Bits Bucket for March 26, 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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Fed’s Plosser: Funds rate should hit 2.5% in year
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/feds-plosser-funds-rate-should-hit-25-in-year-2011-03-25
War on Savers to end soon?
If you haven’t been making double digit returns in the last few years, you haven’t been paying attention to my posts. I don’t just make this stuff up.
Are you supporting a family?
The issue with respect to the “War on Savers” claim is the low rate of return on deposit and money market accounts, not the balance thereof which is another issue altogether. It just burns me sometimes when ppl brag about what they knew before hand with respect to the burst, but did nothing to prepare and take advantage of the opportunites. Equities with respect to solid companies fell over 50%. This was a once in a lifetime type of event. Throwing darts dollar cost averaging into equities when the real correction started you should have made 50% or more. Picking good companies unfairly battered you could have much, much more.
Playing the bernanke put is not my game…good luck.
“This was a once in a lifetime type of event.”
Or maybe one of several “once in a lifetime” events. IMO this long-and-drawn-out secular stock market decline is not over.
Take a look at what is now propping the economy up and then ask yourself if it will be sustainable.
The nice thing about stocks is that you can sell them at any time.
“This was a once in a lifetime type of event.”
I agree. However, one has to be sophisticated to navigate the dangerous waters of the markets, and I’ll freely admit that I don’t possess those skills. I’ve tried to avoid getting caught by the under-currents of this financial storm, but my career has suffered from lack of mobility while supporting a family. At this late stage my goals now are to get my children properly prepared for life. Demographically they will be better positioned than myself.
Throwing darts ,designed to make people feel like fools for not betting on stupid bubbles that are held up by smoke and
mirrors . Once in a lifetime event ,as the RE crash was a once in a lifetime event also .
I think currently investing as gambling. There is not much sense of traditional return of the investment that you park you money somewhere and let it return you with interest or dividend. While gambling is OK, but you do need skill or something else to gain an upper hand. In this market, the big houses have more information than individual investor, it is like they know what is the next card you will get in a poker game. I do not believe skill can get enough advantage over that.
“The nice thing about stocks is that you can sell them at any time.”
That’s also the nice thing about real estate.
How’d that ‘nice thing’ work out for Japanese stock and real estate investors who bought circa 1989?
“In this market, the big houses have more information than individual investor,…”
They also have too big to fail insurance protection, which makes them whole in case their gambles would otherwise make them go broke.
I personally know very astute gamblers who are are True Believers in the stock market. From one of them, the last report I got, back in January, was that he was again even, and ahead a little bit from where he was in 2008. He was suggesting I could get 10-20% returns easily this year. The others didn’t contradict his claims.
I’ve had money in an index fund for nearly a decade. I keep it there basically as a barometer of what kinds of mistakes not to make. I could have made much more money on that had I simply cycled it through CDs.
Of course if you gamble on the right horses/stocks, you can point out massive gains. Congrats if you successfully did. But people need to realize for every successful trader, there are scores of unsuccessful ones. In a rising market, people can “make money” trading stocks with one another as the graph rises. In a flat or falling one, not so much.
And of course - you don’t actually make money till you cash out. In that way, it’s like poker.
I have a family to support, and my little household is not big enough to qualify as too big to fail, so I don’t qualify for the free, bottomless insurance protection which lets Megabank, Inc gamble with aplomb, and further, I cannot borrow at zero percent rates from the Fed and invest wherever. It would be irresponsible for me to recklessly gamble all our money in the stock market, but I do have single friends and very wealthy friends who have been all or nearly all in since Fall 2008. That said, we haven’t been hurt by the War on Savers nearly as much as have retirees relying on interest from CDs or other savings vehicles. They are the folks who have been royally screwed by the Fed’s wealth reallocation policy.
“If you haven’t been making double digit returns in the last few years, you haven’t been paying attention to my posts. I don’t just make this stuff up.”
You’re not kidding. I missed it all. Oh well. I still have my principle.
Right you are Natalie!
My 401k is ip 60% from January 2009. Even with my weekly contributions since then, my ARR is 21% since then. Of course…past performance is not a guarantee of future…
Just noticed Vanguard 500 Index fund ARR the last ten years is now above 2%,
I invest in their small company growth index fund and emerging markets fund, and Dodge and Cox international fund as well.
My cost basis in most of these funds is reasonably low. Harry Dent depression? Bring it on! Oh, wait, it was supposed to occur in 2009 or 2010!
My cost basis in most of these funds is reasonably low. Harry Dent depression? Bring it on! Oh, wait, it was supposed to occur in 2009 or 2010!
It’s easy to look back and say “see, I was right”. I could say the same thing about the PMs I bought, and the fact that I got out of the market before the crash. However I realize that things weren’t guaranteed to go my way.
The reality is such things weren’t certain. It’s not becoming to brag about being lucky, IMO. Bill, I respect that you have a plan and are sticking to it…I’m glad it’s working for you.
The reality, though, is the stock market bounce wasn’t a “sure thing”. I think there was a much more solid basis for anticipating the stock market drop, as well as the rise in PMs.
I’m happy that people on here are making money. Most here deserve it. But the whole “geez, if you guys aren’t all up ridiculous amounts of money, you have only yourself to blame” is pretty weak sauce. People have different risk tolerances. And some choose to stay out of rigged markets simply on principle, even if we do feel we can “win” at the casino.
You are right. I sold off some of my gold and platinum. No regrets. Sold $60,000 in stocks in 2010. Regrets. But I mostly had gains and after paying the taxman, have a good cash cushion. Rebalancing in asset classes is the way I do it. I don’t ask for over a 7.7% annual gain. Gold got to over 12% of my net worth and that was too high for this boy.
“Right you are Natalie!”
Bill — do you have a family that depends on your income and savings for things like food, clothing, college, etc?
It is a good time in history to be single and fancy free… not trying to criticize, but just pointing out again that the War on Savers looks a lot different from the vantage point of someone with family obligations.
the War on Savers looks a lot different from the vantage point of someone with family obligations
I agree with your POV and even though I don’t have a family, I do play the game much more conservatively….HOWEVER…
Having a family is a choice, and it’s a choice I’ve decided against because I don’t want that financial stress…I want the freedom. I don’t think that invalidates your point in any way, but we could all choose to be footloose and fancy free so that we can be more mobile, take more risks, etc. There are trade-offs all around.
Looking backward, if I had to do it all over again, I would do the same thing I am doing now. Alternatively, I would be an engineering contractor between 22 and 42, travel like I do for work, always live cheap, rent a room with families (arthuR Fonzarello), and save as much as I can in stock index funds. But the consultants I met who did this very thing had severe attitude problems at work by their 40s. One became a first time dad in his 40s, a paid off house at the waters edge in Long Island, and a multi millionaire. So I guess the next thing is, so what? He won! Well maybe. He is famous in several work sites for his spoiled child attitude and his lack of practical knowledge. He cheated the system through charging the high consulting fees and then going to the next naive site to consult. You would be surprised how some companies are slow to fire inept people when they need bodies!
When you work in the trenches as a stuck wage slave you know what it is like to be in their shoes. More importantly, you work like crazy trying to show up the brown nosers and you develop the skills of practical knowledge like an old time engineer. It is tough to acquire such skills consulting at the gate.
Sometimes after 50 I regret not having a family. But there are no guarantees how the kids turn out. I would insist one of the parents be a full time parent in my own family. Just my opinion.
The upside, I am financially independent now although continue working. I am hoping along my travels to find a woman with extensive background check who I could settle down with. That is something you really don’t want to use Internet dating sites for, of course. Cleared people like anonymity of the web. I met some HBBers in person, but none know any address except e-mail…
bill in tampa ….That’s great that you have done good on a financial level . Financial independence is a nice thing to have .
“But there are no guarantees how the kids turn out.”
Absolutely right! Raising a family is just another investment gamble, only on an emotional level as much as financial.
“I would insist one of the parents be a full time parent in my own family.”
And we did so, within reason (wife works part time, w/ flexible hours).
But my sister, who is a little younger than I am with a high income and no family, seems perfectly happy with her choices, and rightly so.
Yes and the strategic credit card defaults will begin… millions have adjustable rate cards so 2.5% increase will probably mean at least a 20% increase in minimum monthly payments.
Heck you can always buy a disposable credit card ..great choices BurnNakee has..
There is no such thing as a strategic credit card default. Strategic defaulters decide not to pay and give up the property securing the debt. CC debt is unsecured. Either you pay or you don’t. If you decide not to pay despite being able to do so, expect to be sued. If you can’t pay, either go bankrupt to get it discharged or find some other way to prove to the company (or the debt collector who bought it) that it isn’t worth their time to try to get money from you.
True Polly, but you read so many have $20-30-even $50,000 in cc debt…that 2.5% is gonna hurt badly. if its adjustable rate it applies to the previous balance…a flaw in the CC act.
Plus If they had any cash they would have probably paid at least 1 card down to zero.
Hopefully the home squatters would be a little smart enough to do this.
“War on Savers to end soon?”
No, they just want you to believe that it will.
The War on Savers has morphed into a broader War on the Responsible under Bush, Obama and the Republicrats. Freeloaders, deadbeats, and swindlers of every description are now the favored class.
The war on savers has nothing to do with investment return, but what you have left over after paying bills and living expenses, so no the war on savers will continue to intensify.
High rates of returns only helps the wealthy who have already saved or bilked or whatever it is wealthy do to hoard their cash.
Fed’s Plosser: Only if the Dow hits 20k in year.
That sounds like a conundrum, as any hint the Fed is ending its extended period of low rates is likely to lead to a stock market crash.
I think the plan is to pump the dow up first, raise rates later when everyone is feeling so rich as to be invincible.
everyone ??
Everyone who matters (everyone who owns our government, that is).
True. Even I am surprised how much gain we have had in the market. I am left with few buying opportunities at these prices. I am in a holding pattern waiting see which way the wind turns. I am getting close to pulling out some gains and buying a house. The finger is on the trigger but nothing is in my sites right now.
“my sites”
I figure if you stay in your holding pattern that 50% gain might be illusionary should the market take a sudden turn south.
Yeah I sold a lot of my individual socks in 2010 to sit on a lot of cash. At nearly 52, 55% stake in equities is fine for me. I don’t think a crash is imminent. But I don’t get how economic indicators have been improving with so many out of work, so much pension IOUs, and so many vacant houses. Hence only a 55% chance equites are a good place to invest.
I traded bonds for stocks last summer and now sold a little stock to raise cash in case of better buying price after QE2 ends in june.
Bought some utilities after the japan earthquake seemed they were unfairly sold off.
Worse thing I did was sell my PAAS ( silver mining co. )way too soon
Still renting which is a good thing for me. Can’t beleive how prices for homes in Ahwatukee have fallen while prices in Moorpark and all of east ventura co. have held up. supply and demand I guess?
Cactus, if you are still following this. You have the California phenomenon that is keeping the prices there up. I know exactly where Moorpark, Fillmore, etc. are, as I drove that way many times from the Calif. high desert to visit my sister in Santa Barbara. It’s a nice area.
I think further price drops in Ahwatukee are going to happen. There is a rougher bunch of people moving in. In Fry’s Marketplace when I went in, some toughs in gang garb were going out. There are more instances of the makeup of the neighborhoods going to the hoods.
I’m back to considering North Phoenix (Troon) area to rent perhaps.
