The Housing Bubble

Don’t look now, but the Chinese bubble seems to be popping just in time for the collapse of the euro. Bad timing, neh?

Asian Stocks Fall for Fourth Day on Spain Yields, China Property
November 18, 2011, 12:13 AM EST
By Yoshiaki Nohara

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — Asian stocks fell for a fourth day amid concern about the levels of bad loans in China’s property sector and as rising Spanish bond yields added to evidence that Europe’s debt crisis is infecting major economies.
…

Unlike the U.S., where federal monies are used in a futile attempt to prop up bubble-era housing prices, Red China is actually trying to let some of the air out of its bubble.

The Financial Times of London
November 18, 2011 5:17 am
Housing prices fall in Chinese cities
By Simon Rabinovitch in Beijing

Housing prices in a growing number of Chinese cities fell last month, weighed down by a sustained government campaign to deflate the market.

Official data published on Friday depicted a soft landing for the Chinese real estate sector, with prices for new homes dipping by an average 0.15 per cent month-on-month in the 70 cities monitored by the national statistics bureau. However, the trend was clear with housing prices falling in 34 of the cities in October, twice as many as in September.

China has used a battery of policies to cool its real estate market, trying to rein in the runaway prices that had become a major risk to the economy and a bitter frustration for ordinary citizens unable to afford property.
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Here is a novel idea for putting an end to systemically risky investment banking activities: Hew them off with an axe.

The Financial Times of London
November 17, 2011 6:38 pm
UBS to take axe to investment banking

By Haig Simonian in Zurich and Megan Murphy in New York
The offices of Swiss banking firm UBS AG stand in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S

UBS has outlined long-awaited plans to shrink its business dramatically and refocus on its core wealth management operations, making deep cuts to its investment bank.

The Swiss banking group plans to cut more of its investment bank staff and slash its risk-weighted assets in its investment bank almost by half over the next five years.

But in a surprise sop to investors, UBS will pay a token dividend this year – significantly ahead of expectations – and step up payments thereafter as a sign of its confidence in its future.
…

Nov. 18, 2011, 2:45 a.m. EST
Macau house prices drop sharply
By Chris Oliver

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Macau residential property prices fell 17.9% in the third quarter from the prior quarter, while property sales were down 82% during the period, according to figures released by Macau’s Statistics and Census Service on Thursday. The statistics department said the declines were significant and likely reflected the impact of measures introduced by the government to curb soaring house prices.

Foreclosure crisis only about halfway over
Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Renzo Salazar, from Real Signs of Ace Post Holding Inc., places a bank owned sign on top of a for sale sign in front of a foreclosed home on November 10, 2011 in Miami, Florida.
By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer

If the U.S. foreclosure crisis were a baseball game, we’d probably be in the bottom of the fourth inning.

That’s roughly the message from the latest data on home foreclosures and delinquencies released by an industry association Thursday.

The pace of new home foreclosures edged up again in the third quarter and the number of borrowers falling behind on their payments eased a bit, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The good news was that the rate of borrowers who have fallen three or more months behind on their payments has dropped to about 3.5 percent of all mortgages. That’s down from a peak of 5 percent in late 2009. But it’s still three and a half times the “normal” rate of about 1 percent that prevailed before the mortgage meltdown hit in late 2007.

“If you look at the pace of improvement I think we’re three to four years away from the typical pattern of seriously delinquent loans,” said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of research and economics.

Since the mortgage meltdown began in 2007, roughly six million homes have been lost to foreclosure. (Estimates vary somewhat because multiple foreclosures are often recorded on a given property as the homeowner and lender try to avoid it.) Another four million homes are estimated to be at some stage in the foreclosure process. New foreclosures are currently started at the rate of about two million a year.
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Warnings of impending foreclosures on Md. homes spike in Nov.
Robo-signing slowdowns could be at an end, officials say
By Jamie Smith Hopkins, The Baltimore Sun
8:33 p.m. EST, November 17, 2011

Mortgage servicers have started the countdown to foreclosure on more than 18,000 Maryland homes so far this month, a big uptick that is worrying state officials and could signal an end to about a year of delays related to robo-signing.

