producing electricity via hydroelectric power, or the asinine and redundant (cap and trade, or Off shore wind farm opposed by Teddy anyone) environmental regulations that makes producing electricity a fairly costly endeavor. That is without saying that producing electricity is a highly energy consuming venture. To produce electricity you need to spin huge generators, and keep them spinning. In order to deliver that electricity, you need to “transport” it losing a lot of the original power generated, and for each change of media, (i.e, you go from coal->electricity->transport->house->car->road) you lose power.
In order to make an electric car “efficient” you need highly efficient batteries, and batteries are heavy, To move that weight you need power. The more range to an electric car, the more power it needs to move the batteries, therefore, the more electricity it would draw…
Hybrids take advantage of the deceleration of the car, and use the gas engine while cruising the highway, recharging the batteries as they do so. A purely electrical car would not generate any power during its use, and would constantly be draining it from the batteries. You would need to recharge it fairly frequently ( the Tesla was annouced with a 300 mile range) and that recharge would take some time.
The last thing that is a major obstacle for the electric cars, is that you are NOT generating less polution. In fact you are generating more, as most of the electricity generated in the US is generated with COAL… A very dirty and polluting fuel.
There are alternatives to gasoline. Propane is used extensively in Europe and Latam for public and private transportation, but it requires a larger, and specially built engine, but it does burn cleaner, and is less polluting than gasoline. Diesel is another alternative, with biodiesel a nice option.
“Here in the NorthEast polar regions, the most expensive and inefficient way to heat up your home is via electric heat.”
Penny,
Just a note. Electric resistance heating is 100% efficient. It just so happens that the cost per unit, in this case kilowatts, is absurdly high.
+1 pinch. You hit the nail on the head.
I can’t get over how many people are clueless about energy, to the point of thinking that electric cars are actually net zero emission energy usage. Sure the car *itself* doesn’t emit gases, but where do these people think the energy comes from? Do they think it’s just created by the car or something?
It’s a big pet peeve of mine - a big one. Energy and environmental issues are probably the single biggest source (or should I say target) of misinformation spread by the media and by the government.
Exeter:
I agree that once the energy gets to the end resistance it is very efficient. It is getting there that is hugely inefficient. The resistance of the conduit cables from where it is produced to where it is used is absurdly high, and this is why the cost of the KW/hr is so high.
I think that this “green” movement is just a way to shift attitutes in the general population to spend money in other things. It is but a clever marketing ploy, and most people are falling hook line and sinker into it.
There are ways to being environmentally conscious, but they are generally cheap, and not “green cool”. For instance, consuming less products altogether, buying a used car (50% of the energy that a car is going to use in its lifetime is used at the time of manufacture), buying less clothes, trinkets, electronics, etc…
What gets me is that NONE of these things are ever publizised (sp?) due to them not being economically friendly.
“I think that this “green” movement is just a way to shift attitutes in the general population to spend money in other things.”
Bingo. Same concept as many wars.
“50% of the energy that a car is going to use in its lifetime is used at the time of manufacture.”
Curious - got a link supporting that? I’ve often wondering if anyone did a study on that.
wondering = wondered
All of those things are economically friendly as it reduces consumption and therefore increases savings and investment in other areas.
A note on electric cars… electric engines are more efficient than gas engines. Big generators at power plants are much more efficient than gas engines in cars. The cost to commute in an electric car (40 miles per day) is $0.90 or $0.0225/mile assuming $0.10/kwh. The cost of gasoline($2/gal) for a vehicle doing 40 miles/gal is about $0.05 (twice the cost).
Gasoline requires a ton of energy to produce and transport to gas stations. The energy used in the production of gasoline and the transportation of that gasoline is almost NEVER FACTORED IN when people compare to electric.
The biggest problem with electric cars is the 5-8 hour recharge cycle. This makes them poor choices for long distance traveling. I save $1200/year at todays gas prices by driving a home made electric truck. Back when prices were at $4/gal I was saving $3-4K/year on gas compared to my other vehicle.
Energy is costly, so the cost of commuting will give you a good gauge of the energy efficiency (and therefore greenness) of your choice. You can power an electric car with wind, nuclear, solar, geothermal, and therefore the electric cars can be much more environmentally friendly even if we are only realizing some of the potential today.
Sorry, I think that I got my facts a bit confused. The Energy used to build a car is about 6-8% depending on the nature of the materials. The pollution to build one is about 66% of the total pollution that the car will generate during its lifecycle. Here is some of the info with nice pie charts.
http://www.iere.org/ILEA/lcas/macleanlave1998.html
VirginiaTechDan:
Electrical engines are indeed more efficient, as they have less moving parts and have constant torque throughout the RPM band. That is one of the main reasons that Diesel-Electric locomotives are very efficient, as the Diesel will be running at its constant best RPM range, and the electic provides the motricity.
As far as electric rates go, are you talkign about the base rate?. I see that National Grid Adds on the distribution charge, the customer charge, the transmission charge, the transition charge, demand side management charge, renewable charge, and the cost is quite a bit higher. BTW, all of those charges are based on KW/Hr and are assesed at the base rate. Once you go over a certain threshold the rates double and triple.
Yes, it would be ideal if we could have tracks like the ones we had when we were growing up built into the streets, and cars would be charged while we drive them, and you as a user of an electric car, are aware that the limitation to them is that sometimes there is nowhere to plug them in!. You have to do a little more due diligence and plan your trips in advance, so that you are not left stranded without a plug on the other end.
My main point though is that no matter how energy is created, byproducts (some of them toxic, lots of them unwanted) are part of energy creation, even in solar (somebody has to make them). There is really no ultimate “green” technology, unless we want to go back to living in caves and hunting moose for a living.
VTD –
“The energy used in the production of gasoline and the transportation of that gasoline is almost NEVER FACTORED IN when people compare to electric.”
Any halfassed LCA would take production and transportation costs into account. That said, transportation costs (in all of the LCA’s that I have performed personally) are quite low w.r.t. all of the other energy costs involved (esp. if refrigeration is needed in the retail phase). You can find two of our studies that demonstrated these data on-line under keywords: “climate conservancy” and “new belgium” or “earthbound farm”.
MrBubble
VaTechDan - nice! I looked at projects where people filled the beds of pickups with SLA / Gel / AGM type batteries and ran them on an electric motor plated to the car tranny. Are you one of the peoples websites I was reading?
If all the streets were like a giant Tyco slot car track, then we could only go in a complete circle, albeit a windy twisty one. But I guess it’d be green!
Best solution I’ve heard about is swappable batteries. You pull up to the service station and they swap out your battery pack for a fresh charged set. Then you have no problems with distance.
Logistically that’s always been difficult - e.g. what if you get an old set that only goes 300 miles instead of 400, but you paid for 400. In this day of easy technology though that seems like it’d be an easy problem to solve - e.g. put mileage detectors in the battery pack and then charge based on how many miles you went.
This also solves the problem of quicker charging via very high voltages, as well as the problem of not having to re-wire everyone’s house to install a charger (unless they wanted it). Low-voltage 110 could still be used as an emergency charge.
The biggest problem remaining though - it seems to me - is simply battery creation and disposal. Not exactly the cleanest and safest chemicals, and also not cheap I’m sure if there ends up being a mass market for them. So that’s a new environmental issue created by electric (and hybrid) cars.
(Note - I own a hybrid highlander)
1. Comparing electric heat to the use of electricity in a car is absurd.
2. You clearly post the energy cost of generating electricity but there are energy costs in drilling, shipping, oil and gas..
