The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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When I finished being videoed for this in Las Vegas, I came back to the suite and re-joined all the other folks at the big table. After a couple of moments, someone asked, “Oh, how did the interview go?” I replied, “if it ever makes it to the public, I’ll die a happy man.” And that was before I knew how well all the other bloggers had represented themselves for posterity.
I am so grateful to Ralph and Schwarzfilm for all the efforts. And a big thanks to Susan, Joanne, Mike and Chris for making the Las Vegas meetup happen.
Ben, your interview reeks of articulate, intelligent, educated passion of your beliefs in this housing bubble matter. Most people with the kind of intense passion that is required to completely analyze/follow this mess would give a more hot-headed, emotional, less-credible interview. I’m afraid I would fall into this latter category. You have my respect.
“would give a more hot-headed, emotional, less-credible interview.”
I dunno, I’m ready to deliver the f-bomb sprinkled, credible interview.
I dunno, I’m ready to deliver the f-bomb sprinkled, credible interview.
Foreclosure is the new F-Bomb
I was also impressed with how calm and reasoned everyone appeared to be.
I also think there’s been a vast improvement in the sound editing and sometimes jarring cuts over the course of the five installments. This one hangs together well.
(Hey, Hwy — I think that’s you in the floppy hat (?) — your beard is amazing.)
Hwy conjures up the image of a California prospector who somehow survived from the mid-19th century to the present without aging a day.
You deserve the hbb academy award for your presentation. Your genuine performance was quite impressive. Congratulations.
That was the best one of the series Guy’s/Gal’s…Sums it up quite nicely…Wonderful job, all of you…
I wonder what mass media outlets, if any, will decide to show this? It will be interesting to see if it reaches J6P.
That. Was. AWESOME!!
Man, you guys are cool!
I especially enjoyed the very first part, with the tulips, because I love tulips, and because here I am right this very minute at home and looking out the back window at…tulips, AND because last fall I sought out and found tulips bulbs that produce blooms that are red and white striped, just like the variety ‘Semper Augustus’, which I read about when I read about tulipmania. (I think I jabbered about this at length last fall when I planted them.)
Anyway, you can wiki tulip mania and read:
“According to Mackay, at one point 12 acres (5 ha) of land were offered for a Semper Augustus bulb…”
I thought it would be an enjoyable conceit to plant tulip-mania tulips in my very own garden. Now, I couldn’t find actual ‘Semper Augustus’ bulbs, so I had to settle for ones I got online, from Spring Hill, or someplace. The blooms look exactly the same, red and white striped, a condition caused by a tulip specific virus, and you know what? They didn’t cost me 12 acres of land a bulb. They cost me @25 cents a bulb.
Poignant, no? Representative of the aftermath of bubbles, yes?
Hahaha!
They are pretty tulips. I think I’ll go pick a few for my desk and then watch the video again, really wallow in the poignancy and so forth.
Olygal, like these? http://www.pbase.com/drumminj/image/111607679
Or more like these (more pink than red): http://www.pbase.com/drumminj/image/111607663
Drove up to Skagit last week, but things were _just_ starting to bloom. Who knew there were so many varieties/colors of tulips?
Pretty!
The ones I’ve got are like the bright red ones in the first photo, but more splotchy white streaks in them. I forgot the name, I’ve got the tag somewhere.
Now, aren’t you glad you came to the PNW, drumminj? We have tulips and stuff!
I’m happy, not so much for the tulips, but moreso for the “and stuff” part of it
Okay, I watched it again, now with 2 faux ‘Semper Augustus’ tulips sitting prettily next to me, and again I thought ‘Man, you guys are cool!’.
What a great job, Ben and the rest of you.
Super, super interviews.
They cost me @25 cents a bulb.
+several for using the each-at symbol mostly correctly
Oly,
I’ll be in Seattle next week and driving to Portland for a day or two (I love Powell’s Books). How far off the hwy is your favorite sitdown place? Would love to nosh and chat for a spell, if you are available.
failsafe999@aol.com
For years I used an image of tulips as a screen saver at work.
Funny, not one person ever asked about it.
Thank you, Ben, for making all of this possible!
That was a nice way to end the video. Excellent work guys. Totally credible, and you score points everywhere.
But don’t expect this to ever see the light of day. Not in the rat-infested system we have. As a test, you might want to send the final version to 8 media outlets.
Send exactly the same package to 4 right leaning newspapers, TV stations, etc. and send 4 to left leaning. A couple examples…
Right:
Fox News
Washington Times
Wall Street Journal
OC Register
Rush Limbaugh
Left:
PBS
MSNBC
New York Times
Air America
The Nation
See which ones believe in free speech, and which ones don’t. My money says the right ignores you like the swine flu, while PBS and the NYT call you back pronto. It would be a great test, and you would get some coverage too.
A Yahoo Finance headline today:
Obama asks for ideas on curbing federal spending.
Obama wants ideas from federal workers on how to better run government, save money.
“After all, Americans across the country know that the best ideas often come from workers, not just management,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
Ok. I’m pretty sure all of the workers are going to say: “I think you should definitely eliminate my job or at least give me a substantial pay-cut because I really don’t do anything anyway”.
Way to innovate, prez.
“After all, Americans across the country know that the best ideas often come from workers, not just management…”
Absolutely true, and companies that understand this will eat the lunch of companies that don’t. But I don’t believe this concept extends to governments.
Ok. I’m pretty sure all of the workers are going to say: “I think you should definitely eliminate my job or at least give me a substantial pay-cut because I really don’t do anything anyway”.
———————-
As a former public employee who’s married to a current public employee, and can say for a fact that most of the waste is in administration. The public sector is very top-heavy with wannabe politicians who daily engage in all sorts of political trading to maximize their chances of moving up the political ladder.
Obama is 100% correct.
Yes, of course - it’s ALMOST ALL at the upper administrative levels! It couldn’t POSSIBLY be down at the bottom (or anywhere else), could it?
This is the way it goes with each and every round of job cut talks in the government…all the groups point the finger somewhere else until the guys at the very top get tired of hearing about it and give up.
The ones at the bottom actually **do** something (teaching, fire fighting, policing, maintaining roads and infrastructure, etc.), while the administrators spend their days greasing palms and plotting their political careers.
It seems you’ve never worked for the govt. Try it. You’ll see what I’m talking about.
“After all, Americans across the country know that the best ideas often come from workers, not just management,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
Obama is absolutely right, and as a federal worker this absolutely applies to the federal government. In my agency, delivery of services via the internet was entirely a bottom-up effort that was greatly resisted by upper management at the time. Now it’s one of the primary means of product and service delivery, no thanks to upper management.
Obama could start by appointing agency heads that demand more bottom-up effort in decision making. Under Clinton and GWB, there were plenty of former generals and admirals appointed to head agencies and too much top-down management.
I am blogging from my iPhone so I cannot comment on the film clips but I plan to watch them this afternoon, I can’t wait to see them.
I wanted to share with you what I have been witnessing this past week here in Bakersfield. Twice this week while doing my banking I saw several people withdrawing large sums (thousands) of dollars in cash from the bank. One of them handed the teller a large brown paper bag and had her fill it with all his money, closing out the account. The second trip, I had people on both sides of me collecting very large sums from the tellers. Are these people scared? They couldent be, after all, the PTB keep saying everything is ok and getting better? Right? (sarcasm)
I went to our local mall last weekend, which BTW is in bankruptcy, I saw lots of people looking but saw very few with bags on their hands. More retail bankruptcy’s on the way?
The police sirens had stopped for a couple of days last week, then came back with a vengence. Domestic violence? I don’t know because the news media dosent report much about the seedie side of this town.
To wrap up this post, the thing I am most curious about is the upcomming report on the savings rate. Does the FED include all the money in peoples mattresses into their figures? Just curious?
Are you sure the guy with the paper bag was asking for *his* money?
LOL! I thought about that too, but yes it was his money. A couple of weeks ago the bank manager walked up to me and asked how my business was holding up, she then said she dident know what was going to happen, these are scarry times. The look on her face showed her fear, I can only think she is not prepared for what is to come.
Some emergency cash on hand is only prudent, but as a New Yorker I picked up the habit as a post blackout habit. Small bills, and a “weekend bag” of basic necessities.
And a gas tank that is always refilled when approaching half full.
The contrast is striking between American Visionaries recognizing a watershed moment in our nation’s economic history on camera, and MSM bottom callers continuously grasping at green shoots as a sign that the real estate market is about to kick back into overdrive.
The unraveling housing bubble follows what physicists know as an irreversible process. However, economists don’t cover that concept in graduate school! Sir Isaac Newton must also have been weak on this subject, as he lost his shirt by sinking his personal fortune into the South Sea Bubble after he thought it had bottomed out.
Blue skies are seen for housing market
Upturn predicted ‘this year or next’
CLICK!
By Roger Showley
STAFF WRITER
2:00 a.m. April 25, 2009
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The nation’s housing market may begin to recover this year, ahead of the general economy, but only if a lot of “ifs” go the right way, according to a co-author of one of the most-watched housing indexes.
Karl “Chip” Case, who helped create the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Housing Market Index, struck a guardedly upbeat tone yesterday at a conference at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
“I’m optimistic,” said Case, an economics professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. “I think we’ll see housing turn around before other people do. I think we’ll see it turn up this year or next” before the rest of the economy improves.
