Bits Bucket For October 5, 2010
Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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I’ve got a nice AIG ad offering a 3.74% home equity own ad on my HBB web page. No closing costs.
My tax dollars at work.
I’ve got an Infinity G Sedan for your new garage.
own = loan
Need more coffee!!
Not really. They do “own” your home equity.
I’ve got a black Chrylser Towne & Country minivan on my HBB page. Looks just like the one I bought last week.
I’ve got a Sea World advertisement. I’m just not envisioning large crowds, as gasoline ratchets up well over $3 per gallon with crude pushing $85 per barrel in the middle of a depression.
I’ve got an ad for Room and Board. I’m disappointed it doesn’t show the exact bookcase I just bought from them.
I heard a fabulous idea on swawk box approx. 9/23. Would like to give the guest credit but cnbc ignored me.
We need to get this economy going, but how do we get people buying homes when they are worried about job security ? When the real estate market is working it is a major driver of the economy.
Let’s bring in a new set of buyers.
Citizenship if a $500,000. or higher home is purchased with 50% down. When I first heard this idea it was just another idea which is why I didn’t write his name down.
I have given this alot of thought. Personally I think it’s brilliant.
The purpose is to jump start the housing market not a path to citizenship which is why it must not be watered down to $200,000 with 20% down after it goes through commities, mark downs and possible fillibusters.
Finally a program which isn’t going to add to the nationl debt.
There have to be families all over the world who would be interested. Extensive background checks would be needed.
Aloha… long time no post… Hawaii report. Things suck here. Huge houses put up in the dumbest places. For sale signs all over. Except where I live… Oprahland. She bought a couple of thousand acres down the road from us. Lucky me.
Still am an amature landlord. All three houses are rented and spinning off cash. Still keeping my head above water. Tourism is picking up,but RPAR is still down 15%. Construction is dead. Pineapple is almost dead. CFB has yet to fail..We own the land under the Wailuku Branch. Loan is almost paid off so that can’t bite us anymore.
Sugar is being kept alive by the Navy. Looking for new fuel sources. And they are finally looking into an undersea power cable to take wind power from Maui, Lanai,and Molokai to Honolulu. Next boom comming up in 10 years.
Elections comming up. Get rid of the Republican and put a liberal Democrat in there. About time. unemployment is falling to @ 7%
Were comming out the other side. Life is good.
Aloha All.
“Elections comming up. Get rid of the Republican and put a liberal Democrat in there. About time. unemployment is falling to @ 7%
Were comming out the other side. Life is good.”
This whole statement seems contradictory.
Let’s rearrange the sentences. Okay.
Unemployment falling. Life is good. We’re coming out the other side (of recession, i assume).
Elections are coming up. Get rid of the Republican (in office while things are improving) and put a liberal Democrat in there???
Are you insane?
“Get rid of the Republican (in office while things are improving)”
Sorry big D, you can’t sneak that past a blog that thinks critically. Are things improving because of the Republican being in office, or despite the Republican being in office?
Critical thinking? Don’t make me laugh.
The comment was very straight forward. Most people blame the party in power for whatever happens, good or bad. If things are improving, they don’t usually vote out the people in control.
By your twisted logic, did the economy go into the Tank because the Republicans were in office, or inspite of them?
The recession started in 2007, according to the “experts”.
So, it must have been the Republicans that created it, even though it is largely a world-wide phenomena. It was the “eight years of Bush”.
I saw on Charlie Rose last night that the leftist propagandists are finally admitting that it was Clinton’s economic advisors (Larry Summers, Rahm Emmanuel, et al) that created the FREE MARKET policies of the Bankster Lobbies. And the question was raised why the OBAMA administration put in the same people that created the DEREGULATION of Wallstreet?? The answer was that he thought they knew more about it and could fix it, and was more distracted by Healthcare…
So, did this disaster happen because of Bush, or in spite of him??
It really doesn’t matter. He was sitting in the chair when the “Sucker started going down”.
There’s no critical thinking involved. The party gets voted out.
Now, the statement was to vote out the party in office that was there while things are apparently improving. It clearly defies normal behaviour and seems more like an agenda item than any reasoned approach would justify.
“So, did this disaster happen because of Bush, or in spite of him??”
Now you’re thinking critically (and apparently using the same twisted logic?) too… but no, I won’t laugh.
My comment was only that you can’t say that “things are going great, therefore everybody who was there gets credit.” What if the Hawaiian Republican voted against the policies that improved the economy? Do you vote to keep him in Congress simply because he was “there?”
Bad policies dating back to FDR are to blame. Chickens coming home to roost.
How’d that repeal of the Glass Stewgall Act work for you?
“Steagall”
dang it
When it comes to politics, this blog doesn’t think critically any more than any other blog. The lines are drawn, the usual contempt and closed mindedness is shown.
It’s the on topic posts that make this blog a gem.
the usual contempt and closed mindedness is shown.
Can’t argue with that.
Every so often someone will write about how liberals and conservatives differ at some basic neurologic level. Here’s an article about how a Tennessee fire department who charged people outside city limits $75 for fire protection refused to put out a fire for someone who didn’t pay. I thought that services like fire were part of property taxes, but maybe I’m wrong.
Anyway, I can’t imagine letting someone’s house burn down if they didn’t pay so I must be a liberal. On the other hand, if he didn’t pay his mortgage or property taxes I think he should lose his house so I must be a conservative.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gDfgMP_E0tdxWoStirdC9tycATygD9ILMTD01?docId=D9ILMTD01
Comment by REhobbyist
Anyway, I can’t imagine letting someone’s house burn down if they didn’t pay so I must be a liberal. On the other hand, if he didn’t pay his mortgage or property taxes I think he should lose his house so I must be a conservative.
REhobbyist, neither right nor left. Simply smart. Too bad no one who decides to run for office gets this.
IAT
When it comes to politics, OUR COUNTRY
this blogdoesn’t think critically any more than any otherblogFLOCK OF SHEEP. The lines are drawn, the usual contempt and closed mindedness is shown.We need to come together as Americans.
Critical thinking? Don’t make me laugh.
The comment was very straight forward. Most people blame the party in power for whatever happens, good or bad. If things are improving, they don’t usually vote out the people in control.
And it really matters.
Lets bore you with some history, In the 30’s sugar was king. Total plantation economy. Republicans ruled with an iron fist. War came, Hundreds of Hawaiian Japaneese went to Europe to fight. Remember the 442nd? They left farmers, but returned soldiers. They immediatly went after the Republicans in Power.
46-48 they formed unions. They went on strike. People died.
Eventualy the sugar growers caved. The Republicans came to symbolize the big seven. Next election they were out. Done Pau. Into Almost 50 years of political obscurity. Right where they belong.
Eight years ago Maui’s mayor ran and won as the first Republican Governer in 50 years. I even voted for her. My mistake. She was almost as bad as Bush. Everything she did turned to crap. Eight years of stagnation. When she had the chance to move this place foreward, she did almost nothing.
Well so sorry, we learned. This year we will be canning a Rep house member (Djou) and taking back our disfunctional Republican Government. And it will probably be another 50 years until we elect another Republican anything.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Speaking of Republicans in Hawaii, Robert Kiyosaki’s dad was a Republican who ran, IIRC, for state superintendent of education.
Big mistake.
Not only did he lose the election, he was blackballed and had to take a job outside of government. He wasn’t very successful, and that made quite an impression on the son, a future Rich Dad in training.
Feel free to correct me on the details of the above. It’s been years since I’ve touched anything written by Kiyosaki.
And it will probably be another 50 years until we elect another Republican anything.
An American refuge from “TruePurity™” cult members ! yIPPIE kYE aYE!
Things are improving in spite of, not because of Lingle. She was the Republican Governer that left us on the hook for 150 mil, because she couldn’t be bothered to do an EIS for the Ferry.
She’s the one that gave us furlow Friday while her investment people bought Student Loan Guarantees. To the tune of a Billion dollars.
And I can go on. This state has so much damn potential, and all she did was kick the can down the road. We are more dependant on the mainland than ever, and it doesn’t have to be that way.
This whole statement seems contradictory.
Life is.
Good to hear from you. Maybe Oprah will only put one house up on those thousand acres and preserve the rest. Better than paving over the land for luxury condos.
And I really mean paving over. You should see the crap in the DC outer burbs. About 10 miles up from where I live is mostly open fields. And then, you come upon a PUD (planned urban development) where the builder obviously packed as many houses into his 10 acre field as he could. Not even any room for trees. It’s an eyesore.
btw, I read somewhere (here?) that builders could only put small-growing ornamental pear trees in the front yards of Mcmansions because the yard was so small that the roots of a larger tree would interfere with the sewer pipes. Yet, last week when I walked around residential DC (near the National Cathedral), I saw the opposite. There were a lot of old medium size houses with very large trees in very small front yards, close together. They call them leafy neighborhoods because the houses almost never see the sunlight until the leaves fall in autumn. Why can’t they plant trees like that in a McMansion PUD?
“Why can’t they plant trees like that in a McMansion PUD?”
Older neighborhood created before/without HOA’s?
btw, I read somewhere (here?) that builders could only put small-growing ornamental pear trees in the front yards of Mcmansions because the yard was so small that the roots of a larger tree would interfere with the sewer pipes.
Sorry to break the news to the McMansion builders, but it’s hard to find a living plant that won’t take advantage of the opportunity posed by a sewer pipe.
After all, plants need nutrients. And moisture. Sewer pipes provide both. After all, they do crack. Just like any other pipe.
Hmm - not an expert on the subject, but I do have some layman’s knowledge. I had an old house in CA (1890) that had this problem - the pipe indeed got clogged by roots after cracking. However it was a very old ceramic pipe. Nowadays of course PVC is used universally. I don’t think PVC is generally subject to this - roots don’t try to work their way in because there are no holes for it to detect that there’s “something nutritious” on the other side.
Yard size, of course, has nothing to do with it. You can plant a large tree over a sewer pipe in a large yard (as was my case) just as easily as in a small yard. More likely the problem is roots going into/under the foundation, not the sewer pipe. Or just simply that McMansions tend to have very small front yards, and thus there’s an air space problem as well. You can’t plant a big oak that normally would grow to an 80′ wide canopy in a yard that’s only 30′ deep. (Or at least you wouldn’t want to)
Older subdivisions, e.g. my late 1950’s neighborhood in San Jose, used cast iron sewer pipe. This was joined in sections using the “bell” at one end and the straight pipe at the other: you would then put in oakum and pour in lead. Needless to say, two things happened: the seals leaked and the cast iron rusted. Once the root could see its way clear to the inner portion of the sewer pipe, it would go in and expand the breach.
I had to replace my sewer line in San Jose with black ABS. The joints are glued together. After that - never a problem. My house here in Boise was built with a black ABS sewer line.
Some county building codes forbid using plastic sewer pipe, making homeowners put back in cast iron or clay. This ends up requiring replacements every few years: the codes were probably a payback to the plumber’s union.
Tree roots break pipes, foundations, driveways… you name it.
So there is a trade off. If you want big trees in a relatively small yard, then you have some maintenance you need to keep up with.
Personally, I love big trees.
Ornamental pear trees can grow quite large and they are one of the worst trees, along with silver maples, when it comes to having surface roots and seeking water sources.
OTOH It was interesting to dig up a small red oak tree that had sprouted a few inches from the driveway this past spring. Topside it was about 6 inches high with just one leaf cluster. But the tap root was already the size of a skinny carrot and over 6 inches long, growing straight down.
A year ago I had to go to Boulder City to fix up and rent a house. Vegas was a clusterf**k. Henderson was a solid mass of uninhabited subdivisions.
I saw it for myself. Speechless.
Oprah has land and house in Hana. She could have built 5 houses, she built two.
Up here she wants to put a B and B for her friends. She wants the whole place and many of us have recieved unsolisited (sp)
offers on our land.
Will I sell? Hell no! I’m going to die here. If she gets too close the fighting chickens will make another appearance. Maybe raise some pigs too.
You had me at “Things suck here.”
I thought Oprah had a house in Santa Barbara. Hawaii too?
So things are really getting better there? I have my doubts. I just paid off my timeshare and haven’t been on vacation in two years. Been to Kauai and to Kona, but have three other locations for my timeshare in the islands and a couple dozen locations on the mainland. Since I do not get paid vacations, I finance my vacations with overtime pay. Haven’t had overtime in nearly two years.
My line of thinking is that I’m in my 50s, we are in the deepest recession I can ever recall, and even though I’m financially independent, I would not be able to afford to live in the good parts of California if I quit my job. I’d be able to afford living in Tucson without a job though. I think we have three or four more years of this economic malaise before things get better.
People here in L.A. still continue to buy cars. Not necessarily new. A brand new BMW M6 MSRP is $102,000, but I can get a 2008 certified one for under $65,000. I think L.A. people tend to be overoptimistic and it seems to work here. House prices in the beach cities dropped only about 20% from their peak in 2006 while Phoenix house prices dropped 50%. So there is enough confidence to be consumers.
For the rest of the U.S. people are trimming their debts and the Bush/Obama stimulus is buying the 90% of us who are employed time to get in better financial shape. I’m an Austrian fan endorsing Keynesianism only for the short term fix that helps me. Unfortunately the people who do not seize the opportunity to get rid of their debt or establish a year or two worth of living expenses in cash and gold, well, they are going to suffer the long term consequences of Keynesianism.
they are going to suffer the long term consequences of Keynesianism.
A stable economy with fewer robber baron billionaires?
Stable?
In a 2005 kind of way, yeah.
You guys still haven’t figured out the difference between Keynesianism and Randian monetarism? Well, there’s your problem right there. Off to the library with you!
Ayn Rand was not a monetarist. I defy you to prove she was. Hint: You did not read “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.” Greenspan was one of Ayn Rand’s insiders. He became a monetarist.
alpha - monetarism aside - would you honestly propose that we haven’t used significant Keynesian stimulus recently?
Greenspan was one of Ayn Rand’s insiders. He became a monetarist.
Exactly. He combined the worst of her ideas (hero-worship of ‘great men’ and disdain for all regulations that hold back their wonder-working) with monetarism’s trickle-down perversion of keynesianism- ie welfare for the rich, who would then supposedly use this money to work their magic for the rest of us.
An unholy alliance of a weak, romanticized philosophy and a self-serving economic theory, that led to Wall Street’s deregulation and their subsequent looting of the economy, followed by a bailout of the titans causing Greenspan to discover the flaw in his/Rand’s thinking: Great men will rip us off too. Faced with a huge reward, they really aren’t so great. They’re mortals just like the rest of us.
Childish fantasies die hard.
Bad combo, eh? Too bad it’s actually quite contrary to free-market views. Monetarism is, by definition, very anti-free-market.
@packman - yes I would propose that we have almost never used Keynesian stimulus. I actually don’t even disagree with Keynesian stimulus. The problem is the abortion people try to pass off as Keynesian. True keynesian spending does not result in a deficit, because the root of what Keynes said is to save during the good times, then spend your savings during the bad. We have no savings QED this is NOT Keynesian spending.
Since 2007 the federal government expenditures per year have risen from $2.9T to $3.7T in the face of deficits on the order of $1.5T
I’ve been asking for a different word to describe that, but no one’s provided one yet. So until then, I will continue to use “Keynesian”.
(As has been pretty much everyone in the media, BTW)
Keynes said is to save during the good times, then spend your savings during the bad.
the whole thing is a crock.
first, government taxes should never be spent to improve some imagined problem. their spending to do good as makes the situation worse.
second, even nostradamus doesn’t know when we enter good times and bad or when we leave them. if that were true for anyone, they’d be the ultimate market timers and have almost all the money in the world.
keynesianism is crap. it’s based on fairly tales like the one above. the outcome of a delusional thinking man that thought he had discovered all the answers. he’s brought more distruction to the world that hitler.
the outcome of a delusional thinking man that thought he had discovered all the answers.
Sounds a lot like you. How’s freshman year at the Mises Institute going?
keynesian isn’t crap, it’s been around since biblical days, and is some of the most sage financial advice ever. In the bible/old testament, it’s 7 years good, 7 years bad. I’m not even a subscriber of the Bible as “truth”, but that doesn’t mean there is no wisdom in there. Maybe Aesop’s fables with the ant and the grasshopper are also familiar to you?
Now the Bullsh!t that passes for “Keynesian” these days, well, I don’t know what it is, but I’d hardly describe it as wisdom. The major flaw I see in Keynes’ economic policy is the big gap where he describes what to do if you were “irationally exhuberant” and spent all your money when tax revenues rose 40% over a 5 year period. Now honestly, I don’t think you need to be Nostradamus to recognize that kind of revenue increase as “good times”. Is that really the argument you want to make?
keynesian isn’t crap, it’s been around since biblical days, and is some of the most sage financial advice ever.
really? what was the advice and what was keynesianism called back then?
——–
In the bible/old testament, it’s 7 years good, 7 years bad. I’m not even a subscriber of the Bible as “truth”, but that doesn’t mean there is no wisdom in there. Maybe Aesop’s fables with the ant and the grasshopper are also familiar to you?
7 years good and 7 years bad? i’ve never heard that before. and what do you interpret it to mean?
i’ve heard of resting a planted field one year out of 7, but again, how would that translate into economics?
———
Now the Bullsh!t that passes for “Keynesian” these days, well, I don’t know what it is, but I’d hardly describe it as wisdom. The major flaw I see in Keynes’ economic policy is the big gap where he describes what to do if you were “irationally exhuberant” and spent all your money when tax revenues rose 40% over a 5 year period. Now honestly, I don’t think you need to be Nostradamus to recognize that kind of revenue increase as “good times”. Is that really the argument you want to make?
you won’t be able to recognise when you should start to spend. what if the good times lasted 10 years and you started to spend at 5 and ran out of money? no one has a crystal ball. that’s the stupid mistake the FED is making now. they think they know where interest rates should be and they don’t because they’re not god and not omniscient. they’re pretending to have knowledge that they don’t have. and they’ve caused a disaster and they’re continuing to cause a bigger disaster with their pompous, know-it-all attitude.
if you could tell the future you’d be sipping wine on your giant yacht in the carribean, not talking with us on this blog.
as they say, hindsight is 20/20 and it’s always easy to see what one should have done. but that’s impossible because the moment of truth is always in the past. you can never see it despite how it looks like you should have been able to see it.
the hallmark of keynesianism is government intervention in the market. that tactic has never made the economic situation better except for the extremely short term.
keynesiamism supposes what government should do.
austrian economics supposes what government shouldn’t do.
mathguy, i answered your post almost as soon as it was written. but it was probably a little too long and didn’t get through.
the short answer is that you can’t foretell the future. you can’t know when to spend. this simple fact negates your whole argument.
