Bits Bucket for March 21, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Fannie and Freddie Earning Respect
Last month, the Treasury Department released a white paper announcing its intention to wind down both institutions. However, as a panel of housing experts convened by the trade group SIFMA discussed Wednesday, that will take five years at the very least, and likely far longer.
“The Treasury and the administration did a very politically astute job with respect to that statement,” said Kent Colton, senior fellow at Harvard University’s joint center for Housing Studies, addressing Jeff Foster, a senior Treasury official who had just finished speaking. “One way I’ve said it is you’ve called the House Republicans’ bluff.”
Colton explained that though he is a Republican, he believes the U.S. housing market is too fragile to recover without Fannie and Freddie standing behind it for at least the next few years. He is not sure all Republicans in Congress understand enough about housing finance to understand why Fannie and Freddie are so important. However, if the Democratic administration is not insisting Fannie and Freddie stick around, it makes it harder for Republicans who would like to use the institutions as symbols of the evils of big government Democrats.
“This way they let some of the political steam boil off so we can have a good debate,” Colton says of the administration.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fannie-and-Freddie-Earning-tsmf-34189239.html?x=0
Thank goodness for unbiased input from academia.
Review of Kent’s book on Amazon:
This work looks to the future using case studies developed during the author’s fifteen-year tenure as head of the National Association of Home Builders and includes discussions of real-world problems and the people involved. Highlighting the process of developing and implementing housing policy given the great challenges of working with many diverse interests, the author outlines a housing policy framework based on a set of principles for achieving common ground.
“One way I’ve said it is you’ve called the House Republicans’ bluff.”
Yup.
“it makes it harder for Republicans who would like to use the institutions as symbols of the evils of big government Democrats.”
And there it is folks. Just like I mentioned last week, the GnOP’s fundamental goal is to demonize Phoney and Fraudie. They have no intention of shutting them down. To the contrary; Phoney and Fraudie were instrumental in the Bush administrations public policy of creating the housing bubble via Ownership Society, The Low Downpayment Act, The No Downpayment Act, etc.
In fact, given the republican history of stimulating false demand for housing to give an artificial kick to the economy, I’m certain that they will do everything they can to keep the GSE’s on life support until they regain power. Then it starts all over again.
Realtors are liars …I tend to agree with your analysis .
Weren’t Fannie and Freddie buying up all the toxic mortgages from Megabank, Inc. during the meltdown? Whose idea was that? This whole depression is based upon fraud.
Really! If only the losses on all the bad mortgages had been ‘contained’ to the rich folks who fronted the money, instead of redistributed to the U.S. tax and monetary bases, then a lot of us who sat on the sidelines and watched would be relatively wealthier, and a lot more deserving banksters would be jumping off of high buildings.
Realtors Are Corrupt
The sky is blue. Why are we making such statements?
While everyone knows the sky is blue, there are perhaps still those who don’t realize that Realtors are corrupt. So it makes sense to keep getting the word out.
The phrase is “preeching to the Choir.”
May God damn Realtors.
Is that better?
There was a strong need to bust all the corruption and start
over again on a better foundation ,like maybe the rule of law being applied and putting these corrupted institution and people in their place .The choice was to just cover it up ,bail it out ,and make the insane powerful again . Bad choice IMHO .
Companies raise prices on food, shoes, diapers.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Look out! From Huggies diapers to Nike shoes, Americans are about to get less bang for their buck on some of the biggest brands.
This week, paper-products maker Kimberly-Clark announced plans to raise prices on diapers and toilet paper later this summer. Nike said it would increase prices on their shoes. And food companies Kraft, Smuckers and Heinz recently announced price hikes on some of their brands.
“The increases are necessary to offset inflationary pressure from higher raw material and energy costs,” Kimberly-Clark said in a press release.
Huggies diapers and Pull-Ups prices will rise by 3% to 7%, the company said. Cottonelle and Scott 1000 toilet paper will rise about 7%.
Kraft Foods raised its price on Maxwell House coffee by 22%, or 70 cents per pound, after Smuckers (SJM) said last month it would raise the price of Folgers by 10%.
The increases come as major brands struggle to keep their profit margins intact, amid surging costs on raw materials. Producer prices rose 1.6% in February alone, the the biggest jump in nearly two years, according to government data released Wednesday.
Until recently, producers and retailers resisted price hikes, fearing they would lose customers during a still-sluggish economy and high unemployment.
Now they’re starting to cave, mainly on non-discretionary goods, where they still feel they have some pricing power.
Prices rise 2.1% in past year
The sticker prices on necessities like food and gas, for example, have surged over the last year. Gas prices are 11% higher than a year ago, and food prices are up 2.3%, according to the latest government inflation data.
“We’re at the point now, where its harder for companies to avoid raising prices,” said Mark Vitner, Wells Fargo senior economist. “Prices are rising the most for the things we buy the most frequently.”
“Companies raise prices on food, shoes, diapers.”
But wage earners aren’t earning the money to pay these higher prices:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf
Luckily there are increases in transfer payments such as Social Security to fill the gap …
Oh, wait!
Isn’t stagflation beautiful? Should I start wearing bell bottoms again?
By the mid-1970s, bell bottoms had gone out of style. Straight-leg Levis were all the rage.
Where I lived it was the early 1980s before bell bottoms went out of style.
Want some ketchup with that second generation iPad?
As I’ve been saying…
Toilet paper is not a listed commodity in Helicopter Ben’s computation of domestic core inflation.
So advice to US consumers to addres spiraling costs…
So do as the Arabs do…use sand.
WSJ: ‘Don’t look for work, take on more debt instead.’
March 21st, 2011 by maxkeiser
In WSJ’s MarketWatch brand today (for an article on taking a job offer that requires moving), Don Spetner suggested it would be best for Americans to simply stay put–take on more debt–and wait for jobs to come knock on their doors…
“It may seem like all of the opportunities are in another state or another region,” said Don Spetner, an executive vice president at recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International. “But you really have to step back and say: ‘Are we in a cyclical mode?’ You might better off sticking it out and taking on debt.”
Liberal Democrats in uproar over Libya action.~ Politico.com
A hard-core group of liberal House Democrats is questioning the constitutionality of U.S. missile strikes against Libya, with one lawmaker raising the prospect of impeachment during a Democratic Caucus conference call on Saturday.
Reps. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Donna Edwards (Md.), Mike Capuano (Mass.), Dennis Kucinich (Ohio), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Rob Andrews (N.J.), Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.) “all strongly raised objections to the constitutionality of the president’s actions” during that call, said two Democratic lawmakers who took part.
Kucinich, who wanted to bring impeachment articles against both former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over Iraq — only to be blocked by his own leadership — asked why the U.S. missile strikes aren’t impeachable offenses.
Kucinich also questioned why Democratic leaders didn’t object when President Barack Obama told them of his plan for American participation in enforcing the Libyan no-fly zone during a White House Situation Room meeting on Friday, sources told POLITICO.
And liberals fumed that Congress hadn’t been formally consulted before the attack and expressed concern that it would lead to a third U.S. war in the Muslim world.
While other Democratic lawmakers have publicly backed Obama — including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and top members of the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees — the objections from a vocal group of anti-war Democrats on Capitol Hill could become a political problem for Obama, especially if “Operation Odyssey Dawn” fails to topple Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, leads to significant American casualties, or provokes a wider conflict in the troubled region of North Africa.
This has to be some kind record for “mission creep.” In less than two days we went from establishing a no-fly zone (which does mean bombing air bases and ground radar and military communications facilities) to bombing tank columns and other ground forces. How soon before U.S. Marines land on “the shores of Tripoli” again?
So what if they do?
Why can’t a black president have his own war like the white ones do?
What are you?
Racist?
Good one! Maybe he should have met with the British PM on some island out in the middle of the Atlantic before acting unilaterally as a newly-christened War President.
did he even get congressional approval for this one?
Did anyone on this Board ever hear of the War Powers Clause,
allowing the president to “go to war” without declaring it?
“Did anyone on this Board ever hear of the War Powers Clause,
allowing the president to “go to war” without declaring it?”
Re-read your history and the Constitutino.
The War Powers Clause was an attempt by the founders to allow the President to _defend_ the country from a sudden attack, yet to prevent him from going to war without congressional assent.
The War Powers Resolution, on the other hand, is a possibly-unconstitutional law passed by Congress that appears to give the President more leeway, providing for 60 days _after_ the initiation of hostilities to obtain either a declaration of war or a supporting resolution from Congress.
It will be interesting to see whether Obama does this within 60 days.
Isn’t diversion from the real issues at hand, the world financial meltdown great! Gotta love to watch it unfold. I mean the Japan nuke event isn’t panning out well for the MSM but viola, we’ll just shoot off a few missiles from a safe distance, puff up our chest and talk about how great our new image abroad has become. The voters hoped for change and it is the gift that keeps on giving.
I think they even targeted his compound.
Yeah, that really worked when Reagan tried it. They bombed the palace but missed the tent where Gaddafi (sp?) was actually living.
Yes, but the point being, they are not just enforcing a no fly zone but trying to take out the head of a state.
Raygun once (similarly) took out a son of Gadaffi by dropping bombs close to the homestead.
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.
Senator Barrack Obama December 20, 2007
That statement seems awfully direct and clear, coming from a politician.
Did he really believe it, you think? Or was it what he thought would play well with his constituents?
It sure doesn’t seem to jive with his current actions.
Was Ron Paul on spring break?
Have we learned nothing??! A third war in a desert country?
I have a bad feeling that this one is going to have a lot of unexpected consequences.
Ron Paul was just on CNN at 5:30 PST. He made some very good points!
While we debate a lot of imprtant things here, I would like to see it argued that this cavalier national approach to WAR is not going to blow up in our faces one day. How many times can we smash the big red button before something really bad happens?
Oh what’s that? It’s all under control? Yeah, the same government that doesn’t know how a housing bubble formed has total control over the dogs of war. Whatever. It’s open house season - why worry?
Maybe they have concluded it will be a easy military victory ,but it is unsettling and it could lead to consequences . This isn’t the first time that we have gone after that mad dog .
But like Ben mentioned yesterday ,we have thousands being killed in
Mexico right at our borders with the violence seeping over into our Country and we have a hands off approach to that situation
apparently .
There’s a globalista angle to these adventures that just isn’t getting enough scrutiny. I’ve read that we are going to let the Brits and French take the lead in a few days. If that’s the case, why wait? Why be involved at all? Wouldn’t those carriers and ships be more useful off the coast of Japan?Meanwhile, unrest south of our own border doesn’t seem to be running against their interests, but the unrest in North Africa and the Middle East sure is.
What pisses me off most is that of the 120+ missiles launched the first day, only 2 were launched by the Brits. The rest were all from the US. Quite a UN Coalition effort.
The only boosters I see are teh MAM jouranlists.
At least for now.
Tick tick tick…before long the “journalists” will be telling us how obvious this mistake was.
MIT nuclear info hub:
http://mitnse.com
I’m still seeing a few buildings in the nabe who are converting the 2 fam basement into an illegal 3rd apartment…(The mortgage must be killin them)….the semi-toothless semi- illiterate nabe handyman is still very busy…..nice guy excellent work…
Talking Business
An Advocate Who Scares Republicans
By JOE NOCERA
Published: March 18, 2011
The piñata sat alone at the witness table, facing the members of the House subcommittee on financial institutions and consumer credit.
The Wednesday morning hearing was titled “Oversight of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.” The only witness was the piñata, otherwise known as Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor hired last year by President Obama to get the new bureau — the only new agency created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law — up and running. She may or may not be nominated by the president to serve as its first director when it goes live in July, but in the here and now she’s clearly running the joint.
And thus the real purpose of the hearing: to allow the Republicans who now run the House to box Ms. Warren about the ears. The big banks loathe Ms. Warren, who has made a career out of pointing out all the ways they gouge financial consumers — and whose primary goal is to make such gouging more difficult. So, naturally, the Republicans loathe her too. That she might someday run this bureau terrifies the banks. So, naturally, it terrifies the Republicans.
The banks and their Congressional allies have another, more recent gripe. Rather than waiting until July to start helping financial consumers, Ms. Warren has been trying to help them now. Can you believe the nerve of that woman?
…
The banks and their Congressional allies have another, more recent gripe. Rather than waiting until July to start helping financial consumers, Ms. Warren has been trying to help them now. Can you believe the nerve of that woman?
Yes, that nervy woman. She’s supposed to be all nice and deferential and not threaten the PTB.
Bad, bad, bad. Get back in your subservient place, Elizabeth.
I guess she missed the memo that all Americans live to serve our Wall Street masters.
I hope she has good bodyguards.
She probably does.
There’s an outfit called the Federal Protection Service, and they provide bodyguard-type services to people like Warren. I’ve seen them in action, and, word to the wise: You don’t want to mess with them.
