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The Housing Bubble
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I was reading some comments from yesterday about weather in the South. I always find it funny how Yankees love to complain about heat and humidity. It gets to 90 in NYC and it’s damn near a call in the national guard situation.
As a public service announcement I would like to say that yes Southern climate is oppressive. Awful. Unbearable. Harmful to children, pets and the elderly. Please, for your own safety and comfort stay where you are, well above the Mason-Dixon. Do not under any circumstances move here.
PS: How in the hell did we lose the war of northern aggression to such a bunch of wimps? All Lee had to do was attack on days when the temp was 95+ and he would have won every battle.
I travel a lot along the eastern seaboard. I find people who were born and grew up people in states from Virginia to Georgia to be decent, friendly and generally nice in their nature. The people who move from NY, NJ to those areas bring their disrespectful obnoxious traits. Florida seems to attract miserable people from all over the US. The same is true for the middle of the country. I find people on the other side of Ohio to be nicer folks.
I love the south for their barbeques. Some of the best barbeques I have ever tasted has been in Alabama. Peace.
I can agree with you about the “cultural” climates you describe. I am a native of Florida and have spent time in most Southern States.
Having grown up in Florida I have seen the impact of “Yankees” overrunning the once friendly place.
MOST of the people here are from up north someplace and bring with them their nature of “superiority”, believing that Southerners are basically just dumb hicks.
I believe this is because of the Southern “drawl” that accompanies most speech patterns. We generally tend to move a little slower, because of the heat, and have a much different perspective concerning the value of persons. In traditional southern culture, a person was more well regarded by their deportment, education and family than by accumulated wealth. I noticed that with the Yankee class, it was ALL about the money. How much money they had determined a person’s “worth”. We have always looked a little askance at the “carpetbaggin” yankee vermin, but what can you do, they have over-run this place and know so much more than we do about how it ought to be run.
I don’t even consider Florida a “Southern” State, anymore. We’ve got so many migrants from so many other places, we’re just a staging area for mass hysteria. If it weren’t for the beaches, we’d have no redeeming qualities, at all.
Oh, and bye the way, someone was trying to use the Plural of “ya’ll” on this blog yesterday. Ya’ll can be used in multiple ways, but when you’re talking to a really big group we say” all of Ya’ll.”
LOL - I know of what you speak (having lived in NC, SC, and FL).
Florida by the way is really two states (though moreso three now). South Florida is a yankee state. North Florida is a dixie state. Central Florida used to be like North Florida, but now it’s pretty much a mix of all the rest of the U.S. (mostly the worst commercialism parts) thrown in.
In Florida, North is South and South is North. Although who knows, maybe after the r/e bust some of the Yankees who thought they struck gold with their savvy investment will go back to where they came from.
Out here on the Great Plains, we think ALL you people east of the Mississippi are a bunch of candy-azzez.
110 degrees for weeks at a time during July August. Ice storms in October-November. Then single digit temps during December-March. These event are separated by 2-3 weeks of decent weather…..I’ve heard that they are called “spring” and “fall”
True we don’t get much snow. Which means that it’s colder than crap, without all of the winter stuff (skiiing, snowboarding, ice fishing, etc.) that sometimes make winter worthwile.
You can tell someone is from out here, if they know what “snirt” is.
as we always say down here………….it’s not the heat…..it’s the humidity. And it is. 90% humidity at 95 degrees is pretty oppressive, especially standing in the hot sun.
Years ago I lived in Clearwater. One day in mid-July I took some out of town clients out to lunch in Clearwater and the weather was the mid 90’s plus high humidity that you described. The very next day I travelled to Dallas where it was 105 degrees, but much lower humidity.
That day in Dallas was a hot day, to be sure, but the prior day’s weather in Clearwater was much more uncomfortable.
Thank goodness for air conditioning!
In Texas it was “alla y’all.”
Joisey: “you’s guys”.
Pittsburgh: “yinz guys” or “y’unz guys”
> I believe this is because of the Southern “drawl” that accompanies most speech patterns.
No, I think it’s because a lot of vocal southerners and mid-westerners think the Earth is 6000 years old and that the sun revolves around the Earth.
Granted, most southerns are not like that, but enough are to make the others look bad. Similarly, the vocal NJ/NYers like Snooky and “The Situation” make those places look worse than they are.
I think it’s just because there’s douchebags wherever you go. Where are you from, Matt?
Having lived in South Florida for over 20 years..and not by choice..parents moved for work..I was happy to leave once my children reached high school age..the people are joneses crazed and raise their children the same way….the dating pool for my daughters would be Gansta wannabees, and every other person is running a scam to keep the McMansion and BMW in the driveway…..I love living in GA….better people, less rush, small amount of joneses, and more respectfull young people, better people to do business with..
When we do return to SFL to visit..my girls hardly want to see anyone as they they no longer have anything in common with their former friends…who are only interested in where the next ABC party is..(Anything But Clothes)…
If I had any doubts Eddie was a troll, I now know!
Has more to do with immaturity to me. I’m sure there is an overlap of immaturity and trolling, but the overlap isn’t complete.
Immaturity is about not thinking things through - just spewing whatever is in your head whether it makes sense or not. And that post is a classic example as the postscript completely undermines the rest of it. He is trying to make fun of Northerners for being too sensitive to heat and at the same time reminds his audience that people from the same area beat the South in an armed conflict. And just for the historical record, Sherman’s March to the Sea was in the late fall, but the Atlanta Campaign was a May to September thing.
+1 Polly….
Dude/dudette….y’all need to lighten up a little.
Ah yes, the old “It was just a joke…
” excuse. BS. Your invective was NOT a joke. You’re just backpedaling because somebody called you out and you have no answer.
As a native Californian, I still don’t get the North vs. South thing. Driven every inch of Highway 1 in a professionally-lowered and suspensioned BMW at extremely high speed and extremely high enjoyment. My wife’s white knuckles proved the point. Love the North. live in the South, and love it, too. May retire in the North. Understand the anti-Californication
sentiment in Oregon a bit (though it is pathetic over time), but why intrastate or intra-region??
Can’t we all just get along?
I believe Ben named Eddie correctly. A 12 year old or something like that.
Quit feeding the troll.
You ever see someone from the South do ANYTHING after an inch of snow falls? Yikes. Get off the road. I love the pictures of people trying to sled down a green/brown hill half covered with snow somewhere like Memphis or Macon.
Why shut my mouth, eyes do exclaim!…the small little things that comes into “TrueHaskell’s™” mind while driving around in circles in Atlanta’s airport looking for a parking space on a hot humid Southern Georgia summer day, is rather peculiar ain’t it now?
(Hey “TrueHaskell™” next time try the parking garage across from…Sherman Blvd.)
I think he really is just a bitter, unemployed realtor who lost all of his specuvestments and wants to exact revenge on the bubble-poppers who spoiled everyone’s fun.
I’m a realtor again? I liked my other HBB jobs better. My favorite was astronaut (I think The Bear gave me that one) and I also liked health insurance lobbyist. I’ve also been a car salesman, a lawyer and of course and investment banker.
I am saddened to hear I’ve been demoted back to lowly realtor.
And you failed at every last one of those occupations. And trolling isn’t your strong suit either.
Hey “TrueHaskell™” you might want to go back to school, get some of lil’ Opie’s free ed-u-caysun money, they have ample parking spaces as well:
http://www.stcatherinesmilitaryacademy.org/events/civilwar.aspx
Why so much hate towards Eddy?
Supposedly from people who preach love and harmony……
No one here preaches love and harmoney. People here preach facts and evidence. Edy preaches bile.
As do you.
And an Eddietard junior disciple steps in to defend. I always knew Bile was a follower.
All Lee had to do was attack on days when the temp was 95+ and he would have won every battle.
The problem that the traitor Lee had was he had to face Hiram Ulysses (U.S.) Grant who was a far superior strategic and logistical general.
That’s why Lee had his head handed to him on a blue plate.
Nah. Lee didn’t actually lose that war - he just had his sword stolen from him, and he was too much of a gentleman to ask for it back.
My Mom likes to tell stories that explain things like differences between parts of the country. I’ll paraphrase one to fit this discussion.
A gas station attendant meets a family in a car, who ask him “what’s this area like?” He replies, “where did you come from?”
They say “we’re from so-and-so. The weather is awful, the people are rude and it’s altogether a terrible place to live.” He said “I think you’ll find it’s much the same here.”
Then the gas station attendant greets a second family, who ask him “what’s this area like?” He replies, “where did you come from?” They say “we’re from so-and-so. It’s a wonderful place. The weather is tolerable, even beautiful at times. And the people couldn’t be more friendly.”
He said “I think you’ll find it’s much the same here.”
He said “I think you’ll find it’s much the same here.”
Now that’s a gem.
“The farmer prays for rain,…the traveler prays for sunshine“.
Really shouldn’t that be “the farmer prays for rain, the traveller pays for sunshine.”
Quit talking about General Lee’s horse.
“Quit talking about General Lee’s horse”.
…as he was travelin’ away from Cincinnati.
Well I guess Eddie would make a terrible gas station attendant then too.
Love it. Thank you Ben
That’s why Lee had his head handed to him on a blue plate.
Lee was a spectacular tactical/battle general (he’s still studied today at West Point, I believe), but a failure as a strategist. His decision to invade the North was one of the two great blunders that the South committed that probably cost them the war. Prior to his invasion of the North, many in the North were basically of the opinion of saying ‘good riddance’ to the South, and hardly thought it was worth major bloodshed to keep them in the Union. Lee’s invasion infuriated many of these people and caused them to change their minds about engaging the South in full warfare.
Once the North was sufficiently ‘riled up’, their far larger population and manufacturing base were indeed the deciding factors in the South’s defeat.
Grant was a mediocre tactician but understood, and was willing to execute, Lincoln’s strategy of ‘total war’. Most of his victories were at great cost in lives of his own army, but his superior numbers allowed him to continue on, and eventually wear down and defeat the Southern armies- and his policy of destroying the industrial base of the South was so effective, the South only recently recovered from it.
What a troll, and a hole. Always figured young Eddie as a transplant. Certainly not a Southerner. If you really want to know about the South just read some of James Howard Kunstler’s writings on the subject. Georgia just had a Republican runoff for gov. featuring the Sec of State Handel (resigned to run for gov) and Congressman Deal, one of the most corrupt in Washington by published accts (resigned to avoid ethics investigation). The race centered on who hated queers the most (well-documented). A second issue was abortion in cases of incest, etc. Third, since Handel only had a GED GA would have been the only state where both the Gov and Lt. Gov only had a high school education.
The winner Deal will face former Gov Barnes, who was voted out of office for replacing the Rebel flag as the Ga State flag. A second issue that defeated him was that he tried to make sure the teachers could teach. They cannot.
The South sucks for a lot of people. For the Eddies it is just perfect.
My southern credentials are impeccable, BTW. Hard to match.
Facts are facts.
‘My southern credentials are impeccable’
I like these guys. Funny as hell:
http://greatertuna.com/
Along the lines of the battle thread:
http://www.buffalosoldier.net/PalmitoRanch,LastBattleoftheCivilWar.htm
I lived near there for a while. I would have poked around the battlefield some, but it was always so damned hot, or too many bugs. These people lived in the area back in the day:
‘The Karankawa lived along the “coastal bend” of Texas. Living in a hot humid climate that does not get very cold very often they did not wear very much. Men wore simple breach cloths and women wore grass skirts. Often the men simply went naked. The kids always went naked in warm weather. Because their environment has lots and lots and lots of insects that bite, they would smear animal fat and grease all over their bodies. Sometimes they would smear mud all over their bodies too. This would protect them from bug bites.’
http://www.texasindians.com/karankf.htm
Campaign: Expedition from Brazos Santiago
Dates(s): May 12-13, 1865
Estimated Casualties: Total unknown (US 118; CS unknown)
Principal Commanders: Col. Theodore H. Barrett [U.S.]; Col. John S. “Rip” Ford [C.S.]
Geez Mr. Ben,… life is stranger than fiction!:
THE LAST BATTLE OF THE CIVIL WAR:
Col. John S. “Rip” Ford [C.S.]
Mr. Cole’s summer ed-u-cayshunal “viewing” program included a x2 disc Netflix showing of the Horses of Gettysburg (They did’nt have this when I was a-goin’ to school…But I was able to accidental like “discover” the writin’s of J. Frank Dobie)
It is a small world. Dobie was one of my Moms professors in college.
‘The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another.’ J. Frank Dobie, “A Texan in England”, 1945
Bull Shasta, More Shasta, PiledHigher & Deeper…
or too many bugs ??
That’s what bothered me most about living ion the South….The friggen bugs and how big they were…Did the military secretly radiate the south or something…My goodness…Cock roaches almost the size of small mice…
I see you subscribe to the MSNBC History Channel. It’s a cable network that makes up history as it goes along.
Barnes was voted out was because he is way too liberal for Georgia. He also lost in 2002 when there was a Republican sweep in the state at every level from dog catches to US Senate. Had nothing to do with the flag. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
And if you’re a Southerner, my name is Barrack Hussein Obama.
They lost by fighting against a superior manufacturing base. Ask the Germans about it some time.
Hope we don’t one day fight the Chinese…or even Mexico, or Guatamala.
Get rid of unions and manufacturing will come back. Keep giving the UAW et al unlimited power and there will be nothing left.
The Manufacturing unions are pretty much gone Edster. They’re offshoring $10/hr no benefits jobs these days/
Keep giving corporate America unlimited power and there will be nothing left. The UAW has been in decline as have all unions. It’s the corporate overlords that have fk’d this country. Eddie loves the emperors clothes even as the emperor has him bent over.
Everything is being ruled by an ever more powerfull oligopoly.
I go to Verizon last month to get a phone. I had a windows smart phone and I use some of hte programming features as well as the documentation programs. I want another smart phone, they tell me I have to accept a plan that costs an extra 30-40 a mo if I want one of hte msart phones. I go to another place and get the same reply. I have no interest in getting the internet on my phone but I have to get it if I want a smart phone. Finallly I found a used phone like mine on ebay and buy it. A country run by oligopolies means no chioice no competition and higher prices and worse service.
They lost by fighting against a superior manufacturing base.
It played a role however, this too simplistic reasoning is one of the most heavily promoted aspects of the myth of the “Lost Cause”.
According to the “Southern Myth” of the CSA/SBC, the South only lost the Civil War because of the superior manufacturing capability of the North. Clifford Allen Potts, Ph.D.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ecP5Jnz1CBwC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=civil+war+myth+superior+manufacturing&source=bl&ots=sVJadkGGDn&sig=F3Mn0UmCKd7mMBQ8VQfvIL5v4fI&hl=en&ei=HqluTKnqL4GClAed75S_CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=15&ved=0CFcQ6AEwDg#v=onepage&q=civil%20war%20myth%20superior%20manufacturing&f=false
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History Gary W. Gallagher, Alan T. Nolan
Editorial Review:
The South lost the Civil War, but southerners have certainly held their own in the postwar battle to shape historical interpretations of the conflict. Southern politicians, war veterans, and historians successfully promoted the “Lost Cause” view of the origins and results of our national nightmare.
The South, so the story goes, wanted to preserve its unique culture, and slavery was not a fundamental basis of that culture. Led by valiant gentlemen-officers (e.g., Robert E. Lee) and brave, defiant common soldiers, the Confederacy struggled against insurmountable odds, eventually succumbing to numerically but not morally superior forces. This collection of essays by nine Civil War scholars shows how the myth was consciously propagated by southerners, often in an attempt to rationalize the physical and social carnage left by the war. These essays are well reasoned and timely, given current controversies raging over the display of the Confederate battle flag. This will be a valuable addition to Civil War collections. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Anyone from the South that says the war wasn’t about slavery needs to do a little fact checking.
Including the recent stories about how the Confederates grabbed every African-American (free or otherwise) during the 1863 Pennsylvania campaign. and sent them South.
Yeah, it was about “States Rights”…….what right?. To have legal slavery.
“Financial Innovation” Southern style! (As opposed to GlodenmanSucks… which would be the Northern Style!)
Let see if Ol Hwy has this right, you make a machine in 1793 that can suddenly process x50 MORE cotton, thereby INCREASING production of a product that generates your $$$$$$$$$$$ PROFIT… therefore, you need to PLANT more cotton, and the “machine” that use for that operation is what color? and the “cheap” land you need to EXPAND said production is located due West of what major North-South American river that splits the Nation in half?
Effects of the cotton gin:
“The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth of the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South. The growth of cotton production expanded from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850″
The modern version of the cotton gin was patented by the American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 to mechanize the cleaning of cotton. The invention was granted a patent on March 14, 1794.
However, many believe that Eli Whitney received the patent for the gin and the sole credit in history textbooks for its invention only because social norms inhibited women from registering for patents.
(The popular version of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to an article on the subject in the early 1870s and later reprinted in 1910 in The Library of Southern Literature. In this article the author claims that Catherine Littlefield Greene suggested to Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental in separating out the seeds and cotton. To date there has been no independent verification of Greene’s role in the invention of the gin.)
That doesn’t sound like she “invented” the cotton gin. It’s not section 102 prior art IMHO, although of course he’d have had to report it under his duty to disclose relevant art.
well it’s kind of all relative, isn’t it? I lived in Savannah for a few years, got used to the heat, and now back up further north it doesn’t bother me as much. If NYC doesn’t usually get extremely hot days, and then all of a sudden you have a crazy-hot record breaking summer, they will all complain. In the mid-atlantic, we were hit with 2 blizzards in one week in February. Many northerners were calling us wimps, but Maryland/DC just didn’t even have the equipment to deal. It was like the equivalent of Florida getting a foot of snow and now having any plows.
I’m a NC native and have lived in the East Coast and now in California. That anyone in places like Boston, Philly, or NYC would complain about Southern summers is beyond me. When I lived in Boston not only were the winters absolutely miserable and long, but it actually hurt to go outside on some days when it was pushing maybe 2 or 3 degrees. Additionally the summers were awful as well. I’ve spent weekends outside of Sacramento and a few weeks in Texas as well where the temps were well above 100 degrees and to this day I’ve NEVER experienced such HOT, sticky weather as that I did in Boston during July.
Anyway… you might as well forget trying to stem the tide of people moving on down. I come and visit home maybe every 1.5 or 2 years. Each and every time I do there seems to be whole new chunks of town, mostly hordes of Mcmansions. The word has been out for awhile now that life can actually be affordable in the Southeast.
The way I look at it is that we’re a migratory country. We move to where there lies opportunity and we leave as soon as things go sour. In the gold rush whole new towns would spring up and disappear in a few years. During the turn of the century people from all over the world flocked to the Northeast and Midwest for knitting and factory jobs. After WW2 people moved to California. And now that the coasts have exhausted their ability to be livable places for the middle class they’re flocking to the Southeast and Texas. Someday these places will also become overrun or become economically un-viable.
I have no room to whine. I’m doing the same thing. Someday soon I’ll have enough to move out of this state and live better- probably closer to home in the Southeast and I’ll become one of “those people” moving in, buying up more land, and getting my piece of the pie.
Jetson:
Remember even as a dj everything cost the same in south Carolina as in NYC, but the pay you get for gigs is about 1/2.
So if you have to buy lots of expensive things to get a business started its a lot harder there then here.
———————————————-
The word has been out for awhile now that life can actually be affordable in the Southeast.
How long ago did the Civil War end?
Some folks just don’t know when to stop nursing grievances…
Come now, one of the last to hold grudges lived in CA, near hollywood I believe:
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0028549/
I tell ya, if child services ever finds out about the Hulu shows I let Mr. Cole laugh his head off ’bout, eyes have ta be a makin’ a run for the ol’ cabin, right quick like dag burnit.
How long ago did the Civil War end?
any understanding of this country has to be based on an understanding of the Civil War. Shelby Foote (paraphrased) From Ken Burns’s Civil War
Foote also said something like the Civil War turned the United States from an “are” to an “is”.
‘Cause those Northerners were used to doing heavy labor themselves rather than buying people to do it for them?
Aug 20, 2010
Who, exactly, is a ‘Christian’? Obama? You?
08:45 AM
Who, exactly, is “Christian”? Or Christian enough? Or the right variation of Christian — i.e. probably the one you are or you like.
