Bits Bucket For June 27, 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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Cap and Trade = Tax and Trade
Pelosi and Al Gore get rich on investments.
What progress.
I wonder how CLNE is working out for NANCY!!!!!!!!!!!
“I wonder how CLNE is working out for NANCY!!!!!!!!!!!”
I bought a bunch at $4, so it’s worked out quite nicely for me -);
Good for you.I think she paid 16-20 so she is trying to get her money back via crooked legislation.
Do not breath as you are contributing to global warming.
I wonder how china feels about global warming?
We are getting royally screwed by Congress. Me thinks that the election of 2010 will be their undoing, that and a fine cup of coffee bright and
early in the morning is a great way to greet the weekend. Enjoy everyone…
I’m not sure. It appears that the Dems will at least hold both the House and the Senate in 2010, maybe with smaller majorities. Also by then, the stimulus package will kick in. The people who hate the tax increase bills (or whatever, it seems that all bills are labeled the-biggest-tax-ever) will be offset by the people who get jobs out of those bills. And if somebody rams through meaningful health care…forget it. Dems will be in charge for a long time. Even Rush admits that.
I think the voters know that the gov is going to go semi-socialist for a generation or so. And their thinking is, Why not? The gov gave business an inch in the form of tax breaks and deregs, and business took a mile, in the form of derivatives, credit bubbles, outsourcing, crony capitalism, and the eventual great recession.
+1 Nice analysis!
Now, with New Future, we will have Great Recession forever.
Unless we have lots of new, well-paying jobs, where are they going to get the money to pay for “New Future” socialism? Taxes? Inflation? All the same result - lots of poor people.
According to the great Divine Comedian, these folks end up in either the 8th 0r 9th circle of Hell.
8th being reserved for the fraudulent, 9th for the treacherous.
The 9th is the final ring, where you’ll find our buddy Scratch himself. He is in a private room with Judas, Brutas and Cassius.
Nancy is four walls away on the same level. (treacherous to country)
http://web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/
Blah blah blah
LMAO, nanners. The USA lost its environmental soul when they invented “TV” dinners and Hefty trash bags. Finally some meaningful reform has been codified, and now maybe folks in this country will think twice before they “just throw it out” and buy another.
(I think we hit our nadir with disposable cell phones– and don’t even get me started on plastic water bottles.)
Which is more likely:
1) The US rapidly becomes more energy efficient thanks to Cap and Trade, resulting in fewer disposable items being made and sold (oh, wait - doesn’t that get in the way of our consumer culture?)
2) Tax and Trade is just a way for the rich to get richer and, if anything, they will ENCOURAGE more waste so they can tax it and punish us with even higher fees since all that money goes in their pockets.
Not only did Al Gore invent the internet, but he learned how to make “green investments” pay off. Clearly he is both an investing and inventing genius.
Ah come on PB. I expected more from you. Al Gore never said he invented the internet.
Here’s a few of links for you to read:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
http://www.perkel.com/politics/gore/internet.htm
http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/gore.html
and many more out there.
For those of you who did not read the Goldman Sachs article yesterday, you need to know that “Cap & Trade” is another Goldman Sachs scam.
I’m looking forward to the Carbon Scam.
It will make the mortgage scam economy look honest since, at least with the mortgage scam, the houses actually existed (though they were often nearly worthless). With the Carbon Scam, the “carbon credits” are pure BS made up by madmen and backed by nothing. Yet, they will be traded, leveraged, and “invested” resulting in billions of dollars for the undeserving. The rest of us will enjoy $5 a gallon gas.
What do you guys think of all these short sales?Seems like everyone is trying to make the bank eat the loss.Seems like a lot of them never go through to a sale and end up as reo.It takes forever to get a short sale through and buyers often walk away.I think selling non distressed homes right now is quite a task.Must be very difficult to be a realtor right now.Do you guys have any idea how a realtor comes to represent a bank in a transaction?I imagine they must have some kind of inside connection.It seems like the realtors that are getting fed reo properties are doing pretty good.
Feinstein sought $25 billion for agency that awarded contract to spouse
By Chuck Neubauer Tuesday, April 21, 2009
BuzzEXCLUSIVE:
On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.
Mrs. Feinstein’s intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn’t a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.
By definition, democrats cannot do any wrong. They are the chosen ones (they chose themselves) and the gullible suck up their every word.
This doesn’t sound good but we need more details.
banana,
I’m pretty left-leaning, but this is what it is.
Neither the dems nor the repubs have clean hands. The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can reclaim our country.
CA renter
I have been thinking about this, repub or dem is just arguing over who is the tallest midget. And it seems like the tallest is which ever is out of power because they can`t do as much damage.
The politicians, bankers, and big business have the country collectively bent over a barrel with their pants around their ankles. No lubrication.
Are there no systems in place to root out corruption. Are these people truly above the law? Does the FBI look into these sorts of shenanigans? Who, I repeat, WHO is in charge of holding these people accountable. This is Democracy? Unreal.
Forgot a few question marks. Oops.
The FBI is the backstop but was directed by the DHS over the last 9 years to look the other way and focus strictly on terrorism. (this can be confirmed by MSM reports and other reputable news sources, but you’ll have to dig for it)
The FBI is now actively pursuing those cases that were previously ignored. The problem is, they are overwhelmed. The fraud and corruption was allowed to continue for too long.
I am not sure what you mean by non-distressed short sales where the bank eats the loss (unless I am reading your post wrong). Why would a bank agree to a short sale unless the seller provided evidence that it would be a foreclosure if the bank doesn’t agree to it? As for realtors representing banks, it’s just like any other bank agent, i.e., attorney etc., they just get an insider to put them on an approved list. As for buying a short sale property, the approval timing process varies greatly. In most areas there are enough foreclosures so that if you are a buyer why not just wait for it to go into foreclosure and cut the red tape? The rise in short sales is inevitable. At least it shows the seller is aware of the market and has given up on the idea of a profit or break even sales price.