Whoops! I was wrong. This is what the Federal Protection Service does.
As for providing bodyguards to people like Elizabeth Warren, this might be done by the Secret Service. But then again, I could be wrong on this point too.
In any event, she probably has some muscle traveling around with her.
Smear campaign rule number one for discrediting someone else’s story: Label it a conspiracy theory. (For good measure, you can state off the record that they wear tinfoil hats.)
* REVIEW & OUTLOOK
* MARCH 19, 2011
Elizabeth Warren’s Hit Squad
Smearing journalists who disagree with them.
Liberal conspiracy theories make life worth living, so we’ve been enjoying the latest Web sensation courtesy of the Huffington Post and Elizabeth Warren’s gang at the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
These columns haven’t joined the rest of the press in treating Ms. Warren’s policy goals as gospel, and our criticism seems to have struck a nerve. Shortly after our latest editorial on the new bureau, Ms. Warren’s minions collaborated with the Huffington Post on an ad hominem smear of our colleague and Journal editorial board member Mary Kissel. The scandalous news? Before she turned to a career in journalism, Ms. Kissel worked from 1999 to 2002 at . . . Goldman Sachs.
…
Pointing out that she worked for an interested party isn’t a smear, it’s useful information. That’s what journalists should be reporting.
Though, to be fair, people sometimes leave the employ of a particular entity because they don’t like what that entity is doing. Being employed by an investment bank for 3 years does not indicate that a person is eternally sympathetic to that entity’s goals and business practices.
-Former Wall Street lawyer
Good point!
True. But her editorials seem to agree with her former (?) employer’s positions.
Which is a different issue. Some people believe the hype. They just do. I’ve never understood it. I expected the internet to essentially take down the whole investment banking enterprise within a few years when I left. The real “value added” that they used to have is their rolodex - people you can sell the stuff too - and possibly enough market information to do better than random guessing on pricing. That should all have been eaten up by internet-based Dutch auctions. Which is why they work so much outside the scope of regulated, traded markets these days; private markets actually need an intermediary because they aren’t publicly traded.
Investment banks are doing a good job of running commodity prices up again
“I expected the internet to essentially take down the whole investment banking enterprise within a few years when I left.”
It appears they are doing a respectable job of harnessing the internet’s potential as a propaganda platform.
Though, to be fair, people sometimes leave the employ of a particular entity because they don’t like what that entity is doing. Being employed by an investment bank for 3 years does not indicate that a person is eternally sympathetic to that entity’s goals and business practices.
-Former Wall Street lawyer
You’ve got that one right!
I have more than a few former employers with whom I had heated disagreements. That’s why I don’t work for them anymore. But, be that as it may, those jobs are part of my employment history.
And I’m not even a former WS lawyer.
Lawrence Summers is holding the other end of Elisabeth Warren’s tenure leash.
Oh… Liz is plenty tough and I’m sure she had no delusions about how uphill her charge was going to be? If you want something, no one is just going to ‘hand’ it to you. You have to fight for it.
Additionally, 1999-2002 was a turbulent time at the Wires and there was lots of turnover. Just about ‘everyone’ was hopping & dancing.
Oh… Liz is plenty tough and I’m sure she had no delusions about how uphill her charge was going to be? If you want something, no one is just going to ‘hand’ it to you. You have to fight for it.
At Harvard Law, Warren was called “Socrates with a machine gun.”
“Socrates with a machine gun.”
Awesome. Wish I could talk my sister (another ‘Socrates with a machine gun’ type) into applying for work with Warren.
Drew Faust is the current president of Harvard.
Warren got an endowed chair in the law school at Harvard in 1995 which means she has had tenure protection for at least that long, probably longer. Summers became president of Harvard in 2001. When Warren was establishing herself at Harvard, Summers was in the Treasury Department.
We don’t need committees that choose when to act ,we need
strong laws and regulations that close down the casinos and put
the financial systems back to staying within the rule of law with laws that take away conflict of interest like Glass-Steagall . There is no reason to have this shadow world of Banking and investment
and Insuring that has limited regulation and reserves with great leverage power ,yet these casinos have the potential to crash financial markets with limited reserves to back them . The more regulated entities can mingle with the unregulated ,therefore it renders all the financial entities being like one .
Umm…all I was doing with that comment was pointing out that rms is completely wrong in claiming that Larry Summers has any sort of pull on Elizabeth Warren through controlling tenure at Harvard. She already has it and has had it since before he was president of Harvard and he isn’t president of Harvard anymore.
As for the rules you advocate, you have to get them through Congress first.
“Umm…all I was doing with that comment was pointing out that rms is completely wrong in claiming that Larry Summers has any sort of pull on Elizabeth Warren through controlling tenure at Harvard. She already has it and has had it since before he was president of Harvard and he isn’t president of Harvard anymore.”
A tenured professor at UC Santa Barbara cast the Palestinian situation as reprehensible, and for that he was attacked by the entire UC cabal and even Abraham Foxman flew in to help coordinate the attack; what does this guy have to do with tenure? Fortunately the student body mustered a coordinated response, or else the “tenured” professor would have been jobless.
Irrelevant. The faculty at Harvard essentially got Larry Summers kicked out over a speculation that women aren’t as good as men at science at the high end because the bell curve on women’s intelligence is narrower than the bell curve for men (fewer at the very high end and fewer at the very low end). They don’t put up with much from leadership that they don’t like. Warren is passionately admired. Oh, and Drew Faust is an historian who specialized in the antebellum South and the Civil War, especially the changing roles of women during the war. She was formerly a Dean at Radcliffe.
The banks may be able to keep Professor Warren from doing anything really useful in DC, but her position at Harvard is not at risk.
“Warren is passionately admired.”
By me too.
I’d hate to see Elisabeth Warren get the Brooksley Born treatment as meted by Lawrence Summers.
“…the bell curve on women’s intelligence is narrower than the bell curve for men…”
In other words, a higher percentage of men are either dolts or geniuses.
In this case, actions speak louder than words.
She could be Satan’s right hand women for all I care as long as she keeps pissing off the banking mafia.
“…as long as she keeps pissing off the banking mafia.”
Let’s hope she has both Jesus and Satan in her camp for that purpose.
Empowering consumers may be good for freeing markets, but freer markets would be bad for Wall Street monopoly bank profits, and that is where the conflict over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau begins.
Ex-Treasury Official Barr Not Interested in Consumer Bureau Job
By Carter Dougherty - Mar 18, 2011 10:20 AM PT
Michael S. Barr, the former U.S. Treasury Department assistant secretary for financial institutions, said he isn’t interested in becoming director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“I had a wonderful two years in Washington. I am happy to be where I am,” Barr said today at a conference of the Consumer Federation of America in Washington.
Barr left Treasury in November to return to work as a law professor at the University of Michigan. He has frequently been mentioned in press reports as a top candidate for CFPB director.
Barr, who helped design and pass the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul, defended the new agency against critics in his speech.
“Their logic rests on the premise that empowering consumers is somehow antithetical to free markets,” Barr said. “In fact, the opposite is true.”
…
Maybe someone such as Stanley McChrystal needs to take a mallet and a sack of wooden stakes up the hill?
As I’ve said, it’s socialism for the rich, no-holds-barred capitalism for the rest of us.
If big business actually had “free markets” they would go bankrupt overnight. What they really want is “free to eff us up the bum” markets.
+1 Regulations don’t hold us back…they hold us up.
Iowa loophole voids mortgage, gives couple ‘a free house’
2:29 AM, Mar. 17, 2011
Written by ADAM BELZ
Talk about sticking one to the bank.
Matt and Jamie Danielson own their $278,000 Ankeny home outright, and paid almost nothing for it.
A hasty home-loan approval and a 123-year-old law that requires mortgages be signed by both spouses helped the couple fight foreclosure all the way to the Iowa Court of Appeals. They won, and though they made only one payment to lender Citimortgage, the mortgage is now void and they get to keep the home.
“It’s dumb luck that we’re in this house,” said Matt Danielson, 33.
“It’s not like we’re rolling on easy street,” Danielson said. “We still struggle just like everybody else does in this economy.”
The proposal gives judges discretion in cases like the Danielsons’, instead of automatically voiding mortgages not signed by both spouses. The bill passed the Senate on Monday.
The law’s original intent was to protect husbands and wives from liability if one spouse made a disastrous financial decision unbeknownst to the other or against her or his wishes.
“They got a free house,” he said of the Danielsons.
The Danielsons were high-fliers in the boom years before the financial crisis.
He built houses, she originated mortgages. They worked hard and spent money when they felt like it. They lived in a house along Saylorville Lake, owned several cars, and invested in a car lot in Indianola.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110317/BUSINESS/103170343/Iowa-loophole-voids-mortgage-gives-couple-free-house- - 107k -
Gaah! Too bad it’s the ugliest house in the world.
“Also, the court noted that Citimortgage appears to have approved the Danielsons’ mortgage even before it received a signed copy of the loan application.”
“Gaah! Too bad it’s the ugliest house in the world.”
Nah, 15,16 and 19 have it beat.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/melismashable/the-ugliest-houses-in-the-world - 197k
Sorry
5, 16 and 19
Most of those just need a paint job. #19, however, is beyond help.
I think 19 is making a ’statement’. And what’s up with 8? Is that tall narrow 3-story white thing a house?
I”m sorry ,these people were in the business and I think they just scammed this outcome .The nerve of this creep saying he still struggles after getting a house for free on a loophole .
Seems to me that the house should be counted as a gift, at full mortgage value, and taxes on that amount be due to the IRS.
I bet it is too late for that. The court held that the original mortgage was invalid under state law. So the gift was when the bank gave them the money they used to buy the house in exchange for…well…nothing, since the promise to pay it back wasn’t enforceable.
And, technically, gifts aren’t taxable to the recipient, only the giver. Though I’m not sure what effect donative intent has in this case. The bank clearly didn’t intend to give a gift. It is just what they ended up doing by mistake.
Regarding #8 : I’m pretty sure it’s the same house I saw a documentary on. It’s in a cram-packed japanese town, and the guy bought a parking spot, then built a house on top of it, including his parking spot. It’s basically one room per floor.
The best part? He lives there with his mom.
If it’s not the same house, it’s probably about the same deal.
Best comment there:
PorkChopExpress
4:39 AM on March 17, 2011
Shame on these people. They overspend, declare bankruptcy to get out of paying people and then use a loophole to get out of their mortgage as well. They’re probably soon be in another bank’s office getting a home equity loan. Feel sorry for their child with such losers for parents.
I agree, the will act like the typical lottery winner and be broke in a few years.
Not only that I read most of the comments there. Looks like her cousion also did the same sometime ago. Looks like a scam, quacks like a scam ……..
“He built houses, she originated mortgages.”
Kind of sounds like mortgage fraud to me. These are folks that should have known better. If course, so should the bank. So IMO a 50-50 split would have been appropriate.
Here’s more.
http://dmjuice.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110319/NEWS10/103190327
Yep. Smells like mortgage fraud.
I guess it’s why you can’t ask (certain minorities) how can you afford an I-phone and be on welfare.
“I guess it’s why you can’t ask (certain minorities) how can you afford an I-phone and be on welfare.”
Perhaps others have commented on this before, but it seems that the quality of posts by a certain under-employed (by his own admission) disc jockey in New York has been on a down hill slide of late. The content of your comments used to be somewhat interesting, but it appears to be spiraling down into a dark vortex of “us vs them”ism. I took UI for two months after grad school and kept my iPhone while doing it. I have no other phone and was using it for phone interviews, one of which landed me a job. I’d use caution is singling out groups of people.
Agreed. Posts seem to be focused on calling out “certain minorities” at every opportunity. Not sure what the motivation is.
“I’d use caution is singling out groups of people.”
unless they are fat…then it’s ok.
“unless they are fat…then it’s ok.”
Ah, crud. Did I do that? That would be ironic since I put back on 30 lbs after my surgery. Leon’s getting LARGER!
But I’ve got two bikes now, so the pounds will just melt away. That is, as long as I ride one of them… at a time.
I was not going to get involved in the discussion of the recent decline in the quality of posts on the Blog. Thanks for having the balls to speak out against the obvious but previously ignored racist and prejudiced and confrontational rants along with horrible grammar and punctuation. On both sides of the political spectrum. The guilty know who they are and need to clean up their acts. Seriously!
Oddly enough consumer electronics are very cheap compared to things like food. Especially with the 2nd hand market.
“I’d use caution is singling out groups of people.”
unless they are tea baggers…then it’s ok.
“unless they are tea baggers”
I don’t think that I have used that term since college when a friend of mine “tea bagged” my roommate’s GF. I find the other type of tea bags is too irrelevant to be discussed. Unless you’re talking Peet’s Assam Extra Fancy…
What about Republitards? Are they fair game?
