Bits Bucket For June 14, 2010
Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here. The Texas/Florida/DC meetup link at the forum is here. Click here for the shadow inventory thread.
Please consider signing the Shadow Inventory petition.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
June 2025 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Hi HBBers and most especially the DC area folks!
So Ben’s big east coast trip is coming together and I’m trying to get some suggestions for hotels (or bed and breakfasts), restaurants, bars, potential meet-up locations, and bubble viewing areas for the group in DC. (I’m going to be in DC either the 24th pm or 25th am of June and am flying out the 28th.)
No agenda has been set yet except for Friday, June 25th when Ben and entourage will descend upon the politicians, petitions in hand to have our voices heard. Hopefully some of the DC people will be able to take a day off to join us.
If you haven’t signed the petition yet please do so, and encourage your friends/family waiting to buy to also. http://shadowinv.epetitions.net/
If you think you’re going to any of the DC/surrounding area events you can e-mail me at sd.re.b at hotmail dot com so we can start a contact list.
Just a reminder of Ben’s East Coast Schedule:
Austin, TX: June 16-17
Tampa, FL: June 18-22 (Hoping to hit a few spots in FL)
Washington, DC (flying into Baltimore): June 23-28
From DC, he will fly back to Phoenix, AZ on June 28th, in the evening.
June 28th AZ Meet-up
Hope you can make it. I am looking forward to meeting some of the East Coast people and I know I’m not the only one. Thanks!
I will be meeting Ben in Austin and would like to hear from other Austin people. I know there a couple of y’all in the blog. I was hoping to showing some of the crazy development in Central ATX (78701, 78702, 78703, 78704), but I am definitely open to more suggestions!
Who’s in?
Am I really the first to post?
Re “This was unexpected I betcha:
http://www DOT nytimes DOT com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html”
So OIL wasn’t the reason…and reading this was worse than unexpected…
If we truly have a lock on the minerals then I would say that we are over there for this reason. I’m sure there is lots of debate out there.
I am am very familiar with mining it takes many years to perform the geology to determine what and where the minerals are and since it takes some time to develop the locations this unexpected mineral find is like the unexpected housing bust.
The US is very rich in Lithium and Copper and so is South America, Afganistan is not the only place on the plannet that has resorces. I think they need it though as what other industries do they have?
We have a bunch of Lith. near here….well in Kings mountain. They have been mining there for more than 30 years.
Lane
Kings Mountain is just west of Charlotte nc. sorry.
Just check the Dick Cheney maps and you will find all you need to know.
This is another case of privitize the gains and socialize the losses.
Private mining interest will make a mint. US soldiers and tax payers take it in the shorts.
How much money will American taxpayers be forced to pour down these financial rat holes before they are shut down once and for all? Meanwhile, I suppose these agencies, which are supposedly tasked with providing “affordable housing,” will continue to use America’s tax dollars
as a financial weapon against young families and workers seeking housing where labor market opportunities are located, by maintaining housing prices at levels which make them unaffordable to the typical middle class American household.
P.S. If recent history is any guide, what Uncle Sam identifies early on as a “worst case” typically proves to be an underestimate when viewed through the lens of the rear view mirror.
But I am sure that this time is different — nothing like the Fed’s bold pronouncement back in August 2007 or so that “subprime will be contained to $200 bn,” for instance…
Monday June 14, 2010
Bloomberg
Fannie-Freddie Fix at $160 Billion With $1 Trillion Worst Case
June 14, 2010, 3:00 AM EDT
By Lorraine Woellert and John Gittelsohn
June 14 (Bloomberg) — The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.
…
More From Businessweek
* India’s Inflation Unexpectedly Accelerates to 10.16% (Update2)
* Hong Kong Stocks Rise to One-Month High on U.S. Growth Optimism
* Reliance to Spend $5 Billion on Wireless Internet, Analysts Say
* Stocks Beat Bonds in Relative Value as U.S. Profit Yields Jump
* Japan’s Stocks Rise; Nikkei 225 Has First Weekly Drop in Nine
count on it being $ 1 trillion…and also…they need to stop buying loans made to people who will not be paying the money back.
“…they need to stop buying loans made to people who will not be paying the money back…”
I have been assuming that was a stealth part of the banking system bailout; since the loans are federally guaranteed, when the loans are not paid back, the lenders are guaranteed to be made whole by individual loan-level bailouts.
Why bother to assume when it is fact?
It IS the stealth part of the Banksta bailout.
“How much money will American taxpayers be forced to pour down these financial rat holes before they are shut down once and for all?”
“..Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans..”
The eye-popping reality that Fannie and Freddie bought or guaranteed three-quarters of ALL home loans makes on realize the government will NEVER shut them down. They’re ALL IN on housing and it’s recovery.
Exactly.
The neocons have it wrong. It wasn’t low income loan guarantees, but the guaranteeing of ALL loans by Freddie and Fannie that made the Bankstas go hog wild with NINJA loans.
It was baked in from the beginning.
“…and it’s recovery.”
Grammatical clarification: I assume you meant ‘its recover,’ not ‘it’s recovery.’ (’it’s’ = ‘it is,’ while clearly, ‘it ain’t.’)
I do understand the distinction between “it’s” and “its” though my posts would suggest otherwise. I think that I have a bad habit of always typing “it’s”.
I have concluded that the housing market support will continue till it can’t. Why? Because, for that most important of reasons - politicians get their crack, I mean money, from property taxes. I continuously hear how many local government balance sheet problems are due to lowered hauls from property taxes.
Of course, these governments were doing just fine before the housing bubble. They were easily able to spend all the windfall revenue during the bubble.
Politicians get their power from spending money - rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies.
The never-ending ever-contradictory shadow inventory picture continues unabated to date:
* NY REAL ESTATE RESIDENTIAL
* JUNE 14, 2010
Expensive Co-Ops Lead an Increase in Apartment Sales; Overall Prices Less Firm
By JOSH BARBANEL
A rise in apartment sales in Manhattan during the spring selling season, especially among expensive co-ops, led to an upward bump in average prices, according to an analysis of recent transactions, giving hope to brokers and analysts looking for a housing turnaround.
…
Jonathan Miller, an appraiser with Miller Samuel Inc., has predicted a further decline in Manhattan property values over the next three years. He cites a shadow inventory of unsold apartments, both new condominiums and resales, that haven’t hit the market, and significant worries over unemployment.
Dolly Lenz, a vice chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman, said, however, that while the markets in the rest of the country have slowed, in Manhattan “the market is healthy. I am so busy I don’t know what to do with myself.”
…
But HGTV says NYC is different. Haven’t you seen the show ‘Selling New York’?
Each episode features homes over 10+million dollars…
Who can relate to $10 million homes? Not many. So this is just showing off, preening and tacky bragging.
That’s why I call the PTB the Master(bator)s of the Universe.
How about $20 million? This little North Idaho Jewel is available. Out of my price range. I like to keep my payments < $50,000/month. I’ve seen the place from the river though and it is amazing. The guy is one of the most successful Amway businessmen in the history of the company. Says he is selling it for estate planning reasons.
At the other end of the spectrum is the palatial estate known to locals as The Amway House, or The River House, having been built by the Puryears in 1995 from their Amway fortune. On the market for 8 days for $19,995,000, with an MLS description that says “Showing this house is like a trip to Disneyland!” It has 28,468 sq. ft. Here are a couple of interesting facts about this exceptional home. Property taxes are a whopping $155,000 annually. The listing price per square foot is $702.34.
He was probably one of their First hires back how many years ago….so he has a network of what 50,000 agents..all giving him a percent of sales…
—————————————————
The guy is one of the most successful Amway businessmen in the history of the company
I have an outstanding shovel-ready project suggestion for the Obamanomics team:
Why not provide subsidies for new housing construction, and additional subsidies for bulldozer brigades to raze them. The subdivisions could be constructed, then the developments could be immediately razed by the bulldozer brigade. Jobs would be created and the economy would be greatly stimulated without the need for the homes to ever be occupied.
Better yet, since the new home inventory would be destroyed before it added to the extant glut of vacant homes, no damage would be done to the prices of existing homes.
Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Nonetheless, you have to admit that it would create broken window economic stimulus.
Economists consider tearing down homes to protect housing market
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Douglas Duncan, vice president and chief economist for Fannie Mae, raised a provocative idea at a recent meeting of real estate journalists in Austin: Some of the misconceived housing developments built during the boom years might have to be torn down because they don’t make financial sense.
Duncan agreed with Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com, who warned that a “tremendous shadow inventory” of homes is poised to come on the market. That includes future foreclosures (due to negative equity and continued high unemployment), homes that will end up in foreclosure after failed loan modifications, and homes from what he calls “sideline sellers” who have been biding their time until the housing market improves. Humphries said home prices won’t bottom out until the third quarter of this year, leading to “the second phase of the housing recession”: below-normal price appreciation for several years. (The long-term appreciation norm is 3 to 5 percent per year.)
Said Duncan: “Some of that shadow inventory could have to be torn down. It was not economically viable when it was put in place.” That includes some boom-time developments in California’s Inland Empire and Central Florida. Duncan said people might find that the cost of sustaining their lifestyle in some developments — including high transportation costs to far-away jobs — is greater than the cost of the home. That could wipe out demand.
…
I don’t see a problem with this…since Detroit is so bad the mayor is doing this…next is FloorRiddah…thousands maybe tens of thousands are just sitting in that hot humid climate just begging for mold and bugs to take over as new inhabitants.
People??? heck we would be up to our necks in lawsuits if we tried to put the homeless or section 8 people in those abandoned houses.
I’m sure the money will flow to large developers.
We bailed out large banks now large developers.
The small time builder will have to take his losses.
Of course, you only blame big business. Never saw a post from a socialist blaming greedy liars (who lied about their incomes) to buy a house. You are a consistent broken record.
Makes sense in that broken window economics is the only form of eCONomy we still have!
The goal is to keep housing unaffordable, and if that means destroy houses, sure, why not?!
“Duncan said people might find that the cost of sustaining their lifestyle in some developments — including high transportation costs to far-away jobs — is greater than the cost of the home. That could wipe out demand.”
This is a total BS argument. There are some people who do not have to commute to far-away jobs. Have you ever heard of retired folks? Or work-from-home folks?
How about just dropping the prices until they sell? If you get down to the actual market valuation, they will. They have some economic value to someone.
Drop the price? Perhaps you’re not familiar with voodoo, er, “supply side” economics?
You raise prices when times are good and claim scarcity of goods and services and you raise prices when times are bad and claim scarcity of income.
See how that works?
I increasingly appreciate Sharga’s startlingly dissonant MSM pronouncements about the state of the housing recovery. Thank God there is at least one honest man in America’s REIC!
May foreclosure rate steadies as banks hold back
By ALAN ZIBEL
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 10, 2010; 12:08 AM
WASHINGTON — The foreclosure crisis appears to be leveling off.
The number of people facing foreclosure is nearly flat from a year ago, according to the latest report from a private foreclosure listing service. A third fewer people are receiving legal warnings that they could lose their homes. And foreclosures are receding in some of the hardest-hit cities.
Still, the number of foreclosures remains extraordinarily high. Experts caution that a big reason for the stabilization is that banks are letting delinquent borrowers stay longer in their homes rather than adding to the glut of foreclosed properties on the market. New consumer protection laws, which vary by state, have also meant borrowers can spend more time in their homes.
A new wave of foreclosures could be coming in the second half of the year, especially if the unemployment rate remains high, mortgage-assistance programs fail, and the economy doesn’t improve fast enough to lift home sales.
“It’s not anything like a recovery yet,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing service.
…
Yawn…
National Home Values Continue to Fall in April 2010; Sales Likely to Dry up after Tax Credit Expiration
By Stan Humphries, Chief Economist, Zillow dot com
RISMEDIA, June 14, 2010—Homes values fell 0.38% nationally from March 2010 to April 2010 and were down 4.1% from their levels in April 2009 (see Figure 1) for monthly and annualized appreciation). The rate of monthly depreciation has remained fairly steady since January, albeit at rates slightly above October 2009 levels when we recorded the smallest month-over-month decline in recent years (-0.27%).
Homes values declined month-over-month in 87 (70%) of the 124 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) tracked by Zillow this month, and year-over-year declines (defined as a decline of more than 1%) in home values were recorded in 96 (77%) of the 124 metros. Foreclosure activity continued to increase nationally with 0.11% of homes in the U.S. being foreclosed in April.
The supply and demand picture continues to look challenging, to say the least. On the supply side, LPS and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) both recently came out with estimates of shadow inventory that put the number of REO homes on banks’ books at 1.1 million and the number of seriously delinquent mortgages and foreclosed homes in the range of 5 million. Zillow’s first quarter Homeowner Confidence Survey pegs the estimated number of sidelined sellers (sellers who are very likely to try to sell in the next 12 months if they see signs of market improvement) at 5.3 million homeowners. Data on mortgage applications from MBA and pending sales data coming in now from local markets suggests that housing demand plummeted after the expiration of the first-time home buyer tax credits at the end of April.
…
If you thought only California had pension issues, with its (supposedly) $500 bn pension deficit, think again.
