I’m Calling Bullsh*t
≡ by the Mysterious Flying Miser ≡
This morning I turned on my computer, cranked up the Google, and prepared myself to download a shmear of articles and frustrated comments from Realtors gone bust, decrying their new-found poverty, looking for new careers, and encouraging the rest to take similar flight. Alas, I was once again hit upon the noggin by one of the heaviest isotopes of human foolery: misplaced Realtor optimism.
I could feel the disgruntle settle in as I downloaded and scanned page after page of Realtor pep talk. “Only the top 10% will survive in a down market, and YOU are a winner, which means YOU will survive”. “It only takes a change of pace and a few innovative ideas to continue earning a phenomenal salary during a real estate down cycle”. Oh, and the most mind-numbing mantra of all — “Quitters never prosper”.
So I decided to write this myself. I’m calling Bullsh*t. For those still wandering the scorched and barren landscape like so many scarecrows, for those whose inner voice derides and betrays the desire to quit, I offer my advice: You gotta know when to fold em.
Realtors of the world, you are being had. My hour-long search of today’s internet provided all the evidence I need that the NAR has launched a new campaign; I call it “Operation Cannibalism”. This is the part where they turn on each other. NAR is spending gobs of effort just trying to keep its members paying their dues. Never mind that these members will probably go bankrupt competing to sell increasingly fewer homes. Never mind that quite a few of these members are on the hook for several mortgages of their own. Never mind that these people are unable to think for themselves and need the NAR to guide them.
The Realtors who will survive this market will be those who get another job. Perhaps the day will come when these prudent other-job-getters may re-enter the real-estate career scene, but that day is a long way off. Those who can’t get with the program and find something productive to do will probably starve to death, or else be kidnapped by other Realtors who will keep them in meat lockers and eat them little by little, keeping them alive until the limbs are finally gone and the vital organs must be made into soup. I kid you not.
I won’t bore my readership with statistics on recent declines in house prices, house sales, and Realtor income. I won’t go into the bromidic underpinnings of the internet and the obsolete used-house salesperson. Forsooth, I will leave the obvious to idle and the comments to soothe my bothered soul.
“I’m Calling Bullsh*t”
So is Carl Walsh. The point of his paper seems so completely obvious that there must be more to it than meets the eye through the lens of this news item.
Fed’s rate path, inflation aims may clash-paper
Sat Aug 22, 2009 10:00am EDT
*Stocks may fly on housing, consumers
*Wall Street ends at new highs for the year
*Oil settles at 10-month high on economic optimism
By Mark Felsenthal
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo., Aug 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve’s stated intention to keep interest rates exceptionally low for “an extended period” may conflict with its desire to avoid inflation, an academic economist told central bankers on Saturday.
“The point of keeping interest rates low in the future is to promote economic activity today, but the price is a future rise in inflation,” Carl Walsh of the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote in a paper presented at the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole conference.
“It is not clear how one has one without the other.”
…
“I’m Calling Bullsh*t”
AHAHAHAAHAHAHA! Goshamighty, what a fabulous post! Who is this genious Flying person? I must know! Tell! Tell!
I call it “Operation Cannibalism”. This is the part where they turn on each other. NAR is spending gobs of effort just trying to keep its members paying their dues. Never mind that these members will probably go bankrupt competing to sell increasingly fewer homes.
This part just makes me joyous and skipping around as a frisky little lamb in the meadow. I dearly hope Operation Cannibalism is a TOTAL success! No one deserves it more. If only mortgage brokers and developers could somehow find their way onto the buffet…
…or else be kidnapped by other Realtors who will keep them in meat lockers and eat them little by little, keeping them alive until the limbs are finally gone and the vital organs must be made into soup. I kid you not.
I feel hungry all of a sudden. Back in a tick.
Are you going to post your recipe?
Oh, that’s right…you enjoy food.
Well, Dennis, I had some thoughts, but then I thought some more—I decided I don’t want to eat any of those REaltwhores. They surely have some major cooties, just to start with. And then who knows what they been doing lately, to raise some extra cash? Icky!
I’m not sure ‘free-range Realtor’ has the same cachet and full flavor as other sorts of free-range meats.
+1
As many of you know, I got my real estate license last year and have been working with new buyers. While I’m having a lot of fun with it, my annual income this year from real estate will be about 5% of the total. Some of the agents at my brokerage got “real” jobs this year. Most of them are part-time. There are several full time agents who are still managing to make a living with new buyers but are working very hard, showing lots of houses, and making lots of offers. The only listings that sell are the low-priced ones and the foreclosures. Most of the low-priced ones are short sales, which are labor intensive. These agents are bothered when I say that the market will stay slow and prices will be low for years, but seem accepting of that fact.
And that is a BAD thing? This is where RE agents screwed America, it seems no one knew how to use a calculator and say this house is wayyyyyy too expensive for you.
————————–
prices will be low for years
No DJ, we all agree that falling prices are a good thing. We need to get back to affordability in all markets.
Sure, rates are way down, but the problem appears to be the lack of qualified borrowers unless government guarantees accompany the loan. I am confused though because promoting economic activity should also include a decent return for investors.
“I am confused though because promoting economic activity should also include a decent return for investors.”
Oh, it does include a decent return…for the investors running the rigged game, that is…
DOC
Verily I will be shocked and awed if this guy’s suggestions are followed. I am 99 percent confident that is not the plan.
* WALL STREET JOURNAL
* ECONOMISTS REACT
* AUGUST 23, 2009, 4:48 P.M. ET
Fed Officials Warned Against Timidity
By MAYA JACKSON RANDALL
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — While U.S. Federal Reserve officials will need to be careful not to raise interest rates too soon, the central bank can’t be timid once it actually moves into a tightening phase, according to University of California, Santa Cruz Professor Carl Walsh.
In a paper prepared for a two-day Fed conference here, Mr. Walsh argued that the U.S. must avoid the mistake of the Bank of Japan in lifting rates too soon. The way to do that is to keep rates low past the point at which the economy’s equilibrium, or natural, real rate of interest has risen above zero, he said.
However, once the Fed does start raising the federal-funds rate out of its current record-low range near zero, “it should be increased quickly,” Mr. Walsh argued. “There is no support for raising rates at a gradual pace once the zero rate policy is ended.”
…
Last time the Fed kept interest rates super-duper low for a protracted period of time, they inadvertently inflated the biggest housing bubble in the history of the USA. I am sure that even though the Fed is deliberately targeting mortgage rates by purchasing billions and billions of dollars worth of MBS, it will turn out differently this time.
