Bits Bucket for August 25, 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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Francis weighs-in (hehe) on the economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKdvZRnA1nM
Was that supposed to be a joke, or a serious example of how ignorant people are?
“Was that supposed to be a joke, or a serious example of how ignorant people are?”
Don’t laugh, Darrell. Our youth, like Francis, is who the administration is counting on to fund our retirement benefits.
Here’s Francis ranting about a game. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJGcWzLen1E
Realtors Are Liars®
America [AA+]: Day 20!
A little breezy this morning in Jupiter Fl. But gusts of 40 mph are much better than gusts of 140 mph. Although being a renter my hurricane preparations were much easier last weekend, no 7 days of food and water, no hurricane shutters, no making sure the generator was ready, no batteries for the radio, I filled up the tank. Renters insurance is cheap.
“Although being a renter my hurricane preparations were much easier last weekend, no 7 days of food and water…”
Renters in my neck of the woods do eat and drink.
I think Jeff is saying that he can evacuate without worrying about what might happen to his residence. If it’s destroyed he’ll collect a check from his renter’s insurance, buy new furnitire with it and rent a new place.
Colorado
You got it.
It’s still useful to have some food and water, just move it to the car when the warnings come. As mentioned below, you may or may not be as mobile as you hope.
I have inlaws who got stuck for hours in the evacuation of Houston for Hurricane Rita (right after Katrina). I’d rather hunker down in a building than a car when the winds are blowing 140 mph.
There were people stuck for DAYS, for 75 miles in all outbound directions on the freeways.
FUBAR beyond belief.
“If it’s destroyed he’ll collect a check from his renter’s insurance, buy new furnitire with it and rent a new place.”
Wouldn’t a homeowner have the same options with his insurance? It all comes down to not caring about your stuff. If you do, you’ll secure it. If you don’t, and it’s insured, then no worries for anyone mate. Bug out.
But bug out early, or you’ll ‘evacuate’ to a traffic jam or a few nights on a crowded school gym floor.
The traffic can be a problem unless you have prepared a ‘back country’ route plan in advance. We did this and drive to Orlando or the other coast with no traffic at all (twice). Just small local highways. But, you get on the interstate and you might ride out the storm in your car.
That is what we did when we lived in south Florida. Friends were trying to board up, find generators, etc. We left (with a few important family items, papers, selected stuffed animal(s) and the computer) and took the kids to Orlando and spent our days using our annual passes to Disney and Universal Studios without the crowds. Each time we returned the condo was still there with little damage, but it made for a nice break with the kids. It also helped that our condo complex was on the power gride with the local Home Depot, that was a designated red cross/emergency distribution center that had its power restored first in the town. We had friends in the suburban edges that did without power for weeks, we usually had a lot of guess showing up during these time periods.
So, explain this to me, Floridians…….
Every time i watch the news about hurricanes coming thru Florida, they always show the obligitory “nailing plywood over the windows” shot on the national or local news. And there always seems to be a mad scramble to but it from Home Despot.
What happens to the plywood after the storm? Does anyone keep it for the next storm, or does everyone go buy new plywood every time?
And it seems to me that it would make more sense to have a set of steel or aluminum panels pre-fitted to the house, with some kind of quick installation system, than nailing/screwing up plywood.
What appears to be a dumb thing to do from a distance, may have a rational explanation.
“What happens to the plywood after the storm? Does anyone keep it for the next storm, or does everyone go buy new plywood every time?”
“And it seems to me that it would make more sense to have a set of steel or aluminum panels pre-fitted to the house,”
A lot of people do have aluminum shutters for their house, some have accordian shutters and the wealthy have electric (very expensive) roll up shutters. When I owned my place I would get plywood and cut it for the windows for the first threatening storm and keep it until
hurricane season was over. The year of Jean and Frances I used it twice. I would then take the plywood to one of the jobs we were framing and use it as backing. Many people however do just throw it away, it is a pain to store.
Funny thing is in most cases people would be far better off caulking any gap in the stucture along with their windows rather than covering them with shutters. Most of the damage comes from wind driven rain and bad roofs. If it`s stong a cat 4 or a 5 and a direct hit all bets are off. Best just to leave. One other thing, don`t park where a tree can get you. Hurricane Wilma dropped a big palm tree on the bed of my F250 and crushed one side.
“And it seems to me that it would make more sense to have a set of steel or aluminum panels pre-fitted to the house,”
Rolladen shutter company to refund $790,000 to hundreds of customers
By Susan Salisbury Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
More than 250 customers of hurricane shutter company Rolladen Inc. are eligible for refunds totaling nearly $790,000 under a settlement Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi announced today.
In July, the Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit against Hallandale-based Rolladen and its president Robert Hoffman following complaints from consumers who paid deposits but in many cases, never received delivery or installation.
The court order issued Tuesday requires the company to pay 100 percent refunds to consumers within 90 days and forbids Rolladen from marketing or selling the installation of hurricane shutters or windows for at least one year.
“Our primary focus was to get the consumers’ deposits returned to them and protect future clients from similar false promises,” Bondi said in a statement. “We encourage consumers to contact us immediately if they feel they have been victimized.”
An investigation the Attorney General’s Office started in March found that Rolladen required consumers to pay 40 to 80 percent of the contract price up-front for the hurricane shutters, promising delivery and installation within six to 12 weeks of the contract date.
“What happens to the plywood after the storm?”
my in-laws have it piled in their basement…it’s code in most “hurricane” zones to have it.
i think.
“Renters in my neck of the woods do eat and drink.”
If this storm hit here I would have taken my family someplace else to eat for a week. I have been through several of these storms and there is not a lot to do for a week after besides sweat and survive. No power, no grocery stores, no gas and no fun. I feel no responsibilty to prepare this house for a storm, maybe Wells Fargo should because I got a letter addressed to my LL and they are 2 months behind again after the work out they received in Jan. before which they didn`t make a payment for 11 months. They have recieved $1,700.00 a month from me through all of it.
Jeff,
What part of Jupiter are you in? I’m up in Hobe Sound on the intercostal, the weather sucks up here.
However, I got good news in the mail yesterday, the value of my house fell again this year, 1K less in property tax. I’m not selling, so the value going down is great for me.
Tequesta, North of Tequesta Dr. off Seabrook. Nice hood but still overpriced by about $70k.
Not sure I would consider that “great news.”
I feel no responsibilty to prepare this house for a storm, maybe Wells Fargo should because I got a letter addressed to my LL and they are 2 months behind again after the work out they received in Jan. before which they didn`t make a payment for 11 months. They have recieved $1,700.00 a month from me through all of it.
Funny you should mention this, jeff.
Yesterday morn, I was talking with a neighbor who lives down the street from one of our most problematic set of neighbors. There’s a veritable herd of them trekking in and out of a rental house, and yes, the constabulary has paid them many a call.
A quick check of the Pima County Assessor records shows that the property is classified as Residential Owner Occupied. But you’ll love this: The owner who’s supposed to be occupying the place lives in Las Vegas.
Neighbor says that the herd isn’t paying rent and we both agreed that the landlord isn’t paying the mortgage either. Which means that, until the place gets repo-ed by the bank, we neighbors get to deal with the herd and their various negative behaviors.
Go ahead and report it as non-owner-occupied, Slim. You know you want to.
IIRC from your previous posts, that will result in higher property taxes, which will eventually be paid by either the bank or whoever purchases the REO—thus affecting the purchase price. The bank’s losses will be greater while holding the property, so you would be giving them incentive to deal with it sooner. Not that they would notice, of course…
Go ahead and report it as non-owner-occupied, Slim. You know you want to.
Sorry, everyone — I think I messed up my previous reply.
What I meant to say is that I have reported the property as non-owner occupied.
The aforementioned neighbor with whom I was having yesterday’s conversation is an officer of our neighborhood association. And he’s also concerned about the misrepresentation of this property. So, I notified him about the County Assessor record.
And, for further amusement, I let our City Council Ward Office know. They’ve been trying to locate the owner of this place for quite some time. And now they’re in the loop re: the owner’s whereabouts.
US May Back Mortgage Refinancing for Millions
25 Aug 2011 |The New York Times
The Obama administration is considering further actions to strengthen the housing market, but the bar is high: plans must help a broad swath of homeowners, stimulate the economy and cost next to nothing.
One proposal would allow millions of homeowners with government-backed mortgages to refinance them at today’s lower interest rates, about 4 percent, according to two people briefed on the administration’s discussions who asked not to be identified because they were not allowed to talk about the information.
A wave of refinancing could be a strong stimulus to the economy, because it would lower consumers’ mortgage bills right away and allow them to spend elsewhere. But such a sweeping change could face opposition from the regulator who oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and from investors in government-backed mortgage bonds.
Administration officials said on Wednesday that they were weighing a range of proposals, including changes to its previous refinancing programs to increase the number of homeowners taking part. They are also working on a home rental program that would try to shore up housing prices by preventing hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes from flooding the market. That program is further along — the administration requested ideas for execution from the private sector earlier this month.
But refinancing could have far greater breadth, saving homeowners, by one estimate, $85 billion a year. Despite record low interest rates, many homeowners have been unable to refinance their loans either because they owe more than their houses are now worth or because their credit is tarnished.
Exactly how a refinancing plan might work is still under discussion. It is unclear, for example, whether people who are delinquent on their mortgages would be eligible or whether lenders would administer it. Federal officials have consistently overestimated the number of households that would be helped by their various housing assistance programs.
A working group of housing experts across several federal agencies could recommend one or both proposals, or come up with new ones. Or it might decide to do nothing.
“the administration requested ideas for execution from the private sector earlier this month.”
I have some ideas for execution.
Keep ‘em stayin’ and keep ‘em payin’.
No FB dollar shall be allowed to escape.
“Keep ‘em stayin’ and keep ‘em payin’.”
Are you talking about the FBs or the people paying rent to the LLs who are not paying the mortgage?
Anybody who has got the money.
I have some ideas for execution.
And Marie Antoinette didn’t get it either.
You had me at “The Obama administration is considering further actions”.
i like it better when he is out playing golf.
I don’t. He’s much better at basketball than golf.
ISTR that the best all-time Presidential athlete was Gerald Ford. To the point where the Secret Service had to field its fastest agents so they could keep up with Ford on the ski slopes.
In other Presidential sports trivia, George H.W. Bush was scouted by pro baseball teams.
I am home with my littleman, who is sick, so I am looking forward to HBB in the A.M., but lordy, this article tees me off.
But, it probably won’t make a difference. I mean, if you’re underwater, you’re underwater. The APR doesn’t change the drowning situation. One foot below, ten feet below… you’re still drowning.
“I mean, if you’re underwater, you’re underwater. The APR doesn’t change the drowning situation”
I disagree. I bet there are a lot of people out there whose houses are worth a bit less (say 5 to 20%) than they owe, but who are willing for whatever reasons (stability, professional reputation, keeping up with the joneses, etc) to stay in their houses, especially if they can more easily afford them. Their staying would greatly reduce the number of walkaways- who we will pay for since their mortgages are owned by us. It’s basically the gov doing what it’s been pressuring banks to do for a while: work with people to keep them in their houses, paying off the loans we as a people now own or back.