I think lots of people are claiming they have a hardship and getting banks to do short sales so the bank takes the loss.Mainly people who put nothing down.Most of the listings are short sales.I know of one realtor who paid 326k for a house and then it showed up as a short sale for 99k.Why did the bank agree to this?They are going to lose their @ss.I am just trying to make a point that all of a sudden people are having hardships so the bank can take the loss.
Must studies and reports I have read is that, as far as protecting their economic best interests, banks have been too reluctant to approve short sales rather than vice versa. Evidence to the contrary would be appreciated.
Not that the number of short sales listed is irrelevant. It just shows that prices are falling. I am talking about closed short sales.
Tim, I was on the sacramento mls this morning looking at homes in the 95765 zip code.Most of the listings are short sales.I don’t know what else to say.I think it is BS these people are aloud to escape their debt so easily.I am not sure how many are closing.If they dont close they surely end up as REO’s.
Most short sales never close. Because a property is listed as a short sale does NOT mean it has been approved by a bank. Most will end up in foreclosure.
“I know of one realtor who paid 326k for a house and then it showed up as a short sale for 99k.”
I seriously doubt it. if he had PAID $326k, there would be no mortgage.
The whole problem with the discussion of real estate is these CONSTANT CLAIMS that so and so BOUGHT it or PAID so much, blah, blah. They didn’t buy anything.
They MORTGAGED it.
It’s all about LEVERAGE. without the leverage, non of this bubble would have happened.
The loans would never have happened in 20% downpayment world. I always make that distinction when i write about ‘buying” a house. The way the media portrays all these things is that innocent people with no money in an “investent’ have lost their life savings, which were zero to begin with.
He did pay 326000 for the home new from kb home.It was listed as a short sale for 99k.No BS here.
No, he didn’t **pay** for it, which is diogenes’ point. He borrowed money from a foolish lender and mortgaged a house from KB Homes.
Very few “homeowners” are losing anything at all. If they never put any money down, they lose nothing. In fact, they are gaining because they are not paying for the transactions costs when they’re foreclosed on, and many of them are getting free rent.
If anyone’s a victim, it’s renters who are **expected** to pay their rent every single month. Nobody is marching in D.C. trying to protect our right to stay in our (rented) homes when we stop paying our rent.
Good morning everyone….
It’s a nice 110 deg here in afghanistan…
Good morning Stpn2me…thought of you the other day, my friendly employer asked me to relocate to Kabul for a couple years. Politely declined…
Another guy I work with has spent six months in Tripoli and then moved on to Kabul. When asked for photos of Kabul he responded, “why would I take photos? It s**ks!”
ROTFLMAO!!!
Nice. I didnt like Kabul anyway. I was more afraid there in 07 than I am now in Kandahar, and we take rockets almost everyday here….
I hear MJ checked out…well, rest in peace…We are tracking it here too…
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/06/26/remembering-jackson-afghanistan/
Actually Chile..
When I put up these ACU’s in 2013 (I retire), I am thinking about coming back here. I am a network engineer when I am not in command, and you can make good money for a year’s worth of work…it’s not a bad gig. Plus, I have been in for 17 years and 10 of those were overseas, two wars, korea, etc…
I have been married all 17, I dont know how my wife does it, but she is a trooper too!
“why would I take photos? It s**ks!”
He’ll end up regretting that. Someday, when his grandkids are sitting on his knee, he’s gonna want to whip out photos of his young, buff self in a strange land.
Someday, when his grandkids are sitting on his knee
“You won’t have to say, I shoveled s**t in Lousiana.”
- George S. Patton
Sounds good, and I’d go - I’m all for adventure, having done time for work in Jordan and Australia, and would have gone to Tripoli if Mrs. Chile hadn’t been with child…and of course, with a two week old at home now…ain’t no way Mrs. Chile and mini-Chile give me a fun pass to Kabul…despite the money and adventure.
Good morning Stpn2me. It’s a nice 103 deg here. I’m in the Central Valley of CA for a few days. Babysitting my niece.
Good morning. I will share a few personal observations before I go on about my day.
I am still watching my hometown listings with great delights. The number of listings is down about 20 - 30 percent since last year. But the prices are also way down. The days of $150 - $200 per square foot are dead. They are being replaced with $90 per square foot prices. If I had to guess I would say the prices in my hometown, for the most part are back to 2000 or 2001. In some neighborhoods it looks like 1998.
Two new listings came on this week that really had me laughing. They are both foreclosures. They are both in a less desirable area of town. They need work. They are 1,200 and 1,400 square feet, respectively. If these foreclosures had hit the market in late 2007 or in 2008 I believe they each would have been listed at right around $100,000. The prices for these palaces are currently sitting at $30,000 and $24,000. That is not a typo. Both lots are about 1/4 acre which is large for my hometown. Many lots are .1 acres.
I am seeing similar prices with foreclosures. The unrealistic expectations on the part of the foreclosure holders seem to have died. I think that is why inventory is so down. This has pushed so many people underwater that they don’t even retain the option of putting their place on the market. They know they can’t compete with the “distressed sales”. Bwahahaha. The only thing distressed is their common sense, or lack thereof.