The increase is in the number of notices sent to borrowers saying that their servicers intend to file a foreclosure case against them — a warning that must come at least 45 days ahead of any action. Fewer than 11,000 notices were filed in all of November 2010, according to state records. The figure for the first half of this month is already 70 percent larger.

“That doesn’t mean all will result in foreclosure, but that’s clearly an alarming number,” said Anne Balcer Norton, the state’s deputy commissioner of financial regulation.

The robo-signing scandal that engulfed the mortgage industry — court documents were signed en masse by employees who admitted they had no idea if the information was accurate — put foreclosure actions on ice nationwide last fall. Slowdowns have continued for months.

In Baltimore, the number of new foreclosure proceedings between January and September was down more than 60 percent from the same period last year, according to court records tracked by the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance.

But Maryland regulators say they also heard from some attorneys representing mortgage servicers that they were holding off on filing impending-foreclosure warning notices while state officials were tweaking foreclosure-mediation rules this summer. New regulations went into effect in late October.

Separately on Thursday, an industry trade group said the number of Maryland homes in the foreclosure process — both new cases and older ones languishing in the courts — rose 16 percent during the summer compared with a year earlier. That was the first increase since the spring of 2010, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
…

10 Nov 2011 7:43am, EST
Foreclosures regaining momentum, hit 7-month high
By Jane Hodges

The U.S. foreclosure rate has climbed to its highest level in seven months, suggesting that lenders are moving beyond a “robo-signing” scandal that had temporarily slowed bank takeovers, according to a private firm that tracks the activity.

Foreclosure filings — including default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions — were issued on 230,678 homes in October, up 7 percent from September but 31 percent below the level of October 2010, according to the report issued by RealtyTrac Thursday.

RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said the uptick represents more “unclogging of the pipeline,” as foreclosure activity suppressed by the robo-signing scandal eases its way out of the system and the process reaccelerates. Many lenders and servicers were forced to slow or halt foreclosure activity after revelations of the improperly signed documents.

“We expected this uptick to occur, since the pipeline was ’suppressed,’ so to speak,” Saccacio said in an interview.

Nevada, California and Arizona remain the states with the highest foreclosure rates.
…

November 17, 2011 6:16 PM
U.S. Banks Face Contagion Risk From Europe Debt, Fitch Says

(Updates stock declines in the sixth paragraph, bank industry ratings in eighth, money-market funds in 17th.)

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) — U.S. banks face a “serious risk” that their creditworthiness will deteriorate if Europe’s debt crisis deepens and spreads beyond the five most-troubled nations, Fitch Ratings said.

“Unless the euro zone debt crisis is resolved in a timely and orderly manner, the broad credit outlook for the U.S. banking industry could worsen,” the New York-based rating company said yesterday in a statement. Even as U.S. banks have “manageable” exposure to stressed European markets, “further contagion poses a serious risk,” Fitch said, without explaining what it meant by contagion.

The “exposures” of U.S. lenders to major European banks and the stressed nations of Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, known as the GIIPS, are smaller than those to some of the continent’s larger countries, Fitch said.

The six biggest U.S. banks — JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley — had $50 billion in risk tied to the GIIPS on Sept. 30, Fitch said. So-called cross-border outstandings to France for all except Wells Fargo were $188 billion, including $114 billion to French banks. Risk to Britain and its banks was $225 billion and $51 billion, respectively.

Europe’s debt crisis has toppled four elected governments, with the last two, in Greece and Italy, falling last week. Italian bond yields remained at about 7 percent — the threshold that led Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek bailouts — and shares of French banks, including BNP Paribas SA and Societe Generale SA, dropped amid concern they’ll need more capital.

Stocks Slump

U.S. stocks slumped yesterday after the Fitch report was released. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slid 1.7 percent and the 24-company KBW Bank Index fell 1.9 percent. U.S. stock declines continued today, with the S&P benchmark dropping 1.8 percent at 12:41 p.m. in New York.