3. The real issue is that a gas engine has an efficiency of less than 20% while an electric motor has an efficiency of close to 90%. When you stop the car you can recapture energy with an electric motor but not with a gas engine. When you sit at a stop light or coast you still consume gas but use nothing with electricity.
4. The proof is in the energy cost per mile- much lower with electric. If one converts all forms of energy to BTUS and takes into account energy lost in generation and transmission and at the battery and motor the EV1 got an equivalent of 70mpg. It had an acceleration of 0-60 in 8.5 sec similar to an Acura 3.2 which got 24mpg. Now with lithium ion batteries the EV1 would have even higher mpg equivalent, and if one looked at driving around town the EV1 would show an even larger advantage.
5. Many EVs critics point out that charging thousands of EVs from aging coal plants World Resources Institute, EVs recharging from coal-fired plants will reduce CO2 emissions in the country from 17 to 22 percent. Now assume natural gas and a 20% renewable energy system, and you do even better. Electric cars are a great for diversification of energy use. Coal, wind, gas, diesel, solar biomass ect.
6. Charging time – Tesla = 3.5 hours, but there are new fast charging batteries that may shorten this to 15 minutes
Bottom line - electric is much more efficient,reduces pollution, diversifies our energy sources, and reduces consumption of foreign oil. Range is limited, but many have two cars and many could rent for longer trips. Cost of building electric is dropping and cost of oil will soon rise through the roof.
As I said before, no matter what energy you plan on using, they all have limitations and drawbacks, and they all have byproducts. Those that are selling EV’s as the ultimate non polluting machine conveniently let out the fact that most of the electricity produced is produced with coal.
They also conveniently do not mention that our aging power grid is at the verge of collapse, and that several regions are one power plant away from brownouts, or blackouts.
I would love to see an electric car that I can drive along like a regular car, and charge at stations along the way when i need it. Or even better charge them on the road like the electric trains. But these are quite a ways off.
You also conveniently let out of the equation that while the electrical motor itself is rather more efficient than a gas engine, the power plants producing it are not even in that same range as the electric with an average efficiency of 31%, and that a lot of electricity is lost in transport. If you think abut electricity this way, you are transfering 1lb of coal to your car through an extensive grid.
I am not even going to the production and recovery of coal that has to be one of the most environmentaly unfriendly endeavors, specially dealing with open mining.
Pollution and energy usage are two separate issues. I was merely pointing out that electric vehicles use less energy and therefore COST LESS to run.
The fact that our power grid is about to fail is insignificant next to the economy that is about to fail… when you combine the two we have much bigger problems than pollution.
Having a place to plug in is not a problem with a commuter car. If you need to travel, you rent a car or take your second car. People want one car to do everything. Buy a cheap 15 year old light weight car or mini van for road trips. Buy a truck for hauling, etc.
Electric heat has a COP (coefficient of performance) of 1. Heat pumps use the same electricity to move 3-4x the energy from one temp to another.
The battery bank on my truck is 250AH at 144V (24, 6V 250AH batts) which means I can safely use about 18KWH per-charge or about 400-500KWH per month which is about 50% more power than my house uses during the average summer month. I doubt that many people would face rates that double simply by adding an EV to their household.
Charging the batteries with r-charge.org battery charger keeps the batteries good for much longer than any other charger.
Both sides have some good points. There is still a bit of a shell game going on with EV’s due to the unavailability of sufficient batteries at a cost that makes the shift viable, at least to a degree where a meaningful dent in aggregate fossil energy consumption is actually realized.
People who believe that we’re close to solving the battery issue, for the most part, have been taken in by the hype of battery companies or start-ups, looking to raise capital and/or government funds. Sound familiar?
The problem with all of these alternative technologies, EV included, is that when you begin to scale them to levels that make a serious difference, they either
1. Don’t scale whatsoever
2. All kinds of onerous environmental issues of other sorts start to kick in, often worse than the original problem.
They’re trying to browbeat us all into looking at CO2 as THE environmental issue, for well, obvious political reasons. It’s simply one issue of many, and it may turn out that it’s not an issue at all once we really understand what’s going on with apparent atmospheric temperature swings. CO2 is not a pollutant, it’s a necessary and beneficial part of our atmosphere.
BTW, I sold and installed solar power systems for 8 years. I got out because it became obvious to me that I was just selling a bunch of expensive stuff to people, most of whom were borrowing stupidly to finance the whole mess. There was nothing “green” about it in a true, net energy consumed sense. HBB logic really helped me sort this out.
Just like chinese drywall?
A car that runs by burning Chinese drywall? Fascinating! I don’t think the hippies would approve. I kept saying there was going to be a shortage of fry oil, and the hippies would run the market up on used cooking oil to the point it’s more expensive than gasoline.
Terry,
Someone in this very blog told me he’d pass me on the grocery isle while I was buying cat food to eat as he bought fillet mignon for his dinner.
This was all because I stated that I’d buy American over Chinese every time.
Whereas I do not eat meat, I thought he was factually wrong: you end up paying more for the Chinese product. However, tens of millions disagree with me.
I don’t disagree with you, Muir. I’m right in there with ya. Some of the most expensive products I’ve purchased were from China, like the $2.50 brass hasp from Home Depot, where the screws stripped within 3 turns of the screwdriver.
Yep, Chinese products are the most expensive on the planet. Just ask anyone who had a snootful of their tainted pseudo-food. Chuck Fina.
The “made in China” model has nothing to do with making products cheaper, but everything to do with making cheaper products, and selling them for the same prices, thus increasing profit margins tenfold. The customer doesn’t save, especially considering the quality, but the CEO gets 5 houses and a yacht.
Correctemundo!
Wow!
Got agreement
Beats telling me to go eat cat food
(I still don’t eat meat, so THERE!)
(I still don’t eat meat, so THERE!)
But don’t you wannnnt to? Don’t you realllllly, Mr. Muir?
*with an insinuating whispery sort of evil voice delivery *
I believe that was BIL.
I believe you’re right, SFGal!
BTW, agree the others that Chinese products actually cost more over time, and are far more polluting than our old-fashioned, American-made products.
Either you pay $500 for a product that lasts 20 years or you pay $200 for a product that has to be replaced every two years (and think of all the pollution that results from the manufacturing process to the disposal of the item). I’d much rather pay more for a better product… and to keep better jobs that pay decent wages and have decent benefits in the U.S.
For all of you Ron Paul fans, he appears briefly in the trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie “Bruno” (the trailer is not really safe for work):
http://www.cinematical.com/2009/04/02/first-trailer-for-sacha-baron-cohens-bruno/
Thanks Skroodle. I had to watch it twice, but I finally caught it.
you HAD to watch it 2x?
haha
It was pretty cool, and I was impressed by those in the clips. Before I judge the movie as a whole, however, I need to see the whole thing. The clips seemed to imply that there was a greed induced housing mania, which I do not dispute, but I didn’t see much if any discussion on Wall Street’s very intentional debt leverage games nor the government’s intention to turn everyone into home-owning debt slaves and intentional bubble creation and continuation. It’s cool to see the crazed puppets dancing, but the movie will be much more powerful if the puppet masters are revealed. Exactly how were people allowed to buy things they could not afford? That is what would make the movie a real eye-opener.
+1
All my thoughts exactly. The clips seem like a good trailer.