I have an old friend/co-worker that was just offered a better job opportunity. He would have to relocate back home. He turned it down. Why? You guessed it. He has a condo he can’t sell. Well, he can’t sell it for what he wants. He bought it 5 years ago in the low $80,000s. He said he needs to get at least $100,000 for it. That is what he now owes. He could probably get $80,000. He did this little thing called “debt (or is it death?) consolidation”. He needed to do that because he is a spending junkie. He buys all the crap he can get his hands on. I’m almost certain he has the collector’s edition DVD of Beverly Hills Cop 3. I know he has every game system known to man.
That’s another casualty of the housing mania. It’s another self-inflicted wound. I wonder how he is going to feel when that condo development hits the skids and he is lucky to get $50,000 for his condo.
I have another buddy that is selling a lake lot. I think he paid about $140,000 5 years ago. At one point he figured he could have gotten $400,000 for it. No mania there! He put it on the market several months ago. He figured he could still get $300,000 for it. He didn’t get any offers so he lowered it to $250,000. I told him, “get rid of it and do it fast”. If he had listened to me I think he could have cut his price and gotten $200,000. He notified me yesterday that he is now under contract. He closes soon. I hope he is able to close. The price under contract is $156,500. I told him to consider himself lucky. Just think how the next guy is going to feel when the market price of that lot falls to $56,500. Dropping from a dream of $400,000 to $156,500 in less than 2 years seems like a major disaster. I would love to know who was lending on those lots during the boom. Short the heck out of them.
One of the 5 banks that closed yesterday was in Pine City, MN. That brings back memories. We had some seriously messed up times in Pine City when I was in high school. Oh, to be so free again. Farewell Horizon Bank. I never knew ye but I did get smashed in your fair town.
Nice on the street observations NYCB. The lot story is SCHWEEEEEEEEEET!!!
WOw, under $100/sqft. Why isn’t this happening in Morro Bay, CA? Price declines out there have brought some prices down under $300/sf, but looks like $200/sf is a long way off on the downside.
OH, I get it. You are indeed talking about your HOME town in Minnesota…for a moment I misread yr post and thought you meant NYC. ha ha haha
San Diego is stuck at $200/sqft, according to Radar Logic. We have been stuck at this level since last fall (remember the financial meltdown on Wall Street?), which makes me wonder what kind of stealth intervention is in place to prop up our home prices.
Stealth intervention may not be required to explain it. How about the possible explanation that all of the blatant, out-in-the-open intervention is having some effect? Things like boosting the market-share of FHA (with 3.5% down-payments) clearly could have an effect on pricing.
Of course, it seems obvious to me that most of the intervention merely slows the rate of change; we still still get there eventually.
The whole Central Coast is just about to get hit with a dose of reality.
Prices will start the big drop at the end of summer and fall.
That is my prediction.
Joe,
Think not only your market but most markets. Especially those where “it’s different here.”
Old people love Morro Bay. Me, I prefer inland 10, 15 miles, to get away from the fog and rust. Morro Bay will fall, those houses are all made out of 2 x 4’s for Fresno weekenders.
Lot of Micheal Jackson feedback yesterday. I have something to share.
Q. How do you know it’s time for bed at the Neverland Ranch?
A. When the big hand touches the little hand.
LOL, that’s just wrong!!!
I really don’t think MJ would be too successful today, because he was not ghetto.
I looked at the Billboard charts and the only black man Darius Rucker of Hootie fame is singing country music.
I agree.
“…because he was not ghetto.”
He grew up in Gary, Indiana. How ghetto can you get?
It Wasn’t a Ghetto in the 60’s and 70’s…lots of EMPLOYED auto worked bought homes there.
Good point. I tend to forget that the MoTown Sound had its origins in a period when the Big 3 were kings of the automotive business and Detroit and other rust belt cities were relatively prosperous compared to its current state.
And he grew up in Encino (San Fernando Valley) as a teenager.
It’s sad. The family seems nice, and like him or not, nobody can deny he had some major talent.
Since Michael Jackson was 90% plastic, they are going to melt him down and turn him in to Legos so children can play with him for a change.
Farrah Fawcett dies and goes to heaven
God greets her and says to her:
“You have led a good life I will grant you one wish”
Farrah thinks and replies :
“I wish the children of the world to be safe”
So God killed Michael Jackson
Micheal Jackson had so much plastic surgery his Will says melt me down, make logos out of me, and put me in Lego land so all the little boys will finely play with me.
That joke has Legos — already showed up twice on the same post!
PB: is that “Legos” or Lagos?
This will be my only MJ comment:
1. Is is just me, or was the guy’s “unique singing style” just a case of chronic hiccups? “Billie Jean. *hic* is not my lover. *whowh* she’s just a girl. *hic* who *unintelligible* blah blah moonwalk blah *hic* remember to always think twice *woo hooo hoooo *hic* ”
2. Definitely messed up in the head re the little kids. Maybe he was trying to “shelter” them because he had not been sheltered? He couldn’t just give $$ to the Boy Scouts or Big Brothers or something. No, he had to build a merry-go-round to lure in the locals. Definitely a couple pills short of a prescription. He was complaining a lot about the tabloids following him. Well maybe if he’d acted less wack, they wouldn’t anything to follow?
3. I don’t know what he died of, but somebody who was that skinny for that long and had that much plastic surgery in strange places couldn’t have been all that healthy.
The House of Reps passes the biggest tax increase in history last night (Cap & Trade) and the news is only interested in Michael Jackson. WAKE UP.
It passed? Ugh. One of these days I’m going to feel like emailing and calling my rep actually makes a difference, right? Right?!
It likely faces a harder battle in the Senate. Now that it made it through the House, my hope is it will get more attention and the opponents will now step up the attack. Forget the socialism of taking from rich and middle class Americans and giving to the poor. This bill is about taking from America and giving to China, India and a whole host of 3rd world polluters who will have a huge advantage over the U.S. in energy costs, as they will not be encumbered by similar taxation. Obama vowed that America’s standard of living was unfairly too high and needed to be lowered. This is a big part of his plan.