With all the hoohah over the 18% of folks who told a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey that President Obama is Muslim and 34% who said Obama is Christian, the 43% who are unsure what he believes have gotten less attention.
An interesting discussion of that point comes from Michael O’Loughlin, blogging at America magazine’s In All Things. He writes:
There are still pockets of Evangelicals who don’t consider Roman Catholics to be Christian; I remember being asked once if I was a Christian, to which I replied yes, only to have my interlocutor correct me. I was in fact Catholic, not Christian. There are also some Catholics who don’t believe that some mainline Protestants to be fully Christian (our own Church refuses to call Protestant churches what they are: churches). So even within our own Christian family, there is not a consensus as to who is actually Christian and who is not.
Since most Americans do call themselves Christian and most Americans don’t attend church any more often than Obama (who likes the chapel at Camp David), and many disconnect their beliefs (all good people go to heaven) from their denomination’s doctrines (which define that “good” very distinctly) — just exactly who is Christian remains a question.
…
A friend of mine was once asked by a co-worker “Are a Catholic or a Christian?” When she saw his look of stunned silence, she just made it worse by saying “Okay, I realize that you Catholics CONSIDER yourselves Christian.” His response was something like “That’s okay, we’re always ready to welcome you back to the mother church.”
Later, he got her back by convincing her that Popeyes Fried Chicken was actually owned by the Catholic church. “After all, the name is Pope YES!”
I was baptized and raised in the Episcopal Church.
There were factions within the church before the big brouhaha about ordaining women. Those factions were at each other’s throats over which version of the prayer book was used during the service.
If you run across the hardcore 1928 types, you know you’ve met one of our very conservative members. To people like them, and my father is one of them, any prayer book that succeed 1928’s is an abomination. Don’t get him started on Rite II. Just don’t.
Then there’s the ordination of women. And gays and lesbians.
To this day, I wonder how the church members that are so upset about the ordination of gays and lesbians deal with the fact that, in many cases, their church’s male choir director, has a preference for other guys. Church I went to in Pittsburgh had an organist and choir director who was good friends with an openly gay fellow who shopped at the food co-op where I worked. And that fellow was a Methodist minister.
How he managed to hide his true identity from his congregation, I’ll never know. Because when he was at the co-op, he was out loud and proud, if you get my drift.
BTW, his Methodist church was only about a mile from our store. We occasionally had co-op membership meetings there.
For reasons that I’ve elaborated on above, there are folks who don’t consider the Episcopal Church to be Christian.
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-08-18 07:34:44
What
do converting to Islam, or race relationsdoes who, exactly, is a ‘Christian’? Obama? You?, have to do with the scope of topics covered on this blog?I suggest that you and Eddie step outside, roll up your sleeves, and settle this like men. The rest of us have a housing bust to discuss.
Who, exactly, is “Christian”?
Which raises the question, “Is Obama Sunni or Shiite?”
Wahhabi.
Which side did the communists support?
I’m surprised that anyone from NYC should complain about summer heat in the South. The peak of an NYC summer is worse than anything he might encounter in Texas. 100 degree temps and 90 pct humidity and that’s just above ground. In the subways, it’s 110 degrees and the same 90 pct humidity. The duration might be short, but the intensity is way more brutal.
Realtors Are Parasites.
susan researched it!
Parasites just called, ex. They’re demanding an apology from you.
Philadelphia Fed Factory Index Drops as Manufacturing-Led Recovery Weakens.
(Bloomberg) — Applications for unemployment benefits in the U.S. unexpectedly increased last week to the highest level since November, showing companies are stepping up the pace of firings as the economy slows.
Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region unexpectedly shrank in August for the first time in a year as orders and sales slumped, a sign factories are being hurt by the U.S. economic slowdown.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index fell to minus 7.7 this month, the lowest reading since July 2009, from 5.1 in July. Readings less than zero signal contraction in the area covering eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware.
There’s that word again: “unexpectedly.”
They keep using the word, but in the words of Inigo Montoya
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”
Perhaps if they missed the un of the front.
You would think that at some point, they would fire all these economists who are always caught off guard, and hire some who are reasonably accurate with their predictions.
I can just imagine what the headlines would be, if these guys transferred into the airline/aviation business.
“Crash kills everyone on board, as ice “unexpectedly” builds up on the wings during an ice storm”.
“Aircraft hits mountain “unexpectantly”, after takeoff from Denver”
“Wing falls off airliner “unexpectantly” after 20 years of Third world level maintenance”.
There are plenty of economists who are good at their job. Unfortunately, they make lousy sock puppets and don’t spew the industry/company lies. Therefore they don’t get the promotions or recognition.
This also leads to whole industries drinking their own kool aid.
“I can just imagine what the headlines would be, if these guys transferred into the airline/aviation business.”
Apparently, if most of the MSM-quoted economists became pilots, most would be heard from but once, just before crashing into the side of a mountain.
Banks Stuck With Bill for Bad Loans
If nobody does their job right, and disaster ensues, who should pay for the sins of all?
One analyst says the figure for losses could go as high as $30 billion.
That is the predicament now confronting the mortgage industry, where it has become clear that many billions of dollars in home loans were sold, guaranteed and rated as safe without anyone bothering to examine whether the loans were made with due regard for the rules.
You can make a case — call it the caveat emptor case — that no one should be able to recover any losses they suffered from loans that went bad. If they had performed even rudimentary checks before the loans were made, sold, rated, insured or securitized, it’s very likely that big problems would have been visible before disaster hit. There would have been fewer bad loans and many fewer foreclosures.
That case is not, however, showing any sign of prevailing as legal battles increase in number. Instead, it appears that big banks will be compelled to pay for their own sins as well as the sins of others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/business/20norris.html?_r=2&ref=business
“…no one should be able to recover any losses they suffered from loans that went bad.”
Even if they were fraudulently misrepresented as AAA credit?
Hmmm - now only $30 Billion? Just yesterday Fitch figured about $42 billion.
(Noting, as I did yesterday, that’s that’s just *current* losses, and doesn’t include losses on loans already written off. This is the behind-the-scenes bailout of JPM, Citi, BofA, etc. that’s not talked about. The one that kept them solvent and allowed them to keep their bonuses, and jobs for that matter.)
Those estimates do have a tendency to climb rapidly. Remember when subprime was going to be ‘contained’ to $200 bn (August 2007, I believe)?
OK Norris, I didn’t fraudulently borrow money, or make money off other people fraudulently borrowing money.
Doing some due dillegence, such as reading the housing bubble blog, I got my savings out of any bond fund with mortgage exposure, and any stock fund with housing, retail or finance exposure.
So I did everything right, and didn’t benefit from anything wrong. So the question is, why should I pay for what was done?
Yeah, I think the majority of us did this in 2005 or 2006, when we figured out even Paypal balances were knee-deep in MBS.
“When MBIA began making such claims last year, it seemed a little presumptuous. In its suits, it admitted it did virtually no due diligence to assess the quality of the loans it was insuring. Instead, it said it had relied on the representations and warranties made by banks and brokerage firms that bought the insurance.”
Had they hedged with AIG they would have been bailed out at par!
Slim here. Sitting in the micro-studio of my micro-business. And I have this to say about making bad business decisions, be they loans to unqualified borrowers or something else entirely.
Around here, if I make a bad business decision, well, guess who bears the consequences? Me, myself, and I, that’s who.
Yes, I carp to people (like you) about the consequences of said decisions — like cutting back on outreach calls last year and paying the price for it this year. But, ultimately, the buck stops here on my desk.
You know all those contracts that that people “just signed” and didn’t want to be bothered with during the bubble? Now is the time that people will want to go through all of ‘em, at at each stage of the process in an attempt to push the losse onto somebody else. Warranties and representations that’s going to be the phrase for the next few years. Of course like AIG insurance, W&Rs are only as good as the solvency of the person giving them, or your ability to persuade uncle Sugar to bail them out for you.
“If they had performed even rudimentary checks before the loans were made, sold, rated, insured or securitized, it’s very likely that big problems would have been visible before disaster hit.”
Oftentimes I make comments concerning the racial component that has superceded this fiasco. Ben usually deletes my best posts, but I will try again to shine some light on the current state of race relations, or lack thereof in the US of A, and how this relates to the inability of businesses to do exactly as you say.
In short, from the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, followed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, there have been thousands of ridiculous Court Cases, usually with outrageous flip-flops by the Courts to favor “minority” groups in all kinds of actions, including Housing, Education, Employment, Lending, Advertising, etc, etc, etc.
To counteract the Court’s “affirmative action” policies, in which the minorities are given special treatment, regardless of the facts, every business, including banks have wanted a blind system, whereby no claim of discrimination could be put forth. The “credit score” system was just what banks wanted. It didn’t matter what your race, if you got the right score, you qualified. (there’s another matter of the many suits filed because many blacks got lower scores than whites).
The other issue was the collateral. The “neighborhood”. If you look at where lots of fraudulent loans were originated, you will see they are in the ghetto. This is because, with the many suits that originated of “red-lining”, banks and other lenders didn’t want to be accused of “discrimination”. If you sent an agent out into the “hood”, and he looked around at the disrepair and general conditions of the neighborhood and denied the loan, a lawsuit is guaranteed. The “certified appraisal” is the answer.
What you essential developed after decades of banks, lenders, Realtors, credit agencies, ad companies, and hosts of others being sued for various crimes of “discrimination” was a system where everything was done on “paper”, without anyone looking specifically at the persons, places and credit-worthiness of the applicants. It has all been an attempt to make a color-blind process, so there could be no more lawsuits. It turns out to be an invitation to fraud.
The facts are this: The banks have been forced to make loans they would not have normally made to appease “community organizers” who have extorted money from them by filing constant nuisance suits to restructure community neighborhoods.
I could write a book about all the shenanigans that have gone on.
In fact, someone else already did: Paved with Good Intentions.
I’ll give you some of the outlandish “decisions” that have gone on in American Courts on another post. If most of you knew how we got to where we are, you would be appalled. There is very little “equal treatment” under the law in the country and this fiasco is a result of the things that have been done to make people equal. (That’s right, not equal treatment under the law, but equal, two very different concepts).
There is very little “equal treatment” under the law in the country
That’s the truth.
The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-penalty-black-and-white-who-lives-who-dies-who-decides
Executive Summary
The results of two new studies which underscore the continuing injustice of racism in the application of the death penalty are being released through this report. The first study documents the infectious presence of racism in the death penalty, and demonstrates that this problem has not slackened with time, nor is it restricted to a single region of the country. The other study identifies one of the potential causes for this continuing crisis: those who are making the critical death penalty decisions in this country are almost exclusively white.
From the days of slavery in which black people were considered property, through the years of lynchings and Jim Crow laws, capital punishment has always been deeply affected by race. Unfortunately, the days of racial bias in the death penalty are not a remnant of the past.
Could these facts be a part of your discussion:
From FBI.gov, for 2004 muderers by race
5,376 white, 5,579 black
From Wikipedia, US population demographic (partial)
228 million white, 38 million black
therefore murderer rate:
white - 23.5 murderers per person
black - 147 murders per person
Could these facts be a part of your discussion:
Yes, but did you read the studies? They deal with relative percentages including the stats you point out and document well “the infectious presence of racism in the death penalty,”
“per million people” you mean?
Yes; thanks Packman.
Crackerjim,
I posted a complete breakdown of all executions this year by race, but it had not posted.
there have been a sole total of 1224 executions in the US since 1976. It’s a very small number, so once again the “study” is just someone’s agenda. You really have to parse the data to find the “racism”, but the claim itself leads to all kinds of hysteria.
It’s another fraud foisted in the public by some “center for equality” or other similar sounding front organization.
Looking at the ‘data’, there is no support for the claims.
It’s really tiresome. I spent a little time pulling up the death row data to find out what was what. I think 32 executions, nationwide this year. It’s a real epidemic.
Cracker:
What a great Goal for Jesse sharpton even maxine waters…..Lets do what it takes to make the crime rate of blacks equal to whites
What a glorious day that would be in our country,so much safer and no more claims of discrimination…..but none of them have the guts for that
More racist dribble from you? Does it ever end?
You have no facts to support your claims and these “studies” are always slanted to support the point of view of the group wanting to support their positions.
Since 1976, there have been 1224 executions, NATIONWIDE.
That’s over 40 years. So, executions are rampant. And blacks are being singled out. Yea. right.
Below is a chart of all the executions THIS YEAR.
The left number is date. the number since 1976. the state. the “victim”, age, race, RACE OF VICTIM OR VICTIMS, method.
1/7/10 1189 OH Vernon Smith 37 B 1 Other Lethal Injection
1/7/10 1190 TX Kenneth Mosley 51 B 1 White Lethal Injection
1/7/10 1191 LA Gerald Bordelon* 47 W 1 White Lethal Injection
1/12/10 1192 TX Gary Johnson 59 W 2 White Lethal Injection
1/14/10 1193 OK Julius Ricardo Young 60 B 2 Black Lethal Injection
2/4/10 1194 OH Mark Brown 37 B 1 Other Lethal Injection
2/16/10 1195 FL Martin Grossman 45 W 1 White Lethal Injection
3/2/10 1196 TX Michael Sigala 32 L 1 Latino Lethal Injection
3/11/10 1197 TX Joshua Maxwell 31 W 1 Latino Lethal Injection
3/16/10 1198 OH Lawrence Reynolds 43 W 1 White Lethal Injection
3/18/10 1199 VA Paul Powell 31 W 1 White Electric Chair
3/30/10 1200 TX Franklin Alix 34 B 1 Black Lethal Injection
4/20/10 1201 OH Darryl Durr 46 B 1 White Lethal Injection
4/22/10 1202 TX William Berkley 31 W 1 Latino Lethal Injection
4/27/10 1203 TX Samuel Bustamente 40 L 1 Latino Lethal Injection
5/12/10 1204 TX Kevin Varga 41 W 1 White Lethal Injection
5/13/10 1205 OH Michael Beuke 48 W 1 White Lethal Injection
5/13/10 1206 TX Billy Galloway 41 W 1 White Lethal Injection
5/19/10 1207 TX Rogelio Cannady 37 H 1 Latino Lethal Injection
5/19/10 1208 MS Paul Woodward 62 W 1 White Lethal Injection
5/20/10 1209 MS Gerald Holland 72 W 1 White Lethal Injection
5/20/10 1210 VA Darick Walker 37 B 2 Black Lethal Injection
5/25/10 1211 TX John Alba 54 L 1 Latino Lethal Injection
5/27/10 1212 AL Thomas Whisenhant 63 W 1 White Lethal Injection
6/2/10 1213 TX George Jones 36 B 1 Black Lethal Injection
6/9/10 1214 GA Melbert Ford 49 W 2 White Lethal Injection
6/10/10 1215 AL John Forrest Parker 42 W 1 White Lethal Injection
6/15/10 1216 TX David Powell 59 W 1 Latino Lethal Injection
6/18/10 1217 UT Ronnie Gardner 49 W 1 White Firing Squad
7/1/10 1218 TX Michael Perry 28 W 1 White Lethal Injection
7/13/10 1219 OH William Garner 37 B 5 Black Lethal Injection
7/20/10 1220 TX Derrick Jackson 42 B 2 White Lethal Injection
7/21/10 1221 MS Joseph Burns 42 W 1 White Lethal Injection
8/10/10 1222 OH Roderick Davie 38 B 1 White 1 Black Lethal Injection
8/12/10 1223 AL Michael Land 41 W 1 White Lethal Injection
8/17/10 1224 TX Peter Cantu 35 L 2 White Lethal Injection
I find no correlation in the data, that shows any racism here.
So i guess you need to go back and find the number of people charged with capital crimes and the number actually executed.
Very few charged get a capital sentence. Usually it’s Life in Prison, or a lesser sentence.
So, i guess you will need to do what other people who make up these charges would do. The list seems to show about an equal rate among the various ‘races’. I would suspect that the pool of those in prison would fall in similar lines.
But that is irrelevant. Since blacks compose only about 15% of the population, then they should be executed 15% of the time, or else it’s RACISM. It doesn’t matter that they were caught and convicted and are in prison to fill about 50-60% of the crimes. That, also, is evidence of racism. Perhaps there is simply more a proclivity to criminal behavior when you have 70% illegitimacy rates, broken homes, high school drop-outs, and illiteracy. That’s all our fault, too. It’s never the fault of the people in these situations, it’s societies fault. I’ve heard it all before, and living amongst these degenerates, I call B.S.
You really need to find better sources of “information”.
I find no correlation in the data, that shows any racism here…….You really need to find better sources of “information”.
Yea right, sources. I know, if the NYT says 1+1=2 you don’t believe them….. well, how about the United States Department of Justice, or the American Bar Assn? Are you mad because I “insulted” General Lee?
Stop The Racist Death Penalty!
Racism On Federal Death Row Exposed Nov, 2000
http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/newab017/index.html
The death penalty is racist. That was the official conclusion of a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) review of the federal death penalty system released in September. The study shows that the federal death penalty is used disproportionately against minorities, especially African Americans – and that it is applied in a geographically arbitrary way, with some states, like Virginia and Texas, accounting for a large share of death penalty prosecutions.
According to DOJ figures, nearly 80 percent of inmates on federal death row are Black, Hispanic or from another minority group. Minorities account for 74 percent of the cases in which federal prosecutors seek the death penalty.
The DOJ review was the latest of several studies to demonstrate the racism and arbitrariness of the death penalty.
and:
http://www.capitalpunishmentincontext.org/issues/disparitiesfdp
Race
The DOJ study found numerous racial disparities, including the fact that 80% of the cases submitted by federal prosecutors for death penalty review from 1995 to 2000 involved racial minorities as defendants (See table).
Even after review by the Attorney General, 72% of the cases approved for death penalty prosecution involved minority defendants.
Likewise, of the 677 homicide cases submitted for review from 1995 to 2000, 500 (74%) of the defendants were charged with intraracial homicides (i.e., the defendant and the victim were of the same race/ethnicity) and 177 (26%) were charged with interracial homicides (i.e., the defendant was of a different race/ethnicity than at least one victim). U.S. Attorneys were almost twice as likely to recommend the death penalty for a black defendant when the victim was non-black (36%) as when the victim was black (20%). In comparison, U.S. Attorneys were about equally likely to recommend the death penalty for a white defendant when the victim was non-white (35%) rather than white (38%).
The report found that from 1995 to 2000, a white defendant was almost twice as likely as a black, Hispanic, or “other” defendant to be offered a plea agreement reducing the penalty to life imprisonment or less. Forty-eight percent of white defendants entered into plea agreements as opposed to about 25% of black, Hispanic, or “other” defendants.
And:
http://www.counterpunch.org/deathpenalty.html
The chance that a person charged with a capital crime will live or die depends enormously on race, social class … the American Bar Association said, “Today, administration of the death penalty, far from being fair and consistent, is instead a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency.”
For this report, we’re grateful to Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta and two death penalty lawyers in Texas, David Dow and Brent Newton, who provided us with much of the information in this article.
Racism plays a huge role in determining who dies. In one glaring example, Texas law enforcement authorities picked Clarence Lee Brandley from among many suspects in a circumstantial case of rape and murder of a white woman. As authorities told Brandley- convicted but released in 1989 after being exonerated-”You’re the nigger, so you’re elected”. Dallas has sent dozens of people to death row but never for killing an African American. Harris County (Houston) alone is home to 40 percent of all African Americans in Texas on death row. Blacks make up only 20 percent of the county’s population but about two-thirds of its death row inmates.
You know… these same accusations can be made for incarceration too. But only the most extreme suggest eliminating incarceration.
If that murderer who escaped recently and was just recently caught, had been executed, that couple he and his groupie girlfriend killed, and whose bodies were torched, would still be alive today.
The death penalty prevents murderers from hurting anyone again much more effectively than incarceration. Murderers kill people again both inside and outside of jail.
And it’s the closest thing to justice we have. Instead of thinking of the victims, too many advocates advocate for the murderers for some reason.
Protecting murderers is not a moral act.
That’s what really soured me on Amnesty International. They changed their focus from protecting political dissidents to protecting American murderers. Made me stop supporting them.
Ole paralegal will chime in
I never saw any racism in the criminal justice system…what I did see what discrimination based on being severely stupid.
The dumber and more stupid the crime the more they got.
=========================
the days of racial bias in the death penalty are not a remnant of the past.