Here we go again. tj writes:
first, government taxes should never be spent to improve some imagined problem. their spending to do good as makes the situation worse.
Again, faith. Guess that problem of getting to moon before the Russians was just made worse by government spending.
second, even nostradamus doesn’t know when we enter good times and bad or when we leave them. if that were true for anyone, they’d be the ultimate market timers and have almost all the money in the world.
Under Keynesianism you do not have to know the future. Maybe I’ll go at this another way. I assume you drive a car or know people who do drive cars. But, how can they drive a car, when they don’t know the future? They don’t know whether that driver across the intersection is going to go straight or turn right into the path of their car.
How do they know? Well, there are these things that analysts have learned are leading indicators. If you monitor those signals you can predict (not know) the future. In driving you use those signals to figure out how to adjust your behavior. If the signal is the person is turning, then you stop! If the signal is the person is going straight, you go. In economics, you can monitor factory orders and other data to signal the direction of the economy. Of course it is not perfect, but perfect prediction is not necessary for useful adjustment.
I hope this transportational metaphor can take you from overstatement to understanding. It is a fine town, yet many vehemently refuse to enter.
IAT
Aladinsane beat all of you.
Under Keynesianism you do not have to know the future.
in order to make it succeed you do.
————
Maybe I’ll go at this another way. I assume you drive a car or know people who do drive cars. But, how can they drive a car, when they don’t know the future? They don’t know whether that driver across the intersection is going to go straight or turn right into the path of their car.
keynesians think you can drive the car by looking in the rearview mirror.
————-
How do they know? Well, there are these things that analysts have learned are leading indicators.
yes, and they work until the don’t. like the martingale betting system where you double your bet every time you lose until you win. the problem with that is you run out of all the money on earth at some point before you win. of course you win most of the time, but it isn’t enough to overcome the big losing streak when it happens. trading systems and indicators are like that. they work until they don’t.
if indicators worked, why aren’t many people getting rich with them? and if there was one in a million that got rich using them, it was just statical luck that was bound to happen for somebody.
no, your leading indicators don’t work. if you have such faith in them, why don’t you start using them yourself and get rich? and if you happen to be getting rich with them right now, just keep using them and i promise within 5 years you’ll be poor again.
——-
If you monitor those signals you can predict (not know) the future. In driving you use those signals to figure out how to adjust your behavior. If the signal is the person is turning, then you stop! If the signal is the person is going straight, you go. In economics, you can monitor factory orders and other data to signal the direction of the economy. Of course it is not perfect, but perfect prediction is not necessary for useful adjustment.
turn signals on a car signal what the driver intends to do. that’s much different than indicators on the economy. don’t you ever notice how often the talking heads are surprised on their tv shows when the economy isn’t doing what a certain indicator said it would do? their stumbling and bumbling and stammering are comical.
that’s right, they’re not perfect. and they’d have to be in order to make money with them. and useful adjustments aren’t so useful when you take a big loss when they’re wrong.
——–
I hope this transportational metaphor can take you from overstatement to understanding. It is a fine town, yet many vehemently refuse to enter.
the metaphor is as useless as the theory.
Ayn Rand was not a monetarist.
She was a good, popular writer but, I don’t care if she was a moron or a potential genius, the fact was, she was ignorant to the way her convoluted economic theories would manifest themselves in a world of human beings. (And all that entails)
Ayn Rand will go down in history as a minor failure in philosophy and economic theory.
With her cast of uber-people, she was actually a hopeless romantic.
Keynesianism does not exist in opposition to the robber barons, rather it is a much detested tool that they reluctantly drag out only after they’ve really effed things up - like now. (the Regulation Theory, the theory that big capital will do anything to survive - even act like progressives for a spell if need be)
This is about power and protecting the status quo, if a few crumbs find their way to the peeps, the pols will explain it to their masters as “collateral damage”.
You bought a time share -$25,000 payment and $1000 per year in maintenance costs.
You are thinking of buying a used car for $60,000.
You are complaining that you can’t afford to buy a house near the California coast.
I think you can.
Timeshares are the worst investment you can make.Stay away from them.They will keep raising the maintenance fee and destroying your value.My friend bought one in lake tahoe for 17k.He wanted out because the dues kept going up.Started out at 400.00 and then went up to 900.00.We had a hard time giving it away.Ended up selling it for 900.00 and we got very lucky.
I love my timeshare - when I have time to use them. I had two vacations in my timeshares and I thoroughly enjoyed them.
I would have bought it if it was not exchangeable for other resorts in the same system. I’m not referring to RCI. I would hate going to the same place over and over. I bought because I wanted to force myself to take vacations. Obviously I was not too successful in that since I require 40 hours of overtime per week of vacation!
Last fall on my vacation to Lake Tahoe we stayed at Harveys.While I was fly fishing on the E. Carson Riv my wife was gambling. She lost ALL her money. I made her go to a Time Share seminar. They gave her $100 after an hour of listning to their spiel. She then won $1000 on a machine playing Wheel of Fortune. I like Time Shares. hahahahahaha
“I bought because I wanted to force myself to take vacations. ”
Obviously you are not succeeding very well at that, since you tie your ability to take one to your overtime hours. So someone else really controls whether you can take a vacation when they authorize overtime.
The huge irony to me is that you are _paying_ for your vacation whether you use it or not.
Look at what you have spent in total on your timeshare. Now divide by two (the number of times you have used it). For that amount of money, I would bet that you could have stayed at almost any resort that you wished.
REhobbyist It’s a man thing? The car attracts the chicks. The time share brings the good times and the overpriced house in CA brings headaches with responsibilities. Please ladies remember men are simple creatures.
You go Bill
SU, you crack me up! Thanks for clarifying the male brain. You think I’d figure it out, since I’ve been married 32 years and have two sons. But I brainwashed them not to buy expensive cars. And refuse to buy a timeshare. We have sat through the sales pitches a couple of times - in Tahoe and Hawaii. They give you a cheap vacation at a nice hotel for a few days and in return you attend the sales meeting. The first time it was hard to resist the hard sell. The second time it was fun to play with them.
It just pains me to think that Bill pays all that money for a timeshare and has only used it twice. He might as well burn a couple of months’ paychecks.
I thought Oprah had a house in Santa Barbara. Hawaii too ??
Oprah has a house anywhere she wants…
Isn’t Santa Barbara next door to Hawaii? You just keep going west, correct?
Do they take US dollars in Hawaii?
No we use coconuts and shells as currency. Anybody have change for a humpback Cowrie?
got any of those coconut telephones I saw on Gilligan’s Island?
No we lost them a decade back. Now we use the state of the art, rotary dail telephones.
Sure- perhaps you can’t afford to live in the “good” parts of California, but you could likely afford the nicest parts of North Carolina, Texas, or just about anywhere else. Sure- the “nice” parts of Cali are noce… if you can deal with the huge amounts of people and overcrowding. As someone in my early 30’s making a pretty good income in North Cali my only plans are to save up for maybe another couple of years and move out of here to another state and buy for cash, probably landing a so-so job to pay utilities and contribute to the retirement fund. Sure- if I continue to work as I do I “Might” be able to afford to buy a nice(ish) house in and around work by the time I’m in my mid-40’s, and only then it would be a down payment. But why bother? Houses near Silicon Valley and other desirable areas in Norcal only fell 10-15%. The prices are still absurdly high… as in $700,000+ for what I’d call a boring suburban home. The housing crash that was supposed to drop prices to at least un-insane levels here didn’t happen. Thus I have no plans to stay since things are not getting better.But at lest I can buy a pretty decent place and live in a fairly comfortable area elsewhere in the country.
As far as paying $65,000 for a BMW, well that to me seems like a lot of money for something that might last as long as a $15,000 Corolla. Truth is that my 15 year old Toyota has 245,000 miles and the paint even looks shiny and new. Its just a vehicle to get me to work and that’s all. But then again- I guess an argument could also be made that if you spend a lot of time driving, you might as well have something nice so I suppose the cookie crumbles both ways.
Crash and Burn,
How is the foreign tourism? I don’t imagine the Japanese tourism is where it used to be but is it being replaced by other far east vacationers? Do the newly wealthy Chinese like Hawaii? There are certainly nice beaches much closer by. I could never understand why Hawaii became the place to go for Japan. Maybe it was the shopping?
I’ve only been to Hawaii once but I loved it. So relaxing and beautiful, and very safe, with the advantage of being in the good old USA. As soon as I’m done with my cancer treatment the whole family will go to Maui on Dec. 16.
A close relative lived in Hawaii for 4 years, so I have been twice. I love it, but the tourists who go in the big groups don’t get the same experience, I think.
Maui is great. I was there with my whole family less than a year after I finished paying off my student loans. After a long day, we had planned to have dinner at a place on the side of the road called Mama’s Fish Shack, or something like that. Couldn’t see the building, just the sign, but I think we all expected it to be like a lobster shack along a coastal road in Maine. Well, we got out and, oops, it was by far the fanciest restaurant that we had encountered with expenses to match. Now it was Hawaii, so it was clear that shorts, t-shirts and flip flops were fine, but my mother hesitated. She wasn’t mentally ready to drop that sort of money on one meal. So I jumped in and said something along the lines of, “This looks great. My treat.” I don’t think I had ever felt that grown up with my parents. We sat down and I immediately excused myself to the rest room so my mother could lecture my father and brother about not ordering the most expensive item on the menu (at least that is what I assume she did). Great meal. One of the best $200 I ever spent.
My wife and I went to the Big Island 3 years ago. Apparently the Big Island is a lot cheaper than the others like Maui and so on. We rented a car and stayed in cheap hotels. We stayed in Captain Cook which is right above Kona. It was a 90 year old hotel owned by a Japanese American family. $60 a night. No TV, which was fine by us. It also had a cafe downstairs. $10 for Mahi Mahi, rice, and seaweed with onions. I don’t know why but that rings out in my head as one of the best meals I’ve eaten. The beach was a short drive away.
VERY laid-back people there. They reminded me a lot of the Southerners I grew up with only they wern’t near as conservative.
Big Island is also great. Loved seeing the Nenes strolling around in Volcano National Park. Wikipedia says they evolved from Canada Geese. How interesting.
Hawaii has more endangered birds on seven island than the entire North American continent. Besides the nene we have the Pueo,or short eared owl, The Hawaiian hawk, The Alala or Hawaiian Crow. All like the nene evolved into a seperate sub species with isolation Hawaii provides. Not to mention all the islands have about 15 types of Honeycreepers apiece that evolved in the deep rainforest.
Hawaii has more endangered birds on seven island than the entire North American continent.
crates & snakes
Hobby,
I’ve got the 22nd marked in my calendar. Hang in there, hon. Almost done!
You are so kind, ahansen! I’m feisty today because my last infusion was 11 days ago. Two more - one this Friday and then the last one on the 22nd. Then I’ll start radiation, which I hear is much easier than chemo.
How are you doing? Are you still in Bakersfield?
Are you still in Bakersfield ??
I think she is up in the Tehachapi’s…
Hwy will know just in case she does not check back in…Hwy ??
Yep, but now I’m dealing with bears/mtn lions/bobcats/rattlersnakes chased out of burned territory! ;-(
I’ve only been to Hawaii once but I loved it. So relaxing and beautiful, and very safe, with the advantage of being in the good old USA.
Hawaii is a special place in the world.
Japaneese are down about 7 % this year. We are now pulling ornimentals fron Korea and China, they spend less but it almost is a wash.
The newly rich Chineese are rude and deserve cracks. Cheap, no tip bastards. Eastbounders are down a tad. Westbound visitors are up, Canadian visitors are way up.
Total visitor count was up 15% last year. Expect another 15% this year. Oahu is doing far better than neighbor islands. When RPAR starts to climb we will be cooking again.
Ah, so the poor impression I formed on my first encounter with a nouveau riche Chinese person is deserved? That’s too bad. On the bright side, maybe someday the Chinese travelers will eclipse Americans as the greatest embarrassments to their country.
I’ve been to Hawaii a dozen times but always on business as a defense contractor tech rep. Spent all my days in the bowels of a ship or in a concrete building with no windows.
Pineapple is almost dead. ;-( Dang…
“Pineapple is almost dead. ;-( Dang”
As an old pineapple picker, who picked for Dole during the H.S. summers of my sophomore and junior years (a former Air Force brat, who lived in Wahiawa), I am saddened to hear that the pineapple is almost dead. Ah, the memories, wearing long-sleeve work shirts and goggles in Hawaii’s summer days, etc. But the money kept my car gassed up (and my girlfriend fed).
But the money kept my car gassed up (and my girlfriend fed).
So, why is pineapple almost dead? clue us in here.
A pineapple plant takes a year to grow and produces one fruit a year. next year a smaller fruit grows. Too small to can.
It is planted and picked by hand. Labor intensive. Cheaper to grow in the Philipenes or Thailand. Domestic canned pineapple is dead. Now it’s strictly fresh fruit.
Labor intensive
Hey “TrueHaskell™”, who are peach pickers in Georgia?
My first real job too. At 15 they were the only game in town. We used to have almost 15,000 acres in pineapple. Then 9000…now 1500…just for the local market.
ML&P made some stupid decisions the last few years. Shutting down their two hotels for three years to renovete Translation, tear down and rebuild, in 2005 did not work out well for them at all.
RPAR??
CFB?
RPAR = Revenue Per Available Room
CFB = Central Pacific Bank. We built the bank building and own the land under it. We also have been worried that they will go tits up. We have a year left on the construction loan. In a year they start paying us rent. Then it turns into a gravy situation.
Hope it works out.
Thanks for the interesting and excellent news from Hawaii.
http://realestate.syracuse.com/?classification=real+estate&temp_type=detail&tp=RE_syr&property=syracuse.com&finder=buy&ad_id=406287430
Glad carpeting is relatively easy to replace…..
in your 1/2 a million dollar property with taxes of $12789.
You don’t like teal?
“Glad carpeting is relatively easy to replace…”
Yes, but removing all that wallpaper won’t be much fun.
Still, that house would be asking $800K - $900K around here.
Yes but are they paying almost $13k a year in taxes?
“Still, that house would be asking $800K - $900K around here.”
: )
“Yes but are they paying almost $13k a year in taxes?”
More like $18,000, actually. Which is why I still rent.
Lot Dimensions: 247×234
Subdivision: GOLDEN ACRES
1 acre = 43,560 square feet
Deceptivecreative advertising at work.247 x 234 equals 57,798 square feet, or about 1.3 acres.
1.3 acres
…not quite x2 Golden acres makes it Plural, your accurate, my mistake…
when you have .7 acres it is still “acres” and not “acre” just depends on if you say “seven tenths of an acre” or “point seven acres”
Out West, Hwy is prone to consider this ACRES:
650 AC PRIME INVESTMENT, PRISTINE LAND W/CREEK. CASH
RECREATION AREA, ROAD. 2 MILES TO HWY. SURVEYED/STAKED
Price: US $198,000.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/650-AC-PRIME-INVESTMENT-PRISTINE-LAND-W-CREEK-CASH-/110579020233?pt=Land&hash=item19bf05f1c9
It’s a day of firsts: first time I ever saw land for sale on ebay.
Elanor, with a house:
http://www.horseclicks.com/properties/jjxnjl/
the listing agent is the one who sold my Fulton house. I think she may have a different last name now, but I’m not positive.
Looks like the developers are still trying to push $840K+ “starter homes” in Marin county….
Both Kyle Frazier, the Pacific Union International agent who is handling sales in the development, and Gary Pike of Pike & Co. , a public-relations firm hired by Barker to market the project, agreed that a selling point is that this type of home is a rarity in the area and praised the developer’s flexibility when it comes to the finishes of the properties.
“It’s tough in this day and age that you can find a developer who will give you this much of a say into what goes into the home for under $1 million,” Pike said. Homes in The Landing at Hamilton are priced from $840,000 to $925,000. “There’s a lot of flexibility with these models.”
The four different floor plans range from three to five bedrooms and 2.5 to three baths and span from 2,432 to 3,073 square feet. Each house comes with 10-foot ceilings, and kitchens feature stainless steel appliances, granite countertops and designer cabinetry. There will also be dual-glazed windows and laundry rooms with sinks in each home.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/03/RE6E1FMIDB.DTL
The Chronicle website has been making money by putting overpriced property on their “front page”. Awhile ago it was someplace on a semi-busy street in Redwood City. The wife really liked it because it looked nice and clean inside, all refurb’d and stuff. I pulled up zillow and showed her how the owners had been chasing the market down with periodic price reductions of $50 K or so, and yet still without a sale. That sobered her up.
But please, those aren’t advertisements: those are feature stories!
I work near these houses. The ground they sit on (former air force base) was filled with strange orange sludge that they pumped out into the “restored” wetlands for months on end. I don’t know the composition of it, but I have assume not good since they went to such lengths to remove it.
Is that supposed to be build a mental barrier not to ditch your mega-bank?
Link:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Living-without-a-bank-Fees-apf-3594996651.html
Note the ‘related quotes: BAC.
I guess you just can’t do it without your ‘friendly neighborhood banker’.
Funny article. Proves it takes longer than a month to learn to live in a strange environment. For starters, it is cheaper to get a postal money order than Western Union. Normal folks can cash their checks where they buy their groceries (arond here anyway) and most places still accept cash as payment for purchases.
On an odd note, a friend’s daughter was refused the privelage of opening a bank account because she had a bankruptcy on her record. This is a small town. Do Metro banks do the same thing?
Grocery stores do not cash every check. If the check issuer is not on their list, you aren’t getting that check cashed.
Yes, many banks, especially the large ones, will not let you open an account with poor credit. They can’t nickel and dime you to death with fees if you don’t the money.
Unless you are some big commercial entity or wealthy and need the services of a larger bank, you are much better off with the smaller banks or credit unions.
Don’t those prepaid cards have major credit card logos on them?
Sounds like they figured out another way to raise cash off the unsophisticated.
For others, literally handling their own money offers a sense of control at a time of financial anxiety.
You don’t need to go to the check-cashing place for that. Just get your paycheck direct-deposited. Then, every month (or week), go into the bank or to the ATM and withdraw a wad of cash-money. Spend only the cash-money you have. When I started using the farmers’ market consistently and needed cash for that, I converted my lifestyle to cash-only. If I saw something I wanted, I had to ask, Do I want to go to the ATM to buy this? It was AMAZING how little money I spent.
