Bits Bucket For June 24, 2009
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Me me Its still raining….in the big apple
It’s a beautiful day over here west of you.
105 today and rising.
Saw a bit on the weather channel re: heat in NO. Roads are buckling when temp goes over 90.
Money for infrastructure,is it coming?
Policy on hold as Fed weighs easing
By Krishna Guha in Washington
June 23 2009 FT | Last updated: June 24 2009
When the Federal Reserve concludes its policy meeting on Wednesday the message will be clear: the US central bank is now on hold following what was, by many measures, the most aggressive easing cycle in monetary policy history.
Policymakers hope they are done in terms of easing policy, though they will continue to implement and tweak existing programmes and will retain flexibility to respond to what remains a highly uncertain environment. The debate inside the Fed is over how long it should stay on hold before moving to raise rates.
Keep in mind that with all the qualatative easing, it can be argued that the rate is effectively negative now. So instead of the published rate going up, it possible that the first sign of a tightening monetary policy will be changes in OTHER policies, say a tightening of the collateral requirements, up from the current bottlecaps and pocket lint level.
Of course NOTHING is being done about credit cards, so how will millions of Americas live without even having 1 good card?
Will this be a boon for the disposable CC card at the local check cashing place?……….oops you need cash to get one of those.
“Will this be a boon for the disposable CC card at the local check cashing place?……….oops you need cash to get one of those.”
Last I heard, Citi was paying 4% on the cash deposits backing up their version of those cards. I briefly wondered whether the FB from whom we someday hope to buy a house would take a credit card. But then I came to my senses as it would mean letting Citi hold our money, and those cash balances are not necessarily FDIC insured.
Nothing will be done, IMHO, until the dollar starts to freefall. Even then, they’ll have to carefully weigh preventing economic collapse vs. benefiting from it!
The Fed wants us to be poor and be forced to invest in Bubbles, so expect that goal to be the focus of their policy.
Is the Fed really on hold, or are they just out of ammo and down to throwing their knickers at the “problem”?
Seems like that to me. When the article says “policymakers hope they are done in terms of easing policy,” my reaction is, “They’re done for now because they’re out of ideas.”
OT… but I was reading the online news and I am still amazed at the amount of obvious and hidden Frauds in this FIRE mess.
The RE and Finance crime stories and prosecutions are merely the tip of the iceberg of course but it appears we have become a nation run by scammers, con men and plain old common theives on nearly every level of American big business with special attention and notice to NAR, Wall Street and our own freakin’ Government.
Okay, call me naive but I don’t believe that a real and productive recovery can take place until we see some real Law and Order and some heavy duty jail times in this Fiasco.
The Consumer Confidence and good Business Sentiment figures should really be bouncing on the bottom of the ocean along with whale poops under these operating conditions.
It’s almost to the point that you need a lawyer to proof read and interpret your daily dose of MSM and Gubbermit “News” with your morning coffee.
( Please excuse and forgive me as I’m kind of old fashioned and a somewhat sheltered American dinosaur watching the pretty asteroid showers)
mikeyosaurus rant over
Thank you for brightening my day, mikey. My sentiments exactly.
Thanks AZ Slim and Big V.
I guess that I could have been succinct and just said these crooks, thugs and hoodlums running amock in America are going to totally ruin it for all honest taxpayers, consumers and good businesses. It just pisses me off no end.
That was a nice rant, mickeyosaurus. Thanks.
mickeyosaurus
Was that a takeoff of the “Detroitosaurus wreck”, The Economist, June 6th edition?
Or are you that old?
Yup.
Knickers? Won’t happen. Helicopter-Ben goes ‘commando’…
and you know this hooooowwww . . . . ?
ALL rough-and-tough inflation fighters and serious world-savers go commando!
Fed is on hold while their masters in Beijing whether to continue to fund the deficit. Problem is, masters might also be running out of money.
Home-Price Recovery in U.S. May Be Undermined by Appraisals…
June 24 (Bloomberg) — There may be another culprit scuttling a U.S. housing recovery: low home appraisals.
Flawed appraisals are derailing real estate sales and depressing values across the U.S., the National Association of Realtors said yesterday as it reported that existing home prices declined 17 percent in May from a year earlier.
“It’s pointing to thousands of delayed or canceled transactions,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the Chicago- based Realtors group, said in an interview. “We’ve had a massive inundation from members saying this is a big problem.”
Appraisal rules that went into effect on May 1 require lenders that sell loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to set up a firewall between appraisers and loan officers to prevent improper influence. The rules are the result of an agreement between the mortgage buyers and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who said an investigation found appraisers inflated values under pressure from lenders.
The agreement mandates that banks order a second appraisal on 10 percent of the loans they sell to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and warns against accepting the higher of any two valuations. The guidelines have led to more conservative valuations by many appraisers and a “chill” in lending, according to John Brennan, research director at the Appraisal Foundation, a Washington-based trade group.
“Flawed appraisals are derailing real estate sales and depressing values across the U.S., the National Association of Realtors said yesterday as it reported that existing home prices declined 17 percent in May from a year earlier.”
Is it really that the appraisals are flawed or merely that delusional sellers don’t like getting dowsed with reality? Even if an appraisal is flawed, it doesn’t prevent a seller from selling or a cash buyer from buying. Hardly surprisingly, the NAR is only concerned about appraisals that might be too low, not appraisals that were obviously too high.
Nice summation of my sentiments. Now I’m going to go kick a realtor.
I think foreclosure sales should be excluded from all comps. Kind of like the ‘good-bank, bad-bank’ thing that our gov tried to pawn off on us. Go out and hug a realtor.
Yah. Just because foreclosure prices are what people are willing to pay for a house, it doesn’t mean they should be used as a comparison for what people are willing to pay for a house. I think I read that on the NAR website or somewhere.
This is what the Appraisal Institute says:
When home values come in below the sales price, that’s not the appraiser’s fault, it’s a reflection of the market, the Appraisal Institute, a Chicago-based professional group that represents more than 25,000 appraisers, said in a statement yesterday.
“We take offense with the notion that an appraisal is only good if it happens to come in at the sales price,” the group said. “That mentality helped cause the mortgage meltdown to begin with.”
What I don’t get is, is there a reason the appraisers DON’T work for the lenders?
In theory, you would think that a lender’s appraiser would be more careful with the lender’s money and more critical of the collateral upon which they base the appraisal, no?
What I mean by “work for” is to be on the lender’s payroll instead of working for an independent firm…
I read recently (sorry, can’t remember where) that that is exactly what’s happening. The lenders are beginning to be more careful and don’t want to see inflated appraisals. Seems that they’re finally understanding that people tend to default on those types of loans.
The lenders were securitizing the loans and selling thme off. So, an independant apprasial protects the GSE/securitizing agency. It also protects the FDIC and other insurance agencies.
Further its another strawman that has to be created to make a fraudulent transaction.
So, independent apprasiers selected from a blind pool is a better situation. Also forcing the buyers to pay for an appraisal should help. Anything to slow the process plus you get some protection for the buyer.
The banks haven’t been the lenders. The buyers of the resulting MBSs are the lenders. Banks sold the MBSs to those buyers, so they only made money if a sale was made. Since Fannie & Freddie are the only remaining buyers (everyone else knows its a scam) they have to put some kind of rules in place for the taxpayer.
Good points james and Jon. I had forgotten how much the lenders were just passing the loans along…
They just served a bunch of people ( brokers, straw buyers, appraisers etc. ) in Detroit with indictments for fraud and such with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, so evidently some investigations are going on at a pretty high level. It was all over the news here a few weeks ago.
“That mentality helped cause the mortgage meltdown to begin with.”
Survey SAYS!?!?..
“XXX”
That mentality helped cause the mortgage RUNUP to being with.
Geez… It’s like HBB is the only entity that knows (or admits) the real causes of this fiasco, and only HBB that knows who those “mistakes were made” BY.
Perhaps appraisers should be accredited by Moodys/S&P, with those agencies able to suspend licenses for malfeasance.
The Appraisal whaaat? “Institute”? You mean the place across from the Mortgage Broker University? Next to the Chinese takeaway place and nail salon?
The agreed upon price IS a good indication of what the greatest fool will pay. However the appraisers job is to estimate what the second-greatest fool will pay.
Bar none the best explanation of appraisals I’ve ever heard.
The agreed upon price IS a good indication of what the greatest fool will pay. However the appraisers job is to estimate what the second-greatest fool will pay.
+Gazillion
“The agreed upon price IS a good indication of what the greatest fool will pay. However the appraisers job is to estimate what the second-greatest fool will pay.”
FANTASTIC way to put it, Jim! That is so apt.
Well said, sir.
+1 Jim.
The appraisals are supposed to be “What you’d have no problem selling the house for” not “The absolute tip top amount you could conceivably get for the house” so that banks know they are lending a reasonable amount against the house.
Also, low appraisals don’t kill deals, buyers without cash to cover the difference kill deals. If a house appraises at zero, you can still buy it if you have the asking price in cash.
It’s interesting how the idea of the seller lowering the price is never considered. Nope. The buyer has to come up with the extra cash. Only way to break the stalemate, eh there Mr. Yun.
Note FunYun also didn’t suggest that if the appraisal is off by 1-2% that the realtors cough up some of their commission to ‘get the deal done’
I should rephrase that. “The contract price IS a good indication of what the greatest fool will AGREE to pay.” Because with all these non-job-loss defaults we’ve seen that many FBs WON’T pay what they agreed to.
It’s time to say goodbye to Kodachrome. We’ve seen a lot of things come and go in our lifetime…LP records, open reel magnetic tape, 8-track tape cartridges, Polaroid cameras, and much more. But Kodak’s announcement that it will make no more Kodachrome film dredges up great nostalgia. Like many families we have boxes of Kodachrome 35mm slides dating back to the 1940s and earlier. Their color is remarkable, and scanning them into a digital format and making 8 x 10″ prints from the scans is endlessly fascinating.
Modern digital cameras yield prints generally as sharp as film, so it was inevitable that interest in film would fade. Although we haven’t used it in years we’ll miss Kodachrome film. We’re not sure our digital images will stand the test of time the way film did. We wonder, for instance, where our digital files will be in, say, 2080. Packed in a shoebox in the attic? Not likely.
I think it will be a lost decade or two as years from now hard drive crashes and outdated formats along with the photos posted to myspace and facebook will be all gone.
I still have CD-Rs of my early days of computing (my old BBS systems and such). I try to transfer them over to a new copy just in-case, every so many years. But storage gets cheaper. I’m putting together a new home storage box and it will have 8 1TB hard drives, of which 4 of them will mirror the other 4 then be powered off.
Every year big storage gets that much cheaper.
Want to see the early days of the internet? Look up any website at w then w then w dot archive.org
“I think it will be a lost decade or two as years from now hard drive crashes…”
I totally disagree, Skip. Sure, some files will be lost along the way due to hard-drive crashes. But the fact that pics are essentially free to take and archive encourages people to take many MORE pictures in total than they did with film, which had a direct cost to shoot and to develop.
So while some losses will occur, we will have many more surviving photos of this era than any past. And since they are digital, they do not degrade the way traditional negatives do.
This will therefore be the BEST documented era in history.
And eventually people will learn to keep backups (on additional hard-drives, the cloud, etc) to reduce the painful losses. Or at least, I hope they will. I have helped to recover data from corrupted hard-drives for a number of friends who didn’t do so, and invariably the thing they most care about losing is their photos. Personally, I choose to mirror the data I care about across three drives in two separate locations. It’s not hard, and it’s not expensive.
Along the same lines, prices for camera memory cards have dropped so much they can be used for storage, if you don’t have a blizzard of images.
Good-bye DVD archives.
I’m not an expert on storage media, but is there any problem with ‘bit rot’, so to speak, on CF cards?
Drumminnj - I’ve read a fair bit about this. apparently, memory cards and sticks are an outstanding way to store photos and other data. They are the most indestructible of the media out there - testers learned this by torture tests that nothing else could survive. And with capacities in the gigabytes, it shouldn’t be hard to assemble family albums of the best photos, perhaps at a smaller file size than the 10 megapixel output of the latest cameras.
The question will arise, what about when the connectors or format change? I think that then you just take the chip from storage and transfer the images to the new media. Anyway, just having all your best memories on some chips, in a zip-lok bag that you can stuff in your pocket in a hurry is way better than risking your life trying to save paper family albums in a fire. And it is easy to have a spare set in your safe deposit box.
IMO, flash memory is #1, G.I.
They can survive turture, but they can’t survive the lack of electricity. Hence the value of hard copies.
But the fact that pics are essentially free to take and archive encourages people to take many MORE pictures in total than they did with film, which had a direct cost to shoot and to develop.
Testify, primey! I completely and absolutely agree.
I LOVE digital cameras. In fact, my hand is curved into the shape of my camera and my index finger spasmodically makes clicking gestures, even when I’m asleep. Too bad that hundreds and hundreds of my photos are of pink flags hanging in the forest and bulldozers in the middle of wetlands and such-like stuff, so I imagine that future generations might not find that too fascinating.
