Bits Bucket For September 24, 2010
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Every dark cloud has a silver lining.
Data indicate fresh weakness in housing
By Neil Irwin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 24, 2010
The collapse of the housing sector was a major driver of the nation’s economic woes. Now, a new wave of weakness in housing poses risks to the fragile economic recovery.
Fresh data released this week offer a portrait of a residential sector that is muddling along at low levels, though nothing resembling the freefall of 2006 to 2009. On Thursday, the National Association of Realtors said sales of previously owned homes rose 7.6 percent in August - a disappointing result, as analysts had hoped for a stronger bounce back after sales tumbled 27 percent in July.
That followed a report Tuesday that builders started work on more new homes than had been expected in August, a 10.5 percent rise, and data issued Wednesday indicating that home prices fell 0.5 percent in July.
Taken together, that data show that housing - which on balance contributed to economic growth from late 2009 through the early months of 2010 - is emerging as a neutral force at best, and could drag down an already weak growth outlook.
The good news is that housing has shrunk so much as a portion of the economy that even another dip in the sector would probably not be enough, on its own, to throw the nation back into recession.
…
The collapse of the housing sector was a major driver of the nation’s economic woes.
No, the corporate mentality of profit-now vs. long-term business — incetivized by the stock market system — was the major driver. That mentality led to job losses by several means, which has been covered by bubble after bubble. The housing sector was merely the mother of all bubbles, comared to say, dot-com. What industry other than housing allows millions of J6Ps to get involved and rack up debt at $300K - $400k a pop?
Bingo we have a winner.
Very well put, oxide.
*************
“No, the corporate mentality of profit-now vs. long-term business — incetivized by the stock market system — was the major driver.”
I couldn’t agree more
What industry other than housing allows millions of J6Ps to get involved and rack up debt at $300K - $400k a pop?
I see your whole “corporate mentality” model as somewhat flawed.
The “housing industry” is a bunch of home builders and brokers, buyers and sellers. These people don’t allow a bunch of average workers to buy things they can’t afford. The “finance industry” does.
Primarily Banks.
The only reason housing was allowed to be leveraged to such high levels was that, historically, based on steady “inflation”, a confirmed annual income, accurate appraisals, and a thorough review of the buyers credit history, the LENDER could be assured that the loan would perform. Then the WALLSTREET crowd, in conjunction with the Banks developed “securitized” loans. A form of FRAUD. They sold loans to insurance companies, and pension funds and other countries labeled “AAA”, which they knew would fail. This is not “corporate America”. This is Wallstreet Crooks.
The SEC did nothing. The Congress did nothing. Everyone was amazed at the housing miracle. Then the frauds were revealed.
As for the DOT.com craze, that was Wallstreet/Bankers, too. The Wallstreet crowd came up with inflated values and sold the crap through INVESTMENT BANKING HOUSES. The banks financed the deals. They got “special” buy-in rights and worked a pyramid scheme of higher prices. As prices were rising, the investment houses got the “buy-in” for a fraction of the current “market price” and realize an instant profit. It was all another FRAUD.
The collusion of the FED/ Wallstreet Brokerage houses/ and Investment Banks created ALL the “Bubbles”.
Those same crooks got bailout money from the TAXPAYERS.
Our “leaders” claim they saved the world from total collapse while all the stealing has been going on and the FRAUD perpetrated on the US public. No one has gone to jail. No one has been punished.
The evidence grows cold as the crooks fly to their island retreats.
This is not “corporate america” as the left tries to sell in their news stories. This is an inside “clique” of particularly priviledged Brokerage house elitists that have purchased the US government.
Notice how Barney Frank defended Tim Geithner, the only man on the planet who could save us from this financial meltdown. (I would both in prison as traitors and enemies of the State).
The games being played are done by “corporate” formations, but for the most part, most businesses aren’t involved in ponzi-finance and are just trying to make money providing services most people want or need.
I have friends who, like you, lay the blame for everything on the “evil corporations”. I look to the evil Bankster/Brokerage/Wallstreet/ Hedge Fund dealers. They are not the same. All have been aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve/Big Bank boys. Without “Funding”, all the schemes would never have gotten to the point of collapse, as they would never have grown so big as to lead to a crisis.
Anyway, have a good morning. It’s good to wax on about such things.
Diogenes,
I feel like James Carville in “Old School”!
Uh… we have no response.., that’s perfect.
Right! CEO’s at Verizon and Kimberly Clark were cheering for ever-higher home prices/MEW-outs so you could buy ever-more of their prdts!? ( No )
I’m sure payroll providers ( Paychex/ADP ) are absolutely ‘tickled’ by the reduction in headcount! Yeah, it’s all part of the MEW-Connect-the-dots/Double Standard we practice every DAY here. Keep it between you & me or it’s bound to get out.
I feel like James Carville in “Old School”!
Uh… we have no response.., that’s perfect.
Where’s the motivation to respond? His blaming Wall Street and bankers is right on.
It’s just that others, as I do, blame Wall Street, bankers and corporatism.
But when someone trashes Wall Street and bankers so well in parts of their post, you just want to let it be.
Rio,
Unlike a lot of posters here, I’ve never abandoned the drive to put an end to HF’s. Many of us have just given up. As you really take the time to read what Diogenes is trying to share w/ us, he makes a very important distinction between what has led us where we are and rank & file businesses.
If you want to bash “corporatism” that’s fine. That’s ‘your’ gig. But if you seek to understand, please give it the gravity it surely deserves.
Unlike a lot of posters here, I’ve never abandoned the drive to put an end to HF’s. Many of us have just given up. As you really take the time to read what Diogenes is trying to share w/ us, he makes a very important distinction between what has led us where we are and rank & file businesses.
Sorry, I read it 4 times and I still don’t really understand what you are attempting to say or how what I think you might be saying even relates to my post that you are responding to.
If you think I think “rank & file” businesses are necessarily responsible for, and involved in corporatism that is wrong.
But if you seek to understand, please give it the gravity it surely deserves.
If you’d think about and re-read my post responding to his post you will see that I am giving his post “the gravity it surely deserves”
That was the message of my post.
Rio,
Didn’t mean to single you out, it’s just that gauging by a good number of your posts ( and frankly, bias ) I hope you can understand how I could get the impression you ‘do’ believe -all- businesses are equally complicit?
Which strikes me odd b/c I know you’ve mentioned being self-employed yourself. For me, we’ve thrown so many “babies out w/ the bathwater” ( I wonder why we even bother to denote a difference any more? )
And typically, we don’t.
Self-employed? I call BS on that. Nobody that is self employed and has to pay their own FICA along with sending 4 checks to the IRS every year can be a liberal.
If he is self-employed he makes no money or works for the govt/non-profit sector. Which means he is self-employed in name only and is in reality a govt employee.
Self-employed? I call BS on that. Nobody that is self employed and has to pay their own FICA along with sending 4 checks to the IRS every year can be a liberal.
Hi Eddy, You sound angry. Like one of those little barking dogs. Ruff!! Ruff!
Yes Eddy, I’ve been self employed my entire working life and I employed people. In California no less. Made some dough too. It’s fun. Someday you should try it.
I am self employed. I am definitely not a Republican nor a tea bagger. Each are ignorant.
lol! is
I had REALLY hoped for big things from Obama. Now I am definitely leaning towards the tea party. Self employed for over 20 years in San Diego. What Bush failed to finish Obama is taking care of when it comes to small business.
In many industries, profits have gone to paying stock holders and top management pay structure and steered away from any investment in labor’s knowledge and abilities, or infrastructure. Let’s face it, while management’s pay vs worker pay ratio skyrocketed, the workers pay wasn’t even keeping up w/inflation. At some point your labor force’s purchasing ability which is often directly or indirectly supporting the demand of your product is snuffed out. The model, like any Ponzi, inevitably fails as the bottom rungs are undermined.
At the same time, the product which used to be king in industrial America took a back seat to return on investment. In far too many cases, product quality and customer service got thrown by the wayside. So now other nations have developed workforces that took our original concepts and are making them their own. And our new innovations, save for a few in tech seem to be on the wane. Well what do you expect from a workforce that’s been reduced to being trained how to turn an on and off button and watch the machine do the work?
At the same time, the product which used to be king in industrial America took a back seat to return on investment. ”
yep I remember back in 1992 my boss said they could sell the company and put the money in the bank and make a better return on investment
and they sold it and moved it and laid most of us off.
Good post, CarrieAnn.
Diogenes, I can’t disagree with you, but you’re not directly answering my point. You’re just talking about the mechanics of the housing bubble, not the original motivations for the bubble.
If corporations (and individuals, I admit), looked long-term, the we would have jobs and a steady return on investment, and we wouldn’t NEED a credit bubble just to maintain status quo. Banks wouldn’t “need” to approve crazy-butt loans just to collect that closing fee. Banks would also do due diligence instead of selling a pig in a poke to CALPERS. And CALPERS would have the sense to look in the poke first.
When people finally understand it’s the Political Class and not corporations, then the problems can be addressed.
Until then, it’s more of the same.
Frank, Dodd, Greenspan, Paulson, Geithner, … are the Osama’s generals.
Together, they brought America to its knee.
College?
“What industry other than housing allows millions of J6Ps to get involved and rack up debt at $300K - $400k a pop?”
Agreed.
One of the tragedies of the college/post HS debt bubble is that our best and brightest at all economic levels are being saddled with crushing debt. Even at the lowest economic levels, our most ambitious are being conned by trade schools and banks into taking on debt they can’t afford. Some of the schools close before classes can be completed, leaving their students with debt and no certification.
The government has tried to create a “sold my sould to the company store” lifestyle on a national level.
“The collapse of the housing sector was a major driver of the nation’s economic woes. Now, a new wave of weakness in housing poses risks to the fragile economic recovery.”
… This is the major source of our problems: Housing replaced real economic productivity. You cannot hope to have anything close to economic stability if you don’t have a productive populace. If all we try to do is stick people into mortgages then that constitutes nothing but unproductive debt.
Agreed.
What also galls me is that, for decades, housing has been reactive to what has been happening elsewhere in the economy. In other words, if job and income growth are up, we could expect to see increases in household formation.
In recent years, housing has been an economic driver. Which is just another way of saying that the cart got put in front of the horse.
Slim,
Right, at one point NAHB boasted “they were 12% of GDP!” ( like it was something healthy? ) At it’s core, the orig. article as posted by PB is a simple statement.
How it became so cluttered I’ve no idea.
At a certain point consumers’ expectations just rode the momentum instead of looking at and reacting to income changes.
CarrieAnn,
It… would be a little difficult to debate that!? Very true, I mean don’t all 20-somethings have a spankin’ new beemer and 2,900 s/f home?
Still, other than the usual suspects, REIC-based economy beneficiaries, and Harley, RV mfrs. etc. I have to imagine a good many CEO’s that -didn’t- stand to benefit from The Boom, were looking on w/ as much horror as WE were?
Oh btw, and I had such high hopes but the ABC new series “My Generation” absolutely s*cked last night. Leave it to network TV to be able to trivialize the most important decade in history…
“Most Important Decade In History”? I’m not even 100% sure which decade you’re referring to, but regardless, I can see how disappointed you must be :-).
Carl,
Given a 2-minute news cycle, advancements in technology and the rate of globalization, I tend to think -every- decade going forward will become the most ‘important’.
My Generation is an American mockumentary television series on the ABC network. The one-hour comedy-drama, which is being produced by ABC Studios, follows a group of high school classmates in Austin, Texas in 2000, then revisits their lives ten years after graduation. The series premiered on September 23, 2010.[1]
mock documentary..
comedy-drama..
doomed-to-failure..
I missed it. I wonder if it was on while I was checking out “Outsourced”. It will be interesting to see where that show goes if it is picked up past its initial order.