I also thought the bloggers interviewed were great. I would definitely like to see some toned-down music choices (this was too in-yer-face and repetitive) and less 1sec cut-away scenes.
Focus on the message, which is that there were plenty of non-govt types who could see the problem, that there are many ways to identify problems using simple (though never taught in school) equations (price-to-rent, etc), and that there are people/corporations/govt entities behind the scenes we could identify that helped cause the problem.
It was great to put some faces with some IDs!
Agreed. Can anyone do a simple post that helps us identify the ppl shown?
I thought what happens in Vegas was supposed to stay in Vegas?
Digicams and youtube changed all that - this time it’s different.
I heard that some ppl asked not to be identified. Please don’t breach their trust, but if you wish to identify yourself via your handle on here, that would be interesting. I think we all know who Ben was.
I would definitely like to see some toned-down music choices (this was too in-yer-face and repetitive) and less 1sec cut-away scenes.
Yes, the quick edits were a little annoying. Still, off to a good start.
Visually, Las Vegas seems to be the perfect choice for a backdrop — craptastic artifice blown out to mammoth proportions.
I note there was talk of buying cars ppl could not otherwise afford with HELOCs but that is at the lower tier of the pyramid and relates to how were they “able” rather than how they were “allowed.” I note that having worked in the industry, across the board consensus that housing only goes up in value at the top tier is not a complete answer by a long-shot.
The HBBer on the documentary who observed that people making $50,000 per year were suddenly parking $50,000 vehicles in the university parking lot back in 2002. This is similar to what I observed in the South Bay part of LA in 2003 through 2006. I think it was an astute observation that something was wrong, and he had it right that it was the HELOCs.
I’ve never sensed that people here believe that the housing bubble and its progeny was the result of a governmental or Wall Street plan. It’s always seemed to me that the consensus is that the cause was more reckless disregard than intention. I think the video, thus far, captures the essence of what this blog has been about: the fact that, regardless of the intentions of the perpetrators, the collapse could be foreseen.
To the extent that there were “puppet masters,” I envision them as having cut the strings and let the puppets run free.
I cannot speak for everyone, but with respect to government, I have read discussion after discussion of the government’s intentional goal of increasing home ownership, manipulation of interest rates and regulation/deregulation and its relation to the bubble. The linkage is clear although often misleadingly manipulated for political purposes. As far as Wall Street, I have represented investment banks in the securitization/derivatives business since well before the housing bubble started. Increased leverage and off balance sheet treatment was the primary focus for increased profits since the very beginning. Stripping off the ownership benefits while dumping the principal outlay are core concepts. As for me, the ties are not a belief, but a known fact. I have seen how the gurus turned a dollar into $10 of purchasing power. I don’t think most ppl know about this, especially outside this blog. That is why i think it is so important to tell the whole story.
“but with respect to government, I have read discussion after discussion of the government’s intentional goal of increasing home ownership,”
It is a fact that upping house ownership was public policy. Dough head was the sales manager for it with the lam-o sloganeering, “ownership society”.
And millions of people got owned by this transfer of wealth scam disguised as public policy.
And the scam continues on.
The goal was always to increase home debtorship for the banks.
It was a way to get rich by promoting/expoliting something that superficially looks like a good thing - the “American Dream” that includes the house, yard, etc…
Easy to have the masses look at as a good thing until it comes back and bites them in the wallet. (And shocked of course…)
This was a way for some people to get rich by promoting/exploiting something that superficially looks like a good thing - the “American Dream” that includes the house, yard, etc…
Easy to have the masses look at as a good thing until it comes back and bites them in the wallet. (And shocked of course…)
RE: with respect to government, I have read discussion after discussion of the government’s intentional goal of increasing home ownership, manipulation of interest rates and regulation/deregulation and its relation to the bubble.
Here’s our government in action.
FHA: Your new garbage housing financing source now that the private sector sub-primers are kaput.
Dig the comment about lesser restrictions on mortgage broker slime and the new jumbo loan limits.
So step right up to be the taxpayer guarantee for a rat infested, lead paint contaminated, POS teardown, qualifying for a $600k refi with the appraiser STILL on the take, and a straw mortgage applicant fronting for the Mob.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/04/03/fha_program_strained_by_record_loan_defaults
There’s no question that the government intentionally manipulated the system to achieve political goals under the guise of a nobler purpose, my point was that it wasn’t done with the knowledge that it would all explode at some point. Similarly, wall street’s intentions were to maximize profits, but again, I don’t think anyone knew that it was going to turn into the disaster that it has.
I think everyone has a pretty good idea of why the meltdown happened. To me, the relevant part of the story is that HBB saw it all coming. But ,you’re right, the actions which led to the bubble and subsequent collapse would certainly provide good context for the HBB story.
Agree 100% with you Mikey.
Agree 100% with you Mikey.
That’s Mikey(2), not mikey. There should be a difference betwixt mikeys. Unless it’s mikey’s mutant head, then there should be allowances.
‘Unless it’s mikey’s mutant head, then there should be allowances.’
LMAO
Mikey (2) wrote:
…my point was that it wasn’t done with the knowledge that it would all explode at some point. Similarly, wall street’s intentions were to maximize profits, but again, I don’t think anyone knew that it was going to turn into the disaster that it has.
——————–
I believe Tim is disagreeing with this, and he has had experiences **within the industry** that substantiate his beliefs.
Also, while I do not work in the financial industry, I’ve talked to some who were pretty high up, and there was basically a consensus that they very well understood where the credit bubble would eventually lead.
If you read many of the papers from within the various financial firms (including the Federal Reserve), you’ll see that some people were trying to sound the alarm many years ago. Oftentimes, they were fired, demoted, or given different positions that distanced them from what was going on.
There is plenty of reason to believe that this was pre-meditated. They are not as stupid as they are **pretending** to be (who could have known???).
In other words, it was all about leverage. Not only could people buy ahouse with no money down, but when the price went up, they used the “free” equity to put into the stock market @ 100% leverage as well. Of course, that’s against the rules in the stock market, but if you’re not borrowing from your broker, who knows where the money or credit is really coming from? That’s why the stock market is tanking like the auto industry and almost every other industry. No more free money. No more house leverage.
Tim, the cynical might argue that housing prices were intentionally inflated to equalize the balance of trade with oh, say, China– who bought the treasury issues they backed?
“…on Wall Street’s very intentional debt leverage games nor the government’s intention to turn everyone into home-owning debt slaves and intentional bubble creation and continuation. It’s cool to see the crazed puppets dancing, but the movie will be much more powerful if the puppet masters are revealed. Exactly how were people allowed to buy things they could not afford? That is what would make the movie a real eye-opener.”
Good point - people need to understand that this did not happen by accident.
Mania, baby. It was all mania. From the lenders to the speculators, first-time buyers, builders, insurers, and politicians — everyone was getting off on the mania.
Congratulations, HBBers. You told them it was unsustainable.
UPDATE - My House Sale
I would like to thank the few people who gave me suggestions last Saturday about a problem that some called a Red Flag.
On Monday my Realtor said that all is well. We signed papers on Tuesday, moved out as planned Wednesday and saw that the loans were paid off this morning.
Good job. Glad to hear it.
Just in time to start preparing for your garden!
Glad that it all went smoothly.
Yay, Waman. You are free.
You will sleep soundly for many moons to come. I am.
Way to go WAman.
Nice work starting off with the Sublime!
I liked that too. Very well done, people! Articulate group, this is!
Yeah, it gave the video a sense of hipness: these aren’t the opinions of a bunch of suits sitting around a board table.
