Bits Bucket For November 11, 2010
Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
May 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
US homes lost to foreclosure drops 9 pct in Oct.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The number of U.S. homes repossessed by lenders last month fell by the sharpest margin this year, as several major lenders temporarily halted most or all of their foreclosures amid allegations thousands of foreclosures were handled improperly.
Home repossessions dropped 9 percent from September to October, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
The decline represents the first significant hitch in a foreclosure steamroller that’s had lenders on pace to seize more than 1 million homes this year.
In recent weeks, some lenders that had suspended taking action against borrowers severely behind in payments have announced plans to resume doing so, though at a more measured pace, in an attempt to ensure there aren’t any flaws in the process.
Can someone tell me if this is better than expected?
I can tell what is to be expected: The Great Foreclosure Fiasco will cause a near-term slowdown in the rate of foreclosures with no commensurate slowing of the rate at which mortgaged home owners go into default. Hence a backlog of shadow inventory will continue to build, adding to the ever-increasing risk of an eventual massive flood of inventory on to housing markets formerly referred to as “a bit frothy.”
Foreclosure Fiasco
Repossessions fall 9% thanks to foreclosure freeze
By Les Christie, staff writer
November 11, 2010: 7:21 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Foreclosures fell in October, but it’s not because fewer people are losing their homes. Instead, the market is seeing a temporary stay from banks freezing foreclose auctions to review loan documents.
…
Exactly.
Of course the news in a few months will be “record foreclosures”… Unless the underlying causes are addressed this will not improve. Right now as I see it millions of folks got too little house for too much money and until these are allowed to go their course, prices will not settle back to where they naturally belong and the merry-go-round will keep spinning - faster and faster and…
They’ll be whiners on the left and whiners on the right and in the end nothing much will come of it, but they get to say we tried. Same old thing, just a different date on the calendar.
WASHINGTON ~ The top Republican and Democrat on President Obama’s bipartisan deficit reduction commission introduced an ambitious draft proposal Wednesday to slash the nation’s deficit by by $4 trillion over ten years, but both chairmen conceded that the focus is more on starting a national debate rather than actually accomplishing legislative action this year.
The draft, laid out in detail to commission members during two closed-door, hours-long sessions, spares virtually no “sacred cow” programs, proposing dramatic changes to Social Security, once called the “third rail” of politics, pushes for limits to Medicare, axes the popular mortgage interest deduction in favor of lower income tax rates for all, freezes Defense Department salaries and bonuses for three years and noncombat pay at 2011 levels for the same period, and the list goes on.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND, a commission member, did not sound confident that 14 of the 18 members could agree on any proposal in order to move it to a vote in Congress. “We’ve had trouble getting 14 people to agree on what time of the day to meet,” the Budget Committee Chairman said.
The often-comedic co-chairman Alan Simpson sheepishly exited the meeting, telling reporters, “We’re entering the witness protection program,” referring to his fellow co-chairman and proposal author Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton.
Draft presentation.
http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/CoChair_Draft.pdf
I didn’t notice today’s seniors giving anything up. Aren’t they the ones who wanted all that spending and all those tax cuts, and won’t they be the first to leave future generations of Americans worse off?
And aren’t most members of Congress over 55 too?
Old people vote.
Young people do as well, but usually not in their own best interests.
Page 29: Are they really claiming the current CPI calculation OVERstates inflation??
Yes they are providing you don’t eat, drive a car, or live in a house, or need medical care.
no, they’re claiming we can’t afford to keep up with it. Which is true.
There are three separate versions of tax reform.
It looks like the MID will be severely capped at $500K and no HELOCs in at least one of the plans. No second homes either.
DennisN,
Saints be praised! ( How long have we been thumping on that? )
While they’re at it, I suppose everyone’s seen the absolute -explosion- of federal workers that now make $150k + in UsaToday?
That’s part of the Obama Jobs plan! Of course, it’s easier to make one make work job that pays 150k than 3 that pay 50k.
I thought I heard that one of the proposals was” means testing”
of the over 65 to reduce Medicare and SSI payments for any
group that makes over a certain amount per year ,plus raising the retirement age to 69 .
Another proposal was adding a 15cent tax to gas ,and a bunch of defend spending cuts .Of course raising 15 cents on gas will end
up passing the price back to the food prices etc because trucking prices will be raised on transport of products .
I would like to see them adding a penalty tax to any outsourcing of jobs ,treat products produced outside this Country as foreign produced goods and ad a 25 % tax on it (even if your a American Company ) to encourage manufacturing done in America . When cheaply produced junk is the only monopoly in town than you don’t have real competition anymore anyway ,
Maybe we don’t have the luxury anymore of being the Police dog of the World ,so maybe we need to reduce defense spending to
something within our means . Not that a reduction in defense spending wouldn’t affect a lot of jobs and thats the part that has it consequences (not to mention war sucks anyway ).
I can just picture old folks sitting around a diner in Dayton, Ohio: “$150,000 for a government worker! Insane!”
What they don’t realize is not only do most government workers today have higher diplomas but $150K is still middle class, especially in DC. My wife and I (combined) make just under that and we are no where near close to affording a house out here, and that’s with basic cars, no CC debt, no fancy toys, etc.
The only federal workers I know making over $150k are generally managing or have managed millions if not billions of dollars and would be doing much better in the private sector. My wife left consulting to join the feds and it took her 8 years (and an Ivy league masters) before she was making a similar salary after year three of consulting.
Had I stayed in corporate finance, based on my peers, at this point would be making about 4X my federal salary, with some serious bumps coming up. Now, I get federal holidays off, but do not feel particularly overpaid.
But my patch might be different. I am sure there are some people who are overpaid. But in SF or NY, 150k does not buy all that much either. And in my experience, the professional federal workforce is a steal.
Its not as much the pay (although I do consider it excessive at most levels) its the “Bullet Proof” guarantee of the job, pay, raises benefits & pensions…NOBODY in the private sector has this type of almost “unconditional security”..
Your, “I could make more in the private sector” is a strawman… Typical public sector employee response…
As far as your wife and her “Ivy League Degree”, my daughter has “two” graduate degree’s out of a school every bit as good as your wife’s and she likely makes have the money….
By the way, she is probably teaching your children…
I’d give up something, if it was fair and everyone was giving up. I’m planning to work until 70, and am not entirely sure I will be able to stay employed the next 9 years.
One thing that surprised me was that people can retire at 65, collect SS and continue to work full time. This has been great for those who don’t make a lot anyway, but I’m not sure that was the plan originally.
In Montana,
As I’ve said before, I would be willing to Drill for The Guard, given mileage allowance and lunch. Berthing as req., for as long as it takes to right the ship.
And, if I didn’t say so before, thank you for your service to US, DinOR.
Wow, that sounds cool anyway, DinOR. But then I’ve never been in the Mil so what do I know.
Full retirement age for SS is 66 for people retiring now.
I know, that’s my full retirement age. The ones I knew who did this were older and retired maybe 8-10 years ago.
I wish congress would have the b@lls to for once go through with something like this. It shafts pretty much everybody (but not current SS users enough, honestly) and cuts the deficit. That’s how you do it. Put all the hard choices from both sides in one bill that actually does something good, then call it the “National Security Spending Adjustment” bill or something and pass it.
sfbb,
Not long back there was an uproar over all the various alphabet soup ’security’ organizations and the huge feed trough they’ve attached themselves to.
There’s no END to what they can find to ‘investigate’ and even once you -are- awarded your clearance it’s really just “probationary”. They just haven’t found any dirt on you ‘yet’.
It has to end.
I wasn’t implying that they should give any money to any national security thing, I was saying they should imply the new taxes and spending cuts were a matter of national security, which you could easily argue is true.
That being said, I think we have waaaay to much federal bureaucracy, and we could stand to cut all our ‘investigative’ groups down to the FBI and the CIA. And there are plenty of other redundancies in our government that need excision.
I think they are talking about means testing for current Medicare and
SSI receivers ,or cutting benefits .
In a retroactive type way I would like to see more taxing of the group
that fleeced America during the fake boom and were enriched by their
ill=gotten gain . Call it the “Ill Gotten-Gain Tax”.
Obama’s stand on these two mens recommendations will be interesting to see. Some thought that the release of the recommendations took the White House by surprise, given the silence in response. I think that, given that Obama appointed them, the three of them (Obama, Simpson, Bowles) decided to release the recommendations while he is abroad, giving him time to gauge the response.
While liberals are hollering about the future cuts to SS and Medicare, I haven’t heard conservatives yell about 30% in defense cuts. Maybe they’re taking on a less Neocon, more libertarian cast. That gives me hope that some compromises can be reached. Both parties could take credit for improving the deficit. But only if Obama exerts pressure on his own party and changes his own inclinations. And resists hard lobbying from the banksters, the NAR, federal employee unions, hospital corporations, etc.
Replay of 1995 in 2011? Or something more “hopey and changey/”
The National Review is mostly supportive of this plan. As one quipped on their blog, how can an Obama-created panel create a plan that is a non-starter with Pelosi and get good marks with the National Review?
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/253056/opening-volley-against-deficit-editors
Where are the tax increases to the Insurance monopolies (Health Care ) . Isn’t it clear that part of the reason why people can’t afford
shit anymore is because the price-fixing Insurance monopoly wants
to much of a cut of the America pie (family budgets ) .
Don’t see anything with any of these proposals that hit at the heart of
the greed based Industries/Wall Street that are fleecing America .
My father always use to tell me that it’s all about the battle between the have’s and the have not’s.
So , I think the concept of windfall profit taxes should be establish in
that if we are going to pay down a National Bill than go to the deep-pockets . In other words, if your a entity that makes to much profit than maybe you are getting benefits you shouldn’t from the government and the only way to gage it is by the profits at the end of the day .(At least we should do this for 10 years to get us out of this hole ) .Or maybe even a retroactive tax to the culprits that benefited
by the 10 year fake boom .
Industry /Wall Street always said you have to honor contracts and pay big commissions promised ,yet we should renege on the contracts
of pensions and other promises and SSI , while industry wants to throw those liabilities to the Government .
Who cares about Main Street it’s all about Wall Street /Corporations
that aren’t even loyal to America anymore .Bloated Union benefits
that were not sustainable need to be examined also .
The great middle glass gets to go into poverty ,or some SSI receiver
who can’t even fight inflation ,but lets keep Wall Street and Industry
in the” greater profits the better” zone and even lower their taxes .
This is open abuse of the powerless . Instead of getting rid of middle class write offs ,why not the deep pocket fat cat bogus write offs and government welfare to the rich and elite .
There are some major forces trying to destroy America today . The Socialism for everyone group/Bloated Unions and the Wall Street /Corporation Industrial /Insurance Complex of fat Cats . Where does
the true middle class and slightly higher middle class group who is
the majority of population fit into all this . These are the workers of
America that buy products .
Also ,there is something to be said about “means testing’ and the cost of living in different States .If you just applied tax increases across the board without any consideration to the cost of living in different states than tax increases in certain locations could throw some populations
into poverty . There are some states you can actually live on min.
wage while other States these increases would throw many into a
unsustainable position .
Sounds to me like a rerun of the Grace Commission report from 1982. Lots of good ideas in that one as well, Zero implementation.
Fed to Purchase $105 Billion of Treasuries Over Next Month
The Federal Reserve will purchase $105 billion of Treasuries over the next month as policy makers expand monetary stimulus measures to reduce unemployment and avert deflation.
The central bank will conduct 18 open-market operations from Nov. 12 through Dec. 9, according to a statement today on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s website. The central bank is buying an additional $600 billion of Treasuries through June and expects to reinvest $250 billion to $300 billion of proceeds from mortgage-backed debt and agency securities into Treasuries.
The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee embarked on a second round of unconventional monetary stimulus on Nov. 3 after a benchmark interest rate near zero and an earlier program to buy $1.7 trillion of securities failed to bring down an unemployment rate that’s stuck near a 26-year high. The transactions announced today will be comprised of $75 billion of new purchases and $30 billion of reinvestment proceeds.
What if bond sellers refused to accept the Fed’s newly-printed money? Is there any way a sellers-strike could be organized in protest? …or is there just way too much greed involved.
Refuse the accept the Fed’s newly printed money? As if they have an alternative. Oh wait, they do: Hold the bonds to maturity and accept even newer-printed money at that time.
At least freshly-printed US dollars can be immediately exchanged for other currencies or hard assets, rather than just hoping the future dollars will also be as useful.
Fed to Purchase $105 Billion …about $1000 for every adult in america
And what will i see?
maybe 1/4 of 1 lousy percent lowering of my credit card rates…..about $1 a month…..
well, that’s better than nothing. Now go ahead and eat your cake. (:>}
What makes you think the banksters are even going to let him eat cake?
Ohhhh Sh!t. I forgot. This ain’t France.
Outside the Box
Nov. 9, 2010, 11:21 p.m. EST
Latest QE threatens the world
Commentary: Fed move portends dangers for global economy
By Richard Duncan
BANGKOK (MarketWatch) — On Nov. 3, the Fed announced it will create 600 billion new dollars over the next eight months and use the money to buy U.S. government bonds. The media has dubbed this latest round of easing “Quantitative Easing 2,” but it is really the third such massive round of money creation, and this time, it may prove especially dangerous for the world economy.
In fact, the origin and evolution of the crisis in the global economy can best be understood by considering the purpose and consequences of each of the three rounds separately.
The first round was conducted not by the Fed, but by the Bank of Japan, the People’s Bank of China, the Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Bank of Korea and the central banks of numerous other countries with balance of payments surpluses.