There are also probably a lot of people who haven’t refi-ed, even thought they aren’t underwater. This will put extra money in their pockets too.
Overall, it’s a politically acceptable form of stimulus for joe6pack. The extra money in his pocket every month will create more jobs than more give-aways to billionaires.
I’m something like 30% upside down, give or take. I owe $150K and the similar house next to mine is on the market at $110K. I’ll be surprised it it sells at that price.
I fully intend to pay it back.
If I could refi from 5% to 4%.. well, sweet. Saves me money.
Problem is, they need my 5% to cover the losses on all the people that aren’t paying. Lowering my rate to 4% helps me spend more, but doesn’t help the GSEs cover thier losses.
OMG, they are shillin’ these refi’s everywhere, on network news, on local news, online. It kills me that they push refi’s locally. We’ve got the highest or 2nd highest closing costs in the nation. Last time I looked w/ my last house it would have taken 7 years to recoup the costs of a refi that shaved slightly more than a point off the mortgage. It would have made more sense for me to just pay down the principal faster vs involving all the banking costs to make it lower the rate.
Also I wonder how many people that aren’t even taking care of the homes they’ve got cuz they’re just squeezin’ by have enough of a cushion to pay an extra $250/month the local shill was suggesting to switch from a 30 year to a 15 (w/ a $250k principle).
He told them even if they just bought or refi’d a year ago it may be worth considering this move. No mention from the Rickster that when all the tax and other increases pour forth in the next few years that $250 might be better off still available. He’ll probably be telling them to refi again this time next year.
One proposal would allow millions of homeowners with government-backed mortgages to refinance them at today’s lower interest rates, about 4 percent
I have a Fannie owned mortgage, so I guess I would get the EZ refi.
Hey, why not? Why should only the banksters get cheap loans?
Dean Baker has a fairly devastating critique of that $85 billion number over on the Beat the Press blog. His guess is closer to a third of that.
I see this as a capitulation by the administration on trying to make something work with the banks. Remember, Fannie and Freddie were late to the party on bad loans and never did the worst of them at all. That means their loans are much more likely to be held by people who may be underwater or not, but are hardly in the worst situations. This is essentially a “trickle down economics” stimulus. Help out people who are doing OK (like our buddy, In Colorado) and hope they spend enough of the money to boost growth.
Bernanke May Forgo Easing as Data Point Higher
Bloomberg - Aug 25, 2011
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke tomorrow may disappoint stock investors betting on a commitment to step up stimulus. He has little choice, given rising consumer prices and a U.S. economy that is still growing.
Gasoline costs are 33 percent higher, consumer inflation is twice as fast and inflation expectations are above levels since Bernanke signaled more easing a year ago at the annual Fed symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. While the U.S. expansion has slowed, the Chicago Fed’s index of 85 economic indicators improved in July for a third month on gains in production.
Policy makers, who said Aug. 9 they’ll use additional tools “as appropriate,” probably don’t expect a recession or rapid disinflation, making a signal of bond buying premature, said Roberto Perli, managing director at International Strategy & Investment Group in Washington. Instead, Bernanke will probably detail options for further stimulus and clarify how much the Fed’s reduction in its outlook this month stems from long-term obstacles to growth, said Keith Hembre, a former Fed researcher.
“Conditions are substantially different today” compared with last year, especially inflation, said Hembre, chief economist and investment strategist in Minneapolis at Nuveen Asset Management, which oversees about $212 billion. “First and foremost, that would be the reason I think that any sort of major asset purchase announcement is unlikely,” he said.
Shipping volume at trucking companies, a barometer of the broader economy, was up 11 percent last month from a year earlier, according to Cass Information Systems. Echo Global Logistics Inc., a Chicago-based provider of freight services, said last month it’s “very optimistic about continued growth in the second half.”
So is the no-QE3 case cut and dried, or is the Fed trying to sucker punch America with a QE3 surprise (perhaps in the guise of Twist 2.0)?
(perhaps in the guise of Twist 2.0)?
That’s what I am thinking.
“Gasoline costs are 33 percent higher, consumer inflation is twice as fast and inflation expectations are above levels since Bernanke signaled more easing a year ago at the annual Fed symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.”
The ghost of QE2 lingers on, with its most pernicious effects still to come.
A woman friend of mine is a psychic advisor, one of those people you would get to talk to (for $2.99 a minute) if you called one of those 800 numbers. It’s fascinating to hear of some of her experiences.
Bottom line, though, is her job boils down to giving to her callers information that they want to hear and what they need to hear. And they believe she has incredible insight because this is what she is able to do so.
First learn what they want and need, then give it to them. And if she does this correctly then they will call back again and again, and each time they call back she gets a big chunk of this $2.99 a minute that is charged for the call.
The perfect job: No capital expense other than a cell phone, she can shoose her own hours (if she doesn’t want to take calls she has it set up for the calls to go to a recording), and she can do this job from anywhere as long as she has cell phone reception.
But this isn’t her main job; This is something she sort of fell into and she treats it as a good-paying hobby. But her client list is rapidly growing - so who knows?
Anyway, just something interesting I thought I would pass on.
“…giving to her callers information that they want to hear and what they need to hear…”
Has she ever thought of entering politics?
They are sort of the same thing, aren’t they?
The players and the played, it seems everybody gets played one way or another.
Apparantly being played is part of the human condition, as in -deep down - everyone is in need of being played.
This is much, much cheaper than psychotherapy for these customers, and probably just as helpful.
$2.99/minute is not cheaper than psychotherapy.
Bottom line, though, is her job boils down to giving,… “Opinions” for Fee$,…sounds familiar.
“$2.99 a minute”
$180/hr, flexible hours, no expenses—yeah, not a bad side gig, esp in this economy.
Owning the phone number is an even better gig. No hours, collect a small portion of the $2.99 per minute from 50 psychic advisors. Buy a few ads and watch the $ roll in.
You could gross $500K-1M per month. Biggest expense would be payments to psychic advisors.
Minimal equipment costs. Ongoing advertising costs. Watch the bottom line. No inventory. No invoicing - the phone company handles that. Probably recoup startup costs in a few months.
LP to curtail production at Dawson Creek mill resulting in 88 layoffs
Louisiana-Pacific (LP) announced this afternoon it will be curtailing production of oriented strand board (OSB) beginning today, resulting in about 88 layoffs at the plant.
A struggling economy in the United States is to blame for the struggles of the local mill, said plant manager Shawn Trottier.
“We’re a company that distributes most of our products primarily to the United States – building products – and the economy down there isn’t supporting housing starts at a level required to consume the material we produce,” he said, “so unfortunately we’ve had to re-evaluate our situation, at least temporarily, and come up with a different strategy to ensure the long-term survival of this mill.”
He added the layoffs at the mill don’t include the impacts to the mill’s logging partners, and to other vendors.
While I mourn the loss of 88 jobs, I’m glad that it’s for curtailing production of OSB.
I hear you, Oxide. That stuff is a bear to work with.
Smells bad when you’re sawing it. Tough to carry and hold. And can be a real bear to nail through in a dry climate like AZ.
I’ve never been sure whether to trust the long-term stability of it. How strong will it be in 50yrs? No one knows—it hasn’t been around that long.
And yet, we’re happy to build our houses out of it. Nuts.
OSB actually has higher sheer strength than equivalent thickness plywood. It’s biggest weakness
is the pull out strength of nail heads, plywood is much
tougher.
I see jobless claims rose more than expected. The jobless recovery rolls on!
Post 2001 recession: the jobless recovery
Post 2009 depression: the recovery-less recovery
[assuming your 9 year span constant]
Post 2017 concession: the large small house
This year’s IKEA catalog ’s theme is living in small spaces.
You take your laughs where you can get them.
Small spaces? When their catalog starts to include shots of folks using IKEA housewares in a van down by the river, then you’ll know we’re near the bottom.
I think IKEA USA overshot (undershot?) with that catalog. Yeah, so the age of the McMansion is ending. But that doesn’t mean we’ll automatically pack into a 400 sq apartments like they show in the IKEA store. They seem to have forgotton about the 1100 sq foot happy medium.
That said, IKEA is the epitome of throwaway consumerism. Their stuff is cheap and plain. Their bookcases are an insult to books. If my books weren’t mostly picture books, I would buy an e-reader and throw the books out before I put them into an IKEA bookcase.
“Their bookcases are an insult to books” That’s a good one.
I have some of the IKEA ‘Billy’ book cases, which I bought around 1979in (West) Germany. I painted them once, but else they are as good as new. THat was back in Germany, and the back walls have stamps “Made in GDR” which stands for German Democratic Republic i.e. former East Germany. Back then there were deals done like this: Sweden delivered Volvo limousines to the East German (Communist) govenment, and the East Germans in turn delivered stuff like the book case backs for IKEA, which they in turn sold in FRG (Federal Republic of G.- West Germany). That was the only way to deal with currencies which were not freely exchangeable back then.
Most of my books do just fine in IKEA bookcases. I did replace the low ones in the living room with much nicer ones when I bought furniture last year, but the IKEA ones work and if they are filled with actual books (not collectibles), you don’t really see them.
IKEA isn’t high end, but they are trying to sell the illusion of “design” to a lot of their customers (the rest know that it isn’t the same). “Small is beautiful” is a new theme for them. The lighting was totally different than it has been in other years - much darker to give the illusion of cozy, I guess. I found it funny.
And the last time I was there, I found it hysterical that the assistant couldn’t figure out why they kept selling out of the largest size grey towels in July. People getting their 18 year olds ready to go to college and she couldn’t figure out why dark grey towels were popular? Someone needs to get another brain cell to keep the one she has company.
Well I guess i’m stupid…I can understand the towels, but why the grey? Why not blue or dark green or girlie pink?
Oxide, if they’re going to turn grey anyway, whether from poor washing technique or lack of washing, might as well start out grey. That’s my theory.
That is what I was thinking. If I was sending an 18 year old boy to college, I’d pick dark grey. I was looking for dark grey for myself, but that is largely because it matches my shower curtain.
IKEA sells qaulity furniture… in other countries.
We get the crappy stuff. The current American product line is crap compared to when they first opened in the 1990s.
The good stuff is long gone in this country.
Aug. 25, 2011, 8:57 a.m. EDT
Jobless claims in U.S. rise to 417,000
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The number of Americans seeking new jobless benefits rose for the second week in a row as thousands of phone workers at Verizon Communications filed claims, government data showed.
New applications for U.S. unemployment compensation rose 5,000 to 417,000 , the Labor Department said Thursday. Initial claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 412,000 from an original reading of 408,000.’
Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected new requests for jobless benefits to total 410,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis.
…
A person walks off the job and starts picketing and they think they deserve unemployment compensation? What a bizarro world!
A corporation lays of thousands and moves offshore and they think they deserve to continue selling in the US? What a bizarro world!
We don’t call you CrackHeadJim for no reason.
