Bits Bucket For July 16, 2010
Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.
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
-
November 2024 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
Retailers are already feeling a holiday shiver.
NEW YORK — It may be hot and sticky outside, but stores across the nation are already getting a chill thinking about Christmas.
Retailers are having second thoughts about orders they placed earlier this year, when the economic recovery looked stronger and Americans were more willing to spend money. Now they worry they could end up stuck with too many toys and sweaters come the holidays and have to cut prices.
Stores are fretting that even small increases in their holiday stocks for this year may be too ambitious. Some are waiting to see how spending turns out in the back-to-school season before trimming their holiday orders, but others aren’t wasting any time.
“I was feeling fantastic in March, and we were doing great. But then things started slowing down,” said Lauren Phalin, who owns a New Jersey children’s and teen clothing shop called Rocking Horse and canceled a $2,000 dress order in May.
“As long as I keep inventory and expenses down, we can still do fine,” she said.
Most stores have until August to do any tweaking on their holiday orders, though the largest chains, which have more power over suppliers, can cancel some orders later.
Speakin’ of “raw” land and a single-wide:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So8p_Dc7Vnw
Wrong, just wrong.
Roidy
P.S. Got any more?
“As long as I keep inventory and expenses down, we can still do fine,” she said.
For “expenses,” please read “employees.”
For “expenses,” please read “employees.”
Yup. The one fixed cost that’s easiest to trim.
Considering our current governmental authoritarian regime, perhaps that’s the only cost any employer can predict and control.
“Considering our current governmental authoritarian regime”
That’s some mighty fine hyperbolizing you got going on there!
What we really have is a never ending downward pressure on labor, begun and enforced by the rich, the Walmart types, the too big to fail and the corporate masters, that now being forced upon all employers in their efforts to stay afloat and decreasing sales (due to the workers not being paid enough to buy anything). They wouldn’t scrape you off of their shoes.
“Gummint” isn’t the problem here except for where it intersects with the interests of the greedy class. And don’t bring up the handful (statistically) of “gummint” workers who earn more than 100K. Please. Government should be beholden to everyone in the nation. Corporations are only beholden to shareholders, lobbyists and those Greenwich manse dwelling aholes who wouldn’t flip you a life preserver if you were drowning.
How does that explain the last 30 years of layoffs and wage cuts?
“I was feeling fantastic in March, and we were doing great. But then things started slowing down,” said Lauren Phalin, who owns a New Jersey children’s and teen clothing shop called Rocking Horse and canceled a $2,000 dress order in May.
Okay, show of hands: How many people had their clothing purchased in stores like this one? I seem to recall my mother sewing my clothes before she got her teaching job. After she went to work, well, it was off to the department store, and that was once a year.
I can remember 3 pairs of shoes: school, play, dress & we were upper middle class. Clothes were twice a year: school & summer. I also don’t remember ever going shopping for clothes alone even as a teen.
We got our clothing purchased at “Crazy Days”, the uptown’s largest shopping sale. If it wasn’t discounted 50%, it didn’t get bought. We mostly wore hand-me downs.
My mom shopped at goodwill for herself for a long time to make sure she could afford to buy at least one new outfit for the younger kids.
My Mom sewed when we were under 10 and bought when we were older. Course, when we were under 10 we were 13 miles from the Canadian border and there were no real stores around except discount chain stores. When we hit seacoast NH we fully supported the local mall where we bought Izod shirts, Fair Isle sweaters and Sperry Topsiders or some form of Timberland shoes. For what its worth you can still buy the FI sweaters and the Topsiders for the same price today. The many colors of chinos and painters pants were purchased at the local army/navy store. There were 4 of us and Mom often did go w/o until the youngest hit middle school. Then she took on a part time job, took up running and became a slave to fashion. (Hey, that storyline rings familiar)
When we were kids, we had to walk 10 miles one way to school, 15 miles return trip bare-a$$ed naked until my father Grizzly Adams killed live bear with both hands tied behind his back….lmao…
I just had to say it!!!
Walk…you poor kid we all had bikes and rain gear yes we had galoshes too My parents really splurged on us.
ISTR a mixture of department store stuff and hand-me-downs from older kids in the neighborhood. Without a doubt, the BEST t-shirts were the hand-me downs.
Oh yeah, Mom kicked us off her family budget at 15 when we got our first job. Did our own laundry too.
My mother made a lot of my clothes. When I started school, I wore each dress two days in a row. As a teenager, I got a clothing allowance. If I sewed my own, my mother would pay for the material. I never enjoyed sewing and in spite of the incentive, I bought most of my clothes.
I started the clothing allowance for my kids as teenagers. It cut off a lot of arguments and gave them a chance to learn budgeting. When my middle boy wanted to buy $70 jeans, I said fine, but you won’t be able to buy more than 2. They got $140 spring and fall and I covered underwear, socks, shoes, and coats.
Philadelphia-Area Manufacturing Grows at Slower Pace as Index Falls to 5.1.
Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region cooled in July as orders fell for the first time in a year, signaling the expansion is slowing.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index fell to 5.1 this month, the lowest level since August 2009, from 8 in June. Readings above zero signal growth in the regional gauge, which covers eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware. The bank’s orders gauge turned negative for the first time in 12 months.
Speaking of “Raw” land fer sale in the Brokeback…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So8p_Dc7Vnw
up early watchin’ the British Open…
Warning: Do not listen with headphones on!
(I’m assuming that when the girl was singin’ that…it was at least 40 minutes past 2 am.)
This is a stupid video.
Stop spamming the board with it.
Thanks!!
TB
What he said.
STOP SPAMMING US WITH THAT STUPID VIDEO.
Cost of Living, Consumer Confidence in U.S. Probably Dropped
Jul 16, 2010
The cost of living in the U.S. dropped in June for a third straight month, showing inflation is contained as the recovery cools, economists said ahead of reports today.
The consumer price index declined 0.1 percent last month after a 0.2 percent drop in May, according to the median forecast of 75 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Another report will show consumer sentiment dropped in early July, economists said.
Businesses are offering discounts to maintain sales as customers face foreclosures and a labor market that has been slow to improve. The lack of inflation gives Federal Reserve policy makers scope to leave the benchmark interest rate near zero in coming months to help invigorate the economy.
“Very few companies have any pricing power,” said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “Because of the fact that there’s been no price pressure, there’s no pressure on the Fed to do anything.”
“Very few companies have any pricing power…”
But there’s still pressure from investors to keep stock prices up which means there is pressure to keep earnings up, but since revenues are down the only way to keep earnings up is to cut costs.
Cutting costs means cutting employee expenses, which means cutting wages and benifits, which adds fuel to the contraction.
And this trend will bottom out … when?
History indicates that it will be after the next big war. Just sayin.
‘Fraid so.
Nice analysis!
“Because of the fact that there’s been no price pressure, there’s no pressure on the Fed to do anything.”
BS. The talking heads all want us to fear inflation. Guess what, we just had that for a generation during the biggest expansion of credit in history. Now there is a different monster, whose name cannot be spoken.
Shrinkage
“no pressure of the Fed to do anything” .. why should they? The “private” Fed giving the banks free money created out of air and making loans in turn to US taxpayers[government] buying treasures, banks bonus, profits continue for big banks, why should anything change? The big banks never had it so good and please don’t say the new financial bill will changed anything. The lobbying boys with their millions made sure they were protected from any new laws that would come in their way for more profits. Nothing has changed except the press feeding the naive public/taxpayers that this time we are differant and no more taxpayers money for bail outs. O, to be a child again.
Oh my, not another “worse than expected” reading on consumer confidence! What could this possibly portend regarding future demand for what is by far the biggest purchase in the American consumer’s basket of goods and services, HOUSING?
The cost of living DID NOT DROP, oh Ministry of Truth.
Damn but they have some gall!
I have noticed the price of milk, meat and also breakfast cereal going up quite a bit in the grocery stores. I guess those must not be calculated in the inflation index. I guess I will have to eat cake.
Given all the advances in technology, shouldn’t it be much easier and cheaper to do this again (for half the price or less?)
The mission plan of Apollo 11 was to land two men on the lunar surface and return them safely to Earth. The launch took place at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on July 16, 1969, at 08:32 a.m. EST. The spaccraft carried a crew of three: Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. The mission evaluation concluded that all mission tasks were completed satisfactorily.
Not really. “Ginormous rockets” is the technology required and it has pretty much been stagnant. You could probably save a bit because computers are smaller, but they represented a tiny fraction of the weight aloft. It’s possible that composite materials could result in significant weight savings, but it was an attempt to do exactly that which was one of the reasons for the failure of the X-33 program.
Keep in mind that the main reason that the Burt Rutan was able to win the X-prize with spaceship one is that in a very real sense, it was designed as a dead end. While it got to high altitude, many of the design choices meant that little of the technology involved could be used in an orbital spacecraft. http://www.daughtersoftiresias.org/misc/ss1.html
The savings if we were to go to the moon again would the fact that we already HAVE a Kennedy Space Flight Center, with much of the infrastructure in place, and the fact that we DID develop “ginormous rocket” technology as a part of the apollo program. Even if we haven’t improved it much since then, much of the research into say, LH2 engines wouldn’t have to be redone.
What we need…..the “Big Dumb Booster”
You do know that they’ve lost the engineering plans to the Saturn 5, right?
This is what the Orion and Constellation program is about.
And before any ones starts, the program was NOT canceled, just reoriented to focus more on the Moon and Mars and less on LEO.
The private companies are supposed to pick up the slack for the space station and satellite launches.
Hawaii small-business bankruptcies triple
Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
More than three times as many Hawaii small businesses went bankrupt in the first quarter of this year as in the same period last year, according to a new study.
Equifax reported Thursday that Hawaii had 41 small-business bankruptcies in the first three months compared to 12 a year ago. That placed the state in the top 15 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas in terms of percentage increases (Equifax considers Hawaii a metro area for purposes of its study).
In those 15 metro areas, small-business bankruptcies rose 10.4 percent year over year.
I just bought some furniture from one of those bankrupt businesses in Waikiki the other day. One man’s loss… I guess.
How could this happen in a state with the highest cost of living?
{/snark}
Today we finance war by borrowing from nations like China.
And look what our lenders are saying about us! China’s new rating agency, Dagong Global, has placed the U.S. at #13 in its rating of world currencies. And we’re the first on the list to get a negative for our outlook. Britain and France are the only other major nations to be awarded double negatives in the new rating.
“Today we finance war by borrowing from nations like China.”
This “borrowing” from China is another word for “transferring claims on American assets” to China. Someday China may be in a position to exercise these claims in a big way and then we will all end up working for the Chineese in one way or another.
People are smart. Some people are smarter than others.
The shareholders of Chinese companies will be the bosses of us. And that means we who invest in Chinese stocks will be our own bosses.
VEIEX, PRASX.
Because the Chinese would NEVER nationalize firms or in other ways make the ostensible owners irrelevent.
+1 Jim. “emerging” or even established foreign markets are tempting, but the countries that have the cheapest labor also have governments that turn on a dime. (actually the two are related.)
At some point the US will repudiate the debt, and simply refuse to take US dollars from non-US spenders. China knows this and that is why they aren’t getting aggresive. A little here and a little there. The same strategy counterfeiters use spending their fake money.
I think it’s more likely the treasuries they are holding will be severely devalued by inflationary policies and will plummet in value. China will take huge losses, just like Japan. Again they will react like most socialists and not let things fail and their financial system will be hosed for a long time. Like Japan.
China will end up buying some companies in the US just like Japan did. Then try to get into less miserable industries than garments, injection molded plastics exc. My guess is they already are doing it.
Then costs/wages will rise and they will sputter along like the rest of us.
I’m sitting here and waiting things out. Really like to see GM dissolved in my lifetime. If any bunch of arrogant pukes, union and management, deserved to get death by bunga-bunga it is GM.
I think people assume most of our debt is owned by China, but they have less than 10%. About 70% of US debt is held by US citizens. If the US repudiates the debt there go tens of millions of US citizens’ pensions, 401K’s, savings, life insurance, etc.
True, but there also go all the taxes necessary to pay interest on the debt. It sounds like a fair trade-off to me.
You must be a 5 star general in the war on savers. Try this experiment - take all of your money, put it in US treasuries, or an FDIC insured bank account. Then decide if the fact that you won’t have to pay taxes on it outweighs the fact that you’ll be dead broke.
Or, and here’s a crazy idea, the government can start spending less money than they get, and pay the debt off.
“…..death by bunga-bunga…”
Lol.
Is that like death by “Chaka-Chaka”?
or tortured by wikki-wikki
We who invest in Chineese stocks are investing in companies located in a very large and powerful communinst country located on the other side of the planet that has their own idea of just what the Rule of Law should entail.
We who invest in Chineese stocks are investing in companies located in a very large and powerful communinst country located on the other side of the planet that has their own idea of just what the Rule of Law should entail.
You could say much the same about investing in NYSE stocks, IMO.
+1 LehighValleyGuy…
That assumes that Wall Street and their bought politicians will stay in power and that the plebians will take everything and anything that’s shoved down their throats and rammed up their behinds without complaining. I have the feeling one day the anger will boil over and then the Chinese claims on American assets are worth about as much as Enron or FANIIE stocks are today.
These “claims on American assets” are also known as “U.S dollars”. If the dollars the Chineese own are deemed worthless then all the other dollars will also have to be deemed worthless because there is no way to tell the dollars apart.
Also, if the U.S. decides to screw China out of their dollar claims then the Chineese will turn right around and screw U.S. corporations out of the hundreds of billions of dollars of investments made in Chineese infrastructure.
The Chineese have us where they want us.