I also took the family history albums containing the only known photos of a great many of my ancestors and scanned them all in, laboriously, it took a couple months, and then made copies on DVD and mailed them out to many people. I was very pleased with myself over that.
I once read a terrible story about some lady in Idaho who assimilated the entire visual and verbal—journals, letters, etc—history of her family, I mean got EVERYTHING together, in order to try to organize and record stuff. What a good idea, right? Sure! Until she had a house fire and lost it all. Every single bit. Not one thing left. The entire history of her family, gone.
Reading that just horrified me beyond all measure.
Same happened to me when house burned down. Had just taken my stuff out of storage, big box of 16 mm and poof.
Dad still is irritated with me that those reels are gone.
“In fact, my hand is curved into the shape of my camera and my index finger spasmodically makes clicking gestures, even when I’m asleep.”
Can I just say that I love the images you paint in my head on a regular basis?
“Until she had a house fire and lost it all. ”
Yikes!
One of the huge benefits of digital is the near-zero cost to duplicate.
Oly, I also have a desire/plan to scan all the old negatives I have, but the project has not yet made it ot the top of the list yet. One of these days I will rent a high-quality film scanner for a week and get it done.
Prime_Is_Containted wrote:
-So while some losses will occur, we will have many more
-surviving photos of this era than any past. And since they are
-digital, they do not degrade the way traditional negatives do.
It’s true that digital files don’t degrade the way film negatives do.
Film negatives degrade slowly over time, but even after a very long time of not-especially-careful storage, there will be an image there that will be readable using only light and a lens.
Digital files typically retain all their information until a certain threshold is reached, and then they’re unreadable. To read a digital file you need the physical media that the file is stored on to remain intact, you need a functioning media-reading device, and you need the right software to make sense of the file.
For all the benefits of digital technology, it’s not the cheapest or easiest archival medium. Maintaining digital archives requires an active expenditure of resources over a long period of time, which takes a lot of effort and money. If you’re not constantly migrating the data to new formats and testing its integrity, it could be lost.
Maintaining film archives requires some monitoring, but for the most part, assuming that the materials are on chemically stable archival media, it just takes a storage environment with the right temperature and humidity.
The discontinuation of Kodachrome is particularly relevant to these issues, since it was the most stable color film stock - slides from 60 years ago that were stuck in a closet and forgotten about still have gorgeous color and detail, and are viewable with a $10 loupe. Try that with a hard drive!
In my opinion, visual records of the 21st Century will be relatively few and far between, as constantly changing digital formats and media ultimately make older digital images as hard to retrieve as the NASA moon mission data that is (presumably still) stored on magnetic tapes.
Mama done took my Kodachrome away.
In grad school I had to run around to different labs, looking for older functioning machines, so I could convert all my data from old instruments to ASCII files to Excel on a 5.25″ –> 3.5″ –> zip drive –> CD-ROM –> my PC hard drive –> eventually data key and CD backup. And that’s just in the last 10 years.
You would think there’d be some government agency whose sole function is to continuously convert data into the newer formats, while always keeping a printout.
You would think there’d be some government agency whose sole function is to continuously convert data into the newer formats, while always keeping a printout.
There is considerable time, money, and effort devoted to developing archival best practices, at both governmental and private institutions. It’s not easy, but it’s getting easier as standards are codified and data storage keeps getting cheaper and better.
I mess with vintage computers a bit. The internet has opened up more paths to find the old hardware. The resources are there. I just picked up an IMSAI 8080 computer Sunday, and recently laid hands on a TRS-80 model 4, Timex Sinclair, Amiga 600, Osbourne Executive, Commodore 64 and others. The resources are out there and people are still very active with this stuff. Going to be doing a vintage computer display at a few “hacker” conferences and possibly the local library.
I’ve got a Timex Sinclair in my closet in its original packaging with a copy of Frogger on tape. I’ll donate it to a museum in 40 years.
You and I appear to have similar interests. I’ve collected quite a supply of ancient machinery including: TI99/4A, Amiga 500, NeXTStation, Trash 80 (ugh), and numerous old video game systems.
Some day while cleaning out our estates our children are going to wonder what in the world was wrong with us.
The VIC-20, the precursor of the C-64, had its day in the sun, too.
Ive got a PDP 8M in my basement. Looking for an optical reader for punch tapes. It was a godsend over hand calculation, in its day.
wmbz,
Interesting wrinkle? One of my favorite shows ( Life After People )? brought up that DVD’s will only last about 50 years before they begin to disintegrate. All this time I guess I just assumed they’d function as our legacy to unknown future generations ( or even aliens? )
We all saw how well printed books survived in H. G Wells The Time Machine? “Books? Yes, we have ‘books’ ”
I’m starting to wonder if a typewriter shouldn’t be in all of our “survival kits” along w/ a mimeograph machine?
“I’m starting to wonder if a typewriter shouldn’t be in all of our “survival kits” along w/ a mimeograph machine”?
My 80 year old father still has and uses his 1937 Royall typewriter, and you can keep right on typing when/if the power goes out.
wmbz,
God love the old man! It just struck me the other day when I was sitting at my desk printing out fax cover sheets from my desktop and I noticed they were getting lighter as they came out?
Since there really isn’t a simpler doc. than that, I thought, would it really hurt to do those up on a typewriter?
Date:
To:
From:
No. of Pages:
?
Printing *isn’t cheap and NO one in the industry does anything other than send you an email w/ a pdf file for YOU to print out!
“My 80 year old father still has and uses his 1937 Royall typewriter, and you can keep right on typing when/if the power goes out.”
Funny you should mention this! I have an old manual Royal on my desk! I’m a Luddite at heart…
Gee, and people give me strange looks when they see the Selectric II on my desk. Too bad I never have an occasion to use the symbol ball.
You need to start cussin’ - symbols are good for writing out your true feelings, especially about overpriced housing and guvmint shenanigans…
Oh, goody! Primey used ‘Luddite’ in a conversation!
*makes check-mark in Word-Watching notebook *
(it’s like being a birder, but more exclusive, see. )
Yesterday losty said ‘desultory’, which also pleased me quite a bit.
Desultory Luddites - sounds like a B grade film
sounds like a B grade film
Goody! My favorite kind. As long as there’s aliens and maidens and, as long as it doesn’t clash with the story-line, leprechauns are always good, too.
“Desultory Luddites”
Hey, I resemble that remark!
Where does he get his typewriter ribbons? I still use my old Smith Corona Galaxie portable from 1964 & fortunately its ribbons are the same as Okidata dot matrix printer ribbons.
Well at work, we used to have tons of ribbons. The boxes fit pretty well in the old punched card cabinet.
Wow, my Dad & Mom had a blue Galaxie portable that was circa 1964 ! You just brought a very pleasurable childhood memory back when I wasn’t supposed to type on that thing, but guess what ? When they went out, sometimes I did ! I had forgotten the sneaky thrill of (kind of ) banging those keys together at one time to see which one would strike first, and how long it would take me to get the arms ( ? ) untangled when I had 6-7 of them all jobbed up there. Wow. And I was considered the GOOD kid.
Growing up in Rochester, I watched endless products at Kodak go bye-bye. I think George would be horrified to know that his company missed the biggest imaging shift ever. My friend’s dad has a Ph.D in nuclear chemistry, and had 40+ patents with Kodak before retiring. I used to love listening to him explain all of that stuff.
I helped open the Barnes & Noble in Pittsford as a teen. I was working the register and was damn near killed on opening day because we stocked Fuji products.
Everyone in Rochester has a dusty Brownie sitting on the mantle and summer jobs at Kodak were a given. Not anymore. The Eastman House is still an awesome place to visit.
“dusty Brownie sitting on the mantle”
Don’t go there, Oly.
Awwww…..
When I co-oped at Kodak Park in early 90s, the Kodak Disc was all the rage as well as the digital format that allowed for, I think, you to select normal, zoom, or panoramic style for each picture and it stored the info on the camera without film.
And you’re right, when I was there in the summer there were about 400 of us and most lived in 4-plexes out in Greece. I only regret not taking more advantage of THAT situation.
(I was actually able to find the place I lived in from memory on my recent trip there, 18 years later. Hard to believe its been that long. Sigh.)
We’ve seen a lot of things come and go in our lifetime…LP records, open reel magnetic tape, 8-track tape cartridges, Polaroid cameras, and much more.
Many of these things are alive and kickin’, albeit in subdued form.
LPs sales are up considerably these days, and now often come packaged with a free download option. Many audio engineers guard their analog reel-to-reel tape like precious lucre — there are plenty of musicians who still prefer to record, mix, and master in analog. Prices on tape are through the freakin’ roof, and there’s much speculation that an entrepreneur will begin making it again on the boutique level. Polaroid film is in a somewhat similar situation, with a start-up in the Netherlands (if I recall correctly) trying to get the salvaged machines from an old Polaroid plant back up and running.
Just listened to a Frank Sinatra LP the other night, the sound is richer, CD audio sounds flat in comparison.
Artists use Polaroid film to do dye transfer prints, I’m glad it won’t disappear entirely.
“CD audio sounds flat in comparison.”
IMHO, this is more likely due to the abuse of digital tools. Mastering/mix engineers squash the frick outta the signal to win the loudness wars. It’s a lot easier to do this in the digital domain (just click a button).
I am buds with a jazz composer (he composes a lot of those CDs you see at Target) that makes beautiful digital recordings, mostly by allowing the musicians to control the dynamics.
IMHO, this is more likely due to the abuse of digital tools. Mastering/mix engineers squash the frick outta the signal to win the loudness wars.
The situation seems to have improved in the past couple of years, I think, except for the radio-ready bangers, where it’s like a neverending loudness arms race. The good mastering engineers know how to warm up the sound and back off the compression.
Music that hasn’t been mastered to digital in the past 5-10 years can reveal some serious weaknesses when the digital and vinyl versions are A/B’ed, IMO. With a good piece of vinyl, I almost always hear more three-dimensional space in the recording (front to back).
“IMHO, this is more likely due to the abuse of digital tools. Mastering/mix engineers squash the frick outta the signal to win the loudness wars. It’s a lot easier to do this in the digital domain (just click a button). ”
Digitized, compressed AND manipulated…digitally corrected voices, drums, bass lines and on and on…
What you get out of this is complete sterilized crap.
Music on disc doesn’t BREATHE like analog. That’s why there’s a growing population of vinyl collectors. It just sounds better…
Makes me think of the scene in the movie “The Fly” with Jeff Goldblum, where he creates a “synthetic” steak. Gina Davis cooks it up and takes a healthy bite and almost pukes. Doesn’t taste right. Same things happening with digital music. Most people can’t put their finger on it, but it just doesn’t sound right.
DOC
I dunno, I think you need to do some hardcore A/B in a studio, and analyze the waveforms. I think what you’re hearing is too many button-pushers clicking “Loudness” combined with too many musicians expecting to “fix it in the mix.”
A lot of people love mono too. There are plenty of mono mixes that have space and depth. Listen to Buddy Holly when he went to stereo — those tracks sound WEIRD. Why? Because they hadn’t perfected the art of double tracking and mixing mono.
It would be easy to make a band sound like Bob Wills or Patsy Cline with a digital rig — the bigger problem is not many people spend the time perfecting the performance the ways those cats did.
I bet I could get you in a blind test.
Muggy:
Ask the DJ. A lot has to do with companies that train the engineers like Full Sail, The oldsters knew about dynamic range and used it.
Sure a lot of vinyl sounded tinny Jefferson Airplanes surrealist pillow, and others sounded muddy for the lack of highs. But microphone placements had a lot to do with it.
The mics being in a more live open studio gave you that depth. Today everything is recorded in a dead heavily soundproofed booth
The old buddy holly used maybe 2-3 mikes miked live so naturally it had a depth to the mono version.
But what i hate is the bass 10db higher then the vocals. that bump in da jeep sound. It wrecks havoc on full range speakers sending my FBT maxx 4 into limiting ….but i still use a old numark mixer with a single 6 band eq so the 42hz i can push down quickly.
Then the other end all the grunge rock or kelly clarkson like sux with out you screaming 0 db the whole song just like Ricky martins livin la vida loca….100% from start to finish…. even if you turn it down its still sounds too loud…
The first #1 song mixed entirely in ProTools: Ricky martins livin la vida loca….100%
Case closed
The first #1 song mixed entirely in ProTools
It ain’t the mix, it’s the master!
(Seriously.)
They’re still at it!
http://247wallst.com/2009/06/24/bogus-home-appraisals-may-derail-real-estate-recovery/
NAR is apparently pulling out all the stops to get the new arms-length appraisal rules suspended.
Low Appraisals Threaten U.S. Property Rebound by Cutting Prices
www dot bloomberg dot com/apps/news?pid=email_en&sid=aYKDRvVjWUe4
See also:
Rumor: NAR starts offensive against HVCC
effectivedemand.blogspot dot com backslash 2009/06/rumor-nar-starts-offensive-against-hvcc dot html
This just makes me sick to my stomach. Fraudulent appraisals were a key part of the bubble and bust, but honest appraisals will kill the “recovery.”
They had a paragraph on this on Nightly Business Report last night.