Something is seriously wrong. Because of the project I’m working on, I spent some time in one of those “Big Box” stores over the weekend. The number of obese people I saw was staggering. I mean, we’re not talking folks who maybe have a few extra pounds on them. We’re talking huge, and I mean HUGE! It seems like skinny folks are FAR outnumbered by big, bursting hogs with sacks of fat hanging every which way!! Puppicks hanging down so low people have to kick them out of the way just to walk. And that’s assuming they’re walking, because many are so obese they have to sit in one of those carts just to get around. And don’t get me started on the size of some of the behinds. Man, just strap a feed bag on these cattle and put ‘em in barn somewhere and then give ‘em a nice pasture where they can contentedly chew their cud.
wow plametto…that’s a wee bit harsh.
Harsh? What’s harsh is what these people are eating. No wonder I think this area is overpopulated. It’s not, it’s just that many people are twice the size. I actually saw a woman resting her stomach on the checkout counter. I’m not kidding.
palmy,
What I ‘used’ to think was a “fitness program” I know believe to be little more than a person “getting their weight down enough to where the doc’s can now DO the operation!”
We got LIED to! For years we were told “20 minutes of aerobic-activity 3 X a week should be ample”! Well how’d ‘that’ work out? I think the fear was that if the Sur. Gen. TOLD us just how strenuously we’d have to exert ourselves to keep the weight off… we’d have all thrown in the towel long ago!
Believe me, “walking” twice a day 10 minutes a pop ain’t gonna cut it. But I hear you guys, even now at a 36, choice fell off a cliff!
“20 minutes of aerobic-activity 3 X a week” was always for _basic_ aerobic fitness; it was never promised that you could eat as much as you want and be ok on the regimen.
Calories in dramatically-exceeding calories out == continuing life-long weight gain.
Palmy:
Bet she was white.. you almost never see a very big busty fat white woman.
Well, I think these people should all have unlimited health care……..that should end well. Also isn’t it a bit of a vicious cycle that you are too fat to walk so you get a scooter which then keeps you from getting the little exercise that you used to get walking? I have also seen obese people with handicapped parking tags…..same idea.
I meant FREE unlimited health care.
Well, not exactly FREE, but you know…. spread the cost around to people like Bill who never uses his.
I predict many of the mega-cows will drop dead young, and save us some money. It’s the healthy who live til their 90s that cost us.
Free cigarettes would help that obesity epidemic from driving up healthcare costs…
The other day at the grocery store I needed a surface to set my back pack on while I stuffed it with groceries for the ride home. So I set it on the seats of one of the electric scooters they had charging at the entrance. Only upon strapping on my pack did it dawn on me…
When did grocery stores have to start offering electric scooters? Who pays for these electric scooters? (we know who does)
I really don’t know what the total problem is with a obese
person . It must be a psychology problem ,not just a being a
pig eater problem . I have had some fat friends that just hate themselves but can’t seem to break some cycle that compels them to overeat . I don’t know ,they must know that they might bring on a early death with their eating habits . Maybe it’s a gene ,I really don’t know .
It must be a psychology problem ,not just a being a
pig eater problem. I have had some fat friends that just hate themselves but can’t seem to break some cycle that compels them to overeat .
I’ve been there.
And, from personal experience, I can tell you that Overeaters Anonymous is a godsend. Although the weight loss is slow, you can take off the pounds by doing what OA calls “abstaining from compulsive overeating.”
While you’re losing weight while abstaining, you can work on getting your head on straight. That’s where the real OA value kicks in.
Where I part company with OA — and other 12-step programs like it — is that there’s no concept of graduation. The OA program people will tell you that you’re sick and that you need to go to meetings for the rest of your life. No you don’t. It’s possible to deal with your eating problem, then get on with your life.
Confession. When you jackasses are talking about obese people, you are talking about me.
Before you all start running your mouths about lack of discipline, try this on for size:
-Wake up at 7am to watch kids/get other kids ready for school, while (now-ex)wife is in college.
-Head to work at 2:30pm, for staff/foreman meeting at 3.
-Shift starts at 3:30……Commence being ricocheted between one giant Charlie-Foxtrot after another. Most nights, don’t get any time off for dinner……just whatever forage is available from the vending machines. (A lot of nights, I wouldn’t even get to my desk before 10pm)
-Work “Mandatory Overtime” 46 weeks out of the year……meaning your shift ends at 2:30am, after you’ve signed time cards.
-Get home around 3, having not had anything decent to eat since noon the previous day.
-Wake up at 7…….lather, rinse, repeat. And….
-Work 12 hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday every fourth weekend, because your employer couldn’t find anyone stupid enough to fill their open positions for what they wanted to pay. (Salaried-exempt, so no overtime pay).
-Do this for 10 years. Let me know how your health is after pulling a stint like that.
Yeah, you can call me stupid for sticking with a crap job about five years too long. At least I survived it, a couple of other guys didn’t. (Stroke, suicide, plane crash with fatigue being a factor).
And you will all be happy to know that a lot of people who I’ve never met feel the need to go out of their way and tell me what a worthless slob I am. Women are especially good at this…..makes them feel “empowered” I guess.
But it’s okay. Commentary like that says more about you than it does about me. And I’m a firm believer in Karma, especially in my line of work. Fook somebody over, and it WILL bite you in the azz eventually.
edgewaterjohn
I think those electric scooters in grocery stores came out of of the Americans With Disabilities Act. I am 93 lbs (5 ft) and broke my foot in 4 places once, and found them to be a Godsend. IIRC, the stores pay for them.
Arizona Slim
IIRC you’re on the petite side too. Last night at some friends, we ate “popped” chips and omg, they are great! Haven’t done chips in 6 years, and will not for another 6. We use the 90-10 rule. 90% lean proteins and veggies, 10% not so perfect. We are physically active, treadmill every morning. It is a daily thing, I agree. Good for you, getting your food/activity relationship together! Kudos!!
I scored a double compound fracture on my leg in a segway accident and used the motorized carts. Came in handy!
Picture to prove it:
http://goo.gl/Fn8AN
Virginia Beyatch
I hope you recovered 100%. I didn’t, but I am happy to be able to walk ok. Nice picture! You’re a whipper snapper!
You’re a guy, Beyatch?
X-GSfixer wrote:
I know what you’re talking about with the vending machine scene. I’ve found some ways to combat it:
1) Take in a lunch in a large insulated lunch box. Take 30 minutes and eat IT.
2) I chew gum which keeps me away from the vending machine.
3) Drinking coffee also helps suppress the appetite.
4) Don’t go super low fat - fat has a US RDA requirement for daily intake. Rice and tuna all the time can put the beatdown on you. Don’t go low potassium - drink a glass of low sodium high potassium vegetable juice most days. Pop a multivitamin (like centrum) a few times a week.
Taking off that weight is very important. I took off like 35 pounds recently. My knee problems went away, and getting around is a lot easier. Thirty-five pounds is like carrying around a small child - all the time.
Taking off weight comes down to getting the right nutrients and, at the core, maintaining a small negative energy balance (taking in fewer calories than you burn) over a long period of time. FYI, I don’t know of anyone who has tried Atkins - and I’ve known a few folks who did take off weight on it - who was able to keep it off.
Good luck.
“You’re a guy, Beyatch?”
+1.
The generation of adults alive now, may be the first to outlive their children in large numbers.
Doesn’t bode well for the species, i don’t know about the economy.
could help with the over population track we are on now.
welcome to america. Your big mac and fries is waiting for you.
There is a good documentary available at N*****x among other places called Fat in America. They make the point that in about the last 25 years with the proliferation of fast food joints, Americans can easily buy 1500 calories of pure fat for less than $5.00, and generally not have to travel more than a couple of miles to do so. Gas stations have become junk food joints that happen to sell gas. O*****k steak houses sell 2500 calorie appetizers, for Gods sake. And we Americans (myself included though I do exercise a lot) get sucked into it.
O*****k steak houses sell 2500 calorie appetizers, for Gods sake
and those bacon cheese fries are DAMN GOOD if you ask me. With the ranch - have to dip it in the ranch!
As pointed out above ,the stress factor people are under
contributes to the overeating as well as the lack of good
food being available . People don’t like to be fat ,so I think
many factors come into play .
h8er lol [note to self: bike to work]
The herd senses trouble, and is fattening up for the coming hard times.
Go to a walmart when the welfare checks come in.
Or a SAMS club. Who knew? I made that mistake once. An hour to get to the checkout, after paying membership? When I asked what was up the manager said EBT day. Electronic Benefits Transfer day. Wow.
At 6′0″ and 160 lbs. I am a pretty skinny guy by American standards. For many years now, I have been noticing the obesity trend whenever I go to buy new clothing. Even in the biggest department stores, it’s very difficult to find adult pants with a 31″ waist. I was looking for some work clothing a few weeks ago and went to three large work clothing stores and a Sears. None had pants below 36″ except for maybe a half-dozen or so in 34″. For some reason it’s still pretty easy to find shirts that fit.
Yup. I wear the same size. I have ordered my size of jeans online after trying out larger sizees in stores.
Join the Guard. We have ‘lots’ of uniforms that are just your size! Lol, no seriously I’m doing P90M. You’ve probably heard of P90X ( as in X-treme ) but I’m doing the ‘M’ version. As in Mellow…
The mistake we’re ALL making is that we’re looking at ourselves as “Americans”. That’s great, but genetically we share about as much in common as… Broncos Fans? There’s nothing prejudicial or raaacist in approaching weight mgmt. from an ethnic standpoint!
What ‘works’ for Native Americans simply isn’t applicable to someone of East-Euro decent like myself? Your blood-type is important too. Without a customized approach, you’re asking for failure. But no one wants to come out and SAY that.
No No
Calories in
minus calories burned
equals
YOU
(any questions)
DinOR ..I read a piece one time that said that German people can tolerate more fat without ill effects and Asian people can get by on less protein than other races and it’s all in the genes .
So,the point your making above me has validity to me .
IMO, it is primarily genetic, but cultural aspects such as long commutes and longer working hours that leave less time for exercise certainly contribute. Then you have too much TV watching and video game playing. Processsed/manufactured foods such as high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and artifical sweeteners which are more common in some nations vs others also don’t help.
Processsed/manufactured foods such as high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and artifical sweeteners which are more common in some nations vs others also don’t help.
After 1 year in Brazil I’d lost 10% of my body weight down to my height/weight conforming college weight.
Walking more and the hot weather helps but I’m sure the main reason is the factors you mentioned above.
I gain 10 lbs every time I go back the the USA. (but that’s worth it too)
Comment by Housing Wizard
2011-03-21 10:11:15
DinOR ..I read a piece one time that said that German people can tolerate more fat without ill effects
Housing Wizard,
It’s a relatively new concept for me to be exposed to. The “Fitness Coordinator” at our Base is super fit. And not exactly a “kid” either, late 30’s and all the luggage the REST of us have!
While I was struggling, he really helped me a lot. When you spend hours a week next to someone on a treadmill, you kind of get to know that person. In the process he explained that ( in spite of his Southern accent ) he TOO was a Bulgarian! We’re both bald as cueball and could pass for brothers. That’s when he got myself and others started on the concept. It’s helped me a great deal. Also a big advantage when someone is getting PAID to help you btw!
“After 1 year in Brazil I’d lost 10% of my body weight down to my height/weight conforming college weight. ”
Wow, that’s amazing, Rio! Nice. Was that without intentionally dieting or exercising to a significant degree? In other words, was it largely attributable to diet & the lifestyle involving more walking?
“I gain 10 lbs every time I go back the the USA. (but that’s worth it too)”
Do you attribute that to “catching up” on everything that you miss from home?
I’m really curious about your experience…
Was that without intentionally dieting or exercising to a significant degree? In other words, was it largely attributable to diet & the lifestyle involving more walking?
It was without intentionally dieting or exercising more than I had in the USA. I’ve always been a moderate to regular exerciser. The diet was a big change in that I ate rice and beans at least once a day but I still ate a lot of meat however my dairy consumption was probably reduced 60-70% due to a few factors.
1. I don’t like the milk here to drink. It comes in sealed liter boxes that don’t even need to be refrigerated until you open them. It’s fine in coffee and cooking but not great to drink.
2. Cheese, ice cream and yogurt here are at least double the price as in the USA. The cottage cheese is quadruple the price and just fair. There is no sour cream here.
3. They have no buttermilk which I drank almost everyday in the USA.
There is no high fructose corn sweetener in anything. Not tomato sauce, ketchup, juices, yogurt, cookies, nothing. They use sugar which although not that good for you is way better than corn syrup. Processed foods here are very expensive unlike the USA and I like to cook anyway. Brazil is a tropical fruit lover’s paradise but I’m not that big on fruit although I eat a lot of veggies but no more than in the USA.