G-20 set to gather amid controversy
Ahead of Thursday’s G-20 meeting, controversy has grown over the Fed’s recent stimulus moves, which China and other nations have protested.
Together, they created the equivalent of $5 trillion worth of their own currencies between 2000 and 2008, with the purpose being to support export-led economic development in those countries.
Their central banks printed their own currencies and used it to buy dollars, depressing those currencies’ values and perpetuating their trade advantages.
That policy was extraordinarily successful in raising growth rates for the countries involved, but the consequences extended far beyond their borders. These nations reinvested their dollars into Treasury bonds, Fannie Mae /quotes/comstock/11k!fnma (FNMA 0.38, 0.00, -0.34%) and Freddie Mac /quotes/comstock/11k!fmcc (FMCC 0.37, +0.00, +0.94%) debt, other corporate bonds and equities, pushing up asset prices, driving down interest rates and resulting in a shocking misallocation of capital throughout the U.S.
Fed Chairman Bernanke recognized the destabilizing impact of those capital flows and attributed them to a “global savings glut.” About this, however, he was badly mistaken. It was not foreign savings, but massive money creation by U.S. trading partners that was to blame for blowing the United States economy into a bubble.
…
PB ….yes yes and yes . Your post above exactly how I view it .
“Gold is in a bull market, not yet a bubble. It will probably stay in a bull market for a long time – until they re-establish a gold standard for paper money…or until the international monetary system cracks up…whichever comes first.” ~Bill Bonner
Bernanke can make gold, right?
They can print gold certificates. As good as the real thing, really! Trust me!
ok, Big Mike. Give me your gold and I will give you some gold certificates.
I believe Mike was being sarcastic.
Is Bernanke’s middle name Rumpelstiltskin?
Rumpelstiltskin? Didn’t he play second base for the Cubs?
It was probably two years ago there was a discussion on this blog about how gold was an obvious short at $800 per oz, as that was a new high. That gold was in an obvious bubble.
Now, the fact is, gold has risen another 75% of that to $1400 per oz.
What is lamentably tragic is that folks don’t grasp that what they are witnessing is not the price of gold going up, but the collapse of their own purchasing power.
Lamentable because of the human misery that was spawned when the madman Bernanke hit the print button again.
Tragic, because of what might have been, if we were still a nation of honest money, as the Constitutional authors insisted.
I am wondering if there will be a big sell off prior to the first of the year to avoid the new taxes and paperwork trail. Just wondering.
That’s not til 2012 isn’t it?
my boss lost a ton in the dot.com bust and is losing money on a condo he planned to flip.
soooo….everyone get into gold…i will post when he gets in it…then everybody SALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your boss is a canary in the coal mine,except that he volunteered to get in the cage. How in the world did he get to be the boss? Is the company going under too?
it almost did.
“How in the world did he get to be the boss?”
No kidding.
It will probably stay in a bull market for a long time
Buy Gold! Buy Gold! Buy Gold!
Hold! Hold! Hold!
Shazam!
70% up in one year beats any 401K money any employer ever promised me. Thank you Aladinsane, wherever you may be, laughing at those who mocked you. How’s them CD’s holdin up?
“…until they re-establish a gold standard for paper money…or until the international monetary system cracks up…”
Perhaps Bonner’s misconception reflects what would enhance the value of his play book rather than his actual beliefs, but his statement is patently false. All it would take for to end the bull market in gold would be a slowing of the fiat money printing press operation to a less inflationary rate of seigniorage creation than the gold bugs expect. The out-of-control printing press scenario is already reflected in the price.
Professor Bear-
The money is rotten. It will reach it’s intrinsic value of zero. Those holding something of intrinsic value get to switch to the new money and keep some purchasing power. The banks are broke. Hiding losses is aok w/ the new FASB rules as of Mar 09..
Gold will keep going up, with hiccups, of course, because the amount of debt and leverage is mind boggling. I’m tired of the HBB pontificating about things they know nothing about. Mpls Star Tribune today says that housing looking more bleak.
I find your comment humorous given the fact that some people argue gold has zero intrinsic value (not that I agree with them). There was a chart on seekingalpha a few years ago that put its intrinsic value around $400. That would mean it’s overvalued by more than 3x. Housing has intrinsic value. In fact, before I’d go buy gold, I’d go buy rental houses in markets where properties are cash flow positive with a 20% down payment. IMO, gold is in a speculative bubble, driven by cheap Fed money and Wall St. greed.
Hey twin, what are you, the new Eddie? How can you generalize “the HBB”? Who appointed you omniscent?
How much gold does Bill Bonner hold? My guess is A LOT. It comes as no surprise that the people talking up gold, are in gold. The rate at which gold prices can collapse is breathtaking. It’ll be entertaining to watch as it unfolds.
I would imagine plenty of savvy consumers will be snapping up these great deals…
Target trots out $3 appliances on Black Friday
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Here’s a sampling of what Black Friday shoppers at Target stores could score this year: $3 appliances, deep deals on HDTVs and 50% off on clothes and toys, according to a website that says it has received a leaked copy of the retailer’s circular.
These include a 40-inch Westinghouse 1080p LCD HDTV for $298, down from its regular price of $550.
Also in the ad: $3 Chefmate appliances such as 2-slice toasters, 5-speed electric handmixers and 2-slice sandwich makers; a Wii Fit bundle that includes the Wii Fit balance board and Wii Fit Plus game for $67; TomTom GPS XL335T with lifetime traffic updates for $79; 8GB iPod Touch with a $30 gift card for $225; Sony wireless Blu-Ray player for $99; 4GB Xbox 360 game system for $200 with a $50 gift card; DVDs for $4; and 50% off on select toys and children’s winter clothing priced at $5.
I’m sure the pre-dawn lines will be long, people will get trampled and fights will break out as they do every year. And overall sales for the season will be disappointing.
I think I’m going to build a house out of flat panel TVs. If prices are that cheap I just might have to try to find myself one of these TVs finally. I just need one with a serial port for control, and they are normally only found on the higher end models.
I predict bad xmas sales.
Va Beyatch,
If we can build a house out of empty liquor bottles.., I say WTF! LOL, thanks.
China will love Black Friday!
Westinghouse
BWAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! (fpss™)
Yeah, sad what they did to that name.
Don’t laugh too hard. I bought a Westinghouse computer monitor and 3 years later, it still works great.
Westinghouse isn’t that great of a TV according to the ratings .
I wouldn’t mind some cheap sandwich maker for 3 bucks that will
break within 2 years ,but to wait in those lines for it …sorry .
according to a website that says it has received a leaked copy of the retailer’s circular
Keep posting them thar rumors wmbz:
Rumor = Truth! Rumor = Truth! Rumor = Truth!
So, lil’ Opie’s spending 200 million+ $$$$$$$$$$$$$ a day in India?
“You Betcha by golly!” The “TrueRogue™” Sarah The Barracuda
Additional Shout, Yell & Scream provided by:
MUrDoch’s “TrueProvoker ™” Faux News prognosticators:
Rash & Limpbaughs… “I’m 99.9% right about everything”
Glenbeckinstan: “evangelical restore your soul & 2006 home appraisal!”
Dawn insHannity: “I agree with everyone above & more!”
“Oh, Ripert MUrDoch any comments?”
“What’s that?,…you’re going to Disneyland?… What?… All of ‘em?”
High drama of our age: who is the retail Deepthroat?
Not sure, but I have an ever so slight notion about who is “TrueDeepPockets™” and is CONservatively using FEAR & Deceit and laughing at America: The first 4 letters of his last name can be used to spell: MUD
His empire financed from the sale of Bart Simpson dolls and Stormtrooper figures no doubt.
Hyper-consumerism has been veeery, veeery good to him.
Since when was a sandwich maker a product?
Heck, I’m a sandwich maker. Here’s how I do it:
I lay two slices of bread out face up, spread the peanut butter across one slice, put the slices together and, voila, I’ve made a sandwich.
That you make your house a food manufacturing center and you a sandwich engineer…
We will see it reflected in the next set of government numbers.
I bet it’s more like one of them George Forman sandwich maker and heats them up. I’m on for $3.
I’m a sandwich maker ?
So am I…Making one right now in fact…Polish sausage boiled then grilled…Thin sliced sour dough bread with a little butter on one side then broiled, little mustard and about 1/2 dozen peperoncini’s and there you have it…
Ew. (You had me until the peperoncinis or however you spell them)
Got to add a little kick to it…Alternatively, you can drop the perperoncini’s and add some straight horse radish to the mustard….Yummy
Mmmm… horse radish! Now we’re talking!
RIght Slim …..true why do we need sandwich makers ?
i
I had to look it up. It heats up things like panini and grilled cheese. I would rather make those in a covered pan on the stove than get the appliance out of the cupboard, use it, clean the nooks and crannies after using it, and put it away. Young people love stuff like that. When I was young I loved my fondue pot, pasta maker, Cuisinart, blender and juice squeezer until I got sick of cleaning them after a year or two. I got rid of the first three long ago, and gave the last two to my son two years ago.
I do still have a toaster, microwave and mixer.
Appliances that I feel are worth having :
Toaster, although toasting in a frying pan with butter = delicious.
Waffle Maker
Popcorn air popper.
Blender
Hand mixer
POSSIBLY one of the mixers/bowl stands if you bake or make homemade pasta.
Rice cooker if you make tons of rice regularly.
Oops, I agree about the ricemaker!
When I was young I loved my fondue pot, pasta maker, Cuisinart, blender and juice squeezer until I got sick of cleaning them after a year or two. I got rid of the first three long ago, and gave the last two to my son two years ago.
And to think that I just have a blender.
And to think that I just have a blender ??
And for what may I ask ??
And for what may I ask ?
I use it for making banana smoothies.
Accessories not included! Also, those $3 appliances are the worst of the Chicr*p.
i would have a hard time trusting much of anything that is supposed to plug into the wall that cost $3. Is there a UL symbol on that thing?
CUL I heard.
I like crock pot cooking still after all these years ,wouldn’t give up my crock pot . I’m alone now with the old dog and I make sandwiches and quick type meals ,so the sandwich maker caught my eye but I actually wouldn’t end up using it in the final analysis .
I wonder if they are going to try and sell you a service contract
for $19.95?
So why are these other countries just now getting their panties in a wad over $600 billion? What about the previous trillion?
G-20 on collision course
SEOUL - The United States and China are on a collision course as this week’s gathering of leaders of the 20 most important economic powers threatens to devolve into a meaningless charade amid pressure against a US scheme to cure financial ills by printing ever-more money
From China to Germany, Brazil to France, the world’s financial wizards are up in arms about the decision of the US Federal Reserve to buy up US$600 billion in Treasury bonds in a move that may make the US the “odd country” out in the Group of 20 (G-20), when they meet in Seoul on Thursday and Friday.
The term for this move is quantitative easing (QE), and the latest
round, on top of the earlier purchase of US$1.7 trillion, is dubbed QE2, but it won’t be anything like a cruise on the old QEII, the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth II of a bygone era.
“One of the biggest concerns with this round of quantitative easing is that it will make the already weak US dollar even weaker,” said the Bedford Report in an analysis of the market impact.
“So why are these other countries just now getting their panties in a wad over $600 billion? What about the previous trillion?”
The previous trillion was committed to save the world’s economy. The current $600 billion is to save the U.S.
That’s the theme as I understand it. (But that’s not saying I buy it.)
“The previous trillion was committed to save the world’s economy. The current $600 billion is to save the U.S.”
One would think they’d want to keep the “host” alive. Factory workers overseas are depending on it.
No Colorado its not about keeping the host alive ,it’s about what are
you going to do for me today, don’t care what you did for me yesterday .
Countries display the same tendencies that humans do.
Yesterday you sold me fraudulent MBS causing a world wide economic crisis and today you drive up the cost of commodities by reckless money printing. Any questions?
‘…keep the “host” alive…’
Parasites always have the option of moving on to new hosts, so long as others are available.
Who’s afraid of a little worthless paper? What’s the big deal?
You’d think with the amount of gold the Chinese are mining now days coupled with talk of developing a new gold standard for currencies, they would be celebrating a move that is driving the price through the roof.
“So why are these other countries just now getting their panties in a wad over $600 billion? What about the previous trillion?”
They are all Tea Partiers who said a few years ago “Defecits don’t matter” like Dick Cheney, but NOW its a crisis!!
“They are all Tea Partiers who said a few years ago “Defecits don’t matter” like Dick Cheney, but NOW its a crisis!!”
ZINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!
The hypocrisy of the GOP/Conservatives knows no bounds.
Sean,
The rank and file Tea Party types would never say “deficits don’t matter.”
Dick Cheney, Karl Rove & company were part of Bush’s neo-con cabal whose military adventurism and imperial over-reach was the antithesis of limited government. Never forget: Bush appointed Paulson and Bernanke, and kept Greenspan around.
While some of the Tea Party movement has been co-opted and manipulated by Establishment GOP plants such as Sarah Palin and the sleazeball K Street operatives of Freedomworks, the Ron Paul/Liberty wing has never accepted such frauds or their masquerades as representing us and our views.
Never forget: Bush appointed Paulson and Bernanke, and kept Greenspan around.
Goes good with coffee…
Tea party folks are just embarrassed Republicans. Nothing more. You didn’t hear a peep from folks about the rising costs a few years ago, but listen to conservative folks and you’d think all this came about with Obama. Why cant we have a friggin sane and educated country for once instead of bickering like kids. I have conservative issues I like, but I have been shown the door by the crazy lunatic fringe known by the TPs.
Moderate sane views = not welcome.
Jeez Sean… you should speak up more often here.