For real estate, a giant spring clearance sale
Despite record affordability of homes, buyers are still spooked and staying on the sidelines. (AP)
In suburban Chicago, it’s paradise to be a homebuyer.
At the Millbrook Pointe development in quaint and pristine Wheeling, a $269,000, brick-and-stone townhouse comes with $25,000 in free upgrades, including wood-burning fireplaces, all-stainless steel kitchens and marbled bathrooms tricked out with double-bowl vanities and whirlpool soaker tubs.
Down the highway at the Patriot Place golf course villas in Bolingbrook, buyers are lavished with lawns sodded to perfection, absurdly low seller financing and a year of free insurance that will pay the mortgage if you lose your job.
At the Sunset Ridge estates, the amenity bonanza gets even more surreal: Buy a customizable colonial for as little as $170,000 and get a brand new, $17,000 Chevy Cruze. The 2011 model. For free.
Spring for home-sellers is like Christmas for retailers — peak season. Normally, that might mean a few giveaways. A better brand of siding here. An expanded choice of tile color there. But a new car? “Obviously, business has been soft,” says Kim Meier, president of KLM Homebuilders, the company offering the promotion.
The festival of upgrades on new homes — especially in the housing markets that were savaged by the subprime meltdown — is queasy confirmation of just how much the housing market remains the sickest part of the U.S. economy.
Existing home sales plunged nearly 10 percent in February to their lowest level in nine years. It was the largest drop since July. Forty percent of those sales were on distressed properties. And new home sales are on track to come in at just 250,000 this year, the fewest since the Kennedy administration, when there were 120 million fewer people in the United States.
“What is discouraging in many markets is that it appears as if some of the local builders are creating the volume,” says Wayne Yamano, vice president with John Burns Real Estate Consulting.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/For-real-estate-a-giant-apf-479853388.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=
“For real estate, a giant spring clearance sale”
How long until clearance sale prices are available?
that’s the next clearance sale after the next one.
What are they basing “record affordability” on?
“What are they basing “record affordability” on?”
The current millenium, of course!
“In suburban Chicago, it’s paradise to be a homebuyer.”
Wow, doesn’t snow there, and short winters. Paradise!
LOL
No, not paradise exactly. But it sure feels a lot better to be a homebuyer than a seller or “owner”. In the last two days I’ve had two sellers come back to us to see if we are still interested in their houses. Answer to both: yes, but only at OUR price, not yours! I told our agent it sure feels that the market is double dipping, and she didn’t even attempt to refute me.
Fed’s Plosser: Funds rate should hit 2.5% in year
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Federal Reserve should hike interest rates from current range near zero to 2.5% within a year under a plan unveiled Friday by Charles Plosser, the president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank. Plosser did not give a specific time when this exit would begin but said it would have to start in the “not-too-distant future.” In a speech to economists from the monetarist school on Friday, Plosser laid out an aggressive plan where the Fed would sell $125 billion of assets for each 25 basis point increase in the funds rate. A slower approach could last 18 months rather than a year, he said. This would require only $67 billion of conditional sales between meetings but the funds rate would rise to 3.5%. Plosser, a voting FOMC member this year, said he did not think this strategy would disrupt markets.
So is he saying the Fed is planning to soon end its “Screw the Small Saver” program?
Don’t make the mistake of locking up your hard earned cash @ anything close to 2.5% with the looming background inflation.
A good portion of my savings has been in Ag and Au. One has more than doubled in value over the past 7 years the other has tripled.
Or has it simply maintained its value?
With regards to banks as a place to “invest”, this has never been a good place to get a good return relative to the stock market.
Today, I am not sure what to think. Silver is clearly in a bubble since it costs about $7 to produce and goes for $37. Gold appears to be frothy. The stock market has again lost its connection with underlying value and housing prices? I say another 30 - 60% down in areas where prices are still very disconnected with incomes.
So where to invest?
There is not a single atom increase on your Ag or Au stock, only the paper value increased. But you need to pay tax on the gain. I wish this is not the case, but it is. Even I had gain on those investments, I still think I gained nothing, it only means there is less taken away from me through only tax but not inflation.
Mere posturing say as to imply that they are being alert to inflationary pressures.
In other words, they want the sheeple to keep their inflation expectations “contained”.
Or they want the sheeple to continue thinking massive inflation is on the way.
The goal is to pump up asset prices. People who fear inflation convert cash to goods and stocks.
Only the wealthy or upper middle class. Others, if behaving rationally, may hold on to cash so they can buy food and energy in the future.
Uh, massive inflation is HERE.
A little frost on the robin this morning.
It looks like the banks are borrowing a boat load of cash from the FED. Is there a silent banking crisis round 2 going on in the background?
link: research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE
That’s the base, now take a look at the multiplier:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MULT
The banks are getting boatloads of money from the Fed but they are keeping it in the banks instead of putting it out in into circulation in the form of loans.
“…instead of putting it out in into circulation…”
Perhaps if the Fed ended its War on Savers and let interest rates rise to levels where banks could loan at interest rates that covered inflation and still left room for a profit, private bank lending could come back into vogue?
My understanding is that despite every effort to gouge, banks continue to sustain massive losses on unpaid debts.
We cannot “loan” our economy back into good shape. This is like trying to stand in a bucket and lift the handle and thinking it is working.
Borrowing at zero % and not doing anything with it means they need or expect to need the cash to meet their reserve requirements. Either that or they see huge opportunities to lend profitably in the forseeable future combined with the Fed closing down the window. I’ll put my money on the former, not the later. What about you?
Possibility #3 that involves the words “huge losses” peaks my interest.
huge opportunities to lend profitably in the forseeable future ??
To whom ??
Which is why my money is on needing it because they see having to admit to the impaired value of their other assets in the future. I just can’t see anything else. If I really thought Fannie and Freddie and FHA and other government guaranteed programs were going to go away in a puff of smoke in 6 months, they might have a good gig being the only lenders around but since F, F and F aren’t going away that quickly and most people don’t have the downpayments to let them feel safe lending, it doesn’t make sense. They forsee needing the cash. They expect that they will be allowed to fulfill that need with money borrowed from the Fed.
Seriously if interest rates rise in the face of unemployment falling wages higher energy and food costs what are the odds that housing is going up.
I’d say ZERO
What are the odds that most stocks are going to perform well??
I pick #4. FED issued casino credits.
I thought they already unloaded their toxic waste onto Fannie and Freddie. What’s the bank’s problem NOW???
In the Enron era, it’s hard to tell what actually happened with the toxic waste…
Enron accounting can turn any toxic asset into pure paper profit and obscene bonus fodder.
Yet, years hence we still have consolidated energy Inc. & “that-3-looks-like-an-8″ MegaAccounting Inc. firms.
Enron Era?
Do you think this era is any different? The accounting used by the Fed, Government and WallStreet is way way much worse than Enron. Enron would have died in shame…….
Exactly. Enron didn’t invent nth degree book cooking.
“The accounting used by the Fed, Government and WallStreet is way way much worse than Enron.”
Sorry if I was unclear, but in my opinion, the Enron era continues to date, just as you suggest.
Level 3 assets dwarf any other I believe.
Ruh-roh.
That would be guess as well.
Wall St has gone “all in” on the very practices that got us into this mess.
“my guess…”
Isn’t this the essential ingredient in “extend and pretend”?
No price discovery = no discernible market value = no deflation in plain view = no balance sheet write downs.
What Does Level 3 Assets Mean?
Assets whose fair value cannot be determined by using observable measures, such as market prices or models. Level 3 assets are typically very illiquid, and fair values can only be calculated using estimates or risk-adjusted value ranges. In addition to Level 1 and Level 2 assets (both of which have more accurate fair values), Level 3 assets must be reported on by all publicly traded companies as of 2008.
Wow, that is quite a spike!
~ Clipped from the 5Min Forecast
— Consumers are feeling their gloomiest in five months, according to the latest Reuters/University of Michigan survey. The index clocked in at 67.5, down sharply from last month’s 77.5 — which was the highest reading in three years.
The internals of the report are even worse, with large numbers of people expecting rising food and energy prices to take a bite out of their incomes.
— Corroborating this number, Bloomberg’s own sentiment survey, the Consumer Comfort Index, has hit a seven-month low. “Even better-off households are feeling the pinch of rising prices, primarily at the pump,” says Bloomberg senior economist Joseph Brusuelas.
— Good news for you: Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is going to start holding regular press conferences next month. “The introduction of regular press briefings,” says a Fed statement, “is intended to further enhance the clarity and timeliness of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy communication.” This ought to give us loads of entertainment-worthy nuggets for The 5. Stay tuned.
I think this why there are now articles in the MSM encouraging people to remain debt slaves: http://money.msn.com/credit-rating/5-signs-you-are-kicking-debt-too-fast-credit-cards.aspx
You have to keep the spending up or this “recovery” is never going to be substained.
America’s property market
On a losing streak
The effects of America’s worst property crash go very wide
Mar 24th 2011 | LAS VEGAS | from the print edition
…
The signs of the crash are everywhere in Las Vegas. The city’s outer suburbs are eerily quiet, thanks to the preponderance of unsold and foreclosed homes. There are few lights in any windows, and few cars on the roads. Banners and boards advertising hugely discounted housing flap and rattle mournfully in the desert wind. In North Las Vegas every second house on some streets carries a “For Rent” sign, offering rates of as little as $150 a month. One or two houses on each street have been boarded up and abandoned. Even on the city’s famous “strip” of cavernous casinos and high-rise hotels, the razzle-dazzle is marred by the grey concrete hulks of abandoned building projects.
…
My, what a surprise!
Vegas was built up because money was easily borrowed and easily spent during The Big Boom.
Now the Big Boom has turned into The Big Bust and people don’t have enough money for even the basics let alone extra money to throw away at the tables and the slots.
Oh, the pain!
Vegas grew to become what it is today because:
1. They had a monopoly on gambling. Only one state legalized gambling and only in certains counties.
2. California had a housing boom and thousands of Californains cashed out their newly-found RE riches and moved to Vegas and brought all that money with them.
But … something happened:
1. Other states began to legalize gambling which sucked away the sucker money that used to go to Vegas. Even states that did not legalize gambling had casinos spring up out of nowhere on indian reservations.
2. The California RE boom turned into a bust and the equity cash-out money flow from California to Vegas grounded to a halt.
Las Vegas prospered due to the flow of incoming money.
The same was true of Cleveland and Detroit. The same is true of most - if not all - cities.
But if the reason for the money flow vanishes then so does the money flow vanish and then the city begins to die.
I’ve always said that if the enviros want to “save Lake Tahoe”, they should go to the mat supporting legalizing casino gambling in California.
Politicians do indeed make for strange bedfellows.
For years the Nevada gambling lobby and the various fundmentalist-driven Save-The-People_From_Themselves lobbys in California joined forces and spent boatloads of money trying to prevent gambling from taking hold in California - each, of course, for their own reasons.
For many years Vegas had a good thing going for itself. Thousands of workers in Southern California regularly took the bucks they earned in California and drove three-hundred miles across the desert to eagarly throw them at the tables and slots of Vegas. Then they drove back the three-hundred miles (or were driven back in a bus) so as to earn some more money to throw at the tables and the slots.
If any money problems sprung up from these across-the-desert adventures then they were considered to be California’s problem, not Nevada’s, and California was the state that got stuck with the bill.