Please stop it oxide, you are making sense.
The premise of the article itself is a bit flawed. The reporter is trying to live a cash-only lifestyle, but her normal life is too plugged into the system for cash-only. Someone who depends on the check-cashing place lives in the underground economy where coin is the coin of the realm, so to speak. Cash-livers probably do pay their rent in cash (to a roommate or a private slumlord), and would limit hotel stays to old motels which take cash. They would have no real need for a pre-pay card either except maybe to buy minutes for the phone. Utilities can be paid in cash at the HQ or the grocery store. The underground economy is alive and well.
That’s pretty much how I operate, oxide. The other reason is that even with a debit card, the purchase may take days to clear. So even your “instant online” account statement isn’t really so, well… instant. (which is another bullcrap game they are playing)
It doesn’t get any more “instant” than cash.
This morning’s lament. I got up early and was ruminating over a discussion I had on the weekend. An acquaintance of mine is retiring early. He’s got his 30 years in with the County. He’s about my age, 55.
Because he has his full 30 years, I believe he gets his “full retirement”. With a given life expectancy of about 80 years and rising, my County Government can expect to pay out about as much over the next 25 years for a benefits program as this person received during their “working years.”
This has become common throughout the United States and other so-called developed nations and is just beginning to make balance sheets of Cities/Counties/States go into the Red zone. The reason, of course, is that these are “defined benefit programs”, as opposed to what many of us now have, IRA’s and 401k’s and SEP’s. If the market goes nowhere, our benefits go nowhere. IF the market goes down, our “retirement” goes up in smoke.
I am still looking to find a replacement job for my last one. I can’t “retire” because I didn’t have a government job. I’ve had to work numerous jobs over the past 30 years, but none came with a retirement plan.
Why this struck me as so upsetting was the news in the local paper that the City of Largo here is having discussions about the sustainability of their pension plans for Firefighters and Policemen. They are like most other government plans, loaded with benefits, including COLA’s, even when the COL was zero. The plan is going into the RED. The taxpayers will need to pick up the tab if there is a shortfall, which it looks like there will be. The Administrators say they don’t see a problem with their 8% annual growth in money, because they are looking at the “long term”. It seems from my reading that most “plans” have an 8% estimated “Growth” as a “conservative” estimate of their ability to pay out the promised benefits. This is how professional accountants and money managers think.
So, let’s look at that. It has been 10 years since the 2000 market collapse began. My 401k has essentially done not much of anything, as I moved most of my money to Money Market (less than 1%) to avoid the crash. In the past year, I have been in Bonds, Cash and about 15% in the plan’s Mutual Funds. I am up about 4% YTD. Most of the Mutual funds are showing a 2 to 4 % LOSS YTD. I was glad to stay out.
However, I hear daily that the market is up 70% since the March 2009 low. That assumes that you got in at the low and stayed in the DOW/NAsdaq. I think most FUNDS did much worse. I think lucky to be 50% up from the downfall.
So, from 2000 to today, most funds have made nothing, unless actively traded to avoid the losses. Mutual Funds don’t do that.
The GOVERNMENT pension plans all expect an 8% return on investments year after year. I assume most did similar to the last 10 years we experienced, which is not an 80% (more like 90 % compounded) return, but basically zero. I think I see a problem here.
While government employees get guaranteed benefits because they can tax our earnings, the rest of us in the “private sector” will get to pay for their losses. I am still looking to find a new job so I can pay my taxes to support this other man’s retirement. Just like Social Security, the amount that was paid in, vs. the “entitlement” just doesn’t add up. The shortfall will go to me and others like me that have already seen no growth in their retirement accounts in 10 years. But, I guess I shouldn’t be worried. Most investment advisors tell me to look at the Long-term.
The markets will recover. Blah, Blah, Blah. I’m 55. I don’t have a long term. My friend just retired. His income is guaranteed by me and the other taxpayers. This is common throughout the US of A.
Our plans are dead. Bernanke hopes to inflate his way to prosperity.
Is it possible for the rest of us to keep the government solvent?
I don’t think it is possible. A number of other cities have filed bankruptcy to avoid the pension payouts. I think more will happen before this is financial crises is over. The benefit plans are just too generous. How can someone retire at 50 to 55? Who will pay the bills?
I know some governments are trying to change this by making the benefits about half of what they are for early retirement, and/or making no payments until 62 or 65. But there are already Millions of government employees slated to take their early retirement benefits, without the ability of the local government to pay the bills (the Federal workers will just get printed money).
With all this money headed for removal from the hands of working people, how can we possibly have a recovery in the economy, and especially housing? We need to downsize and cut back. I think this will take a much longer time to sort out than forecast.
Have a good morning. D.
most “plans” have an 8% estimated “Growth” as a “conservative” estimate
haha, I remember that…8% for sure..LOL!
My 401k still says 8% is a conservative expected rate of return.
I’d be of the mind to say that anything north of 5% is the exception, rather than the rule. Personally, I’d expect an ROI of 3-4%.
I’m laughing so hard. True story. I was at my government teaching job getting the standard retirement lecture, 8% return, blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t resist. I had to ask. “How much per month would I have to save at -5% return (as that was the actual return). Somehow, no one was amused.
Maybe they will nationalize our 401Ks to pay your civil servant friend’s defined benefits.
They/gubermint will steal/confiscate all private retirements accounts for the “greater good”. This can happen in various flavors:
1. outright confiscation..unlikely
2. a solidarity tax of 30% levied upon withdrawls of funds.
3. witholding of regular social security benefits until all private funds are exhausted (most likely).
4. some other scheme to steal people’s savings, inflation comes to mind.
I am contributing the minimum amount to get employer’s match (me 5% + them 10% = 15%). Everything else is most likely a waste of money. I will pull out every cent asap but right now I can’t get a cent out of the plan. It is firmly under employer and governmant control. Supposedly when I am 59.5 I can get to it, but by then the rules will likely have changed.
me 5% + them 10% = 15%).
your employer matches 10% of your salary ??
I’ve never had a plan match more than 3% and that is if I put in 6% or more
I get no match now.
and government workers get even better benefits its crazy another reason its so expensive in CA state workers are really paid well and welfare is generous enough that recipients can spend their benefits on Vacation in Hawaii and Las Vegas
to early and I’m getting to old to even get mad about this any more the system’s rigged and it will be hard to fix it.
Three trial balloons have already been floated
by the gov about taking 401’s etc. The play is to then pay you an annuity when you retire scaled to the size of your former account.
Sounds just like SS, only better….
Sounds like a load of SS to me.
I hear they’re coming in black helicopters to take our firstborns.
Little truth in every joke, Blue.
Or you could move and let the local government default.
‘I can’t “retire” because I didn’t have a government job.’
The corporate world screwed you and millions of your fellow workers by conning you into believing that a 401k was better than those stodgy old defined benefit pensions, so you respond by ragging on gubbermit workers and their “cushy” retirement programs.
Funny, during the boom times many people liked to scoff at government workers for passing up more lucrative positions in the private sector. Now it’s all envy and resentment toward civil servants rather than the corporate elite who screwed you.
It will be interesting to see what the bankruptcy judge will have to say about lavish government pensions.
Hmm…what will a gov worker who gets a lavish pension say??
Read it again folks…. (George… this belongs in the HBB Hall of Fame)
The corporate world screwed you and millions of your fellow workers by conning you into believing that a 401k was better than those stodgy old defined benefit pensions, so you respond by ragging on gubbermit workers and their “cushy” retirement programs.
Funny, during the boom times many people liked to scoff at government workers for passing up more lucrative positions in the private sector. Now it’s all envy and resentment toward civil servants rather than the corporate elite who screwed you.
+1,000. No, make that +infinity.
Question: I work for a company with about 200 employees. Would an employer of that size have a defined benefit plan back in the day? I went to work there when it was a startup, and thought we were lucky to get the 401k years later, because it added more tax shelter to the $2000 IRA limit available at the time.
I thought defined benefit pensions were offered by much larger companies, like IBM or Boeing or Pac Tel (which half of my family worked for and retired from).
I thought defined benefit pensions were offered by much larger companies, like IBM or Boeing or Pac Tel (which half of my family worked for and retired from).
ISTR the same thing.
BTW, my dad worked for one of his four employers for 10 years. For such good and faithful service, he gets a defined benefit pension of around $200 a month.
IBM discontinued its pension plan 10 years ago. HP followed suit shortly after.
“IBM discontinued its pension plan 10 years ago.”
And thats because “lots of people wanted 401k instead of pensions” according to packman…. lmao.
Umm… no, I never said that. It may be true - I don’t know. But I never said that. Don’t put words in my mouth.
You said it.
—————————————————————
Comment by packman 2010-10-05 08:43:14 That’s my take too.
Contrary to oxide’s view - lots of people wanted 401k instead of pensions because they saw exactly what we have going on now coming - extreme pension underfunding - and realized that pension benefits weren’t such a sure thing after all.
You said it.
ChartBoy can’t help here…
“ChartBoy can’t help here…”
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa!!!!!
I have Hwy hidden, so don’t even see his posts to respond to - no do I give a rats ***. You know - the saying about wrestling with pigs.
Why hide from Hwy50ina49Dodge? We got RunJoeyRun running and you hiding…. good grief.
You know - the saying about wrestling with pigs.
They might know more?
Say it George.
“…rather than the corporate elite who screwed you”
They’re “PROFESSIONALS” & “ETHICAL”,…can’t happen,… inconceivable!
401(k)s were created for a number of reasons:
1) Corporations didn’t want to have to take on the risk of the market going kaboom leaving average returns flat if you look at a long time frame. Looks like it was a good choice for them.
2) To make people who are dependent on wages for their income think more like people who get their income from ownership. This is part of the ownership society propaganda. You can’t *see* the income from your pension. You are just earning it, little by little. It doesn’t make you feel rich because you don’t see that you have $200K, $300K $500K in the account, though it may make you feel safe. And there are no formal programs for borrowing against it (which there really shouldn’t be for something that you need for your retirement).
But here is the problem. People who are not rich need to behave differently than people who aren’t. If you have more than enough money to live whatever lifestyle you want for your entire life and then some, then ownership is better for you. You have enough even if you make it to 105 or more. If you die earlier, your heirs get a bit more. If you die later, they get a bit less. For the truely wealthy, not a big deal.
However, the less rich/not rich are in a different situation. Without annuity income to fall back on, they have to save way more, on average than they otherwise would. Everyone has to plan to make it to 105 or risk running out of money. When, in reality, most people don’t make it anywhere near that age. With an annuity income, they could live life and not worry so much about running out. The shared risk of a pension means that less has to be saved overall because we know that not everyone lives to be ultra old. Yes, their kids inherit less since the money runs out promptly when mom and dad do, but the kids also don’t have the risk of taking care of mom and dad financially when the money runs out.
The same thing applies to health insurance. Without it, everyone has to save up in case they have one or more major medical emergencies. With it, only the people who actually have the huge medical problems get the pay out, but the rest of us don’t have to put aside a $250K slush fund in case we get cancer.
The fact that private companies decided to abandon the benefits of shared risk, just because they could get away with it, is not the fault of the workers who decided to work in a place where they still get to enjoy its benefits.
And, as I always say, if you think the details of the benefits (allowed retirement age, number of years you have to work to get full benefits, inclusion of overtime in calculation of lifetime benefits, etc.) are unfair, blame the state and local politicians that agreed to the contracts. They were too scared of a strike to stand up for the future taxpayers. Next time, hire a politician with a brass pair (metaphorical, women can have ‘em too). Ronald Reagan did this with the federal employees and now federal pensions max out at 40% of top pay and overtime is NOT included (for people hired around 1985 and later). And to get that much you have to work for 40 solid years. We also get to participate in a fairly boring 401(k) program with really low expenses because they didn’t turn it over to an investment house.
The CA legislature and Arnold finally agreed on a budget this past week that cuts the deficit. Not only are they agreeing on retirement cuts for new state hires, but are hinting at the need for cutting the benefits of current retirees. This is absolutely necessary in California, where state, county and city governments competed in 1999-2000 to create unsustainable pensions based on the tech bubble.
The state court validated Arnold’s 2009-2010 furloughs (they stated that the legislature “ratified” the furloughs by including the savings in the budget), but gave the power to the legislature to impose 2010-2011 furloughs. It will be very interesting to see if the Democratic legislature continues furloughs. The police, fire, prison guard, and state worker unions are assuming that the legislature will stop them,and will be very angry if they don’t. I’m not so sure what they’ll do, since most California voters do not work for the state and would be very angry if furloughs weren’t continued. Arnold scheduled October furloughs, and the legislature has to decide before the election. Stay tuned.
I guess we’ll find out soon who has more pull with the legislature……taxpayers of state employees.
The trick is for the legislature to get the pension bailouts funded under the radar. The will be impossible to do. State and muni pensions will eventually all be toast.
“The fact that private companies decided to abandon the benefits of shared risk, just because they could get away with it”
Yep… sacrifice employee security and well being for short term profit and executive bonuses every time.
Give some thought to how many private sector workers are “allowed” to work for the same employer long enough to be vested in a defined-contribution pension that offers a worthwhile amount of benefits? Or become vested in the employers matching contributions to a 401K?
Think about how many times you (or someone you know) has been laid off or changed jobs so the clock resets on benefits (401k employer match, etc.).
Not saying there aren’t some issues with public sector pensions, but the deal corporations is a different topic that should be thought about in its own right.
Being jealous and angry at govt. workers is a distraction when assessing how the middle class has been scr@wed.
401k’s were an IRS mistake in the tax code.
Huh?
If I remember correctly, 401K’s were originally intended for executives to defer income but some wall streeters realized that the rules could be used otherwise and corporations jumped on the band wagon because it saved them money.
The stuff for executives (or rather for highly compensated employees) are “non-qualified” plans for deferring compensation. They are totally different than 401(k)s.
“The 401(k) plan–named for a section of the Internal Revenue Code–came about thanks to a 1978 congressional provision intended to offer taxpayers breaks on deferred income. In 1980, while trying to streamline a client’s profit-sharing plan, benefits consultant Ted Benna realized that the code could be used to create an easy, tax-friendly vehicle for employees to save for retirement. The client passed, but the idea took off: there are now more than 65 million 401(k) accounts, which allow participants to invest in stocks and bonds, often with matching funds from employers–all at a lower cost than the pension plans that 401(k)s replaced. The accounts helped spark a financial-industry boom, funneling billions from under retirement savers’ mattresses into mutual funds and the stock market.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1851124,00.html#ixzz11VXndGKQ
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1851124,00.html
You’re right, it wasn’t just executives… however, it was exploited to wall street’s benefit and contributed to the demise of the defined benefit pension.
“The 401(k) plan–named for a section of the Internal Revenue Code–came about thanks to a 1978 congressional provision intended to offer taxpayers breaks on deferred income. In 1980, while trying to streamline a client’s profit-sharing plan, benefits consultant Ted Benna realized that the code could be used to create an easy, tax-friendly vehicle for employees to save for retirement. The client passed, but the idea took off: there are now more than 65 million 401(k) accounts, which allow participants to invest in stocks and bonds, often with matching funds from employers–all at a lower cost than the pension plans that 401(k)s replaced. The accounts helped spark a financial-industry boom, funneling billions from under retirement savers’ mattresses into mutual funds and the stock market.”
Source: Time magazine “A brief history of the 401k”
(Sorry if double post, tried include link…)
Still doesn’t make it an “IRS mistake in the tax code.” If it got larger than most people thought it would get, well, unintended consequences are different than mistakes. And the executive branch agencies don’t write the laws. The people’s elected representatives in Congress do.
And there are separate deferred compensation plans for highly compensated individuals. I think I might even have been eligible for it at my last private sector job.
My point is the unintended consequences of 401K’s have had a large impact on the future well being of the middle classes and put a lot of money in the hands of wall street that they might never have gotten to play with otherwise.
To me, some guy realizing something about the potential of an item in the tax code - a couple of years after it was written - and figuring out how to exploit it is in some ways similar to all those “innovators” who developed all the financial instruments that contributed to our current mess and allowed the shifting a lot of the risks from the initiators to others.
YES: “The fact that private companies decided to abandon the benefits of shared risk, just because they could get away with it, is not the fault of the workers who decided to work in a place where they still get to enjoy its benefits.”
SHARED RISKS really does boil down to a moral question (and therefore a political one) that has been a philosophical topic of debate since Socrates: the nature of the social contract.
Actually, that’s all BS on your part. None of us thought 401k’s were better than defined pension benefits. It’s just what we had available. The Corporate world was ending the pensions because they were financially unable to make them work.
I didn’t stay in the corporate world as a matter of choice. I applied since graduation from college for numerous jobs in various government sectors. I am a white male. All of the jobs went to other applicants, typically non-white, non-male. I would have gladly taken a State or County job. It just didn’t work out that way.
My point to the post is that the Government jobs during this 20 to 30 year period kept adding benefits for which they could not pay. In the REAL WORLD, when you can’t make the payments, you take CUTS. In the government world, you pass the losses onto the other people working in the real world. Based on your comments, I assume you got your government pension and screw the rest of us.
It wasn’t like any of us had a CHOICE between a defined benefit plan and a 401K. The 401K was being pushed on everyone to make up for the reductions or eliminations of the defined benefit plan.
Unionized labor managed to hold onto their defined-benefit packages while the newly rising technical class (engineers, programmers, IT types) fancied themselves to be professionals and tried to imitate the executive class. Sorry, but all you techies are in fact blue collar. And yes, you DID have a choice — you could have formed a union.
Numerous times during the ’80s and ’90s I had colleagues tell me that they preferred a 401k over a defined-benefit retirement package because they felt like they would do a better job of “managing” those assets themselves, although “managing” meant little more than choosing among an offering of managed funds. Techies are especially prone to overestimate their skills as investors — to many fancy themselves to be financial wizards. The only advantage of a 401k that I could see is a certain degree of portability, although vesting requirements mean that those who are forced to frequently change employers often lose their matching contributions.
The fact is, we are in the midst of a class war and too many just haven’t figured out which side they are on.
“And yes, you DID have a choice — you could have formed a union”.
Hey George, I just said that.
“The fact is, we are in the midst of a class war and too many just haven’t figured out which side they are on.”
Yes they have and they think because they make upper 5 to 6 figures, the rich will treat them as equals… instead of the cannon fodder they really are.
The fact is, we are in the midst of a class war and too many just haven’t figured out which side they are on….Sorry, but all you techies are in fact blue collar. And yes, you DID have a choice — you could have formed a union.
