Weekend Topic Suggestions
Please post ideas for topic suggestions 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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Topic Suggestion:
How house prices may be affected in the long run due to downward pressure on wages caused by offshoring. There are many who worry that inflation may cause the price of everything (including houses) to rise. But is that possible when wages don’t inflate?
All depends on how easy/hard credit becomes…
I would love to see the price of new cars go down proportionately. I love exotic cars and powerful cars. But I am happy as a clam in an economy car.
So imagine, in Queen Creek you can buy a 2,000 square foot foreclosure for $90,000. Are your cars you park in front going to amount over 1/3 of the cost of the house? If so, you have too much $ in a depreciating asset (house? Car?).
I had a $12,000 (new) Toyota in 1987. Bought a $96,000 house in 1990. I figure I was below the threshold. I am always amazed at how much money folks put into cars.
My friend just bought a $60k loaded GMC Duramax. Nice truck, but I just can’t fathom ever spending that much on anything with four wheels.
Weekend Topic.
Start preparing for next winter. Now is the time.
New furnaces go on sale or get your old one checked out. No more federal tax credits but many utility companies have some kind of rebates.
Wood for wood stoves (start splitting and stacking) - wood needs at least 6 months to season
Insulate that attic before it gets too hot
Clean out the chimney
Replace some of those drafty doors and windows.
If high energy costs go down - who cares? You will be paying less
If high energy costs go even higher - at least you will be prepared
at the very least, change your central ac/heat filter; don’t make the unit work harder than it needs to.
when you add attic insulation, remove the existing first and have the seams in your attic floor sealed, then replace and add insulation.
This a public service announcement brought to you by Weekend Wally
and Harvey HomeDepot.
Not just winter, 2banana, but preparedness in general.
Of course, it’s rather tought to winterproof your home if you rent.
Sadly, us renters can’t really do much about this :/ I might see if I can get my landlord to replace the sliding door in the master bedroom, though, with a double-paned one…
attic fans can work wonders too
Oh man, I am looking forward to next winter in both Phoenix and Tampa!
How much has the housing bubble deflated. How much farther must/will it go?
I don’t think anybody can really know, but I think we’re about halfway there on average. Some places have fallen most of the way to the bottom, others are just starting to fall. Kind of like a rollercoaster going over the top. Sometimes being in the back is the most exciting as the front section that’s already going down the steepest section accelerates you across the top at an unnatural rate.
Weekend Topic;
What headwinds does the housing Market face over the next 3-5 years.. ??
How bad is the morale problem in the U.S. workforce?
Diary of a Recession Baby
May 6, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Workplace suicides at record high in ‘08, ‘09
By Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Workplace suicides in 2009 matched the record-high level they hit in 2008, according to final data released this week by the U.S. Labor Department.
The number of workplace suicides — workers who took their own life while on the job — reached 263 in 2009, the same number as in the prior year. In 2007, there were 196 such suicides. The data go back to 1992.
Overall, there were 34,598 deaths from suicide in the U.S. in 2007, according to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The workers in charge of the intricate movement of the Long Island Rail Road into and out of Penn Station control more than just trains. The flow of commuters waiting for track assignments is also governed by Tom Gargiulo and Michael Dougherty’s decisions.
The vast majority of workplace suicides were among men. Among wage and salary workers, suicides fell 11 to 184 in 2009. Meanwhile, suicides among the self-employed rose 11 to a record 79.
“The self-employed are both the business owner and the worker, so they may have more connection to the work,” said Jim Rice, an economist with the occupational safety and health statistics program at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
…
Related question: Will the U.S. see a decrease in life expectancy due to the aftereffects of the (not so) Great Recession?
My hunch: It’s a no-brainer the answer is YES.
Will be interested to see how this story develops from now through 2020, as the Darwinian winnowing effect of baby boomer retirement en masse hits the populace.
US life expectancy surpasses 78, a new record
AP – Wed Mar 16, 4:18 pm ET
ATLANTA – U.S. life expectancy has hit another all-time high, rising above 78 years. The estimate of 78 years and 2 months is for a baby born in 2009, and comes from a preliminary report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 2.4 million people died in the United States in 2009 — roughly 36,000 fewer deaths than the year before.
Deaths were down for a range of causes, from heart disease to homicide, so experts don’t believe there’s one simple explanation for the increase in life expectancy. Better medical treatment, vaccination campaigns and public health measures against smoking are believed to be having an impact.
U.S. life expectancy has been generally increasing since at least the 1940s, though some years it held steady and a few times it temporarily dipped.