The new Vegas boom was built on the illusion of endless desposible incomes, believing their own hype and the lure of someones silly notions of luxury and high end entertainment stupid stuff like Egyptian style gambling crypts along with dancing water fountains and pretty lights.
In today reality, many of their past tourists and suckers are just praying to stay pat in their own house and gambling that the next flip of their credit card can handle the new demands of their monthly Netflix entertainment bill.
It’s interesting to read about what was happening in Las Vegas 2 1/2 years back:
Top News October 2, 2008, 12:01AM EST
Las Vegas’ Losing Streak
The credit squeeze, on top of the travel-and-gambling slump, is forcing the Sin City billionaires to beef up their balance sheets
by Christopher Palmeri
BW Exclusives
In Las Vegas these days, even billionaires are getting their credit checked. On Sept. 30 Las Vegas Sands (LVS) founder Sheldon Adelson announced that he would ante up $475 million from his personal fortune to buy preferred stock in the company, which will pay 6.5% interest over five years. Adelson’s notes will convert at $49.65 per share, a considerable climb from the $31 at which they currently trade. The move shored up Las Vegas Sands’ balance sheet. Without the extra cash, the owner of the marble-lined Venetian resort, with its Canyon Ranch spa and indoor gondola rides, would have found itself in violation of its bank loan agreements.
It’s like that all over Sin City right now, as the casino industry there faces the steepest slump in its history. In July, casino revenues on the city’s famed Strip fell 15%, to $820 million. They are down 7% citywide so far this year. Shares of many top casino operators have sagged 70% from their peak last year. Las Vegas Sands’ stock dropped 13% on Oct. 1, after Standard & Poor’s said that despite the cash injection, the company remains under review for a possible downgrade because of weak business conditions and a potential slowdown from Sands’ Macau operations.
…
Funny how when the little people have to swallow pay cuts that “Makes America Strong and Competitive”, but when it happens to bug biz its a catastrophe!
Damn union janitors!
Part of the reason LVS got in so much trouble is because of what was going on in Macau. The government started making waves saying it was rescinding past agreements w/Sheldon. The casino wasn’t done and for a while it looked like his ability to profit was being taken away. It got ugly for a while. That’s when he had to put in his own money. You might remember when LVS first went public, Sheldon Adelson was briefly listed as the 3rd richest man in America. So he certainly had the money, earned for the most part when LVS went public, to put back in.
I used to work for Sheldon before he headed west to make his wealth in Vegas. It could happen for a myriad of reasons but I find it hard to count SA out of anything. When I knew the man he was shrewd, incredibly detail oriented and an intense workoholic. Son of a Dorchester cab driver. He always worked like it was going to be taken away at any time.
Key banking players coming to Charlotte
Financial reform conference April 11-12 will be hosted by the state attorney general.
It could get a little awkward when N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper hosts a conference next month in Charlotte on financial reform.
Many of the key players involved in a potential settlement over bank foreclosure practices will be gathered in the same room. Scheduled to attend: presidential adviser Elizabeth Warren, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and Bank of America Corp. chief executive Brian Moynihan
Might be fun for local HBBers ..
The public is invited to attend the conference. Registration information is available at http://www.naag.org.
“Key banking players coming to Charlotte…”
Oh please, dear god of all meteors, I have but one small request…..
Thousands of foreclosures are put on hold
During the housing boom, millions of homeowners got easy access to mortgages. Now, some mortgage lenders and government officials have taken action after discovering that many mortgage documents were mishandled.
A man walks past the office of Girouard Properties, which specializes in residential resale of single-family homes, condominiums and townhomes, in San Mateo, Calif. Lenders are poised to take back more homes in 2011 than any other since the foreclosure crisis started in 2006, says industry tracker RealtyTrac Inc.
Paul Sakuma / AP
Unleash the hounds!
you hafta cry “havoc” first right?
RELEASE… THE KRAKEN!
Back in 2005, the saying was that “anyone who can breath can get a loan.” Well-qualified buyers (those with jobs, good credit, etc) were getting priced out of the markets where they should have been able to buy and settle down by unqualified buyers who were enabled to borrow at high multiples of household income (e.g. $700,000/$30,000 = 23X).
Flash forward to 2011: Homes are selling at foreclosure auction at deep discounts, because you can only buy if you have “cash.” So why doesn’t some enterprising bank lend to well-qualified buyers who want to pick up their family homestead for a song to make purchase at foreclosure auctions? Is it because there are no private lenders in business, anymore? Or just that there are no qualified buyers who don’t have the full purchase price in hand? I would think if a buyer could come up with, say, 20% or more downpayment on a foreclosure auction home, there would be an obvious profit opportunity for an enterprising lender.
Dallas-area foreclosures offer bargains, but few can take advantage
By STEVE BROWN
Real Estate Editor
Published 25 March 2011 10:22 PM
Investors who buy homes at foreclosure auctions get a big price break. But not many are able to take advantage of the foreclosure deals.
During March, investors and individuals who acquired foreclosed homes on the courthouse steps paid less than 60 cents on the dollar, according to a Foreclosure Listing Service study of sales in 18 Texas counties.
But only about 6 percent of the foreclosures in this month’s sale were purchased by outside buyers. The rest were taken back by lenders, the Addison foreclosure tracking firm said.
The bank will always bid the property up to the mortgage balance. Why would an outsider bid on a property which is worth less than that balance?
I wouldn’t be surprised if a bank or two got the date/location confused and failed to show up.
In IL the banks don’t have to show up for the auction, at least if they’re the primary leinholder. The auctioneer offers the counterbids on their behalf, determined in advance (usually up to the amount of the loan outstanding). At the auctions I’ve attended, the secondary leinholders often do show up (at least they used to).
In Texas, the auction still takes place on the county courthouse steps every month.
“So why doesn’t some enterprising bank lend to well-qualified buyers…”
Maybe the mortgage bankers don’t see a future for the middle-class as currently cast unless there are government guarantees?
This is the ugly underbelly of our credit expansion. Effects are even more marked in Japan and parts of Europe, where easy credit flooded the streets, leaving a new generation of hopeless debtors and decay.
Twenty percent down only protects the lender if the property does not decline more than that 20%. Perhaps that equation figures into lenders’ willingness to offer mortgages to even such seemingly credit-worthy borrowers.
So are you suggesting more than 20% declines lie in wait (or at least that lenders are assuming this)?
On what evidence do you suggest this, given than virtually no economist in the MSM spotlight seems to expect further declines of this magnitude?
I’m not trying to suggest you are wrong; just curious what your reasoning is to support extreme bearishness beyond this point.
Bank tries to back out of Strawberry Park bid
New London, Conn. —
TD Bank is rethinking the $8 million bid to purchase Preston’s Strawberry Park it entered last month.
Amid legal wrangling surrounding the ongoing bankruptcy case of park founder and owner Hyman Biber, TD Bank, the campground’s biggest creditor, has filed objections that could serve to halt the final approval of the sale and, in the long run, could lead to another auction.
A hearing is scheduled for April 4 in New London Superior Court to consider the bank’s contention that there was no legal notice for the auction, financial disclosures are outstanding and the auction was tainted by ongoing news coverage of the bankruptcy case.
In their objection to the final sale, TD Bank lawyer Scott C. DeLaura also claims the bank’s $8 million bid was an effort to “stimulate bidding.” There was just one other registered bidder at the Feb. 26 auction, a Bozrah group that submitted a $10,000 bid that DeLaura said “could not be considered a serious bid.”
I’d suggest TD bank to go stimulate themselves…
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/homepage/x933295706/Bank-trying-to-back-out-of-Strawberry-Park-purchase#axzz1Hi168Hmv
…an effort to “stimulate bidding.”
Otherwise known as a shill bid. I thought such bidding was illegal.
Try to prove it.
Exactly.
If the place (strawberry Park) is open this summer maybe I’ll take the family there!
Side bar on Strawberry Park article is a dynamic jobz scrolling thingie. I took a look at the jobz, curious about what was on offer on my old turf. Bus driver. Plastics extruder technician. Team mate at child care center.
These kinds of jobz do not support the property taxes or crapshack wishing prices on ye olde sod, even at today’s levels. Imagine a former middle manager axed from - let’s say that pharma in New London, cutting staff even as we speak - looking around in uncommutable New London for his or her next landing.
The local rags in CT are still talking the happy talk, guess it must be good for biz.
I’m seeing the same kind of emergence in the DC area. SETA contractors - in local lingo, firms who specialized in being execution staff to govt agencies once programs were in place - have moved upstream to program planning and “real” systems engineering. The price of entry is hiring former agency heads in as rainmakers, a tactic the think-y firms cannot duplicate because of widely disparate pay scales. At the same time, the ‘lower end’ SETA staff have increased. (NB, these are positions that require real analytical and writing ability.) The think-y firms are being squeezed out both at the top and at the ‘bottom’.
It is a great time to be either well enmeshed with TPTB, or to be a highly credentialled specialist. Thankfully, in this area, ‘highly credentialled specialists’ are fungible, and in demand. Maybe it’s just the company I keep, but I see an emergence of subpopulations from certain areas. ex-Pittsburghites are particularly prevalent.
Perhaps this is predictable, but out of area addys and tel numbers are used as a screener. In the event anybody is seriously looking, this area has been a consistent engine for technology positions. But I would get one of those proxy mailboxes and proxy phone numbers pointing to the area. Woodbridge is commutable and anonymous, locally prominent for its housing bubble and prevalence of sub prime mortgage fraud. A recent move to a foreclosure bargain is not unheard of.
Thanks for the insight, jane.
This throws a wrench in my Colorado vacation plans…
Dozens of families living in the Express Inn could soon be forced back out on the streets if the hotel can’t get the funds to make repairs and/or avoid foreclosure.
The hotel, located near the corner of 8th Street and Cimmarron in Colorado Springs, became a half-way house of sorts for homeless in the community when the city was at the height of its tent city problem.
On Friday, a judge ordered the hotel be shut down, citing structural and health reasons. The hotel is also in the midst of financial turmoil, and the non-profit hoping to purchase the hotel has yet to be able to strike up a deal.
Now in the face of being shut down, residents are growing concerned, but also believe a deal can be struck and repairs made before the judge’s May 15th vacate deadline. “What we do here is we try to bring people in and help them get back on their feet and provide the care that they need to become self-sufficient” said Matthew Henderson, a resident and an employee. “It’s not only my home, it’s my livelihood, ya know, I don’t have this I don’t have nothing”.
http://www.kktv.com/home/headlines/Half-Way_Hotel_Facing_Judge-Ordered_Shut_Down_118692124.html
If it wasn’t for the Air Force Academy, Colo Springs would have dried up and blown away like a tumbleweed. Most of high tech, Corporate America jobs have been offshored.
A former boss’ two sons made decent home equity gains in the Seattle area a few years ago, and promptly lost those gains (and more) buying over-sized spec-homes in Colorado Springs.
Gee is there any other kind of spec home anymore but oversized?
For real estate, a giant spring clearance sale
In suburban Chicago, it’s paradise to be a homebuyer.
At the Millbrook Pointe development in quaint and pristine Wheeling, a $269,000, brick-and-stone townhouse comes with $25,000 in free upgrades, including wood-burning fireplaces, all-stainless steel kitchens and marbled bathrooms tricked out with double-bowl vanities and whirlpool soaker tubs.
Down the highway at the Patriot Place golf course villas in Bolingbrook, buyers are lavished with lawns sodded to perfection, absurdly low seller financing and a year of free insurance that will pay the mortgage if you lose your job.
