Bits Bucket for October 13, 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
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Anti-Wall Street protests, coast-to-coast
Protestors affiliated with the “Occupy Wall Street” protests march past a Valentino store on East 65th Street in New York, on Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011. The crowd marched through out the Upper East Side neighborhood, protesting outside the homes of various billionaires and bank owners.
Credit: AP Photo/Andrew Burton
I happened to watch a documentary last night that had this:
‘They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen.’
Care to guess who said it? There’s nothing new under the sun.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhrwmJcsfT0
Former (unfortunately) Representative Allan Grayson nailed it. One party (GOP) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street, the other is its handmaiden.
Thx for the history lesson, Ben.
Presidential Candidate
Huey P. Long for President button
Huey Long was poised to run for president in the 1936 election against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had risen to national prominence with his “Share Our Wealth” program, which swept the nation as the Great Depression worsened. Meanwhile, FDR adopted some of Huey’s ideas in order to “steal Long’s thunder,” while simultaneously moving to discredit him.
…
From the same website:
After death threats, arson attempts, and a drive-by shooting at his New Orleans home, Huey beefed up his personal security, surrounding himself with armed bodyguards from the state police. Huey also worried about his family’s safety and was concerned that his children may be kidnapped. The threats only strengthened his resolve to crush his political opponents.
Completely stymied by Long’s political maneuvers and legislative victories, his enemies formed a paramilitary organization called the Square Deal Association to plot armed insurrection. The movement likened itself to the 1874 white supremacist uprising against the state’s Reconstruction government.
In January 1935, 200 armed Square Dealers stormed the East Baton Rouge Parish courthouse, prompting Governor Allen to call out the National Guard and declare martial law.
In July, Huey declared that he had discovered an assassination plot against him. Long’s associates had eavesdropped on a secret meeting in New Orleans, which included four Louisiana congressmen, New Orleans Mayor Walmsley, and former Governors Parker and Sanders. Another man, identified as “Dr. Wise,” was introduced at the gathering.
Yikes, nothing new under the sun could get pretty scary.
And what did happen to him? Well what a shock
“On the day of his assassination, September 8, 1935, Long was at the State Capitol attempting to oust a long-time opponent, Judge Henry Pavey. “House Bill Number One”, a re-districting plan, was Long’s top priority. If it passed, Judge Pavey would be removed from the bench. At 9 p.m., the session was still going strong. Judge Pavey’s son-in-law, Dr. Carl Weiss, had been at the State Capitol waiting to speak to Long. He tried to see him three times to talk to him but was brushed off each time in the hallway by Long and his bodyguards. At 9:20 p.m., Dr. Weiss approached Long for the third time and, according to the generally accepted version of events, fired a handgun at Long from four feet away, striking him in the abdomen. Long’s bodyguards returned fire, hitting Weiss 62 times and killing him. Long was rushed to the hospital but died two days later”
“…while simultaneously moving to discredit him.”
Not only Huey Long, but also Upton Sinclair and his End Poverty In California (E.P.I.C.) movement.
Read how the national Democratic Party stood by while Hollywood Studio bigwigs working with the G.O.P. tore Sinclair and his movement to shreds. Sinclair wanted to be on the Demo ticket and FDR was having none of that.
Google “the regulation theory” - the first and foremost role of “the state” is to preserve the status quo (Capital). OWS is going to have to go where no one has dared to go if they expect any real change.
Perhaps this is why they don’t want to declare a leader. Taking a page from other insurrections we all can be leaders.
“Care to guess who said it?”
Could easily be Chomsky.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Romney Defends Bank Bailouts
Political elite establishment favorite Governor Mitt Romney defended bank bailout in tonight’s Republican Presidential Economic debate.
As reported in real time by BrevardTimes.com, Governor Romey dodged the question on whether he would rule out another bank bailout.
And why wouldn’t Romney rule out giving more taxpayer dollars to the banks that ruined the global economy?
After all, as reported by BrevardTimes.com, Romney just received the favor of lawyer-turned-Senator-turned-Banker Mel Martinez who voted for TARP and then landed a lucrative job with TBTF Chase.
Posted below are the BrevardTimes.com’s Republican Presidential Economic Debate Highlights wherein Romney dodged the question as to future bailouts:
Cain: Throw out the current tax code, go with my 9-9-9 plan.
Moderator: U.S. Banks have $700 billion exposure to Europe. How do we avoid a financial meltdown?
Romney: That’s a hypothetical question.
Moderator: Would you be open to another bank bailout?
Romney: No one likes a bank bailout. Preserving our currency and financial system is essential [Romney avoids ruling out another bailout].
Moderator: Any institution TBTF?
Romney: You don’t want to bail out anybody [Romney avoids completely ruling out another bailout].
Cain: Implementation of TARP was wrong.
Gingrich: There is a possibility that a meltdown could occur next year. We are not any better prepared today for a financial crisis as we were then.
Paul: We’ve been living in a Keynesian economy for decades. Austrian economists predicted these bubbles. The middle class lost their jobs, lost their houses.
A free market with sound money and without the Federal Reserve is the only way you put a stop to these bubbles.
I’m a silly goose, but I thought that the keystone of the Dodd-Frank law disallowed another TBTF bank bailout, instead establishing provisions for an orderly BK.
What government takith away, government can re-givith with a couple votes and the stroke of a pen.
“Paul: We’ve been living in a Keynesian economy for decades. Austrian economists predicted these bubbles”
Acch! Terrible ’sound bite’, and wrong. Paul should know that Keynesian theory indeed predicted these bubbles, that’s why it calls for taking away the punch bowl when the party gets a-rocking, which of course wasn’t done. It was the Randian monetarist Greenspan who drove us off a cliff, and his monetarist follower, Bernanke, hasn’t done much better.
The last Keynesian at the Fed was Volcker.
Thanks for attempting to set the record straight.
Keynesian prescriptions of targeted spending increases and decreases are like being told, “Just have some caffeine on mornings when you feel tired.”
The problem is - one gets hooked very quickly on caffeine, and one feels tired without. And withdrawing can be quite uncomfortable.
Keynes had a good idea. It doesn’t work in the real word because politicians and societies get hooked on the juicing that is deficit spending, and refuse to get off of it.
How does your story work out with monetary stimulus heroin in place of deficit spending caffeine?
Even more addictive unfortunately.
“Keynes had a good idea. It doesn’t work in the real word…”
And does the Austrian School ‘just let ‘em fail’ philosophy ever work? No, because people get scared when TSHTF and cry for bail-outs, and the gov gives them. Otherwise they get voted out.
For the Austrian School’s ideas to work, you need a dictator.
“And does the Austrian School ‘just let ‘em fail’ philosophy ever work?”
Not if the prospect of too-big-to-fail bailouts for failed firms create moral hazard for foolish, wasteful risk taking.
I dunno it seems like Everyone running for pres today has the wrong answers.
while America grinds to a halt, then a death spiral.
Cain is right. TARP was implemented as badly as they possible could have. Because they refused to spend a few days negotiating the terms, the banks got their money and didn’t have to agree to any terms for getting it - no break ups, no bankruptcy (to wipe out the shareholders who let the management put their capital at risk), no agreement to bring back rules of yore that prevented this sort of thing. Nothing. Followed by my “favorite” bad move, the 100% bail out of the AIG credit default swaps for which there is no excuse at all.
I do think something needed to be done to make sure the whole banking system didn’t seize up at once, but if you can wait a couple of days to get it right. Preserving the level of the stock market is not the primary goal.
The panicked rush to push through the TARP worked out very well for Wall Street.
The panicked rush to push through the TARP worked out very well for Wall Street.
…until maybe September 17, 2011.
…and many in Congress as well just from their investsments alone.
TARP was implemented as badly as they possible could have. Because they refused to spend a few days negotiating the terms, the banks got their money and didn’t have to agree to any terms for getting it - no break ups, no bankruptcy
The Occupy Wall Street Protesters Are Partially Right
http://www.forbes.com/sites/thesba/2011/10/10/the-occupy-wall-street-protesters-are-partially-right/
“The protesters do not know what they are protesting. They just smell something and it stinks. They know the banks got a bailout. Their intuition says that is bad. Their intuition is in fact partially correct. The bailout concept was a good one but was poorly executed and done so intentionally.
…The government through tarp provided support to these companies through capital, capital infusion, FDIC guarantees and loan guarantees. If the U.S. government had taken equity and wiped out the shareholders, the taxpayers would not feel as if they were cheated. Right now, the protesters are right but they cannot explain their reason.”
What bull. They know exactly what the problem is, but they also let others express it their own way.
You are seeing history in the making. The first leaderless, diverse yet organized protest coalition of the new century which is a direct result of the Interent and its inherent structure of same.
There is so much HATE from the 60-80th percentile against the OWS protesters. With the exception of some entrepeneurs, this group’s existential purpose is to transfer any remaining crumbs of the pie into the gaping maw of the 1%er pigmen.
Even some among the 25-60th percentile share the HATE, the Joe-The-Plumber types and lower-rung cube dwellers, the very people who’ve lost the most in terms of median income and prospects for upward mobility in the last 4 decades.
The former are like the Eddie of HBB, the I’ve got mine and f* the rest of you mindset. The latter are drunk on the koolaid of Horatio Alger, the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mythology that for most Americans (not everybody can be or wants to be an entrepeneur) is a capital L LIE.
There is so much HATE from the 60-80th percentile against the OWS protesters.
That’s because they still have something to lose, they just don’t realize how close they are to losing it.
There is so much HATE from the 60-80th percentile against the OWS protesters.
I hate to say it but the haters hate not having something to hate and they would hate the OccupyWallStreet protesters anyway because 5% of them hate to take a bath BUT………
Poll: Occupy Wall Street is Twice as Popular as The Tea Party
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/10/13/poll_occupy_wall_street_is_twice_as_popular_as_the_tea_party.html
Time magazine’s new national poll is out, and there’s no “slightly” here. The Occupy movement has a 54 percent favorable rating; the Tea Party’s rating is 27 percent.
How is this happening? Over the past week, conservatives have treated Occupy much the same way that liberals treated the Tea Party, scouring the marches and rallies for evidence of kookery; the Drudge Report linked a video of an anti-Semite who’d joined the protests to rant about Jews. Fox News and CNN have mocked the protests (think of Jesse Waters saying they looked like “the sludge” that would come out of a blender packed with left-wing causes, or Erin Burnett mocking the Occupiers for not liking TARP), but not too many Americans actually watch those networks on a nightly basis.
Most Republicans have actually couched their comments on the protests. This poll’s internals give us a hint on why — some of the Occupy demands, like prosecuting ill-behaving Wall Streeters or raising taxes on wealthy people, are more popular than any policy that’s doable in Congress
From the Denver Post: The faces and voices of Occupy Denver
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19101415
I think the reason is obvious. The tea party was totally co-opted by the far right. So far the OWSers have managed to reject overtures from the lefties that have tried to horn in on the leadership. They’ve gained multitudes of respect w/those gestures.
“There is so much HATE from the 60-80th percentile against the OWS protesters.”
Because any plan sold as “soaking the rich” will within, a decade or two, wind up soaking the upper middle class. Always has, always will.
Because any plan sold as “soaking the rich” will within, a decade or two, wind up soaking the upper middle class. Always has, always will.
We “soaked the rich” after the Great Depression. Have not the upper middle class done well from 1932-2011?
And the 60% - 80% apparently plan to overlook that most of the income increases over the past 20 years have gone to the elite and not them. So they’ll continue to play the “pet” class and have their talents extorted for others’ advantage all for the sake of a lower tax bracket.
Ha hahahha
I gotta hand it to the elites. They do know how to play us perfectly.
Because any plan sold as “soaking the rich” will within, a decade or two, wind up soaking the upper middle class. Always has, always will.
The upper middle class will be such a small portion of our society in a decade or two it will amaze you. Many Doctors Lawyers small businesses etc will as in most of the world be middle class. Upper middle class will be reserved for the foot soldiers of the elite.
The upper middle class will be such a small portion of our society in a decade or two it will amaze you
19th century here we come!
So explain why it is low taxes that are the biggest threat to the middle class and not ultra cheap third world labor?
Are those of you who favor high rates of taxation on what few rich there really are absolutely sure it will herald in a new era of prosperity and jobs? Big companies will immediately cease to use cheap international labor in favor of expensive western labor and all will be good?
I really believe the left and the right are pulling the wool over our eyes on this one and trying to redirect our anger over our collapsing economy and culture from the devastating effect of forcing us to compete with peoples from across the globe making a tiny fraction of what we have come to expect and depend on in the west.
What has tax rates to do with the income gap between those earning huge profits hiring cheap labor overseas and the much bigger earning they get saving 90% on labor.
I say IF we are to fix this problem we need to provide incentive for companies to hire Americans. This will be hard to do with the inequity of labor costs unless the inequity is corrected through legislation.
‘This will be hard to do with the inequity of labor costs’
We used to not do trade deals with countries that have ridiculously low pay. Same with unacceptable labor laws, environmental laws, or even human rights!
Do you wonder when that all went by the wayside?
Answer: NAFTA. WTO.
Scrap these agreements; we’ll be doing the world a favor.
Has anyone read the comments to this article? Forbes actually responds to them and the responses are priceless. Here’s one from FarmBoy:
“What does this have to do with small business? All these blogs about wall street. How about what is happening in small town America?”
Forbes: “We appreciate your angst.”
That made my day.
The end paragraph is priceless:
————-
If I were an economist or a public policy maker, I would rather have a dollar of capital in the banking industry which can be levered eight to ten times in the form of loans to businesses and consumers, rather than to the retail trade industry to purchase another flat screen TV at a 20% markup so that John Doe can now have another flat screen TV in his bathroom.
————-
OK you geniuses at Forbes, what good is it to loan to a business if nobody buys the business’s stuff? What good is it to lend to consumers if the consumers have no job to pay the loan back? In other words: Forbes can take their BS supply side economics and SHOVE IT.
Exactly Polly…they should have bailed out CIT who gave AP credit (cash flow)advances to small business and letters of credit to the shipping industry. It froze everything leading to mass closures and layoffs
Followed by my “favorite” bad move, the 100% bail out of the AIG credit default swaps for which there is no excuse at all.
Don’t forget that Glenn Hubbard (”Give it your best shot“) is on Mitt Romney’s fledgling economics team when interpreting his stance on TBTF.