But I’m sure there is no problem here that the Fed’s magic money tree and printing press technology cannot solve?
Pension Plans Go Broke as Public Payrolls Expand
Commentary by Joe Mysak
June 11 (Bloomberg) — Seven states will run out of money to pay public pensions by 2020. That hasn’t stopped them from hiring new employees.
The seven are Illinois, Connecticut, Indiana, New Jersey, Hawaii, Louisiana and Oklahoma, according to Joshua D. Rauh of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Combined, they added 9,700 workers to both state and local government payrolls between December 2007 and April of this year, says the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This number, 9,700, illustrates just how hard it is for political leaders to reduce headcount even as tax revenue declines, and even as the gap grows between what governments owe their workers in retirement pay and benefits and the amount they have on hand.
…
Reminds me of watching people drive on ice for the first time. The tires spin, the car sits there, so they figure the solution is to give it more gas.
All that happens is they use up a lot of gas and rubber, but still get nowhere.
Those political “leedorks” where the ones who invested the pension money into CDOs which caused the pension funds to break.
And they invested heavily.
I disagree with the writer:
The roots of the lack of housing market stabilization are
(1) government-sponsored housing price supports;
(2) the inability of prospective buyer’s income-constrained purchase budgets to hit government-inflated seller wishing prices.
The lack of comparable sales is a red herring, as there evidently are always fools with boxes of stupid who will buy if someone hands them a bucket of other people’s money, regardless of their level of ignorance regarding what housing should cost.
Lack of comparable sales data and foreclosures continue to put increased pressure on appraised values
Fri, 2010-06-11 10:49 — John Walsh
Family Home
It is becoming significantly more difficult for those attempting to sell or refinance a home to get an appraised value that meets lender requirements to qualify for a loan. This development is impacting borrowers’ abilities to purchase or refinance homes, and is slowing the stabilization of the housing market. The roots of this growing problem are a lack of comparable home sales data due to a reduction in the number of non-distressed home sales, and significant increases in the sales of foreclosed homes and short sales.
…
According to a recent study from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 35 percent of home sales in February and March 2010 were real estate-owned (REO) or short sales. Estimates on the number of REO houses on the market at the beginning of March range from 480,000 (Barclays Capital), to 750,000 (RealtyTrac). Additionally, Barclays Capital estimates that 4.6 million households are delinquent on their mortgage payments, and as a result foreclosures are likely to have a major impact on appraisals for some time to come.
The recent increase in home sales, largely due to the first-time homebuyer tax credits, could provide a short-term solution to the lack of comparable data. Home sales will be at increased levels through mid-summer, but are still far below peak activity of a few years prior. This temporary spike in home sales will provide short-term relief from the lack of comparable data, but without sustained sales, the problem will reoccur.
…
“It is becoming significantly more difficult… to get an appraised value that meets lender requirements to qualify for a loan.”
The REIC’s problem isn’t low appraisals. Clearly they’re running out of GFs!
This is very true. My cousin is selling my deceased Aunt’s lake home in Maine. I was interested in perhaps purchasing it, but it appraised way too high for my sensibilities. Of course, the appraiser had little to go on, by way of comps and was using properties that sold well over a year ago. I didn’t feel that was legitimate, but he put a disclaimer on the appraisal saying that these were the most recent comparable home sales in the area. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing…
That isn’t uncommon. Bought my first house in the middle of the last bust. The bank basically said it didn’t have any comps to go on. Was a large property though and had other features that made it hard to value.
A the time a 250K purchase seemed crazy though. With me and the X it was around 2x income.
We ended up putting down close to 50K and having to re-roof the place in a decade. Sold off a couple of the outlying acres for 50K as well. Still greater than 10 acres of property.
Had a hot tub, pool, pole barn, pastures, fencing… about 1800 sq ft.
Anyhow, left it all to the x. So much god dang work. It takes several hours to walk the perimeter of the property.
“Buy in 2012, or get priced out forever!”
Why not buy yourself ten houses in The OC, just to make sure that you take maximum advantage of the Great OC Housing Price Inflation just around the bend?
I had a telephone conversation w/ the writer several years back (maybe 2005)? He referred to people like me who thought real estate was going to crash as “bubble heads.” And for what it’s worth, I don’t believe Cagan has a degree in economics; but I guess he is just as entitled to call himself an “economist” as the other MSM-favored “experts” who keep telling us whenever things turn out “worse than (they) expected.”
Updated: June 12, 2010 10:53 a.m.
‘Double dip’ decline seen for housing
By JONATHAN LANSNER
Christopher Cagan is a veteran Southern California economist who is perhaps best known for his real estate analysis with title insurer First American. He now consults and operates the InvestmentMeasuers dot com investment-management Web site. We asked him what he’s seeing in the cards for the real estate market …
Us: What’s your thoughts on real estate going forward?
Chris : In the short to near term, I expect a double dip. This is the logical aftermath of the sugar shot from the Federal first time buyer tax credit. It borrowed buyers from the future, and we are now going into that future. Also we are not too far from the end of the traditional SoCal buying season. I have already seen asking prices reduced 5% or so in May from April.
But I don’t expect a catastrophic drop. To a great extent, prices and mortgage rates are now governed by the authorities — Fed, government, etc. This used to be called a “socialist” model. I really don’t see how 30-year mortgage rates can stay at 5%, but there they are. But 96% of all mortgages are now made/guaranteed by the government in one form or another. Mortgage rates are low, what I would consider a steal. Hence social policy has supported home prices and insisted that interest rates be low. Since we’re largely operating on a socialist rather than a market model, I don’t see home prices going down much more.
Us: Will this hold up all values?
Chris : The only exception is the high end, which I expect to keep falling, because jumbo mortgages can’t be passed on to Fannie/Freddie, and also because there are fewer move-up buyers (for instance when someone buys a foreclosure there is no seller to move up). But I do see a long, draggy, and bumpy bottom, extending through 2011 or even 2012. This will be an inventory-driven bottom, as the current and especially shadow inventory gets worked through. That includes resets, modifications that failed (quote a lot of them), unemployment driven sales and foreclosures, and so on. It will take a while to work through all of this and get back to “normal” market conditions.
Us: And Orange County?
Chris: I believe that Orange County will be the first to recover in real estate. It is the “first choice” area, and recovered early last time. People only went to the Inland Empire after they were priced out of OC, and the inland areas didn’t really catch on fire until 2003. That is, Orange County is the canary in the coal mine. A successful project will signal the beginnings of the next upturn. But we’re not there yet.
Us: So when does the ugliness end?
Chris: I see significant price rises starting in (or near) 2013 and going on for several years after that. It will begin in first-choice areas such as Orange County in particular, with second choice areas (Inland Empire) not catching on until later.
There are two reasons for this upcoming bull market. First, home prices in Southern California are cyclically undervalued. They were clearly overvalued in the boom (kept especially high by generous lending, which made such prices possible) but now they are below the 20 to 30 year trend line. I am telling my friends to buy. For some of them, if they don’t buy 2010-2012 they never will be able to buy.
…
Its different in the OC
That’s what Gary Watts used to regularly assure us, until he was heard no more. I personally have never put much stock in real estate forecasts, unless they are gloomy.
Orange County & California Real Estate Economic Forecasts and Relevant Real Estate Information
Gary Watts - Orange County Real Estate Economist
October 2007 ~ Gary Watts
The “Real” State of Real Estate
June 2007 ~ Gary Watts
Mid Year Economic Forecast - Report 2007
October 2006 ~ Gary Watts
Orange County Real Estate Outlook 2006 - 2007
July 28, 2006 ~ Gary Watts
Mid Year Economic Forecast 2006
March 7, 2006 ~ Gary Watts
Mid Year Economic Forecast 2006
December 2005 ~ Gary Watts
“Why the Housing Bubble is Bogus!”
I might be priced out forever!
Eventually I will be priced out forever since my income will be zero. Course I will be dead so my consumption will be zero; but that’s beside the point.
Nice catch.
@REhobbyist, I’m going to North San Diego or South OC. Not sure where just yet. However, expect the socialists in Cali will screw up the tax structure enough that the business moves out. Of course the military portion might go away as well.
Priced Out Forever would make a good epitaph.
+1
If California continues to go the way it is going, only the limousine socialists and the poor people will be living there. It would be a feudal system.
I’m a native Californian, and I first loved the beauty and variety of this state and second thought about the socialist policies of the last 40 years or so. The ashes of my parents are buried in California. But it is totally transformed into a third world nation by the socialist policies and I’m not sure if it’s worth sanctioning.
Ah, here we go again!
Housing prices will remain forever high, even if there’s nobody who can afford to buy them. That worked out so well last time, let’s do it again, but this time using taxpayer dollars to fill in the gap… argh!
“even if there’s nobody who can afford to buy them” LOL
( Re-gains composure )
Yes! Absolutely. The REIC has mandated that prices are high and shall remain so, regardless as to the impact on sales volume! You can’t just go around “giving it away” and WTF, ‘my’ reic’sta dream home is in foreclosure ANY damned way!
( Cuts off nose to spite face )
Now, certainly reic-stas should have privee to any “good deals” ( read potential for fraud ) and only the little people will have to pay retail. Without that high water mark hanging out there ( how do you expect ‘me’ to make any money? )
We sure as hell can’t do it from commissions! So no, you can’t take this from us.
“They were clearly overvalued in the boom (kept especially high by generous lending, which made such prices possible) but now they are below the 20 to 30 year trend line.”
This is pure comedy. As _if_ the “20 to 30 year trend line” means anything, given that at least the last 10yrs of it was pure bubbliciousness.
What would the trend-line look like if you subtracted out the bubble? Probably roughly the rate of real inflation (as opposed to reported).
Well one thing I agree on with him is “we’re operating on a socialist model.”
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are/were supposedly “private” firms with stock. The Federal Reserve is supposedly a consortium of “private” banks.
I disagree with him on the remark ” I am telling my friends to buy. For some of them, if they don’t buy 2010-2012 they never will be able to buy.”
Barry sez…We need Mo Money! Now back to the golf course.
Obama Appeals to Congress for $50 Billion in Emergency Aid
FOXNews.com
WASHINGTON — President Obama is pressing Congress to approve emergency aid money to support economic recovery and help avoid widespread layoffs of public workers, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
Congressional leaders received a letter from the president asking for almost $50 billion for distribution to state and local governments, saying that increased spending is “urgent and unavoidable,” the Post reported. The money would protect the jobs of teachers, police and firefighters.
“Because the urgency is high—many school districts, cities and states are already being forced to make these layoffs,” Obama wrote, “these provisions must be passed as quickly as possible.”
Congressional leaders received a letter from the president asking for almost $50 billion for distribution to state and local governments, saying that increased spending is “urgent and unavoidable,” the Post reported. The money would protect the jobs of teachers, police and firefighters.
Per the president, sounds like we’re entering crisis mode. How long do we have to wait before they take on the lavish pensions?
The states have burned through their money, how longer can they hide this fact? Most still don’t realize how much of the stimulus went to offsetting plummeting state/muni revenues.
The biggest joke of the past year has been at the state level. A few weeks ago I posted how my state reported an April revenue increase of ~$100M - but when the stimulus/stash money was taken out, April revenue was down over $1B y-o-y!
edge,
Hardly his biggest fan but Newt G. accurately described it as “a politician’s bailout”. What’s even uglier is I don’t see this changing any time soon?
They’re caught up in this voracious debt-cycle and they can’t get out of it. Kind of like when you can’t pay the int. on your payday loans.
My guess is that they’ll use this as the basis for taking on ever more “emergency powers” ( you know, for “the good of the order” and whatnot )
So long, guys. Business trip again this week.
Have fun storming the castle, boys….
I fight gangs for local charities and stuff.
I suppose anyone who points out the inanity of bubble reflation efforts is “storming the castle” in Polly’s view?
I suppose anyone who points out the inanity of bubble reflation efforts is “storming the castle” in Polly’s view?
No,…I think polly is a fan of Billy Crystal in The Princess Bride.
“Have fun storming the castle, boys…”
“Yes ma’am”
Alright guys , you heard her…
“No Prisoners !”
Can I have the stereo?
Official: Oil spill hasn’t reached Great Salt Lake (AP)
SALT LAKE CITY — Emergency workers believe they have stopped a 21,000-gallon oil leak from reaching the environmentally sensitive Great Salt Lake, one of the West’s most important inland water bodies for migratory birds that use it as a place to rest, eat and breed.
But the spill has taken a toll on wildlife at area creeks and ponds, coating about 300 birds with oil and possibly threatening an endangered fish.
The leak began Friday night when an underground Chevron Corp. pipeline in the mountains near the University of Utah broke. The breach sent oil into a creek that flows through neighborhoods, into a popular Salt Lake City park, and ultimately into the Jordan River, which flows into the Great Salt Lake.
The 10-inch pipeline was shut off Saturday morning, when workers at a nearby Veterans Administration building smelled oil and called the Salt Lake City fire department, which notified Chevron. The pipe carries crude oil from western Colorado to a refinery near the Salt Lake City International Airport.