Amen, brothah!
For example, I was very disappointit that the DC quake was only a little rattler, what, 3.2 on the Richter? Oooh, which reminds me, I’ve got to find John Derbyshire’s modest proposal to end DC. It’s a real treat for those of us who despise Washington.
A little treat for those of us who don’t much like Washington. The Last Days of DC. They should make it a mini-series.
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/forget_mexico_lets_wall_off_d.c/
palmetto,
Oh and firstly, kudos on whomever got that damn gusher to stop leaking! I feel a teence better already.
As the dust was still settling in Lower Manhattan ( post- 9/11 ) there was immediate debate that we had become entirely too concentrated and that it would make infinitely better sense for the WS firms to diversify geographically!
BNY had moved their data ctr. to WI and seemed to enjoy qual’d employees ( albeit at a much lower wage cost ) So the trend seemed to gaining traction? Well, it died on the vine. In no time at all, it was back to biz as usual. We didn’t learn a thing.
Some may recall, was it Smith Barney? They had their backup data ctr. ( in the ‘other’ Tower! ) I’ve advocated this for DC for years.
Palmy,
John went home and decided to take shoot’in lessons at a local range, in order to exercise his rights as a naturalized citizen.
My favorite Derbyshire column was his experience as an ex-pat Brit in discovering American gun culture. He was at some place in I believe AZ, sitting at a table with two local couples. The topic of concealed carry came up, and he asked the four whether they owned any handguns. All four reached into their person and produced a handgun which they laid on the table top, causing John’s eyes to bulge out.
Funny how Derb’s wife is a CHICOM.
kudos on whomever got that damn gusher to stop leaking!
That would be the scientists and engineers at BP, who are altogether underrated and unappreciated. I hope that they receive some kind of award or public recognition.
It’s the expletive management that needs to be punished.
Rewards are for management, silly.
Exactly, oxide.
DinOr, if DC is careless about “diversifying”, that’s OK with me. Especially backing up their data, LOL!
Maybe they’re storing it in Murmansk.
That would be the scientists and engineers at BP, who are altogether underrated and unappreciated. I hope that they receive some kind of award or public recognition.
Speaking as the offspring of a guy who started his career as a petroleum engineer, I heartily agree.
palmetto,
LOL! Yeah, I spoke w/ my CPA and asked him if it would be ok if I destroyed my tax returns from years long since passed?
He laughed, dude, they have -everything- on you! Torch ‘em if it makes you ‘feel’ any better but rest assured ( they’re far from forgotten! )
Yeah, just look at all our poor DC posters. They have gotten very little in terms of relief and if you watch the REIC Channel ( DC and ‘burbs is one of their fave areas to tout as prices haven’t dropped a lick! )
Dennis N,
I love the Derb, most times. He was a bit off on his assessment of Two and Half Men, though. He got a bit deep in his analysis of it and went on and on about stereotypical characters. The truth is, Two and Half Men is a combination of great physical comedy and timing, much like I Love Lucy. You can have all the great characters and writing, but if you don’t got the physical comedy and timing, you don’t have a situation comedy. Which is why American Family will tank and why Will and Grace thrived.
“That would be the scientists and engineers at BP, who are altogether underrated and unappreciated.”
Absolutely, and you don’t hear them on the radio pounding their chest with their fists, taking the credit. I heard “O” on the radio in a sound bite this morning. Gotta love politicians (not).
These “claims on American assets” are also known as “U.S dollars”. If the dollars the Chineese own are deemed worthless then all the other dollars will also have to be deemed worthless because there is no way to tell the dollars apart.
There is no way to tell the dollars apart, but that doesn’t mean that laws can’t be passed restricting foreign owner ship of assests.
Just go to Cancun and try to buy a condo. The only way you can do that is through a trust with a bank (fideicomiso). Your ownership rights are severley curtailed under a fideicomiso as the bank is the actual owner of the property.
My take on the China situation can be summed up as below:
If you owe the bank (China) 100 dollars, and you don’t pay, YOU have a problem.
If you owe the bank (China) 50 trillion dollars, and you don’t pay, CHINA has a problem.
IMHO, China is the sucker in this bet, they will get taken to the cleaners by the American banking/finance system. We were swindling people before they came out of the stone age over there; and we are (sad to say) the best in the world at making financial deals that benefit nobody but us.
China is like the fat kid in the room (or Lehman); we are just letting them “into the club” because they have a lot of money. We will spit them up and throw them out at some point, and, frankly, there’s not a darn thing that they can do about it. There are some advantages to having the most powerful military in the world. Think of it like the Mob; he with the best “enforcers” has the ability to walk all over everyone else.
At this point in the poker game, everybody is raising at every turn, looking around the table trying to figure out who the chump is….
That would be the scientists and engineers at BP, who are altogether underrated and unappreciated. I hope that they receive some kind of award or public recognition.
Same deal as with alternative energy.
At some point the shills and activists for all the various “green” replacement energy sources need to shut up and let the engineers figure out which ones will really work, and which will scale up without introducing side effects greater than their actual benefits.
“That would be the scientists and engineers at BP, who are altogether underrated and unappreciated.”
I guess O finally figured out who’s @ss to kick!!!
“I hope that they receive some kind of award or public recognition.”
How about a public @ss kicking?
Hey Bill:
I posted this a few days ago……Why not give your money in a trust to fund a micro-loan business..instead of paying for bloated salaries at the American heart and cancer societies??
Imagine if a just a couple of thousand bucks could fund the next bill gates.
Maybe…..but maybe it will be like what happened to all the property owners after the Nationalists were run out of town.
Somebody could make the point that we would all have been a lot better off, if a bunch of flippers, mortgage brokers, investment bankers and ratings agency types had been sent to the Gulag, instead of being baled out.
Their definition of “risk” and ours aren’t even in the same universe.w
Oh agreed X…but I’m talking very small loans a couple of hundred here and there to get some seed capital….It seem to work in rural places in India Africa….budding entrepreneurs if you wanted big bucks you go to the bank….
This is what i would do if had a lot off $$ to donate. At least give someone chance to be self sufficient, a little $$$ and in house mentors.
And if it really fails then give the rest to some big non-profits fat paychecks.
And if it really fails then give the rest to some big non-profits fat paychecks.
In a past life, I worked for a non-profit that paid six-figure salaries to the big boys. And, yes, all of them were boys.
Meanwhile, down at the low end of the totem pole, we shopped for clothes at yard sales and thrift stores and were vegetarian because meat was too expensive. There were rumors that some of the staff had to ask for food boxes at church.
RE BP “fix”:
Yesterday night I just happened to be viewing the image of the pressure guage (the cnn video with the array of several screens in one) on the containment capping device just as the robot camera zoomed in on the dial so you could actually read the numbers. I got a good look: The guage reads in increments of 1000 and goes from zero to 20,000 and the readout is in psi. The needle was pointing to 400psi just barely off the zero pin when suddenly the image went away and the screen went to multi-color vertical bars. A clear look at the guage reading was only available for less than 30 seconds and to my knowledge has not been shown again since making it quite obvious to me that the people in charge do not want the public to see the pressure reading. The low 400psi reading was at about 8pm and was well enough into the test to imply that there is substantial leakage somewhere beneath the oecan floor. Not a good development.
:
Thanks, pressboard. I suspect we’ll be hearing about this shortly. That’s why we’re being told not to get our hopes up.
pressboardbox,
I bought a round for a few of the OSU eng. students last night and they’ve been watching it closely. They mentioned that last they heard it was 4,000 psi and rising. But you’re right, at a mile below the surface, it’s dicey at best.
At this point, just the fact they’ve managed to do ‘anything’ is a relief. What’s my motto? “Take encouragement where you can FIND it!”
My worry: If the guage had a good reading (pressure they are looking for) at this point, they would be proudly showing it at every opportunity. The lack of any pressure-reading image is evidence enough for me that the results are not good. Expect a monster cover-up at this point so BP can save the recent stock-price gain and Obama and the MSM can save face. Alot is at stake here and the Gulf is the real victim. I bet they are furiously looking for the crack in the ocean floor with oil spewing from it so they can dump a butt-load of dispersant there and keep the media away while the MSM focuses on “mission accomplished” at the well-head site and the associated “high-fiving” in DC.
I’ve an engineer and have been monitoring the video feeds (when available, at http://www.jtnog.org/) as well, and the pressure gauge that you were looking at could have been for any number of items on the new containment cap, such as the hydraulic pressure in one of the many control circuits. So I’m not so sure that it is valid to draw conclusions from a short glimpse at one pressure gauge.
OTOH, I do agree with you that there is something nefarious going on with regards to which video feeds are available when. I generally check in several times a day, and sometimes almost all of them are not available which I know is bogus. I suspect that BP considers many of their underwater remote procedures trade secrets (I know that I would) and doesn’t want their competition to see them.
Getting those huge bolts loosened on the original flange and the damaged section of pipe removed, and then installing the new flange and stub with the attachment shoulder ring (that the new containment cap is now attached to) and retorquing those bolts, a mile-deep underwater, via remote vehicles, now THAT’s a major engineering feat!
Oh, I don’t know , I saw it at 4,000 pounds once, and I try to look at it each day, or so.
But I was surprised to see it at 8,000 pounds once, as that is a hell of a lot of pressure, in my mind.
I worked on air torpedos in WW2 and we thought 3,500 pounds was a lot.
speaking about the hysteria over this stuff, they were talking about whether the casing would hold after the cap was put on, and I thought to my self if the blow out preventor would stop the well it would have the same problem with blowing out the casing!
Oh well, the world is coming to an end , sooner or later, according to the media.
Construction on housing is up 31% year over year according to the Greenville News. The article mentions that the new houses being built are small compared to what used to be built. Still it is good news for Upstate South Carolina.
The bubble here was a few miles to the west and north in the mountains. That bubble is still deflating and will for several more years.
We’ve got some new building going on on a street that is so new gmaps won’t pull it up. They’re priced at least $100k lower than what was the lowest 4 bedroom new construction out there before. That’s a 30% haircut. The location could have something to do with that. I’ll need to investigate.
Seeing the same thing here in south Denver. The builders are constructing, smaller, new product within existing neighborhoods and dropping the prices to about $180,000 or so (previous prices were in the $250,000 to $300,000 range). While the product is a little smaller, its clearly giving current homeowners a very nice bath in price depreciation. Its also allowing the builders to compete with foreclosures more effectively.
I thought the streets in Douglas County were paved with gold!
I would also mention that the Columbia area of South Carolina is seeing price decreases for housing. It just confirms that housing price bubble deflation is linked to employment levels. Columbia is having job losses from the decline in State Government. The Upstate has several large employers hiring and is seeing a rebound in employment.
With that said, areas like Florida and Vegas and California where unemployment is high and persistent are likely to see housing prices just keep going down. They will eventually have to give away the condo’s though.
Arizona unemployment is also still lofty at 9.6%. Just a few years ago Phoenix and Tucson unemployment rates were around 2%.
When are new luxury car prices going to start falling?
When the govt quits handing out money to buy new cars.
Good point. I suppose this is done through HELOCs.
“When are new luxury car prices going to start falling?”
With the weakening of the Euro, I would have thought that the U.S. prices of those German imports that are still made in Europe would have come down some. If not, then the U.S. distributors and dealers are seeing some fatter margins.
That’s what always happens. Changes in the exchange rate that are favorable to people buying with dollars are never reflected in retail prices. They are always kept by the manufacturer/importers, and are explained away as inflation.
If your looking at luxury cars, I suggest getting one with low miles that is a few years old. Cars are horrible purchases.
And wait for the next gas price spike to do it. The prices on cars with big engines goes way down the the gas prices go up.
test, my comments/post do not show up
Well, this one didn’t show up either. You are officially invisible.
My special invisible comment reading glasses suggest otherwise
I’ve been reading a great number of comments here lately about it being impossible for anyone to save for retirement, education, etc.
I need to state that I think those who feel this way should really consider adding a qualifier to that statement when it is said, something like:
“It’s impossible to save for retirement or the education of our children under the current paradigm of paying a significant chunk of our income to the banks in the form of interest, paying another significant chunk to well marketed but unhealthy food choices, and yet a third chunk to overpriced entertainment options.”
If society is going to change for the better it will need to take a stand against those who would enslave us through debt and/or inflation.
and yet a third chunk to overpriced entertainment options
You mean like people who spend $5000 (or more) every year on a Disneyworld vacation.
And if you think that that’s an anomaly, Disneyword is full of timeshares (AKA the Disney Vacation Club). DVC is is EXPENSIVE. Tens of thousands to buy in, thousands in annual fees. And now you’re captive, having to “use it or lose it” (I guess some people rent them out).
“Disneyword is full of timeshares … (I guess some people rent them out).”
When we planned our once-a-decade Disney vacation last year, I looked into renting someone’s timeshare. It wasn’t all that much cheaper than outright booking one of their hotels myself. Plus the program (point system) was a little complicated, and there is risk of the seller not performing. So the people with Disney timeshares can keep them AFAIC.
Another thing I’ve found with renting timeshares is, the owners don’t necessarily keep their furniture in good condition. Reputable hotels always have good mattresses. The timeshare we once rented had horrible, saggy mattresses, and I woke up with a back-ache.
“It’s impossible to save for retirement or the education of our children under the current paradigm of paying a significant chunk of our income to the banks in the form of interest, paying another significant chunk to well marketed but unhealthy food choices, and yet a third chunk to overpriced entertainment options.”
I just finished reading the book Generation Debt by Anya Kamenetz. Much of it talks about how the high price of higher education leaves young people with crushing debt. And, what’s worse, the job market hasn’t been too hot.