Is Romney’s Bailout Stance Supported by Dodd-Frank?
By Daniel Indiviglio
Oct 12 2011, 5:30 PM ET 2
The new non-bank resolution authority might provide the answer that the Republican frontrunner is looking for
In presidential debates, truly revealing moments are tough to come by. Often, candidates just rely on well-rehearsed responses or deflect questions entirely. That’s why I found it so interesting to see Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney deviate from the rest of the pack and support a very unpopular position during Tuesday night’s GOP debate: that the Wall Street bailout was necessary.
…
The Fall 2008 bailouts are revving up as a campaign issue.
DNC hits Romney in MI on bailout comment
By MAGGIE HABERMAN | 10/12/11 8:44 PM EDT
The DNC, looking to frame the forward-charging Mitt Romney for the general election, sent this email out tonight to its list in Michigan, as well as in Ohio and Indiana, pulling out the Republican’s debate remark against the auto bailouts:
From: Brad Woodhouse, Democrats.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 7:15 PM
Subject: Mitt’s auto-recovery flip flop
Friend —
What does Mitt Romney think about Michigan’s auto recovery?
It’s hard to tell — he’s given multiple opinions on the subject, including a new one at last night’s Republican presidential debate.
Mitt’s latest position is that the auto industry shouldn’t have been pulled back from the brink of disaster. But as Michiganders know, the President’s decision to provide loans to automakers was the right one. The recovery package worked, two great American companies are back on their feet, and more than 1.4 million Americans still have jobs.
…
Imagine the ripple effect had GM and Chrysler gone down the tubes. Not even Toyota wanted that to happen as they knew that many of their shared suppliers would have folded.
BMW would not mind.
Toy and GM are partners.
I remember Toyota and GM partnering for a (Fremont?) California manufacturing facility.
Any cross-ownership like Ford and Mazda had (have?)?
I’m fulla questions today - high of 98 degrees, yesterday 105 degrees - both records for North OC, CA.
Warps the mind -
It’s not hard to figure out which candidate Wall Street is going to back in the 2012 election. Perhaps Romney could field former Goldman Sachs board member Meg Whitman as his running mate?
Romney defends TARP, questions auto bailouts
By Justin Sink - 10/11/11 09:25 PM ET
Mitt Romney defended the TARP bailout program during the Republican debate Tuesday night, describing the program as necessary to “keep the entire currency of the country worth something.”
”My experience tells me that we were on the precipice, and we could have had a complete meltdown of our entire financial system, wiping out all the savings of the American people. So action had to be taken,” Romney said.
Romney did argue that the program could have been better designed and implemented.
”Was it perfect? No. Was it well implemented? No, not particularly,” Romney said. “Were there some institutions that should not have been bailed out? Absolutely.”
Romney also argued that funds should not have been used to bailout the auto industry, a position that may not play popularly in Michigan, a state where his father was governor and he hopes will fuel his primary and election chances.
”Should they have used the funds to bail out General Motors and Chrysler?” Romney said. “No, that was the wrong source for that funding. But this approach of saying, look, we’re going to have to preserve our currency and maintain America — and our financial system is essential. “
Romney has previously defended the TARP program, despite criticism from the right that continued through the debate. Rick Santorum railed against the program, calling out Romney and other candidates for their support.
”Well it was the right thing to do,” Romney said January on the Neil Cavuto show. “You know, I remember talking to Senator McCain — and he was in the middle of a presidential campaign — he said “Look, it is very bad politics to be for TARP. On the other hand, it’s the right thing for the country.”
…
“Perhaps Romney could field former Goldman Sachs board member Meg Whitman as his running mate?”
Nah, she’ll be too busy with her new gig screwing up Hewlett Packard. Bain is well named, but it should be spelled “Bane”. Or “Pain”. Just ask anyone who had to do business with a Bain alumnus.
Why does he need a running mate, anyway. He’s got Jamie Dimon on his right shoulder and Lloyd Blankfein on his left. Why not just cut out the figurehead and let them run the show directly?
I think Mitt goes with Christie as VP.
I could definitely see that.
Newt seemed to be pandering for the VP slot.
He’ll choose Perry to pull in the evangelicals.
That’d be too clever by half! Politics breeds strange bedfellows. They could let the “Mormonism is a cult” preacher preside over WH prayer breakfasts.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-09-28/jpmorgan-s-dimon-met-with-romney-in-new-york-official-says.html
Mitt has already received his marching orders, and will shortly emerge as the MSM’s Annointed One in case Obama flags in his servility to Wall Street.
I’m sure Wall Street allegiances will shift over time along with the relative popularity of the various candidates.
Mitt will be easy to beat. Too liberal, too fip-floppy.
Except that won’t matter because it will be a referendum on Obama.
And midtt if he wins will be EXACTLY what obama has been.
Just as Obama was Bush Lite.
But more articulate on a scale comparing Bush to Quayle.
Bail out an industry that provides decent jobs to over a million Joe 6packs and is an essential part of what’s left of our industrial base?
No! That would be Wrong.
Bail out an industry that was a major cause of the crash, and that enriches a small number of fatcats and banksters?
Yes! We have to preserve our System.
Plus the auto bailout cost a fraction of the bank bailout.
I still don’t think Romney really has a chance.
The Republican party is not going to nominate someone that has not accepted Jesus of 2000 years ago as his one and only lord and savior.
Agree. There’s a joke out there that the Republican Party is made of three basic groups: those that are angry we lost Vietnam, those that are angry we lost the Civil War, and those that are angry we lost the Crusades.
In order to beat the Dems, you need all three. Karl Rove’s achievement was (barely) mustering all three for Bush. At the moment, any one R candidate can muster at most only two.
Technically the LDS accept that their interpretation of Jesus (who is rather different from the one understood by Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians) is also the Lord and Savior.
That’s true. And “rather different” just comes down to whether you believe the Godhead is one entity or three separate entities. It’s amazing the animosity that can be based on that one detail…
Actually the LDS believe that there are more than 3 gods. My understanding is that every “good” LDS male becomes a god upon death and is given a world to Lord over. Which I guess means that if an LDS colony is ever established on Mars that Jesus wouldn’t be Lord there. I understand that this form of belief has a special name, “Henotheism”: “Belief in one god without denying the existence of others.”
There are other nuances, which give Evangs and Fundies conniptions, but I won’t discuss them here as this is a housing bubble blog.
It’s amazing the animosity that can be based on that one detail…
Actually, the real source of Fundy/Evang animosity is the LDS introduction of new scriptures. They see the Book of Mormon and other LDS scriptures as being satanic in origin. This stems in large part to the warning the Apostle Paul gave to basically reject any alternate gospels, even if they are delivered by an “angel” (which is how both the Koran and The Book of Mormon are claimed to have been delivered)
whether you believe the Godhead is one entity or three separate entities. It’s amazing the animosity that can be based on that one detail…
The Godhead is one entity composed of three separate entities with equal importance. (unless outvoted 2-1)
Joseph Smith’s magic hat he used to translate is my favorite part. I mean who wouldn’t want a magic hat?
There’s a piece of land for sale here up on Sugar Hill. I thought about it but decided there might be something in the water that I should avoid.
My understanding is that every “good” LDS male becomes a god upon death and is given a world to Lord over.
Not *exactly*, but they do believe that “as man is, God once was, and as God is, man may one day become”. Hopefully I got that right…
This stems in large part to the warning the Apostle Paul gave to basically reject any alternate gospels
And this was prior to his gospel being packaged in with others (alternates?) into one book called “The Bible”, right?
How many hundreds of years of war and millions of poeple have died over small religious details?
Why don’t you tell us, darrell? Stick to wars without any other political, dynastic or financial motivations.
And this was prior to his gospel being packaged in with others (alternates?) into one book called “The Bible”, right?
I’m just reporting why the Fundies hate the LDS. Nevermind the irony that the Fundies accept that New Testamemt canon that was selected by a bunch of 3rd century Catholic Bishops (from what I have read there was some opposition in the early centuries to accept the non-synoptic Gospel of John as scripture).
Then again, the LDS who claim that the church was corrupted once the original Apostles all died also accept the Catholic Church’s NT canon as well.
Not *exactly*, but they do believe that “as man is, God once was, and as God is, man may one day become”. Hopefully I got that right…
Close enough.
The nuts should be jailed for their religious litmus tests.
‘…every “good” LDS male becomes a god upon death and is given a world to Lord over.’
They don’t openly discuss that part of their theology much. Not to mention D&C 132.
“…as man is, God once was, and as God is, man may one day become…”
???
Read D&C 132, then ponder this story.
In fairness, I suspect all humans on the planet are descendants of polygamists if you go back through enough generations on the family tree.
Polygamy was prominent in Romney’s family tree
His ancestry lists several men who had multiple wives
Published: Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007 12:07 a.m. MST
By Jennifer Dobner and Glen Johnson
Associated Press
While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Republican presidential candidate’s great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great-grandfathers had 12.
Polygamy was not just a historical footnote but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first LDS president.
Romney’s great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after LDS church leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.
Romney’s great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she “used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow” over her own husband’s multiple marriages.
Romney’s great-great-grandfather Parley P. Pratt , an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley P. Pratt’s brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.
Romney’s father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, where church members fled in the 1800s to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. He and his family did not return to the United States until 1912, more than two decades after the church issued “The Manifesto” banning polygamy.
…
The LDS accepts it, but other Christians don’t accept the LDS’s acceptance.
Democrats and Republicans have belief systems with the same origin and holy writ, yet they do not cohabit comfortably.
But the LDS and the rest of Christendom do not share the same Holy Writ, (i.e The Book of Mormon) which is why they are so despised by Fundies (other Christian groups pretty much just ignore them).
JME but you overblow “despised” as a generalization. It is rather extreme for a moderate or liberal person to despise. Most people are moderate or liberal. Extremists are at the extreme.
Does the Mormon book negate the Bible (even the jewish books) or just claim to be further revelation?
Fundies ALWAYS despise anything different. Even with in their own ranks they fight over what seem like trivial details. Conformity is what gives religion it’s power. I am right because this large group of people I go to church with say the same thing. I am powerfull because this large group of people I go to church with say the same thing and can act as one body.
The whole thing comes apart when people within the ranks start asking questions or giving their own opinion.
“Conformity is what gives religion it’s power”
Yes, but that is part of the human nature story in any context. It holds true in tribal, political, family, church, office, military, even my friggin yacht club, and even modern “science”.
I would go further and say that is what gives psycopaths power over groups of people. Even and especially groups of people who supposedly are not at all about elevating individuals.
Beyond that, blaming this characteristic on a specific hated group, as though they alone own it, is pretty much denial of one’s own fragile tendancies.
This is all rather humorous as most of the Dead Sea scrolls have yet to be compeltely translated and King James did one hell of censor job on the ones that were first tranlsated
…and don’t EVEN get me started on the Vedas
At issue is not WHAT a candidate’s religious beliefs are, but THAT they are.
How can any adult with a three-figure IQ believe ANY of this nonsense– let alone the canon of specific theologies?
not good for Mitt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7OQoBxZZPqU
Thank you Jesus for that!
IAT
Comment by Darrell_in_PHX
2011-10-13 07:02:21
I still don’t think Romney really has a chance.
The Republican party is not going to nominate someone that has not accepted Jesus of 2000 years ago as his one and only lord and savior.
Thank you Jesus for that!
IAT
I am actually kind of enthused to see a candidate on the GOP ticket who is not a bible thumping idiot.
“I am actually kind of enthused to see a candidate on the GOP ticket who is not a bible thumping idiot.”
BINGO
Blessed trinity vs. pantheism?
On a R/E blog?? -;)
EuroTARP gains momentum:
Slovak parliament gears up for new vote on EFSF
BRATISLAVA | Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:05am EDT
(Reuters) - Slovakia’s fallen ruling coalition prepared a new ratification vote for the euro zone’s EFSF rescue fund on Thursday after forging a deal with the leftist opposition that will lead to a snap election but remove a threat to the bailout plan.
Three parties in Prime Minister Iveta Radicova’s government have agreed with the leftist Smer party to approve a deal by Friday to boost the size and powers of the European Financial Stability Facility, the euro zone’s main safety net.
The vote will end a standoff over the fund, designed to stop the spread of its sovereign debt crisis, which came to a head on Tuesday when a fourth ruling party abstained from a confidence motion Radicova had tied to the EFSF’s expansion and toppled her cabinet.
Slovakia’s 5.4 million people, who account for less than 2 percent of the currency bloc’s population and 1 percent of its total output, are the only members not to ratify the plan to increase the EFSF’s powers and fight the spreading debt crisis.
…
Analysis & Opinion
Too many questions, no convincing answers
The euro zone marriage is over
C-130s with shrink-wrapped pallets of cash, blow, and hookers probably landing in Slovakia as we speak to make sure the vote goes the right way.
I’ve always been puzzled why some men find hookers to be desireable. I never did.
Human sexuality covers a very broad spectrum. I suspect it’s like a bell curve, with the bulk of people sharing similar tastes. But it runs the spectrum, from fetishes, to satyriasis / nymphomania, to transgenderism to homosexuality to BDSM to bestiality to pedophilia to any number of other variations.
Society has decided that variations which involve consenting adults are those consenting adults business.
Unless money is changing hands but there isn’t a video camera rolling, then it is society’s business.
Or maybe they just plain can’t get any any other way?
With enough money you can buy a trophy wife. Of course that could be considered full time prostitution.
Neuromance, your post reminds me of an old joke that ends with the punch-line: “…I don’t know whether to be excited or confused.”
With enough money you can buy a trophy wife.
Why buy when you can rent?
I think what the guys are really paying for is the girl to go away afterward.
“I’ve always been puzzled why some men find hookers to be desireable. I never did.”
I feel the same way about on-line porn, too. Never could understand why men would spend big bucks looking at something they could never touch!
Never could understand why men would spend big bucks looking at something they could never touch
Or worse want to cheat with or get serious about someone who barely made it out if the 10th grade.
Isn’t that somewhat of a sterotype? I would think pallets of cash and iPads/Phone would be worth more these days.
EUROPE NEWS
OCTOBER 13, 2011
Europe’s Bailout Fund Overcomes a Hurdle
Slovak Approval Will Add Heft to Lending Facility, but New Powers—Bond Purchasing, Help for Banks—Are Still in Flux
BY CHARLES FORELLE IN BRUSSELS AND LEOS ROUSEK IN BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA
It appears that the world can take its eyes off Bratislava.