CLICK!
…
Case also said the national housing picture is somewhat distorted by conditions in what he dubbed “Flocazn” – Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada – where more than 50 percent of all resales involve auctions of foreclosure properties, versus about 12 percent in the other 46 states.
He took particular delight in needling Californians for their undying belief in ever-rising home prices. But this faith is understandable, he said, because downturns in the 1980s and ’90s were followed by robust price recoveries and the 2000-01 recession did not result in any price declines.
“People in California know it’ll come back,” Case said.
‘needling Californians for their undying belief in ever-rising home prices…But this faith is understandable’
Well, Case is another kool-aid drinking economist who blew it when it counted. This talk of ‘ever-rising prices’ is one of the reasons we are in this mess. The entire global economy is in what the US government calls a ‘crisis,’ and this is what he has to say?
The article states he took “particular delight” in making fun of those who believed in the false notion of “ever-rising prices”.
and then goes on to say…
“This California article of faith is shared by many outside the Golden State. He cited an economist friend who complained that he had not sold his house even after two years on the market. Case gently reminded him that if he lowered the price, it might sell. ”
The kool-aid drinkers definitely got us into this mess, but i don’t think Case is one of them…
“Case gently reminded him that if he lowered the price, it might sell.”
One should be cautious with interpreting Case’s comments when quoted out of context by well-known real estate bull Showley. (Hopefully noting that Showley is a real estate bull does not qualify as a personal attack on him
)
Case provided some of the best HBB quotes early on. But he was like a lot of economists, hedging his comments so as to not spook buyers. Maybe he was handing out the kool-aide, but not drinking it? What’s worse?
And along with Shiller, why didn’t they run with the bubble theory when they had the chance? Instead, Shiller starts advocating goverment programs to ’support’ housing prices.
If one believes that there was a housing bubble, it is irrational to think anything could stop prices from falling. And if prices are going to fall, any government money spent is wasted and programs to encourage buying only create more FBs. Is that what is going to help? Less money available and more foreclosures?
He seemed to have some how missed the memo on the collapse of the whole Wall Street securitization infrastructure which facilitated the bubble’s expansion and collapse.
Case is another kool-aid drinking economist who blew it when it counted.
From Boston.com:
“In his studies, Case has identified a trio of key markers that signal when the market has bottomed out and is primed for a rebound: when starts of new housing fall below 1 million a year, when the real estate portion of the nation’s economy falls to the 3.5 percent range, and when the ratio of home prices to buyers’ incomes settles to more affordable levels.
As to the first one, housing starts fell below the 1 million mark a year ago and are still falling. Secondly, as a percent of the total economy, real estate is down to just 3 percent. And in the Boston area, the ratio of home prices to per capita income hit 10 to1 in early 2008, down from a high of 12 to 1 during the last boom.
So here we are with all three of Case’s indicators shifting from red to green, and yet there is no sign the market is turning the corner.”
Here’s the link:
http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2009/01/04/seeing_ahead_in_2009/?page=2
“In his studies, Case has identified a trio of key markers that signal when the market has bottomed out and is primed for a rebound:…”
So he is talking his bottom caller book, then. We have to be sure to point out a few years down the road from now how severely his formulaic analysis underestimated the tail end of this housing bust.
Yes, the Boston Globe:
‘Everything you need to know about Boston’s other spectator sport’
PB makes a good point about Case. IMO, what the northeast needed was an economist like Chris Thornberg. Case could have done that but chose otherwise.
Boston’s other spectator sport
Also the other spectator sport in San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, SLC, San Diego, LA, NYC, DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, Las Vegas, Vancouver, Portland, Santa Fe, Honolulu and unfortunately Anchorage.
Maybe they should call it a “speculator” sport…
A price to income ratio of 10 to 1 is nowhere near affordable. No affordability = no housing market without toxic loans to keep the shell game going.
3 x Inome + down payment (assuming good credit) = affordable price to be paid for a house. It is a very simple equation. Why don’t these RE fools understand it? I think they do but it is in their best scamming interest to just keep pumping the bull sh*t. I doubt if they believe it themselves.
Case comes across like an idiot saying this now when the housing crash and its reasons have gone main street.
I keep trying to hammer that point home when discussing this with people who don’t own homes currently. They all think I am CRAZY because I keep talking about the 3X income rule; all they can repeat is that their RE agent told them they could afford WAY more then that, interest rates at historic lows; blah, blah, blah.
3X income should be law for MTGs; it really should be. There’s just no reason to complicate the matter further; in certain times you may not be able to afford 3X income, in other times, perhaps a BIT more would be sustainable. However, the RE agents are using the “complexity” of affordability to drive people to make horrible decisions.
It’s simple, if you make 100K, don’t think about anything over 300K. And maybe not even that high (if you have lots of debt; or you live in FL (or other high tax state) where RE taxes/insurance and HOA will greatly reduce affordability).
I have had similar conversations with friends about housing prices. I say something to the effect of “Prices will stop falling when they get back in line with incomes” this is generally responded by either blank stares or some platitude about how housing always goes up in the “long run”.
I think this situation has the possibility of taking longer to play out than even the most bearish of us think. There is a mass psychosis around housing. It is painful for me to listen to otherwise intelligent people I know tell me that low interest rates make it a good time to buy a house. I don’t see anything that kills these illusions other than time and a lot more financial pain.
I agree.
For example, here in Maryland prices are barely falling. I think we’re down 10% or so total (on average.) Yes, people are wealthy here, but they are also buying stuff at 5x to 6x income typically. They cannot afford it, but they don’t care. It also shocks me just how many people I know in their 30’s who still need to have roommates so they can pay for their “affordable” townhouses, or people who “dabbled in real estate” as if it is a hobby or something. Insanity…
I hope you’re kidding with the whole “ought to be the law” thing, as, well, personally I take the side of having more freedoms, but I do agree with you that at the least there should be some counterbalance to realtors trying to get people to stretch to the brink of financial disaster. I’m not sure what the best way is - educational classes put on by the state, or perhaps a mandatory “information” sheet that shows historical norms, who knows.
I recall when I was looking to buy my (first) house in 2005…yeah, crappy timing, but it all worked out. I did the research I could think to do - I’m sure I came across the “standard” ratios of DTI for mortgages and total debt, kept a budget for a few months, and figured out what I could “afford”. And it was certainly less than what many people were “stretching” for. Like many of the people we read about, I looked to the mortgage broker and my realtor for some guidance (in addition to friends + family)…
I recall talking with my realtor, and asking her “so, it seems to make sense to buy at the outer edge of what you can currently “afford” and grow into the mortgage, no?” (seeing as I was 27 and expected my salary to continue to increase - and it did). I have to give her credit for simply responding “that’s one theory” or something to that effect.
The reality is there’s a “generation” of homebuyers out there who have only seen their friends and coworkers getting 80-15-5 mortgages and dealing with multiple offer scenarios, seeing prices and tax appraisals going up. Even those who read about how things “used” to be can’t deny what’s been going on around them. In the end, I think that experience will have to be the teacher of these lessons. Laws can just be repealed when people think they’re antiquated…(see Glass-Steagall)
Me? I made some arguably “bad” decisions and got lucky. I’m happy to learn through *other* peoples’ experiences
No, it should just be a law. What we’ve found is that the writing of bad MTGs harms us ALL, not just those who are stupid enough to take them out. Kind of like how me driving 150 on I95 doesn’t just potentially harm me, it could harm everyone else on the road as well; and therefore, it makes sense to regulate it.
If the banks could make these loans and have them go bad without riding on the American taxpayer, I wouldn’t care one bit. However, we all now know that’s not the case; the bank makes bad loans, and then the taxpayer get’s to pick up the mess (to the tune of a few T dollars) when their stupidity comes back to bite them. It’s a classic case of one person’s bad decisions having effects on many other people (think drunk driving, for example) and SHOULD be regulated. I’m not for crazy regulations; but I think a good start would be to outlaw any home MTG that’s > 3X the borrowers income. There’s no call for loans like that; those who needed “stated income” loans were either lying about their income (most often) or are criminals (and can’t report correctly); either way, I don’t want them getting loans!
Realtors should also be legally restricted from giving any financial advice and should be REQUIRED to correctly vet their customers before showing houses. Why are you showing a family making 60K a year 500K homes? It can only lead to disaster; there are no positive outcomes from this kind of behavior.
Wouldn’t it be easier to simply not have the US Gov’t/taxpayer bail them out? Then there can be freedom all around
What if I make, say, 50k a year, but have 500k in savings. Why can’t I get a 200k loan? You’re advocating outlawing something that in my situation is perfectly legitimate - I simply don’t want to tie up that much of my liquidity, but can afford it easily. That’s why I don’t like your proposal.
I think bailing out the banks is the source of the problem here..much easier to “outlaw”, so to speak. Of course then you still have the issue of comparable sales, appraisals, etc…I haven’t thought through that one completely, but personally I’d rather just nix property tax all together and tax on income or sales (in the interest of preserving property rights).