At the Sunset Ridge estates, the amenity bonanza gets even more surreal: Buy a customizable colonial for as little as $170,000 and get a brand new, $17,000 Chevy Cruze. The 2011 model. For free.
Spring for home-sellers is like Christmas for retailers - peak season. Normally, that might mean a few giveaways. A better brand of siding here. An expanded choice of tile color there. But a new car? “Obviously, business has been soft,” says Kim Meier, president of KLM Homebuilders, the company offering the promotion.
Yeah Christmas, first thought that came to my mind….
http://libn.com/blog/2011/03/25/for-real-estate-a-giant-spring-clearance-sale/
Risking Prison to Claim a Tax Credit
March 25, 2011
MarketWatch dot com
Fourteen taxpayers were charged this week with filing false claims for the first-time home-buyer credit, the Justice Department said, just the latest in a string of similar announcements of fraud related to this tax perk.
Interestingly, one of the taxpayers charged this week is “a long-time employee of the IRS,” according to the Justice Department news release. Apparently, he claimed he bought his home in 2008, when he actually bought it in 2007.
Odd, isn’t it, that he risked going to prison to claim a tax credit that he has to repay? The 2008 home-buyer tax credit was really an interest-free loan, and people who received it must start repaying that loan on their 2010 tax return. You’d think he’d go for the 2009 credit, if he was going to claim anything fraudulently.
Now he faces up to five years in prison, and a $250,000 fine.
…
Speaking of the IRS…I filed (mailed) my taxes March 4th. They got to the IRS on the 8th (according to the certified return receipt). A while later, I used the “Where’s my refund?” tool on irs.gov. It told me that i would get my refund around April 19th. I got it on the 24th of March. Very odd. If I had really needed the money, the half past Apil date would have made me upset and for no reason since they processed it much more quickly. I can understand wanting to put in a buffer so people don’t have any chance of getting it later than predicted, but three weeks is too much. Maybe the prediction assumed a mailed check rather than a direct deposit request? If so, why? The direct deposit information is on the form so the delivery method of the refund could be used to predict the time frame. Very odd indeed.
My toilet swirls when I flush it, too.
The 2011 mortgage market swirl
Mar 25, 2011
Keith Gumbinger HSH dot com
In addition to movements in interest rates, there is virtually no facet of the mortgage market which currently isn’t under some form of scrutiny, redesign, consideration or review in 2011. There are a host of issues, most rather technical in nature, which all contribute to the uncertainty in the market and are a deterrent to improving lending conditions, reducing costs or to making the mortgage market a less-messy landscape.
Here’s a brief overview of the current issues facing the mortgage market.
…
redesign, consideration or review in 2011 ??
Yep….Mortgage Brokers are history leaving all the lending to the pirates like Chase, B of A etc…
Foreclosures rampant in Orlando tourist area:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-census-vacant-houses-20110325,0,6000712.story
I used to travel regularly to the MetroWest/Kirkman road area in Orlando. That place was scary even back in 2007.
market pulse
March 25, 2011, 4:13 p.m. EDT
GOP to introduce six Fannie bills next week
By Ronald D. Orol
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — House Financial Services Committee Republicans next week plan to introduce six bills to overhaul troubled, government-controlled housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to Rep. Scott Garrett spokesman Ben Veghte on Friday. Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, chairs a key subcommittee responsible for overseeing the giants, which were taken over by the government as they teetered on the brink of collapse during the financial crisis of 2008.
…
NAR contends that homeowners contribute more to their communities by voting and volunteering more. They do not move as frequently as renters, bringing stability to neighborhoods, which helps reduce crime and support upkeep.
Umm, not so much..
David C. Heck was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in prison for fatally bludgeoning his elderly mother on Christmas Eve two years ago in the Town of Tonawanda home they were losing through a tax foreclosure auction.
But police found Ruth Heck’s blood stains splattered on the living room ceiling from what prosecutors claimed were more than a dozen blows Heck had inflicted.
Heck had consumed more than 150 ounces of alcohol between the time of the murder and the 911 call that led to his arrest, prosecutors Christopher J. Belling and Kristen M. Walder said.
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/police-courts/courts/article376293.ece
ST. PETERSBURG — A few weeks before Christmas, a city of St. Petersburg code investigator cited Deutsche Bank for failing to maintain the swimming pool at a vacant foreclosed house on 10th Street N.
Now, a few weeks before Easter, the water is pea green and a prime breeding ground for mosquitoes. And Deutsche Bank faces fines of $100 a day unless it finally does something about the stagnant pool.
Since October, Bank of America has amassed $10,700 in fines on a vacant house on 35th Street S. And Deutsche Bank has been hit with nearly $20,000 in fines on a house on Melrose Avenue S.
Both houses have liens on them — liens that will make it nearly impossible to sell the properties until the fines are paid.
Since the GSEs worked so well in America, I guess India is ready to give the concept a try?
Liar loans, anyone?
March 25, 2011, 10:16 AM IST
Paving the Way for an Indian Fannie Mae
By Tripti Lahiri
India has an enormous housing shortage and a part of the problem is that Indian lending companies are very cautious when it comes to financing home lending.
As the U.S. thinks about how to phase out the two mortgage finance firms it took over in 2008, India is getting ready to open its first mortgage guarantee company, which an official says could eventually pave the way for an Indian Fannie Mae.
…
India is so unbelievably corrupt that if they do this, they are pretty much doomed.
Forget about competing with the US, they will have the same long boom-bust cycle.
Of course, I will be safely dead by then so sounds like a plan. Load up on those stocks, baby!!!
They’s gots there problems, we’s gots ours:
India Population (apprx): 1,195,740,000
US population (apprx): 311,047,000
Place your bets!
How many cows?
“…India is getting ready to open its first mortgage guarantee company…”
Looks like the super rich are getting ready to strip-mine the country.
Housing Finance Policy Reform Finally Set to Begin in Congress
By Daniel Indiviglio
Mar 24 2011, 12:51 PM ET 1
Next week — nearly 31 months after the government rescued government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the process to reform them and the government’s role in housing finance will finally be taken up by Congress. At that time, the House Financial Services Committee will begin considering a series of bills to reshape Washington’s role in housing. What should we expect?
What Reform Might Look Like
…
I guess this time truly is different.
Off the Charts
A Housing Market Cycle Different From Others
By FLOYD NORRIS
Published: March 25, 2011
TO judge by the overall level of home sales in the United States, the housing market has stabilized at a level well below the peak period of 2005 and 2006 but still higher than the sales rates that characterized prosperous periods in the 1980s and 1990s. Still, few of those sales are of new homes and a rising proportion are forced sales of homes no longer worth the amount that was borrowed.
As can be seen in the accompanying chart, during the 12 months through February, about 46 homes were sold for every 1,000 households in the country. At the peak of the housing boom, that figure rose above 75, but the current level is significantly higher than the lows reached during the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s.
…
Smartest guys in the room..
When it comes to executive compensation at Pfizer Inc., it seems that what goes up can never come down - especially when company leaders are asked to depart.
New filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week show that former Pfizer chief executive Jeffrey B. Kindler, forced out by the company’s board at the end of last year, received compensation in 2010 totaling about $25 million - a nearly $10 million raise over the previous year.
His predecessor, former Pfizer CEO Hank McKinnell, received a golden parachute of more than $100 million when he departed in 2006 after seven years at the helm.
But McKinnell had much in common with Kindler, as it turned out, since both oversaw huge stock-price losses during their tenures: McKinnell’s big-acquisition strategy led to more than a 50 percent loss for stockholders, while Kindler’s cost-cutting regimen that included selling off Pfizer’s former world research headquarters in New London brought a 36 percent decline.
http://www.theday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011303249323
Hey you communist the ELITE EARN their money. WE can’t tax them because they create jobs and increase the worlds production capacity even though we have a glut in capacity and need consumers.
You - get a report wrong or show up to work late or take too many sick days=fired
Them - loose stockholders millions of dollars, lose the company money and layoff hundreds or thousands of people due to their mistakes= get rewarded
EARNED IT, I TELL YOU!!
Mass. job fair canceled because of lack of jobs. ~ Associated Press
TAUNTON — A Massachusetts employment organization has canceled its annual job fair because not enough companies have come forward to offer jobs.
Richard Shafer, chairman of the Taunton Employment Task Force, says 20 to 25 employers are needed for the fair scheduled for April 6, but just 10 tables had been reserved. One table was reserved by a nonprofit that offers human services to job seekers, and three by temporary employment agencies.
Shafer tells the Taunton Daily Gazette the lack of employers means the task force won’t have enough money to properly advertise the fair.
The task force has been organizing the job fair nearly every year since 1984.
Shafer says the cancellation reflects the current economy — even though things are getting better, companies are still cautious about hiring full-time workers.
The wheels are so going to come off the bus this year. We can’t even generate menial jobs.
I guess I’d better get used to the sound of “President Palin”.
“I guess I’d better get used to the sound of “President Palin”.
Good lord, I sincerely hope not! I want to see Barry get the boot, but not by her. Problem for the repubs is they only trot out retreads. Who knows, how it will go, but we are screwed either way!
We could make her “Dictator Palin.” In yesterday’s blog, some here were expressing a desire for a leader with that kind of power.
“In yesterday’s blog, some here were expressing a desire for a leader with that kind of power”.
I’m sure, I have meet people like that. I guess they are that insecure and unable to fend for themselves, so they want to be “taken care” of.
That desire to be “taken care of,” I thought that is how we got my favorite guy Obama as President.
I was being facetious about Palin. It will probably be some other GOP blowhard with a more serious track record.
Yeah…If not Palin they will probably nominate
I did “HER” for the love of my country Gingrich..
I believe the masses will come to realize their collective mistake in not hearing RP’s sound money/anti-Fed message when the fiat charade finally meets its natural conclusion.
Not Palin, but a govenor or former govenor. Gingrich isn’t and never has been and has much too long a record of stuff he has said that has been caught on tape. It makes the opposition research nearly trivial. DC was all excited this week about him being for intervention in Libya before he was against it. There are some very divergent factions in the current Republican party. It makes it hard to predict who will end up being acceptable to enough of their primary voters to get the nomination.
I predict Huckabee will be a strong contender out poll Palinfor nomination.
“A Massachusetts employment organization has canceled its annual job fair because not enough companies have come forward to offer jobs.”
Are there teachers in Massachusetts? I bet it’s their fault.
No teachers there are doing such a good job all their students graduate knowing how to say “would you like fries with that”. Definitely not their fault!
Jobs fairs have been a joke for a long time.
General Dynamics NASSCO announces layoffs at S.D. shipyard
By Daily Transcript
General Dynamics NASSCO notified its employees Friday that the company will carry out work force reductions in the coming weeks.
Employees received letters informing them of the potential that they may be indefinitely laid off between late May and early June. NASSCO anticipates that this action will result in approximately 350 employees being laid off.
These layoffs are the result of the federal budget stalemate that is preventing the U.S. Navy from contracting for any new programs, delays within the Navy’s ship repair schedule, and a downturn in the commercial shipbuilding market.
Located in San Diego, NASSCO employs 3,600 people and is the only major ship construction yard on the West Coast of the United States. The San Diego shipyard has already delivered 11 T-AKE ships to the Navy and is currently building three additional T-AKE ships, including the William McLean (T-AKE 12), Medgar Evers (T-AKE 13), and the yet unnamed T-AKE 14, for a total class of 14 vessels.