I think the hot weather makes me eat less though. You sweat a lot here in the summer. The walking is a big factor because where I live you can walk to about 90% of what one would ever need in life to survive. Every kind of store or service is within walking distance as is taxis, bus stops, the subway, the beach and a big lake. This was not the case where I lived in coastal central California.
I think I gain 10 lbs every time I visit the USA precisely because I’m “catching up” on the things I miss, the difference in the US diet and because of the reveling with missed family and friends. (although Brazilians like to revel too)
Got the same problem. Being slender in fat country makes it hard to find clothes that fit right.
Odd sized waists are always hard to find in men’s sizes.
A few years ago I noticed that “Medium” sport shirts fit me better than the “Large” ones I had always bought. And no, I hadn’t lost any weight.
There was a change in U.S. clothing sizing years ago called “Vanity Sizing”. (Nat’l Federation Of Reailers periodical, I read years ago. My career *was (*no positions now) Shopping Ctr Mgmt.
Retailers -typo, sorry.
“Vanity Sizing”
Yeah, I’ve heard the same thing. Apparently fitting into a smaller size makes some people so happy, they buy the article of clothing for that reason alone.
Of course their LDL, BP, and Diabetes death risk is soaring, but hey, they feel good pretending.
Of course their LDL……,
I don’t know if I believe all this cholesterol bunk. I had “danger high” cholesterol about 4 years ago in the USA but great BP. I refused to take any statins because I think they are a scam.
But now my cholesterol is “good”. What’s up with that? I did loose some weight and Brazil has no high fructose corn syrup and I hardly eat any processed foods or fast foods because they are very expensive here. But I eat a lot of very tasty fat down here too.
So I’m confused about the whole cholesterol thing. I’m glad my cholesterol is now “normal” now but I wouldn’t take statins if it were still too high.
I did loose some weight and……
lose some weight (belt got loose)
Rio
Maybe your HDL (good cholesterol) went up. Also, Dr Davis, a heart doc, says there is a whole science to what LDL means, and that Statins aren’t that safe, iho. My Father died from what we believe was a Lip*tor Parkinson’s. We met other families with similar stories.
I take you point objectively.
http://www.heartscanblog.org/
We have similar builds and I have the same problem, but I notice it more with shirts. They seem to keep getting wider and shorter. Very hard to find an off the rack polo shirt that is cut for someone like me. I guess you can’t blame the clothing makers for putting out sizes that fit most people.
Have to agree. Last month, after 12 yrs, I drove by the sprawling campus of the university I went to, it was sad to see so many fat students both boys and girls. I swear to you it was not like this when I started there in the mid 90’s. The girls were actually hotter back then……
I know what you mean…I would hate to be a high school kid these days.
Police
Can you describe the woman who stole your cupcakes?
Victim
Yes officer, she was a large bursting hog with sacks of fat hanging every which way.
Police
Can you be more specific?
Police
Can you be more specific?
No.
“The number of obese people I saw was staggering.”
That’s a very good reason to not shop at Big Box Mart: There isn’t enough room on the floor for both me and their regular customers.
The preponderance of oversized slobs seems to parallel the proliferation of McMansions, SLOBurbans, TaWhores and other supersized selections for slobs.
I envision the ON Star commercial now…..
Operator: Welcome to Onstar, how can I help?
400lb slob driving a SLOBurban: Yes maaaaaam…. I seem to have dropped my tripled cheeseburger behind my seat and I can’t seem to unglue my ass to go get it.
Operator: I see…
400lb slob in a Sloburban: Could you please deliver me a box of jelly donuts and a triple thick chocolate shake?
RAL,
Yahtzee! Biggest factor we all have in common. Too… many modern conveniences. Even among those of us that don’t ‘look’ obese, if asked privately, most of us would prefer -not- pose sans attire! ( I know ‘I’ wouldn’t? )
A friend posted pic’s from my HS Class Re-union and my wife and I easily… would have been the most ‘fit’ couple in attendance. When we glean the data, even those of us that are properly proportioned may not score all that well when it comes to BP, LDL etc.
That’s the other ‘trap’. Doing just enough to appear healthy while fully clothed. Good enough!
Ever notice there aren’t that many morbidly obese people over 70? Nature’s way of culling the herd.
That is true that you don’t see very many obese over 70 . I know someone who is 300 pounds / 6 feet who is 60 and the really life-threatening problems are starting now ,
According to a 2010 report by UnitedHealth Group, a health benefits and services company, gaining 11 to 16 pounds for someone of average weight doubles the risk of developing prediabetes, and adding 17 to 24 pounds triples the risk.
These risk factors put a sizable portion of the nation in jeopardy: The UnitedHealth Group report estimated that more than half of all overweight adults in the United States are either prediabetic or diabetic. But they also present a clear path to prevention. The best remedy for prediabetes is not medication, says Dr. Andrew Drexler, director of the Gonda (Goldschmied) Diabetes Center at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine — it’s weight loss and exercise. Prediabetics, unlike diabetics, don’t have to focus so much on their intake of sugar, he adds: “Counting calories is more important than the composition of the diet.”
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-prediabetes-20110321,0,4467777.story
Is this them
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/?page_id=9798
Around here they’re always leaning on the cart, using it for a walker.
The one thing that Costco is good for is lean proteins, (Chicken, Fish, Eggs-we toss the yolks). Most of the food they sell is junk food, I agree.
“The number of obese people I saw was staggering. I mean, we’re not talking folks who maybe have a few extra pounds on them. We’re talking huge, and I mean HUGE!”
I notice this especially when I step out of the Centennial State. Locally it is the hispanics who tend to be morbidly obese, especially the women, not that other groups aren’t represented in the land whale class.
Not harsh at all. My last trip to Disneyland I was shocked at the percentage of morbidly obese people, many of them quite young. Lots of them were riding in those scooter contraptions. One young couple had such fat asses they couldn’t both fit in the Matterhorn tobbogan. Word is they had to remodel the It’s a Small World ride to retrofit the depth of the water channel. The boats were bottoming out because of the poundage they had not been designed to accommodate in the 60s. I’ve also noticed lately that many of the TV ads have actors twice the size they used to be, especially beer and pizza ads. Catering to their audience. Wall-E here we come.
But nobody talks much about how booze can add weight .
You are right– it does. But interestingly, USA are teetotalers compared to the rest of the globe.
But interestingly, USA are teetotalers compared to the rest of the globe.
This is especially true when comparing the USA to the old Soviet bloc countries. There are some serious drinkers behind that old Iron Curtain.
The scooters are out of control at Disneyland. Unlike the Magic Kingdom in Florida, space can be tight in the original Magic Kingdom. Now throw in hundred if not thousands of land whales on scooters ….
Palmetto is right. It’s not just a few people with medical problems, it’s outright sloth and gluttony on a national scale.
“Fat, dumb and stupid.” Did you ever wonder why those words are always said together?
It’s become so bad, that anyone who isn’t severely overweight is looked at as a freak these days.
Here’s a stunning time progression map of US obesity from 1985-2006.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2675sU3xWto&feature=related
Now I know why I see fewer land whales out here. Colorado is the “skinny” state in the US.
Well, sort of. Maybe we just aren’t as fat.
The obesity epidemic should do wonders for Social Security’s solvency. At least 1/4 of the country won’t be collecting their benefits for very long, if at all.
I also forgot about the steroid pumpers.
Again, please note if I did not make my post clear: there will always be those with medical problems who’s weight is directly related to the medical problem… the rest I have no sympathy for.
If that’s still harsh, then so be it. I’m tired of being treated like a freak and second class citizen or seen as weak because I’m not obese or pumped up on steroids, much like savers are being punished for doing nothing wrong.
That wasn’t very clear either.
It’s supposed read that their weight is a consequence of a different medical problem and not their fault.
Wow, harsh comments! Certainly agree with the observation that the US of A is quite a bit larger than it used to be, but I don’t think most people consciously chose to throw caution to the wind and become morbidly obese. I don’t think a lot of people have any idea how to work healthy eating and exercise into their lifestyle. That said, I also don’t understand how you don’t wake up and start making that a priority when you start to notice you’re packing on the pounds. But I don’t understand a lot of what other people do/don’t do so I guess I’ll just add this to the list.
When people remark about my weight (proportionate to my height), they act like it’s some magical gift bestowed upon me, and how lucky that I can just eat bon bons and not gain weight. Not so. I eat in moderation, eat real food, and exercise. If I ate like most people do, I’d be a whale too.
I think that most people just forgot how to shop for good foods, cook proper meals and eat and drink in moderation.
Companies make fast foods and junk food quick n’ dirty, convenient and even addictive for one great big reason.
Anyone? anyone? Bueller?
Go check out people of walmart dot com.
But don’t blame me if you end up wasting the better part of the day ogling the freak show that is amurika.
Palmy, youre spot on! There is a website of proof about Wal-Mart Fatties. Repugnant, yet entertaining! I’ll Google it if you do -
Rajat Gupta sues US SEC in Galleon case
PTI, Mar 20, 2011, 12.18am IST
NEW YORK: Former Goldman Sachs board member Rajat Gupta has sued US regulator SEC for “unfairly and unconstitutionally” prosecuting him on charges of passing insider tips to Sri Lankan born-billionaire Raj Rajaratnam.
Indian American Gupta, who was on the board of Proctor and Gamble, faces civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission, for passing confidential information to Galleon Group founder Rajaratnam, the main accused in the biggest insider trading case to hit US courts in decades.
…
He proabably has a better case if he claims he and others are targeted because of the color of their skins. I have often wondered why SEC is only going after small fish, mostly minorties?
He is a big fish. He was on the board of several Fortune 500 companies.
Small fish? This guy is the rich! This guy is one of main players in Wall St’s corruption!
EDITORIAL: Ending the global-warming argument
Leftist resort to the courts is sign of desperation
Leftists are rushing to the judiciary as a refuge against efforts to undermine their global-warming tax schemes. In the current economic environment, the idea of massive hikes in the price of gasoline and other sources of energy has become radioactive. In response, the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Iowa, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont are hoping activist judges will enact policies that elected, accountable representatives are increasingly afraid to touch.
That’s a good, reliable source, an editorial from the crackpot Washington Times.
Why shouldn’t states be allowed so sue companies that emit damaging pollutants?
Yes, crackpot bloggers are much more reliable.
And I hope you held your breath while typing that, so as not to emit any damaging pollutants.
“I hope you held your breath while typing that, so as not to emit any damaging pollutants.”
Silly. Just so silly.
a trace gas that is necessary for almost all life on earth is hard to classify as a pollutant.
then again the supreme court did it.
“a trace gas that is necessary for almost all life on earth is hard to classify as a pollutant.”
Whether it is trace or not is a specious argument. Polonium is a trace element. Would you want it on your cornflakes?
“is hard to classify as a pollutant” If you aren’t thinking about it correctly, perhaps.
“a trace gas that is necessary for almost all life on earth is hard to classify as a pollutant.”
Plants love CO2, from what I understand. Big fans of it, actually.
“Plants love CO2, from what I understand. Big fans of it, actually.”
Another specious comment. Your argument re-phrased in simple, very simple, terms: MrBubble loves hamburgers. They keep him alive (mostly). Therefore 8 hamburgers a day must be better for him, right, because he is a big fan of them?
In more complex terms, plants using the C4 photosynthetic pathway (our grasses/crops for the most part), are able to thrive better than C3 plants in higher concentrations of atmospheric CO2. This result has been shown by a host of researchers. However, 1) there is a point at which increased atmospheric pCO2 no longer increases plant productivity/photosynthetic efficiency and actually decreases it. [I did the calculations for this in MATLAB two years ago, so if I need to get more "science-y", you'll have to wait 'til I get home so that I can dig them out. But there are some great, easy to read papers out there that deal with preferential uptake of C12/C13 by C3 and C4 plants and the effects of pCO2, water and temperature on photosynthetic efficiency.]
Even all this being said, however, 2) the distribution of water will change dramatically with CO2 increase and will most likely dwarf the effects of pCO2 on photosynthesis directly 3) as will temperature. Lots of papers on this subject as well.
MrBubble
I was being (mostly) tongue-in-cheek. But I get your point, everything in moderation. Even too much water or oxygen is toxic.
Exactly Bronco, and we’ve been cranking our toxic waste by the trillions of tons since the dawn of the Industrial Age.
Trillions of tons. No exaggeration.
“I was being (mostly) tongue-in-cheek.”
No worries. I get a little sensitive on this particular issue and that’s why I never bring it up.
I actually do love hamburgers. But we’ve been doing venison now for a while. We amped up the flavor with carpetbagger burgers last night though (stuffed with ’shrooms, bacon and oysters).