“SUZANNE PRATT: And there are other problems likely to keep the market down. First, is the glut of inventory. While the number of unsold properties is now below a 10-month supply, that’s nearly double the normal level. Second, the NAR says poor appraisals are stalling or even killing deals. Because of new regulations, local people are often not doing the appraising. As a result, the appraised value tends to come in lower than the agreed on purchase price. On top of that, after falling to historic lows earlier in the year, mortgage rates are ticking up. ”
Oh boo hoo!!!!!
http: slash slash dubya dubya dubya dot pbs dot org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/nbr_transcripts_090623/
Apparently, Suzanne researched it.
“Low Appraisals Threaten U.S. Property Rebound by Cutting Prices”
Dah, help me out here! Is a property rebound defined by increasing sales of available property or is it about driving property prices higher?
Higher property prices favor higher RE commissions and for the sellers the opportunity to cash out and use the money to buy a smaller place for cash or reduced mortgage. From checking CA prices in areas that I like I find that most houses are around 40% overpriced. Remove that 40% and you are around 1998-2001 pricing. This puts most houses in the range of 2X-3X gross income and an affordable payment for a 30yr fixed with 20% down.
I saw a house listed here in Salinas that sold for $430 in 2001 (yr built) that was later sold for $799 and now listed for $375. With $100K down (PITI) comes in around $1970/mo ($144 sq.ft) and I pay rent of $1600 for 1200sq.ft.
Selling two houses for $150K should get them more money than selling one at $250K. They might have to actually work for it.
From the online dot wsj dot com, OECD presents a slight upward revision of previous projections, saying member nations’ economies will contract by 4.1% this year and grow by 0.7% next year. Only a couple of comments are posted there, and they look like ours (!) — thumbing their e-noses at bottom-calling — but since I don’t recognize their screen names, we are not alone.
Nah, can’t be. Stock market is up. Have you been drinking?
For those of you impressed by yesterday’s cucumber story, check this one out:
On June 11, a nicely dressed, middle-aged couple from Florida walked into the courthouse in Lisbon, Ohio, and applied for a marriage license.
As it turns out, the bride-to-be was Jacqueline Dean, a registered sex offender whose former husband killed her lover with a samurai sword in Brandon two years ago. And the groom was convicted mortgage fraudster Victor Clavizzao, prison-bound and about to get married for a fifth time without having divorced wives No. 1 and 4.
Clavizzao served several years for fraud and grand theft before moving to Pinellas County in 2005 and working as a mortgage loan officer at the height of the subprime lending frenzy.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/article1012818.ece
Lovely couple.
LOL - too funny.
When I was applying for my marriage license years ago the couple in front of me told the clerk it was his 9th, and her 5th. I had to chuckle - figuring theirs had perhaps a 5% chance of making it, at best.
I bet these people lease their cars as well as their spouses.
I hope they’re very happy together. You know, when two bad, nasty, or otherwise crappy people marry, at least it keeps two of the rottens off of the market and prevents them from ruining two other potential mates’ lives, at least for awhile.
Silverback 1011,
LOL! Never thought of it that way? From now on, whenever I see the tabloids heralding the union of “The two people I’d most like to see drive off a cliff together” I can feel warm and toasty instead of repulsed and aggitated.
( Channeling Olygal )
You know, when two bad, nasty, or otherwise crappy people marry, at least it keeps two of the rottens off of the market and prevents them from ruining two other potential mates’ lives, at least for awhile.
You know, you’re so right! Unless they have kids, in which case I sometimes wonder if the concentrated genes of overall worthlessness might combine to create a new and improved Uber-wretch.
Say, I forgot how to make umlauts. Where’s Fasty, he told me how awhile ago. Fasty! Fasty? Umlauts, man! I need umlauts!
If you type: über
you get: über
Replace the first “u” by “o” or “a” or other vowels for the respective ones.
Time to toughen the image:
Müggy
Hmm, let’s see if it works in the name field. I think this may upset Ben’s filter.
Wow Muggy…some people’s kids !
What? And I didn’t get an invitation? The nerve of some people.
What would you throw at a wedding like that, instead of rice?
Cannonballs?
cottage cheese comes to mind - for more than one reason.
Ewwww…..
Steak knives?
goat turds?
Isn’t this just a story to encourage people to purchase treasuries, during a week that they just happen to be selling a lot of treasuries?
When the Federal Reserve concludes its policy meeting on Wednesday the message will be clear: the US central bank is now on hold following what was, by many measures, the most aggressive easing cycle in monetary policy history
Isn’t this just a story to encourage people to purchase treasuries, during a week that they just happen to be selling a lot of treasuries?
I don’t know about future Treasury returns… What is clear is that ML just set me a sales pitch to buy a 7-mo. CD that pays, yes, dear savers, I believe the rate was 1.07 percent. With all the financial quicksand about, it is hard for me to see what the best investment might be (bonds? though many seem to have lost their lustre).
I gotta six month “horizon,” since I may need those funds.
Anybody want to make an investment suggestion, please have at it. But no Preferred Emerging Somalia Sand Extraction Market Fund.
As it is, keeping it in cash seems fine.
How about stock in GM ?
Gosh, that’s a good idea.
It amazes me when people move next to a business that has been there for 50 years and complain of the smell.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mushroom-science
My great aunt lives far outside San Antonio in an unincorporated area. She moved there 30 years ago and raises goats and chickens on her 10 acres. Her neighbor raises sheep and the guy down the way keeps horses.
Developers put in a housing development with 200 houses on 1/4 acre lots just down the street from her.
As you probably guessed, the new neighbors immediately started complaining.
It’s the Coming to Nuisance principle. It’s pretty well established in the common law. Put simply, the law views the passive use of the property (e.g. quite enjoyment of land) as equally valuable as the active use of property (e.g. building a mushroom plant). It then just comes down to a balancing of the various competing interests.
The old “coming to the nuisance” principle was that you couldn’t complain if you moved next to an existing nuisance. That legal principle was pretty much tossed during the last century. See for example Spur Industries v. Del Webb, 108 Ariz. 178, 494 P.2d 700 (1972). Del Webb developed Sun City right downwind from an existing feed lot owned by Spur. Del Webb sued Spur and got an injunction shutting them down. The AZ supreme court upheld the injunction but remanded to let Spur ask for compensation from Del Webb for their loss.
DennisN, I hadn’t heard that “coming to the nuisance” was tossed out. From a brief reading, it looks like the case you cited dealt with almost simultaneous expansions of a residential and agricultural operation, and did require the plaintiff/housing developer to reimburse the defendant/cattle farmers for the cost of moving or shutting down.
Nice to see the common law being cited– though no legal system is perfect, the common law does consist of fairly simple principles which have been tested and critiqued over centuries. Contrast these principles, if you will, with the endless abominations spewed forth by our legislatures, which have no discernible rationale or public purpose, pasted together at odd hours, behind closed doors, by people with conflicts of interest. Which do you prefer?
Nice point Leigh and Dennis too. I practice law, and “common law” is refreshing, orderly, absent special interests, and traditional in reasoning.
Sort of like moving next to an airport and complaining about the noise.
Prepare to VOMIT - I posted this late last night
June 24 (Bloomberg) — There may be another culprit scuttling a U.S. housing recovery: low home appraisals.
Flawed appraisals are derailing real estate sales and depressing values across the U.S., the National Association of Realtors said yesterday as it reported that existing home prices declined 17 percent in May from a year earlier.
“It’s pointing to thousands of delayed or canceled transactions,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the Chicago- based Realtors group, said in an interview. “We’ve had a massive inundation from members saying this is a big problem.”
measton,
Well, isn’t it the BANK that’s balking at the fluffed appraisals? I mean, they’ve already been burned once! Good luck NAR.
These people are unbelievable. The Joseph Goebbels approach as Mr. Hd74 dude would say.
I took a litle romp around zillow today. My former beach area home zillows at $350k. When you add in the wholesale costs of the 1/3 larger addition the new owner put on the home, he’s not made one cent on the home in the last 7 years.
The $70k we made in 2.5 years is still safe and sound (albeit suffering from a bout of inflation) Who says timing isn’t everything?
When I first stumbled onto the HBB, this same home’s high end zillow value was $629k. Ouuuuucchhhhh!
Luckily the buyer was a local businessman and probably was planning on staying there for the long haul. I hope he didn’t pull any equity out.
The $70k we made in 2.5 years is still safe and sound (albeit suffering from a bout of inflation)
How is it suffering from inflation, if at somepoint you want to buy a house with it it’s really growing in value.
It`s those darn “faulty appraisals”
Bottom for home prices? Not yet
By JEFF OSTROWSKI
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Chappy Adams, head of Illustrated Properties Real Estate in Palm Beach Gardens, said the once-booming mansion market has ground to a halt. But he sees signs of hope in the dwindling number of homes for sale in Palm Beach County. Realtors listed 24,461 homes and condos for sale last month, down 22 percent from May 2008.
Still, not everyone is so optimistic. The region’s flood of foreclosures shows no sign of receding, and unemployment in Palm Beach County topped 10 percent last month, the first time since the 1990s that the jobless rate has been in double digits.
Nationally, the news wasn’t much better as the National Association of Realtors said the median price of an existing single-family home fell to $173,000 in May, down 16.8 percent from a year ago.
NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun blamed “faulty appraisals” for nixing a growing number of deals.
“Stories of appraisal problems have been snowballing from across the country with many contracts falling through at the last moment,” Yun said. “There is danger of a delayed housing market recovery and a further rise in foreclosures if the appraisal problems are not quickly corrected.”
So the problem is that they can find enough FBs but they can’t find enough lenders who want to finance them? Well, why don’t they just sell those houses to people who can purchase them for cash? Oh, those folks either aren’t interested or are only willing to pay a much lower price? Well, what do you know about that?
Whenever I encounter a transaction whose nominal price exceeds my eyeball appraisal, I point out to seller and buyer that I am willing to (usually) 80% of MY appraised value, and that if the buyer doesn’t have a larger-than-20% down payment, the seller could solve the “problem” by accepting a small second mortgage. Do they do it? No they don’t. The sellers are well aware that prices are coming down.
My point is, if sellers across the nation believed in the validity of the sales prices they expect to receive, they could/would make up the (usually) small shortfall in the banks’ loan offers. But they don’t.
“My point is, if sellers across the nation believed in the validity of the sales prices they expect to receive, they could/would make up the (usually) small shortfall in the banks’ loan offers. But they don’t.”
That’s only true if they could accept a note in lieu of cash at closing. But since their equity is long gone, this is not really an option for them. The sellers would have to bring cash to closing, and they don’t have it to bring.
Got cash?
Something about Yun’s tone reminds me of an old-fashioned school marm trying to scare the kids into not chewing gum behind her back. Do you guys think he’s a ninny? He sounds like one.
Hi. When I saw the story yesterday I thought it was great. Too many politians / government excutives think they’re more important than they are. After the Metro Crash in DC. probably was not 2 hrs before the mayor is on TV for a photo opp - Oh I mean to give info - which had already been give upteen times. These people act like old time royalty or popes thinking that they need to comment on everything. I think it’s overkill that there is even a White House press briefing every day. Once a week would be enough. The need to fill news time, strikes me as one of the reason politicians do so many dumb things. They got to do something or appear to be doing something. The quality suffers at the exspense of quantity.
Whoops this comment is about the S.C. govenor being AWOL
Could any HBBers from South Carolina enlighten me on this? Is Sanford just an eccentric (I can understand someone wanting to take a little time off, as long as it’s not on the taxpayer dime) or is there some other reason he was AWOL in Argentina?
http://www.thestate.com/politics/story/838823.html
My personal opinion is that he is having a nervous breakdown or a physical health problem a la Steve Jobs.
AFFAIR…
Affair in Argentina, of all places. Weird that he’d hop a plane and go all the way down there for some nooky. I’ve been there, and it’s a darned long flight. I hope it was worth it, since it’ll cost him his marriage, and has already cost him his reputation and his status as the Chief of the Republican Governators group. With his holier-than-thou attitude, I got a real laugh out of this. What’s with these politicians ?
Bizarre stuff.
Shades of Atlas Shrugged?
South Carolinians got along just find in the absence of the state executive.
He’s another nutjob wedded to failed economic “theories” who will ultimately crash and burn due to some impending scandal, a’la Foley, Craig, Fosella, Vitter, Ensign and other assorted family values types.
So what will it involve this time? Young boys? Animals?
Shades of former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey!
And McGreevey would be viewed with the same level of contempt if he held himself in lofty regard like the family values hypocrites I noted above.
So it’s OK to give a gov’t sinecure to your secret lover as long as you don’t offend the Left by talking about family values? I don’t get it.
Offend? The only party offended is those getting called out on their mind numbing hypocrisy of waving the morality flag, demonizing those who don’t adhere to those morals and then violating the very morals you harp on others for violating.
You don’t get it still? Let me give you a prime example unfolding as we speak.
http://tinyurl.com/n59c6f
Gov. Sanford admits to extramarital affair
So the truth is that the GOP manufactured issue of “morals” has been dragged through the dirt by…….. the GOP.
Wonderful work.