Outsourced: One “boy next door” American w/$20k in student loans returns to his call center office from a company-paid management seminar to find everyone gone. The emotionally detatched mid level manager who’s been camping out in the empty room to greet him tells him its either unemployment or become a manager of the new staff in India. So off he goes to India. I founds lots of stereotyping and crude sexual references due to the company product line. Same old network fallbacks. Luckily for the show, the lead is quite engaging and energetic. And the call center’s Indian actors had some decent comedic extincts. So we’ll give it another whirl out of curiosity for where the writers will take this.
lets see..
They could have him attend an elephant soccer match, get his head knocked in when one of the animals veers off course, destroying the grandstands. He awakens from his coma a year later, and thinks his name is Mowgli. He grabs his pretty, young nurse and carries her off into the jungle. He comes to his senses and realizes what happened. However, the girl has fallen in love with him by then, and they decide make their home in a tree house. The company permits him to telecommunicate with the office by way of smoke signals.
…The good news is that housing has shrunk so much as a portion of the economy that even another dip in the sector would probably not be enough, on its own, to throw the nation back into recession.
That’s jumping the gun a little bit, imo, but lets say it’s true.
Sales are only the front end of the market. At the other end, millions of deals need to go through foreclosure, and that part of the market continues to pose a serious threat to the economy.
Lender’s paperwork problems grow
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 24, 2010
Flawed foreclosure documents like those that led mortgage lender Ally Financial to halt evictions in 23 states this week are showing up in parts of the country previously thought to be unaffected, including the Washington area, according to attorneys and consumer advocates.
Ally has not called off evictions in any of the nation’s other 27 states or the District of Columbia, none of which require a court order to initiate a foreclosure. And yet in those places, distressed borrowers, on the brink of losing their homes, are finding flawed and forged documents in their files and scrambling to challenge foreclosure proceedings.
Joan Cavanagh, who lives near Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, a state not included in Ally’s moratorium, is scheduled to be kicked out of her home in 30 days. Her documents were signed by Jeffrey Stephan, the Ally document processor who admitted that he approved 10,000 foreclosures a month but never read the files to see whether the proceedings were justified.
…
If payments were missed, then chances were good it was heading to foreclosure. What other reason would there be? He signed off on them because they WERE heading for foreclosure, whether he read them or not.
Ally Financial Dividends to U.S. Treasury Surpass $1.6 Billion
By Dakin Campbell - Sep 13, 2010 2:56 PM ET
Ally Financial Inc., formerly known as GMAC Inc., paid the U.S. Treasury Department $1.63 billion in dividends through August, the third-most of any lender receiving emergency taxpayer funds.
Ally, which benefitted from a $17.2 billion bailout, paid Treasury $1.5 billion in dividends on preferred stock held by the government, and $133 million in dividends on trust-preferred securities, according to a Sept. 10 Treasury report. New York- based Citigroup Inc., which received $45 billion in government aid, has paid $2.91 billion, the report showed.
Treasury has collected about $16 billion in dividends and interest on investments in banks, insurance companies and automakers through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the report. Ally, based in Detroit, is the primary lender for carmakers General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group.
…
Borrow $17.2 billion from taxpayers in a bailout. Pay $1.6 billion back to tax payers in dividends and call it a success?
Where can I get a deal like that?
Ally (GMAC) got the money in late 2008 at the earliest. In two years the dividends equal about 9%, or 4.5% per year. Those numbers could be higher, depending on when Ally actually received the bailout money.
Where can I get a deal like that?
According to Polly, it’s a few hundred bucks in set-up fees, and you’re good to go.
Grow up.
A couple of hundred bucks will get you a validly set up corporation which will allow you to operate a business with limited liability provided you can otherwise fund it. That is all I ever said. You were whining (as you often do) that there should be no such thing allowed in the US (the world?) as a corporation, a limited liabilty company or any other legal structure that allows for limited liability. The fact that the history of such structures goes back to the guilds of medieval Europe and that they are at least partially responsible for the fact that we can create companies that can do complex and expensive things seems to be beyond your comprehension.
The fact that the history of such structures goes back to the guilds of medieval Europe and that they are at least partially responsible for the fact that we can create companies that can do complex and expensive things seems to be beyond your comprehension.
Touche!
Get ‘em, Polly!
“Grow up.”
Umm….. have you already forgotten that you’re speaking to a few twenty somethings and a couple others who have never struggled for anything(including a complete thought)?
Its “free-for-all” Friday again…
“a few twenty somethings and a couple of others”
( How are you guys reading so much into (1) sentence posts? ) Wow, talk about “Either you’re with us or against us!”
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of “Dilbert Gets Angry”.
Sorry Cucpake Caboose but Polly contributes more thought to this blog in a week than you’re capable of pondering in an entire lifetime.
Now *think* for once.
I guess since money now qualifies as Constitutionally guaranteed Free Speech, nothing in this story should surprise me.
The Associated Press September 17, 2010, 9:19PM ET
Ally Financial spent $160,000 on lobbying in 2Q
NEW YORK
Consumer finance company Ally Financial Inc. spent $160,000 lobbying the federal government on financial reform, home mortgage legislation and other during the second quarter, according to a recent disclosure statement.
That’s less than the $235,000 the company spent lobbying the government during the first quarter. It’s also a decrease from the $250,000 it spent lobbying during the same quarter last year.
Ally, formerly called GMAC, is majority-owned by the federal government after receiving $16.3 billion in bailout funds. The company is a lending partner to General Motors Co. and makes loans to many of its customers and most of its dealers.
Ally lobbied both houses of Congress and the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission on various legislation regarding financial regulatory reform. It said its lobbying covered consumer loans, derivatives, regulatory oversight and consumer products.
…
Government Motors is also giving campaign contributions, mostly to (surprise!) Democrats. Talk about a blatant money laundering scheme: Taxpayer money given to GM, GM gives it to their congressional benefactors.
Got pitchforks?
There’s is small change compared to the piles of cash ladled out from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack to Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and other Congressional Critters. Could that be the reason that Barney and Chris, et al, always defend these two leaches on the American Taxpayer???
You just now figuring out how this works Bill?
My favorite scheme is how we give aid to foreign countries and then require them to purchase goods from US based companies.
Why on earth would we give aid… & NOT require them to solely buy American goods???
When we give $1… at the very least… we should be getting back .20
Why is this a bad thing??
I’m pissed that we give aid in the 1st place. I’m tired of hearing how America is a “rich” country…. RICH??? .. if we’re so rich… why are we so much in DEBT??? It’s like people consider themselves “rich”.. when they have on ok job… but TONS of credit card debt!! They’re really no more than just THE WORKING POOR!!
Debt is wealth, safety is better than freedom, and all your problems are somebody else’s fault.
This is our new declaration of dependence.
I’m pissed that we give aid in the 1st place.
Relax, We don’t give that much. We just think we do.
The World’s Most Generous Misers
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2676
In March 1997, a joint poll by the Washington Post, Harvard University and the Kaiser Family Foundation asked Americans which area of federal expenditure they thought was the largest. Was it Social Security (which actually constituted about a quarter of the budget)? Medicare? Military spending? Sixty-four percent of respondents said it was foreign aid—when in reality foreign aid made up only about 1 percent of total outlays (Washington Post, 3/29/97).
Today, Americans think about 20 percent of the federal budget goes toward foreign aid.
fair.org?
Was socialist.org busy?
You keep linking to “articles” by these extreme far left outfits and expect people to take you seriously.
You keep linking to “articles” by these extreme far left outfits and expect people to take you seriously.
Sources don’t negate studies and data.. Ruff!! Ruff!!
None the less, one can “paint” data to fit your desired perception. The reality is that the United States DOES give the world a vast amount of money. and MORE than ANY other nation.
None the less, one can “paint” data to fit your desired perception.
No. I can’t paint numbers. I can’t “paint” percentages of GDP.
Just because the numbers don’t fit your idea of a nice painting doesn’t mean much.
a joint poll by the Washington Post, Harvard University and the Kaiser Family Foundation
This is why Eddy’s and GH’s post in this instance are inconsequential. I posted a study conducted by the Washington Post, Harvard University and the Kaiser Family Foundation that says USA spends less than 2% of GDP on foreign aid, and they post a brief, cast off, uninformed post which wrongly implies that they know more than the study mentioned.
Eddy discounts the 3 respected sources because he doesn’t like the name of fair dot org while discounting the source of the data. Well it’s Eddy. However…
Many people don’t like data. Especially when it differs from a preconceived mindset. I suggest open minds and inquisitiveness.
So then it is your FACTUAL statement then that the US does NOT give a larger amount of money than ANY other nation?
Your numbers are simply your way of trying to paint the US in a bad light, when in fact what you failed to mention is that the US is by far the most generous country when it comes to foreign aid. It is not a matter of having your facts straight, it is a matter of using the data you choose to paint a negative picture of things when in fact the opposite is true when it comes to actual numbers!
Indeed it appears Brazil is a big winner in the US foreign aid commitment!
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-doners-of-foreigner-aid-map.html
That was the essence of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt western Europe after WWII. It was a case of “enlightened self-interest”. What’s wrong with that?
Got pitchforks?
Got 2 of them? Come on guys, get real. It’s all jive. Who do you bailed-out Wall street is giving our taxpayer money to?
Two Thirds Of Wall Street Donations Now Go To Republicans As Democrats Get Least Contributions Since May 2008
Republicans have surged to a near multi-year record, or 68% of total. After donations hit parity in December 2009, fedupusa dot org
Who do you THINK bailed-out Wall street is giving our taxpayer money to?
(above post)
Ally Said to Tell Freddie Mac of Flawed Filings Weeks Before Eviction Halt
By Lorraine Woellert and Dakin Campbell - Sep 24, 2010 12:01 AM ET
Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit told Freddie Mac that foreclosures by the auto and home lender might have been faulty weeks before halting its own evictions, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Ally informed Freddie Mac on Aug. 25 that affidavits for court proceedings might not be valid, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. By Sept. 1, Freddie Mac had notified its network of lawyers and stopped related foreclosures and evictions, said the person, who declined to be identified because the matter hasn’t been formally disclosed. GMAC told agents to halt evictions in 23 states on Sept. 17.
Fannie Mae, the largest government-backed mortgage firm, said it notified lawyers of flaws in GMAC documentation after it was alerted. Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith declined to say when GMAC contacted the company, and Gina Proia, the spokeswoman for Detroit-based Ally, said she couldn’t comment.
“We are obviously dismayed by reports of document problems,” Freddie Mac spokesman Brad German said in an interview. “The practices described in these reports are clearly not in compliance with Freddie Mac guidelines and servicer directives.” German wouldn’t say how many of the McLean, Virginia-based firm’s holdings were affected by the freeze.
…
I posted this yesterday.
Oops. Looks like they made a BIG boo boo!
Aside from creating more work for attorneys, what useful purpose do piles of paperwork generated by the mortgage lending process serve?
Under piles of paperwork, a foreclosure system in chaos
By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The nation’s overburdened foreclosure system is riddled with faked documents, forged signatures and lenders who take shortcuts reviewing borrower’s files, according to court documents and interviews with attorneys, housing advocates and company officials.
The problems, which are so widespread that some judges approving the foreclosures ignore them, are coming to light after Ally Financial, the country’s fourth-biggest mortgage lender, halted home evictions in 23 states this week.
During the housing boom, millions of homeowners got easy access to mortgages while providing virtually no proof of their income or background. Now, as millions of Americans are being pushed out of the homes they can no longer afford, the foreclosure process is producing far more paperwork than anyone can read and making it vulnerable to fraud.
…
“pushed out”
The media might want to find different words here. Sure what Ally Financial did was wrong, but we all know not all FBs are blameless victims.