Toward the end of the book, she makes the same point that’s up above in the italics. Especially liked her advice on living on less, and saving more, than you thought possible.
I’ll look for that book, thanks. I think it was Galbraith who wrote that the GD1 ended when the greatest part of wretched excess has been eliminated. Most people got reset to subsistence living and built again from there. As the government began to subsidize debt after WW2 a new bigger badder debt cycle developed and the banks were there every step of the way pushing to make it happen.
It is hard not to get sucked into this debt based living. I made that mistake in my early 20s and it took a lot of years of sacrifice to fill in that hole, but it is worth it. I decided at some point that I really didn’t want to work until I was broken doing what someone else wanted me to do. From that day to this my goal has been self sufficiency and barring total societal breakdown I am getting pretty close to that.
If I can do it most anyone can, but that road is not paved with Coach bags, pedicures, and $10 cinema.
Unless you’re living in a corregated chateau, it is usually possible to find somebody else who is living within your means. It may not be easy for fun, but over the long term it is usually a better idea to live within your means than to assume that in the future your means will be dramaticly better so that you can easily repay your debts.
New book about sub-prime colleges and the college tuition bubble that parents of college-bound children should check out: http://www.thefiveyearparty.com
(title pertains to the # of years students take to graduate, which is actually closer to 6 years now…)
For an earlier take on the same topic, see Indiana University professor Murray Sperber’s book, Beer and Circus.
Key point: As the behavior of students has gotten worse, public support for higher education has declined.
You forgot about 30%+ of income going to various taxes.
I’ll give you that, but death and taxes are two certainties of life, and short of criminal behavior or expatriation one can not really opt out.
I’m talking about choices. We live in a society that can not distinguish need from desire.
Is there an app for that?
I wonder how many people could be hired back into the housing/finance industry if housing and commercial assets were allowed to fall to the levels a prudent market could bear.
Of course, that would mean the 5 figure guys would be making money and the 7-8 figure guys who already own multiple assets and have made millions for years might have a set-back. Nah, couldn’t have that.
It’s “Pottery Barn Rules” time at the Fed from here on out…
The Wall Street Journal
Fed Wins More Power in Financial Overhaul
July 16, 2010
The Fed has emerged from a bruising debate on the overhaul of U.S. financial rules as perhaps the pre-eminent financial regulator. But that could only bring it added blame if things go wrong again.
Does this mean that the Fed can now join Goldman in performing God’s work? Too many Gods, not enough workers.
Could this be a sign of an impending housing market bottom, at least over the future course of geologic time?
Uniformitarianists want to know!
* The Wall Street Journal
* U.S. NEWS
* JULY 16, 2010, 6:52 A.M. ET
Minor Quake Rattles Washington Area
Associated Press
WASHINGTON—A minor earthquake shook residents awake in the Washington, D.C., area early Friday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damaged.
The quake hit at 5:04 a.m. ET and had a magnitude of 3.6. It was centered in the Rockville, Md., area said Randy Baldwin, a physicist with U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center.
On the U.S. Geological Survey’s website, people as far away as Pennsylvania and West Virginia reported feeling the quake.
Lucille Baur, public information officer for the Montgomery County Police Department, said the department received a lot of calls from people wondering what had happened.
MS. Baur said her husband woke up when the quake struck. “At first he thought it was a big truck going through,” she said. “He felt the house shake and the windows rattle a little bit.”
…
Why couldn’t it have been a real cataclysm?
We just have to keep hoping.
No kidding, a 9.0 might do the trick, hopefully when they are in session.
Why couldn’t it have been a real cataclysm?
Because people like Polly live there?
I expect that with in the next year or two we will be looking at magnitude 7+ in LA area. Should be amazingly catastrophic. The Mexicali quake appears to have placed a major stress on the SA fault and break point might be around LA or possibly near Palm Springs… kind of running NE/SW along the fault.
PB felt the last one. Think this one might be closer into LA.
There seems to be a lot of politics about predictions; I get the feeling they should be looking at plans.
Odds are still low but the Mexicali quake activity changed a lot of the forecasts.
Interesting thought. What will kill off LA? A magnitude 9 quake or a muslim a-bomb?
..and how will people escape… from LA?
IIRC, one of the most seismically active areas in North America is the St. Lawrence River Valley. And, if that’s not enough of a surprise, one of America’s most powerful earthquakes was in the Missouri Bootheel. That one made the Mississippi River run backwards for a couple of weeks.
New Madrid is a fascinating story. IIRC the bells in Boston churches rang from the shaking.
There was a small shift in the New Madrid fault in the mid-’70s. We felt it in Champaign-Urbana, about 250 miles away.
I can’t imagine living in an active quake zone but, OTOH, a lot of people I talk to from there don’t understand why I live in Tornado Alley. My response is that we get fair warning when conditions are right for tornadoes.
We had a mag 3.8 earlier this year near Elgin, IL. It was loud enough to wake me up. First earthquake that I ever felt! OTOH, I’ve lived in Illinois for 38 years, and never seen a tornado.
Where’s Eddie when you need assurances of a late day stock market recovery?
Don’t worry, it’ll be up by the end of the day!
(But really I’m cheering for Dow 8000!)
Looks it was another suckers rally after all.
Paul Craig Roberts: Economics in Freefall
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07152010.html
A fantastic read, because it puts to rest all the arguments about regulation and “free” markets.
Financial and other regulation is necessary for the same reason we have laws regarding murder, theft, etc.
“Social institutions are inanimate. They do not possess life and cannot impose good outcomes on human action.”
I beg to differ. Given that the constituents of markets are living, breathing humans, voting with their consumption choices to signal their preferences to producers, I cannot agree that markets are inanimate. The statement is devoid of content.
I beg to differ with you. Markets are motivated by living breathing human beings, but markets themselves are nothing more than ideas, or constructs, if you will, and as such are inanimate. Markets only have the life given by participants. Think of markets as a playing field. They have no more life than a baseball diamond, or dog track, or football field.
You cannot separate the game from the players. This is a fiction that always leads to disappointment if not outright disaster.
Nice
Money quote
free market does not mean a market in which human behavior is not regulated. A free market is one in which supply and demand are permitted to equate.
In fact I would argue that a market where human behavior is not regulated is one in which price supply and demand are manipulated and thus one that is not free.
Offshoring transforms American workers’ wages into performance bonuses for executives, capital gains for shareholders, and honoraria and research grants for economists who shill for the practice.
The problem that the US economy faces is far more serious than the financial crisis resulting from financial deregulation. The reason that traditional monetary and fiscal policies cannot produce an economic recovery is that so much of the US economy has been moved offshore. As the jobs have departed, there is no work to which low interest rates and massive government spending can recall workers. This is the real freefall
This is the part where the king finds out what happens when you kill the goose that laid the golden egg. I think a lot of CEO’s and those who have been taken in by corporatist propaganda will find out that their lives are going to be a lot worse because of it.
“In fact I would argue that a market where human behavior is not regulated is one in which price supply and demand are manipulated and thus one that is not free.”
I can attest to the validity of this theory whenever I have the “need” to buy a Thomas Buoyant lure from the local remote lake fishing/goods market. Oh, and ice too!
Check out today’s movement on the Global Dow. It looks as though the bulls stampeded towards the edge of a cliff and forgot to stop running.
Now that’s just too funny, right there. You just made my day, bro’.
I have a odd theory, it involves: Wall St. senior management / French Polynesia islands / long straws & lil’ mixed-drink umbrella’s / and the continued constancy of this natural phenomena:
http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/content/visualizations/es0408/es0408page01.cfm?chapter_no=04
A gem from Paul Craig Roberts. I’ve posted the link to the entire article, but it hasn’t shown up yet. Roberts deserves a medal for clearing away all the confusion as to what a “free market” really is. Awesome.
“First, understand that a free market is one in which prices are free to respond to supply and demand. Economists of all persuasions understand that to fix a price below the price at which supply and demand equate results in shortages. Economists have learned this from rent control. Fixing a price above the price at which supply and demand equate results in surpluses. Economists have learned this from agricultural subsidies. A free market does not mean a market in which human behavior is not regulated. A free market is one in which supply and demand are permitted to equate.
Second, understand that regulation regulates human behavior, not the market. It is the actors in the market who are charged with regulatory infractions, not the institution itself. Regulation is necessary because of human faults, such as greed, fraud, carelessness, not because of market faults. Regulation is necessary because of human failure, not because of market failure.”
Wouldn’t U.S. asset prices (e.g. houses and stocks) summarily plummet if markets were free as Roberts suggests? Fundamentals surely don’t support their current levels by any stretch of the imagination…
Exactly, Catank. Indeed they would, and should. There is major price-fixing going on.
I hope the post with the link to the entire article shows up soon. Whew, this guy cleared up a lot of confusions that I have had about “free markets”. There’s a big difference betweeen a “free” market and a market free-for-all.
“There is major price-fixing going on.”
But hasn’t this been the norm since Alan Greenspan took over at the Fed back in 1987? Price-fixing pretty much appears to be ensconced into the economic landscape these days. How else to interpret Bernanke’s petal-to-the-metal ‘extended period’ of low interest rates, coupled with a renewed threat of quantitative easing, than as a continuation of the Greenspan put policy?
Abruptly ending the practice would be cataclysmic, indeed. That’s why I expect it to be unwound very gradually, kind of like the Japanese stock market unwound from 1990-2010 (so far).
“I hope the post with the link to the entire article shows up soon. Whew, this guy cleared up a lot of confusions that I have had about “free markets”. There’s a big difference betweeen a “free” market and a market free-for-all.”
Well, of course. The notion that we need a “minimum level of regulation in the markets” implies two things: first, that regulation should be kept “to a minimum” - meaning “a low level” - but also (and perhaps more importantly) that we need a “minimum level” of regulation that we should not drop below.
Methinks that we dropped below that level.
Youthinks correctly.
Wouldn’t U.S. asset prices (e.g. houses and stocks) summarily plummet if markets were free as Roberts suggests?
Yes they would indeed; and that would be a good thing.
More importantly - they never would have gotten as high as they did if we had a free market without government/Fed price supports.
If we forget about Wall St’s insatiable appetite for CDOs and REITs, RE agents insatiable appetite for buyers and the lenders insatiable appetite for borrowers, this would be correct.
As I’ve said before, a “free market” is naive fantasy who’s end game is pain and suffering.
Someone ALWAYS games the system and nature (feast or famine) isn’t so obliging either.
Billions and billions of dollars doesn’t attract saints and nature cares not one wit if we eat or starve.
Therefore, a system must always be put in place to at least mitigate the extremes.
Just a local observation. I am interested in what others might be seeing.
I live in a “workingclass” neighborhood just outside the City limits of Tampa. The houses here were first built in the 1950’s. I built mine in 1998.
During the last 10 years, a portion of them became rental units, though most are still owner occupied. Over the past year, many tenants have vacated for better opportunities elsewhere.
On my street there are 5 vacant houses out of about 12. They have been vacant for going on 5 or 6 months on average.
During the “boom” and subsequent bust, i have seen newer neighborhoods that were “flipper” zones that went vacant at a rate of 50% or more when the prices stopped going up and the mortgage payments got over the teaser rates, a fiasco that should never been allowed to happen.
But now, I must surmise that either the tenants are moving to newer homes that are being rented due to lack of sales, or they are moving in with other people and reducing their overheads, or both.
I personally know some people who are living with their parents, though they have family units of their own, or are living as 2 or more couples in a single family house. Is this becoming commonplace??
The weeds are growing tall in the neighboring houses if we don’t go over and cut the yards. The “owners” seem to have given up on the maintenance to a large extent.
I ride a bicycle several times a week, averaging 20 to 30 miles per trip.
I travel through some local neighborhoods where i have seen what appears to be more vacancies. IS this just the Tampa area, or are you guys seeing this happening in other parts of the State/Nation???
Thanks.
D.
In my block, there’s a house that’s been vacant since March. Tenants must’ve made a real mess out of the place. Owner’s been on the fix-it trail ever since then.
This house is across the street from another one that’s been vacant for at least a month. Owner doesn’t seem to care as much as the one mentioned above.
Why? Because the back gate to this place fell off its hinges and blocked the sidewalk. And there it stayed. On an evening bike ride, I decided I had enough of looking at it, so I dragged it into the back yard.
This is just in my block. There are quite a few vacant houses around here.
There’s a foreclosure on our street vacant since January, when the squatters who lived their rent free 6 months (with their brood of 5 children) were finally evicted by the bank. This had been a highly upgraded home by the original owner who paid around $220K in 1999. Then she sold at top of the market in 2006 for something like $630K, which is insane because these are considered “starter homes” since they’re less than 2,000 sf in a sea of faux Mediterranean McMansions. That owner went into foreclosure while renting the house, and now the bank is asking $460K which is still too high, since they have not bothered to repaint the house or fix a broken window. Who knows what the interior must look like. About a month ago an owner-occupied home across the street was sold for $480K, and they repainted, refinished the wood floors and kept it perfectly maintained.
In South and Eastern Hillsborough, we had many developments go up. The 301 corridor between Sun City Center and Brandon is lined with them. Most of that was vacant or ag land when I first moved to the area in 2000. It just exploded. And judging by the amount of traffic on the road and in the cross-street corner strip malls, people were moving in, whether as buyers or renters. It is now more or less permanently congested, I don’t see an abatement in congestion, frankly.