Stars are born ….Your the Man Ben . I especially liked how serious everyone was . Compare the goups comments with the sounds of the Cheerleaders who have shifty eyes and hollow voices .
When are we going to see an “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” or a Michael Moore type documentary on the housing bubble and financial crisis? It has to be coming.
Disclaimer: I am not at all suggesting that Moore would make it. While I think he brings up some good points in his documentaries, they generally are not very good documentaries - definitely not the caliber of Frontline.
I asked Frontline to do a series on this back in 2005 or 2006. They said they’d look into it.
They could do 20 shows on different aspects of it, focusing on the greedy and stupid and corrupt:
o Buyers
o “Investors”
o HELOCers
o Builders
o Mortgage brokers
o Appraisers
o Mortgage securitizers
o Bond raters
o The entry of organized crime
o Monetary authorities
o Regulatory authorities
o Fannie and Freddie
o Bubbles in other countries
o Acknowledge the ongoing price declines
I love Frontline. I hope they read your post.
I like Frontline, too. The health insurance episode this week was a real eye-opener for me.
Being a documentary film buff, I would love to see an Errol Morris (e.g., Gates of Heaven; Vernon, Flordia) film take on the bubble. Interviews of Realtors, flippers, Trump wannabes and groups against foreclosures (but that openly state they think affordable housing is a good thing) that think they are sounding perfectly sane and reasonable against a backdrop that makes it intellectually clear they are anything but.
Errol Morris would be a fantastic choice — except he is notoriously slow in completing projects.
German director Werner Herzog famously bet with Morris that if Morris made a complete film, Herzog would eat his shoe.
When “Gates Of Heaven” was completed, Herzog kept his promise, which was then memorialized in the film “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.” Chef Alice Waters (of Chez Panisse fame) cooked the shoe for Herzog, and has said it it was still tough after eight hours of cooking in a confit-like process. Waters said, “It wasn’t just some little Italian loafer. It was a serious shoe … He chewed on it for a long time.”
Good information. Herzog is great too!
Documentaries rarely make money, so doing a documentary that loses money about a housing bubble might cause an dangerous explosion of irony.
I think they were a little late for real fame, but who knows. A documentary about HBBers and the housing bubble in 2002 would have probably gained an underground following and lost money originally, but recognition in light of recent events would have probably made those responsible superstars if it was anywhere close to decent.
I wish Youtube wasn’t blocked from my office. I’ll have to check these out when I get home.
Some places you can disable your proxy server and use a “direct connection to the internet” setting.
Mine is blocked from work as well, but I was able to view these.
Cause they were tagged maybe?
Ben’s comments in the last two minutes of the second video are excellent. That’s what policy makers need to hear, but mostly not what they’ve been hearing.
I agree, Ben’s commentary really ties those clips together. Everyone who participated did an outstanding job bringing multiple views on what stood out to them during this mania.
agreed.
I think “policy makers” do hear this but choose not to listen or act upon good information.
It doesn’t matter what policy makers hear. They’re only concerned with lining their own pockets and re-election- you know, the important stuff. They would have to be backed into a corner by an angry mob, soiling themselves before they’d do anything in the interest of the public good, and even then it’d only be done out of concern for themselves. Selfish to the core.
My two favorite fellows are both in government administration, one state, one county, and MAN! Things are getting TERRIBLE here in Washington state! We have definitely joined the Hard Times Parade, with kazoos and marching bands galore. Lately they’ve had nothing but budget stuff sorrows clogging their heads, and have had to let staff go—people they know, and they know what a hardship it will be to them and their families, people they’ve worked with for years, just regular folks who didn’t cause this hideous mess but are paying for it anyway —but there’s no other choice, we are just out of money here in Thurston county, and in WA.
Listening to them really brings home the truly dire position we are arriving at here, and nationwide. It’s alarming. It makes me glad I was so cautious. Heck, it makes me glad I got a pantry full of food! Like, I say; alarming.
Plus they’s sad and mournful and gloomy and tender now, so I have to be all understanding and sensitive and kind and crap. It’s really harshing my customary cheerful and blithe brutality.
Why? Brutalize away.
Nothing better than smackin’ ‘em when they are down.
That’s pussy we love and admire!
Thanks!
…oh, wait, you meant….
Oh.
(aahahahaaha!
)
“Thanks!”
LOL!
WA state has many,many transplants, and most have little to no experience or even knowledge of how bad things get in recessionary times. We are consistently at the top of the list when it comes to job losses, and our recoveries tend to lag other areas. In short, many people will be leaving WA.
That’s what the HBB is for: your cheerfully blithe, brutal home away from home!
I have close family members who have been devastated by the economic debacle. Sometimes I get off the phone with one of them and I have to down a couple glasses of wine just to manage the stress. At least, that’s my excuse.
Don’t we all?
Join the club, honey!
There is nothing like or wrong about a small investment in some cheap wine,good bread and a spaghetti feast at home with friends during these tight economic times
Oh please!
That’s practically a weekly feature out here. We need something a little more out-of-the-ordinary.
Handmade ravioli-fest?
At 3 am in the morning FPSS ? This is the Milwaukee area, not Times Square. We have to improvise.
It’s either that or we buy bacon, eggs and Bloody Mary ingredients and then show up on somebody’s doorstep at 5 am unannounced demanding breakfast
Handmade ravioli seasoned with your home-grown rosemary. I’ll contribute some fresh home-grown oregano and thyme, as soon as the little sproutlets grow up into something edible. The bread, of course, must be home-baked. Now, who on HBB makes their own wine?
Now there’s a good suggestion if I ever saw one.
Better yet, hide the ingredients. Oh, and ring the doorbell in a most annoying fashion.
Ring — ring, ring — ring — ring, rinnnnnnnnng, ring — ring, ring ……
I could reaaaaally get into this particularly if there are Bloody Mary’s waiting at the end of the screamfest.
I’m friends with a young hospital gang, shift work kids. It’s kind of fun but we were drinking and did hit the wrong house at 5:30 am once. My friends ran off once they realized it, then they had to run back real quick and grab me before something tragic happened. I’m the quiet drunk and I just hold the groceries
Now, who on HBB makes their own wine?
Me. Well, I did and I can. Except I stick with beer lately, because it’s easier. It’s like making tea, that simple, except later on there’s no doilies and you end up singing stupid songs on the porch.
I can bring the Bailey’s Irish Cream and coffee.
I can bring the Bailey’s Irish Cream and coffee.
Yeah! I’ll have that, too! With a doily! Or else a curmedgeon!*
*What the heck IS a ‘curmudgeon’? That’s like an Irish doily, right?
Elanor, does Calvados count?
Sure, I’d call that counting. These definitions are fluid and liquid and intoxicating.
I’m with you on this, Olygal; my joy at seeing the bubble burst and sanity return to the world is definitely tempered by the fact that I empathize with _some_ of those hurt in the downturn.
I remember struggling to come to terms with this way back in 2005—how am I going to feel when the worm turns, if it turns as I expect?
I came down on the side of feeling badly for the relatively innocents (e.g. those who didn’t over-indulge in RE & debt, but lose their jobs regardless due to the excesses of others) who simply didn’t see the tsunami coming; however, I have no sympathy and nothing but schadenfreude for those who were not innocent and speculated with the raving manic hordes.
I take solace in the fact that both camps have the opportunity to learn something in this “dear school”—and education always has value, right?
Oly,
Could you write a little more on this.