Folks,
Note that the article was published by the “Washington Times”. It’s much like a news print version of full mooner websites like Worldnet daily.
Well, at least I’m awake!!
When do we leave for Disneyworld …huh…huh ?
Good morning Mikey. Happy Monday to ya.
Did everyone survive the Supermoon?
Oh.
That explains why I couldn’t fall a sleep SAT night.
Given the preponderance of all-cash investors snapping up homes at this point, wouldn’t it make sense to pull the plug on Fannie and Freddie’s feeding tubes? Why should American taxpayers be forced to prop up the value of wealthy investors’ real estate purchases?
Bloomberg
Sales of Existing U.S. Homes Probably Declined in February
March 21, 2011, 12:04 AM EDT
By Alex Kowalski
March 21 (Bloomberg) — Sales of U.S. previously owned homes probably dropped in February to a three-month low, indicating a sustained housing market recovery has yet to develop, economists said before a report today.
Purchases decreased 4.7 percent last month to a 5.11 million annual rate, according to the median forecast of 60 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Sales in January rose to the highest in eight months as investors used all-cash transactions to buy distressed properties.
Foreclosures are adding to the glut of distressed properties and pressuring prices, leaving some Americans with bigger mortgages than their homes are worth as joblessness hovers near 9 percent. The figures underscore the Federal Reserve’s view that the housing market “continues to be depressed” even as the rest of the economy improves.
…
Cash investors = smart money?
I think so.Buy low and sell high.
They are counting on either the government insured or the “risk, what risk” gravy train coming back if they expecting to sell higher in all markets. Some simply have not fallen enough to have prices rise if the money is lent to the next purchaser at rates that reflect underwriting and real, private risk.
If for some reason these folks plan on renting out their purchases, then the cash flow calculation is theirs, but that isn’t the same thing as buy low and sell high.
buy low and sell high.Is it that complicated?
Um…yeah, it is. The idea isn’t. Knowing when is low and when is high is a little harder. Absurdly high and low isn’t too hard to id, but those chances don’t come along all that often.
your are never going to time it perfectly.Houses are undervalued in some markets imo.They cash flow.
But the Realtor Crime Syndicate convinced millions to buy high and implode.
They cash flow *now*. For a purchase to make sense, they have to cash flow for a long time.
“Houses are undervalued in some markets imo. They cash flow.”
And just because it cash-flows does NOT mean that it is undervalued, or even a good investment yet.
You have to ask what the ROI on your invested cash is. Is it reasonable? Or is it 2%?
And have you factored in the expenses of professional management in your cash-flow computation? If you are planning to manage it yourself, then you should expect a higher ROI to compensate for your pain and suffering.
well see how it all turns out.
And have you factored in the expenses of professional management in your cash-flow computation? If you are planning to manage it yourself, then you should expect a higher ROI to compensate for your pain and suffering.
You also have to factor in maintenance, repairs, and replacements of things that wear out. Not to mention lengthy periods of vacancy.
Comment by arizonadude
2011-03-21 09:51:24
well see how it all turns out.
————————————————–
“We” have a pretty good idea. And it sounds like you might have a forecast of your own. Do tell.;)
Back in 2006, an all-cash investor bought the house behind me. Methinks that mommy and daddy’s HELOC was funding this deal, but that’s just me.
Mr. Whizbang Investor tried to flip the place in ‘07. Epic fail. Has tried to sell it twice since then. Epic fail to the second power.
So much for paying cash for a dud investment. Place has been a rental since ‘07, and it’s not holding up well.
They can’t just “pull the plug” on F&F because a lot of Wall St. investments are tied up in the big picture… along with most of Congress.
How long will it be until we read similar reports out of Beijing?
Home Prices in Mumbai Decline 20% From 2010 Peak, Jones Lang LaSalle Says
By Pooja Thakur - Mar 20, 2011 11:36 PM PT
Mumbai home prices have declined 20 percent from their 2010 peak as lower sales, higher land values and increased borrowing costs forced developers to reduce prices to woo buyers, according to Jones Lang LaSalle India.
Home prices, which increased 30 percent to 60 percent last year, have returned to 2008 levels, Sanjay Dutt, chief executive officer of business at the Indian unit of Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. (JLL), said in a report today. Dutt expects prices to remain at these levels until the three-month monsoon season ends in September.
…
Bad Math award of the day.
It’s articles like this that are why I quit reading the financial news a long time ago.
That and realizing it’s all rigged in the first place.
Stocks poised to open higher after turbulent week- AP
Stocks are poised for a higher open, lifted by easing worries about Japan’s nuclear crisis and corporate dealmaking. Telecom stocks were strong in pre-market trading after AT&T said it will buy rival T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telecom AG.
How can this be a bull market when the FED is printing money to raise stocks?Future generations have to pay so the rich get richer? All the big money managers are on board trying to suck the retail guy back in and clean him out.
“How can this be a bull market when the FED is printing money to raise stocks?Future generations have to pay so the rich get richer?”
Gotta love our capitalist system, where those with the gold (wealth) make the rules.
How can this be a bull market when the FED is printing money to raise stocks?”
What will happen to the stock market when QE2 is over in June ?
Will the FED start QE3 with inflation picking up all over the place ?
“Will the FED start QE3 with inflation picking up all over the place ?”
Does a bear poop in the woods? If interest rates go up the US Gov’t will default on it’s debt.
What do you mean “future generations,” arizonadude? We’re paying right NOW!
I read a research report from Barclays over the weekend that suggested the Japan disaster would cost 12-17 trillion Yen, or 2.4-3-5% of Japanese GDP.
I’m thinking this analyst has been smoking funny weeds. The Dow is up 200 though, so I guess disaster capitalism reigns supreme.
We’re off to the Air and Space annex this morning, good for me but not so much for the young dudettes.
We’re off to the Air and Space annex this morning, good for me but not so much for the young dudettes.
Aw, darn. That’s my favorite DC museum. And, yes, I was a space geek when I was a wee little Slim.
It went really well. I think I realized that I may have been practicing the soft discrimination of lowered expectations.
My 16yo said, “I like this stuff, I just don’t know what it is.” Needless to say I became more talkative after that.
Oh, dude, I’m sorry I forgot to tell you. Air and Space (either on the Mall or out near Dulles) is the one museum where you really need to try to hit the docent tours. They are phenomenal. The guys they have doing them seem to know everything about the collections. And the guy out at the annex was so nice to my Dad telling his Air Force stories.
You are probably right on that, but we were pressed a bit for time. We only squeezed it in because I had to go back to Dulles to return a set of keys for the original Suburban that had a slow leak in the tire.
I do, however, make a decent docent if I do say so myself. I just can’t tell my own stories and must recite others I’ve heard and read over the years. You should remember that I’ve lived in the shadow of the Lockheed Skunk Works for the last 20 years.
Anthony Wile at “The Daily Bell” interviewed Agora Financial’s Bill Bonner, and got this:
“Hyperinflation will shake the foundations of modern political, social and economic institutions, and probably bring many of them down. The social welfare state, for example, was invented by Germany’s Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck more than a century and a half ago. In their late, degenerate form, they depend on delivering benefits in the present while pushing the costs – in the form of national debt – onto future generations. A bout of hyperinflation will make this model inoperable, because governments will be unable to finance further huge deficits at low rates.” It will also mark the end of Keynesian interventionism, as it will be obvious that central financial planning doesn’t work.
Article: End of the Dollar Reserve System
“they depend on delivering benefits in the present while pushing the costs – in the form of national debt – onto future generations.”
the ultimate in “taxation without representation”.
“interviewed Agora Financial’s Bill Bonner, and got this”
Doesn’t Bonner say this stuff ten times a day, to anyone who will listen?
Not much of a scoop.
Since SS is not indexed to inflation, why would SS not fair well during high rates of inflation?
Should I begin memorizing the Rules of Acquisition?
I was thinking that if Star Trek was more like the real world the Ferengi military would have kicked butt.
I’ve been hearing the prediction of Germany and few other “welfare” states impending demise of their “welfare” system for.. 30 years.
And guess what? Germany is actually doing quite well in this Not Depression Recession.
On the other hand, our welfare for corporations didn’t do so good, did it?
“On the other hand, our welfare for corporations didn’t do so good, did it?”
It did for the wealthy.
Mission accomplished!
Good point.
The wealthy would be even better off if we still had a strong middle class capable of purchasing their products.
Just wanted to chime in this morning for all of my liberal friends who like to hang out here. I’m about to make the most liberal statement of my life. The FCC should not approve the sale of T-Mobile to AT&T. This will further the duopoly ambitions of AT&T and Verizon.
The free market is what works best. Unfortunately the government owns wireless spectrum and it’s extremely cost prohibitive for new players to enter the market. This is exactly what the big wireless companies want. Get us hooked and then rake us over the coals.
Aren’t monopolies the free market at work?
When we’re talking about a government regulated business like wireless it’s not exactly the free market.
What business is not regulated by the government these days?
The black market. Drugs, stolen goods, in some areas, prostitution. Not exactly the best model for an economy or a society.
Seems to work for Wall St.
Whoa there Bad Andy, get a grip!
Next you’ll be singing L’Internationale in French.
yep A lot of business are very difficult to enter theses days.Try building a railroad or owning a tv network.Seems like the biggest arena for small business is the internet.
I’m happy with my 30.00 plan from walmart.1000 minutes and 1000 plus a little internet use that I dont use.It’s not glamorous but all I want to do is talk over it. The old lady got a fancy phone from t mobile and it has been a constant hassle.I keep laughing at her.
These plans are great. I personally use Metro PCS and I have one of those “fancy” phones. I pay $45 out the door whereas at Sprint they wanted $79.99 plus taxes and fees. AT&T and Verizon were even more. If there were a couple of companies like Metro that were in every major markets I wouldn’t be so adverse to this merger. Unfortunately those Wal-Mart plans are reliant on agreements with the big boys as you’re not purchasing from an actual carrier.
I really dont care whose network I’m reliant on as long as I can make a phone call.I got tired of bending over for VZ.
I pay $30 every three months on a pay-as-you-go plan. I don’t use my cell phone to make calls very often (but its a smart phone so I’m using it constantly to track my calendar, my grocery list, my to-do list, play a game while I wait for an appointment, alarm clock, etc.).
hey kim,
what carrier do you have? I use my phone quite a bit and 1000 minutes usually lasts a month.Mine is pay as u go too.
mikey isn’t important enough to run around with a cell phone attached to his belly button.
Do you busy, important guys put the cell phone in a “baggie” when you shower ?
You do, take the time to shower, …don’t you ?
wells that a brilliant post.
“hey kim, what carrier do you have? I use my phone quite a bit and 1000 minutes usually lasts a month. Mine is pay as u go too.”
AT&T. I’ve compared all the rates and they were the best I could do for my needs. I pay $30 every 3 months, and they deduct a quarter a minute for calls and twenty cents for a text message. That’s high, but I barely even burn through the $30.
“wells that a brilliant post”
You mean mine ?
Just my gentle way of saying that probably better than 95% of all the personal use involved with the cell phone industry’s sales and profits of phones, calls, cameras, texting, time, expense and associated consumer costs has little bearing on whether little janie got home safe from jr high school or you once used it to close that important last minute deal to buy your Enron stock.
The normal uses for cell phones range from the expensive toy for chatting kids to an ego convience to most adults.
They invented it, you are hooked on them and you’ll defend your use of you cell, your need and plan….to the Death.
Kim
Will you share who your cellular co is?
It looks like you use your phone, and not the internet features?
AT&T. I have internet features and access. They’d deduct from my funds if I used them, but I don’t.
Thank you, Kim.
I’m about to make the most liberal statement of my life. The FCC should not approve the sale of T-Mobile to AT&T.
How can enforcing anti-trust regulations that are over 100 years old, had been enforced before but not so much lately, be considered “liberal”?
Because it’s a very anti-free market position.
Question: How can enforcing anti-trust regulations that are over 100 years old, had been enforced before but not so much lately, be considered “liberal”?
Answer: Because it’s a very anti-free market position.
How is it an anti-free market position when monopolies have been proven not to represent, foster and/or promote free-markets?
I’m beginning to think Bad Andy slept through his history classes.
Bad Andy, the 19th century was tried and it failed. Badly. Right around 1929. maybe you’ve heard of that date?
As for T-Mobile and AT&T merging, that just plain sucks.
Gosh, they would only have 43% of the market. Is that really dangerous??
Home sales are down; oil is up. Yet the stock market is up almost 200 pts. The PPT must be hard at work.
Home sales fell 9.6 percent in February
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/business&id=8024794
I guess if you dont pay your bills credit can be difficult to get?