What about the banks making any mortgage at more than 2.4 times income (3 times income house with a 20% downpayment) full recourse? It it were my bank, I’d then require them to keep another 20% in an escrow account that I could use to pay down principle at my discretion if rising interest rates lowered the value of the house. Or they could just make a 40% downpayment in the first place.
Lets see how that works.
That would be easier, but unfortunately it’s not the world we live in. If we are going to live in a world where companies can become “to big to fail”, we have more robustly enforce anti-trust laws, if we are going to live in a world where the gov’t is determined to not let people face the consequences of their choices restricting those choices is a reasonable response.
My biggest problem with the bailouts is not the actual policy (although I think it’s an atrocious) it’s the long term consequences that the decisions that have been made in the past six months will have on restricting our liberties for years to come.
“If we are going to live in a world where companies can become “to big to fail”, ”
Well, I think that should be changed. How about “too big to bail” and y’all should “go to jail”?
“What about the banks making any mortgage at more than 2.4 times income (3 times income house with a 20% downpayment) full recourse?”
Instead, such loans above a certain income multiple should be non-recourse. Then the banks would be fully on the hook for loans that shouldn’t be made if they go bad.
Perhaps we should legislate away stupidity while we are at it.
Bucket item from Atlantic City, NJ: Regional homebuilders finished up their annual meet-up here on Friday. Their latest quick-fix proposal? Enact legislation permitting existing and approved 55+ developments to convert to anything goes. There seem to be many, varied interests to be placated. Builders say, “Jes’ get ‘er done.”
Whooops– just re-read newspaper after another cup of coffee. Legislation proposed by builders would affect only approved, unfinished 55+ developments, not existing ones. Sorry ’bout the hasty, earlier post. Municipalities approved these developments because they would, of course, bring tax revenues but no school-aged children, each entitled to $15 to $20,000 education every year. I can imagine homebuilders launching PR campaign depicting legislation’s opponents as xenophobic, racist ludduites hell-bent on denying needy children a thorough and efficient education. Imagine it? Heck, I could write the press releases!
It`s another Festivus Miracle
Sen. Feinstein’s Husband Cashes In on Crisis
California senator sought $25 billion for a government agency that had awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties.
The Washington Times
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms, the Washington Times reported on Tuesday.
Mrs. Feinstein’s intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn’t a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.
Documents reviewed by The Washington Times show Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures. Her letter was sent just days before the agency determined that CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE) - the commercial real estate firm that her husband Richard Blum heads as board chairman - had won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that FDIC had inherited from failed banks.
About the same time of the contract award, Mr. Blum’s private investment firm reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it and related affiliates had purchased more than 10 million new shares in CBRE. The shares were purchased for the going price of $3.77; CBRE’s stock closed Monday at $5.14.
Spokesmen for the FDIC, Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum’s firm told The Times that there was no connection between the legislation and the contract signed Nov. 13, and that the couple didn’t even know about CBRE’s business with FDIC until after it was awarded.
But since she’s a democrat, the attitude is “Move along, nothing to see here.”
Both sides have double standards and hypocrisies (Democrats and Republicans).
Buy gold!
Gold knows no politics, does not spy on what goes on in your bedroom (got that Republicans?) and insures you against the hidden tax of inflation (got that Democrats?).
Sheesh Bill…Ben said that we were supposed to be apolitical here at the HBB.
Fines Bill: one whopping NC barbecue dinner and takes away his hush puppy and ice tea privileges for an entire week.
The hush puppy enforcer
Another corrupt politician surfaces. Whats new?
It is disgusting
It really is depressing as a 30-year-old to see this sentiment and feel the same way - “what’s new?”. Did people feel this way 30-50 years ago?
I recall when the whole Blago-whatshisname scandal in Illinois came up, talking to my mom about it (who lives up there)…after the issues with Gov. Ryan, they thought they were over the corruption, but, of course they weren’t.
At what point do people start questioning whether possibly it’s the institution itself that’s corrupt rather than the individual, and that voting for a seemingly-innocent person who’s part of the same institution *isn’t* the solution?
I’m personally a Libertarian, and maybe they’re part of the same corrupt institution and need to be thrown out as well, but clearly the current system is fundamentally flawed in some way. Who’s gong to fix it?
the institution itself that’s corrupt rather than the individual
bingo. The politicos have kept up the political baseball game well enough to distract everyone. For example, we have the comment about how Bush singularly “socialized” America.
What we need is to get Dems in office instead of Repubs, that’ll fix it.
She didn’t say that Bush personally “socialized” America, but was referring to the fact that the U.S. had many socialist policies under Bush. That is very true. We’ve long had varied “socialist” policies that have benefitted our society greatly.
ugh..who’s *going* to fix it.
Also, I should clarify that I’m more little-L “libertarian,” rather than big-L “Libertarian”
I should clarify that I’m more little-L “libertarian,” rather than big-L “Libertarian”.
I’m with you, although I prefer to call myself liberal because it’s proper, in the Frederick Bastiat sense. Most non-libertarians do not know the distinction between “L” and “l” though.
“L” : Political party politics. And I understand why Cody Willard on Fox’s “Happy Hour” is against any “ism,” including capital “L”.
“l” : Not political, practices libertarianism as much as possible to pay very little tax if any. lives according to his own morality, rather than to some group morality (religion, state).
” Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures”
“Spokesmen for the FDIC, Mrs. Feinstein and Mr. Blum’s firm told The Times that there was no connection between the legislation and the contract signed Nov. 13, and that the couple didn’t even know about CBRE’s business with FDIC until after it was awarded.”
You can’t defeat a Democrat politician in California. As long as she’s pro-choice and gay marriage, and says the right things to the hate-Bush cult, she can get away with just about anything.
I am an equal opportunity hater. I hate Bush and loathe Feinstein too.
Ditto.
My wife is already threatening to leave the state if Gavin Nuisance gets elected governor.
No worries, it ain’t gonna happen. Gavin Newsom pretty much handed Prop 8 supporters the election with that “it’s gonna happen, whether you like it or not” speech. If he runs for gov they’ll be running that clip nonstop.
Heck, I couldn’t even vote for ole Newsom. There is something slimey about that man. Yuuuuuuuck!
What a coinky-dink…
You can’t defeat a Republican politician in Alaska (where I live). As long as she’s pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and says the right things to the hate-Obama cult, she can get away with just about anything.
I like how that works.
And they both (sides) deserve each other. lol
“You can’t defeat a Democrat politician in California.”
Then exactly how was Gray Davis (former Dem governor) removed from office? He didn’t leave voluntarily. It’s easier to elect non-Dems in California if other parties nominate viable candidates that are potentially electable. Nominating fringe candidates and complaining when they don’t get elected doesn’t accomplish very much.
Testing? My post was eaten.
Ben, I know I have a sailor mouth and have broken your rules. I am sorry. When I posted that hateful remark months ago, it was done out of anger, I plead insanity. My father had just passed away and I wasent in my right mind. As for my sailor mouth, it comes from hanging around truck drivers that come to my business for repairs. It’s hard not to pickup the language. I promise to be a good girl from now on.
The HBB only eats the tasty posts or so I’ve heard, anyway.
I am sorry to hear about your father, I hope you and your family are doing O.K.
Time heals.
For the most part I agree.
Of course, I disagree with (aHansen’s) statement that “Ayn Rand didn’t work.” Ayn Rand was a person. Her philosophy is objectivism. Objectivism includes all sorts of areas: metaphysics, ethics, politics, art, etc. Obviously the woman on the documentary did not read A.R.’s works at all and does not know what she’s talking about.
America is primarily a subjectivist society. Proof: 85% believe in some form of God. Objectivists are atheists. So please stop the slander against Ayn Rand.
As for Bush, He certainly implemented socialism. For that I hate Bush. And that does not make any excuse at all for Obama to be Bush on steroids, like my fellow Obama worshippers (BananaRama, Excreter, et al) want.
The economics that Objectism allies with is Austrian economics. It’s based on decentralized banking and a gold standard. Obviously there is no decentralized banking and no gold standard in America. Another reason why “Ayn Rand didn’t work” is BS.
Above all, by rescuing banks and individuals - bailing out irresponsible ones at the expense of the responsible, it’s downright socialism. We would be better off by letting banks and individuals fail. That is the capitalistic way.
“We would be better off by letting banks and individuals fail. That is the capitalistic way.”
In ordinary times I would agree with you, but we need to somehow get past this economic hump in the road.
If we let the banks fail that should fail then most likely they would ALL fail and the world economy would screech to a halt.
I understand how that appears “bad” on the surface, combo…but sometimes bad things have to happen, no? It’s natural selection….if only 3 individuals out of millions have a trait that makes them more adaptable, at some point the other millions have to die, and the 3 with the selected-for trait will procreate and soon you’ll have a population that all have the trait that’s stable/successful.
There are so many issues at play here, there’s no straight-forward or easy solution. There’s a question of morality, as far as “punishing” the innocent to help the guilty (ie giving taxpayer dollars to banks to help them survive). There’s the moral hazard issue, where you’re separating the risk from the behavior. And of course there’s the “good of the system” factor.
I don’t think there’s anyone who can say for certain that the world will end if the biggest 18 banks fail, nor anyone who can say that if we give them XXX dollars it will be better than if we didn’t. But it is clear that immoral actions are being taken at the moment - responsible banks are paying to bail out irresponsible ones (FDIC). Irresponsible banks are being “selected for success” by the treasury. And private individuals are being stolen from to support the financiers. All of those are immoral and patently wrong.