Or not? Sean.., the Tea Party didn’t even -exist- during the chronology you’re alluding to. As exeter would say “Nice try though?”
Your comments really aren’t even germane, other than to excite die-hard loyalists?
But ask them who they voted for in 2004? I don’t think there are many Kerry supporters in the Beck crowd. Heck, most were too busy watching reality TV shows when the whole thing went down. It wasn’t until they lost their job or house until they paid attention and said: “Who’s responsible for this?”, with loud mouth pundits screaming:”Democrats!! Its their fault!!”. Now there are people making a boatload of money off of the TPers ‘anger’ (Reference: Palin, Sarah).
Sean,
Is your stock in trade journalism? It should be. Very well stated.
The few TP’s I know are very principled, limited government types. I agree with these concepts, not what the MSM tries to project.
Are there idiots that are TP’s? Absolutely. But as some of our frequent posters prove daily, there are idiots in every organization.
Why cant we have a friggin sane and educated country for once instead of bickering like kids.
Because the courts have ruled that MSM doesn’t really have present facts anymore. And that corporations are much freer to influence elections and use foreign money to do so.
No joking.
We’ve become a-winner-take-all nation and it will NOT end well. We put a price on everything and therefore value nothing.
Thanks Exeter, although I’m not a journalist. I just confident enough to say what I think, and it has to he short since the iPhone doesn’t like this site. (Doesn’t let you type too much). I’m not even anti-TP, I can follow and respect their primary principles - I just don’t like being yelled at or have facts made up. Put blame on things where they are due, respect our President regardless of party affiliation and set a better country for our youth.
The “TrueRogue™” bus banner reads:
Now!,…Now, we’re FUll of “TrueAnger!™”
…says the PeeParty tea toadlers, and it’s nothin’ ’bout that non-citizen Kenyan-Islam-muslim’s colored’s skin color and he beIN’ the “I’m-the-Decider-in-Chief-now” and that other stuff neither. Besides, look at what he’s done to America’s house prices & all those Millions & Millions of jobS Cheney-Shrub spent 8 whole years creating, you darn tottin’ we’re FUll of “TrueAnger!™”
I think Dick Cheney is not a Tea Partier, although they are a mixed bag. He is definitely a Neocon. I wonder what proportion of Tea Partiers would favor defense cuts. The Glenn Beck gathering highlighted members of the military, but you can certainly honor the service of individual soldiers while slashing the defense budget.
I’m sorry, Sammy. I put in my comment before reading your much better worded post.
No worries, REhobbyist, I do that all the time.
Didn’t you hear , whats good for America is good for the rest of the
World . Every Country is selfish and that is why Globalism never works .
This illusion that other Countries that have their own problems will be
happy to create win/win trade agreements etc is outright stupid . It boils down to as long as there is a “Willing Horse” it gets ridden .
Also ,in all the new debt reduction proposals it’s interesting how no
proposals actually targets the Great Elite . Lets see how the Politicians
come up with who the winners and losers will be based on who the highest bidder lobby influence wants the cuts . I say the Great Elite don’t care
if they give jobs to Americans ,so screw them they don’t deserve tax cuts
as if they would even spent it in the “Has Been America “.
http://larouchepub.com/other/2010/3744bernanke_hyperinfl.html
n the wake of the Federal Reserve’s Nov. 3 announcement of $600 billion more in “quantitative easing,” massive and volatile speculative capital flows, which have been underway for some months, increased dramatically. With the dollar being intentionally debased on British orders, huge sums are moving into the carry trades, stock markets, and commodities of all sort, wreaking havoc on especially emerging market nations, and threatening skyrocketing inflation in the U.S. in the short term.
Not surprisingly, it was the British imperial mouthpiece, the Financial Times, which, in contrast to monetary authorities in most other major nations, stepped up to both approve Bernanke’s decision, but also to egg him on to go much further. What the Fed did was “on the timid side,” the City of London mouthpiece declared in its lead editorial Nov. 4. It may have to “make a stronger commitment to inflating the economy.”
As for President Obama, he made it clear from India today, that he supports Bernanke’s action, in the name of so-called growth of the economy.
Deliberate Destruction, Not Growth
Bernanke’s insane action would be laughable, if it were not so destructive. It’s a patent absurdity for the Fed to argue that there is too little inflation in the U.S. economy—at a time when the cost of health-care, food, gasoline, and virtually everything else is skyrocketing for the American wage-earner. As with the decision to withhold cost-of-living increases from Social Security recipients, veterans, and others, the statisticians’ declaration of “no inflation” is strictly a means of looting.
Equally absurd is the argument from the Fed chairman himself, that the increase in liquidity, which will be created by the Fed’s purchase of Treasury bonds, will help in the creation of jobs and growth in the U.S. economy. The first round of bailouts, for example, simply flooded the banks with liquidity which is now being used for creating new speculative bubbles, and did nothing to reverse the decline in jobs and physical production.
So, why did Bernanke make this move? Because the banks which will benefit are bankrupt—and will continue to be so until there is a bankruptcy reorganization that introduces the Glass-Steagall principle. Bernanke is interested in trying to save the banks, and is simply whistling in the dark, in the face of the inevitable looming result of his action—Weimar-style hyperinflation.
All about who the winners and losers will be ,but save the Banks and the
Casino ,the Elite and the Corporate raping of America .The other power
group that is to the left are fighting for their pie share . Isn’t it
interesting how the great middle class ,the majority actually ,is the population that is suppose to take it in the ________. The problem this time is the middle/moderate upper middle classes don’t have anything to give anymore but slipping into poverty or a debt slave status .
the British imperial mouthpiece, the Financial Times
LOL - if they want to not be thought of as cultish wackos they gotta get a new thesaurus.
Ending the Fed is a good idea, but it’s only a start. We also need to repeal the National Bank Act of 1863 which established the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and provided for Federal chartering of banks. And of course, the states must follow suit and repeal their own bank enabling laws.
To paraphrase Stalin– no bank, no problem.
ending the fed would be like cutting up america’s credit card. blasphemy.
Not America’s credit card. Wall Street’s.
And of course, the states must follow suit and repeal…
The 13th Amendment, so America can back to out competing Brazil for cotton jobs.
I’ll just re-post an idea here, so more people can comment.
Back in the 1970s, my Brooklyn neighborhood was redlined. Houses were either sold for whatever someone would pay cash for, or passed down in families.
Some local banks did make loans based on the character of the borrower, not the property. One neighbor said he got a loan because he knew the loan officer personally and had a steady job with the city.
In worse off neighborhoods, property was simply abandoned large scale. And there were lots of fires, leading insurers to pull out too.
All this had a racial component at the time. I wonder if you might see, if not cash only deals, extremely high downpayments for much of suburban and Sunbelt america in the coming years, and what that would do to prices and neighborhoods. Particularly for smaller houses built from 1950 to 1980.
“extremely high downpayments”
That’s pretty funny. Just where are the buyers going to borrow the downpayment money?
‘merica is dead in the water without howmuchamonth.
“Howmuchamonth’ i.e. How to live above your means without really trying.
‘merica is dead in the water without howmuchamonth ??
I dunno…I think credit gets to much of a bad rap on our blog…Although I agree with all the abuse, and outright fraud that has occurred, having the availability of credit whether that be credit cards or loans can not only improve your quality of life by being able to leverage your cash flow , properly implemented it can also can help you make a boat load of money…
All this had a racial component at the time. I wonder if you might see, if not cash only deals, extremely high downpayments for much of suburban and Sunbelt america in the coming years, and what that would do to prices and neighborhoods. Particularly for smaller houses built from 1950 to 1980.
Yipes, you’ve just described the Arizona Slim Ranch and surrounding nabe to a tee!
“extremely high downpayments”
This will be accomplished through lower prices. A friend of mine, who does remodelling work, is working for a guy who is buying houses in bad neighborhoods on the west side of Phoenix for $40,000 - $60,000, fixing them up and renting them out. Prices like that make it possible for some buyers to pull together downpayments of 50%. I anticipate this trend spreading to the rest of Phoenix and its suburbs.
’spreading to the rest of Phoenix and its suburbs’
It’s already happening.
This just in from Tucson: Our local fishwrap is reporting that the median house price is $140k. Here’s the story:
Median sale price was down 22% from same month in ‘09
Housing market remained bleak through October
And here’s Slim’s take:
Given that our local median income is in the high 30s/low 40s, it looks as if the median house price is almost back in line with the 3x local income metric. Another $20k or so and we’re there.
In short, progress is being made.
There is a line of thought that the cause of urban blight was largely the household financial pressures felt by Black houseowners who had to make those high downpayments and pay those high interest rates. Burdened with those costs, maintenance was deferred, fathers had to work copious overtime, and mothers were driven to work as well. Families and neighborhoods fell apart, and very well may never had a chance.
Your postulation is thoroughly intriguing because in sense, the experience of those houseowners appears now as a harbinger for the more widespread event we’re experiencing now. Sort of a proto-bubble if you will. I agree with the premise of your argument save the fact that I don’t think it will be as regionalized as you state here. This is gonna be worldwide - and many a 60s Rambler and 80s Loft might share the same fate.
Houseownership has a dubious history in our nation to sure. Many groups - minorities, immigrants, rural migrants, etc. have all run up against this and it has caused much hardship and suffering. Still, always present was the REIC - ready to destroy and rebuild for a profit - lovin’ the churn. Stable communities are garlic to the agent vampires, even though they (agents, banks, gov’t) use the lure of stability to sell houses!
There is a line of thought that the cause of urban blight was largely the household financial pressures felt by Black houseowners who had to make those high downpayments and pay those high interest rates.
I’ve been wondering how to sum up my experience for this thread and there it is.
I was too young when redline busting became front page news. But I was living in the deep south and saw the effects, albeit more as peripheral events.
Later as an adult, I lived on the fringe of many of those areas and there is doubt that redlining pressure destroyed those families and neighborhoods for generations.
Think about how your life would be with 30%+ credit being the only thing available in a society that requires most of to have cars (a large capital expense for most people) and pay for your medical with your job ALWAYS in jeopardy.
Are you talking about redlining or blockbusting>
Both. It’s all tied together.
Or crap, that should read “… there is NO DOUBT that redlining…”
Was “redlining” the cause? or the result?
That’s a good question. If it was the result, not the cause, then it will probably be happening in much of the U.S.
Then — banks assumed housing prices would drop because those moving in were poorer than those moving out to the suburbs.
Now — banks will assume housing prices will drop because incomes are going down generally, and prices/inventories were inflated.
The only alternative is QE2 creating inflation, eliminating nominal decreases while keeping real ones. But if you have inflation, holding a 4.25% mortgage note isn’t much of a deal either.
extremely high downpayments for much of suburban and Sunbelt america in the coming years ??
Small town America struggles in good times…This great recession has to be the death blow, economically that is…
I respectfully submit that we might consider taking a few moments out today to commemorate our veterans: to thank the ones around us, and to send good wishes and sound thoughts to those who are not here.
As I have posted before, my older son is a Marine. A day does not go by that I don’t think about him. He is due to come back from overseas in January. Words cannot express my happy anticipation about having him back in the same hemisphere.
Happy Veteran’s Day, everybody!
To the soldiers. (slugs coffee)
Thank you for defending our now Ponzi-country.
Commemorate veterans, repudiate and condemn the US war machine.
I heartily agree!
Hwy50 somberly gets in line behind this statement…
“repudiate and condemn the US war machine”
Kind of hard to have a war machine with no soldiers.
I know, I’m asking them to bring back the draft.
Anyone remember the signs that said: “No draft, no war”? The hippies weren’t counting on economic conscription.
The hippies weren’t counting on economic conscription.
I don’t think the hippies understood how good they had it at the time.
Some did, some didn’t.
The ones that did were fighting against this nation becoming the corptocracy that it eventually became.
The ones who didn’t were just ideological pacifists.
The Vietnam War being on TV every night was a real game changer. It was something that had never been experienced before.
You are spot on Colorado.
“repudiate and condemn the US war machine”
Great talking points ( circa 2006 pre-pre election ramp-up? ) Doesn’t work that way. What are you still doing here?
Tough luck war pig.
+1 exeter…
+1
+1. Madison Avenue’s perversion of our holidays into opportunities for consumerist binging, in igornance of tradition and oblivousness to the sacrifices made by so many military personnel and their families, is one of the most telling indicators of the materialistic sickness that has overtaken American society.
I give a lot of thanks to Veterans . Actually a party who puts their life
on the line should be paid more than a Wall Street Fat Cat .
Have a look at this story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131181567&ps=cprs
Soldier from IL killed on his 9th tour! 9 tours! And today the headlines are about WMT free shipping?!
Many times soldiering becomes your life…I am sure it is why this gentlemen returned 9 times…Its all you understand…Civilian life in many ways to a long term soldier is completely dysfunctional…My father after 20 years in the Navy never really adjusted to the civilian life…The military was all that he understood and craved…
My father after 20 years in the Navy never really adjusted to the civilian life…The military was all that he understood and craved…
Sounds like my father. He was one of those people who never fully let go of the military mindset.
Let’s just say that he met his match in me as a youngster. I had a mind of my own and wasn’t about to be bossed around by a father barking orders at me. My mother had quite a time explaining this to him.
There’s a staggeringly high percentage of military retirees who die within a year of leaving active duty, even though they aren’t that old. They are so used to the military structure and order, and have so much of their identity tied up in that, that they completely stress out in jungle of civilian life. That stress, on top of the cumulative stress of years of military life, ends up doing them in.