Here’s a short snippet:
“In Chicago, the South Suburban Housing Center fixed up some houses in a black part of town. It wanted to integrate the neighborhood, so it asked the Realtor’s Board to market the houses only to whites. It even told the Realtors not to put up any “for sale” signs for fear blacks might see them. The Realtors, who have for years been careful to avoid what is known as “illegal racial steering”, refused.
They were sued and LOST (emphasis mine).
In a 1988 decision, Judge Harry Leinenweber ruled that “affirmative marketing” was not “discriminatory housing practice”.” Huh???
“The Fair Housing Act joined the Civil Rights Act in never never land. It has now been reinterpreted to mean that black buyers may be discriminated against, after all, if it means other blacks will thereby get white neighbors. Realtors who fail to discriminate in this way may be punished for………….discrimination.”
OTOH, when I was applying for college, one of the two state HBCUs offered diversity scholarships to whites and other non African-American students.
I live in a nabe that, for many years, was one of the few places where blacks could own property in Tucson. The redline was Grant Road, which is just a quarter mile north of my house.
Any-hoo, the nabe went downhill starting in the 1970s. And it got worse during the 1980s.
Then it got discovered by people looking for affordable housing near the University of Arizona and Downtown. That started happening during the 1990s.
A lot of the houses had fallen into disrepair, so if you were one of the newer urban pioneers, you were forced to become a handyman or woman in a hurry. I’ve mentioned my building trades courses at Pima Community College. I was urged to go there by one of my neighbors, who was fixing up a house with her husband.
They’ve since moved to another nabe, and, last I heard, they had their house up for sale. I think that hubby, who’s in his seventies, may be the reason. His health wasn’t so hot when he lived over here.
Anyway, you’re a white person moving into a black nabe and fixing up a house. Who gets really excited about this? Well, the black people who’ve been living around here for a long time.
Talk about having a cheering section. And you might find yourself being “adopted” by one of these families. It’s happened to me.
Sub primes made up only 8% of the defaults and primes and jumbos are currently leading.
You like a fool when you keep blaming the “po folks” of color.
He must have his “pants on the ground”……
many people have been aware of this going on for nearly 50 years. IMO, it has not been worthwhile buying a home without personally getting to know your neighbors. my parents were magnetic, in that they attracted people. I recall in the 1960s we would have neighbors over most summer evenings. Now you have to worry about felons, registered offenders, severely indebted (desperate) FBs, gamblers who got lucky and won the lottery but are low lifes, and so on.
when you buy a house, your house’s value depends on the integrity of every one of your neighbors and you are thus in their control.
The other side of the coin is that governments at all levels have become vicious, making peaceful activities felonies. America has the highest rate of incarceration. It is a protection racket and has more to do with protecting jobs of LE, attorneys, corrections officers. so the other side of the coin of treating “minorities” like royalty is a harsh Soviet style of government and bureaucracy. Well past time to smash the system.
“making peaceful activities felonies”
“It is a protection racket and has more to do with protecting jobs of LE, attorneys, corrections officers.”
Nailed it.
“If they had performed even rudimentary checks before the loans were made, sold, rated, insured or securitized, it’s very likely that big problems would have been visible before disaster hit.”
Actually I call BS on that. It is not the lack of checking that failed, for the most part. The reason is this - the default rate on these loans actually was very low during the frontside of the bubble, which was about a 10-year period. A loan that in most times would be considered high risk (e.g. high LTV, low FICO, etc.) actually were no longer high risk, due to the distortions in the housing market - i.e. prices constantly rising fast.
What were the lenders supposed to do - ignore the past 10 years of data?
Yes - a prudent and smart lender - one who knew that a bubble existed and how big it was - would have known that these loans were higher risk than they were rated, and would have refused them upon doing checking. But were the other 98% or so of lenders really negligent? IMO no, in all but some of the extreme cases. There was no incentive to do such checks - because they were meaningless. No one was defaulting, not even the worst credit risks. Such checking therefore only served to eat into the bottom line - to add to costs.
The real problem - that preceded and in fact caused this condition - was the various incentives that caused prices to rise abnormally in the first place (which have been bandied about ad nauseum here).
Well since the typical mortgage has a 30 year term, even if the average mortgage has historicly been paid off* in less than ten, it pays to at least do SOME thinking about longer timeframes.
*and for the bank there’s no difference between a borrower doubling down on their mortgage exposure because they sold the old house and bought a bigger one and one who won a 100k lottery used it to pay off the loan early.
Well since the typical mortgage has a 30 year term, even if the average mortgage has historicly been paid off* in less than ten, it pays to at least do SOME thinking about longer timeframes.
Yep - absolutely.
Here’s the problem though. Even in the 30-year period of 1975-2005, houses had gone up on average 6.8%, whereas inflation only went up 4.5% per year during the same period. The problem is that this included both the “normal” period where home prices prices went up with inflation, and the 1997-2005 period where prices went up way faster than inflation.
Given the precedent of that past 30 years of 6.8% gains, or 2.3% faster than inflation - someone who made $50k a year was actually a reasonably low risk buying a $300k house. Even if they lost their job - they’d still be making fast enough equity gains on the house to not default on it.
A true and valid risk measurement would have simply thrown out that last 9-year period of inordinate gains, and seen that housing actually doesn’t increase at 2.3% per year faster than inflation. Actually - a really good risk measurement would have offset the inordinate gains with expectations of lower-than-inflation housing prices going forward.
Problem is that if any ratings agency had actually done such a thing they would have been laughed off the face of the planet, and lost all their business.
My favorite ratings agency story was written by Michael Lewis, when one of the ratings agencies analysts was showing off their model to one of the housing bears.
When asked what happened if the analyst put a negative number in the “home price appreciation” cell, the response was:
“The model doesn’t take negative numbers.”
It wasn’t even considered a possibility when they did their ratings!!! Wow.
My favorite ratings agency story was written by Michael Lewis, when one of the ratings agencies analysts was showing off their model to one of the housing bears.
Would that story be part of his latest book, The Big Short? Sure sounds like it.
And The Big Short is a good book. It’s about people who knew that the CDOs full of subprime sludge would go blew-ie. (How could they do anything else?) So they bought a bunch of credit default swaps. And made boodles of money.
I think I read it in the New Yorker article, which was from the book. The book is still sitting on my dresser.
By the way, Paulson (who was one of the guys who made the $), is now out buying cheap residential land…sell high, buy low?
So all the discussion here about NINJA loans and mortgage fraud was just an academic exercise? They didn’t really exist?
Ye…ah.
Some of you people are piece of work, you know that?
Where did I claim that mortgage fraud didn’t exist? Please show me.
And NINJA loans were not fraud - they were perfectly legal. The whole point of a NINJA loan is to avoid the costs of such checks.
My statement is that even if extensive checking were done for fraud, that the housing bubble still would have happened, and been nearly as big in size. The fraud and NINJA loans came in the later stages of the bubble, after housing prices had been inordinately rising for a while. This is what provided the incentive for the NINJA and fraudulent loans. Without the already-existing bubble, such activity wouldn’t have happened, at least not in significant amounts (any moreso than it already did historically).
You’re confusing cause and effect. You’re blaming the pawns in the game, and ignoring the kings and queens (pun intended) that altered the rules that broke the game.
You piece of work.
NINJA loans ARE not legal. It’s called “falsifying a financial document” and is a federal felony, because you cannot loan to someone with no income.
Wrong. A NINJA loan is a loan where the borrow is not required to provide documentation. The loan is made purely on their credit score. Thus there is no documentation to falsify.
And they are legal. Or at least were - not sure if they still are or not (though it’s mostly moot at this point).
Packman, ecofeco may be referring to no-doc loans, where the borrower was not required to prove their income with paper, but were required to simply state their income level (which the vast majority did fraudulently).
The loans weren’t illegal, but many borrowers misrepresented information on the application to get the loans.
I personally think that had it not been for the “liar loans”, the peak wouldn’t have been as high, and the crash would have started sooner. But instead, the liar loans allowed the party to continue longer than it should have…
Ask yourself this: “Why would a lender make a loan with little chance of being repaid?” Therein lies the answer to the bad debt problem.
The core issue behind the credit bubble and thus the housing bubble was the separation of lenders from repayment risk.
If lenders had to worry about getting repaid, you can bet lending standards would be as high as they’ve ever been. Since they can just quickly sell the loan off, they wash their hands of exposure to repayment risk.
There was no incentive to do such checks - because they were meaningless. No one was defaulting, not even the worst credit risks. Such checking therefore only served to eat into the bottom line - to add to costs.
It’s that mindset and attitude that has created the problems we have today.
The whole point of checking (and quality control in general) is to do it ESPECIALLY when you least think it needs to be done.
Your argument only further damns them.
Here’s the problem though. Fraud did happen. Rules did get broken.
And your solution to this is to add more rules? Can you say what’s wrong with that picture?
Say you’re a CEO working for a company that makes widgets. You find that you’re starting to have quality problems - broken widgets are going out into the field left and right.
You do some research, and you find that your quality department has been sleeping on the job. They have quality checks in place - various tests and such, but they’re just not doing the tests. They’re letting product out the door, assuming it works right.
By this analogy - your solution would be to just add more checks?
You would be shown the door. You fail as a CEO.
The correct solutions are to:
1. Fix the QC department - fire the ones who are bad; do whatever it takes to make sure they do their job.
2. More importantly however is - FIX THE FAULTY PRODUCT.
In this analogy the faulty product is the mortgage lending industry - starting with the central bank. It got broken by:
- Loose lending standards at the back end (Fannie and Freddie)
- Insanely-low mortgage rates
- Tax incentives for homeownership
- Etc.
And actually - my analogy above is a bit off. For a true analogy the quality department would have had to have somehow detected faulty product before it failed. They would have had to have anticipated that the stress these products would encounter in the real world (falling home prices) would be magnitudes higher than such products have experienced in the real world before (home prices that had never fallen before).
Yes. More rules. Especially the rules that were rescinded in the first place.
It was, is and always will be the PRIMARY responsibility of the lender to check the credit worthiness of the borrower. To not do so is to act with malfeasance… especially with someone else’s money. Like your employer’s. Or the shareholders.
And there’s the other problem. Everything in this country has become backwards and upside and far too many think it’s normal and even defend a system that’s screwing us all.
I would fail as a CEO? Compared to the currrent crop?
I think I’ve hurt myself laughing.
the quality department would have had to have somehow detected faulty product before it failed.
This is done everyday. I used to do it.
It was, is and always will be the PRIMARY responsibility of the lender to check the credit worthiness of the borrower.
Absolutely agree. However our disagreement lies in the method of making that happen.
Your method is more rules.
My method is to penalize them by ensuring that such people lose their jobs, by allowing the company they work for to go bankrupt instead of bailing them out.
The rules method has been shown to be faulty. Prosecution of 0.0001% of the rulebreakers is a poor incentive to follow the rules. Prosecution of 100% of the rulebreakers will simply make our prisons far more overcrowded than they already are.
My quick 2 cents. The biggest problem was that those making the loans were not safeguarding their own money. They were simply creating a product to sell. They didn’t care about whether the loans were going to be paid back, they only cared whether they could sell the hot potato.
The originators’ gains were nearly instantaneous and risk free, the buyer’s potential gains/losses were not their concern.
The point is that the rules of the game were set up by corrupted politicians to make just such shenanigans LEGAL.
And since these things were legal, and people doing them were making money hand over fist. An employee questioning this would have been relieved of duty.
The point is that politicians allowed the laws to be changed to make these things legal - these things which allowed lenders to separate themselves from repayment risk.
Regulatory captured politicians put these rules in place, prompted by big money from the FIRE sector.
Unless we change the politicians, we’re going to be stuck with the same crop of feckless and venal clowns we have now, and they will see to it that the thing which enriched them and gave them power in the first time - the debt bubble - happens again.
We must put in place politicians who will force lenders to bear repayment risk. Anything less and the politicians and their paymasters will continue to suck yet more wealth out of the country and the society will become yet more anaemic.
Keywords: burning, furniture, cash, king
(AP)
Fidelity: 401(k) hardship withdrawals, loans up
Struggling workers increasingly tapping 401(k) accounts for needed cash
In the wake of news about a spike in new applications for unemployment benefits comes another potentially troubling sign: A record number of workers made hardship withdrawals from their retirement accounts in the second quarter.
What’s more, the number of workers borrowing from their accounts reached a 10-year high, according to a report issued Friday by Fidelity Investments.
“Widespread Concern Recovery Is in Jeopardy”
That’s one of the headlines this AM. How can something that never existed in the first place be in jeopardy?
The “teenage’ nation is about to awake from an awesome wet dream?
Seriously though, Combo is spot on - cash, and specifically cash flow, is everything right now. If one can’t increase what comes in, one had better decrease what goes out. Actually - considering how serious this situation is, one ought to do both!
“Combo is spot on ..”
Wow, thanks Edge.
Now if I can only convince my wife of this …
What you’re married? Darn it.
specifically cash flow, is everything right now ??
Ding,Ding,Ding….We have a winner…
Spot on Edge…Cash is powerful but once deployed it is gone…Cash flow is the “gift” that keeps giving…Assuming its bankable, it can be leveraged to bring very handsome rewards particularly in this type of environment…
Absolutely…
Has anyone else noticed how many companies won’t let you buy stand-alone or anonymous anything anymore?
Everywhere I go, I’m bombarded with buyer’s clubs, sign-ups, registrations, loyalty cards, monthly/weekly/freakin’ DAILY sale emails, newsletters, buy-10-coffee-get-one-free punch cards, coupons…and don’t get me started on computer* games or appliances.
I’m seeing this in everything from frequent flier miles (we know you have a choice in airlines
) to charities (give us $10 a month forever!!) to catalogs to women’s clothing stores (I am “unfashionable” if I don’t I chuck my entire closet every time the season turns.) Anything and everything to either get your information. They can no longer count on cash from plain sales. They need REPEAT customers for steady cash flow. Yet another pocket of value to raid.
———
*although, I have to admit I like giving my info if I buy a computer or virus software. When I had to replace my hard drive, I was able to restore a lot of stuff online because I was in their system.
Everywhere I go, I’m bombarded with buyer’s clubs, sign-ups, registrations, loyalty cards, monthly/weekly/freakin’ DAILY sale emails, newsletters, buy-10-coffee-get-one-free punch cards, coupons…and don’t get me started on computer* games or appliances.
Which means that we, the customers, need to say “No!” Loudly and forcefully. And take our business elsewhere.
After all, there are businesses that are doing just fine without the loyalty programs and other forms of sales-pushing.
specifically cash flow, is everything right now ??
Ding,Ding,Ding….We have a winner…
Hence why the goverment / federal reserve will print more.
And the credit card allows them to turn a one time purchase into a long term cashflow.
Another reason to hate pesky “deadbeats.”
Everywhere I go, I’m bombarded with buyer’s clubs, sign-ups, registrations, loyalty cards, monthly/weekly/freakin’ DAILY sale emails, newsletters, buy-10-coffee-get-one-free punch cards
This is all driven by marketing and most marketing people I’ve met are total morons. And that’s being nice.
All it ends up doing is making it harder for you to buy want you want. In other words, the seller makes it’s hard for themselves to take your money, thus increasing their cost of doing business.
And we think this is normal.
This is all driven by marketing and most marketing people I’ve met are total morons. And that’s being nice.
Yours Truly used to be a member of the American Marketing Association. I say “used to” because the intellectual caliber of the other members was, shall we say, a bit lacking.
I much prefer to associate with people who have brains.
The “teenage’ nation is about to awake from an awesome wet dream?
More like Teenage Wasteland. (Remember that song by The Who?)
Baba O’Reilly?
Baba O’Reilly?
Yup!
“Keywords: burning, furniture, cash, king”
What was that old movie, where someone lived in an old big house and resorted to burning the furniture to try and stay warm? I can’t remember. It wasn’t Hush,Hush Sweet Charlotte, damn memory is going.
I was mentioning my idea to move to western NC (Asheville area) to a lady I know and she launched into a story about how her aunt lived there at one time and was taking care of a disabled woman who lived in the mountains there, I think it was Flat Rock or Blowing Rock or some sort of Rock. Anyhoo, she tells me they had quite a snow storm one year and got snowed in, all the power went out for an extended period and after they used up all the firewood, they started burning furniture.
Her point was that it can get quite cold and snowy during the winters and the summers are just as hot as it is down here in Tampa area.
The summers may be as hot palmy, but they’re not as long. Actually, Asheville’s summer temps would definitely be lower than Tampa’s, but you pay by having much colder and snowier winters than here in the piedmont.
Allegiant Air has some low fares from St. Pete to Greenville if you ever decide to check out the area over a long weekend.
Warning about Allegiant - their customer service really sucks baws. (To put it in Greenville talk)
Allegiant is the one and only airline that serves the Ft. Collins-Loveland airport with daily flights to Las Vegas. I’ve never flown Allegiant so I have no idea of how or bad their service is.
They are great. Nice airplanes (Heavy work contracted out to American Airlines, rest done in house). Clean, non-cattle car like interiors, and people on their way to Vegas make great inflight entertainment. Trips from Vegas are quiet…….everyone is passed out.
True, they only do an out and back per day, but they are the only way to fly if you are going to Vegas, IMO.
Cow Pissing On Flat Rock, North Carolina…..
It’s just down the road from FrogBalls, Arkansas
“bbbbbbbut it’s “great there….. we got a _______ for only $___.”
Have fun in peasant country.
I thought you said FrogBalls was in Tenn.
FrogBalls
I didn’t think they had them.
And I’ve studied WWII.
There were some frogballs in WWII. Bonnier de La Chapelle had them. I’ve named my winery in his honor: Chateau Bonnier de La Chapelle.
He’s the guy who shot Admiral Darlan. A good man to shoot.
If you move to Asheville you probably should come with some money because there’s basically no economy there short of the retirement home and tourist industry. I grew up about 2 hours from there and for NC standards Asheville might as well be San Francisco. I’d love to live there too but as far as jobs in my field, there’s maybe 1 or 2 posts per month total.
Great. Just great. It’s not as if there are people who have enough money to retire on right now. This will make it less. Oh, let us not forget that most pension plans are underfunded and will croak when put under pressure.
Roidy
P.S. How’s that recovery workin’ out for ya’? There will be no “recovery” unless there is debt destruction. Obama and the boys are looking to make sure that Fannie and Freddie will live on and the debt will live on. Heck, even Barny Frank is saying we need to shoot Frannie and Freddie. I hated the way this was done. I have been angry at the credit growth and the “Mickey Mousing” of our economy for 20 years.
“Great. Just great. It’s not as if there are people who have enough money to retire on right now. This will make it less.”
Add the fact that 401K loans are due in full if you get laid off or quit the job. If you can’t pay it back in to the 401K account, you get hit with taxes and penalties on the unpaid amount.
Nothing a little rules change can’t fix.
My thoughts exactly L Fool…
With a nod to Archie…..
“Mister, we’ve got a man like Herbert Hoover again….”
Nice news release. Just another piece of fact to plaster on the Housing Sales and Finance Crime Syndicate Wall of Denial.
and these are people who still have jobs …
Shaky jobs at that. Many already had their work hours cut back - that’s why they are forced to borrow.
Next up: Having their work hours cut to zero.
Then what?
Then what?
Take it from someone who has it….
Next up: Having their work hours cut to zero.
Then what?
Reading The Secret of course…
“Reading The Secret of course…”
Funny, someone just told me to read this. Please tell me this isn’t the next Clestine Prophecy.
It’s “Think and Grow Rich” redux.
Or as I like to call it “Wish Harder, Part II”
LOL Eco…
Question for the folks who may be in the know.
When one borrows from one’s 401(k) - I believe the fund from which it’s borrowed is not specified. So for instance if you have $50k in your 401(k), with $25k in stocks and $25k in a “guaranteed” fund (various safe bonds), and then you get a $20k loan - are some stocks and bonds sold to get this borrowed money? Or is this - once again - money created from thin air?
To follow up - if taking out such loans doesn’t result in stock sales, then this just serves to pump up the markets even more. One could invest in a bunch of stocks in your 401(k), borrow a bunch of the money and then re-invest it. It’s a backdoor form of leveraging, without requiring a margin account.