Damn, that’s the best post I’ve read in a long time…
Read that again everyone….
“The Corporate world was ending the pensions because they were financially unable to make them work.”
And that is BS on your part.
I had an accounting prof in biz school who ranted that defined benefit pension plans should be illegal as they were harzardous to a firm’s financial health.
“None of us thought 401k’s were better than defined pension benefits. It’s just what we had available”
Yes, but if a union was forming in your place of business, how likely were you to be a part of it?
Just what we had available is the passive, “yes, master” approach to employment.
The Corporate world was ending the pensions because they were financially unable to make them work.
“unable to make them work” Interesting. Other capitalistic countries made “them work.” We’ve been had. That includes you.
I am a white male.
From all your posts, I thought you were a black female.
believing that a 401k was better than those stodgy old defined benefit pensions
I don’t think the corporations sold 401K as being “better” or pensions as “stodgy.” I dinstinctly remember coporate and Reagan types proclaiming — loudly — that pensions were “the company/gov Taking Your Money,” while with a 401K, “You Have Control Over Your Money…wouldn’t you rather Take Your Chances With Your Own Money than Have To Give It Up To the GODLESS SOCIALIST NANNY STATE??? Like the Evil Russkies?”
Today I hear the same arguments about Social Security: “wouldn’t you rather have that money now to invest your own way, instead of giving it up to the nanny state?”
I’m quite sure if I give it to the state (read: have it taken from me by threat of force), I’ll never see a dime. As terrible as I am at investing, I at least would stand a chance of retaining some of it.
That’s my take too.
Contrary to oxide’s view - lots of people wanted 401k instead of pensions because they saw exactly what we have going on now coming - extreme pension underfunding - and realized that pension benefits weren’t such a sure thing after all.
” I’ll never see a dime”
Why do people keep saying that? The most likely outcome will be discounted benefits, which definitley stinks. But not a dime? Are they going to abolish the payroll tax?
Oh we’ll keep paying all the taxes, we just won’t get anything back. If we do, it’ll be out of somebody else’s 401k.
Hyperbole, I know, but I think planning based on this assumption is prudent. A 401k is just another way get your money into the government’s sticky fingers. They’ll inflate it away if they don’t outright grab it.
lots of people wanted 401k instead of pensions because they saw exactly what we have going on now coming - extreme pension underfunding - and realized that pension benefits weren’t such a sure thing after all.
Partially yes, but……(like they “knew” this), A big part of pensions being “underfunded” was because USA abandoned it’s industries.
That is the key and the main point.
“Like the Evil Russkies?”
:rolleyes:
just ;roll;
Hmmm… looks like their strategy of painting government as evil worked!!!
Funny, during the boom times many people liked to scoff at government workers for passing up more lucrative positions in the private sector. Now it’s all envy and resentment toward civil servants rather than the corporate elite who screwed you.”
And yes we always envy the ones in our peer group werid how we don’t seem to get mad at the overlords ?? I think some people in power use this to distract from the real problem. doesn’t it seem like there is more and more anger towards welfare and government workers now?/ deflect anger away from Banks ??
I predict this anger will grow with the help of the media and generous pay and retirement plans will get modified. this will help deflect some of the anger of a lower standard of living for most americans.
+1000 for cactus post
Exactly cactus. Are they really this dumb or paid shills? Or both?
Jeez… Cactus and George Salt are hitting home runs.
Stay on ‘em on my brothers.
Now it’s all envy and resentment toward civil servants rather than the corporate elite who screwed you.”
Amen. We Americans are as dumb as dirt.
We are brain-dead sheep. Enjoy and let those control us.
‘I can’t “retire” because I didn’t have a government job.’
Could easily be, “I can’t retire because I didn’t have a union job”.
How’s that union bashing going for y’all, huh? It’s all too obvious: union jobs and government jobs provide for a reasonable retirement (the “get rich” gov’t retirees are the exception), something that the provide sector has not been able to offer.
If I can’t retire with a pension, then phooey on you, I don’t want you to have one too. Let’s ALL eat cat food in our old age.
There’s a big pie out there, but letting the little guys fight over the scraps keeps the man behind the curtain hidden and wealthy.
The best move for a union shop is to close its doors and move to China. Job banks? Work rules? Protection money? I sure wouldn’t put up with that crap at *my* company. What year is this anyway? Try to unionize my shop, and those jobs will disappear.
The old Chinese boogieman.
I know a few people who deal with Chinese outsourcing. It’s hit and miss at best. If you aren’t Fortune 500, good luck and have at it.
Also, if you can’t pay people a decent wage then you really shouldn’t even hire people. Besides, if they can’t afford your product, where does that leave you.
Remember, we are 75% consumer driven economy. Recent events much?
he corporate world screwed you and millions of your fellow workers by conning you into believing that a 401k was better than those stodgy old defined benefit pensions,
And those SOB’s will try it with Social Security. It’s all a dirty lie.
Have a good morning. D.
I hope you find a job soon. Being unemployed sucks.
Diogenes, how are you living if you have no return on your money? Unemployment?
What is your field? Maybe it’s time to move out of Florida. Maybe Hawaii, where unemployment is low!
REhobbyist, thanks for your thoughts and reassurance yesterday. I feel a lot better!
I’m glad, Slim.
By the way, I think that you and I were at UM at the same time. I started in 1973 and graduated with BA in 1976, MS in 1977. My husband attended from 1970-1978. I worked at Weber’s Inn as a waitress those four years.
You were pre-med at Michigan during the seventies? Wow. Just wow.
The reason I say that is because the pre-meddies I knew were such greedheads that the b-school students could have taken lessons from them.
They were also some of the most un-compassionate people I’ve ever met. I made a mental note to never deal with any doctor who was a U-M premed when I was there.
Well, looks like I’m going to have to revoke that mental note, because of you. In just a brief encounter yesterday, you did more to reassure me, a health worrywart/doctorphobe, than I don’t know what.
Thank you again!
No, I wasn’t premed! I thought the pre-meds were a bunch of jerks. I married and moved to CA for a UCSB PhD program in 1978. Halfway through my PhD I decided to go to medical school, so took the prerequisites at UCSB while I was finishing my PhD classwork. I loved the UCSB pre-med students - very low key and fun. We used to take turns keeping an eye on the organic lab experiments while the whole class including the TA would go to the UCen for burritos. At Michigan, you had to sit and guard your chemistry experiment so that a pre-med wouldn’t sabotage it.
I don’t know if things have changed at Michigan. My niece just started her sophomore year, and is pre-med. I guess I’ll find out from her!
At Michigan, you had to sit and guard your chemistry experiment so that a pre-med wouldn’t sabotage it.
That’s exactly the kind of behavior that I remember! And, sad to say, if you met a U-M pre-med who was a nice person, you’d keep a careful eye on him/her so that you’d be ready when the real (nasty) character would break through.
BTW, I’ll be in Ann Arbor for Homecoming next week. If you want me to check on your daughter and verify that she’s still as nice as you are, just ask!
This is exactly why I got as many pre-med requirements out of the way at a community college as I could.
REHobbyist, you and I were at UM at the same time. I graduated with a B.S. (and how, haha!) in 1976. The only pre-med courses I took there were Biochem (Keller plan, argh) and Physics.
Weber’s Inn, now that brings back memories!
REHobbyist, you and I were at UM at the same time. I graduated with a B.S. (and how, haha!) in 1976. The only pre-med courses I took there were Biochem (Keller plan, argh) and Physics.
Looks like the three of us were in Ann Arbor at the same time. Either one of you going to Homecoming next week?
Very happy memories for me. I loved Michigan. I try to go back every summer to see old friends. I fly my niece and nephew to California at least once a year - they love the weather.
Where did you go to medical school, Elanor? You live in Washington, right?
Slim, have fun at homecoming. This weekend is UM vs MSU. Both are undefeated. Should be good.
Slim, have fun at homecoming. This weekend is UM vs MSU. Both are undefeated. Should be good.
U-M vs. MSU will be this weekend. The Homecoming game will be vs. Iowa, which recently got beat by, of all teams, the University of Arizona.
The fact that the UA has a good team made the last KXCI pledge drive a lot harder than it has been in the past. Usually, Saturday afternoons and evenings are prime time for pledge calls.
But not this year. Phones were practically growing cobwebs. Especially during the UA-Iowa game.
REH, I went to UM for med school, and spent a total of seven years in A2, including summers, 1974-1981. Summer was the best time of the year to live there! No crowds, except during the Art Fair, which was in its infancy at that time. I now live north of Chicago. Haven’t been back to A2 in at least ten years. It had changed a lot, even then. But I still have very fond memories of the place. Not their med school, but the town and the university. It was gut-wrenching to leave it and move on to the big city. I think I’m finally over it.
I am a professional engineer who specialized in Structural Design. I hold licenses in 10 States. I also have a Real Estate Broker’s license which I just renewed here in Florida. There seem to be lots of foreclosures to move. Most of my working life has been involved with construction, either design or field surveying/layout/installation for large projects. Construction is mostly dead.
I got my initial 26 weeks of unemployment beginning in Nov. 2009 and ending in May of this year. I got an extension voted on in June and started in August. It will run out in about a month. I own a house here in Florida that I built 12 years ago. I paid off everything I own 10 years ago. My largest expenses are INSURANCE (med and cars and house) and GAS. I am considering eliminating the insurance except car.
I have 100k savings that was to be used for another house, since mine was destroyed by City bureaucrats 10 years ago, putting a concrete crushing plant next door to my residence for the purpose of enriching a sleazebag operator. That’s another long story. When the benefits end next month, I will begin bleeding down my savings account.
I had a job interview last week. Their primary work is Civil/Site planning, which I haven’t done for 20 years. It doesn’t look like a good match and is 50 miles from home. I expect to call them back later today or tomorrow to see about a second interview.
I estimate I can go 4 to 5 years without income by depleting my savings. But then I am stuck living in bad circumstances. (I have been planning to move for 7 years, when the housing boom hit).
Then I will be 591/2 and can begin depleting my 401k, until I am 62, when I can start claiming SS. (maybe).
Without additional income I will start a slow bleed to poverty, but I am not homeless, nor am i without hope.
You have been sounding miserable for a long time, Dio. I wonder if it’s Florida - no end to the problems there. And you’re tied to Tampa because of your house. I think you should sell that stupid house for whatever you can get for it and look for a job somewhere else. Apply for the perfect job in another state, maybe a place where you have loved ones. You might be a new man!
I’m kind in the same boat. Except I don’t have a house to sell.
No point in moving, when the few jobs in my field that are available are 1500 miles away, and start at around $15/hour. So I commute 70 miles each way, on days when there is work available, and hope I don’t have a major medical issue (haven’t had health insurance for over a year).
If you are a pilot or a wrench, over 40, and find yourself unemployed, you have joined the field of “Independent Contractor”, whether you want to be or not. I’m either busier than hell, or doing nothing. Kinda hard to commit to anything, when you aren’t sure that you will get a paycheck next month.
This “people don’t have the needed skills” BS is exactly that, BS; there are plenty of skilled people out there. The problem is that
won’t/can’t afford to work for $15/hour. And if I eventually am forced to take a job for $15/hour, all I’m going to do is bump that 30 year old guy with three kids out of a job.
In this “recession” you are either relatively unaffected, or your industry is in a depression. Business in General Aviation in any way you measure it……aircraft sales, maintenance, fuel…..is down 40% or more compared to 2007, and is recovering at a very slow rate.
One end of the business is doing okay……the high end airplanes that have the range to fly from the US/Europe to China. Which is why I’m contemplating a move, perhaps permanantly.
Florida is not the problem. Living next to a government-sponsored nuisance is. I put $70,000 in materials, aside from land costs and 2 years of my life building this house (1998 dollars), only to have it wrecked by government bureaucrats.
I have elderly parents here in Tampa who need my assistance, now more than before. I also have a brother and sister and extended families within 50 miles.
I awaken to the sound of trucks dumping concrete debris onto huge piles. Then front-end loaders spend the rest of the morning moving it around into bigger piles. Then other impact drivers break it up into smaller pieces before sending off to the crushers to break it up into smaller pieces for sale. The City of Tampa and Hillsborough County both dump here. This also creates a lot of dust which drifts over to my house and gets on and in everything i own.
I am a light sleeper, though i have sleep problems.
So, yes, I am unhappy with what has happened to my home thanks to Tampa City Council. John Dingfelder, in particular.
The solution was simple. JUST SAY NO. WE will NOT Rezone this property to allow this type of operation anywhere near a residence. The fix was already in before the meeting, along with other accomodations. There were plenty other sites.
I am looking for a suitable place within 50 miles of here. Unfortunately, I have a lot of work in the house and built it to suit my needs. I haven’t found anything similar. It’s not so easy finding a similar place at a reasonable price, unless there are issues. My house sits on 3/4 acre of land adjoining 2 canals into Tampa Bay. I have a lot of stuff to relocate.
In the meantime, I persevere. There is nothing more I can do.
Are they in violation of any sound level ordinance?
“In this “recession” you are either relatively unaffected, or your industry is in a depression. Business in General Aviation in any way you measure it……aircraft sales, maintenance, fuel…..is down 40% or more compared to 2007, and is recovering at a very slow rate.”
X-GSfixr, For twenty five years I have had a fantasy of owning a late model Cessna 185 Skywagon, but they aren’t dropping in price either. I guess I’ll have to wait until their owners die-off, and their kids need another iPhone or two.
Check the cost of moving the house, you might
be surprised. Lady here in town bought this
nifty house that was going to be torn down and had it moved 13 miles out of town. Total
cost for the house and the move was 23K.
Hmmm… what kind of house?
I checked on something similar years ago - a house I really liked but in a bad location. IIRC it was going to be upwards of $100k to move it, just about 2 miles. Obviously there are tons of factors (power lines being one of if not the biggest), but $23k sounds really low unless it’s a mobile home.
Don’t get discouraged. Maybe try making something in your spare time that you could sell at the flea-market, who knows you might be able to get something going. Ditch the insurance, maybe even the car. Hide the $100k and don’t spend it. When UE runs out maybe food stamps? Poverty is under-rated, life is a state of mind.
If you’re an experienced structural guy with a masters, the big dogs will hire you quickly. I tried getting a guy in with a BS in civil with limited experience at Manitowoc (designing lattice booms) and they told him he needed more experience or a masters(which he already new).
1) CH2MHILL
2) Malcolm Pirnie (now Jacobs)
3) CampDresserMcKee
4) H&S
Check them out.
That sounds hopeful, exeter. And Diogenes, for heavens sake don’t seek out a government job now! All of the new young hires will get screwed. Sounds like you have major skills and education and can find something close to home. And yes, people our age are depended on by our aging parents. Maybe you should go live with them. I have often thought of moving in with my mom for her remaining years (she just turned 80) because she refuses to leave her house and it’s hard to schlep 380 miles to help her with her banking and shopping. But I have a really good job and a nice house and my husband would not want to move south again.
3/4 of an acre sounds like a lot of work to me. And hating that industry next door will eat away at your soul.
True on both counts. You actually appreciate what government agents don’t. This is my home. I put every dollar I had into building it. I built it with my own 2 hands. Everything except the foundation, which i hired out. I had peace and serenity and plans to build on, making this my final house. Then the City of Tampa swapped the adjoining 5 acres with the con artist next door who began operating without proper permits and without zoning. I spent 5 years trying to save my house dealing with every idiot in government.
No one helped me. The EPA did fine them a couple of times for noise violations. So what?
They don’t come when I call them. They come when they can schedule, so often when things are the worst they are not here.
It has eaten away at my very desire to achieve anything anymore. What’s the point when government agents work to destroy it? What they don’t tax, they wreck.
As I’ve said, you are more likely to be screwed by your local government than the federal. And contrary to popular belief, there are still many areas of final sovereignty at the local level that the feds can’t do anything about.
This was one of them.
Check out those leads from exeter and sincerely… good luck. I’ve had to restart my life 3 times after losing everything from being effed over with no recourse. It was no fun.
Oh, and check for leads in Houston as well. Big engineering city. Maybe you can find a “work-from-your-home-PC” engineering job.
Federal Civil Engineering Jobs
http://tinyurl.com/27dwbyf
Read “Plunder” by Steven Greenhut. Half way through the book, I went out and bought some more
ammunition.
Triva: CA State teachers union needs a return of
22.4% to get into the black.
Plunder is a must read if you want to see how unsustainable it is…If I did not have three children close by I would sell it all and buy a joint somewhere around you Rancher and maybe go full time in the R/V…
You could sell the children.
Do I get a “full” refund ??
We discovered that we needed a “base” because
after 8 weeks on the road, the horse wanted to
head back to the barn. Our base is one the river, quiet, end of the road, 880 feet of river
frontage, 5000 sqft garden, fruit trees, and secluded.
Police reporting that people are now raiding
gardens under cover of darkness, owners are
getting pissed and you don’t do that here.
Raiding gardens? I’m hearing the same thing going on in Europe.
You now things are worse than they are saying when people have to raid gardens.
“Half way through the book, I went out and bought some more
ammunition.”
This sort of thing always gives me a great laugh. Unless you have a small army backing you up, everything will be taken from you, and you might even be killed with your own gun.
Here was a timely article in the NYT:
Cities in Debt Turn To States:
“The increasingly common pleas for state assistance — after two relatively quiet decades — reflect the yawning local budget deficits that have appeared in the last two years.
As tax revenue has fallen, the cost of providing labor-intensive government services, like teaching and policing, has proved hard to reduce.
The programs, which vary by state, generally allow troubled communities to tap emergency credit lines while restructuring their finances with some form of state oversight.
Many places may indeed bridge shortfalls and make necessary changes in services.
But some public finance experts worry that the states, mired in their own financial problems, will not force communities to attack their problems head-on and solve them. If states let towns keep borrowing, without acknowledging the magnitude of the towns’ existing debts — like the pensions they owe retired public workers — they might never solve their problems and just keep drawing on the states. They could end up like miniature versions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, stuck in conservatorships under government oversight with no clear way out.”
No Way Out. Gee. How about what happens in the private sector.
The pension funds get “taken over” by the Guarantee Pension Benefit agency and the Payout gets reduced to something reasonable.
That’s what happens to people who pay all the taxes to support the government employees.
Cities in Debt Turn To States:
States in debt turn to national government.
Nations in debt turn to other nations.
World in debt turns to ???
Maybe the Martians can give us a hand.
Galactic socialism!
Printing press
The world in debt turns to who they have always turned in the past… the serfs.
Er, I mean “taxpayers.”