Slovakia’s largest opposition party, after a bit of parliamentary gamesmanship, cleared the way Wednesday for the country to endorse changes to the €440 billion ($600 billion) euro-zone bailout fund that European political leaders have deemed essential to the bloc’s efforts to beat back the sovereign-debt crisis.
…
Forget about minuscule quarterly percentage changes in rates of foreclosure filings, and focus on the level: A quarterly rate of 610,000 foreclosure filings translates into an annual rate of 4*610,000 = 2,440,000. That’s a fast rate of new foreclosures still entering the pipeline, considering the recession supposedly ended a couple of years ago.
Foreclosures continue to plague housing market
By Aaron Smith October 13, 2011: 5:41 AM ET
Foreclosures filings increased in the latest quarter, along with the time it takes to process them.
Foreclosures filings increased in the latest quarter, along with the time it takes to process them.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Foreclosures continued to plague the U.S. housing market last quarter, while a a growing backlog has caused the length of the foreclosure process to drag on and on.
Nationwide, foreclosure filings totaled 610,337 in the third quarter, an increase of less than 1% from the previous quarter, said RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosed properties.
Even though the increase was small, it is significant since it broke the trend of three consecutive quarterly decreases, said RealtyTrac Chief Executive James Saccacio.
“This marginal increase in overall foreclosure activity was fueled by a 14% jump in new default notices, indicating that lenders are cautiously throwing more wood into the foreclosure fireplace after spending months spent trying to clear the chimney of sloppily filed foreclosures,” he said.
…
IMO, the robosigning scandal was overblown. The banks were sent home to do their homework. The banks went home, did their homework, and now they’re back. Simple.
We know that BoA has ramped up their foreclosures, and I think I read that HSBC is starting to ramp up as well. I wonder if any other banks are ramping up to account for the 14% jump. If there’s going to be a panic, be the first to panic…
“Foreclosures filings increased in the latest quarter, along with the time it takes to process them.”
Doesn’t sound like they did their homework very well.
Yeah, NY’s foreclosure time just keeps getting longer and longer which says to me the plan is to not foreclose. Turnaround time in this state is basically as long as the crisis itself.
The last thing they want are neighborhoods full of vacant homes, which would spook those who are struggling to pay the monthly nut and might give them ideas.
Delayed foreclosure is more dangerous to neighborhoods than turnover and sale.
But sale means the end of mark to fantasy.
And the 14% jump consists of a massive increase in non-judicial states, and I’m not sure much of a change at all in the judicial states.
Most of the new foreclosures are coming from a pool of 90+ day delinquencies that have been sitting stagnant.
New delinquencies continue to fall.
Do a search for “LPS Mortgage Monitor” and see their most recent report.
Irental watch, lying reaItor…. it’s all the same.
John Malone Now Biggest Landowner in the U.S..
~ WSJ The Wealth Report
Ted Turner has lost his crown.
According to the newly released 2011 Land Report 100, which ranks the top land barons, John Malone is now America’s biggest individual landowner. The 70-year-old cable pioneer and chairman of Liberty Media now owns 2.2 million acres, after purchasing more than 1 million acres of timberland in Maine and New Hampshire earlier this year.
The purchase, which drew fire from plenty of environmentalists in New England, vaulted him past the longtime number one, Mr. Turner, who owns slightly more than 2 million acres. Mr. Malone and Mr. Turner are longtime friends and fellow cowboy-hat wearers from the cable world.
Mr. Malone started snapping up land in the 1990s, buying in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. He bought the 290,100-acre Bell Ranch in 2010 and uses it to raise cattle and horses. Mr. Malone said his main interest is land conservation and maintaining the sustainable forestry programs with the New England parcel.
Mr. Malone told the Land Report that his love of land is due to his Irish genes. “A certain land hunger comes from being denied property ownership for so many generations.”
Now is the time to buy land, he said, because of low borrowing costs and low prices. He added that real estate “is a pretty decent hedge on the devaluation of currency.”
Apparently Mr. Turner isn’t upset at losing the number one spot. In fact, Mr. Malone said Mr. Turner “first gave me this land-buying disease” on a helicopter ride on Mr. Turner’s ranch.
Mr. Malone is now looking for another huge purchase in the Northeast and Canada, according to the Land Report.
Some might worry that Mr. Malone’s purchase may ease America back to its more feudal days when the rich owned most of the land. Environmentalists fret about an era of “Kingdom Buyers.” Others may see them as the most responsible long-term stewards. Either way, the wealthy are likely to continue looking at large tracts of land as the safest long-term, hard assets at a time of extreme market volatility and low borrowing costs.
This guy obviously doesn’t realize that cash is king.
Moron.
Sarcasm off
Productive land seems like a better bet than Bernanke Bucks, especially once QE 3 is announced (any day now).
There certainly is an instinctive urge to grab real estate when hints of future reflation plans creep into the Fed meeting minutes.
Yes, especially productive if the land has thousands of harvestable timber growing on it.
D’op! . . . thousands of ACRES of . . .
Idiotic speculation.
““A certain land hunger comes from being denied property ownership for so many generations.”
Give me an f-in break. Like the Irish were the only people denied land ownership?
He’s got a long memory, strange how people use history to justify their greed.
“By the Act of Union (1800) the Irish Parliament ceased to exist, and Ireland was given representation in the British Parliament. Then, since the Irish were a minority group in the British legislature, many English ministers began to advocate Catholic Emancipation, influenced also by the decline of the papacy as a factor in secular politics. Irish agitation, headed by Daniel O’Connell and his Catholic Association, was successful in securing the admission of Catholics to Parliament. In 1828 the Test Act was repealed, and O’Connell, although still ineligible to sit, secured his election to Parliament from Co. Clare. Alarmed by the growing tension in Ireland, the duke of Wellington, the prime minister, allowed the Catholic Emancipation Bill, sponsored by Sir Robert Peel, to pass (1829). Catholics were now on the same footing as Protestants except for a few restrictions, most of which were later removed.”
Read more: Catholic Emancipation — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0810875.html#ixzz1agl4WVqa
This wouldn’t even make it on Wikipedia due to the use of ‘weasel words’, i.e. “Others may see them.”
“A certain land hunger comes from being denied property ownership for so many generations.”
And I thought it was merely greed. Silly me.
There seems to be some market manipulation going on in timber right now. I saw a quick mention on CNBC last week.
Mortgage Probe Short of Results With States Divided After a Year
By David McLaughlin and Margaret Cronin Fisk - Oct 12, 2011 9:00 PM PT
A Foreclosure Sign Hangs Outside Of A Home
A year after the start of a nationwide investigation of foreclosure practices, state and federal negotiators haven’t settled with banks and face infighting that might leave some states outside any agreement. Photographer: Joshua Lott/Bloomberg
A year after the start of a nationwide investigation of foreclosure practices, state and federal negotiators haven’t settled with banks and face infighting that might leave some states outside any agreement.
A year ago today, all 50 state attorneys general announced they were investigating the foreclosure procedures of banks following reports they were using faulty documents to seize homes and possibly violating state laws.
The effort, since broadened to force banks to provide mortgage relief for homeowners, hasn’t resulted in a deal. States, meanwhile, are fighting among themselves. The biggest, California, walked away from the talks, possibly putting a nationwide agreement out of reach.
Criticism has come from Democratic and Republican attorneys general since the spring. Republicans portrayed a state-federal proposal as overreaching. Democrats have insisted a settlement shouldn’t protect banks from enforcement actions.
“We’re trying to reform the entire mortgage-servicing industry, which has been an intractable problem for this country the last four years,” Iowa Assistant Attorney General Patrick Madigan, who is helping to lead negotiations, said in an interview. “That’s something nobody else has been able to achieve.”
The five largest mortgage servicers, including Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), have been negotiating a settlement with states’ legal chiefs and federal officials from agencies including the Justice and Housing and Urban Development departments.
Shares Down
Bank shares have sunk since the 50-state investigation was announced, with Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America falling 51 percent, New York-based JPMorgan declining 18 percent and New York-based Citigroup Inc. (C) falling 31 percent.
The extended negotiations have been a drag on bank shares, said Bernard Nash, a lawyer at Dickstein Shapiro LLP in Washington who leads the firm’s state attorneys general practice. The banks need a settlement, he said.
“The market hates uncertainty,” he said. “Once you cut the deal, no matter how big, the market will go up.”
…
Atlanta Business News 4:48 a.m.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Georgia ranks 4th in foreclosures
By Christopher Quinn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia ranked fourth nationally in foreclosure filing rates during the third quarter of 2011 and foreclosures could start climbing again after months of drops, according to the CEO of RealtyTrac.
“U.S. foreclosure activity has been mired down since October of last year, when the robo-signing controversy sparked a flurry of investigations into lender foreclosure procedures and paperwork,” said James Saccacio of the California firm.
Robo-signing involved lenders filing misdated, forged or improper paperwork in foreclosures. RealtyTrac’s numbers include default notices, auctions and bank repossessions.
…
Nevada led the nation with one of every 44 homes showing a foreclosure filing during the quarter. California was second with one for every 88 homes; Arizona was third with one of every 93, and Georgia was fourth with one of every 121 homes, according to RealtyTrac numbers.
The metro Atlanta fared worse than the state, with one in 89 homes showing a filing. Florida rounded out the top five in RealtyTrac’s list with one of every 130 homes showing a filing.
Vermont had the lowest rate, where one of every 8,483 homes had a filing.
Equity Depot, which tracks metro foreclosures, said Monday foreclosure notices, the first step in the process which may lead to a repossession or sale, ticked up month-to-month in the metro area. There were 8,845 foreclosure notices in October, up 16 percent from September’s 7,634.
…
Shadow Inventory
What Does Shadow Inventory Mean?
A term that refers to real estate properties that are either in foreclosure and have not yet been sold or homes that owners are delaying putting on the market until prices improve. Shadow inventory can create uncertainty about the best time to sell (for owners) and when a local market can expect full recovery. Also, shadow inventory typically causes reported data on housing inventory to understate the actual number of inventory in the market.
Investopedia explains Shadow Inventory
With the unprecedented number of foreclosures stemming from the subprime mortgage meltdown of 2007-2008 and the overall housing market collapse during that crisis, lenders were left with significant real estate holdings. Many lenders were slow to put their inventory up for sale for fear of flooding the market and further driving down prices, which would in turn lower their potential ROI.
OCTOBER 11, 2011, 11:16 A.M. ET
US Housing Market Problems Are ‘Manageable’ Economist Says
CHICAGO (Dow Jones) — The U.S. housing market may begin to stabilize after another year or two as the mortgage finance industry works through oversupply from past building and the current foreclosure crisis, a leading economist said Tuesday.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics who has been consulted by Congress, told mortgage bankers gathered for an industry conference in Chicago that tweaks, not necessarily a major new program, will be enough to help arrest the price declines …
2008: “Subprime is contained”
2011: “Tweaks will be enough”
2013: Anyone venture a guess?
2013: “The housing market will bottom out by the end of this year.”
2013: Unexpectedly.
So let me get this straight: Five years after the Housing Bubble popped, the primary goal of housing policy is to get prices to start going up again? Any price increases which result shall be documented by the MSM as improvements.
Go figure.
Twin Cities housing prices still dropping
Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 10:49am CDT
The Twin Cities housing market continued to make small improvements in September, even though prices were down for the 11th consecutive month, a real estate group said Wednesday.
The median price for a Twin Cities-area home was $155,000 last month, down 6.9 percent from September 2010, according to a report from the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors (MAAR).
For the last 12 months, home prices are down 8.8 percent, the group said.
But supply and demand for housing continued its trend of evening out, which the MAAR said eventually will lead to price increases.
…
The MSM is the bullhorn of the powers that be. The MSM is advertising revenue driven. They’re not going to annoy their advertisers. Regarding politics, they cultivate connections with politicians so they can be first to get the story (as opposed to getting the story right). So, they won’t annoy politicians by asking pesky questions.
Housing price increase = collateral for debt = new money = higher profits.
Sure, long-term it is the path to depression. An addict cares not for the long-term as they can’t see much beyond the next fix. We are addicted to debt and housing gives us the fix.
US foreclosure activity edged higher in 3Q
RealtyTrac says mortgage defaults rose in the 3rd quarter, pointing to more foreclosures ahead
LOS ANGELES (AP) — More U.S. homes are entering the foreclosure process, but they’re taking ever longer to get sold or repossessed by lenders.
The number of U.S. homes that received a first-time default notice during the July to September quarter increased 14 percent compared to the second quarter, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
That increase signals banks are moving more aggressively now against borrowers who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments than they have since industrywide foreclosure processing problems emerged last fall. Those problems resulted in a sharp drop in foreclosure activity this year.
The surge in default notices means homeowners who haven’t kept up their mortgage payments could now end up on the foreclosure path sooner. Initial default notices are first step in the process that can eventually lead to a home being taken back by a lender.
A pickup in foreclosure activity also means a potentially faster turnaround for the U.S. housing market. Experts say a revival isn’t likely to occur as long as there remains a glut of potential foreclosures hovering over the market.
Real Estate 2011: House Prices in Chicago and the Suburbs
THE NEW NEW RULES OF REAL ESTATE: Eleven years ago, Chicago offered a guide to making the most of the sizzling-hot housing market. What a difference a decade makes. Now, confronting the realities of today’s pinched economy, local real-estate pros weigh in with the best strategies for buying or selling a home. PLUS: Our annual survey of housing prices in nearly 300 neighborhoods and towns
By Dennis Rodkin
Early this year, with the housing market in its deepest ditch in a decade, Linda and Mark Paternostro decided to sell their Glencoe home of four years and move to another town. They put the five-bedroom house on the market at $1.149 million—$101,000 less than the $1.25 million they had paid for it in 2007.
Stung by the idea of losing money, Mark had advocated starting out above the 2007 purchase price, just to see what might happen. But having watched other houses in the neighborhood linger on the market for a year or more because their asking prices reflected rosier (and long gone) economic times, Linda wouldn’t have it. “Prices had been plummeting, and I’m a financial realist,” she says. “The reality is the reality.”