You have a time honored practice of using denigrating names for anyone who disagrees with your perceptions. I doubt that you speak for many other than yourself but that has little concern for me. I am honored to be in that class. Since you are the MAN with facts, how is it that a person can quit their job and claim unemployment benefits? How say you, oh you all-knowing, elitist, know-what-is-best-for-us-all sage with all the answers to the questions of the universe if only we would listen?
Listen, CrackerJack, you can be a corporate shill all you want, but corporations should be exisiting ONLY at we the people’s pleasure. Corporations that don’t serve the greater public good should have their charters to operate revoked. The fact that this is not done is the root of many problems.
Bachman-Turner Overdrive
Takin’ Care of Business Lyrics
And if your train’s on time
You can get to work by nine
And start your slaving job to get your pay
If you ever get annoyed
Look at me I’m un-employed
I love to work at nothing all day
And I’ll be…
Taking care of business every day
Taking care of business every way
I’ve been taking care of business, it’s all mine
Taking care of business and working overtime
(Loan) Work out!
People say you are a louse
You aint payin` for your house
Tell them that you like it this way
It’s the work that we avoid
And we’re all un-employed
We love to work at nothing all day
And I’ll be…
Taking care of business every day
Taking care of business every way
I’ve been taking care of business, it’s all mine
Taking care of business and working overtime
(Loan) Work out!
Great lyrics, Jeff. They perfectly capture the right-wing conviction that (to paraphrase Mencken) ’someone, somewhere, is having a good time on my dime’.
“Great lyrics, Jeff. They perfectly capture the right-wing conviction that (to paraphrase Mencken) ’someone, somewhere, is having a good time on my dime’.”
I posted this above about the storm passing today. It was easier just to copy it rather than write a reply.
If this storm hit here I would have taken my family someplace else to eat for a week. I have been through several of these storms and there is not a lot to do for a week after besides sweat and survive. No power, no grocery stores, no gas and no fun. I feel no responsibilty to prepare this house for a storm, maybe Wells Fargo should because I got a letter addressed to my LL and they are 2 months behind again after the work out they received in Jan. before which they didn`t make a payment for 11 months. They have recieved $1,700.00 a month from me through all of it.
P.S.
The LLs motgage payment is $1,450.00 a month PITI after their “workout”. That is on $300k. They puchased the house for $150k and a $150k refi.
funniest rock lyrics evah!
And he only had to change 2 lines to update it for 2011!
drummnj — check out the comments to the below article by a poster named FedCake, which relate to my discussion of gold from a couple of days back. That gal has a good head on her shoulders.
Aug. 25, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Bernanke hopes defy hurricane force
Commentary: Going long ahead of a hurricane
By David Callaway, MarketWatch
San Francisco (MarketWatch) — August. Month of revolution and coups, bank scandals and natural disasters — and the most volatile markets of the year. No wonder everybody tries to go on vacation now.
The silly season tipped into unreality this week as investors so desperate for a sign from Fed chief Ben Bernanke that the global money spigot will reopen were even willing to bet against a hurricane aiming straight for the heart of Wall Street.
It won’t happen. The money spigot or a third round of quantitative easing, I mean. Bernanke’s much-awaited speech Friday at the central banker’s annual weenie-roast in Jackson Hole, Wyo. will be a study in doublespeak. He will do his best to send a signal that the Fed stands ready to pump billions of dollars more liquidity into lurching global markets, but at the same time make clear it’s not yet ready.
…
How President Obama Can Fight the Scourge of Long-Term Unemployment: View
By the Editors Aug 24, 2011 8:00 PM ET
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-25/how-president-obama-can-fight-the-scourge-of-long-term-unemployment-view.html
…The available evidence suggests that the best approach would be a combination of programs targeting the long-term jobless with those seeking to boost employment more broadly.
…One such effort in Georgia, called Georgia Works, allows recipients to receive as much as eight weeks of part-time, private-sector experience, paid for by the government. ..
…the Minnesota Emergency Employment Development program, which covered as much as six months of full-time work - - had an estimated cost per job of $34,000.
…A broader tax credit, aimed at all companies that expand their payrolls, would create many jobs on its own and would give impetus to smaller, targeted initiatives. Timothy Bartik, an economist at the nonpartisan W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, estimates that a two-year tax credit, if properly designed and advertised, could create 5.1 million jobs at a cost of about $29,000 each.
…And then there are public works projects. Yes, classic infrastructure spending is relatively inefficient when it comes to spurring employment: The CBO estimates the cost per job is at least $100,000, and possibly much more for programs that require a lot of equipment and materials. Even so, works projects are worth including in the mix. Building bridges and fixing roads can boost confidence and demand.
…All told, the combination — a targeted job-training program, a broad-based hiring tax credit and a public-works initiative — could cost the government more than $100 billion a year.
==========
I don’t like the tax break one. As Polly said, companies will just fire employees and rehire them using the government program, so no new jobs are created.
How about Public Option health insurance, mild tarriffs, and a BK program which makes it easeir for FB’s to walk out from under a primary non-refi’d mortgage? That would do far more than this Rube Goldberg machine we’re stuck in now.
I didn’t include it in the first post on that topic (it was in a later one), but the worst problem with job creation tax credits is that as a general rule you lose a huge amount of revenue and most of the people who benefit are the ones who would have hired those employees without the credit. There is also the risk of the firing/rehiring game, but that isn’t really the largest issue. It is like giving people a tax break for brushing their teeth. It might motivate a few people to change their behavior, but as a general rule you are paying people for what they already plan to do.
My friends who are really suffering in this recesion don’t even count among the long term unemployed. The friends on the edge of poverty have a bunch of jobs (plus a lot of elder care and a kid to raise). They are just bringing in very little money. The friend whose best job would be as general counsel to a small investment bank or perhaps as US counsel to a big Brazilian company (she lived there and speaks fluent Portugese) doesn’t count as long term unemployed either. She cobbles together a few hours a week from friends and business contacts and does work for her husband’s small business as needed. But what she can scrape together and her husband’s income won’t keep them in a house they used to be able to afford easily.
My friends who are really suffering in this recesion don’t even count among the long term unemployed. The friends on the edge of poverty have a bunch of jobs (plus a lot of elder care and a kid to raise). They are just bringing in very little money. The friend whose best job would be as general counsel to a small investment bank or perhaps as US counsel to a big Brazilian company (she lived there and speaks fluent Portugese) doesn’t count as long term unemployed either. She cobbles together a few hours a week from friends and business contacts and does work for her husband’s small business as needed. But what she can scrape together and her husband’s income won’t keep them in a house they used to be able to afford easily.
Count these people among the burgeoning ranks of the involuntarily self-employed and the temps-but-not-by-choice.
This is not a good place for these people to be. Nor is it good for our country.
Everybody should try it for a while. starting with the idjits on Wall Street, and in DC.
It’s not just the pay is less. The extra expense and lost time of bouncing around between 3-4-5 part time jobs wears you down in a hurry. Don’t even mention the health care issue.
Add to that the stress of being the test case for the transition from “Net 30″ to “Net 60″ or “Net 90″, when it comes to paying contractors/suppliers/vendors.
Add to that the stress of being the test case for the transition from “Net 30″ to “Net 60″ or “Net 90″, when it comes to paying contractors/suppliers/vendors.
Last year, I fired a client over that very kind of thing. And she was a longtime client too.
But there was this project that she demanded that I start working on in February. So I did.
But I didn’t receive the first of two payments (which would cover a year’s worth of work on the project) until mid-May. You can imagine what that did to my cash flow.
For the second payment, instead of paying it all at once, they decided to split it into five little payments. Oh, well. Since I was contracted for a year with them (a university), there wasn’t much I could do.
Well, last fall, my time on the project was coming to an end. And I told my client that once my contract was done, so was I.
A few weeks before that contract ended, I got a pleading e-mail from the client. Would I please stay on for another year?
Nope.
You really need to start including mandatory payment dates in your contracts, slim. And a penalty for every week (or portion of a week) that the check is late.
How about Public Option health insurance, mild tarriffs, and a BK program which makes it easeir for FB’s to walk out from under a primary non-refi’d mortgage? That would do far more than this Rube Goldberg machine we’re stuck in now.
—————
Great ideas, oxide.
science / evolution-devilution / GPS satellites / particle accelerators… millions of billions of galaxies and to think it was ALL “created” just 7,000 years ago!
March ye Crusaders of “TruePurity™” Perry & Palin & Bachmann, smite down thy Blasphemous corruption of Truth!
[there's that word again: Black!]
For the first time, a black hole has been caught in the act of tearing apart and swallowing a star that got too close.
Article:
Black Hole Caught in Act of Swallowing Star
by Charles Q. Choi, SPACE com Contributor
Date: 25 August 2011
“Now we’ve seen the start of this event for the first time,” study co-author David Burrows, an astrophysicist at Pennsylvania State University, told SPACE com
Based on the wavelengths of light emitted by the flare and the way it evolved over time, the scientists concluded that it originated from matter falling or accreting onto a black hole about 1 million times the mass of the sun, comparable to the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way.
“There are a lot more surprises in space for us to discover, especially as we continue to make huge strides in the technical capabilities of our instruments,” Zauderer told SPACE com
The scientists detailed their findings in two papers in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature.
SPACE com contributor Charles Q. Choi
Fundies actually argue that that the speed of light used to be much faster, which is why we can see galaxies that are billions of light years away.
So pathetic that they actually influence elections in this country. Dinosaurs and humans co-existed on Earth, right? They don’t believe in evolution but they themselves are evolved from generations of sibling and first-cousin love
Maybe we should remove their right to vote, those stupid people that don’t think exactly the way we do.
Actually, yeah. That would be a good thing.
Black Hole Caught in Act of Swallowing Star
Okay, get to the good part: How loud was the burp after the black hole swallowed the star?
Thank you keeping it rated G. My initial reaction not printable.
And to think that I was trying to get an HBB Belching Contest going. Okay, I’ll start.
Burrrrrrrrrrrrrp!
“Thank you keeping it rated G.”
I can help move those boring ratings to the dark end of the alphabet, but wait a second, I’m already stuck in the moderator’s purgatory.
We now return you to your regular programming.
COnsidering the gamma ray bursts theyre talking about are enough to kill everhing on earth from tens of light years away, Id call that pretty loud.
In space no one can hear you burp.
So even you can’t hear yourself burp, so you can’t be sure that you really, actually burped!
Is this a setup for a Fed-sponsored QE3 sucker punch, or should it be taken at face value?
Markets betting on Fed miracle
Last year at this time, the Fed introduced a new round of new bond-buying. Market watchers expecting a similar program to be announced later this week are almost certainly to be disappointed, says WSJ economics writer David Wessel.
That and Buffett playing at JP Morgan again.
Timmy must have assured the senile fool as Paulson did.
So Buffet is shoring up BOA with $5 billion. I thought they were in great shape, their CEO said so just a few days ago.
What is with that anyway? 5 billion is not chump change.
The preferred shares he is buying now pay six percent interest.
The options are already a 10% payback today. The devil is always in the details. Happy to own BRKB.
Payless, Stride Rite parent Collective Brands closing 475 stores, mulling selling itself.