I’m very curious.
What exactly are they facing?
Sure, soon’s I know what you mean, Muir.
Whatchoo mean by: ‘…they facing’?
Who’s they? My mutant heads? My morose and suddenly-boring besuited pals? The people getting laid off right and left? Bigfoots?
Sorry, been slurring my words all day.
These guys: “Things are getting TERRIBLE here in Washington state! We have definitely joined the Hard Times Parade, with kazoos and marching bands galore. Lately they’ve had nothing but budget stuff sorrows clogging their heads….”
I mean my poor pals have been told to reduce budgets, and it’s all hard, or else harder, choices from here. At this point, evidently, most of the reductions have to be staff, (aka ‘people’), because all that could get cut first, has got cut.
I don’t think people should be called ’staff’. Or else ‘personnel’, because that makes it easier to think of them as units.
I don’t think people should be called ’staff’. Or else ‘personnel’, because that makes it easier to think of them as units.
Of course, then, what else you gonna call them? ‘That people dumbass who still cannot operate the copy-machine even after an inservice’?
Sigh.
I guess we’re stuck with ’staff’ and ‘personnel’.
How is this possible? The bottom was called, so I thought Business was supposed to be improving, not getting worse?
Caterpillar says slowing demand forced it to cut 1,000 jobs 2 weeks earlier than planned
DECATUR, Ill. (AP) — Caterpillar is speeding up layoff plans at a central Illinois plant, cutting more than 1,000 jobs two weeks early.
The Peoria. Ill.-based heavy equipment manufacturer started sending the workers from its Decatur plant home on Thursday. The company had planned to keep them on through April 13.
Caterpillar said it decided to speed up its layoffs at the plant because of slowing demand for its mining trucks and earth moving equipment.
Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan says the workers will be paid through April 13.
Layoffs in Decatur are part of more than 24,000 job cuts the company is making worldwide.
Just a few more headlines from today, but all is well?????
FedEx begins layoffs to cut operating costs 1000 workers fired
Zippy’s lays off 47 workers on Maui
CA Inc. cutting more jobs and costs in expansion of restructuring plan
Cannondale bikes slashing 200 US jobs making frames, sends work to facility in Taiwan
Nationwide cuts 480 jobs in latest layoffs
International Paper to close Chesapeake plant in June; about 100 jobs to be lost
MKS cuts 600 employees, lowers 1Q outlook
Textile maker WestPoint Home closing Maine blanket mill, plants in Fla., NC 581 jobs lost
Bowsher, who was comptroller general of the U.S. from 1981 to 1996, had a simple reason for resigning last week as chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank System’s Office of Finance. He didn’t want to put his name on the banks’ combined financial statements, because he was uncomfortable vouching for them. Bowsher, 77, had held the post since April 2007.
The job Bowsher left is a crucial one. The Office of Finance issues and services all the debt for the 12 regional Federal Home Loan Banks. That’s a lot of debt — $1.26 trillion as of Dec. 31, making the FHLBank System the largest U.S. borrower after the federal government. The government-chartered banks, which operate independently, in turn supply low-cost loans to their 8,100 member banks and finance companies. If any of the FHLBanks were to fail, taxpayers could be on the hook.
“I was not comfortable as an audit-committee member in signing off on the financial statements, after I became aware of the standards and processes for valuing the mortgage-backed securities,” Bowsher told me.
Clearly, someone is extraordinarily uncomfortable with the FASB decision and wants no part of it.
This is about as large a “no-confidence vote” as you’re likely to get.
What source? Thanks.
Never mind - I see lots from google. Got lazy.
It’s just off Bloomberg. Just search his name or something.
April 2 (Bloomberg) –
“Remember this man’s name: Charles Bowsher. He’s one of the few people leaving the banking crisis behind with his reputation enhanced.
T”he finance office’s board also oversees the preparation and auditing of the FHLBanks’ combined financial statements. Some of the banks have run into trouble the past year because of plunging values for mortgage-backed securities they own.
“’I was not comfortable as an audit-committee member in signing off on the financial statements, after I became aware of the standards and processes for valuing the mortgage-backed securities,” Bowsher told me.’”
From WIKI (look at LAST paragraph)
The Federal Home Loan Banks provide stable, on-demand, low-cost funding to American financial institutions for home mortgage loans, small business, rural, agricultural, and economic development lending. With their members, the FHLBank System represents the largest collective source of home mortgage and community credit in the United States. The banks do not provide loans directly to individuals, only to other banks.
On January 8, 2009, Moody’s said that only 4 of the 12 FHLBs may be able to maintain minimum required capital levels.
thx FPSS
Yep, thaks, Faster.
Too Many Cars, and They’re Not on the Road
http://tinyurl.com/d648gz
“The big question is, how do you jump-start auto sales again? Or can you?” Townsend said….GM announced this week that it would lend to buyers who had credit scores below 620, which is considered a high-risk, subprime consumer market. A few months ago, the credit score threshold was 700. … It also announced that it would make $5 billion available over the next two months to expand lending to potential car buyers.
Good idea, GM! ‘Cause that worked out sooooo good this last time!
…oh, wait…
My 2000 Chevy Blazer is on its last legs, I fear. The Chevy Malibu is breathing its last. And so, soon, I plan to trek on down to the local Honda dealership and purchase a used Pilot. Recertified comes with a 7 year 100K powertrain warranty. The one I have my eye on right now only has 25K miles on it but I’m not sure how long it will be there.
Personally….I’ll never buy GM or any vehicle that has ever had Dexcool in it again.
I test drove a Pilot a couple of years ago and felt it was cramped up front due to the humongous center console. Also, the version with power seats didn’t have quite enough leg room for me and there was a lot of road noise.
Bought a new (2007) Hyundai Santa Fe instead. It’s quieter and has more front room than the same-year Pilot. It was also considerably less expensive. I’ve never regretted the decision. Consumer Reports also likes it a lot.
P.S. I’d never heard of the Dexcool problem but Google has a lot of links.
Bought SRS at 44.70
Why is it getting hammered today? Are the Real Estate Fairies sprinkling housing bubble dust around?
Beats me, look at FPSS post above this one.
I’m still stuck at 50.
Bought SRS @60, 50, 45 and now looks like my latest order @40 is about to be taken out.
It’s the hardest thing to be averaging down like this but one has to believe that the lower it gets, the more one needs to buy. I still have a lot of ammo left and cannot believe we are at all-time lows at a time when CRE is about to collapse spectacularly.
Look at SPG, and now KIM. Both had aggressive share offerings, causing dilution (25% in the case of KIM), on top of dividend cuts (or more dilution in the case of SPG) and both up 20-30% from the offering price. FPSS, can you explain this? My SPG Apr 35 puts are in the toilet!
Here’s your answer:
“Bernanke said the eligible collateral for the Fed’s $1 trillion Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, will likely expand to include commercial mortgages and securities that aren’t newly issued.”
WSJ
My $40 order went in. I am so !#$%ing pissed. Is there anybody (apart from us) this govt is not going to bail out? Yet gold drops, the dollar soars, companies getting bailed out soar, all the talking heads cheer mindlessly, all the bad behavior of the past is being reinstated and becoming de rigeur again. What the @#$%??? Has everybody gone mad?
closed at 40.64
lost $200
All bubbles come to an ugly end.
From elsewhere:
“Things don’t always go the way you plan. I had 1200 shares of SRS at 48 and does not look like it is going to work out, unfortunately they were on Margin and now I am down over 10k and I am pretty much going to have to dine on the bullet tonight.