A month after putting the house up for sale, the Paternostros cut the price to $1.099 million; two weeks later the place went under contract at $970,000, or 22 percent less than what they had paid for it four years earlier—and that doesn’t include roughly $1,000 spent on small repairs and cleanups to put the house on the market in sparkling condition. Despite the losses, Linda feels “exceedingly lucky. It could have been a lot worse,” she says. “It could have taken a very long time when we were ready to be somewhere else.”
It wasn’t only luck that worked for the couple. It was their hard-nosed take on the dreadful state of real estate. They started out by accepting the primary rule for sellers in today’s market—that it simply doesn’t matter what they paid for the house—and took strategic steps to get the property sold. With a downward tilt that has now persisted for almost five years and has drained a larger percentage out of home values than the Great Depression did, the rules of buying and selling have changed dramatically.
…
Glencoe is in Cook County. I wonder if they decided to move to the other side of Lake-Cook Rd. ? They wouldn’t be the first - that’s for sure.
“under contract at $970,000…that doesn’t include roughly $1,000 spent on small repairs and cleanups”
Oh the poor babies.
The NW ‘burbs are getting whacked - I bought a 3/2 th in 2001 for $162K, sold in 2005 for $186K (after starting at 200K). The place has been on the market for at least 3 years and is now listed at $132K and it’s not a short sale.
Unfortunately, there are better locations in the subdivision listed for less. Those places took a real bath - losing 100-120k in “value” and the places weren’t upscale.
Big drop in Phoenix-area housing market activity
October 12, 2011
The amount of activity in the Phoenix-area housing market dropped significantly last month. A new report from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University reveals the decrease and explains that it’s largely due to a decline in foreclosures.
“When you look at the drop in the number of transactions from August to September, 43 percent of that decline is due to a decrease in foreclosure activity,” says W. P. Carey School of Business professor emeritus Jay Butler, who wrote the report. “At the same time, though, the overall housing market is not strong enough to make up the decline in activity with traditional sales.”
The existing-home market had 9,250 single-family home transactions in August. In September, the number plunged to fewer than 8,000. That’s even low when compared to the activity at the same time last year. Last September, the market had just over 9,000 transactions.
Foreclosures made up 29 percent of the total activity in September. This is way down from 43 percent in January and down from 31 percent in August. August was the only month this year that the foreclosure rate went up in the Phoenix area. The number of foreclosures dropped from almost 2,900 in August to about 2,300 in September.
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Strategic Mortgage Delinquencies as High as 27%
By Jody Shenn -
Oct 3, 2011 2:57 PM ET
The share of strategic delinquencies among the total has risen to about 26 percent to 27 percent from 20 percent a year ago, according to the report.
Amherst Securities Group LP analyst Laurie Goodman said lenders need to reduce principal for homeowners to stem the foreclosure crisis, which otherwise may engulf more than 10 million additional properties, she estimated.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-03/strategic-mortgage-delinquencies-as-high-as-27-jpmorgan-says.html - 140k -
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Curse you, Jeff Saturday, I can’t get that excellent song you posted out of my head. I’ve been humming it since last night…”With a knick-knack paddywack, this old man want`s eight free homes”
Many old limmericks and now children’s poems were actually thinly veild social and political commentary and criticism of the era they were written in and provide a simple history lesson outside the main channels of learning.
Intelligent Investing
Ideas from Forbes Investor Team
10/12/2011 @ 10:09AM
Buy That Dream House Now Or Wait Until Prices Fall Further?
John E. Girouard, Contributor
House in Virginia Park, Detroit
Is it time to buy that house we always wanted, or should we wait until prices fall further?
As a financial planner, I’m often asked that question and it frustrates me to hear otherwise rational people talking about home ownership the way a speculator might talk about the price of gold. Nobody needs gold, but everyone needs a place to live.
If you’ve found the house you love, you intend to make it your home for the long haul, and the financials add up, why would you wait?
Talk about the collapse of real estate prices destroying the American Dream makes good headlines but it simply isn’t true. Yes, it may feel bad to know that the house you bought in 2006 has lost a big chunk of its market value. But if you can afford the mortgage payments and upkeep, you bought it intending to live there for a decade or more, and you leverage that asset to its best advantage as part of your financial portfolio, the state of the real estate market is irrelevant.
Trying to time the housing bottom is as much folly as trying to time stocks or any other investment vehicle. In fact, it’s greater folly because if housing prices do fall further, it’s likely to be because mortgage rates are rising, which would mean that over the long term that slightly lower price you may have paid could end up costing more in carrying costs than you saved. Furthermore, how much lower could prices go? The economy can’t get much worse than it’s been in the past three years and the difficulty in getting a mortgage couldn’t be much greater.
…
And it’s this type of thinking that caused my BIL to get in a bidding war to over pay on a short sale in Cambria,ca. for a beach house that is not a beach house.
lots of that going on around here, anything under $300k has multiple bids according to the realwhores.
“As a financial planner, I’m often asked that question and it frustrates me to hear otherwise rational people talking about home ownership the way a speculator might talk about the price of gold. Nobody needs gold, but everyone needs a place to live.”
This guy obviously missed his calling, as with NAR propaganda lines like this one in his back pocket, he could make a killing in real estate.
It’s either owning a home, or living in a cardboard box under the overpass.
Renting has not yet been discovered.
Most of the people I talk to around here who rent would buy if the Banks would loan them money, and they don’t think home prices will fall any more.
S. CA
I had two different people this week tell me they think housing can only go up from here. Course we have the PTB shill Rick Regan spewing sunshine up people’s butts as the financial advisor on the local news channel. It’s obvious that’s the only place some people get their information.
He has been a bit nervous about Europe. It was kind of funny to see him nervous instead of sporting that painted on gleeful Crameresque smile.
House prices to fall 10% by 2013
12 October 2011 | By Tessa Norman
Weak economic growth and falling employment will cause house prices to fall 10% by 2013, according to Capital Economics.
In a Q4 housing market report, Capital Economics predicts that house prices will decline by 5% in both 2012 and 2013.
And it says that the threat of another major financial crisis and a return to recession mean that risks to its forecasts are to the downside.
The report says that the UK’s economic recovery weakened noticeably in Q3, while employment growth has turned negative once and again and further job losses are on the horizon.
It says: “Against this backdrop, house prices have further to fall. While traditional valuation metrics are not a perfect guide to the scale and timing of future price movements, they suggest that housing is overvalued by up to 20% relative to historical norms.
“Admittedly, mortgage approvals rose to a 20-month high in August, but housing market activity remains well below the level that historically has been consistent with rising house prices. And if anything, the renewed slump in consumer confidence suggests that fresh falls in mortgage approvals are likely.”
…
Insight: Deflating China’s housing bubble
A real estate agent walks next to empty apartments at a new residential area in Shanghai September 8, 2011. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Fri Oct 7, 2011 9:32am EDT
(Reuters) - As housing bubbles go, China’s looks relatively benign. Unlike in the United States, Chinese home buyers typically put down at least 40 percent of the purchase price. That means they don’t have to worry about a modest decline wiping out all their equity, and banks have little reason to fear an influx of “jingle mail” from defaulting homeowners returning the keys.
Household debt amounts to less than 20 percent of China’s gross domestic product, according to the International Monetary Fund, one fifth of the U.S. ratio.
“In the United States, housing was a borrowing vehicle for households. In China, it’s a savings vehicle,” said Stephen Green, an economist with Standard Chartered in Hong Kong.
This is a vital distinction. It was leverage that turned the U.S. housing slump into a global financial crisis. That suggests even if China’s housing market suffers a similar slide, the economic consequences would be far less severe.
That doesn’t mean it would be painless.
There are a couple of trouble spots. China’s new home sales have fallen sharply in some cities, putting property developers in greater danger of default. Local governments counting on land sales to help repay $1.5 trillion in loans may find the money flow slows, saddling banks with bad debts.
But Beijing appears to be ready, willing and able to limit the economic fallout. Over the past 18 months, China has clamped down on property speculators to try to cool prices.
If it stays on that course, China could become one of the few countries to successfully deflate a property bubble before it bursts. If there is a global recession, all bets are off.
…
Successfully deflate???
They’re called bubbles, and not balloons, for a reason!
You can’t deflate a bubble?
Bubbles pop. Balloons deflate.
“In the United States, housing was a borrowing vehicle…..”
In contrast to China, who use copper ingots…..
Real Estate 2011: House Prices in Chicago and the Suburbs
By Dennis Rodkin
Early this year, with the housing market in its deepest ditch in a decade, Linda and Mark Paternostro decided to sell their Glencoe home of four years and move to another town.
A month after putting the house up for sale, the Paternostros cut the price to $1.099 million; two weeks later the place went under contract at $970,000, or 22 percent less than what they had paid for it four years earlier—
Despite the losses, Linda feels “exceedingly lucky. It could have been a lot worse,” she says. “It could have taken a very long time when we were ready to be somewhere else.”
They started out by accepting the primary rule for sellers in today’s market—that it simply doesn’t matter what they paid for the house—and took strategic steps to get the property sold.
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2011/Real-Estate-2011-House-Prices-in-Chicago-and-the-Suburbs/ - -
Could Low Mortgage Rates be Damaging the Housing Market?
Posted by Theo
Burnquist Financial, General, Headlines
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
Despite the fact that record low mortgage rates have been heralded as nothing less than a godsend by millions, other industry analysts are suggesting that they may in fact be indirectly further damaging an already struggling housing market.
The assumption behind such an idea comes by way of thinking that the low rates of today are making it incredibly undesirable to hold a higher-rate mortgage of the past. In such instances, it is entirely likely that homeowners may find their lot improved if they bail on their current home and look to buy a new one.
A positive to those in question of course, aside from the obvious credit score damage, but with negative consequences for the lender and the market, by way of another unwanted foreclosure and an addition to the already overflowing overpriced inventory.
Perhaps worse still, a general consensus among the public regarding house prices remaining low for some considerable time can only serve to hurt the number of upcoming home sales, as more will feel comfortable sitting on their cash.
As it stands, approximately 33% of Americans see house prices rising over the next year or so, which is the lowest number on record. At first glance the situation would appear ideal, with low mortgage rates and low house prices seeming exactly the ticket to spur a boom.
However, the reality is that millions appear to have become used to the current situation and may indeed be taking it for granted, as while there is every possibility the overall lows will remain, there are of course no guarantees this will be the case.
…
“…approximately 33% of Americans see house prices rising over the next year or so,…”
That statistic certainly begs the question of where the remaining 67% of Americans see house prices heading over the next year or so.
I’m a silly goose, but just five years ago didn’t those same yokels in the paper trumpet the low interest rates as keep the housing market healthy and growing to the sky?
Hey! I wanna get a negative rate mortgage! One pays ME interest for borrowing to buy a depreciating asset.
Obviously then, the answer is to jack up mortgage rates to the 10-15% range.
Banks backing off on foreclosures in Palm Beach County
By Jeff Ostrowski Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 8:45 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011
In an unexpected bit of fallout from the real estate crash, lenders are filing far fewer foreclosures.
Alas, that’s not because the economic picture is improving but because the housing market is flooded with repossessed homes, and banks and courts are inundated with default proceedings.
“The banks don’t have a motivation to push these through quickly,” said Tom Ice, a foreclosure attorney in Royal Palm Beach. “There’s a lot of expense involved in owning the houses. And they understand that flooding the market with properties is going to push down the resale value of their own properties.”
John Tuccillo, chief economist for the Florida Realtors, agrees.
“Banks are in business to make as much money as they can, or to lose as little money as they can,” he said. “It’s a bad business decision to flood the market.”
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/banks-backing-off-on-foreclosures-in-palm-beach-1910596.html - -
A perfect example of news “fluff.”
Less loans = less defaults? No sheet, Sherlock.
Realtors Are Liars®
Warren B was right about the taxes . Our humble household paid no taxes because of a lot of real estate write-offs that zeroed it out ,including all kinds of SS credits for the kids , we got some $$$ back on the making work pay thing too.
My teenage daughter , on the other hand ,had a part time private job that paid about 7K and ended up having to send in $500 because she did not withhold ,taking care of an old lady. Guess who forked the money over for that ? That’s what parents are for . That’s what I get for urging her to file, we suppose
Didn’t you get the meme? Poor people don’t pay taxes.
You must have screwed up her 1040EZ.
Well, when you have to check the box that says you are listed as a dependent on someone else’s taxes, it doesn’t work out so well. That sounds like a lot of work - probably around a 1000 so something like 20 hours a week. Your teen is very industrious.
If you are single and make over 10K, you WILL pay fed income tax.
GOP Presidential Contender Herman Cain Takes Lead In Second Poll
08:03 am October 13, 2011
by Mark Memmott
Business executive Herman Cain, left, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney during a debate Tuesday (Oct. 11, 2011) in New Hampshire.
Enlarge Scott Eells/AP
“Fueled by Tea Party supporters, conservatives and high-interest GOP primary voters, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain now leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll,” NBC News deputy political director Mark Murry reports.
He says that: “Cain checks in as the first choice of 27 percent of Republican voters in the poll, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 23 percent and Perry at 16 percent. After those three, it’s Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 11 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 8 percent, Bachmann at 5 percent and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman at 3 percent.”
The survey of 336 voters who say they plan to vote in Republican primaries has a margin of error on each result of +/- 5.35 percentage points.
This marks the second poll this week showing Cain in the lead. As our colleague Frank James reported on It’s All Politics, “a new poll from Public Policy Polling has the one-time Godfather’s Pizza CEO leading Mitt Romney by eight percentage points, 30 percent to 22 percent.” That survey was of 484 “usual Republican primary voters” and has a margin of error of +/- 4.5 points.
…
I’m tellin’ ya, it’s gonna be Cain.
Even after the AARP crowd hears that his 9/9/9 ends payroll taxes that have funded Social Security for the last 75 years? After they hear that his 9/9/9 would INCREASE taxes on retired people through a VAT while ending SS funding?
I think that getting out will be just as destructive to him and Perry’s “SS is a Ponzi” was to him.
The Republican Party is going to be faced with multiple personality disorder. A lot of their Bible Thumping, hard-core conservatives are also SS/MC eligable. It will be difficult to walk the knife’s edge of:
1) Not raising taxes above our current $2T revenue.
2) Not cutting SS/MCare/Mcaid/DoD/VA/Justice/State and the other “untouchables” that make up about $2.5T in spending and expected to increase 50% over the next decade as the first half of boomers retire and those SS/MC eligable increases 60-70%.