Obama Faces Rare Defeat on Health Help for Jobless ~ USA Today
If Chuck Lacasse had gotten his pink slip four days earlier, Uncle Sam would have covered most of his family’s health insurance while he looked for a new job.
But Congress allowed emergency health care assistance for unemployed workers to expire May 31, and seems unwilling to renew it despite pleas from President Barack Obama.
Not three months after lawmakers passed his $1 trillion insurance overhaul, Obama is facing a rare defeat on health care at the hands of his own divided Democrats. Moderates have rebelled against adding billions more to the deficit in a treacherous election year.
“The same Congress that spent all this political capital trying to get people health insurance is going to take a crucial benefit away from unemployed people,” said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, which advocates for the unemployed.
Hold on a sec. I was told repeatedly by the MSM and Exter that ObamaCare would provide health coverage for everyone. You aren’t suggesting that the MSM and Exter were lying / full of s**t now are you?
Alright, you two have been at this personal attack thing for a couple of days now, so please give it a rest.
Comment by exeter
2010-06-13 10:10:11
“I grew up in the South”
No kidding Eddietard.
__________________________________
Sure, no problem.
Suddenly reminded of my Ex, and her typical response to polite pleas for good manners. Ugh.
It all started when he hit me back…
I heard a great story from an old friend recently. His (now) ex-wife tried her hardest to provoke him into hitting her — going so far as to first hit him in an attempt to provoke an attack. Rather than hit her, he took the attempt as the last straw before filing for divorce.
I have kids who play this game, too (one provokes the other into attacking, then cries to his Mom about how he was hit for no reason). You can’t divorce your brother until you grow up, though…
You are the last person who should be talking about people attacking people, PB.
How many people have you called a “troll”? Two dozen? Your ceaseless desire to chase away much opposing thought hasn’t gone unnoticed, either.
What am I missing here?
Eddietard, The fact that I’m nowhere to be found and you’re still talking about me speaks volumes. There is treatment for that obsessive compulsive disorder of yours.
My dad was a Marine. He was rather strict with me. No hitting your sister was a rule not to be broken. My sister used to like to provoke me and one time got to me by poking me in the ribs. I hit her once, not too hard, but she reeled back and started screaming like a drama queen. My dad asked me if I had indeed hit her as she claimed. I said “Yes Dad, and I hope I do not have to do it again.” He started laughing so hard that the case was closed.
Sis never poked me in the ribs after that.
Great going Blue Skye. I’m sure and your Marine dad have lots of great laughs sitting around bragging about all the women you’ve brutalized. Did the mom get a good black eye every now and then too?
I swear, this board attracts more abusive men than one can shake stick at.
‘How many people have you called a “troll”? Two dozen?’
I think I can list them all for you off the top of my head:
1. Eddie
2. Joey
3. Gekko
4. HedgeFundAnalyst
5. Antonio Villaraigoso
6. BeaConst
7. LV_Landlord
If there are any other trolls I have ever called out whom I have failed to include on my list, I apologize. And feel free to add to my list, eudemon if you can think up the other 17 I missed.
“I hit her once, not too hard, but she reeled back and started screaming like a drama queen.”
Interesting fact about my brood: The three brothers often hit each other, but none of them ever lays a hand on big sister. I have done nothing explicit to bring about this result, either; I think the boys are all somewhat afraid of her (and with good reason
).
“Your ceaseless desire to chase away much opposing thought hasn’t gone unnoticed, either.”
What I desire to chase away fails to qualify as thought IMAO. But anyone who disagrees with me and wants to keep making stoopid posts is free to do so.
eudemon,
I found myself falling into that very same trap. Rather than coming here to uh.., actually ‘learn’ something, it was all about “recruiting” other posters to ‘my’ way of thinking!
That’s when I had to take a break. I don’t take the Housing Bust anywhere’s ‘near’ as personal as I used to. In the end, there’s nothing ‘to’ take personal?
When you’re seeing “strawman arguments” under every bed and behind every door ( b/c they don’t suit your agenda? ) it’s time to take a step back. IMHO.
Sorry Big V, but I’ve known my share of abusive women as well. And there are plenty out there. I was almost killed by one.
Defending yourself IS an inalienable right.
“Sorry Big V, but I’ve known my share of abusive women as well. And there are plenty out there. I was almost killed by one.”
I can back that up from personal and second-hand experience.
- Ex-girlfriend once smacked me hard hard in the face out of the blue without warning for some perceived emotional provocation. This was the only instance of physical abuse by either of us over the course of our relationship, which ended shortly thereafter.
- If he hadn’t divorced her, my aforementioned friend’s wife was certainly going to kill him, either by physical violence or by draining his savings on her compulsive never-ending home improvement binge.
- I am guessing Glenn Close’s character in Fatal Attraction might not have been based on pure fantasy?
One more:
When I was twelve years old or so, my sister had a friend who was a couple of years older than me who frequently beat me up (I was trained to not hit girls, so I was basically defenseless) and who would then deride me for being a ‘pansy.’ She did it one time too often, and I hauled off and slugged her. She never bothered me again (and I have never hit a female since).
Main Entry: thought
past and past participle of think
According to René Descartes, thinking was sufficient to prove existence. Apparently, the converse fails in many cases.
“But anyone who disagrees with me”
Yeah, I used to feel that way too. My way or the highway. Sadly, this melt-down in creating more bad spin-offs than Seinfeld?
None of us can say where this fluke will flip-flop next. If someone wants to ( errantly ) challenge hard data, true, their on their own. I no longer pretend I can hear someone’s story “Should I Stay or Should I GO?” and give them an accurate assessment of their situation in 30 seconds or less?
In fact, the longer I track this debacle ( the ‘less’ I think I know? ) Any fans of the show “Lost” will tell you that comments that they made ‘about’ the show, wound up IN the show but they were always careful to put just enough of a plot twist on it so the writers could take credit!
We’re starting to have the same effect here. The MSM peruses the most populat HBB’s, inputs their spin and then of course the PTB make efforts to pre-empt THAT spin! I guess I’ve now evolved far enough along to admit I don’t know ‘everything’ ( and really, I’m ok with it ) I don’t feel like I have to be “ahead of the learning curve every step of the way” any more? Whatever happens is what happens.
“What I desire to chase away fails to qualify as thought IMAO.”
Thought? You mean that action eudaman or blano or whatever his name is completely incapable of ?
The existence of abusive women doesn’t justify the existence of abusive men. I’m just saying that this particular blog seems to have a higher percentage of openly abusive men then does the general public.
Ganging up against your daughter with your son is not good form.
V,
Having feminism thrown in our face on a regular basis brings out the troglodyte in some people.
I love women. I live with three of them. (Wife & daughters).
Any man who would hit a woman is a coward, self defense being an exception imo.
I disagree with your assessment.
Big V,
My sister was three years my senior and a foot taller than me and she had been bullying me for years. I was 9. Your accusation that I am an abusive man is ridiculous. My daughters would disagree with you. BTW, my father saw irony, and he believed me that I would rather it had not come to a blow, nor would again. BTW again, my sister would diusagree with you as well. You’ve got something stuck in your eye I think.
DinOR…….The MSM peruses the most popular HBB’s, inputs their spin and then of course the PTB make efforts to pre-empt THAT spin!
…..By the way, where is Ahansen these days. I always kind of wondered if she wasn’t some sort of “hired gun” who monitored blogs for some left wing group and tried to direct them in a different direction. I sort of liked her but I sure don’t miss the lengthy essays on our glorious leader etc. etc.
Oh Blue,
You’ve been getting in my craw for years now. Lots of boys have hit their sister, but few men actually log onto the internet to brag about the time when he and his dad laughed in her face over it.
And if you guys don’t want feminism to be “thrown in your face”, then stop making regular, hateful remarks about women on the internet. Shouldn’t be too hard, should it?
I’m not even saying that most of you are guilty of it, but a few of you are just infuriating with it. Don’t you know how to shut your mouths and demonstrate even the tiniest bit of self control?
And feel free to add to my list, eudemon if you can think up the other 17 I missed.
No reply … guess I covered all the trolls I have ever called out on the list above, then.
‘ObamaCare’ will be phased in over the next several years, and, of course, was watered down so it could be approved by Congress.
The reason current health care assistance for the unemployed is being curtailed is because of right wingers like yourself who are screaming about deficit spending.
Yet they keep writing checks for the wars.
then there are wingnuts like myself who say we can’t afford either.
“…we can’t afford either…”
Why can’t some combination of future economic growth and judicious use of the virtual printing press make them affordable?
Catfight!
Ereow! *hiss*
Fannie-Freddie Fix at $160 Billion With $1 Trillion Worst Case
(Bloomberg) — The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.
Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.
U.S. News & World Report says:
“Don’t count on the government. Washington rode to the rescue in 2008 and 2009, with bailouts, stimulus spending, and vast economic subsidies that kept the recession from being a lot worse. But there’s a limit to the levers Washington can pull, especially as the federal debt mushrooms and legislators get nervous about deficit spending. And many strapped state and local governments are now being forced to cut services and raise taxes. That means there will be a lot less help from the government to jolt a weak economy in the future, which could affect anybody who’s gotten tax breaks, extended unemployment insurance, a stimulus-supported job, or other government aid. Sooner or later, the U.S. economy needs to function without a government crutch, and that moment could arrive sooner than we want it to. So get used to it: You’re on your own.”
Little known fact: most Fortune 500 companies would be out of business (or much smaller) if it weren’t for the government crutch.
China hits back at U.S. pressure on yuan.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday hit back at fresh calls by the United States for Beijing to let the yuan currency rise in value, saying the exchange rate was not to blame for the U.S. trade deficit with China.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang was responding to a question about recent comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as well as calls from U.S. lawmakers to pass a bill threatening to press China over its yuan exchange rate controls.
“A huge amount of facts has demonstrated the renminbi exchange rate is not the main cause of the imbalance in Sino-U.S. trade,” Qin said in a statement on the Ministry’s website (www.mfa.gov.cn).
At some level, the CAUSE is that fact that Chinese workers are willing to work for less money. However, the SOLUTION is to pay them more by letting the currency float. This would effectively make them better paid by making the Renimbi that they’re paid in worth more. This would have the salutory effect of decreasing the payment imbalance that which has led to the Chinese having huge number of dollars to invest. This “big wad of cash,” pumped up the stock, bond, and housing markets and made it easier for the federal government to run persistant deficits.
Why doesn’t the USA just peg the dollar to the yuan at the exchange
rate the USA would like. I know this would be a circular reference but it sure would be fun to watch.
I think that is the definition of a black hole?
Because they’d retaliate by stopping the purchase of treasury debt.
Willy, you’re a genius!!!
I’m surprised no one commented on this piece in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times:
http: //www. latimes.com/business /realestate /la-fi-lew-20100613,0,7268736.story
“Sooner or later, the economy will rebound, jobs will return and new households will form. When that time comes, however, there might not be enough housing to accommodate all the new family formations.”
“Sooner or later, the economy will rebound, jobs will return……..”
Maybe, maybe not. At least within a time frame that will have any meaning to someone currently of working age.
J6P can’t get his head around how fast things are changing. People who are in the top 5% can do things at a much higher “velocity” than the regular working guy. When you have the resources, you can go door-to-door anywhere in the lower 48 in less than 5 hours, or anywhere in the civiliized world in less than 24. You can manage a business in India or China from your desktop. You can take somebody else’s product, reverse engineer it, and make copies of it in a couple of weeks, if you are motivated.
The new business model in the US is “Systems Integrator”. You design it here using contract engineering, farm out the subassembly work worldwide to the lowest bidder, ship the pieces to a final assembly point (preferably subsidized by state/local government), where a small group of highly trained people (preferably with their training paid-for by state/local government) assembles and functionally tests the product.
Of course, this leaves a lot of people out of work, with no realistic hope of finding any within a meaningful time frame. The challenge for the PTB is how they are going to ease a huge chunk of the population, including many with college educations, back into the sharecropper shacks and tenements without rioting. Remember, these people own a lot of guns.
The last thing the PTB want, is for the serfs to figure out how badly (intentionally, or by incompetence) the national economy had been mismanaged.
So you start muddying the waters, by having so-called economists/soothsayers say stuff like “Globalization may cause some dislocations, but we didn’t need those jobs anyway”, “Some people will get screwed, but we’ll be better for it all in all”, “The economy will get better eventually, because it always has before”, and “House prices nationally have never gone down”.
Saying stuff like this and getting away with it is a lot easier than it used to be, since “investigative journalism” in the US nowadays means doing stories on defective Happy Meals, and figuring out who owns the “Schlong of the Month” on the latest celebrity porn video (released by the ex- BF of course).
Just once I’d like to hear one of the Masters of the Universe say something like: “You know, offloading a big chunk of our manufacturing base to places like Mexico and China was not such a good idea after all. We saved $5 dollars/unit on manufacturing costs, at the expense of destroying our biggest customers and transferring our technology to a competitor.”
“You know, offloading a big chunk of our manufacturing base to places like Mexico and China was not such a good idea after all. We saved $5 dollars/unit on manufacturing costs, at the expense of destroying our biggest customers and transferring our technology to a competitor.”