I am going to hazard a guess and speculate that by the time this is all over, over 50% of Americans will “not pay their bills”. That number may be low too, because by the time we get there things will have gone from bad to worse.
A friend and I used to discuss what we called “the more the more”, where each gain multiplied into more gains, and conversely “the less the less”, in which each defeat compounds and makes the next loss all the more likely.
Right now we are very much in the “less the less” world and with each loss things get that much more difficult…
Economic Report
March 21, 2011, 10:42 a.m. EDT
Existing-home sales fall 9.6% in February
Median sales prices drops to lowest level since 2002
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)
Sales of previously owned homes dropped 9.6% in February and prices fell to their lowest level since 2002, reflecting a continued slump in the U.S. real estate market.
…
“I think a lack of credit is what’s mainly holding back a [housing] recovery,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the trade group.
I think it`s millions of empty houses and millions of people not paying their mortgage in the massive shadow inventory that`s keeping house prices artificially high and not allowing them to bottom which would lead to a recovery.
But hey, that`s just me.
Incredible as it may seem, Yun agrees with you Jeff. (Note this article came out several weeks before today’s dismal February existing home sales figure!)
And as for my own opinion, I think at this point, you can stick a fork in the U.S. housing market’s dead cat bounce.
Shadow inventory still depressing the housing market: NAR
By Hao Li | February 28, 2011 12:46 PM EST
The “elevated level of shadow inventory of distressed homes” still depresses the housing market, said Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Yun is referring to houses that have been foreclosed by banks. Many of these homes then need to be sold on the secondary market — often at fire-sale prices — which depresses the prices of the overall market.
According to a recent estimate by Standard and Poor’s, there are 1.7 million homes in the shadow inventory. Moreover, there are about 250,000 foreclosure filings per month, so new houses are continually added to the shadow inventory. (Of course, houses are also cleared out of the shadow inventory once they’re sold to buyers.)
The existence of this shadow inventory is cited as a major reason that the housing market has not recovered on pace with the overall economy.
The real estate market, unlike the stock market, lacks market clearing and price discovery.
It doesn’t have an efficient mechanism of forcing people to sell. In stock and futures markets, for example, fund redemptions and margin calls can quickly force investors/managers to liquidate.
When this wave of forced-selling reaches its climax — known as the ‘liquidation phase’ in Wall Street terminology — the bottom of the market is usually reached. After that, it begins to recover.
For the housing market, forced-selling, or foreclosure, takes a long time. In fact, five years after the housing peak and about two years after the bottom of the general economy, liquidations drag on.
…
Mr. Lying Larry Yun…. it’s got nuttin’ to do with “credit”. You ran out of stupid bastards….. you plain ol’ ran out of stupid bastards.
Correction: They ran out of buyers with buckets of money and boxes of stupid. The boxes of stupid are still out there, but they have become decoupled form buckets of money.
See if the NAR wouldn’t monkey around so much with their stats they could avoid some of these wild fluctuations. Or, maybe their just stoking the fire for something else???
As for 2002 prices, I could show you pages of places here that have broken that plateau and still can’t draw an offer.
“As for 2002 prices, I could show you pages of places here that have broken that plateau and still can’t draw an offer.”
Just a little west of you edgewater, and I am astounded how many houses purchased from 2005-2008 are on the market well ABOVE what they paid for them. Didn’t they get the memo? And no, they aren’t selling.
“Purchases decreased 4.7 percent last month to a 5.11 million annual rate, according to the median forecast of 60 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.”
Wrong again!
“The National Association of Realtors on Monday said sales of existing homes dropped to a annual rate of 4.88 million from an upwardly revised 5.4 million in January. The data is seasonally adjusted.”
With just a little more lying, the Used Home Sellers could make those existing home sales figures look a lot less gloomy.
Look Out Below: Why Skyscrapers are Classic Bubble Indicators
Posted Mar 18, 2011 12:04pm EDT by Daniel Gross
yahoo finance
In China, five of the world’s ten largest buildings are now under construction. Look out below!, says Vikram Mansharamani, a financial services veteran and part-time academic who has developed a multidisciplinary framework for sniffing out bubbles.v
Mansharamani is author of a new book, BoomBustology: Spotting Financial Bubbles Before they Burst.
Mansharamani takes a multidisciplinary approach. Borrowing from analysts in fields such as economics, psychology, and biology (bulls and bears, it turns out, act a lot like swarming ants), Mansharamani has developed a series of lenses through which to examine market behavior. Systematically examining outbursts of mania, from Dutch investors’ infatuation with Tulips in the 1630s to Florida real estate in the 1920, can help sniff out bubbles.
Beyond skyscrapers, Mansharamani notes, “China today exhibits many of the signs that have characterized many of the speculative manias throughout history.” Those include: easy money, overconfidence, and high amounts of leverage. The rise of moral hazard is another indicator. “In China, you have state-owned banks lending to state-owned enterprises to buy land from the state,” he notes. (What could go wrong?) In addition, it’s always a danger sign when economic systems begin to regard what should be outputs as inputs.
Is there a SKF equivalent for China?
it’s FXP. (why SKF hasn’t been painful enough for you?)
link: http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/look-out-below-why-skyscrapers-are-classic-bubble-indicators-yftt_536048.html
Growth of skyscrapers in USA - vibrant economic growth
Growth of skyscrapers in China - bubble
Sour grapes, anyone?
Growth of skyscrapers in USA - bubble
The three tallest buildings in the world were being built in New York in 1929.
we now have 20 primary dealers at the NYFED flipping treasuries.Two were added in february:
http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/pridealers_current.html
Nice to see goldman doing gods work.
PRAISE JEBUS!
Repugnant’: U.S. army apologises for graphic photos of soldiers with civilian corpses as violence is feared in Afghanistan
dailymail.co.uk
I am sure we will play politics and blame this party or that president with this revelation. But no one will talk about the underlying sickness that exists in this country and its people.
One would think that a society that takes going to war so lightly wouldn’t mind seeing the photos.
America today is like that Star Trek episode where they go to the planet supposedly in the midst of a full blown war only to find things calm and peaceful. They discover the two sides are basically playing a game of “Risk” - and when cities are bombed the identified victims simply report to a center to be liquidated - out of sight of the rest of the population. Kirk wasn’t having it, knowing that their supposedly “humane” war was only prolonging it.
None of the follow up series had stories that were even half as good.
As much as I like the original, don’t sleep on TNG!
What about the episodes where Data is on trial for his human-ness, where Q shows Picard his alternate life when he chooses safety over boldness, where Picard gets “zapped” and lives a full life on another planet?
my favortie:
“THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!!”
Nice one. Says something about torture, eh?
I am re-watching BSG with my wife as an “escape” for the screams of our new-born. I kind of forget what happens on a episode to episode basis, which is nice.
TNG had its moments (especially Q), but it was way too PC for my taste.
It was pretty PC, but I didn’t mind. However, I always thought that Q was a writer’s crutch, some sort of deus ex machina (though not exactly) who could swoop in whenever the story machine was faulty. I’m not willing to go to the mat with that opinion though.
Engage.
“However, I always thought that Q was a writer’s crutch, some sort of deus ex machina (though not exactly) who could swoop in whenever the story machine was faulty.”
He was, but he was also kind of fun, as long as they didn’t overuse him.
As the contempt as Q sneered, “Picard”.
“As the” = “I enjoyed the”
Libya will be different this time.
How are the US troops going in?
1. Navy landing craft
2. Paratroopers
3. Greyhound Bus
4. Segway’s with Wi-fi
Navy landing craft with Gameboys, PS3’s and smartphones playing Texas Holdem’.
Was this a trick question?
According to the “liberal” Tomhawk tossers over at the Pentagon, the most “causalities” thus far are Libyan missile defense radar sites.
Pentagon: Libyan Air Defense “Significantly Degraded”
BY CRiENGLISH
Cruise missile attacks launched by the U.S. military had “significantly degraded” Libya’s air defense capability, Bill Gortney, director of the Joint Staff said on Sunday.
Briefing reporters at a Pentagon news conference, Gortney said the United States, Britain and France are now enforcing the no-fly zone over Libya which, according to him, covers roughly one-third of the North African country’s territory. But he said Libya may still be able to fly helicopters. He said the assaults have been effective.
Gortney said the coalition currently involved in the military actions against Libya includes the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Italy, Belgium and Qatar. He said no allied forces’ planes have been lost in the attacks, and they all returned safely.
How many Libyan soldiers normally populate their fixed radar sites. i.e. …..how many have we killed thus far in our “defensive” or “protective” operation?
“‘The enemy,’ retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, ‘is anyone who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart.”
Catch 22
Apparently there is a bottom in the home sales business, as Toll’s stock is rising on today’s dismal existing home sales figure. Of course, it has been rising off $20 for several years running now… Got plunge protection?
Toll Brothers Inc
NYSE:TOL
Mar 21, 2011 12:11 p.m.
TOL $20.86
Is the drop in housing masking the real inflation going on? Doesnt the housing component of cpi rely on rents? Have rents dropped drastically from 2005?Components of CPI:
http://www.philstockworld.com/2011/03/19/inflation-in-the-21st-century-1/
March Madness
DOW 12k with a bullet
Japan devastated, the Middle East on fire, fat people taking over the “Big Box” stores, millions of vacant houses, Robo signers, $4 a gallon gas, smoke coming from the printing press, deficits from here to eternity and it`s all good.
Happy days are here again!
A housing recovery is definitely underway:
Towards improving affordability!
* ECONOMY
* MARCH 21, 2011, 10:20 A.M. ET
Home Resales Remain Depressed
By ALAN ZIBEL And JEFF BATER
Sales of previously occupied homes in the U.S. sank by 9.6% in February and prices fell to the lowest level in nearly nine years, indications that the market remains depressed.
Existing-home sales decreased from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.88 million, the lowest level since November, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.
The results were worse than forecast. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected home sales to decline by 3.9% to an annual rate of 5.15 million.
The results called into question whether the U.S. housing market is recovering or falling further.
“We have an uneven, choppy recovery,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “Hopefully it is a recovery that is taking place.”
..
“Hopefully it is a recovery that is taking place.”
Sounds like Yun’s spinning ability is getting a little winded. Imagine trying to spin this for three years? The only things saving him are NAR obsfucation, and social ignorance/apathy. Mostly the latter too.
I listened to Yun on NPR this am he said home prices have to go up as employment improves and population grows
His question, “was it going to improve in 6 months, 1 year , 2 years ? ”
he sounded like he had his back against the wall
I listened to Yun on NPR this am he said home prices have to go up as employment improves and population grows
As a general rule, increases in employment and population tend to correlate with increases in house prices. Increases in incomes are also a driving factor.
However, over the long run, house prices only increase at a rate that’s just a hair above the rate of inflation. Which means that the real rate of return on a housing investment is around 1%. Not exactly a world-beater.
10% UE and half the working population making less than $25K.
Recovery? Ye…ah. Shure.
“Hopefully it is a recovery that is taking place.”
It is, but probably not the one he had in mind as the “recovery” is one toward affordability as prices fall further.
“The Supreme Court has just refused to hear an appeal from the central bank, which means it has five days to reveal the names of the banks to whom it gave bailouts during the financial crisis, and all the details. Now that the Fed—thanks to Mises, Rothbard, and Ron Paul—is no longer seen as just the boring name on the bills in your wallet, but as a gigantic rip-off operation to reward the State and its corporatist pals at the expense of the rest of us, it’s prestige has been dramatically damaged. That means it’s vulnerable.”
Ron Paul is surely a happer camper to hear this news.
This is good news. It will be interesting to see what happens from here.
Wow. Very interesting.
Yahoo.com
Last week’s action by the Federal Reserve allowing TARP banks to resume stock buybacks and increase dividends was just the latest example of the Fed’s willingness to inject itself into theoretically free financial markets. “Breakout” spoke to investing legend Jim Rogers to discuss the Fed, Japan, and stock and currency markets.
After Rogers ran through a sharp critique of Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, we played Kingmaker and asked him what he would do were we to make him the Federal Reserve Chairman.
“I’d shut it down,” Rogers told us without hesitation.
As for the current U.S. equity market, Rogers says it “needs a rest” after an extended rally. Rogers cites the highest corporate profit margins in 18 years as a reason for caution: “Once something gets to all-time highs, it makes sense that it’s going to go lower.”
Meanwhile, stocks Monday are jumping, with the Dow reclaiming 12,000, following this weekend’s news that AT&T will purchase T-Mobile in a $39 billion stock and cash deal, creating the largest U.S. mobile provider.
Everybody in the pool!
Florida bucks national home sales trend in February with an increase in purchases
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:48 a.m. Monday, March 21, 2011
Sales of existing homes in Florida jumped in February compared to the same time last year, even as nationwide purchases decreased.