3) Slashing government spending and balancing the budget through some sort of “cap, cut and balance”.
I guess Cain doesn’t have Obama’s “not black enough” problem?
(yes i know it sounds racist, but why is it only an issue when the black person is a Dem?)
IMO, Cain is in the lead simply because it’s his turn. Looks like every will get a chance to be leader, except 13th-floor-of-the-hotel Ron Paul.
IMO, Cain is in the lead simply because it’s his turn.
My thought as well. Eventually people will understand his 9-9-9 plan and then:
Seniors won’t vote for him.
“Lucky Duckies” won’t vote for him
Racists won’t for for him (OK they won’t for Obama either)
Most of the black and other minority votes will go to Obama
“Liberals” won’t vote for him.
So how exactly will he win the election?
Yes, but who is going to be his Co-Cain?
“Yes, but who is going to be his Co-Cain?”
Hopefully a mixed race, trans-gendered hermaphrodite so I can watch evangelicals and bigots heads explode.
Oct. 13, 2011, 8:30 a.m. EDT
Weekly U.S. jobless claims dip slightly to 404,000
By Jeffry Bartash
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The number of Americans who filed applications for unemployment benefits inched down by 1,000 last week to 404,000, the government reported Thursday. Initial claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 405,000 from an original reading of 401,000, the Labor Department said. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected new claims in the week ended Oct. 8 to climb to 406,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis. The average of new claims over the past four weeks, meanwhile, dropped by 7,000 to 408,000, the lowest level since mid-August. The number of Americans who continue to receive regular state unemployment checks declined by 55,000 to 3.67 million in the week ended Oct 1. About 6.82 million people received some kind of state or federal benefit in the week of Sept. 24, down 39,203 from the prior week.
Over 400,000 is the new normal
It sure is, as is earning less than $500/wk while the plutocrats promise to stick you with a 9% flat income tax, 9% sales tax (on top of the local sales tax) and saying buh-bye to SS and Medicare.
I wonder if the Plutocrats will then institute suicide centers (a la Soylent Green) where the elderly destitute can go to end it all?
“saying buh-bye to SS and Medicare”
Say buh-bye to them both, no matter who gets elected.
Unless the government can find a magic dwarf who can spin straw into gold….
“saying buh-bye to SS and Medicare”…Say buh-bye to them both, no matter who gets elected….Unless the government can find a magic dwarf who can spin straw into gold….
“Socialized,” universal health-insurance combined with private medical treatment as Canada has would be the magic dwarf to spin gold from straw and eliminate the need for American Medicare.
Canadian “Socialized Medicine”: Better results at half the price
Means test Soc Sec and eliminate the cap on its taxes would spin straw into gold too.
This may sound morbid, but after seeing seniors waste away in nursing homes for 20+ years in some cases while their bodies wither, or slowly succomb to cancer, I wonder what is the worse alternative. If those were my options, I just may choose to lie back and watch peacefull images on a giant flat screen,listening to classical music while I’m pumpled full of a lethal concoction of barbituates. Just sayin…
Yeah its really sick we torture our parents and grandparents that way…. but just have a guard lay one hand on Charlie Manson after he throws his poop in your face….and the ACLU will sue you to death.
NYC… I hope you ducked -
If we treated our pets the way we treat old people, we would be charged with animal cruelty. Sad but true.
Are the initial figures ever revised down? I’ve seen them constantly revised up but never down.
the 401 from last week was revised up to 405, to make this week look better. week in, week out, the same game over and over.
Mean while in Greece, the beat goes on
“Many Greeks have said they cannot pay the new property tax, which is to be paid through electricity bills to circumvent the country’s dysfunctional tax system and make it easier for the state to collect. Those who do not pay risk having their power cut off.
But the power employees’ union has reacted with outrage, saying the power company should not be used as a tax collection system. Workers have said they will refuse to switch consumers’ electricity off.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/greece-public-transport-strike-hits-capital-14726229
they will be taxing air next
“The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air - or of the money to buy it - even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it”
Relax, Greeks. Your government is promising whatever they have to to con the EU (and the IMF, and the Fed) into giving them billions in new loans. They will stretch the promises-for-cash scheme out as long as they can before announcing they changed their minds and will be defaulting after all.
Property prices dropping Down Under
Property prices in Australia have fallen again, with the average price of a home slipping by 2.4% during September, according to reports.
This follows six months of falling house prices and means that Australian property prices are now at their lowest for some years.
Despite modest gains in New South Wales and Western Australia, property in Queensland and Victoria saw significant drops that managed to pull down the country’s average.
Demand for property remains strongest in inner city locations, with the most popular being those that cost less than $500,000 AUD. However it is waning overall due to a mixture of high construction costs, poor employment levels in the country and high interest rates. Many Australians are also struggling to get a mortgage due to credit restrictions. Analysts believe the market won’t regain traction until 2012, and that property prices are not set to return to normal until September 2013.
In the meantime, rental growth has increased month on month as Australians increasingly turn to the rental market to provide an answer to their housing dilemmas. As a result, the market is an ideal one for overseas property investors, who could find they are able to snap up a bargain and have a guaranteed rental income from a second home.
Read our guide to buying in Australia and search for available Australian properties.
Written by: A Place in the Sun Thursday, October 13, 2011
I guess foreign real estate investing vultures are snapping up U.S. CRE like hot cakes?
Foreign CRE Investors Expanding Their U.S. Appetite Beyond Core
By Mark Heschmeyer
October 12, 2011
The abundance of foreign investors focused on core assets in coastal United States markets has begun to diversify in the latter half of 2011, with secondary markets, value-add and distressed properties reigniting interest from European and Asian investors, according to Jones Lang LaSalle’s International Capital Group.
The year ahead should also show a marked change in the appetite for development as long-time players consider projects in high barrier-to-entry markets.
“For the past 18 to 24 months or so, we’ve seen a large number of investors strategically competing for the preeminent assets in the top core markets-those in New York, Washington, DC, and San Francisco, for the most part,” said Steve Collins, International Director of Jones Lang LaSalle’s International Capital Group. “Now, we’re experiencing a notable thinning of the peloton as those same investors move slightly further out the risk continuum into solid, well located properties in secondary markets, or staying within core markets, but broadening their search to include value-add or even distressed assets within those markets.”
Some notable examples of investors seeking risk-adjusted returns in former “flyover” markets (which describe those secondary markets that investors literally fly over when they’re reaching another major city) include:
In August, Allianz, along with joint venture partner, CCP Investment Board out of Canada, purchased two multifamily properties in Boston-the Archstone North Point for approximately $186 million and the Archstone Woodland Park for approximately $84 million.
The North American Development Group out of Ontario, Canada, purchased the Edgewood Retail District in Atlanta for $81.7 million in September and a joint venture between Chinese and Korean investors purchased Three First National Plaza in Chicago in August for approximately $348 million.
For the majority, joint ventures remain the foreign investment vehicle of choice for U.S.-based office investments, particularly those from Germany and France, while Middle Eastern and Asian investors have their eyes on multifamily, JLL International noted.
Development also appears poised to make a tentative comeback as long-time international players begin investigating opportunities for office project developments in those same barrier-to-entry markets of New York and Washington, DC.
…
Are Jumbo Prime Mortgages the next domino to fall? According to Zero Hedge, that’s what the trouble in PrimeX signifies.
“Several years ago Paolo Pellegrini, Kyle Bass, Michael Burry and several other visionaries were well ahead of the conventional wisdom groupthink curve by not only sensing that the housing market was massively overvalued and riding on the crest of a huge leverage bubble (many others agreed) but by finding a ridiculously cheap, low theta way of expressing an uber-bearish long-term outlook with negligible downside and virtually unlimited upside by purchasing billions in ABX index notional at a cost of a few basis points, and watching it explode as one after another asset manager figured out just what “subprime” means and why it may not be conducive to a healthy career in finance. Virtually all of them ended up being very, very rich in just a few short years having had the foresight and, more importantly, the way to express that vision. Lightning may be about to strike twice as the Subprime implosion of 2007 becomes the Prime implosion of 2011. Back in December 2009, when musing on the very interesting topic of the advent of a new ABX-like index, this time tracking Prime mortgages, we asked, rhetorically as so often happens, “Will The New ABX Prime Index Be The Reason For The Next RMBS (And Thus, FHA/GSE) Collapse?” (for more on this index which MarkIt now markets as PrimeX see here). And while the rest of the world is fretting about Europe, Morgan Stanley, lack of decisive political decision-making in a pseudo union of 17 different countries, lack of decisive monetary intervention, a Chinese hard landing and everything else that makes front pages these days, slowly our prediction is starting to come true. But you won’t hear about it anywhere else, because if the market understands that in addition to a global solvency crisis, America has another Subprime contagion on its hands actually being expressed in the markets as we type, and potentially costing banks, pension funds and various asset managers billions in losses behind the scenes, that may well be the last straw.”
OWS protesters assemble. Realtors dissemble.
OWS is trying to stop foreclosure auctions. It’s on their web page. They just totally lost my support. You can’t demand responsibility from one group while ignoring your own part in the problem.
OWS is trying to stop foreclosure auctions. It’s on their web page. They just totally lost my support.
OWS’s core message is way bigger than stopping foreclosure auctions just like the Tea Party’s message is bigger than “bring your guns to church” week.
OWS’s core message is way bigger than stopping foreclosure auctions just like the Tea Party’s message is bigger than “bring your guns to church” week.
Like :-).
You guys can publically declare your support to the I want something for free crowd if you’d like. I was contemplating becoming more involved w/this crowd before today and now I will not.
It’s their first demand. I don’t think they played the card well at all.
Give it time Carrie, it has the potential to grow into something very nice.
Exactly.
Sit tight Carrie. Besides…. nobody is going to get a free house. If I’m willing to overlook this moronic issue, I’m willing to overlook some of the T party illogic if they’ll only join.
I’m so confused; didn’t the Fall 2008 TARP fix all the problems with soured mortgages?
Oct. 13, 2011, 8:11 a.m. EDT
JP Morgan profit off, revenue posts surprise gain
By Mia Lamar
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s (JPM -2.78%) third-quarter earnings slipped 3.5% amid higher noninterest expenses though the bank posted a surprise increase in revenue despite a challenging capital markets environment.
The nation’s second largest bank by assets is the first big bank to report results for the third quarter. J.P. Morgan’s head of investment banking last month warned a turbulent market during the period could push down investment banking fees by a third while also taking a chunk out of trading revenue.
The investment banking arm posted an 27% jump in profit as revenue rose 19%. At the bank’s retail services business, which handles consumer and small-business clients, profit was up 62% from a year earlier.
Deepening economic worries in the U.S. and Europe and persistent troubles from soured mortgages have left investors girding for a rocky quarter from many of the nation’s largest financial institutions.
…
Today’s house: The wishing flip got spanked by reality.
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1111-Osage-St-Silver-Spring-MD-20903/37290690_zpid/#{scid=hdp-site-map-list-address}
Many more pix here:
http://pix1.homevisit.com/mlsTour/?id=47141&skin=&ver=1&fp=
1950 3/1.5 rambler on 0.14 acres, in Spanish-by-immersion land. It’s obviously a total gut-job renovation (no house built in 1950 would originally have that jagged ceiling). Totally new everything inside, gleaming kitchen, nice yard on the outside. I saw no signs of a basement. Construction folks, how long does it take to do a complete gut and reno? Looks to me like they did this one awfully fast.
The price history speaks for itself. However, at the current price, I expect this one to be snapped up by someone. I’ve seen other houses at this price which are trashed, and honestly, I think the owners will be lucky to break even when they sell. That reno had to cost at least $60K.
Oct 2002: Sold $185K
Jan 2005: Sold $310K
Jul 2010: Sold $178K
Sep 2010: Listed $325 (!)
Chase market down down down…
Oct 11: Listed $239K
I would say 4-6 weeks with a full time professional crew. I’d have to see the orig to see if they moved any walls, but the raising the ceiling stuff would take the most time ~ 2-3 weeks. The kitchen could be done in a weekend. All the bathroom tiling a couple of days and laying the floor a couple of days.
You can see the bricks on an inside wall in one of the pics, I’m guessing where they added the triangle looking thing in the front.
That house looks very small, but pretty nice for some spanish by immersion person.
3-6 months on avg. if everything goes right, no matter the scope. The hardest part is scheduling your contractors. (getting them to show up when they say they will)
I posted this later yesterday in the PNW thread; but thought some more may see it this A.M. re: Prineville, Oregon. They are banking on a new industrial park as the latest hope; anchored by Facebook’s decision to house a data center there. I hope that they can get more industrial clients, as the home I purchased is actually is there, so I have a vested interest in their success. Being that I paid115k and it is in a desirable part of town, I could play the landlord game and jack the rent (currently $825).
As far as FB, they will pay the city no municipal taxes for 15 years as part of the deal. And when contruction is finished; maybe 45 new jobs will be added. Should really bring down the county’s 17% unemployment! Actually the jobs will be welcome especially if they hire locals.
Anyone but me think this is a little tenuous? I think Facebook is overvalued; a flash in the pan, subject to market forces like myspace was. Cutting edge, but flawed, so what happens to FB when Google or the like builds a better mousetrap? I mean, my wife has an account and has some fun virtually farming(jk); mostly keeping up with old friends. I predict it could be worth less than its current valuation if the fad cools, or competition revs up. I know anectodally that users get peeved about usurious or careless security policies, format changes and it could ever-so-smart Google figure out how to make a better, safer book-for-faces. If it catches fire like facebook has; facebook will be toast and/or we will be looking at tech crash 2.0
But I work about 1-2 days a week in Prineville, and neighboring Madras a bit too. Madras is rural, 30 miles to the north of Bend/Redmond. It has a development named Yarrow, with thousand plus lots and 4 or 5 houses up after 3 years or more. I think their latest promo is “Double the lot, 1/2 the price as they scale it on down. Down the tubes. Madras is ghetto, man, with only 5,000 residents! Right up the road from Warm Springs Reservation, migrant workers, trailer trash(no offense to those who habitate trailers, I spent 3 winters in a travel trailer and my family is getting ready to camp for about a month as we are evicted from wife’s foreclosure)., Surprise, the equity locusts actually had the sense not to take the hook. Hoity toidy walking trails on one side of town, while the other, older side only consists of about half the streets actually being paved. No-one actually wants to buy a cookie cutter home there for 300k, but that was the business model.