However, I did see a bit of the trend you mentioned. I know one lady who took her three daughters and moved into a home in Summerfield with a friend and her husband. Between 2005 and 2008, when I was looking for places to rent, Craigslist was chock full of ads for “rooms” in houses and condos in “upscale” developments, a trend which I found disgusting, because it seemed that “investors” were looking to make their mortgages on bundles of roommates. And the rents were a joke, because usually for $100 more you could rent a one bedroom apartment.
My new place is me (renter), surrounded by two abandoned homes, and one that just sold. My new rental is pristine as it was updated to sell, but no takers.
I would be one of the “greener pastures” people you are referring to. At each stage of this boom/bust, I have parlayed into a nicer, bigger, better house in better communities. I now live in a 3/2 in a beach community and I’m not paying much more than I did for a 2/1.5 in a marginal ‘hood.
Diogenes,
Staaarting to see a bit of that and I suspect our neighbor below is trying to figure out how to tell us her 45 y.o daughter ‘is’ moving in? ( Try ‘has’ moved in? )
OR was late but making up ground FAST! We’ve catapaulted to #3 in the Nation for FC’s. Oh and good for you on those lengthy bike rides btw! Just last night my daughter ( Ms. Fitness ) and I went on a 1.5 mile “run” w/ me and she asked me what my “fitness goals” were?
I said; “My dream is to HAVE a dream!” ( pretty pathetic when just ‘finishing’ 1.5 is your ‘dream’ huh? ) Anyway, we had very sad news last night. The ’school lady’s’ husband was killed in a tractor accident on their own property. Very nice man in his mid-60’s but very healthy. We know they were utterly despondent about how their nest-egg ( 40 acres/ 2 cabins ) had dwindled to basically nothing. Not implying it was in ANY way “intentional” but I ( fear ) these are the types of things that happen when you’ve basically thrown in the towel on yourself? And a big part of the reason I -refuse- to let the HB beat me!
The man had been around heavy/const. eq. his whole life. We have no idea how she’ll maint. that prop. or what we can possibly do to help?
“…despondent about how their nest-egg ( 40 acres/ 2 cabins ) had dwindled to basically nothing.”
In OR? Please explain…
Hwy50,
They actually visited us sometime back and really marvelled at how simple our lives were in 1,200 s/f condo. They even entertained the notion of -buying- it just for the view, ease of maint. and viability for extended travel etc.
As we got to talking it became more obvious that ( like many a’ boomer ) hadn’t adequately saved/invested for their ret. The majority of their net worth was tied up in their primary residence. Like I say, she worked for the school for years but it was a stand alone school. Their access to PERS was limited for all but a few teachers/admin.
Given they’d priced their place @ 800k during the peak, in their minds, anything ‘less’ ( is next to nothing! ) When ‘I’ say nothing, what’s intended is that there simply is NO mkt. for high-dollar/big acreage lisitngs! None. Everyone that would have the means to pursue it just wants to DOWN-size ( not Up )
Well, when I was in OR in 1979 wanderin’ ’bout on my motorcycle two places stood out:
Pacific City & John Day
Back in the day, there was just a dory fisherman diner at Pacific City, (That’s when I found out that the Duke had died from a news-stand headline) nothing on the sand, not x1 cottage…
I went back in 2004…OMG!
Mr. Cole & I traveled about SE OR in 2007 in the really remote gravel roads sections…beautiful lonesome territory.
Planning a trip maybe next year to see Crater Lake & Mt.St Helen’s…(he likes Volcano’s now) might try to make that beer festival I posted the other day.
With my CA plates on my Jeep I can feel the heat from many a OR homesteaders eyes
… like wearing a tie-dye t-shirt in small-town Kansas! But once they see that we have camping gear, they’re cool! 
Man, I wish I had a place like that with access to a job I’d like to do. But cheap land and tech/biotech jobs don’t seem to colocate in very many places.
Trying to buy anything with ‘land’ in the bay area is impossible for anyone not extremely rich or willing to commute several hours a day.
sfbubblebuyer,
I realize this may not carry the same weight w/ you as it does w/ an Oregonian but the wife and I are ent. several properties in the Yreka ( more specifically ) Hornbrook, CA area.
We really like it there and land isn’t any more expensive than on the OR side. Only it’s about 20 degrees -warmer- at just about any given point in the year! With about 1/10th the freaking rain! 2.5 acres seems to avg. less than $10k. Much to chose from. Iron Gate Lake is very nice. Probably 5 hours from your front door.
Really?
Because one thing I am actually interested in is getting land for family trips somewhere nice, not too far, and not too expensive. The whole “summer trip to the lake” type deal.
SFBB,
As were we. Right now one of the options we’ve considered is the R-Ranch, right there in Hornbrook. It’s like 5,000+ acres and you can find shrs. on C/L for as low as $1,500.
If frac. ownership doesn’t bother you? We’re not sure that it’s nec. ‘ideal’ for us, especially when you look at how cheap land in the immediate surrounding area is!
From the BA, I think Salem, OR is actually a bit closer but for us, other than a brief stretch in Siskiyou’s, it’s a breeze. The ppl there ( contrary to what you’ve prob. heard ) are very nice. It’s family oriented.
in bend foreclosures are sprouting up like weeds. default notices far longer than employment opportunities (maybe5-10 jobs but 30 or more NOD’s). Friend that travels Cali. for work says a good portion of the state is boarded up, and most of his big fish friends have become small fry. The larger they are the harder they fall, if they fell into the leverage game.
We are trying to hang on by the skin of our teeth to our last investment, a paid for house that is relatively new, right by facebooks new data center, that we receive about 10k income from. Wife receives another 10k, and I make about 15k.
Not enough, although some acquaintances on the dole seem to do alright thanks to food stamps, section 8, and Oregon health plan.
Some little problems have arisen for many folks in the lower, but not lowest income brackets.
1. The credit reform bill has led to any credit card balances (which were 0 for us but now are looming, although our limits have been thankfully cut) have been raised to 30% interest, not from any missed payments, in fact right after we paid them all in full. Bofa, whom my wife owes $300,000, has cancelled her $500 limit credit card, so I doubt they would restructure our mortgage given new underwriting standards where checkers dont get a third of a million from a 700 fico
2. Our health care premiums have been “restructured”, raised just this quarter for my wife and two kids to $1600, and benefits whittled to a 70/30 from an 80/20, copays up to $25. Deductibles, of course, are 1000 per head, and prescription drug coverage is only for the drugs that they choose, not the ones that the doctor prescribes. Mine cost $2500 per year.
Dont try to sell us any more transparancy, we can see thru what you are doing just fine.
Gotta get poor, or at least appear that way! (or make over 100k per year)
Exactly Mike….now will you get that divorce so your finances can improve?
I hate to suggest it, but I think you would be wise to eliminate your health coverage!
Being 87 I lived a great part of my life without health coverage and didn’t seem to miss much!
As one poster suggested in a previous post, somewhere on the web, you need to go to the hospital, go, take the bill, let it go to collection , and then settle with the collection agency , instead of the hospital.
When we had our 3 children, each and every one of them was paid for , to the doctor, before birth, and hospitals were paid in full before delivery. Out of monthly income.
You can do the same think with a family physician, I do believe, just pay the doctor from the savings from not paying health insurance.
the public is so afraid of health bills that the insurance companies are taking advantage of the fear to raise their prices.
True story from the Arizona Slim file:
Back in 1985, I needed surgery. Since I was such a poor little Slim, I went through a low-income clinic that was located in a church basement. It was part of the church’s outreach to the surrounding community, which wasn’t exactly well off.
Any-hoo, I was sent to a very good surgeon who, knowing that I’d been referred by this clinic, charged me only one third of his usual fee. Took a few months to pay it off, even on my meager income.
And, since I didn’t have health insurance, he said he’d perform the operation under local anesthesia, and I could go home right after the surgery.
It went swimmingly.
I would even go so far as to say that I had a better outcome without the health insurance, which would have covered an in-hospital stay after surgery done under general anesthesia.
This, people, is what I’m getting at when I say that there’s a lot of unneeded health care out there. Just because insurance covers it doesn’t mean it’s the best way to go.
That’s how I do it, JackO. And preventive medicine goes a long ways to making it practical.
So does not overeating and overworking all the time.
Our town is pretty good at responding to complaints about overgrown yards, and there must be a punitive fine system in place because once a notice is hung, the problem is usually corrected within a week or so.
Our MLS inventory seems to be growing more now than when the tax credit was in place. It feels like there is a tremendous amount of shadow inventory out there. Prices are making progress on the downside, but still sticky at too-high levels.
Flippers haven’t given up. One new construction house (lousy location for an upscale home: on the corner of a very busy road, facing the back of some rowhouses) sold for $500K a couple of months ago (I am not sure if it was a REO or if the builder was just in distress). The buyer cleaned up the construction dust, installed vent covers over the HVAC ducts, - that’s literally about all they had to do - and has it back on the market for around $660K. We all joke about 100K granite countertops… well now there’s $100K vent covers!
More flipping: another REO house (I didn’t tour it, but an inquiry to the listing agent alerted us to significant ceiling water damage from a broken pipe) sold for $200K. The buyer put lipstick on that pig and its now listed in the high $400Ks. Other houses in that neighborhood are asking in the $500s, so its going to be a comp killer. It will sell first, because it was fixed up nice and pretty on the outside.
I am following some houses that have been sitting on the market for four years. Some have been able to refresh their listing to reset the DOM, but I’ve got a binder of listing sheets going back 2-3 years now. Some haven’t lowered their prices in over two years, which explains why they haven’t sold.
This week I alerted our landlord that we’ll be renewing our lease, and the lease isn’t even half way through.
My next door neighbors just moved in 2 couples. I don’t know if it’s their kids or what.
But yes, I’m seeing a lot of doubling up everywhere.
Ditto for Orange County, (Ca.)
Hard to get hard number statistics, since individuals and families
doubling up are “invisible”.
How do I know? I helped some of those folks (friends) move!
octal 77,
Good point. We’ll call it the “Can I borrow your pick-up Index”.
What are you doing ‘Saturday’ Index?
“The O.C.”
…“hoc tui splat!” (In Montana™)
Well that would make these numbers all “relative” perhaps?
Biggest SoCal rent decline since 1940:
July 16th, 2010, by Jon Lansner OC Register
The cost of renting a residence in Southern California fell at an 0.7% annual rate in the first half of 2010, according to the June reading of the local Consumer Price Index.
That decline is the first six-month decline since 1995, and reflects a push by landlords to fill up empty apartments and other rentals with discounted rents.
Falling rents are a rarity by any measure. The CPI, compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, has kept six-month SoCal tallies since 1985. Rents have fallen in those periods just 3 times (twice in 1995 — both 0.4% cuts — and once in 1993, a 0.1% dip.) On a full-year basis, the last time local rents were declining before the mid-1990s was in 1940, when they fell 1.1%. Yes, 70 years ago!
History buffs will want to know that local rents, measured by the CPI, did fall every year for an 11-year period — from 1925 to 1935 — leading up to and including the Great Depression.
Other SoCal housing-related CPI indexes show for June …
Homeowners’ costs — estimated by asking owners what their home would rent for — fell at an annual rate of 1% in June. That’s the 10th consecutive drop but smallest in 8 months.
Electricity costs rose at an annual rate of 3% in June — highest since April 2009.
Volatile piped utility gas costs rose at an annual rate of 16.8% in June vs. a 31.7% drop last year.
Household furnishings and operations dropped at an annual rate of 3.4% in June. That’s 11 straight monthly declines.
The overall housing CPI for SoCal fell at an annual rate of 0.8% in June, the 12th straight decline. This index fall at an 0.8% rate in the first half. It has never reported an annual decline since BLS started keeping it in 1977.
0.7%
Whoop. Dee. Do.
In other words, barely measurable.
” ‘Retail sales fall for second month,’ says Bloomberg.
“Households are getting rid of debt. They’re sprucing up their balance sheets by increasing their savings rates. More savings, less debt. We have no quarrel with this process. It’s the market’s way of correcting mistakes and putting things back in order.
“But it’s not without its little aches and pains. You’d expect retail sales to go down, for example.
“If this were a recovery, on the other hand, you’d expect sales to be going up…to be recovering, that is. If the economy were retracing its bubble path, sales would go up and up. Instead, they’re going down and down - which is why it’s not a recovery. It’s a Great Contraction.
“How long will it last?
“Until it is over.” ~Bill Bonner
When you come to a fork in the road, take it. - Yogi Bera
You won’t believe what Obama’s cooking up now …
Family chef elevated to post as ’senior policy adviser’
Assistant White House Chef Sam Kass prepares winter citrus salad for tonight’s Governors’ Dinner at a preview in the White House kitchen in Washington on February 22, 2009. (UPI Photo/Kevin Dietsch) Photo via Newscom Photo via Newscom
You’ve seen the reports about Van Jones, President Obama’s onetime “green jobs czar,” and Cass Sunstein, his equally volatile “regulatory czar”
Now here’s the newest White House promotion: “Health food czar” Sam Kass.
“In a comical move even for a czar-happy president who has rewarded dozens of cronies with distinguished titles, the White House has named the Obamas’ personal Chicago cook as ‘Senior Policy Adviser for Healthy Food Initiatives,’” reports the Washington government watchdog Judicial Watch.
“It’s no joke, even though it sounds like a bad one. The Chicago chef’s rapid ascension … has been kept under the radar for the last month,” Judicial Watch said.
Given the recent news about Obama’s cholesterol in the just-this-side-of-big-trouble range, I hope that his chef has him on a good diet.
LOL, sounds like some old time emperor or potentate appointing “The Bearer of the Royal Underpants” or something like that.
“The royal penis is clean, your Highness.”
-Coming to America
“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
…
“He (King George) has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
…
- U.S. Declaration of Independence (included in the extensive list of grievances)
Are you saying a chef doesn’t know anything about food?