Indirectly this is happening - all these people taking out loans are fueling the economy with this money, which is resulting in a higher-than-would-otherwise-be stock market.
Once again - a false recovery, in part fueled by debt, not by actual production gains.
As a side note to the 401k borrowing…..
Suckers are piling into bond funds everywhere. And as expected, our firm added a bond fund to the 401k plan just yesterday.
Suckers are piling into bond funds everywhere. And as expected, our firm added a bond fund to the 401k plan just yesterday.”
I’ve been in bond funds since I started reading this blog ~2006
yes it is a worry might need to switch out I’m thinking stocks that pay dividends
Consolidated Edison (ED)
Duke Energy (DUK)
Southern Company (SO)
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
Merck & Co. (MRK)
Novartis AG (NVS)
Altria (MO)
Diageo (DEO)
McDonald’s (MCD)
Annaly Capital Management (NLY)
Automatic Data Processing (ADP)
General Mills (GIS)
Kellogg (K)
Procter & Gamble (PG)
A sale occurs. Money creation is reserved for the elite!
Ambac Slumps As Investors Position For Bankruptcy
Ambac Financial Group Inc. (ABK) shares have lost about a quarter of their value this week as investors position for a possible bankruptcy filing by the troubled bond insurer.
Ambac Financial Group, the holding company, said Aug. 9 that it’s pursuing a restructuring of its outstanding debt through a prepackaged bankruptcy proceeding.
On Monday, ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service said a prepackaged bankruptcy filing for Ambac’s holding company, in which major creditors and other stakeholders agree on a restructuring ahead of time, would save time and money in court.
RIP McMansions:
Oh please please, where is the link for this?????
Atlantic Monthly.
The Atlantic Home
March 2008 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE
The Next Slum?
The subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.
By Christopher B. Leinberger
Strange days are upon the residents of many a suburban cul-de-sac. Once-tidy yards have become overgrown, as the houses they front have gone vacant. Signs of physical and social disorder are spreading.
At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, 81 of the community’s 132 small, vinyl-sided houses were in foreclosure as of late last year. Vandals have kicked in doors and stripped the copper wire from vacant houses; drug users and homeless people have furtively moved in. In December, after a stray bullet blasted through her son’s bedroom and into her own, Laurie Talbot, who’d moved to Windy Ridge from New York in 2005, told The Charlotte Observer, “I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.”
In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, California, south of Sacramento, the houses are nicer than those at Windy Ridge—many once sold for well over $500,000—but the phenomenon is the same. At the height of the boom, 10,000 new homes were built there in just four years. Now many are empty; renters of dubious character occupy others. Graffiti, broken windows, and other markers of decay have multiplied. Susan McDonald, president of the local residents’ association and an executive at a local bank, told the Associated Press, “There’s been gang activity. Things have really been changing, the last few years.”
In the first half of last year, residential burglaries rose by 35 percent and robberies by 58 percent in suburban Lee County, Florida, where one in four houses stands empty. Charlotte’s crime rates have stayed flat overall in recent years—but from 2003 to 2006, in the 10 suburbs of the city that have experienced the highest foreclosure rates, crime rose 33 percent. Civic organizations in some suburbs have begun to mow the lawns around empty houses to keep up the appearance of stability. Police departments are mapping foreclosures in an effort to identify emerging criminal hot spots.
The decline of places like Windy Ridge and Franklin Reserve is usually attributed to the subprime-mortgage crisis, with its wave of foreclosures. And the crisis has indeed catalyzed or intensified social problems in many communities. But the story of vacant suburban homes and declining suburban neighborhoods did not begin with the crisis, and will not end with it. A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.
…
Side note: Did ya know that the US Amish population is doubling apprx. every 20 years? Can’t speak for the Mormon’s, but it’s my understanding that they have similar “housing” needs…(Hwy wonders what they’ll all think of the design, construction & materials used for them thar McMansion’s?)
(Hwy wonders what they’ll all think of the design, construction & materials used for them thar McMansion’s?)
Having lived in a house (in eastern PA) that was built by Amish workers, I can tell you that they have very few positive things to say about the workmanship in McMansions. Those Amish guys are real sticklers for quality. And the nicest construction workers you’d ever want to deal with.
Elk Grove is a suburb of Sacramento to the south….about 1/3 of the way on the road to wonderful Stockton. It used to be a much nicer place than, say, Lodi (of “Stuck in Lodi” fame) further along on the road to Stockton.
One architectural feature of houses here in Boise is that all the kitchens come with a walk-in “Mormon sized” pantry. (The other is a dedicated 20 amp outlet in the garage for a game freezer.)
I’ll bet a lot of those rush-job houses have few features that would please the Amish. Don’t they need lots of extra windows since the don’t use electricity?
I watched a documentary where they interviewed Dieter Dengeler who spent some time as a prisoner of the Pathet Lao during the Vietnam War. A very hungry time it was. He lifted up the floorboards of his home and showed off a Morman-worthy ammount of stored food.
The Amish don’t own cars, but are happy to hitch a ride from you. They don’t own power tools, but will gladly borrow yours on the construction site. I find their quality of workmanship average as well.
“Can’t speak for the Mormon’s,…”
Picture a subpopulation which is culturally fifty years behind the main stream.
Then picture the main stream culture’s average family size fifty years ago.
Families were bigger back then (remember the Brady Bunch?)…
Subpopulations with large family sizes and low mortality rates tend to grow far more quickly than the average subpopulation.
Windy Ridge
Windy Ridge?? Is “windy” a desirable trait in a neighborhood? Ridge Breeze maybe but Windy Ridge?
Realtor: I’ve got a nice 4/3 to show you today in Windy Ridge and a cute 4/2 fixer in Floodplain Willows.
(where the current owner is underwater)
Directly behind it is Tornado Alley.
As I said yesterday, this will never happen (with small exceptions of course)
Most HOA and muni regs will never allow this to happen. The increased load alone on water and sewer makes this impossible.
Second, over-sized, over-priced and ugly is the American way! To do or say otherwise is to admit defeat! And if there is one thing we excel at, it’s de Nile!
R.I.P. McMansions
In Mortgage Crunch, Big Homes on Small Lots Have Lost Appeal and Selling Power
Sept. 14, 2007
The latest victim of the mortgage crunch is the McMansion, huge homes on small lots that have soared in popularity since the early ’90s.
In fact, the number of new homes with four bedrooms or more has doubled in the last two decades — even as the size of the average family has shrunk.
In partnership with The Wall Street Journal, ABC News looked at the troubled housing market, where it seems bigger isn’t always better.
Builder Ron Delino is about to put a 4,000-square-foot home in Chatham, N.J., on the market, a market that’s not what it once was.
“It’s definitely in a down cycle. Two years, three years ago there were knockdowns all over the area. Any builder could come in, built a house and sold it. No risk,” Delino said.
Now, new-home sales are down 10 percent nationwide. Buyers are struggling to keep up with huge McMortgage payments and America is downsizing.
“It may be time for the end of the McMansion. Certainly the large expansion in home sizes we’ve seen over the last couple of years may be coming to a halt,” said Kelly Evans of The Wall Street Journal.
…
I’m hoping these postage stamp sized lots will eventually be razed and have half the number of houses put in with about half to 2/3rds the square footage on the houses.
My sister-in-law lives in the epitome of this ridiculousness. 3 story 3500 sq. foot house on a 3000 sq foot zero line lot built onto a hillside so you have a 6 foot retaining wall in back and a 3 story house looming over your 3 story monstronsity.
Toll Bros strike again!
The house looks nice, but my driveway is bigger than their back yard. They have no front yard at all. Their ‘driveway’ between the sidewalk and their house is three feet.
I’ve actually seen this many times in today’s market. Teenie-Tiny lots with the improvements already in–what do you do? The business plan we’ve seen is that the developers want to essentially erase the lot lines from the site plan, making two or three small lots into one medium sized lot.
On top of that, they are downsizing the home. So, instead of having one 3,500 square foot house on a 3,000 square foot lot, they build a 2,000 square foot house on a 6,000 square foot lot.
And, most importantly, are able to price is such that it is reasonable, since they are buying the land for next to nothing, and construction costs have plummeted.
The interesting point in this cycle will be what happens when those cheap finished lots are all built on… Prices need to rise to justify development of new lots…
The founding of the blog where I got this post was a shoe shine boy moment for the McMansion mania.
Brings to mind Robert Toll’s numerous arrogant MSM prognostications at the bubble peak — in retrospect, another shoe shine boy moment, as you don’t hear much from him any more these days.
So Many Square Feet, So Few People
by Nic Darling on October 20, 2008
in Philosophy
Taking part in the comment conversation on a couple of posts I have written led me to consider the way we think about home size. Typically, as one reader complained, homes are merely judged by their square footage and disregard the number of occupants. Meaning, that the owner of a large home with a big family might be criticized by small home proponents, while at the same time small homes are shunned for offering too little space for a family. Perhaps, instead of thinking of how large a house should or should not be, we should consider how much space each individual needs, a sort of square feet per capita idea.
The best way to start is by gaining a little historical perspective. The average American home in 1950 was 983 square feet (source) and, according to Census data (PDF), the average American household size was 3.37 people. This means that in 1950 the average American had 292 sfpp (square feet per person).
Square Feet Per PersonIn the years that followed home size gradually grew and household size gradually fell until, in 2006, the average American household of 2.61 (source) shared a house of 2,349 square feet (source). So, in 2006, the average American had 900 sfpp, and that number has certainly grown in the last two years. I have heard average home size numbers approaching 2,800 square feet for 2008, but I couldn’t find a reliable source to quote.
So, seeing this wide range, the question remains . . . how much space do we need? Has the increase in sfpp seen a correlating increase in the quality of life? Are we three times more comfortable than we were in 1950? Are we three times happier? Could we, perhaps, manage to live in slightly smaller spaces than those with which we have become accustomed, particularly if it proves to have a positive impact on our environment, traffic congestion and other quality of life issues?
…
To borrow a reply from yesterday: We have two kids and 1550-sqft, which feels tight after 7-months of winter. The 3000-sqft would be over-kill and too expensive for our one-income budget. Rounded up, 400-sqft/head is right for us.
I’m currently renting about 1,400 square feet 3/2 with two kids. When we do buy, we don’t want a gigantic house (bigger at 2,000 to 2,500 square feet would be nice to have grandparents visit, etc.)…but certainly will pay more to have some land.
“…400-sqft/head…”
= 2400 sqft for us. Just for fun, I went on RedFIN and entered a minimum SFR size of 2500 sqft, max price $500K, for San Diego County. Was shocked to discover there are 355 such listings on the market now (would have been exactly 0 in this category five years ago).
This sucker’s going down again, folks.
You must realize that homes today are used differently than they were 30 years ago.
30 years ago few people did work at home, so home offices were uncommon. Today they are very common, usually occupying one or two of those ‘four bedrooms’. So in reality, most 4 bedroom houses do not have 4 functioning bedrooms.
Also, 30 years ago most people (at least most people I knew of) lived in the same geographic area as their relatives. There was very little ‘going out of town to visit xxx relative’. Sure, you went out of town on vacation and stayed in a hotel, but you did not go out of town to visit a sibling/parent and stay at their house. Society is now more mobil and spreadout. So, I suspect, people today have a greater need to use their house as a hotel on occassion than they did 30 years ago. Certainly true in my extended family.
Not saying all this justifies the three-fold increase in per-person space you outlined, but I think it need to be taken into consideration when having the discussion.
On larger sizes houses today:
Also, today’s people are way bigger. If Americans are 30% bigger, a 1,500 sq foot house of 1970 is actually 30% smaller for a person today who is 30% bigger than a person from 1970.
I think.
I remember visiting my grandmother as a child in her 2 bedroom house. My parents slept in the master bedroom. My sister and I got the fold out couch in the 2nd bedroom. My grandmother and brother slept on couches in the living room and sitting room.
Nice post Pbear…
Continuing on with the square footage need theme, scdave has a very,very big home…I built and designed it myself so it fit my family of five with two dogs very well…Honestly, I would not change a thing…My children are 13 & 14 months apart and were all involved heavily in multiple sports..Our house was always full of kids and was the “go to” place for the team BBQ’s etc…
Now, with the kids gone, its me, mrs.scdave and the two dogs…Although the memories are profound I find the house very cumbersome…I have crossed the bridge and have finally gotten mrs.scdave to let go also…
I am actively looking for a new location in this zip code (95008)…I intend to build the Miss & I a new “Green” home within walking distance to town…Likely around 1800 square foot single story…Thats only 450 square foot per head count when you include the two dogs..
I intend to build the Miss & I a new “Green” home within walking distance to town
Good luck. Seriously. Building a new home can be quite a task and sometimes stressful on a marriage. But not always of course.
sometimes stressful on a marriage ??
Nah…Not for us…Been together to long…
95008 Yikes!
No way mrs.scdave would go for a Nomadics 30′ teepee? The dogs will love it! (Ask me how I know…) It would provide a means of surviving anything falling on top yer heads!
http://geology.com/san-andreas-fault/
(Ol’ Hwy been nervous ’bout the shakin’ weather lately, can’t xsplain it though…it’s just an itch that comes & go’s)
Yeah…We are due Hwy…I have experienced every one over the last 58 years…99 was the biggest…If the San Andreas has the big one or even the Hayward Fault has a big one it would be really ugly around here…
Yikes Again!
Toady’s LA Times front page story:
Far more quakes came from famous fault
By Rong-Gong Lin II
A landmark study released today came after scientists spent years studying the geology of the San Andreas fault area. It suggests that California is overdue for a huge temblor.
The finding adds weight to the view of many Southern California seismologists that the San Andreas has been in a quiet period and that a major rupture is possible.
The research, published Friday in the journal Geology, used charcoal samples to look for earthquake activity going back centuries.
Run Hwy,…RUN!
Hwy50: “Where to?”
When you say “town”, do you mean The Pruneyard? Or the quaint old downtown? Watch out for the ghetto along Union Ave. going west from The Pruneyard.
Hi DennisN…Both really…But the old town is my preference…
I used to live out just south of Camden and Union.
But that place is history now.
“This is my office…”: George Carlin / R.I.P. “TruthSlayer”™”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtX3yZmzfUU
Thank you all for the anti-McMansion screeds.
Housing Double Dip Is Not Just Tax Credit Hangover
CNBC Real Estate
There’s no question that the home buyer tax credit, which expired at the end of April, pulled home buying demand forward and thus created an inevitable drop-off afterward. It would be wrong, however, to blame the current lull in home buying/selling entirely on the tax credit hangover.
You need only look at a report today from California-based MDA Data Quick, headlined, “Bay Area July Home Sales Down Sharply.” Sales in San Francisco in July fell to the lowest level in 15 years, down 19 percent from June and down nearly 23 percent from July of 2009. It was also one of the largest monthly drops recorded.
Blame it on the end of the tax credit? I don’t think so. Just look at the median price of a home in the Bay Area: $402,000. In today’s tight mortgage market, the income required to buy that home would likely disqualify the buyer from the tax credit, not to mention the fact that someone buying a $400,000 home (and remember half of those homes were more expensive than that) isn’t really going to be swayed by an $8000 (or for move-up buyers $6500) tax credit. Yes, half those homes were priced under $400,000, but that’s still more than twice the median national average, and again, the tax credit was really aimed at first time buyers on the lower end.
The inventory issue makes this all doubly interesting. Looks like that tax credit coaxed out more sellers than buyers!
And no mention of impending “reset max,” when the maximum number of ARMS borrowers are scheduled for payment shock. The astounding all time low mortgage interest rates would really help this, except that a very large proportion of FBs are underwater and therefore unable to refinance. Another Fall of desperate sellers is around the corner.
Jim, you need to distinguish between traditional ARMs and option ARMs. Our neighbors have a traditional ARM that dropped the max 2% interest rate each of the past two years, and has now bottomed out at around 2.5%, which is 5% below the original rate. Their monthly payment is a lot less than where it started.
Now they just have to time the refinance to a fixed rate when interest rates start going back up.
“Now they just have to time the refinance to a fixed rate when interest rates start going back up.”
If the destruction of housing prices relentlessly goes on when mortgage rates are going down, think of what’s going to happen to prices when mortgage rates go up?
I know somebody in this exact situation. House is worth half of what is owed on it, and the reset is coming up next year. They’re trying to save up enough cash to be able to refinance.
True. If I’d gotten a fully ammortizing ARM back in 2003 I might well be in even better shape than I am now. Of course getting an ARM when rates were at historic lows seemed crazy-stupid at the time. I would NEVER have predicted that we’d have even lower rates in a few years.
I’m trying to recall the Credit Suisse reset chart and i THINK that the maximum resets for Option ARMs was the Fall of this year, but I may well be misrembering.
Got yer CS reset chart right here!
AS, gotta say, I’m surprised at how far the OA resets extend into the future. I mean, you would expect that the time of maximum recast would keep slippin’ into the future as people refi or are forclosed on. But with the bubble bust, I would have thought that not nearly as many suicide loans were beeing written (new OR refi) in 2008 or 2009. I’m guessing that those OA anticipated to recast in 2011 were written in that time period.
impending “reset max,” when the maximum number of ARMS borrowers are scheduled for payment shock
This IMO is exactly why interest rates are running at record lows. Otherwise we’re looking at another full-on crash.
Interest rates will remain low at least until after this second wave is done, which is about spring of 2013.
It’d be very interesting to see the treasury bubble continue to build in the meantime.
Actually, the spring of 2003 is Alt-A, which are lower in magnitude than the option ARMs. Looks like the option ARMs wave is mostly fall of 2011.
link1
link2
Compare the area under the curve for the previous 24-months, and then for the next 24-months; think Dubya and his Cheshire cat grin. Mission accomplished!
If I recall correctly from the T2 Partners presentation though, the Option ARMs were defaulting much faster than implied by the reset charts (something like 1/3 had already defaulted by February of 2010).
Look at page 158 of the T2 Presentation (showing the shifted peak of the Option ARMs based on the recast schedule from the neg am–puts peak recasting earlier in 2010, lessening in 2011/2012).
Page 159 of the T2 Presentation shows more than 30% non-current at latest at the time of the presentation (2/2010), which is more or less consistent with page 158 (either convenient, or true).
I think we’ll see peak pain before the chart indicates based on the negative amortization triggers (most were negatively amortizing).
Might you have a link to that more recent T2 presentation? The latest I have is from Nov. 2009.
Thanks.
You need to go to www dot valueinvestingcongress dot com, and look the the right hand side of the page. The last time I checked, it was still February 2010…
Thanks!
Packman, still Feb 2010?
I see what you mean about that. It does appear the peak pain will be earlier. Hard to gauge when. A lot depends on what happens to prices over the next year or two, of course.
Yeah, the latest there is still Feb 2010.
Yeah. My personal opinion is that the Option ARM holders are made up predominantly of those who used that type of mortgage as an affordability tool (70-80%), corresponding with all those who are/were negatively amortizing.
This group will fold quickly. We may already be more than halfway through this crowd.
A fair portion of the rest (the 20%-30%) are people who simply took out the loan because it was the cheapest interest rate out there, and, despite the ability to pay a traditional mortgage, they decided to go for the low rate. I know a few of these people…trust me, paying a fully amortizing mortgage won’t be a problem for this group (perhaps 5-10% of the whole).
And then there are the rest of this group, who were paying at least the interest…it’s a crap shoot, some will be able to make it work, others not.
I personally think that the default rate on Option ARMs will rise to be at least 75% in time, maybe 85%. At the start of the year, we were already over 30%…I’ll bet we’re at least halfway through the pain by now on the Option ARM side.
Boomers starting to downsize. Isn’t there a number like 7,000 boomers a day are retiring? 40% of the boomers have only $10,000 savings. This means they must downsize and price their homes to SELL. I predict such downsizing will continue for over a decade. The tail end of the boomers should be in cash, particularly savings bonds and TIPS. Tail Enders always lost in the boomer ponzi scheme. Tail Enders should be completely out of real estate because when they would otherwise be forced to sell to pay for heart surgery, the ten years of downsizing will reduce house prices much more.
This is the analogy of ripping out the wood of your house to keep you warm.