According to a report released this morning by the Florida Realtors, sales of single-family homes statewide increased 13 percent last month from February 2010.
In Palm Beach County, sales of existing single family homes increased 32 percent in February from the same time last year.
“Current market conditions and very low mortgage rates continue to offer great opportunities to anyone looking to buy a home in Florida,” said Florida Realtors President Patricia Fitzgerald, manager/broker-associate with Illustrated Properties in Stuart.
While median sales prices continued to fall in February from the same time in 2010, Palm Beach County’s price was pushed back up over the $200,000 mark to $205,400.
The price had plunged to $192,800 in January.
Statewide, the median sales price for an existing single-family home was $121,900 last month compared to $124,500 in February 2010.
Nationally, sales did not do as well, dropping in quantity and median price.
“Down so long it looks like up,” eh?
“First Community Insurance Co., a property insurer with about 60,000 policies statewide, has filed to raise rates an average of 23.3 percent, the latest in a string of double-digit rate hike requests.”
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/banking/first-community-files-to-raise-homeowners-insurance-rates-23/1158729
Nope. No inflation here!
“First Community Insurance Co., a property insurer with about 60,000 policies statewide, has filed to raise rates an average of 23.3 percent,
Except for auto, most people in Brazil don’t know what property insurance really is.
Watch out for that radioactive acid rain, California!
California residents not laughing after hoax emails warns of potential side effects of acid rain
By Nina Mandell
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, March 21st 2011, 1:53 PM
Some California residents received an official-looking email last weekend warning of acid rain from radiation - a sick joke that dozens of people thought was real.
The email, which appeared to be coming from local fire departments, warned Californians to stay inside if it rained - or at least use an umbrella.
“Even if it’s only a drizzle, radioactive particles which may cause burns, alopecia or even cancer, may be if it rain (sic).”
…
“…may be if it rain (sic)…”
Most scientists I know are well above average in the English grammar department.
I thought that they were just lazy, tenured, ivory tower liberals only in it for the money. Now they can spell?!
Is Dick Cheney a liberal?
Compared to Genghis Khan or Idi Amin, he is!
Damn liberal!
I had Mussolini and Leopold II in reserve… Durned commies!
Lots of Big Stars Are in Big Trouble With the Tax Man
FoxNews.com
Despite their high-priced tax attorneys and mega-millions, big stars can find themselves in big trouble come tax time.
Take Hollywood director Martin Scorsese. He was recently nailed with a $2.85 million bill for unpaid taxes. Scorsese was charged for past-due tax and related interest penalties. Although Scorsese’s spokeswoman Leslee Dart says the entire amount is now paid in full and that he has no current IRS debts, sources say the Oscar-winning director’s tax woes are due to his dealings with celebrity accountant Kenneth Starr. Starr was jailed for seven and a half years for a $33 million ponzi scheme, and has duped other superstars in his corrupt plots. He scammed Hollywood heavyweights such as Uma Thurman, Lauren Bacall and Al Pacino, to name a few.
Pacino allegedly failed to pay taxes for two years, a bill for $169,143 in 2008 and $19,140 in 2009, totaling $188,283. Anyone who would stiff this “Godfather” star out of $200,000 might be sleeping with the fishes too, but luckily for Al Pacino, the IRS doesn’t handle their business the same way the mob does. Pacino poured the blame on Starr, his business manager and close friend for years. The money hungry financier apparently used a lot of his fraudulent earnings to play sugar-daddy to his younger wife, ex-pole dancer Diane Passage, who enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. “Managers can be very helpful, but many are not skilled in the area of tax planning and some are outright greedy when given control of celebrities finance,” said Ray Lucia, a certified financial planner.
Pacino poured the blame on Starr, his business manager and close friend for years. The money hungry financier apparently used a lot of his fraudulent earnings to play sugar-daddy to his younger wife, ex-pole dancer Diane Passage, who enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. “Managers can be very helpful, but many are not skilled in the area of tax planning and some are outright greedy when given control of celebrities finance,” said Ray Lucia, a certified financial planner.
All the more reason to keep your business management function separate from your financial/tax preparation function. But, alas, people like Al Pacino are usually not wise about this sort of thing.
OTOH, Madonna (yes, The Material Girl) was and is known for her prowess in handling the business side of her career. I’ve also heard that Oprah Winfrey is no slouch in this area.
Had and have a great CPA, who also does financial planning. He cost me $25k in losses in the 2002 Dot.Com, some of which I am still stuck with. The loss was more than half of my portfolio. Tax deductible yes. Painful as hell every day since, but good CPA.
Slim is right. Never let them be a dual functioning being. Balance is definitely necessary.
Pacino only owed $19,000 in taxes in 2009?
“The money hungry financier apparently used a lot of his fraudulent earnings to play sugar-daddy to his younger wife, ex-pole dancer Diane Passage, who enjoyed a lavish lifestyle.”
Seven years of frigid faithfulness? Jerry! Jerry!! Jerry!!!
ITEM: Congress will soon hike the national debt ceiling. There’s only $65 billion left in the present credit line. That’s about three weeks of wiggle room, although the Treasury Department can…and will…juggle accounts to extend the deadline if necessary.
Here is a nice look at just how bad GW’s prescription drug benefit plan was for tax payers and how good it was for big pharma.
the average annual federal cost per enrollee for Wi SeniorCare was $588. That is less than half the $1,690 of Medicare part D.
Last Thursday, U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl jumped into the fray, calling Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to urge her to deny any request from the Walker administration that could shut down the program, which was established by Gov. Tommy Thompson in 2002.
“SeniorCare has proven to be an efficient, cost-effective choice for Wisconsin seniors. It would be a mistake to dismantle this program, which provides exceptional coverage while saving consumers, taxpayers and the state money. I’m confident that the Administration recognizes the value of SeniorCare,” Kohl said in a press release.
Supporters of the program say it has been even more sucessful than they had expected. In 2009, the average annual federal cost per enrollee for SeniorCare was $588. That is less than half the $1,690 federal government spent to subsidize a Part D participant, partly because SeniorCare has been able to negotiate lower drug prices for members.
The program currently has a $20 million surplus, which the Walker administration wants to use to plug budget holes.
Nearly half of those in SeniorCare, those with household incomes below $17,424 for one person and $23,536 for two, pay only a $5 co-pay for generic drugs and $15 for branded drugs, plus a $30 annual enrollment fee.
The Walker administration insists the switch won’t cost Wisconsin seniors any extra. But figures suggest otherwise. The least expensive prescription drug plan through Medicare Part D in Wisconsin this year costs $177.60 and has a $310 annual deductible and co-pays. The average plan costs even more than that, around $527 a year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
host.madison.com/ct/blogs/article_1b3b0cdc-53e5-11e0-8f24-001cc4c002e0.html
Hey all ,
How is FOX news spinning this Libya thing?
I mean they hate Pres. Obama but they love the corporations that love war. Seems to me a tricky one.
Sometimes you feel like a nut …
It’s a world of Bat$hit Crazy when your propaganda is misaligned with your ideology! Pro-war today, anti-war tomorrow… weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
They won’t blink
Just watch John Stewart from a week or so ago.
He had clips of Fox analysts talking about how union workers were the elite w their 50-100k salaries. Then he showed the same people talking about how 250k a year was only middle class in regards to Obama’s tax policy.
“Fox analysts talking about how union workers were the elite w their 50-100k salaries”
I always wonder how they deal with their own cognitive dissonance on the whole issue.
The same way politicians and Wall St players do… hookers, booze and drugs.
He had clips of Fox analysts talking about how union workers were the elite w their 50-100k salaries. Then he showed the same people talking about how 250k a year was only middle class in regards to Obama’s tax policy.
I’m confused. That makes no logical sense.
Im more interested about how the left is going to spin it.
Fox is allegedly sending in the second string while keeping their starters in the luxury hotel. Cowards and liars at the least. Watch CNN for confirmation.
Do you remember Dr. Smith’s character on the old “Lost in Space” series?
“Oh, the pain!”
* U.S. NEWS
* MARCH 21, 2011, 3:25 P.M. ET
Discounts Expected In Spring Housing Market
By S. MITRA KALITA And DAWN WOTAPKA
Sales of previously owned homes fell sharply in February, setting the stage for steep discounting in the spring market.
The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that existing home sales dropped 9.6%, and the median price, $156,100, was the lowest since February 2002.
The silver lining, say economists, is that bargain prices, coupled with low interest rates, might finally spur some buyers off the fence as the real-estate industry prepares for its busiest season. Even without the $8,000 federal tax credit that stoked sales last spring, industry watchers predict a larger number of transactions this year.
“The job market is getting better and that will make people feel more confident about their income-earning prospects,” said David Berson of the PMI Group. “You need that confidence to buy a house. Household formations are also very important. … Kids may have moved back in with their parents, or two people may have moved in together, because of job concerns. Now they can move into their own place.”
Still, Monday’s data painted a picture of pain and price declines that have spared no region.
“The housing market is still clearly years away from staging any meaningful recovery,” Toronto-based Capital Economics wrote in a note to clients.
…
Bubble-headed boobie!
From: The Great List of Dr. Smith’s Insults.
http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/FIST2001-2/fiction-poetry/X0006_Dr._Smiths_Insults.html
How awesomely prescient of the Dr.!
aluminum canary?
“After three years of the housing downturn, people are becoming much more realistic in terms of valuing their homes,” said Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors’ chief economist.
When is “economist” Lawrence Yun going to get realistic about average household income and what families can honestly afford?
The timing of this announcement could not be better, as regards the prospects for finally achieving the GSE’s affordable housing mission!
The Negative Effects Of The Treasury’s Plan To Sell $142B-Worth Of MBS
Mar. 21 2011 - 2:49 pm
By AGUSTINO FONTEVECCHIA
The Treasury Department’s announcement that it will begin to unwind its $142 billion mortgage backed security (MBS) portfolio will be harmful for the MBS market, while its effects on housing prices will be limited, experts agree. The Treasury’s move comes as data from the National Association of Realtors shows that home prices continue to plunge and has caused Treasuries to drop for a third consecutive day, with 10-years on their biggest losing streak in six weeks.
…
Obama favors Gadhafi stepping down from power
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — President Barack Obama said Monday the United States favors the ouster of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi but the international military effort has a more limited goal of establishing a no-fly zone over Libya and protecting civilians against massacre by forces loyal to the longtime ruler.
Obama said the United States would transfer leadership of the military operation to other, unnamed participants within a “matter of days, not weeks,” but he declined to provide a more precise timetable.
“Obviously, the situation is evolving on the ground, and how quickly this transfer takes place will be determined by the recommendation of our commanding officers that the . first phase of the mission has been completed,” Obama said.
…said the United States would transfer leadership of the military operation to other, unnamed participants within a “matter of days, not weeks,”
Hwy’s in “Shock & Awe” …will it be Xe LLC or Halliburton that gets the 1st-of-many “No-bid” Billion $$$$$$$$$$$$$ contracts?
The “non-Hawaiian”, forgot to exclaim: “Bring it on! Smoke ‘em out! Dead or alive!”
“Obviously, our military is already stretched,” Obama said. “Whenever it’s possible for us to be able to get international cooperation … in terms of planes and pilots and resources, that’s something we should actively seek and embrace. It relieves the burden on the U.S. military and on U.S. taxpayers.”
How quickly the transfer takes place will depend on recommendations from the military…”
cool, we get to occupy Libya too.
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/21/MENEWSO16-after-expensive-battle-woman-regains-her/
Danuta Brown is horrified to find the mess the uninvited occupants left after they were ordered out of her investment property.
After a costly, four-month ordeal, Danuta Brown regained the house and property taken out from under her.
When she walked into the Dover house on Raven Manor Drive on Wednesday, she wiped tears from her eyes. They weren’t tears of happiness - the four-bedroom, three-bath house was filthy.
“I can’t believe people would leave a house like this,” Brown said. “This is such a mess, I can’t believe it.”
From the news story comments:
Brown was obviously a home flipper.
If you don’t care enough about your property to take care of it and SECURE it and/or let someone else abuse it, you deserve what you get.
Reminds me of the angry Cop and his stripper girlfriend in California purposely destroying their foreclosure before leaving.
Mitsubishi lays off 170, many in O.C.
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, headquartered in Irvine, began laying off some 170 workers Friday as it exits the LCD television business.
A large percentage of the layoffs, which will occur in phases, will come from Irvine, though a company spokesperson declined to provide a more specific number.
The company’s distribution centers in Ontario and Braselton, Ga., are closing, and all services will relocate to its headquarters in Irvine.
Some workers were laid off immediately on Friday as the company begins a restructuring which will occur in the next couple of months to focus on TVs larger than 73 inches.