Another way to tax the minions.
In case you didn’t notice Suffolk_Them, our current problems are “take from the poor and give to the rich.”
TARP ring a bell?
But we don’t dare call that socialism, do we?
“The House of Reps passes the biggest tax increase in history last night (Cap & Trade) and the news is only interested in Michael Jackson. WAKE UP.”
To be fair, many of the Members were treated to a luau on the White House lawn. Pork, pineapples, and such. They’re only human.
They had lots of pork, I’ll bet.
The numbers just don’t seem to be there for the bill to pass in the Senate. This may be grandstanding to some degree: “hey we got a cap & trade bill through the House but those darned guys blocked it in the Senate”.
Is is just me, or was the guy’s “unique singing style” just a case of chronic hiccups? “Billie Jean. *hic* is not my lover. *whowh* she’s just a girl. *hic* who *unintelligible* blah blah moonwalk blah *hic* remember to always think twice *woo hooo hoooo *hic* ”
LOL! nope, never a fan either..and I hated the way his vids dominated MTV.
I may be going against the flow here, but I was never a big fan of “Thriller”.
“Swordfishtrombone”, “Nocturne”, “Lets Dance” and “Punch the Clock” came out the same year - I’d already moved on….
But the Jackson Five rocked the house.
I’ve resorted to watching movies on HBO for the interim -I simply can’t watch cable TV at the moment - I only wish they’d covered the Iranian situation with the same fervour that they’ve been covering MJ demise . 0_o
“In the Neighborhood” one of my favs
I hated the way his vids dominated MTV
The greatest offender for that was George Harrison.
I got my mind set on you.
I got my mind set on you.
I got my mind set on you.
I got my mind set on you.
But it’s gonna take money.
It’s gonna take a lotta money.
It’s gonna take a lotta spendin’ money.
To do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, right now…
I got my mind set on you.
I got my mind set on you.
I got my mind set on you.
I got my mind set on you.
Took me YEARS to get that blasted song out of my head…
But its still a great danceable song, sometimes i mix out of that into my sharona…
Well thanks a lot oxide. Now I can’t get the blasted song out of my mind.
It’s a small world, after all -
I could never understand why the parents of those two boys were not prosecuted. WHO in their right mind would think Michael Jackson an appropriate baby sitter ? Not even cause you feared sexual abuse but someone who is such a big star is so detached from reality in many ways.
Oxide: I don’t know, he was a performer from Motown, in a way, even though Gary Indiana, start. You remember “My Girl” don’t you, by the Temps? Reminds me of Oly…
My thought is, he brought some happiness in people lives, myself included. I always thought his performance of “Billie Jean” was outstanding, vibrant, and happy!
P.S. I am not a MJ fan.
Just the point of innocent happiness, and he brought that to us, didn’t he?
P.S.P.S. Where’s Oly?
Q. What does the Neverland Ranch have in common with Wal-mart?
A. They are both places where you can find boy’s underware half-off.
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tragedy!
Ruth Madoff will have to learn how to survive on the interest income from $2.5M.
Oh, the humanity!
That would put a severe crimp in her “lifestyle”.
No more UES restaurants for you, lady!
She is a benefactor of theft and fraud.
she is guilty of being a co-conspirator, along with the whole family.
When someone robs a bank, and gives some of the money to relatives, before being apprehended, do you think they should be allowed to keep the “gift”?
All that family’s living costs and benefits were paid for with stolen money. I doesn’t matter what they may claim they owned prior to the robbery. If they spent the money, they still owe it. So the entire ‘family fortune” should be forfeited to the losers of the scheme.
If I was the judge, i would even consider collusion, and think about putting the wife in prison, too.
That would be much more appropriate.
The secret is, so long as you rob your personal friends and trusting clients who willingly gave you their money to care for and you make sure the amounts stolen are in the billions of dollars, you get off easy. It is the small-time crooks who rob banks with guns in hand who do long, hard time.
I agree that she should be in jail. At the very least she should be left penniless, as all of her money was ill-gotten. Furthermore, anyone who believes she doesn’t have a mass of wealth offshore is delusional.
She should not be left penniless… She should still get her fair share of SS (e.g. hers or half of his, whichever is greater).
I believe she was his accountant!
Not a bad lifestyle for Ruth- if she could invest in a ponzi type investment. Otherwise she’s looking at $120,000 -150,000/yr.
From Newsday:
“Long Island real estate has long been a good investment for celebrities, who’ve been able to buy and sell beach houses and mansions from the Hamptons to the tony North Shore, scooping up tidy profits in the process.
In this real estate market, however, even celebrities have been forced to slash prices or wait out the downturn, just like everyone else. Consider former New York Met Edgardo Alfonzo, who only recently went into contract on his Little Neck mansion. Alfonzo’s home was on the market three years, and the infielder snagged a buyer only after he lowered his price by more than half - from $8 million to $3.8 million”.
What did Edgardo Alfonzo pay for the house? A good reporter would have found this information and included it in the article.
Now you know why newspapers are dying…presenting both sides is not what they teach in schools anymore…so your question is way over their heads
Newspapers may be dying here, however in London they are going like gangbusters.
They don’t pull any punches on the other side of the pond…street brawl journalism
we need that here.
Celebs are definitely having trouble with recovering the purchase price of their recently-bought mansions. Another example is from the Wall Street Journal:
Shaq Sells Miami House
After four years and several price cuts, Shaquille O’Neal has finally sold his Miami Beach mansion for $16 million, about 29% less than his asking price of $22.5 million.