Taxes got nothin’ to do with it. They’ll be extracting it via inflation.
and is just beginning to make balance sheets of Cities/Counties/States go into the Red zone ??
They will get you in ways you cannot avoid and it won’t be income tax…Take a look at your utility bill over the last 3 years…Ours is increasing at a 15-20% rate…
Fees to use the county parks, a one time fee of a
dollar a sq.ft. when selling a home, sewage fees,
a $1500 fee for a zone change, a $30,000 SDC fee
for a person with 5 acres with a 20 foot wide
access easement.
SDC system development charge
Here’s a bone for you to chew D, for THIRTY YEARS, this friend had to wakeup go to the SAME JOB. WEEK after WEEK, Month after Month, Year after, …will you get the picture.
Post Notes:
1. They had a “bitchin job”
2. They genetically have a trait that was never expressed in Hwy’s gene pool.
well, that’s probably not true, except for people who have little to no intelligence. most people get promoted or moved to other departments in that length of time.
and if you every read a qualification sheet for a government job, you will find that the biggest qualification for getting a government job is that you had a government job in the past. The longer you were in the government job, the better.
They often allow some substitution of private sector work, but that usually is secondary to the main qualification, 5 to 10 years doing some king of government job with similar requirements.
Have you tried looking for work in the Utility/Power industry? They have a need for PEs with structures background to design substations and transmission towers. This is the field I’m working in and we are currently growing. You can work for the utility or a slew of consultant firms. I’m a structural PE that works for the local utility. At first I felt like a fish out of water with all the electrical design issues and jargon but you pick it up fast.
I would sugest checking out Florida Power & Light. I think they were hiring last year and they have a large internal engineering group.
Some large firms in the power industry that are hiring:
Black & Veatch
Sargent & Lundy
Bechtel
Worley Parsons
An acquaintance of mine is retiring early. He’s got his 30 years in with the County. He’s about my age, 55
How many & what type jobs after 30 years in the same “County”?
I have a friend that is retiring after 25+ years working pretty much basically the same job he started with…a top out super now, but same location, same route to work, pert near same folks around the water cooler / coffee maker…
I’ll say it again… you have more to fear from Wall St. taking everything you own than you do from the government.
And instead of denigrating government pay and pensions, why don’t you demand better from the private sector? Or does the private sector somehow get a pass to screw people over?
And last but not least and again, there are MORE PRIVATE federal contractors than federal employees.
But ride your hobby horse all you like. It isn’t getting you anywhere.
Normally sellers of alcoholic beverages maintain a decent business during a recession. This may not be “normally” any more.
Foster’s Group - the beer company - has been going around buying up wineries all over the world for over a decade. They bought up famous CA brands like Beringer and Chateau St. Jean.
At present, FOUR companies own the majority of the wine business in the US: Foster’s, Constellation Brands, Gallo, and one other whose name escapes me right now.
Now Foster’s is putting ALL of their wineries on the block for sale. They have re-organized all the wineries into a new subsidiary, “Treasury Wine Estates”, in order to facilitate an orderly sale.
http://treasurywineestates.com/
That cracks me up! Have you seen this new ad out for a 401k company (I can’t remember who) — the guy is totally unloading, saying things like, “a beach house? A vineyard? For retirement? Give me a break. Let’s get real!”
It’s a 2 buck chuck world.
Wouldn’t surprise me if some Chinese company bought the biz. They’d be well positioned as China becomes a more sophisticated middle-class society. (I’ve often worried what that might do to wine prices.)
I remember what the japanese did to single malt scotch.
I had forgotten all about that!
“It’s a 2 buck chuck world.”
Speak for yourself. : ) Even if things get real bad I’d rather not drink for 6 mos and then really enjoy that one $20 - $30 bottle. Unfortunately I’m not sure how the wineries will survive if we all start buying only 1 or 2 times a year.
Two buck upchuck. It’s vinegar.
Wouldn’t surprise me if some Chinese company bought the biz.
Great, “TrueBambooLie™” might not be able to improve the taste but they certainly could find a way to double the toxicity of the product, especially if it’s exported around the world!
Please….that’s two buck upchuck.
From yesterday (context was discussion on foreclosure stoppages):
Comment by packman
2010-10-04 05:42:48
Prediction: In 2012 there’s going to be a mass panic, with hundreds of economists running and screaming “SHE’S GONNA BLO0WWWW!!!”.
Comment by dave
2010-10-04 19:27:51
What sort of mass panic? There will be a lot of legal challenge on foreclosure and the mess it will generated. But I dont see how or what you mean by “She’s gonna BLOWWW”
We need details on what is “BLOWING” mean
Comment by alpha-sloth
2010-10-04 20:09:11
We need details on what is “BLOWING” mean
It’s the stopped-clock annual prediction of the austrian-school/gold buggers/hyper-inflationists/survivalists. Once or twice a century it’s correct, and they’re quite impressed with that record.
Cripes guys - it was a joke. Mostly anyhow. The point being that the foreclosure moratoriums are going to do nothing more than build up an ever bigger backlog of pending foreclosures, and if and when the backlog lets loose (e.g. the recent discussions on constipation) it’s likely to catch economists by surprise (unexpectedly, of of course).
Alpha - I really just can’t understand your fetish in with applying your knee-jerk reactions to everything us AustriRandiSurviaLibertarianKooks say. It’s really not becoming.
in 2012 most economists will wake up to the fact that the economy already blows in 2010.
I really just can’t understand your fetish in with applying your knee-jerk reactions to everything us AustriRandiSurviaLibertarianKooks say.
I have a fetish for honesty. I can’t help myself- it is my master.
I have a fetish for honesty.
Does that mean you’re going to admit you were wrong and apologize for the personal attacks against packman and myself a few weeks back?
Or did you already do that and I missed it?
Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but I take back nothing I said.
“Does that mean you’re going to admit you were wrong and apologize for the personal attacks against packman and myself a few weeks back?”
Have you always been such a wuss?
Have you always been such a wuss?
Yes, certainly my statement deserves a personal attack from you, Grizzly.
Seriously, wtf is up with you petty individuals?
Seriously, wtf is up with you petty individuals?
when they have nothing left, (no pun intended) they make personal attacks. it’s the common tactic of the left.
Yes, certainly my statement deserves a personal attack from you, Grizzly.
Seriously, wtf is up with you petty individuals?
Seriously, just toughen up a bit. When you’re holding onto hurt feelings about posts weeks in the past, asking for apologies, it’s a sign that you’re taking things way too personally. Allow others to disagree with you, and in a manner different than you may want or expect.
when they have nothing left, (no pun intended) they make personal attacks. it’s the common tactic of the left.
Yeah, it’s a partisan thing. :rolleyes:
Yeah, it’s a partisan thing. :rolleyes:
it’s just an observable fact that the biggest percentage of personal attacks come from the left.
“it’s just an observable fact that the biggest percentage of personal attacks come from the left.”
oh come on ecofeco, i wasn’t talking about you! i know you’re much too honorable to make a personal attack!
I have a fetish for
honestythrusting my opinion out there, context be damned.Well, that too. I’ve got a lot of fetishes.
When you ignore facts and cannot refute them with other facts, that is how you will always be treated in life.
It gets old dealing with anyone who willfully ignores facts.
After a while it gets hard to take seriously anyone who is constantly predicting the imminent End of the World. You would think that people would have learned their lesson from all that Y2K silliness of a decade ago.
Obsession with the End Times seems to be something that is firmly embedded in Western Civilization. Maybe we are still hearing echoes from the fall of Rome. Of course, Christian eschatology is also a factor. The Book of Revelation was a prophesy about the fall of the Roman empire. Once that occurred, much of the Western world spent the next several generations sitting around and waiting for the Second Coming. After a few centuries it became clear that Jesus wasn’t coming back anytime soon, so the search started for signs of the next great collapse.
No doubt that the housing market collapse is the biggest economic event of our generation. Nevertheless, I suspect that somehow life will go on and we’ll manage to muddle through this.
After a while it gets hard to take seriously anyone who is constantly predicting the imminent End of the World. You would think that people would have learned their lesson from all that Y2K silliness of a decade ago.
Would that be kind of like people who in 2005 predicted an end to “housing always goes up” in the form of an economic crash? Those wackos.*
And who here exactly is predicting “the end of the world”? I certainly am not. I am however predicting and end to our economy as we know it (or knew it). We will not return to the prosperity of the 50’s and 60’s - ever, barring another world war. And we probably won’t even return to the “prosperity” (as such) of the 80’s thru the 00’s.
Life will go on. There will be more economic strife going forward, that often will translate to political, and geo-political, strife, but life will go on.
(* P.S. I wasn’t one of them at the time. Wish I had been; I was a late bloomer.)
One frequent comment on this blog 2 to 3 years ago was that “blood in the streets” was about to occur.
“blood in the streets” = Time2Buy!
Gold 1,331.50
sell??
Oh no, I’m never going to sell the precious.
Ok, I did trade a few for truck last year…
“If we didn’t already have gold would we buy it today at this price?
Yes, but we would not be happy about it. Despite the fact that the value of the gold we bought in 2001 has increased more than four times since then, its role in our portfolio is not capital gains but insurance against a disorderly breakup of the current international monetary regime resulting in a sudden currency value dislocation and inflation. The gold price rise represents an increase in the FIRE Economy insurance premium. The fact that we paid a low premium is great, but the rising price means that the chances of a fire are increasing.
Evidence: Central banks last year for the first time in 20 years became net gold buyers. This indicates a serious breakdown in trust and confidence in the system among members of the central banking establishment. They do not like the direction that the United States is taking.” - Eric Janszen, iTulip.com
in other words…America is the frog…and the price of gold is the pot of water on the stove.
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven’t got it.”
George Bernard Shaw
Exponetial growth in a finite environment will inevitably lead to disaster. That’s a mathematical certainty. It applies to financial shenanigans as well as the consumption and availability of commodities.
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
Kenneth Boulding
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who haven’t got it.”
George Bernard Shaw
Tankxs Fl Mike, I’ll use that this Thanksgiving.
Bartlett on exponential growth:
http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy.html
You did not mention population. My view on that is exactly the same, disaster. It will get ugly, people will die for one reason or another. Too bad we already mastered nuclear bombs, so there is no medium size World War available to be an outlet.
life will go on and we’ll manage to muddle through this ??
Which begs the question;
What does “through” look like ??
We know our way of life has become unsustainable, financially and environmentally, just to name a couple of ways, but that doesn’t mean the collapse will come in a day. Not unless a space rock hits us, that is! We may muddle through for a generation or two more, hard to say, right?
It probably looks like what Japan has experienced over the past 15 years or so. Or perhaps what Britain experienced after WWII. In both countries life goes on, albeit with subdued expectations.
I would agree with that GSalt…
I couldn’t find anyone on the phone yesterday. I was sure there was a rapture, but I’d been left behind.
sfrenter:
Comment by sfrenter
2010-10-04 15:00:12
Maybe we can solve the little unemployment problem by hiring thousands of people to help with processing all those foreclosures.
Why is no one questioning the fact that banks could just hire more people to deal with the supposed “back-ups”???
Was that tongue-in-cheek?
If not - you do realize that any job that can be done by just hiring someone off the street can also be done (much cheaper) by a machine - right?
That brings up another point. We’ve been reading about these loan processors who signed 12000 mortgages a month. 12000 sigs/22 days/8 hr = approximately 1 mortgage a minute, with no potty breaks. For comparison, it took me an hour of paperwork to sign a $10K loan for my car (+ another hour for other paperwork).
These people MUST have been doing electronic signatures. Officer plugs in an app # for the FB, computer thinks for 20 seconds, screen pops up “FB approved” officer hits “sign,” move on to the next FB? This is almost as bad as those nanosecond traders.
My guess is they got a stack of 200 every few hours, gave each a “once over”, to make sure all the right fields on the form were filled in (no glaring omissions), perhaps made sure the numbers passed a sniff test, and then signed. At least some level of effort probably - but no actual looking into each case history at all as should have been done.
My theory is that the mortgages were not transferred at all. Then some years later, someone realizes that the mortgages were not transferred into the trust that sold the bonds. IRS rules prohibit the trust from accepting a mortgage in foreclosure so what to do. I know. We will just backdate everything and process it as if nothing is wrong. We will do this all at once in a big rush so that it will be too late to catch it.
So in essence, they realized they made a mistake by not transferring the mortgages and they invented the robo signers to make up false documents. The robo-signers will get blamed and it is made to look like sloppiness.
Remember that Nixon first described the Watergate break in as “a third rate burglary”. In this case, the Federal Reserve bought all those mortgage backed bonds so they got screwed - but that is the Gov so it comes back to me.
Insurance Guy …..I tend to agree with your theory that this goes back to to Middlemen missing a step in the transfer of
these MBS’s properly to begin with . From day one the
intent was to transfer the paper to a government entity .Is there a defect in the MBS’s that was discovered ?
There is always a way to figure out a backdate scam if you have to have the thing notarized and the notary is honest. Several big ifs in that sentence.
And if IRS rules keep the trust from accepting the mortgage if it is in foreclosure but not if it is merely in arrears, then you might have just pointed to a reason for the foreclosures going so slowly other than the servicer not wanting to lose the income stream and being worried that the bond holders will sue them for not “maximizing the income by waiting for the market to recover.” I doubt it, because too many of the big players are doing it wrong, and they wouldn’t do that if they had actual knowledge of the rules intersecting like this, but it might be having some impact along the margins…
Speaking of notaries, the state passed new laws here that our company notary can’t seal unless the signator signs in her presence, no matter how many times she’s seen the sig and knows good and well it’s all legit.
This had to be due to a bunch of crooked mortgage writers and Realtwhores..
I thought a notaries license required them to actually witness the signature and have seen proof of the identity of the signer.
I’ve seen typed, recorded document that had fields crossed out, and hand written “corrections”. These are mortgages.
Just because these guys were doing a $hitty job does not mean the borrower gets to live in his house indefinitely for free. Or maybe it does…
considering the rate they’re going to market, the stacks of foreclosures worked through so “quickly” must be going moldy in a basement somewhere at this point.
Yes it was tongue in cheek, but it does make one wonder whether the banks are really as dysfunctional as they are making themselves out to be or how much of the “we are flooded with paperwork and can’t deal” is really a smokescreen for the fact that they are trying to hide/delay their insolvency.
I mean, when there was money to be made, ya think they had a problem hiring more folks to make sure that anyone with a pulse who wanted a loan could get a loan?
I don’t recall all that much foot-dragging in the real estate and banking sector during the bubble years. There were jobs to be had a money to be made and so people went out and got their licenses and became realtors and mortgage brokers and found jobs.
Really, how hard could it be to find, hire, and train people to quickly work through the all the paperwork?
I hear you.
Keep in mind though the ramp-up time on the front-side of the bubble was 10 years. The ramp-up on foreclosures has been only 3 years.
…how much of the “we are flooded with paperwork and can’t deal” is really a smokescreen for the fact that they are trying to hide/delay their insolvency.
I’ll wager a $100 bet on the above. But, if they really are insolvent, how’m I gonna collect on this one?
“it does make one wonder whether the banks are really as dysfunctional as they are making themselves”
I’ve worked in a number of large corporations and dysfunctional seems to be standard operating procedure, so I can believe that any large organization is screwed up.
On the other hand, isn’t it nice to have a scapegoat an plausible deniability?
5:49 PST on KITCO.com: Gold price change due to weakening of the US Dollar: $7.90
Combo, this is real.
“Combo, this is real.”
As real as a growing unemployment rate that is already pushing 10%.
Look at wmbz’s post below this one: “Fears of a double-dip downturn have boosted the appetite for physical bullion…”
Fears of a double-dip downturn should boost the appetite for cash, not for gold. Gold is a hedge against inflation, not deflation. A double-dip downturn is deflationary not inflationary.
But, whatever …
Could be stagflationary - high unemployment, no wage growth, and continued house price declines but with higher health care costs, education costs, food prices. Do you agree that we have monetary inflation without glaring price inflation?
Remember the context of the late 70s, whengold went up while unemployment was high.
I know you are aware I hold cash and gold. I am an agnostic on which asset is better. 100% cash or 100% precious metals is foolish.
DDD - double dip downturn - and gold strongly reacting to BOJ’s reverting to 0% is great news for gold. The US government will continue to attempt to prop up overinflated house values by keeping rates very low. Bernanke is so much an “anti-depressant!” Gold and silver are great during a depression, such as this one.
“Gold and silver are great during a depression, such as this one.”
Cash is great during a depression. If holders of gold need to raise cash then they will be sellers of the yellow, not buyers.
Those who need cash will also need to dip into their 401Ks and IRAs and sell off some of their stocks since stocks won’t be returning the 10 -15-20% as promised by many money managers.
Anyway…I’m off to work to earn some fiats. Have a good day everybody.
Don’t fight the tyrannical Fed. Markets are saying short cash. Go long metals/commodities. Go long bonds. Go long stocks. If you miss, Feddie will print more cash.
Could be stagflationary ??
Not sure that is a real word
but I get it…Last seen in the mid 1970’s…If this happens over a long period of time we will be dropping the R word for the D word…If we have to “muddle through” that it will not be fun…
Depression? On what planet? You guys throw this word around but I don’t think any of you really know the definition.
Here is how much of a depression we’re in. Last night I went to a car dealer to test drive. I have never had this happen to me before but the sales guy actually said he didn’t have any cars. He sold the last one on Saturday. A new car dealer and he was out of cars. That’s how bad this “depression” is.
And if you think this is some isolated incident…
Sales in Sept YOY change
Honda: +26%
Ford +46% (??!? Ford, really?)
Nissan +35%
It’s just like 1934 huh?
September Yo3Y - all cars and light trucks:
minus 27.7%
sales guy actually said he didn’t have any cars ??
Think capacity underutilization has anything to do with that E/D ??
As far as the D word, you were still in the your dad’s sperm production stage and could not have experienced the stagflation in the mid 1970’s…A prolonged bought of it would bring on a modern day depression…
Think capacity underutilization has anything to do with that E/D ??
I think it does.
Back at the end of July, I took a brief trip to Ohio. On the way back to the Cleveland airport, I saw capacity underutilization first-hand.
There was a big Ford plant, it was Saturday afternoon, and the place appeared to be closed down for the weekend. I don’t recall ever seeing an auto plant in that state.
Meant to say didn’t have the model I wanted, not didn’t have any cars on the lot.
OK so now car dealers are selling cars faster than they can get them and the HBB spin is under utilization. You guys get better every day.
AZ Slim….do you really think I’d buy a Ford, or for that matter any POS built in Ohio? Give me a little credit.