I always THANK someone wearing a symbol/uniform of THE MILITARY (after I ask their affiliation if I think it’s only symbolism), when I am out and about. Usually, their face lights up and they thank me. They are so unappreciated, and they truly enjoy the random act of apprecation/kindness. Military folks are braver than a lot of us.
General Douglas MacArthur’s Farewell Speech
Given to the Corps of Cadets at West Point
May 12, 1962
Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men’s minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation’s war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government. Whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as firm and complete as they should be.
These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.
The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished - tone and tints. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.
In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps.
I bid you farewell.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/MacArthurFarewell.html
General Douglas McArthur, I was named after him.
Veterans, thank you for sacrificing your convenience, comfort and personal safety to serve.
I deeply respect those who have fought for our country. I just wish our politicians wouldn’t spend their blood and lives as cheaply as it does.
As Colorado eluded above, it’s an economic conscript military now. When there is no opportunity in civilian life,the military is the last chance. The pro-war hate machine know this all too well and view them as disposable….. just like the manufactured enemy.
Spilled blood(including “enemy” blood) and military hardware profits are hallmarks of the pro-war hate machine.
I agree with your point, exeter and Colorado, but when a 70-95 yo+ wears his veterans hat, I have to give them kudos. They served when this country wasn’t such an idealistic dream. They deserve our respect. Vietnam & WWII Vets are usually really decent folks. Not many WWII Vets left.
It’s sad to see the USA DOA. I heard by 2012, China will have reached The World Super Power status. It makes me sick.
Like I said commemorate (and memorialize) vets, repudiate the US warfare machine.
PS- My father is a WWII vet, Europe. 89 years old and still kicking.
Exeter…My father would be about the same age right now if he would have survived…He also served in world War II…. Cancer got him fairly early in life…We figure it was the Radiation he got when his frigate was just a few miles off the Bikini Islands when they tested the Nuke Bomb…Or, by sucking in all the asbestos working in the belly of those ships….
That sucks. And the Pacific theatre was whole different kind of ugly. Still ugly, different scene.
From my MBA paper on the housing bubble (enjoy and comment):
PROs of the Bailout
America was heading for a 2nd Great Depression. We were only days away from a second “banking holiday” just as FDR did at the beginning of the 1st Great Depression. This would have, in turn, crashed the stock market and wiped out not just the rich, but anyone with a 401k or a pension. If GM and Chrysler went bankrupt without a government bailout would have wiped out all their suppliers, employees, dealerships and stockholders/bondholders and we would instead be looking at 20% unemployment today. TARP and the Stimulus Act bought us time to stabilize and grow the economy. As the economy grows, jobs will be added and taxes collected will increase. This will allow us to more easily pay back the money borrowed for these programs and reduce the deficit.
CONs of the Bailout
In 2003, Mr Warren Buffett argued that highly complex financial instruments such as CDOs/CDSs were “time bombs” and “financial weapons of mass destruction” that could harm not only their buyers and sellers, but the whole American economic system. He was exactly correct and right on the money (Footnote 27)!
The bank bailouts did one thing and one thing only – it temporally saved the banks from their own reckless decisions. The bad debts still exist and are either still on the bank’s books or are on the government’s books. Instead of having a sharp, but short, hard recession we have added trillions of dollars to the national debt that will haunt us for generations and we have nothing to show for it. The dollar has also been destroyed which hurts all of us as we pay more for anything imported (oil, food, clothing, etc).. The economy will not recover until the banks recognize their losses on their balance sheets and address them. This may cause some to go bankrupt and wipe out their shareholders and bondholders, but that is the risk they take with their investments. It is not the taxpayers’ responsibility to rescue businesses deemed “To Big To Fail” (TBTF). This process will clear out the debts, allow new capital to form and allow the economy to grow once more. No investor wants to risk capital in investments (with job creating potential) that may be destroyed by repetitive government interventions. Investors will simply take their money and go elsewhere. The US economy is now on course to mirror the Japanese economy which has not recovered despite two decades of repetitive Japanese Governmental Stimulus Programs.
If the banks fail all at once then the economy will crash because banks act as clearing houses for the financial end of transactions and the sudden shock of realizing that the financial end of a transaction may not clear will prevent the transaction from occuring in the first place and the global economy will freeze up.
But if the banks are allowed to fail slowly - one at at time - then there won’t be this sudden shock to the global financial system.
The financial system will have time to adjust if the banks fail slowly but will not have time to adjust if the banks fail all at once. So the name of the of the game is to keep the banks alive for as long as possible (think extend and pretend) and thus buy time.
Also, if the charade of healthy and recovering banks can be sold to Dumb Money then this Dumb Money can be enticed to buy the financial junk the Smart Money is eagar to dispose of.
“If the banks fail all at once then the economy will crash because banks act as clearing houses for the financial end of transactions and the sudden shock of realizing that the financial end of a transaction may not clear will prevent the transaction from occuring in the first place and the global economy will freeze up. But if the banks are allowed to fail slowly - one at at time - then there won’t be this sudden shock to the global financial system.”
The idea is that one big bank failing will cause others to fail, and money owed in transactions never comes. Bank A sends bank B $20 billion to clear checks. Bank B owes Bank A $22 billion to clear checks, but it goes bust first. Followed by Bank A.
“But if the banks are allowed to fail slowly - one at at time - then there won’t be this sudden shock to the global financial system.”
This would work better if five or so banks did not control well over 50% of the U.S. banking sector. Smaller, less-systemically risky banks enable evolution to drum bad banks out of the system without causing systemic collapse. A more competitive banking system would also prevent Megabank, Inc from screwing consumers again and again, leaving them little recourse.
“…..realizing that the financial end of a transaction may not clear…..”
Hate to tell you this, but we’re already there…..
Not only do I have to put up with “we’ll pay you eventually when we get around to it” clients, my bank won’t credit their checks to my account until after they’ve cleared the (out of state) banks they were written on. Which in my case, takes about 5 days after they’ve been deposited.
I’ve still got September invoices unpaid. These effers had better pray that the economy doesn’t pick up, because I’m dumping them in a nano-second at the first opportunity.
These effers had better pray that the economy doesn’t pick up, because I’m dumping them in a nano-second at the first opportunity.
X-GSfixr isn’t the only one in this boat. In the coming months, there are going to be a lot of crummy employers and clients who will be dumped by quality people like X-GS.
Then we can all sit back and enjoy watching them try to achieve the same results with the B Team.
It’s my opinion that there are too many ‘ifs and whens’ with the TARP and banking bailouts for me to believe your first point. I know that’s what has been postulated, but I’ve not seen any real data to back it up. Matter of fact, I think 50 years down the road when the docs come out, TARP will be known as the biggest hoodwink ever foisted on the American people by it’s own government.
Now the auto bailout - I think you can make a case there that they didn’t bailout the companies but the idea and employees - of which there are many and we’d all like to think here on this blog that manufacturing - any manufacturing - is a good thing. So I’m ok with that. We all know the sorry financial straights GM and Chrysler were in for years, and can buy their imminent failure and it’s multiplying effect.
The foreign owned auto makers and Ford would also have suffered as they share many suppliers with GM/Chrysler.
I think private equity would have salvaged GM and Chrysler valued components in a normal bankruptcy. There would still be many GM car lines, not so much Chrysler and the union contracts would have been renegotiated to real life terms or cancelled. The risk takers and incompetents would have taken their deserved hit and life would have gone on.
But let’s don’t let a crisis go to waste when it can be used to nullify and reshape 200 years of contract law and the basis for capitalism (real capitalism, not crony capitalism)! Everyone is entitled to be shielded, coddled, babied, and bailed out and by golly Henny Penny the sky is falling!
That’s actually pretty good, 2banana.
PROs of the Bailout
America was heading for a 2nd Great Depression. We were only days away from a second “banking holiday” just as FDR did [VERB DOES NOT MAKE SENSE] at the beginning of the 1st Great Depression. This [WHAT?] would have, in turn, crashed the stock market and wiped out not just the rich, but anyone with a 401k or a pension [EVIDENCE? NOT EVERYONE WHO HAS A 401K HAS THAT MONEY IN EQUITIES]. If GM and Chrysler went bankrupt without a government bailout [MISSING WORDS HERE] would have wiped out all their suppliers, employees, dealerships and stockholders/bondholders and we would instead be looking at 20% unemployment today [EVIDENCE? ALSO, WE ARE AT 20%]. [SOME ARGUE THAT] TARP and the Stimulus Act bought us time to stabilize and grow the economy. As the economy [BE MORE SPECIFIC] grows, jobs will be added and taxes collected will increase. This [WHAT] will allow us to more easily pay back [SPLIT INFINITIVE] the money borrowed for these programs and reduce the deficit.
CONs of the Bailout
In 2003, [Mr] Warren Buffett argued that highly complex financial instruments such as CDOs/CDSs were “time bombs” and “financial weapons of mass destruction” [CITATION] that could harm not only their buyers and sellers, but the whole American economic system. He was exactly correct and right on the money (Footnote 27) [COLLOQUIALISMS ARE WEAK]!
The bank bailouts did one thing and one thing only – it [THEY] temporally saved the banks from their own reckless decisions. The bad debts still exist and are either still on the bank’s [CHANGE ' POSITION] books or are on the government’s books. Instead of having a sharp, but short, hard recession we have added trillions of dollars to the national debt[.] that [THIS YADDA YADDA] will haunt us for generations and we have nothing to show for it. The dollar ALSO has [also] been destroyed which hurts all of us as we [THE POOR MORE THAN THE RICH AS THEY] pay more [BY PERCENT OF INCOME] for anything imported (oil, food, clothing, etc).[.] The economy will not recover until the banks recognize their losses on their balance sheets and address them. This [WHAT?] may cause some to go bankrupt and wipe out their shareholders and bondholders [AND SENIOR DEBT-HOLDERS?], but that is the risk they take with their investments. It is not the taxpayers’ responsibility to rescue businesses deemed “To Big To Fail” (TBTF). This process [WHAT PROCESS?] will clear out the debts, allow new capital to form [TO FORM?] and allow the economy to grow once more. No investor wants to risk capital in investments (with job creating potential) that may be destroyed by repetitive government interventions. Investors will simply take their money and go elsewhere. The US economy is now on course to mirror the Japanese economy which has not recovered despite two decades of repetitive Japanese Governmental Stimulus Programs
I had to respond if only because you weren’t banging your same eco-political drum as hard as usual. But I don’t know, man. Sorry to be blunt, but I’m hoping that this paper is not written for a course at my almae matres. There’s a lot of great stuff on this topic all over the place and you seem to make a lot of leaps in logic to defend your ideological principle. It would shine through even if I have not seen your posts. But keep cranking and good luck!
MrBubble
Forget everything negative. Just try to focus on the upcoming red-hot GM IPO. That’s where the real excitement should be focused.
Matt Taibbi: Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/232611?RS_show_page=0
One of the few journalists in this country ballsy enough to tell the truth.
I sure hope Taibbi gets a journalistic heroism award for his singularly honest coverage of the U.S. financial market collapse.
+eleventybillion.
Taibbi is top shelf.
“top shelf”
Yeah, I especially ‘appreciated’ his Hate F@ck List. Top shelf guy all the way…
Go away.
Quit yer sanctimonious squealing.
Coming Soon!,… to your local closing business book store:
Homeowners true-confession short-story: “How I bought too-much house with beige-stucco walls & a granite toilet with a heated seat.”
70% Discount!
And I did not feed the squirrels every day…
Plenty o’ fraud here, but a little overdrawn..
Kessler then drops three greenish-brown files in front of Judge Soud, who spends no more than a minute or two glancing through each one. Then he closes the files and puts an end to the process by putting his official stamp on each foreclosure with an authoritative finality:
Kerchunk!
Kerchunk!
Kerchunk!
Each one of those kerchunks means another family on the street. There are no faces involved here, just beat-the-clock legal machinery. Watching Judge Soud plow through each foreclosure reminds me of the scene in Fargo where the villain played by Swedish character actor Peter Stormare pushes his victim’s leg through a wood chipper with that trademark bored look on his face. Mechanized misery and brainless bureaucracy on the one hand, cash for the banks on the other.
Each one of those kerchunks means another family on the street.
Really?
…the Honorable A.C. Soud, even told a local newspaper that his goal is to resolve 25 cases per hour…
—–
“Clerk. May I have the next 25 cases.”
“Yes, your honor. Here they are.”
“Umm.. you notice anything peculiar about these 25?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, look. All of these foreclosures share one name. Lester T. Infestor”.
“Is that the record?”
“Could be..”
lol. The Rolling Stone thumbsucker does that in two or three places. Thing is, there was plenty of good fraud stuff there to report without the sob story pitch. And set in Florida of all places!
Prediction: After the ashes of the financial meltdown finally settle down and are swept into the dustbin of history, it is accounts like Taibbi’s which will inform the collective memory.
“It turns out that underneath that little iceberg tip of exposed evidence lies a fraud so gigantic that it literally cannot be contemplated by our leaders, for fear of admitting that our entire financial system is corrupted to its core — with our great banks and even our government coffers backed not by real wealth but by vast landfills of deceptively generated and essentially worthless mortgage-backed assets.
You’ve heard of Too Big to Fail — the foreclosure crisis is Too Big for Fraud. Think of the Bernie Madoff scam, only replicated tens of thousands of times over, infecting every corner of the financial universe. The underlying crime is so pervasive, we simply can’t admit to it — and so we are working feverishly to rubber-stamp the problem away, in sordid little backrooms in cities like Jacksonville, behind doors that shouldn’t be, but often are, closed.