I predicted since 2006 that RE prices will bottom in 2012, but unless we open up immigration to educated Indians and Chinese and not go the racist route like Japan, we will see home prices bottom after 2022, maybe 2027!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but downsizing implies they are buying a smaller house…a bit of musical chairs? It’s not simply more supply, but more supply of large homes, and more demand for small homes.
This effect will exacerbate the downward pressure on larger home prices, but will strengthen demand for smaller, cheaper homes…
Exactly. In my city, the smaller, cheaper houses (900-2000sqft) have proven to be the most resistant to downward price pressures. Not immune, but definitely resistant, losing far less value than the next upward market tier.
With the exception of the small sqft home luxury market, which has taken some hard hits.
Or renting
But it’s not one more empty housing unit.
The backdrop of the boomers downsizing (not evaporating) is population growth to the tune of at least 6,000 people PER DAY. This is birth/death PLUS 50% of the census immigration estimate (birth/death alone is about 5,000 per day).
I don’t see boomers downsizing as a long-term drag on housing.
The biggest drags on housing today are lack of jobs, and negative psychology, which are both more significant and shorter-term effects than the boomers downsizing. The bottom in housing will come far before 2022. I’d be surprised if bottom hasn’t hit by your earlier estimate of 2012.
“402,000. In today’s tight mortgage market, the income required to buy that home would likely disqualify the buyer from the tax credit,”
Max income for the tax credit was $150K adjusted, which is $200Kish gross income. Is this reported saying someone making $200K can’t afford $400K worth of house?
No, it’s just saying that people with that income don’t get the credit, per the last few words of the single sentence you posted.
Well then it’s factually wrong since the credit is available (or was) for income up to $150K AGI. Which is about 95% of the population.
Seven weeks into the process, my girlfriend still can’t get her refi closed. The lender is balking for all sorts of reasons - after giving the impression that all was well and cinched up.
Last week they told her to pay off her cc balance (which she does every month anyway) and close that credit card - HER ONLY ONE!!! This week they have asked for documentation relating to a property she bought with her sister (and long since moved away from) almost ten years ago. Seems they think she has too much debt, even without any student loans, cc’s, or even a car loan. Latest credit score 790s.
Could it be that the appraiser hit the number and now the lender is shrinking back from it? Because to me it seems like they are trying to say in every way possible that her place ain’t worth what the appraiser said it was - without actually coming out and saying it.
A lender has no interest in going through with a refi, other than from keeping the borrower from going to another lender - which is probably what your friend should be doing.
A refi of a loan from a high interest rate to a lower interest rate means less future income will be going to the lender. Now, just why would a lender want to agree to this? The only reason I can think of is he doesn’t want to lose the business of the borrower, he doesn’t want the revenue stream to stop.
But he doesn’t want the revenue stream to diminish either. So the game he is playing is one of brinksmanship; He wants to squeeze as much money out of the borrower as he can to the point of being just short of having the borrower throw in the towel and transfer his business to somebody else.
Wait, wait, wait. Do you mean to say the bank is trying to make a….wait for it….P-R-O-F-I-T? The nerve.
Too bad there is this thing called C-O-M-P-E-T-I-T-I-O-N.
A smart business would look and say, “Gee, maybe we should be proactive and do something to keep this account, instead of giving them the runaround so bad, they take their business elsewhere”.
My mortgage holder back in 2003 did exactly that (being proactive).
But I’m old fashioned that way.
I would have walked long ago. I hate being jerked around and won’t put up with it.
790 FICO? Walk. Now. While you can.
Oh, I hear ya - it’s just that I want to keep my distance in so far as finances go at this point.
It’s awfully dark to admit this, but even my own girlfriend has become a subject of observation regarding people’s attitudes towards the bubble and it’s aftermath. She’s a good subject to study too, because she isn’t an FB in the purest sense, has a really good job and education. She is aware of that something is happening, but there’s still a profound disconnect there - and it’s fascinating to watch. I mean, she knows something’s up, but the possibility that it might be a very long event that might eventually directly effect the price of her dwelling is simply not there.
U.S. Online Spending Rebounds as Shoppers Seek More Internet Bargains
U.S. year-over-year online retail spending increased for the first two quarters of 2010 after experiencing its first-ever decline last year, signaling that online retailers are probably taking market share from brick-and-mortar stores as cash-strapped consumers continue to search for bargains on the Web.
Americans spent $111 billion online for retail products through June, up 7% from a year earlier, with a year-over-year increase of 9% in the second quarter alone, research firm ComScore (SCOR) said Thursday, citing its July poll of about 2 million Internet users.
U.S. online retail spending fell 2% last year after experiencing years of 15% to 25% annual growth rates during much of the decade.
Well with no sales taxes and most cities making sure if you are 2 minutes late you will get a nice OT parking ticket. There is not much reason to do shopping in person unless you need it now.
I can testify that some of that online spending is due to reduced inventory in stores.
I can think of at least four specific items in the last two months alone that I’ve either seen in a store or purchased previously, and when I went back to get it (or get more of it), were sold out. Since three of the four could be considered a little pricier, higher end brands, I doubt I’ll see any of those on shelves for a while.
The problem with having inventory is it’s got to be financed, which ties up a lot of money. When money is tight then the store owner has to make some decisions was what to stock up on and what not to stock up on.
Idealy a store owner would like to stock up on everything and anything a customer may want to buy so’s to have lots of sales. But when the customers are tight with their spending then store owners have to become tight with their offerings which means lots of items vanish from the shelves.
“The problem with having inventory is it’s got to be financed, which ties up a lot of money.”
It’s no big deal if you are able to borrow at 0%, is it?
For clarification, I was thinking about shadow inventory of homes held off the market…
If a bank can borrow from the Fed at 0%, it seems the only costs of speculatively holding inventory are physical depreciation and capital losses. If they can hold on for another decade or two without the homes crumbling into dust, banks armed with zero percent loans might even turn a profit by holding homes off the market indefinitely.
So tight, scarce money has several effects: It restricts the buying options of the buyers and it also restricts the selling options of the sellers.
But if the seller stops offering an item for sale then a shortage of that item will spring up. Shortages result in rising prices as long as the demand is there. But if too much of a demand is there then the seller would begin to stock the item back on his shelves, which would satisify demand and stabilize the price.
So it ends up that those items that are in demand, but not enough of a demand to make it worthwhile for sellers to stock up on, will rise in price.
Some will say to this: “See! Prices are rising. Inflation is rampant!” Which will be true; prices of some items will be rising, but they will be rising because of a shortage of supply, not because of an increase in demand.
Prices will be rising not because there is too much money flowing in the economy that will allow everyone to compete for the items, prices will be rising because there is not enough money flowing through the economy to make it worthwhile for the seller to carry the items.
Or the manufacturer to make the items.
I can think of at least four specific items in the last two months alone that I’ve either seen in a store or purchased previously, and when I went back to get it (or get more of it), were sold out.
I saw this too visiting California and the Midwest this summer. The store shelves at Target and other stores did not have the variety of just last October. Things were sold out. Some of the packages had smaller quantities and there seemed to be a lot of space in the isles.
There were not a lot of people. Sometimes it’s easier to notice these things if one has been away awhile.
“Things were sold out.”
And not replaced.
And enough items that are sold are not replaced then the reasons for customers to shop at that store disappears.
No customers = no sales= no income = closing of the store.
And enough items that are sold are not replaced then the reasons for customers to shop at that store disappears.
I worked in a bike shop where this very thing happened. Our increasingly empty shelves drove people away more than our sparkling repair service attracted them.
“Things were sold out.”
“And not replaced.”
Not replaced, but at least in my cases, less desirable substitutes were available. Some I bought, some I passed and the money I would have spent on the item just didn’t get spent.
“Things were sold out.”
“And not replaced.”
which probably argues to do any Christmas shopping early…
Exactly A Slim. It’s good to save money when you own a business, but you can save yourself right out of business.
negate, dipped, slow, sell-off, disappointing, fell, worries, moving out, fall, wane, tepid and not one unexpectedly. Now that was unexpected.
Stock futures slide as investors continue sell-off
By STEPHEN BERNARD The Associated Press
Posted: 6:55 a.m. Friday, Aug. 20, 2010
NEW YORK — Stock futures dipped Friday as investors continued a sell-off that began a day earlier over worries about the pace of economic recovery.
Investors are finding little reason to buy Friday. There are no reports due out that could negate Thursday’s disappointing news that growth in the domestic economy continues to slow. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 144 points Thursday.
With investors moving out of stocks, interest rates again dipped in the bond market. Oil prices also continued to fall because of worries that future demand would wane if economic growth remains tepid.
“…Stock futures slide as investors continue sell-off…”
(Yawn…) Wake me up when it is safe to dip your toes back into the stock market without a great white shark snapping them off for an appetizer…
Wake me up when it is safe to dip your toes back into the stock market
I thought you were DCAing in, Pbear?
True dat. Who said I like to live safe? I honestly don’t even believe in the concept…
Now Iraq can sell all of its oil to china, and give us the middle finger we evil Americans.
—————
The withdrawal of the last US combat brigade on Thursday was hailed as a symbolic moment for the controversial American presence in Iraq, more than seven years since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
IIRC Iraq never sold much oil to the US anyway, but rather to places like Europe. The US gets most of its oil from domestic sources, Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and Nigeria.
Dennis:
Then what was the point of wasting all that money and lives if we couldn’t get first dibs on the oil at way way under market price, to help us pay back the money we spent?
Cheney-Shrub Legacy #2: “Shazam-Isalm-is-now-Democracy!”
Book sales begin Nov 10th, …order today to get a free bag of pretzels & ice pack.
Book sales begin Nov 10th, …order today to get a free bag of pretzels & ice pack.
Or you could just save your money and buy Slim a 53rd birthday present.
Kind Regards, in advance… Hwy50:
“Happyyyyyy Birthdayyyyyy to yoooooooo, Happyyyyy Birthdayyyyyyy to yoooOOOOOOOOOO, Happy Birthday, dear Arizona Slim, Happyyy Birthdayyyyyy to YOOOoooOOOOooooOOOO….”
Sheeeesh, and all this time I had you pegged for
the mid thirties…
Happy birthday!
My BD isn’t until November 10th. Sorry I didn’t make that point more clear.
Why GM stock may lure brave despite bad economy
By BERNARD CONDON The Associated Press
Posted: 1:53 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010
NEW YORK — Would you buy stock in a company that has hemorrhaged tens of billions of dollars for years and run through three bosses in quick succession just because it’s turned a profit for a few months?
NO
That is essentially what General Motors will ask investors to do when it takes itself public again with one of the largest initial stock offerings ever. With the stock market already on edge, it’s a lot to expect.
People will buy this IPO hand over fist. It’s about the safest bet on Wall St. At the slightest hint of trouble Barracky will jump in with billions of bailout money. No way he’s letting GM fail. Not before 2012.
Buying GM will be like getting an FDIC insurance on a stock purchase.
“At the slightest hint of trouble Barracky will jump in with billions of bailout money.”
Yeah, but the last time both the stockholders and bondholders got wiped out. I’m not touching this one EVER.
Um, the stockholders and bond holders didn’t do so well LAST time, now did they?
That being said, it might be fun to put a little betting money down long on them. (And I mean a couple of hundred dollars, not anything huge.)
I’m not a buyer of GM, but I can see why you would. Many of the things that brought them down are gone.
Big debt? Gone.
Big union costs? Gone.
They can be about as competitive as any car company worldwide. If someone does buy GM today though, I’d wait until the next moderately happy time and sell it all. Don’t give them the chance to load up more debt. Don’t give them the chance to give the unions more.
I see the risk of near-term failure as small, long term success, equally so.
Developer loses property and chimps
Red Lodge real estate developer Jeanne Rizzotto, who had big plans for a luxury RV resort, has lost everything. Her home, her office and her development properties now belong to the banks.
Even her two pet chimpanzees, Connor and Kramer, are gone.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_bfe2af16-ab3d-11df-a234-001cc4c002e0.html
So the two problematic smirking chimps(brothers) are spending retirement in Florida according the the article.
Sounds like another two famous brothers.
The Rice twins?
Actually one of the Rice twins that I was referring to died a few years ago, I didn’t realize.
I knew some about them, having lived in Palm Beach County, where they’re from. I knew the guy who installed carpet in their house, and saw them at a restaurant there once. They were on local TV commercials all the time. Despite being salesmen (something that came naturally to them, given their unique characteristic), I think they were a couple of pretty good guys.
’bout like Bitterroot Resort here and Tamarack in Idaho.
Or Black Rock development on Lake Coeur d’ Alene, in North Idaho.
What’s the quickest way to make a small fortune? Invest a large on in Northwest real estate.
In the old days people would build “cabins” out in the woods. These cabins were for vacation use and the thought of resale value was the furthest thing from their mind. Good thing, too, since remote rural real estate has always been the hardest sale. These cabins were built as a consumable item.
Lately people came up with the idea of luxury “investment” homes in scenic remote areas. A pioneer of this idea was William R. Hearst, who built a big place in rural central coast California. A real nice place - I’ve visited several times - but it was a bust as a real estate investment. After his death his heirs could’t find a buyer and ended up just giving the house and surrounding land to the state (naturally retaining all the thousands of acres of ranch land farther away from the house).
The idea of building a luxury vacation community from scratch overnight doesn’t make much sense. Bend, Tamarack, and the like were probably doomed from the start. Older places like Sun Valley make more sense since they grew slowly and had room for mixed economic background folks. It didn’t hurt that SV was bankrolled by Harriman who owned the UP railroad and used it to boost passenger traffic on said UP railroad.
Total Hearst acreage in CA is around 640,000
acres, a lot of it long term leased to the DOD.
Good lord that’s 1,000 square miles!
I recall that the docent mentioned that Hearst owned ALL the land that could be seen from his house.
And yes I should have remembered that. IIRC Camp Roberts was established on Hearst land during WWII.
Isn’t “Luxury RV resort” an oxymoron?
A friend of mine from college was a trained petroleum geologist for big oil. She retired out of that job around 2004 to become - wait for it - a Coldwell-Banker Scottsdale Realtor!
She and DH (a still-working petro. geo.) bought a McMansion in Scottsdale AND a large vacation house in Red Lodge MT. I haven’t the heart to call her up these days because I’m almost certain that none of these things have turned out well.
That’s at least a pretty-ish part of Montana. Having grown up there, I’m always nostalgic about the place, but when I went back to visit in 2005ish I was astounded at the real estate prices. People were on some SERIOUS crack. Also, I can’t imagine going from petroleum engineer to realtor. I knew a bunch (my dad worked for the School of Mines in Butte, which has a big Petroleum engineering program) and none of them seemed like the cookie baking bs-shoveling type.
nostalgic = WhiteSalmon, MT
As long as it’s not Twodot, MT!
REMAX CEO Margaret Kelly is a fraud and a liar. She cannot be trusted.
http://tinyurl.com/24swjzv
Hbber’s if ya had anything to eat this morn’in, you’ve been warned: DON’T WATCH!
Go ahead exeter, I double-dog dare ya…watch youtube title:
iLove - 2009 RE/MAX Commercial
“You had me at…Ding-Dong”
BWAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! (fpss™)
&
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
And there it is. A caricature of the newest form of slave and cannon fodder for the Housing Sales and Finance Crime Syndicate. Young, dumb, brainless and empty pockets. Easy pickins’ for the realtor scum.
At least she had a bouncy….. personality?
They just won`t give up
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
NEW YORK – Two private investigators working independently are asking why President Obama is using a Social Security number set aside for applicants in Connecticut while there is no record he ever had a mailing address in the state.
In addition, the records indicate the number was issued between 1977 and 1979, yet Obama’s earliest employment reportedly was in 1975 at a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream shop in Oahu, Hawaii.
Does the Social Security Administration ever re-issue Social Security numbers?
“Never,” Daniels said. “It’s against the law for a person to have a re-issued or second Social Security number issued.”
Another anomaly in the law enforcement databases searched by Daniels and Sampson is that the date 1890 shows up in the field indicating the birth of the number holder, along with Obama’s birth date of 08/04/1961. A third date listed is 04/08/1961, which appears to be a transposition of Obama’s birth date in an international format, with the day before the month.
Daniels disclosed to WND the name of the database she searched and produced a computer screen copy of the page that listed 1890 as a date associated with the 042 Social Security number.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=152773 - 46k
Obama actually once had a job? I am flabbergasted.
IIRC his maternal grandparents were somewhat strict with him, so getting him a job sounds about right.
WorldNet Daily? lmao. Ok. More Brietbart material.
yet Obama’s earliest employment reportedly was in 1975 at a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream shop in Oahu, Hawaii
Lil’ Opie lickin them 31 flavors…in paradise!
“My oh my…says Br’er Wabbit”… “It’s trouble that makes the monkey chew on hot peppers.”
Northwest FL
Real Estate listings on Craigslist are becoming useless due to the flood of spam and all sorts of housing related services (lawn care, house cleaning, pool cleaning, poop scooping, attorneys, etc). In addition to the spam are the listings by all the desperate sellers and realtors. Instead of wasting my time flagging, I realized that the more useless Craigslist becomes, and real buyers go away, there is the potential for more inventory to stack up and put more downward pressure on prices.
Correction: I meant “poop scooping attorneys” not “poop scooping, attorneys”.
Do they listen to rap music by Scoop Doggie Do?
LOL…
fo’ snizzle.
Indeed, CL is a swamp of attempted check cashing fraud. There is a wide variety of schemes but they all boil down to someone sending you a check (later determined to be fraudulent), having you cash it, and then for some reason sending them some amount of money via Western Union. Advance fee fraud also uses WU. As a very general rule, one which WU themselves posts, NEVER send money to someone you do not personally know via Western Union, and even then be very very careful.
LOL - a great Keynes vs Hayek analogy - Dr. Keynes Killed the Patient.
(An extension left out is how Dr. Keynes was also co-owner of Bob’s all-you-can-eat buffet down the street.)
This commentary I thought was especially poignant:
American consumers are trying their best to deleverage. In terms of the story, the patient is actually trying to lose weight. But the government is blocking deleveraging and trying to boost consumption. They are forcing food down the patient’s throat. According to the Flow of Funds Report, households reduced debt at a 2.4% annualized rate ($330 billion) during Q1 of 2010. Meanwhile, the federal government was piling on debt at an 18.5% annual rate ($1.44 trillion). Since every dollar of government debt is a promise to tax the private sector in the future with interest, this public spending spree effectively negated the Herculean efforts of the private sector to return to a sustainable path.
That’s where the arrogance of Washington is really apparent. Scores of millions of American consumers have made the decision that reducing their debt burden is in their best interests right now. But a few hundred individuals in government believe they know better than the collective wisdom of the entire free market. By leveraging up the public sector, they have used their power to confiscate our savings. In short, they are forbidding us from following the common sense path to fiscal health.
(emphasis mine)
You’re right, that was a pretty good comment.
We need a ‘revolution’ where we throw everyone in government out and tell the world “Hey, collect your debts from the OLD government. They’re the one that promised you the money.”
Bears hold sway on Wall St.
COMMODITIES CORNER
Reuters
Wheat rattles global nerves
The price of wheat has recently run to the loftiest levels seen in nearly two years. There’s a cautionary tale behind the feverish bidding higher, writes Myra P. Saefong.
Thursday’s poor jobless-claims data and negative Philly Fed manufacturing reading leave stocks in the doldrums. No economic indicators due out this summer Friday.
But we don’t NEED consumers with jobs! We NEED bonuses for the top TALENT! And then it will magically trickle down!
Filed under: “…(Non-Hawaiian) Socialist-Muslim President expands Federal “job opportunities” & citizen economic informant program:
SEC Now Offering Big Payoffs To Whistle-Blowers:
By Janet Morrissey Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010 / Time
“…Under the program, which is already live, anyone who provides a tip that leads to a successful Securities and Exchange Commission action will be able to collect between 10% and 30% of the amount recovered — as long as the total amount exceeds $1 million. This means the minimum payout is $100,000. The whistle-blower could be a company insider or a private investor, if they’re able to offer information or analysis that leads to an action”
(Hwy would like to ask Crissy Cox to define: discretionary)
In the past, the SEC’s whistleblowing program was limited to insider trading cases and offered only small discretionary, rather than mandatory, rewards ranging from 0 to 10% of the money recovered. “It was completely ineffectual, completely discretionary,” says Phillips.