The NBA star, who was traded to Cleveland on Thursday, paid $18.8 million for the nearly 20,000-square-foot house on 2.5 acres in 2004 and first listed it in 2005. The seven-bedroom Mediterranean-style home, with an indoor basketball court, is on Star Island off Miami Beach’s southern tip. Coldwell Banker brokerage team Jill Eber and Jill Hertzberg had the listing.
“Shaq Sells Miami House”
Hmm…Orlando to LA to Miami to Phoenix. Did Shaquille O’Neal start the housing bubble? Watch out Cleveland, prices may now skyrocket beyond the four-figure range.
Ooops, here’s the link to the Hamptons Newsday article:
http://www.newsday.com/classified/realestate/ny-lsmainweb2612915001jun24,0,5217690.story?page=1
The smart money had been leaving for awhile before they got slammed. The rich are tiring of the place and are looking for the next hot getaway.
“The rich are tiring of the place and are looking for the next hot getaway.”
Yup. Hell.
Maybe the rich are not so rich after all and it’s time for a “staycation”. LOL
All the billboards around here (Seattle) advertise for a “Daycation”. I’ve not paid attention to who the advertisement is for.
2 years re gluing the puzzle. Replicates the Great Depression exactly. See the Worm. Also, bottom is (whenever)… 2015.
gluing =glueing. ( Oly how do you spell Guoelgin ?)
Where’s OLY and Sir Ben, where’s our guest Host??????
Faster: Oh, well, NeverMind.
You’re only here once. Might as well be rich while you’re at it. Although, a fine lady digging up a geo-duck for both of us, would suit me just fine.
Can’t say I miss MJ. But we are going to make a killing this weekend selling R.I.P. shirts up on Hollywood Blvd.
I’m a Bob Marley guy myself.
He had some good earth…
Just wanted to let folks know I made a minor update to the Firefox Extension.
I updated it to support Firefox 3.5, and to add an option in the preferences dialog to show a ‘Previous’ button as well as the ‘Next’ button. Sorry I’ve not had time to update and incorporate people’s suggestions up to this point.
I should have a fancy form thing on the web page, but I’m not that awesome (yet!), so if you’re interested in being notified of updates, drop me an email at the address listed on the web page.
URL to follow as reply to this post.
URL of web page for the extension:
http://home.avvanta.com/~drumminj/joshuatree.html
We all THANK YOU drummin……..incredible little app.
One wonders if MJ had gone to jail for a while in 2005 would he be alive today and not broke .
Had MJ gone to jail ,would that of allowed him the opportunity to address his childhood problems ?
The problem is that when people avoid addressing their problems ,such as over spending ,than how does it stop . MJ got bailed out by loans and the big machine that was still feasting off his fame . It’s a sad tale and it’s not unlike the tale of America and the constant disregard for sane living with constant short term solutions .
We live in a world in which the reason why people commit crimes becomes more important than the crime itself and the victims . Lets not address the crime wave of the Housing boom ,lets just bail it out . Use to be that law was a matter of just determining if a crime had been committed ,now its
more about what was the defense for the crime and God knows how the victims of crimes get attacked by the defense team . Some people think it all started with the ‘Twinkie Case” ,where a man committed cold-blooded murder and beat the rap based on having high blood sugar because of eating sweets .
One would have to assume that all bad behavior is the by-product of something going wrong in childhood ,or simply because the nature of the beast is that humans are tempted to sin or take the easy way out ,or human get angry and do dumb things .We either have a law and order Society ,or we don’t ,not that I don’t believe that a party isn’t entitled to a defense ,but this ” The Devil Made me do It “,is getting a little crazy .
Well Dan White didn’t exactly beat the rap - he was found guilty of manslaughter and sent to prison for 5 years. Released early, he went home and committed suicide. Sounds like he had real mental problems to me. The defense in his case had many other facets to work on, such as his reloading his service revolver (he was an ex-cop) prior to shooting Milk. The DA said this showed premeditation but the defense said that this was just the result of police training (cops are taught always to reload asap after shooting).
I agree that there’s insanity in the cult of celebrity which attaches to people in the sports and entertainment business. It certainly doesn’t help anyone, least of all the celebrities themselves. Elvis, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Lennon, and that’s just the pop music business. Sports is even worse: the sports page most days is little more than a reporting of the seamy business side plus a police blotter of what crimes sports figures have committed.
Dennis…Would you agree that Dan White beat a murder 1 rap ? The fact that he killed himself later at his own hand was his own doing ,not the Justice system . That case also shows that once a person crosses the line into insanity ,they might be a public risk forever ,which was part of the reason why people were jailed in the first place for crimes . The book Crime and Punishment addresses the issue of the human need for punishment for crimes and the need for redemption .
I can give you a bunch of examples of kids I know that were not punished and ended up becoming hell children ,and than hellish
adults .
The Michael Jackson case is one that is sad in that it seems like he was turned into a money making machine at a young age and didn’t get a childhood because of it . Nobody gets the exact childhood they dream of and the sooner you address it and get over it ,the better off you are . I’m sure that people can get so screwed up over what took place in their childhood that they can never function in a real world .Does this mean that we spare Justice because the abused child becomes a criminal as a adult and passes on the sin ? It seems like it would be better to protect children to begin with and prevent the outcome of a messed up adult . Why didn’t anybody have the courage to save MJ when he was young ,you know ,the people who witnessed him being abused by his father ?
You really can’t lump Lennon in there with the rest. His death came from external sources.
Outstanding point Mr. Wizard. From personal experience and , I hope growth, I might add.