Previously, the CDC said a one-month dip occurred in 2008 to 77 years and 11 months. But in Wednesday’s report, the agency corrected that to 78 years, attributing the glitch to a computer programming error.
Belatedly, “we realized there’s something wrong here” in the 2008 estimate, said Ken Kochanek, a CDC statistician.
The 2009 report by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics is based on nearly all the death certificates for that year. A final report is due later this year.
More good news from the new report: The infant mortality rate hit a record low of 6.42 deaths per 1,000 live births, a drop of nearly 3 percent from 2008.
But not everyone benefitted. While life expectancy for whites rose, it held steady for blacks. The infant mortality rate for black babies did not improve either.
As a result, the racial gap got a little wider. Whites already live about four years longer than blacks, and the margin grew by about two months.
The gap between the sexes also persisted. Overall male life expectancy is roughly 75 1/2 , for females it’s about 80 1/2.
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Where does the McD’s Dollar Menu fit into this equation?
I’m pretty sure at least some of the longevity gains in recent years were due to McD’s menu changes (from 100% junk to 75% junk) and dwindling population share of smokers.
I told my last boss when he came over and started ragging after taking a pretty bad beating himself by the CEO that we were both professionals and that I expected to be treated like a professional. He said “fine, pack your cr#p and get out”. I have been cubicle free for two and a half years now and would never go back for twice the money.
He lasted another 6 months and was gone… CEO would have been smart to fire him and keep me, but common sense never prevails in the corporate world.
Tell me about it GH that has happened a few times in my life too.
Get rid of the good dependable worker who made 1 minor mistake in 16 months and keep the drug addicted supervisor on the payroll.
The vast majority of workplace suicides were among men. Among wage and salary workers, suicides fell 11 to 184 in 2009. Meanwhile, suicides among the self-employed rose 11 to a record 79.
I know of two cases of this. And I can think of a third case where the husband and wife died within a year of each other. They operated a business together.
A possible solution: My business life hasn’t been much fun since my best-ever year of 2005.
To compensate, I put a lot of effort into my away-from-the-computer, community-building activities. They’re my social safety net. With emphasis on the social.
After all, isolation is not good for the human spirit.
status quo
quote us stats
May 6, 2011, 12:00 a.m. EDT
Holding TIPS will make you poorer
Commentary: Millions hold an investment guaranteed to lose money
By Brett Arends, MarketWatch
…
It’s crazy. Totally nuts.
Some investment losses are unavoidable, but not this one. This one is a lock. Just take some money from your pocket and throw it away. In football terms, this isn’t playing defense. This is taking a safety. Give up points.
Tom Atteberry, manager of the FPA New Income /quotes/comstock/10r!fpnix FPNIX 0.00% bond fund, thinks it’s absurd. “I struggle with why someone would accept a negative real return on their money,” he told me. “If you look at history, owning a 5-year Treasury, my real return should be somewhere in the 2% to 2.5% range.”
The real story on TIPS may be even worse. “That real yield is based on a manipulated statistic, the CPI,” according to Josh Strauss, co-manager of the Appleseed Fund /quotes/comstock/10r!applx APPLX -1.39% . For most people, day-to-day costs are rising faster than the official Consumer Price Index.
The CPI today is just 2.7%. But costs for food are rising much faster. Milk is up 7% in a year, beef 14%, citrus fruits 8.5%. (Sure, iPads are getting cheaper, but how many can you eat?) Airline tickets are up 14%, hospital services 5.5%, gasoline 28%.
A surging dollar and a collapse in oil prices roiled commodity markets, as fears grow that high energy costs are undermining the global economic recovery. WSJ’s Liam Denning and Oppenheimer oil & gas analyst Fadel Gheit discuss.
The only possible scenario in which any of these short-term TIPS bonds can avoid a loss is if we get persistent price deflation — in other words, widespread price falls. There are technical reasons why a small number of TIPS bonds might do OK. But the chances are extremely remote. Look around you. Do you see prices falling?
…
is that really worse than holding FRNs, though? It’s only a valid argument if there’s another investment out there that will guarantee the principal + “gain” at the end of the term.
Really, what better options are out there that are as safe?
(note I’m only considering holding to term, not worrying about rate changes affecting the “price” of the note)
“…is that really worse than holding FRNs, though?”
Absolutely not.
I think that article is rubbish.
I would like to see a topic on retirement planning for those of us who are younger, (22-35 or 22-40). The Plan B post had a few comments that touched on this but I would like to see more on this subject. Personally I’m in my early 30s and have managed to acquire a decent amount of retirement assets. I still will have to save more over the next few decades and even then I have no way of knowing if it will be enough. The reason I have been able to save as much as I have is because I am not married and don’t have kids. It seems like the choice is between a secure retirement and having a family. I’m curious to see what everyone else has to say on the subject.