The argument you make appeals to the “greater good”, as far as having the global economy not come to a screeching halt. Us taxpayers need to sacrifice to stop this from happening. I would appeal to an even GREATER good, that is of a sound, functioning capitalist economy. We NEED to have these banks fail and deal with whatever fallout in order for things to be able to be GOOD again in the future.
Both viewpoints require sacrifice on someone’s behalf. My argument is that it come from the wrong-doers in this situation - the bankers, politicians, and those who committed fraud.
As long as banks serve as the clearing houses for financial transactions they must be preserved. If financial transactions aren’t allowed to clear then these transactions won’t occur.
We had a hint of that several months ago when shippers balked at unloading their cargo until payment guarantees were made.
Some may suggest cash-only transations, which may sound good in theory but would be impractical in practice. Imagine, for example, if grocers could only buy goods for resale if they were to fork over thousands of dollars to the trucker who delivered them. In this case there would be truckers driving around with thousands of dollars of cash on them; not a good idea.
A better idea is to have the transactions cleared by a clearing house - such as a bank.
I’m not aware of all the details of the situation you describe, but I would imagine that the failure of 10 banks would simply require these transactions to be cleared through the hundreds of thousands of banks that WON’T fail without being propped up by the government. There are plenty of banks out there that are sound - let them pick up the business.
The risk here isn’t that EVERY bank fails..it’s just that MegaBank, Inc (PB have you trademarked this yet? I hope not, as I forget the markup for the TM symbol) will fail. There ARE other banks out there!
There are other banks out there but who knows which of these banks are sound and which aren’t? I suspect most aren’t because the collateral most banks use to back their loans are declining in value.
If it weren’t for the backing and guarantees of the government all banks would be suspect and massive runs would occur and our economy would be launched right back into the Thirties (that’s if we were lucky).
If it weren’t for the backing and guarantees of the government all banks would be suspect and massive runs would occur and our economy would be launched right back into the Thirties (that’s if we were lucky).
I think that’s a bold statement. It’s a possibility, sure, but a certainty? I think you need to back that one up.
Sure, all kinds of bad things MIGHT happen..but they might not. I don’t think it’s intellectually honest to talk about them like they’re a certainty like you do. You’re making assumptions here.
And I would add that all banks SHOULD be suspect. We _should_ have to worry, IMO, and do our due diligence and choose banks that engage in healthy and sound business.
“I think you need to back that up.”
Go look back at what happened when The Reserve Fund broke the buck, when money market funds began runs, when the government had to apply guarantees. Go look what happened wheh Lehman was allowed to fail, when AIG was about to.
“We_should_have to worry, IMO, and do our due diligence and choose banks that engage in healthy and sound business.”
Tough to do when there is no transparancy. Plus, with the economy imploding, today’s healthy bank may be tomorrow’s basket case. What has happened to residential RE is happening to commercial RE, and that’s where many small banks have large chunks of money invested.
“Sure all kinds of bad things MIGHT happen .. but they might not.”
Okay. But in my view the odds favor the bad things over the good, at least for now.
Tough to do when there is no transparancy.
Agreed. But then why not force transparency right then and there, rather than go even more opaque and have bailouts. I agree that there are multiple problems, but then there are also multiple possible solutions as a result.
And yes, when MMFs broke the buck, people pulled money out. As well they should. Most of those people shouldn’t have been in MMFs in the first place, if they couldn’t handle a loss of value (that’s why there’s a distinction between an FDIC insured savings account and a MMF, and different rates of return).
The government didn’t *have* to apply guarantees to stop the end of the world. They applied guarantees to stop the flow of funds from MMFs (which would pull money out of the market for bonds, MBSs, etc), but that money would be moved/reallocated elsewhere - namely to treasuries, savings accounts…places that money was needed then as is needed now, to shore up bank balance sheets.
I don’t dispute those things happened. I simply dispute that the gov’s actions were required…that there weren’t alternatives, and the world would have ended if they didn’t.
Regarding bank health…there is enough information out there. I know what banks are likely CRE-heavy (actually, I have a lot of money with Zions..I know they’re at risk, I’ve just been lazy). Hell, I *knew* to get out of any kind of MBS, and to go with an MMA instead of an MMF. The information *is* out there for those who care to do the work. Could/should it be more transparent? Sure…but there was enough information out there for people to make wise decisions.
“There’s a question of morality, as far as “punishing” the innocent to help the guilty ”
Care to enlighten me as to who has clean hands?
Most everyone is guilty, even, dare I say, most of the anointed that post here. I too am guilty. The difference that I, like many here, profited from our foresight, and thus profited from the ignorance of others.
Am I guilty? Yes. Am I sorry or repentant? Not really.
They DID let a bank fail — Lehman Brothers. The market responded by dropping like a rock. The shake in confidence was apparently enough to cause a secret electronic run on the banks: big bondholders essentially withdrawing money for the mattress. That’s when Paulson asked for the $750B.
The next bank to fail was Merrill. Instead of letting it fail, the gov engineered a middle ground: a bailed merger with BoA. That still didn’t help.
Hence the gov had to go into full-scale bailout mode.
the stock market != the broad economy. So investors panic? That’s no the end of the world, and that’s not the end of commerce.
And is a run on the banks a terrible thing? I suppose, if people can’t get their money out (hello FDIC), but perhaps the problem is with fractional reserve lending and the fact that banks don’t have people’s money actually stored there for them…
I don’t buy that the gov’t *had* to do anything.
I think we ought to maintain FDIC protection for **depositors** and let everything else fail.
If it’s such a dire emergency, the government could open government banks and bypass the entire private banking system. This would be my preference, as money should be made by doing **work** not by passing other people’s money from one hand to another.
Did we instead just bailout financial institutions so they could resume their bloated compensation packages?
http://tinyurl.com/d45jmc
“The rest of the nation may be getting back to basics, but on Wall Street, paychecks still come with a golden promise. Workers at the largest financial institutions are on track to earn as much money this year as they did before the financial crisis began because bank profits have started strong this year.”
“Even as the industry’s compensation has been put in the spotlight for being so high at a time when many banks have received taxpayer help, six of the biggest banks set aside more than $36 billion in the first quarter to pay their employees, according to a review of financial statements.”
“Of the large banks receiving federal help, Goldman Sachs stands out for setting aside the most per person for compensation. The bank, which nearly halved its compensation last year, set aside $4.7 billion for worker pay in the quarter. If that level continues all year, it would add up to average pay of $569,220 per worker – almost as much as the pay in 2007, a record year.”
Part of the recovery process should be to let these corrupt institutions fail and die. They are a cancer. We do need a banking system, just not many of these corrupt financial firms.
Bush, He certainly implemented socialism ??
I just think he was not well read, was easily influenced, was intoxicated with his power and basically incompetent…Elections have intended and unintended consequences..Just makes me wonder, if Gore or Kerry would have won the election, if Obama would be President today…
Go back farther. I believe that if Clinton had taken responsibility for his actions (even if that required a resignation) Gore would have been president until a couple of months ago. I think it was the angry finger shake and the “now you listen to me” that tipped it by the absolute minimum needed to get Bush in.
Under George W. Bush, the insurance industry was formally socialized, (AIG,) the real estate industry was formally socialized, (Fannie and Freddie bailouts,) and the banking industry was formally socialized, (TARP et al ad nauseum.) Energy, defense, and Big Pharma/AG were further “reverse” socialized under GWB in that taxpayers got to finance them (to benefit his oligarchy,) without commensurate public ownership. Etc.
Again, context was edited by the filmakers.
I agree with Bill, and I’m tired of the statist crowd using this “crisis” as an excuse to blame capitalism and to try and grab even more power for the government.
As a counterpoint, I thought AHansen hit a glorious, towering grand slam outta the park.
But this isn’t a place for rigid, monolithic thought, is it?
One of the reasons this board is so vital is that beyond our agreement on one central tenet (the insanity and unsustainability of the housing + credit bubbles), there’s a fairly wide diversity of well-informed opinions. 400 posts a day in harmonious, head-bobbing agreement would add up to one big pile of boring.
Well said, ET.
“Obviously there is no … gold standard in America.”
There was in the early 1930s…
Objectivism includes all sorts of areas: metaphysics, ethics, politics, art, etc…Objectivists are atheists.
Sorry, but I think ahansen was right. Objectivism is a religion, and along with those good things you mentioned also shares with other religions bad things: beliefs of infallibility of its most rigorous adherents, fanaticism, a belief in convenient contradictions, and a willingness to persecute those who believe differently.
After reading nearly everything she published and believing in it for several years, to the detriment even of relationships with friends and family. I thought I was a polymath, but what I became was a delusional @ss, I was so drunk on the stuff. Luckily, as with my other juvenile obsessions with comic books, frat parties and sexual indiscretion, I grew out of it over time.
Both Communism and Objectivism depend on impossibly idealized human behavior…and is so precarious that all it takes is a few “bad apples” to take advantage of it and bring the entire system down. It’s highest principle is that “the rights of the individual trump the rights of the group, except when the individual’s rights interfere with the rights of others” Huh? It believes in enough government to enforce that principle, but doesn’t believe in taxation to support that government.