Ross Perot said this 20 years ago…
Yes he did. “That giant sucking sound…”
Did he ever nail it.
Maybe when the age of instant gratification is long dead in memory, we will think about sustainability. And we will think about the politicians who become rich on a measley salary.
Looking at this… not to be all doom and gloom. Possible we will eventually figure out what to do with ourselves.
All of the technological increases just give us more and more spare time.
Part of what you are describing as a problem comes from pricing and perverse incentives from socialist policies. One of the big socialist policies is debt and deficit spending.
So, instead of prices on produced goods dropping to a point that people can afford them, we replace that income with debt and government created demand.
I have this libertarian bent and struggle with trade issues. Probably because I’m a bit of an ultra-nationalist as well. I’ve seen the same thing you did, all this technology transfer over to china/mexico/india/japan/germany… I don’t think its a good thing. Those are some ancient cultures and they have a lot of aspects I just don’t like.
Kind of like letting the mexican’s into the usa in mass. Well, the guys down in space B really messed up their own habitat. They are comming up here and bringing their mess with them.
Reminds me of the Roman empire. In history the energy of the people got sapped by socialist programs, no drive to do anything. Meanwhile they let a lot of foreigners into the military. What happened to them? Empire crumbled. Took a long time but it did.
Similar expect charges of racism too. Fine. More to the point is what these cultures bring with them. Ever been to Mexico, China or Japan? The amount of discrimination you’d face there would be 10x anything you face in the US. These guys are bringing there nationalism and there discrimination with them. Hence why law enforcement is always having a big challenge in places like LA.
I guess with all these things, if done in slower doses and carefully you don’t have a problem. We don’t have that.
And China… well… if these guys mean well Exeter is a Republican.
One of the big socialist policies is debt and deficit spending.
So…Reagan was one of America’s biggest socialists?
BINGO!
I think I posted about it a few weeks back. If you remember Reagan ran up a lot of govt spending and debt. Went to the military. All well fine and good. Still had the Soviets to deal with.
There were a bunch of posters commenting about GDP going up under Reagan. I mentioned that cutting taxes and increasing spending ended up causing a bunch of inflationary bubbles. The GDP going up was just inflation.
Stock market and real estate. While it was running up it felt good. It deflated under Bush 1. Like I said, we punished that congress and Bush in the elections and we might have had a chance to get out of the debt spiral. Not that I am Bush 1 fan either.
However, Rubin under Clinton and Greenspan also managed to seed another bubble. Plenty of other helpers too. Again we alll partied as the debt grew until it popped under Bush2. Again people look at the time under Clinton and think something magical happened.
Real fiscal conservatives are rare. Generally they don’t get elected because they often enact deflationary policies. So, you might get GDP contraction in the short term even if it sets you up for a better long term situation. Not to mention you make people taste the bad medicine stuff.
As usual I said it is interesting… the world is often a backwards place.
You spend like a fool in Vegas and run up debt and feel rich. Spend your time working and saving and you feel poor.
Spend your time in sloth and indulging feel great. It’s easy.
Diet and exercise are hard discipline.
Other great things going on….
Deregulate some industry for short term profits. Stocks jump!
Print some money and get excited about stock market gains! Then complain about price inflation.
Have really unhealthy lifestyles… complain about healthcare costs.
Reagan was the beginning of the end. We are living the end game.
I agree eco. Ronny had a sack full of titanium which was sorely needed at the time. He outspent the russians and broke their economic back. Now is when we get our backs broken.
I think the current bunch make Reagan and Tip O’Neill look like a pikers.
james,
( And excellent post btw GS-Fixr! )
I happen to believe that “something to do with ourselves” is ramping up your own ‘personal’ understanding of what sustainability will mean to each and every one of us in retirement!
Yeah, no fooling. Obviously if you’re “hooked up” be it in the pvt. sector or what you ‘think’ is a secure pub. sector job, then you haven’t a thing to worry about!
For the ahem, ‘rest’ of us, I suggest we start learning about how using solar, rain catchment and innovative heating techniques etc. and let that become your new “passion”. There’s a consenus here that ret. will look very different for us than preceeding generations. Yet very few of us are taking strides to any thing about it?
If we think we’ll be able to maint. the same std. of living we had while in the workforce, well who are we kidding?
I think you guys are over stating things in the extreme. We are in bad shape BUT manufacturing is rebounding at least slightly.
As I’ve mentioned, I think this is the imbalance trying to correct itself. Wages are down and prices for CRE and RE are down. Hence building a business in the US of A just got cheaper. A lot.
When we talked about this whole crisis a while back I said it would take a while for new businesses to form and then demand to change along with spending patterns.
Everyone loves inflation in incomes but hates the corresponding higher prices. Perhaps some of what GSfixer is seeing is fledgling recovery just that he hates that his income has dropped. Being a contractor is temporary but expected right now. As things stabalize and business trends become more clear I expect contracting to turn into regular employment unless he finds better wages contracting.
Prices are still messed up in healthcare, a major complaint for everyone. Well what is happening there? Wide spread socialism is distorting the price? GWB and the pubs threw money at it with medicare/medicaid/PDB with abandon. Buying the grey vote. Public employee unions throw money at it.
What do you hear? Something that sounds like BUY NOW OR BE PRICED OUT FOREVER. Maybe all the marginal treatments and unneeded procedures are the granite countertops of healthcare? Similar over improvement on the system.
Again, hard to understand the situation because of the MASSIVE PRICE DISTORTIONS cause by GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION. As the Hayek would say you can’t determine economic cost in a socialist system. Hence we can’t tell what it would cost to train doctors, what medicine is really needed or how to cut costs.
Big question for the future will be how do we extract ourselves from this mess and have we caused a currency collapse?
While there is the potential for a collapse it could be a while yet. Biggest problem we have is probably oil. Where do we got most of our oil from?
1)Canada
2)Mexico
3)Saudi
4)Venezuela
5) Nigeria
I think Iraq will be moving up the list.
Oil is a finite resource. it’s going to get expensive soon. However there is a lot of other good news. We have coal and plenty of it. Wind power is improving and getting cheaper. Wind is really cheap and I’m thinging it will not run out soon. There is also plenty of uranium. Further we can build a lot more solar if we have to. Not a great option but we can do it.
There are a lot of potential technological advances as well. I think Li-air batteries will be a reality in less than 10 years. Then you are talking about 200 mile range electric vehicles. Possible even more than that.
We also aren’t that careful with stuff like insulation for homes. I think we can get an order of magnitude better than we are currently seeing.
Sit back. Enjoy the ride and relax.
If your child is posing for Playboy, relax she is probably uber hot and will produce some grandkids for you. I don’t have a big moral judgement on that kind of thing.
james,
Again, some excellent points. My wife works for a med. technology company. They are laying people off AND hiring! Sometimes in the same week.
The ppl that have been let go have either stayed in the industry.., or they’ve moved on after finding that working in a clean room env. ( just wasn’t for ‘them’? )
So right, this violent stormy period strains the definition of chaotic!? And like yourself, I’ve completely worn myself out trying to figure each and every detail. It really isn’t that damned important any more.
We -wanted- a Bust and by God now we’ve got one! Then you have a lot of us second guessing each and every facet like some picky kept woman on a shopping spree criticizing each new development life inferior merchandise? It just doesn’t work that way.
And one day, if we don’t stop this migration to cars, the entire horse and buggy industry will be wiped out as well. And we can’t have that now can we?
Every generation as new technologies arrive people get scared. This is no different. Relax, we’ll be OK.
Eddie,
Could you be so kind as to post the link to your favorite on-line pharmacy?
So, what does your crystal ball show?
About 30% of the people in my field have been laid off in the last two years. Those that have found new jobs are either contractors with no pricing power, or are working for 30-40% less than they were two years ago. And I’m in a business where the US is still #1 in the world.
The people that own these airplanes evidently know something that us peons don’t. The used aircraft sales market was picking up 6 months ago, but within the past 30-45 days, you can hear the sound of wallets slamming shut again.
“Relax, it will be okay” is what the Globalists/Survival of the Fittest crowd has been saying for 30 years.
My 20 year old kid asked me a few days ago what I would think if she posed for Playboy. Twenty years ago, I’d say “no way in hell”. Now, I don’t know what to tell her.
It seems that the cost/benefit ratio of being a worthless skank is a lot higher than it used to be. And it pays a hell of a lot better than any respectable field she can reasonably get into at this point in time.
Then, should this not be the benefit/cost (not cost/benefit) ratio is much higher today?
“About 30% of the people in my field have been laid off in the last two years. Those that have found new jobs are either contractors with no pricing power, or are working for 30-40% less than they were two years ago”
Or put another way, your field’s people were 30-40% overpaid 2 years ago and the market has corrected. This is a good thing.
X-GS,
Oh I know you’d -still- tell her no way in HELL! ( but I get your point )
In the gossip rags they were talking about this gal that was on Real Housewives and now ’she’ has a s*x tape out! Evidently the reporter felt it would actually do well b/c there’s an actual… ‘individual’ involved.
( Apparently there’s so much free smut out there for free it’s hard to even make a living doing ‘that’ any more? ) What has… the world come to?
Two-three years ago, everybody in the business was worrying about how they were going to staff all their open positions, without paying anyone any money.
The MBA Masters of the Financial Universe at my former employer decided last year that they would be better off throwing me out on the street, instead of keeping me on staff or paying me a retainer of some kind until they got the airplane sold.
I was “overpaid” from their point of view, until they got the $200,000-plus bill from Pratt and Whitney, because they stuffed the airplane in a hangar, and didn’t maintain it per the Maintenance Manual.
Flying activity is down 40% across the board, compared to 2007-2008 (fuel sales, charter activity, new airplane sales, parts, maintenance). All kinds of businesses in the US are seeing similar drops in activity.
JMO, but I’m betting even you would have a hard time finding a new job in that kind of environment.
Eddie:
Globalization is not new, and it’s not a technology. It’s just a new-fangled term to describe good-old currency arbitrage. It has been a theft.
Big V:
You’re right. Nothing new about any of it. It’s a combination of globalization and new technology displacing old technology and along with it, old technology employment. Or put another way, people making $73 an hour working at GM plants are doomed to the dust bin of history. Not when a car can be assembled by a Chindian for $7.30 an hour or a robot can do the same assembly for a fraction of the cost.
And it’s the exact same thing that happens every generation. In the ealy 1980s the Japanese were the big bad foreign villains. Now it’s the Chinese. And of course over the past 10-15 years the Mexicans have been added to the roster of those who are “stealing our jobs”. George Lopez has a great line about that….if a Mexican stole your job, then your life is pretty damn s**ty to begin with.
There are 2 types of people. Type one reacts to change by embracing it and staying ahead of the change. Type fights the change in a fool’s errand to try and stop the change. Think of society as someone selling a house in 2007. Type 1 person looked at the prices asked by the neighbor and asked 10% less for his house knowing the market will soon be 20% lower. That’s embracing change. The stubborn Type 2 person fought kicking and screaming claiming his house is worth 20% more and ended up selling for 30% less.
Change, it’s not just an empty political slogan from 2008.
Yeah, so when we change our economy from its current (stupid) global state to a better (more protectionist) one, then you will embrace that, right?
Ironically, the migration to cars created a s#!tload of manufacturing jobs.
Exactly. Just like the migration from manufacturing to knowledge workers created a whole bunch of new - and better - jobs.
Nailed it X-GSfixr.
It is true that new housing construction is far down below the levels that have been considered low for the past half century. Eventually that would create balance all else equal.
What is not equal, however, is that existing oversized units might be subdivided, or household formation might stay negative as families include multiple generations, because we are poorer.
But since we have an oversupply of housing, there’s little impetus to subdivide current housing, just pressure for the price to fall further.
there’s little impetus to subdivide current housing, just pressure for the price to fall further
I think the cost of upkeep and utilities would provide impetus. Imagine paying to cool a 4000sq ft house in Texas vs a 1500 sq ft one?
Well, it’d better be sooner rather than later because the clock’s ticking on the older boomers. Once they hit the retirement homes and begin cashing out their investments en masse, all bets are off for keeping prices up.
Wall St. already cashed out their retirements for them.
Uh-oh, better buy now or be priced out forever. AHAHHHAhahhahahahah.
“Sooner or later… jobs will return…”
That’s where I stopped reading. There have been less jobs as a percentage of the population after every recession since the 1980s. And even less jobs that pay a living.
You are making the same mistake as people made in the boom except to the flip side.
Basically an over simplification of a trend here.
Love the new ‘Bama health care. Talking to many health care people and friends who tell me more and more Dr’s are dropping ‘Medicare’ patients and they don’t know what to do. Some are seeing cutbacks in staffing at the same time.
One of my sisters is an RN she tells me that over-time never used to be a problem at the hospital she works for. But for the last year they have avoided paying any over-time like the plague.
The health care industry is just waking up to the fact that nobody can afford to pay their prices anymore. Especially all of us newly-minted “contractors” with no insurance.