“promise keepers”
all of em. At least when it is Sunday am and the church bells are ringing.
Wife knew 5 months ago and said this past 2 weeks, didn’t want to hear from him, as in ‘get outa here you big jerk’.
The sad part is, he said he only met with his inamorata in person three times. Three times?! Man, what’s that average out to, compared to the fall-out? That better be some extra-high quality fun, is all I can say.
He should have affairs with handier people. That’s more practical.
Shopping for a sex-change surgeon?
liposuction, face lift, botox……………..?
So in the land of the free it is not ok to spend a few days alone, somewhere?
Not if you’re the head of a state, and you don’t nominate a default head in your absence…
They had the Lt Governor on TV last night, pointing out that if they’d had another Myrtle Beach-type fire, there would have been no one with the authority to release the National and State Guard.
IIRC - in SC the only person who can deputize a proxy is the Governor him/herself - so he effectively left SC high and dry in the event of an emergency.
Other than that - he’s perfectly ok with going off on a soul-search.
Though, if I was his wife (and had to admit I didn’t know where he was), or his kids (who missed him on Father’s Day), his stuff would be neatly packed and waiting for him on the front lawn…
IIRC - in SC the only person who can deputize a proxy is the Governor him/herself - so he effectively left SC high and dry in the event of an emergency.
Nah. The SC constitution clearly states that the Lt Governor is head of the state in the absence of the Governor.
The problem is that it was ambiguous as to whether he was unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, in terms of being out of reach of communication. Supposedly he was still reachable, but that’s not clear from what I’ve seen.
I was really kinda hoping that he was abducted and thoroughly probbed and prodded by those mean little grey aliens…until I remembered that he’s a republican and he would probably have enjoyed THAT !
In search of the perfect grass-fed Argentinian steak?
If only he had stuck to the lovely grass-fed steak!
Gov. Sanford has slipped off on several occasions through the years. Does it on his dime, I think he was worn out after dealing with true morons at our State House. Not to mention going back and forth with the most ignorant man in Washington, Jim Clyburn. Who’s IQ is roughly the same as his shoe size, as so many of the D.C. turds are.
And we know for SURE he used his own money? BS.
His wife didn’t know till 5 months ago and yet she had been his campaign manager, so you would think she would see the money going away from their accts. I think we will see the trail soon enough.
He just followed his wan ger and you guys know how well that goes sometimes. Stupid.
1- with this bad judgement from the disappearing without letting anyone in his office know, leads me to believe he makes bad judgements and shouldn’t lead anyone.Anywhere.
S.C. Governor Missing?
No - he’s back. Governor Mark Sanford slipped down to Argentina for a few days following the grueling battle with the S.C. legislature over federal “stimulus” money. Sanford thinks taxpayers will rue the day their representatives grabbed the money.
Read this account of Sanford’s disappearing act…especially the comments by various state politicos. There’s even one suggestion that the law be changed to force the governor to be under police escort at all times. A lot like being a prisoner? Post & Courier
< Damned clever of Sanford, we think. He got international publicity for his mini-vacation from as far away as Australia. If, indeed, fame is what he was seeking.
We think it would be great if ALL the politicians would disappear for several days and leave us alone. We’re tired of their childish partisan bickering and the stupendously expensive costs they lay on us routinely.
As for Sanford thumbing his nose at stiff-necked “protocol” it’ll keep his name in the papers, provide editorialists another opportunity to scold him, and help us keep out minds off important matters.
This guy is Republican, and you need to ask why?
Seriously?
You’re so right, all Republicans do this type of odd-ball stuff. Good thing we have Democrats who can always be counted on to do things by the book and act with the utmost moral probity. :::stifled snort:::
Still blind to aye mate? Democrats don’t go around harping on morals and values as they know morals, religion, etc are a private matter.
Amen buddy. That IS the difference.
Either that or they don’t actually have any morals.
Still blind to aye mate? Democrats don’t go around harping on morals and values as they know morals, religion, etc are a private matter.
Given that banana republic is constantly preaching to us, he/she must be wickedly Republican then.
That hurt packman! lol
Like I said…you need to ask?
After going AWOL for seven days, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he’d secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he’d been having an affair. He apologized to his wife and four sons and said he will resign as head of the Republican Governors Association.
Hey, at least it was a women this time!
The standard Sanford has set for other politicians over the years has been fairly high. A member of the House of Representatives during the heyday of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, he was often a harsh critic of the president for his marital misconduct.
Explaining his decision to back impeachment articles against Clinton, he added, “I think what he did in this matter was reprehensible… I feel very comfortable with my vote.”
Yep, he’s 100% Republican. How many members of the GOP who slammed Clinton have been outed as hypocrites so far? My personal favorite has to be Newt telling his wife he wants a divorce - while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer. He actually went to the hospital to break the news to her. He was banging someone else at the time. Priceless.
Family values? LMAO!
Uh-huh. So if it was a private affair, why did Clinton lie under oath about it? Why didn’t he just say, it’s none of your business? Is perjury also just a private matter that we shouldn’t be concerned about?
Saying something is a private matter, then lying on national TV about it, then sending out all your cabinet members to lie for you, then having your wife blame a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for your misdeeds, then sending out attack dogs to smear your critics– now THAT’s hypocrisy.
Bbbbbbbut Clinton ____! lmao….. Theres Foley, Vitter, Ensign, Craig and Sanford and the list of family values hypocrites goes on and on and on.
When will you learn that dummies living in glass houses don’t throw stones?
Duck, weave, backpedal, split hairs. It’s the lowest form of hypocrisy.
Get over it.
Lecturing other citizens — both public figures and workaday schmoes — about family values for more than a decade from the bully pulpit while leading a double life … now that’s some hypocrisy.
Blatant hypocrisy aside, the problem for Sanford is that he appears to have willfully misled his staff, the lieutenant governor and the people of the state about his whereabouts. Ooops.
Blatant hypocrisy aside, the problem for Sanford is that he appears to have willfully misled his staff, the lieutenant governor and the people of the state about his whereabouts. Ooops.
Completely ‘ooops’! This guy is just too impractical to be running a whole state, is what I must conclude.
As I just announced although it hasn’t shown up yet, he should have affairs with handier people. That’s waaaay more practical. Easier, plus less travel time and no inconvenient and incriminating ticket stubs.
Turns out adultery is still a crime in ol’ South Carolina, too:
OFFENSES AGAINST MORALITY AND DECENCY
SECTION 16-15-60. Adultery or fornication.
Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.
I think the democrat poster boy for family values would be good old Breck Boy John Edwards. At least Stanford’s wife isn’t dying from cancer. Kind of hard to get much lower than Edwards in the morals dept. Although he’s still a 2nd string wannabe compared to Teddy K. Face it, all politicians are f’ed up mentally, that’s why they’re politicians. No normal person would want the job.
The problem with some of these male politicians is they can’t keep the zippers up.
You know I just couldn’t pass this one up:
It won’t be easy, you’ll think it strange
When I try to explain how I feel
that I still need your love after all that I’ve done
You won’t believe me
All you will see is a girl you once knew
Although she’s dressed up to the nines
At sixes and sevens with you
I had to let it happen, I had to change
Couldn’t stay all my life down at heel
Looking out of the window, staying out of the sun
So I chose freedom
Running around, trying everything new
But nothing impressed me at all
I never expected it to
Don’t cry for me Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance
And as for fortune, and as for fame
I never invited them in
Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired
They are illusions
They are not the solutions they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
I love you and hope you love me
Don’t cry for me Argentina
The truth is I never left you
All through my wild days
My mad existence
I kept my promise
Don’t keep your distance
Have I said too much?
There’s nothing more I can think of to say to you.
But all you have to do is look at me to know
That every word is true
You probably know by now, and I am not trying to be smart, but he had a chick over there, and I thought from begin.
Let the good times roll.
Citigroup Plans to Raise Salaries by as Much as 50%
June 24 (Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc., the U.S. bank that got $45 billion of government funds, will raise base salaries by as much as 50 percent to help compensate for a reduction in annual bonuses, a person familiar with the plan said.
The biggest increases will go to investment bankers and traders, said the person who declined to be identified. Workers in consumer banking, credit cards, legal and risk management will see smaller salary adjustments. The New York-based company also plans to award stock options to try to keep employees after Citigroup’s market value plummeted 84 percent in the past year.
Citigroup joins Morgan Stanley and UBS AG in boosting salaries for executives and employees. Morgan Stanley said last month it will increase base pay for many of the New York-based firm’s top executives and double the pay of Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher.
Well, you get what you reward. Want more fraud, number-twisting, lying, criminality, etc.? Just throw more money at these wastes of flesh.
Want crime waves of majestic proportions? Just keep rewarding criminals. Criminals get something for nothing (stealing) or for doing damage (like murder, mayhem, destruction, etc.). I don’t give a rat’s patootie if it’s “legal”. It’s the destructiveness of the action that counts. “Legal” or not, a criminal is a criminal is a criminal. And at some point, marginally decent folks get the idea of why bother trying to do the right thing.
You can debate about who is most valuable but the general concept is sound. Below market salaries for your top 25% most valuable employees (however you want to define it) is a death sentence for a company especially those with questionable outlooks. They are trying to stay alive.
And just where are those “most valuable employees” going to go?
Isn’t there a fresh crop of MBA students looking for jobs anyhow?
They need new solid deals, not worker bees or trainees. They are rewarding the current producers. At those places one producer carries on average about 5 ppl, and the producers are most mobile. There are plenty of openings right now, but as stated, only for those that can put deals together. There are several plays with the stimulous package, e.g. Build America Bonds, etc.
Oh well, let the overpaid Lords of Creation ( of Economic Chaos ) continue with their deals and other dubious doings with their raises at taxpayers while we the ordinary plunge further into the economic doom. What a load.
I have been telling ppl here and elsewhere for years that when investment banks go down it is not those responsible that suffer the most damage, but the back office people. Unless they get indicted, deal kings just move on and do deals elsewhere. If you are looking for large scale justice, you will probably not be satisfied.
The only “deals” to be done now require Federal money. We already pay enough for Congress, no need to pay any more “deal makers”.
Skip,
Thank you. This whole “deal making” mentality should have died w/ the bubble. Tim isn’t without his points but these “deal makers” were obviously given too much free reign to begin with.
Bill Gross spoke at Morningstar’s conf. in Chicago and said actually the opposite. Traders and the like had best get used to a whole new pay scale.
I agree that the majority of the deals I see now involve the stimulous monies/changes in law.
A similar concept was alive and well at GM. Execs and UAW bleeding the company dry for years. So who picked up the tab for that fiasco?
During the lean years bonuses can be reigned in, however, how do you reign in the bloated salaries? Citigroup’s reponse is lazy and self serving at best. Who will pickup the tab for this fiasco?
My comment did not address governmental intervention which would involve a much lengthier debate. I only stated what I feel is a sound general principle. If you need deal makers to stay alive, and your goal is to stay alive, you have to pay them close to market.
I also ask you to examine the costs associated with a bankruptcy against the costs associated with paying market salaries to your top producers who you need to stay afloat. I could write a book on the subject, but for now I am still employed so must keep it short.
I would also add that unlike many industries including the auto industry you mentioned, a deal is a deal in the investment banking world, and can be done at any of the major players. There are very few if any mobility constraints, and the name of the team you work for is not really that important. You can leave one company, and be up and running full speed at another in a week.
This is just proof why Citi (and many others) should have been allowed to fail. It’s nothing special in the grand scheme of things. The fair market rate for the services of these banking types might be easier to gauge:
1) without goverment money in the mix, and
2) with the banking ‘industry’ right sizing
It doesn’t make sense for these financial types to be charging a premium for their services when there are so bloody many of them out there.
tim,
you miss the point…they can pay every employee a billion dollars a year for all i care.
the government just should have NEVER BAILED THEM OUT!!
AIG, Morgan, and Citi should all be fracking bankrupt.
I was responding to the post which addressed salaries not the need for, or soundness of, government intervention in the first place. You either keep them alive or you don’t. Pumping money in and letting them fail anyway isn’t too bright.
I am convinced most of the “deals” were ponzi schemes of some sort.
BTW - Dylan Rattigan ex-CNBC-er was peeling paint off the walls at MSNBC this morning, saying pretty much what everyone here has been saying for the last 2 years - ie ‘too big to fail=too big to exist’
He certainly seemed very cross about the whole thing.
That’s wild, he was so popular.
does he hate rich people too?
Since when do companies who threw money away into the sea have a “right to stay alive”? If they can come up with the cash from their own operations to pay 50 pct pay increases, then I say “go for it.” Something leads me to suspect that isn’t the case.
THAT IS SO AWESOME! I was just thinking to myself the other day that all this bailout spending is being wasted on foreclosure-prevention programs and what not. It’s so nice to see it go where it belongs: Back into the hands of the truly gifted and wealthy elite, upon whom we can all rely to lift us out of the savage, dark lows that we have all gotten ourselves into. I say “Praise be to the bankers”. I should send a cake.
LOL!
Hey, guys. I’m back and working today, though from home where I can keep my leg up more easily. And I’m going to do my best to get through the day on nothing but advil. First thing in the morning is always the hardest and I was a little sceptical this morning, but it seems to be working enough.