Tell us again how rich you are. I know you’re just dying to.
Keep your monocle clean Combo.
There are possible explanations Combo. One is that the moonshot which used to be loaded with houses and tulips is now loaded with gold bars. Faith in the moonshot. Another is that the most powerful force in the universe (the Fed) will respond to the crash with a mighty paperover. Faith in the Fed.
Have been reading “Rocket Men” by Craig Nelson.
As they were prepping Neil Armstrong for the first Moon landing, someone joked that they should spike all the lunar soil samples with gold dust, to insure that Moon exploration would continue.
Armstrong said it would be more fun to sneak a limestone rock onboard, and to stick it in with the lunar samples.
In case anyone’s wondering - here’s why gold is up.
(Funny how no one seems to discuss that. Let’s dig a little deeper folks, shall we?)
More QE by Japan. More competitive currency devaluation.
BOJ’s Shirakawa: may expand asset-buying pool
(Reuters) - Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Tuesday that the central bank may increase the size of a fund pool set aside for asset buying from 5 trillion yen ($60 billion) if the need arises in the future.
The central bank earlier pledged to pump more funds into the struggling economy and keep interest rates at virtually zero, surprising markets and stealing a march on the Federal Reserve in providing a fresh dose of economic stimulus.
KEY POINTS:
– The central bank also decided to set up, as a temporary measure, a 5 trillion yen ($60 billion) fund to buy assets ranging from government bonds and short-term government securities to commercial paper and corporate bonds, and will also accept another 30 trillion yen of those assets as collateral under a loan scheme.
– It cut the overnight call rate target to a range of zero to 0.1 percent from the previous 0.10 percent by unanimous vote.
– The decision to cut interest rates was made by a unanimous vote, but board member Miyako Suda opposed including government bonds among the type of assets the BOJ could buy using its pool of funds.
– It cut its assessment of Japan’s economy, saying there is a greater chance of economic growth undershooting a forecast it issued in July.
Gold; $1,327.00 Silver; $22.27
These strong prices may trigger some profit-taking today, but the price trend for the precious metals is up. Why?
~ (Reuters) - The world’s wealthiest people have responded to economic worries by buying gold by the bar — and sometimes by the ton — and by moving assets out of the financial system, bankers catering to the very rich said on Monday.
Fears of a double-dip downturn have boosted the appetite for physical bullion as well as for mining company shares and exchange-traded funds, UBS executive Josef Stadler told the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit.
BB is becoming a bigger clown by the speech…
Fed boss: Threat from deficits ‘real and growing’
Bernanke says deficits pose ‘real and growing’ threat to economy, calls for plan to cut them
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The economy could be hurt if Congress and the White House fail to come up with a plan to curb the nation’s huge budget deficits in the coming years, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Monday.
Bernanke, in a speech prepared for delivery, reiterated his belief that the government shouldn’t raise taxes or slash spending now because the economic recovery is still too fragile.
But failing to bring the deficits under control could endanger the economy later on, he said. Exploding budget deficits can lead to higher interest rates for people buying homes and cars, and for businesses buying equipment or expanding operations. That could crimp Americans’ spending and slow economic growth.
A little late isn’t it?
Come up with a plan to raise taxes on and but benefits for people younger than Bernanke.
I’ll tell you, if TODAY’s retirees to not take a hit, the result should be a general strike.
“I’ll tell you, if TODAY’s retirees to not take a hit…”
They haven’t been getting much return from their savings or stocks lately, and don’t even think about the scooter.
I don’t many retirees who haven’t taken a hit.
The guy is a genius. How does he think of this?
A few of you postulated that after the elections the “fiscal responsibility hammer” was going to fall. One or two even went as far to opine that Opie’s rhetoric would do a 180 to administer some bitter medicine.
This certainly could this be part of that shift? After all, yesterday Opie did say that the situation had become “untenable”. Coincidence? Time will tell.
He’s been saying that since he ran for office. He believed in borrowing in response to the economic crisis, rather than raising taxes and slashing benefits on the spot.
The one thing the Democrats did do is slow the soaring cost of Medicare. And the Republican response? No cuts for today’s seniors! (And no Medicare for those who will be seniors tomorrow).
Really, we need to replace the Republicans with a fiscally responsible small government party.
And the Republican response?
Hold their breath, stomp their feet, pout, Yell!, scream!, point their fingers and promote their only political solutions to everything offered from lil Opie:
“TrueDoNothing™ / “TrueObstructionists™ / TrueGridLokers™”
They get an A+ for unity.
(”Honorable Effort” award goes to the gals from Maine!)
Money printing is a game changer. If others haven’t gotten it by now, they never will.
A rough translation of this speech, “Trust us. We’re not monetizing the debt.”
Yeah, right!
One way to cut deficits: Devalue the currency, by running the printing press on high blast. Then the real value of a given sized deficit decreases.
The conundrum: Moral hazard. If pols realize the potential to use future devaluation to shrink the size of real deficits (and debt positions), they can relax vigilance regarding the clear and present danger of currently going too deeply into the hole.
The conundrum: Moral hazard. If pols realize the potential to use future devaluation to shrink the size of real deficits (and debt positions), they can relax vigilance regarding the clear and present danger of currently going too deeply into the hole.
There is no “if” - it already happened under FDR, with Nixon adding his rubber stamp.
Of course
Use printing press to maintain the wealth of elites and then cut services, gov jobs, and raise taxes on everyone else.
We all know who the FED works for.
Here’s something interesting. A local development - One Loudoun - just went through bankruptcy proceedings. Not sure the original cost of the project, though the loan - from Goldman Sachs - was $125M. It was bought out of bankruptcy for $35M.
Here’s the kicker. They buyer was just the original developer, that declared bankruptcy. Development has basically just continued nonstop.
Of course this happens a lot with retail businesses - they declare bankruptcy, reorganize their debt, and carry on business as usual, with bondholders taking the losses. Does this normally happen though with real estate developments? (This one’s mixed use - some office, retail, housing).
And this also begs the question - is this done with homes? Not sure if I’ve seen it discussed here. Do some people get their house foreclosed on, and then just turn around and buy it back from the bank - perhaps not even moving out? If not - why not? Are there laws preventing this? If so - why don’t the same laws apply for business-owned real estate? (Though that last question is somewhat rhetorical)
link
At Foreclosure: One Loudoun To Stay With Miller & Smith
Around a dozen people showed up to the Loudoun County Courthouse this morning to attend the public auction for the One Loudoun development, which entered foreclosure proceedings in September.
Trustee William Casterline officiated the auction, which saw only two bids placed for the 361-acre property. Developer Sal Cangiano first offered a bid of $10 million, but in the end the property stayed with Miller & Smith, after representative Bill May entered a bid of $35 million. Cangiano declined to bid further.
According to the deed of trust, dated March 21, 2007, Goldman Sachs Commercial Mortgage Capital was the lender for the project, to the tune of $125,000,000. Sources familiar with the transaction have said the foreclosure and auction should have no direct impact on the ability of the One Loudoun project to move forward.
…
Back when this started to unwind I remember thinking: If a bank is willing to do a short-sale and eat principal that way, then why would they not be just as interseted in letting an FB short sell to himself? What is the difference?
Punishment for screwing them over. Also, perhaps, thinging that if the FB gets away with it once, he or she might try it twice.
Kind of like the “punishment” that was given to the megabanks for getting the financial system in trouble? Those bailouts and bonuses must have really hurt.
What is the difference?
The difference is the that lender is Goldman-Sachs. They don’t lose money. The get the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to cover their losses.
That means that we, the taxpayers, are getting the loss in our shortage of government funds and loss of value of our money.
“Do some people get their house foreclosed on, and then just turn around and buy it back from the bank - perhaps not even moving out? If not - why not?”
Its theoretically possible. If someone had enough money in their 401K (protected from bankruptcy), they could survive a judicial foreclosure and subsequent bankruptcy (to erase the deficiency judgement) and then buy the property using a loan from their 401K.
In reality, its not so easy (different states will vary). In Illinois, the FBs are evicted before the court auction. At the auction, the bank will typically bid the full amount the FB owed, in order to establish its loss (its essentially paying the money to itself anyway). So if the FB wants the house back at that point, they’re going to have to match what they owed in the first place.
Lenders have something like 20 years to collect on a deficiency judgement, so even if that FB waits a few months (or longer) for the property to go up for sale as a REO and buys it using 401K money, he may not be safe. If he tries to ditch the deficiency judgement in bankruptcy (which would be the smart thing to do), then the REO might get sold before the FB can complete the bankruptcy process.
I was wondering what was slowing down the dirt-scrapping over there in LoCo.
Now it should resume, ’cause everythings great here in NoVA don’t ya know!!
I forgot to mention that over the weekend I was at a kids park with my son. A family pulled up and the mom watched over the two youngest and the dad and son (maybe 10ish) sifted through the garbage cans at the park and piled up aluminum cans.
Wait for it…
They were driving an Escalade.
(I wish I had the creativity to make this stuff up)
The Escalade is a loaner. You can’t carry as many cans in a Jag.
On my cruise this summer I met a lone recycler. I tied up at a town dock to get a hot shower and stretch my legs and met this guy harvesting from the dockside trash while I was taking advantage of the park bench. Good pickings I suppose as most boaters do not have room or inclination to pile up beverage containers for the refunds. We had an interesting and pleasant conversation. My impression was that a couple hours of that honest work in the afternoon bought him a seat at the bar for the evening. I had a few deposit cans aboard and added them to his haul. He actually offered to buy me a brew if I cared to stick around for a while.
I love stories like that. Thanks for making my day.
Thousands of Romanian teachers protest wage cuts
By ALINA WOLFE MURRAY The Associated Press
Posted: 7:13 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010
BUCHAREST, Romania — About 5,000 Romanian teachers and education employees protested Tuesday in the capital over austerity measures implemented by the government to trim the budget deficit amid a deep recession.
They demanded decent salaries, more investment in education and an end to layoffs.
“We are humiliated,” said 34-year-old Elisabeta Cozma, a primary school teacher from Marghita, a small town in northwest Romania, saying she wanted “the dignity of teachers restored.” Cozma said a new salary law means teachers earn less. “My salary now is 1,000 lei ($330). It used to be 1,500 lei ($495).”
Protesters called on the government to resign and then marched toward the labor and education ministries. About 1,500 people also protested outside the offices of President Traian Basescu. Before the protest, union leaders said messages addressed to the president would be “moderate” as a sign of respect of the death of his mother Monday.
While on the topic of teachers, has anyone seen “Waiting for Superman?” I haven’t, yet.
I’m waiting until it comes out on DVD so I can borrow it from the library.
All I can say about this (I’m from Romania, by the way) is that Romania is in a privileged situation because the president is during his last term (he doesn’t care about re-election) and the National Bank’s governor is a very independent person (politically speaking) while holding the position for the last 20 years.
What happens now there is what should happen everywhere in Europe and US, that is austerity without the fear of political (see re-election worries) backlash.
Almost every day I chat with friends from there and while they are cursing the president and the governor and the economy, I try to explain to them that they should see the other side of the story (feeling the pain sooner than later …).
You have to admit that you need courage to reduce government workers’ salaries by 33% …
P.S. As a funny detail, in the last period all (government) salaries and pensions went down also EXCEPT judges’ salaries and pensions; that’s because every union or association or whatever representing government workers would try to overturn these decision in court but only very few (select) ones would win …
Judge rules in favor of so-called foreclosure mill
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 3:25 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4, 2010
WEST PALM BEACH — Florida’s attorney general has no authority to investigate or discipline one of the state’s large foreclosure law firms, a Palm Beach County judge ruled Monday.
The five-page ruling from Circuit Judge Jack S. Cox was in response to a request from the Shapiro & Fishman law firm to quash an attorney general’s subpoena for information. The attorney general’s office announced in August it was investigating Shapiro & Fishman, which has offices in Boca Raton and Tampa, as well as two other large firms that represent lenders in foreclosure hearings.
Cox said the Florida Bar, not the attorney general’s office, is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct, including complaints that foreclosure paperwork was doctored in order to rush cases through the courts.
After Monday’s ruling, the Plantation-based firm of David J. Stern, one of the so-called “foreclosure mills” targeted by the state, filed its own motion to quash the attorney general’s subpoena in Broward County.
“The attorney general’s case is over. This is a great victory for our client,” said Shapiro & Fishman attorney Gerald Richman of Richman Greer, P.A. “This was a totally unfair and inappropriate subpoena.”
The attorney general’s office said it was discussing its options, including whether to appeal the decision
A fourth firm, the Tampa-based Florida Default Law Group, also is under investigation by the state. Company officials had no comment on the Shapiro ruling but noted that they filed their own request to modify or quash a state subpoena in August. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 23 in Hillsborough County.
Some foreclosure defense attorneys saw Cox’s ruling as another blow to efforts to ensure that foreclosures are legally filed.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court said it could not freeze foreclosures as requested by U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, in light of revelations that foreclosure documents on tens of thousands of properties are likely flawed.
And while attorneys general in several states have announced investigations into lenders’ faulty foreclosure documents, Florida’s attorney general’s office does not have the power to investigate banks, spokesman Ryan Wiggins said.
“I can’t believe that the jurisdiction of the attorney general cannot include law firms and individuals working within law firms who may be engaged in improper conduct,” St. Petersburg attorney Matt Weidner said about Monday’s ruling. “I cannot believe that this will be allowed to stand, considering the extent of the allegations of serious wrongdoing.”
Uh oh. This is not going to end well.
Any comments on the rise in the markets lately. Seems to me that the markets should be going the other way. Too much loose cash?
Based on the fundamentals, stocks are over priced — if you assume the dollars they are priced in are not falling rapidly in value.
If you take the Combotechie view, that price will be coming down hard. If you think inflating away the debts is coming, and will succeed, stocks are better than any bond.
BMW is hiring 600 more in Greer, SC. Hooray. The Reserve Banks in Japan, England and USA are printing money. Other countries will do it to compete.
All the problems can be solved by just printing money. All economist agree on that except that one from Austria. You can get something for nothing. Their is a magic wishing well and the fountain of youth. And there is a Santa Clause.
And Bank’s don’t run this country.
Don’t forget the candy crapping unicorn
First time I heard of that unicorn. Please give details. I am in a gullible mood.
Any comments on the rise in the markets lately. Seems to me that the markets should be going the other way. Too much loose cash?
Everything* is up. All commodities, bonds, gold, etc. Stocks up too.
*Only one thing is down. Care to venture?
The markets are up simply because they can be manipulated up. Its all “they” have left.
The markets are up simply because they can be manipulated
upx1 down, how many more to go?
Ex-French trader must pay $6.7 billion for fraud
“In a stunning blow, the court also ordered Kerviel to pay the bank back the euro4.9 billion that it lost unwinding his complex positions in January 2008 — a punishment he would almost certainly be unable to pay. That sum marked the largest-ever alleged fraud by a single trader.
There were audible gasps and surprised looks when presiding judge Dominique Pauthe read out the damages to a packed courtroom of 150 reporters, court officials and members of the public.
Outside the courtroom, defense lawyer Olivier Metzner called the financial penalty “unbelievable.”
“I have the feeling Jerome Kerviel is paying for an entire system,” said Metzner, noting that his client hadn’t benefited financially from the fraud.”
French media calculated that based on his current salary of euro2,300 ($3,150) a month as a computer consultant, it would take Kerviel 177,536 years to pay off the damages.
While trading for the bank, Kerviel took home a salary and bonus of less than euro100,000, or about $155,700 — a relatively modest sum in the financial world.
“The bank can now turn the page, pursue its strategy and continue to rebound,” Guillaumin said in an emailed statement.
“I hope you all will donate a euro to Jerome Kerviel,” the lawyer told TV cameras and reporters.
Kerviel, a soft-spoken and debonair man from western Brittany, has garnered considerable public appeal in France for his image of being a scapegoat for powerful corporate interests. Kerviel maintained that the bank and his bosses tolerated his massive risk-taking as long as it made money, which he did at first, racking up euro1.4 billion in profits for Societe Generale in 2007, the judge noted.
During the proceedings, both sides admitted to mistakes but Kerviel insisted his bank superiors knew what he was doing. Societe Generale’s former chairman acknowledged there were problems in monitoring the trader’s work.
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
As I said before, it’s the big push for Wall St’s year end bone us’s.
Does anyone else realize that the Housing Bubble Blog has inadvertantly stumbled (not by accident for most of us) on the epicenter of the collapse of the modern financial system? The entire system revolves around manipulation and ponzi-type fraud as we all know. Everything can be manipulated (stock prices, commodities, currencies, government numbers, even a “jobless recovery”) by those running the show EXCEPT house prices (even though every effort has been made to do just this). “They” went too far in getting everyone (a whole nation of wanna-be homeowners, flippers, specuvestors, realtors, builders, contractors, and every other occupation to do with building, improving, selling houses) involved in this last gigantic megabank-profit-producing bubble. The popping of this one cannot be swept under the rug or rewritten in history by MSM propaganda. The fraud stops here.
It’s a massive control fraud.
As mentioned yesterday, William K. Black’s book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, provides a very good explanation of control frauds and how they work (until they don’t).
I think of the ending of every Scooby Doo show. They catch the “ghost” and unmask him/her and the line goes, “And it would have worked if not for those darn kids”.
LOL. I remember the kids getting a reward so they could buy gas for that snazzy van and drive off to the next caper. Do you think anybody who could blow the lid off Megabank’s big ponzi scheme would get a reward? Perhaps an “accidental” death, but no reward.
Concrete shoes come to mind. And the Mystery Van is never seen again!
The fraud stops here.
Hey now, Mr. Bear, as of today even , has not come up with substitute for distributing single deposit transactions in increments of $200,000 / $500,000 / $750,000+ across the Nation,… to millions upon millions of individuals at 4.35% interest rates for 30 years, how ’bout you, you holding out a solution to this “conundrum” / SIT-U-Ation?
Betting in Vegas on loaned money is a non-starter…
pressboardbox: “The fraud stops here.”
I think that’s too optimistic. But those who escape unscathed will be the ones that are already in power and who are ultimately responsible.
Alpha, I just read your post from yesterday asking me to opine on the quality of foreign doctors.
Canadian doctors are interchangeable with US doctors. Of course, they think they’re better! Their training is as good as ours, they take the same boards, etc.
Australian and western European doctors are also excellent. In my specialty, they are just as innovative.