Seriously?
J&J revamping Tylenol plant, slashing jobs there.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson on Thursday said it aims to revamp a now-closed Pennsylvania plant that made Tylenol and other consumer medicines that have been recalled in recent months due to quality-control lapses, and eliminate 300 of the factory’s more than 400 employees.
It seems nobody learned “The Dell Lesson.”
Dell was the number one PC seller for most of the latter part of the 1990 and early 2000s. Then they cut corners on quality and customer service.
They are now number 3. A very distant “3″ compared to the current leaders. There was serious talk of a buyout by the bigger companies.
As I’ve said, it’s good to save money in business but you can save yourself right out of business.
Holy sheet!!! ECRI Leading Index plunges to -9.8%, only 0.2% above “guaranteed” recessionary level (+ prior week downward revisions).
Save your women and children, run for cover!!!
“A measure of future U.S. economic growth was unchanged in the latest week, a research group said on Friday. The Economic Cycle Research Institute, a New York-based independent forecasting group, said its Weekly Leading Index stood at 120.6 for the week ended July 9, unchanged from the previous week, which was originally reported as 121.5. The index was last below 120.6 in the week of July 24, 2009, when it measured 120.3, according to ECRI. The index’s annualized growth rate fell to minus 9.8 percent from minus 9.1 percent the previous week, originally reported as minus 8.3 percent.”
More quantitative easing is on the way… plan accordingly with respect to your asset allocation.
Law of diminishing return, baby.
How are you adjusting your asset allocation, Cantankerous one?
Dribbling a little at a time into foreign and U.S. stock indexes. At some point, the stock market will start going up again. Be it in one year or ten, I plan to have dribbled in enough to avoid having my meager wealth inflated away once lasting recovery takes hold and leaves savers with cash accounts wondering how they were left in the dust.
CITB,
I keep wondering why they don’t at the very least offer some… kind of Equity-Linked CD for 401k participants?
If nothing else ( even w/ upside capped ) they’d be making ’something’? Why can’t that ( or a sim. pdt. ) be offered to these ppl? ( Or would not being able to abuse them at their own convenience take all the fun out of it for Gollum? )
>I keep wondering why they don’t at the very least offer some… kind of Equity-Linked CD for 401k participants?
One of my MS Finance paper was on equity-linked CDs (or principle guaranteed notes), and it works like this:
You give me $100 - buy T-bond face value of $100 at $80 - $15 LEAP calls on SP500 = $5 in commission for Moi’.
BOOOYAH… for me that is!!!!!!
cougar91,
I wasn’t inferring that Eq-CD’s were by any means the end all be all, and when you’re talking Qual. accts. on the scale of 401k’s, you’re talking Vangard/Fidelity so we’ll assume they have the econ. of scale to bring it in a ‘little’ cheaper?
Yeah, I’ve seen some funky stuff in recent years too. Reverse Convertible’s “with a knock-in” etc. Typically dinky underwritings of 1 to 3 mil. In short, a joke. I’m just trying… to be proactive. Which at times can feel like peeing up a rope around here?
Job numbers head in ‘wrong direction’
Both sectors see drop, more give up job hunt
Journal Sentinel
Wisconsin lost private-sector jobs in June for the third time in four months as the burst of hiring earlier in the year fizzled into a grindingly slow and jobless recovery.
“We are headed in the wrong direction,” said David Ward, president of Madison-based North Star Economics Inc.
According to data released Thursday by the state Department of Workforce Development, private employers shed 1,000 positions in June on a seasonally adjusted basis. Sectors as diverse as manufacturing, information and financial services, and arts and entertainment all showed declines.
“…more give up job hunt…”
Other things equal, won’t more giving up the job hunt result in a lower unemployment rate?
Greece to Issue $1.94 billion of 13-Week T-Bills
16 Jul 2010 ~ Reuters
Greece will auction 1.5 billion euros ($1.94 billion) of 13-week T-bills on July 20 to roll over maturing paper, the country’s debt agency (PDMA) said on Friday.
The transaction marks the second time the country will tap the market since securing a 110 billion euro EU/IMF emergency loan package in May. The debt agency comfortably sold six-month T-bills earlier this week but at a high yield of 4.65 percent.
Only primary dealers will be allowed to participate next week and no commission will be paid, the agency said.
Obesity Rating for Every American Must Be Included in Stimulus-Mandated Electronic Health Records, Says HHS.
(CNSNews.com) – New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records–that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year–must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity.
The obesity-rating regulation states that every American’s electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.”
The law also requires that these electronic health records be available–with appropriate security measures–on a national exchange.
You Lie!
That’s just your typical gov’t subsidized sweet corn syrup marinated pork bellies politics.
Check out the cool animated chart:
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
U.S. Obesity Trends
Trends by State 1985–2008
Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater. BMI is calculated from a person’s weight and height and provides a reasonable indicator of body fatness and weight categories that may lead to health problems. Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer, and type 2 diabetes.
During the past 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States. In 2008, only one state (Colorado) had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%. Thirty-two states had a prevalence equal to or greater than 25%; six of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia ) had a prevalence of obesity equal to or greater than 30%.
The animated map below shows the United States obesity prevalence from 1985 through 2008.
“BMI is calculated from a person’s weight and height and provides a reasonable indicator of body fatness and weight categories that may lead to health problems.”
The director of the local gym would totally disagree with sentiment. With a background as a former pro baseball player and coach, he had to do all BMI pinch tests himself because he felt the results were so sensitive to inaccuracies. He’d have no respect for any weight/height calculation.
Looks like trouble starts in Alabama–certainly in the deep south.
Compare it with a map of who voted for McCain. Not an exact fit, but it does cause one to ask “Does being fat make you vote Republican, or does voting Republican make you fat?”
Correlation != causation. I’d be curious to know more about the correlation, too.
Sounds like a way to enforce some personal responsibility to me.
It is meaningless. Once the height and weight are recorded (pretty standard for doctor’s records) the BMI is already recorded, though it may not be already calculated.
BMI itself is meaningless. Person a: height X. Weight Y. Solid muscle, very fit. Person b: height X. Weight Y. Flabster to the max. Both people have the same BMI.
BMI based on height/weight ratio is stupid.
At one time, I was 5′11″ 240lbs and about 6-7% BF. My BMI had me as morbidly obese (or something like that). It’s not a calculation that works for those who are overly muscular.
At one time, I was 5′11″ 240lbs and about 6-7% BF. My BMI had me as morbidly obese (or something like that). It’s not a calculation that works for those who are overly muscular.
Isn’t that why our military academies don’t use it? ISTR that they dropped the BMI.
Reason: They get some pretty fit young people who have the same problem described above.
Slim,
The svc. has dropped it altogether. It seems no matter what option they chose, there will always be a small % that get the shaft.
I have a friend who’s arms are bigger than my legs and climbs rocks for fun. Super fit. But likely he’ll “fail” b/c his Waist Measurement exceeds the 39″ max.
They need to give local cdrs. some discretion on this! Also there’s a 1 Min. window to get in all your sit-ups/push-ups. I say that’s fine, but if you’re willing to double or nothing, you should be able to ‘keep’ going and grunt out as many as you can. IMHO.
To get a meaningful BMI they have to dunk you in a tank of water and measure your volume.
I can speak to the poor quality of the diet in the Southern states. I’ve traveled through there, and man, was it hard to find food that hadn’t been breaded and fried. Talk about a weight-gain diet. That’s it.
No wonder they’re so fat.
…and LOTS of ranch, salad dressing. In fact, if almost ALL your salad dressing choices are some kind of creamy thing.
GACK!
The Rally is Meaningless ~ MarketWatch
Commentary: Elliott Wave Financial Forecast says this will be a down year.
An investment letter that made money during the Crash of 2008 says the stock rally is meaningless and that this will be a down year.
To be fair, the Elliott Wave Financial Forecast [EWFF] said this in its monthly issue published in early July, before the recent bounce. But it anticipated this possibility, writing “The selling pressure will abate at times, but by the end of 2010, stock prices should be much lower.”
Recently, I quoted EWFF anticipating a triple-digit Dow in 2016, much to the disgust of some readers.
Any explanation of where the stock market is headed which does not consider the potential role of Fed monetary policy to lean into the wind of declining share prices is meaningless.
I wouldn’t say the rally was meaningless to those who fleeced the suckers!
California sues feds over financing for green homes
San Francisco Business Times
Attorney General Jerry Brown on Wednesday sued mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for blocking a California financing program for energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency issued a letter July 6 confirming its position on Property Assessed Clean Energy — PACE — financing programs that allow homeowners to borrow against their property taxes to fund energy efficiency improvements.
Improvements are funded on the front end through local government bond sales that hold senior lien status — meaning bondholders would get paid back before any mortgage lender in the case of default.
But the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 12 Federal home loan banks, said its lenders will no longer buy mortgages that had PACE liens attached, which essentially killed the program for homeowners.
Ummmm, I hate to break the news, but did you know that one of the most effective energy improvements is to seal leaks in the house? And how much does a box of caulking tubes cost? Not enough to require a loan, that’s for sure.
That’s what Slim did this past Sunday, BTW.
It’s fascinating how this works.
My 1,000 square foot house in San Jose cost more to heat in the winter than my 2,000 square foot house in Boise does. And it’s a LOT colder in Boise during the winter. Part of that is the lower therm rate here in Boise, but much has to do with my home builder’s “energy star” certification.
One of the sure ways to get mold in a home is to cut the air circulation.We used to require that forced air furnaces had 25% fresh air intake to ensure that the problems did not happen!
Of course, I am not sure whether there is any fresh air anywhere anymore.
Sealing of air leakage to reduce infiltration / ex-filtration is necessary for energy efficiency. Model codes require flexible / durable gasketing at all seams in the thermal envelope.
Ventilation and air exchange are necessary for good air quality and protection from condensation damage.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
Ummmm, I hate to break the news, but did you know that one of the most effective energy improvements is to seal leaks in the house? And how much does a box of caulking tubes cost? Not enough to require a loan, that’s for sure.
+1 Got that right. And keep your HVAC serviced. Just had the ducts cleaned at my place. What a difference!
China reduces US Treasury debt holdings.
WASHINGTON (AP) — China reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt in May as total foreign holdings of government debt posted a slight increase.
China’s holdings fell by $32.5 billion to $867.7 billion, the Treasury reported Friday. Total foreign holdings edged up $5.8 billion to $3.96 trillion.
The drop in China’s holdings and the weak showing overall was a surprise. Analysts expected a sizable gain because they thought foreign investors would seek the safety of U.S. Treasury debt, responding to fears over the European debt crisis.
China is the largest foreign holder of Treasury securities. The 3.6 percent drop in China’s holdings in May will likely raise concerns that China could shift money away from Treasury securities. That could raise the cost of financing America’s soaring budget deficits.
Japan, the world’s second-largest holder of Treasury securities, also cut its holdings in May, to $786.7 billion. That’s a drop of 1.1 percent from April.
“China reduces US Treasury debt holdings.”
A drop in foreign purchase demand for US Treasurys should result in higher yields (and lower prices), right?
So where are those higher yields, then?
Bingo.
I’m wondering who the heck is buying all these treasuries.
Wonder what they bought with that 32.5 billion dollars? Big macs for every government worker?
With public housing rent owed, evictions feared
San Francisco Chronicle July 16, 2010
The San Francisco Housing Authority has failed to collect rent from more than a quarter of its households, in some cases for years, resulting in a $2.2 million deficit that the agency is now trying to reverse, Housing Authority documents show.
Facing federal pressure to undo years of mismanagement, the authority has been sending public housing tenants formal notices threatening eviction unless they pay thousands of dollars in back rent starting this month.
Now hundreds of the city’s poorest residents fear they will become homeless, something officials say won’t happen if tenants make a good-faith effort and agree to payment plans.
CA UE is at 12%. Just how will the poor make those payments?
Oops.
The Democratic co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal commission said Wednesday that the president’s health care bill will do very little to bring down costs, contradicting claims from the White House that their sweeping legislation will dramatically impact runaway entitlement spending.
“It didn’t do a lot to address cost factors in health care. So we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, speaking about the new health law, which was signed into law by Obama this past spring after a nearly year-long fight in Congress.
Bowles, speaking at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that even with the passage of Obama’s legislation, health care costs are still going to “really eat us alive” unless dramatic changes are made.
“It didn’t do a lot to address cost factors in health care. So we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, speaking about the new health law, which was signed into law by Obama this past spring after a nearly year-long fight in Congress.
The problem with the health care bill, and with health insurance in general, is that it’s a reimbursement for doing things. Not much attention is paid to whether these things are even necessary.
As many of us have pointed out here, there’s quite a bit of unnecessary (and overpriced) health care out there. We’ve kicked more than a few bits around the bucket on this topic.
Instead, Mr. Blankfein will, at least for now, remain both chairman and chief executive of the bank, the most profitable in Wall Street history. Some had speculated the legal dustup would at least cost him the chairmanship.
Indeed, the settlement, while one of the largest in financial history, was half the size that many analysts had originally predicted. It represents a mere 15 days of profits, based on Goldman’s 2009 earnings.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could break into houses and steal every day of the week and then once every few years you would get caught and then have to give up 15 days worth of your take, and not admit to anything illegal
I, on the other hand, am a bit more optimistic.
I seem to recall reading that this isn’t the only legal trouble that GS is facing. Isn’t Andrew Cuomo, NY State’s AG, hot on their trail as well?
Methinks that the beginning of the end for GS is already underway.
That’s not what I read.