Aside from creating more work for attorneys, what useful purpose do piles of paperwork generated by the mortgage lending process serve?
That’s something I’ve been wondering about.
I have a pile of papers from my house closing. Been thinking that, in an ideal world, the pile should be boiled down to about five pages tops.
Well it’s really necessary for the eventual owner of the note to (1) HAVE the note and (2) show a clear chain of title for the trust deed. And it’s important for the homeowner to be able to go down to the recorder’s office and quickly find out who owns his mortgage. In this manner both of their legal rights are protected.
But no, the MBS guys decided to take a few “short cuts” to save some pittiful amount of money. Transferring the actual note is just a records-management problem. Recording a new name on the trust deed is a job for a poorly-paid clerk down at the recorder’s office. In neither case do lawers get enriched. Darn.
Report from a small town in Wisconsin and mikey’s Hootch Buying Adventures…
I just got back from an overnighter to do house inspection and visited the title company.
House inspection on this shack was amazing for a 23 yr old house. Nothing of significance from what I noticed on visit. Every manual of the place and known to man, from furnace/AC to oven and gargae door openers is there in a packet noted “To the New Owners”
Roof should be good for maybe 5-7 years.
Clean drainspout on front porch and install gutter guards there. Back has them. Simple fix.
One breaker has 1 double tapping. No biggie.
Dimmer on dinning room reostat not working properly.
Wood molding on west exterier gararge door shows some water damage at ground level, can be easily corrected and saved.
Rear deck hole with tree growing through it, hole should be enlarged as it is touching.
Very minor curling of gaskets on hot water heater due to backdraft. Check angle.
Recommend wood fireplace seasonal cleaning.
Sheesh, basically, there you have it.
Met the neighbors, very nice people. One has been watching the house and doing the yard, looks fantastic. He even empties the basement dehumidifer and will continue to do so until I move in. They are glad to have somebody moving in. They can’t believe the price I am prepared to pay with the short sale as the mayor once offered the FB 267k for the shack before they chased the market down. The Fb’s should have taken that money then and …ran. They just threatened the banksters that they would stop making house payments and go into foreclosure if this deal fell through. That moved somebody’s butt.
Other neighbor lady gave me a $100 gift certificate to the local furniture store I am dealing with. She must be psychic and knows that I have a wine cooler and an adequate supply of cheap wines.
Everybody knows everybody and people are treating me like a local boy cause I still know people. Drove the old area I lived, noticed to older guys trying for catsfish, told them I fished it for 2 years and the suckers and fiddler cats would drive them nuts. They agreed. They filled me in on the ocal gossip. Two deer jumped the road just as I passed my old 2,200 acre ranch that I used to rent.
The title company lady we visited is married into a family that I know. 1st lien holder will be made whole, 2nd lien accepted origional deal and wants at least 22k but hasn’t reckoned on back taxes, and penalties but this lady with make the HUD statement and the last minute deal changes fly. They will have to eat that or the RE agents with have to cough that up cause it ain’t coming out of mikey’s pockets.
She will walk the Title Fee, No Exceptions, No Notation Clear Title over to the Courthouse to be recorded and scanned if all goes well at closing. I may be able to hang around, get it and drop in a safety deposit box(I get a refund here from the same bank that has 2nd lien) the same day. Then I came back and prepare to move over.
The Fall is beautiful, the corn is already being harvested and Halloween is a’coming. Some neighbor placed a pumpking on my front porch steps. Get ready kids, mikey’s coming and I spend big money on candy.
I plan to be kicking back in front of the fireplace, burning oak and elm, drinking JD and ginger ale and waiting for the little goblins with my toe tag on. The citieswon’t miss me, the world will still turn and it’s all gravy after this.
Mikey, I am going to move that the next HBB meetup is at your new place. Thanks for the invite!
That is such awesome news, Mikey!
Congratulations on your new house. How wonderful that you’ve found such nice neighbors and old friends.
May you live many happy and healthy years in your new home.
Thanks guys,
It’s a nice place and kind of fun. The upstairs 4 br 2 bath is easy and open but the finished basement is a maze.
Two stairwells down to it, one to the large rec room facing the backyard and woods and one to the theater room, 4 finished rooms(non conforming bdrs, playroom, office, whatever? , a long benched shop area and utility room.
House inspector and I were wondering around down there and lost my RE agent again.
I need a Search and Rescue dog for that place.
“Foreclosure System”?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-Q!!!!!!!!
If the Housing Sales and Finance Crime Syndicate were crushed we wouldn’t need a “foreclosure system” because there wouldn’t be foreclosures on this scale.
These scumbag pukes drive prices up to such inflated level with their interest, fees and other BS that the average person has no choice but to sign up for 30 years of bank slavery. I’ll live in a refrigerator box before I sign up.
What a friggin’ culture of corruption with it’s own propaganda machine…… foreclosure system…… righht……
It’s creating all this paperwork because the banks don’t really know WHO holds the original mortgage anymore.
Something the FBs should start making a point of.
S&P warns on GMAC ranking as foreclosures suspended
By Al Yoon
NEW YORK, Sept 23 | Thu Sep 23, 2010 5:47pm EDT
Standard & Poor’s on Thursday said it may downgrade its ranking of GMAC Mortgage, one of the largest servicers of U.S. home loans, after internal processing procedures led to a halt of foreclosures in 23 states.
S&P said it placed GMAC’s “above average” servicer rankings on CreditWatch with negative implications.
The warning by S&P follows GMAC’s announcement that it discovered that employees submitted affidavits containing information they did not personally verify. The company suspended evictions in states that require foreclosures be approved in court.
Errors in foreclosures may exacerbate the already raw nerves of millions of homeowners affected by the past recession and lingering housing slump.
…
There goes the dividends!
Article by Steve Crossland, a realtor in Austin, TX
————————————-
Buyer Happiness was Higher in Austin Seller’s Market
What makes Austin real estate buyers happy? The answer may surprise you. What apparently doesn’t make a buyer happy is a rock bottom price at a 4.37% interest rate. If that was the case, there’d be far less buyer angst and hand wringing than there is now in the Austin real estate market. We’d have far fewer buyers in Austin flaking out on home purchase transactions for no good reason.
No, buyers are happiest in a seller’s market, winning a multiple offer bid-up against 5 competing buyers, and paying 10% over market value at 6.25% interest, and happily covering the appraisal shortage with additional cash at closing. This is not a joke, I’m dead serious. The latter 6.25% buyer feels victorious and ebullient about the purchase. The former 4.37% buyer feels like, perhaps, a mistake was made.
The problem is too much choice. Imagine you want to buy a widget and there are only two models and two colors – black and white, standard or deluxe. You pick a standard black version, go home and feel pretty happy about your pick. You are satisfied you made a good choice and have no remorse or misgivings.
Now imaging there are more choices, like 10 basic models and a ton of confusing options (sort of like a car) and a rainbow of color combinations. You think long and hard and finally make a choice. At home with your Orange “Standard Plus XP2″ model, with the black accent stripe, you were feeling pretty good but suddenly you start wondering if maybe you shouldn’t have gone with the Purple Standard-1 XPa.0 model, which had everything you really needed and was cheaper. Soon you start thinking of returning your widget. Yes, you definitely think you made a mistake and will be returning the widget tomorrow.
The beauty of a Seller’s market, and the reason buyers are happier in a seller’s market, is they are spared the curses of ample time and ample choice. You want a 2200 sqft 1-store in SW Austin for under $235K that feeds into the best schools?… and there are 3 Active listings and 10 Pendings, and the agent for 1 of the Actives, which just came on the market today, calls back to say he already has multiple offers and will be presenting to the owner tomorrow at noon..so you better hurry.
Guess what? The buyer who gets that (hypothetical) house in multiple offers for over list price is more pleased with that purchase than the lemon-faced buyer of today who’s sulking at closing because she locked in a 4.5% interest rate and could have done better by waiting.
————
And of course, he finishes the article by saying:
————
But as I see it right now, (look out, shameless unoriginal Realtor cliché coming…), there has never been a better time to buy real estate in Austin TX. Sorry, that’s just the best way to say it. This truth won’t be fully acknowledged until it becomes a historical fact. Meanwhile, let the hand wringing and dithering continue, and let those of us who bought at 4.75% interest keep mourning over how high that seems and how we could have done better if only we had just waited longer
No, buyers are happiest when they don’t have to worry about consistent income and therefore feel free to commit to long term payments at a fair price.
Is a person ever not worried about that?
Au contraire! Pizza delivery guys getting jobs as mortgage brokers marked a lowpoint for unemployment fears.
The new normal includes the sword of Damacles hanging over many a worker’s confidence.
***********
“Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown.”
Second, and perhaps more prophetically, “The value of the sword is not that it fall, but rather, that it hangs.” (wikipedia)
Continuous employment is never guaranteed.
Buyers are most willing when they know they can just sell the home, and at least break even.
True Joey, but this is about what people believe not what the truth is.
ok.. So, thanks to some deceptive and convincing media propaganda, better employment figures might now result in an increase in home sales.
If the result is not more sales, maybe people are becoming more skeptical..
I think what makes buyers “happy” in a sellers market is the belief that they are now on the RE Gravy Train and that massive appreciation is “money in the bank”
You are more correct. The Realtor has it all wrong. It isn’t about choices, or decisions. It’s about the failure of prices to increase.
The “overbid” was seen as a good deal when the prices were going up 20% a year in a fraudulent market. Of course everyone wants “in”.
The current market is not about too many options. It’s seeing a house go DOWN in price six months after you bought it and now have “sunk costs” into a place you could have gotten for less if you only had waited.
Another MORON Realtor. Hasn’t got a clue why people get into a frenzy or are scared of getting screwed.
Brett
Is this an Onion piece? (This can’t be for real,or pot has really gotten potent.)
We’re cash buyers and prices are still too high in So Ca. We’re not interested in participating in the multiple offer, over paying Olympics.
No Onion piece. Here’s the realtor’s blog with said article a few posts down.
http://crosslandteam.com/blog/
Dennis
Thanks. I was kind of tongue and cheeking it, but I am somewhat taken back at the logic & chutzpah.
Brett - Thank you.
Nope. He’s for real. Go to his blog and you can read it all…
Well, at least he made a good case for how buyers are better off now than they were a couple of years ago, even if they’re not feeling it. I guess it would have been too much to ask for him to explore therefore how stupid the buyers were two years ago, and how even the buyers of today may look stupid in a couple more years.
I’ve mentioned this before but my wife and I have plans to relocate to Austin, probably in the next year. I know it sounds really ignorant but all I know is that whenever I visit craigslist or some other site with Austin houses for sale, it just blows me away that there are pretty decent homes there for sometimes under $100k. Sure- some of them might be anonymous ugly brick houses buried in an equally anonymous subdivision, but still- we live in the Bay Area and a house like that would seriously be $550,000 or more. We visited last year. I really liked it.
Whenever I look up jobs in my field however, there seems to be very few jobs. As in a tiny fraction of those here where we are now. The pay is also about 40-50% less, which I guess would be fine since we would probably just buy a house there for cash and call it a day. The “job” would just pay for taxes and food and utility bills. So I am tad concerned about that aspect… that and property taxes are really high there and go up with the value of your house.
But still… Austin seems to have all the makings of a bubble city. People here in the Bay Area perhaps incorrectly say its “similar” to the Bay Area. I don’t really agree with that at all. But it definitely had its share of hip cool people when we visited. So… why is it still affordable- at least compared to other hip/cool/techy cities? Sorry to sound ignorant…
Lower salaries
A lot of land to build unlike SF
High property taxes…2.5% is the norm
However, Central Austin is a lot more expensive than the rest of the city… If you ever move here, I’d be happy to give you feedback about the city
Have those new condos downtown gotten cheap yet?