NEW YORK (AP) — The parent company of Payless and Stride Rite shoe stores, Collective Brands Inc., said Wednesday that it plans to close 475 stores and has engaged a firm to help it explore its options.
The company posted a second-quarter loss of $35 million Wednesday, including $83.6 million in one-time charges that mainly reflect the declining value of its stores and of Stride Rite’s trade name.
Expensive baby and children’s shoes.
I can’t blame them. Today’s shoes are effing UGLY, badly made and very unconfortable these days! It’s hard to sell ugly shoes!
What the hell happened? Even Rockports suck!
My local Target just ditched its entire men’s shoes aisle!
Here’s a reason to delay that house purchase:
Survey: Almost 10% of employers may end health insurance
INDIANAPOLIS – Nearly one in 10 midsize or large employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014, according to a survey from a large benefits consultant.
Towers Watson also found in a survey completed last month that an additional 20% of companies are unsure about what they will do.
Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8% are either “likely” or “very likely” to end health benefits once the exchanges start.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/story/2011-08-24/Survey-Almost-10-of-employers-may-end-health-insurance/50120998/1
I just don’t understand how anyone can commit to a long term mortgage right now until these things shake out. No one really knows how much they have available to spend until we’re on the other side of this. Then again, for those that just plan to whine it’s the governments fault and wait until they are thrown out of a house for non-payment… I guess I do have times when I wonder if that’s not the more prudent route in the current and future deteriorating environment.
Here is one of the more intelligent replies to the story:
—-
“Funny. Someone tries to help out the American people. Corrupt business finds a way to use it to their advantage and hurt those people. It becomes the fault of the person helping and not the corrupt business. Obviously the fines should have been double or triple the healthcare costs so that employers have to do the right thing. Of course we ARE the only semi-first-world country that makes employers provide healthcare.” — Timpala
—-
Of course, this comment was rated negative. The lazy thinkers found it much easier to blame it on Odummer. At this rate, I’m almost hoping that Obama is a one-term president just so this country can go all the way into the toilet under a Republican. Who are they going to blame then?
Blame? They’re gonna say everything is great! Remember when the poor woman told dubya she had 3 part time jobs and his reaction?
The “Texas Miracle” we can look forward to after Perry wins next year will be 50,000,000 new jobs paying $350/week replacing the 40,000,000 jobs paying $50K+/year that were downsized/outsourced. And Texas has the highest percentage of children without health insurance in the nation, that’s the Invisible Hand of the Free Market at its best.
And don’t forget that more people are on foodstamps in Texas than in the California, even though Texas has 60% of Cali’s population.
There can’t be a “Texas miracle” all over the US. It is the fallacy of composition. Just like not all countries can devalue their currency until they have a trade surplus.
And a lot of the business/economics commentators I read attribute a large chunk of the Texas resiliancy to its much tougher real estate lending laws/regulations so less of a real estate crash. That economic advantage makes for a few more jobs so more people move there to try to get them, which means more jobs to deal with the larger population, etc. You can’t do that everywhere.
In Texas they have:
1) No state income tax
2) Right to work
3) Drill baby drill
4) Tort reform—loser pays
5) Part time state legislature
Imagine if the the rest of the country followed suit!
Hope and change!
Yes we can!
Four more years!
Oh, and Texas still has an unemployment rate of 8.2%.
Unemployment is lower in plenty of states with state income taxes and a few unions.
Texas is like a Middle Eastern oil nation. Take away their oil and watch the miracle meet reality.
Ah, Texas, where they execute retards and juveniles, and even deserving criminals sometimes.
From the wikipedia page for James Byrd Jr, a recipient of some down-home, Texas-style hospitality in 1998.
“An autopsy suggested that Byrd was alive during much of the dragging. Byrd dies after his right arm and head were severed after his body hit a culvert.
Lawrence Russell Brewer was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death. Brewer has a scheduled execution date of 9/21/2011.”
1) No state income tax
2) Right to work
3) Drill baby drill
4) Tort reform—loser pays
5) Part time state legislature
And they still have more people on food stamps than that liberal hellhole of California. I’m afaid to look up their education and crime figures. It comes down to the same thing every time. Unfettered capitalism is good if you already have money, but not so good for everybody else. Is the occasional Horatio Alger worth thousands of suffering poor?
Unemployment is lower in plenty of states with state income taxes and a few unions.
Did you ever think that is because 1000’s of people are MOVING INTO Texas every week?
And they are LEAVING socialist hell holes run by the union goons in the same numbers?
Why is this?
Is there hope and change in Texas?
Maybe just hope. There are jobs there. And the local/state governments don’t rob you blind with taxes.
So now Texas’ unemployment woes are because their employment picture is so rosey? People are running to leave Vermont’s 5.7% to go to Texas’ 8.2%?
You can’t make it work, bananas. It just doesn’t. Texas is doing a bit better than the rest of the country because they have a lot of oil revenue and better governement regulation of housing loans which means their real estate market didn’t crash as much.
Oh, and weren’t half of those new jobs government jobs? That is the analysis that I read. And the Texas budget was largely balanced through federal dollars and changing accounting assumptions. It won’t last long.
And you didn’t even address the fallacy of composition that I pointed out. The only way for everyone to “grow” their way to more jobs because of higher population is for everyone’s population to get much higher very quickly. So, are you advocating throwing open the borders? Because that might create more jobs, but there will also be a lot more people fighting for them.
Read the the Gawande article about health care costs in Texas. They had NO improvement in costs after tort reform. None. It just doesn’t matter that much.
Besides, if you get rid of huge swathes of governement regulation, you have to leave people the ability to sue businesses that hurt them. If you don’t, the corporations will just cut quality and safety to up profits. They already decide how safe to make products based on what they acticipate the losses will be from law suits. If you reduce that possibility (and get rid of the government’s ability to demand some minimum level through regulation), you are going to end up with a lot of people dead and maimed and sick. We were taught in Law and Economics that you have to be able to put a price on a baby killed or maimed by a dangerous crib. I never really believed that the parents were made whole by even a very large cash award. Do you?
Is there hope and change in Texas?
If by that you mean lots of low paying jobs and having to resort to food stamps to make up the difference (no other state has more foodstamp recipients than Texas), then I suppose the answer is yes.
If Obama is the “Foodstamps President” then Perry is the “Foodstamps Governor”.
“And the local/state governments don’t rob you blind with taxes.”
Have you seen what property taxes are like in Texas? My brother used to pay $2000 a year on a 70K house in Brownsville.
“In Texas they have:
1) No state income tax
2) Right to work
3) Drill baby drill
4) Tort reform—loser pays
5) Part time state legislature”
So what’s Florida’s excuse? They don’t have drill baby drill, most Republicans back that.
I heard somewhere that Texas charges a very large amount of money to resgister a car. I just love the world view behind that. Taxes are bad. Let’s keep taxes low. Car registration fees are not taxes, so you raising those fees is not like raising taxes.
“Of course we ARE the only semi-first-world country that makes employers provide healthcare.” — Timpala”
Huh? employers don’t have to provide healthcare.
Looking at the comments again, I can’t believe how dumb these commenters are. They think that employers forcing employees into the Exchanges is “forcing Americans into government-run health care.”
WHAT government run health care? There is no single-payer, there is no Medicare for all, there is no Public Option. All the insurance options in the Exchange will be private health insurance companies. In fact, that’s what all these madate lawsuits are about — buying a private product. Talk about “not reading the bill”!!
Government-run health care? Well, guess what, I’m here to tell you that it’s not so bad. Matter of fact, I’ve heard good things about the VA from people who’ve used its services and from people who work there.
Government run health care is better than having no health care at all.
What else do you expect from a bunch of teabaggers?
That is the general attitude of reader comments on MarketWatch, wsj dot com, and any story linked from Drudge. They hate the idea of non-producers getting any kind of freebie. They are corporatists, manipulated to parrot exactly what the chamber-of-commerce types and nebulae of Koch-esque think tanks and PAC’s want them to believe and say. They are the exact demographic of those voting against their own economic self-interests, as eloquently described in Thomas Frank’s book “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”
Gee, Drudge thinks he is a “producer”. He just gets “free” stories on the net from paid writers and recycles them on his website.
“Survey: Almost 10% of employers may end health insurance”
I’ve always said that once enough people lose their jobs and/or their job-related health care coverage, then there will finally be enough demand to get the single-payer system that everyone else in the first world has and enjoys.
I’m going to don my devil’s advocate for a minute and say the following:
If I’m in business, I’m going to do anything I can to get rid of an uncontrollable cost. And that description fits health insurance to a tee. Premiums just keep going up, up, up.
So, health insurance industry, consider this to be a shot across the bow. Or maybe you’re just trying to make as much money now before your party comes to an end. Who knows.
Why? Health insurance companies are probably jumping at the chance to raise their prices so that only the richer (and healthier) people can afford their plans, and the poor (and diabetic) are thrown off the rolls.
Didn’t General Mills do the exact same cost-benefit analysis when it raised the prices on cereal? They found that they make more profit from fewer but secure middle-class workers who can pay, than trying — and failing — to underprice and make it up on volume from the SNAP crowd.
Why? Health insurance companies are probably jumping at the chance to raise their prices so that only the richer (and healthier) people can afford their plans, and the poor (and diabetic) are thrown off the rolls.
And then the rich will get tired of paying ever-higher premiums. Buh-bye, overpriced health insurance policy!
BTW, the rich people I know are very frugal people. You should hear them howl when the price of just about anything goes up.
Didn’t General Mills do the exact same cost-benefit analysis when it raised the prices on cereal? They found that they make more profit from fewer but secure middle-class workers who can pay, than trying — and failing — to underprice and make it up on volume from the SNAP crowd.
I think they conceeded the SNAP crowd to Malt-o-meal and the store brands. Funny thing though, I think that the discount cold cereal brands are just as good.
If 10% of the Companies are going to drop coverage ,that means its more like 25% will . Than the ones that don’t drop it can’t compete as well ,so than they will drop it .
The equal playing field was a employer sponsered health care in America and when the person turned 65 they shifted to Medicare and other supplements because the
Health Care Industry didn’t want to cover Seniors at a affordable price .
This shift to the government paying more than is sustainable ,especially when the prices have skyrocked ,is
a pressing problem that no doubt affects the ability of
Companies to afford those costs anymore . Small business certainly can’t afford the costs . But does anybody think the middle class can afford those costs either without severe downgrade to their standard of living . People talk about people needing to give up being stupid consumers but now were talking about basic health care being a problem to afford for the average wage earner .
As I see it ,you had all these long term systems that were set up in the United States that people contributed to and relied on .
Like 2 earthquake plates going in different directions Corporate America /Wall Street/Banks went in a different direction with Globalism ,outsourcing ,outmanufacturing ,
short term gains and speculation verses long term structures and systems .
The point is that this shift is causing a earthquake in America in terms of downgrading huge segments of the popilation into a severaly compromised lifestyle of not being able to afford even basic needs ,or even being able to contribute to the tax base . They people become recipients of the welfare system rather than contributors ‘
to tax funds .