WSJ Blogs
Real Time Economics
Economic insight and analysis from The Wall Street Journal.
* August 22, 2009, 12:26 PM ET
Fed’s Kohn Defends Pledge to Keep Rates Low
By Maya Jackson-randall
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. — U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn Saturday defended the central bank’s pledge to keep interest rates low for an extended period of time.
The commitment to low rates is meant to keep inflation from falling, Kohn said during a discussion on monetary policy at an annual Kansas City conference being held here at a lodge in Wyoming.
“It’s not designed to raise inflation expectations,” he said.
Kohn’s comments were a response to a paper written by University of California, Santa Cruz, professor Carl Walsh that was presented to the gathering of central bankers and academics Saturday. In his paper, Walsh is often critical of the Fed’s actions; he argues, for instance, that the Fed’s policy is the wrong approach at a time when rates are in a record low range near zero.
Specifically, the Fed’s policy committee has stated that it “continues to anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.”
But Walsh argues that, “it is inconsistent to commit to low interest rates and stable inflation.”
Kohn clearly disagrees. “I don’t see an inconsistency at all,” said Kohn.
…
Are people predicting an even further drop in sales? Obviously, when/if the tax credit is removed we’ll probably see a drop in numbers, but can they really get much lower than they were last year? I’m as bearish as they come on housing but I’ve always thought inventories would spike to absurd levels again and sales numbers would stagnate to give us lower prices.
If sales numbers stay the same then the carnage for agents would begin to ease as the less dedicated members move on, IMHO. The commissions will be gradually smaller, I suppose.
“Are people predicting an even further drop in sales?”
Speaking only for myself, yes.
Reasons?
- Unemployment is still climbing.
- There will likely be the normal seasonal slowdown after the end of the red-hot summer sales season.
- The $8K tax credit is scheduled to expire soon.
- Even if the REIC lobbyists succeed in getting their desired extension and/or expansion of the $8K tax credit program, the fence-sitters who were incentivized into making a purchase this year will no longer be available as a target of future demand stimulus.
- Future price declines are likely due to the aftermath of the stimulus-provoked dead cat bounce plus growing mass of shadow inventory turning into daylight inventory. Since nobody wants to catch a falling knife, prospective buyers are quite likely to resume their collective vigil on the sidelines waiting for that elusive bottom.
Future price declines are likely due to the aftermath of the stimulus-provoked dead cat bounce plus growing mass of shadow inventory turning into daylight inventory. Since nobody wants to catch a falling knife, prospective buyers are quite likely to resume their collective vigil on the sidelines waiting for that elusive bottom.
What a mix! Cliche maximus.
1)dead cat bounce
2)shadow inventory
3)daylight inventory
4)catch a falling knife
5)sidelines
6)bottom
Way to go PB!
If Wall Street gives you bullsh*t, why not put it to good use as fertilizer?
Bink, you also have to look at what the buyers are buying. For the most part, foreclosures and short sales with a mix of desperate sellers and prime properties.
The fact that buyers, for the most part, are buying properties at the lowest current prices will set us up for the next leg down.
When sales fall off between Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl, prices should go lower to attract the next round of knife catchers.
If prices go lower towards the end of this year, in all likelihood, this should set off another wave of foreclosures as more homemoaners go further underwater.
“The fact that buyers, for the most part, are buying properties at the lowest current prices will set us up for the next leg down.”
Today’s ‘foreclosure fire sale discount deals’ = tomorrow’s comps.
Bink, I agree prices will continue to fall. Sales volume must fall at least seasonally, but next winter might be no worse in sales volume that this past winter. Watch for NAR and other cheerleaders to keep calling “turnaround” whenever there is the slightest YOY increase in volume. Or the slightest MOM increase, though one will not be seeing any more of that till spring.
Right in my immediate vicinity, the apartment right below mine languished vacant throughout the high summer season (in Maine) despite a harbor view from one of its side rooms. The landlady has been trying on and off for several years to sell this bldg, and has certainly taken an income hit via the vacancy (whole bldg has only 5 apts plus a restaurant). Plus, one of the smaller apts is currently occupied by the landlady’s daughter, who I think will go away to grad school or something in the fall. Hence, another vacancy in the offing. I don’t think they’ve had any outside-the-family income from that smaller apt since 2008.
As to RE agents, my cousin David just got his license last winter, has closed a number of sales this year (Phila area), crows about sales being brisk (!!??), and possibly there’s some truth to it, since he requires clients to lower their prices every month or so if there’s no action. Otherwise he tells them he doesn’t want to bother representing them any more. He says “there’s only one reason you can’t sell a house, and that’s the price.” Not sure I agree with him there: there are some that wouldn’t sell at any price, but perhaps not in his part of the metro area. I’ll listen for what he’s saying if/when the $8K credit expires.
“I won’t bore my readership with statistics on recent declines in house prices, house sales, and Realtor income.”
I know the sample is highly subject to selectivity bias, but the few UHS’s who have crossed my path in recent months have all seemed very upbeat about the strength of the local real estate market. Just last night was a case in point: I met a UHS at my son’s band concert (at a park in 4Closure Ranch) who indicated business has been very good this year. Last month I crossed paths with another UHS at a neighborhood picnic who gave similar indications.
I frankly find this highly puzzling, as all the readily-visible evidence in our area suggests the real estate sales industry has largely vanished from the face of the earth. The only yard signs in our area seem to stay up endlessly, and are, for the most part, targeted towards finding renters. After some behind-the-scenes investigation, I learned that at least some yard signs in our immediate vicinity that say “Sale Pending” could more honestly be worded “Lease Pending.”
Even though August is supposedly near the peak of the red-hot summer sales season, there are virtually no open house signs to be seen. By contrast, about four years ago, FOR SALE yard signs were everywhere, and every Sunday there were UHS’s scurrying about putting up open house signs at every entrance to tract home developments from a major thoroughfare.
What gives?
Right. They are upbeat because they are Realtards and are plugged into the NAR bullshit system, being fed a constant drip of hang-in-there-itude. These people actually believe that if they just put on a happy face and trick everyone into thinking they’re prosperous, then they magically will be.
The sooner the bulk of them quit, the better off everyone will be.