I think the only way it would work is if a bunch of gun-toting jackbooted brownshirts go around enforcing their definition of Objectivism on everyone else, making those who disagree wear the philosophical equivalent of burkas for professing a belief in charity, compromise, and imperfection.
…and believing in it for several years, I let it go to my head- to the detriment even of relationships with friends and family.
Sorry for my fast fingers.
I can’t speak for anyone else (and I haven’t seen the video, so I’m not responding to ahansen’s comments), but what is so frustrating about conversations on Rand and Objectivism is people paint it to be so black and white.
Perhaps if you take it in it’s entirety, it doesn’t work. Yes, individuals should engage in charity if they so choose, etc. However, I think there are some solid points made that would be wrong to dismiss out of hand. Just because you can’t buy into it wholesale doesn’t mean that it’s worth ignoring completely, nor that there’s nothing of merit worth considering or discussing.
Punishing those who are “successful” for being so certainly doesn’t help things. It just guarantees that everyone will be mediocre instead.
Well even radical Islam, evangelical Christianity, hippie free love, and Marxism aren’t worth ignoring completely. They all have some good ideas buried in a cocoon of abject craziness.
I never heard of a philosophy that thinks punishing the successful helps anybody. Can you name one? Instead, we have a system that preserves long-standing familiar power structures to the detriment of someone else’s future success.
It’s called nepotism in micro terms, and post-bubble American economic policy in macro terms.
I would argue that a lot of the policy in place, and what people are clamoring for embodies exactly that philosophy - punishing the successful. “Progressive” taxation, “windfall-profit” taxes, etc.
Yes, the way fund managers are taxed (As cap gains, not income) is messed up. But that doesn’t make it okay to go after someone making 250k+….or simply someone who makes more than you do (not saying you’ve advocated this, NSO, though you may well have).
And I agree, someone else going on right now is an attempt to preserve the existing power structures. But independent of that I feel that we punish/tax anyone who makes more than “us”. That, to me, is punishing success.
drumminj,
I’m still not sure about whether I believe in progressive taxation. However, after a year of bailing out rich and powerful CEOs for NOT being successful, I have no compunction in seeing them taxed more than everyone else…they and their TBTF companies should be forced to pay back their subsidies and bailouts somehow.
NSO, I agree. But I don’t see movements to tax these people. I see efforts to repeal the Bush Congress tax cuts. To raise taxes on those making 250k+. That’s not the group who’s responsible for driving the TBTF entities into the ground.
I wish people could view things in a way other than “progressive” or “regressive”. Where is the “fair” realm? IMO, what most people consider regressive is “fair” by most measures. It certainly isn’t the opposite of progressive - that would be those making, say, less than 40k paying a 35% rate, and those making over 75k paying 20%. But instead, if it’s a 20% flat rate, that’s considered “regressive”. The debate is framed in a way that makes it impossible to have a “real” discussion.
I don’t claim to have the answers. I just wish more open-minded discussions could happen more frequently.
20% of a $40K income has a much greater value than 20% of a $500K income.
One is driven to abject poverty, while the other barely notices it. There is a difference, and a “flat” tax is most definitely regressive in that it harms poor people far more than the wealthy.
BTW, not everyone belives that “successful” people have earned all their money. More often than not, they simply control the money flow. Their wealth is not related to any level of production or benefit to society.
Just for the record, I am of the opinion that there is no way to have a tax structure that is “fair.” It’s always going to be unfair to some group or other in varying ways.
I also think that the only thing that is truly “fair” in life is death. Everybody gets to die sooner or later. So “fairness” is not a major consideration of tax policy, IMO. Instead, taxes should be structured as befits a type of social policy that the designers want to implement.
I recently read a great bit in one of author L.E. Modesitt’s books that was a brief discourse of general governmental policy. As a summation, it said there’s no such thing as a truly “fair” set of laws… and when you pursue fairness beyond a certain level, you end up with an increasingly complex set of laws that seems MORE unfair because they’re difficult to understand.
If you apply that to tax policy, the problem with the current tax structure in the US is not that it is “unfair” but in that it is so complex as to seem unfair (a contention supported by the fact that you can fill out your taxes various ways and get different answers. You should only have to do it one way.)
“I think the only way it would work is if a bunch of gun-toting jackbooted brownshirts go around enforcing their definition of Objectivism on everyone else”
That’s the authoritarians (cloaked as “conservatives”) dream date. Jail women for simple sexual innuendo, re-open debtors prisons, chastity belts, hack off fingers(or hands) for petty theft…. no different than “the other” fundamentalists the media has trained the dopey lapdogs on Main Street to hate. Meanwhile the oppressed class goes without while growing in numbers.
Imagine that.
“I think the only way it would work is if a bunch of gun-toting jackbooted brownshirts go around enforcing their definition of Objectivism on everyone else”
Another ignorant statement by someone who does not know the subject of Objectivism yet claims to know. Objectivism cannot be interpreted like the Bible. Objective is objective. Also, extrapolated from Metaphysics to ethics to politics, Objectivism would not enforce an ism. That is initiation of force. You who wrote that quote accomplished nothing but slander and lying. No points to you. Next time read the books. You made yourself an idiot.
Exeter,
No objectivist would jail women for sexual innuendo. Read up on individul rights to life liberty and pursuit of happiness. Also you did not know that Objectivism is pro-choice, did you? You intend to associate Objectivism with social conservatism in order to make a cheap slander on it like the flunking tenth grader on the debate team. You did not get away with it.
I think our current President is putting the “A” back in authoritarian.
Play the game Bioshock, and you’ll understand exactly what a dystopia unbridled objectivism becomes with a transhumanism element.
The reality is that there is no one solution, or philosophy, or “ism” that fits all situations at all times.
BIL,
I studied with Nathaniel Branden before you were even born. Please do not presume to tell me what I do and do not know of Ms. Rosenbaum’s writings or theories.
The impracticality of objectivism can be summed up in one word, “monopoly.”
I am well aware of the schism between Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand. I take the Branden and The Objectivist Center stance. Like I said before, I am agreement with Objectivism as a philosophy, not Ayn Rand as a cult. The Ayn Rand Institute is more a church than a philosophy. I’ve been reading this stuff since 1978.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater…”Oh all objectivism is wrong because Ayn Rand was not perfect.”
Key words there, BIL, “studied with.” As in “took classes from.” In 1968. Westwood, CA.
They were living together at the time. (No schism yet.)
And yet you did not provide evidence that we tried “Ayn Rand” at all in America. In a society where only 15% of the populace are atheists, and most of them socialists, you cannot logically say Ayn Rand was implemented. Now why didn’t you say “we tried objectivism and it didn’t work?” I think the reason is that it would be so obvious a ridiculous statement.
To say you studied with Nathaniel Branden is one thing, but does not support your implication that we tried “objectivism and it did not work.”
In another thread you cheered me for being against conservatism partly because it’s resistance to change and that being a sovereign individual is the best way to live.
No which is it? Individualism or not?
“…No which is it? Individualism or not?….”
Exactly.
Garrr…. this sort of thing gives me a terrific headache, but there’s a kind of eager sincerity in your persistence that makes me want to engage you–in the same way I do the Jehovah’s’ Witnesses. There’s always hope I can make them see the light….
Most of us got over this silliness before we graduated high school, but the desire to order one’s life in terms of absolutes still seems to afflict the fundamentalists among us, as NSO so aptly pointed out. Perhaps you’ve been programming so long that your imagination has gone all binary on you?
You drive on public roads, wash in municipal water, enjoy an accessible coastline commonly owned by the citizenry. You went to public schools taught by unionized teachers, and use public utilities and communication systems developed and maintained with government funding. You probably work in a communal office, eat in restaurants, and according to your posts, even engage in social relationships. All these choices preclude true “individualism.”
Left to your own devices in an unregulated and purely “individualistic” world, you would starve. (Or more likely be shot.) Were a true objectivist system even possible, the end result would be dictatorship. Or anarchy. Or Bill Gates (or George Soros, or the Sultan of Brunei,) running things. This is your utopia?
Unless you live as I do, (and even I have occasion to interact with civil society every now and then,) you’re deluding yourself–as Alan Greenspan recently conceeded, and to whose guiding economic principals I was referring in the (highly edited, and not necessarily contextually accurate,) interview you called (and I quote here,) “BS.”
There are no simple answers, Bill. Either/or, on/off, yes/no, black/white only work in electronics. Human reality is a whole lot messier, and those who can adapt, improvise, and (forgive me,) compromise have a tendency to enjoy the whole thing a lot more. And, ironically, enjoy a richer existence.
Give it a try? Who knows…you might end up dating a communist hottie who loves you for your sparkling wit and not your magnificent retirement funds.
That is all.
Have a nice Sunday down there at the beach!
“There are no simple answers, Bill.”
Yet overimplified solutions to complex issues is precisely what the authoritarians hiding behind ____(fill in the blank) use to advance their failed cause. And their simple solutions are seldom if ever a genuine approach to solving problems.
I still did not get the answer. I was concerned for justice. To mislabel socialism of the last 8 years as “Ayn Rand” is injustice. I guess you don’t want to answer. You wantn to distort.