I read somewhere that the settlement actually absolves GS from any other lawsuits.
GS may now be absolved of other lawsuits, but there’s this thing called the court of public opinion. Think back five years ago. Few people had heard of Goldman Sachs.
Compare that with now. Just about everyone knows who they are, and what they have to say about them isn’t good.
We’re seeing similar things happening with Wal-Mart. Wasn’t too long ago that they were the unstoppable juggernaut. Not anymore. They’re having a tough time increasing U.S. sales.
Ditto for Microsoft. There’s another example of a company on its way down. (Think Zune vs. the iPod and the flop called Vista.)
“These f@!king Guys!,” Jon Stewart.
15 men on a dead mans chest
I really wished the reporters would put this settlement into perspective by telling us what the plaintiffs’ perceived losses were due to Goldman’s alleged misrepresentation.
Dallas Libraries Facing Major Layoffs
25-year-old Travis Walvoord says he has the job of his dreams, working at the Dallas Public Library. But Walvoord has been informed that his position as a Page is being eliminated and he expects to be one of 155 library employees who receive layoff notices next month.
City officials say the Reduction in Force notices will be delivered on Friday, August 13. The current budget cycle ends September 30, which will be their last day on the job, unless Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm finds other sources of revenue or other areas to cut in the next fiscal budget.
Dream job? In my neck of the woods library pages are paid $8/hr.
My pre-teen neice is spending part of the summer volunteering for our local library. I don’t know if she would be considered a “page” or not.
Hmm, most of the people in our town libraries are volunteers. Only a handful collect a salary.
Nobody over 8 or under 30 goes to libraries anymore.
I wouldn’t say that.
I’m almost 53 and hit the library at least once a week. It provides the fix for my reading addiction.
Banks Seek to Keep Profits as New Oversight Rules Loom
nytimes
The ink is not even dry on the new rules for Wall Street, and already, the bankers are a step ahead of everyone else.
In ways large and small, the broad overhaul of the nation’s financial regulatory system that was approved by Congress on Thursday will eat into the profits of the nation’s banks.
So after spending many millions of dollars to lobby against the legislation, bankers are now turning to Plan B: Adapting to the rules and turning them to their advantage.
Faced with new limits on fees associated with debit cards, for instance, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and others are imposing fees on checking accounts. Compelled to trade derivatives in the daylight of closely regulated clearinghouses, rather than in murky over-the-counter markets, titans like J.P. Morgan Investment Bank and Goldman Sachs are building up their derivatives brokerage operations. Their goal is to make up any lost profits — and perhaps make even more money than before — by becoming matchmakers in the vast market for these instruments, which critics say were a principal cause of the financial crisis.
Faced with new limits on fees associated with debit cards, for instance, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and others are imposing fees on checking accounts.
Sounds like a member recruiting tool that credit unions will capitalize on.
Our credit union, which is federally chartered, is getting fee happy too. When we came on board 4 yrs ago, what attracted us is no longer the case. I’ve been shopping for a new one (credit union), and it seems to be a trend.
Uh-oh, another story’s itching to bust out of the Arizona Slim file:
A couple of years ago, I went to the credit union’s ATM. My mission: Withdraw $20.
Well, fumble fingered type that I am, I entered $200, and tried to cancel. No deal. Out came $200.
That was more than I had in the account, so I rushed inside to deposit the $180 back into the credit union. They tried to charge me a $5.00 fee, and I raised a ruckus.
Fee was waived.
World at Risk of Folding in on Itself: Deputy Doom ~ CNBC
The global economy is at risk of folding in on itself unless policy makers face up to the threats of inflation inflexibility and exchange-rate inflexibility, according to Arun Motianey, director of fixed income strategy at Roubini Global Economics.
A Japan-like outcome is a big risk for the developed world with deflation a big danger, he said.
Recent figures show that the recovery is sputtering in the US while China’s booming growth has slowed down slightly, as Beijing unwinds stimulus measures.
The Bank of Japan revised upwards is economic forecast but reiterated it will maintain its easy money policy.
In his new book “SuperCycles” Motianey says the world has managed to recover from a number of shocks since the Latin American debt crisis, but getting over the financial crisis will be much harder.
“The global rebalancing mechanism through flexible exchange rates is not working as well as it should,” Motianey said.
So does the DOW go back below 10,000 next week for the umteenth time.
We’ll need some cheery news to stop that.
Nothing a little “larger than usual” liquidity injection can’t stop, is there?
Stimulus Signage Stirs Up GOP Angst Over Wasteful Spending
FOX News
Some local officials are spending freely to post street signs that let people know the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — better known as the stimulus bill — has funded a highway project in local neighborhoods, an expense that has Republicans blistering over why taxpayer money is being used to promote how taxpayer money is being used.
State governments are estimated to be using millions of dollars to put up the signs that say what a great job they are doing spending money. Some examples:
– In Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority spent $10,000 for a single 10-by-11-foot sign displayed at a highway project, advertising that the $15 million in stimulus funds the District received were provided by the stimulus.
– Illinois spent about $650,000 during the last 14 months for 950 signs to be placed on 850 highway projects, Department of Transportation spokesman Josh Kauffman told FoxNews.com.
– Pennsylvania spent $157,477 of the $1 billion in stimulus funds it received on 70 signs for 37 projects, Department of Transportation press officer Alison Wenger told FoxNews.com. The average cost of each sign was $2,250.
– Tennessee bought 324 signs for $12,931, ABC News reported.
But some states, including Florida, Vermont, Arizona and Virginia, aren’t following neighboring states’ signs.
Years ago, when I was on road trips with my parents, we’d see signs that said, “Your Tax Dollars at Work.” And the Slim family would proceed to have a field day:
Mom: “Look at those dollars!”
Dad: “Boy, are they working hard!”
Me: “Ummm, exactly what are they doing?”
And so it went.
Not to mention the projects that the money is going to are pretty weak. I’ll never understand how nary an unsafe bridge is getting any attention in this area while the very well maintained I-90 NYS thruway between Syracuse and Rochester has a section that is a total redo.
( And I probably shouldn’t say a WORD! )
Guys, one of the biggest wastes I see on a reg. basis is all the employment/”programs” we’ve started for the G.I’s. True.., suicide has become a serious concern but NOW they’ve got “programs” for just about ‘everything’!
Financial counselling.., marital.., fitness etc. And ‘each’ w/ it’s own budget and personnel and office and… Couldn’t we just have that all under (1) roof and call it good? Many overlap and are redundant anyway.
“Illinois spent about $650,000 during the last 14 months for 950 signs to be placed on 850 highway projects”
I wonder if the sign vendors actually got paid. Lots of state vendors still waiting…
I’ve done business with a lady who used to own a sign shop. I was grumbling to her about one of my design clients. This company was taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r to make a decision on anything relating to their website design.
It got to the point where I wrote them a letter saying that the project was on hold until they’d made up their minds and were ready to move forward. Although I put it in nicer terms than that.
Any-hoo, this lady said that they did the same thing to her. And, after just one job, she fired them as a client.
Geez, no worries folks, it’s just a …”sign of the times”
Smoking is ‘good for your memory and concentration’
UK Mail
Smoking can aid concentration and the memory, offering hope of a nicotine pill to help Alzheimer’s sufferers
Smoking can help boost memory and concentration, say scientists. The discovery offers hope of a nicotine pill that mimics these effects to treat Alzheimer’s disease.
Experts are developing drugs that copy the active ingredients in tobacco that stimulate the brain without causing heart disease, cancer, stroke or addiction.
The move follows the discovery that nicotine can boost the intelligence and recall ability of animals in laboratory experiments.
The researchers, who present their latest findings at a brain conference today, hope that the new drugs, which will be available in five years, could have fewer side effects than existing medicines for dementia.
So you mean my memory isn’t going. It’s just that I gave up smoking?
Yes, smoke’um if you got’um. You’ll be able to remember that you have lung cancer.
Bloomberg
BofA’s ‘Brutal Honesty’ on Cost of New Rules Pushes Banks Lower
July 16, 2010, 1:42 PM EDT
July 16 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp. led financial stocks lower after saying U.S. curbs on debit-card fees may trigger a $10 billion charge, spurring speculation that rival banks have underestimated their own costs.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was the only gainer among the nation’s largest lenders at midday, while Bank of America, the biggest in the U.S., dropped as much as 8.6 percent. Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Visa Inc., which runs the largest card-payment network, slid more than 5 percent. MasterCard Inc. and American Express Co. declined as much as 4 percent.
The slide began after Bank of America said rules in the financial industry overhaul, including the Durbin amendment’s curbs on debit-card fees, may prompt the charge and trim annual revenue by $2.3 billion, more than some of the most pessimistic estimates. JPMorgan Chase & Co., ranked second by assets in the U.S., dropped as much as 3.6 percent.
“We are seeing brutal honesty and transparency” from Bank of America, said Nancy Bush, an independent bank analyst. “It’s going to have a big impact on all of the big banks.”
…
He’s a good lairwyer, does pro bono work and all that goody goody responsible citizen representations stuff, but if if walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and charges like a duck…legally, it’s a duck!
Geez, what happen to idea of just giving someone a “warning” first?
I know, I know…ignorance is no excuse.
To which Hwy retorts: “The law is an as$!” Mr. Bumbles
No handicapped parking? $6,000, please, demand letters say
July 16th, 2010, By Lou Ponsi and Teri Sforza OC Register
A few months ago, Michael Montandon of San Bernardino County pulled into the parking lot of Brea Brake and Radiator on Imperial Highway.
Brea Brake’s owner says business was slow, so there were lots of parking spots in the lot. But Montandon, a veteran who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and drives down this way for treatment from the Veteran’s Administration, found no designated disabled parking spot in front of the business.
So he drove away.
And called his lawyer.
James Rutledge, who has owned Brea Brake and Radiator for 40 years, was one of a half-dozen or so Brea businesses stunned last month to receive demand letters from Montandon’s attorney. “Your property lacks parking reserved for persons with disabilities required by Federal Law as well as California’s Building Code,” say the letters, from San Diego attorney James C. Mason. “I have been instructed to initiate a civil action as a result of your violation of Federal and State disability access laws.”
Much has been written about the “cottage industry” that blossomed as lawyers and their disabled clients blanketed small businesses with suits over noncompliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and pocketed the proceeds.
The California Legislature tried to fix that problem in 2008 with SB 1608, a reform of the law “designed to promote and increase compliance with laws providing equal public access in places of business to individuals with disabilities, while reducing unwarranted litigation that does not advance that goal,” according to the California Chamber of Commerce.
Has it worked? The half-dozen Brea businesses that have received the letters might say no.
“We are willing to settle this matter as follows,” the letter says. “1. You will obtain an accessibility evaluation of the property…. 2. You will make all required repairs and accessibility barrier removals…3. You will pay the sum of $6,000.00 to reimburse my client for costs, attorney fees incurred and for damages. 4. We will refrain from filing a Complaint in the U.S. District Court…. ”
The letters state that failing to comply with the ADA is discrimination against the disabled, and each business “can be legally required to pay three times my client’s damages, but no less than $4,000.00 for each offense,” the letters say. “In addition, you can be ordered to make all appropriate modifications and pay my client’s attorney fees and costs.”
People get angry, Mason said. He has had two death threats. But the dollar figures that so inflame people are simply mandatory statutory damages and attorneys fees. “The code sets minimum damages at $4,000 per incident, and some overreaching plaintiffs attorneys try to count up every ADA violation and multiply that by $4,000. That’s a shakedown. My analysis is, my client tried to access your business on one or two occasions and found no parking, lots full. There should have been a spot in front for him. That’s what this whole ADA is about.”
He didn’t file lawsuits straight away; he asked the businesses first to get inspected, as per SB 1608. Montandon simply wants “a parking space properly configured with the right signage as close to the access entrance as possible. The ADA calls for that, the California building code calls for that, I’m sure city of Brea has adopted that,” Mason said.
Demand letters have also gone out to businesses in Redlands, and Mason represents other disabled clients pressing claims as well. He has settled some of the cases, he said, but is getting some “blowback” from businesses that “simply don’t seem to understand what their responsibilities are as a business that’s open to the public. You have to provide equal access to all your customers. Especially when it comes to access to get in. All my client wants to do is go inside and spend money at these businesses. That’s the rationale behind the ADA.”
One of the recent battles was in Julian, where Mason represented dozens of businesses in the San Diego County tourist town known for its great apple pie from a “notorious” attorney who filed “nit-picky” lawsuits that made business owners cry, “Shakedown!”
Those businesses were in historic buildings constructed in the 1870s, so of course they weren’t wheelchair accessible. “We got it all resolved quite favorably,” Mason said, declining details because the settlements were confidential. “Most of the changes my clients had to make were things like rearranging racks inside the stores.”
The Brea Chamber of Commerce “believes this action to be predatory” and urges businesses who have received a letter from Mason to contact Chamber CEO Wagner immediately at (714) 529-4938 or sharon@breachamber.com. The businesses will meet Tuesday to plan a collective response. They hope to meet with lawmakers soon.
The Brea Chamber of Commerce “believes this action to be predatory” and urges businesses who have received a letter from Mason to contact Chamber CEO Wagner immediately at (714) 529-4938 or sharon@breachamber.com. The businesses will meet Tuesday to plan a collective response. They hope to meet with lawmakers soon.
Stop the presses — a chamber that actually stands up for its members!
Hwy has a very special folder titled:
“That turkle, he daid, he just don’t know it yet”
The entire Bell, CA city management, by name, are archived.
Now, now,….they are filled with “TrueAnger™”
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
&
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Residents of Bell unhappy over high salaries for city employees:
Residents of the tiny city, some of whom are struggling to pay rent, wonder why the city manager earns nearly $800,000.