Same deal in Prineville. 9,000k population with a 1000 home development, Ironhorse, dead in its tracks for now. They had originally wanted over 200k for the home I bought from a development builder going under.
Lots of relatively prosperous (well not destitute) farm kids who are real cowboys. Raising pigs for 4-h kinda place. Kids absent cuz they are out hunting. It’s a community of about 9,000.
Of course the last developments to the party, an only put up 20 homes; infrastructure on 1000 lots which is growing sagebrush. So much for the new school; the retail; all the promises of the development.
Like so many places the californication has put all the old frugal locals (except old farming)out of a life as cost of living mirrors that of that in Bend which mirrors that of California. No wonder Oregonians don’t like Californians. Priced them right out of a life.
Equity locusts (flies away to avoid being swatted), all of ‘em. Without a pension, well you can’t make it here. Thats why the region used to be for retirees and ski bums to feed them and service their needs. That’s what it will become again, as the locusts must eat to survive, and as such will leave the decimated, ugly landscape behind.
Prices briefly escalated to 300k for any home there in P-ville, which killed all incentive of P-ville as a bedroom community for Bend.
They currently are putting a lot of stock in Facebook as there is a large data center there. Too bad it will only employ 40 people once the contruction phase is over; and they will likely be imported techies rather than locals. What if Facebook is like the hula hoop? Or another overvalued internet boom company (I sure don’t have an account). The county has 17% unemployment, approx.
Like the days you could own your own out there for 80k. Coming back with a vengence, if you could get a job. Rents, however, are frequently over 1000 bucks there, too. I know, MOVE!
Well off to work; lady I sub for just called to ask me to work all day rather than half for her; lucky I already dressed for work. Little steps, Mike
1) Does the fad cool? Is it even a fad, the desire to keep up with old friends and keep a social network at your convenience, with no physical interaction or time requirements?
2) Re: Competition - Google, one of the top tech companies out there with some of the most brilliant minds, has Google+. It’s doing adequately, but I don’t think it will replace facebook. There were some improvements google plus included (e.g., ‘Circles’), which Facebook immediately adopted.
I do see the social networking scene as a natural monopoly, like Microsoft Windows. Namely, everybody will want to be on the biggest one so that they’re on the one everyone else (that they care about) is on.
Facebook might have legs, but they won’t ever be a big employer. Most data centers these days are highly automated, some so much so that they don’t have a full time staff, or any staff at all, and a real live worker only shows up to fix or upgrade something physical. Welcome to the world of the “lights out” data center.
Did Colossus or Skynet need human attendents?
Farmville sounds like fun, actually. But it’s not worth getting Facebook for. But Farmville has a huge drawback: it happens in real time, not the time you’re on Facebook. So if you don’t log into facebook for a month, all your crops die. I think I’d rather farm for real.
They are banking on a new industrial park as the latest hope
Ditto in Loveland:
“Loveland ACE project will be ‘national showcase’”
http://www.reporterherald.com/business/northern-business/ci_19098755
Why are cowboys a good thing, yet pigboys seems repulsive as a descriptor?
10:26am EDT-
Just an observation:
24 out of 36 threads in the bits bucket started by one poster, including 19 of the first 23 threads.
No one is stopping you from starting more threads. So old PB starts a lot of threads. Some are not of interest to me, so I simply ignore them. It really isn’t that hard to do.
Might be a timing issue more than a content issue. It’s an ego blow to write a morning post, only to realize that your post is already 2/3 way down the page where nobody will see it, while everyone is commenting upthread. Not everybody has the time/patience to scroll past 40 inches of cut and paste.
Chalk it up to insomnia.
Joshua Tree Extension
24 of 36 threads started by one poster.
Question - How many people commented on those threads, ie how many considered the post interesting enough to comment.
I see no problem.
It’s become tradition. I can always count on good links to read thanks to Stucco.
So start some threads and give PB some competition.
Complaining is easy; posting at 5am, not so much.
I don’t see myself voting for Cain. He’s an impressive guy, but a plutocrat. And his sales tax increase while decreasing taxes on everyone else is repugnant to me. Why? A sales tax is a REGRESSIVE tax. It puts a greater burden on those lower on the economic ladder.
Nowadays, I have a comfortable net worth, but I’ve been poor. I’ve worked with the underclass. This screws them. I reject sales tax increases on principle, due to its regressivity.
And, lest you think it’s the Republicans that like to screw the poor, I live in Maryland. One of the most heavily liberal and democratic states in the union. With a large underclass. And a monoculture ‘progressive’ elected government. Supposedly champions of the working man. And they just raised the sales tax. Again - a regressive tax. Imposing heavier burdens on those suffering the most from this economic downturn and those whom they purport to champion. And on top of that, they recently managed to legalize slots and expand state-sponsored gambling. Again, this hurts those lower on the socioeconomic ladder.
It’s actions like these that again and again show me that Republican or Democrat, the politicians are beholden to a few large donors, people and companies, and are willing to impose significant costs on others to advance themselves. Ignore their lip-flap, and watch their actions.
Why? A sales tax is a REGRESSIVE tax. It puts a greater burden on those lower on the economic ladder.
+1 (Why do so many want to punish the “evil” poor?)
Because they work for the rich, and you should not bite the hand that feeds?
But the rich’s businesses gather in money from the rest of society. So it’s like a circulatory system.
And more transaction costs would lessen the money flow from the rest of society to the businesses.
Austrailia just passed their carbon tax yesterday. I big tax on coal and oil consumptions. So I expect their unemployment to begin to increase. It will also just add to the popping of their enormous real estate bubble.
I am not sure how you can mine for minerals in Austrailia without using gasoline and oil so I guess the whole population will become bankers and speculators.
I am not sure how you can mine for minerals in Austrailia without using gasoline and oil
Who says those guys won’t get an exemption? Remember, you tax the “little people” and not business.
Seems like a alot of hoops to go through to raise the gasoline tax. But I get your point.
I am not sure how you can mine for minerals in Austrailia without using gasoline and oil so I guess the whole population will become bankers and speculators.
That’s just it if people want their minerals (which they will) they will have to pay the tax. This is like Hawaii haveing a motel tax. Tax out of staters.
It’s good to be a banksta…
Europe - WORLD
French Prosecutor Drops Strauss-Kahn Case
Published October 13, 2011 | Associated Press
PARIS — The Paris prosecutor’s office has dropped an investigation into a French writer’s claim that Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her for lack of sufficient proof.
The prosecutor’s office said Thursday that Strauss-Kahn admitted to sexual aggression against writer Tristane Banon but that it is too late to prosecute for that charge, because the incident in question happened in 2003.
Banon says that Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her during an interview for a book. Strauss-Kahn called the claim imaginary.
…
“Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta” from Office Space (originally by the Geto Boys), has got to be the official theme song of the political and financial elite
You know it.
I’m deeply mystified how CA can find money in its budget to fund illegal immigrant college educations, yet cannot even afford high school education for its own taxpaying citizens’ children.
SD Unified raises dire warning of school cuts
Officials say more state reductions loom in December
8:50 p.m., Oct. 12, 2011
San Diego school officials have sounded early warnings about potential midyear budget cuts in the most drastic terms, raising the specter of fiscal insolvency that could force the state to assume control of its second-largest district.
Superintendent Bill Kowba said San Diego Unified School District could not weather $30 million in midyear cuts, the worst scenario under triggers in the state budget.
“Barely one month after school has opened we are at the edge of the cliff, looking over and down at insolvency,” Kowba told the school board Tuesday night. “We are facing the reality of midyear budget cuts that could be the starting point on the road to insolvency and state takeover.”
The state budget signed in June includes automatic cuts to schools of $1.5 billion if revenues fall short of projections by more than $2 billion. State revenues are about $705 million below projections for the first three months of the fiscal year.
…
Editorials »
For San Diego Unified, apocalypse now
Written by Union-Tribune Editorial Board
midnight, Oct. 13, 2011
Grim revenue reports appear to make it a forgone conclusion that automatic state spending cuts will be triggered this winter, as critics of the smoke-and-mirrors 2011-12 budget have been predicting since it was adopted in June.
These cuts will be disastrous for many school districts. The primary tool the budget law gives school districts to reduce costs – cutting salaries by shortening the school year seven days – isn’t readily achievable in many districts, where contract changes require the concurrence of employee unions. Many unions believe they have made enough concessions and that cost savings should be found elsewhere. But that is just not a position that squares with the reality of school finances, where employee compensation is by far the biggest spending category.
Which brings us to San Diego Unified, which has such contracts with its unions. In a commentary in today’s U-T (opposite page), Superintendent Bill Kowba says the district would have to make about $30 million in devastating midyear cuts if the budget trigger provision kicks in and overall state school funding is reduced by $1.5 billion. Kowba urges Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature to somehow find the money to avoid the trigger cuts, perhaps by reviving a budget compromise in which voters would be asked to increase taxes to provide more money for education.
…
I’m deeply mystified how CA can find money in its budget to fund illegal immigrant college educations, yet cannot even afford high school education for its own taxpaying citizens’ children.
I think a lot of people are mystified.
When I lived in Mexico, as a legal immigrant, I had to pay special non citizen surcharges to the Mexican FedGov (Secretaria de Educacion) even though I attended PRIVATE schools. This was both at the HS and College level.
“I’m deeply mystified how CA can find money in its budget to fund illegal immigrant college educations, yet cannot even afford high school education for its own taxpaying citizens’ children.”
You owe us; now go back to work, blanco!
not blanco … that would be “güerito”. You don’t refer to Caucasians as “blanco”.
Thx, I’ll add it to my next firmware update.
As a friend of mine says, if you can get out of CA, do it now! Do NOT wait.
He’s been saying it for years. Damn if he wasn’t right.
Bad economy equals lower birth rate
Written by Elizabeth Aguilera
6 a.m., Oct. 13, 2011
The number of babies born has dropped to its lowest point in a decade after hitting a peak in 2007. The decline in fertility rates mirrors the economic downturn, except among one age group, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center.
Nationwide the number of new family additions reached a peak in 2007, with 4,316,233 births, compared to 2009 when 4,131,018 births occurred and to provisional statistics for 2010 that show only 4,007,000 infants entered the world in the U.S., according to the data. The last time the number of new births was at a low was in 2002 when it was 4.02 million.
The fertility rate, which controls for the number of women in childbearing years from 15 to 44, has dropped from 69.6 births per thousand women in 2008 to 66.7 births per thousand women in 2009. Provisional information for 2010 shows an additional decrease to 64.7 births per thousand women.
According to the study, experts say that women often put off having a baby during a time of economic decline and that it does not always mean a woman chooses to have fewer or no children at all.
The only exception to the decline is among women 40 years and older, who saw a 3.1 percent increase in the number of babies being born since 2007. All other age groups of women saw significant declines with the largest drop occurring among 20 to 24-year-olds, with a 6.5 percent decrease in birth rate.
…
“…..women 40 years and older, who saw a 3.1 percent increase in the number of babies born…….”
To be followed, 16-18 years from now, by a death rate well above average for the 60 year olds with high school age kids.
Not to mention an increase in downs, autism, and many other issues that have been associated with the age of the parents at time of conception.
The number of babies born has dropped to its lowest point in a decade after hitting a peak in 2007. The decline in fertility rates mirrors the economic downturn, except among one age group, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center.
Nationwide the number of new family additions reached a peak in 2007, with 4,316,233 births, compared to 2009 when 4,131,018 births occurred and to provisional statistics for 2010 that show only 4,007,000 infants entered the world in the U.S., according to the data.
1. Those without jobs don’t want to have kids.
2. Those with jobs are now doing the work of 3 and don’t want to have kids because they know they won’t be able to provide them with a decent life. They also worry about joning those without jobs.
Economists predict slight improvement one year from today
Written by Elizabeth Aguilera
3:23 p.m., Oct. 12, 2011
What do you get when you gather 7 economists, nearly 70 community members and students and talk about the current state of the economy? An honest and lively discussion about the difficulties the U.S. and the world currently face.
That is what happened Tuesday evening at the second in a series of U-T Talks hosted at the University of San Diego. The event brought together all but one of the economists who contribute to the Union-Tribune weekly EconoMeter Q&A.
Here are a few highlights from the session. A longer Q&A from the Talk will run on Sunday.
Despite continued concern about Europe, policy and high unemployment all of the economists said the economy will be in slightly better shape one year from today and one even put a number on it.
“What’s important to understand is we are going through great structural change in our economy,” London said. “It will take time to turn this great big economic ship around. We are not going to be in substantial better condition but will be in incremental better condition.”
Alan Gin, of University of San Diego, predicts a decreased national unemployment rate by the end of the year that reaches around 8 or 8.5 percent versus the 9.1 percent current unemployment rate and a continued rate of unemployment into next year in the 8 percent range.
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CLICK!
I stopped reading after “Economists predict”.
From a student of economics…
Remember, economists predicted 7 of the last 4 recessions.
I think the quote I remember was that Roubini predicted 5 of the last 1 recessions…
Read this one to the end — past the discussion of the social effects of inequality to the economic effects — who are you going to sell your product, service, stock or house to?
We’ve talked about it here. This Bloomberg News article implies that people are starting to get it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-13/growing-income-divide-may-increase-u-s-vulnerability-to-financial-crises.html
Well when you have less income - both real and nominal - than you did fifteen years ago you have some problems. Add to this that now every family member “needs” a cell phone, a flat-screen television in every room, more square footage to furnish, heat, clean, etc., a vehicle as soon as the kids turn sixteen…something’s gotta give. And considering that 70%+ of the GDP is consumer driven, this does not fare well for the overall economy.
Sure, increased GDP is theoretically great for the overall country, but when the capital is not distributed more evenly throughout the income strata, it’s obviously going to create disequilibrium and crisis between the privileged class versus the consumer class. And I highly doubt this newly and disproportionately amassed capital is being invested in new textile mills in North Carolina or vacuum cleaner factories in Cincinnati.
Soon the pain will get so great that people will take action, whether protest, revolt, etc. Personally, I don’t think we are that point…yet, but socioeconomically this country is moving in that direction. We see murmurs now, in spite of the MSM playing down the protests and emerging dissention.
Falling income doen’t put a crimp in your spending until you have maxxed out debt.
For 30 years we used exploding consumer and business debt to fund consumption in the face of globalization, job loss and falling wages.