Nope. $300 / sq ft and up for the better ones
Brilliant.
“Brilliant”.
BWHAHAHAHAHAH!
and the reason buyers are happier in a seller’s market, is they are spared the curses of ample time and ample choice.
yeah.. having a lot of choices and leisure time is so annoying..
Hmm, let me guess. That “rock bottom” price is still something like 5x the local median income? Down, of course from 8-10x in 2007?
Smart buyers don’t like that, nope.
Austin has been overpriced since the 1980s and is now overbuilt and overrun and underemployed.
“The problem is too much choice.”
Man…Now we have communist propaganda being spewed by UHS. What a crock.
Felix Salmon
Shedding no tiers
The GMAC fiasco
Sep 21, 2010 10:05 EDT
Yves Smith has been doing a fabulous job covering the latest fiasco at Ally Financial, the state-owned bank which used to be called GMAC. But to get a quick idea of how dysfunctional the situation is, all you need to do first is read the official GMAC memo to its agents in 23 states around the country, and then read the official GMAC press release on the subject.
The memo could hardly be any clearer. “Do not proceed with evictions, cash for keys transactions, or lockouts,” it says. “All files should be placed on hold, regardless of occupant type. Do not proceed with REO sale closings.”
…
There may be more to this story than the writer realizes. Some weeks back I tried to post a lengthy article about MERS (mortgage electronic registration system). This was part of the “securitization process”.
I may try to find the article again, time permitted, later. In short, part of the scam of selling mortgages back and forth as part of a securities package was to put them on this national registry to verify ownership of the mortgage.
Unfortunately, the STATE laws are vary different. They require you to RECORD the Mortgage and PAY FEES to the States. When you don’t, you have not secured the mortgage on RECORD, and you have defrauded the State of recording fees and taxes.
There are numerous lawsuits in place now, and some have been won, where the homeowner has been allowed to keep their house and the lender given the finger, because the current holder of the loan papers could not show CHAIN OF TITLE, by STATE REGISTRATION of Documents. The only LEGAL recourse.
I suspect many lenders are not pulling houses off the foreclosure list because of market conditions, but are finding they have SERIOUS legal problems as related to proof of ownership. IF they can’t prove they are entitled to the mortgage money, they have no right to foreclose. This is a big, big issue, and will lead to many more court cases and lots more housing market problems over the next couple of years.
IF they can’t prove they are entitled to the mortgage money, they have no right to foreclose. This is a big, big issue, and will lead to many more court cases and lots more housing market problems over the next couple of years.
ISTR a judge in Cleveland, OH stopping a foreclosure because Deutsche Bank couldn’t prove that it held the note. If memory serves correctly, this happened back in 2008.
I remember it (see, some of us are paying attention).
Right, a tow truck driver that was served notice for back taxes! He thought he’d been ( assumed… he’d been ) foreclosed on but when beneficial, lenders left prop’s in loanowners names.
Bit of shock for the guy wudn’t it?
To me the entire MERS corporate structure exists to avoid complying with minimal legal requirements.
How about using the RICO statute to take MERS apart? Have Eric Holder do something useful and prosecute MERS under RICO.
Naw, that just makes too much sense!
Eric Holder is another Obama shake-down artist. He just goes looking for something racist to proclaim, or a company with lots of doe to try to extort. I don’t think MERS would have the financial wherewithal to provide a good claim for the skinnin’ of the game.
Holder is more useless than Obama.
The Great Debate
Housing double-dip threatens banks
Sep 2, 2010 10:09 EDT
Another dip in U.S. housing looks likely, bringing with it difficulties for banks and for their government guarantors.
What is perhaps worse: having chucked money at supporting asset markets in order to support banks the past two years, the policy options for handling another housing downturn and banking crisis would be greatly circumscribed.
If you think the debate about more fiscal stimulus is heated, wait until you see the venom which the prospect of another housing and banking bailout brings.
Despite absolutely massive official support, via the FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, a now expired housing credit and other initiatives, air now appears to be leaking out of the housing market faster than it is being pumped in.
…
“Another dip in U.S. housing looks likely, bringing with it difficulties for banks”
If most of the loans are being resold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac isn’t it the US taxpayer that has to face these “difficulties”?
Yep.
The cynic in me thinks this was the plan all along — keep asset prices high while the risks were transferred from the private sector to the public sector. Once the transfer was made, let it all fall down.
Bankers can still make nice bonuses, and the govt representative will be blamed for all the “bad paper” we’ve taken on.
Sept. 22, 2010, 12:30 p.m. EDT
The 10 most expensive U.S. housing markets in pictures
No. 1: Newport Beach, Calif.
Homes for sale in Newport Beach, Calif., have an average listing price of $1.83 million, the highest in the U.S., according to Coldwell Banker’s Home Listing Report. The data cover February to August and specifically look at four-bedroom, two-bath houses.
…
Depends on how you define market, I guess! Those are killers, for sure. Amazing that so many can still think of living in such places. But you could be high on that list if instead of saying “Brooklyn,” which has 2.8 million people and vast areas of slums and blue-collar nabes, you said “Brownstone Brooklyn,” meaning the ring of nice nabes near Manhattan, which might have a half-million house-snobs unwilling to give away their precious 1600-footers for less than $1.5 million.
I can’t speak to the other area’s but that house pictured in #2 Palo Alto would sell for four million all day long…I am also surprised that Manhattan is not in the top ten list…
The $1.4 million average price in Palo Alto is what my parents’ post-WWII slab floor 1,400 square foot house, south of Oregon Expressway on Cowper St., last sold for…..not the mansion shown.
Hooray! once again California has the lion’s share of cities in the list. As far as Palo Alto, well it would absolutely blow you away what sells for a million bucks here. A million dollar home in Palo Alto looks more like a $100,000 70’s rancher in Alabama. Palo Alto isn’t even scenically beautiful. 101 runs right through it. Its just a suburb, and a boring one at that.
Palo Alto isn’t even scenically beautiful. 101 runs right through it. Its just a suburb, and a boring one at that.
It sure isn’t beautiful.
And, having spent time in PA, I can tell you that the 101 traffic is loud. Especially at night. You can hear it a good distance away, including on the Stanford campus.
Care to live near that? I sure don’t!
The “culture” there isn’t that great either. I’m rather surprised that Bravo hasn’t made a “Housewives of Palo Alto” because it would be perfect. I hated working there. It was an absolute quagmire getting to work because you had to brave the onslaught of bimmer-driving-moms taking their kids to those oh-so-perfect ( but average by national standards) schools.
It was an absolute quagmire getting to work because you had to brave the onslaught of bimmer-driving-moms taking their kids to those oh-so-perfect ( but average by national standards) schools.
Shades of the grade school that’s two doors away from my parents’ house. My mother, bless her 84-year-old heart, still takes the dog for numerous walks each day.
But, when the Mommy Parade is going to and from school, she can’t take the Sandy-dog beyond the driveway.
BTW, I also attended this school. And my mean parents made me walk to and from. I’m scarred for life!
There are no “housewives” in Palo Alto. You need to be a two-income “power” couple to afford it. Those women were most likely dropping the kids off on the way to the law firm.
When I was born my family lived in that small 3/2 house in Palo Alto. My dad had bought it for $11,500 with a GI bill loan right after WWII. He was a lineman for the phone company at the time.
Years later, when I told people I was born in Palo Alto, the response often was something like this..
“Oh, you came from a WEALTHY family. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and family connections paved the way for an easy life!”
Oy vey…..
He was a lineman for the phone company at the time ??
Yeah…Try buying something in Palo Alto now on a lineman’s income….Well, maybe in “east” Palo Alto…
The neighbors were blue collar too. One was an assembly tech at HP and the other was a cop. South of Oregon Avenue, Palo Alto right after WWII was a neighborhood for just normal wage earners. It didn’t become “PALO ALTO” in all caps until that whole stupid Silicon Valley thing took over many years later.
I’m not from the area originally but just worked there for a couple of years. I actually couldn’t fathom spending the $3,000+ a month to rent a small house there nor spend the required $1 million-dollar average home price either.
You can tell that the area was obviously working class for years. Most of the homes were smaller, modest homes. The downtown area was sort of kitchy- with a few 50’s leftovers like hair salons and hardware stores and the like.
There are definitely lots of trophy wife, stay at home moms because they just about clog the sidewalks on weekdays. I never worked anywhere where you saw so many exotic cars. We’re talking Lamborghinis,Ferraris, and of course- the occasional Tesla. BMWs and Mercedes were “everyday grocery getters”.
This article really gets my goat.
Palo Alto just can’t be the most expensive Bay Area city. Places in Woodside, Atherton, and Los Altos Hills are much more expensive on average. What about Belevedere and Tiburon?
Pasadena just can’t be the most expensive LA city. Aren’t Beverly Hills and Westwood more expensive on average?
Yeah Dennis…That was my point about Manhattan not being in the top ten…
I’ve figured out the problem with this survey.
The data cover February to August and specifically look at four-bedroom, two-bath houses.
Ah, most 4 bedroom houses have more than 2 baths, especially in the more expensive neighborhoods. There probably are few houses in Atherton or Woodside with fewer than 5 bedrooms, and those that do have 3 or 4 baths.
I’m sure if you play with the statistics a lot, you could come up with any other 10 cites in the US as “most expensive”.
MarketWatch First Take
Sept. 23, 2010, 3:26 p.m. EDT
Western U.S. at risk of double-dip recession
Commentary: Five years after bubble, it’s still all about housing
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Most regions of the United States are showing signs of economic life, but the West could drop back into recession because the housing market is still comatose, according to research released Thursday by the Dismal Scientist of Moody’s Analytics.
In a city-by-city overview, economist Steve Cochrane reported that 65 of the nation’s 389 metro areas remained in recession as of July. A year ago, nearly all were. Most of the recessionary cities are in the West, especially central and northern California “where household wealth has suffered declines of over 50%, foreclosures remain high, and employment has yet to stabilize,” Cochrane said.
…
I’ve got news: score of small cities and towns across the west are in a DEPRESSION. There is no “double-dip” about it.
News update: Scores of small cities, towns and villages across the northeast have been in a depression since 1980. The Great Housing Fraud years were a brief reprieve that natives thought permanent.
The ship has sailed and is now scuttled. Embrace that fact.
I agree GBear…They never came out of the first dip…
This is what happens when houses are built to close together. Use Google map and see. I live 1 mile from the fire and know this area well. I am sure the insurance people are going to think twice about re-upping anyones homeowner’s insurance in this neighborhood.
http://www2.insidenova.com/news/2010/sep/23/firefighters-battle-3-alarm-blaze-ma-ar-521908/
““What concerns me, quite frankly is that the fire got a pretty good start,” Parrish said. Parrish said the houses on Tillett Loop are “pretty close together” and “largely wooden structures,” which may have caused the fire to spread quickly, he said. Fire officials said the houses are built about 10 feet apart, which contributed to the damage.”
At 10 feet apart you may as well make them townhomes. But SFH commands a much higher price.
Oh, but they’re so charming, with their old-timey Victorian look and front porches!
So they’ve been building the same sh!t everywhere, eh?
Even that ten feet of space allows you to not have to listen to your neighbors, and be able to watch your expensive home theater without your neighbors banging on your walls!
The fire got a pretty good start? So what took the 911 so long to respond?
Canadians again; always the Canadians.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/09/24/20100924phoenix-housing-market-canadian-buyers.html
I can’t help thinking that, if these are snowbird-owned houses, they’re going to be in for some nasty surprises.
Since those houses will be unoccupied for at least half the year, they’re going to be tasty targets for taggers and vandals. And we have a lot of that type of vermin in AZ.
“I can’t help thinking that, if these are snowbird-owned houses, they’re going to be in for some nasty surprises.