By Corina Knoll, Los Angeles Times July 16, 2010
“The president of the United States and other public servants who oversee much more complicated and sophisticated operations make much less than these city officials,” he said. “I think that makes it really clear these salaries are overdone.”
The City Council, he said, “is completely avoiding their fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer.”
Bell city employees are tight-lipped, saying they’re not allowed to speak about the subject, and employees of a grocery owned by Mayor Oscar Hernandez asked a reporter to leave.
Residents, however, have no problem expressing what they think about their city’s budget, which pays the police chief — who oversees a 46-person department — $457,000 a year. By contrast, Los Angeles’ police chief oversees 12,899 people and earns $307,000.
LA Times being swamped with “TrueAnger™” commenters!
“I have a Master of Public Administration Degree and municipal experience in management. I will do the job for $250k, save the city 550k, I would cut the CC salary down to $400 per month like most small cities, and with the 900k or so of savings, I would improve public service and hire the snack bar lady back at $12 an hour. Public goverance isnt about the money, its about civic duty.
Apparently, your Master’s program at CSU, Hayward (East Bay or whatever it is) didnt teach you about why you work for the public.
Honestly, if the CM quit, he wouldnt find a job in the private sector, regardless of his municipal experience that would come close to a salary of 800k, even as an executive, because which private company would hire someone who doesnt no jack about the private enterprise.”
&
“One of the commentators below said that “With his Bell, Simi Valley and Glendale retirement he will make about $500,000 a year for life (paid for by California taxpayers). Is it true?? Can someone calculate how much all these top officials will be making after retirement that will be paid for by California taxpayers, not by city of Bell??
&
1. I’d like to officially announce my candidacy for Bell City Council. I believe my experience as a waste management consultant to Barone Sanitation makes me more than qualified.
2. My favorite part is when the ring leader Rizzo said they don’t receive car or cell phone allowance…dude, you and your bandits have been exposed, hunker down and lawyer up, 6 months tops, this will play out in constituent court.
3. Oh wait, did you say Bell…these folks aren’t paid enough.
p.s. just read some of the other posts, stop confusing greed with anything else. Also, cheers to Gottlieb & Vives
WASHINGTON – The federal estate tax would be revived, but at a reduced rate, under a plan being pushed by two senators, a Democrat and a Republican.
Democrat Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona hope to attach the new estate tax to a small business lending bill pending in the Senate. Their bill would set the top estate tax rate at 35 percent, with a per-person exemption of $5 million, indexed to inflation.
In 2009, the top estate tax rate was 45 percent with a per-person exemption of $3.5 million. Congress allowed the estate tax to expire this year, but it is scheduled to come back next year with a top rate of 55 percent, unless Congress acts.
I love how the estate tax exemption for the rich is indexed to inflation but there is no such index for AMT which is and will increasingly hit the middle class.
Bingo.
Report: New York has highest cost of doing business
The Business Review (Albany)
New York has the highest cost of doing business, according to a CNBC’s latest America’s Top States for Business Ranking.
That’s the same ranking it received last year. When determining the ranking CNBC looked at the tax burden, such as income and property taxes, business taxes and the gasoline tax, as well as utility costs and state workers’ compensation. Rental costs for office and industrial space also were considered.
New York ranked No. 49 for its work force, looking at such factors as the education level of the work force and union membership.
However, in several categories New York ranked among the best in the country: No. 2 in the economy (behind Texas); No. 2 in education (tied with New Jersey. Massachusetts ranked No. 1); No. 2 in technology (behind California); and No. 3 access to capital (behind California and Massachusetts, which tied for No. 1).
New York’s overall ranking as a state for doing business was No. 24, an improvement over last year’s ranking of No. 36. Texas ranked No. 1 and Hawaii was No. 50.
The PPT crew must be out of the office.
Probably on vacation, sunning themselves on some South Sea island and drinking mint julips…
In search of a bright idea.
A buddy of mine owes about $47K on his house in Miami. He currently doesn’t have insurance since it’s kind of pricey, around $4000/year. Unfortunately for him the bank caught on and is now requiring him to carry insurance. Of course paying an extra $4K a year on a $47K loan is a bitch.
I suggested to get a HELOC and pay off the bank. There’re 2 problems. Only SunTrust offers HELOCs in Miami and they require insurance as well.
Fed’s volte face sends the dollar tumbling
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor
Telegraph.co.uk
Published: 8:52PM BST 15 Jul 2010
The euro rocketed to a two-month high of $1.29 and sterling jumped two cents to almost $1.54 after the Fed confessed that the US economy may not recover for five or six years. Far from winding down emergency stimulus, the bank may need a fresh blast of bond purchases or quantitative easing.
Usually the dollar serves as a safe haven whenever the world takes fright, and there was plenty of sobering news from China and other quarters on Thursday. Not this time. The US itself has become the problem.
“The worm is turning,” said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC. “We’re in a world of rotating sovereign crises. The market seems to become obsessed with one idea at a time, then violently swings towards another. People thought the euro would break-up. Now we’re moving into a new phase because we’re hearing alarm bells of a US double dip.”
Mr Bloom said a deep change is under way in investor psychology as funds and central banks respond to the blizzard of shocking US data and again focus on the fragility of an economy where public debt is surging towards 100pc of GDP, not helped by the malaise enveloping the Obama White House. “The Europeans have aired their dirty debt in public and taken some measures to address it, whilst the US has not,” he said.
The Fed minutes warned of “significant downside risks” and a possible slide into deflation, an admission that zero interest rates, $1.75 trillion of QE, and a fiscal deficit above 10pc of GDP have so far failed to lift the economy out of a structural slump.
“The Committee would need to consider whether further policy stimulus might become appropriate if the outlook were to worsen appreciably,” it said. The economy might not regain its “longer-run path” until 2016.
“The Fed is throwing in the towel,” said Gabriel Stein, of Lombard Street Research. “They are preparing to start QE again. This was predictable because the M3 broad money supply has been contracting for months.”
The Fed minutes amount to a policy thunderbolt, evidence of how quickly the recovery has lost steam. Just weeks ago the Fed was mapping out withdrawal of stimulus.
Goldman Sachs said it expects the euro to rise to $1.35 by the end of the year. The yen will appreciate to ¥83, through the pain barrier for most of Japan’s big exporters. The new twist is that SAFE, China’s $2.4 trillion fund, has begun buying record amounts of Japanese bonds, a shift in reserve allocation away from the dollar.
The signs of a deep and sudden slowdown in the US are becoming ever clearer as the “sugar rush” from the Obama fiscal stimulus wears off and the inventory boost fades. California, Illinois and other states are cutting spending, tightening US fiscal policy by 0.8pc of GDP.
Thursday’s plunge in the Philadelphia Fed’s July index of new manufacturing orders to –4.3 suggests that the economy may have buckled abruptly, as it did in mid-2008. The Economic Cycle Research Institute’s ECRI leading indicator has tumbled, reaching –8.3pc last week. This points to a sharp slowdown or recession within three months.
While US port data looked buoyant in June, the details were troubling. Outbound traffic from Long Beach fell from 139,000 containers in May to 116,000 in June. Shipments from Los Angeles fell from 161,000 to 155,000. This drop in exports is worsening the US trade deficit, eroding the dollar.
The US workforce has shrunk by a 1m over the past two months as discouraged jobless give up the hunt. Retail sales have fallen for the past two months. New homes sales crashed to 300,000 in May after tax credits ran out, the lowest since records began in 1963. Mortgage applications have fallen by 42pc to 13-year low since April. Paul Dales at Capital Economics said the “shadow inventory” of unsold properties has risen to 7.8m. “The double dip in housing has begun,” he said.
Alcoa, CSX, Intel, and JP Morgan have reported good earnings, but they mostly did so in July 2008 just before their shares collapsed. Such earnings rarely catch turning points and can be a lagging indicator. Profits have been boosted in this cycle by cost-cutting, which is self-defeating for the economy as a whole.
The minutes confirm the Fed is split down the middle over QE. Fed watchers say the Board in Washington wants to be ready to launch another round of bond purchases if necessary, pushing the banks balance sheet from $2.4 trillion towards $5 trillion, but hawks at the regional banks are highly sceptical.
A study by the San Francisco Fed said the interest rates need to be –4.5pc to stabilise the economy under the Fed’s “rule of thumb”. Since this is impossible, massive QE needs to make up the difference.
Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research said the US authorities have botched policy response. “They are forcing banks to contract lending by raising their capital asset ratios. They have let M3 shrink by 1pc a month, as in the early 1930s. The solution is simple. The Fed must raise the level of deposits by purchasing bonds from the non-banking system as the Bank of England has done. They refuse to do it,” he said.
after the Fed confessed
AHAAA!!! So THEY ADMIT IT…. it WAS their fault!!
Who can we string up?
“The US workforce has shrunk by a 1m over the past two months as discouraged jobless give up the hunt.”
Correct me if I am missing it, but doesn’t this help keep the headline unemployment rate considerably lower than it would be if the 1m workers were still looking for work?
Not when layoffs are still happening to the tune of almost half a million each and every month.
“…an admission that zero interest rates, $1.75 trillion of QE, and a fiscal deficit above 10pc of GDP have so far failed to lift the economy out of a structural slump.”
So much for hair-of-the-dog hangover cures…
“The new twist is that SAFE, China’s $2.4 trillion fund, has begun buying record amounts of Japanese bonds, a shift in reserve allocation away from the dollar.”
Maybe after two straight decades of decline, the Japanese economy is finally nearing a bottom?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/celente/celente40.1.html
10 minute radio interview rant.
Gerald Celente on the future & surviving this economic contraction. I like this guy!
Landmark Bank cited as “unsafe”
South Florida Business Journal
Federal regulators hit Fort Lauderdale-based Landmark Bank with an enforcement order, citing it for “unsafe and unsound” banking practices and telling it to correct violations of law.
The $351 million-asset bank signed the written agreement June 17 with the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, which made the order public Friday. It stems from an October examination of the bank that found unsafe practices regarding its credit quality, credit risk management, earnings and liquidity planning.
Landmark Bank CEO Perry LaCaria was not available for comment.
ITEM FROM THE BRITISH PRESS: “The euro rocketed to a two-month high of $1.29 and sterling jumped two cents to almost $1.54 after the Fed confessed that the US economy may not recover for five or six years. The US workforce has shrunk by a one million over the past two months as discouraged jobless give up the hunt. Retail sales have fallen for the past two months. New homes sales crashed to 300,000 in May after tax credits ran out, the lowest since records began in 1963.”
Hold it! Let’s stop right there. It’s almost as if the Brits are trying to make their own economic woes less painful by holding the U.S. economy out for comparison. But there is one bright spot in the U.S. picture. The Consumer Price Index last month remained nearly flat. That indicates very low inflation. However, the shadow of deflation is still hanging over the scene and the Fed’l Reserve may run into trouble trying to offset it by inflating the money supply even more steeply than it has in the last two years. This is a suspense thriller more exciting to watch than those movie series they ran in the 1930s.
I would NOT want to be living in GB right now. That is one seriously screwed up country.
market pulse
July 16, 2010, 5:14 p.m. EDT · Recommend · Post:
S.C.’s Woodlands Bank marks year’s 91st failure
By Wallace Witkowski
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The failure of Woodlands Bank of Bluffton, S.C. raises the number of bank failures this year to 91, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Friday. Bank of the Ozarks of Little Rock, Ark., will buy essentially all of Woodlands’ $376.2 million in assets and assume $355.3 million in deposits. FDIC estimates the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund at $115 million.
I believe we are 28 weeks into the year now (out of 52)?
52/28*91 = 169 total for 2010, if we continue at the average pace thus far.
Getting a little ahead of myself…
52/28*96 = 178
market pulse
July 16, 2010, 6:35 p.m. EDT
Five more bank failures bring 2010 tally to 96
By Wallace Witkowski
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Five more bank failures brought the total tally for the year to 96, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday. Commercial Bank of Alma, Mich., will assume all of the deposits of Mainstreet Savings Bank, FSB, in Hastings, Mich; and CenterState Bank of Winter Haven, Fla., will assume all of the deposits of Olde Cypress Community Bank of Clewiston, Fla. Also, NAFH National Bank of Miami will assume deposits for Miami’s Metro Bank of Dade County; Turnberry Bank of Aventura, Fla.; and First National Bank of the South in Spartanburg, S.C. The total charge to the deposit-insurance fund for the five banks is $219.8 million.
This one is just beautiful, received as a notification from HR today:
“The Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services in a joint notice on Thursday July 14, 2010 released interim Final Rules (IFRs) for group health plans and health insurers related to preventive services.
The regulations require that certain preventive services with “strong scientific evidence of their health plan” must be covered without deductibles or coinsurance. The United States Preventive Services provides a list of “evidenced-based preventive services” the services covered under these interim regulations must have an A or B rating. Examples of the services would be:
• Breast and cervical cancer screening
• Colon cancer screening
• Vitamin deficiencies during pregnancy
• Diabetes, cholesterol and high blood pressure screening
• Routine vaccinations
• Prevention for children such as, pediatrician visits, vision and hearing screening, developmental assessments, immunizations and obesity
• Prevention for women
Other provisions:
• Preventive services are to be covered without deductibles or coinsurance when rendered by a network provider.
• Grandfathered plans are exempt as long as they remain grandfathered
• Non-grandfathered plan (plans that went into effect after 3-23-10 or plans that made changes after 3-23-10) will be required to comply at the first renewal period after 9-23-10.
• Coverage for preventive services is not required and insurers and employers may charge for these services.