The Fitch report is a worst-case scenario and is “oddly out of step” with the rating firm’s previous reports, analysts at HSBC Holdings Plc said today. U.S. banks may even benefit as investors shift money from Europe, HSBC said.
…

Most Asia Stocks Fall as China Can’t Ease, Fitch Warns on Crisis
Yoshiaki Nohara
Thursday, November 17, 2011

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) — Most Asian stocks fell as China’s pledge to keep inflation controls sent mainland developers lower and Fitch Ratings said a further spread of Europe’s debt crisis poses a “serious risk” to U.S. banks.

China Resources Land Ltd., a state-owned developer, dropped 4.1 percent in Hong Kong after the People’s Bank of China said prices haven’t stabilized enough to allow looser monetary policy. National Australia Bank Ltd., the country’s fourth- largest lender, dragged an index of financial stocks lower ahead of bond sales in France and Spain. Inpex Corp., Japan’s No. 1 energy explorer, advanced 1.2 percent as the fuel traded near its highest in five months.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 0.1 percent to 116.09 at 7:22 p.m. in Tokyo after swinging between losses and gains more than 10 times. Six of the index’s 10 industry groups fell, with financial companies proving the biggest drag. The gauge has lost 4.7 percent this month.

“There isn’t enough negative news to push markets down further,” said Mitsushige Akino, who oversees about $600 million in Tokyo at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. “China will have to adopt growth-friendly policy given what’s going on in the rest of the world.”
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Credit-rating agencies draw fresh scrutiny

View Photo Gallery —  The bipartisan group faces a Nov. 23 deadline to agree on a debt-reduction plan.

By Zachary A. Goldfarb, Published: November 17

The controversial companies known as credit-rating agencies are drawing fresh scrutiny from officials in the United States as they weigh whether to downgrade U.S. government debt should Congress fail to come to an agreement to reduce borrowing.

The credit-rating firms — Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings — have said that they could downgrade U.S. debt if Congress does not find at least $1.2 trillion in budget savings over a decade, or if the economy worsens significantly in coming months.

A simple failure by the special congressional committee seeking to forge a deal to tame the debt would not necessarily lead to a downgrade, according to the ratings companies and other economists. The committee’s deadline is Wednesday.
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Europe shares fall early as debt yields spiral
LONDON | Fri Nov 18, 2011 3:14am EST

(Reuters) - European shares fell in early trade on Friday, extending a decline from the previous session, on mounting worries that borrowing costs in several euro zone countries are at unsustainable levels.

At 0810 GMT, the FTSE index of top European shares was down 0.7 percent at 951.66 points, and is on course to fall more than 3 percent over the week, with high sovereign bond yields remaining a major focus for the market. Spanish yields hit a euro-era high at an auction on Thursday.
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Euro Area Is Running Out of Options to Fix Crisis, Finland’s Katainen Says
By Kati Pohjanpalo - Nov 17, 2011 3:01 PM PT

Europe is running out of options to fix its debt crisis and it is now up to Italy and Greece to convince markets they can deliver the necessary austerity measures, Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen said.

“The European Union cannot restore confidence in Greece and Italy if they don’t do it themselves,” Katainen said in an interview in Helsinki yesterday. “We can’t do anything to boost confidence in them. If there are doubts about these countries’ abilities to take sensible and correct decisions on economic policy, no one else can repair that.”

Crisis management efforts have done little to stem the turmoil as Italy, the third-largest euro-area economy, struggles to persuade investors it can stay afloat without a bailout. Europe’s Oct. 26 deal, which boosted the region’s temporary rescue fund to 1 trillion euros ($1.4 trillion), has “failed to calm markets,” Katainen said.

Since last month’s agreement, the euro has lost 3 percent against the dollar and borrowing costs on two-year Italian government debt have jumped 150 basis points.