Makes you wonder where this stampede of people going back to school for degrees/training in health-care fields are going to work. Especially if medical tourism to India takes off. (Half the doctors around here are from India anyway……)
“……in other words, it’s a great big $hitt sandwich, and we’re all going to have to take a bite……”
>>The health care industry is just waking up to the fact that nobody can afford to pay their prices anymore.<<
I can always get in to see my family doctor the day I call for an appointment. Not too many years ago the wait was a long as 2 weeks. And when I go in, most of my fellow patients are geezers on Medicare. If they drop those folks they’ll lose half their customers.
My dentist is cold-calling me.
They are “losing money” taking Medicare patients.
Maybe they can make up for it on volume.
X-GS,
And ‘mine’ is driving me up a wall! I get a mailer reminding me to “take advantage of your benefits” and get that cleaning scheduled today!
Then I have to pass him on the way to the office nearly every day. The parking lot is barren most of the week.
I’ve started getting “newsletters” from mine…….has stories about clinical studies (paid for by the ADA/dentist’s union) proving that expensive dental care prevents heart attacks, high blood pressure, heartbreak of psoriasis, erectile dysfunction, etc.
This is the same guy that told me (at age 45) that I needed to get braces, or all my teeth were going to fall out.
Dentists/orthodontists are one of the biggest rackets around. They’ve got every soccer mom in America convinced that they are guilty of child abuse, if they don’t spend ten grand on braces and appliances. It’s amazing the human race survived, with all these crooked teeth.
Try going to a new dentist sometime. Every last one of them will tell you that any previous work you have had done is crap, and you need to start a five year rehab plan to “correct all the problems”.
I’ve started getting “newsletters” from mine…….has stories about clinical studies (paid for by the ADA/dentist’s union) proving that expensive dental care prevents heart attacks, high blood pressure, heartbreak of psoriasis, erectile dysfunction, etc
Before I fired my dentist, I was getting the same newsletters. And I was just as annoyed as X-GSfixr.
BTW, at this past Saturday’s health fair, I got the very same perfunctory exam that I used to get at Dr. Pricey’s office. Y’know, the one that came at the end of the almost-$200 cleaning appointment.
Any-hoo, I told the dentist that I had a sort spot where one of my teeth meets the gum line. I’ve had this problem before, and back at Dr. Pricey’s office, the solution was to brush and floss. That seemed to be their solution to almost everything. (And I’ve been a devoted brusher and flosser for years.)
Well, this past Saturday morn, the guy asked me if, maybe-just-maybe, I was using a bit too much pressure when I brushed my teeth. I allowed that such a thing might be a possibility.
After the fair, I went home, had breakfast, and brushed my teeth using a very light touch. Well, that sore spot wasn’t sore anymore. Hasn’t troubled me since then — unless I went back to my bad old ways and leaned too hard on the toothbrush like I did after lunch today.
So, three cheers for the health fair dentist!
Comment by X-GSfixr
2010-06-14 07:32:14
My dentist is cold-calling me.
_________
How can **your** dentist be cold calling you? The definition of a cold call is a call to a lead/stranger, not to an existing client/customer.
My dentist calls me every 6 months and reminds me of my checkup. That’s not cold calling. And it is nothing new. Heck, my vet calls me every x amount of months reminding me of the vaccines my pets need. Again, not cold calling, and not related to the economy.
I can’t wait until an independent study tells us in 10-15 years that all that brushing and flossing was actually damaging our teeth and gums.
X-GS,
Too funny. I guess I’ll quantify that by saying.., “It’s their desperate ‘tone’ that really alarms/annoys me!”
Yes, I realize I need to come in every so often, but when I don’t respond to the ‘first’ mailer ( were the subsequent FOUR really necessary? ) If I -didn’t- have dental coverage, would you be hounding me as much?
f I -didn’t- have dental coverage, would you be hounding me as much?
I can tell you, as someone who hasn’t paid for dental insurance since, oh, I don’t think I ever had, you don’t get as much marketing material sent your way.
Something about paying your own way. You’re a lot more attuned to price. And the people at the doc’s and dentist’s offices know it.
The sh1t sandwich goes better with a little bit of garnish. I like parsley and cilantro.
The health care industry is just waking up to the fact that nobody can afford to pay their prices anymore. Especially all of us newly-minted “contractors” with no insurance.
See my previous comment about Saturday’s health fair. In addition to the Medicare-eligible people, there were a lot of younger people who fell into the contractors with no/lousy insurance.
Oops, my bad. That comment’s not a previous comment. It’s down below.
“My dentist is cold-calling me.”
My doctor cold-called me! Said it was time for a physical…
Yup. Go ahead and refuse the Medicare, doc. We’ll see what happens when you have to compete for patients on the OPEN MARKET because none of us have insurance. You’ll be begging to get your old Medicare business back.
Exactly. But we can only hope, and I gave up that up a long time ago as a waste of time.
It will be interesting to see if the new economy will substantially reduce the non critical health care industry, face lifts, hair transplants, boob jobs, laser surgery, orthodonics. I have to think that if you are upside down in your house, the cards are maxed and you are staring at the potential of unemployment, $5,000 for each kids braces may take a back seat. When my kids were in jr. high, I would venture that 90% of the kids had braces (including mine), hellofa racket.
Talking to many health care people and friends who tell me more and more Dr’s are dropping ‘Medicare’ patients
And what expanding their practice with the ever increasing insured population??
Obama care hasn’t even started so arguements like this are BS.
Now congress may not patch the medicare spending bill which will mean a 21% pay cut for MD’s this has been a problem over years. Medicare also changed billing rules which cut pay for consultants, but this also has been in the works for a long time.
Note that big pharma still gets handed the gravy and I expect this to continue. Medicare prescription drug plan was a big boondoggle for big pharma. This is where health care costs are growing the fastest but they make the cuts in physician and hospital payments. We need to tackle Big pharma costs ie
hyperexpensive drugs with marginal efficacy.
Agree.
Medicare was screwed long before Obama was elected. I worked as a health care consultant probably about 15 years ago…the reimbursements that Medicare paid to hospitals then were significantly less than what private insurers paid then, and it hasn’t gotten better since. Eventually, the impact of such policies (paying doctors very little for taking care of Medicare patients) was going to result in doctors dropping those patients.
The rubber is going to hit the road soon on health care costs in this country. It isn’t going to be pretty.
Big Pharma, Insurance companies, and the Medical/Industrial complex could have chosen to help with a solution. Instead, they screamed “socialism” and fought like hell to keep the status quo. And why not? They were making money by the wheelbarrow load. From their perspective, the “free market” worked.
Alfred E. Newman, MD… “What, me worry?”
Fastest growing company locally is in the health care field. Do they make medicine?…..no. Do they do research, to improve care or reduce costs?…….no.
They design/develop software to send bills to Medicare and Insurance companies faster, with fewer coding errors.
We need to tackle Big pharma costs ie hyperexpensive drugs with marginal efficacy.
Agreed.
A relative was put on high blood pressure medication. I don’t know how well it’s controlling her BP, but she’s had a chronic cough ever since she went on the stuff. It’s gotten to the point that, when we’re on the phone, she’s had to ring off because she was coughing so hard.
I suppose that, if she told her doctor about this problem, she’d be put on yet another drug.
It’s a side effect of some of the BP drugs.
It happened to me for a while, but I did something that seemed to reduce it significantly. Can’t remember what, though…..
Bad memory = BP med side effect?
I had it happen to me, coughing all the time and severe too. People in my office weere worried abt sitting next to my office. My Doc changed the medication. It vanished immediately. (changed from lisonopril to diovan)
I went on south beach diet for 6 months(one week a month for 6 months) Lost some 20+ lbs
Got off the medication for abt a two months now.
45 min yoga in morning, 30 min walk during lunch and 1 hor bike/swim in the evening. Getting better everyday
desi dude!
Good for you! Ain’t it great being on that ’side’ of life? I used to -never- make time for myself. Now that I do, my only regret is not having done it sooner.
I will say though, losing the weight gets a little trickier every damn winter. I used to drink Natural Light ( at the time the lowest Cal. beer out there! ) I saw immediate improvement, along with some pretty rigorous work-outs.
Then they came out with Miller 64. Got on that bandwagon for the weekends. Now Bud has one out that’s only 55 calories. Still, the gods conspire against you! Every time you make changes/improvements in your lifestyle ( old age keeps creeping up on you! ) Stay with it man!
DinOR, I’d rather take ten years off my life and drink honest-to-goodness beer than drink that watered down imposter stuff.
That is a known side effect of Lisinopril, if that is what she is taking. Very annoying to say the least.
21% reduction in fees, no problem, spend 21% less time with the patient, or better yet, delegate most of the work to your nurse practitioner. Dr. can manage a reduction in fees with no problems.
I know at my doc, 90% of the work is done with NPs or PA’s but the billing rate is the same.
I was at a health fair on Saturday morning. At age 52, I was one of the younger people there. Most of the people appeared to be Medicare-eligible.
Which tells me that, even now, a lot of people are falling through the cracks.
Most people have no idea how bad it really is in the real world.
And the ironic thing was, this was the nicest crowd of people I’ve been part of in a long time. Not just the people standing in line with me, but the health care people who were there to check us over. I only wish that more of my experiences with the local health care system were like this.
A while back I had to have an emergency root canal (not sure there’s any other kind). The dentist & her assistant told me they were just back from doing a health fair type thing for people who needed but couldn’t afford dental work. They treated dozens of people who had been suffering for way too long. Restored some of my faith in humanity. Toothaches (the kind where you want to take the pliers and yank out your own tooth) are unbearable - and getting them properly taken care of isn’t cheap.
Went to the doc with an upper respiratory infection. I just needed some high test cough syrup (the goooood stuff). But they said they had to do a influenza test on me. So they did a swab and sent it off to the lab. The lab had my insurance wrong, so they sent me a “full retail price” bill for the lab work. They managed to perform 7 tests on two snot blobs, and sent me a bill totaling $402. Of course when it was submitted to the correct insurance company, the price was “adjusted” to $100 and a little, of which I had to pay $30. But, had I been joe uninsured, off the street, I would have been on the hook for the $402.
I called the lab and they told me they couldn’t discuss the tests with me, I would have to call the doc. So, I called the PA, and asked if they really ordered seven tests for what was obviously a viral respiratory infection. She said she really did not know what variety of tests the lab would run, just the usual screening. Sheesh, and we wonder why medical costs are amok.
This just isn’t right.
134-year-old oyster company stops shucking.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — P&J Oyster Company, a 134-year old operation in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter, has stopped shucking.
The company processes and distributes oysters. A big part of its business was shucking oysters out of their shells, but that has been killed off by the BP oil spill. Fewer oysters are being farmed in the oil-stained waters of the Gulf of Mexico. So P&J Oyster has no oysters to shuck.
“My son — who is delivering oysters right now — he asked me yesterday, ‘Should I go apply for food stamps?’ ” said Al Sunseri, president and co-owner of P&J Oyster. “I started here when I was 21, and I remember how I wanted to carry on the tradition of our business and I remember the feeling of not only the pressures of trying to carry on this long-standing business but also the opportunity that I had to do it.”
Oyster shuckers are paid by the piece and typically make between $16 and $24 an hour depending on how skilled they are, according to Al Sunseri. Thursday was the last day P&J Oyster did any shucking, and 11 shuckers didn’t have a job to report to on Friday.
The market for black pearls must not be what it once was.
I wonder how many oysters you needed to shuck to earn $24 an hour.
All we need now is a “certain someone” to dish out some tough love for these people that obviously have no ability to ‘adapt’ as the economy changes!
Bunch a’ losers is all.
/off
“Kenneth Cowden relied on digital photographs and a flair for creative fiction to write up $137 million worth of false property appraisals over five years.
For a while, Cowden, 58, formerly of Coraopolis, used the identification of a dead man to continue the scam, according to federal court papers. Then he doctored photos on a computer to make dog-eared houses appear stellar to lenders.
Cowden altered digital photographs, prosecutors said. He made a mobile home look like a ranch-style house by adding grass to cover up concrete blocks holding it up. At other times, he removed fire damage and deleted awnings to make businesses look like homes.”
www dot pittsburghlive dot com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_685798.html
Fraud just seems like too much work.
But he didn’t have to shuck oysters!
Oh…kay..? Most of us here have worked that hard and not come close to racking up those kinds of profits. Fraud has been berry berry good to me!
Again, when you look at the sheer amount of Tomfoolery that was allowed to transpire it boggles the mind.
Most of us here have worked that hard and not come close to racking up those kinds of profits. Fraud has been berry berry good to me!
Read William K. Black’s book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. It’s about control fraud, which, in essence, means gaining control of a business, then plundering it for your own gain. Think 1980s-era savings and loans and Enron, and you’ve got the idea.
I am thinking of buying some property on Mississpi gulf coast and holding it for about 15 year. Does anyone think I can get a good price now?
J/k
I pray for the families who make their living on the waters of the Gulf. It is just sad that industries are being destroyed left and right. With no concern for the families who depend on those jobs.
“…..industries are being destroyed left and right…….”
Which is different than the last 20-30 years?
Right?
It’s so easy to tell who is young or sheltered or a sock puppet around here, isn’t it?