I’ve heard just about every excuse in the book that criminals and their attorneys offer up to judges just prior to imposition of sentence. I can usually counter every one by arguing to the effect, “There are tens of millions who suffer from (you name it; everything from drug/gambling/booze addiction to broken home/faulty toilet training), but not all of them resort to whacking 80-year old men over their heads with baseball bats. So, yes, something more is at work here.” Judges usually seem appreciative to hear something that cuts through all the abuse excuse.
About ten years ago, one young man a year out of high school stabbed to death a senior from the same school because the younger fellow was a little slow getting out of the way of a rap video playing on TV. The older fellow’s excuse? He suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome. Huh? What trauma? you might ask. Well, neurologist explained that older guy had played football in high school, took a shot to the head in one game, and had no memory at all of the game afterward. I commented to a co-worker that, if that excuse flew, then I would have a license to kill because I took many shots to my head and can’t remember the second half of a single game I played in high school! Dude ended up getting ridiculously lenient sentence of ten years in prison for manslaughter IIRC.
I contend ,that if a person is so messed up from something ,and they than become a public risk for ever more ,than they can not function in society ,and they need to be removed ,especially if the crime was to a innocent victim .
What about the mass brain-washing that just took place regarding the housing boom that compelled people to commit loan crimes ? What about the horrible movies in the last 20 years that set off the weak of mind and caused copy-cat crimes or weird disfunctional
behavior . The sick Society we are living in is producing more crimes and bizarre behavior between people than ever before .
If a Society has more crime,more drug abuse and more discontent than it should ,maybe we should ask ourselves what is being fed to our Society .
Hey– here’s another one for you. I currently have pending a post-conviction attack by a defendant blaming his lawyer for not succeeding at trial with a “disassociative state” defense to a charge of murder. HBBers should love this: Defendant was a developer who made millions putting up McMansions in Southern NJ’s suburbs of Philadelphia. He chucked it all about ten years ago; took up with a go-getter mistress, who borrowed from him to finance her own ventures into liquor store and tavern businesses. When she reneged on deal to pay back loans, he got his shotgun, drove @ 50 miles to Atlantic City, laid in wait in casino employee parking lot, then shot her five to seven times with shotgun after she got off work and was doing a 911 call to police. Whole thing was recorded on 911 tape. His defense? He was in a “disassociative state” the night of the killing. In a layperson’s terms, he was sleepwalking through everything. He’s now claiming he easily would have prevailed with that defense if only his trial lawyer had retained better or more psychiatrists to “enlighten” or educate jurors. Welcome to my world.
There is one bright spot to this story, which makes me think there might be something to the whole Karma-thingy. About 18 months ago, one of his children, whom he’d abandoned for the mistress and high-fivin’ lifestyle, killed himself down in Florida. I hope he blames himself for that and loses sleep over it every night. Then again, he was a developer. Probably sleeps like a baby.
Damn JimboAC.
I’d say his only “disassociative state” was entitlement syndrome.
Yeah, Eco, megalomania also seems to cover it. One of the documents filed in court was a memo from his trial attorney to a young associate as trial was approaching. In the memo, the lawyer has a list of things for the associate to do on the case. One item that jumped out at me instructed the associate to see if it were possible to bring into jail food from outside and, if so, then to get the defendant a sandwich made with a particular type of cheese from some specific dairy farm in Germany. I’m tellin’ ya: I must be in the wrong business
But, you don’t have a video of the sentencing process. It is only your ideology professing.
Maybe, ATE. But the way I see it, the lives of these young, urban, throw-away gangbangers are devalued seriously when a criminal who takes one of their lives is given a proverbial slap on the wrist for doing so.
Welcome to the Bair B*tch Project.
The property slump is hitting home for Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — one of the few regulators who saw trouble in the housing market before the bust.
Last week, Ms. Bair removed her 14-room colonial in Amherst, Mass., from the market after cutting its sale price by $100,000 from an initial $795,000 in April, according to the listing sheet.
Ms. Bair, and her husband, Scott P. Cooper, paid $355,000 for the house in 2002. In “02 and “03 they received building permits valued at $89,500 to renovate the 1860s house., including new roofing and a counter-current basement pool.
After listing the five-bedroom property in April, the couple cut the price to $745,000 less than three weeks later, then reduced it again before withdrawing the listing. Ms. Bair’s real-estate agent, Stephen Feldman, of Prudential Sawicki Real Estate, declined comment. An FDIC spokesman said Ms. Bair decided to remove the listing and wait for the market to improve on the advice of her real-estate agent.
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHHHHHHHHH!!!
on the advice of her real-estate agent
Sounds like proof beyond a reasonable doubt of diminished capacity. After all we’ve been through these past few years she still prefers the advice of a RE agent to her own lying eyes. And this woman is in charge of the FDIC?
Haven’t we learned not to take financial advice from realtors???
LOL
Well. You certainly can’t expect that they would “give it away”, would you?
These particular pieces of anecdotal evidence (Bair and Geithner as FBs) are some of the strongest evidences of how deeply in trouble we are. The main meddlers managing the show are completely vested in the premise that the bubble will (it must)reflate to ridiculous levels.
Now imagine that the rest of this nation’s critical decisions are being made by people just like that.
Wealthy, influential, connected and completely out of touch with reality.
“Let them eat cake” indeed.
I would love to hear your laugh
I do laugh a lot, and I have a giggly infectious laugh. If I’m in a particularly silly mood, you will laugh till you hurt.
They say laughter is the best medicine. Clearly, they have never fallen off the sofa laughing!
Now, that is a laugh !
“Last week, Ms. Bair removed her 14-room colonial in Amherst, Mass., from the market after cutting its sale price by $100,000 from an initial $795,000 in April, according to the listing sheet.”