Pledging more European support isn’t the issue as “nothing else can have as strong an impact as a concrete, transparent and timed program of measures that is implemented” by Greece and Italy, Katainen said.
…

Franco-German Spat on Role of ECB Renewed
By Tony Czuczka and Mark Deen - Nov 17, 2011 3:00 PM PT

The failure of European leaders to end the debt crisis with their broadest effort yet has revived a Franco-German dispute over the European Central Bank’s role and fueled investor concerns over policy makers’ economic impotence.

As holders of Greek debt begin talks in Athens on structuring a 50 percent writeoff that was the cornerstone of a deal pieced together last month at an all-night summit, officials in Berlin and Paris swapped barbs and European borrowing costs outside of Germany rose to euro-era records.

The discord highlighted markets’ brushoff of a package that included a scaled-up rescue fund, proposed guarantees of sovereign debt and a bid to attract more international loans. The accord, which finance ministers aim to implement next month, was at least the fourth plan billed as a comprehensive strategy to end the crisis born in Greece in 2009, none of which provided a lasting fix.

“The crisis is clearly broadening,” Riccardo Barbieri, London-based chief European economist at Mizuho International Plc, told Bloomberg Radio’s Ken Prewitt yesterday. “Only Germany, and to some extent the Netherlands, are immune from the crisis at the moment.”

U.S. and European stocks fell as concern about the debt crisis outweighed a drop in American jobless claims and higher- than-forecast housing starts. The premium France pays over Germany to borrow for 10 years jumped to a record 200 basis points. Yields on bonds of countries from Portugal to Finland, the Netherlands to Austria also rose relative to Germany.

Merkel’s Rejection

As President Barack Obama urged more urgent action to avert global turmoil, Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected French calls to deploy the ECB as a crisis backstop.
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Police clashes mar Occupy Wall Street protests
By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press – 22 minutes ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, the New York Stock Exchange and the subways to raise their voices against what they say is corporate excess.

But since police in riot helmets, batons and riot shields ousted them from their two-month encampments, Occupy Wall Street protesters singled out officers as another enemy, saying their crowd control tactics were an excessive, chilling use of force against free speech.

“The police played their role. I wouldn’t call it respectful,” said Danny Shaw, 33, on Thursday in a day of protests across the country to mark the two-month anniversary of the movement against what demonstrators say is economic inequality.

Tear gas in Oakland, Calif., pepper spray that hit an 84-year-old Seattle woman in the face and hundreds of arrests of demonstrators and journalists at Occupy protests across the U.S. this week shone the spotlight on the varying crowd control tactics of police, most who used helmets and riot gear as they broke up encampments in New York and other cities.

“Police Brutality,” protesters’ signs blared. New York officials have called for investigations of the police raid of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan early Tuesday.

Experts on policing say departments have used necessary tactics to control unpredictable, sometimes violent protesters, and that the police haven’t reached the stages yet of full riot protection.

“I don’t think they’re rioting at Occupy Wall Street, not yet, but they are getting out of control,” said Maki Haberfeld, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “If they were rioting, you would see much more riot gear” like sonic devices and high-powered weapons, she said.
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Plenty of jobs out there…

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A jobseeker from Florida who responded to a bogus Craigslist ad for a job on a southeast Ohio cattle farm was found dead, buried in a shallow grave, and another from South Carolina was shot but escaped by running away through the woods, a sheriff said Thursday.

http://news.yahoo.com/fla-craigslist-jobseeker-found-dead-ohio-grave-230030628.html

It`s been a Journey

Just a small town girl, her best friend was a Realtor
She took the pick-a-pay goin’ anywhere
Just a city boy, he bought four in south Detroit
He took the pick-a-pay goin’ anywhere

Big flat screen in the family room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can refi twice
It goes on and on and on and on

Victims squatting, up and down the boulevard
Their stories all filled with their plight
Deadbeat people, prayin` for a judges motion
Hiding, somewhere in plain sight.

It`s not hard to get my fill,
Livin` free is such a a thrill
Sayin’ anything to roll the dice,
Just one more time
Heads I win, tails you lose
Renters you can sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on

Victims squatting, up and down the boulevard
Stories all filled with their pli-e-ght
Deadbeat people, prayin` for a judges motion
Hiding, somewhere in plain siiiiiiiiight.