I want to try and believe that SRS will go back up but the reality is
that the bulls have the market and they don’t care anymore and there is not any news that is gonna stop this rally back up to at least 9k.
By the time SRS does go back up from problems with CRE it will have decayed to almost nothing so I will maybe if im super lucky break even
in like 6 months.
So RIP SRS
RIP me
life ruined– lol at least the country is “magically fixed” economy is
obviously “perfect” now since we had such a AMAZING jobs report.
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee “
Closed at 38.10 actually - down almost 18% for the day. Wow.
Count me among those getting hammered.
What goes down must go back up. Right? Right?
Yes, Elanor! It must go back up!
*makes soothing and affirmative gesture towards Elanor *
packman,
Meant I closed my position at $40.64
I kept following after I was out and saw the close.
It traded briefly below $38.
Unlike me, a lot of people here lost some real money.
When I bought at $44.70 I didn’t even put a stop and went to take a shower.
It was an expensive shower.
I hadn’t read this beauty:
“Bernanke said the eligible collateral for the Fed’s $1 trillion Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, will likely expand to include commercial mortgages and securities that aren’t newly issued.”
Join the club packman.
I have one last thought for today.
here we have the powers that be trying to re-inflate the housing market on one hand and then kicking Gm and its unions to the curb on the other. To me, if you break the UAW, you break the last stantion of high blue collar wages. This break, would effect all wages. So, if we revert to lets say an average of $16.00/hr, housing has no where to go. Yes, there are some fools out there buying foreclosed properties, but I believe they are speculators or believe the hype. At $16.00/hr as a median wage, a house costing $100k, would be out of reach. Add a two person wage earning family and housing ( a three bedroom 1 1/2 bath) house would have to be under 150k. Second homes or vacation homes wil be a memory. Housing deflation has a long way to go. Any thoughts?
That is what I was trying to say yesterday in rebuttal to someone posting who wants all unions banned.
Once that last stop is removed, then no corp will ever have to pay benefits, decent pay, nothing above minimum wage. Why? why should they, if the corps have no competition in wages for the same jobs.
And moreover, the entire population is and will always be consumers 85%+++ vs 10%+ Investor Class.
Those that don’t have needs, INVEST. The rest? To hell with the rest of us.
Seriously, this is a problem that looms large. No more middle class, just poor and Investor wealthy Class.
I am sorry, but union laws that forbid the free association on individuals will not help. It is a government attempt at PRICE FIXING wages. If I am unemployed and willing to work for less than “union” wages, then I should be free to compete with those around me.
Price fixing via unions or price fixing via home subsidies is IDENTICAL. No one has a right to any level of “pay” or to demand “benefits”.
Note: I have nothing wrong with voluntary “unions”, but in times of recession, voluntary unions always break down helping to push wages down and reallocate resources toward productive uses!
If your skills are not marketable in a truly free market, then get new skills. Using government power to establish a “monopoly” on your skills harms everyone.
If your skills are not marketable in a truly free market
Aye, there lies the rub. What “free” market?
amen. Colorado.
Aye, there lies the rub. What “free” market?
Bingo!
In my life I’ve never experienced one. In my 32 years of self employment, nothing but more and more layers of gubmint regs/control.
Well yes, the unions prevent a free market. Government sets minimum wages… just because there isn’t a “free market” doesn’t mean we should encourage a LESS FREE market!
Point is we do not need unions as they do not help the economy nor do the offset other issues with our “non-free market” economy.
If you want to see what truly free markets are like, try trafficking in drugs or guns.
And try taking your vendor/customer to court if things don’t work out.
“If you want to see what truly free markets are like, try trafficking in drugs or guns”.
Been there and done that in my youth, one thing is certain you know where you stand, screw up, or screw someone over and the outcome is very simple.
P.S. I assume you have experienced that ‘free’ market also, since you refer to it. Or have you just read about it?
If you want to see what truly free markets are like, try trafficking in drugs or guns.
Well, okay. *shrug *
If you absolutely insist…
Point is we do not need unions as they do not help the economy nor do the offset other issues with our “non-free market” economy.
——————-
Gotta disagree with you there, VTDan. The power lies with those who have money OR numbers. Since corporations will always have the benefit of monetary power, workers need collective bargaining to off-set that power.
Corporations have patent law (and I believe you are opposed to that also), and don’t want any competition from competitors…but they think that labor should not have any protections???
With all due respect, I do NOT want to live in a third-world country. The **only** difference between them and us is our labor unions. Look at any country that has a relatively high standard of living, and you will see unions. They are the only thing holding up the middle class right now.
Guilty moments watching last nights, Millionaire Matchmaker.
What does That have to do with HBB?
Well, one of the millionaires was the
ManHattan West, RE developer, Alex Edelstein
who was looking to settle down.
His projects are characterized by an excessive use of synthetic stucco and lack of architectural detail. I don’t really understand the link to NYC. Maybe they have some retail space occupied by a Subway sub shop and/or Starbucks. That would be pretty hot and worth at least $100k extra.
That show cracked me up. As soon as he said “Manhattan West” last night, I knew I’d heard about it on here somewhere, and it probably wasn’t good. Patti’s “Sammy Hagar thing” comment was pretty funny too.
I would love to see this march!
NYC protesters ask US to ‘bail out the people’
Protesters rally on Wall Street to ask government to ‘bail out the people’ - not big business
NEW YORK (AP) — Protesters asking the government to “bail out the people” are holding a rally on Wall Street. They say they should get some of the billions of dollars being spent to save big business.
The rally is starting in downtown Manhattan with a march down Broadway and ends at the iconic statue of a bull on Wall Street.
The men, women and children are protesting near the offices of financial giants like Fidelity, American Express, the Federal Reserve and the New York Stock Exchange.
They plan to repeat the protest Saturday, with chanting and drumming.
Just wondering….do you personally think that “the people” should be bailed out (regardless of whether the investment companies should be).
Reuven
I pose this question:
What if the banks had tens of billions of dollars to loan at a 700 fico score and all your customers have 600…then what?
Then you don’t make the loans!
And we don’t get out of the depression anytime soon…..and we will have 10 million more on food stamps
There has to be some relief from the bottom up…eg jobs if not then cash…
Well, we can lower corporate tax to 30%! That would stimulate employers to hire more people and be more profitable.
How about a ZERO tax rate if you hire the unemployed….
that could be useful to me. heck if i collected welfare you get $3000 or more maybe that would make me more employable.
I just don’t get it….i have worked in 24/7 business and you never want a DJ to be late to a surprise birthday party. Yet employer biiitch about employees not showing up on time…They put it in their ads on CL…and still no responses
Its mind boggling what we have to go through today
Well, we can lower corporate tax to 30%! That would stimulate employers to hire more people and be more profitable.
——————-
Hogwash! (and I truly mean that in a nice way!)
Lower corporate taxes — without regulations that force them to use that money to hire more people — will not necessarily result in more jobs. It’s much more likely it turns up in bonuses for the executives since “they” suddenly made these new “profits”.
Hey FPSS, yesterday you wrote: “There’s a pretty coherent argument by David Rosenberg on yahoo. It’s well-thought, articulate and logical.”
Can you provide a link? I went searching for this and couldn’t find it… Thanks…
I can’t find it either.
It was just the usual litany that we’ve harped on here.
Google - in dante’s footsteps. That might be what FPSS (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) was refering to. Yahoo picked up on it Apr. 1st, from what I could find.