Jury duty was deathly dull yesterday. They called over 140 of us and only sent out one group to a court room and it was about a third of the people between 1 and 70. I wasn’t in that group. They finally let us out just before 4.
However, I do have a few things to say about the jury room and the spending in Montgomery County. Welcoming any additional comments from Pondering and JimA and my other neighbors.
OMG, they spent SO much money! The jury room is really big. The seats are like you would find in a theater. Not quite stadium seating since the backs aren’t high enough, but row upon row of very plush seats. You could have put 400 of us in that room, maybe more. And the flat screen TVs - there must have been 10 of them. They show you a quick 8-10 minute video when you start jury duty (followed by cheesey music and a series of slightly out of focus head shots of all the judges). That is all the TVs are for. We used them for less than 15 minutes. and there are at least 10 of them hanging down from the ceiling. Like the clerk couldn’t have made the presentation using an overhead projector and some transparencies projected on the wall or a pull down screen.
There were some internet enabled PC’s in the back with flat panel monitors, though a large percent of them had bad keyboards. And, in the end it was a much less interesting day than jury duty in Jersey CIty used to be. In Jersey City, we had plastic and folding chairs, some cheap folding tables, and a bunch of board games and jigsaw puzzles. It was less comfortable, but you at least spent time interacting with people who wouldn’t normally meet.
The room I was in yesterday must have cost 10s of thousands of dollars to decorate (possibly a lot more), what with the really expensive seating, the tv’s, the high quality carpet (purple where the chairs were and grey cut in on the aisles), and the computer area. And as near as I can tell, the only really useful technological additions were the wifi and the fact that the microphones the clerks used to make announcements had speakers in the bathrooms so you didn’t have to “check out” to use the can.
Complete waste of money. Totally. Welcome to county government.
Pardon for asking, but what state? What you describe sounds like Montgomery County MD.
MD, as you guessed
Of course, if you piss off the jurors too much prior to being seated on a jury, they just might have some sympathy for the accused.
Well I’ve had jury duty in Montgomery, PG and Howard counties. ‘Course in Montgomery county it was something like ~25 years ago, because I had to get a deferment until I was on Summer vacation from college. No flat screens or stadim seating in the early 80s. Both Montgomery and PG had huge waiting rooms. Howard county, not so much. In fact, it became obvious in HC that we were there mainly so that the prosecutor could use our presence to help induce the defendant to plede out. “Take my offer because I’ve got a jury ready just down the hall.” When I served in PG, it was the week after 9/11, when the only aircraft in the sky were the F-16s circling the Beltway. It took three days to resolve an assault case where nobody was hospitalized.
In the past the logic ( read sales pitch ) has been, “The taxpayers want to SEE what their tax dollars have purchased” ( read we’re senior gov. workers and we ‘deserve’ plush diggs! )
Sorry you were subjected to that Polly.
Sounds just like Fairfax Country. About 15 or 20 years ago there was a near / semi tax revolt when the county built its new headquarters nicknamed the Taj Mahal. $30K conference table, marble, etc… More to the housing bubble. Read an article a few years ago that Mont. County had mediators - lawyers on staff to settle HOA disputes. The examples in the Wash Post were all cases where people bought in HOAs and decided they did not want to comply with rules. One wanted to paint an unapproved color that sort of thing. So county lawyers salaries and pensions all because some nitwit was fighting with the HOA. Should have billed the nitwits.
Here in Pima County, Arizona, mediation is a required part of the animal noise complaint resolution process. Which means that if your neighbor’s dog has a habit of barking you out of a sound sleep at 3 a.m., you’re supposed to sit down with a mediator, who will help you and your neighbor come to an agreement about the situation.
Not surprisingly, some local residents aren’t happy about this state of affairs. And they’re working to change the law.
“I’m a very special snowflake, and I’m not bound by any of the agreements that I’ve signed. Not HOA rules, not my mortgage.” Hey, assinine HOAs and exploding suicide ARMs aren’t anything I was interested in agreeing to, SO I DIDN’T.
“Complete waste of money. Totally. Welcome to county government.”
Ahhh, Well. You should try jury duty in DC or Baltimore. Total f-ing hell holes, both of em. Give me the cushy seats. It’s our tax dollars paying for them anyway.
Is it time to start a run on the banks?
Bank Holiday Coming? Prepare?
Bob Chapman’s Int’l Forecaster newsletter revealed (5/20) this startling intelligence (from within US State Dept & embassies):
”Some US embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of US cash to purchase currencies from those govts, quietly. But not £’s. Inside the State Dept there is a sense of sadness & foreboding that ‘something’ is about to happen, unknown re a date—just that within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days.”
Bob quotes another source that “Panasonic has told their people to be back in Japan by Sept 09.”
hmmm…all while GS, AIG, Morgan and Citi are preparing to pay record salaries and bonuses.
“by the pricking of my thumbs…something wicked this way comes.”
FB wants, I posted another source of this info further down. It probabably won’t appear till later because I included a link. It was from a Harry Schultz newsletter. Marketwatch has it on their main webpage.
I can’t read Bob Chapman anymore.
I get nightmares
“Panasonic has told their people to be back in Japan by Sept 09.”
Please don’t do this to me. I nearly lost my mind after 9/11.
In SE Florida i can almost feel that something really bad is about to happen. People we know that we had no idea were in trouble are ready to lose their homes from refinancing during the boom. A lot of people we know are losing their jobs. One man who owned a lumber yard that he had taken over from his father had a heart attack and died two weeks ago, he was 49. Another man we know is out in Kansas selling off family land to survive, both have families with teenage kids. This all besides the people we knew would get crushed, it`s like there is a shadow inventory of victims.
“it`s like there is a shadow inventory of victims”
That is a very telling and terrifying observation. I’m not sure that I want to know it, but thank you for saying it anyway.
We have pretty much given up on the idea of a Super Recession and are just quietly trying to prepare for the next Gr8 Depression. I may be in a great depression, but it certainly seems probable.
Silverback,
I understand your depression concerns. Even after being right when so many laughed at me when I moved to all cash in October 2007.
I wonder if I’m locked into a mental negative cycle - my gut tells me the roller-coaster ride has more down than ups over the coming couple of years. But I could be wrong as so many others continue to tell me.
The same folks who laughed as I moved to the sidelines are again questioning why I’m not back in. Now the unstated implications are that “guys like me” are what’s holding back the recovery.
I long ago learned to bite my tongue when broad statements were made that “everyone has been badly hit in their investment and retirement accounts” - this is bosses and colleagues in upper management who are all over-leveraged, over-spent and over mortgaged.
Bah!!! I’m yacking on, but being a realist in my mind (and I’m an optimist by nature) is beginning to feel like chicken little - it’s hard to be a leader in business growth when my personal future picture is so divergent from my company,s business plans.
So yes, while I might be OK the whole tip-toe approach to addressing these issues is very depressing.
Oh I don’t think there has to necessarily be anything nefarious behind this. Probably just prudent. If they were -closing- embassies then I’d worry.
In WWII U.S Navy ships carried gold bars to pay for marine diesel fuel in very uncertain times. ( It was uh… universally accepted ) Since they’re converting to the local currency, it’s something I guess they should have done a long time ago. We’ll see, sounds like more tinfoil hat stuff.
I mean, if my -currency- were to become worthless.., what would possibly be the point of maintaining an embassy presence overseas? To “save face”?
Oh… to make sure the new world order is properly implemented!? Uh… I think people have figured out our currency is pretty much shot.
I didn’t know that. Do wreck divers go after those gold bars?
Someone I thought had posted an article or two the other day discussing how the higher-than-expected unemployment was hitting Medicare hard. From looking back through the blog though I can’t find it. If some one has such a link could you re-post? Thanks.
What is the normal variation of durable goods from April to May? I keep hearing that durable goods had a surge this past May and was much higher than analysts had predicted. All is wonderful, sweetness, and light. Do the numbers call BS? It wouldn’t surprise me.
Roidy
durable goods order is a total farse.You cnat hardly give away durable goods right now.More BS numbers as usual.
FWIW - for some perspective - though durable goods orders were up MoM, they were still down 23% YoY.
Earlville man charged with trespassing in Cazenovia pastor’s house
The Post-Standard June 24, 2009 8:47AM
Cazenovia, NY — An Earlville man is accused of trespassing in the home of the pastor of Open Door Baptist Church in Cazenovia.
Robert D. Hart, 69, was found earlier this week squatting inside the residence near the Delphi Road church, state police said.
An off-duty trooper, who serves as a deacon at the church, came by to check the house because the pastor was out-of-town. The trooper discovered Hart inside the home, where he had been for about a day, troopers said.
The man did not force his way into the home, and the property was likely not secure, troopers said. Hart was likely looking for a place to stay, troopers said. Nothing inside the home was taken.
Hart’s car had a license plate stolen from a woman in Parish, Oswego County, troopers said. It was not clear how he obtained the stolen plate, troopers said.
Hart was charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass and possession of stolen property, troopers said. He was released on his own recognizance until his scheduled court date June 30.
*****
Now see if Mr. Hart had been reading Ben’s blog he would have known you have to scout out a foreclosure to hang in. He probably would have had better digs too since they seem to be happening in the newer, larger version of the area’s housing.
Cazenovia, NY — An Earlville man is accused of trespassing in the home of the pastor of Open Door Baptist Church in Cazenovia.
Maybe the guy believed in the literal word.
Hey Carrie! How’s upstate? My wife and son are up there now, visiting Grammy in Skan. This is the first summer since moving to FL that I won’t be able to make it back. I saw your post the other day about stepping back to take it all in — good advice. I hope you’re doing well.
I’m starting to see prices decline in that area. It reminds me of Florida about 2 years ago when all the ‘Price Reduced’ signs went up. You should start seeing derelict properties after next winter.
Ah Muggy we’re having so much fun in our new CNY area enjoying some really nice families in a great new school district. My kids are so happy now.
Boy have you been in my thoughts recently. I almost sent you a link of a nice looking Skan home going for $189k to say, hey the prices are coming down. Maybe your wife will even check it out. I think its on Gennessee St. I’m sure you watch as closely as I do.
We’re due for a dinner cruise there next month. I always wonder if I’d even know if I rubbed elbows w/a fellow HBBer. I always act stupid about housing stuff in public cuz in my present location the kool-aid is still flowing.
26 year old grad student bought the last home I was peeking at. A home data site says she overpaid by at least $8k. Hmmmm…$8k. A week later a foreclosure in the same neighborhood became available for $80k less. Should be an interesting fall market.
“I always act stupid about housing stuff in public cuz in my present location the kool-aid is still flowing.”
Carrie,
It’s hard to believe the ongoing denial in the northeast. Even after the collapse in sales volume, the denial continues and the speculation rages on. The fact that foreclosures are selling quite rapidly tells me there is no end to the speculation.
Exeter,
The inventory at our price niche is wiped out. It’s not even July 4th. I think we should go on a nice vacation and forget about housing until next year.
Hi Carrie, I do keep an eye on Skan, but my wife really wants to be in the Rochester area. I, of course, would kill to live there.
I think I know the house you’re thinking of. What’s so crazy is that my wife pretty much knows the entire town.. that’s how it is there. When she was a kid, you only had to dial the last four digits since everyone had the same exchange.
Anyhoo, I wonder how all of those “luxury condos” are doing? A lot of people are upset that Mo’s closed. Oh well…
Here we go again. More banking holiday rumors. This one made it all the way to Marketwatch although it was passed on as “rumor”:
“In its current issue, HSL reports rumors that “Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and foreboding that ’something’ is about to happen … within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days.”
Yes, yes, it’s paranoid. But paranoids have enemies — and the Crash of 2008 really did happen.
HSL’s suspicion: “Another FDR-style ‘bank holiday’ of indefinite length, perhaps soon, to let the insiders sort out the bank mess, which (despite their rosy propaganda campaign) is getting more out of their control every day. Insiders want to impose new bank rules. Widespread nationalization could result, already underway. It could also lead to a formal U.S. dollar devaluation, as FDR did by revaluing gold (and then confiscating it).”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/schultz-paints-bleak-picture-of-future
There’s a fine line between paranoia and prescience. By my reckoning it’s as thin as the line separating persistence and futility.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not really out to get you.
Why would anyone want a bank holiday in the absence of a bank run? And is this holiday supposed to last for a year? How can this suspected bank holiday be reconciled with this dude’s hopes that we don’t have a bear market? And what is this 20-year V formation he’s spouting off about?
Check it out - they made a reality show just for us HBBers:
“Real Estate Intervention” brings tough love to homeowners…..
http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/iltw/2009/06/21/real_estate/
I’d watch that show, and I HATE reality TV shows
That said, Aubrey seems sensible, pragmatic and almost completely devoid of the usual “everything’s coming up roses” bullsh!t that so many agents seem to serve up shamelessly throughout even the worst housing slumps. He tries to demonstrate to the show’s guests a sense of the declining housing market by showing them comparable homes that sold for a lot less than they’re asking for theirs. But as it turns out, nothing sends most people into a folding-chair-hurling state of rage faster than implying that their house is less welcoming or less spacious or less special than someone else’s.