Corporate American isn’t investing in America ,they aren’t creating jobs because Corporate America /Wall Street and the Banks / Indsurance Companies decoupled with
Main street ,as if 85 % of the population can be ignored .
with no social nets .
Talk about systems that can’t work ,at least if your objective is to not collaspe the whole system from the weight of its inability to function and keep vast segments of the population from going into poverty .
It was just like the stupid idea of giving faulty loans and debt to people based on fake real estate prices to keep their standard of living spending while Coporate America was making the real heist .
Our system worked by people having jobs with decent wages to have purchasing power that keeps all the money flowing . The introducing of competition of wage slaves from foreign countries only serves to sink all boats and create a Monoply in which no Company can operate under the old systems in America .
If your going to create a situation whereby Industry can’t afford health care costs because they can’t compete with foreign countires that either the foreign governermnt provides health care ,or its not provided for the wage slave ,than you have created a rock hitting a hard place .
The talking heads don’t talk about what the real problems
are because that would be changing what the trends have been for the last 20 years .
Doing things that actually benefit 85 % of the population is unheard of in politics these days .
Cna somebody explain this to me?
For the heck of it, I looked at the “recently sold” section of Zillow in an area that I thought would be too expensive.
http://tinyurl.com/3s5gpqs
Lots of houses that were Zestimated in the $250K range show “sold” in the $140K range, and many other were sold ~$40-50K below their Zestimates, even over $100k below zillow. Like this one:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3916-Mertford-St-Kensington-MD-20895/37313864_zpid/#{scid=hdp-site-map-list-address}
Many say “No HOA,” which is great. Are these foreclosures? Short Sales? Lowballs? What?
By the way, what are the rough ball-park qualifications for an FHA loan? Acquaintances don’t know, the FHA website says Send us your Info, and goolging just produces a bunch of sites that effectively say “ask the bank.”
To clarify the FHA thing, I probably overqualify for FHA, since my income and FICO are above the FHA requirements. Since most of the Zillow houses in my price range look trashed, I’ll likely resign myself to a cosmetic fixer upper; something I can move into, but needs TLC. That means cash. I’d rather qualify for the low down payment and instead use the cash to fix up the house.
“Lots of houses that were Zestimated in the $250K range show “sold” in the $140K range, and many other were sold ~$40-50K below their Zestimates, even over $100k below zillow.”
My Zess is that Zillo and their Zestimates are full of Zit. In fact I am thinking of starting a new company that values houses and condos. WAG short for Wild @ss Guess. Chief economist jeff saturday from WAG values that condo at $0. “It aint worth the HOA fees.” He said. It has to be woth something. Sue me, it`s just a WAG.
There were plenty of condos in FL that were (and are) worth 0. They rent out for taxes+HOA+insurance. IE, even if you bought it with 100% down, it would still not cash flow.
During the boom (because, in FL, price and taxes are directly related) it wasn’t even uncommon to find places that rented as if the house was “worth 0″. I used to rent a house in PGB (Evergrene) that, if you took my rent, subtracted the insane HOA (500/mo), taxes and a likely insurance amount (about 12K/yr for both), the house only was positive 500 bucks per month. That’s assuming no mortgage at all. Unfortunately, the sucker who bought this property had a 500K note on it.
The rental value of that property is probably something like 50-100K (if you could buy it at that number, it would make sense to rent it). Best case, 20% of what the previous owner paid for it.
Well if this is true, then I’m in much better shape than I thought. If $250K Zestimates are listed for $246K, but selling for $160K or so, then my $220K range will go a lot further.
Meanwhile, I picked up the real-estate rags yesterday at the Metro station. Man, talk about wishing prices!! $330K crapshacks on 0.1 acre in Spanish-by-Immersion land… $250K ranches in Hagerstown MD, and southern Pennsylvania. That’s a 2-hour drive one-way, folks. I didn’t even bother to look at the McM prices. I just flipped past entire pages of them.
But what I didn’t see, were lots of condos. What happened to the condo listings?
Meanwhile, I picked up the real-estate rags yesterday at the Metro station. Man, talk about wishing prices!
Back when I was looking for a house to buy, I got to the point where I referred to those rags as “real estate porn.”
I still look at them and laugh, when I’m waiting for my friend at the coffee shop.
Looks like the zestimate sets the absolute highest someone might pay, since only about 1 in 20 houses seems to sell above it, and about 2 in 20 sell at it, and the rest sell for less, sometimes a heck of a lot less.
Some pretty weak zestimation, I wonder how they justify it.
The first house on the list was zestimated at $438,000 and sold for $15,000. You have to assume this wasn’t an arms-length transaction.
Oxide, I noticed the same thing when I looked at what’s happened in our old Sarasota neighborhood. The houses that sold within the last 12 months went at prices much lower than the asking prices of current listings. Like maybe 40% lower.
Not sure about other states, but back at the peak, AZ put some heavy influence on Zillow.
The state filed charges against Zillow for providing appraisals without a license. Zillow fired back that the zestimates are not appraisals as they don’t take house condition or other factors into account.
The case went away when Zillow agreed to “make some changes to their zestimate process”. And what were those changes? Any distressed sale, or sale not “on trend” with the neighborhood is not included in the comp for zestimates.
Ever sense, Zillow has been ignoring the majority of sales in my neighborhood. They had a $100K+ zestimate on the house that just sold for $73K.
Oh, did I forget to mention? They agreed to NEVER list a zestimate for less than any house is currently for sale for.
That would explain why the sale price was a lot less than the asking price.
The greatest differential — fraudie/family cases excepted — are of course on the high end. Sub-$200K (lower end) appear to sell close to the Zestimate.
All this tells me is that Zillow is a good tool to browse around, but no good if you actually want to buy. And, that lowballing is now acceptible.
“Oh, did I forget to mention? They agreed to NEVER list a zestimate for less than any house is currently for sale for.”
Ummmm, this isn’t true. I have the Zillow app on my phone (I know, I know) and I’m looking at a house right now that has a Zestimate lower than the list price. Been clicking around all the houses in the area and I’ve yet to find one where the Zestimate is at or above the asking price. Always below.
Got this email today
Sent By:
“Zillow”
On: Aug 08/25/11 12:50 PM
The Era of the Accidental Landlord
With values still falling in many markets, some homeowners are considering renting their home, rather than selling. Do you find yourself in this category? If so, here’s a roundup of some recent Zillow Blog posts to help you navigate this new reality.
——————————————————————–
Your Home Won’t Sell? Rent It! A growing number of financially pinched homeowners — reluctant to sell their home at a loss — are choosing instead to rent their properties. Is becoming a landlord for you? Read full story…
——————————————————————–
12 Steps to Get Your Property “Rent-Ready.” “Rent ready” means the property has been cleaned, repaired, or remodeled and that it’s in rent-able condition for new tenants. Here is a 12-point checklist to follow. Read full story…
——————————————————————–
How Will I Know if Tenants Are Maintaining My Property? One way you can handle this is to hire a property management company. Find out how to choose the right one to handle your needs. Read full story…
——————————————————————
Investing in Real Estate — What is a “Good Deal?” Whether renting your own home, or buying an investment property, make sure you do the math on whether it will be worth it for you in the long run. Read full story…
» See More On Zillow Blog
Hey those NATO support staffers best finish up in Tripoli, they might be headed East sooner than later.
Syrian gunmen attack cartoonist as ‘warning‘:
By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press
BEIRUT (AP) — Masked gunmen dragged Syria’s best-known political cartoonist from his car before dawn Thursday, beat him severely and broke both his hands as a warning to stop drawing just days after he compared Syria’s president to Moammar Gadhafi,
After news of the attack broke, online social networking sites exploded with angry postings.
This week, he published a cartoon on his website showing Assad with a packed suitcase, hitching a ride with a fleeing Gadhafi. Many of his cartoons directly criticize Assad, even though caricatures of the president are forbidden.
Ferzat’s website, where he published his cartoons and satirical commentary, was inaccessible Thursday after the attack. “This account has been suspended,” reads a message on the website
Meanwhile back at Ranchero Tripoli [hidden family secrets revealed]:
Rebels, looters target Gadhafi family homes:
AP News / By KARIN LAUB - Associated Press | AP
TRIPOLI, Libya — Moammar Gadhafi’s son al-Saadi liked fast cars, yachts and soccer, and his beachfront villa was stocked with his expensive toys.
Al-Saadi, a 38-year-old soccer aficionado, was described in a 2009 WikiLeaks cable from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli as having a troubled past, including run-ins with police in Europe, drug and alcohol abuse and excessive partying.
As rebels took control of the Libyan capital over the weekend, the luxurious homes — symbols of the Gadhafi family’s excesses — were among their first targets. After driving out the guards, rebels trashed and looted the villas and neighbors wandered through the wreckage Wednesday expressing their anger at the Gadhafi family’s wealth and ostentatious tastes.
On Monday, a day after thousands of rebels rode into Tripoli, about 200 people stormed al-Saadi’s home on the Mediterranean, said Seifallah Gneidi, a 23-year-old Tripoli rebel who participated in the looting.
Gneidi said he took a large bottle of gin, a toothbrush with a gilded handle and a pair of Diesel jeans. “We wanted to have the stuff that he had,” Gneidi said, a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. He said rebels are not condoning looting of private property, and only allow the wrecking of symbols of the Gadhafi family’s abuse of power.
Gneidi said al-Saadi had four cars — a BMW, an Audi, a white Lamborghini and a Toyota — that were all driven off during the ransacking. His claim about the fate of the cars could not be verified. A large painting of a yellow Lamborghini decorated the back wall of his covered parking area.
In an office area in the villa, reporters saw large piles of catalogues for yachts and cars. A catalog by the firm Benetti had a yellow handwritten post-it note attached listing the price for a 30-meter-long yacht as 7 million euros. A DVD with gay porn entitled “Boyz Tracks” slipped out of the stack of documents.
As rebels took control of the Libyan capital over the weekend, the luxurious homes — symbols of the Gadhafi family’s excesses — were among their first targets. After driving out the guards, rebels trashed and looted the villas and neighbors wandered through the wreckage Wednesday expressing their anger at the Gadhafi family’s wealth and ostentatious tastes.
Don’t think this can’t happen in the United States.
“a BMW, an Audi, a white Lamborghini and a Toyota ”
I would have taken the Toyota. Imagine trying to find Lamborghini parts in war-torn Libya.
I agree. The Toyota would also tend to work better in rural areas where roads are poor (or nonexistent).
A Lamborghini in Libya is going to be rather easy to spot. I’d go for the lowest profile car, the Toyota.
A Lamborghini in Libya is going to be rather easy to spot.
Especially with a sniper scope at 1,000 yards.
“A DVD with gay porn entitled “Boyz Tracks” slipped out of the stack of documents.”
I wonder how many people believe that.
I used to say I was waiting for October to buy a home.
But the reality is we’re tired. Just tired of the whole thing and the continual kick the can down the road. We don’t even look at the MLS anymore. Perhaps we’ll be perpetual renters. We had been resisiting really putting any money into improving how the furniture and things fit in our rental but I think now we’re looking into sprucing things up for the long haul. And I’m also looking for other places to put our downpayment money. The .25% we get from our local bank is a joke.