And that’s just the economic side of the story. The moral angle to the foreclosure crisis — and, of course, in capitalism we’re not supposed to be concerned with the moral stuff, but let’s mention it anyway — shows a culture that is slowly giving in to a futuristic nightmare ideology of computerized greed and unchecked financial violence. The monster in the foreclosure crisis has no face and no brain. The mortgages that are being foreclosed upon have no real owners. The lawyers bringing the cases to evict the humans have no real clients. It is complete and absolute legal and economic chaos. No single limb of this vast man-eating thing knows what the other is doing, which makes it nearly impossible to combat — and scary as hell to watch.”
“…and, of course, in capitalism we’re not supposed to be concerned with the moral stuff, but let’s mention it anyway…”
Yoo-hoo, Joey and Eddie, do either of you want to weigh in on that one?
Morality? Are you referring to the justification for strategic walk-aways?
i told you before..
You’re right. There’s no reason we can’t all act like businesses would.
If a child is costing you money, and seems to be a bad investment, don’t be stupid about it. Throw her out.
Eddie/RunJoeyRun,
You’re suggesting that a house and a human being have the same value.
Thank you for establishing the fact that you’re completely disingenuous.
Troll away my friend.
A house is always worth something.
A human being who won’t repay money I lent them is worthless.
That’s them Stucco!!!! lmao.
Beautiful link.
Frickin Hilarious !!!
Prediction: After the ashes of the financial meltdown finally settle down and are swept into the dustbin of history, it is accounts like Taibbi’s which will inform the collective memory.
Agreed. I think the odds of people data mining the archives of this blog in the future are poor, but his articles will definitely be remembered.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t believe even the most pessimistic of HBB posters predicted a 30% national-level decline in U.S. home prices in the days before the bubble popped?
But not to worry (according to MW writers!): Helicopter Ben is going to use QE2 to make the value of U.S. houses go back up again.
Outside the Box
Nov. 7, 2010, 11:01 p.m. EST
Helicopter Ben to the rescue
Commentary: Can quantitative easing solve the housing mess?
By Barry Wood
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — If the darkest hour comes just before the dawn, could this approaching winter be the bottom of our three-year long home-price nightmare?
During this dreadful period for millions of homeowners, home prices nationally have fallen by nearly 30%, while almost 25% of all borrowers — some 15 million homeowners — owe more on their mortgages than their property is worth.
The Federal Reserve unveiled a controversial new plan to buy $600 billion of Treasurys, hoping to spur growth in a disappointingly slow U.S. economy. David Wessel and Neal Lipschutz discuss the likelihood that the plan will work.
While there is no magic bullet to solve the housing conundrum, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve are doing all they can to help. The massive $600 billion purchase of Treasurys announced last week initially had a positive impact on long-term interest rates. Bringing mortgage rates down is a principal objective of the Fed action.
…
You stand corrected, Bear. Several posters in here predicted 30% drops, or more. However, this is in real dollars, not Bernanke Bucks, where Zimbabwe-style inflation will be the new normal.
Hey Bro Bear,the dropping ain’t done yet…..there’s a about another 50-70% dropping to be done. Housing has yet to get in line with the new lower wages being paid.
It is mostly done in some parts of the country — Detroit and FL, maybe Vegas. By contrast, coastal California ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
New lower wages being paid ……Your assuming that there will
even be lower wage jobs available .
Right?
Correct denquiry. Ben’s whole premise is that houses must return to historic averages. The chart lives! Twenty percent to go.
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeqrguz/housingbubble/
I figured there would be around a 30% haircut in the biggest bubble places (CA, FL) but only a small one in flyover country. There I was mistaken. It’s been a haircut all over the country, possibly caused by HELOC-funded speculators from places like CA buying up spec houses and becoming absentee owners in flyover country.
It’s been a haircut all over the country, possibly caused by HELOC-funded speculators from places like CA buying up spec houses and becoming absentee owners in flyover country
Got that very drama playing out behind me. Remember a few months ago when I posted about a house that’s being offered as a rent-to-own?
Well, it’s still being offered as one.
However, Mr. Out of Town (I think) Landlord has a new set of tenants in there. Methinks that he couldn’t go without the cash flow until he found an RTO mark, er, buyer.
Dennis — I had the same view, and I would like to see any evidence that HBB posters were predicting a 30% national decline, as I cannot recall seeing it.
Of course, we were predicting 50%+ declines in markets where prices had more than doubled, but nobody could have seen it coming this bad in flyover country.
And the flipside to that, I’d have never believed that pockets like Boulder would have held up with virtually zero losses so far. Maybe that will eventually change, but I totally underestimated the pent up demand to live in the very nicest places. Prices may not go up here, but even as they crash everywhere else they only have to go down a bit here and buyers come out of the woodwork.
“I don’t believe even the most pessimistic of HBB posters predicted a 30% national-level decline in U.S. home prices in the days before the bubble popped?”
I always said I’d pay 1999 prices, if given the opportunity. That would be about 50% off the highs. This area stands at 2003 prices, so we have further to go.
I have always said I would pay 1988 prices but only if you discount it another 20% .
WSJ Blogs
Developments
Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal
* Toll’s Yearley: Housing Won’t ‘Roar Back’
* Real Estate News: What Fed’s Bond Buy Means for Mortgage Rates
* November 11, 2010, 10:11 AM ET
Home Prices Fall in Nearly Half of U.S. Metro Areas
By Alan Zibel
Home prices fell in nearly half of U.S. metropolitan areas in the third quarter, indicating that the market is losing steam without government tax credits, according to an industry report.
The median price for home resales fell compared with last year in 76 out of 155 areas tracked by the National Association of Realtors, the trade group said Thursday. Prices rose in 77 areas and were unchanged in two. In the second quarter of the year, prices rose in nearly two-thirds of U.S. cities.
The national median price for single-family homes, however, was nearly unchanged. It was $177,900 in the July-September quarter, down 0.2% from a year earlier.
The metro areas showing the biggest price declines from a year earlier were Ocala, Fla. (20%), Melbourne, Fla. (15%) and Tucson, Ariz. (15%).
Showing gains were Burlington, Vt. (18%), Elmira, N.Y., (17%) and Dallas (14%).
…
And so, PB, you post this and still warn against holding gold?
Time is running out on Eddietard’s prediction. What is the chance that a Santa Claus rally will push the DJIA north of 12K?
In this Bizarro economy all bets are off.
That said, I don’t think it will quite reach 12,000.
I don’t know if it is so much the economy that is bizarro, as a central banking policy regime which defines its mandate as including a commitment to prop up financial asset prices.
Here is a cautionary tale on the Faustian bargain of employment with Megabank, Inc.
Posted on Thu, Nov. 11, 2010 07:07 AM
Foreclosure battle depletes ex-Wachovia employee
By RICK ROTHACKER
McClatchy Newspapers
For two years, Barry Lancett’s effort to get a loan modification from Wachovia, then Wells Fargo, has consumed him.
The 55-year-old father of two physically shakes when he discusses his case and says the effort has distracted him when he should be focused on his job. In his crusade, he has accumulated mounds of paperwork and saved numerous recordings of his conversations with bank representatives.
His ordeal, which follows the arc of the housing boom, shows how complicated modification efforts can become - and how they can be trumped by foreclosure proceedings.
In 2006, as a Wachovia mortgage loan officer in Florida, he transferred with the company to Charlotte. Thinking he was on a successful track, he and his wife, Jenny, bought a $439,000 home in Waxhaw, N.C., using a Wachovia interest-only loan that did not require income information to qualify.
The family’s finances began a downward spiral in late 2007, when, he says, he was fired by Wachovia for not selling the required amount of Pick-A-Payment mortgages. These were the adjustable-rate loans that later hemorrhaged losses for the Charlotte bank. He says he was soon burning through his 401(k) to keep up with mortgage payments and other debts. He took jobs at other mortgage companies, but he wasn’t able to make up lost income working only on commission amid the recession.
…
More News
* Home-seizure process can heal or hobble housing market
* Officials protest as modifications fail to halt foreclosures
* Faithful mortgage payments may hobble economy
* Foreclosure limbo grinds down potential buyers
The family’s finances began a downward spiral in late 2007, when, he says, he was fired by Wachovia for not selling the required amount of Pick-A-Payment mortgages. These were the adjustable-rate loans that later hemorrhaged losses for the Charlotte bank. He says he was soon burning through his 401(k) to keep up with mortgage payments and other debts. He took jobs at other mortgage companies, but he wasn’t able to make up lost income working only on commission amid the recession.
True story: A very dear friend (and former neighbor) took out a reverse mortgage in 2006. Many of us neighbors were concerned about the soundness of her mind before she made this decision, but she certainly wasn’t prevented from making it.
Our concerns were verified many times over. She went on a truly baffling spending spree. She was buying all sorts of things on a whim, and when any of us questioned her purchases, we got nonsensical answers as replies.
In 2007, she fell and broke her femur in two places. She never able to live in the reverse mortgaged house again.
In 2008, she left the rehab center where she was sent after her femur surgery. Went to northern AZ to live with a son who worked for Wells Fargo. She and the son had the house remodeled so that it could be put in the market.
It was listed for sale in the summer of 2008. And it sat there.
The “for sale” sign came down in early 2009. In mid-summer 2009, I was at a neighborhood meeting, and the lady who lived next door to my friend’s house said that it had been foreclosed on. By Wells Fargo.
The family’s finances began a downward spiral in late 2007, when, he says, he was fired by Wachovia for not selling the required amount of Pick-A-Payment mortgages. These were the adjustable-rate loans that later hemorrhaged losses for the Charlotte bank.
Given the extent of the fraud in mortgage writing, and the involvement by employees who were later thrown under the bus by the mortgage lenders and servicers, there should be a flood of cooperative, eager witnesses for plaintives when the class-action lawsuits over robo-signing and similar MBS related frauds begin in earnest.
burning through a 401(k) to pay an interest only mortgage that was undoubtedly 3 times what it would cost to rent.
sad…sad…sad.
I bet he sold himself a pick a payment loan!
Some of these people are in recourse State ,so I imagine the
foreclosures are lower in those States .
bought a $439,000 home in Waxhaw, N.C., using a Wachovia interest-only loan that did not require income information to qualify.
The family’s finances began a downward spiral in late 2007, when, he says, he was fired by Wachovia for not selling the required amount of Pick-A-Payment mortgages
Mr. & Ms. TrueBeliever’s™ …meet… “TrueDeceiver’s™” Inc. et. al.
“Don’t just stand there, smile & shake hands! It’s the biggest investment of your lives!”
Guy didn’t even make it a year. Fool.
“For ’tis the sport to have the enginer / Hoist with his owne
petar” — Shakespeare, Hamlet III iv.
SCHWEEEET!
One of the very goons that were enslaving others enslaves himself.
Aside from that, if you’re so utterly stupid as to pay $400k for a damn house, you DESERVE every bit of the misery. EAT IT.
This story made my day. Thank you!!!
Years ago there was a Charlotte radio show called “Murphy in the Morning.” One of the skits Murphy did on the show was one called “Another World in Waxhaw,” in which it was implied that Waxhaw was populated by, well, “not so bright” people. Maybe the skit wasn’t comedy after all; maybe Murphy was right all along. Case in point:, paying $439,000 for a house in Waxhaw!
Wow. Faustian is right.
Good find.
Posted on Wed, Nov. 10, 2010 07:56 PM
Nicolas Cage’s former estate is sold for $10.5 million, a big price cut
By LAUREN BEALE
Los Angeles Times
The sale of Nicolas Cage’s onetime Bel-Air estate, which the actor lost to foreclosure this year, has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. There was hubris, bad taste and a dizzying fall from financial grace.
The closing scene played out this week when a new owner picked up the sprawling mansion for $10.5 million, a relative bargain for a trophy home that had been listed several years ago at more than three times that amount. The buyer was identified only as a limited liability company, a common cloaking device in high-profile real estate transactions.
The 1940 Tudor had failed to generate any bids in April when it was offered at the county courthouse steps in Pomona, Calif. Six loans totaling $18 million encumbered the house, which the actor had decorated in a style one local real estate agent dubbed “frat-house bordello.” Among personalized touches were garish room colors, three dozen bronze wall sconce holders made from a cast of the Oscar winner’s arm and hundreds of elaborately framed comic-book covers lining the walls.
…
Among personalized touches were garish room colors, three dozen bronze wall sconce holders made from a cast of the Oscar winner’s arm and hundreds of elaborately framed comic-book covers lining the walls.
Money does not = taste
I actually enjoyed the photos of Michael Jackson’s Neverland house. It was pretty well designed and had nice woodwork. Of course, the house was empty. I don’t want to know what knick knacks Michael put into it.
What is it with multimillionaires trashing Tudors?
For some reason, a lot of folks with no taste are attracted to Tudors (and other antiquated styles). My guess is it seems to hold some representation of “class” for them.
I’ve seen many houses that should have been historically restored with a light touch of updating completely trashed by crack hoe tastes.
‘three dozen bronze wall sconce holders made from a cast of the Oscar winner’s arm and hundreds of elaborately framed comic-book covers lining the walls.’
LOL
There has never been a worse time to own.
Posted on Fri, Oct. 29, 2010 02:08 AM
Failed mortgage modifications leave homes in even more peril
By MARY ELLEN PODMOLIK
Rogelio Huerta and Maria Soto did everything they were supposed to do to reduce the monthly mortgage payments on their Bellwood, Ill., home.
Facing a cash crunch because his work hours were cut, they sought help from PNC Mortgage while they were still current on their payments. At its suggestion, they met with a housing counselor who helped them get a trial loan modification, and they made all the payments on time for 13 months. They also followed the advice of housing counselors to set aside money left over, putting off home and car repairs, while they waited to learn whether their reduced payment plan would be made permanent.