Yeah, that’s a good article… But it’s not “by” Rosenberg. I found two from that day that quoted him, but none written by him. Oh well!
WAY TO GO BEN!!!!! YOU GUYS ROCK!!!!!!
(yelling intentional)
Hi Lost,
How are you doing ?
Hi Mikey,
Doin’ good, back in Utah, squatchin’ around. Hey, did you know those guys make their own houses wherever they wanna sleep? Just twist some twigs around and lay out some leaves, they don’t worry about mortgages.
WhAAAAT ‘guys’ do you mean? You mean goldfinches?! Bindle-stiffs? Bindle-stiff goldfinches?
Oh, that reminds me of when the illegal alien workers would descend in droves to prune the suckers off the apple trees, every spring in the orchards around my house in Utarr.
They’d snip and snap busily and steadily and then suddenly be all gone, but they leave masses of beautiful thin sticks, deep-purple with speckles, straight and supple apple tree sticks in tidy mounds between the naked tree rows, heaped up on soggy red clay soil and a dark brown leathery layer of wet fallen leaves.
Then when you bent them the thin purple skin would split to reveal an enticing light green layer that smelled like…well. It smelled like ‘it’. I guess there’s not a word. Too bad.
And under the light fresh green was pale wet light clean heartwood, and it was always cold.
Then you’d notice your boots were sinking into the clay and your nose was running and put the twig down and you’d run home, spluckily.
Hey, nice to see you posting, losty. I missed you.
Anyway, Sasquatch lives in a garden shed, I happen to know.
Thanks, Oly. Of course I mean Squatches, you know all about Squatches, guess what, they’re in Utarr, too.
And Colorado. Yikes.
Send coordinates of said shed. I’m working on some linguistic stuff and need to talk to them.
PS Oly, your memory amazes me, speaking of finches, of course.
PPS nice description, you happen to be writing a book yet? Why not???
Well, maybe I AM. And maybe it’s about Bigfoot, and how he wants to be a stripper and make money, but no one will hire him, even if he shaves, because they are insensitive, and he has to drown his sorrow by stealing goats from Farmer Brown, and his only friends are finches and gardening-shed tools, like Mr. Rake and Mr. Roto-Rooter.
Yeah! What a good story this will be!
and then, the socumentary… I mean documentary (flippin’ keyboard still doesn’t work right)
You know what, I just really have to cry, thinking about poor Mr. Bigfoot and his thwarted ambitions. I mean, how many among us have not wanted to shave and become strippers? Come on, show of hands? Or else paws?
Wait, no!….I don’t want to know!
Oh, but you know what I mean, I’m sure. My point is, it’s a sad thing when a hairy anthropoid can’t fling aside his stolen rake and come out of his garden shed and be happy.
*blinks away tears *
You referring to Grizzly Bear?
Just kidding, Grizz, we just know you’re a gardener, don’t know about the hairy part or not…
Howdy Losty,
Takin’ Mr. Cole to a garden scale model train show in Denver the 1st week of July…if we pass by your “outdoor” digs…I’ll thumb wrestle you for the 1st round of “Squatters Brew”
Hiway, how’d you know I was back in Utah? Stop by, I’ll be at Radio Tower, Spring, or Stock Tank (ref. to Utah map)…
U.S. banks that have received government aid, including Citigroup Inc, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co, are considering buying toxic assets to be sold by rivals under the Treasury’s $1,000 billion plan to revive the financial system, the Financial Times said.
It’s called a circle jerk
If you buy my crap, I’ll buy yours. I’m not into government enhancement or stimulation though. Obama creeps me out.
“Obama creeps me out.”
Yeah, but that’s just because you are a racist. You’ll have 8 years to work on it.
LOL
EU seeks to match US by revaluing toxic assets under mark-to-market accounting rules
PRAGUE (AP) — European Union nations pressed Friday for new rules that would follow U.S. accounting standards allowing American banks to avoid reporting heavy losses on troubled assets they cannot sell.
The European governments are joining U.S. politicians in demanding that independent accounting agencies change mark-to-marketing rules on how companies price assets such as securities based on subprime housing loans that now find few buyers.
EU finance ministers called Friday for European companies to get the same kind of treatment — and said they wanted to see rapid action, sweeping aside concerns from the International Accountancy Standards Board that they should take up to six months to weigh radical reform.
German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told a meeting of the EU’s 27 nations that Europe had to act quickly “or in the long-term we are all dead economically.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EU-pushes-for-looser-bank-apf-14846269.html
Why not? Just load all of your worthless $h!t into a gigantic “global” ‘we are the world’ crapper and flush it down. There, it’s all good now! Now lets get back to lending to strawberry pickers… LOL!
Current environmental regs prohibit this.
LOL… Nice!
Under this analogy, the SuperSIV would be like a giant multi-trillion-dollar sewage plant. See, you put all the $h!t in various “holding” tanks, let it age for a while, while the bacteria break it down, settle it out, treat the water…
Huh, maybe not such a bad analogy!
Wow! I never knew you guys were all black and white!
Well! I’m all white. But my heart is black!*
Does that count, reuvey?
Anyway, what do you mean? I hope this is not some sort of racist thingie; ’specially since YOU are about as minority+minority as it is possible to get, without being an alien leprechaun from Venus.
*Metaphorically. In meat terms, my heart is probably pink and red and blue, with tubes. I haven’t actually seen my own heart, ever, but I assume this to be so, from watching Discovery Channel.
And even metaphorically, now that I think of it, probably not really that black. More like a nice spiritual charcoal, so to speak.
“probably not really that black. More like a nice spiritual charcoal, so to speak.”
Definitely not, Olygal—at a bare minimum, it’s charcoal with sparklies mixed in!
*gasp! *
Enchanted!
The interview clips were, as we say in the video business, desaturated. They were in black&white.
Oh. Well, we’re most of us not in the ‘desaturated video business’, I don’t think, so how about you be more clear next time, to avoid contumely.
Sheesh.
*rolls fully saturated green eyeballs around and around *
*rolls fully saturated green eyeballs around and around”
You see, I knew she’d have more tricks
You may well be the sassiest-reply person I’ve ever known.
I’m gonna make a note, for my logbook.
*makes a note *
Anyway, Mr. Mikey (Prime), it’s true, I can spin my green eyes in an alarming fashion, but only to the right way wards.
I used to do it for the kids in my art class, in idle moments, or when I told them to get in line and be quiet, and it would make the daintier ones faint.
But I can’t do it the other way at all, to the left.
THAT way makes ME faint.
Must be a design flaw, or sumpin’.
*tries to spin eyes to the left and…faints right off chair *
See? Like I said. Design flaw.
Yes, I remember you said you enjoyed the kids in your college days.
I tease a lot but do I enjoy your rainy night Washington rainforest stories. My family lives up in th MN woods and lake country and I enjoyed the rainy and stormy nights ..as long as I was snuggled up in my bed. I would think about and count wet tourists and campers as I went to sleep
Ooooh! Good post! Thanks.
I also like to be in my snuggly bed on wet and rainy nights, which we have a lot of around here.
Well, no, I mean better than ‘like’; I mean I LOVE it. Rain is a lovely magic thing.
What I think is, there is nothing cozier in the world than for it to be evening and to hear the rain thumping down on the roof in a sustained, steady, purposeful, delightful roar, and you’re stretched out listening and allllll bundled up in layers of bright quilts with your feet in cozy bulky socks and your head sticking out the top and you’re blinking drowsily before yawning your head off, right to sleep again, to the sound of rain.