In a sense, that part of the world is “reverting to the mean”. It’s always been a tough row for them, historically speaking.
Buy it and then sue BP if it goes down in value…
I think I may due that. Heck if you can sue to get out of a mortgage then you can sue for loss value. Isn’t America great or what.
Write back when you get out of middle school and let us know how things worked out for you.
Guys, don’t laugh. Within months of Katrina hitting, Yankee floppers were coming out of the woodwork. I’m sure had you gone to the SDCIA ( San Diego Creative Investor’s Assoc. ) someone there was advocating it!
Remember, by late ‘05 the equity locusts were running out of markets to keep the Rolling Bubble/ponzi alive.
I’ve been giving some serious thought to moving to the Asheville, North Carolina area, if the crude makes its way into Tampa Bay and starts stinking out the joint. Also, while it is always hot in Florida during the summer, the heat this year is particularly vicious rather early on. I’ve been reading a lot of stuff on line, the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of the area, but if anyone has any information about the Asheville area, or even living in North Carolina in general, please post. One of the shocking aspects was the taxes, I didn’t realize they were so high and that there were so many of them. Sale tax, state income tax (which we don’t have here in Florida) taxes on vehicles (one poster said they pay $800 a year for their car?????!!!!) property tax, etc. etc. Sound like New York, fer chrissakes. Also I guess there’s a big drug and homeless problem in the Asheville area and much panhandling in the city. Not much in the way of jobs, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem for me, though, although I like to pick up the occasional part time gig. On the positive side, great scenery, good hiking trails, fresh mountain streams and rivers and lakes. Good dining, though I don’t eat out much. Very chi-chi shopping, lots of psuedo-intellectuals. Some aspects sounded more like San Francisco than a Southern city.
Southern Virginia is nice too. Its a little more “country” in culture, though, but cost of living is relatively cheap. Its a popular retirement spot for middle class Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers.
I lived in the Raleigh-Durham area for many years.
Sales tax & income tax around 7%. You pay property tax on your car, something like 1% of the book value. Property taxes vary by location. Durham was 0.5% while Durham county was 0.8%. So if you live in the county you only pay the 0.8%. If you live in the city you pay both taxes. Corollary: find a place in the county.
Genrally property valuations are MUCH lower than in Florida. In Durham $300K buys you a very nice place on an acre 10 miles from work. In Miami not so much.
Asheville is pretty expensive, lots of rich pensioners with more money than sense. Unless you’re in geriatric care it’ll be hard to find a job in Asheville. If you actually need a job the Raleigh-Durham area is pretty nice.
The area just north of Winston-Salem is very nice. Mountains, lakes and real estate is dirt cheap. Winston-Salem itself is a bit of a mess, a dying mill & tobacco town. Not many good jobs.
Thanks, Mike, very constructive. What area of North Carolina has all the pig farms, because I want to avoid that.
And not to be an alarmist, but living in Florida right now, especially anywhere near the coast, it might be a darned good idea to look at alternatives. Never thought I’d hear myself say that, but the viciousness of the heat right now is a real “take notice”. I’m not in the global warming camp, but I do think the Gulf oil spill has a little something to do with this. I’m not a scientist, but you don’t have to be one to know the basics of what oil can do. One of the NBC reporters was standing in a shallow pool of oil in Louisiana and commenting on how hot it was, and how it was cooking the birds, literally, and how he could feel the heat through his boots. When the hot sun hits that crap, it ain’t pleasant. I’d also be willing to bet that a widespread sheen of oil on the Gulf prevents evaporation, reflects heat, etc. I’m sure it has an effect on the weather and temperature. All this has got me to thinking. I can live through economic down times, normal summer heat, aftermath of hurricanes, etc. Extreme heat, pollution and stench is another matter.
Yeah, I suspect that the reduced evaporation from the huge amounts of area covered by “sheen” has a greater effect that of increased solar heating on the smaller (but still large) areas covered by thick, dark layers of oil. As someboy elsewhere said, “the dose makes the poison,” and there is a huge difference between putting two drops of 5w30 in your morning coffee and a whole tablespoon. We really don’t know what the effects of this amount of spilled oil will be.
I’m with you on the Florida heat this year. Totally unbearable. Usually it’s in the low 90s but it’s been in the mid to high 90s for much of the month now with little afternoon rain until about yesterday.
Just 3-5 degrees makes a huge difference when the dew point is in the mid 70s.
I will be interesting to see how the Arizona and New Mexico monsoons are affected by the oil slick. Most of the moisture that drives the summer storms is circulated from the gulf. I’m not a weatherman, I saw this on a NatGeo special on the Grand Canyon. Stands to reason if the moisture cannot evaporate, the storms my be fewer. OTOH, the gulf is very big, and the slick is relatively small.
Palmy-
I’m in Charlotte now. As you know, I used to live in Clearwater but got out before the RE boom and the ‘04 hurricane season.
NC does have some fairly high tax rates. The state income tax tops out around 8%, but property taxes aren’t that bad. In most areas I’d guess the property tax rate runs around .75 to 1.2% of the value of your real estate. This is also applied toward your automobile.
NC has 3 geographic regions: the mountains, the piedmont (where most of the major metro areas are located: Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Raleigh-Durham) and the lowlands. If I’m not mistaken, most of the hog farms are in the lowlands.
Property insurance is probably much lower in NC than post hurricane Florida.
From what I can gather, places like Charlotte, Raleigh, and Asheville have more people from other parts of the country than you’ll find in the rest of the state and that may make fitting in and assimilating with the local community easier.
Of course some people, and I won’t name names, are so negative that they won’t be happy anywhere.
Thanks for the input, Bubba. Will follow up later.
Check out the Greenville, SC area. House prices are quite low. Southwest Airlines will be serving GSP airport by early next year. There are several large, beautiful lakes nearby, and the NC mountains are close enough to be seen. Three hours or so to the beach. Winters are normally short, with a LOT less snow than Asheville.
However, temps this past week have been in the 90’s.
Thanks, Bill, you’ve been sort of a pioneer the Florida to Carolina move. You were smart to do what you did. I’m going to look into all of this. Seems like it would be much better to live in an area where it is sheltered from the effects of the spill.
Another thing palmy- hurricanes don’t have much punch left by the time they get this far inland. My annual homeowner’s insurance bill is about 1/3 of one percent of insured value and that of course includes wind coverage with just $1,000 deductible.
That sounds about right. Where are you in Carolina, Bill?
It gets as hot in the Carolinas in the summer as it does in Florida, but it’s not as intense. The Carolina summers are shorter (June-Sept instead of May-Nov) and in Florida it gets hot early in the day and stays hot until the evening rains come.
Here in Charlotte in the summer, the highs can get into the triple digits or high 90’s, but it cools quite a bit at night. At 10am it’s still usually in the high 70’s to low 80’s. When I lived in Clearwater my rule of thumb was to get the lawn cutting finished by 10am (or earlier) during the hot weather months. There’s no humidity quite as thick as a Gulf coast humidity.
In seeming contradiction to my post below… I like the area around western Carolina.
Getting into the edge of the mountains. Lots of green spaces.
Plenty of lakes and what not.
It is hot though. Just like Michigan or New Jersey in the summer. Hot hot hot.
Not Florida hot though. That is crazy hot.
Want my advice after having lived in Charlotte for 10 years? Move to Tennessee.
It’s miserable in the winter and stinking hot in the summer with massive humidity.
You don’t get the pretty thunderstorms and rain you get in Flo-da.
Probably can find some bargains further south. I looked at further down south and plenty of nice homes.
Seems like the oil is forming a massive plume that will be a death cloud though. Not sure how you escape it. If it disperses it will just be messy. Think it might travel in a fairly dense mass though and strike in your area.
Makes me sad. Love Caladisi Island and Clearwater area as a kid.
Don’t forget southern Indiana or southern Illinois. Best bet for you is to get one of the Places Rated books, which lists the climate and population stats (taxes, # hospitals, even the # of Sbux) for 450+ metro areas in the US. Then you can pick where to live.
Well, I kind of like the idea of the mountains of Western North Carolina, but having moved once on a whim and learned my lesson, I plan on doing more research. Which is why the questions for the blog. I like the idea of temperate four seasons. I understand it is a lot cooler in the higher elevations of North Carolina than in the Piedmont or along the coast.
Palmy,
Give this website a try. I’ve found it helpful.
http://www.city-data.com/forum
We need more $$$$$$$$$$$ for the unions!!!!!!!!! The Dems need votes for the Nov elections
————————————-
Obama pleads for $50 billion in state, local aid
President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters” and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.
In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year’s huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy’s free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. “We must take these emergency measures,” he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party.
“Saying the money is needed to avoid “massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters.”
I wish. It’s all going to past debts and early retirement pensions. Public services and benefits are doomed for anyone who isn’t “at or over 55,” because those who are have sucked this place dry.
Exactly! It’s all going to unions and their members to fill holes in the retirement system.
Unions are cool.
Yeah, yeah! Unions! Heh-heh! Heh-heh-heh!
You do know union membership has been in decline the last 30 years, right?
And that gov employee pension were invested up their eyeballs in Wall St., right?
And that millions are squandered every year by local govs through insider political favor deals, right?
Those are all rhetorical questions, BTW.
Except for the SEIU, it has grown substantially.
“There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final total catastrophe of the currency involved.”
~ Ludwig von Mises
Which of von Mises’ models is the Fed using?
The one with the missing wheels. They insist it still works by pushing it across the floor and going “VROOM, VROOM!”
How long ago did old Ludwig make that claim? Didn’t come true during GD1.
I guess one day he’ll be proved right. But you know what they say about the long run…
So you’re saying GD1 wasn’t the collapse of the boom that was the credit expansion of the 20s?
Was there a voluntary abandonment of credit expansion? No.
Was there a total collapse of the currency? No.
The distinction then is that the abandonment was involuntary? I thought credit dried up tighter than a snare drum in the 30s…
Yeah, voluntary is the key. I don’t think the contraction of credit was truly ‘voluntary’. And government spending increased throughout GD1, and increased even more during WW2. So I see neither a voluntary abandonment of credit expansion, nor a collapse of the currency.
The difference was the tightening of credit for the FIRE sector.
So a sense, you are both right.
Wall St. got put on a short leash and government open up their own spigots.
Uhm, if I’m reading this right either the credit boom collapses and the debt is written off OR the currency eventually collapses. My guess is that Mises was proven correct many times over in history. The hyperinflation in Germany as one example. The great depression is another. A lot of historians are looking over that history and noticing the socialist programs of FDR did little to nothing. As we are seeing now, government stimulis can be a very clunky instrument resulting in a lot of malinvestments. As in they had all sorts of stimulis measures under Hover and FDR and things still stank. Till we got a war to throw away lots of people’s lives.
Given that you are writing this Alpha, I guess your misreading is intentional.
The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final total catastrophe of the currency involved.”
Which of these criteria does GD1 meet? And just to be picky, can you name an example of it occurring in a country after ‘experiencing a credit bubble’? I’m not saying credit bubbles don’t seem to always collapse, I’m just saying the inevitable either/or situation that Ludwig posits rarely if ever has actually occurred. The end tends to be -forced- upon the countries involved, but the currencies tend -not- to collapse (though they are often weakened). In the examples where the currency collapses completely (Wiemar, Zimbabwe), it’s generally because the political system in said country is collapsing, not because a credit bubble is popping.
Picky, perhaps, but I’m not the one throwing it around like it’s some brilliant quote.
Oh I guess we will disagree then.
Great depression could have happened later if even more credit was offered.
The prior housing bubble from the S&L ended at the S&L level.
This one went global and is everywhere.
Perhaps in contradiction to Mises, you could say these bubbles end normally when you get to the point of debt exhaustion. Where the underlying assets become so inflated in price that the debt can not be serviced at any interest rate.
Fed crackdown on real estate loans may affect borrowers
Birmingham Business Journal
Local banks – along with many banks across the country – are struggling to dole out new loans to businesses now that bank regulators have cracked down on their commercial real estate lending guidelines.
During the real estate boom, many banks gorged their balance sheets with hefty amounts of commercial real estate loans, especially for construction projects and shopping centers.
However, when the financial markets tanked, many of those construction projects struggled. As a result, banks were stuck with a backlog of defaulting real estate loans, which was the culprit of a number of bank failures during the banking crisis.
To ensure that banks are playing it safe, banks’ total commercial real estate loans should not jump higher than 300 percent of an institution’s total capital, according to guidelines provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
I am new to this site but not new to the foreclosure “arena”. I bought a bank owned house years ago, lived in it, sold it and now after moving to the DC Metro area I want to do it again. (Although not anytime soon).
My question: Which website or resources are the best to not only find these houses but find out what the final sale price is? Where do you folks go to get this info? I found a site that has all of the banks links, but most are not updated regularly and has old information. Googling “Foreclosed houses” doesn’t work either, as you are bombarded with junk sites looking for your money.
TIA for your help! I wish I could meet up with you guys in DC, but I’ll be out of town that week.
Alot of people here like zillow and redfin.