This month, their application was denied, meaning their home is likely headed to foreclosure. The bank’s reasoning? The family’s $7,160 in savings, including a $5,218 income tax refund, accumulated during the year it took the bank to review the application, meant they were too well off to qualify.
“I was just following whatever they said to do,” a choked-up Huerta, the father of two young boys, said last week. “I’m not looking for something for free. I’m just looking for a payment that can save my family.”
…
Who can be saved ?
Can the long term unemployed be saved ….no
Can the liar loan speculator be saved ……..no
Can the equity extractor liar loan borrower be
saved ……………………………………..no
Can people who became re-employed at serious
salary cuts be saved …………….maybe/maybe not .
Can a fixed income person who gets their pension
reduced by 40% be saved …………….not likely
Can a borrower who can afford their payment but
doesn’t choose to have a de-valued property be saved
……………………………….maybe/maybe not .
Can a borrower who has equity be saved …..yes .
Can a homeowner who owns the property outright be saved
…………………………………………….yes.
Some homeowner could be saved by loan modifications ,but basically
the cure is bail-outs or foreclosure to clear the bad loan .
Thank you…I’m SAVED! PTL
They should look on the bright side, they have the security deposit and first/last saved up for their next rental!
That is a very interesting catch 22. Get the trial loan modification. Save the difference between the new payment and the old payment (while skipping other needed by delayable spending) just in case you need the money to catch up if the final modification is denied. Because you managed to save the difference (while delaying needed spending) you don’t get the modification.
Live was much simplier when people just paid back what they borrowed…
Or bought what they could afford.
Life was much simpler when businesses just paid back what they borrowed…
…and had steady jobs they could count on.
Originally published Friday, October 29, 2010 at 10:01 PM
Mortgage servicers get mixed reviews
By Nathaniel Popper
Los Angeles Times
NEW YORK — When Meghan Faux, a lawyer and foreclosure counselor in New York, calls JPMorgan Chase to help a homeowner modify a mortgage, she expects the runaround from representatives unwilling or unable to answer basic questions about the case.
She’s more hopeful calling Wells Fargo. “There’s still a long way to go there … but they are at least responsive to our concerns.”
All mortgage servicers — which collect monthly payments, deal with delinquent homeowners and negotiate loan modifications — have come under a harsh spotlight over their foreclosure paperwork. But the available data suggest a wide variation in how well the firms do their jobs.
A number of federal and state agencies are investigating the servicers’ foreclosure practices. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said last week there were “significant differences” among the companies but declined to elaborate.
Faux’s experience at South Brooklyn Legal Services is borne out by the Better Business Bureau, which gives Wells Fargo’s mortgage-servicing operation an “A” grade and Chase’s an “F.”
And of the calls about Chase to the Treasury Department’s foreclosure help line through August, 7.2 percent were complaints, the second-highest percentage among the eight largest servicers.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo had the lowest proportion of complaints, 3.7 percent.
Chase spokesman Tom Kelly declined to comment on the ratings or the Treasury data. Bank of America, which became the largest mortgage servicer after buying home-loan giant Countrywide Financial two years ago, gets mixed reviews.
…
Hey Megan, demand to see proof that Wells Fargo actually owns your mortgage, and then see how “responsive” they are.
There was a segment on the news the other night that made me chuckle. A woman’s job was to go around to foreclosures and appraise their value. She did several a day and seemed to be really good at her job.
The rub?
Her bank was foreclosing on HER house, built during the bubble heydey by her construction hubby who lost his construction job.
She was waiting for the person to come to her house to do what she does all day to others.
“For ’tis the sport to have the enginer / Hoist with his owne petar” — Shakespeare, Hamlet III iv.
That is twice in one day…!
Just quit paying and you will get real good service.
or go on a 36 hour hunger strike.
So… I know there’s a lot of folks on here who tend to give thoughtful opinions in regards to economics. So here’s something I’ve been thinking about. This latest action by the Fed- “Quantitative easing” is meant to encourage more lending and drive down interest rates. In the back of my mind I can’t help but feel that this is yet another attempt to re-inflate the housing bubble since it will make money cheap once again. That has me a tad concerned: Home prices are still at ridiculously high levels- particularly in coastal areas- aka California and the East Coast.
Any thoughts?
Yeah…..don’t think too hard or I see prozac in your future
(AP) NEW YORK – Rates on fixed mortgages dropped to their lowest levels in decades this week after the Federal Reserve unveiled a massive bond-buying program to help spur economic growth.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Tuesday the average rate for 30-year fixed loans fell to 4.17 percent from 4.24 percent last week. That’s the lowest on records dating back to 1971.
NYCB called 4% a few months back.
I think your right jetson _boy . One economist I was reading was
predicting a lowering of the already low home loan rates It seems like the Banks are pushing CC credit right now all of a sudden . A friend of mine
got is credit line lowered however when he put his rental payment on
credit . So they want people who have any credit ability at all to
go for credit to boost the economy .
They still want to go back to the system that crashed us in the first
place and that’s how short term thinking these madmen are . Will
people start to buy real estate if the long term rates are 2.75% or they come up with the teaser 1% adjustable again ? Is it all about clearing out
the inventory of bad loans by any means ?
I just find this whole thing frustrating. ( warning: rant ahead). At least where I live in the Bay Area, prices on any home even remotely nice are still extremely expensive. Sure- they’re cheaper than they were during the boom, but “cheap” these days means more like $450,000 for what is truly a starter home in need of serious work. Its not like I don’t make a good income either. We make a solid six-figure income. Its also not like we can’t afford to buy either. But even if we put down a $100,000 down payment on a $450,000 home ( and as mentioned, this would likely be a SMALL home in need of serious work) the payments would still be around $2,000 a month not including taxes or anything else. We pay a lot less then that for rent and the house we rent is a lot nicer then whatever $450,000 house we could buy out there.
That compared to just about anywhere else where that amount gets you one hell of a nice house. The same $450,000 bay area house would be under $100k most anywhere else and perhaps even be considered a knock-down.
But the bottom line is that I fail to see how prices have not fallen more then they have. Hardly anyone I know can actually afford much of anything as far as a house goes. We make more than most of our friends and for them buying is totally out of the question even though they make decent incomes.
So here we go again- yet another attempt to goad people into buying houses. The bubble has never deflated in the Bay Area and I assume its probably the same in most of the other bubble areas. So if this works out according to plan somehow the still-bubbly prices here are going to rise again? Frankly I am so ready to get the heck out of here. I’ve been eyeing up other states for years. Perhaps now is the time to start making some initial plans.
Sorry for the long rant.
We pay a lot less then that for rent and the house we rent is a lot nicer then whatever $450,000 house we could buy out there ??
Which suggest that the house you live in probably fetches around $600,000…+ -…What I would question is how long will a owner of a $600,000. house be willing to rent it for sub-$2,000. per month ??
Our situation is definitely not typical. Basically we’ve lived in the same house for 8 years. The rent has not been raised. The LL bought it a long time ago and any money we pay in rent is likely still making him a handy profit. We take good care of the place- mow the yard, keep it clean, do some landscaping and so on. If we were to rent the same house for what they typically go for now, we would be paying about 40% more, thus buying would perhaps make more sense. As it is now I see little reason to move into a mortgage since our rental rate means we save quite a bit of our income. I assume our rent stays cheap because we are good renters. I’m pretty thankful for that.
I was thinking about it the other day: We’ve rented the house we live in longer than probably about 30% of the people who live on our street have owned. Ironic. Turnover in the Bay Area seems very frequent. Some of the houses in our neighborhood have been re-sold more than once in less than 5 years.
Jetson-boy…..I would just continue to take advantage of the
landlord you have who appears to not be greedy and it appears
that he/she likes you as the renter .
Since the Politicians are putting the elimination of the mortgage
interest tax cut on the table currently you need to know where
they might draw the line on that tax cut .
I’m sort of on the fence about it. I’ve been in the mindset that houses are just too expensive in the Bay Area period for 10 years. The plan has been to basically save up a big wad of cash and move out of state and just buy something straight-up. We could do that now but the economy is pretty crappy everywhere so we’re staying put for now. But at this point we could actually afford something in the Bay Area if we really wanted to. Its more an issue of perceived value. Where I come from houses with acres of land are under 200k. That’s half of a crappy starter home with a tiny yard out here. I just can’t bring myself to pay that kind of money for a house- anywhere.
As you said- it probably wouldn’t hurt to just keep right on renting unless the rent gets jacked significantly, which I don’t think it will. My way of thinking is that at least for now, whatever I’m saving per month is more than any house in the area is appreciating- because they aren’t appreciating at all. Might as well continue to save…
Then again- the new low mortgage rate levels made headline news today. If that creates yet another bubble I might just bite the bullet and get something- as “sheeple-ish” as that may sound.
You’re right about perceived value and housing. We have the $ to pay cash in So Ca, and this state is so screwed up between the budget, housing prices, and the 3rd world invasion, we’re ready to leave.
Last night I saw a reasonable REO (hidden fact in the MLS-I read the “fine print”) and 5 buyers (flippers) were there too. Who the h*ll wants a bidding war? This is getting old.
Bay area housing prices have been unreal since the early 1970’s, when their prices skyrocketed up well beyond the earnings of “normal” people. My grandfather bought a house in San Jose for $4,500 back in the early 1920’s. My parents bought a nice new house in Palo Alto for $11,500 in 1947. When it came time for me to buy a house in 1981, I got stuck buying a tiny “fixer” for $110,000. That house was unloaded on a FB for $670K back in 2006, and still zillows out at around $500K.
I’m with you, Joey– only that it is more like $700K for anything you would want to live in in the South Bay.
Sorry, I meant Jetson Boy, not Joey.
jboy….I see a lot of this….Great landlord, never raises the rent…I speculate that the landlord is older, say 50 +, has owned the property for a very long time, has a very small loan if any at all plus the benefit of low property taxes due to prop#13….All he/she cares about is you not trashing the place and receiving the rent on time…With that said, given the amount that you can save and your straddling the fence on leaving California, I think that you are probably doing the right thing…
I appreciate the thoughts scdave. Thanks for reading my rants.
When the Fed buys treasuries, it has no control over where the new money goes. If they were seriously trying to reinflate a houseing bubble (which can’t happen because the psychology has changed even if not all the bubble attitude is gone) they would be buying securitized mortgages.
This is essentially another bailout for the banks. Nothing else.
Who cares. Did you hear that Brett Michaels had an affair with Miley Cyrus’ mom?
NO! I heard that they had a “professional relationship.”
You mean she paid him? Or vice versa?
This is essentially another bailout for the banks. Nothing else ??
I agree….You get rates this low and it will compel many to buy…Could be part of the overall plan…Continue to drive down the rates over a long period of time to allow the banks sufficient time to unload the non-preforming assets…
Ok ,thats a interesting question . How many fence sitters here
would buy a house now if the rates went down to 2.75%?
How many fence sitters here would buy a house now if the rates went down to 2.75% ?
Change the word “house” to the word “commercial” and I would be buying like a madman…I can easily get safe rates of return in commercial @ 7%+ CAP rates..With 2.75% money your cash-on-cash rate of return would zoom well into double digits..There’s a reason that its being offered only on residential and financing is basically non-existent for non-owner-occupied commercial…The financing is available for residential to save the banks…
But here’s the thing: I’d say that most of us on this site are far more conservative and careful with our money than the average citizen. let’s not fool ourselves: The only reason people aren’t buying now is because banks won’t lend them money. I can see a situation where if rates fall to something ridiculous-like 2.5% then all those who could just barely squeeze into a house they could barely afford will jump. That will possibly jump-start home buying hysteria all over again and bingo- new housing bubble baby!
The real price of housing is too high. Stocks too.
Either the price of housing and stocks can fall. Or the value of the dollars they are priced in can fall while housing and stocks stay at the same level.
Having the nominal price of housing and stocks fall kills banks and borrowers. Having the nominal price stay the same and the value of the dollar fall kills savers.
“Having the nominal price stay the same and the value of the dollar fall kills savers.”
If I were a gambling man, I would bet the Fed’s War on Savers will continue like the steam roller it is.
We are all gamblers now.
Ich bin ein gambler.
I think you should move, particularly since you’ve been talking about it forever, Elroy. I assume that you stay because you like your job and it pays well. If you won’t move and want a house, you and your wife should move to a small apartment and save like crazy for a few years until you can afford a little shack in the city. Prices in SF will never reach 3X average income, but they won’t rise for years.
Years ago I went to medical school and residency in SF. We loved it there, but knew that if we wanted to buy a house and do the things we wanted to do we couldn’t stay there. So we left and made our lives in more affordable places.
We loved it there, but knew that if we wanted to buy a house and do the things we wanted to do we couldn’t stay there ??
Wife an I have had a number of conversations recently about SF…When we were younger we rarely went to the city…Maybe it was because of the kids but we never even went when we got away for a few days…Now that the kids are gone, and we are much older, the city excites us…We enjoy it very much now…What we are considering doing is renting a place in the city for a year…We figure we can get our fill of it in one year…Gotta have a house though…Got two new kids that must come along…Our two German short-hairs, Tucker & Hegan…
SF and the “rest” of the Bay Area might as well be different planets. If you want a house-any house- in the city then you’re looking at more like $800k or so and the house in question is probably going to be either absolutely tiny or a knock-down. In the rest of the Bay you can pick up something decent for 500k. Then again- that’s 500k for an un-updated 1940’s 2 bedroom house that’s not in a bad neighborhood. Rent in SF is also incredibly expensive. 1 bedroom condos are anywhere from $1,000-$2,000 a month. More for desirable areas.