Then we hit our debt limits. Oh crud. Better tighten your safety belt as it is going to be a bumpy ride.
a vehicle as soon as the kids turn sixteen
At my kid’s HS I’ve noticed 3 categories:
1) Kids with late model cars. Maybe not new, but late model, maybe mom or dad’s 3-5 year old hand me down.
2) Kids who drive beaters
3) Kids who ride the school bus
Group #2 appears to be the biggest one.
Until I see out of shape yet able bodied teenagers walking and biking to school, we will still our collective heads in our tuchis.
“Not everyone shares that view. Economist Tyler Cowen, a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, says concerns over income inequality are exaggerated. “I don’t think it matters one way or another for macroeconomics,” he says.
Tyler Cowen is the General Director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The Mercatus Center was founded and is funded by the Koch Family Foundations.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mercatus_Center
So yeah, I would imagine that Tyler Cowen thinks things are JUST FINE, thankyouverymuch.
“Barry Ritholtz, CEO of the investment research firm Fusion IQ, says millions of potential investors may conclude, as they did following the Great Depression, that the stock market is a rigged game for insiders.
Such seismic shifts in popular sentiment can have lasting effects. The Dow Jones Industrial Average didn’t regain its September 1929 peak of 355.95 until the same month in 1954.
“You’re going to lose an entire generation of investors,” says Ritholtz. “
Recall that in 1954, people had pensions. They didn’t need the stock market. Today’s generations are stuck with 401K, and they are FORCED to play Rigged Dow. That is, if they have any money left over after paying the rent, which is too damn high.
Don’t be silly, I can always invest my retirement savings in a jumbo CD yeilding 1%.
But seriously, I’ve had a problem deciding where to put excess cash. Commodities? (I feel a crash is imminent due to China’s precarious economic position.) Equities? (And be the fodder of HFT?) Savings accounts? (Hardly. See above.)
EVERYBODY has that problem.
Check out this article in The Economist.
http://www.economist.com/node/21532276
I like Corning, 2% div, PE 6
Great article. Thanks WTE!
Buying and selling, Markets
Drop in homes on market, while good nationally, is a very bad sign here
Posted by Scott Van Voorhis
October 13, 2011 05:20 AM
For-sale signs are a little harder to spot this fall.
The number of homes for sale is dropping, both across the country and here in Massachusetts.
And while the drop in “inventory,” as it’s called in the business, might be good news in a grossly overbuilt market like Las Vegas, it is definitely bad news here, especially in still pricey Greater Boston.
Here are two numbers to munch on from a piece in this week’s Banker & Tradesman.
The number of homes on the market was down 5.3 percent in August compared to a year earlier. July saw a 1.7 percent year-over-year drop in inventory.
Meanwhile, sales activity, while still anemic, has begun to pick up after hitting rock bottom last summer with the expiration of the home buyer tax credit, may it rest in peace. Sales rose 15.8 percent in August compared to August 2010, the paper reports, citing figures from real estate data firm, The Warren Group, its parent company.
And the dwindling choices out there have left more than a few potential buyers, like jhwilly, spinning their wheels.
She weighed in recently on my post on the fall market. Stuck in a cramped apartment with her two small children, jhwilly and her husband have been unable to find anything to buy at a decent price, despite scouring the South Shore. They are now considering trying to buy land and building, but that’s no picnic either.
At a time when buyers are supposed to have an edge, it’s the sellers who are acting haughty, she finds.
Forcing people to go deeply into debt, cut back on their other spending in order to direct it to the NAR and the FIRE sector if they want a house?
It’s all good! Great signs! The recovery is at hand! At least in Boston. This is what the federal government has been working for. Inshallah, it will spread to the rest of the nation once again. And we will once again have a healthy economy driven by debt, real estate and the financial sector.
This sounds exactly like DC. Anything that’s not new will need cosmetic upgrades at the very least. And anything with so much as a new rug is termed “move in condition” and priced $30K higher.
The only reason the number of homes for sale is dropping here in Massachusetts is because people who haven’t been able to sell their homes are taking them off the market for the winter.
I posted late last night my follow-up on the Option ARM problem being brought forward, a repost for folks who care to look at the presentation to which I referred:
I’ve put a link up that hasn’t showed yet with the whole presentation. If you want to find it faster, do a Google search for “T2 mortgage crisis 2010″, and the second link is to the PDF, which is about 200 pages, so be patient while it downloads.
Other than “we’re all f’d”, the gist of what they are saying about Option ARMs is below:
1. The original recast graph assumed all Option ARMs reset after the initial 5-year period;
2. A huge number of Option ARM holders got the loans because it was the only way they could afford the ridiculously high prices;
3. The Option ARM borrowers opted for the negative amortization option in droves (80%). This is consistent with the Option ARMs being an affordability product, see #2 above;
4. The Option ARMs recast at the earlier of a) 5 years, or b) the principal balance rising to 110%-125% of the original balance. If you negatively amortize the mortgage (like 80% of borrowers), you hit this recast far before 5 years is up, bringing the recasting problem forward in time.
5. At the time of the printing of the presentation, 30% of all Option ARMs were 60+ days delinquent…faster than the reset graph would have otherwise indicated…further verifying the fact that the problem was pulled forward.
We’ve all read about the trillio-pklus dollars in Option ARMs recasting. And then there’s the other trillion dollar debt burden of commercial real estate about to reset/recast. Then there’s the debt used to leverage private equity in ~2007 when rates were low and credit was easy to obtain - another trillion dollar debt monster. All set to implode in 2012.
(Who was the poster here that used to say “Got Popcorn?”)
I guess my point is that the Option ARMs already imploded. We’ve been watching the show.
I did a refi in 2008 due to a divorce and cannot tell you how grateful I was (and still am) to stick to my guns with a 30yr fixed in spite of the broker trying to steer me to a 5/1 Option ARM.
I had a 7/1 option ARM in 2003, sold for 36% gain in 2005. Sold in 7 days, full price offer. Ahhhhh! Held for 2 years on the nose for cap gains exemption.
“I had a 7/1 option ARM in 2003, sold for 36% gain in 2005. Sold in 7 days, full price offer. Ahhhhh! Held for 2 years on the nose for cap gains exemption.”
The planets line-up only once in a lifetime.
Neil was the Popcorn Man … maybe popcorn can’t float - “(
Is this a sign of inflation?
New Tappan Zee bridge in NY pegged at $5.2 billion
By JIM FITZGERALD - Associated Press | AP - Wed, Oct 12, 2011
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — The cost of a new Tappan Zee Bridge in the New York City suburbs has been shaved to $5.2 billion by focusing solely on the bridge, a federal agency said Tuesday.
http://m.yahoo.com/w/news_america/tappan-zee-bridge-ny-pegged-5-2-billion-145310908.html?orig_host_hdr=news.yahoo.com&.intl=us&.lang=en-us&bouchon=501,ny
Well, it did cost less than $500 million in today’s dollars to build the first time. I think its a sign of New York being raped by the construction industry.
Government outsources a lot of work to private contractors. The contract managers may be non-technical and may not know how to properly manage a large, complex technical project.
Then, the real fun begins when the government then outsources project management itself.
And that’s why the high costs. Contractors get paid for their hours. So, they’re going to have a lot of hours. Plus overhead which can result in hourly rates many multiples of what the fellow actually doing the work gets paid.
A true public-private partnership would have a lot of technical folks in-house partnering with outside contractors for higher levels of review or technical expertise. Now it’s just, “Here, you do it, I’ll sign the check, don’t bother me.”
It’s called “bother-in-law” deals. The only people getting raped are the taxpayers. The city’s PTB are doing just fine, thankyouverymuch.
This is your typical dumb azz thinking…..the bridge is old and has way too much traffic instead use probably 1/2 the money and build a single wide bridge along side of it with 2 rail tracks and a 4 lane for commerical/ truck vehicles only. with cars only on the old bridge it will probably last another 25 years.
From a guy who travels that bridge frequently and who is in the heavy and highway construction biz, we and our competitors have been working on new bridge designs to replace the TZ for 10 years now. It’s an enormous project. Retrofitting the existing bridge is impossible due to the daily volume, thus finding an new location is required. Keep in mind this bridge is about 3-4 miles long and roughly 20 miles from Manhattan.
You want a real treat? Take a trip over the current bridge at any hour of the day. A chiropractor could set up on either side of the bridge and earn a fortune it’s in such bad shape.
“…it’s in such bad shape.”
I traveled it this past 5 years. No it is not in bad shape. Keep pandering Mr. Know it all elitist wage earner name caller.
Poor CrackheadJim…. always in a fog.
Thats why I said right next to it.. Yeah i use to drive to rockland co a 2-3 times a month lastyear to dj…helping a friend out usually spring valley so i took the tappan back home and the GW palisades going up there…
so yes its crummy just like the koskiusco to brooklyn….the asphalt is down to the metal grid on the bridge my car really wanders my tires are new, just my car doesnt like metal grid bridges.
Here is an interesting tidbit that I cam across regarding the Texas “miracle”:
This is the big reason why Texas kept adding jobs during the recession, even as the rest of the country lost them: 65 percent of the net new jobs there since the beginning of 2007 were government positions. That puts an entirely different cast on the Texas Miracle than the one Perry promotes.
It’s also why the “miracle” is evaporating. The deep cuts in this year’s budget have already begun kicking in. Baylor estimates they’ll cost up to 50,000 public-sector jobs. Unemployment in Texas is now on the rise. In fact, the state is one of only a dozen with growing unemployment since the end of the recession. In August joblessness in the state hit 8.5 percent as Texas experienced a net loss of 1,300 jobs.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/rick-perry-needs-a-miracle-10122011_page_5.html
65% percent were government jobs? Say it ain’t so, Joe!
Funny ain’t it. “Only the private sector can create jobs” … unless you brag about creating public sector jobs.
(not saying this is the case with Texas)
if the newly created public sector job is paid for through indebtedness…it shouldn’t count.
otherwise…sure the public sector can create jobs.
Like the “Massachusetts Miracle” in 1988, the “Texas Miracle” is unlikely to survive until Election Day 2012.
Gee, what a surprise.
Republican hypocrisy. No one could have seen it coming.
Oil heat bills are expected to soar
Households that heat with oil are expected to spend a record amount this winter to stay warm, with bills projected to rise nearly $200 over last year, according to a federal forecast released yesterday.
The US Energy Information Administration said the nation’s heating oil customers - most of whom live in the Northeast - will probably pay more than in any previous winter as heating oil costs rise to an average $3.71 per gallon. The average household is estimated to spend nearly $2,500 between now and March.
We have more people coming in than last year because people are poor,’’ said president John J. Drew. “People are running out of unemployment, they’re getting kicked off welfare, they’re unemployed and underemployed.’’
Hyde Park homeowner John Murphy, a 68-year-old with advanced prostate cancer, said he depends on heating assistance during the winter to help stretch his annual income of about $18,000 from Social Security disability payments. Last winter, his heating bill totaled $1,600.30 - mainly to heat the one room he spends most of his time in.
“You take out another two hundred bucks, I’ll have to cut back somehow,’’ said Murphy, who keeps his thermostat at 68 degrees during the day, then lowers it by four degrees and sleeps in long johns and socks.
But, he added, “I don’t really know what I can cut back on. I’ve got my groceries down to a minimum, [and] I can’t cut back on electricity. I’ve already done that. I can’t put the thermostat any lower. I can’t do 60 [degrees] where I walk around with a pair of mittens.’’
http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/articles/2011/10/13/heating_oil_costs_projected_to_hit_record/?p1=Local_Links
Through the lens of the rear-view mirror, will this look like a ringing endorsement of subprime lending that culminates with too-big-to-fail bailouts for eurozone banks?
13 October 2011 Last updated at 12:44 ET
Eurozone crisis: Slovakia backs larger rescue fund
Slovak lawmakers debate ahead of Thursday’s vote in Bratislava. Photo: 13 October 2011 Slovak lawmakers needed just 30 minutes to endorse the eurozone fund on Thursday
Slovakia’s parliament has ratified a plan to bolster a eurozone rescue fund, just two days after MPs rejected it.
The vote came after the government and opposition agreed to hold snap elections next year.
The decision means all 17 eurozone states have now approved the plan to tackle the eurozone debt crisis.
The plan envisages expanding the effective lending capacity of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to 440bn euros ($600bn; £383bn).
The fund would also be empowered to buy eurozone government debt and offer credit lines to member states and to banks.
…
File that one under: Keep holding votes till you get the result you like.
The protesters at “Occupy Wall Street” in New York’s Zuccotti Park have voted to resist an order by the mayor’s office requiring them to vacate the park on Friday for cleaning, setting the stage for a major confrontation with police.
Bloomberg went to the protest site, where several hundred people are camped out, to explain the move, which would be the first time the demonstrators are asked to leave, the mayor’s office said. Bloomberg claimed the owners of the plaza wanted to exercise their duty in cleaning it — and that this was their right, although protestors would be allowed back immediately.
(Carrie: Another article on this site explains the protesters will not be able to return w/sleeping bags which will now be prohibitted.)
But in a general assembly vote, protesters decided they would clean the park themselves, calling for supporters to donate “brooms, mops, squeegees, dust pans, garbage bags, power washers and any other cleaning supplies” to help their efforts.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/13/occupy-wall-st-to-resist-mayors-order-to-vacate-park-on-friday/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
So is it unreasonable for the property owners to ask the folks squatting on their property to clear out for a day or two so they can clean up these peoples mess?
Also do the property owners have the right to ask them not to come back? Or would that be un-fair?
Depends on who the “property owners” are. If it’s public property I think they should be allowed to stay. I also think that their offer to clean it themselves makes sense. Otherwise they face a high risk of not being able to return after one of the cleanups.
It is private property.
I guess I’m not familiar with private property being called “parks”. When I hear “park” I assume public…
Pension Woes Are Pushing Some to Retire Sooner
Thursday, 13 Oct 2011 - Reuters
Deteriorating conditions in the U.S. pension system are jeopardizing the lump sum payouts workers count on, and pushing some workers to retire ahead of schedule.
Stock market losses began dragging down pension assets a few years ago, but the current near-zero interest rates — intended to spur the American economy — have worsened the problem and created the largest gap in assets and liabilities since the end of World War II.
“While low interest rates help people borrow money, they dramatically shoot up the pension obligations of plans,” said Rebecca Davis, an attorney at the Pension Rights Center in Washington.