I remember when NASSCO built non military ships.
Check out this bad boy!
Sacramento AE-01 fast cargo ship
The largest diplacement since the Iowa class.
Almost $1/2 billion a copy. $37 mill/yr to operate
Keeping the sealanes safe for
USChinese shippingfederal budget stalemate that is preventing the U.S. Navy from contracting for any new programs ??
And, IMO, its just getting started….We went through this before with base closings…This time its going to be far worse….
The deflationary spiral begins?
Massive cuts in Gov spending with a collapsing consumer.
Well, it isn’t going to help.
I still think they can’t let the fed government shut down on April 8th - too close to tax day. But the other deals all started with an offer from the administration of a few billion dollars of cuts they would find acceptable $6.5B the first time and another $4B for the last one). Haven’t heard one of those this time. Maybe it will be put forward when Congress comes back to town?
“I still think they can’t let the fed government shut down on April 8th - too close to tax day.”
So what about the next short-term budget cycle after April 8th, then?
And what makes you so sure that ‘essential’ IRS staff wouldn’t be retained when lots of other federal workers were furloughed?
Isn’t the irs the bag collector for the privately owned federal reserve?
Caterpillar CEO’s letter talks of leaving Illinois
By Kurt Erickson | Lee Springfield Bureau Friday, March 25, 2011
SPRINGFIELD — The chairman and CEO of Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc. is raising the specter of moving the heavy equipment maker out of Illinois.
In a letter sent March 21 to Gov. Pat Quinn, Caterpillar chief executive officer Doug Oberhelman said officials in at least four other states have approached the company about relocating since Illinois raised its income tax in January.
“I want to stay here. But as the leader of this business, I have to do what’s right for Caterpillar when making decisions about where to invest,” Oberhelman wrote in the letter obtained Friday by the Lee Enterprises Springfield bureau. “The direction that this state is headed in is not favorable to business and I’d like to work with you to change that.”
Oberhelman said he’s being actively courted to move.
“I have been called, ‘cornered’ in meetings and ‘wined and dined’ — the heat is on,” Oberhelman wrote. “Before, I never really considered living anywhere else and certainly never considered the possibility of Caterpillar relocating. But I have to admit, the policymakers in Springfield seem to make it harder by the day.”
Just move the whole freakin’ thing to China. That’s apparently where the market is. It will also cost less to send all the equipment to Japan for the rebuilding effort. We have enough heavy equipment left over from the bubble-boom to last the USA for the next thirty years anyway.
I sense another cash-for-clunkers opportunity.
Caterpillar chief executive officer Doug Oberhelman
Hey Doug, I don’t know what your board-of-
friendsderelicts is giving you for salary compensation, but if you can’t have Catepillar Inc.docopy what GE Inc. does, then basically your “worthless” to Illinois & Catepillar.The Corporate taxes are too damn HIGH! (peon worker wages too!)
“The direction that this state is headed in is not favorable to business and I’d like to work with you to change that.”
With the current corporate tax code we have in the US, it really makes no sense to do the majority of your manufacturing here if the majority of your market for a predictable future is going to be overseas. It might be worth it to stay if they have a lot of accumulated net operating losses to use up on US operations, but I think they can use those for repatriated earnings at a later date, too. They expire eventually, but not quickly.
And that is a point. Does Illinois not have net operating loss carry forwards in their corporate tax code? Seriously? Is Cateplillar really reporting large profits for tax purposes, not reported earnings for shareholders? That is a little weird. If it is true, they can’t have done a lot of capital investment in Illinois in a while. Seriously, with accelerated depreciation, nobody who spent serious money on equipment has tax profits.
Polly
This is exactly why we should eliminate corporate income taxes….you don’t tax the profits so you have no tax losses to carry over either….
Does Illinois not have net operating loss carry forwards in their corporate tax code? Seriously?
Totally specious argument. If you want to treat ALL corporations a bit more like partnerships so all shareholders are taxed on profits every year (no losses or other tax attributes passed through, you would have to sell shares to realize the losses and all income treated as ordinary income) then maybe I could get on board with it. But you still have to figure out how much profit a corporation has - they aren’t taxed on revenue, only profit. I would be delighted to eliminate all loss carry backs and carry forwards. We got rid of income averaging for real people (except for a few exceptions for family farmers), why not get rid of it for corporations?
Eliminating corporate taxes means that large entities that essentially have no criminal responsibility for anything they do as long as they are secretive and poorly managed (which makes it almost impossible for prosecutors to figure out which person in the corporation “did” it) can accumulate and control an infinite amount of wealth and never have to be taxed on it at all. Their wealthy sharehlolders would never pay taxes on their income because they don’t have to sell to get money to live on, unlike grandma and grandpa who do.
Terrible idea. Worse than terrible. It would make today’s problems of wealth concentration look like the equality at the start of a game of Monopoly.
“I want to stay here. But as the leader of this business, I have to do what’s right for Caterpillar when making decisions about where to invest,”
A very true statement, but.
When will we serfs nut-up and tell these corporations, and their well compensated political hacks, to go F themselves. You want to play in our sandbox?, there is a cost associated with it. You want to scheme your way around things and fly for free?
These people are playin’ with dynamite and don’t realize it.
A decade ago the Boeing company moved it’s HQ to Illinois from Seattle WA with great fanfare, for many of the same reasons given. IIRC, Boeing fished around the country for the state offering the best incentives, giveaways, and handouts, and at that time it was Illinois.
Caterpillar will move to a state that gives them enormous tax breaks at the cost of… the new taxpayers and thus, have to raise taxes… on ALL the new taxpayers while only providing a few thousand new jobs at most.
Almost forgot!
…while cutting average shop floor wages to $12hr, thus reducing the taxpayer base at the same time.
WINNING!
A question for the blog:
My dear daughter found out yesterday that she’s been accepted at Berkeley for undergrad studies. She had previously been accepted at BYU Provo.
The question is, #22 ranked (US News&WR) Berkeley at $11K/year tuition, or #75 BYU at $2K/year (she got a 1/2 tuition scholarship)
She will most likely major in Poly Sci, possibly followed by law school.
I can afford either one, but my rule of thumb to my girls has been that if their “dream school” isn’t top 10 it isn’t worth the extra cost over the Y.
Thanks in advance, I always find good opinions here.
What’s your political bent? What’s your daughter’s?
I don’t know anything about BYU but Berekley used to be referred to as “The University of Joseph Stalin” (among other names).
IMO there are things to consider besides money.
I try not to get bent politically but I generally consider myself a conservative libertarian.
All my girls have attended HS in Socal, and they have already had their fair share of aging hippie indoctrination. I agree that the learning environment is something to consider. I know some very smart and competent scientific people who came out of Cal, I guess that’s why I ask the question of a broader audience.
“I know some very smart and competent scientific people who came out of Cal …”
So do I. But Science is one thing and Poly Sci is quite another. A “conservative libertarian” might have a hard time of it.
The term “progressive” mostly sums up the Berkeley atmosphere, IMO.
But remember, “whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.”
And again, there is a much wider plurality of political views represented on Berkeley’s campus than what is stereotypically portrayed in the media. Leftists extremists have loud mouths (as do rightist extremists).
Madison on the coast.
Madison is right-wing compared with Berkeley.
“Madison is right-wing compared with Berkeley.”
Absolutely DennisN,
in fact, each and everyone of those 100,000 happy people perched upon Walker’s castle lawn with those signs and drums were all members of the local Teabaggers Welcome Wagon Committee.
Don’t mess with me because I know these things ~~ Faux News told me so!!
Wait a minute, what’s going on here!?!
The messages on those home made signs appeared to be spelled correctly!
Ah, UW-Madison. Fond memories. Back in the day, circa early ’80s, a fella like me could pay the tuition working part time as a janitor and still have enough left over to make the rent and eat. It was a place where my academic colleagues exclusively used recurve hunting bows because they considered the compound variety to be the last refuge of pully dependent pu$$ies. If it took your fancy on a fine spring day, you could amble over to the gorgeous capitol building and smoke a bit of organic Wisconsin ditch weed right there on the stone steps without fear of harassment (unless you made an ass of yourself), and then wander the opulent grantite and marble halls of the people’s house and really get the feeling that it all belonged to you instead of some elite scumbags pulling the strings of power. Clean streets, clean air, very low crime rate and a non stop party where every mind altering substance known to man was as freely available and just about as cheap as crackerjacks. In many ways it was a libertarian dream. I’ve heard things have changed in a lot of ways, and of course the world has moved on everywhere, but ol’ boss Walker should cultivate a little respect because there’s still a lot of people in that town that like to stand up and walk around on their hind legs.
I think the young Republicans gained a large following at Berkeley long ago. Still, Berkeley is the place where the notorious “Naked guy” attended all his four years there naked, yup, in class.
If you can get beyond all that, it is a very good university. I checked out the campus once many years ago while I was a lowly cal state undergraduate, and I loved the old campus. It reeked of tradition. I was envious.
Poli sci and law…what a waste of a UC Berkeley admission.
Oh my goodness, Berkely is a great, well respected school! Outside of Utah, BYU does not have anywhere near the same credibility.
Excellent point. I’ve lived nearly my entire life in the eastern time zone. My perception of Berkely is that it’s an excellent state school. My perception of BYU is that it’s a school for Mormans.
I’ve met a few educated Mormon ladies, and they knew that they were eventually obligated to spend at least ten years squeezing out puppies, and another twenty years raising them; no point in spending vast sums at a fancy college.
I seem to remember a few years ago pre-law students got degrees in Medieval Literature at Berkley.
“The University of Joseph Stalin”
My first-hand observation is that Berkeley’s campus represents the full political spectrum, but the left end is far noisier than the right. Remember that John Yoo, who helped justify W’s torture policy, is a law professor at Boalt, and scientists involved with developing the nuclear bomb were professors at Berkeley.
Politics aside, I believe your daughter would get a fine education at either school. We have an LDS friend who started at Berkeley and transferred to BYU. She told me she loved Berkeley, but found BYU’s program in her area (business) more useful, as it was more applied in its orientation.
Now I will give you my personal bias: If your daughter wants to major in Poli Sci, she is likely to have her views challenged to the extreme at Berkeley, just because it is precisely that kind of intellectual environment. By contrast, at BYU, she is likely to get more of a plain-vanilla, right-of-center perspective on political science. So I suggest basing the decision on whether you want your daughter’s intellectual horizons to be broadened (Berkeley) or to remain narrow and right-of-center (BYU). But again, that is my personal bias.
BYU has clear advantages as regards LDS community, but there are plenty of LDS students and families in the Berkeley vicinity, and the LDS Institute is within walking distance just north of campus, at the polar opposite end from Telegraph Avenue, both figuratively and literally.
Thanks for the overview Bear.
My daughter got a $30,000/yr scholarship to Drew university(NJ); will still cost $25,000/yr.$55,000/yr (rm board tuition books etc.) I think she will be going to New college (Sarasota FL) $41,000/yr (out of state) $12,500/yr scholarship. Best deal was Geneseo (in state) $20,000/yr.BTW, Geneseo acceptance letter stated 10,000 applicants 995 accepted. Good NY State schools are becoming very popular.Tuitions are insane!
Send her to Berkeley. She will find it easier to get into a good law school with a UC degree.