Add Bair to the list (which includes Timothy Geithner) of top policymakers who can’t sell their homes for anywhere near their wishing prices. It certainly creates the appearance of a conflict of interest when so many policy makers with major influence on the housing market have lost lots of money on their personal real estate investments.
I think Chairman Mao and friends in China might have something to say about this strategy. Possibly like a bond sell off.
That might throw a kink into the ole plans of BB.
I think many have contended that the Fed has long since lost control of the money supply.
I do remember that Bill Gross of Pimco sold his mansion somewhere around 2006 because he felt that the real estate market was going to tank. He was so right.
“An FDIC spokesman said Ms. Bair decided to remove the listing and wait for the market to improve on the advice of her real-estate agent.”
Everyone seems to be counting on Heliben and Timmygei to flood the real estate market with enough Bernankes to reflate housing prices.
P.S. If the FDIC Chair is relying on a UHS for advice on when to sell, I suspect we are collectively in for a peck of trouble!
It could be she made the statement she was heeding her realtors advice merely for public consumption. IOW it sounds better than “[let's take the house off the market because] the market is fooked.”
Hey Man! Is that geo-duck?? Kinda, modified?? Oly will love you!!!
Unreal.
One goes through life sometimes thinking, “It just doesn’t get any better than this.”
Yesterday I was yet again proved wrong on that, it was the best day of my life so far. My eldest daughter married an outstanding young man. They are headed off for NYC today for the honeymoon.
I just wanted to share that with my HBB friends and family, have a wonderful day y’all.
Congrats! Have any more daughters?
The rest are too young for you DJ, 5 total, my wife says I only make girls ‘cuz my swimmers all have pink bows on ‘em.
Congrats dude !!! My problem is I have five (5) sisters in law. No fair - six against one!!!
The rest are too young for you DJ
I think I should be the judge of that!
(or are you saying I’d go to jail?)
You’d go to jail, if you survived that long!
Oh, and thanks again for the JT extension.
Nice day in the Beeg Apple 80 a little humid…..
most tourists first impressions are how hot the subways platforms are in summer but it feels like home if home is Calcutta!
Sounds good, they are both raised in Palmdale, so NYC should be balmy to them. Say hi if you see them, they’ll be the gawking young white couple.
Congratulations to you and your daugther dude.
Thanks, I tell people when I get melancholy about it that I just think about how I don’t need to cover tuition next year, that makes me smile.
I’ve always taught my kids that if they are old enough to get married they are old enough to be independent.
Congratulations Dude!!! I wish them both all the happiness they can have together!!
Congratulations Dude. My daughter hasn’t quite met the right one yet. I hope that some day she does.
Congratulations! and wishes for a long and happy marriage.
Anyone want to help with a financial question? So we have some savings, and are considering 10-year TIPS. A 1.8% return over inflation, which is about what you get these days, seems pretty good compared with the alternatives, and I am worried about the old printing press.
But here’s the thing — TIPS are adjusted for inflation but not taxes, and taxes — federal, state and the local income tax NYC has, are going nowhere but up.
So let’s say you end up in a 40% tax bracket, not including FICA. A 1.8% return with no inflation means a 1.1% return after taxes. But let’s say inflation goes to 10 percent. Then you get an 11.8% return, but taxes cut the net down to 7.1%, and you end up 3 percent poorer. The higher the inflation, the more your TIPS don’t protect against it, net of tax.
Am I missing something here?
To answer your question, I don’t know. But I stopped buying Series I savings bonds until the fixed rate is above 0%. Until then, I think it’s a good idea to buy 10 year TIPS.
If (or when) the fixed rate on Series I bonds goes to 1%, I think you are better off buying the Series I bonds than TIPS. You are taxed on the income from TIPS every year. So that’s compounded taxation. You are taxed on Series I bond interest only when you redeem the Series I bond (up to 30 years). There will be a point where the tax savings from Series I bonds are higher than what you get from TIPS.
By the way, the Series I savings bond (not the 10 year TIPS) is similar to a Traditional 401K and Traditional IRA. Your taxes are deferred. That is precisely why I am strongly considering moving my Traditional IRAs into a Roth IRA. I want to diversify my tax avoidance strategy. I’m overweighted into tax deferral.
What you are missing is the general tax deductions.
Get yourself a good tax accountant and work those deductions like a rented mule.
If you had a choice of spending $90,000 on real estate in November 2010 or $90,000 to pay the taxes on converting your $200,000 individual IRA to a Roth IRA and you are a healthy 51 years old, what would you choose?
The crystal ball is foggy regarding what the market will look like in Nov 2010, but my guess would be real estate (and keep your individual IRA as is). Why do you think it would be worth $90,000 to convert $200,000 to a Roth IRA?
BTW, when the Roth IRA was first introduced, I did a traditional IRA to Roth IRA conversion; I was a graduate student at the time, and wrote off the tax liability on the conversion over four years when I had a very low income / tax bracket. But I am guessing from your description of how much you are working that you are not in a low tax bracket?
The conversion will be spread out over tax year 2010 and tax year 2011. I have $200,000 to convert (if my amount stays the same the next 13 months). My adjusted gross income in each year 2010 and 2011 will probably be $110,000 to $140,000. So I will have an AGI of $210,000 to $240,000 in each of those two years. Combined state and federal tax rate will probably be 45%. So I figure I need $90k out of my municipal bonds to pay the tax.
The alternative is real estate, but not to buy in 2010. The $90,000 in municipal bonds can accrue to $101,237 by November of 2013, based on a 4% yield. I’ll be 54 and could buy a reasonable house in Tucson at that time.