I’m gonna try to revisit Zillow, but when I looked before it seemed that their prices were way off. Redfin is great but I have a small conspiracy theory that they purposely leave off foreclosures in areas like Bethesda, Potomac and CC to keep the prices high and make “those” people feel better about their $900K Cape Cod home. Similar to the ’shadow inventory’, it makes them say “See….this area is Shangri-la! There are no housing problems here!”
I’ve read a number of user comments on Zillow from people complaining that homes they’ve purchased months ago are still showing up as For Sale.
If you’re looking in the MD suburbs, there’s http://sdatcert3.resiusa.org/rp_rewrite/ but it tends to be slow to update.
p.s. Am I crazy, or didn’t that used to be in a xxx.xxx.md.us domain? Is it no longer an official state record?
Sean, I like using our county’s Recorder of Deeds website. Its more labor intensive than Zillow or Redfin, but it gives me the same level of history and detail as a title search would. Not all states have that info online, however. I am not in the DC area, so I have no links to share, but you should be able to find them fairly easily.
Europe Troubles Are About to Start: Wilbur Ross
CNBC
Austerity packages coming into force in Europe will only aggravate the euro zone’s problems, Wilbur Ross, Chairman and CEO at WL Ross and Co., told CNBC Monday.
“I think the political troubles in Europe are all just about to start because the governments have all pledged about budget deficits,” Ross said.
“But now comes the hard part - will there be more strikes, riots, etc. So I’m not sure it will be easy over the next few weeks,” he added.
Didn’t Wilbur Ross own a horse named Mr. Ed?
Of course!
Life is a tradeoff, so get over your buyer’s remorse, and enjoy your spacious faux chateaus.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Home ownership isn’t what it used to be
The Quenneville family in front of their home.
Reporter Curt Nickisch talks to one New Hampshire family who doesn’t necessarily think home ownership has led them to the American Dream.
The Quenneville family in front of the home they bought last year. The time and emotional toll of home ownership has them doubting the suburban dream home. (Jess Bidgood/WBUR)
By Curt Nickisch
Andrea and Raymond Quenneville think they timed it about as well as they could, taking the plunge last year at what they considered a low point in the market. They bought a yellow house in Merrimack, N.H.
“Four bathrooms, two-car garage, and then upstairs, we have five bedrooms,” Andrea said.
“We have a bathroom downstairs,” one her children pointed out.
“For a family of six, it’s really nice to have so much space,” she said.
Three thousand square feet. Enough for Raymond to have a room stacked with guitars and a sound-mixing board — he records music, at least when he has time. And upstairs, Andrea has her own sewing room. She crafts tote bags with flower and animal prints and sells them online. Although she admits, it’s more of a hobby than a moneymaker.
“Maybe this is one reason why I have buyer’s remorse,” she said. “My fabric budget has drastically decreased.“
…
They’re in a nice area of New Hampshire, and while a $330,000 mortgage isn’t way over the top (compared to some we read about), add raising four kids to the mix and it would take an income of over $200,000 a year to pull it all off with any measure of safety.
I see why Andrea and Raymond aren’t sleeping too well these days.
For a long time, real estate ownership was a means of getting ahead in the USA. Back when the “real estate” was farmland, or a place you could generate income.
Somewhere in the past 50 years, it morphed into what we have now.
“Somewhere in the past 50 years”
You know last week Spokaneman had some beautiful observations about reverting -back- to that as more and more of us utterly adandon the “Home as Early Retirement Model”.
Funny, just about every guy that plays guitar thinks he rates a studio of his own. Fortunately I’ve never been bit by that. Our band’s “practice room” is 9′ X 12′ complete with a drum kit. It’s like “Dude, can get off my guitar cord?” Hey, somebody reach behind the bass amp and get me a beer, will ya’?
Funny, just about every guy that plays guitar thinks he rates a studio of his own. Fortunately I’ve never been bit by that. Our band’s “practice room” is 9′ X 12′ complete with a drum kit. It’s like “Dude, can get off my guitar cord?” Hey, somebody reach behind the bass amp and get me a beer, will ya’?
Then you’d love the Flying Saucer Studio (aka Studio 2A) down at KXCI-FM. Seriously. The room has metal flying saucers all over the walls. They’re there to liven up the acoustics.
*shiff* it brings a tear yer eye, don it?
Some of our Congressmen have street cred! Who knew?
—————-
N.C. Congressman Under Fire for Physical Confrontation With Man in Washington
North Carolina congressman is under fire after a video surfaced Monday showing him in a physical confrontation with a young man on a street in Washington.
Rep. Bob Etheridge, a Democrat, is seen in the amateur video grabbing the wrist and neck of the unidentified man after he approached him and asked if he supported the “Obama agenda.”
The video, posted to YouTube, shows the man, who appears to be in his young 20s and who identifies himself as a college student, approaching Etheridge on the sidewalk.
Etheridge is then seen trying to snatch a cellphone camera out of the student’s hands. He then grabs the man’s wrist and refuses to let go.
“Who are you!” the six-term congressman demands. “Tell me who you are … I have a right to know who you are.”
Another man, not seen on camera, then tells Etheridge, “We’re just here for a project.”
When the student asks Etheridge to “please let go of me,” the congressman then grabs him by the neck.
Politicians of all stripes don’t like being held accountable.
This student wasn’t going to provide a desireable photo op.
I hope the student presses charges and that this politician faces a stern penalty.
I hope the student presses charges and that this politician faces a stern penalty.
That was my thought..seems like one could press charges for assault if things happened as described…
“The video was posted Monday on websites owned by Andrew Breitbart, the conservative Web entrepreneur who also released video of workers for the community organizing group ACORN counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute.”
What a surprise, another doctored video from Breitbart’s b…boy James O’Keefe? No video from Breitbart should be considered credible.
The GOP’s history of desperate measures know no bounds. Black bag jobs (watergate burglarizing), bribes, kickbacks, extortion are just a few of their perfected specialities.
I loved the follow up on Okeefe’s piece.
Okeefe cuts the film to make it look like one worker is helping him smuggle prostitutes over the border. Turns out the Acorn worker had a brother in the police department. He took down as many facts as possible and called the cops after Okeefe left.
C’mon folks, give the congresscritter a break. He knows he’ll be losing his cushy position come November and he’s getting testy. But he can console himself in that his 12 years in office will give him a nice pension, with COLAs and non-Obamacare medical coverage.
How odd… The esteemed congressman has issued an apology over this “doctored” video:
http://etheridge.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=190412
I’m sure he really is sorry that he got caught.
How odd… The esteemed congressman has posted an apology for this “doctored” video.
Did he… ‘doctor up’ the part where he had the kid in a head lock? Just asking.
No, it wasn’t the physical contact that upset me. Or even the lack of responsiveness. What was disturbing was Etheridge’s vacant eyes. In the past we’ve talked about the various natural responses we are wired with to alert us we are in the presence of a psychopath. ( Hair on the back of your neck stands up etc. )
The dude is a pure psycho. It isn’t his first brush w/ bushwack “journalism” and his response should have given all of us cause for alarm.
If he did assault the student, then he should be busted.
But as stated, anything associated with Breitbart, ESPECIALLY James O’Keefe, who plead guilty to unlawful entry of federal property (to bug a senator’s office no less!) has NO credibility.
June 1, 2010
* Comparing housing in the 90s & today
For many folks, the 90s weren’t a whole lot better financially than they are right now. But there wasn’t a big rush to rescue homeowners suffering from a housing plunge, and the hard times never rose to the threat of a global catastrophe.
Why? Bob Moon reports.
…
Well Bear, or Neil or FPSS…
I think there is a big bank rescue. And since the system has zero ability to handle deflation, aka reserves, it’s pretty obvious why the PTB think it is necessary.
Karl Case and Ed Leamer are some pretty heavy hitters and have generally been on the money. I’m just not sure though I connect with all this comiserating w/ “how awful the 90’s were”?
Tough on CA’s to be sure. And I ‘have’ heard there was a fair bit of ‘just walking away’ in the early 90’s. But if you’re trying to draw any kind of a comparison from the 90’s to ‘now’, you’ll have to do that without ‘me’. Show of hands.., who wants to go back in time and re-live the 90’s vice today?
“…
As of today, banks taking mortgage modification applications will actually have to see proof that home owners are making the salary they say they’re making — to see right at the start whether people can afford even a reduced mortgage payment.
You’d think they’d have thought of that earlier.
…”
May 28, 2010
* A nice house or a short commute?
Reporter Andrea Bernstein looks into the challenge of trying to strike a balance between work commute and cost of rent.
Frank mentioned buyer’s remorse, and for the most part we’ve been talking about smaller purchases. But sometimes that remorse comes in much bigger packages, like a house. About two-thirds of American households live in homes they own. But only 13 percent tell pollsters that they’ve achieved the American Dream.
…
Amy Hoak’s Home Economics
June 14, 2010, 12:53 a.m. EDT
Without jobs, housing rebound may take years
Harvard’s ‘State of the Nation’s Housing’ report also cites lack of affordability
The housing-market recession is not over
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — With the job market in dire straits, household incomes declining and foreclosures dragging down home values, the housing market may take years to recover, according to the annual State of the Nation’s Housing report released Monday by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
What’s required for a housing rebound now: jobs.
The jobless rate is one of the biggest drags on the housing market today, according to the report. And many economists predict unemployment will remain high as discouraged workers head back into the labor force and job gains come slowly.
“If history is a guide, what happens with jobs will matter the most to the strength of the housing rebound,” said Eric S. Belsky, executive director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, in a news release. Jobs keep homeowners out of foreclosure and help others feel confident enough to form households.
Another problem: Affordability issues are still lingering, said Nicolas P. Retsinas, the center’s director. According to the report, 40.3 million households spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2008, and 18.6 million spent more than half of their income, up from 13.8 million in 2001.
“Notwithstanding the fall of prices and tempering of rents, there are serious affordability challenges,” Retsinas said.
…
More real estate and mortgage advice
• More homeowners opt to quit paying mortgage
• Four refinancing strategies for low-rate times
• Home prices higher in walkable neighborhoods
• How to win a property-tax reduction
• Say goodbye to McMansions
• Let the home savings flow
• The latest technology for your home
• How home equity figures into retirement plans
• Five red flags when buying short-sale homes
• The retirement houses of tomorrow
• We’re making our homes more like grandma’s
• Why you should ask for lower rent
• Haggle on realty commissions and save
• Home energy upgrades that pay off
See the entire MarketWatch Guide to Real Estate
Why is Harvard hung up on the need for people to have jobs? Is their faith in the debt-based consumer economy flagging?
Not mutually exclusive in the short run.
Debt based economy created a lot of jobs.
This helped hide the massive outsourcing and destruction of our manufacturing base.
The BIG question:
Was this the way it was planned by the PTB, or were they dumb and drink their own koolaid?
Planned. I guarantee you.
I’ve walked the halls of some of the big timers and they have plans in motion that won’t payoff for a decade and more state-of-the-art analysis people and systems than you ever knew existed and would a university to shame.
And their only game is to screw J6P over as often as possible.
Remember the Enron tape of the 2 guys making fun of kicking grandma to the curb because she might not be able to pay her light bill? Now multiply that by thousands. 10s of thousands.
Oh hell yeah they knew.
Did you think it was a coincidence that bankruptcy laws were reformed just a few years before the collapse? It wasn’t.
“Without jobs, housing rebound may take years”
Ya think?
Seriously, where can I get a job paying good money for stating the effing obvious?
Mass layoffs at hospitals hit new highs
For the most part, recent cutbacks have not affected clinical staff. But at some facilities, that’s beginning to change.
amednews June 14, 2010.
Cuts of 50 employees or more at hospitals are affecting more workers than at any time since Hurricane Katrina, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And indications are that this pace will not abate soon.
While most of the layoffs have come from administrative and trades staff, in some places — particularly publicly run hospitals or systems that serve relatively large Medicaid and uninsured populations — clinical staff is also starting to be thinned.
In Miami, the Service Employees International Union has filed a quality-of-care lawsuit against the publicly owned Jackson Health System. Recent layoffs included physicians and nurses among the 613 positions cut, 400 in early May.
“It’s really not about the governance structure. It’s more a matter of the particular economic circumstances of the community and how that affects the finances of the hospital,” said Bruce Rueben, president and CEO of the Florida Hospital Assn.
But didn’t they say last month that more jobs had been created even though UE was up?
They weren’t lying to us, were they? Naw! Couldn’t be!
Has BP Already Started Slamming The Brakes On New Development And Projects?
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has left some union tradesmen who are working construction at a BP plant in Indiana suddenly uneasy about the future of their workload.
Though the company has said the $3.8 billion modernization project at the BP Whiting Refinery — located about 20 miles from Chicago across the Indiana towns of Whiting, East Chicago and Hammond — will continue as planned, some unions reported that work has slowed down since the leak started a few weeks ago.
About halfway complete, the project -– which employs roughly 2,500 craftsmen this year, including pipe fitters, iron workers, painters and insulators, Teamsters, carpenters, operating engineers, boiler makers, electricians and laborers -– has somewhat “leveled off,” according to one union source who also said the various locals had been expecting more workers on the job at this point.