I can tell you here in 92117 just down the road a bit sales have definetly picked up. Inventory is low and prices are still somewhat soft. Case in point, homes are coming on and going off the market in less then a week with multiple offers. One down the street I talked with the owner, he had 8 offers, ended up accepting an all cash offer over listing price in 5 days after listing in the mid 450K range. Real estate is local and in this area you may have hit bottom, maybe temporarily maybe not.
Have to agree with the brisk sales.
We are literally out looking at houses at least one or two days a week, and have been doing this for many years. At least in our area, we have a pretty good feel for what’s going on, and sales are definitely very brisk.
Just talked with a seller last night — original owner from the 1970s, presumably with no mortgage left — and she was visibly surprised that she got multiple offers within a few days. She had been hearing all the “bad news” about how slow the housing market was, and expected to be on the market for 60-90 days. She even listed above what the agent wanted to list for, and got above-asking bids for it.
The bubble is still alive and well in San Diego.
‘Those who can’t get with the program and find something productive to do’
OK, I interact with UHS all the time, and I think a couple of examples from this past week are relevant. The first; I had a work order I don’t get often, which was to take a (vacant, as usual) house back and tell the realtor to get their sign and leave. I called and asked if she could bring the key over so I didn’t have to drill the lock. (I dislke violence, doncha know). She was fed up with the listing cuz the lender wouldn’t budge and was happy to see it go. But then she started telling me how much she dislikes low-ball offers, I guess thinking I had some way to put in a good word for her upstairs, which I don’t.
This UHS is on the wrong track, IMO. Yesterday, I went to two foreclosures side by side, and noticed that one had a sold sign on it. I called that realtor and she said, yes, it’s in escrow. Then I asked, “you don’t happen to know about this one next door, do you?” She informed me that she had sold it 6 weeks ago. (I also noticed she had other signs in front of houses on the same block which had 4 foot tumble weeds growing in the yard. I think you can put two and two together.) So here is a lady who is making lemonade out of lemons, compared to the low-ball hater who ain’t selling squat.
Now, does this mean these successful REO brokers are on the buyers side? Absolutely not. But, they are being realistic. And I know of one at least that will tell you straight out that todays low-ball price is next years good offer.
Flying Miser is absolutely right. Housing sales volume and median prices are going to continue downward until both hit zero. Even if NAR membership drops to just one person for the entire country, that person will not be able to feed his/her family, let alone prosper.
Or not?
We just got back from a week with friends in Denver. I was amazed at the very few “for sale” signs I saw in their community, a lower/mid price neighborhood in Highlands Ranch. I was told that most homes sell relatively quickly. Builders are even still building throughout that community, albeit at a very slow rate.
Also, the number of for sale homes I track here (non-waterfront single family) continues to decline. Yes, some are pulled off the market but others are selling whereas last year practically nothing sold.
My sister moved to Highlands Ranch a year ago, and I noticed the same thing when I visited her a few weeks ago. Few homes are for sale, although there are some foreclosures in her area. Building is continuing. Home prices are still stable.
So many people with educations and good jobs and real money from California have moved to that area. The schools are amazing. It seems like it will hold up better than most areas, but still, with the economy in the tank and unemployment rising, it doesn’t seem like the good times can last forever. Even there.
Highlands Ranch is a “quiet desperation” scenario. I’ve picked up some high end stuff on Craigslist for a song from FBs who are jettisoning whatever they can to feed their alligators and keep up appearances. The “it’s different here” delusion is strong, but starting to crumble at an accelerating speed.
“So many people with educations and good jobs and real money from California have moved to that area. The schools are amazing.”
Place sounds really “special”. NOT.
Sure BiC, sure WiLA, you guys just keep on believing that. It’s different in Highlands Ranch. All the rich people from California have unlimited resources and want to spend them all in Highlands Ranch. The agents in Highlands Ranch will be fat forever, earning 3% commission on upwards of 50 million-dollar sales annually forever and ever.
California buyers have already been wiped out. There is not a housing market in this country that isn’t distressed. And obviously, sales don’t have to go to ZERO in order for the boom times to be over; in order for 80% of the work to go away, and in order for 80% of the agents to be unneeded.
It’s just common sense.
I don’t think anyone is saying that Denver is immune. There are plenty of foreclosures in Denver, but unbelievably houses are still selling, to the point where they are still builing in select neighborhoods.
Up north in Larimer County its different. Almost no new construction to speak of. Houses, especially those priced over 300K in newer neighborhoods, languish for yares without selling.
I always cringe when I hear someone tell me all about how “different” their neighborhood is. The difference is in the shift of time. The subprime neighborhoods went first, if you will remember. As Miser pointed out yesterday, prime foreclosures are now more prevalent than subprime. Anyone living in a middle-class or upper-class neighborhood that has not yet experienced severe price declines should sell while they still can.
I always cringe when I hear someone tell me all about how “different” their neighborhood is.
Your reaction is to cringe, my reaction is to giggle…yet I believe the invisible thought bubbles that pop up over both our heads would read the exact same, which is to say we’re both thinking: “Who do you think you’re kidding? Ya REtard.”
Truly, is there ANYONE out there who thinks their neighborhood is ‘different’? I live in an area filled with upper-middle class and mostly retired state workers (with all those nice benefits/pensions), almost every one of whom bought and built lonnnng ago, wayyyy before crazy bubble-time, and on just my street—which is a long street, I admit, being rural—on just my street there has been a spec home built that went to short sale earlier this year, one house listed for about a year and a half, steadily chasing the market down, and NOW I recently learn that my nearest neighbor is having serious financial difficulties.
Listen, baybees—it ain’t ‘different’ anywhere.
“Is there ANYONE who thinks their neighborhood is ‘different’?”
Yup, it’s my cousin Nancy in Fremont County, Wyoming. I can’t prove she’s wrong, since foreclosure.com shows only one foreclosure in the county; though as one HBB poster noted, that could be due to inferior communications and inferior reporting systems in rural Wyoming. The state does have probably the lowest official unemployment rate in the US, and there’s that oil and gas money, and no state income tax. However, I do know that the price/rent distortion in her town is much the same as it’s been elsewhere, so I would expect some adjustment.
One thing I’ve been wanting to bring up early in the day, I think that things have finally started to turn in NW Wyoming. Still no foreclosures, and prices are still high, but inventory appears to be going through the roof. I don’t have access to the real numbers, but from places like Zillow it appears that in Cody (for example) there are now 200+ homes on the market and only a handful have sold this year. If reality is anything close to that I think they’re assuming the Wile-Coyote-in-midair-just-figuring-out-his-feet-aren’t-on-the-ground-any-more position.