I agree with that. I wish I was eighteen again. It would have to be 1977.a great year to start as a freshman at Berkeley. My dad would have not wanted me to go there though. Staunch conservative. Leftists really had a strangle hold on UCB back then.
“Leftists really had a strangle hold on UCB back then.”
Do you think it is different now?
BYU is a polar opposite in terms of social life for the girl. If you want an en loco parentis lifestyle for her, BYU all the way. If you want her to be a hippie, Berkeley. Both are good schools.
More important is what she is going to study for the practice of law. In my research on what relates to bar passage on the first try, political science undergraduate degrees perform about the same as any other major. However, mathematics, science, and engineering graduates have an advantage (as well as higher LSAT scores which also suggest better performance).
I think smarter people major in those subjects to begin with.
I kinda noticed in life that the so-called smarter people get laid off by the average people all the time.
I do not know much about BYU, but I went to a State college that is ranked in the 60s from the same source you quoted, and was accepted into 4 of the top 10 law schools. However, I point out that if you are not coming in coming in from a big name school they will expect a solid A average and that your LSAT score be well within the top 5%. As long as she excels at BYU she will do fine. If she just does average, she may have difficulty getting in to a top law school. If she wants to work for a major law firm, the law school, her class rank and whether she was on law review will matter, especially in economic environments like the one we have now.
For Poli Sci, I might as well go to BYU and save the difference for Law school. If it was math and science, Cal would be my choice. Is it too late to change her mind? There are 2 many law graduates already unemployed or just getting by.
I agree with Butters and some of the others. If she is very interested in politics and definitely wants to go to law school, poly sci may be ok. If she thinks it well help her in law school, it’s not true. She would be better off studying math, economics, engineering or hard science. If she is uncertain what she wants to do and just thinks she might want to try law, I wouldn’t go the poly sci route.
But don’t the hard sciences use one part of the brain and the social sciences use the other part?
Don’t the hard sciences deal with hard facts while the social sciences deal with something other than hard facts - something more akin to opinions?
Don’t scientists immerse themselves in rigorlus scientific proofs while the skill of social sciences involve the powers of persuasion?
I would think the skills of social science would rule over the skills of hard science. Are there many successful lawyers that have behind them a scientific background?
Many of us practice finance, tax and/or patent law. Even if she is going into government, policy drafted by someone that understands the economic ramifications of their decisions is much more sound. I think that is what is part of the problem with Congress and the Federal government today. Too many liberal arts majors and bs artists with self proclaimed vision but no real understanding of the economic result of their decisions. As for right or left side of the brain, I sculpt and paint in addition to understanding the tax code. When someone proposes a policy, I immediately try to envision the 5, 10 and longer term implications, and try to follow the money. I wish more did. Some people dont even realize that even though you tax and charge particular people or institutions, or give them breaks or subsidies, that the true costs and benefits are borne by those you might not think of at first glance. Remember the housing tax credit? Take an already creative person, and train them in hard science, and you are doing the World a great service. I know many open-minded, intellectual financial and scientific visionaries. They are my favorite type of people.
In short, I do not think that understanding mathmatical and scientfic truths limits creativity. Rather, it channels it more efficiently. As for a mathmatician or scientist having to face the fact that in legal arguments there may be no single right answer, at least they know there are many wrong answers and hopefully will be more equipped to avoid them.
“I know man open-minded, intellecutal financial and scientific visionaries.”
But, are they lawyers?
I am not saying that financial and scientific visionaries cannot become good lawyers, I just don’t think becoming a lawyer would be all that attractive to them.
Lawyers are good with words, science and finance guys are numbers people.
I found it relatively easy at age 40 to get into law schools with a physics degree from UCSC. Even with no letter grades, having that UC physics degree with honors opened many doors.
Law schools often talk about making the students “think like a lawyer”. What I found is that this means that social science/humanities students were forced to “think like a hard scientist”.
Did your daughter take AP calculus? How did she do? That’s the threshold class for engineering and science. UCB has great programs in EE and physics. For the future, a bio degree may be a ticket into bio engineering.
Lawyers are good with words, science and finance guys are numbers people.
Thats a complete stereotype from years past.
IBM/TI/EDS/etc found out a long time ago that some of the best computer programmers were music majors.
Most Lawyering requires good logic skills. Very few lawyers prance around in front of jury in seersucker suits with their thumbs hooked in their suspenders.
” … some of the best computer programers were music majors.”
So what is music, is it not math expressed in time? Is it not logic? Are tones and pitches and rhythms not ratios and numbers?
Is music really a liberal art? Is computer programming really a hard science? Can one become good at either one without any formal training whatsoever?
What seems to connect the two fields is talent and lots of practice.
“Most lawyering requires good logic skills.”
IMHO most lawyering requires good salesmanship skills.
A lawyer has to sell the judge, or the jury, or the client on accepting the merits of whatever idea is that he is presenting.
He may use logic as a tool for the selling his idea but the logic doesn’t have to be true, it only has to seem to be true.
In the realm of science an idea either works or it doesn’t. Same with a computer program; it either works or it doesn’t. Same with music. There is no middle ground.
But with lawyering …
If the idea you present as a lawyer gives you a win then was it really a good idea that gave you the win or was it the presentation of the idea that gave you the win?
If it were just he facts that were involved in winning then the facts should speak for themselves. But it isn’t just the facts. Sometimes the facts have nothing to do with anything. Sometimes they just get in the way.
“Did your daughter take AP calculus? How did she do? ”
Dude’s daughter here, I took AP Calc AB as a Jr. and got a B first semester, and an A second semester. Now, as a Sr, I’m taking AP Calc BC and just got a B first semester. I’m fairly well rounded, I don’t like math too much, but I’m…”capable” of doing it. I’m deciding between PoliSci major, and Business Major with an emphasis on finance.
What do you “like” to do?
What activity draws you in and won’t let go?
“Did your daughter take AP calculus?”
I’m very upset that my daughter is not taking it, and my wife supported her in the decision without giving me a vote.
BYU is a philosophical choice that also provides a good education…
Berkeley….Just look at the resume’s of the faculty…That says it all…She may change her mind about her direction…If she does go to law school, Boalt Hall is one of the top ranked although it is very difficult to get into…
Most endowed faculties may not teach undergrads at all.
Yes but it appears she wants to go post Graduate…Likely already in if you are Alum…
“post Graduate…Likely already in if you are Alum…”
This is not true.
So its irrelevant ??
It can even be a negative. If there are too many people from the school who want to stay for law school, they will pick and choose among them. You might not be the most interesting of the bunch, though they would like you just fine if you were from a place where they didn’t have a lot of applicants.
I TA’d for the general studies stat class at Berkeley, which (I believe) is required for all undergraduates to take. The standard approach to teaching a course like this at Berkeley is to have one of the top-rated faculty members in the department teach a large lecture (maybe 300), then have ten sections of 30 or so students TAd by PhD graduate students.
My impression was that this was an effective approach for reaching a large student population with a highly capable lecturer, followed up by the opportunity for Q&A in a small group setting (i.e. section). I myself learned a great deal from the experience.
“The Law is a Jealous Mistress.”
Inscription above Boalt Hall
I was wait-listed at Boalt until after classes began. If I had gotten into Boalt I would have gone there for sure.
Another thing, don’t go by the US News Rankings. It’s like DLS monthly unemployment numbers, it has been manipulated beyond the realm of fantasy.
I agree with your assessment.
One more consideration: How will the CA budget situation impact programs, tuition, etc at Berkeley? I know through the grapevine that some well-known professors are currently leaving due to the budget crisis…
I assume BYU, with it’s iron-clad tithing base of financial support, is going to do just fine.
I thought of and mentioned this to her as well. There have already been stories in the news about UC students not able to graduate on time due to reduced class schedules.
I think your “top 10 or not worth the extra money” is too narrow for undergraduate. Also, education reputation is somewhat local, though this is more true of graduate programs. If she is already interested in law school, does she have any idea where she want to go for that? I got rejected from the University of Virginia very quickly. They have a strict formula for combining LSATs and grades and if you are below the applicable cut off (much higher for out of state than in state) they don’t bother to look at anything else. On the other hand, I did very well at getting admitted to places that looked at my undergraduate school, my major, my awards and activities, but most especially my recommendations. (I personally think the essay was boring as all get out, so I’m ignoring it.)
So, where will your daughter have an opportunity to work closely with professors that will take a serious interest in her? Where will being just a little bold get her a chance to help someone with a research project and maybe even have a publication credit? Where will she get better grades? I don’t know that much about BYU, but if it is more focussed on undergraduates, as in the top profs are willing to work with undergrads on serious research or supervising independent studies, she will have an advantage. If she goes to school in a place where you never have a full prof for a class with fewer than 100 people in it and grad students run all the discussion sections and grade all the papers, you are at a disadvantage. You and your daughter will need to do the digging to find out which school is better for that. Both are huge research universities. Neither may be great at it.
Also, remember law schools look for diversity in a class. Now there are plenty of kids from southern California who want to go to law school, but having spent a few years in Utah is a little different - not a lot, but a little.
I’m perfectly serious about this, because if she wants to be employable as a lawyer, getting into a top school is essential. There is a glut of young lawyers and you need to be in a very good school and be fairly well placed to get one of the “good” jobs that let you pay off the loans and buy your way out of indentured servitude. Paying off my law school loans in three years was the best financial decision I ever made in my entire life.
I believe she is shooting for Columbia. She may also decide to do a business finance major and a Spanish minor for her is just 2 classes since she can test out of 13 credits due to BYU’s program for returned Mormon missionaries with near native ability in their mission language. We are a biligual/biliterate household and my daughters are 50% Mexican.
I went to Columbia, so I expect that makes my advice even more relevant. She should go where she think she will have a good chance of making a serious connection with profs, even better if they are folks who work with people at Columbia. I actually had one of my recommendations from a person who had a double appointment at my undergraduate school and one of the Columbia grad programs (not the law school). I don’t know that I wouldn’t have gotten in without that recommendation, but it can’t have hurt.
Columbia pays attention to more than just the raw numbers. They read the application. They don’t want a class that is all from the top 20 or 30 schools in the country. They want racial diversity, geographic diversity, future plans diversity, past employment diversity, etc. I don’t think it is possible to predict exactly what sort of gpa any particular kid is going to have at any particular school (and freaking out about that leads too many kids to waste opportunity by taking too many low level classes), but you can decide to go someplace where the faculty, the real faculty, will pay attention to undergrads. She needs to go to that one and do anything she can to get a mentor.
Thanks so much all for your ideas and opinions, especially you JD types. I’m going to have my dear darling daughter read through the comments.
The best part: She has two excellent choices. I am sure she would do fine at either place, so it really is about which institution gives her the most of what she wants. Since you live in reasonably close proximity to both places, you might visit the campuses to get the feel for them (maybe you have already been to BYU?). Attend LDS sacrament service in Berkeley, if you want to assure yourself the church there is not much different than anywhere else. We once did this, at which point we discovered one of my wife’s ancestors had arrived to the Bay Area in 1846 on the ship Brooklyn.
Do you and your daughter know about the law school scam blogs? If not, she should read them for several months and digest their message thoroughly before making any career plans involving law school. To fail to do this would be like buying a house in Florida in 2006 without checking in here first.
One last comment. Smaller schools have smaller classes, which means that faculty are more likely to remember you when it comes time to request recommendations for graduate school.
After my freshmen classes at UCSC, my physics classes had about 20 students on average. This would not be true at larger UC campuses.