“There have been significant price pressures in the television business and particularly the LCD business,” said Cayce Blanchard, a spokeswoman for Mitsubishi Electric. “We’re going to focus our business on our strength in the 73-and-above category and expand our professional visual business.”
Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America is a subsidiary of the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation in Japan.
“to focus on TVs larger than 73 inches”
Ow My Balls! should look great on these…
Awesome reference.
“Go ‘way! ‘Batin’!”
The potty/lounger should come with it.
Yemeni general defects as president’s grip erodes
By AHMED AL-HAJ
SANAA, Yemen (AP) - Three Yemeni army commanders, including a top general, defected Monday to the opposition calling for an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule, as army tanks and armored vehicles deployed in support of thousands protesting in the capital.
With the defection, it appeared Saleh’s support was eroding from every power base in the nation - his own tribe called on him to step down, he fired his entire Cabinet ahead of what one government official said was a planned mass resignation, and his ambassador to the U.N. and human rights minister quit.
All three officers who defected Monday belong to Saleh’s Hashid tribe. A Hashid leader said the tribe, eager to keep the president’s job for one of its own, was rallying behind one of the men, Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, as a possible replacement for Saleh.
I noticed two “new” types of house for sale signs this Spring in my area that I have not seen before.
One was a large homemade neon green paper sign that looked like one of the garage sale signs now popping up, only a bit larger.
The other was a bit more permanent, it was a white wooden upside down L-shaped post, hanging from it by small lengths of chain was a white wooden board with red lettering. Fancy. The sign was like one might associate with a small shop or a store.
It’s been a few weeks since all the snow melted, I noticed “Pete” put up his small metal,”Will Buy Houses for Cash” signs again in the grassy median of some busy streets.
Selling fast.
In no hurry.
Buying now.
Gold key to financing Gaddafi struggle
FT.com ~ March 21 2011
The international community has hit Muammer Gaddafi with a raft of sanctions and asset freezes aimed at cutting off his funding. But the embattled Libyan leader is sitting on a pot of gold.
The Libyan central bank – which is under Col Gaddafi’s control – holds 143.8 tonnes of gold, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund, although some suspect the true amount could be several tonnes higher.
Those reserves, among the top 25 in the world, are worth more than $6.5bn at current prices, enough to pay a small army of mercenaries for months or even years.
While many central banks hold their gold reserves in international vaults in London, New York or Switzerland, Libya’s bullion is in the country, said people familiar with the country’s activities in the gold market.
US and European governments have frozen billions of dollars in Libyan assets, as sanctions have hit the central bank, sovereign wealth fund and state oil company.
But Libya’s gold reserves may provide Col Gaddafi with a lifeline – if he can sell them. To raise large amounts of money, bankers said, Col Gaddafi would have to transport the bullion out of Libya.
See, the flaw in the Alad plan? At some point dudes with guns take your shit.
Cue Spike Jonze as Conrad
I don’t really have a day job, sir
Companies filing more lawsuits over credit card debt in South Florida
By Georgia East
8:06 p.m. EDT, March 20, 2011
Thinking of charging something you may not be able to pay for? Expect your credit card company to come charging back at you.
Small claims courts in Broward and Palm Beach counties are reporting a spike in the number of cases against debtors, who typically owe between $2,000 to $4,000. Some judges say they are handling more than 25 such cases a week, compared to just a handful a few years ago.
While the downturn has increased the number of debtors, companies are also getting more aggressive about collecting. They say they fear the statute of limitations to collect may be shortened. And they say debtors are getting more sophisticated and harder to reach, with fewer having traditional phone lines.That makes it more difficult to contact debtors to work out an arrangement before going to court.
Jason Gascoyne, 34, of Boca Raton, said he was shocked to learn he was being sued for the $2,000 he owed on his Capital One Credit card.
“I couldn’t believe it when I got the notice,” said Gascoyne, an unemployed diving instructor.
He said his business came to a halt when the economy soured and he could no longer make payments on the card, which he used to buy insurance.
“If I could afford to pay it, I would,” said Gascoyne. “We went from making about $70,000 a few years ago to $30,000 almost overnight.”
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/fl-debt-cases-20110320,0,3891824.story - -
from the article: “”A large percentage of the people who come into my office are not chronic spenders,” said Lisa McCue, an attorney whose clients include those filing for bankruptcy. “They are unemployed or underemployed and desperately trying to stay afloat. They’re charging groceries, car payments, and other monthly bills.”
So society should just let them keep charging so they can pay their bills? What about cutting them off and making them decide just what is important in life!
What about cutting them off and making them decide just what is important in life!
Like hamburger.
“We went from making about $70,000 a few years ago to $30,000 almost overnight.”
Most Americans have gotten poorer but the rich got richer the past 3 years, the past 10 years and the past 30 years.
That my friends is the true, real-deal wealth redistribution.
Wealth redistribution is not Social Security or higher taxes on the rich. It’s the rich getting richer.
Do the math. Think for yourselves.
“Do the math. Think for yourselves.”
It’s easier to get all your information from a pastor, and that wage depression is okay as long as our middle-east masters have the porch light on for Jesus’ return.
“Small claims courts in Broward and Palm Beach counties are reporting a spike in the number of cases against debtors, who typically owe between $2,000 to $4,000.”
Forbes ran a credit card story a couple of years ago regarding the two worst cities for outstanding debt: Miami, FL and San Diego, CA. The debt levels were outrageously high on the order of $50k+ with some topping $100k. The best part were the debtors, mostly professionals employed by government. The thesis behind the story was that the middle-class could no longer afford to live in these cities.
Why does Gov. Brown in CA insist on cuts to the people, but no cuts to the prisoners in CA? It takes $50k a year to keep someone locked up and the tax payers pay millions so the prisoners can send stuff int he mail. Millions!! Why not cut that fat?
I agree. Release them and shut down the correctional facilities. They need to cut the budget.
“Release them and shut down the correctional facilities”
At least non-violent drug offenders. The prison lobby would never let that happen. Gotta fill the beds!!
Hey, here in Cali the prisoners get brand name drug while you the public get generic.
I read Texas spends $20k per year per prisoner, CA spends $50k. The people of CA will never vote to increase taxes until CA gets more efficient.
Hey, here in Cali the prisoners get brand name drug while you the public get generic.
If you’re lucky.
I agree it is bullshit. What can I do?
Move to another state.
There has never been a better time for housing market fence-sitters to wait and watch prices fall (except for maybe 2006-2009). Got popcorn?
Bloomberg
Sales of U.S. Existing Houses Fall, Prices Reach Nine-Year Low
March 21, 2011, 5:11 PM EDT
March 21 (Bloomberg) — Sales of previously owned U.S. homes dropped more than forecast in February, sending prices to the lowest level since 2002 and indicating the market is struggling to recover.
Purchases decreased 9.6 percent to a 4.88 million annual rate, less than the 5.13 million median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The median price fell 5.2 percent from a year earlier.
Foreclosures are adding to a glut of distressed properties on the market and pressuring values, leaving some Americans with bigger mortgages than their homes are worth as joblessness hovers near 9 percent. The figures underscore the Federal Reserve’s view that the housing market “continues to be depressed” even as the rest of the economy improves.
“The demand for housing just isn’t there,” said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We have to clear this inventory of foreclosures. We think that happens in the second half of the year.”
Estimates of the 76 economists surveyed by Bloomberg ranged from 4.8 million to 5.39 million.
…
Linkee
“We have to clear this inventory of foreclosures. We think that happens in the second half of the year.”
What’s that? Giving up on the big spring house buying season of 2011 already? Silent Spring V: Cash Buyers Will Save Us!
Home prices plummet near nine-year low due to foreclosure glut and short sales
By Daily Mail
Last updated at 11:18 PM on 21st March 2011
The resale value of U.S. homes plunged in February, and prices hit their lowest level in nearly nine years, suggesting that a recovery in the housing market is still some distance away.
Despite some bright spots in other areas of the economy, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced today that sales fell 9.6 per cent last month – the largest decline since July.
Economists had expected February sales to fall by four per cent, and were clearly disappointed when the figure nosedived by more than double their estimates.
…
Is this second wave of U.S. housing price declines turning into a too-big-to-stop financial tsunami tide?
That’s how it looks to me, but take into consideration that I am a professed real estate bear when forming your own independent judgment.
US Real Estate Prices Continue to Tumble
by Mike Wheatley - 18 March 2011
According to the Core Logic Home Price Index, newly released figures for January 2011 show that the prices for US residential homes fell for the sixth month in a row, and are now worth 5.7% less than they were this time last year.
The fall seems to be linked to the high number of foreclosures affecting the market, as well as a weak demand. Negative equity is just one of a number of obstacles in the way of market recovery at this time.
…
For inquiring minds - Here’s a chart of money (M1) velocity:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M1V?cid=32242
Money velocity is a measure of how fast money moves through the economy, a measure of how often dollars change hands.
If there are few dollars in the economy but these few dollars changed hands rapidly then the net effect is the same as if there were many dollars in the economy but the rate these many dollars changed hands was slow.
Pay attention to the chart’s trend during the boom years and the trend during the down years, then take a look at what it is doing now.
It is unconscionable that banks can destroy 20% of the purchasing power of any nation in such a short period.
Do you have an M2 chart? This chart I think is really worse than it suggests considering Ben’s additional pumping.
Excellent post.
That mid 70’s recession didn’t slow spending much. Was that due to inflation in prices and wages?
“That mid 70’s recesion didn’t slow spending much. Was that due to inflation in prices and wages?”
In periods of high inflation money velocity increases because the buying power of money rapidly decreases. People want to trade in their money in as fast as they can get hold of it before it loses any more of its value.
In periods of deflation - or disinflation, as some would term it - money velocity decreases as money becomes harder to get and harder to keep. Something of value that is hard to get and hard to keep is something that people want to hold onto, not something they are eagar to pass along to somebody else.
Optimism ahead for the spring home sales season
Marketplace Morning Report, Monday, March 21, 2011
Fortune Magazine’s Allan Sloan explains the current upbeat mood for home-buying.
Steve Chiotakis: This week we get a slew of housing data, including previously-owned home sales today and a look at home prices tomorrow. As we all know, Houses in most areas of the country aren’t selling for what they were say, five years ago. But on this first full day of Spring, when people typically do more home-buying, Fortune magazine’s Allan Sloan says he thinks we could see a budding bright spot for wanna-be homeowners.
Good morning Allan.
Allan Sloan: Good morning, Steve.
Chiotakis: So why all of a sudden the upbeat mood on home-buying?
Sloan: Well there are two reasons. One reason is that the statistics seem to be better — I mean not for every house in every neighborhood, but for a lot of places, the statistics are better than they were. And second, spring is the beginning of the full home sales season, so I actually pay attention then.
Chiotakis: I thought the housing market was still in the tank, and home prices were going the wrong way too.
Sloan: Parts of it are in the tank, and parts of it are going the wrong way, but a lot of parts I think are reasonably OK, and I suspect when the numbers come out later today and later in the week, that you’re going to see a certain amount of stability.
…
FAIL! FAIL!! FAIL!!!
Did you see this, P Bear?
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fed-banks-20110321,0,4463139.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fmostviewed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+Viewed+Stories%29
For how many years running already have the serial bottom callers been making failed predictions for a near-term bottom?
Here is a modest prediction for y’all: MARCH 2011 SALES FIGURES ARE GOING TO BE MORE DISMAL THAN FEBRUARY’S WERE, THANKS TO SCARY NEWS FROM LIBYA AND JAPAN, PLUS HIGHER FOOD AND ENERGY PRICES REDUCING WHAT BUYERS CAN AFFORD TO PAY ON A MORTGAGE!!!
Originally published Monday, March 21, 2011 at 8:08 PM
U.S. home prices reach 9-year low
By DEREK KRAVITZ
The Associated Pres
WASHINGTON — Fewer Americans bought previously owned homes in February, and those who did bought them at steep discounts. The weak sales and rise in foreclosures pushed down prices to their lowest level in nearly 9 years.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of previously occupied homes fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.88 million, down 9.6 percent from 5.4 million in January. The pace is far below the 6 million a year economists say is a healthy market.
Nearly 40 percent of the sales were foreclosures or short sales, when the seller accepts less than he or she owes on the mortgage.
One-third of sales were all cash, twice the rate from a year ago. In troubled housing markets such as Las Vegas and Miami, cash deals represented about half of sales.
Sales fell in all four regions of the country, by 12.2 percent in the Midwest, 10.2 percent in the South, 8 percent in the West and 7.2 percent in the Northeast.
The median sales price fell 5.2 percent to $156,100, the lowest since April 2002.
“This information suggests that value investors are entering the market, possibly a sign that home sales and construction are nearing a bottom,” said Joseph A. LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank Securities. “Lower prices are certainly a factor behind the opportunistic buying.”
…