My in-laws sold their Westminster, CO townhouse last week. It was on the market for 5 months and they only lowered the price twice, $5000 each time. Denver is strange. Up north in Loveland sales are at record lows.
did the buyer have a logical reason to buy? Like his job is 5 minutes away? He is older and intends to die in that townhouse?
That might be a good slogan “Prices don’t matter if this is the last place you will ever live in”……with a picture of St Peter at the pearly gates….LOL
BIC and WILA
Here’s something I posted yesterday, take look in the Highlands Ranch area.
Google Maps now shows some of the “shadow inventory” plus your neighbors who missed a payment or are in the beginning of the foreclosure process.
Click the “show search options” text to the right of the search bar, then select “Real Estate” from the pop-up menu.
Type in a zip code in the search bar
Check the “foreclosure” box in the left side of the screen.
The “price” is actually the balance of their loan.
What’s an “UHS”?
‘Used House Sh*t*head’, or, if you are genteel, ‘Used House Salesperson’.
No, don’t thank me—I exist only to serve.
What is a UHS.
The n doesn’t belong there.
actually, the “n” does belong there.
-evil
No, it doesn’t.
An unused house salesman.
A used house salesman.
An umbrella.
A unicorn.
“What’s an “UHS”?”
Used house skank.
Used house scumbag.
Used house sleazeball.
Used house spume.
Well they made a play about this years ago where the protagonist, Willy Loman, lost his mind and did himself in. IIRC one point of the play was that the salesman who loses his optimism loses everything.
I hate that play. It makes me grumpy every single time. I just sit there experiencing the overwhelming desire to dash up on stage and slap the cr*ap out of that annoying salesman*.
*Of course, now that I think of it, I experience the overwhelming desire to slap the c*ra*p out of every salesman I observe, so maybe this means nothing, and I can go back to watching plays again.
Having been in sales (although not real estate sales), I can tell you that someone has to do the dirty work of marketing and selling most products and services, even if the term “salesperson” is switched to a fancy title like “account executive” or some such BS. Even, and most especially, if you’re in business for yourself, somehow you’ve got to sell your product or service one way or another. Ask Arizona Slim.
Salespeople get knocked all the time, but if it wasn’t for some salesperson or persons somewhere, many people wouldn’t have jobs to begin with, like engineers, designers, production workers, manufacturers, etc. Someone has to go out and GET the business so others can work as well. And the process can really suck, but it can also be very rewarding when you sell a valuable or worthwhile product or service.
Of course, those who have gubmin jobs and such can look down their noses at “salespeople”. But someone somewhere sold the products and services that enable people to have jobs and pay taxes. Even if you’re an accountant or lawyer, if you have to convince someone to use your services and pay you for it, you’re still a salesperson at some point. If you work for a firm, someone’s out there bringing business into the firm so you can have a salary. And that’s selling. They’ve got to convince people to use their firm instead of the competition’s firm.
What most people object to, when they trash “salespeople”, are those who lie and dupe in order to get the business. If you’ve got a good product or service, that’s not necessary. But you still have to be insistent, or you’ll get beat out by the guy with the better rap, but a lousy product or service.
Palmy:
If you are on straight commission it will always be a race to the bottom.
If you want a professional sales force you need to guarantee a base salary, so they don’t have to worry about being evicted or having the lights cut off each month.
I think that is where Corporate America made a Big labor mistake……… Heck Hookers are Commission only…
—————————————————–
are those who lie and dupe in order to get the business
One question that will make one stand up and listen..
How did you get your wife/husband to marry you?
Salesmanship.
How did you get a date?
salesmanship.
!st and Oldest business in the world. Sales/marketing.
2nd, well we know what that one is ;>
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been a CFO in a number of manufacturing firms and I learned long ago that if you are not in sales, you better be in sales support.
Realtors deserve a small share of the blame in the bubble/bust cycle but without a bunch of idiots to buy the overpriced inventory, an idiot at the helm of the Fed, Idiot bankers, idiot investors investors, idiots in congress and idiot appraisers the Realtors would have been left marketing a few modestly priced homes like the have for years. The financially successful Realtors I know made tons of money over a three year period but were smart enough to squirrl a bunch of it away (no, not in Real Estate Investments).
People have known for years that Realtors, like car salesmen, time share salesmen, boat salesmen etc. are there to push you to your limits and beyond if they can, and as adults we have the responsibility to understand where and when to say, no, that’s beyond my means. Seems that somewhere along the way we (well, some of us) forgot that lesson. You can bet, that 10 years or so from now, some will be learning the same lesson in some new bubble/bust.
“The Death of a Salesman.” One of the stories we were supposed to read in school. Along with Rabbit Run and the rest of it. My English teachers loved to have students read books about losers or about fools who claim they will win but lose in the end.
I had one instructor who assigned us stories that always had a Freudian (Fraudian) analysis to explain them. No wonder I turned to Mathematics!
You mean: ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’. Yar, been there. Was deeply annoyed, I think. (I can’t remember, but I’m sure I was.)
My English teachers loved to have students read books about losers or about fools who claim they will win but lose in the end.
Wow, no wonder you’re such a grouchy fellow.
Serious, though; I’m just amazed you didn’t kill anyone by the end of term.
…Or, now that I think about it, maybe you did. You’d have a good excuse, if so. That was MY excuse, anyway. Haha!
In the same doom venue, one of my English teachers in College was C.G. Hanzlicek. His book of his original poetry published at the time was “Calling the Dead.” Yeah, I bought it. I just googled it. C.G. is still alive and kicking (but I don’t know what he’s kicking).
I remember another English class I took, “Masterpieces of English Literature.” The previous class was a poetry class. In those days of the late 1970s or early 1980s the activists did not bar smoking from classrooms. We had to open the windows as soon as we got into the class, even though the evening temps could get down to the 40s, because the entire class before us was stylish smokers in a poetry-writing class. I suppose smoking helped them be cool enough to write poems.
My English teachers loved to have students read books about losers or about fools who claim they will win but lose in the end.
Ouch. I’ve often thought about my HS reading assignments and wondered if they were trying to bog us down permanently in 70’s-style malaise. I also had to read Death of a Salesman, plus Lord of the Flies, The Jungle, Native Son, … uplifting stories weren’t high on the agenda. In fairness we did read Great Expectations, plus some Henry James novellas that were OK.
Don’t forget Flowers for Algernon.