My favorite professor at UCSC, Dave Dorfan, was a brilliant experimentalist in physics. I learned a lot in his classes, in part because he was such a good teacher. He also had a stupendous memory.
I graduated in 1975. Seventeen years later, in 1992, I applied to Stanford Law School. Stanford - in an obvious case of age discrimination - mandates a recommendation from an undergraduate professor. How could I get such a thing when I had graduated decades before?
So I looked up Dorfan’s office hours and showed up. By then he was the Chairman of the Physics Dept. at UCSC.
I walked into his office. He looked me up and down, and a few second later said “Dennis N? What the fuck are you doing here?”
He immediately recognized me, and agreed to write a recommendation to Stanford Law. I didn’t get into Stanford Law - it’s very selective - but didn’t receive a rejection until July of the following year. I presume that means I made the first and second cuts from the admission committee.
The moral of my story is that a smaller school - or being in a science major - may increase your exposure to faculty, who are then more likely to write you a meaningful recommendation to graduate programs.
Saturday morning forecasting quiz - 9:35am 3/26/2011-
16 divided by 38 = 42.1%
38 represents the total number of posts so far today in today’s Bits Bucket.
Here’s the quiz- what does 16 represent in the above equation, and what will the ratio be at the end of the day?
Peanut Butter?
peanut butter gets stucko on the roof of the mouth.
~ Octogenarian Richard Russell has been advising people about financial matters since the mid-1950s. His most recent newsletter focuses on GOLD. He’s a bit puzzled that the rising prices of gold and silver haven’t ignited more enthusiasm among the general public.
My guess is: 1/ Joe and Jane Twelvepack don’t have the spare cash to plough into precious metals, and 2/ They don’t know the history of gold/silver as an economic anchor when fiat currencies perish.
Article by Russell ~ Out In The Open
← $1,430.00 for one puny troy ounce of gold is fairly steep for most folks. How can anyone make money with a little piece of shiny metal hidden away in the sock drawer?
“Making money” is not the point. Preserving purchasing power is the reason the French gained fame for hiding gold coins in their mattresses, and the women of India hung chains of sterling silver around their necks. Moreover, these metals pass as money almost everywhere in the world.
Holding wealth in the form of real estate, antique cars, or rare artwork is okay - but when an emergency arises they are not nearly as liquid as the precious metals.
Preserving purchasing power is the reason the French gained fame for hiding gold coins in their mattresses
Is the same brilliant French who are gleefully smiling & tossing US gold coins in the air today for what they received from us in exchange for dirt & native inhabitants with weapons.
Idiom: “Penny wise, pound foolish”
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of 828,800 square miles (2,147,000 km2) of France’s claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S. paid 60 million francs ($11,250,000) plus cancellation of debts worth 18 million francs ($3,750,000), for a total sum of 15 million dollars for the Louisiana territory ($219 million in 2010 dollars)
Is the same brilliant French?
Yes, it is.
The estate tax in France used to be around 90%. It was standard practice to stash the “estate” in gold in nearby Switzerland or the UK, and hand the heirs the key to the box.
Don’t talk trash about stuff you are not aware of. Just makes you look, well, uninformed.
touchy, touchy there puddy cat.
So, you can now please provide the current value $$$$$$$$$$ of the 14 US States that where once the known as The Louisiana Purchase, so we can all be “informed” together.
:$_______________________?
Post-facto analysis is easy.
Think of all the money the US poured into the Phillipines. What a waste of dollars, and at the time, it was thought to be a good thing.
Post-facto analysis is easy.
duck, dodge & weave = weak rebuttal
waiting…
:$_______________________?
+ or - $10 Billion just for you
(So, we can make an “informed decision” rather than an “educated guess”)
busted for lies on a stated income loan, very wierd:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/26nocera.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
As I’ve said, the first rule of ruling is to screw the poor, elderly and disabled, because after all, what can they do about it?
Of course he also shouldn’t have lied on his loans.
Excellent, let’s see a few million more of these.
wait a minute. He is not offered the opportunity to admit/deny guilt like mozillo or goldman sucks? WTF is going on here?
Our allies in Libya and their Al-Qaeda connections: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8407047/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-his-fighters-have-al-Qaeda-links.html
‘French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned all Arab rulers that they risk Libya-type intervention if they cross a certain line of violence against their own people. The president told press at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday (24 March) that UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorising air strikes on Libya has created a legal and political precedent on the “responsibility to protect.”
‘He said that there is a new post-UNSC 1973 model of “world governance.”
http://euobserver.com/9/32064
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned all Arab rulers
oh là là
‘Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians…In this effort, the United States is acting with a broad coalition that is committed to enforcing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973…So we must be clear: Actions have consequences, and the writ of the international community must be enforced.’
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog
That’s exactly president Palin/Bush/McCain would have said.
You have shown your true colors, Barack “The 2 Mavericks” Bush.
All the while the majority of the countries in the world will gladly let us take care of it…..
‘When John McCain visited Tripoli in the summer of 2009, Gadhafi’s son Muatassim pressed a receptive McCain on getting military supplies. McCain, according to a diplomatic cable describing the meeting, spoke of the cooperation between the two militaries: “[McCain] encouraged Muatassim to keep in mind the long-term perspective of bilateral security engagement and to remember that small obstacles will emerge from time to time that can be overcome,” the cable says. “He described the bilateral military relationship as strong and pointed to Libyan officer training at U.S. Command, Staff, and War colleges as some of the best programs for Libyan military participation.”
http://mobile.salon.com/politics/war_room/2011/03/23/us_libya_arms_training/index.html
‘European nations that are busily destroying Libyan weapon systems on the ground these days were lining up to sell the authoritarian state major weapons systems a few months earlier, notes the latest survey on international arms sales …The U.N. lifted its arms embargo against Libya in 2003 after Gadhafi promised to renounce terrorism, destroy his arsenals of weapons of mass destruction and accept responsibility for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.’
“Libya at the time had a huge amount of old, out of date military equipment dating back to the Soviet era and was looking to modernize its armed force,” Deutsche Welle quoted Mark Bromley of the Stockholm institute as saying. “It was the perfect opportunity for western arms companies to get a foothold in this lucrative market and incredibly oil-rich country.”
http://www.miller-mccune.com/business-economics/report-europe-competed-to-sell-libya-weapons-29414/
Here’s a question: where was the UN when Egypt’s dictator was torturing his people, jailing opposition, rigging elections, shooting protesters, for 30 years? And the same in Yemen, Tunisia, etc, etc? Where was the UN when these western countries were selling Gadhafi the arms he is using against civilians this very moment?
Here’s a question: where was the UN when Egypt’s dictator was torturing his people, jailing opposition, rigging elections, shooting protesters, for 30 years? And the same in Yemen, Tunisia, etc, etc?
Two words, Oil, baby!
Yep….
Too bad they aren’t taking military action to protect American civilians.
By aiming a few smart bombs at GoldmanSucks, BOA, GE, Wells Fargo, the US Senate and House, the Federal Reserve……
“By aiming a few smart bombs at GoldmanSucks, BOA, GE, Wells Fargo, the US Senate and House, the Federal Reserve……”
Sheesh X-GSfixr, you keep more handy dandy hit lists than my old g/f.
Somebody explain this. FLAGSTAR BANK received a final judgement on this house on 9/10/2010 yet they are allowed a $50k property tax exemption for 2011 in the name of the people they foreclosed on in 2010?
Name: PITKIN JULIE &
Mailing Address: 18660 LOCHPOINT CT
JUPITER FL 33458 3866
Exemptions
Applicant/Owner Year Detail
PITKIN JULIE & 2011
Exemption Amount: $50,000
Type: JUD
Date/Time: 9/10/2010 12:35:40
CFN: 20100339855
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 24068/293
Pages: 4
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: FLAGSTAR BANK FSB
Party 2: SHORES OF JUPITER HOME OWNERS ASSOCIATION INC
PITKIN JULIE
PITKIN WILLIAM
Legal: SHORES 3 L250 L
Looked up Flagstar Bank, FSB from the Jupiter house I had posted about the exemption. Found this, this is going to get a lot worse.
Flagstar Bank, FSB. Headquartered in Troy, MI. This bank is owned by Flagstar Bancorp, Inc., which has received money through the TARP program. …
1. A “troubled asset ratio” compares the sum of troubled assets with the sum of Tier 1 Capital plus Loan Loss Reserves. Generally speaking, higher values in this ratio indicate that a bank is under more stress caused by loans that are not paying as scheduled. Each bank graphic is own it’s own scale: use caution when comparing two banks.
2. The graphs are for comparing this bank to the national median troubled asset ratio. Because the ratio varies so widely among banks across the nation, the scale is not consistent from bank to bank and the graphs should not be used to compare banks to one another.
http://banktracker.msnbc.msn.com/banks/michigan/troy/flagstar-bank-fsb/ - 19k
This is what the listing Realtor has to say about Flagstar and the sad owners who bought this house in 2008 for $387,500 final Jud. amount $379,364.53 Sep 2010 and owe $30k interest on the loan besides that.
18660 LOCHPOINT Ct Jupiter, FL 33458
$259,000
Days on site 8 days
Exclusive undervalued price for this 4 bedroom, 2 baths home full of memories. With sadness the owners must sell and move. Make a banks loss your gain. Raise your family in this exceptional cul-de-sac, corner lot home in Jupiter Shores.
Although this doesn’t have anything to do with the HBB, one of the reference books I’m using for a book I’m writing is one called the Oxford Picture Dictionary, where pictures are used to illustrate a term in a foreign language. Anyway, one of the sections is called Life Events. Listed in order are A) be born B) start school C) immigrate. I find it interesting that immigrating is now one of life’s rites of passage.
Oxford Picture Dictionary
I think the imigration stuff is in there because they presume the non-engkish speaking person had to have immigrated to find himself in need of the book; thus, the section is relevan to him and his life experiences.
The Long Goodbye: The Declining Purchasing Power of the Dollar.
http://www.aier.org/research/briefs/1826-the-long-goodbye-the-declining-purchasing-power-of-the-dollar
The Declining Purchasing Power of the Dollar ??
Yeah…The good old dollar barely buys you anything anymore…
Mystery surrounds buyer of $75 Million Bay Area mansion…View of the house on Paloma Road in Los Altos Hills that sold last month for $75 Million Mystery surrounds buyer of hilltop mansion in Los Altos Hills -
RIP Geraldine Ferraro
A graphic look at the state of American banking
By Wendell Cochran
March 17, 2011 |
Over the past three years, the banking industry has continued to reel from the mortgage meltdown and the recession. Today, there are 11 percent fewer banks than at the end of 2007; more than 300 banks have failed since Jan. 1, 2009. Problem loans and foreclosures continue to plague the industry, with troubled assets nearly tripling since the end of 2007. In a sign of slow improvement, troubled assets fell in the fourth quarter of last year, but the number of banks on the FDIC’s troubled list continues to grow and is at two-decade high.
http://banktracker.investigativereportingworkshop.org/stories/2011/mar/17/graphic-look-state-american-banking/ - 15k -
The chart on the left says a lot.
Note the green line that signifies deposits and note that it is trending up. People who have money are saving it instead of spending it.
Note the blue line that signify loans and note that it is trending down. Banks have money but they are not loaning it out.
Everywhere in the economy there is a shortage of money but the banks are paying down their loans faster than they are making them - they are withdrawing from the economy more money than they are putting back into the economy.