Since those houses will be unoccupied for at least half the year, they’re going to be tasty targets for taggers and vandals. And we have a lot of that type of vermin in AZ.”
One of the reasons hubby and I have postponed indefinitely any ideas we may have had about purchasing a retirement home in AZ. I’m thinking a long term rental might suit our needs much better.
One of the reasons hubby and I have postponed indefinitely any ideas we may have had about purchasing a retirement home in AZ. I’m thinking a long term rental might suit our needs much better.
True story from the hair saloon:
Lady who’s been my tress-trimmer for a decade told me that her sis and husband sold their winter place in Tucson. Reason: They figured that it would be much cheaper to come down here and rent
Ahead of the Bell: New Home Sales
New home sales expected to have risen in June, increasing 5.1 percent from a month earlier September 24, 2010
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sales of new homes likely rose from record lows in August, but the housing market remains weak despite low mortgage rates and cheap prices.
Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect that new home sales grew by 5.1 percent from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 290,000. August’s sales pace of 276,000 was the slowest on records dating back to 1963.
The Commerce Department’s report is scheduled for at 10 a.m. EDT on Friday.
Interesting. My calendar shows August (worst month in history) comes after June. And the headline is still “sales rose”.
Good morning! How’s it going?
Better than expected, so far.
The sky is blue and it’s a beautiful day!
Another a group of whiners, it should be fine for a person to live in a house without paying for it.
UAW Pulling Its Funds From JPMorgan Chase
The United Auto Workers plans to withdraw funds from JPMorgan Chase to protest the bank’s foreclosure policies and a labor dispute at its customer RJ Reynolds, the union said Thursday.
The UAW wants JPMorgan Chase to suspend foreclosures to help unemployed homeowners in Michigan.
JPMorgan Chase is one of the lead underwriters for a General Motors IPO that will let the U.S. government to start to sell its stake in the automaker that it guided through bankruptcy in 2009 with $50 billion of taxpayer funding.
JPMorgan declined to comment on the UAW protest, but last month said it had offered more than 900,000 mortgage modifications to homeowners since the start of 2009.
The UAW had no comment on the bank’s role in the IPO.
“UAW Pulling Its Funds From JPMorgan Chase”
Would UAW have a dime if not for the GM bailout?
Let me get this straight: UAW is threatening to pull bailout funds from the hands of a TARP-fueled zombie that is only still in business because of relaxed accounting rules? Is there any real money around anymore?
Let us know when the UAW uses some of that cash to help its members directly.
Too funny
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/09/23/chrysler_autoworkers_caught_on_camera_drinking_beer
Obama spoke July 30 at the plant, where he lauded the American worker, saying, “It’s workers like you that built this country into the greatest economic power the world has ever known.”
Obama said, referring to opponents of the multibillion-dollar government auto bailout. “I don’t think they’d be willing to look you in the eye and say that you were a bad investment.”
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/09/detroit-tv-station-catches-chrysler-workers-drinking-drugging-during-lunch/1
It’s a way of looking at that line and saying, Hey Bud Lets Party!
BCWI (building cars while intoxicated)
We know assembly jobs are hard work. But the real crime here — other than that apparently a UAW worker can’t be fired for BCWI (building cars while intoxicated) — is how many people in hard-hit, high-unemployment Michigan would do just about anything to get one of those jobs.
Drug and alcohol use on assembly lines, unfortunately, is nothing new. In Ben Hamper’s 1992 book, “Rivethead,” he admits he drank heavily while working on a GM line. Workers often took naps on the plant floor, he said.
I never drink on the job. I always go on break for that.
Drug and alcohol use on assembly lines, unfortunately, is nothing new. In Ben Hamper’s 1992 book, “Rivethead,” he admits he drank heavily while working on a GM line. Workers often took naps on the plant floor, he said.
ISTR similar behavior being described in Studs Terkel’s book, Working.
The line that stood out for me was an auto worker saying, “#@!& it! It’s just a car.” (He was referring to the lack of attention to quality on the assembly line where he worked.)
They didn’t start wearing masks while painting cars until the 80’s. Everyone was pretty much intoxicated before then.
I remember working next to buzzed clerks when I worked Post Office graveyard shift many years ago. It was a way of life.
My first college-summer job was as night janitor at the San Jose newspaper in the early 1970’s. There were always plenty of “empties” in the newsroom and editors wastebaskets. Normally cheap bourbon.
There were always plenty of “empties” in the newsroom and editors wastebaskets. Normally cheap bourbon.
No surprise there. Boozing and newspaper journalism have been bosom buddies for ages.
And you wouldn’t be at all amazed to learn that substance abuse problems are endemic throughout the media universe.
I saw a news piece where they used hidden cameras to videotape UAW workers getting hammered at lunch.
Just to represent the white collar scene in this storytelling, I remember in my first job, earned in 1984 when the web press paper salesman would take my boss and I (the greenhorn) out to lunch. My boss, a very quiet and disciplined man, and the salesman would partake in a 3 martini lunch. Of course I kept up w/the gin and tonics. Then I went back to work and crunched long lists of catalog sales numbers and wrote purchase orders w/high numbers. At least I didn’t have sign off yet. Don’t ask me how those numbers added up right in the end but they did.
My second job with a much larger company had much the same environment when I first started but as the 80s started to grow long in the tooth, the whole smoking & drinking free for all started to change. By the early 90s one would be a fool to even sip one at lunch. This was in the exact same company. Smokers were banned to the loading dock when before that change you could chain smoke at your desk all day long and many did. Of course that translated to workers being away from their desks for large parts of the day. So that didn’t do too much for productivity.
Normally cheap bourbon.
They don’t have that here.
Smokers were banned to the loading dock when before that change you could chain smoke at your desk all day long and many did. Of course that translated to workers being away from their desks for large parts of the day. So that didn’t do too much for productivity.
In my last full-time job, the second of my two bosses was an inhaler-dependent asthmatic. Not surprisingly, this affected the way she made decisions.
I can remember her deciding not to hire a very prominent local graphic designer to produce our org’s magazine because he smelled so strongly of cigarettes. ISTR that strong tobacco smell was one of her asthma triggers.
Then there was that lady who ran a data entry shop elsewhere in our building. She was a smoker’s smoker, let me tell you. Spent more time away from her desk than at it.
And, oh, boy, you should have heard what my boss had to say about that. Trust me, it wasn’t nice.
I have to say, though, the company gossip was all traded on that loading dock so many non-smokers ended up partaking just to stay in the loop.
Paterson Orders State To Reduce Workforce By 2,000
Governor David Paterson is ordering state officials to cut several thousand government workers.
In a directive released Thursday, the governor says ongoing fiscal problems mean the public workforce must be reduced by 2,000 employees by the end of the year.
In addition to cuts through retirement, Governor Paterson said layoffs are an acceptable way to achieve the cuts which amount to roughly one percent of the state’s workforce.
As part of a pension deal last year, the governor had vowed not to lay anyone off before the end of his term.
But in recent weeks Paterson has said labor leaders’ refusal to compromise gave him little choice as the state continues to struggle financially.
NY is not in the worst shape compared to some like NJ, Maine or Nevada, but there is an $8 billion shortfall, 16% of our budget. Even if there is a billion or so left for NY in the Federal stim program, cutting 1% of the workforce still not make much of a dent.
New York has much higher taxes than places in worse shape, and in NYC people have been forced to get used to inferior public services in exchange for those high taxes.
Other places could raise their taxes to New York State levels, and cut the quality of their schools to NYC levels, and their fiscal problems would go away.
Apparently that will be a moving target.
The Jordan-Elbridge school district is in the middle of some shake up in their administration. The newspaper coverage listed at least 5 different administrators involved.
“A protracted legal battle to remove school administrators can be expensive for taxpayers.
The Liverpool school district spent more than $1 million over 35 months in an unsuccessful attempt to fire two administrators, George Mangicaro and Bonnie Ladd. Both eventually were returned to their jobs in 2009.
Hamilton and Zehner both are still collecting paychecks from the district. Hamilton is paid $105,069 annually, Zehner, $102,803, in 2009, according to See Through New York, a website of the Empire Center for New York State.
Schue, the former principal, had challenged whether the district could transfer her to a new job, but state education officials ruled the district can transfer administrators as long as the district doesn’t violate tenure.
Syracuse lawyer Mimi Satter, who represented Schue in her appeal, would not say Schue is in a “make-work” job, but, Satter did say that “at this point in time, there’s no formal job description” of Schue’s position, even though she has been doing the job for 15 months.
“By moving Janice out of principal and into this job, it caused the district to establish a new administrative position,” Satter said.
*******************
Never saw anything like this growing up. Everyone’s all lawyered up and costing the state millions.
Why the heck did the town school board (or whoever was dealing with the contract) agree to a term that said that a prinicipal - the equivalent of a high level manager in a company - had tenure rights? Contracts are made between two contracting parties. In this case, the politicians gave away the farm.
Don’t elect stupid local politicians and you get less of this. I personally voted against most of the people who showed up on the “apple” ballot (the one endorsed by the teachers group) in our recent primary.
NY teachers union is whole new ballgame. When you come in from another state where things are more give and take, watching the various fiascos come to light kind of takes your breath away.
According to the Great Schools web site, the JE district has 1554 students. I point this out because in an earlier article it was pointed out there is an assistant superintendent of building and finance and another assist. superintendent, Sue Gorton who will be filling in the interim position of the last superintendent.
“High school Principal David Zehner was suspended with pay Monday. The board will decide what to do next at its Oct. 6 meeting.
• William Hamilton, assistant superintendent for business and finance, was put on paid administrative leave in July.
• Anthony Scro, district treasurer, was fired Sept. 9.
• Janice Schue, former principal at Elbridge Elementary, moved to a new position in the district office as special projects administrator last year. She fought the move and lost.
• Marilyn Dominick, the superintendent, will retire Nov. 1 even though her contract runs until June 2012. Zehner, in his lawsuit against the district, says her departure is not voluntary. She would not comment.
The district is losing two other administrators: Bruce Walters, transportation director, has retired, and Brad Hamer, athletic director and the head of the union that represents district administrators, leaves Feb. 28.
The shakeup comes in the midst of the district’s $22 million building project.”
I have had brushes with the incoming interim superintendent. Let’s just say she’s known far and wide for not allowing little things like the law to get in her way. So I’m thinking the bleeding in the district’s funds have only just begun. Taxpayers stand by helplessly and hope their kids don’t get caught in the crossfire.
My daughter’s high school alone (one of many in the county) has more students than this district.
Maine? For real?
there is an $8 billion shortfall, 16% of our budget ??
Along with declining revenue…
McDonald’s is lovin’ it!
Squatters moving into upscale neighborhoods
With thousands of mansions vacant, some see easy pickings
By Bill Briggs
msnbc.com contributor
updated 9/23/2010 5:26:18 PM ET
On the big screen, actor Randy Quaid may be best known for his mooching, move-in-and-never-leave character “Cousin Eddie” from National Lampoon’s “Vacation” films. Last weekend, he allegedly followed his own Hollywood script.
Quaid and his wife, Evi, were arrested Saturday after they were found living in a guest house on a million-dollar, Montecito, Calif., property Quaid once owned. While Quaid claims his name remains on the deed, the actor and his wife were jailed until they were able to post $10,000 bail.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39312450/ns/business-real_estate/ -
Jeff,
Why don’t they just move in w/ Nick Nolte? I’m sure they’d be more than compatible.
They could all move in with Gary Busey.
Carl,
Yes, order your straight jacket and wait 6 weeks for delivery.
Housing ‘Recovery’ a Mirage: Short Homebuilders, Glenn Tongue Says
Posted Sep 23, 2010 07:30am EDT by Stacy Curtin
Tongue predicts U.S. home prices are likely to fall another 7%-10%, with only massive government subsidies for housing preventing even bigger declines. There are 11 million homes in America where the mortgage is underwater and “7 million Americans who are not paying their mortgages right now,” he says.