Do you hear that Obama/banks? You think you can grind us down into paying your inflated prices? You think we’re a captive audience? No! The other option is we just stop wanting the “dream”. You’ve certainly given us enough time to realize everything that’s right about not having the mortgage burden. BTW Mr. Obama, it’s not because we don’t have the income or the downpayment. We just refuse to become the bagholder.
“Do you hear that Obama/banks?”
I don`t think they did.
Comment by wmbz
US May Back Mortgage Refinancing for Millions
25 Aug 2011 |The New York Times
The Obama administration is considering further actions to strengthen the housing market,
One proposal would allow millions of homeowners with government-backed mortgages to refinance them at today’s lower interest rates, about 4 percent, according to two people briefed on the administration’s discussions who asked not to be identified because they were not allowed to talk about the information.
Administration officials said on Wednesday that they were weighing a range of proposals, including changes to its previous refinancing programs to increase the number of homeowners taking part. They are also working on a home rental program that would try to shore up housing prices by preventing hundreds of thousands of foreclosed homes from flooding the market
Good post Carrie…
Any conversations with the Liar lately?
CarrieAnn
Your post was indicative of what most of us good credit, have money, no debt, folks feel like.
We have no choice but to buy and stop our financial bleeding. Our incomes are down to almost zilch. My husband’s Glaucoma & rare viral eye infection is expensive, and we had to let our insurance go.
I know what the house buyer blues feels like.
Nothing worth buying-
*Overpriced crude
*Lousy locations & pathetic condition
*Way too many SS’s & REO’s. Other people’s problems…no thanks.
I hear you loud and clear. We feel like we should have gone over to the “dark” side in 2005-06. Evidently, we took the wrong path.
my wife and are in the same situation.
We all are. Keeping Mrs. RAL UNanchored is a real chore.
With the way the Housing Crime Syndicate is succeeding in temporarily keeping prices inflated, combined with falling land prices, I’m seriously thinking about buying a lot.
Hey, there might be a sequel to: What’s the matter with Kansas?
What’s the matter with Ohio?
REP. JOE THE PLUMBER (R-OHIO)? — “Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, is considering a run against U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur in 2012, according to Republican Party sources,” Tony Cook writes for the Toledo Blade. One Republican tells Cook there’s a 90 percent chance Wurzelbacher would get in, and a spokesman for the state party notes Wurzelbacher would be able to raise a lot of cash.
He would easily win any district in/near Cincinnati, they love their Creation Museum down there and sure do hate black/Kenyan/Indonesian/Muslim communists.
Toledo, despite being sh*t upon by the globalists/corporatists for decades, might not drink Joe’s kool-aid. Northern Ohio has sent to DC Kaptur, Kucinich, Sen. Brown. The right-to-work (right-to-work for less than $500/week with no benefits) that is the foundation of Perry’s low-wage, Medicaid, food stamp “Texas Miracle” doesn’t fly there.
warren buffet evil.
“warren buffet evil.”
Is Jimmy Buffett too?
no…jimmy buffet is jimmy buffet.
Foreclosure-related sales’ prices fall, and the discount widens in Palm Beach County
By Jeff Ostrowski Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 12:07 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011
With foreclosures flooding the real estate market, prices of distressed properties in Palm Beach County are plunging, research firm RealtyTrac says in a report to be released today.
The average price of a foreclosure sold in Palm Beach County in the second quarter was $116,642, down from $142,997 a year ago. And the discount for foreclosure sales compared to non-foreclosure sales widened to 38 percent this year from 23 percent a year ago.
“Lenders are getting more aggressive about getting them sold,” said Daren Blomquist, spokesman for Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac. “It’s definitely not at the point where it looks like a fire sale, but those prices are coming down.”
“Foreclosure sales are going to make up a significant percentage of the market for at least another year,” Blomquist said.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/foreclosure-related-sales-prices-fall-and-the-discount-1786515.html - -
At least it looks like the exodus from Florida has stopped, at least in the Sarasota area.
“Early student counts suggest that five years of declining enrollment in Sarasota schools may be coming to an end, while Manatee County remains on target for a new record high enrollment amid projected growth of 1,000 more students.”
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110824/ARTICLE/110829748/2416/NEWS?Title=Student-decline-looks-to-be-over
Greece Quietly Activates Emergency Liquidity Measures
Simone Foxman | Aug. 25, 2011- businessinsider
Greek default might not be that far away.
As yields on Greek bonds skyrocket and questions about collateral threaten to undermine the bailout, Greece’s central bank has quietly activated the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) program to help banks struggling to stay afloat, according to Greek newspaper Imerisia (via Reuters).
The ELA is supposed to provide cash in “exceptional circumstances and on a case-by-case basis to temporarily illiquid institutions and markets,” according to the European Central Bank’s definition. Although the ECB has to approve such transactions, it allows the Greek central bank to provide funds even after interbank and ECB outlets are closed.
Everyone knew that Greek banks were not in good shape right now, but just how close are they to dragging the country over the edge?
Too close for comfort, particularly with all the collateral drama going on right now. BTIG estimates that Greece will need $144 billion to meet its goals and obligations in 2011. The July 21 bailout agreement will include roughly $157 billion in financing if implemented.
Squabbling over collateral has escalated since last week, when Finland and Greece secured a bilateral agreement. “It seems that a possible outcome is either collateral for all member states or no country will get it,” a source close to the negotiations was quoted as saying in WSJ.
OUR FLOURISHING ECONOMY - by Ken Layne
Millions of Jobless Americans Filing For Disability To Get Food, Medicine
They’re gonna put me in the poorhouse, and throw away the key. ….Social Security is in “trouble” because wealthy people aren’t required by the government to actually pay their share into the national program, and also because Congress has been “borrowing” billions of dollars that working people have paid into the program so that they might not have to starve or die of common illnesses once they’re chewed up and spit out by the capitalist system. But there’s another part of Social Security that’s running out of money even faster than the old age pensions, because a record number of discarded workers are now claiming disability payments and Supplemental Security Income — 3.3 million unwanted laborers will file for the last-ditch payments this year alone, and nearly 14 million currently receive the monthly stipends and early Medicare coverage. The money isn’t much, and is based on either your actual paycheck contributions or limited to an average $500 a month for SSI, but it’s “better” than the American alternative, which is pretending to rob a bank so you can get food and medical care in prison.
To get disability or SSI, the applicants must go through a lengthy process of ritualized refusals and humiliation: Two-thirds of applicants are turned down, and many legitimately disabled workers are forced to go through two years of appeals and hire vulture law firms to finally get the paltry benefits. But the focus of the federal government is always on “cracking down” on people who aren’t really horrifically disabled enough to get a government check, because it’s certainly not enough to simply be an unwanted factory worker in her fifties who entertains fancy dreams of not being homeless after her extended unemployment benefits run out after her fourth layoff. Morally, it’s always better to catch the miscreant buying forties with his SSI rather than, say, the biggest corporations in the world not paying a nickel in taxes.
The Associated Press reports from Washington:
Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can’t find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That’s 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.
“It’s primarily economic desperation,” Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. “People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability.”
So it’s kind of like the Lotto! Except instead of paying money you can’t afford down at the corner market for a chance in hell at a million dollars — because that statistical impossibility is literally the only way out of the hole you’ve been intentionally pushed down — you promise a boiler room full of fourth-rate sharks a share of your disability check in exchange for them filing enough papers to finally get you approved. Win win?
Anyway, Disability and SSI are now scheduled to begin scaling back benefits over the next five years, when the programs as currently funded will only be able to pay 85% of what’s promised. So that $500 payment will go down to $425 a month, at first, but it should be gradual enough that the poors won’t hardly notice when it’s down to $100 a month and even the Pay-Chex shop next to the liquor store and the pawn shop won’t cash it.
Notice how the writer has to to sniff at the (current) amount of the benefit, all the while millions are busting their tails to get it. Meanwhile here in flyover, when that first check comes in for SSD, usually about $13k, it’s party time.
“Social Security is in “trouble” because wealthy people aren’t required by the government to actually pay their share into the national program, and …”
What does this mean? What is a fair share? I have paid maximum annual SS since 1970 and marginal back to 1962. I am well off but now I haven’t paid my fair share? SS is in trouble for a lot of re
reasons but this is a classsic class warefare gambit. BS.
I get sick of this “class warfare” card played by the rich.
Your fare share is every penny that you got, that others had to borrow into existance because instead of protecting wages and American jobs, we created prosparity by giving people access to debt so they could spend even as we offshored jobs and cut wages.
Your money is someone elses debt. If that someone can’t get the money to pay back the debt, then the debt will default, be written off, and your money will poof back into the thin air from which it was borrowed into existance.
I hope you find some antidote for your “sickness”.
Geez,
AFTER a chat from Da Prez, Buffet “invests” 5 billion in BOA. Guess the fix is in.
And now Da Prez “mulls” gov’t mortgage refinancing for “millions who need it”.
Once again, anyone frugal, living within means, saving, not in debt to eyeballs… screwed.
Charming society this is.
“Once again, anyone frugal, living within means, saving, not in debt to eyeballs… screwed”.
Yep, that is the way the PTB & Banksters want it. They need as many generations of debt slaves as they can get.
+1,000,000
The earthquake jokes have started…
The Weather Channel says yesterdays east coast earthquake was caused by an unknown fault line running under D.C. and through Virginia. It is now being called Obama’s Fault, though Obama will say it’s really Bush’s Fault. Another theory is that it was the founding fathers rolling over in their graves, but I believe what we all thought was an earthquake was actually the effects of a 14.6 trillion dollar check bouncing in Washington.
whenever traffic here gets really bad people say…man…it was just like 9-11.
i’m gonna start saying “man…it was just like 8-23″
Foreclosures made up 31 pct. of home sales in 2Q
WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreclosures made up roughly one-third of all home sales this spring. While that’s a smaller share of sales from the previous quarter, it’s six times the percentage of foreclosures in a healthy housing market.
Foreclosure sales, which include homes purchased after they received a notice of default or that were repossessed by lenders, accounted for 31 percent of the market in the April-June quarter, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
The share of the market would likely have been larger this spring if not for a state and federal investigation into faulty paperwork by banks and servicers. The probe has led many banks to delay foreclosure sales. Once that is complete, foreclosures will likely surge later this year.
As a slice of all home purchases, foreclosure sales peak two years ago at 37.4 percent. In the second quarter, they declined from 36 percent in the January-March period.
In all, 265,087 homes in some stage of foreclosure or owned by banks were sold in the second quarter, down 11 percent from the same period a year ago. Sales of all other types of homes also declined, according to RealtyTrac’s figures, which differ from other home-sales estimates.
Bank-owned homes, which are sold after being repossessed, accounted for nearly 19 percent of all sales. That’s unchanged from the previous quarter.
Distressed properties, often in need of repair, typically sell at big discounts and weaken prices for neighboring homes.