We’re younger and tend to avoid the city at all costs. I’ve never been a big city person. SF just feels sort of grungy and dirty… yet its extremely gentrified.
I have two well-off friends who recently bought houses in SF just because they love the city. They plan to eventually move into them, but for now they plan to just vacation in them.
I’ve decided that I don’t want to buy there, even though we could manage it financially. I’d rather visit. And the idea of another earthquake worries me, even with insurance.
That’s just the thing: you pretty much have to be well-off to buy in the city and definitely not poor to rent. The saying around here is that its become “The playground of the rich”.
After having lived on both coasts to me the overly gentrified characterization of these places is unappetizing to me. Whatever original unique character these areas had in the past is now cleaned-up and manufactured for easy consumption. To me it feels totally fake. That and its just difficult to live in these places- and as mentioned, I do pretty well for myself. I’m just tired of the expense here.
A few years ago we started traveling to other cities. We went to Austin, Nashville, Raleigh, Atlanta, and a few other places. Some of these cities are pretty expensive in regards to the local income. But to me its crazy that in most of these places you can get a cool old house in an older established neighborhood not that far from downtown- or in some cases within walking distance of downtown- for under 200k. Its not just the price of homes either. Some of these cities were very nice. Clean. New looking. Vibrant even. It just felt a lot less stressful. Then again- perhaps I’m just fooling myself.
Anyhow, I keep on telling myself that we’re going to get out of here anyday. Yet year after year goes by. Amazing how places like the Bay Area tend to suck people in.
“Quantitative easing” is meant to encourage more lending and drive down interest rates.”
yea lending to China, brazil and other fast growing economies and if they get rich enough they can move to CA and buy our homes, we can move to fly over country and hope to get social security and Medi-care
It’s an attempted to re-inflate our entire “borrow-and-spend” economy.
An economic policy that cannot go NOT on much longer and the PTB, and their closest friends, know this and are busy positioning themselves for the final end game.
A conclusion I came too last year and still haven’t seen any contrary evidence.
Home are no longer investments, but rather a place to live in once again — for a very long time! And down payments are the new ‘new black.’
Amy Hoak’s Home Economics
Nov. 8, 2010, 12:23 a.m. EST
Housing-market bust is changing buyer behavior
Typical buyers intend to live in their home for 10 or 15 years: NAR
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
NEW ORLEANS (MarketWatch) — At a time when many Americans are wondering how — and when — the housing market will recover, some people not only are encouraging first-time buyers to jump in to the market, they’re also helping them come up with a down payment.
Twenty-seven percent of first-time buyers who purchased a home between July 2009 and June 2010 received a gift from family or friends to help with the down payment, according to the National Association of Realtors’ annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers survey, released at NAR’s annual conference here.
That’s up from 22% a year earlier, and is the highest percentage in the more than 20 years the survey has been conducted, said NAR spokesman Walter Molony.
…
Only if you can keep your job.
Any questions?
Foreclosure crisis: Live chat now with Palm Beach Post real estate reporter Kimberly Miller
November 8th, 2010 by Post Staff
Confused about the foreclosure crisis? Wondering how the latest decisions by lenders will affect your mortgage or your neighborhood?
Palm Beach Post real estate reporter Kimberly Miller is answering your questions now in a live chat. Type your questions into the box below, or just watch along.
http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/realtime/ - 52k -
This should work better.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ - 116k
A couple of questions and answers from the PB Post today.
12:26 [Comment From adolfo adolfo : ]
my house value is now 90,000.00 my mortgage is 150.000.00 should i walk away from it
Thursday November 11, 2010 12:26 adolfo
12:27 Kimberly Miller: Adolfo, again, this is a personal decision that you have to make considering all your circumstances and the ramifications. Don’t forget that banks can come after you for up to 20 years in Florida for a default judgment if you walk away.
Thursday November 11, 2010 12:27 Kimberly Miller
12:27 [Comment From Ryan Ryan : ]
At what point of being underwater is it best to just walk away? I bought at the height (Dec 2005) in Jupter and now the house is 50%+ underwater. It’ll never come back…so why not just walk away?
Thursday November 11, 2010 12:27 Ryan
12:28 Kimberly Miller: Ryan, a May report from the Federal Reserve Board found that when home equity falls below 50 percent, half of mortgage defaults are driven entirely by the lowered value.
12:54 [Comment From angela angela : ]
I made an offer on a house fannie mae owes. I was owed a response on the day that all of the deals were put on hold. Any idea when these houses are going to come back on the market?? Thx.
Thursday November 11, 2010 12:54 angela
12:55 Kimberly Miller: Angela, I just spoke with a Realtor yesterday who handles Fannie Mae properties and he said he was told March at the very latest. I think some of the properties though are going back up on a case by case basis.
In the meantime, the house will just sit there, rotting away as any unattended structure will do.
OT-
These people are freaks of nature. The two mongoloid parents thought it was a good idea to have 19 mouth breathing kids and now they’re spawning too.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40113321/ns/today-parenting?GT1=43001
I find their excessive breeding personally repulsive, but from what I understand they never took a dime of taxpayer charity. So… okay, whatever floats their boat.
FYI - From what I have seen…
They pay for them and are not on the government teet.
I’m descended from an ancestor who was one of nine children. However, I can assure you that his descendants had much smaller families. And several of us have had no offspring at all.
October 8, was a special day for them. Probably because of a contest with the Octopus Lady who had eight children (fertility drugs). Who can get the most hype & media attention=$. How may sperm on the head of a pinhead!
Can G20 head off a destructive trade war?
“If we end up 12 months from now with countries taking protectionist measures, everyone will suffer. I think the absolute imperative for this weekend [at the G20] is a clear demonstration that every member of the G20 recognizes that the imbalances are a problem. If we don’t do that then I fear the next 12 months will be an even more difficult and dangerous period than the one we have been through.”
~Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England.
That’s called a warning shot.
Run a trade deficit with us … or else!
As far as I know, we have the most liberal trade polices in the world while other countries have very onerous trade policies.
So why are we being the chump?
“If” LOL! Check our balance sheet, there ain’t no if about it.
“America cannot be great if we go broke.” ~Erskine Bowles
Grizzly, just saw your reply posted yesterday; I’m still happy to help. Will check back here for contact info, or I can create a throw-away email address and leave it for you to make contact.
I’ve got external drives that you could use temporarily, though I cannot recommend strongly enough that you have one yourself for a backup–hard drives can and do fail or get corrupted, and I have had to salvage pictures from thse drives for more than one friend who did not make a backup.
Anyone reading who doesn’t have a backup: MAKE ONE TODAY!
It is a major bummer to lose irreplacable photos/memories.
Microsoft has a new “bug fix” out for Windows Vista.
It’s called “Windows 7″.
It has a great backup tool built in at long last. I perform two kinds of backup. One is against software corruption: I make a disk image to DVD-R. The other is against hardware failure: I bought a second internal hard drive (for $50) and have Win7 auto-schedule a weekly image backup at something like 4 AM on each Tuesday.
23 Responses to “Foreclosure crisis: Live chat now with Palm Beach Post real estate reporter Kimberly Miller”
1. Get in the Game Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Boy I wish govts, media, house traders,…
Would spend this much time explaining to the public:
Assets vs. liabilities
Equity vs. debt
Debit cards vs. credit cards
Cash flowing investments vs. speculation
Supply vs. demand
Operating household budgets vs. guessing
Saving vs. spending
Cash vs. 30 year debt obligations
Doing it yourself vs. entitlements
Privleges vs. rights
And the basics of finances, and sooo much more to be responsible citizens.
Instead this shall be a whine session on how to:
“Blow off your debt obligation”
“Live in your house for freeeee”
“The evil bankers made me do it”
“I thought RE always went up”
“Houses are investments to me and everyone”
“Paperwork was filed improperly - so give me the house”
Sad, sad…
2. rob Says:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
lol… that had to be from a buddy of mine right on bro!!
Realtors Will Pay $60k For Housing Discrimination
http://www.13wmaz.com/news/mostpopular/story.aspx?storyid=98787&provider=top
CNBC is having a discussion on scrapping the mortgage interest deduction! I call that progress! The idiot lender who is arguing against it says that we need to support people trying to “shelter their families.” Hilarious!
We need to protect it until I pay off my mortgage! Then we can kill it. See? I’m just like a SS recipient complaining about the deficit!
Scrapping the mortgage interest deduction is also in the “bi-partisian” commision report on debt reduction
Yes, that’s the context, banana.
I should say “phasing out” the mortgage interest deduction, like the UK did in the Thatcher years.
i know a couple of co-workers that phasing out the mortgage interest deduction would bankrupt.
the “howmuchamonth” crowd just couldn’t handle it.
What would we do with another 5 million foreclosures?
* November 11, 2010
Median Prices, by Metro Area
In the U.S., the median price of a single-family home was $177,900 in the third quarter. Here’s a look at prices in 153 metro areas, released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors. (Dollar figures are in the thousands.) Click on the column headers to sort.
Detroit is not reporting.
Catch and Trade: More unconstitutional liberties being taken by bureaucrats.
NOAA Approves Unpopular Catch and Trade Policy for U.S. Fisheries
Statement by Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, Food & Water Watch
WASHINGTON - November 8 -
“On Thursday, to the dismay and outrage of fishermen and consumer advocates around the country, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officially announced the completion of its new catch shares policy, which encourages the privatization of U.S. fishery resources. Also known as ‘catch and trade’, these programs have been criticized as having similar problems as the cap and trade effort to reduce air pollution.
At its essence, catch and trade is a means to allow almost complete control of our fisheries by bigger business interests. It divides up the fish in any given region and doles them out as shares to certain companies and individuals based on past fishing history. While this may sound fair, in reality it often forces smaller historic fishermen out of the industry, skews fisheries toward industrial production, and decreases job opportunities and wages for crew, leading to widespread devastation in coastal and fishing communities.
NOAA announced its official policy on catch and trade Friday after having already enacted the programs on the East, West and Gulf coasts, where countless fishing operations are slowly being pushed out of business. The legality of the catch and trade model is being challenged in three major lawsuits, one in each region where new programs have been finalized: California, Massachusetts and Florida.
What NOAA failed to announce publicly is that catch and trade programs were already ruled a human rights violation in Iceland in 2007, when the UN Human Rights Committee determined that they violated international law and the rights of fishermen by transforming a public resource into individual property.
Unfortunately, NOAA has been establishing catch and trade programs across the nation for some time now, despite global evidence that they often hurt, not help both fisheries and consumers. The quality of fish often decreases as industrial-scale vessels increasingly dominate the industry. Fish can be crushed through mechanic sorting and by being pulled up in large nets with thousands of other fish. Fish are then processed en masse – sometimes shipped across the world to places with lower food safety standards – for filleting and packaging before they are shipped back to the U.S. for sale.
It is shameful that NOAA is championing private interests rather than doing its job to ensure healthy fish populations, stable fishing communities, and quality seafood for consumers. Recreational and commercial fishermen have spoken out against catch and trade but NOAA refuses to listen, opting instead to push toward consolidation of U.S. fisheries until they become like factory farms on land – large industrial operations that bring profit to a few at the expense of many.”
What difference does it make? There won’t be any fish anyway in a few more years. I’ve seen some reports that say many species of consumed fish will be gone within 20 years.
They are already running into this off the English Atlantic coast and areas around Japan.
Buddy of mine just called with an interesting theory. He thinks the mystery missile lauch yesterday 35 miles off the Californina coast was done by a North Korean submarine as a demonstration of their capability. Other possible motivation would be to make a statement of the US vulnerability while the military is abroad and the president is in their back yard. The quick lame response to cover-up by the government in saying it was a commercial airliner would support such a theory. His theory makes sense.
“The quick lame response to cover-up by the government in saying it was a commercial airliner would support such a theory. His theory makes sense.”
I don`t know about his theory, but I have seen a lot of Shuttle Launches and they looked the very similar to the mystery missile launch. I don`t know what that was, but that was not a commercial airliner.
What exactly would North Korea be proving by launching a missle close to the US? That they can get a sub in close enough to blow up Las Vegas?
The valuable stuff is right there on the coast. Why get in close and then launch a missle?
It was a plane.
“It was a plane.” It was a bird.
A bird with a rocket strapped to it`s @ss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyEvk-VTuEI - 128k -
Watch the video on utube, definitely not a plane. Maybe San Diego is not as hot a place to live as once thought?
He thinks the mystery missile lauch yesterday 35 miles off the Californina coast was done by a North Korean submarine as a demonstration of their capability.
—————————————————————————–
Say, didn’t a N. Korean submarine do something like this off the Louisiana coast a few months back?
It should be labeled the K20 for “kooks”…
Seoul Searching
Can G20 head off a destructive trade war?
SEOUL (AFP)–Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Thursday the world economy is headed for “bankruptcy” unless rich nations raise consumer demand rather than relying on exports to power recovery.
“If they don’t consume, and they just bet on exports, the world will go into bankruptcy,” he said.
~ Consumers would be crazy to fall for the opinion of Brazil’s president. Despite Lula’s plea, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner’s urging, consumers have been burned by their debt-based spending spree earlier this decade and they’re not eager to get behind the eight-ball anytime soon. They’re learning you can’t borrow yourself rich.
Lula may be correct. If the USA effectively concentrates on nothing but exporting, most of the world is in serious trouble.
Consumers get burned but the vampire squid still thrives. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.—-TTT
Caught between a rock and a hard place. EVERYONE expects us to buy their crap, but get pissed when we print money to pay them with.
When he says “rich nations” he’s referring to China and the oil-exporting countries.