With those kinds of numbers, we have about two years of housing inventory, meaning we sure don’t need any more new construction, which is not a good sign for homebuilders.
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/housing-‘recovery’-a-mirage:-short-homebuilders,-glenn-tongue-says-535445.html?tickers=SPF,URE,DRN,XHB,IYR,VNQ,ITB
Contest of the day: Compose the best bar pick-up line for this guy. Winner will get +10 points.
My friends call me Tongue.
My dogs call me “The Tongue”.
“Tongue is French for “Corporate Spokesman-Hack”…..”
well, I looked up the word’s etymology and nothing like that appears.
However, here’s an interesting fact. The original spelling is tunge.
Early scribes commonly inserted the letter “o” before a “u” or “m” just to avoid misreading the old style lettering which tended to jam certain letters together..
I think continued buildng could just shake out like this: If the new housing is priced right, it’s not the new home builders that will be left holding the bag as much as owners of marginally maintained or upside down properties in the competitive price niche. At the same price, similar specs who wouldn’t pick new?
Alot of new houses are made pretty shoddily though. I’m not sure I’d want brand new….and certainly not anything built during the bubble.
Good point. Can any builders here comment on whether homes might achieve better quality standards now that the crews aren’t juggling large numbers of homes at a time! I’ve wondered if a crew only has 1 or 2 houses in the works then perhaps they might actually be able to focus on doing it right. They might even slow it down and milk it. Also word of mouth reputation becomes more valuable during a shake out.
“Focus on doing it right”
Maybe a few of them. Most will just take a longer liquid lunch down at the sports bar.
“Word of mouth rep…..”
The time to start checking “quality” is right before they start hanging sheetrock. Sheetrock can hide a multitude of sins.
better quality standards now that the crews aren’t juggling large numbers of homes at a time! ??
Well sure it is better at least from a quality of workmanship standpoint…You can still use cheap materials and no amount of workmanship can cure that…That is just a time bomb…The people that remain in the trades now are very good or they would not have the job….Besides, the developer demands it from the sub’s…
The time to start checking “quality” is right before they start hanging sheetrock. Sheetrock can hide a multitude of sins.
Pay special attention to the plumbing pipes and the electrical/other wiring. They can really cause headaches if it’s not installed correctly.
Hire an independent (as in, not associated with any of the jobsite contractors) electrician or plumber if you have to.
As long as the builders hire from the Home Depot parking lot, quality will still be suspect.
At the same price, similar specs who wouldn’t pick new ??
I believe its just impossible to deliver that…
I would if they are swarming any of the turds at the capitol…
Stink Bugs Taking Area by Swarm
They’re everywhere ~ Washington
Some frustrated area residents have gone as far as using their vacuum cleaners to combat these stinky, pesky, multiplying critters. Scientists call their kind halyomorpha halys. More commonly, they’re known as stink bugs. For obvious reasons.
If you think you’ve been seeing more of them lately, that’s because you have.
“This is the time of year that they get the natural cue to move to buildings. They want to find a nice warm spot to spend the winter,” said Wayne White, of American Pest
For us, they are mostly a nuisance, but in places where there’s a lot of agriculture they are a big problem.
“these stinky, pesky, multiplying critters”
I thought for a second they were talking about government workers.
And I’ll laugh like no tomorrow when your shanty burns to the ground using your homespun pest eradication methods because those hobgoblin government worker fireman were privatized.
Last week a car was burning in broad daylight at a busy intersection on US hwy 1. It took the FD thirty minutes to arrive and the fire station was less than a block away.
I guess that county’s fire department has already been privatized.
ISTR that, during his early days in office, President Obama had to deal with some pesky tenants at the White House. Seems that a family of raccoons had really taken a liking to that property.
So, various experts were called in. And dang if those raccoons prove to be elusive critters. They were like the Osama bin Ladin of the raccoon species.
Finally, they were caught. And taken to an undisclosed location.
In other news, the problem of raccoons in the White House has been solved. President Palin and members of her cabinet have been spotted wearing stylish new coonskin caps.
Sorry I didn’t make things more clear.
The raccoon family didn’t infiltrate the White House itself. I think the Secret Service* would have terminated their fun in a hurry.
But they did make quite a nuisance of themselves on the grounds. And they were difficult to trap.
—-
*True story from the Arizona Slim file: My mother went to college with a guy who went on to run the White House Secret Service detail. In a word, don’t mess with the Secret Service. Just don’t
“…..undisclosed location…..”
Guantanamo?
Why can’t we do stuff like this?
177 quangos ‘to be axed’ amid cuts (UK)
Belfast Telegraph - 24 SEP 2010
Government ministers have reportedly drawn up a list of 177 taxpayer-funded bodies which will be abolished in a “bonfire of the quangos”.
The Cabinet Office list includes the Health Protection Agency, which provides advice on infectious diseases and environmental hazards, and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates fertility clinics, reported the Daily Telegraph.
A further four bodies will be privatised and 129 merged, while another 94 - including the BBC World Service - are still under threat of being scrapped, according to the list seen by the newspaper. Some 350 bodies have been reprieved.
…snip…
The list confirms previous announcements that the Audit Commission, UK Film Council and eight regional development agencies are to be abolished. Others slated for the chop include the Commission for Rural Communities, the Commission for Integrated Transport, the School Food Trust and the Sustainable Development Commission.
More than 50 bodies linked to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are in line to be scrapped, while around 30 health bodies will be axed or have their functions transferred to the Department of Health.
The British Council, Environment Agency, Competition Commission, Design Council, Energy Savings Trust, Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Forestry Commission and the Office for Fair Trading are among the 94 publicly funded bodies whose fate has yet to be decided.
We’re not paying … because he’s a quango. A quango, what’s a quango? Hey, you can’t call me a quango!
Wasn’t he the bell ringer at that famous French church?
No he was quasi-quango.
I had a hunch you would say that.
Quasimodo of Notre Dame. Actually the 1937 version of Hunchback of Notre Dame is really, REALLY, good.
I loved Dick Cheney in that role.
lol
lol…
Quango or qango is an acronym (variously spelt out as quasi non-governmental organisation, quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation, and quasi-autonomous national government organisation) used notably in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere to label colloquially an organisation to which government has devolved power. In the United Kingdom the official term is “non-departmental public body” or NDPB.
WTF?
as in quasi GSE.
She had me at: “non-departmental public body”
Gal says ‘that’ and it’s the one time I’ll leave a full drink at the bar…
Geez, just trying to tell you where she works…lol.
Gal says ‘that’ and it’s the one time I’ll leave a full drink at the bar…
Hah! Thanks for the laugh, DinOR
drumminj,
( Oh, and we got a gig for the weekend so I’m stoked! )
Yeah, all the years I worked downtown, I seriously tried… never to get into an elevator when there was only (1) other rider, and that rider turns out to be a rather attractive woman.
Sorry, just, nothing good can come of it.
I’ve been reading books on current British politics, and the un-elected and non-representative quangos are a topic of raging debate in the UK. For this reason I had to quickly determine what a “quango” is, which as jeff says is a quasi-autonomous NGO. Fannie and Freddie were quangos prior to their takeover. The California Bar Association is a quango, as the CA supreme court has delegated its authority for disciplining lawyers to them. Underwriters Labs (UL) may be a quango.
Or quangmire as some prefer.
In fact “quango” has taken on such a perjorative nature that I’m sure the UK government invented “NDPB” as a replacement. Sort of like how “liberals” have re-branded themselves as “progressives” these days.
Quangos are the people that run your life that you didn’t elect and aren’t really answerable to those you did.
And they run almost everything these days. Which is what “privatizing government” gets you.
So, Quango = Czar
Buffett to taxpayers: Get over your anger
Taxpayer anger against President Barack Obama and Congress is counterproductive because policy makers took measures including deficit spending to stimulate the economy, billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC.
“Sentiment has turned very sour in the last three or four or five months,” the chairman and CEO of Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said in an interview broadcast Thursday.
“I hope we get over it pretty soon, because it’s not productive,’’ Buffett said. “We will come back regardless of how people feel about Washington, but it is not helpful to have people as unhappy as they are about what’s going on in Washington.”
More than three-quarters of U.S. investors view Obama as anti-business and are pessimistic about his policies, a Bloomberg survey this month indicated.
The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.6 percent, even after an $814 billion stimulus measure enacted last year and other government actions.
The Federal Reserve has kept the benchmark overnight lending rate target close to zero and said this week that it was prepared to ease policy further.
“The truth is we’re running a federal deficit that’s 9 percent of gross domestic product,” Buffett said. “That’s stimulative as all get out. It’s more stimulative than any policy we’ve followed since World War II.”
Buffett also said that the economy remains in a recession, by his definition, because most people and businesses still aren’t doing as well as they were before the financial crisis.
Buffett’s assessment of the economy contradicts the view of experts who announced this week that the recession officially ended in June 2009.
Buffett said he uses a common sense standard to evaluate the economy. Buffett gets insight into the health of the economy through the performance of Berkshire’s many subsidiaries.
To quote Professor Bear (I think), with respect to Buffett: die already.
Well.., yeah, and if ‘I’ were a gazzillionaire, I think I could “get over” the anger bit a lot quicker too?
But still, he does have a point. Right now Main Street has seen they simply aren’t big enough to shoulder they way into the feed-trough and.., they’re p!ssed!
Since they know they have neither clout nor connected influence, they’re doing the only thing they feel they ‘can’ do? Namely drag their heels, stage hiring strikes and be miserable in general until they get a game re-set via election.
I know most here aren’t exactly religious, and I only go b/c my wife makes me. But our pastor addressed this very issue on a number of Sundays and.., she’s right. It’s not productive and damn sure ain’t healthy. Who is that one comedian? “Anger is a terrible thing to waste?”
Well Buffett is right.
The government did things — under President Bush that President Obama carried forward — to prevent an economic collapse, and now people are bitching about it.
The only people who have a right to bitch are those who would have, if they really thought it through and were willing to suffer the consequences, prefered that the collapse be allowed to occur. Which may or may not have been better off in the long run — an reasonable argument could be made.
But that’s not what most people are upset about. They aren’t able to spend 6 percent more than they earn anymore, and are miserable about it. This is what happens when “retail therapy” has taken the place of friends, family, religion etc. and people’s credit line gets cut.
We had a false prosperity. It’s over. The standard of living is going down. The Obama Administration’s problem is they pretended they could do something about it.
Nice summation, WT. Right on target.
Yes, he’s right. I think part of the anger is due to the lack of any real say in who gets bailed out and by how much…and fear of who will be next. When it probably doesn’t matter who or how much, just that the govt keep bailing for the time being.
+1 +1 WT…Spot on…
We have some sort of evidence that the bailouts prevented some sort of collapse that would have left things worse than they are?
Just curious. All I see are gov’t proclamations that this is so. We tend not to rely on such proclamations in other arenas, such as the gov’t claim at the time that there was not a housing bubble… ya’ know?
Exactly, evildoc.
I have yet to hear a logical and detailed explanation about how not bailing out lenders and borrowers would have led to the collapse of civilization.
Mind you, I’ve always said *something* should have been done, but think it would have been far wiser and less expensive to focus on maintaining JOBS while the deflation takes place.
Isn’t anger constructive when its directed at the true culprits of a mass-Ponzi-scheme that went bust ,along with Globalism that was treason ? The only way you can correct corruption is by seeing it and getting angry and demanding change .
Does Buffett think that the Majority should just passively look on with
cheerful faces while the elite with their bribed Politicians make sure they get protected while people are one step away from being in tent cities with no job prospects .