Don’t stop Deadbeatn’
Hold on to the feelin’
Deadbeat people

Ohhh-Ohhh-Ooooooooo

Don’t stop Deadbeatn’
Hold on to the feelin’
Deadbeat people

Ohhh-Ohhh-Ooooooooo

Realtors Are Liars®

I posted this last night and checked it B4 I satrt out on what should be a really sh#tty Friday. Well thanks to Muggy I am starting this really sh#tty Friday with a smile.

Comment by Muggy
2011-11-17 19:55:57

“The three- to four-year estimate I have for the U.S. is just not going to apply (in Florida). It’s going to be much longer,”

“Great news since I am an invincible super hero that will live… to infinity and beyond!”

Longer recovery forecast for Florida

By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 8:08 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011

With 24.5 percent of the nation’s foreclosures, Florida remained in the lead this week for housing woe - an unenviable position it will hold long after other regions of the country recover, economists said Thursday.

A Mortgage Bankers Association report on home loan delinquencies and foreclosures during the third quarter of this year found a dip in the percentage of late loans nationally, leading some analysts to predict an overall economic lift within the next three to four years.

But with Florida’s large inventory of seriously delinquent loans and foreclosures - 18.8 percent of all mortgages - they hesitated to predict a get-well timeline for the Sunshine State.

“The three- to four-year estimate I have for the U.S. is just not going to apply (in Florida). It’s going to be much longer,” said Mike Fratantoni, the association’s vice president of research and economics.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/longer-recovery-forecast-for-florida-1976929.html -

Jethro…. go read my venom in yesterdays bits bucket. Short but factual.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-18/zoellick-says-europe-may-get-support-from-china-u-s-through-the-imf.html

US taxpayers get to do even more to bail out the banksters who loaned to the PIIGS. We pay about a quarter of the IMF’s costs, so now the globalists can bend us over for billions more.

Thank you, Obama voters. Thank you, McCain voters.

New bill would expand the size of mortgages that could be insured by the Federal Housing Administration in wealthy areas from $625,500 to $729,750.

A weekend government shutdown that neither party wanted was averted when Congress approved a compromise spending bill Thursday, as leaders overcame major defections by Republicans angry over what they considered excessive spending. To the dismay of liberals, the measure also blocks Obama administration plans to impose stricter nutrition standards on school lunches.
The Senate sent the measure to President Barack Obama for his signature on a 70-30 vote, shortly after the House consented to the bill 298-121.
Though passage was by comfortable margins, the vote in both chambers highlighted GOP fissures over federal spending. House Republicans backed the legislation by just 133-101, while GOP senators voted heavily against the bipartisan bill, 30-17.
Many conservatives also were unhappy that the bill potentially would leave taxpayers on the hook for even more spending because it would expand the size of mortgages that could be insured by the Federal Housing Administration in wealthy areas from $625,500 to $729,750.

http://news.yahoo.com/congress-oks-bill-averting-government-shutdown-001754978.html

Wow!
i haven’t seen this particular quirk before.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/business/some-real-estate-loans-that-lost-all-their-value-and-more.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=all

You might think that, in making a loan, the worst that can happen is to lose all you lent. But in the wonderful world of commercial real estate, you can do much worse.

That is because the securitizations authorize the bank servicing the loans — in this case the same bank that made the bad loans — to keep collecting its fees even if the borrower is not making payments. The servicer is also authorized to take out cash from the securitization for other costs, like paying property taxes or making repairs to keep the property from falling apart.

Those costs can keep coming for a long time after a loan stops producing income. Eventually, the property is foreclosed and sold, and the securitization gets whatever is left after the fees are paid. If the properties are not worth the fees and expenses — as happened in each one of the five loans on Boscov’s stores — then the securitization is docked for the extra charges.

I think that Republicans are going to find that their puppet-masters were on the wrong side of this issue and history.