The narrow scope and poor cash rewards generated little response: Since the program’s launch in 1988, only 14 applications led to actions where a civil penalty was ordered, and only eight cash awards were handed out totaling $1.16 million, according to SEC officials. The largest award came last month when the ex-wife of a hedge fund adviser at Pequot Capital Management was awarded $1 million for her role in providing information that led to Pequot paying $27 million to settle an insider trading case involving Microsoft securities. The ex-wife had discovered a key email on her computer hard drive that led to the action against her ex-husband’s former employer.
(Federal Reserve Private Corporation solution to AZ illegal non-citizen dilemma…offer local folks a $100.00 per-proof bounty):
“…Money can be “extraordinarily effective” in getting people to blow the whistle when they see fraud”
offer local folks a $100.00 per-proof bounty
About that bounty….
In the old days they had a bounty on Indians, but to collect you had to turn over a scalp. Would you have to turn over a scalp in your proposed scheme?
If scalp = false Social Security card…then the answer is…yep.
$656.8 million to help struggling homeowners on hold
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:43 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010
Florida has $656.8 million to help struggling homeowners, but distribution of the federal aid is likely on hold statewide until early 2011.
The money, awarded through the Obama administration’s “Hardest Hit” program will pay the mortgage of unemployed or underemployed borrowers for up to 18 months as they seek new jobs or training.
Originally announced in February, Florida got another infusion of hardest hit money last week that will increase those helped from 12,000 to 20,000.
The Florida Housing Finance Corporation is now working to amend its plan for the money and hopes to submit it to the Treasury Department for approval by Sept. 1.
The original plan had relied on lenders to waive or delay nine months of mortgage payments if a homeowner received nine payments from Florida’s hardest hit money.
On Thursday, Florida housing officials said they could not get lenders to sign on for the state program. A federal plan that requires banks to forgive, temporarily or permanently, 90 days worth of mortgage payments for unemployed homeowners who seek a loan modification was announced after Florida had developed its plan. Banks didn’t want to agree to both mortgage forgiveness plans.
“With that intervening federal program, we were unable to get the match from the lenders we were looking for,” said David Westcott, director of home ownership programs for the Florida Housing Finance Corporation.
Florida’s new plan will pay up to the full 18 months for eligible borrowers, but the delay to get approval means a required 90-day trial program is also being pushed back. That trial, expected to begin this fall, will be held in Lee County, with only Lee County residents eligible.
Despite the holdups, Westcott said the state is happy to have the money.
“This means more money to help more people for a longer period of time,” he said.
Or in this case, more money to not hand out and wait until people forget it’s there so they can line their pockets with it.
Florida has $656.8 million to help struggling homeowners, but distribution of the federal aid is likely on hold statewide until early 2011.
…which will NEVER actually “help” the home owners even then.
Again, Not a singe DIME for renters …..this is way beyond disgusting and there will be more to come.
————-
The money, awarded through the Obama administration’s “Hardest Hit” program will pay the mortgage of unemployed or underemployed borrowers for up to 18 months as they seek new jobs or training.
Please keep driving big SUV’s and deriding conservation. It helps my house’s price rise every time you fill up your gas tank.
Arab Investors Join Latin America’s Real Estate Fiesta
Wharton, 8/10/2010
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/arabic/article.cfm?articleId=2509
Brazil a Prime Target
Spurring Arab investor interest is Brazil, the emerging-market darling that’s Latin America’s largest economy. While other countries continue to fret about the slow speed of their recoveries, Brazil’s central bank announced in June that it expects the country’s economy to grow 7.3% this year, the biggest economic expansion in 24 years. Much of that growth will be export-driven, with both old and new trading partners. The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce predicts trade between Brazil and the Middle East will reach roughly US$6.6 billion in 2010, a year-on-year increase of 33%.
Brazil’s economic progress is no aberration,…”From the 1980s to the mid 1990s, we saw a climate of high unemployment and runaway inflation,” …”But during the financial crisis, interest rates had to come down. Government rates came down, household rates came down and that was a real help for the country’s growth because that gave many people access to credit for the first time.” ….growth has provided many Brazilians with new job opportunities. “Unemployment went from 13% to 8% [in 2009] and is around 7.5% today. That’s what’s driving the interest in real estate.”
Brazil’s growth is hard for Arab real estate investors to ignore, states Angela Martins, international director of Banco ABC Brasil, which is controlled by the Arab Banking Corporation. “During the [financial] crisis, Arab investment was affected, so we did not see many [property] deals being concluded,” she says. That dry spell should end “now that Brazil is booming, and the Gulf Cooperation Council is emerging from the Dubai turmoil.”
“We have been keeping our eye on Brazil as an emerging market for some years now,” Masood Naseeb, Elysian’s founder and CEO, said in a press statement. Citing Brazil’s robust economy, growing per capita wealth, and popularity as a tourist destination — especially since winning the bid to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games – Naseeb added that he expected “a 1,000% to 7,000% appreciation of land [prices] in the region, particularly in the coastal areas.”
In the latest “Emerging Trends in Real Estate” …. a chapter on Latin America highlights several reasons why the entire spectrum of real estate in Brazil is attractive. First, according to the research, the country needs eight million new housing units to meet pent-up demand. Meanwhile, there are only 400 shopping centers for a country with a population of nearly 200 million, and warehouse space is “limited and obsolete.” As for the office segment, neither of Brazil’s two biggest cities — Rio and São Paulo — has a strong supply of very high-end office space, according to the report, and like Mexico City and Buenos Aires, existing space in both cities have high occupancies and strong rent growth.
Speaking of Mexico, I met a few days ago with an old Mexican friend of mine who was passing through town. He is a member of the Mexican upper class as his family owns a large construction firm.
His wife is American and he’s had green card for years. Last year they threw in the towel and moved the family to San Diego, where they already own a home (mortgage free of course).
From what he told me over dinner it has become unbearable to live in Mexico City as the risk of being kidnapped has reached ludicrous levels. He also told me that its across the social economic spectrum and that being poor is no deterrent to becoming a victime of the so called “Express Kidnappings”, the only difference being that that the ransom request could be as low as $200US. That’s right, kidnappers are willing to kill over 200 bucks. Of course the higher up the ladder you are the bigger the ransom. He told me that if a member of his family were abducted it would be at least a 100K US ransom.
So he high tailed back to the US while the rest of his family is moving to Cancun, which I guess is still relatively safer for the time being. His brother will run the family business (over 1000 employees) remotely from Cancun.
While I had read about stuff like this in the Mexican media I had no idea it was that bad in Mexico City as the media there insists that control has not yet been lost there, as it has been in Guadalajara and Monterrey.
My current concern is that this level of epidemic lawlessness will spill across the border into California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and from there into the rest of the US. I have read that there are some instances of “Express Kidnappings” in San Diego’s south bay (perhaps some San Diego posters could shed some light on this).
I have read that there are some instances of “Express Kidnappings” in San Diego’s south bay (perhaps some San Diego posters could shed some light on this).”
yes they say in Chula Vista
Chula Vista = The Bakersfried of San Die-go County
My brother works for the Border Patrol down there.
Says it’s already been happening. They have confined themselves to grabbing illegals here (so far), then dragging them across the border to TJ, and sending out the ransom notes.
Sounds like a lucrative little business to me. Take illegals back to Mexico, and get paid for your trouble. Just make sure you release them south of the border. Illegals usually won’t go to the police, because, you know, they are here ILLEGALLY.
“If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound” Question of the Day:
Is it against US law to kidnap an Illegal Alien? Or could you consider yourself a “contractor” to the ICE?
In Colorado, it already has.
Brazil’s two biggest cities — Rio and São Paulo — has a strong supply of very high-end office space, according to the report, and like Mexico City and Buenos Aires, existing space in both cities have high occupancies
especially since winning the bid to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games
Rio bless ya & the wonderful country & peoples of Brazil.
The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce predicts trade between Brazil and the Middle East…
Seriously, I hope it all goes well… tall buildings stay intact, “iconic” games are a success.
Fake Recovery is Over: Greatest Depression Looms
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/and-now-we‘re-headed-for-the-greatest-depression-says-gerald-celente-535350.html?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,tlt,tbt,edv,udn,tip&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=
High-tech carts will tell on Cleveland residents who don’t recycle … and they face $100 fine.
CLEVELAND, Ohio — It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders’ trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling — and fine them $100 if they don’t.
The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes.
The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn’t been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.
Trash carts containing more than 10 percent recyclable material could lead to a $100 fine, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens. Recyclables include glass, metal cans, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard.
The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn’t been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.
Count me as someone who could mess with this scheme. I just downsized my trash can to the smallest size that the City of Tucson offers. Even so, I only roll it out about once a month. If that often. Sometimes, I’ll go as long as six weeks.
Reason: When I buy stuff, I pay attention to the amount of packaging.
The less there is, the less I’m throwing away or recycling.
I might add that when I roll the trash can out to the curb, the recycle bin goes out there with it.
So, take that. A minimalist consumer has foiled your plan!
Another way around this is to leave excess packaging in the trash cans where you shop.
Yeah. I throw out one bag and some grass clippings per peek. I recycle everything that can be recycled and still only put the blue can out once every three to four weeks.
Cleveland is quickly catching up to Detroit for the crown of Worst City in America.
Eddie what about Camden NJ that could be a dead heat with dee troittt
Camden has a great murder rate….if you are into things like that.
San Francisco has a similar plan already in effect. You get a fine if they discover recycleable materials in your trash.
I only roll my recycling bin out maybe once a month here in Boise, as I am single. Takes a long time to fill it up since I don’t buy much. For that matter, they only collect recycling on alternate weeks.
About SF’s mandatory composting/recycling law….
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/19/BAMM1A6T5L.DTL
They won’t build it!~ NY Post
Hardhats vow not to work on controversial mosque near Ground Zero.
A growing number of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero.
“It’s a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground,” said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site.
“I wouldn’t work there, especially after I found out about what the imam said about U.S. policy being responsible for 9/11,” Kaiser said.
The grass-roots movement is gaining momentum on the Internet. One construction worker created the “Hard Hat Pledge” on his blog and asked others to vow not to work on the project if it stays on Park Place.
“Thousands of people are signing up from all over the country,” said creator Andy Sullivan, a construction worker from Brooklyn. “People who sell glass, steel, lumber, insurance. They are all refusing to do work if they build there.”
There are 19 million people that live in the NYC metro area. I guarantee that a few hundred can be found that are willing to build the mosque. If not from the 19 million, then they’ll be imported from elsewhere.
Just you watch. Those construction workers will come in from Lon-Gisland or Joisey.
LOL.
I’ve never seen Lon-Gisland written that way - too funny (and true).
Family story: My mother’s father had, shall we say, a very New York way of pronouncing things. Iron was “eye-ron.” And an idea was an “eye-dee-er.”
Now, Mom and her mom and dad lived in Buffalo, NY. Where such pronunciations weren’t exactly exalted.
According to my mother, Grandma was forever correcting her hubby’s pronunciation. This caused a good bit of friction in the marriage, and no, that marriage didn’t last.
Did he pronounce Cuba, Cube-er, like JFK?
Just you watch. Those construction workers will come in from Lon-Gisland or Joisey.
Or Jalisco.
401(k) withdrawals surge, says Fidelity
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Withdrawals from 401(k) retirement saving plans saw their biggest spike in at least five years, Fidelity Investments said on Friday, in the latest sign of hardship amid a dismal economy.
Fidelity reported that 62,000 people made hardship withdrawals from their 401(k) workplace plans during the second quarter. That’s up from 45,000 participants during the prior quarter, a 37% increase. That means that 2.2% of Fidelity participants took a hardship withdrawal in the second quarter, compared to 2% in the same period last year.
Fidelity also said that 11% of participants took out loans from their 401(k) over the past 12 months, an increase of 2% from the prior year. The average loan amount was $8,650 at the end of the second quarter.
I’d rather withdraw the money from my 401K/403b myself than having gubermint beat me to the punch. You know that sooner or later they will confiscate all private retirement savings. Either outright or by taxation, means testing, etc. Of course it will be an emergency and of course it will be for the better of the country, blah,blah,blah…
I tried to get my money out earlier this year but according to the plan’s admin this is not allowed unless I quit my job which it not an option. I thought about no longer contributing. I pay 5%, employer pays 5%. I still have some hope that I get to cash out 14 years from today.
And Now We’re Headed For The GREATEST Depression, Says Gerald Celente Aug 20, 2010 Henry Blodget in Recession
The fake “recovery” was nice while it lasted, says famous apocalyptic forecaster Gerald Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute. But now the fun’s over, and we’re headed for what Celente describes as the “Greatest Depression.”
Specifically, the always startling Celente says the country is headed for rising unemployment, poverty, and violent class warfare as the government efforts to keep the economy going begin to fail.
The crux of the problem, Celente argues, is that the middle class has been wiped out. America used to be a land of opportunity for all, where hard-working people could build their own small businesses in their own communities and live prosperous and fulfilling lives. But now a collusion of state and corporate interests that Celente describes as “fascism” have conspired to help only the biggest companies and the richest Americans. This has put a shocking amount of the country’s wealth in the hands of a privileged few and left the rest of the country to subsist on chicken-feed wages and low job satisfaction as Wal-Mart “associates” — or worse.
The answer, Celente says, is to bring back the laws that prevented huge companies from getting so big and powerful, and put some opportunity back in the hands of ordinary people. But doing that is going to take a while. And in the meantime, we’re headed for trouble.
The answer, Celente says, is to bring back the laws that prevented huge companies from getting so big and powerful, and put some opportunity back in the hands of ordinary people. But doing that is going to take a while. And in the meantime, we’re headed for trouble.
Recall that the Sherman Antitrust Act became law in 1890. And, for a decade, it just sat there.
After Teddy Roosevelt became president in September 1901, he decided to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act. And other laws like it.
And the first prosecutions under the Sherman Act were against - drum roll please - labor unions!
This has put a shocking amount of the country’s wealth in the hands of a privileged few and left the rest of the country to subsist on chicken-feed wages and low job satisfaction as Wal-Mart “associates” — or worse.
Please, Tea-Party people, please read that. It’s you who have been ripped-off too. Don’t let them take your eye of the real ball.
The answer, Celente says, is to bring back the laws that prevented huge companies from getting so big and powerful
No, the answer is to REPEAL the laws that ALLOWED huge companies to become so big and powerful.
Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Thank you for posting this Lehigh. You are not an economic girlie man! Too bad about the rest.
So the Glass, Stegall Act was recently ENACTED?
Seriously.
“…put some opportunity back in the hands of ordinary people.”
Damn socialeest/commie!
This should have no effect on Barry, he’s full of sh!t how could swimming around in it bother him.
Will fecal bacteria count beach Barack Obama?
August 20, 2010 ~ Boston Herald
WEST TISBURY - Welcome to Martha’s Vineyard, Mr. President - but don’t go in the water!
President Obama, who took a plunge in the Gulf last week to show Americans it was safe to swim the oil spill-plagued area, arrived on this supposedly pristine island yesterday in the midst of a rash of bacteria-induced beach closings.
Portions of Tisbury Great Pond, the salt-water lagoon fronting the first family’s vacation estate Blue Heron Farm, were closed earlier this week due to high levels of enterococci, an indicator that the water is contaminated with fecal coliform bacteria. Ew.
High levels of enterococci can cause skin irritation, vomiting or diarrhea in swimmers. Which could ruin anyone’s vacation!
Have they considered applying toxic dipsersant on the contaminated lake. The stuff is magic in a billymaysish kind of way.
Neil’s All Natural popcorn (Hwy adds real-butter):
Professional investors move into flipping foreclosed homes:
Squeezing out amateurs, private equity funds and wealthy individuals are buying distressed properties at public auctions, refurbishing them and selling them for quick profits.
By Walter Hamilton and Alejandro Lazo Los Angeles Times / August 20, 2010
“It’s just like the housing bubble,” he said. “It’s almost like we’re in a bubble at the courthouse steps.”
Competition at the auctions is brutal, said Bruce Norris of Norris Group, a real estate investment firm in Riverside.
Norris unwittingly bought a house that was the site of a gruesome double murder. No one else bid — a rare occurrence that showed others knew the history — leaving Norris with less cash to bid for other houses.
“It’s a very lonely place out there,” Norris said.
That’s only one of many risks in the foreclosure business. People who’ve lost their homes through foreclosure sometimes vent their anger by smashing walls, knocking over water heaters or ripping out toilets.
“We’ve literally had people take $20,000 of cabinetry out and feel perfectly justified doing it,” Norris said.
(Hwy wonders what to make of a $20,000 kitchen in a $9,000 single-wide?)
There’s a flip attempt just around the corner from my house. Was bought by a real estate agent and her handyman husband earlier this year.
According to my friends across the street, they put big time and money into fixing it up. It was one of those trashed foreclosures we talk so much about — pipes ripped out, walls smashed, homeless and other ne’er-do-wells crashing in the house and back yard.
Any-hoo, my friends doubt that this couple will get their money out of it. They also tell me that the couple tried to sell, but I don’t think they succeeded.
Why? Because I saw what appeared to be student renters moving their stuff in yesterday evening. All I can say is that I hope the flipper wannabes screened these new tenants well, because students can be real housewreckers.
Norris unwittingly bought a house that was the site of a gruesome double murder. No one else bid — a rare occurrence that showed others knew the history — leaving Norris with less cash to bid for other houses.
got one of these homes in Poway maybe Bruce can buy that one too join the other flippers there in that over priced area
Bruce Norris and his kind, has screwed up the market for us real buyers who just want a home in So Ca. I hope they all get burned over and over from here on end. I can’t tell you how many homes we’ve been priced out of from these a-holes. Not everyone wants a minature McMansion. Putting $20K in and asking $120K over purchase price is absurd. The buyers are emotional fools.
I’ve seen more and more business plans of this nature. And the margins are getting squeezed (down from 30%-40% to maybe 10-20%). These guys are trying to buy as many as possible to make the money. The survivors (aka those who can actually raise the money) are in the arbitrage business. They only buy homes where they can fix them, and put them back on the market at prices where they can sell them within 90 days.
The examples I’ve seen go something like this: Buy the home for $100k, put in $10k to fix it up, sell it for $130k, pay $7k closing costs and make a whopping $13k. If they can do that in 120 days, they earn an annualized rate of return of 30%+. A hell of a lot of time and legwork though. They are making money by buying a lot of them.
My understanding is that more and more of the foreclosed homes are actually selling at auction to these guys, as opposed to going back to the bank as REO.
I think it’s all good. Not to invest mind you (margins are already getting dramatically squeezed for the risk, you can’t perform proper due diligence on any of these homes), but good for money to be coming from somewhere to fix these trash heaps and make them liveable again.
Payrolls Increase in 37 U.S. States, Led by Michigan
Payrolls increased in 37 U.S. states in July, led by a jump in Michigan that may reflect a gain in auto making.
Employers in Michigan added 27,800 jobs last month, the most since October, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Massachusetts, New York and Minnesota rounded out the four states with the biggest job gains. Employment in the District of Columbia climbed by 17,800, the most since records began in 1990 and second behind Michigan.
The U.S. lost 131,000 jobs last month as the government cut temporary workers conducting the 2010 census, and private payrolls rose a less-than-forecast 71,000, according to Labor Department figures released Aug. 6. Manufacturing employment increased by 36,000, a seventh consecutive gain.
“If there’s any strength anywhere, one would expect it to be in some of the Midwestern manufacturing centers, even in the Great Lakes region because of the newfound stability for the auto industry,” Steven Cochrane, director of regional economics at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said before the report.
Hoooray! Only 20,000,000,000 more to go!
Take one down and pass it around…
Pension Cuts Won’t Cover a $3 Trillion Bill in U.S., Study Says
Taxpayers must cover at least a third of a $3 trillion bill for public employee pensions even if lawmakers eliminate cost-of-living increases and raise the retirement age, according to an academic study.
“Even if states uniformly eliminated generous early retirement deals and raised the retirement age to 74, the unfunded liability for promises already made would still be more than $1 trillion,” Joshua D. Rauh, associate professor of finance at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois, said in a statement.