I would be interested in the discussion of buying a house FOR RETIREMENT. Watching my sick and elderly father bounce from sublet to sublet on a fixed income (and sometimes ending up on one of his kid’s couches) after being evicted from his apartment got me thinking that owning your residence (not being mortgaged up the wazoo) IS a good retirement plan. And it is forced savings.
When you are old, you have 3 basic needs: housing, food, and medical care. OK, 4 - you need family or community, human connection.
Many of my generation (genx) and class (middle/lower middle) have been priced out of housing in the past decade. Unless we work for yahoo or google, we are looking at raising our kids AND retiring in rentals. Honestly, I want to grow old and relax in my PAID OFF home. Is that too much to ask for??
And yes, we might have been able to afford a house if we were a childless couple. But cute as they are, them little ‘uns are costly.
I would like to see a topic on retirement planning ….. I still will have to save more over the next few decades and even then I have no way of knowing if it will be enough. The reason I have been able to save as much as I have is because I am not married and don’t have kids. It seems like the choice is between a secure retirement and having a family.
“4….family or community, human connection”
Overrated. My human connection with my neighbors is answering questions on fixing their cars/refrigerators/lawnmovers/motorcycles, and getting my expensive tools back when I’ve loaned them out.
My dream home will be situated about 50 miles west of Lubbock, on the Llano Estacado.
Lompoc, CA is cheap. Ugly city, but close to beautiful areas.
That’s a problem I had not thought of but it’s a good point. I know people who ended up moving almost at a rate of once a year because of landlords having financial problems. None of them are elderly and it’s annoying enough for them. I can’t imagine having to move between rentals at that rate as an elderly person.
I just talked to a poor woman today who has to move her whole family because she found out her landlord wasn’t paying the mortgage, and is going into foreclosure. She was really upset about it.
“I’m not married and don’t have kids”
Continue with Plan “A”, and you’ll be all right.
When you feel like getting married, just go get $50-100K out of the bank, toss a coin, call it in the air, if it doesn’t land on what you called, set fire to it in the back yard.
I can be sympathetic to your point of view but there are more issues than that. Being financially secure for retirement is one thing but what about security in general? My parents are getting up there in years and things like power of attorney falls on me because I’m their only child and they’re both only children. That works for them but what about when I’m old? Being financially secure won’t help if/when I get dementia.
The problem for someone who is my age is that I have to pick financial security in retirement or family and children. You can’t have both.
It’s a crap shoot. Suppose you have children. What is your guarantee that your son does not become a Loughner (the killer of six people who tried to kill congresswoman Giffords)?
Even if your kids have no mental birth defects, what is your guarantee you will be able to afford to give them the time to be a great parent? Most boomers had a stay-at-home parent, yet many older boomers still fried their brains on LSD.
Then if you adopt a kid, how do you know if his natural mother did not drink heavy alcohol during the pregnancy? Many instances of their kids being normal until grown up, then they go violent.
How about the best places to live, considering:
cost of living
jobs
weather
schools
recreation
crime rate
potential return on investment if you buy
I will add:
Temecula, CA
Albuquerque, NM
Paso Robles, CA
ok, beat those. The tough part is jobs!
“Temecula, CA”
If I didn’t mind the 2 hr daily commute…
A 2hr commute is not wise.
Easy question…..
Oil City, PA
Next……..
*weather, is a huge factor, I have had enough black ice.
It depends on how you live.
Try cnnmoney.com and plug in your own widh list. Mine keeps aiming me to the California Bay area.
If this is the bell ringing for the commodities bubble, what is the next shore for hot money to wash up on?
Is it too late to buy a house and stop making payments in order to help contribute to the aggregate stimulative effect of ’squatter rent’?
‘Squatter rent’ may benefit the U.S. economy by $50 billion
Marketplace, Friday, May 6, 2011
Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase, discusses how mortgage defaults may actually be contributing to the economic recovery.
Tess Vigeland: When putting a roof over your head, you generally have two choices: you rent or you buy. But the housing bust has created a hybrid of the two. People who bought a home, but at some point stopped paying the mortgage either because they can’t or because they decided not to. Yet, they’re still living in the house.
Michael Feroli has been tracking what’s called “squatter rent” and he says it’s actually helping the economy to the tune of $50 billion. He’s chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase and joins us now. Welcome.
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I apologize for occasionally slipping into off-topic politics here, but there are certain presidential prospects I simply cannot abide, including Rush Limbaugh, Donald Trump or Sarah Palin as president.
Please forgive my occasional slips…