In my opinion, doctors trained in Eastern Europe, most of Asia, the middle east, and most of South America don’t measure up to the US. There are exceptions, because in most countries there are hospitals of excellence where the cream practice. But these are poorer countries and the medical schools just don’t have the resources to provide up to date training. I have lots of friends who love to do medical missions to train foreign doctors in surgical techniques. They travel to places like Russia, Romania, China, Latin America, India and Africa, where their help is sought and appreciated.
REhobbyist;
Would you trust medical tourism ??
I’d research it. But I can understand why people do it.
The thing is, “up to date” training is worth squat if you can’t afford it.
Maybe we should be trading off a little “up to date” with some more “affordable”.
Indeed. Was medical care really that crappy 20 years ago?
I finished medical school 25 years ago, and because I’m a surgeon I know squat about internal medicine now. I don’t understand any of the new tests for diabetes, cancer, rhematologic disease, lipids, etc. Everything has changed. And the medications are completely different now. I have kept up with antibiotics, which, frighteningly, haven’t changed much though the bugs have evolved. It’s all I can do to keep up with my own specialty. And remember, those second- and third-world countries were never up to date - they were even worse 20 years ago.
Whew! You weren’t one of those pre-med greedhead meanies during your University of Michigan days.
That makes me feel even better.
I could not agree more GS. It really upsets me that 15% of Americans are uninsured, and that even the insured can go broke if they get a significant illness. And since so much of disease is stress-related, I think that the stress of being uninsured makes you more susceptible to things like high blood pressure.
I’m convinced that despite all of the talk about reversing the health care reform legislation, we will end up with universal national health insurance of necessity. People who have Cadillac health insurance now will not like it, and the rest will be happy.
I’m convinced that despite all of the talk about reversing the health care reform legislation, we will end up with universal national health insurance of necessity. People who have Cadillac health insurance now will not like it, and the rest will be happy.
Slim concurs.
And because the private health insurers are giving us a very public demonstration of what creeps they are, we’ll get to national health insurance sooner rather than later.
That would be the silver lining. I hope you are right.
I’ve always thought that some enlightened self-interest (and perhaps some sense of morality or “christian charity”) made the idea of making health care available quite a sensible thing.
Not to mention having “job lock” because you need health care could be seen as a way to stifle entrepreneurs, etc.
After all, you can’t “short sale” your health for a fresh start the way you can default on RE.
I’m childless, but understand the need for some of my taxes to go to public schools so we can educate a new generation of taxpayers. (School quality being a different argument I’ll not address here.)
I’d also like to see a healthy population of taxpayers… think it would be less expensive in the long run.
“I’d also like to see a healthy population of taxpayers… think it would be less expensive in the long run.”
Prevention? Logic? Benefiting society as whole? You mean we should deny companies the right to profit from pain and suffering?! What are you, some kinda dang socialeest/commie?!
Not my experience. The few Asian trained doctors I saw were at least interested in knowing what my life style was and what I should eat/drink and what not. Their approach was somewhat holistic. US trained doctors only saw me for 2 minutes and prescribed the pills and off they went. Most US trained doctors are nothing but slaves to big Pharma and gadgets.
Thanks, REhobbyist. My original question was directed to a post before yours, but your answer is appreciated anyway, since it proves the point I was making- that doctors are pretty highly trained everywhere in the developed world, and this myth that good care is only available here, and everywhere else you get mediocre care from some semi-trained bureaucrat, is just propaganda for the rubes.
Last week I was high on Texas based on Meredith Whitney’s assessment of state debt troubles. She felt that Texas was in the best shape of any state. Then I saw Carrie’s post yesterday that looked at misery based on housing and noticed that Texas cities seemed to have a high rate of uninsured. I didn’t realize that in contrast to the national 2008 figure of 15% uninsured, 25% of Texans don’t have health insurance. This must take an incredible toll on the state’s budget.
Guess again. There is very little state sponsored healthcare. Illegals make up a large portion and each county only has one hospital for indigents and is funded individually by each county(via property taxes and Fed dollars).
School and prison funding takes up the lions share of the stat budget.
School (19%) and prison (76%) funding takes up the lions share of the state budget.
The old “prevention verses pound-of-cure” debate…
“My oh my…says Br’er Wabbit”… “It’s trouble that makes the monkey chew on hot peppers.”
By comparison 50% of Texans don’t have car insurance.
50% of Texans don’t have car insurance ??
Are you serious…Is this true ??
http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices-regional-local/14019127-1.htm
The state say 22% of registered cars have no insurance. I would hazard that another 22% of the cars on the road are not registered. My town started to consfiscate unregistered cars stopped by police, but has to stop because they ran out of room to store them.
but has to stop because they ran out of room to store them.
Are you a native Texan? If, so, please review the statement above.
Yikes!
Texas is a VERY business oriented state.
There’s an old saying here, “God help you if you’re poor in Texas ’cause nobody else will.”
This state tends to treat anyone who isn’t wealthy as very second class citizens.
It’s hard to get real numbers on this state. It’s like on purpose.
“…like that…”
sheesh
In a surprise move, Japan’s central bank cut its key interest rate to virtually zero and is looking to buy government bonds in an effort to boost the faltering Japanese economy. Japan has been struggling with a strong currency and falling prices, and authorities there intervened in currency markets last month to weaken the yen, but the impact was short-lived.
Investors are also hoping for more action from the Federal Reserve to boost the U.S. economy, and got more encouragement from remarks by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke late Monday. Bernanke said the economy could be helped by another round of asset purchases by the central bank, and hopes are building that the Fed could announce new measures at its next meeting Nov. 2-3.
another reason gold is trading higher
Wait, they cut the rate from “near zero” to “virtually zero”? How is this market-moving news? I guess there is more room to cut because there is still “actual zero” left and after that “this time we really mean it-zero” should the situation warrant.
Life is good for some living on other peoples money…
More Than $69 Million In Welfare Funds Spent Out Of State
KITV4 News
HONOLULU — California welfare recipients spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in Hawaii and millions in Las Vegas over the last two and a half years, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times.
Welfare money is supposed to help poor people with basic expenses, like paying rent and clothing their families. Single parents with two children in California must earn less than $14,436 a year to qualify for cash assistance.
Between January 2007 and May 2010, some welfare recipients in California spent their welfare money in Waikiki, including $3,030 at shops in the International Marketplace next to Jimmy Buffett’s Restaurant and Bar along Kalakaua Avenue, the newspaper said.
California welfare recipients also spent more than $12,400 at Ala Moana Center during that time.
And $2,146 was withdrawn from ATMs by Californians on welfare on the island of Lanai — home to two expensive resorts: the Koele Lodge and Manele Bay.
“For people to abuse the system is outrageous because they’re spending and they’re buying stuff that we can’t even buy on our own salaries, so it’s unfair. Very unfair,” said Maria Sykes of Bakersfield, California, who is vacationing in Waikiki with her two cousins.
She said she’s mad they have to scrimp and save for their two-week Hawaiian holiday while some fellow Californians are spending some of their welfare cash in the islands.
“They’re walking around with Coach bags and I’m walking around with a plastic bag. Yeah, little bags. So it’s unfair,” Sykes said.
Between 2007 and this year, California welfare recipients spent $387,908 in Hawaii, with $234,000 of that on Oahu at more than one thousand stores, shops and ATMs across the state, according to California Department of Social Services data obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
“There’s some fraud going on,” said Sacramento-area resident Kathy Albrecht, in Waikiki on business. “It’s terrible. It’s terrible.”
California welfare recipients spent nearly $12 million of their cash assistance in Las Vegas, more than a million of that withdrawn at shops or casino hotels along or close to the famous Las Vegas strip.
“California welfare recipients spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in Hawaii and millions in Las Vegas over the last two and a half years, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times.”
Glad to know some welfare recipients were able to keep luxury consumption spending alive while others of us were busily working. Why do I feel like such a dupe?
But let’s run the numbers……..
69 million divided by 2.5 = $27.6/year. How many recipients?
What is California paying employees to monitor welfare fraud? Maybe the answer is to “de-regulate” and fire all the people who are supposed to be watching out for the taxpayer. Especially when you consider the cost of flying all those “fraud regulators” to Vegas and Hawaii
I keed, I keed……….
More Than $69 Million In Welfare Funds Spent Out Of State
Now Mr. Bear, don’t lose your “Long-Term” perspective on things that dwell in your mind & ruin your day:
“Hurry Hurry! give us some 1.3 Trillion unseen future taxpayer money NOW!, or this sucker could ALL go down!” Heheheeeee
‘…“Long-Term” perspective…’
(snark)Did you mean Long-Term Capital Management?(/snark)
Well, they have no excuse,…unless they fudged on their education/professional resume’s…” ;-/
LTCM Partners:
John Meriwether Former vice chair and head of bond trading at Salomon Brothers; MBA, University of Chicago
Robert C. Merton Leading scholar in finance; Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Professor at Harvard University
Myron Scholes Co-author of Black-Scholes model; Ph.D., University of Chicago; Professor at Stanford University
David W. Mullins Jr. Vice chairman of the Federal Reserve; Ph.D. MIT; Professor at Harvard University; was seen as potential successor to Alan Greenspan
Eric Rosenfeld Arbitrage group at Salomon; Ph.D. MIT; former Harvard Business School professor
William Krasker Arbitrage group at Salomon; Ph.D. MIT; former Harvard Business School professor
Gregory Hawkins Arbitrage group at Salomon; Ph.D. MIT; worked on Bill Clinton’s campaign for Arkansas state attorney general
Larry Hilibrand Arbitrage group at Salomon; Ph.D. MIT
James McEntee Bond-trader
Dick Leahy Executive at Salomon
Victor Haghani Arbitrage group at Salomon; Masters in Finance, LSE
said Maria Sykes of Bakersfield, California, who is vacationing in Waikiki with her two cousins.
From Hawaii to Bakersfried…yep, “unfair” is x1 word that come’s to Hwy’s mind as well lady, here’s another: “depressing”…
““For people to abuse the system is outrageous because they’re spending and they’re buying stuff that we can’t even buy on our own salaries, so it’s unfair. Very unfair,” said Maria Sykes of Bakersfield, California”
I’m getting very, very, very tired of hearing “It’s unfair”!!
Grow up people, you got a one way ticket on this ride when you were born and no where did it say what was fair, unfair or about any entitlements. Pull yourself up and get in the race. If you don’t like what you see around you, then take an active part in changing it!!!!
So people are not allowed to spend their savings or look for work out of state?
Fear-mongering at its finest. Anything to make us forget just who screwed us all in the first place. Hint: it wasn’t people collecting unenjoyment.
It’s too bad gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman spent so much money ($119 million) on fruitless TV commercials. If she had sent $1 million each to 100 or more charities, she would have been hailed as a fantastic person who really cares. Maybe she could have asked voters to submit their charity choices and probably would have been a shoo-in for governor. Think about it.
Ben, we have a bot poster here.
?
sold in 05 has posted this same message everyday or every other day. At least 3 seperate instances that I can remember.
You know, a bot, like a program… but if you’re Basshunter, Swedish club superstar, that bot is real!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYQUsp-jxDQ
Meg lost the election this weekend with the illegal caretaker revelation…It won’t be the fact she had a illegal in my opinion, it will be her press interview telling everyone how much her family adored her but had to fire her…So we have a woman who has spent 119 mil of her own money on a campaign who fired the illegal caretaker after 9 years and did not give her one penny on the way out the door…
Or spent a little doing her own background check.
Outsourcing a background check might help keep you out of jail if the Feds catch you hiring illegals, but if you are running for office, even the normal dumbazz voter recognizes what was going on.
I didn’t want an illegal raising of my children, so I used family day care, provided by a well educated person who taught my sons to read by the time they were 4 years old. I was a resident back then, working 36 shifts followed by 12 hours at home. My husband was home, but he’s not maternal. He dropped them off at 8 and picked them up at 5, and we were charged $1/minute if we were late.
People back then told me that they hired “live-in” (illegal) help, because it gave them a lot of flexibility. They could go out to dinner, come home from work late, ask the nanny to drive the kids to appointments, lessons, practices, etc. They’re at your beck and call and have no power. I suspect that Meg knew exactly what she had.
I just don’t understand how people that rich were unwilling to pay for the best care for their children. And they don’t seem to have turned out well, which confirms my thinking.
http://www.ivygateblog.com/2010/06/how-will-princeton-grad-meg-whitman-explain-her-princeton-failure-sons-in-her-california-governor-election/
Meg is grotesque politican. BTW Nanny will be holding another press conference in 10 minutes to clarify that she really hates Meg.
I am not sure if Meg Nut made a threat against the nanny in the debate by asking “Who will look after Diaz after 11/2…”
Fox wants the feds to make an example of the nanny to send a message to all the illegals. Never seen O’Shrill & Greta so ruffled.
Fox wants the feds to make an example of the nanny to send a message to all the illegals. Never seen O’Shrill & Greta so ruffled.
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
“Meg lost the election this weekend with the illegal caretaker revelation”
How is Czarly doing in the Senate race? She’s one that can usually be counted on to stick her foot into her mouth.
i have been a regular reader and poster from the inception of this blog, i credit Ben w/ giving me the ammo in his early posts to convince my wife to sell our house (412k profit) and rental props (229k profit),i then bought 200k worth of gold 470 ounces when it was 425 an ounce,this was due to this blog,and the discussions we had in the early days of why put $$ in the bank…and as one of my fav old poster NEIL SAID, GOT POPCORN…
She won the lottery with eBay. Jerry has real plans to change welfare and make CA live with in its means. If you watch his interviews you will see he is the man for the job, he knows all about the inter working of CA’s gov. Meg has zero experience. This is a no brainer. Just watch the debates.
Avocado Pickers / Pinnapple Pickers / Pumpkin Pickers…
Olygal is a smilin’ up high!
http://news.yahoo.com/video/manchester-wmur-18211745/pumpkins-float-down-connecticut-river-22272508
“…a kid snagged x100 of ‘em and was selling them along the roadside…”
For all you “America is destroyed!” prognosticators.
Thank you, Jerry’s campaign manager, for your valuable insights.
“..change welfare and make CA live with in its means.”
Ha! Ha! Ha! whoeee! Best laugh I’ve had today!
Ha! Ha! Ha! whoeee! Best laugh I’ve had today!
funny how he thinks he’s conning everyone, isn’t it?
I’m sure old “moonbeam” will fix it “all” right up post hast!
Or, you could lend CA your Governor & his lover…
Moonbeam was kinda different and unpredictable. It will be interesting to watch him in office (again) at this safe distance.
As the Fed buys another $5.2 billion in U.S. treasuries today, here’s a little reminder of their MO.
Fed will not monetize deficit: Fisher
WASHINGTON | Thu Apr 15, 2010 10:10am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve has made clear it will not monetize federal budget deficits by printing money, a senior U.S. Federal Reserve official said on Thursday.
“We have politely made clear in all our speeches … that we will not monetize the deficits,” Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said on a panel at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
…
“We have politely made clear in all our speeches … that we will not monetize the deficits,” Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said on a panel at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
I heard Richard Fisher speak at the University of Arizona’s business school earlier this year. One of the best UA b-school guest speakers I’ve ever heard.
Afterward, I went to the reception and shared my thoughts on the economy. Specifically, the growth of the freelance economy as opposed to the “making a living with a job” economy. He was very courteous, and I appreciated that.
Reason: Quite often, we ambassadors from the State of Freelancia are dismissed as cranks who couldn’t make it in the job world. It was quite refreshing to receive such a respectful hearing from a high government official.
My observation is that politicization are essentially the opposite of entertainers - quite polite and personable in person, but ruthless and cutthroat when doing their actual job.
What are they trying to monetize? The price of gold?
And oil. And wheat. And copper. And coffee. And cotton.
And stocks. And bonds*.
* i.e. debt.
The game ends when housing is still going down while gas and food prices go through the roof, manufacturing collapses because the middle class is spending all it’s money on food and fuel. Food and fuel prices are not soaring yet, not sure why given gold oil etc. This will be the sign that you should go all cash. I’d say $3.50 to $4.00 a gallon is an oh sht moment for the FED.
I’ve long wondered about all the people who bought this spring w/the government’s little tax refund that never even had any idea how much of a cushion they were going to need going forward. I’m imagining a fresh new round of FBs were created. Which creates more fees/income for realtors and banks.
***********
“The game ends when housing is still going down while gas and food prices go through the roof, manufacturing collapses because the middle class is spending all it’s money on food and fuel.”
Fiat money has nowhere to go save gold/silver. - Alan Greenspan
The rush has begun.
Don’t look now, but stocks are going up a well as bonds and almost everything else whose price is denominated in dollars (rival fiat currencies excepted)…
Hey what do you know, Dow 11K.
So the dow is right back to where it was 12 years ago? Ultra horrible real losses. Gold on the other hand………….
The U.S. stock market is a lot like Zimbabwe’s stock market a few years ago. As the U.S. decides to monetize the debt it should remember the result in Zimbabwe of “printing money”: hyperinflation followed by a depression.
Dow is about 10K higher than the predictions from some HBBers not that long ago.
I’ve said this 100 times before….I don’t care what happened 10 years ago. I care that right now stocks are a good bet and have been for the past year and will be for the next year or so.
As for gold….sure it’s been great as well. These things are not mutually exclusive.
Now as for the 0.0015% APY checking accounts…..
Stocks are a bet allright. The S&P 500 dividend yield is 2.0%, and all those stock buybacks that are supposed to lead to capital gains? They merely offset all the new stock the executives are issuing each other.
But hey, my new 401K money is going into stocks, as they are at least better than bonds (though perhaps not better than cash at 0 percent).
At what level will you sell, Eddie? Dow 13,000? S&P 1200? From your previous posts, you said that you sold in everything in 2007 and then started buying again after the big crash of 2008. Those were two astute moves. I sold everything in 2007 (all retirement accounts too) and bought a few individual stocks late 2008, then sold those stocks in late 2009, while converting the retirement funds from bonds to savings. So my retirement missed the last 4000 point rise in stocks. I’m 20 years older than you are, so don’t mind it.
Please tell us at what level you will sell this time.
I dunno about youse guys, but I plan to take some chips off the stock market gambling table a bit before the election, “just in case…”
I sold almost everything spring/summer 2007. Missed the absolute peak by a few months, but close enough. Then I started buying hand over fist in late 2008 and have been buying since. Should have waited a few more months to get back in originally but again, close enough.
I don’t know when I will sell again. For the time being I don’t see any reason to sell. When the time comes I will sell. Unlike so many here I’m not tied to investing one way or another. Stocks are good now. They won’t be at some point. Then they will be again. Rinse, repeat every few years. Same for real estate. Same for gold. Same for you name the investment.