I’ll watch it too!
I watched one episode, and the guy was pretty straight forward with the couple trying to get out from under their over priced home(they were moving to NYC for another job if I remember). He asked them if they had $40k to bring to the table to get a deal done. They of course had $0.
The part I didn’t like was him convincing them to become absentee landlords and rent their house out at a $300/month loss with the promise that in 3-5 years they would be able to sell it.
Yes, I agree with you Skip.
It’s as if he didn’t have the guts/heart to break it to them that they were in a downward spiral.
BTW– that house is in my ‘hood. Not sure exactly where . . .
What are the choices:
1. Walk away. Lose zero. Credit rating craters.
2. Pay $18,000 over 5 years in dribbles, not counting vacancies or damage, on the slim hope prices return. Walk away anyway when it doesn’t. Credit rating craters.
3. Bring $40,000 to closing.
Yep, I’d probably go with #1. I’ve heard stories that credit can be repaired in 3-5 years, so why delay the inevitable.
The new job might fire you if they find out about the decline in credit rating. It will be harder to rent in NYC with bad credit. Insurance rates go up with bad credit.
It is possible to live with bad credit for a while. The best way to do it is to have long standing relationships with small banks, insurance agents, landlords, etc. that will use their personal knowledge of you rather than a number from a rating agency to decide whether to do business with you. Oh, and having a pile of cash available is also vital.
At a guess, this couple has neither.
If credit ratings are relative, then having yours crater may be meaningless. After all, the only people who don’t default are going to be those who don’t borrow, and what good are they to lenders?
I’d love to see a version of this with Gordon Ramsay as the host.
Lee Ermy?
I’ll second R. Lee Ermey!
“Just lower the price, you donkey! Are you really that stupid?”
Okay, we now have the script for the next 30 episodes of it.
Frank endorses consumer-protection agencyJune 24, 2009 10:28 AM
All Associated Press news WASHINGTON (AP) - House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank has come out for a new government agency protecting consumers from subprime mortgages and other high-risk financial products.
Frank said Wednesday that his committee will consider legislation in July that would create such an agency, as the Obama administration has proposed. The Massachusetts Democrat said criticism that the organization would be too burdensome to industry is unfounded.
YOU DA MAN BARNEY.
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: September 11, 2003
The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.
The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.
Significant details must still be worked out before Congress can approve a bill. Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.
”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Frank scoffs at worries about new consumer agencyJune 24, 2009 11:30 AM ET
All Associated Press news WASHINGTON (AP) - House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank scoffed Wednesday at assertions that a new consumer protection agency would morph into “some out of control entity.”
“There is no pattern of overregulation I can see in the consumer area, and I don’t see one here,” Frank, D-Mass., said at a hearing on the Obama administration’s proposals to overhaul financial industry regulation in the wake of high-risk practices that led to the deep recession now under way.
7 lenders get immunity from ca state foreclosure prevention act - (some additional info in this one)
http://www.sacbee.com/business/story/1962447.html
“7 lenders get immunity from ca state foreclosure prevention act”
BofA/Countrywide and Citi are excluded….two of the biggest lenders in the state. And the 90 day moratorium will lift just around the time CA is officially out of cash and laying state workers off. Another perfect storm forming for the Golden State.
This sounds like another crush the small banks and support too big to fail.
Does anyone have on the ground information about the housing market in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area? I found a potential job opportunity in Norfolk which would involve a relocation.
VaBeyatch in Virginia Beach, and any others familiar with that market: are there any observations you can share?
Thanks in advance.
Take the job and RENT for a year to get the lay of the land.
Renting is a given. It’s still good to know the current state of the for sale and rental markets.
Local news admitted that rents are declining (A big step for them). Lots of apartment buildings. Over 1000 new high end apartments coming online in Norfolk alone. Lots of homes for rent as well. (Military family buys house, gets orders to leave after 2 years, puts house up for rent). Roughly the same amount of homes for sale over the past few years. Low end ($200K+) moves quickly from what I understand. High end is stagnant. Haven’t been able to find any data related to price per square foot.
I know the area some. Big military there. Lots of people, lots of housing and the NAR Crime Syndicate has a strong presence there. A former colleague just bought there even though I advised him not to on numerous occasions. His wife pressured him.
Yes. Our area is still very bubbly. My best educated guess is that it revolves around military folks that move to the area and get housing allowances. I don’t see the struggle with jobs though. I think people are coming to the area, because we still have jobs. The majority of the better jobs are related to gov’t / defense spending, so that has held stable. Rents are high compared to income, but inventory is growing pretty rapidly. It’s a large region, honestly. It doesn’t get credit because it’s 7 cities, not 1. But there is quite a bit here.
Also, be careful of large rental complexes in Va Beach itself. They are waaaaay more pricey than Norfolk, shoddily made and kept up, sketchy neighbors (partying, engine revvers, transient etc.) and crime magnets. Not to mention the “sound of freedom.” (If you don’t know what that is, you’ll find out!!!) I got stuck in one of those crap-holes when I first lived there and was able to break my lease and move to Ghent for 1/2 the rent.
If you desire to live near the beach, there are individual landlords who rent year round, especially in “North Virginia Beach” which are the numbered streets above the boardwalk, quiet area very pretty.
There is one big complex called Chase Arbor in Virginia Beach that has a horrible rep. Friends have great stories about it. The property mgmt company I deal with are a bunch of a holes as well.
I guess it depends on your demographic. Are you single? If so, go rent in Ghent. It’s the cutest part of Norfolk — restaurants, bars, etc. and from a NE perspective - cheap. You won’t have to drive everywhere on the weekends.
Yes. I’m single. It’s just me and my dog. The job (if I get it) is in downtown Norfolk on Waterside Drive.
Mass. is housing
homeless in motels
Costing tax payers around $2 million per month!
Updated: Wednesday, 24 Jun 2009, 9:24 AM EDT
Bruce Morin
MASSACHUSETTS (WPRI) - A record number of families are being put up in motels in Massachusetts. High unemployment and the rising number of home foreclosures is the reason the state is taking this action.
Housing Massachusetts’ homeless is costing tax payers around $2 million per month. It costs an average of $85 per night to have families, including nearly 1000 children, stay in motels.
The Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness admits that the use of motels for the homeless is not ideal, but is the best that can be done at this time.
Homeless advocates are worried that families are not getting the support of shelters with living rooms, kitchens, and play areas.
“Homeless advocates are worried that families are not getting the support of shelters with living rooms, kitchens, and play areas.”
I warm clean bed and a bathroom is a darn good start. There is a play area for the kids. The taxpayer has already provided one, it’s called a park.
Every talking head on tv praises Bernanke for doing such a ‘great job’ with the financial crisis. What exactly did he do that was in any way innovative, unexpected, or inspiring? Couldn’t any idiot have done what BB did? What a load of hooey!!
Green shoots, dude, green shoots. Now that we’re saved, we need to praise the savior. Are you with us or against us? Green shoots.
So I thought you guys might appreciate snippets from an IM conversation I had with a friend this morning. She’s a newly-minted realtor, and is looking to buy a new house (she has one, her new husband has a rental) on the Perdernales river in Texas (btw, they wouldn’t give her a loan since she’s been a 1099 employee this past year).
I brought up the fact that job losses and wage cuts are likely to be a downward force on house prices for a while yet (we’ve discussed real estate quite a bit..she and I don’t see eye to eye). The things I heard in response:
it’s sort of an investment… water comes back… house value increases 100K
well we have no plans of selling this house. we plan on living there
i have no problems hanging onto it until the economy turns around
well, jason, they aren’t making any more lake front, so the price will go up
i’m a realtor. i know these things
real estate is fairly local… and austin seems to be doing fine
Do they hand you a ‘fact card’ or ‘cheat sheet’ when you get your license or something?!?
You know, I just thought of a great game…”REALTOR(tm)-Speak Bingo!”. You and an HBB buddy or two can fill out your bingo cards, then go to a series of open houses. When the appropriate phrase is heard, you fill out that square in your card.
Then, when the realtor is pontificating how all real-estate is local and the local market has bottomed, etc, you can yell out BINGO! to your friends’ chagrin
I’m thinking more of a drinking game version.
On the other hand, after 2-3 houses there wouldn’t be much more to do than go home and sleep it off.
Well, I think “perder” means “to lose” in Spanish. Perhaps, and I haven’t looked this up, “nales” means a$$.
perdernales = lose your a$$
Typo in the story apparently. It is Pedernales, which is flint, or a place where one can collect flint.
Part of the spelling error might be due to the locals pronouncing it “Perdinales”
Could also be due to my morning laziness
Sorry about the spelling error.
Sorry if a repost…
SPECIAL REPORT Road to Rescue
New home sales fall unexpectedly
Sales ticked down 0.6% last month, down 32.8% from last year.
By Julianne Pepitone, CNNMoney dot com contributing writer
Last Updated: June 24, 2009: 10:48 AM ET
I wonder what the revised numbers will look like next month?
LOL - if they think May new home sales were bad wait until June numbers come out.
TAMPA - Tampa will lose part of its cigar heritage in August when Hav-A-Tampa shuts its factory near Seffner and lays off about 495
employees, closing a factory that has been operating since 1902.
By MICHAEL SASSO | The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 23, 2009
Updated: 06/23/2009 07:00 pm
The company announced the closing today.
Many employees there make Hav-A-Tampa’s iconic Jewels, inexpensive machine-made cigars known for their birchwood tips. Some workers have labored there for two decades or longer, including one who’s been there for 50 years, said Richard McKenzie, a senior vice president of human resources for Altadis USA, which owns Hav-A-Tampa.
Altadis tried to keep the plant open by closing it for a week or two at a time and furloughing workers. Eventually, though, the company couldn’t cope with a steep drop in consumer demand, brought on by the recession and a large new tax on tobacco products, McKenzie said.
Work that had been done in Tampa will now be performed in an Altadis plant in Puerto Rico, where it has extra manufacturing capacity, McKenzie said. The company is not closing its nearby distribution center off U.S. 301, where it employs about 150 people.
Employees on Tuesday were digesting how they would find work in an economy where more than one in 10 people in the area already are unemployed.
“I’ve been here 12 years. I know someone’s who’s been there 20 years, 22 years,” said Denise Harrison, an office manager at Hav-A-Tampa. “I’m sure we’ll all land on our feet, but it will be harder for some people other than me who may have done nothing else.”
My father’s father-in-law was a major partner in Hav-A-Tampa after WWII and through the ’70’s. He inherited a tobacco plantation in Quincy, FL (South of Tallahassee) and wanted a way to retail his tobacco so he bought in.
Hav-A-Tampa’s workers in the early years were mostly Cuban immigrants. When they needed to expand production, they decided Cubans were too expensive so they built a plant in Alabama where he could hire (in his words) white slaves. After they got too expensive, they built their next plant in Costa Rica.
He still owns a lot of land in downtown Tampa. He’s living in a very expensive nursing home in Quincy now where I’m sure they are bleeding his assets dry.
I once went to the Univeristy of S. Florida for a summer linguistics grad program and enjoyed Ybor City’s great Cuban restaurants, but hated the Tampa area in general. Of course, going to Florida in the summer heat isn’t necessarily a good idea for someone used to Colorado mountains.
Anyway, the cigars added to the atmosphere.
The company I really hated to see go under recently was Hercules Dynamite. An old-timer like the cigar factory.
The company I really hated to see go under recently was Hercules Dynamite. They should have merged with the cigar company
Wow, what an interesting place that would be to work! LOL
A good friend of my father worked for Hercules in northern New Jersey. His office was right above the manufacturing floor. Which has led to many jokes about sitting on a powder keg.
Oh, I should mention that he’s one of my father’s target shooting buddies. The goal of our trips to the range is to find an interesting topic for Lou to expound on. And he’ll just go on and on about it for the 25-mile drive to the range.
Topics Lou has covered:
1. His multimillionaire college dropout daughter
2. Kosovo (Lou’s of Albanian descent)
3. Hiring employees who could pass Hercules’ drug test
Let me get this straight. Those same Republicans that have claimed for DECADES that the government cannot do anything right…are now crying that private health insurance companies can’t compete against a public plan…run by the government?
LOL
Here’s the problem. For one thing, their argument basically puts the insurers before the public, which is outrageous. I thought they worked for the people? Secondly, nobody is buying their bullshit anymore. Much like the country, the Republican Party has completely imploded. What we have now are a bunch of Democrats debating amongst themselves, with the fringe on the right chiming in. Like anyone cares what they say at this point!
The Republican Party brought us to the brink with deregulation and the repeal of Glass Steagall. They own this collapse. But don’t worry my Republican friends, the Democrats are guaranteed to make it worse! But much like the anger people have when the fire department comes in and ruins their house fighting the fire, they still reserve most of their anger for the arsonist. And make no mistakes. The GOP set this fire.
So what do you do when a totally discredited group of people start crying about the poor corporations that cannot complete against a government run plan?
You ignore them. And you hope that one day they regain their senses so we aren’t left with one party making all the (wrong) decisions.