Harrisburg, Penn., May Miss $3.3M Payment
(Bloomberg)
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital, may miss $3.3 million in general-obligation bond payments due Sept. 15 if council members fail to approve a portion of a fiscal rescue plan, according to the mayor’s spokesman.
The capital city faces a $5 million deficit and is trying to arrange for a $7.5 million advance on a lease of municipal land to the Harrisburg Parking Authority. Harrisburg entered the state’s Act 47 fiscal-rescue program in December.
“If the Parking Authority lease doesn’t go through, the city will not be able to make that payment,” said Robert Philbin, a spokesman for Mayor Linda Thompson, in a telephone call from Harrisburg today.
For Marines in Afghanistan: be careful where you fart
August 23rd, 2011 | Afghanistan | Posted by Gina Cavallaro
Marine Corps Times is a family newspaper and we only rarely have offensive language in our stories.
But this week the word “fart” appears in a story I wrote about the importance of trust between Marines and the Afghan national army soldiers they work with.
I didn’t want to write this little blog entry about farts. It’s not even on my beat. But my colleague Dan Lamothe, whose byline you have seen here quite often, shamed me into it.
“You owe it to all Marines,” he told me.
So here’s the news: audible farting has been banned for some Marines downrange because it offends the Afghans.
I know there are many things in the Afghan culture that don’t seem normal to Americans and it’s hard to spend seven months working in someone else’s back yard. Still, the Marines I saw downrange are doing a pretty good job at trying to do the right thing around the Afghans.
They’re not supposed to cuss because it could be misunderstood (that one goes out the window a lot). And they stay away from talking about politics, religion or girls because those topics could escalate into major disagreements (they can’t communicate anyway because of the language barrier).
But farting? That’s practically a sport. Ok, it’s not soccer, but a good contest could open the door for cross-cultural exchanges, jokes and other gallows humor.
So, for all Marines getting ready to go downwind, I mean downrange, be forewarned — you may have to hold it in… at least until you get back to your hooch where you can loudly crop dust your friends.
Nuances of Nation Building, they knew this would come out somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon.
Three Reasons Why The BAC-Buffet Deal Is A Bad Omen
By Nicholas Santiago on August 25th, 2011 10:19am Eastern Time
This morning, the stock market is in jubilee mode over the multi-billion dollar investment in Bank of America Corp.(NYSE:BAC) by Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett. Once again, the man who has profited the most from government bailout’s is coming to the rescue of another failing financial institution. This investment tells us that this economy is really in trouble and more government bailouts may be needed again.
Here are a few key reasons that tell us this deal is forecasting problems ahead.
1. It was just a few day’s ago that Bank of America stated that they did not need any capital, now we know that was not true. The second largest bank in the United States needed capital and they needed it bad. We can only wonder how long this deal will help to lift the market. Just look at 2008, this could be a repeat of things to come.
2. The Warren Buffett investment in BAC stock also tells us that the European banks are not the only banks in serious trouble. The leading banks in the United States are in serious trouble as well. If there is one cockroach there is usually a million.
3. Warren Buffett has made a career of investing in troubled companies for the sake of the economy. The last time he made an investment such as this one was back in 2008 with Goldman Sachs Group Inc.(NYSE:GS). It is important to remember that Goldman Sachs was bailed out by the tax payer in what was called the TARP program. Buffett knows that the U.S. taxpayer will bail him out if he is wrong and Bank of America stock does go belly up.
Buffett knows that the U.S. taxpayer will bail him out if he is wrong and Bank of America stock does go belly up.
He may be in for a rude surprise.
BTW, he lives on a public street in Omaha. The location of his house is widely known.
I don’t think that is exactly true. I am sure he still owns the house in Omaha, but I doubt that is where he lives.
Ya gotta love Buffett, no matter how this investment turns out. There was a hilarious caricature of him hanging out with his grandkids in the “Too Big to Fail” movie.
We closed on our lot this week. The seller’s attorney said that the last four sellers he represented all had to bring money to the table. There was no bank involvement with loan forgiveness - just folks paying it off with their own money. One guy (a doctor) brought $75,000 of his money to the table to bail out his elderly mother (the attorney said he advised her to declare bankruptcy). Our sellers (technically the estate of our seller) ended up bringing over $6,000 to the table.
“….$75,000 of his money to the table…..”
Good money after bad. And this guy is a doctor? I’ll bet he’s the type that invests in emu ranches.
I’d shoot myself before I let one of my kids give the banksters $75K to “bail me out”.
I run several programs that attract doctors and their children. I also have several friends that are doctors (my high school sweetheart is now an OB/GYN). Most of them (not all) are exceptional at rote memorization and can absorb information quickly. This doesn’t always translate to critical thinking skills.
My high school sweetie bought a gorgeous house next to a toxic plume. She “had the water tested” but not the well for the nasty stuff. This totally blew my mind, and she admitted that she felt foolish, but they take things at face value and presume the truth is always in front of them. I’m generalizing, of course, but they’ve made it by “following the rules, are not system-buckers, and therefore sometimes struggle in the “animal spirits” zone — a place that I think most HBBers operate well in.
I know how people feel about lawyers, but in law school when you’re reading contract cases, the profs always like to point out when the parties are doctors, and the the goofy business deals they go in for.
It seems about a week late to ask this question.
Is Gold a Fool’s Investment?
Aug. 24, 2011
WSJ’s Liam Denning and ‘Mean Street’ host Evan Newmark discuss the sudden drop in the price of gold, and why it might be wise to invest in oil producers instead of oil itself. AP Photo/Petr David Josek
The CME raised margin requirements twice in the last month the first time by 22% and the second on Wednesday by 27%, causing the correction. It says nothing about the fundamentals of gold and I am sure that the big banks were shorting before the announcement. It also was important to take it down so easy money can continue for the banks and they can continue their war on savers. It also demonstrates what I have said on this blog, gold will never be allowed to be in bubble territory because the PTB are always trying to make it fall. Compare that to housing where no one said the housing market is overheating, we need to raise interest rates, tighten loan requirement etc. They did quite the opposite. That is why I don’t think you can compare the metals with the housing bubble or any other bubble that the PTB actually try to create to mask the real drop in earnings.
Gold has no fundamentals, other than serving as a flight-to-quality haven and an inflation hedge. It returns zero unless the price appreciates, and you can’t eat it, drink it, sleep in it, educate yourself with it, medicate yourself with it, drive it, or entertain yourself with it (unless your name is Scrooge McDuck, that is…).
Too funny…
—————–
Obama says adding $4 trillion to debt is unpatriotic. (2008)
On July 3, 2008 — the day before Independence Day — Barack Obama said that adding $4 trillion in debt was irresponsible and “unpatriotic.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuTG19Cu_Q
He was the answer to every liberal’s prayer: a non-Sharptonesque black man with credentials — not substance or experience or love of country — just those worthless credentials which, as we have all seen, are 100% worthless. He’s the little man behind the screen: not, as our liberal and Independent fellow citizens were led to believe, the Wizard of Oz. Time to come back to Planet Earth, and to turn to the man in Austin, Texas.
“Time to come back to Planet Earth, and to turn to the man in Austin, Texas.”
Matthew McConaughey?
Willie!
Nobel monie$
Obamacares
Iraq (-100,000) US troop sent back home to USA
2011 - $42 Billion Dollar Pentagon war reduction
Bin Laden
NATO
Qaddafi
NExT…
$hrub speak: “heheheeheeeheee”
Obama is A HORRID president.
The WORST possible choice, except for McCain or any of the current media appointed Republican front runners.
The only thing worse than a man with no plan, is a person with a REALLY, REALLY, REALLY bad plan.
Another jock loses a bundle on his mansion.
http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_18267787?source=pop
Nothing but rim, baby!
Carmelo Anthony and La La Vazquez just sold their Littleton pad for $6.2 million, says Kentwood Real Estate broker John Fitzpatrick. It had been on the market for one year for $9.5 million. That’s about a 35 percent discount. But wait. It gets worse.
Carmelo paid $12 million for it in 2007. Yikes.
Lala Vazquez has more rounded curves than a ‘54 Cadillac.
Isn’t Lala one of the teletubbies?
Wells Fargo’s direct deposit advance - a good way to stay broke
By Tom Barlow - Credit, Banking
Many of us have our paychecks directly deposited to our banking account. Many of us run out of money before payday. Now Well Fargo has gotten into the payday loan business with the direct deposit advance, which allows customers to tap into their paycheck early, for a hefty fee. This offering, like tax refund advances, is really a loan; a very pricey loan.
To its credit, the bank’s service agreement repeatedly states that “This is an expensive form of credit.” In fact, you’ll pay a finance charge of $2 for each $20 advanced, which it claims works out to an APR of 120%. However, the terms require repayment in 35 days. The way I think of APR, a vig of $2 on $20 for 35 days comes out to around 120% per month.
The bank will automatically deduct what you owe from the next electronic deposit to your account, not just your paycheck. If you want to repay by mail, that will cost you an extra $100 set-up fee. You can also set up a payment plan, which is a good way to stay broke.
Some other banks, such as US Bank, offer a similar service under different names, such as checking account advance.
Well Fargo suggests that, “The service is designed to help our customers meet their short-term borrowing needs. Appropriate emergencies might be a car repair, medical care for you or your family, or travel expenses in connection with your job,” all good reasons, I suppose. However, if you’re so broke that you can’t cover these from your rainy day fund, take that as a sign that you’re teetering very close to disaster.
“which it claims works out to an APR of 120%. However, the terms require repayment in 35 days. The way I think of APR, a vig of $2 on $20 for 35 days comes out to around 120% per month.”
Which indicates Tom Barlow who wrote the article is really bad at math.
$2 = 10% of $20. Which is 10% interest, for upto a month… Which translates to 12 * 10%, or 120% for a year.
Doof.
It cracks me up how Corporate American/Wall Street shills put down the working class and their desire for security and entitlements .
But ,when costs go up Corporate America raises the prices to insure a
profit margin ,so they feel they are entitled to their entitled profit margins . THey say ,’Oh we got to raise prices because our costs went
up and we are entitled to our profit margins .” Yet when a worker bee
want a wage increase to keep up with inflation and increasing prices
they are put down .
I think our Lords are well skilled in the fine art of protect of their
traits on the sheep .
If capitalism is based on supply and demand ,than profit margins would not be assured and they would change constantly . Does a Insurance Company ever take a loss without passing it on to the customers . Entitlement to profit margin in spite of capitalism not assuring what a profit margin will be . Who has the entitlement
disease and resorts to price fixing ,but how dare the worker bees want some assurances .
projection of their traits on the sheep , not protect
When Main Street can’t pay, the federal governemnt steps in and pays. I think this is pretty much the only time Wall Street likes to see the government doing anything.
The other day I think Darrel mentioned that he was once invited to go work in China taking the company’s intellectual property with him.
That IP was developed in the USA I presume.
If China, or any other country receiving free IP, wants to send it back in products then I would suggest those products be charged a 15% import duty.
In Canada, I have seen not only the IP sent overseas free, but the equipment to manufacture it as well.