But then I find myself getting out. Alas, yes, I sleep-walk. Also, I just get up and wander around, and don’t require that I be asleep—it just seems necessary.
(Now that I think of it, there could be more than one design flaw than the twirly eyes around here.)
But then, after I’ve checked stuff out, or I’ve just wandered around and got all soggy and dirty, I run back inside my house and bang the door shut and lock it and swipe my feet off and quickly run and leap into my quilts again and twirl myself up all around like a burrito and all is well again.
Yes…the rain is a magical thing, more so when it goes right into the next dawn. It trys to cleanse the earth and give everyone and everything a new chance and a freah start
Yes…the rain is a magical thing, more so when it goes right into the next dawn. It trys to cleanse the earth and give everyone and everything a new chance and a freah start
Well, I’ll be! May I write this down in order to embroider it for a sampler?
No, really.*
*Yes, maybe I will, so there, and that will teach you.
Cool…just spell ‘fresh’ correctly, as I didn’t and I wouldn’t want to teach you wrong. Speaking of beds and rain, I should do the same. Gonna get a Spring rain/snowstorm mixture this weekend.
Stay creative, warn n’ dry Oly…nite
Nite.
How can you guys not like President Obama?
The bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president of the United States. Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying high salaries to their employees — and, by extension, to themselves.
“These are complicated companies,” one CEO said. Offered another: “We’re competing for talent on an international market.”
But President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”
“My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”
Perfectly said. How can you guys not like this guy. Clearly President Obama is more on our side than Wall Street’s.
You have to love the pitchfork comment! He gets it!
With all due respect, I think you see what you WANT to see.
We are all a product of our paticular age, experience,education, parents, environment, talents, luck, etc.
I’m a big fan fan of the notion that good ideas come from direct, personal hands-on experience and work with the subject at hand.
I don’t refer to what modern day professional politicians do as “work”. I call it “feeding at the public trough”. As a younger man, though, I felt differently.
“If you’re 20 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you’re 40 and not a conservative, you have no brain.”
He uses the word pitchfork and he gets it?? Spare me. His condescension for the pitchfork crowd is well known. They’re the same ones he scorned re: guns and religion, remember??
All he was saying is go along and you’ll be fine. He’s protecting his fellow elitists from the pitchfork crowd. If you support that, good for you.
He doesn’t get squat. Didn’t like him before the election…..and he’s only gotten worse since then.
Here is the reason I don’t like Obama or any other advocate of large gov’t. Corporations cannot use the threat of force to make you do something, gov’ts can. Corporations must persuade you to use/buy their products.
Also, pitchforks aren’t limited in use to only corporations, they have been used many more times in history to overthrow gov’ts. Obama’s words may come back to haunt him. Who knows, perhaps the pitchforks will be used against him in the future if the economy doesn’t improve.
Corporations cannot use the threat of force to make you do something, gov’ts can. Corporations must persuade you to use/buy their products.
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Actually, corporations can indeed FORCE you to buy their products and give them whatever profits they desire. If they control key industries and resources, there is nothing we can do about it in our system.
Corporations control air (environment), water, food, healthcare, shelter (real estate/land — large swaths of the most important land is controlled by very few people), etc.
If corporations control all of our basic necessities, they control us. Make no mistake about it. They just use the government to concentrate their power and control over these resources.
This guy being interviewed on Bill Moyers now - William K. Black (He was Senior Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision, among other things) - sounds like a poster on this blog. He’s using terms I saw here years ago, long before I heard these terms starting to appear in the mainstream media. Terms like “Liar loans” and “NINJA loans”.
Black wrote a book - “The Best Way To Rob A Bank Is To Own One”.
Black said that in September 2004, the FBI publicly warned that there was an epidemic of mortgage fraud. He said though that after 9/11, 500 FBI were transferred to anti-terror efforts, from white collar fraud. And still today, they haven’t been replaced.
Black blames both political parties. He talks about a regulator named Brooksley Born who tried to regulate some exotic derivative, the derivative most involved in the AIG scandal. But Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, and Phil Gramm came together to block this regulation. This combined with the repeal of Glass Steagall are apparently some of the significant accelerants which allowed the mortgage crisis to explode.
Blacks dark amusement is the same kind of dark amusement I feel when I read this blog. I think this is the first time I’ve seen anyone, even Moyers, delve into the mortgage crisis as unflatteringly as it’s been delved into in this blog for the past several years.
He says Geithner was one of the nation’s top regulators during the entire blowup of the mortgage bubble, though Geithner denies he was a regulator, though he was president of the Federal Reserve bank of New York. In fact Geithner says there was too much regulation, in a clip shown on the show.
Black says, “Where’s the Pecora investigation?” This was an investigation during the 30’s which was meant to find out the facts in order to avoid repeating the mistakes. Black says that after a plane crash, there is a massive investigation. And he says there’s been no such investigation now.
This is a fascinating interview. It’s so darkly amusing.
He saying that now, we’re adopting the Japanese model of dealing with these assets, and lying about them. I assume he’s referring to the move away from mark to market.
Some of Black’s recommendations:
1) get rid of people who caused it
2) stop hiding losses
3) appoint people with records of success
“Some of the folks who are better regulators, have paid their taxes, so you can get them through the vetting process.”
Black’s bio: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/black.htm
This Moyer’s episode this evening is quite remarkable.
Sounds excellent. Didn’t get to see it, so much appreciate your post here. Thanks!
my oh my,
how the years go by.
I miss hoz…
the passing of my father is what Im living through….
so lets drink another beer and tell a hard luck story.
before you know it,
it’ll be tomorrow night.
voz,
I’m a little confused. Is it your father or hoz that has passed away?
Voz. It’s very late but I just saw this. We all miss hoz.
My condolences and I don’t have a hard luck story but just refreshed my glass in your father’s honor.
I’m also confused, vozworth. Did your father pass away, or hoz???
Either way, it’s very sad news. Please accept my condolences.
Voz, I am sorry to hear about your dad. Its a tough reality to accept but it will get better with time. Its been 9 months since the passing of my dad and I find tears falling down my face as I type this to you. The one thing I cling to is the hope of seeing him again one day. I pray you have strong family ties and no greedy b@stards on the take to fight off.
Before my father was dead and buried my oldest brothers ransacked his house and stole anything of value. My mother is still alive so in essence they stole from her. It is harder to get through when you find out that you never really new who your siblings were. A double slap in the face.
Take care and keep us updated on how your doing.
wow. my condolences. We’ll miss him too.
My best friend died in the year 2000. I still miss him. And he was also my dad.
Hey, is that a freakin’ BAT yanking itself around in the air outside my big window, here as I type in the woods?
Or only a short-bus sparrow?
Are any of you HBBers bat-people? This is way too early for bats, right?
Oh, but I love the Bats of Spring. But not the crazed Bats of Spring.
Bats galore ’round these parts. And murders of ravens.
Ha ha ha …It must be lonely up there Oly, talking to the bats now
No, I’m NOT talking to bats. I’m staying in my house.
‘Cause if they are, in fact, bats, then they ain’t regular bats, like I said. It’s way too early.
No sleep-walking tonight with creepy bats!
*makes a note to not sleep-walk tonight with creepy bats*
Well, all the bats are in the belfry.
What’s left over anyway, huh?
Take care Oly, I have to take care of a few things and then crash. Will say Hi tomorrow or the during the weekend