Capitalism is the only moral economic system because it does not require the initiation of force to be implemented. Voluntary exchange means neither of two people have a gun against their head to trade things. That is the essence of capitalism and it must be defended.
Sigh.
SNAKE STORY
After having been out of town for a couple of weeks, I was enjoying being back home and enjoying nature around my yard - working in the garden, watching the birds, etc. Then last night, I had a really interesting experience.
I was sitting on the deck in the backyard at about 9 PM, reading. I heard a thud under a tree a few feet from the deck. I got a flashlight and checked it out. We saw eyes, and at first thought that a dying owl had fallen from the tree. It turned out to be a large black snake, twined tightly around a rat - whose eyes we had seen. We thought it fell out of the tree, but it might possibly have fallen from the neighbor’s garage roof behind. The snake squeezed the rat for a few minutes.
The snake was about an inch and a quarter or inch and a half in diameter, I would say. Its head was about an inch and a half long and about an inch deep. The rat was full size, say three inches in diameter, six inches long excluding tail. It seemed like the snake fell because so much of its body was wrapped around the rat that it couldn’t grip the tree.
As we watched, the snake, still wrapped around the rat body, went for the head and proceeded to consume it. The snake kept stretching its jaws open further and further as it swallowed the rat whole - head, front legs, body, back legs, tail. Behind the snakes head you could see kind of a peristaltic wave squeezing and pushing back the bulge of the rat body. The snakes mouth narrowed back down as it sucked down the rats right foot and tail at the end. The whole process took 15 or 20 minutes.
As soon as it had swallowed the rat, the snake slithered back up in the tree. It was at least 5 feet long. You could still see the bulge of the rat as the snake climbed high up in the tree.
I got pictures of the whole thing! Digital camera battery was down, so I used slide film. After I get the film processed, I will post pictures if anyone is interested. Watching it live was really awesome.
OK, so this is the Austin area, right? What kind of snake was it?
I miss Barton Springs BTW. I miss a lot about Austin, except the traffic. Plus, they went nuts with the condos… Oh well, it’s probably time for some ultimate frisbee in Zilker Park by now.
Looking at texas snakes dot net site, I’m guessing Schott’s Whipsnake (the dark variant without the pink). When I get the film developed, I will send a shot to texas snakes dot net for them to identify.
Not a whipsnake as they are not constrictors. Rat snake of some kind probably. Sounds pretty cool you have rat catchers and the best kind
Ben,
Did you live in the Barton Springs area? My sisters used to live there in the early 1990s — maybe you were neighbors?
I lived about 2 or 3 miles from it, in Clarkville. When I moved there in 1998, I first had questions about housing and prices, as my rent was half of what my landlord was paying on the mortgage.
Today would have been a great day for ultimate frisbee in Zilker Park or a swim at Barton Springs.
Out of the question in Pease Park today though. Today is Eeyore’s birthday and the park is packed!
That is awesom! I look forward to seeing the pic’s. Did the flash from your camera effect the snakes dining at all?
Neither the flashlight beamed on him nor the flash bulb (and I took a lot of shots) seemed to have any effect while he was eating. But as soon as he finished eating, he looked my way and started heading the other direction. Given his heavy meal, we thought that he probably headed up the tree somewhat faster than if he had finished up his meal in privacy.
Awesome post, hip in zilkey!
Neither the flashlight beamed on him nor the flash bulb (and I took a lot of shots) seemed to have any effect while he was eating.
Understandable. I’m the same way when I’m eating something I really like. Nothing distracts me. Although I’ve never eaten a fresh wiggley rat—that I know of—and if I did, it wouldn’t take me 20 minutes, I bet.
That ability to stretch my head up and around and then do a peristaltic waves makes me jealous. Man, I wouldn’t even have to chew my food anymore! I don’t chew that much now, come to think of it, but you know what I mean.
…we thought that he probably headed up the tree somewhat faster than if he had finished up his meal in privacy.
Hey, same there, too! Up in a tree holding still and thinking is a great place for good digestion to occur, in my experience.
‘Schott’s Whipsnake’ is a great name for a snake. I hope that is the name, and not something like, ‘Bill’s Plain Old Snake’.
Kind of reminds me of my childhood when our valley here was still all blossoms…Gardner snakes everywhere…I saw this event play out a lot of times…
In my whipper snapper days I used to go hunting for garter snakes and blue bellied lizards in the San Bruno area, scdave. Used to be a lot of open spaces before housing took over the best snake and lizard hunting spots.
hip, I gather you’re down in the Barton Springs area…where exactly are you at again?
I’d love to see photos of the snake post-meal…I don’t recall seeing any snakes in the 8 years I lived down there, though.
I live in Zilker neighborhood, a couple of blocks southwest of the intersection of Barton Springs Rd and South Lamar. When you head west on Barton Springs Road from Lamar toward Zilker Park, the first stop light is at Kinney Ave (the steep hill), which tees into Barton Springs Rd - across from Billy’s BBQ and Austin Java (and the horrible Barton Place condos that displaced the RV park).
Across Kinney from Flipnotics Coffee Space are the (Tuscan) Villas of Lost Canyon - behind Valero station. My house is a couple blocks south of Barton Springs Rd at the top of that canyon (the upper part of the canyon is still villa-free). It’s in a little part of Zilker neighborhood that is cut off from road access to Kinney by the canyon.
The canyon green space shelters a lot of wild life. While just a few blocks from downtown, I regularly see armadillos, raccoons, possums, foxes, and owls from the deck at night. We’ve seen a couple large snakes and lots of small ones; there’s lots of lizards too.
Ahh, yeah, I had a friend that lived back there off Ford street, if I recall correctly.
Ford Street is a little further south and west in Zilker neighborhood, close to Zilker Elementary school.
It’s a great neighborhood, but hit hard by McMansion fever inside and condo mania on the arterials.
Yeah, i had another friend looking at houses in the area. Lots of knock-down rebuilds. Boy did those stand out. Love the area, though.
drumminj,
I may have lost a post.
I’m a couple blocks south and west of the Barton Springs Road and Lamar intersection. A couple blocks north and and slightly west of the South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse cinema.
Across from Flipnotics Coffee Space and behind the Valero gas station, at the intersection of Kinney Ave and Barton Springs Rd a few blocks east of Zilker Park, are the rather absurd “Villas of Lost Canyon.” My house is up at the top of that canyon, in a little section of Zilker neighborhood that lies between Lamar and the canyon.
Cool. I was just out on my weekly nature walk today, and took this photo of a juvie gator.
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o72/muggyFL/img445.jpg
I’m trying to get a photo of a legendary gator at one of my fav parks. I finally saw it last weekend, but didn’t have my camera. It’s easily the biggest gator I have ever seen in an urban area, but doesn’t sun much.
Of all the dumb things I like to do, this is top three. Please tell my wife how much I love her when the PInellas Sheriff finds only my leg.
Watch yourself — those gators can move amazingly fast when prey is nearby.
“We saw eyes, and at first thought that a dying owl had fallen from the tree. It turned out to be a large black snake, twined tightly around a rat - whose eyes we had seen. We thought it fell out of the tree, but it might possibly have fallen from the neighbor’s garage roof behind. The snake squeezed the rat for a few minutes.”
Standing by for OlyGal to comment on whether this story represents suitable content for HBB grrrrls’ consumption?
See first post, below.
BTW, I have to compliment you on your expository description of snake peristalsis. After reading your account, I almost feel as though I witnessed it myself.
Snakes jaws are not hinged like humans so they can separate. And they use the teeth to suck it in - release upper, move forward, sink teeth, release lower, move forward, sink teeth.
My old roomate in school had a python. We fed it mice. You could watch it in action. It got to be our standard parlor trick for impressing visiting nephews and nieces of friends.
That and feeding the sting ray with fresh worms and shrimp.
Had a green tree python as a kid. Looks like a banana bunch hanging on a limb.
It would only eat birds.
Small chicks.
Bought those at pet store.
Yes. I was young.
“Snakes jaws are not hinged like humans so they can separate”
Yeah… that was the key to him getting the rat down (or rather, “in”).
Heck, yes, we wanna see a bunch of photos of a snake scarfing down a rat! Like you needed to even ask…what a silly question.
Oly,
Did you see that little fawn entering somones house via the pet door after the fat cat ?
No. But I would have enjoyed it if I had. Is this on youtube?
Or, I just thought of this, was this a special artistic performance piece on your part, that you set up last weekend after too much Jim Beam?
It’s on the front of yahoo homepage right now
Surprise pet-door guest vid
Nope…I only drink Jack Daniels on rare occassions and JB if I’m really desperate. Plus, I haven’t had a drink in say…6-7 months.
Now, would you believe me if I told you that “I loved ya…trust me “?
Surprise pet-door guest vid
Ooooh! I must go see it!
Now, would you believe me if I told you that “I loved ya…trust me “?
You bet. I’d totally believe you, as long as you wasn’t eating a fresh rat, with peristaltic waves, and/or shoving an innocent fawn through your pet door as a prank, at the same time you told me.
Rats and tiny deerburgers, she’s on to me !
ha ha ha
Professor Bearina will have to shield her eyes…
I wasn’t able to drop off the slide film today, so I will post link to photos some time next week.