Brazil is one of those oil exporting countries. It exports oil to China, among others.. like the USA.
Over 7 Million ‘Shadow Homes’ May Take 40 Months to Clear, Says Fitch
Posted by Alex Finkelstein 11/09/10 8:00 AM EST
If you thought the U.S. housing market is showing any signs of improvement, a new report by New York City-based Fitch Ratings puts the damper on that view.
Fitch says seven million homes in the “shadows” will take 40 months to clear.
The agency defines the shadow supply of properties as loans that are delinquent, in foreclosure, or real-estate-owned (REO) by the servicer. Fitch says based on recent liquidation trends, it will take at least 3 ½ years to clear this existing distressed inventory.
DSNews.com reports that according to the ratings agency, the number of months between the date of the borrower’s last payment and the date of liquidation has steadily increased over the past several years, and is now at more than 18 months on average.
Fitch says that is the highest figure on record.
While the volume of newly delinquent mortgages has begun to improve in recent quarters, Fitch says liquidation rates of existing distressed properties have been constrained by weak demand and expanded initiatives to modify loans for troubled borrowers, DSNews reports.
On top of that, the agency’s analysts believe the recent discovery of defects in the residential mortgage foreclosure process will further extend liquidation timelines, slowing the resolution of distressed properties in the shadow inventory and preventing home prices from finding a floor.
“While the reduced volume of distressed sales since 2009 has temporarily helped home prices, Fitch believes that the extension in foreclosure and liquidation timelines is simply prolonging the housing correction underway,” the agency reported.
In addition to the much-vaunted shadow inventory, there’s quite a stock of houses that have recently been listed for sale, and now they’re not.
Instead, they’re now being rented out “until the market improves.” Which translates as “When house prices start going up, up, and up again.” Not likely to happen anytime soon.
So, what shall we call this inventory? The “Accidental Landlord Properties that are Hiding in Plain Sight” inventory?
The best part is that if those prices start rocketing back up, these people will hang on to them thinking they are printing money. Then when the next collapse comes, they’ll chase the market back down, then decided to ‘rent it out’ until the market improves.
“So, what shall we call this inventory? The “Accidental Landlord Properties”
That`s it! The Alps
+1
It’s the only way Gubmint Motors will sell the Volt.
GE to buy 25K electric fleet vehicles
GE said Thursday it will buy 25,000 electric vehicles for its fleet through 2015 in the largest-ever purchase of electric cars.
GE will begin with an initial purchase of 12,000 vehicles from General Motor Co., starting with Chevy Volt in 2011. The conglomerate said it “will add other vehicles as manufacturers expand their electric vehicle profiles.”
The first Chevrolet Volt is expected to roll off production lines later this month.
What is GE going to so do with 25,000 Volt cars?
Good question. Maybe have repairman drive them?
“What is GE going to so do with 25,000 Volt cars?”
Maybe they are going to give 18,000 of them as parting gifts.
Where did all the GE money go? Where did the promised jobs go?
Despite getting $24.9 million from U.S. taxpayers, GE decreased its U.S.-based employees by 18,000 in 2009, according to the company’s 2009 annual report.The Obama administration gave corporate giant General Electric—the parent company of NBC–$24.9 million in grants from the $787-billion economic “stimulus” law President Barack Obama signed in February 2009,
The $59 million investment General Electric announced it is making in the Decatur plant is a good example of how the massive federal stimulus package can keep people at work.
[snip]
GE says it will invest heavily in the local plant to make its refrigerators more energy efficient to meet looming federal regulations.
(great.. more enviro-regulations..)
[snip]
The $6.5 million tax credit GE will get comes from the Recovery Act. Without the incentive, GE may have closed rather than upgraded to keep those jobs in Decatur.
[snip]
Even rank and file valley residents who oppose the federal bailout of the economy applaud GE taking the money.
http://www.decaturdaily.com/stories/General-Electric-puts-stimulus-money-to-work,70056
——
I can’t find where GE got $24.9 million. They did get 14 “grants” which some claim are worth $24.9M. Is that tax credit one of those grants?
“What is GE going to so do with 25,000 Volt cars?”
Use them as a tool to promote their charging stations?
“The United States will not weaken the dollar as a tool to gain competitive advantage or to grow its economy says, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He tells CNBC why this is “not an effective strategy for any country”.”
there are no words.
What’s funny is the dimwitted news talkers sit right there and listen to his blatant bullshit and never say even something as simple as…
Then what the hell are ‘we’ doing right now Timmy?
Reporters that ask the WRONG pointed questions are soon looking for new work…. in another field.
Stocks Drop as Cisco Adds to Market Jitters- AP
The euro was under pressure again Thursday, dropping to its lowest level since early October, amid mounting speculation that Ireland will be forced to get a financial bailout to avoid bankruptcy. U.S. stock markets were hit by a downbeat update from U.S. network equipment maker Cisco Systems.
A college friend co-founded a company with three of his RBOC coworkers. (They all worked at Ameritech.)
They later sold said company to Cisco Systems for a whole lotta money. Suddenly, my friend was a very rich man. So were his three buddies.
Part of the deal was that they’d be golden handcuffed to Cisco for three years. So, they went on board the Good Ship Cisco.
While they were in the employ of Cisco, the stock price plummeted. And these guys had quite a bit of Cisco stock.
They tracked its downward trajectory by creating a program called Sharp Stick. It enabled them to track Cisco’s stock price in real time.
Program was named to reflect the fact that, whatever was happening with the stock, it was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
What bull. Cisco simply isn’t big enough to influence the stock market. Something else is going on.
From the 5Min Forecast…
Hmmn… stocks are down 1% this morning. The Dow is just 35 points away from where it was when QE2 was announced last week.
A week ago today, Ben Bernanke as much as promised The Washington Post that QE2 would make stocks go up. “Stock prices rose and long-term interest rates fell,” he wrote, “when investors began to anticipate the most recent action.”
What went wrong… and why so soon?
For starters, traders are freaked this morning by an outlook from the computer networking giant Cisco. It sees weakening demand. Core customers like cable TV operators and even government agencies won’t be buying as much Cisco gear in the coming quarters as first thought. Cisco is down 16% as we write.
This is the first significant cut in “forward guidance” to hit the tape in a while. With skyrocketing commodity prices now working their way through the system, we have a feeling it won’t be the last.
Also weighing on the market: news that drugmaker Novartis is giving up on developing a lung cancer drug. Study results indicated it had little or no chance to improve patient survival rates.
Core customers like cable TV operators and even government agencies won’t be buying as much Cisco gear in the coming quarters as first thought. Cisco is down 16% as we write.
Me again. Y’know how we keep talking about cable companies losing customers? Here’s the proof.
And government agencies? If they’re anything like my former employers in academia, they’ll buy Cisco gear and run it until it dies. And that will take a number of years.
cable sucks Cisco is working on 100Gb/s backplanes to handle youtube type traffic thats the future
Who knows why the stock market went down today. Probably not Cisco warning.
Jobless targeted in welfare shake-up ~ Thu Nov 11
LONDON (AFP) – The coalition unveiled plans Thursday to stop handouts for up to three years to jobless who refuse work, in the biggest shake-up in the history of the welfare state, a day after violent protests rocked London.
The government also plans a “universal credit” instead of the current complex system of separate benefit payments as part of reforms aimed at cutting Britain’s huge deficit.
The announcement came a day after university students stormed the headquarters of the Conservative party during a march against plans to hike tuition fees, in the first sign of public anger against the austerity drive.
“We will make sure work always pays more than being on benefit,” Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said as he unveiled the plans before parliament.
“We will make sure work always pays more than being on benefit,”
I would think it would be easier and cheaper to make sure “being on benefit” always pays less than work.
Some guy on Dylan Ratigan is saying in essence everybody has to take a cut .
I don’t think you can say everybody has to take a cut . I think you should say
What self-interest group most deserves a cut or tax increase ?
Socialism for the rich.
No-holds-barred capitalism for the rest of us.
MetLife Halts Sale of New Long-Term Care Insurance
MetLife Inc., the largest U.S. life insurer, will halt the sale of new long-term care coverage after citing “financial challenges” in the business.
MetLife, led by Chief Executive Officer Robert Henrikson, is focusing on growth in Asia after buying a business from American International Group Inc. this month for $16.2 billion. Insurers including CNO Financial Group Inc. have been burned by policies sold in the past when they underestimated the number of claims, the cost of care and life expectancies of their clients.
“The financial challenges facing the long-term care industry in the current environment are well known,” Jodi Anatole, a vice president for MetLife, said today in a statement.
Long-term care policies provide coverage to help pay for home-health aides or residence in a nursing home or assisted- living facility. New York-based MetLife will accept applications for new coverage through Dec. 30 and continue to honor previously written contracts after that date, the company said.
MetLife, led by Chief Executive Officer Robert Henrikson, is focusing on growth in Asia after buying a business from American International Group Inc. this month for $16.2 billion. Insurers including CNO Financial Group Inc. have been burned by policies sold in the past when they underestimated the number of claims, the cost of care and life expectancies of their clients.
Pretty well dovetails with what we’ve been saying about these policies. We’re being urged to buy them, but when it comes time to get coverage, we’re up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
Right. You buy them when you are 50. You pay til you are 80. During all those years they make optimistic assumptions and divert money to executive pay and bonuses.
At that point, it becomes obvious that the entity you are paying will not honor its promises, but if you stop paying you lose any value from all the money you put in.
For that matter Corporations promising retirement programs that
they are not able to pay by underfunding or the gambling bets didn’t pay off,or health costs went to high , is a form of not honoring you contract . The Corporations got the benefit of paying lower salaries by offering benefits but now they are saying “We Don’t Want To Pay “. What about AIG betting on Credit Default Swaps of about 400 billion but not having the money to back it up.
Why not more talk about the tax base that is being creamed by
the loss of jobs to Corporate America Globalism and Free Trade policies .So they want to solve the problem by taxing the
remaining working job force in America . Eventually higher paying jobs fall by the wayside also when the middle class lose jobs .
Small business can’t really compete against the big monopolies now.
For some Politicians to simply say lets take from everyone ,when this isn’t even the truth and its a absurd statement to begin with,it
is appalling . You take where it deserves to be taken ..thats where .What is this anyway everybody has to take on the guilt of the
true greed machine ,just like the bail-outs for Banks that masked
who they were saving at the expense of the taxpayers .
What about we won’t give tax breaks to big business unless they
prove that they created local jobs and manufacturing . Giving tax breaks without a Contract with America that Industry has to give back is a joke ,just like giving to Banks without making requirements turned into a joke .
The sociopath always pleads innocence, persecution, extenuating circumstances and shifts the blame and guilt to the victim.
ecofeco ……..I can see that you see the whole scam for what
it is and I consider you one of the smartest guys in the barn .
At this point it’s such a critical juncture to cut the BS and really save the American ship IMHO .I’m seeing the same old bullshit .
Thanks Housing Wizard. Now if I could just master my proofreading skils…
…and learn to quit hitting “submit” so fast.
You too seems to have a very good grasp of where we’re at. But the sociopath will never change. This is the tyranny that the forefathers warned about.
Fish stocks dwindle as trawlers empty Asia’s seas
(AFP)Overfishing in Southeast Asian seas has left garoupas and sea bass in dire straits, searching for mates on denuded seabeds, according to experts alarmed by ever-declining catches.
Marine scientists and fishermen say that popular fish species — especially the large and valuable ones — have been caught indiscriminately, causing numbers to plunge dramatically.
For big fish “finding a mate is a difficult task. They have to swim a long distance to find one,” said Edward Allison from the World Fish Center in Malaysia’s northern resort island of Penang.
One of the culprits is bottom trawling, which involves dragging huge, heavy nets along the sea floor. Large metal plates and rubber wheels attached to the nets move along the bottom and crush nearly everything in their path.
Allison said the habitat for young fish, or fry, is also shrinking because the mangrove swamps which provide food and protection are being obliterated by coastal development including tourist resorts.
Demand for top-quality seafood, from Southeast Asian nations themselves and from Hong Kong and China, is another major factor behind the emptying of the seas.
According to World Fish data, there were 10 times more fish in the Gulf of Thailand in 1965 than 30 years later.
In Malaysia the decline was between 80 and 90 percent while in the Philippines it is estimated that there was a 46-78 percent dropoff in fish stocks.
HA! I just mentioned this above.
Good find.
Ok , why was America so prosperous for so many years and why did the middle class prosper ? The balance of power was such that it allowed for the
middle class to prosper and they were able to buy more products which
produced more jobs and growth and a greater tax base .Trickle down
economics don’t work anymore ,its a joke in light of Globalism .
This is BS that if the middle class gets a tax cut the rich should also . Thats like saying if someone eats a steak I should eat a steak also ,this isn’t logical .
“Trickle down” (on my leg and tell me it’s raining) never did work. It was a scam from the get go.
As to your steak analogy, it’s more like saying “if someone eats a steak, I should get champagne and caviar on a my yacht…. paid for by the steak eater.”
Yes you are correct ecofeco your analogy is better than mine and much more accurate …thank you .
Whats with this BS that new Congress people have to spend years to get any power . Isn’t that a pecking order system that would cheat the people out
of power they elect in favor of the corrupt long-term Congress critters ?
Long-term, powerful representatives provide a lot of pork to the people back home. Nobody in their right mind wants to lose them.
Rich, poor and in-between, the very large majority of citizens want to to enrich their own circumstances, regardless of the consequences.
Joey , there is self interest and than there is unjust enrichment that
destroys the entire bee-hive .
There is self interest, and then there is someone with a different opinion.