And the problem isn’t unique to the U.S. A new study from consulting giant Mercer said the problem is global in scope. The sustainability of pensions in other countries is also at risk, according to the 2011 Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index released on Tuesday.
That’s the kind of uncertainty prompted American Airlines Captain Rod Carlone to leave the work force last month, much sooner than he had expected. Carlone said he did not want to risk missing out on a lump sum payment if the American Airlines Pensions Inc. Pilot Retirement Benefit Program Fixed Income Plan (the pilot pension plan) was underfunded. After almost 24 years at American, he flew his last flight on Sept. 30 from Dallas to Los Angeles.
“I can’t afford at almost 62 a financial setback I could not recover from,” Carlone said. “I live in Las Vegas, and this is one wager I didn’t want to make.”
That is happening in my workplace. The upside is I will move up faster.
BofA Tells New York of Plans to Eliminate 324 Jobs in Manhattan
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — Bank of America Corp., the lender seeking to reduce expenses after losing half its market value, plans to eliminate 324 New York jobs starting next month, including investment bankers and equity traders.
Most of the cuts, 250, may start Dec. 14 at the firm’s Midtown tower at 1 Bryant Park, according to a filing dated Sept. 29 to the state’s Department of Labor. The rest will be trimmed by the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank starting Nov. 30 from 2 and 4 World Financial Center and 222 Broadway.
T.J. Crawford, a bank spokesman, said the reductions affect investment banking, equity traders and technology and operations personnel, and are part of 3,500 cuts disclosed in August.
Chief Executive Officer Brian T. Moynihan, 52, has since said he’ll cut 30,000 more jobs over the next few years, stoking anxiety among the 288,000 workers the lender had as of midyear. Wall Street firms including Barclays Capital and Credit Suisse Group AG have reduced staff as revenue from trading stocks and bonds has eroded.
Oct. 13, 2011, 1:22 p.m. EDT
J.P. Morgan’s bet against J.P. Morgan
Commentary: Sounds crazy, but it worked
By MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The post-financial crisis Wall Street is doing one thing right: it’s betting against itself.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM -5.18%) became the latest too-big-to-fail bank to take advantage of an interesting trade: the bank hedges the spread on its own debt. When investors bid up the yield — an indicator that they think the bank won’t pay — J.P. Morgan makes money.
Hey, it doesn’t have to make sense, it’s Wall Street.
The end result was slightly better-than-expected but lackluster profit of $4.26 billion, for the nation’s second-biggest bank by assets. The bank reported $1.9 billion in revenue from the bets against itself — the net income from the move wasn’t immediately available.
But analysts suggest the move goosed earnings by as much as a nickel per share. At minimum the hedge added a penny or two a share to per-share earnings and, thus, helped the bank come closer to the Street’s expectations.
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Raj Rajaratnam jailed for 11 years for insider trading
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15294589
District Judge Richard Holwell disclosed that Rajaratnam has advanced diabetes and needs a kidney transplant, and that this had been taken into consideration in the sentencing.
He said Rajaratnam’s “crimes and the scope of his crimes reflect a virus in our business culture that needs to be eradicated”.
But the judge also praised Rajaratnam’s philanthropy for victims of the earthquake in Pakistan and the 9/11 attacks.
MarketWatch reporting this as the longest prison sentence ever in the US for insider trading
Insiders Memo: Remember those campaign contributions.
Real Estate
Foreclosure Gridlock May Be Ending
By Jeanine Skowronski, MainStreet Staff Writer
10/13/11 - 12:58 PM EDT
NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Foreclosure activity increased by just less than 1% in the third quarter of 2011, according to RealtyTrac. But the firm says a higher rate of default notices indicates lenders may be finally taking the brakes off of foreclosure proceedings.
“We’re seeing the numbers go up after three straight months of quarterly decreases,” says James Saccacio, chief executive of RealtyTrac.
A spike in new delinquencies implies lenders are taking the brakes off of foreclosure proceedings.
According to the data, one in every 213 U.S. housing units entered some stage of foreclosure — default notice, auctions or bank repossessions — during the third quarter. Foreclosure filings were reported on 214,855 U.S. properties in September, a 6% decrease from August and a 38% decrease from September 2010.
But Saccacio says there is “evidence that this temporary downward trend is about to change direction, with foreclosure activity slowly beginning to ramp back up.” He points to default notices — the first stage in the foreclosure process — which were up 14% from the first quarter of 2011, as banks finally begin to push through the shadow inventory that accumulated as a result of low housing prices and the robo-signing controversy of 2010.
“U.S. foreclosure activity has been mired down since October of last year, when the robo-signing controversy sparked a flurry of investigations into lender foreclosure procedures and paperwork,” Saccacio says. “It’s time to press play again.”
…
Anyone that thinks the OWS crowd will have any effect of “change” to TPTB is completely delusional. From what I see it is mainly a pack of malcontents, misfits & freeloaders and now with the race pimps and hollywood media whores showing up it becomes a circus and nothing more.
They showed in D.C. yesterday with a contingent of 53 strong trying to block elevators. Way to go…that will show them!
Complete waste of time, but it is their time to waste so waste away.
I think there’s more to it than that, and that your opinion is being shaped by those who are showing you the malcontents, misfits, freeloaders, pimps, and hos, and telling you that’s the whole story.
+1
Anyone that thinks the
OWS crowdEgyptian mobs will have any effect of “change” to TPTB is completely delusional. (Hosni Mubarak, Spring 2011?)Hosni Mubarak, Spring 2011
I agree. Consider that the suicide of a Tunisian fruit vendor lit the fire that is still changing history. I don’t agree with all these folks, but it’s enough that people are taking to the streets to give me hope.
Turn of the Rush Limbard Show for 5 minutes.
No kidding. Oh, how much did Rush make off his worshipers last year? But, “He’s just like us!”
DITTO
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I’m off for a weekend in Bethany Beach. I’m looking forward to seeing the Delaware bubble chaos on my drive down from Philly.
Have fun Muggy & Mrs Muggy. I assume your kids are going to be with a sitter?
Ha! Boys weekend.
Lots of booze, poker, and NO kids/wives.
Have fun.
Speaking of Delaware:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6M_1fGshM1o
You’re in for a treat Mugz. A sea of houses all the way down Coastal Highway and a gazillion billboards for shacks. You’ll be stunned.
I was there in 08. I know what you’re talking about. Some of the most bizarre, egregious, McChinese cluster fracks there.
REO - As it turns out, our broker never got a confirmation of the fact we rescinded our deal from the REO agent. Then our broker gets a counter for full list - $900.00.
If that’s how they treat a cash buyer, evidently they don’t have any intention of selling the joint.
A $10-$15K pool issue alone (additional list of stuff inside), and they are that irrogant! Bank Of New York was the bank, btw.
Other buyers were drolling over the pool & spa, and I bet they didn’t inquire into the poor condition of it (visual if you have experience). We probe, call experts, go to the city, etc… A first time buyer with an agent, would be “coached”. I bet some idiot overpaid. We have no remorse whatsoever.
This same REO agent overpriced another REO and it sat 6 months. The house came down $60K, and they threw in flooring and new appliances before they found a buyer. I would not be surprised it this is a repeat.
I wanted to share this.
Brad Pitt’s $13.75 million Malibu beach house for sale (Photos)
http://www.ontheredcarpet.com/photos/Brad-Pitts-13-75-million-Malibu-beach-house-for-sale-Photos/8390979
Not my flavor, but well done for what it is.
You can see the last two photos by adding a 5 or 6 to the end of the URL since “Next” is bad. Quite the place. Can’t imagine what the monthly carrying costs, including the hired help, are for that place.
“…next major focus for investors will have to be income and capital preservation.”
Wait a minute — is he saying we weren’t supposed to already be doing this back in 2008?
‘D’ stands for deflation
October 13, 2011, 1:59 PM
David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Toronto investment manager Gluskin Sheff + Associates, has been mouthing the “R” word long before the markets decided that U.S. recession, albeit a mild one, is indeed a real possibility and started pricing stocks accordingly.
Now, Rosenberg says, the letter of the day is “D.” In a note to clients, Rosenberg said the next major economic theme that stock investors will be dealing with is the “D” word –deflation – and to plan accordingly. Rosenberg is not always bearish about stocks, except that for quite some time he’s seen plenty of reasons to be so: anemic economic growth, moribund housing and high unemployment. Don’t expect consumers to rally to the cash registers in that environment. Instead, Rosenberg says, expect Americans to rally to the cash – as in a savings rate that approaches high single-digits or even double-digits, which saps consumer spending.
To fight that headwind, companies cut prices and consumers, expecting further price cuts, delay purchases – which only exacerbates deflationary pressures. Inflation, the economy’s traditional nemesis, is nowhere in sight.
In such an environment, investors would need to focus on income and capital preservation, Rosenberg noted. Portfolios should reflect what he calls S.I.R.P. – “safety and income at a reasonable price.”
Here’s Rosenberg’s “buy” list: High-quality corporate bonds; stocks that pay reliable dividends; traditionally defensive utilities, consumer staples and health care stocks; agribusiness stocks, such as seed and fertilizer companies, crop producers and farm-equipment makers, and gold GOLD.
- Jonathan Burton
Late Night: Bill Clinton: Occupy Wall Street is ‘a positive thing’
October 13, 2011 | 8:50 am
Bill Clinton talks to David Letterman about the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests
Former president Bill Clinton paid a visit to “The Late Show” last night, where he expounded on subjects as wide-ranging as the benefits of a vegan diet and the Chinese appetite for American debt.
But the majority of his appearance (which is worth watching in full here, if you’re willing to do a little fast-forwarding) was devoted to a discussion of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. Clinton thinks that the protests are “on balance…a positive thing,” but worried about the nebulousness of the cause.
“They need to be for something specific, and not just against something because if you’re just against something, someone else will fill the vacuum you create,” he said. Clinton suggested the protesters get behind President Obama’s jobs plan, which he claimed would create “a couple million jobs in the next year and a half.”
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Sounds like an attempt to divert them in a partisan direction to me…
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
OCTOBER 14, 2011
Hollywood’s Favorite Villain
They call it show business, but in American movies, business has long been portrayed as evil incarnate. Why is the new film ‘Margin Call’ trying something different?
By RACHEL DODES
Kevin Spacey has a lot of experience playing a classic Hollywood archetype: the evil executive.
Watch a clip from “Margin Call,” a new drama about the financial crisis starring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, and Demi Moore. Courtesy Roadside Attractions.
In “Glengarry Glen Ross,” he was a corrupt office manager at a real estate firm. In “Swimming with Sharks” he was cast as an abusive and sadistic Hollywood producer who tells an assistant that he has “no brain” after he brought him Equal instead of Sweet’N Low. Most recently, in “Horrible Bosses” he played a boss so horrible that he promises a hard-working employee a promotion, then gives it to himself.
In short, he’s played these characters the way Hollywood has always drawn them. This may be a nation that likes to see itself as built on free enterprise and self-made pluck, but when it comes to the movies, it gets shady boardrooms, cigar smoke and unadulterated greed.
“Margin Call,” opening Oct. 21, is different. A low-budget movie with a high-powered cast, its Wall Street characters are flawed, cynical—but, for once, actually human.
Set during the height of the 2008 financial crisis, the film has an ensemble cast that includes Mr. Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci. It zeroes in on a group of executives trying to save their 107-year-old financial institution from imminent collapse: notably by selling off billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities in a single day, before the bottom falls out of the market.
The movie hits theaters amid a swirl of public emotion: The worldwide downturn continues to dominate headlines, a growing protest movement is bashing Wall Street, yet the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs is an object of adulation.
Unlike most films that view business through the lens of Hollywood, such as 2000’s “Boiler Room” and 1987’s “Wall Street,” there are no perp-walk scenes or moralistic finger-wags. When offered financing from producers who wanted these elements introduced, the filmmakers turned them down.
“I suppose you could say there are deeply evil people in the world,” says Mr. Irons, who plays the firm’s CEO, John Tuld. “But I think in the main, most people do their best and try and hold onto their jobs.” (Tuld’s name is a hybrid of Merrill Lynch’s ex-CEO John Thain and Lehman Brothers’ ex-CEO Dick Fuld, say the filmmakers.)
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WRITING ON THE WALL
OCTOBER 13, 2011, 12:13 P.M. ET
Occupy Wall Street Has a Famous Problem
By DAVID WEIDNER
Occupy Wall Street, now in its fourth week, was on a roll. The crowds outgrew its original camp at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. The media finally showed up in force. Protesters published specific demands. The movement claimed to have spread to more than 200 cities.
That’s when the undesirables showed up.
No, not the police or flame-throwing anarchists, but the famous people: Michael Moore, Russell Simmons, Buddy Roemer, Kanye West, Richard Trumka and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement take part in a protest march through the financial district of New York Oct. 12.
In Los Angeles, protesters had to suffer Rosanna Arquette. You know, the actress and subject of a 1980s song by the band Toto.
Talk about a buzz kill.
The presence of the famous and semifamous on the front lines isn’t all bad, of course. They help bring awareness and more media coverage. But their drawbacks far outweigh the benefits.
The Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York appear unfocused and disorganized. WSJ’s Hilke Schellmann takes a peek into the inner workings of the organization and how it is trying to manage communal living in a public space.
All the names are polarizing figures. And by coming to Wall Street, the pretty people also are pushing Occupy Wall Street into an uncomfortable spot.
Will the group’s best attributes—energy, inclusiveness and its still-forming message—be corrupted by hijackers with their own agendas?
It’s happening already. Mr. Moore’s website is now a repository of information on Occupy Wall Street. There are posts about how the protesters will survive the winter, links to forming groups at high schools and, of course, a large promotion for Mr. Moore’s new book and a schedule of his book tour.
Mr. Moore didn’t respond to inquiries seeking comment.
One can hardly blame Mr. Moore, whose very profitable corner of capitalism has been built on throwing stones at the same economic system. In many ways, Mr. Moore’s anti-corporate credo is a natural fit with the protesters.
On the other hand, Mr. Moore’s style is a big turnoff for many Americans. He might bring his own following to Occupy Wall Street, but he brings baggage, too.
That’s basically the risk Occupy Wall Street, a group claiming to represent the interests of 99% of Americans, now faces as it nears legitimacy in the eyes of the nation.
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