The gop fraudies and phonies on one hand say the a medicare like system would be too generous and therefore unfair competition for the poor HMOs. On the other hand, they yammer on to the proposed end users about how horrible the coverage would be.
The republitards need to pick a coherent logic indictment and stick with it…… for once in their careers.
The truth is, the right is the party of big business. They will use any angle to make sure the people that pay their salaries (not us!) get what they want. It is no surprise that the GOP has imploded along with the corporations that support them. And their arguments have never made any sense, but we didn’t have conclusive proof until now that they were crazy. Same thing with global warming.
Honestly, I feel sorry for true Republicans like Ben and some of the others here on this blog. Good, common sense folks that have watched in horror as their party was hijacked by a bunch of deregulation-loving religious freaks. And these freaks have undermined the entire GOP.
‘true Republicans like Ben’
Ha ha! Well you don’t WTF you are talking about. I remember when I was 19 I joined the fledgling Young Conservatives of Texas group in college. After a bunch of talkng, me and my brother asked, ’so when is the first protest, or what ever?’ They said they weren’t planning on one at all. We walked out.
BTW, I convinced my dad to stop voting Republican for good a couple of years later. No easy feat, that. Only group I dislike more are Democrats, or partisans in general.
“Only group I dislike more are Democrats, or partisans in general.”
Testify, Brothah Ben!
banana,
You’re totally out on a limb w/ that one. It’s the only thing I see being “owned” around here. But just keep repeating it and maybe some will buy into it?
You guys won the election. You can stop campaining now. When will they just STFU and lead? Nice try though…
Oh, brother, D.
Your final paragraph sounds like me yelling at the Obama photo I have in my studio. (”It’s not an —-ing campaign anymore! You won! So preside already!”)
Arizona Slim,
Again ( as much a Rep. as I am a “Catholic” ) but it really wears me down when people figure just being ‘up’ in the Approval Ratings gives your party every license to assign ‘what’ ever blame ‘where’ ever you see fit?
If Ben wants to start a HealthCare Blog I’d love to chime in from time to time, but attaching your every pet peeve to the perceived culpability for the HB is just getting old.
I’m disappointed the White Sox didn’t repeat in ‘06. ‘Who’ exactly shall I blame for that?
I was in a gun shop today, they have a picture of Obama on the wall thanking him for the record gun sales.
“When will they just STFU and lead?”
Let me break this to you as gently as possible. Your f’ing party crashed the entire planet. You don’t get a say! You don’t get to make the rules, and you don’t get to criticize the clean up crew.
Your party had their chance! They blew it! And now you have ZERO power. The GOP is a flee. Nothing more. And I hold your party partially responsible for the crazy shit the Democrats are going to do too! Your party was so reckless you left us with only one!
Nice going!
Wow. That was your gentle version of your opinion?!
Now I really want to see the ‘brutal’ version!
No you don’t! And I don’t either! lol
I know I am pretty harsh on the Republicans, but these people were hysterical over a BJ. What would they have done if Clinton did 1/10th of the things the GOP did the last 8 years? They would only have the brutal version.
The GOP crashed the entire planet. These people NEED to hear it every day.
“Let me break this to you as gently as possible. Your f’ing party crashed the entire planet”.
LOL! Hey whiny, let me break this to you gently, you don’t get a “say” in “it” either. Whatever it is!
The GOP is a “flea”.. not “flee”.
We can see you are a democrat.
You are blaming this whole thing on G-S? Interesting.
Well as long as the data fits your religious viewpoint than I guess its fine.
The GOP is a “flea”.. not “flee”.
Yea, But the drama queen is a software developer, so that shouldn’t count.
“Your party had their chance!”
( How many times do you have to tell these people you’re not really a republican? ) Sheesh.
If they -were- ‘my’ party ( I’m gravitating more toward the “professional wrestling analogy? ) they certainly weren’t given a chance. There’s been a c-o-n-s-t-a-n-t incessant WHINE ever since the First Tuesday of Nov. 2000. It -never- subsided. Talk about distractions?
And… then conveniently absolve Dodd & Frank from ‘any’ responsibility. I’m so tired of this.
Hey DinOR,
Want to be in a real minority try my position, against big gubmint all the way around, In favor of personal responsibility. Side with Thomas Jefferson and never have anyone running for Liberty. That’s why I could not care less for party hacks. They do not give a tinkers damn about the citizens, it’s all about power and control, and the masses run to it.
They never said the government can’t do anything right.
They said that any government program administered by DEMOCRATS can’t do anything right……and since Democrats are the ones who are always starting all these new programs, they feel that NO program is better than a BADLY RUN program.
I mean really……what would you expect them to say?
Excuse me for a minute………I have a hornet’s nest out back I need to beat with a stick..
“I mean really……what would you expect them to say?”
Hmm…so we are in the middle of a massive crisis, and I shouldn’t expect the GOP to take the same attitude that Dems took after 9/11? You know, rally behind the leader for the good of the country?
You are right! What would I expect them to say? This is the new, shameless GOP.
I have a hornet’s nest out back I need to beat with a stick..
Hahah! Yeah, and don’t forget to p*ss down a badger hole on your way to the hornet nest.
Oly, wrote ya a song yesterday, but, (sigh) ya missed it I guess.
No, I saw it, only I saw it late. I was out in the forest for a time because I thought it might rain, but it didn’t, the sky only teased me a bit with a few drops.
That stupid sky! Gonna kick its cloudy blue bum one of these days! And here’s my response to YOU, Mr. ‘Over-cooked and High-strung’:
Yes, I will SEND you a geoduck. Jeeze, man, relax. You disrespect me with your doubtingness. I heard you, and I marked it; I just wondered if you really meant it.
But, so, having now accepted your seriousness: you want a giant funny-looking squirty clam? Why, then, you shall surely have one!
*snicker *
But you better eat it with some serious appreciation, with your eyes squeezed shut and with wild exclamations of crazed joy, once you get it, because it’s quite hard to dig them out, they appear only very, very rarely where I can reach them, and I ruined my shirt getting one for you.
Sorry I doubted you Oly, hope you enjoyed your song…(:
I’ll pay for the dry clean re shirt/or buy a new one, kind of barter ya know?
I am a Resident of Madison County, Il., and PROUD OF IT!!!!!:
Our county, where I work, just got voted No. 1 for lung cancer from air contaminants!!! (No. 2 is X county in LA in Cali).
We’re No. 1!
We’re No.1! etc…
(: =:(? What is it? How DO you spell Guage??
How DO you spell Guage??
Gauge.
You missed it last time you tried it, too, about 2 months ago. Interesting! It must be a brain-hiccup sort of thing that probably should not be tinkered with.
For instance, I cannot spell occassion. I won’t even try anymore. I just say ‘event’, or else I get mad after trying to spell it five times and bite someone.
Mr. ‘Over-cooked and High-strung’:
Worth contemplating I suppose, looking at the fun I am having, but, been a while since I had to say, “Be still my beating heart”. Nite Oly Gal.
It must be a brain-hiccup sort of thing that probably should not be tinkered with.
‘Cause your head might a’splode if you do. Heavens! Can’t have that!
I had a good idea: how about if you substitute ‘evaluate’? See, then you never have to bite anyone whilst in a rage.
beating =beeting=Beating.
Banana I agree with much of what you said but don’t forget that Clinton signed the repeal of Glass Steagle. There are plenty of Dems who work for Wallstreet as well.
Look at Obama giving up on a gov sponsered health plan. Suggesting he might cave to demands that we again tax the middle and upper middle class to pay for health care for all via taxing their health care benefits. The elite will again walk free. The insurance companies will love it because the law will mandate that everyone buy their insurance.
Look at him supporting allowing the FED to expand and become the overlord of the economy, and doing nothing to break up too big to fail banks.
I have not and probably will never vote republican given their cozy status with the religious right, their foreign policy, their disdain for the working man, and their stance on energy, but there are plenty of pigs on the other side. I”m hoping I didn’t vote for one.
PASCO COUNTY (Bay News 9) — East Paco Habitat for Humanity is suffering because of budget constraints, but a new plan is helping them save money and stimulate home sales.
Habitat constructs new homes for families, but they have recently started a new tactic of rehabbing old homes.
http://tinyurl.com/nl5oys
This is something that a lot of Habitat affiliates do. And, I think, it’s something that more of them should get into.
Here in Tucson, the Habitat people are still building on a site that sits just south of the Davis Monthan Air Force Base. Nothing like listening to all manner of jet aircraft, is there?
But it gets worse. The northern boundary of the site is the Union Pacific line that goes through Tucson. Noisy freight trains. 24/7.
The property’s southern boundary is Interstate 10, which is a veritable truck fiesta. 24/7.
On the other side of I-10? Well, get a whiff of the county landfill.
This place has “location, location, location” written all over it.
Perfect location for someone who is deaf & lacks a sense of smell.
“Perfect location for someone who is deaf & lacks a sense of smell.”
Just like Florida!
Tresho:
Being an ex of Pasco, I must ask: What did you say? Also, what odor do geo-ducks emanate?
Now Entering the Political Stage
by Bill Bonner
London, England
“Politics is about what works,” someone once said. Perhaps it was Hillary Clinton. Someone said it…someone who is an imbecile.
Politics is not about what works, it’s about what you can get away with. And what you can get away with is often exactly what doesn’t work at all.
Our beat is money, here at The Daily Reckoning. We specialize in fraud and folderol. We leave the homicide beat to someone else.
What the United States is getting away with, from a financial point of view, in addition to counterfeiting, is grand larceny on a Super-Madoff scale. It is borrowing trillions of dollars even though it has no way to honestly pay back the money.
Still, so eager are the lenders to part with their money that the yield on the 10-year T-note fell yesterday to 3.64%. The more the feds borrow, apparently, the more lenders are willing to lend.
We’re in the third and fatal stage of a great country - the political stage. In this stage, money and power migrate from the financial community to the political community. The politicians get away with taking trillions out of the productive economy and spending them on their pet projects and private corruptions.
Warren Buffett described the America of the bubble years as “Squanderville.” Private citizens were living beyond their means, he pointed out. But he hadn’t seen nothin’. Now, government does the squandering. The politicians are spending trillions they don’t have on projects nobody was willing to pay for even when they had some money in their pockets.
What the government can get away with now - under cover of a financial crisis - is a big grab for money and power. It ‘works’ in the sense the feds are able to get away with it. But it will prove fatal to the dollar…and to the US economy.
We are at the halfway point in 2009………time for a “State of the Meltdown” summary?
-The government and the banks have averted the immediate crisis, and have a better handle on their total exposure. The problem is, letting things run their natural course will turn the USA into Zimbabwe-West. Thus, the effort to prop up house prices to stop the bleeding in the banks balance sheets, changing the “mark to market” accounting rules, and maintain a slow steady deflation of house prices, so the losses can be written off over multiple quarters, and the frogs (J6P) don’t notice the water coming to a boil.
-To prevent the frogs/mushrooms from panicking, and/or getting out the hunting rifles and heading to D.C., Wall Street, or Conneticutt, stats are being manipulated, distorted or unreported. This effort has been so effective, that everyone is starting to believe their own B.S.
-The “keep people in their homes” effort is failing utterly (and will continue to do so); much like a Band Aid doesn’t help a shotgun blast to the chest. The only way the programs work is if the houses are given away, and the “bubble value” is written off somebody’s books.
-All of the so-called “growth” in the past ten years was wholly due to the Internet/Housing/Debt bubbles……”real” growth was non-existant, or even negative. Now that the artificial support for “growth” has disappeared, the economy is rapidly shrinking to it’s “real” size, which is about 60% of what it was in 2005. “Official” unemployment rate at year end 2009 will be 12-15%…..”Real World employment/underemployment” will be closer to 20-25%…….nowhere will you find the actual number being front page news.
-The Fed has painted themselves into a corner……can’t lower rates, and “quantative easing”/printing more money will generate it’s own set of new problems (dumping of dollars, run up in commodities).
-The investment bankers/Wall Street brain trust, will go back to business as usual, the are now “Too Big to Fall” (squared)……the government doesn’t have enough accountants and lawyers to put half of the country’s investment bankers, loan originators, realtors, appraisers, developers, contractors, Liar loan liars, flippers, etc. in jail.
-In a self-preservation move, Congress will pass a ban on the possesion of all firearms, will pass additional legislation giving the TSA a mandate to enforce a “no-gun zone” within a 30 mile radius of D.C., Manhattan, and any member of Congress or the Cabinet.
(Sure, it will be overturned in the Supreme Court, but it could take YEARS to make it there; by that time, the crisis will be over, or everyone will have skipped town).
-Russia will instigate an insurgency in Alaska, which will lead to a “breakaway Republic” (see South Ossetia). This new “Republic” will conveniently have all the North Slope/Artic Ocean oil deposits located within. The caribou will be told to go pound sand. The first Greenpeace ship north of the Aleutians will mysteriously disappear.
-China will use their $800 billion slush fund to buy the “New GM”, and several major automotive component suppliers. Union Pacific and BNSF will show massive profits for 2-3 years, as the containers that used to return empty to the Far East are now loaded with tooling and production equipment heading for Long Beach, Seattle and Vancouver.