He presented the paper yesterday to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s State and Local Pensions conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
The study of 116 U.S. retirement plans for teachers and government workers showed that as of June 30, 2009, they had $1.89 trillion in assets to cover $3.15 trillion in liabilities, Rauh said. The research used the typical fund’s assumption that investments will earn about 8 percent annually. That is a gap of $1.26 trillion — more than double the shortfall of a year earlier, according to a study by the Pew Center on the States.
Fire up the printing presses.
The research used the typical fund’s assumption that investments will earn about 8 percent annually.”
8 percent what happens at 5%
Here’s an option. Eliminate public employee pensions and give them all a cash payout of whatever is currently available.
And you’d settle for the same deal, right?
This is a stupid and useless, fear mongering article.
I didn’t see where it said this was an annual figure or a total arrived by combining projections. If so, they have decades to find the difference.
Dr. Keynes Killed the Patient, by Michael Pento
A morbidly obese gentleman labored into Dr. Hayek’s office suffering from severe chest pain. The patient also complained that he was unable to consume his usual 10,000 calorie-per-day diet; in fact, he was feeling so sick that he could barely scarf down 9,000 calories. He noted that his love for food remained as strong as ever, but his body just wasn’t keeping up with his demands.
After having a thorough look at the patient, the good doctor could not find anything wrong outside of the patient’s extreme portliness. After a moment of reflection, he delivered to his patient a troubling diagnosis. He explained that the chest pain stemmed from the strain the patient’s 500lb body was putting on his heart, and that the lack of appetite was his body’s attempt to protect itself from this imbalance. Dr. Hayek’s prescription was simple: the patient had to dramatically reduce his consumption while undertaking a moderate exercise program, with the goal of losing 250lbs as quickly and safely as possible. Dr. Hayek was aware that it would be a physically painful and emotionally difficult process for the man, but it was the only way to avert a life of suffering - or even a heart attack.
Unfortunately, our patient rebelled against such an austere program. He had grown very fond of his high-calorie and high-fat diet and didn’t think that now, when he was already depressed from dealing with all these ailments, was a good time to deny himself the few pleasures he had left. In his opinion, the doc’s prescription was just too simplistic. He thought there just had to be a way to have his cake and eat it - frequently. So, he waddled out of Dr. Hayek’s office as fast as he could, shouting over his shoulder: “I’m getting a second opinion!”
The overweight gentleman sauntered across the street, where he found the office of Dr. Keynes. He told the new doctor about his acute chest pain and lack of appetite, and complained about the previous doctor’s “heartless” prescription. After a cursory examination, Dr. Keynes rendered his diagnosis: the patient’s condition did not stem from the fact that his gigantic frame was causing undo strain on his heart; instead, the doctor concluded, the patient’s chest pain was merely causing a temporary lack of hunger.
Furthermore, Dr. Keynes argued, the stress of cutting weight at the present time would certainly prove detrimental to the man’s already weak heart. Therefore, his prescription was for the 500lb man to each as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Anything less might cause the man to suffer a heart attack, he noted. Now the doctor did concede that, at some point in the distant future, it might be a good idea for the man to shed a few pounds. But for the present, the most import thing to do would be to consume as much as he could stomach.
The patient left Dr. Keynes’ office with a broad smile. After gorging at an all-you-can-eat buffet, he momentarily forgot about his chest pain. It looked like he had found his solution; except, a week later, he died…
Link to full article:http://tinyurl.com/3xyoqnp
Hey - stop trying to steal my thunder. I already posted a link to this above.
OK packman,
You might have posted first, but my attempt looks a bit more HBBish, IMHO..
Well maybe, maybe not
You forgot to mention all the meds this. guy was taking to control his high blood pressure, suppress his appetite, regulate his bowels, etc., etc. These meds caused severe side effects, so of course he took more pills to control the side effects, and these caused additional side effects, and so on and so on. And he needed a veritable army of nurses and pharmacists to track his intake and monitor him.
He went to Dr. Polly, who suggested that his regimen just needed a few tweaks. “There is a profound philosophical difference between taking 40mg of isosphingotoxins at 8am, and taking them at 4pm after your leucosymbiosis cycle has kicked in”, she explained.
That didn’t sound right, so he called on Dr. Alpha-Sloth. “250 pills a day is not nearly enough for effective regulation of your system”, he opined. “You need several dozen more each day, and your regimen needs stricter oversight so you don’t miss any dosages. And you’ve GOT to get back on that glasssteagallin that you foolishly stopped taking a few years back.”
Finally, he tried an obscure doctor by the name of Dr. LVG, who was reputed to follow an odd mixture of Taoism, minarchism, and Austrian economics. And he said….
Cut the meds, cut the binge eating, and get a f****** GRIP on your life!!
+1
What a stupid article.
Instead of blaming the liars and thieves who caused this mess, lets blame some dead guy who is being misinterpreted in the first place.
Every one of these analogy stories always appeal to the simple minded.
Unless the analogy supports your revered drab gray soviet bureaucracy, which is also favored by the school marm.
Test
Sorry to hear about your Mom, SF gal.
Mine died of a stroke 39 years ago.
You will always miss her, that’s for sure.
Always try to be the best person you can, so she would be proud - that’s the only suggestion I have
cobalt,
Thank you lovely blue. I can only hope to continue to make her proud.
My condolences as well, SFBAG. Although I’m not sure how cobalt picked all that up from a test post.
Sorry about your loss SFBAG…..I just found out about this .
housing,
Thank you for the kind words.
Hope everything is going well for you.
so that’s why you have your mom as your profile photo on FB!
she looks like she was very nice.
* AUGUST 20, 2010, 11:39 A.M. ET
UPDATE: 401(k) Balances Rise; So Do Loans, Hardship Withdrawals
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Most U.S. workers’ 401(k) retirement plans showed “positive, steady savings” by most participants during the second quarter, according to Fidelity Investments, though there also was an increase in participants tapping their accounts for loans and hardship withdrawals as the economy remains weak.
“We recognize that for some, taking a loan or a hardship withdrawal from their 401(k) may be their only option because it’s their only form of savings,” said James M. MacDonald, president of Fidelity’s workplace investing unit. However, he said such moves could jeopardize retirement plans.
The U.S.’s largest provider of workplace retirement savings plans saw average 401(k) balances rebound last year along with the stock market after a horrible 2008.
The average 401(k) balance was $61,800 as of June 30, up 15% from a year earlier. The average elective contribution rate held steady at about 8% of income, while about a third of participants were putting away 10% or more.
A higher portion of participants raised their contributions in the quarter than lowered them for the fifth quarter in a row–with 5.3% raising them versus 2.9% who cut back. Prior to that more participants had reduced their contributions for three quarters.
The portion of participants borrowing from their 401(k) accounts or taking out a hardship withdrawal rose two percentage points from a year earlier to 11%, while those with loans outstanding also grew two percentage points, to 22%.
Hardship withdrawals edged up to 2.2% of participants from 2%. About 45% of those who made hardship withdrawals a year earlier also took another one in the second quarter. Top reasons included prevention of foreclosure or eviction, college expenses or home purchases.
…
“…those who made hardship withdrawals a year earlier … included … home purchases.”
Am I misreading this, or did people claim hardship in order to withdraw monies from 401(K) plans to fund home purchases?
it is…what it is…hardship
Dontcha know - not owning a home is about the most severe form of hardship there is. Right?
Owning a house is TOTALLY a hardship. Just ask me as I stare disconsolately at the giant crack in the retaining wall in my back yard.
Did you miss the “not” in my statement?
Looks like I passed.
Yup. Welcome to the club.
only cause its graded on a curve.
You`re always an A+
AteUp if you are still reading the HBB, my mom lost her battle to cancer on July 27th. She died at home surrounded by the people who loved her and who she loved very much, her children and her sister.
I miss her so much.
My sympathies.
Thank you Slim.
I’m very sorry about your loss.
Thank you Rio. Kaiser Hospice took such great care of my mom. What a great group of people.
Dang SF - sorry to hear that. My condolences.
Thank you packman. She was a gentle soul. She never complained about the hand that was dealt her. Never had a bad word to say about anyone. She loved her children and grandchildren and accepted us for who we were. I was truly blessed to have her as mom. I love her so much.
SFBAG, I am truly sorry for your loss.
Sorry to hear that, SFBAG. My sympathies to your family.
Thank you Kim.
My condolences SFBAYGal
My lil’ sister is currently on a similar path…
Hwy,
Thank you for your kind words.
I am so sorry to hear about your lil’ sister. If you want to talk or need any help, please let me know and I will send Ben my email address.
Many tankxs SFBayGal…
I am sincerely sorry to hear of the loss of your mother.
wmbz,
Thank you for your kind words.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’m glad you were able to get her home for her passing, though. I’m sure she was much more comfortable and it allows the family more private time.
sfbubble,
Thank you for the kind words. My mom didn’t want to die in the hospital, neither did we want that. Kaiser Hospice went above and beyond in helping my mom and all of us to make her comfortable and well loved as she let go.
Sorry SFBAG
Hi Housing,
Thank you for your kind words.
I hope everything is going well for you.
I hope everything is going well for you.
+1
I am sorry about your loss, sf.
bila,
Thank you for your kind words.
I’m so sorry.
Thank you Happy
SFBayGal
I am very sorry for you loss. After reading your words all this time I know your mom had to be a special lady to have a daughter like you. My condolences to you and your family.
jeff saturday,
Thank you for your kind words. My mom indeed was a special lady.
Barney Frank: Modern-Day Hero
Why is this guy not in prison?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qKYfqALE
California unemployment rate holds steady at 12.3%
Economic recovery in the state remained elusive as employers cut 9,400 jobs last month. California has the third-highest jobless rate in the nation.
By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
August 20, 2010|7:48 a.m.
…
On Thursday, the Labor Department said that new applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose to their highest level in nine months. Last month, the government said that the nation’s gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 2.4% in the second quarter, far slower than expected.
“What we’re seeing right now is a halt in growth,” Puri said.
California has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation after Nevada, which reached a new high in July of 14.3%, and Michigan, where the unemployment rate is 13.1%. California has lost 103,900 jobs over the year.
Unemployment remained highest in the Pacific region of the U.S., which includes California, Oregon, Hawaii, Washington and Alaska. In that region, the unemployment rate in July was 11.5%. Unemployment was lowest in New England, at 8.7%.
…
Damn New Englanders, hogging all the jobs!
And the bailouts, too!
Baracracy you can belive in!
Nearly 50 percent leave Obama mortgage-aid program
Obama mortgage-aid effort struggles as nearly half of those enrolled fall out of program.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half of the homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.
A new report issued Friday by the Treasury Department said that approximately 630,000 people who had tried to get their monthly mortgage payments lowered through the effort have been cut loose through July. That’s about 48 percent of the 1.3 million homeowners who had enrolled since March 2009. That is up from more than 40 percent through June.
The report suggests foreclosures could rise in the second half of the year and weaken the ailing housing market, analysts say.
Another 421,804, or 32.3 percent of those who started the program, have received permanent loan modifications and are making their payments on time.
Many borrowers have complained that program is a bureaucratic nightmare. They say banks often lose their documents and then claim borrowers did not send back the necessary paperwork.
The banking industry said borrowers weren’t sending back their paperwork. They also have accused the Obama administration of initially pressuring them to sign up borrowers without insisting first on proof of their income. When banks later moved to collect the information, many troubled homeowners were disqualified or dropped out.
Obama officials dispute that they pressured banks. They have defended the program, saying lenders are making more significant cuts to borrowers’ monthly payments than before the program was launched. And some of the largest mortgage companies in the program have offered alternative programs to those who fell out.
They have defended the program, saying lenders are making more significant cuts to borrowers’ monthly payments than before the program was launched.
What about reducing the principal? Or is that the Thing of Which We Dare Not Speak?
Only if it’s allowed to be recaptured at the sale/transfer of ownership.
Shrinking ‘Quant’ Funds Struggle to Revive Boom Times
NY Times
They were revered as the brightest minds in finance, the “quants” who could outwit Wall Street with their Ph.D.’s and superfast computers.
But after blundering through the financial panic, losing big in 2008 and lagging badly in 2009, these so-called quantitative investment managers no longer look like geniuses, and some investors have fallen out of love with them.
The combined assets of quantitative funds specializing in United States stocks have plunged to $467 billion, from $1.2 trillion in 2007, a 61 percent decline, according to eVestment Alliance, a research firm. That drop reflects both bad investments and withdrawals by clients.
The assets of a broader universe of quant hedge funds have dwindled by about $50 billion. One in four quant hedge funds has closed since 2007, according to Lipper Tass.
“If you go back to early 2008, when Bear Stearns blew up, that’s when a lot of quant managers got blown out of the water,” said Neil Rue, a managing director with Pension Consulting Alliance in Portland, Ore. “For many, that was the beginning of the end,” he added. Wall Street’s rocket scientists have been written off before. When the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management nearly collapsed in 1998, for instance, some predicted that quants would never regain their former glory.
A friend of the family’s son got a Ph.D. in physics. Which greatly impressed the Slims, as we thought that he’d pursue a research career in academic. Or, like my dad, an R&D career in private industry.
Nope. He went to Wall Street. Went after the big bucks. Got married. Got divorced. And I wonder if he’s still on The Street.
Thus proving Ph.D does not always = making the smartest choices.
The Slim family was a bit skeptical of this young man’s choice.
“Ph.D does not always = making the smartest choices.”
For starters, you have to be crazy to get a PhD.
I was in a physics PhD program at UC San Diego. The department didn’t like me and the feeling was mutual, so I took a terminal MA in applied math and left.
Best thing that ever happened to me. Not much call for physics types these days, unless you were in solid state. The chance of getting a tenure position in academia is slim (of you will pardon my term) and only solid state guys get decent jobs for semiconductor firms.
“Got married. Got divorced.”
Was she hot? If you work on “The Street” isn’t a trophy wife par for the course?
I’ve been mulling this over today. Perhaps a Wall Street job was the ONLY offer this guy received.
That’s a real problem in our society these days.
Shrinking ‘Quant’ Funds Struggle to Revive Boom Times…in China
Bottom line you can’t get blood out of turnip.
It worked last 30 yrs. Quant helped game the system for some guys. Now people just don’t have money and they will not be playing in their casino (WallStreet).
Dunkenmiller and some other Mega hedge fund guy also decided to retire this week. Coincidence, I think not.
Japan considering new stimulus to revive recovery
Strong yen, plummeting growth prompts Japan’s government to mull new stimulus measures
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s economy may get another lifeline soon.
Faced with meager growth and a strong yen, the country’s leaders are moving toward injecting more stimulus measures to fight a sharp slowdown in momentum. A new package would set Japan apart from the rest of the developed world, which is winding down stimulus steps even as worries grow about a cooling global economy.
Gross domestic product data earlier this week showed Japan grew at an annualized rate of just 0.4 percent in the April-June period, down from 4.4 percent the previous quarter. As a result, the country lost its place to China as the world’s No. 2 economy.
But it will be a tricky task for Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who is also juggling a promise to reduce the country’s massive debt and a possible challenge for leadership of the Democratic Party next month.
LOL. Japan’s like this great crystal ball. We can see our future unfolding before our eyes.
New York (AP) — The U.S.’s economy may get another lifeline soon.
Aug. 15, 2025
Faced with meager growth and a strong dollar, the country’s leaders are moving toward injecting more stimulus measures to fight a sharp slowdown in momentum. A new package would set the U.S. apart from the rest of the developed world, which is winding down stimulus steps even as worries grow about a cooling global economy.
Gross domestic product data earlier this week showed the U.S. grew at an annualized rate of just 0.4 percent in the April-June period, down from 0.8 percent the previous quarter. As a result, the country lost its place to China as the world’s No. 1 economy.
Obama now blames poor job numbers on congressional inaction. Wait! His party runs Congress. ~ Los Angeles Times ~ August 20, 2010
Just a few minor things to catch up on for the weekend now that the Fundraiser-in-Chief has gone on another vacation (Don’t worry though. White House chef Sam Kass went along, so the first family need not eat ordinary human food.)
– The Congressional Budget Office says the 2010 federal deficit will be in excess of $1.3 trillion, as in $1,000,000,000,000+. (BTW, the next level we’ll be talking about out of Washington is quadrillion, which has fifteen 0’s.)
– Despite Vice President Joe Biden’s April boast that administration stimulus spending would spur the economy to add a half-million jobs a month by now, initial unemployment claims jumped a half-million last week, the worst since last November, as national unemployment remains at 9.5% and the economy sheds 131,000 more jobs.
– But the economy’s going great at the Democratic National Committee, which reports collecting $11.5 million from donors in July on top of the $53.8 million already taken in from various sources this year. The president just devoted three workdays across five states to rake in several more millions for his party.
– But before leaving for his ninth presidential vacation, 10 days at a….
…secluded estate on Martha’s Vineyard, Obama devoted four minutes in the White House driveway to a special statement on the latest disappointing jobs numbers.
No questions allowed because the president didn’t want to explain why despite the administration’s announced Recovery Summer Program, the jobs numbers have started going backward again after 19 months of promises and $787 billion in alleged stimulation spending. Because, faced with the uncertainty of the economy and the certainty of new taxes after Nov. 2, employers are hold-in Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada back on hiring.
According to the president, he’s been “adamant” with Congress for months now about a new jobs bill to help small businesses. Obama says this really good bill is stalled in the Senate, where so much administration legislation has been crammed through so effectively by Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Wait, his party DOESN’T run Congress, The Dems have a majority only on paper, not a super majority (like Repubs had) which is what it takes to “run Congress.”
You know, the Repubs who were so diligent in keeping us from getting us into this mess while creating stronger oversight of the FIRE sector?
Oh wait…
Comment from further up: “American consumers are trying their best to deleverage. In terms of the story, the patient is actually trying to lose weight. But the government is blocking deleveraging and trying to boost consumption.”
Consumers leverage by spending more than they earn. To de-leverage, they need to earn more than they spend. Which means that someone else has to spend more than they earn. Otherwise, spending falls, then earning falls, then spending falls, then earning falls. Flush a toilet to see the results.
So who will that excess spender be? The federal government is having to go into debt to prevent an economic collapse. But if it keeps it up, there will be a government collapse. There are no good choices with total debt at 350 percent of GDP.
from the “economist”
•First, the relationship between government debt and real GDP growth is weak for debt/GDP ratios below 90% of GDP. Above the threshold of 90%, median growth rates fall by 1%, and average growth falls considerably more. The threshold for public debt is similar in advanced and emerging economies and applies for both the post World War II period and as far back as the data permit (often well into the 1800s).
•Second, emerging markets face lower thresholds for total external debt (public and private)—which is usually denominated in a foreign currency. When total external debt reaches 60% of GDP, annual growth declines about 2%; for higher levels, growth rates are roughly cut in half.
•Third, there is no apparent contemporaneous link between inflation and public debt levels for the advanced countries as a group (some countries, such as the US, have experienced higher inflation when debt/GDP is high). The story is entirely different for emerging markets, where inflation rises sharply as debt increases.
Consumers leverage by spending more than they earn. To de-leverage, they need to earn more than they spend.
Ever hear of writeoffs/bankruptices/foreclosures? That’s deleveraging without earning a dime. It’s happening en masse right now.
Not to mention job losses, followed by jobs that pay less. That’s the more painful, and more typical, way for wages to de-leverage.
Tuition Box Score:
Lower text-book costs: 1
Administration salary reduction: 37
Coastline students can now rent textbooks
August 20th, 2010, by Marla Jo Fisher, Staff Writer OC Register
“Coastline Community College’s bookstore is introducing a program, called “Rent-A-Text,” that allows students to rent textbooks at up to half the price of a new textbook.”
Oh, I would love to see this bubble pop. Also the healthcare bubble.
Ed-u-cayshun + Medical Industry = $$$$$$$$$$$$ Profit for Rent-a-Crane
Seriously…
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Wait, I can’t let it end like that…
+
GoldenmanSucks,…no cranes, but they’re like “white” egret’s… still standing eating, pissing… on one leg.
Hopey-changey…
Nearly 150,000 U.S. Workers Lost Jobs in Mass Layoffs in July
August 20, 2010 ~ FoxNews.com
Nearly 150,000 U.S. workers lost their jobs in July as a result of 1,609 mass layoffs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday.
A total of 143,703 workers filed for unemployed insurance benefits last month. The number of mass layoff events — those that involve at least 50 workers from a single employer — decreased by 38 from June and the number of associated initial claims fell by 1,835.