I don’t think they overdid the 70’s intentionally. I think they just didn’t have the money to update their 15-year-old textbooks and teacher guides.
Lord of the Flies ranks high up there in depravity.
With the current malaise of high unemployment, one would wonder if English teachers are making similar assignments to read about hopeless mediocrity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY
They made a movie about it, too. David Mamet wrote the excellent Glengarry Glen Ross screenplay about a real estate office going down the tubes. The movie came out in the late ’90s - the “Coffee is for Closers” speech by Alec Baldwin is semi-legendary among longtime HBBers. Look behind those realtor botox perma-grins and you’ll see the tears of a clown.
Go to UTube and type in Hitler, Dodd, Pelosi you will laugh yourself silly as Adolph gets his credit score down graded and rejected for a refi. Also goes upside down on his Berlin Mcmansion.
Look behind those realtor botox perma-grins and you’ll see the tears of a clown.
Well, I hate clowns, too! So they can share the slaps from my Mighty Fist of Girly Outrage!
Have you heard of the 1972 Jerry Lewis film “The Day the Clown Cried”?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068451/
Lewis plays the part of a clown whose job it was to lure Jewish kids into the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Sort of a pied piper story gone terribly wrong.
For some reason this film was pulled from distribution and has never been seen in public.
Has anyone seen the Dow 30 lately? Back up to a P/E of ~53. I was shocked. But at least I’m glad the recession’s over. :~
Here is a little off-the-cuff financial advice for stock market participants:
Sell tomorrow, or get swamped in the next wave of panic.
Professor Bear-where do you find this reported at? Would like to track.
The Wall Street Journal is often an excellent source of “sell everything now before panic returns” type articles, provided you know how to read between the lines.
For instance, I interpret the following short article, to appear in tomorrow’s edition, as a succinct warning that a 10 pct correction is due any day now. But I would not get too excited about this, as there were several days last week when a big selloff was predicted the night before it never came to pass.
It is humorous how writers like Gongloff seem oblivious to the potential role of the PPT to indefinitely frustrate Mr Market’s desire to correct (see quotes from Kevin Phillipp’s “Bad Money” book I entered below for more on this point):
* WALL STREET JOURNAL
* ABREAST OF THE MARKET
* AUGUST 24, 2009
Bulls of March Look Set to Trade In Their Horns
Those Who Called Bottom in March Say Prices Look Overvalued
BY MARK GONGLOFF
It feels good to be right. But the few analysts who accurately called the market’s bottom in early March aren’t feeling so great about where stocks are headed.
One of the most famous of this group, Jeremy Grantham, penned a note on March 10 entitled “Reinvesting When Terrified” that encouraged investors to buy, suggesting stocks were 30% undervalued.
Since then, the market has roared ahead, without stopping for a correction of 10% or more.
…
P.S. If stocks were indeed 30 pct undervalued, then went up by 50 pct, how overvalued would they be currently?
Answer (copy and paste into the Google search line if you want to check my arithmetic):
((1-0.30)*(1+0.50)-1)*100 = 5 percent — no great shakes!
Tenet Healthcare (361%)
How can they be up that much? Isn’t Obamacare going to crush such companies?
Dennis, why are you so worried whether or not the rip off corps of medicine and pharma and nursing homes are going to have less than they normally rip off? Is this your retirement plan?
Just curious.
I am sure they will be just fine.
Witches and gobblins are really hard to extinguish.
Ask Oly.
Until things balance out, why are ‘you and others’ so worried about them? They don’t give a patootie about you.
I have friends who work for them. I wonder what will become of them.
Well, if IYHO others have to fend for themselves, then why not those “friends” who are in the medicine/pharma/nursing home biz.
Well, it looks like the INS,PHARM biz is going to get another major windfall nonetheless and the rest of us will just suck wind as far as you care.
BTW it isn’t just you, there are a few others who seem to think this is ok to worry about the pharma/ins biz being “ruined” when they will be just fine. Hoods,crooks, thieves usually are.
So who is pulling the average up so high? IBM and HPQ are both trading with P/E’s of about 12.
Companies like alcoa with negative earnings.
Companies like alcoa with negative earnings.
What?! NOOOOOooooOOOOOOOO!
Does this mean I’ll have to pay more for my favorite millinery material?!
It’s hand-me-downs for you, dearie.
I thought rhinestones and glitter were your favorite millinery materials?
Stick with Stetsons, ma’am.
It’s hand-me-downs for you, dearie.
From the tin-foil dinner wrappings hauled out of the bonfire or such-like? I shall not have that. The drippings would ruin the effect, and the sequins wouldn’t stick.
*adjusts head *
Comment by DennisN
2009-08-23 14:49:07
–I thought rhinestones and glitter were your favorite millinery materials?
–Stick with Stetsons, ma’am.
1. Yes. I appreciate you noticing this.
2. Okay!
3. I’m going to go ahead and have both good things at once, because I’m greedy by nature.
From the tin-foil dinner wrappings…
Absolutely not. I was thinking more on the lines of hand-me-downs from all the friends you have on the HBB. I’m sure if you started a “got a spare tin-foil hat for Oly?” campaign, you’d be well-stocked with aluminum chapeaux.
I can give you the tinfoil under my coils on my stove. 2 of them are clean.
LOL
A big disappointment for me was that, despite the renewed interest of regulating things (in a feeble attempt to close the barn door after the cows escaped)…NOBODY in congress tried to regulate the Real Estate broker/agent industry. They should have been SHUT DOWN over this!
Here’s one business that could have been regulated out of existence–with little public resistance other than from Realtwhores–and nobody even attempted it.
For example, agents who worked with appraisers who gave phony/inflated appraisals could have been fined. Some appraisers were nailed, but AFAIK, none of the agencies who worked with them. Attempts could have been made to increase licensing standards, increase liability, disclosure, etc. Increase the cost and decrease the profits for a R-E agent.
Imagine the benefit to consumers if the whole R-E industry went away, and you simply paid an attorney a $1000 flat fee for three hours work to make sure your contracts are proper, and the transaction is completed correctly. That would put billions of dollars/year back into the pockets of the American People! (Well, of course, the howmuchamonthers wouldn’t really care about any expenses that they can’t see directly, but it’s nice to dream about this…)
LOVE this idea!!!
I write reports on commercial real estate markets around the country for a living. The format includes a page on investment sales — office, apartment, retail.
The last few quarters, I’ve had to come up with creative ways to say NOTHING is happening. No sales. Nothing.