Have I missed anything? Feel free to contribute.
Russia doesn’t have the money to do much of anything in the near future.
Congress won’t pass any such legislation. Any anti-gun nonsense is going to come from the administration, and will likely result in a GOP landslide in the next election. In any event, by the point such a step would be contemplated, it would already be too late.
China has no use for the “New GM”. They’ve already got plenty of automotive production capacity. In fact, their main problem is overcapacity. China might be in more trouble than the USA over the next few years.
The U.S. economy won’t crash in a big bang. It will slowly dissipate over the next decade to resemble its true productive capacity. Congress is more likely to engage in protectionism than in anti-gun hysteria, since protectionism will be very popular.
The last three were kind of “tongue-in-cheek”.
-I’ll say one thing for (most of) the Democratic leadership and Obama………they have recognized that there are enough problems out there now, without stirring the hornet’s nest that a gun ban would generate.
-I don’t put anything past the Russians…..they are currently laying the groundwork to claim the biggest part of the Arctic as Russian territorial waters. Hope someone in the State Department is paying attention.
-Any Chinese buy into GM or Chrysler will be more for the “Technology transfer”, than the equipment. Believe it or not, there is some technical know-how they have that is worth having, especially if you are only paying pennies on the dollar.
I think the market to fantasy rule changed helped bail out the banks so far.
It wouldn’t matter to me if they increased the rules for reserves but hell, why not have a tarp 2.
At least a big bunch of bonuses will go out before the solvency problem rears its ugly head. In the meantime the great orator 2 will pay some mighty fine lip service to reform. Mostly by giving power to the Fed. He probably isn’t aware that the Fed is a private institution and giving them money and policing powers is a bad idea. But hey, he is better than bush because well, he just sounds good. Anyhow, no bankers have suffered yet. Perhaps there will be a random prosecution of religious people. They are a major problem as we see in Iran.
Anyhow. Good times.
Indian Tech CEO: Americans are lazy and unemployable…
American IT grads unprepared and unemployable:
Indian CEO Vineet Nayar
Vineet Nayar, the highly respected CEO of HCL Technologies, one of India’s hottest IT services vendors … related a recent experience with an education official in a large U.S. state. The official wanted to know why HCL, a $2.5 billion (revenue) company with more than 3,000 people across 21 offices in 15 states, wasn’t hiring more people in his state. Vineet’s short answer: because most American college grads are “unemployable.”
…
They’re far less inclined than students from developing countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Ireland to spend their time learning the “boring” details of tech process, methodology, and tools–ITIL, Six Sigma, and the like. … [So] most Americans are just too expensive to train.
Apply the right kind of standards, and no one is employable, e.g., looking for 25-year-olds with 30 years of experience.
Also see this article in the NYT Despite Recession, High Demand for Skilled Labor which could as well be titled “Employers offer peanuts to hire only the most highly skilled and experienced, and wonder why there are so few of them.” The comments are interesting.
In my job search this year, I’ve found that there are all kinds of A&P jobs I can apply for, all over the country, that pay $14-15/hour. Which, as it happens, is the same amount of money I can make at Jiffy Lube.
You can see where this is going…….another class of jobs to be exported because “….they will do the work that Americans don’t want to do”.
“They’re far less inclined than students from developing countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Ireland to spend their time learning the “boring” details of tech process, methodology, and tools–ITIL, Six Sigma, and the like. … [So] most Americans are just too expensive to train.”
He is merely justifying why Americans have to re-do the work his people do. Talk about expensive…
Trouble is, most Americans may not be sufficiently desperate compared to people from Chindia to compete in a Darwinian globalized market.
Computer malfunction in the DC Metro crash. Look for future news on any Indian firms that may have been involved. This should be interesting.
Palmy, is it as hot there as it is here, in F*****g St. Louis??
I call BS on that PB. Just look at the lines of people when a company advertises for jobs.
How many “unemployable” Americans get stuck working with, training their replacements, etc. Indian folks that came from some Java-degree-mill? It works both ways. We all know the driving factor of offshoring and outsourcing is to cut costs, not for quality.
Local company is looking for someone inside the bargaining unit (who is familiar with all their processes) a $150-200K, 2-year contract to be a “consultant” at their new facility in China.
To which Americans in specific is he referring? Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? Larry Ellison?
I have a bone to pick with this asswipe. I run a software development company and have hired probably 50 developers from India. Here’s my take. These people can program whatever you want, but they are absolutely incapable of thinking for themselves. You can give them the most ridiculous task and they will try to accomplish it. An American developer, on the other hand, will ask “WTF?” almost always if it sounds crazy enough.
Developers from India are cheaper per hour (we paid $5 - $7 per hour) but God help you if you don’t spell out every damn thing - and double check the work. These were the people with 3-5 years experience too, so you can imagine what the freshers are like.
Not impressed one bit with these people. I think their culture totally screws up their way (or lack) of thinking.
From the one on one encounters I have had with them, I also think they smell.
I don’t want to know more about your “encounters” with them…
If you pay peanuts, you will get monkeys. 5-7$, really even skilled factory floor technicians in India get paid more than that (not a knock on technicians, just the reality that s/w jobs pay a lot more). Realistically, any programmer making less than $2/month in India is a newbie.
Even though energy and other commodity prices have risen recently, the Fed said inflation will remain “subdued for some time.”
God help us.
Daughter’s boyfriend has a 180K mile, run-into-the-ground, paint-peeling, hail-damaged and fender bashed-in, 11 year old, Mitsubishi-built two door coupe. He wants to look into the “cash-for-clunker” government rebate to buy something new.
Had to explain to him that, according to the government definition, his car is not a “clunker”.
OTOH, my low-mileage, nine year old, immaculate, 22-23mpg highway, top of the line, US made sedan IS a clunker.
Immediate “WTF” look. Told him to get back with me and explain it, if he ever figured it out.
X I have a 96 Camry 300K. My read, either way it passes is as follows: I am going to take plates off Camry (gets 21, not eligible) buy duece and a quarter circa 69 Electral, drive for one week, trade up to 2000 civic/camry, (pre-5 speed tranny pblms) and buy the car for free.
Your take?
We discussed nuisance fees yesterday. And the fact that they’re increasing. Well, here’s a hot off the Thunderbird e-mail from my phone company. Note the lack of explanation re: why the fee’s going up by 50%
At Vonage, we’re committed to providing our valued customers with the best experience possible through meaningful updates to our services. To ensure that we continue to deliver top-notch service and quality, we will modify two of our existing fees as follows:
The Emergency 911 Cost Recovery will become the Emergency 911 Service Fee, which ensures we maintain nationwide E911 service in compliance with FCC regulations. Our customers’ safety in an emergency is our primary concern and this update allows us to continue delivering reliable emergency services.
The Regulatory Recovery Fee will become the Regulatory and Compliance Fee, which covers our regulatory-related and legal compliance expenses. For example, this fee pays for charges associated with benefits like procedures to ensure customer privacy, identity theft protection measures and phone number porting.
These fees will each increase from $0.99 to $1.49, effective July 15, 2009. This change allows Vonage to maintain our commitment to safety, innovation and customer service.
[Sorry, Vonage, but this sounds like the same blather that comes from every other company that's raising its nuisance fees. I wouldn't call it an explanation.]
If you have any questions, call 1-VONAGE-HELP and speak to a customer service representative. We’re always available, 24 hours a day, everyday.
Let me get this straight: to ensure that they provide you with the same level of service, you’re going to pay more? LOL!
Isn’t this kinda/sorta like paying the same amount, but getting less candy bar?
“….Six Sigma…..”
Don’t get me started.
I hear an earful from this from my buddies/former fellow employees at an aircraft repair station.
I can see where in a MANUFACTURING environment, this program might help. The problem is that the PTB at my former employer want to apply it to a process where:
-every airplane is different
-every work package is different
-every arrival/departure date is different
using “black belts” that:
-don’t know anything about aircraft,
and
-aren’t certified, and don’t know anything about aircraft maintenance.
Just like TQM, this too shall pass. Eventually, they will declare victory, and move onto whatever the latest B.S. process/quality improvement plan the consultants are selling now.
As far as the working stiffs are concerned, the only good that came from this program was when one of the A-hole company directors was fired…….for physically assaulting one of the Six-Sigma guys.
I discovered a useful site today, partial link : contacthelp.com
It gives you phone numbers for customer service of different companies and tells you how to respond to the prompts to get through to a live person ASAP. It tells what their customer service hours are. It also has links to customer service sites.
I needed to contact the USPS today, got the number from this site and followed its instructions. I got through right away to a person who answered my questions.
Happy camper
Too many politicians are utterly shameless. They are bought and paid-for by various corporate interests. Barney Frank is once again urging the lowering of lending standards. And this guy is one of the people in charge? Talk about the fox in charge henhouse security. Choosing between Democrats and Republicans feels like choosing between a dog sh*t sandwich and a cat sh*t sandwich. But, we gotta choose one, right??
Here we go again! Barney Frank asks FANNIE and FREDDIE to relax Mortgage lending rules…
“(Reuters) - Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.
….
In March, Fannie Mae (FNM.N)(FNM.P) said it would no longer guarantee mortgages on condos in buildings where fewer than 70 percent of the units have been sold, up from 51 percent, the paper said. Freddie Mac (FRE.P)(FRE.N) is due to implement similar policies next month, the paper said.
In a letter to the CEO’s of both companies, Representatives Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Anthony Weiner warned that a 70 percent sales threshold “may be too onerous” and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments, according to the paper…”
Sorry, forgot the link to the “Here we go again! Barney Frank asks FANNIE and FREDDIE to relax Mortgage lending rules… ” post:
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Housing/idUSTRE55L39120090622
That’s Bärney Fränk to you, puny taxpayer!
Given the FED’s clear roll in screwing share holders at BOA by strong arming the CEO to buy Merill and lie to stock holders.
What are the odss that they are strong arming all of the mutual funds in our 401k’s ect to due their bidding. I’ve seriously considered q
Notes:
1) Traditionally, new claims in excess of 400,000 have been considered indicative of recessionary rates of job loss. Clearly 627,000 is well above this bar.
2) Given the high unemployment rate already in place, the impact of 627,000 in new claims on the unemployment rate is likely to be “higher than expected.”
3) The missing information to make a reasonable guess about the movement in unemployment is the number of new hires. If one knew not only “initial claims” but also the number of newly hired workers (the other part of the change in the numerator of UE rate) and change in labor force (denominator of UE rate, that would be pretty close to what one would need to predict the weekly change in the unemployment rate.
Wall Street Journal
* JUNE 25, 2009, 9:12 A.M. ET
Weekly Jobless Claims Increase
By TOM BARKLEY and JEFF BATER
WASHINGTON — The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped last week amid a pickup in layoffs related to the end of the school year, suggesting the labor market remains weak despite recent signs of stabilization.
Meanwhile, total claims lasting more than one week rebounded after a sharp drop the previous week.
Separately, the sickly U.S. economy wasn’t quite as weak in the first quarter as earlier believed, the government said, revising its numbers to show businesses liquidated inventories a little less aggressively.
Initial claims for jobless benefits rose 15,000 to 627,000 in the week ended June 20, the Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a 3,000 decline. The previous week’s level was revised up.
“The previous week’s level was revised up.”
So what else is new? They get in a tizzy when the number is “less worse” by a few thousand - only to get revised up later.
The PPT really has their work cut out for them today. They already apparently cut off a bungee jump drop at the opening bell on the “worse than expected” new claims report…
Tricky Ben joins Tricky Dick in the ranks of American leaders publicly accused of cover-ups:
Wall Street Journal
* BUSINESS
* JUNE 25, 2009
Bernanke to Testify as New BofA Details Emerge
By MICHAEL R. CRITTENDEN and DAN FITZPATRICK
After the U.S. government’s rescue of Bank of America Corp. in January, regulators tightened their grip on the bank with a secret agreement that contributed to the ongoing shakeup of its directors and executives, according to people familiar with the situation.
At least some of the Charlotte, N.C., bank’s ratings also were lowered by regulators earlier in the year, these people said, a sign of strong dissatisfaction with risk management, governance and recent losses.
More
* Fed Emails Bash BofA Chief Lewis
6/11/09
* Lewis Takes Heat but Defends Merrill Deal
6/12/09
* House Panel Asks for Bernanke
6/17/09
* Topics: BofA CEO Ken Lewis
The moves haven’t been disclosed publicly by the government or Bank or America, in line with a confidentiality policy that gives banks time to tackle serious problems without the glare of outside attention. The intensified regulatory scrutiny comes despite strong disagreement between federal regulators about the rescue, according to internal documents unearthed by congressional investigators. Bank of America got $20 billion in capital and a loss-sharing agreement to go through with its takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co., where losses were ballooning in the weeks before the deal closed.
According to the documents, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke before the aid was unveiled that there was “strong discomfort with this deal at the FDIC.” Ms. Bair was referring to a plan to have the FDIC guarantee losses on certain BofA assets.
“My board does not want to do this,” Ms. Bair wrote Jan. 14. The government rescue was announced two days later.