A total of 307 mass layoffs were reported in the manufacturing sector, in seasonally adjusted figures, resulting in 33,381 initial claims, federal officials announced.
Mass layoffs have swept across the country over the past few years. During the 32-month span from December 2007 through July, a total of 63,461 mass layoffs were reported, along with 6.3 million initial unemployment benefit claims. December 2007 was determined to be the start of a recession by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Fourteen of the 19 major industry sectors in the private economy reported over-the-year decreases in initial claims, with manufacturing leading the way. That sector reached a low of 64,2000 claims in July, Bureau of Labor statistics indicate.
California, meanwhile, recorded the highest number of initial claims in July, followed by New York, Michigan and Illinois.
Mass Layoffs, the sensation that’s sweeping the nation! When will the tour be coming to YOUR town? (Hint: right now!)
Foreclosure prevention program losing its punch
By Tami Luhby, senior writer
August 20, 2010: 12:28 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The president’s signature foreclosure rescue plan is losing its punch, according to a federal report released Friday.
Only 36,695 troubled homeowners received long-term mortgage modifications in July under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, known as HAMP. This brings the total to 434,717 borrowers who have successfully made it out of the trial phase.
…
Another new program
Launched with great fanfare, the president’s foreclosure prevention plan calls for servicers to reduce eligible troubled homeowners’ monthly payments to no more than 31% of their pre-tax income. However, it has come under persistent fire for being slow to launch and for not helping enough people.
Meanwhile, the government is set to roll out yet another fix for the housing market. Borrowers can start applying for the FHA Short Refinance option starting Sept. 7.
The program allows those who owe more than their homes are worth to refinance into a Federal Housing Administration-backed loan provided they are current on their mortgages and their lender agrees to write off at least 10% of their principal balance. The initiative is open to those who do not currently have an FHA loan and who have a credit score of 500 or more.
In recent months, the administration has stressed the wide range of housing programs it has underway, including initiatives to keep interest rates low and to provide tax credits to first-time homebuyers.
write off at least 10% of their principal balance.”
cool money for nothing taxpayers will make up any loss by promising to pay back all treasury debt however we read in the “economist” Treasury debt above 90% of GDP may hinder taxpayers ability to pay for anything
Great. Seems like a no-brainer for the banks.
Take a loan on which there’s a very good chance you wouldn’t have collected on anyway, resulting in probably a 30-40% loss (including lower resale price of the trashed foreclosure, and overhead of the process), and pay a 10% penalty for a now-golden loan backed by the U.S. taxpayer.
Which was the plan all along.
Hmm - seems like yet another program to keep people locked into their houses is a bit contradictory to this statement:
“In previous eras, we haven’t seen people question whether homeownership was the right decision. It was just assumed that’s where you want to go,” “You’re not going to hear us say that.”
- Raphael Bostic, a senior official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. (7/21/10)
Perhaps this new FHA program is (once again) more about bailing out the banks than allowing people to stay in their homes?
Just as I predicted….Hillary is scheduling a diplomatic triumph just in time for her to drop out and run for the Democrat nomination.
Israel and the Palestinians will resume long-stalled direct peace talks in Washington early next month with the aim of reaching a settlement in a year’s time, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.
The breakthrough after a nearly two-year hiatus in face-to-face negotiations marks a small but important step forward in the Obama administration’s efforts to ease tensions in the Middle East.
Late summer of 2011 will be just about right to start the campaign.
Linkey
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_us_mideast;_ylt=An7oPTqZbkNurg6i8kRjQoOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNkOWNqcnZ2BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwODIwL3VzX3VzX21pZGVhc3QEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMyBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNjbGludG9uaXNyYWU-
Hillary = McClellan / 1864 / Democrapt
Triumph???
Man, the bar is really low. May be because she is a female and Obama is half black.
Didn’t those guys talk under Bush as well? Not sure if anything happened there.
Hey you can’t blame Americans who think Obama’s a Muslim when respectable foreign leaders have stated the same thing.
There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama. All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency.
- Muammar Gaddafi
Linkey
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/qaddaffi-says-barack-obama-is-a-muslim
Not sure if I care Obama is muslim or not.
But I suppose since Obama was so preacher like during the election, some people might wonder what happened to his “Christianity”?
Muammar Gaddafi
Respected? Just how old ARE you?
The humor flag didn’t appear on that post. Blame the blog software.
Oh wait,
High unemployment, gulf coast oil, Afghanistan war, and the PTBs are worried about Obama’s religion?
Didn’t we just have 8 years of a President that wore his christianity on his sleeve? What did that get us exactly? Bueller, Bueller..?
‘Too Big to Fail’ Is Killing the Middle Class, Celente Says
Posted Aug 20, 2010 Peter Gorenstein in Investing, Newsmakers, Recession
August has been a hot bed of merger & acquisition activity, including:
* — Intel to buy McAfee for $7.7 billion
* — Mining giant BHP Billiton wants to takeover agricultural goliath Potash for $40 billion.
* — Dell to buy 3PAR for about $1.2 billion in cash
* — First Niagara Financial Group agreed to buy Connecticut’s NewAlliance Bancshares Inc. for about $1.5 billion in cash and stock.
To the contrary, says Gerald Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute. “This country went from a nation of Main Street, mom and pop businesses to Wall Street and ‘too big to fails’,” he tells Tech Ticker in this clip. (”Not only were they ‘too big to fail,’ they were ‘too big to jail’,” he says of Wall Street execs.)
Deregulation and bailouts favor the country’s largest corporations, at the expense of small business, Celente believes. “They’re squeezing out everybody else.” Policies like these have created the widest wealth gap in the industrialized world, he says; “10% of the nation controls 93% of the assets.”
The only way to turn the tide, says Celente, is to “put back what was in place that worked,” like the Glass-Steagall Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act, which exists in name only. “That’s what stopped the robber barons from raping the country.”
Celente is confident more regulation on the largest companies will help entrepreneurs, which in turn strengthening a fading middle class – the backbone of our society. “America becomes strong again when the middle builds big again,” he says.
Unfortunately, Celente sees the trend going in the opposite direction. “The merger of state and corporate powers, let’s calls a spade a spade. It’s fascism.”
Intel to buy McAfee for $7.7 billion
IMHO, Intel’s overpaying in a big way. Have you ever used McAfee? And then decided to uninstall it in favor of some other software? Boy, is that a PITA. Takes hours to get every trace of McAfee off your system.
There are much better antivirus/anti this, that, and the other thing programs out there.
I have to wonder what Intel’s doing. Microsoft came out with “Microsoft Security Essentials” (MSE) some time ago. Their sensible view was that they needed some lightweight anti-malware that could be freely distributed to counter the impression in developing countries that Windows was a virus-plagued piece of junk ware. The subtext was that people in developing countries didn’t have any spare change laying around to buy anti-malware software.
So McAfee is now facing a “free” anti-malware solution from MS, putting them in the same position as Netscape when MS introduced IE.
I’ve been using MSE for about 2 years now without problems.
Ditto. Just started using it recently and put my Dad on it when he bought a new laptop. They gave him Kaspersky with the purchase which I’ve heard blows chunks as well. Seems to be running just fine…
Ah, the joy of using a mac. I don’t have to worry about things like McAfee. Not yet anyway.
I am a recent convert to Mac. Loving it. Everything is much better than Windows.
Pssst, do you even know what’s inside your Mac? Take a guess. It begins with an “i” and ends with an “L”.
Oops, sorry. Just saw “…not yet anyway.”
I’m looking forward to seeing more applications on the Ubuntu platform.
Intel is already hinting that they will build McAfee into some of their chips and systems.
They’ve just made a very, very bad move. A HUGE blunder.
They’ve just made a very, very bad move. A HUGE blunder.
I’m thinking of that this blunder will be Intel’s equivalent of HP’s hiring Carly Fiorina.
As a computer tech working daily in the field, I can tell you McAfee is the worst antivirus tool out there. Hell they just bricked 500,000 PC’s a few months ago, but seriously, bloat-ware that pretty much stalls older PC’sand does little to block threats, not that any of the antivirus tools are as effective as the makers would have us believe.
The move stinks of desperation to me. Like they don’t think chips alone will support their lifestyle going into the future. They have to branch out into other areas, be less of a one-trick-pony, become more diversified. They are feeling pressure to shake things up to get their stock moving again. INTC is worried. Sell.
Make it illegal for banks and GSEs to hold shadow inventory off the market, and there will soon be plenty of affordable rentals!
Aug. 20, 2010, 11:02 a.m. EDT
Fannie-Freddie reform holds implications for rental housing
Restructuring market for secondary mortgages may curb affordable rental units
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A consensus seems to be forming among policy makers on Capitol Hill: Housing subsidies need to be reduced over the next handful of years.
However, some legislative observers are worried about what that will mean for affordable rental homes.
“I think we’ve not paid close enough attention to rental housing and the advantages of that,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
More companies are tapping into Skype and other video-communication tools to interview job seekers. But talking to a prospective employer over an Internet connection is not without pitfalls. Catherine Carlock offers tips to help you do it right.
“Not everyone can or should have a single-family home, and I think government should think more clearly about how it can help with respect to rental housing,” he said.
…
More companies are tapping into Skype and other video-communication tools to interview job seekers. But talking to a prospective employer over an Internet connection is not without pitfalls. Catherine Carlock offers tips to help you do it right.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. I just got off a conference call — which included the review of a lengthy spreadsheet sent via the Internet — with an out of state company. We took care of our business just fine.
And, no, I’m not interviewing for a job with this company. I’m part of its board.
Palm Beach County’s jobless rate rises to 12.2%
By Jeff Ostrowski Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 4:28 p.m. Friday, Aug. 20, 2010
Florida’s struggling job market continued to send conflicting signals in July.
In a downbeat sign, jobless rates jumped. But in an optimistic note, hiring picked up ever so slightly.
The state employment report released Friday fed pessimists’ growing fears of another recession, or at least of an agonizingly slow recovery. Palm Beach County’s jobless rate climbed to 12.2 percent in July from 11.8 percent in June, the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation said Friday.
Martin County unemployment increased to 12.3 percent from 11.7 percent the previous month. St. Lucie County’s jobless rate spiked to 15.2 percent, third-highest among the state’s 67 counties.
In another sign of the job market’s weakness, 49 Florida counties had double-digit unemployment rates in July, up from 46 the previous month.
Florida’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 11.5 percent in July from 11.4 percent in June. More than 1.1 million Floridians were seeking work last month.
There was a sliver of good news, though. The number of jobs in Florida rose by 2,700 compared to a year ago, the first annual increase in jobs since June 2007.
And the state’s number of jobs increased by 5,700 from June to July.
Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation Director Cynthia Lorenzo looked at the bright side of the grim numbers.
“This month’s marginal increase in the unemployment rate is accompanied by the encouraging news of an increase in jobs,” Lorenzo said in a statement.
Among the sectors adding positions: private education and health services (36,700 jobs), government (8,800), professional and business services (8,000) and trade, transportation, and utilities (5,100).
Throughout the recession, health care has been the brightest spot in the economy. In one example, TMS Health aims to fill 75 openings in Boca Raton.
At least TMS is hiring. Most employers are afraid to add workers when the economic outlook is so uncertain.
“Everybody’s being very cautious, and cautious doesn’t create jobs,” said Tom Shea of Right Management, a career consulting firm in Fort Lauderdale.
University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith called the job gains “paltry” and said the recovery remains weak.
Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner also was underwhelmed by Florida’s job growth.
“A mixed picture is better than the unbridled deterioration we were seeing over the past few years,” Vitner said. “But we’ve got a long way to go before we get the economy back on track.”
Friday’s report followed Thursday’s surprise news from the Labor Department that initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 12,000 last week. Economists had expected jobless claims to dip; instead, they rose for the fourth time in five weeks and reached their highest level since November.
Florida, which is still recovering from the housing meltdown, remains one of the nation’s feeblest job markets. Unemployment here remained well above the national rate of 9.5 percent. And the state had the nation’s fifth-worst jobless rate, trailing only Nevada, Michigan, California and Rhode Island.
As the economic malaise drags on, even former optimists like Wells Fargo’s Vitner fret that Florida’s economy could languish for years.
“This recession is by far the worst recession Florida has seen since ‘73-75, and it took the better part of a decade to recover,” Vitner said.
I don’t believe it! They actually let this one fail. Those of you keeping score should already know all about this one - and its significance.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Regulators have shut down a big community bank based in Chicago that has been known for its social activism but racked by financial troubles in recent months. It was the 114th U.S. bank to fail this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday took over ShoreBank, with $2.16 billion in assets.
Mexican’s with gold guns. This would make Alad’s head explode!! LOL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1304465/The-men-golden-guns-Mexican-museum-displays-vulgar-array-weaponry-confiscated-drug-lords.html
I am surprised (well thinking of the few big government lovers / school marks on here maybe not surprised) no one brought up last week’s Economist issue on Cameron and Great Britain. Yes, increasing the VAT, but enacting major spending cuts and turning significant amount of power from national government to localities. I saw a hint that even the Tories are starting to favor more civil liberties and imprisoning fewer people. They plan to get control of the debt by 2015. the Economist expects sooner or later the US will do the same. I agree. GB knows sooner or later they would have to cut government. They just chose sooner. Again, why I am predicting Europe will recover from drab gray socialism before the US.
“marks”= “Marx”…I mean “marms”
Has anyone heard from Allena Hansen lately?
It’s deja gloom all over again!
Outside the Box
Aug. 21, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT
It’s doom and gloom all over again
Commentary: Survey sees fear trumping greed in the market
By Howard Gold
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Investors are scared–really, really scared.
That’s what our latest MoneyShow.com Investors’ Sentiment indicator tells us, in big, bold, red letters:
HELP!
Our most recent survey of the active, mainly self-directed investors who use MoneyShow.com showed the highest bearish ratings we’ve ever seen–far greater than back in February 2009, just before the market bottomed. Read MoneyShow’s “Investors Aren’t Believers.”
And now, with stocks still 64% off their lows, our usually composed and confident audience, who have kept their eyes on the long-term prize through the worst the markets threw at them, appears finally to have succumbed — or is it capitulated? — to the baser instincts of the reptilian brain.
I would call it “fight or flight,” but after a scary European debt crisis, the flash crash, and a steady drip, drip, drip of dreary economic news, there’s not much fight left in them.
…
The Economist
Government bonds
A bull market in pessimism
A lot has to go wrong to justify today’s rock-bottom bond yields
Aug 19th 2010 | Washington, dc
WHEN Japan slid into deflation in the mid-1990s bond investors were caught unawares. As late as 1995 yields on government bonds, a haven in times of deflation, were still approaching 5%. Investors today are not about to repeat that mistake. Inflation may be positive in America, Britain and Germany, but in all three countries government-bond yields have plunged to lows exceeded in recent times only by levels during the 2008 panic.
Since falling yields raise the value of bond principal, that has delivered bumper returns to investors. Government bonds have returned about 8% this year in local-currency terms in these three countries, according to Barclays Capital, outpacing equity returns. (Investors in weaker sovereign credits, such as Greece, have fared far worse). As go returns, so go investors. American equity mutual funds have seen net outflows this year of $7 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute, a trade group. Bond funds have had inflows of $191 billion.
The rush to bonds reflects both expectations of lower inflation and a longer period of rock-bottom central-bank lending rates. Of the 120-basis-point drop in the ten-year Treasury yield since January, about three-fifths can be attributed to a decline in the expected inflation rate over the next ten years, to 1.6% from 2.3%, as measured by the spread between nominal and inflation-linked bond yields (see chart 1). French and German yields reflect a similar drop in expected euro-zone inflation.
…
* RUNNING WITH SCISSORS
* AUGUST 21, 2010
Rethinking Gold: What if It Isn’t a Commodity After All?
* By JEFF OPDYKE
This won’t sit well with some people: Gold isn’t a commodity. There. I’ve said it.
But before you fire off an angry response, hear me out. The facts might change your view of gold’s role in a portfolio.
For a long time, we’ve all heard that gold is a commodity—no different, really, from silver or wheat or pork bellies. Its price ebbs and flows (supposedly) with inflation, which historically drives commodity prices.
Odd, then, that gold’s elevated price hasn’t fallen in response to tepid U.S. inflation numbers. The Consumer Price Index as of July pegged inflation at just 1.2% for the previous 12 months, not counting seasonal adjustments. Nor has gold reacted to what Mohamed El-Erian, Pimco’s chief executive, recently called “the road to deflation” on which he sees the U.S. traveling.
The conventional wisdom holds that neither of those scenarios—low inflation or deflation—should be good for gold. And yet it refuses to abandon record highs in the $1,200-an-ounce range. Something seems amiss.
I recently asked research firm Ibbotson Associates to run a correlation study to determine how closely inflation and gold-price movements track each other. You would expect gold, as a purported commodity, and inflation to move in tandem.
The data, going back to 1978 and capturing an inflationary spike, shows a correlation of, at most, 0.08.
That is low. Really low. Perfect correlation is 1; at minus-1, two assets move in perfect opposition. Near 0 implies gold and inflation barely acknowledge one another, and moves in unison are largely happenstance.
So if inflation doesn’t push and pull at gold prices, what might it be? If you believe correlation studies, the answer is the U.S. dollar.
Going back to 1973—a period that defines the modern, non-gold-backed dollar—the greenback’s movements closely track gold’s direction. The correlation between month-end gold prices and the Major Currencies Dollar Index, as reported by the Federal Reserve, is minus-0.45.
That clearly is a stronger correlation than you find with inflation. But let’s take this a bit further. Let’s shorten the time frame to the period from gold’s 1980 peak to today.
The result: Over the past 30 years, the correlation between the dollar and gold is minus-0.65—a high negative correlation. It means the dollar and gold are effectively on opposite ends of a seesaw. When the dollar is in favor, gold retreats. When it is under pressure, gold prices swell.
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There was plenty of found money available at the drop of a hat for Fall 2008 bailouts, but apparently not enough to pay for long-promised (and pre-paid) Social Security benefits.
* POLITICS
* AUGUST 20, 2010
Social Security Cuts Weighed by Panel
By LAURA MECKLER
A White House-created commission is considering proposals to raise the retirement age and take other steps to shore up the finances of Social Security, prompting key players to prepare for a major battle over the program’s future.
The panel is looking for a mix of ideas that could win support from both parties, including concessions from liberals who traditionally oppose benefit cuts and from Republicans who generally oppose higher taxes, according to one member of the commission and several people familiar with its deliberations.
In addition to raising the retirement age, which is now set to reach age 67 in 2027, specific cuts under consideration include lowering benefits for wealthier retires and trimming annual cost-of-living increases, perhaps only for wealthier retirees, people familiar with the talks said.
On the tax side, the leading idea is to increase the share of earned income that is subject to Social Security taxes, officials said. Under current law, income beyond $106,000 is exempt. Another idea is to increase the tax rate itself, said a Democrat on the commission.
Even before the commission settles on a plan, many liberals are vowing to block any cut in retirement benefits. But the White House and the powerful senior group AARP appear open to a deal.
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* WEEKEND INVESTOR
* AUGUST 21, 2010
Preparing for the Next ‘Black Swan’
Investors Are Flocking to New Strategies Designed to Profit From a Market Calamity. But Will They Fly?
By JANE J. KIM
Traders worked the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 17, 2008, a day the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 449 points.
After a decade-long bear market and two years of turmoil that saw the stock market plunge by 57%, investors are betting on still more financial pain in the months ahead.
Bond yields are near record lows. Gold continues to soar. And stocks are whipsawing as traders try to predict the direction of an economy that remains, in the words of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, “unusually uncertain.”
But not every investor is trembling with anxiety over the next financial blowup. Some are embracing the market’s volatility—and constructing portfolios to profit from it.
A growing number of money managers and financial firms are rolling out investment products designed to exploit big declines known as “black swan” events. Most of the products are geared toward institutional investors such as pension funds, endowments and high-net-worth families—but black-swan strategies are trickling down to Main Street as well.
The term black swan was popularized in a 2007 best-selling book by author and investor Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It derives from the ancient belief, once widespread in the West, that all swans are white—a notion that was proven false when European explorers discovered black swans in Australia.
The gist: Anything is possible. In fact, big surprises are more common than people think.
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