Rudy Giuliani would crush Occupy Wall Street? Oh, for shame

http://www.nj.com/njvoices/index.ssf/2011/11/rudy_giuliani_would_crush_occu.html

Rudy Giuliani must be kidding. He’s boasting that he would have squashed Occupy Wall Street on day one. He called the protesters “disgruntled bums” and “leftover hippies from the ’60s and ’70s.”

Ah yes, the former mayor of New York City invoking law and order. Let’s pause to recall that Giuliani’s police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, is now serving a four-year prison sentence on corruption charges.

But that’s not the worst of it. Giuliani reportedly delivered a speech at an economic conference in China last week. He said the first question he was asked was about Occupy Wall Street.

“This thing has gone around the globe, and it’s beginning to characterize us,” he said. “This is what they think we’re about.”

God forbid China should think we’re a country that allows protests without mowing down people in the streets.

Giuliani, a man who wanted to be president of the United States, must have had a Rick Perry-type brain freeze. How else to explain his amnesia about Tiananmen Square, and the tanks that barreled through when Chinese students and others took a stand for democratic freedoms?

Giuliani should hang his head in shame that pictures of bloodied protesters in New York City have circled the globe. This was a police action that attempted to limit media coverage. China has been there, done that.

The Housing Crime Syndicate: Another Free $hit Army

ReaItors and appraisers get into the business as a last choice alternativ­e to other work they wanted more but could not get, in just the same way most house inspectors and mortgage salesmen enter their respective industries that do not require college training and a degree. As a result, all of these businesses are dumbed down for the masses so real quality performanc­e is rare. It’s a sorry state, but that is the truth, and is the reason all these”prof­essions” are so lacking in talent, expertise and dedication and is the main reason many buyers pay a heavy price for those deficienci­es “at work”. You can personally make up for some of the deficienci­es if you do your own homework(a­nd work) , but the process will never be nearly perfect due to ingrained system resistance to change.

Watch your wallet around reaItors, appraisers and “inspector­s”.

Crackin’ Heads Banksta Style

The NYPD has discredited itself
Tough tactics and intolerance favor the rich and flout the rule of law

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/17/the_nypd_has_discredited_itself/singleton/

….As Occupy Wall Street grew, the New York Police Department’s “crowd control” tactics became increasingly bizarre and aggressive: historic mass arrests, motor scooter attacks, destruction of books, ramming horses into demonstrators, putting New York Post reporters in choke holds – to name only a few. And following Tuesday’s brazen raid of Zuccotti Park, carried out in the dead of night, the NYPD indicated that de-escalation is not on the horizon. Quite the opposite, in fact. Police officials at the highest ranks, under the direction of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, have taken to simply making up the rules as they go along.

In the same way that financial elites rig the political system, law enforcement elites like Bloomberg and Kelly have rigged the criminal justice system. Occupy Wall Street is hardly the only victim. The NYPD is on pace to make 700,000 extralegal “stop-and-frisks” this year alone, while its own officers skirt accountability for their misconduct. Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, who was sanctioned by NYPD Internal Affairs for pepper-spraying at least four demonstrators without provocation, received a maximum punishment of 10 lost vacation days on account of his actions.

If you’re an ordinary citizen, and you get caught on video dousing people with noxious gas like Bologna did, you get summarily locked up. And if you’re young and black, expect to receive the law’s full wrath. But when you’re an NYPD commanding officer responsible for all of Manhattan below 59th street, like Bologna was at the time of his attack, you get essentially a free pass.

Additionally, throughout my coverage of OWS, various police officials in plainclothes have refused to identify themselves upon request — violation of NYPD patrol guide procedure 203-09, effective June 27, 2003, which states that all “members of the service” are required to “courteously and clearly state [their] rank, name, shield number and command, or otherwise provide them, to anyone who_ requests [they] do so. [They also must] allow the person ample time to note this information.”

…It is not good that NYPD officers now live in a world where coherency of argument is no longer even an aspiration. Having spoken to over a hundred police officers throughout Occupy Wall Street, about 70 percent respond to queries by saying nothing at all, another 15 percent grunt or mutter something inaudible, 10 percent make some kind of dismissive remark, and the remaining 5 percent are willing to have a human conversation.