You make money by recognizing when the change happens. You don’t make money by sticking to a position just so you can prove a point…ie so many of you here who still think 100% of real estate is a bad deal.
“I’ve said this 100 times before….I don’t care what happened 10 years ago.”
I agree. Let’s look at today.
Americans are broke.
Auro sales, domestic and imports are in the toilet, below replacement levels
The housing market is dead
Unemployment remains stubbornly high
Wages are stagnant, and in some areas even falling.
State and local governments are broke. Many states are staring at multibillion dollar deficits they can’t possibly cover.
The federal government is running trillion dollar budget deficits.
Where’s the good news?
Where’s the good news?
No Homeland Invasion.
1K to go by year end. The question is whether it will go up or go down by that amount…
This is as much an Eddie watch as a Dow watch…
‘This is as much an Eddie watch’
Which is what trolls are into, attention and pointless arguing. For instance, who gives a sh*t where the dow is, etc, but off you guys go.
Hello (eddie)TardBoy.
A stimulus program that won’t be mourned
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — As the economy continues to sputter, President Obama recently signed legislation extending the life of several stimulus measures. But one program designed as an emergency rescue for small businesses didn’t get life support, and no one seems to be mourning its loss.
Called “America’s Recovery Capital,” the loan program was designed to get cash quickly in the hands of established, but struggling, small businesses. Small businesses deemed “viable” could get interest-free ARC loans of up to $35,000 to temporarily help them keep up with payments on existing loans, including credit card debt. The government offered banks a 100% guarantee.
But the program struggled to overcome several hurdles. First, qualifying for the program was tricky: Borrowers had to prove that they were both suffering a financial hardship and sound enough to survive in the long term. Second, banks were slow to get on board: The program required extensive administration and profit margins were scant.
Congress allocated $255 million, which the U.S. Small Business Administration expected would lead to 10,000 loans worth $340 million. The SBA estimates it ultimately supported more than 8,850 loans worth nearly $287 million.
But while the idea was to provide a quick cash infusion, it sometimes took months for a small business to find a willing lender and complete the application process.
The program proved so unpopular that Sen. Olympia Snowe, R.-Maine, who had been a primary supporter of the bill, tried to kill it just five months after it launched. She called the program “plagued with difficulties.”
My business hasn’t had the best of years this year, but let me tell you, the LAST thing I’m looking for is a loan.
BTW, the first thing I’m looking for is sales.
me too! or a trailer and a parking spot to live in!
+1, Slim.
Slim,
Have you contacted these folks?
http://www.nsf.gov/about/contracting/
Don’t know anything about them, but it seems up you alley.
It sure does!
I’m about to get back to prospecting the feds, so this is a very timely link. Thank you!
Schenectady budget proposal includes tax hikes, layoffs
Fire department would be cut by 30%
SCHENECTADY — Calling Schenectady’s budget situation the worst he has ever seen, Mayor Brian U. Stratton unveiled a proposal Monday night that would raise taxes by 4 percent, cut 68 city jobs and impose a new fee on property owners.
The proposal comes as the city faces a $6 million budget hole.
“The budget that you see, that I’ve put out, is a trade off between raising taxes and making cuts,” Stratton told reporters after unveiling the proposal to the City Council.
We’ve still got humungo new fire stations being built around here. Dewitt unveiled theirs last summer. Fayetteville just errected the steel beams on theirs in the last few weeks.
Every time I drive by them I think of a slowly gentrifying former blue collar town we lived in in Mass where the police dept flooded every spring. The townspeople kept saying to town leaders, “build these guys a new place” but the police did little whining even though their files were often ruined. Here it often feels like a race to spend every last cent.
I wonder what this mayor wants gubmint to stand up and do?
Hundreds of workers to be laid off in Cadillac
CADILLAC, MI — Feelings of concern swept through Cadillac today, as AAR Mobility Systems, one of the city’s largest manufacturers, increased its layoff total to 282 workers.
“We knew something was going to happen. We heard last spring that things were not going well and so it does not come as a total surprise…but whenever you lose employees in the community it’s a shock,” said Douglas Mellema, President of Manufacturing Association.
Cadillac’s mayor says 60 day layoff notices have been passed out over the past several months. The layoffs stem from AAR’s decision to move some of its production to a plant in North Carolina.
“I have friends that work there and people I graduated with work there. They are real people and they are devastated by it. They need help from government and the city and it’s time for government to stand up and see what we can do to help these families and businesses to keep going,” said Cadillac Mayor Bill Barnett.
Cadillac is down almost 3,000 jobs over the past 10 years, but Mayor Barnett says the city will rebound.
“We have the best work force in Northern Michigan. This is the number one manufacturing community in Northern Michigan, and if anyone can rebuild from this we can.”
“We have the best work force in Northern Michigan. This is the number one manufacturing community in Northern Michigan, and if anyone can rebuild from this we can.”
Hear that LOL’ing? That would be the Chinese, Japanese, and Mexicans laughing.
Please people…Americans have nothing to brag about when it comes to work ethic. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY!
That would be the Chinese, Japanese, and Mexicans laughing.
That would be the Chinese (swallowing toxic food/water), Japanese (buying logo status purses), and Mexicans (dodging bullets) laughing.
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
So having the highest productivity per worker in the world with the least amount of annual time off means we’re slackers?
And people wonder what’s wrong with this country?
“We have the best work force in Northern Michigan.”
Those UAW workers are saying, I`ll drink to that!
Paul B. Farrell
Oct. 5, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT
The Fed is dead, maybe by 2012
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — OK, so Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the “Black Swan” author, actually said: “The Fed won’t exist in 25 years.” Warning: It’ll happen much sooner, fallout of the coming Second American Revolution.
It’s inevitable: Wall Street banks control the Federal Reserve system , it’s their personal piggy bank. They’ve already done so much damage, yet have more control than ever.
Warning: That’s a set-up. They will eventually destroy capitalism, democracy, and the dollar’s global reserve-currency status. They will self-destruct before 2035 … maybe as early as 2012 … most likely by 2020.
…
As long as we keep electing people who actually give more power to the Fed, rather than taking it away - it will remain.
This of course implies one of two ways the Fed may end up gone…
LONDON (AP) — Retail sales in the 16 countries that use the euro unexpectedly fell during August, official figures showed Tuesday, in another sign that consumer confidence remains fragile despite a stronger than anticipated economic recovery.
Eurostat, the EU’s statistics office, said eurozone retail sales dropped by 0.4 percent in August from the previous month, in contrast to market expectations for a 0.2 percent increase. August’s decline was the first since April, though the monthly increases since then have been small.
As a result, the year-on-year rise in retail sales eased to 0.6 percent from July’s 1.1 percent rate.
Analysts say that the eurozone’s economic recovery can only be sustainable if consumers start to spend more, especially as the U.S. economy has lost momentum.
A large chunk of the 1 percent growth recorded by the eurozone in the second quarter was dependent on a big industrial recovery in Germany as stocks were replenished and global trade picked up.
“August’s fall in eurozone retail sales confirms that households are not picking up the slack left by slowing exports,” said Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics.
There are few hopes that the consumer will step up to the plate anytime soon
Global colding…
Coldest winter in 1,000 years on its way
~ Prime Time Russia
After the record heat wave this summer, Russia’s weather seems to have acquired a taste for the extreme.
Forecasters say this winter could be the coldest Europe has seen in the last 1,000 years.
The change is reportedly connected with the speed of the Gulf Stream, which has shrunk in half in just the last couple of years. Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.
Don’t start that.
I have a kidney stone and a lot of time.
Economy, jobs expected to remain weak through 2014
cnnmoney
A panel of economists on Tuesday predicted several more years of pain for the United States, agreeing unemployment will remain high far longer than 2014, when White House and congressional economists have predicted a jobs improvement.
The panel — including Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, Harvard’s Martin Feldstein and Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius — agreed that policymakers have failed to adequately stimulate the economy, and that more needs to be done.
“It’s going to take many years before you get back to anything approaching full unemployment, and 2014 is probably too early,” said Hatzius, speaking at a conference held at the Newseum in Washington. The conference was sponsored by the left-leaning think tank and advocacy group Demos.
Some on the panel predicted unemployment will tick upward before it heads lower. And Feldstein predicted that housing prices could fall even further, especially as more underwater homeowners give the banks the keys to their homes, increasing the supply of available ones.
“When that happens, it hurts consumer confidence and it makes it much harder for people to move where the jobs are,” Feldstein said. “Then, I think (consumers) have to stay and suffer it out, and can’t move where they have a better chance of getting a job.”
The panel — including Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, Harvard’s Martin Feldstein and Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius — agreed that policymakers have failed to adequately stimulate the economy, and that more needs to be done.
these are the same morons that promised us that unemployment would not rise above 8.5% if the stimulus package was passed. they never warned that ‘it might not be enough’. now with UE hovering around 9.5% they say we need more ’stimulus’. everyone of them is an economic illiterate. they won’t be happy until they collapse the currency.
Christina Romer warned that the stimulus package, as passed, would not be enough. And, as my grandad’s drinking buddy, Casey Stengel, was fond of saying, you could look it up.
for her, i don’t think anything would have been enough..
How’s that “trickle down” working for everyone?
Waiting for the shake!
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Cash paid to homesellers at all-time low
October 5th, 2010, by Jeff Collins / OC Register
“The amount of cash California homesellers pocketed at the end of a sales transaction fell to an all-time low this year, according to the California Association of Realtors’ latest annual survey of its members
The median amount of net cash received by sellers fell to $35,000 this year, the lowest amount ever in the 30-year-old survey, association Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young said in a news conference. In 2005, the median amount of cash at the end of a transaction was $220,000.”
What happened to all the rich cash-only infestors?
They’re in Canada, awaiting normal migration patterns.
400 more suburban workers likely to hit jobless rolls
Daily Herald Staff ~ Chicago
Nearly 400 suburban workers are expected to be unemployed in coming months as a half-dozen companies in Elk Grove Village, Schaumburg and elsewhere are planning layoffs or have already closed, according to documents from the state.
Chicago Packaging Co. and Quality Color Graphics Inc., both at 1100 Kirk St. in Elk Grove Village, closed in late September, affecting 114 workers, according to the state. Attempts to reach company officials were not successful.
In addition, Quad/Graphics Inc., a commercial printing firm at 120 E. Wiley Road in Schaumburg, said it plans to close due to a restructuring and will start laying off about 60 workers starting in November, according to the state. Company officials did not return calls.
In addition, Quad/Graphics Inc., a commercial printing firm at 120 E. Wiley Road in Schaumburg, said it plans to close due to a restructuring and will start laying off about 60 workers starting in November, according to the state. Company officials did not return calls.
Quad/Graphics is one of the best printers in the country.
But, sad to say, they do a lot of four-color work for a lot of entities that aren’t doing well. Namely, magazine publishers. Like the rest of the print media, magazines have really taken a beating the past few years.
I can’t remember the last time I actually purchased a magazine.
Same here. And I’ve been on the editorial staff of two magazines.
My family’s been in some sort of print for years. Dad was newspaper. Mine was catalogs and print advertising/direct mail.
I find myself increasingly annoyed with print. I think I didn’t mind sitting down with it befoe but now I’ve got e-mail, phone messages, and text messages to check and respond to there is no leisurely sitting around and leafing through print anymore. I also think the content talent has long abandoned ship for digital.
I was a print publisher, sold the business in 2006!!!!
“Sell your horse before it dies.”
I did a lot of work w/Quad too.* They were my favorite of the web printers to work with. I considered the exhausting press oks a treat. They did just have a merger and some of the layoffs are based on redundencies.
*The Quadrocci bros used to host fantastic client Christmas parties in Boston, at least back in the late 80s when the industry was expanding. But the reason they were my favorite was because their employees were knowledgable, eager to please our crazy schedules, and sensivitive to the needs of a person on call 24/7 spending hours staring at moving color.
~ Clipped from TDR
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal was an article about the Currency Reform and Fair Trade Act. Once you see something called “fair trade” you know it’s going to be bad news. “Fair trade” is code for “managed trade” - which, like managed paper currencies, is a fraud. You either trade freely…or you impose conditions in order to protect some special interest or promote some pet project. Then, it’s not free anymore. Whether it is “fair” depends on your point of view. But the only really fair trade is free trade - that is, trade that people willingly do without asking anyone else’s say-so.
In the present case, the “Fair Trade Act” has been ominously appended to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act…a previous experiment in managed trade. Smoot-Hawley was partly responsible for the depth and breadth of the Great Depression. In the ’30s, it was bad enough that people were going broke. It didn’t help that Misters Smoot and Hawley prevented them from buying and selling freely.
But all but five Democrats voted for the bill last week. So did 99 Republicans. If passed and signed into law, it will give the feds new ammunition in their fight to make the Chinese stop free trade with China. If they get their way, you’ll only be able to trade with China if it complies with certain restrictions and qualifications regarding the yuan (or renminbi). They fair traders want the Chinese to raise the value of its currency. How they know what China’s currency should be worth is a mystery…
But if the ’30s are anything to go by, this legislation will make the Great Correction worse. It will stymie world trade - just like Smoot- Hawley did.
“fair trade” what the heck does that mean anyway?
trade wars here we come. seems unbelievable that we don’t learn from our past mistakes..
Maybe the foreclosure pipeline would not be hopelessly backlogged by now, were it not for all the Democrat-sponsored foreclosure moratoriums?
Pelosi, others call for probe of foreclosure irregularities
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 5, 2010; 4:45 PM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Zoe Lofgren and other California Democrats are calling for a federal investigation into irregularities in processing foreclosures of thousands of homes by some of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders.
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and U.S. Comptroller John Dugan, the lawmakers said recent reports that Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Ally Financial may have improperly approved thousands of foreclosures “amplify our concerns that systemic problems exist.”
Banks “have repeatedly misled and obstructed homeowners from receiving the help Congress and the Administration have sought to provide,” they wrote. “The excuses we have heard from financial institutions are simply not credible three years into the crisis.”
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) this week called for the Government Accountability Office to investigate “the role of all government entities - including federal regulators, involved in overseeing mortgage servicing companies and affiliated banks - and identify any regulatory problems that may have permitted this misconduct to occur without detection until now.”
…
Maybe the foreclosure pipeline would not be hopelessly backlogged by now, were it not for all the
Democrat-sponsored foreclosure moratoriumspersonal/professional mal-investment?root-cause-analysis
PARIS (Reuters) - French families, students and private sector workers joined mass demonstrations on Saturday as trade unions ramped up pressure on the government to drop pension reforms.
Opposition to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60 showed no signs of abating and hundreds of thousands across the country marched in the fourth round of rallies in as many months
Unions said that about 2.9 million had marched, while police said the crowds numbered 899,000. The union figure was about the same as at the last demonstrations on September 23. The police figure was slightly lower.
A survey published by French daily newspaper L’Humanite showed more than 70 percent of people backed the day of action.
“We won’t back down,” said Bernard Thibault, head of the powerful CGT union. “If the government won’t listen there will be further action.”
Bugs: “eh, what’s up Doc?”
Bank Bonuses May Come Early:
ByLauren LaCapra, TheStreet com Staff Reporter , On Monday October 4, 2010
“What most of Wall Street wants is a short-term windfall - for Wall Street,” says James Gomes, director of the Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise at Clark University.
It’s unclear what will happen regarding tax policy. Leading Republicans like Rep. John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) have pledged to extend all the tax cuts for all Americans and possibly filibuster legislation that doesn’t achieve that goal.
Wall Street has shown that it’s willing to shift pay-out dates to benefit its employees: Merrill Lynch management decided to dole out billions of dollars in bonuses at the end of 2008, days before the troubled investment bank collapsed into Bank of America’s arms. So, perhaps bankers and traders may get at least one last year of relatively low tax rates if bank managers decide to pay bonuses in 2010.
“Bush-era” tax provisions that benefitted the wealthy are set to expire at the end of 2010. If Congress doesn’t extend the favorable rates through next year, it could make a big difference whether employees at Wall Street behemoths like Goldman Sachs , JPMorgan Chase , Morgan Stanley , Bank of America , Citigroup and the like earn their income by year-end.
As I was saying about the recent stock market run-up…
Good find Hwy.
The problem with government monetary stimulus is that politicians cannot stop spending when times are good. Plus, as they are only concerned with the next election, they can’t help but want to inflate bubbles.
The society at large cannot see the problem with this as they are the ones benefiting.
The debt never gets paid down. Of course, we can carry a certain amount of debt indefinitely.
My concern is that we will continue to probe the upper edge of that amount till we reach the breaking point. At that point, people lose faith in the currency and the ability of the government to pay back the debt.
This is the long term trend I see.
Housing bubble inflation and collapse = breaking point
Miserable month for Seattle area home sales
King County home sales fell in September for the third straight month.
Buyers closed on 1,158 houses last month, a 28 percent drop from the same month last year, according to statistics released Tuesday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
It was the worst September in at least five years, and the biggest monthly year-over-year decline since April 2009.
Prices, however, remained stable. The median price of houses that sold last month was $379,950, down less than 1 percent from September 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/2fdokcr
Obviously there were plenty of “wrong longs” to go around.
Outside the Box
Oct. 6, 2010, 12:00 a.m. EDT
The wrong long
Commentary: How TPG Capital lost $2 billion with WaMu
By Peter Atwater
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — A few weeks ago, ahead of the second anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., I went back into my files to reread what I’d written during 2008.
I wanted to see if there were any lessons to be learned that hadn’t already been tackled in the book explosion arising from the financial crisis. Read Minyanville’s “Why Did the Fed Allow Lehman to Fail?”
That led me to ask, “If the bet against the housing market by folks like Steve Eisman was ‘The Big Short,’ what was ‘The Wrong Long’?” — or the worst investment made during the crisis?
…
Goldman turns against Treasurys
Posted by Colin Barr
October 4, 2010 4:06 pm
The Treasury rally is over, Goldman Sachs says.
The investment bank’s chief interest rate strategist says the yield on the 10-year Treasury note is more or less done falling, the Wall Street Journal reports. Francesco Garzarelli tells the WSJ that stocks offer “much better return opportunity than bonds going forward.”
Is the bond bull market over?
He predicts the yield will stick around 2.5% for the balance of 2010 before rising as high as 3% next year.
The comment comes at the end of a six-month plunge in bond yields, and a corresponding rise in bond prices, that was anticipated by few forecasters on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs was among the most bullish firms on the outlook for bonds this spring, yet even Goldman underestimated how far bond yields would fall.