Shine the light on the greed and corruption .
Housing Wizard,
All fine & well, and very true. And if you’re not angry, then clearly you haven’t been paying attention.
But we see it here on this very blog every-day. We finally got background checks and fingerprint requirements instituted for mortgage brokers ( in my mind one ‘of’ if not THE party most dierctly responsible ) and everyone here yawned. ( passive aggression )
There’s no amount of good news we can’t poo-poo, regardless the source. Here’s where the Rep’s are e’fing up. It’s too SOON to want control! They’ll find out when they’ve had their little victory lap this Fall. The same anger can/will turn on them. So let’s drop the tantrums and be adults. IMHO.
right on, Palmy. he’s a closet socialist. he knows how to find value, but he doesn’t understand how an economy works. funny that he against the very system that made him rich. he’s not near as bad as soros though.
+1
“…because most people and businesses still aren’t doing as well as they were before the financial crisis.”
Will they ever? That’s the big question right now.
He doesn’t understand what the government means when it says the recession ended. They mean the ship touched bottom.
“Captain, we seem to have stopped sinking! The chart shows the water is much deeper here but this gauge (tap tap tap) isn’t moving.”
.
.
.
.
.\/.
.
.
.
.
.
As I recall from the pompous prognosticators overlay of the 1920s -30s Dow Jones chart , there was always a bounce after the “bottoming out’, only to resume in a fresh downward trend some time later. This of course went on for years.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/seymour062001.html
“Buffett to taxpayers: Get over your anger”
….Yes….How dare you be angry! Thank you sir, may I have another?
“More than three-quarters of U.S. investors view Obama as anti-business”
So hows that pro business Bush admin policies working out for everybody?
I was thinking about the “happiest countries on earth” survey thread from yesterday. I think I’d like to see how the question translated into the language of each country.
I’m guessing they actually used the local version of the term “gay” in English for each language. That would explain most of the rankings, and why the US wasn’t higher on the list.
/snark off/
I might be a bit drunk today but I think the housing crash was a good thing. That bubble had to be popped in order for young people to have a future that includes nice housing.
The banks had to face bankruptcy in order for them to stop lending.
The government had to bail the banks out so everyone can see how corrupt it has all become.
Geitner and Summers had to make their attempt at recovery as they know they caused the collapse. Obama got in there just in time to blow up the deficit which will cause the collapse of government spending either before of after the currency collapse.
It is like living next to a building near collapse. Every day you walk past it you worry. Then one day it collapses and you don’t get hurt and the feeling is “Glad that is over”. Sorry for the folks who are hurting but the “collapse” but you could see it coming and many did.
Insurance Guy,
I’m not in the least bit tipsy, and that’s pretty much how I’ve come to see it.
Sometimes reality confused me so much that I think I am the only one drunk but in fact I am one of the few who are sober.
So let’s have housing drop another 10% and heal that much faster.
Yes.
That’s Peter Schiff’s position: The sickness was the bubble’s run-up and the recession is the system’s attempt to restore equilibrium.
Buffett to serfs,
“Keep your heads down and get back to work.”
I like Palmy’s (or PBears) suggestion better.
P.S. Still in Montana trying to build. The rain here has made things difficult.
The retards in D.C. are always wasting time on crap of no consequence…
ITEM: On Wednesday night Congress passed legislation that eliminates the term “mental retardation” from federal laws.
The measure, changes the phrase “mentally retarded” to “an individual with an intellectual disability” in existing health, education and law.
< Another win for advocates of “politically correct” government. Mental retardation is broadened to “intellectual disability,” a condition that afflicts a large percentage of Congress.
Despite the negative connotations, the word retarded had a clear meaning; developmentally stopped. Disabled implies one had abilities and lost them. Different thing entirely.
So, will our ARC be relabeled the AIWID.
On a personal note, my engine is running a little lean, I think I will try intellectually disabling the spark.
Haha, well that’s been coming a long time, and the word has never been more popularly used than it is now among kidz and adults alike.
Looks to me like the congressional incumbents are panhandling for votes from “individuals with an intellectual disability”
Now that’s what I call partisanship.
Hey all, I had a thought this morning about the Automaker “Bailouts”.
Were they really “bailed out” any more than the Japanese automakers were “bailed out”? The difference being that the Japanese makers were “bailed out” little by since the first day they started selling cars in America. How?
Do you all remember newspaper articles from the 70’s through today about how hard Japan made it for US automakers to sell our cars in Japan? Japan had real trade barriers that made it hard to sell our cars there while we opened up our market to them. Isn’t this like a constant ” bail-out” of Toyota, Datsun etc and a competitive disadvantage for GM and Ford?
In addition, before Japanese cars were made in the USA, Japanese car makers were “bailed” out a little every year when considering the cost of their healthcare because Japan’s universal healthcare system is so much cheaper than America’s. The cost per person for health care was $2,600 for a Japanese person but a whopping $6,700 per person in the USA in 2006. source: pbs dot org.
So Toyota, Honda etc were getting a little “bail-out” every year from their government because their government had their act together enough to implement a national, universal healthcare system that provided a huge subsidy for the Japanese car makers, a subsidy that their American competitors did not receive. Can not this health-care subsidy theory apply to the European car manufactures as well? They to are receiving a huge competitive advantage every year by being released from the huge costs of the healthcare burden, of GM, Ford and Chrysler.
How can US manufactures compete against unfair and government subsidized foreign manufactures? Were not the US big three hobbled by this competitive disadvantage enough that our current depression put them on the brink of collapse? Was it not fair and just to bail them out then because their competitors had been “bailed-out” in a way every year the past generation?
The point being: In comparison to the Japanese and European auto makers, were the American auto-makers the only ones receiving a “bail-out”?
Or was it more like:
You can bail me out now (Foreign Auto-makers getting a little subsidy or “bail-out” every year) or bail me out later (US Auto-makers needing a bail-out in 09)?
Let’s jump off the cliff because everybody does it.
Let’s jump off the cliff because everybody does it.
What I think you mean by that is:
The contention is correct that foreign auto-makers were constantly bailed out however, US auto-makers should have been allowed to fail after facing unfair foreign competition.
Was providing cheap healthcare for Japanese citizens a bail-out or simply fiscally prudent policy? The American labor force is not their only competition. I see no reason to demonize intelligent choices our competitors make.
And that reminds me, when will health care cost cutting finally become part of our national conversation?
Was providing cheap healthcare for Japanese citizens a bail-out or simply fiscally prudent policy?
Of course it was both. Why could it not be? It was prudent policy that effectively provides foreign auto-manufactures a subsidy or a constant “bail-out” that the US automakers do not receive.
I see no reason to demonize intelligent choices our competitors make.
In no way whatsoever did I “demonize” the universal healthcare system of foreign automakers. I write in favor of universal healthcare all the time. It is simply a fact that Foreign automakers having universal healthcare while America does not, puts US automakers at a great competitive disadvantage.
I recommend a close reading of TR Reid’s book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care.
I found the part about the Japanese health care system to be especially delightful. And, if you know me, the words “health care” and “delightful” don’t often travel in the same sentence.
Any-hoo, Reid described a visit to a Japanese clinic that had its mission statement on the wall. Among other things, the statement said that all patients were to be spoken to in soft, caring, and courteous voices. And patients were the reason that the facility existed.
Whereas here, a customer OWES the comapny a living.
Az Slim & All
Have you all watched “Sick Around The World: (Japan is a segment) and *”Sick in America” PBS Frontline online?
*I was disappoint in their family selection due to their obesity, but maybe it’s my dislike and disrespect for the lack of discipline.
“In no way whatsoever did I “demonize”
My apologies, Rio. I think Congress’s decison today to resort to tariffs on certain imports had me on a beggar thy neighbor emotional tear. I think the term “bail out” had real negative connotations for me and I preferred to applaud the Japanese government for making a positive long term decision.
If only our bail outs targeted our entire public instead of specific chosen groups.
It was a mandate from Douglas MacArthur.
The point being: In comparison to the Japanese and European auto makers, were the American auto-makers the only ones receiving a “bail-out”?
Is that really your point.. or are you just instigating another health care debate?
If it is your point, the answer is too obvious to even bother posing the question. Of course Japanese industry has received govt support, as has the USA’s recently.
Of course Japanese industry has received govt support, as has the USA’s recently.
What I think you are saying is:
The contention is correct that foreign auto-makers were constantly bailed out therefore, US auto-makers SHOULD HAVE been bailed out because they had, for years, faced unfair foreign competition.
Rio.. cut to the chase..
You could have saved everyone a lot of unnecessary reading if you just asked:
Since Japanese government subsidizes just about everything, and they therefore have “cheap” health care, should the USA do the same?
Rio.. cut to the chase..
You could have saved everyone a lot of unnecessary reading if you just asked:
Since Japanese government subsidizes just about everything, and they therefore have “cheap” health care, should the USA do the same?
Wrong Joey, Read my post and think. It is first and foremost about the Auto bailouts. Were the auto-bailouts JUST. Should we have bailed out the Automakers.
It is asking did the US automakers deserve to be bailed out in light of the fact that they had faced unfair and subsidized competition for years.
From your response, I take it that you Joey, believe it was fair and correct to bail out the US automakers.
I tend to agree.
Joey,
It is not just about healthcare. The US automakers do not just face unfair competition due to high costs of health insurance, they also face unfair competition from trade barriers and foreign governments subsidizing foreign auto makers.
This is why I and I think you feel the auto bailouts were JUST.
U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement Has Not Met Objectives
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0UDO/is_1_14/ai_63676827/
Japan maintains “trade distorting” barriers in auto and auto parts trade, according to an industry group. The U.S. Auto Parts Advisory Committee (APAC), an advisory group formed to examine auto parts and auto trade issues, said it concurs with the U.S. government conclusion in the 1999 Trade Barriers Report that there has been a “lack of progress” toward achieving the objectives of the U.S./Japan 1995 Frame-work Agreement on Autos and Auto Parts.
House hearing to target Asian auto barriers
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60E3LG20100115
Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives will hold a hearing next week to examine Japanese and South Korean trade barriers “that shut out U.S. autos” and consider what action the United States should take in response, a senior lawmaker said on Friday.
“In no sector is the lack of reciprocal market access more apparent than in Japan’s and South Korea’s auto sector, where market access barriers to U.S. auto imports have led to grave auto trade deficits,”
The Slow, Subsidized Death of Europe’s Carmakers
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203609204574316061524755416.html
It was decided that certain things fell under the category of too big to fail. The auto industry was one of them.
Deserved or not, what’s done is done.
Do I, in my spare time when there’s nothing good on TV and the dishes are done, find a moment to contemplate the ins and outs of foreign trade? Sure.
I see global trade still in it’s infancy, but due to recent developments in various technologies it’s now free to grow, and will grow to such proportions that it will change the world we live in, comparable to the Industrial Revolution.
Much like the Luddites, world powers generally fail to see and accept what lies ahead, and are currently trying to preserve the status quo. This is to be expected.
Resistance is futile. There is no going back. It would be better to lead the charge, thinking a few moves ahead and attempt to steer our progress, rather than engage in these petty skirmishes with our competition.
Joey:
Global trade has been happening ever since there have been global people. The only difference now is that the United States has foolishly lifted most of its tariffs. That’s why everything is collapsing right now, dear.
I foresee a world with no trade barriers.
What better way is there to learn how to survive without something than to simply get rid of it?
Silley Joey.
A long, long time ago, when people from different societies, with different currencies, first began to trade, there were no trade barriers. From this experience, people quickly began to understand the problems caused by currency arbitrage and clashing economic systems. That’s why they invented tariffs, Joe. They did it because they ALREADY HAD GONE WITHOUT THEM, but that hadn’t worked.
Tariffs are a solution, not a problem.