• The plan or insurer may use “reasonable medical management techniques” to determine coverage limitations such as method of treatment, frequency or setting if the guideline does not specify.
• If office visit and preventive service are billed separately then cost-sharing may be applied to the office visit.
• If the recommended service is not billed separately from the office visit and the primary purpose of the visit is the recommended preventive service, then cost sharing may not be assessed for the office visit.
These regulations are final in the interim, which means they may differ or be modified once final regulations are released. We will continue to report and update you on these new regulations as they can be verified. ”
If one reads through all that, it says that an insurer can’t charge a copay or deductable for preventative care but then states that the insurer isn’t required to provide said care and/or charge for it. I see my benefit getting cut or my premium increasing in the near future.
Amerikkka!
A few months ago, President Obama’s physical included a virtual colonoscopy. If that procedure’s good enough for him, well, why not the rest of us?
Ditto for mammograms. We’re finding out that maybe-just-maybe they’re not as risk-free as earlier thought. There’s evidence that thermography may be a safer way to go. What about the coverage for that?
and my pet peeve we should eliminate almost all insurance covered breast reductions. I doubt even 2% are medically necessary…we could save tons of money there and not disfigure women…and have that $$$ pay for preventive care.
Speaking to this topic, when was the last time we’ve heard a Republican rep. say that they will repeal Obamacare?
So they can’t charge a co-pay or deductible. So what? They can still bill the insurance.
That was the whole idea of health/medical insurance reform. To cut down on the greed. Because let me tell you, those tests cost them next to nothing.
California median home sale price slides in June
The 2.9% drop from May to $270,000 reflects a shift to sales in less expensive markets and is still a 9.8% increase from a year earlier, housing data firm says.
By Alejandro Lazo, Los Angeles Times
July 16, 2010
California’s median home sale price fell 2.9% in June compared with May even as sales picked up with buyers closing on purchases made during a spring season fueled by state and federal tax credits.
The median sale price in the Golden State was $270,000 last month for all new and resale houses, town homes and condominiums, according to San Diego real estate research firm MDA DataQuick. While that was lower than in May, the median was up 9.8% from June 2009, marking eight consecutive year-over-year increases.
…
A total of 43,964 homes were sold statewide last month, a 7.3% jump from May but a 0.5% decline from June 2009. A bright spot: Foreclosures as a percentage of the resale market were down considerably from the depths of the economic downturn, comprising 34.7% of the market in June. Foreclosure sales peaked at 58.5% of the market in February 2009.
Economists believe the effects of federal and state tax credits are beginning to wane. A federal tax credit that offered up to $8,000 for certain buyers required home purchase contracts to be signed by April 30 and buyers to close their deals by Sept. 30. Californians can take advantage of a separate state credit for first-time buyers and purchasers of new homes that kicked in May 1.
The state credit allotted $200 million of taxpayer money for buyers, $100 million for each category of purchaser. The state Franchise Tax Board said it has received applications totaling more than $100 million for the first-time buyer credit, but was still accepting applications because so many were “duplicate, revised or invalid.” The cap for the new home credit hasn’t been reached, the board said.
…
In other words, there’s lipstick on that pig and it’s all messed up.
Don’t look now, but the housing market inventory tsunami is coming just as the stock market is signaling another leg down in the U.S. economy.
WSJ Blogs
Developments
Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal
* July 15, 2010, 2:18 PM ET
Trouble Ahead? Housing Inventory Rises in Many Markets in June
By Nick Timiraos
See the data.
The number of homes listed for sale grew in many U.S. cities in June, a month that typically brings a slowdown in listings. Inventory grew amid signs that demand plunged after the expiration of the home-buyer tax credit.
The supply of homes available for sale in 27 major metropolitan areas at the end of June was up 3.7% from one month earlier, according to figures compiled by ZipRealty Inc., a real-estate brokerage firm based in Emeryville, Calif. The data includes all single-family homes, condominiums and townhouses listed on local multiple-listing services in markets where the firm operates. (See all the inventory data.)
Inventories typically decline modestly in June, as the summer slowdown begins. Zelman & Associates, a research firm, says June listings nationally have fallen an average of 0.5% from May over the past 27 years.
Compared to one year ago, the June inventory in the 27 markets covered by ZipRealty was up 2.1%. Western markets saw the biggest month-over-month uptick in inventory, rising by 10.5% in Las Vegas, 9.4% in San Diego and 7% in Orange County, Calif.
WSJ Blogs
Developments
Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal
* July 16, 2010, 10:55 AM ET
How Financial Overhaul Changes the Mortgage Market
By Nick Timiraos
The financial-regulatory overhaul promises some big changes concerning how Americans go about getting a mortgage.
The bill will offer more protections for consumers against risky or complex mortgages, but bankers say that with fewer choices and more safeguards, loans could be slightly more expensive. The upshot, says Howard Glaser, an industry consultant and Clinton administration housing official, is that consumers will have “safer” loans, but fewer of borrowers will qualify.
Some of the provisions of the bill will take effect immediately, but many of the effects won’t be noticed right away. That’s partly because many of the exotic mortgages that fueled the subprime bubble were swept away when the market melted down three years ago.
Mortgage bankers say that lending standards are tighter today than at any time in the past two decades, and most loans being made today are conventional fixed-rate loans that are backed in some way by the federal government.
…
Read: The taxpayer is paying for it.
“Honk if I’m paying your mortgage.” It’s a great bumper sticker.
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=honk%20if%20i%27m%20paying%20your%20mortgage
Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!
Here is a financing idea so delectable you can taste it!
Hotel Chocolat raises £3.7m from tasty bond
By James Thompson
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Hotel Chocolat, the upmarket chocolatier, has raised £3.7m from an innovative “chocolate bond” to grow the business, although it had wanted to deliver £5m.
The retailer, which has 40 shops in the UK, offered the three-year bond – where the return is paid in deliveries of chocolate over the period – to the 100,000 members of its tasting club in May. Hotel Chocolat will invest the proceeds in operations, including expanding its chocolate factory in Cambridgeshire and adding 30 shops over the next three years, creating 400 new jobs.
Angus Thirlwell, the co-founder of Hotel Chocolat, said: “The idea for this chocolate bond was prompted by our customers asking how they could get more involved with the company.
“We found a way of inviting them to invest in our development plans in exchange for a return paid in chocolate. And we have been bowled over by their response. We are now in a strong position to grow the business further using funds provided directly from our customers.”
…
Maybe they should change their name to Douche Bag (kinda resembles “Deutsche Bank,” no?)…
* July 13, 2010, 12:01 PM EDT
* Market Junkie home page
Thumbs up to equities, thumbs down for bank reform: Deutsche Bank
“We have an upward bias towards equities from these levels,” Benjamin Pace, chief investment officer for Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management, said at a conference on Tuesday.
The firm’s year-end forecast is for the S&P 500 Index to rise to 1,235, which would be a nearly 13% gain from current levels.
The forecast is “based primarily on positive earnings fundamentals, attractive valuations and the fact that corporations have a lot of cash” which may potentially be used for mergers or acquisitions, buybacks or dividend increases.
Still, those gains will be hindered by the financial–regulation package making its way through Congress, he said.
The reform package is “not as draconian as we first feared but clearly going to have an impact. It should cause downward pressure on profitability on financial services, particularly for the big banks because you have the need to increase your capital cushion.”
“There are going to be some restrictions on highly leveraged activities that really drove bank earnings in the 1990s and the last decade as well,” Pace said.
“From an economic perspective, it will curb lending, it will almost have to. What I do fear a little bit, not a big fear right now, is the monetary creation mechanism did get stalled in 2008,” he said.
…
Just like in Casablanca…
“Your cash is good at the bar”.
“This is outrageous! I shall report it to Der Angriff!”
“Watching you just now with the Deutsche Bank…..”
T-bonds clearly live inside a bubble now, and I look forward to laughing at and mocking the greater fools who bought into it when it pops over the next five years or so.
But for the time being, anyway, T-bonds are as safe as houses.
BwaHahAhAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAaAAAAAAAA!
* July 9, 2010, 11:37 AM EDT
* Market Junkie home page »
More U.S. investors buying Treasurys
Recent data released by the Treasury Department show that domestic investors are buying bigger portions of U.S. bond auctions, strategists at Barclays Capital said.
In the second quarter, domestic investment funds bought 22% of 3-year auctions, 33% of 10-year sales and 37% of 30-year bond sales, Anshul Pradhan, a Treasury and inflation-linked strategist at the firm, wrote in a note released late Thursday. Those proportions are “well above that in the first quarter,” he said.
…
As I pointed out yesterday, the yield curve cannot technically invert when the shortest rates are pinned up against the zero barrier, but it certainly can flatten!
* July 1, 2010, 7:06 PM EDT
* Market Junkie home page
A flattening of the worst kind
A flattening yield curve, which happens when the difference between short and long-term interest rates narrows, is usually bad news. But the most recent flattening is the worst kind, according to Tony Crescenzi, strategist and portfolio manager at Pimco, operator of the world’s largest bond fund.
This version is a “bull flattening,” which happens when interest rates on both ends of the yield curve decline, Crescenzi explained in an email Thursday. In contrast, a “bear flattening” occurs amid an increase in market interest rates, he added.
“The curve has flattened because investors have become less optimistic about the outlook for both the U.S. and global economy, enough so to alter expectations about the outlook on both inflation and monetary policy,” Crescenzi wrote. “Investors are increasingly of the belief that the inflation rate could continue to move lower and that the Fed will keep interest rates low for a prolonged period.”
…
Wall Street sure hasn’t run out of hand wringers just yet!
* July 1, 2010, 2:57 PM EDT
* Market Junkie home page »
Why Richard Bove is frightened
Richard Bove, an outspoken veteran banking analyst at Rochdale Securities, is frightened for what seems like a topsy-turvy reason. Banks have too much capital, not too little.
The extra capital is being driven partly by money flowing into demand deposit accounts offered by banks from other parts of the U.S. economy, Bove wrote in a Thursday note to investors.
This, in turn, is messing with the money supply. M-1 money supply is growing at a healthy 7% annual clip as bank deposits climb, the analyst noted.
But a lot of this money is coming out of small time deposits, large CDs, and money market mutual funds. These sources of money supply look a lot less healthy. M-2 is growing at 1.7% and estimated M-3 is falling by 5.9%.
For M-3, that’s the highest rate of decline recorded since the Federal Reserve re-based the money supply figures in 1959. “It is believed that M-3 fell this fast in the Depression,” Bove said.
Bove reckons M-3 money supply is falling at such an alarming rate because banks are still pulling back on lending.
“When loans fall money is repaid to banking institutions and it gets removed from the money supply,” Bove wrote. “One key reason for the decline in bank loans is the constant demands for more capital in a banking system that is already over capitalized. By demanding more capital and liquidity in banks, these institutions are forced to shrink their balance sheets and shift their holdings to non-loan assets. This is exactly what they are doing.”
New financial regulations finalized this week would exacerbate this, the analyst warned.
…
COPPELL, Texas – A Dallas area mayor who authorities believe killed herself and her daughter left a note saying the two were still grieving over the 2008 death of their husband and father from cancer, police said Friday.
“My sweet, sweet Corinne had grown completely inconsolable. She had learned to hide her feelings from her friends. But the two of us were lost, alone and afraid. Corinne just kept on asking, ‘Why won’t God let me die?’ We hadn’t slept at all and neither one of us could stop crying when we were together,” read a typed note that police found in the kitchen.
The note, which also gave instructions on how to care for the family’s two dogs and four cats, was among four that police found Tuesday when they discovered the bodies of Coppell Mayor Jayne Peters, 55, and her 19-year-old daughter, Corinne.
Both women had been shot in the head. The Dallas County Medical Examiners Office has ruled the elder Peters’ death a suicide and the daughter’s death a homicide.
Police arrived at the home after the usually prompt mayor failed to show up for a city meeting. They found an envelope taped to the door containing a house key and typed note that said: “To our first responders, Here is the key for the front door. I am so very sorry for what you’re about to discover. Please forgive me. Jayne.”
Another typed note left in the kitchen listed contact numbers of family members. It also said, “Please, please, please, no funeral, no memorial — just cremate us both.” A handwritten note on the door of the bathroom where the mayor’s body was found was signed by her and said not to resuscitate.
Along with her grief, recent evidence also revealed that the mayor had financial troubles.
At a Friday afternoon funeral service for the two, Peters’ pastor said the mayor tried to hide her financial problems from her daughter after the death of her husband.
“Jayne was a deeply troubled and, finally, desperate soul,” Rev. Dennis Wilkinson said during the service at First United Methodist Church in Coppell, adding that his comments had been approved by the family.
“When he died, they were left with no other resources,” Wilkinson said. “She wanted to protect her daughter from knowing about her financial problems and thinking badly of her father.”
City Manager Clay Phillips said he had been asking the mayor since November about at least $4,000 in questionable charges on her city-issued credit card. Phillips said there appeared to be personal charges for items such as clothing and pet supplies. He said he had sent her an e-mail about the issue on Monday and asked the city attorney to look into the matter on Tuesday.
City officials released a report for the second quarter of 2010 that included more than 40 items and services that the city paid on the mayor’s behalf. Among them were three charges totaling more than $1,700 to a rental car agency in suburban Dallas and three charges totaling more than $500 at a Coppell grocery store.
The report also shows that Peter reimbursed the city for $361.
The Dallas Morning News reported Friday that the Peters’ home, appraised at nearly $423,000, had been posted for foreclosure last July, but never made it to auction, according to the Foreclosure Listing Service
And they say you should be proud to be a homeowner……