On HBB “since 2000 there have been 2.4 million jobs lost to other countries and they were replaced with 2.9 million”. I also read that IBM now has more employees in Chindia than in the USA. Better yet - these companies have persauded the Gov to allow them not to have to separate their employees by country totals in their reports.
Between Europe and North America we have half the world economy. Time to use that strength to our advantage. If you want to compete with us it has to be on equal terms or we will restrict you from our market.
Actually, that was someone else.
I work for IBM after they bought Initiate System with whom I’d worked for the 3 years prior. We didn’t have to go to China to transfer our IP. All we did was open a hole in the firewall and give them an account in our source code repository.
#1 master data management product in the world, pooof… China has full access.
And why? Becasue China won’t buy software from us unless IBM hires programmers there.
http://www.chicagofed.org/webpages/publications/cfnai/index.cfm
Recession not showing up in Chicago Fed’s numbers…yet.
GM cutting truck production next month
By DEE-ANN DURBIN The Associated Press
Posted: 6:47 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 25, 2011
DETROIT — General Motors Co. is cutting its production of pickup trucks next month, a sign that truck sales aren’t as robust as the company had hoped.
Spokesman Tom Wickham said Thursday that GM cancelled five scheduled overtime shifts on Saturdays in September and October. Wickham didn’t know how many vehicles would be involved, but the Flint, Mich., plant where the pickups are made can produce 900 trucks per day.
Full-size pickup truck sales were up 9 percent for the year through July in the U.S., compared with a year earlier, according to Autodata Corp. But that increase was smaller than the industry saw as a whole. Continuing weakness in the housing and construction sectors has dampened demand for trucks. Sales of the Chevrolet Silverado, GM’s best-selling truck, were up 7 percent.
GM rehired 750 laid-off auto workers for a third shift at the Flint plant earlier this month, saying it needed the extra production to keep up with demand for heavy-duty trucks.
Auto analysts have questioned the move, pointing out that GM’s truck inventory is already at higher than normal levels and truck sales have been sluggish with continuing weakness in the construction industry. At the end of July, GM had 115 days’ worth of pickups to sell. An 80-day supply is more typical.
You think it might be a result of $60k sticker prices for a 3/4 ton duramax?
You might be on to something there. I told you I would vote for you for prez.
Our black swan or a convenient cover for a soon to be swooning market? Didn’t our little Timmay say a good crisis should never be wasted.
All eyes were on Irene’s projected path, which showed it bringing misery to every city along the I-95 corridor, including Washington, New York and Boston. The former chief of the National Hurricane Center called it one of his three worst possible situations. “One of my greatest nightmares was having a major hurricane go up the whole Northeast Coast,” Max Mayfield, the center’s retired director, told The Associated Press.
He said the damage will probably climb into billions of dollars: “This is going to have an impact on the United States economy.”
Finally some construction jobs!
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/08/hurricane_irene_tightens_her_a.html
link to previously posted quote re hurricane
Too late now to sell the QE3 rumor? Batten down the hatches for the aftermath of Hurricane Ben’s speech!
Bernanke Hype Is Sell Signal on Stocks for Scots Money Manager
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) — Stocks are heading for a tumble because investors expect too much of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, according to Baillie Gifford & Co.
The U.S. central bank can’t justify additional asset purchases when the economy is unlikely to slip back into recession and the risk of deflation is remote, said Gerald Smith, who is in charge of 76 billion pounds ($124 billion) as chief investment officer at the firm in Edinburgh.
“The market is maybe hoping for too much,” Smith said in an interview at his office, adding that his colleagues might not agree. Stocks “have been rallying in anticipation and I think if he doesn’t say something that satisfies the markets, we might get another big sell-off,” he said.
Central bankers from around the world are meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this weekend to look at ways of fostering growth in developed economies and Bernanke will give his keynote speech later today. His hint of asset purchases, or quantitative easing, during the same event last year spurred an eight-month rally in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
The benchmark advanced 4.8 percent in the first three days of this week. U.S. policy makers pledged on Aug. 9 to keep interest rates near zero until at least mid-2013 and use additional tools “as appropriate.” The index was down 6.4 percent since the end of 2010.
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To all those that are in the path of the Hurricane I wish you safety and good luck .
Reelection recipe: Get rid of Geithner and get a new Treasury secretary who is not in bed with Wall Street.
The Atlantic Home
Why Is the White House Defending the Banks from Investigations?
By Megan McArdle
Aug 25 2011, 10:56 AM ET
Via Outside the Beltway, I see that the administration is pressing New York’s attorney general to drop its investigation into dodgy foreclosure practices and settle with the banks. Doug Mataconis, who wrote the post, says “I’m sure the large amount of donations coming from the financial sector into the coffers of the Democratic National Committee and Obama For America have nothing to do with this pressure. I also believe the guy who tells me he has a bridge in Brooklyn to sell me.”
I quite agree that the administration should not be intervening, but let me suggest a more charitable explanation, contained within today’s edition of the New York Times: “U.S. May Back Refinance Plan for Mortgages”. It looks like the administration has convened a working group to explore more aggressive options for dealing with underwater mortgages.
How much these proposals will actually accomplish seems rather questionable–I doubt lowering interest rates is going to do much to fix the housing market, given how highly correlated default seems to be with a) losing your job and b) the simple fact of being underwater. But leave those concerns aside. If the administration actually wants any of these programs to work, it is going to need the cooperation of the banks.
And no, I do not mean “because they can’t move without the okay of their corporate paymasters”. I mean that the administration is going to need some active cooperation from the banks that hold and service all these mortgages. Corporate and social reformers tend to get caught up in the notion that with a combination of steely will and brutal intolerance of misbehavior, you can simply force all those twerps in a misbehaving organization to do what you want: the only reason people don’t, they believe, is that they have somehow been paid off, or brainwashed, by the twerps.
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Aug. 25, 2011, 9:27 a.m. EDT
Jackson Hole guests tell Fed to keep rabbit in hat
Many at Jackson Hole don’t want to see QE3
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. (MarketWatch) — As prominent economists gather here for the scenic Federal Reserve’s annual summer retreat, many said they don’t expect, or even want, Chairman Ben Bernanke to try to pull a rabbit out of his hat to please the stock market.
Bernanke will open the Fed conference with a speech on Friday morning at 10 a.m. Eastern. Stocks have moved higher this week after being pummeled in mid-August, and many analysts attribute the move to investor hopes that Bernanke will use his speech to promise another round of asset purchases, or QE3.
Economists said that the recent weakness in the economy stems from structural issues like foreclosed properties and an unskilled pool of unemployed labor that are immune from monetary policy stimulus.
“I hope he talks about the limitations of monetary policy,” said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America.
Fed policy is very effective at preventing a downturn but once weak demand is in place, monetary policy cannot lift it, Levy said.
“All the targeted counter-cyclical stimulus is not going to address the huge pocket of distressed properties,” Levy said.
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OPINION
AUGUST 26, 2011
The Fed vs. the Recovery
How is increasing the price of imported oil and industrial commodities supposed to make U.S. industry more competitive?
By ALAN REYNOLDS
One year ago, on Aug. 27, 2010, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke explained the rationale for a second round of quantitative easing. “A first option for providing additional monetary accommodation is to expand the Federal Reserve’s holdings of longer-term securities,” he said, thereby supposedly “bringing down term premiums and lowering the costs of borrowing.”
Yet the bond market promptly reacted by raising long-term interest rates. The yield on 10-year Treasurys, which was 2.57% at the time of his Jackson Hole, Wyo., address, climbed to 3.68% by February 2011 and did not dip below 3% until late June when QE2 was coming to an end. The price of West Texas crude oil, which was $72.91 a year ago, remained above $100 from March to mid-June and did not come down until QE2 ended and the dollar stopped falling.
When Mr. Bernanke spoke, the price of a euro was less than $1.27. By the week ending June 10, 2011, 15 days before QE2 ended, the dollar was down about 15% (a euro cost $1.46). In that same week, The Economist commodity-price index was up 50.9% from a year earlier in dollars—but only 22.8% in euros. How could paying much more than Europe did for imported oil, industrial commodities, equipment and parts make U.S. industry more competitive?
The chart nearby subtracts the contribution of government purchases (such as hiring and construction) from real GDP growth to gauge the growth of the private economy. The generally negative contribution of government purchases (column two) does not mean government spending has slowed, as some contend. Instead it reflects the fact that federal and state spending has been increasingly dominated by transfer payments (such as Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment benefits) which do not contribute to GDP, and in some cases reduce GDP by discouraging work.
The chart also shows that growth of private GDP was also much faster before QE2 than it has been since, and the increase in producer prices (i.e., U.S. business costs) was much more moderate. And that is no coincidence.
Former Obama adviser Christina Romer, writing in the New York Times in late May, said that “a weaker dollar means that our goods are cheaper relative to foreign goods. That stimulates our exports and reduces our imports. Higher net exports raise domestic production and employment. Foreign goods are more expensive, but more Americans are working.”
Well, foreign goods certainly did become more expensive during the second round of quantitative easing, but it is doubtful that “more Americans are working” as a result. Industrial supplies and materials accounted for 34.5% of U.S. imported goods so far this year, according to the Census Bureau, and capital equipment and parts accounted for an additional 23%. As Fed policy pushed the dollar down, higher prices for imported inputs such as oil, metals and cotton meant higher costs (producer prices) for U.S. manufacturing and transportation.
In demand-side theorizing, monetary stimulus means the Fed buys more bonds. The Treasury has certainly been selling a lot of bonds, and the Fed has been buying (monetizing) a huge share of those bonds. That helped push the broad M2 money supply up at a 6.8% rate over the past six months. Yet the only thing we have to show for all that stimulus over the past year has been rapid inflation of producer prices and a simultaneous slowdown in the growth of the private economy. Consumer price inflation also accelerated to 5.2% in the first quarter and 4.1% in the second, from just 1.4% in the third quarter of 2010.
Imported goods did indeed become more expensive while the dollar was falling, rising at a 15.1% annual rate over the past three quarters according to the government’s report on GDP. But exported U.S. goods also became more expensive, rising at an 11.4% rate over that same period.
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Investing
8/25/2011 @ 8:50PM
End Of The World As We Knew It, Buffett And Bernanke Feel Fine
John Dobosz
You wouldn’t be out of line calling this an eventful and pivotal week. In the span of a little more than 72 hours we learn that Hewlett-Packard is getting out of computers, Apple is losing Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett peels off another $5 billion to buy a stake and rake in dividends from a hard-up bank.
Plus the eastern U.S. gets rattled by a 5.8 magnitude quake and New York City could be in the cross hairs of a dangerous hurricane, Irene. Crazy world.
That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane – Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn, world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
Add to those aforementioned humdingers and others from R.E.M. in “It’s The End of the World as We Know It” the already nervous wait for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to speak Friday at a Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and you get a lot going on, a lot of prices in flux.
Both bonds and gold finished higher Thursday on the eve of the Fed head’s speech. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note dropped to 2.22% after moving above 2.8% early in the morning. Spot gold, like bonds, turned it around during the day and closed 1.4% higher at $1,774 per ounce. Gold had been up 30% in three months before correcting as much as 10% from its peak during Thursday trading.
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