Technology and efficient transportation and cheap energy have allowed for many more things to be traded economically.
currency arbitrage?
currency???
you’re not getting my drift.. not at all.
Joey:
Yes, I get your drift. I’m not that dumb. Can you really pretend not to understand the dynamics between currency and international trade, after reading this blog for this long?
Puleaze.
You are such a paid shill, dude.
I wasn’t and wouldn’t blame you for not getting what I’m getting at. It’s my fault for not being clear enough.
I’d consider sovereign currencies to be just another barrier to international trade, for the reasons you’ve mentioned.
Therefore, they would be done away with, or countries which hang onto them would be left behind.
I don’t know what would replace currency as we know it. Something that would satisfy (almost) everyone is yet to be invented, imo.
Thank you very much Big V . I thought everyone knew that Joey was a paid shill.
wizard, i know how much you detest globalism, and you’re not the only one by a long shot. It will cause a lot of suffering and will face much resistance.
It can be delayed for a while, but I just don’t see anything that can stop it.
In the words of the great Don Ameche, things change.
Things do, indeed, change. But when they change for the worse, they need to be changed BACK for the better.
Maybe it only looks like it’s for the worse..
Few, if any, imagined that the improvements in the steam engine would bring on global change by way of the Industrial Revolution. One might go further back and credit the printing press.
In any case, it wasn’t easy to adjust to that industrializing world. Lots of people suffered. Corrections and adjustments required several generations. Going back must have been attempted. Ultimately, the world changed for the better.
The internet may someday come to be regarded as the last nail in the coffin of that old world… one where societies could segregate themselves from each other and yet be strong, secure, functional and productive.
Industrialization brought us 2 world wars and killed 160 MILLION people just from wars alone in the 20th century.
We paid one hell of price for our “better life.”
“Were not the US big three hobbled by this competitive disadvantage enough that our current depression put them on the brink of collapse?”
There’s more ot that story. For instance, were the Big Three not also hobbled by having the wrong product mix at the wrong time (too many SUVs & 2008 fuel cost spike)? Or by allowing their dealer networks to become too large? Or by becoming too entangled in financing the cars they had such a hard time selling?
Oh yeah, and bub - you can disagree with me all you want, but I will thank you to refrain from the shrill and visceral responses please.
There’s more (to) that story.
So I think by you saying “more to that story”, you accept the contention that US automakers did face unfair competition for years therefore might be entitled to a bailout.
Oh yeah, and bub - you can disagree with me all you want, but I will thank you to refrain from the shrill and visceral responses please.
Then don’t get personal with me Jack.
If you do, man up and expect a response.
Likewise.
Now back to the subject at hand. No, I absolutely do not agree that the big three (only two actually needed bailing) were entitled to bailouts on the grounds of this particular argument, simply because it was much more than health care costs that brought them down. If the Big Three are victims of anything, they are victims of their own policies and business practices.
You’re limiting this particular argument to suit your much larger arguments (trade policies and helath care), and that’s your perrogative. Still, the focus on the automakers is puzzling, especially as that business will undergo huge changes regardless and because autoworkers simply aren’t the Americans most in need of affordable helath care at the moment.
it was much more than health care costs that brought them down. If the Big Three are victims of anything, they are victims of their own policies and business practices.
I believe they were not JUST victims of “their own policies”.
And yes it was more than healthcare costs. It was also trade barriers that Asia has never lifted as opposed to USA lifting ours and it was also hidden subsidies the foreign manufactures still benefit from.
I just listed trade barrier articles in a post and here is just one example of “hidden subsidies” the foreign manufactures implement.
Japanese Makers Get a $4K to $14K subsidy on every vehicle Exported
http://forums.motortrend.com/70/6422366/the-general-forum/japanese-makers-get-a-4k-to-14k-subsidy-on-every-v/index.html
Since 2001, the Japanese government has intervened repeatedly in currency markets to artificially devalue the yen by upward of 30%. As a result, Toyota and the other Japanese automakers receive a $4,000 to $14,000 subsidy on every vehicle they export to the U.S. Japan’s currency manipulation is fueling the market share gains of Toyota, Honda and Nissan in the U.S. and putting downward pressure on UAW wages and benefits.
Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R., Mich.)
Washington
Attention anyone who was and is against the auto bailouts (and there are a lot of you here):
Please explain why the Automaker bailouts were wrong even though the US automakers had faced unfair competition by foreign manufactures for years.
Because the US automakers had faced unfair competition by foreign manufactures for years, I feel their bailout was more JUST and understandable than the Bank bailouts is all.
Your point is interesting, but I’m more interested in looking forward toward whether the domestic auto industry will be stronger and contribute more to the economic health of the country as smaller post-bankruptcy companies that can successfully compete head to head with foreign manufacturers, or whether we’re better off using them as giant subsidized sources of jobs and benefits for a subset of our population and the product itself is secondary? I lean strongly toward the first option, because to me the second seems like a giant waste of money in the end. Seems to me “fair” has nothing to do with it.
whether the domestic auto industry will be stronger and contribute more to the economic health of the country as smaller post-bankruptcy companies that can successfully compete head to head with foreign manufacturers, or whether we’re better off using them as giant subsidized sources of jobs and benefits for a subset of our population and the product itself is secondary? I lean strongly toward the first option
Good points. I fear post BK US automakers will still face a competitive disadvantage due to healthcare costs, unfair trade barriers overseas and direct and currency manipulated subsidies benefiting the foreign manufactures.
I don’t see how emerging from BK will lighten the burdens of the above disadvantages US automakers face unless our duties are raised on foreign cars or the above burdens are somehow lifted.
Agree with you RIO .
I see a big World where all the players are playing by different rules causing unfair advantages that end up creating monopolies,price fixing ,absurd unfair wage competition that are the destroyers of real capitalism .Of course the trade tariffs have to be correct to level out the playing field.
American Companies have a big disadvantage in funding
the high cost of employee health care where the costs are
controlled by health care monopolies.
Taxes are higher in Europe and Japan to pay for that universal health care.
How does it work out, net net? Matter of opinion, I guess.
Not true with corporate taxes.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/22917.html
“How does it work out, net net? Matter of opinion, I guess.”
Too bad we can’t compare how other countries do things because we’re the best.
Rio,
You are absolutely right about U.S. companies being at a disadvantage when competing with companies whose governments provide what our private employers have to provide for their employees (healthcare, pensions, family/maternity leave, etc.).
I found out the housing allowance for the military folks starts out at over $1100 a month. No wonder all the rents are so high. I mention it to someone I know who is in the military, and he replies, “Really? That low? I’m getting $1700.”
That explains all the $1700 apartments.
interesting.. never thought about that..
Multi-unit dwelling somewhere near a military base should pull in more rent than would be expected.
searching housing allowance, hoping to find other occupations that receive it.
nothing much besides military.. pastors and ministers.
Also university faculty in many places.
so.. what sort of rental apartment or home would be most attractive to a university’s faculty.
i got it.. “No students allowed within 3,000 feet.”
Add city managers on California to the list.
google search says city managers all over are really under fire these days. Main complaints are salaries, but housing allowance is mentioned quite often.
must be the after glow of those crooks in Bell, Ca. getting busted.
If you like housing allowances, then you’re going to love corporations that pay their executives’ personal income taxes.
Why yes, they’ve doing that for decades.
Exeter- Just getting back to this blog after along exodus due to a new computer and family life. We sold our cottage in the great white tundra or whatever we used to call it. No longer driving by the Big Yellow turd every month or so. We bought in 2006 for $117,500, put in about $10,000 and my own labor and sold for $131,500 in South Western Essex County. After commission I lost a few bucks but got out alive and just about whole. Not bad for a 2006-2010 transaction. Hope you and your family are well and in reading thru some of the posts, I see not much has changed and all of the old posters are still the same
You’re very fortunate my friend. It very well could be that you were the first in line.
Has Aladinsane been around? It sure is Goldbug heaven these days!!
I bought few when it was in 800-900. There are days I feel like I should sell now and take the profit. Other days, I feel like since I am mostly cash, do I really need more cash? Dilemma, dilemma.
Yes she has bounced in & out lately…She was AWOL for awhile due to some health issues…
she?
that’s what i wuz thinkin..
coulda sworn the insane one was confirmed male.
He seems to be confusing aladinsane with ahansen.
Well they have both had their problems with bears, haven’t they?
Colbert in Congress.
Man, this country is a joke. It used to be a banana republic, today it became a joke officially.
USA! USA! USA! USA!
It really is beyond retarded and just plain stupid, but hey look who’s in charge…The completely disconnected morons that the dense voters voted in.
The universe has a way of setting things right. But when the morons of this country reap the consequences of their own ignorance and stupidity, they better not look to me for sympathy.
So the stock market has soared.
Or the stock market is unchanged, but the value of the dollars it is priced in has plummeted.
Might we be willing, or able, to inflate the debts (and savings) away?
depends.. how many trillion in debt needs to be inflated away?
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2010/09/frank_economy_r.html
Barney Frank says economy ready to “take off”! Since he’s been so right on all things economic, I’m off to buy my new house!
Don’t look now sports fans, but Dow is within spitting distance of 11K.
12K by EOY. Still time to make some money. Or you can keep the money in a 0.0015% savings account if you prefer.
Don’t look now sports fans, but Dow is within spitting distance of 11K.
Ruff! Ruff!!
Yeah, I noticed.
So if we hit 12k, are you going all in or pulling some out? Or are you already all in, and just gonna let it ride? I’m still sitting on the sidelines like a scared country boy watching a shell game in the big city. No way no how am I pulling anything out of my pocket right now. I’m just trying to figure out if I’m safe just standing this close or if I should be running…
I didn’t change a thing since way back when the DOW was over 14K. Aside from the portfolio already valued at more than it was then, an unexpected benefit is I didn’t have to make any decisions while the market rebounded… and i gotta admit that it’s a relief.
So if we hit 12k, are you going all in or pulling some out? Or are you already all in…
There’s a great joke or two to be had here, but I’m just gonna walk right on by…..
Well, since the Fed basically came right out and said they’ll intervene to cover losing bets, all the speculators are going hog wild knowing the taxpayers will make up their losses if they bet the wrong way.
At the risk of sounding tedious: to anyone who voted for this Administration or the Republicrat con men who are facilitating this massive swindle, F**k you.
Oh dear, this isn’t exactly housing related, but it does speak to retarded members of the criminal sector….
Police said Cheripka confessed to the attempted robbery and told how the clerk, an older man working alone, grabbed the tip of the gun she was carrying when he realized it was a toy.
“First, if you’re going to rob someone, get a real gun,” the man said, according to Cheripka’s confession to police. “Second off, you’re not getting any money.” ….
When the clerk realized the gun was a toy, he confronted Cheripka and grabbed a hammer from behind the counter as she ran, police said.
I’d use the claw side of the hammer on the crook’s head, but that’s just me.
Linkey
http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/542616/Police–Clerk-stopped-duo-attempting-to-rob-Adult-World.html?nav=742
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499604575512254063682236.html?mod=djemalertNEWS
US regulators take over three credit unions, and American taxpayers are on the hook for another $35 billion in dodgy liabilities. Thank you, Ben & Timmay!
..Losses on the mortgage-backed securities held by the five seized credit unions are expected by regulators to total about $15 billion. Wiping out the capital of the failed institutions will cover a chunk of those losses. But the remaining $7 billion to $9.2 billion eventually will be passed along to the nation’s 7,445 federally insured credit unions in the form of future assessments.
I don’t see how this costs taxpayers anything. Credit unions contribute to an insurance fund, the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund (NCUSIF)… just like banks do with the FDIC, and it’s on them.
Sure, both funds are backed by the “full faith and credit” of the USA, but it’s a bit early to claim failure of the NCUSIF.