Ben, I’ll be in Flagstaf this evening.
Dinner? I’ll buy.
Sure, just email me. It’s windy here today…again.
Milwaukee home assessments fall 7.2% on average
Residential property values tumbled an average of 7.2% across Milwaukee in the past year, with double-digit plunges in the north side’s poorest neighborhoods, as the combined force of the recession and the wave of mortgage foreclosures struck the local real estate market.
Hardest hit was the 15th Aldermanic District, where assessed values plummeted 20.3%, according to figures released Friday by the city assessor’s office.
“If there was a housing bubble, the bubble popped and those at the margins of society are hurt more than others,” said Common Council President Willie Hines Jr., the district’s alderman.
Mayor Tom Barrett agreed, saying, “The central-city neighborhoods have been hit the hardest in the economic downturn and the mortgage foreclosure crisis.”
Sheesh…It seems like just yesterday people were Dancing in the Streets throwing Flowers and Candy singing “My house is Worth More “.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/43655412.html
Posted on Denninger: Those of us on this forum all knew that these various deals, dating back to the first “investment” in Countrywide in summer 2007 were probably coerced and contrived. So why are they throwing out this crumb now (by revealing that the BofA takeover of Merrill was illegally coerced by the government)? Are we being distracted yet again from something more important?
A lot of sentiment out there that this is bigger than Watergate, I would agree with that.
yet it will not be investigated a fourth as much as Watergate, if at all. We know why. It’s the double standard.
And how about the SEC looking at the naked short selling? I bet that investigation would end up at Goldman Sachs doorstep.
Where’s the change? Instead of the messiah throwing out the money changers he’s got them running treasury and the economy. We need some viable third parties to kill off the existing political system. I think all political offices should be limited to a single term as a start. We’ve got absolute dinosaurs in the Senate and it will be a long time before we can use them as oil. Maybe soylent green would be a better fate for them.
Define “viable third party”? There are several…they are viable, if people would just stop throwing their votes away on the two major parties…
Right. I don’t know about you but I’m sick of people calling me a commie because I’m an atheist or calling me a Dittohead because I want complete free enterprise.
I blew a gasket today when I watched Glenn Beck. I had my hopes up high when he was concerned about hospitals keeping babies’ blood samples as an invasion of privacy, then he slipped in some anti abortion item after that! He thinks we’re too dumb to notice that stopping abortion means invading a woman/girl’s privacy and individul rights. Grrr!
I dearly want the Republican Party to die. It deserves to. It fails to recognize that most people want civil liberties as well as economic liberties.
It is no wonder we have to see saw between a major political party favorable to civil liberties and one that rhetoric-only favors economic liberties.
The joke’s on the Public. Both large parties put their favorite freeedoms on the back burner and roll us further into totalitarianism.
I blame lazy voters for not voting third party. It’s obvious which third party I vote for. It’s consistently for complete civil liberties (Republicans hate it) and economic liberties (Democrats hate it).
http://libertariansforlife.org/ Have a look.
http://pro-choicelibertarians.net/
The so-called “pro-life” view in the LP is a minority view. Pro choice has been in the LP platform for decades. Don’t kill the LP by bringing Republicans into it. Stay in the RP.
Some US citizens are declaring a personal war on the global banking cartel.
Vandalism Arrests Amid IMF and World Bank Meetings
Protesters March, Clash With Police; Larger Rally Planned for Sunday
By Aaron C. Davis, Hamil R. Harris and Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 25, 2009; 12:42 PM
Six people were arrested this morning for smashing the windows of bank branches and spray painting cars near Logan Circle, vandalism thought to be connected to protests against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank’s annual meetings in Washington, D.C. police said.
This Story
“We believe that they are linked; it’s a logical conclusion,” said Cmdr. James Crane, head of the department’s Special Operations Division. “Some of the individuals were from out of town.”
Some US citizens are declaring a personal war on the global banking cartel.
Vandalism Arrests Amid IMF and World Bank Meetings
Protesters March, Clash With Police; Larger Rally Planned for Sunday
Hey, where is Olygal and WHOSE DAY IS IT….to watch her on Sunday ?
These sorts of events have been happening at the World Bank and IMF meetings in DC ever since Seattle. It’s a stretch to claim they’re directly related to the financial crisis.
Ben,
Maybe you could offer to send Mayor Barrett and “If there was a housing bubble” Common Council President Willie Hines a discount T-shirt and a link to American Visionaries. Maybe even Govenor Doyle over there in Camelot, WI (madison) maybe.
We’re shouting in the Wilderness without a soapbox here in Wisconsin Ben
It’s not just ugly in Florida and Las Vegas, but also in far away vacation dreamlands where real estate only goes up:
Unemployment in Spain Hits 17.4%
By VICTORIA BURNETT, New York Times
April 24, 2009
The Spanish unemployment rate climbed to 17.4 percent, from 13.9 percent in the final quarter of 2008, or more than twice the European Union average, the National Statistics Institute said Friday. The 802,800 increase in the ranks of the jobless was the largest quarterly increase in more than 30 years.
“These figures are bad and worse than expected,” the finance minister, Elena Salgado, said. The sharp quarterly increase was a sign of “how severe and how deep the crisis is,” she said …
… Debate continued this last week in Spain — and elsewhere — about how much the government could afford to stretch its budget deficit to stimulate the economy and cover the costs of supporting the unemployed.
The Bank of Spain has warned of little room for additional spending, with Spain’s public sector deficit on track to hit 8.3 percent of G.D.P. this year and its ratio of debt-to-G.D.P. set to reach 50 percent. The bank’s governor, Miguel Fernández Ordóñez has said that the social security system could go into deficit this year.
When the going gets tough, the tough go fishing.
Iceland’s fishermen ride out the economic storm
1 day ago
GRINDAVIK, Iceland (AFP) — Iceland’s economy may have been battered by stormy weather in the past six months, but for the country’s fishing industry, business is still smooth sailing.
Eirikur Tomasson, a 55-year-old rugged former fisherman, runs Thorbjoern, one of the biggest fishing companies on the North Atlantic island. The business was set up by his father and three colleagues 60 years ago in the southwestern port town of Grindavik.
Despite the collapse of the country’s banking system last October and close to nine percent of Icelanders being out of work, Tomasson says the current economic malaise is “not the worst crisis we have experienced”.
“We of course had to adjust our activity to the new market conditions, with a decrease of prices of between 20 and 40 percent because our customers can’t pay the same price as last year,” he admitted.
The economic meltdown has led to a snap general election to be held this Saturday, with voters set to snub the party seen as responsible for the crisis and its pro-EU rivals tipped to come out on top.
Iceland’s krona has lost almost 44 percent of its value against the euro, but Tomasson points out Thorbjoern does most of its business with the eurozone and Britain.
A weaker krona returns larger revenues when euros are converted back into the local currency. The company’s turnover last year was six million euros (7.8 million dollars).
“The krona is weak today which is good for our exports,” Tomasson said.
exports = fish???
Fish is actually a very reliable export product, as people eat it in good times and bad. That is what I like about the Norwegian economy — how can you go wrong in a protracted economic downturn with a trade surplus in fish and oil?
Op-Ed Contributor
First, Reform the I.M.F.
By MARK WEISBROT
Published: April 24, 2009
The International Monetary Fund turns 65 this year. Until the current economic crisis, it had reduced its workload drastically to a near-retirement level — its total loan portfolio plummeted by 92 percent in four years. But like many senior citizens, the Fund has kept working past retirement age — and is now expanding its responsibilities.
The I.M.F. has a track record that seems to have been almost completely ignored in discussions of a proposed $750 billion increase in its resources. Nearly 12 years ago, a financial crisis hit Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. The word “contagion” became part of the financial reporting lexicon as the crisis spread to Russia, Brazil, Argentina and other countries.
The I.M.F.’s response was roundly criticized at the time. Jeffrey Sachs, then at the Harvard Institute for International Development, called the Fund “the Typhoid Mary of emerging markets, spreading recessions in country after country.”
In the Asian crisis, the I.M.F. failed to provide desperately needed foreign exchange when it was most needed; it then imposed policies that worsened the downturn. It did the same in Argentina, and lent tens of billions of dollars to prop up an unsustainable exchange rate, which inevitably collapsed along with a record sovereign debt default. After that experience, many middle-income countries piled up reserves so that they would never have to depend on the Fund again.
No one at the I.M.F. was held accountable for the mistakes that caused so much unnecessary unemployment, lost output and poverty. Nor were any major reforms introduced. The Fund has 185 member countries, but a handful of rich members — mostly the U.S., Europe and Japan — have a solid majority, and the U.S. Treasury is the Fund’s principal overseer.
Financial Times
IMF says rapid rebound in prices ‘remote’
By Chris Flood and Javier Blas
Published: April 23 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 23 2009 03:00
Prospects for a rapid re-bound in commodity prices appear “remote”, according to the International Monetary Fund, which yesterday said the global economy would shrink 1.3 per cent this year and that a protracted slowdown was increasingly likely.
The IMF said commodity prices were likely to remain “subdued” as long as economic activity continued to slow. With the financial crisis expected to have lasting effects on credit and capital flows, the IMF said a quick rebound in commodity prices to the record levels of 2007/08 was “unlikely”.