For International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 697, 16 people have been laid off since the spill, and the union went from hiring mode to a hiring freeze, according to the Hammond-based union, which covers northwest Indiana, including Lake County.
BP’s version of the “fat finger”.
The new Love Canal?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-claims-20100614,0,4955544.story
“Reporting from Gulf Shores, Ala. — Real estate agent Mike Reynolds had two desirable beachfront condos in escrow when the tide of crude from the Deepwater Horizon spill washed over his business and left it looking about as appetizing as an oiled crab. “I lost $20,000 in commission,” Reynolds said. “The guy called and said he’d never be able to make any money off of them. He walked away from a $10,000 earnest-money check.”
“My phone quit ringing a month ago,” said Grand Isle real estate agent Karl Thayer, who has received a small initial payment from BP and is still waiting for the next. “I’ve had one closing since the blowout, and that was a vacant property. Everything else is dead in the water.”
Yeah, everything in the water is dead, or will be soon enough.
“My phone quit ringing a month ago”
Thanks to the oil, or thanks to the tax credit going bye-bye?
“Yeah, everything in the water is dead, or will be soon enough.”
“BP has it all under control folks, prices and mortgages are low, y’all come on down here to the gulf and buy one before they’re all snapped up now”
Gulf State RE code translation for : (”Bobby Jo, has that danged idiot agent called in about the closing date on my new house in Raleigh yet ?”)
Which just goes to show how dumb some people can be.
Boys, that oil that washed up is yours for the taking. It’s called salvage. What are you guys waiting for?
For all you cynics waiting to see if Lincoln would compromise after the primary election, here it is:
June 14 (Bloomberg) — Senator Blanche Lincoln is considering compromise language to her derivatives proposal that would phase in over two years a requirement that commercial banks push out their swaps trading desks to subsidiaries.
The proposal also would allow the Federal Reserve to provide system-wide emergency assistance to swaps dealers in exigent circumstances, according to a draft of the compromise obtained by Bloomberg News and confirmed by Lincoln’s office today.
The compromise would clarify that banks with access to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. deposit guarantees and the Federal Reserve’s discount lending window would be allowed to hold a separately capitalized swap dealer in an affiliate of the bank holding company.
Well I had no doubt in my mind she would turn. She held out until the election was over.
At least we know now how much time the banksters think it will take to finish their looting……
What is the Seattle, WA area like for minimum wage, h.s. graduate jobs? What is a reasonable rent for the south Seattle/Federal Way area? Any ideas about how to negotiate down a rent that is suddenly hiked, for a 6- mo. vs. 1-year lease, after the deposits are paid? It seems to me landlords, at least this particular landlord, are playing games: post one price and escalate up from there. Are these bait-and-switch lease games common in coastal WA?
Did you pay the deposit before signing the lease?
Sorry for the belated response — yes, they (my sons) did. A holding deposit was sent with the application, after which the rent rose from under $800 to over $900 a month. Still a lot cheaper than the OC, but suddenly inflated nevertheless, and not trust-inspiring.
Now is this a professional landlord, or a failed flipper?
Professional landlord, Equity Residential in fact, which I thought was better than some of those out there, but in this market, I should have known better?
“Any ideas about how to negotiate down a rent that is suddenly hiked, for a 6- mo. vs. 1-year lease, after the deposits are paid?”
I’m just reading between the lines here, so please provide more facts and maybe I can give a better answer.
But here’s my guess at interpreting your post: if the LL advertised for a 1yr lease, and you paid a deposit based on that advertisement, and then you asked to sign only for a 6-mo lease instead, and the LL asked for more rent for a 6-mo lease, then I would not consider that a bait-and-switch at all.
A shorter lease term equates to more risk for the LL; you should expect to pay more. Once you know the LL and he/she knows you, and you have a history of paying on time, then a shorter-term should not result in a higher rent. Many LLs in Seattle just allow normal tenant law to apply after the first year, in which case it automatically turns into a month-to-month rental.
Regarding minimum-wage jobs in Seattle, I can’t really speak to that.
Move in at the rent stipulated in your original contract. He can’t make you pay more, dude.
You cannot live in Seattle on minimum wage, even though it is $8.65/hour. Period.
What about two minimum wage jobs; my two sons will be roomates.
Lawmakers to BP: Put up $20 billion
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — BP: Kick up $20 billion to pay for the recent oil spill in the Gulf region. And make it snappy.
That’s the message Senate majority leader Harry Reid and members of the Senate Democratic Caucus sent to BP CEO Tony Hayward in a letter on Monday.
“Establishment of this account would serve as an act of good faith and as a first step towards ensuring that there will be no delay in payments or attempt to evade responsibility for damages,” the letter said.
But it maybe hard for BP to comply: The London-based company only had about $7 billion in cash as of March 31, according to its most recent financial statement. And the oil giant is scheduled to pay out dividends on June 21 — although it is holding a board meeting Monday to discuss the matter.
That’s the problem with Congress.
The way they spend money, they must think that everyone has their own printing press.
Congress is completely disconnected to any type of reality.
To Congress and the banksters, a billion dollars is a rounding error. Out here in the real world, a billion dollars is still real money.
Just to put it in perspective……
A trillion dollars in early 2009 could have bought:
-ExxonMobil
and
-RoyalDutchShell
and
-Walmart
and
-Microsoft,
and (last but not least),
-Johnson and Johnson
with a little over 20 billion left over to start up a nationwide chain of Pet Rodent emergency hospitals (”Gerbils are our Specialty”), or a bio-tech to turn BS into jet fuel, thus turning airplanes into perpetual motion machines.
“Pet Rodent emergency hospitals (”Gerbils are our Specialty”)”
I think I just hurt myself laughing!
BP just about does have its own printing press. They’ve got tons of cash, or at least the ability to raise it if they choose to, or, more likely, if they are are forced to. I think they should definitely put some cash up front- otherwise we’re floating them a huge loan.
“…..raise it if they choose…..”
Which is why slapping fines on multi-nationals is meaningless. Joe Q Taxpayer/customer ends up holding the crap bag, one way or another.
Which is why, IMO, we need to quit rewarding idiots golden parachutes when they fook up, and start thinking about throwing a few of these pukes that make stupid decisions in jail.
As I’ve said before:
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™, comrade?
The corporation is a logical construct, not an actual physical thing. The only actual physical things are the people and the materiel. The non-executives will go down with the ship - they get their severance and are let go. The executives - ahhh, they get the golden parachutes, and walk away slightly chagrined, but with millions of dollars in golden parachutes, which more than salves any chagrin.
Until there are routine consequences for the top managers for decisions which destroy the companies and loot the national treasury, the situation won’t change. Also, politicians must be held responsible for allowing these situations to arise and flourish.
Europe’s $1.6 trillion hangover
Possible sovereign debt defaults make for a big headache for European lenders.
Banks in France and Germany alone have nearly $1 trillion in exposure to the staggering economies of southern Europe, according to a report issued Monday by banking watchdogs.
The Bank of International Settlements report says German banks have 12% of their capital in government bonds issued by the three hard-hit southern European countries. But France isn’t far behind, with 8% of capital exposed to the public sectors of the three stressed nations.
All told, banks in the 16-country euro zone had $1.57 trillion of exposure as of March 31 to four countries facing what the report delicately calls “market pressures” — rising interest rates spurred by concerns about whether they’ll make good on their obligations.
These have been most visible in Greece, which secured a massive aid package and retreated from the debt market this spring after interest rates on its debt spiked into the mid-teens.
But Europe’s banks have bigger troubles, the BIS report shows. Together they have $727 billion of exposures to Spain, $402 billion to Ireland, $244 billion to Portugal, and $206 billion to Greece, the BIS said.
What was it I wanted to say to the Europeans about their gloating over the “US” housing crash? What was that term? Oh yeah:
HA HA!
WSJ recommending that those with no debt and money borrow and invest. Noting that the stock market will be much higher in 2020.
finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/109770/leverage-baby?mod=bb-budgeting&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=
WSJ suggesting that the DOW may remain stuck for a decade or more.
Yet investors, spoiled by the strong growth of the 1950s, had driven stock prices up to 18 times earnings at the beginning of Dow 1000. Likewise, in 1999, as the Dow crossed 10000, the price/earnings ratio of the market rose above 33—double its long-term average. High expectations are one of the main foundations of low returns.
Investors need to remember that stock markets can go nowhere for ages, as they did in the U.S. from 1929 to the end of World War II, in Germany from 1900 through 1957, and in Japan since 1989. In my view, it is likely that U.S. stocks and bonds will underperform their long-term average returns for years to come.
Investors need to remember that stock markets can go nowhere for ages, as they did in the U.S. from 1929 to the end of World War II, in Germany from 1900 through 1957, and in Japan since 1989. In my view, it is likely that U.S. stocks and bonds will underperform their long-term average returns for years to come.
I seem to recall that the Dow didn’t hit its pre-1929 Great Crash high until 1954. That’s 25 years, folks. A long time to be waiting for the market to come back.
And, I believe that was for the hard number, not inflation adjusted. $10 in 1954 presumably was worth less than $10 in 1929. When did the inflation adjusted stock market recover to 1929?
And, the whole thing is a bit gamed, as really bad stocks are removed from the Dow and replaced, making a simple Dow-tracking a bit unreliable
“…borrow and invest.”
Isn’t margin calls on accounts used to ‘borrow and invest’ what led lots of investment bankers to jump out of high-story office windows during the 1930s? I know it is different now and all…
Just ignore Wall Street. I watch the financial shows for laughs. They aren’t ever right.
Roidy
They make a lot more sense if you realize their main job is to lure greater fools into overpaying for whatever Wall Street peddles…
More economic stimulus a-comin’ !
“President Obama assures us things are looking up for the economy, but he wants another $50 billion to keep the economy “stimulated.”
“We ‘must take these emergency measures…’ he wrote in a letter to congressional leaders, or else risk ‘…massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters.’
“Are you scared yet, fellow reckoner? Well, you should be, but not because of the reasons Mr. Obama cites. The whole ‘emergency measure’ line reminds your editor of a story; something about a boy and a wolf… It ended with a lot of crying, if we remember correctly.”
~ Joel Bowman
Didn’t the wolf eat the boy at the end of the story? Or was it a bear?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZ63TffZ5Ns8&pos=2
Moody’s cuts Greece to Junk. Eurozone won’t like this.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/7827867/AXA-fears-fatal-flaw-will-destroy-eurozone.html
Highly paid analysts at French financial firm AXA say the Eurozone could still disintegrate. Well spank my ass and call me Judy….
This headline’s no prettier:
Investors are betting on a Black Monday-style collapse, BoE warns
Investors are placing bets on a Black Monday-style crash in the British stock market at the fastest rate since the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in 2008, the Bank of England has warned.
In a survey of markets, the Bank warned that widespread fear over the possible collapse of a sovereign debtor, including Greece and Portugal, had sparked a mass of bets on a 20 per cent fall in the FTSE 100.
The warning coincides with calculations from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) showing that Britain has major exposure to the Irish and Spanish banking systems, which many fear could be at risk in the next round of the financial crisis.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/edmundconway/7825880/Investors-are-betting-on-a-Black-Monday-style-collapse-BoE-warns.html
Not to worry! A closely-watched pot never boils over…
Harvard’s Joint Center For Housing Studies just released a study on housing. They are a real estate cheerleading organization. We have one at American University from which DC news radio reports dispatches. Any price increase is always characterized as good news by both the announcers and the head of the institute, and any affordability improvements are considered bad news. Anyhoo, the HJCHS study makes for some interesting reading. I just heard about it on DC news radio. One stat was that affordability is a problem, with some 16-17 percent of households paying over half their income for housing, among other tidbits.
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/son/index.htm
Weren’t the Spring 2009 green shoots of recovery supposed to have already grown into a mighty forest by now?
* ECONOMY
* JUNE 15, 2010
Fed Weighs Growth Risks
Officials Keep Fresh Eye on Slowing Inflation, Europe Even as the U.S. Recovers
By JON HILSENRATH
Federal Reserve officials are beginning to debate quietly what steps they might take if the recovery surprisingly falters or if the inflation rate falls much more.
Fed officials, who meet next week to survey the state of the economy, believe a durable recovery is on track and their next move—though a ways off—will be to tighten credit, not ease it further. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has played down the risk of a double-dip recession and signaled guarded confidence in the recovery.
But fiscal woes in Europe, stock-market declines at home and stubbornly high U.S. unemployment have alerted some officials to risks that the economy could lose momentum and that inflation, already running below the Fed’s informal target of 1.5% to 2%, could fall further, raising a risk of price deflation.
The Fed’s official posture is unlikely to change when policymakers meet June 22 and 23: The U.S. central bank is expected to leave short-term interest rates near zero and signal no inclination to change that for a long time.
But behind-the-scenes discussions at the meeting could include precautionary talk about what happens if the economy doesn’t perform as well as expected.
“If events in Europe evolve so that they have a more severe and broad impact on financial markets, then the scope of the problems for the U.S. could be magnified,” Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said in a speech last week.
…