In addition to the data my firm produces, economic data from the major statistical agencies, and quotes from news articles and blogs, I usually include quote some opinions and observations from the reports issued by commercial real estate brokerage companies to promote their expertise. These are disappearing.
How can this industry survive with no sales and few leases?
Maybe you should include a quote or two from today’s Miser Post in your next report. That would be oh-so funny, tee hee.
Wow. Scary stuff. Where do you think we are in the cycle for commercial?
IIUC commercial RE has a shorter fuse than residential: mortgage periods are in the 3 to 5 year range, not 15 to 30 year range. So idiots who overbought commercial RE a few years back face a terrible dilema: they don’t have the money to pay off the mortgage AND they won’t qualify to re-fi. Hence straight into the crapper with them.
Defaulting on a commercial mortgage is much more horrible than defaulting on a residential mortgage. None of the commercial mortgages would qualify as a “non-recourse mortgage”. And the default comes not from missing payments but rather from the note actually comming due.
WT Economist-
There are rumors circulating that there is a deal brewing between Westfield and General Growth Properties on selective properties. Is this true? I cannot find proof as of yet. I’m a former member of the ICSC (International Council Of Shopping Centers)
Isn’t GGP the holding company that went bankrupt earlier this year? IIRC Westfield is an Australian company that owns shopping centers in northern California.
GGP was a REIT. IIRC, it’s currently in bankruptcy court. They got into their situation by using a lot of leverage to buy another mall operator.
Westfield owns shopping centers in many markets, not just northern California.
GGP did go bk, but I am not sure of the details, reorganization or complete. Westfield is global. Even the trade papers have been quiet about the two talking.
It used to be back when I was growing up (I’m in my 40s), that realtors were mostly housewives who did it part-time for “mad money”. *Maybe* they sold a modestly-priced house (or two if they were lucky) a year? There were always the 1 or 2 realtors in town who were full-time - they also seemed to have most of the listings and were equally represented by men and women.
But for the most part, most agents in town were housewives who worked part-time while the kids were in school (presumably b/c real estate wasn’t lucrative enough to support a family back - and men were for the most part the primary breadwinners back in the day so they wouldn’t have been interested in real estate as a career).
Fast forward to the boom - everybody and their father was quitting their job to become a realtor. And you could get *rich* selling houses - not just support a family, but make serious money.
And now we are where we are - and I think we are going to be reentering the era of real estate that many of us grew up in: the one where homes don’t gain much value in the 10-15 years someone may live in it (compared to the 100-200% gains you could expect in my area in 2-3 years during the boom), realtors are part-time people who have a spouse making the main income - and back to the 1 or 2 “real” realtors per town who actually handle 90% of all transactions.
I think you nailed it perfectly. I sincerely doubt housing will rise much more than inflation for the next 15 years, and with all the other online options out there we don’t really need many realtors. I expect it will become a 3% deal for only the most unusual houses, and the owner will pay for his own craigslist ads–which are free– and pictures–which cost almost nothing.
This is an industry begging for frictionless selling options.
“the owner will pay for his own craigslist ads–which are free– and pictures–which cost almost nothing.”
Since houses are a major purchase, I think you’ll still see realtors selling houses. I’d rather deal with a realtor than an owner in most cases. A lot of the FSBOs around here, the owners are dreaming as far as prices. If they can’t set the price for their house, how the heck are they gonna sell it?
I’ve bought and sold a few properties myself, it’s not for the faint of heart. Most people who come to look can’t get off the dime and do the deal without someone walking them through it. And you’d better know what you’re doing and be able to deal with the paperwork, the emotions and the hand-holding. It also helps to have a friendly attorney and/or title company to work with.
palmetto
Online firms like Redfin are pretty interesting to me. They kick back part of their commission, do the paperwork, get the deal done, and for the most part, hire good agents. I’m licensed, and I might use them to make sure I get some dough back. Being licensed and a buyer, they will try and stiff me on my commission. By law (laws aren’t suggestions) I have to disclose my license. That puts me at a disadvantage. Online firms and FSBO are a perfect match. Buyers save $ too.
Hey, wipeout, thanks for the tip on Redfin. I’ve heard of it, but didn’t really know much about it.
BTW, I don’t think all realtors are bad. I’ve worked with two that did an excellent job for me in the past and were worth every penny of their commission. Without them, the deals would not have gotten done.
The average Joe who thinks he can sell his house by just throwing up a craigslist ad is in for a nasty surprise.
I know one of those really good RE persons as well.
A win win kind of ethical person.
There are a few!
Me too. We know one in our neighborhood (bought our house through his agency, years ago) who is very decent. He presents clearly - at least to us - that the value of a house is what it can sell for now.
That doesn’t mean that I will buy a house just because he wants to sell one. But when I have questions about what is going on I refer to him, if we buy again I would look to him.
“doubt housing will rise much more than inflation in the next 15 years”
I’m sure you’re right IF we HAVE inflation. Case-Shiller shows house prices rose in the 1930’s relative to inflation, but that’s because we were having deflation. We may continue to have deflation now, despite Fed’s efforts. In that case, borrowing a fixed number of dollars to buy a house is a fool’s game.
If/when we get inflation, house prices may then lose in inflation-adjusted terms but possibly not in nominal terms, so having a house might not be crazy. I sure don’t see it yet.
The catch I think is that someone has to sit in an Open house, otherwise folks will call/make appts and then never show up, get lost or forget the time and houses might languish. And if the home is still occupied, no one will allow an open house without a licensed/insured RE person.
The ‘internets’ are good for serious buyers, serious pc users, but there is an overwhelming percentage of people who like the human contact. Not like you/us!
Just sayin
“And if the home is still occupied, no one will allow an open house without a licensed/insured RE person.”
An open house is used to grow a real estate practice (get clients). A showing is when a buyer is looking at a home. Open Houses are not for the seller, they are for the agent. They call an open house an outside sales office.
Being stood up is normal in residential real estate. People are fakey and inconsiderate.
Hope you are well, desertdweller.
Hi Awaiting.
I sent you that link.
well, based on today, I would definitely agree about re using open houses as lead generation.
Although, personally, I don’t want to do all the pc work. I am on this learning curve-seems to be forever, and photos imho don’t do the houses justice or make them look SO much better.