The IMF also noted stocks of key food staples were still at relatively low levels and said farmers across the globe had reduced acreage and fertiliser use so there was upside potential for prices from supply issues or adverse weather conditions.
Oil prices surrendered early gains yesterday following the latest US weekly inventories data. ICE June Brent fell one cent to $49.81 a barrel while Nymex June West Texas Intermediate rose 30 cents to $48.85 a barrel.
US crude stocks have already risen to their highest levels in almost 19 years and yesterday’s data showed a further increase of 3.9m barrels, above the consensus forecast for a rise of 2.6m barrels. Crude imports rose 464,000 barrels a day to 9.86m b/d last week. However, total demand remained sluggish, averaging 18.46m b/d over the past four weeks, down 6.5 per cent compared with the same period a year ago.
The good news: It looks like we may get to enjoy cheap oil for the foreseeable future. The Drill, baby, drill pressure to exploit ANWR seems a distant memory at this point.
Aera Energy, Bakersfield, which owns leases off Santa Barbara, has been itching to bypass the coastal commission and go deep for oil and natural gas. I don’t think the political climate exists to do that yet. Though I did hear a radio ad recently, paid for no doubt by a PAC, calling for relaxed rules. I don’t know if 15 percent Mexifornia unemployment would do the trick.
I have mixed feelings on the idea. Disinclined to allow it, but oil is so cheap now we forget how it can violently rise in price. If it is a question of national security, I say do it.
The question is when it rises to that level of importance.
There seems to be a major disconnect between US propagandists jawboning about “green shoots” and the IMF chief’s cold, hard look at economic reality.
Can anyone comment on the notion that US-originated losses are contained to $2.8 billion???
Global economic crisis ‘far from over’: IMF chief
2 days ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) — International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn Thursday said the global economic and financial crisis “is far from over” and that the recovery will come from the United States.
“Despite some red lines and green lines” in the IMF’s outlook on the global economy, “our belief is that the crisis is far from over,” Strauss-Kahn said at a news conference, ahead of the IMF spring meetings in Washington this weekend.
“We still believe recovery can take place in the first semester (half) of 2010,” he said, a day after the IMF published its semiannual World Economic Outlook report.
In the report, the IMF forecast the global economy would contract 1.3 percent this year, before recovering to sluggish growth of 1.9 percent in 2010.
“The beginning of the recovery has to come from the United States, and will come from the United States,” the IMF managing director said.
Strauss-Kahn said that “we still have long months” of crisis, pointing to the 2.8 trillion dollars in US-originated losses for banks and other financial institutions estimated in the IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report.
While the media focused on the IMF’s extended total cost of the crisis, including European- and Japanese-originated losses, at more than four trillion dollars, he said, “the most important” figure was the 2.8 billion (!!!) in US-originated losses because it is “in a time series” that shows a rapid increase in bad credit.
The head of the 185-nation institution called for stepped-up efforts to cleanse the “toxic assets” from the balance sheets of financial institutions.
“We are far from what we need,” he said. “Already a lot has been done, but not enough,” he said, “especially in the United States and the European Union.”
He also cited Switzerland as “a big part” of the problem.
Strauss-Kahn acknowledged the political and technical difficulties of cleansing toxic assets from balance sheets.
But he said the IMF’s vast experience with banking crises shows “you never recover before you complete the cleaning up of the balance sheet of the financial sector.”
“The recovery in 2010 relies a lot upon the effort that still has to be made in this domain. So, I’m again asking on the eve of these meetings for more effort to be made in this direction.”
The IMF estimates that the US, European and Japanese banks will have acknowledged only a third of their losses on soured assets between mid-2007 and 2010.
But he said the IMF’s vast experience with banking crises shows “you never recover before you complete the cleaning up of the balance sheet of the financial sector.”
Given Megabank, Inc’s so-far successful efforts to hide their losses behind accounting gimmicks and the prospect of PPIP toxic asset purchases at government-subsidized inflated prices, what are the chances of this happening? About as good as a snowball’s chances in Hell?
Right. IMHO, cleaning up the balance sheets would mean making everything as transparent as possible, closing down failed institutions (while protecting covered depositors), and selling off the remains to private investors with private money.
They are doing everything in their power to NOT clean up these balance sheets.
Italy’s Mafia thrives in global financial meltdown.
These gangsters are almost as good as our Wall Street mobsters
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090425/ap_on_re_eu/eu_italy_mafia_s_golden_moment
Well, it’s a glorious day in NYC, and I went walking in Central Park.
And lo and behold, in the most urban area in the world, there were vast swathes of nettles just lying there for the picking. I touched one to check (yep, it’s a nettle!) so I will be going back to forage.
WHEEEEEEEEE!!!
Oh, yeah, well, me too! And then let’s have a nettle eating contest, utilizing peristaltic waves! And the winner gets a…hmmm. A fresh rat? Oh, I know, more nettles as a prize!
But FIRST I’m gonna go to the annual Procession of the Species in lovely downtown Olympia today! Ooooh, I’m excited, I love it so…
Alas, I’m not going to walk in it this year, though. I didn’t make anything in time, as I was horridly busy.
I couldn’t possibly wear what I wore last year, because that would cheapen my frog hat, or something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procession_of_the_Species
Man, I love Olympia.
There was some walk for Parkinson’s in CP today. I asked my friend if that was the one where they go all vibratey-vibratey and I did the actions to demonstrate.
My friend was sure I was going to get ripped to pieces by the crowd.
But I didn’t.
FPSS,
Now there is a walk for Parkinson’s? These non-profits for a MBZ and a high salary, need to be more creative. Walks are so old rip-off.
My comment about why don’t they just give the money to Parkinson’s Research and then go on a walk of CP by themselves without paying the middlemen organizers was met with, what else?
A SIGH.
It’s not like there’s a prize attached to walking around CP. It’s right here. We all do it routinely.
Got it. On my list of places I want to go before I die, NYC is high on my list. What time of year would you suggest?
CP looks delightful and BIG. Is it pretty safe these days?
Totally safe.
This is one of the better achievements of the Giulani+Bloomberg administrations.
New York is prettiest in fall and spring except that springs tend to be wet.
Late summer is gorgeous too. We generally get a late blast of heat well into October though.
I strongly suggest you stay away from the standard touristy locations (it’s cheaper too that way), and you decide to waste a day doing absolutely nothing but walking around, and eating/drinking sitting at the sidewalk-cafes and watching the people.
Thanks, FPSS. I am going to copy and paste your reply into my trave log, if you don’t mind.
Yeah, I don’t plan on wear a big rim hat with a flower, and a sign that says “tourist”. I do want to see some tourist things, but I’ve been reading The Bronx Magazine lately and it’s been wetting my appetite for a NY adventure (real life, historical, and upscale). The people are such a mosiac collage.
FPSS..I meant to ask you if have you ever stopped by that new location of the old Fultons Fish Market and what’s it like if you have ?
It’s impossible to get to without a car. It’s on the far east side of the Bronx.
I haven’t been.
Okay, I hear it’s the 2nd biggest wholesale in the world at the new location. An old Mustache Pete grandpa used to take us kids down to the old Fulton Street while he shopped for the family and us kids would get great seafood meal at one of the nearby restuarants. The old place had lots of rough character and charm…and real characters. Guess it’s all just …big business now.
It’s cleaner too but not accessible any more.
You can still get local fish at the retailers on the Lower East Side + Chinatown. Not the same but not absurdly pricey either.
has anyone seen this? (trailer)
http://www.themoneyfix.org/index.php
Oh no, bubble alert!
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=13156599&ch=4226720&src=news
Thank you to all who contributed to the documentary. Fantastic watching the conviction and tough mindedness.
Thoughts I had during this last segment:
We have a historic and huge consumer credit bubble caused by people spending more money than they earn. We say it is now time to begin living within our means. What does that really mean? Why is it considered OK and living within your means to have conservative and reasonable (1x - 2x income) home loan debt, but not OK to take a loan for other things? Shouldn’t it be that you live debt free or you don’t? As long as we have these “acceptable” debts, won’t we always be fighting the consumer credit binge? Sort of like why I could quit a 20 year, 2 pack a day cig smoking habit, but can’t lose 10 pounds. Unless I can stop the act completely, it becomes too hard to moderate and control.
“We say it is now time to begin living within our means. What does that really mean? Why is it considered OK and living within your means to have conservative and reasonable (1x - 2x income) home loan debt, but not OK to take a loan for other things?”
IMO the goal is to buy a house at a reasonable price, pay off the loan, and live off the tax-free imputed rent the house generates. One has to live somewhere; might as well own the home outright and pay rent to yourself. But this only works well if the purchase price is right. (”The price you pay determines your rate of return” - Buffett.)
Better to pay cash for a house instead of borrowing, but for most people this isn’t feasable, hence the need for a loan from the bank.
“… but not OK to take a loan for other things?”
IMO one should cultivate a healthy fear of going into debt. This fear should serve him well in the coming years, just as it served our grandparents well.
I could live without the anti-capitalism pro-socialism part. If Europe is so great and so mature, why do they also have a housing bubble? Otherwise, a great video!
A true visionary and his apostles.
I get a lot of undeserved credit simply listening to you all.
It is hard to beat common sense.