I’m guessing that the U.S. is going through a major political cycle. In fifteen years at 65, we could be in an anti tax cycle and a return to Constitutional federal spending, which means substantive cuts in bureacracy and spending. The seeds of the counter revolution to the big spenders have already been planted on April 15 this year, Tea Party Day. But I am thinking of hedging on that bet.
Besides, there is no limit on how long you can leave your wealth in a Roth. You don’t have to take a distribution. I have to start taking distributions from my traditional IRA by age 70 and a half. Roth distributions are not counted as income, which means the distributions won’t disqualify me from collecting my social security, which will be bankrupt anyway by the time I’m 77.
You need to start your own business.
Save your 90k and invest in real estate.Make sure the property cash flows.
My Best friend and dj partner also worked for Walter Cronkite, was interviewed on a Charlotte NC radio station yesterday…he is not doing well…i think she is on the list of attendees to his funeral.
http://news.lalate.com/2009/06/26/walter-cronkite-cerebrovascular-disease/
Dude retired when I was 9. I am 37 now. I’d say he has milked a long life.
Don’t you just love the Pres when he says that medicine and treatment for ‘old’ people should be rationed. TO SAVE MONEY IN THE MEDICAREsystem.LET THEM DIE!! Solent Green anyone???
Pismo:
This brings up Kevorkian, and the arguments i had at Court TV over the bias coverage of him and his “trial”
It was 95% against him at Court TV, and my point was why cant I decide when enough is enough. And not have anyone sued or arrested?
When my father was rushed to the hospital the last time he was in bad shape they had put on this tight mask and was literally pumping oxygen at high pressure into his lungs…..He told them to take the mask off.
Well they proceeded to get a whole team of doctors psychologists even a clergy to ask him over and over is that what he wants. and they asked the family which we all were there….after that they started with morphine until his heart stopped…it all took an hour…one of the longest hours of my life. But it was respectful of his wishes.
So Kevorkian may not have been anywhere near a perfect figure to talk about this issue, but quietly hospitals are doing very close to what he had envisioned.
He’s just preparing the populace for the day when it all implodes and those at the bottom of the Ponzi scheme receive nothing.
Retirement age in 2020 = 72.
Average age at death in 2020 = 75 and decreasing.
Feel free to spend the intervening three years talking to your peers, who also are standing in line for 30 months waiting for medical treatment.
Welcome to your future, everyone. Hope you’re living vicariously through your parents!
Walter Cronkite is a good man.
YUP met him quite a few times, when i came by the cbs office and took my friend out to lunch. Wasn’t much security in those days
He will be missed by those who remember his news delivery and straight shooting interviewing.
The life blood of democracy is a free flow of information that nourishes a vigorous debate on matters of political import. The Fed is the arch enemy of free information flow. Hence the proposal to cede all financial regulatory authority to them is fundamentally at odds with the continued survival of American democracy. The inside story about the handling of last fall’s crisis which has leaked out of the Fed and on to the pages of the MSM makes this point readily apparent. No financial entity, including the Fed itself, should be too-big-to-fail.
Wall Street Journal
* JUNE 27, 2009
Fed Documents Fuel Concerns About Expanding Central Bank’s Role
By DAMIAN PALETTA
WASHINGTON — Documents unearthed by congressional investigators reveal disagreements among senior Federal Reserve officials about how to handle Bank of America Corp.’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch, fueling concern on Capitol Hill over giving the central bank even more power to regulate the financial system.
The glimpse inside the regulatory machinery provided by emails, memorandums and handwritten notes show a Fed that wrestled with how tough it should be on Bank of America, one of the biggest U.S. banks. It also shows Fed officials questioning more broadly their response to the financial crisis months earlier.
In December, Bank of America approached top U.S. officials about abandoning a deal, forged in the heat of the crisis, to buy investment bank Merrill Lynch. In the end, the government arranged a $20 billion rescue package for the bank to cover growing losses at Merrill.
In between, the documents show areas of disagreement within some of the Fed’s 12 regional reserve banks.
…
The documents reveal Fed officials questioning the central bank’s response to the financial crisis even before negotiations began on the effort to aid Bank of America’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
“At this point I have [the] sense that the hearts and minds war in Iraq was handled better than it has been in this crisis, particularly within the Fed system,” wrote Meg McConnell, a top Federal Reserve Bank of New York official, on the day the House of Representatives voted down the Bush administration’s first financial-rescue package, sending the Dow industrials down almost 800 points.
…
The Fed has been dealing with a steady stream of criticism from Republicans. Democrats have recently joined in, and the disclosures being aired through the congressional inquiry have put the central bank on the defensive.
…
I’m just pondering here people. We’re talking about taxation issues and real estate and money policy.
I’m thinking world affairs are going to surprise us and overwhelm concerns on debt levels.
The forces that are aligning out there… radical Islam, China/North Korea and dictatorships….
This all good fun and games till somebody pops off a ICBM.
There’s always a question about ICBM stuff. Figure 5 billion people in this world. Maybe less than 100th of 1% want to try to prove Christ or Allah exists by starting a nuclear war. In North Korea’s case, madness takes a different form.
They launch one of those things onto a city of hundreds of thousands of people, you betcha there will be 1,000 times that amount raining back down on them.
And to beat you to the punchline (or punch bowl), I ask “Why do we have to assume it will lead to “world war?” Can it not possibly be restricted to countries (plural) versus madman after the madman launches the first nuke?
Turn them into glass in powder form and it will be over.
For DinOR:
Screens can be saved by using (shift+print screen), on some laptops it’s (fuction+print screen) That copies the screen as a bitmap to clipboard.
Then use Paint and (control+v) or select paste in the menu and your previously copied screen can be save in Paint.
I hope that makes sense.
Click my moniker.