So, I like to go to openhouses. Sort of like a mutual s and m event when I don’t have anything else to do. Tease a RE person and make me wish I had a house.
ugh.
desertdweller
Boy, are you my kind of gal. I like to screw with the UHS at open houses too. I was on the intelligent side of the biz, commercial. I have a formal education, but got sick of a desk job.
The cool thing about Redfin is that the buyer gets a cut of the agent;s commission. It isn’t brain surgery. I like the business model that let’s a motivated buyer get paid for the effort. How often does the buyer win in a normal r e transaction.
I just finally finished a book I purchased and began reading many moons ago, “Bad Money — Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism,” by Kevin Phillips. Many of the topics long discussed here, and sometimes negatively labelled ‘tinfoil hat’, are covered in the book. I recommend it as an excellent early attempt to put the credit meltdown into historical context.
Here is a passage from the last chapter which gives the flavor of the book, and illustrates the connection to the range of topics we have covered over the past few years on this blog:
“Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, shortly after being named to that position in 2006, reestablished regular meetings for the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets. This was the unit more colloquially known as the Plunge Protection Team. Even by its formal name, though, the Working Group represented a de facto admission that far from being rational and efficient, U.S. financial markets were periodically volatile and unstable — hardly desirable characteristics in the nation’s dominant economic sector.
As suggested in chapter 2, a case can be made that Washington partially shifted to policies of financial mercantilism as early as the 1980s. This happened through that decade’s series of federally orchestrated domestic and international bailouts, accompanied in 1988 by the presidential order to set up the Working Group, with its probable covert mandate to repeat where necessary the interventions employed during the tense days of the October 1987 crash. At very least, both the facts and the inferences suggest a mockery of strict free-market economics.
No one should be surprised to read someday that during the eighties, senior officials established at least vague guidelines for a policy of maintaining national assets. Such an intention would have stretched from bank, credit, and currency bailouts to a collusive monetary policy designed to drown any threatened asset deflation in liquidity and never, ever to pop an asset bubble. Here Greenspan and his successor, Ben Bernanke, put themselves at odds with views elsewhere in central banking circles that asset bubbles should indeed be popped — and that U.S. unwillingness to do so might even imperil global markets. We have certainly had the bailouts and off-and-on gushes of liquidity, and the most freewheeling tresury secretaries of the last two decades, Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin, have shown a rare protectiveness towards the sanctity of stock market advances. Even Paulson’s de facto soft-sdollar policy of 2006 and 2007 makes sense if one takes a Machiavellian view of a commitment to maintain assets.”
I have no evidence on whether any of Phillipps allegations are true or not, but they certainly do fit very well with the appearance of asset markets which are incapable of establishing market-clearing valuations in the manner predicted by the asset pricing theory which any graduate student in finance covers in the standard curriculum.
If these allegations are true, they would go a long way to explaining how our economy was transformed from the highly-productive manufacturing dynamo of the mid-20th century into a parasitic host for a top-heavy financial sector which threatens to soon suck the last few drops of our collective wealth into Wall Street’s bottomless money pit.
Here are a few more choice words from the concluding section of Mr. Phillips’ book about how the PTB are (mis)managing the financial crisis:
“…reregulation, as suggested by commentators like Martin Wolf and Henry Kaufman, could also include a rethinking of the legal status of megabanks. To Wolf, “What we have [in banking] is a risk-loving industry guaranteed as a public utility.” If banks are to be rescued because they are too big to fail, they must also become, in the manner of a regulated public utility, too suitably behaved and too responsible to fail.
…
Countertrends toward realism and greater regulation may well become excessive and overreach, much like the market excesses and Anglo-American hubris they now challenge. But it is well to understand the provocation offered by the blind-to-human-nature, history-ends-with-us millennial capitalism profiled at the beginning of this (final) chapter. My summation is that American financial capitalism, at a pivotal period in the nation’s history, cavalierly ventured a multiple gamble:
-first, financializing a a hitherto more diversified U.S. economy;
- second, using massive quantities of debt and leverage to do so;
- third, following up a stock market bubble with an even larger housing and mortgage credit bubble;
- fourth, roughly quadrupling U.S. credit-market debt between 1987 and 2007, a scale of excess that historically unwinds;
- and fifth, consummating these events with a mixed performance of dishonesty, incompetence, and quantitative negligence.”
My personal take on BB’s victory speech last week in Jackson Hole is that it was intended to take away the political pressure for much-needed financial regulatory reform, by making the case that the financial crisis is now fully ‘contained.’ Presumably, if the Fed has the situation under control, there is no reason to change the status quo regulatory regime which produced ripe conditions for a financial meltdown.
I nominated Flying Miser’s post for top 3 HBB hall of fame. My contempt and venom for the thieving maggot infested NAR knows no bounds and MFM expressed that contempt so succinctly that it could’ve been written by me.
These motherF__ckers running the country (federal reserve and FIRE) are pushing on a rope with cash for trash, cash for shacks, cash for ___. Demand shifting, demand stimulating, call it whatever you want but all the LYING optimism of car salesmen and house salemen means nothing knowing that the Fed CANNOT prevent deflation. Deflation is what they and the other power structures most fear.
Call me conspiratorial but the PTB will employ or blame some tragic event of the 9/11 magnitude to finally give up on their inflationary nirvana. I think such a global scam is entirely possible and very likely if they cannot keep hot air under these BS prices of everything.
I worked at a NYC firm that employed a bunch of romanians. I asked one what it was like living under Ceaucescu’s communism and he said “Over there, you knew exactly what was truth and BS, over here, you can’t discern lies from truth.” I often think of his statement when reading the constant raft of BS pumped by NAR, Fed Reserve, MSM etc.
“I worked at a NYC firm that employed a bunch of romanians. I asked one what it was like living under Ceaucescu’s communism and he said “Over there, you knew exactly what was truth and BS, over here, you can’t discern lies from truth.” I often think of his statement when reading the constant raft of BS pumped by NAR, Fed Reserve, MSM etc.”
That’s entirely the intent of the lies and the means of disseminating them, to muddle the truth. Confuse, then steal.
EXcellent!
I freaking LOVE this post!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/us/24bethtwo.html?hp
When Daddy gets laid off.
The NAR is a Bush administration of the RE world….nothing but a bunch of lying sacks of sh^t.
You’re being way too easy on them. They’re much more like the Clinton administration.
There is no honor is desperate flailing in face of the truth.