I’m not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, only that that is what seems to be happening.
Re: the JoshuaTree Extension
I’ve not yet posted it for download, but have sent copies to a few people who have emailed me. If anyone else has upgraded to Firefox 4 and want a version of the JT that works with it, drop me an email. I’ll post a comment here when I get over my laziness and upload for general consumption.
Thanks again for the upgrade. I’m spoiled now, it’s hard to read the HHB any other way.
Family wealth and recession: Californians’ wealth took one of the biggest hits in the recession
In California and other Western states, 67.5% of households saw their net worth fall, compared with 62.5% in the U.S. overall. The median decline in the West was 27%, well above the 18.1% national median.
March 24, 2011|By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times
The federal government has for the first time detailed the sharp drop in wealth that the Great Recession caused American households — and it shows that families in California and other Western states took the biggest and broadest hits by far.
The average net worth of U.S. households — the value of their homes, stocks and all other assets — fell 20% to $481,000 by mid-2009 from $598,000 in mid-2007, according to a Federal Reserve survey released Thursday.
In the Western states, 67.5% of households saw their wealth drop, compared with 62.5% for the nation overall. The median decline in wealth for households in the West was 27.7%, well above the 18.1% national median and nearly triple the 9.5% decrease for families in the Northeast.
While it’s widely known that the recession slammed household wealth and that the housing market in the West took some of the hardest hits, the unusual Fed survey attempted to quantify the damage.
…
“The average net worth of U.S. households — the value of their homes, stocks and all other assets — fell 20% to $481,000 by mid-2009 from $598,000 in mid-2007″
Will someone please explain these numbers to me!! The average NET worth of households is while I believe it was quoted the average retirement income is $20K or less. Worthless numbers being floated about by the MSM.
This implies that average folk have saved ten years worth of gross earnings. Too funny!
This is all about averages
The top 5% control 80-90% of financial wealth and something like 70% all wealth which I suspect includes real estate. I suspect the latter # would be higher if debt were factored in.
Thus the average might look pretty high but if you exclude the top 5% the average would look miserable.
Mid2009 the end time…what about now. I assume my net worth dropped during that period, but I became a millionaire at the end of 2009, as my stocks recovered and I kept dollar cost averaging. My millionaire status stuck since then. I think I was fleetingly a millionaire in 2007. It is a force I like to call “investment persistence,” by investing through the grand cycles. 2003 was similar in stock buying opportunity to 2009.
I think for those who kept their white collar jobs and continued to invest regularly, most are at their all time high in net worth.
I have four kids. They cost about that much. Hard to cash them in though, at least all at once.
OK I am tired of busting my @ss, paying bills, rent, insurance for my family and having to put money away for my own retirement. These protestors have inspired me, I am going downtown in a one man protest with a sign that says.
I WAS BORN!
GIVE ME SOME FREE SH#T!
Protestors battle police in UK anti-govt protest
By Stefano Ambrogi and Tim Castle Stefano Ambrogi And Tim Castle – 1 hr 9 mins ago
LONDON (Reuters) – Breakaway protestors scuffled with police and smashed windows in central London on Saturday as tens of thousands of Britons marched against government austerity cuts.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110326/wl_nm/us_britain_protest - -
from the article
Breakaway groups splintered from the main rally and threw flares and smoke grenades and broke into a branch of HSBC bank in the center of the capital.
Hooded figures climbed on to the roof of luxury food store Fortnum & Mason while other protesters started a fire in the center of Oxford Street, the capital’s main shopping street.
The clashes, although sporadic, rippled across the center of the city, and overshadowed a rally called by unions to protest against unemployment and public spending cuts, tax rises and pension reforms introduced by the Conservative-led coalition.
Union leaders and police said over 250,000 people joined the biggest rally in the capital since protests against war in Iraq in 2003.
The coalition, in power since last May, is pushing ahead with a tough debt reduction programme to virtually eliminate a budget deficit, running at about 10 percent of GDP, by 2015.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s government says it is cleaning up a mess left by the previous Labour government and that failure to act would expose Britain to market turmoil.
I WAS BORN!
GIVE ME SOME FREE SH#T!
Oh, come on. Take responsibility for yourself - get a government job!
(yes, that’s meant tongue in cheek)
Yes we all know that bankers and the elite haven’t gotten anything. Think of the bankers and the elite.
NO this is all about the productivity and wealth of a nation being taken from the many and handed to the few who control the gov.
$23 mill for property tore down a 1922 mansion …foreclosure now another Toll Bros building in NYC; 63rd and lexington
http://wirednewyork.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-19198.html
Another killjoy…
Home equity loans are not what you think
Thinking of dipping into your home’s equity? There are a few things you should know.
Equity is a concept, not a savings account. Equity, the difference between what you owe on your home and the amount you could sell it for now, is a number. It is a theory; it is not cash in a savings account. Equity does not become cash until you sell the house and give up possession. In the meantime, a home equity loan means you agree to make payments that are mostly interest, and that can plunge you into debt.
You’ll have a false sense of well-being. Transferring debt to a home equity loan gives a false sense of relief. Paying off credit card debt feels righteous, but you only are moving your debt around. Soon the old feelings of entitlement will surface, and before you know it, the cards are maxed out again. But now you have the loan, too.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_17659933
Or not.
Paying off credit card debt feels righteous, but you only are moving your debt around.
It’s hard to believe that there are actually adults walking around out there who don’t recognize this.
Coming soon to America……
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370053/Anti-cuts-demo-Protesters-occupy-Fortnum–Mason-half-million-march-London.html
Americans are wusses and sheeple. We will never revolt, no matter how bad it gets.
If anyone will protest, it will be the illegals when their welfare benefits get reduced or eliminated.
New York Times story, “In Prison for Taking a Liar Loan.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/26nocera.html?ref=business
“I had a couple of good liar loans out there, you know, which my mortgage broker didn’t mind writing down, you know, that I was making four-hundred thousand grand a year when he knew I wasn’t.”
He blames the mortgage broker for writing up the liar loan document that he WILLINGLY and KNOWINGLY signed.
Lol.
It was not his fault, it was the mortgage broker’s fault?
Wonder how many people in California committed mortgage fraud?
I have no doubt whatsoever that the number is in the millions.
Realtors Are Liars
Last month I reported that NY State Association of Lying Realtors excluded price and sales volume data for roughly 15 counties. NY States Liar in Chief’s reply offered no answer when I email. This month, NY State Assocation of Lying Realtors excluded price data only on those same counties.
Now I have been tracking NY State Association of Lying Realtors data releases since 2005. Why NY State Association of Lying Realtors refuse to answer why they’re concealing sales and price data?
Why NY State Association of Lying Realtors? WHY?
RAL, is it because in those fifteen counties, there are numbers that Must Not Be Spoken?
How’s this - If the baseline is not down in print, then we have plausible basis for ANY assertion in the future?
Or, if we exclude the outliers (the counties whose prices / units have tanked most precipitously), calculations based on the mean will be more truly representative (gag)?
Scratchin’ my head. That’s all I could come up with.
Have you moved to your new gig in your fifth wheel yet? I remember when you wrote about buying that fifth wheel here. It sounded very durable, and I both admired and envied your capability at judging the worth of Mechanical Things.
It strikes me that a new Carl Morris Freedom Movement has begun! I wish there were somewhere around NOVA I could park a sheep drover wagon, of the kind In Montana wrote about in 2008. Those look like sturdy contraptions, and well suited to the ascetic life, although you’d still need a car to get to work. Also, there is the problem of how get one of those from THERE to HERE, assuming you can find one. Plus, I’m sure there are all kinds of doodads to hook up and tie off.
If I ever find one, I’m sending out a general purpose call for help in the hooking up and tying off department. In exchange, free meals and/or MP3′d readings of old fashioned fairy tales.
Jane,
I’m not here to figure out all the deceptive, dishonest and corrupt business practices of the National Association Realtors. In any other scenario, these practices would be considered misconduct by even the weakest standard.
I haven’t started my new gig yet. Sometime in the next 30 days I do believe.
7 negotiating tips for sellers under the gun
By Dana Dratch • Bankrate.com
Buy yourself some time with the bank
If you need to sell because you can no longer afford the mortgage, you might be able to negotiate with the bank if it knows you’re actively selling the house, says Camp.
Camp recently coached one client who could no longer make his $8,000-per-month mortgage. After a few conversations, the bank lowered his payments to $2,000 in return for his putting the home on the market.
Negotiating secret: “You have to go to the head of loss mitigation” for the lender or servicer, Camp says. For the homeowner who comes in “straight up,” who is selling the home and needs patience while it’s on the market — “you’ll be shocked what they will do for you,” he says.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/7-negotiating-tips-for-distressed-sellers-1.aspx - 75k -
Hot Selling Tip number 1:
LOWER THE PRICE UNTIL A BUYER IS FORTHCOMING!
That’s funny!
500,000 demonstrating in London today. Bring the war home, NOW! But Amerikanz are too fat and stupid and lazy. Pass the high fructose corn syrup, please…
Got my sign ready.
I WAS BORN!
GIVE ME SOME FREE SH#T!
Only the banking clan is entitled to “free sh#t”, courtesy of US wage earners.
We’ve had up to 100,000 show up on some days in Madison Wi which is a much smaller city than London.
It is my opinion that the English press has been much more forthright with their country’s citizens than their American counterparts. The Ministry of Truth has infiltrated the ranks here far more intensely than there. Maybe that’s why our citizens are docile in comparison.
Think long and hard before buying a home within reach of those gentle California coastal breezes.
Japan radiation risk to California is downplayed
Health officials say there is no threat at this time because of the distance nuclear radiation would have to travel. But that is not stopping some from taking their own precautions.
March 16, 2011|By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times
Within days, nuclear radiation released from Japan’s damaged Fukushima reactors could reach California, but experts say the amount that makes its way across the ocean should pose no danger.
“What we’re being told is that there is no threat to California at this time,” said Mike Sicilia, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health. “It’s a matter of distance. Dangerous radioactivity could not cross the 5,000 miles of the Pacific without petering out.”
…
Is this the same government that told us that Deepwater Horizon leak wasn’t a big deal?
“Dangerous radioactivity could not cross the 5,000 miles of the Pacific without petering out.”
This makes sense if you think about it a bit. If the radioactivity was dangerous - meaning if it was spewing out large doses of radiation - then it would have a short half life. With a short half life most of the radiation would have spent itself long before it ever got to our shores.
If it did not have a short half life then it wouldn’t be spewing out a lot of radiation and thus it wouldn’t be dangerous.
“If the radioactivity was dangerous - meaning if it was spewing out large doses of radiation - then it would have a short half life.”
Beautifully clear explanation!
For instance, I heard on the radio that the radioactive iodine isotope which has everyone buying those iodine tablets has a half-life of eight days, which means it is 99% gone after n days, where n solves
(0.5)^(n/8) = 1-0.99 .
The solution is given by
n = 8*ln(0.01)/ln(0.5) = 53 days.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42283994/ns/world_news-europe/
BERLIN — Tens of thousands of people on Saturday turned out in Germany’s largest cities to protest the use of nuclear power in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima reactor disaster, police and organizers said.
In Berlin alone more than 100,000 took to the capital’s streets to urge Germany’s leaders to immediately abolish nuclear power, police spokesman Jens Berger said.
Militating to have your lights shut off? I’m married to a European and I still don’t get ‘em all the time.
Pray for them.