Good one
BTW, I don’t think it is too early to restart the anti-Hitlary campaign. Does anyone remember who Monica Lewinsky was? How about Hitlary’s wild success with commodities trading? And then there was Whitewater? Let’s keep memories fresh on these matters, right up until the point in the future when the Clintonistas try to regain access to the WH…
“blue horshoe loves bluestar”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Goldman-trading-huddles-offer-rb-419386184.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=
I’m calling bullsh*t on this article. Show me the numbers! (There are none…
Dave Kansas
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David Kansas (born 1967) is a journalist living in New York, now serving as president of a new personal finance online venture FiLife.com between Dow Jones and IAC/InterActiveCorp. Prior to that, he was an editor to the Wall Street Journal as well as editor-in-chief of TheStreet.com during its formative years, working for site founder Jim Cramer. Since June 2008, he has been married to Monica Kansas (neé Schulz).
“this article”
See post on Dave Kansas’ breezy WSJ shill piece further below (sorry for the disjunction between my posts).
i have a friend of mine that moved to phoenix last year. her fiancee is going to MBA school there. i was talking to her last week. she said that she and her fiancee bid on a house in phoenix…she said it was sooooo cheap and had a pool and everything. she said she was sad cuz someone outbid her.
other facts about my friend:
- no desire to stay in phoenix after her fiancee graduates next year.
- has a condo in northern va that is 100k underwater and negative $ 750.00 per month cash flow.
i would say that the NRA propoganda has been very successful over the past 4 decades or so.
unfigginbelievable.
I just started posting an article from today’s WSJ encouraging people to buy second homes, but was interrupted by an “emergency” early-morning carpool request.
Anyway, the fact that the writer used to work in Cramer’s shill operation ought to raise eyebrows. And then there the complete absence of any numbers whatever to support the article’s assertion that “The people doing this (buying second homes) are employed, feel confident that they’re not going to lose their jobs, and believe that while housing prices may fall a bit more the bottom is not too far away.”
Just show me the numbers!
* The Wall Street Journal
* AUGUST 24, 2009
ESSAY
A Toe in the Water
Real estate is starting to look cheap enough to buy. Or at least think about buying.
By DAVE KANSAS
Recently over dinner, a friend of mine startled me by saying he and his wife were looking to buy a lake cabin. I figured that in this time of economic uncertainty, people would still be stuffing their mattresses with hard, cold cash. But buying real estate? That seemed particularly surprising.
…
Following this essay’s breezy advice could be very, very bad for your financial health. Try not to catch yourself a falling knife!
“Friends of Goldman” program comes to light (wasn’t it just a few months back we were wallowing in revelations about the “Friends of Angelo” program).
I am curious about the delicate language used to describe this program: ‘…Tips Reward Big Clients’. To my understanding, this sort of practice, where a prominent Wall Street firm shared valuable information with some clients to the exclusion of others, used to be known as INSIDER TRADING, but I am no legal scholar.
P.S. I sure do hope it comes to light that Henry Paulson had “inside information” about this program.
* WALL STREET JOURNAL
* AUGUST 24, 2009
Goldman’s Trading Tips Reward Its Biggest Clients
By SUSANNE CRAIG
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. research analyst Marc Irizarry’s published rating on mutual-fund manager Janus Capital Group Inc. was a lackluster “neutral” in early April 2008. But at an internal meeting that month, the analyst told dozens of Goldman’s traders the stock was likely to head higher, company documents show.
The next day, research-department employees at Goldman called about 50 favored clients of the big securities firm with the same tip, including hedge-fund companies Citadel Investment Group and SAC Capital Advisors, the documents indicate. Readers of Mr. Irizarry’s research didn’t find out he was bullish until his written report was issued six days later, after Janus shares had jumped 5.8%.
Every week, Goldman analysts offer stock tips at a gathering the firm calls a “trading huddle.” But few of the thousands of clients who receive Goldman’s written research reports ever hear about the recommendations.
…
Goldman Sachs certainly is getting more than its fair share of the financial press coverage these days…
Suppose that (1) Goldman’s software truly did enable them to “unfairly manipulate” stock prices (as this NY Times article suggests); (2) they provided “insider information” through a “Friends of Goldman” program (as described in the headline story in today’s WSJ).
Putting (1) and (2) together appears to provide the raw material for a very interesting story, indeed!
World of ultrafast trading comes to light in arrest
Programmer worked with Wall Street secrets
By Alex Berenson
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
2:00 a.m. August 24, 2009
Flying home to New Jersey from Chicago after the first two days at his new job, Sergey Aleynikov was prepared for the usual inconveniences: a bumpy ride, a late arrival.
He was not expecting Special Agent Michael McSwain of the FBI.
At 9:20 p.m. on July 3, McSwain arrested Aleynikov, 39, at Newark Liberty International Airport, accusing him of stealing software code from Goldman Sachs, his old employer. At a bail hearing three days later, a federal prosecutor asked that Aleynikov be held without bond because the code could be used to “unfairly manipulate” stock prices.
This case is still in its earliest stages, and some lawyers question whether Aleynikov should be prosecuted criminally, or whether a civil suit may be more appropriate. But the charges, along with civil cases in Chicago and New York involving other Wall Street firms, offer a glimpse into the turbulent world of ultrafast computerized stock trading.
Little understood outside the securities industry, the business has suddenly become one of the most competitive and controversial on Wall Street. At its heart are computer programs that take years to develop and are treated as closely guarded secrets.
Aleynikov, who is free on $750,000 bond, is suspected of having taken pieces of Goldman software that buys and sells shares in milliseconds. Banks and hedge funds use such programs to profit from tiny price discrepancies among markets and in some instances leap in front of bigger orders.
Defenders of the programs say they make trading more efficient. Critics say they are little more than a tax on long-term investors and can even worsen market swings.
…
Because of 6% commission rates, the great refuse of America became realtors. 95% of them couldn’t sell their way out of a paper hat, but they feel entitled to 6% of the equity in a home, a horrific burden for almost every homeowner.
During the hot times, people could list and sell their homes within a month. The realtors were order takers, knew NOTHING about the local school districts, the town, they couldn’t impart great advice to their customers because up to a short time ago they were housewives, failed teachers, accountants without customers, food service employees, amway losers and the like. Then after taking a class and a test they felt entitled to their part of the 6% of someones entire equity.
There were (and still are) very professional realtors, who should be spinning in their graves (or high backed chairs) over the lack of professionalism that their job has attracted. The NAR is a group of lying cheating low-lifes who have no problem in promoting their lies to the public (who mostly don’t have the capacity to see the truth anyway)!