Zillow has 2011 property tax assessed values for Los Angeles County on its pages, finally. Looks like all property values are unchanged or higher by 0.8%.

Except for one that shows a decline of 24% from its purchase price 2 years ago, bought by one jackas who harangued me that I was gonna miss the boat. That $9,000 tax credit sure tastes good now, eh?

And even the Zestimate is lower than the assessed value.

So: a question. I see a house on one of the many house listing databases. I think, hey! I have cash and the credit rating. I could buy that.

But - do I really need to get a real estate agent? I mean, both the buyer’s and seller’s agents are de facto working for the seller. So why introduce a second middleman? Can the seller’s agent handle everything for me? I guess he’ll still take the 6% commission - he probably won’t refund the 3%. Right?

And foreclosures - any thoughts on trying to purchase those?

I’m not in a hurry to purchase right now. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop - the Euro debt crisis to come to a head, and for sane lending regulations to reach their final form. FHA and VA are still cranking out debauched loans from the ads I see.

But - I want my ducks in a row. If the price is right, I want to execute. I just find it superfluous to have to get another middleman in the picture for me, who have already done the legwork, to buy. Are there not settlement firms who could handle the paperwork and the inspection and title search and whatnot? For a fixed fee?

Thoughts?

ATLANTA (AP) — The economy may well be the best form of birth control.

U.S. births dropped for the third straight year — especially for young mothers — and experts think money worries are the reason.

My guess is we will see this trend accellerate.

To recap
1. Workers are making less, and loosing benefits, and paying more for insurance food and energy. Increased Taxes are on the horizon.
2. WE have more people moving back to their home country
3. We have fewer people having kids.
4. We have more people living together

I wonder what this will mean for demand moving forward.

I think this story nails my experience in this locale. We have lots of 30 somthings moving into our community. They are basically of the 150% of median income groups while the median to lower than median income families are moving out. Actuallly the biggest group I see movnig out are the older boomers/elderly. The realtors will tell us heart disease, Alzheimer’s or a move to the retirement home is why the home is going up for sale.

Middle-class areas shrink as America divides into ‘two-tiered society’ of rich and poor

Study: 44 percent of families lived in middle-income neighborhoods in 2007, down from 65 percent in 1970

William Julius Wilson, a sociologist at Harvard who has seen the study, argues that “rising inequality is beginning to produce a two-tiered society in America in which the more affluent citizens live lives fundamentally different from the middle- and lower-income groups. This divide decreases a sense of community.”

Yup, I could have written that quote myself because for the past 10 years I’ve watched it happen. In the early days of the hbb a lot of us thought the crash would happen and that some of the hubris would disappear as people realized much of their success was part of a debt fueled bubble. But I dont’ think any of us realized how many industries would remain untouched and how for some the hubris has only intensified. They’ve survived what they believe to be the worst of the fall and now consider themselves untouchable.

There was a nice sub 40 age cat fight at our gym over the last spin bike in a class. Sound nutty? It really didn’t surprise some of us as this is a hang out for some of the self proclaimed entitled. This is the crazy behavior shaking out in subergatory. Of course, when the aggressor was called on it she stormed out of the room, proclaiming she was going to cancel her membership anyway. Charming, dear, just charming.

“TruePathtoPro$perity™” = Job$! Job$! Job$!

About 300 applicants for server positions will be invited back for auditions Friday and Saturday to demonstrate how outgoing and entertaining they can be in addition to their serving skills

1,600 apply for 200 jobs at Farrell’s
Published: Nov. 17, 2011 / OC Register / By LOU PONSI

The restaurant is hiring “ice cream artisans” to staff the fountain as well as servers, hosts, cooks, bussers and dishwashers, with pay ranging from $8 to about $12 per hour, Nail said.

Thought about posting this in ‘Weekend Topic Suggestions’ but, don’t want to draw that much attention to things…but I’m curious to get feedback from all the folks here, even those I vehemently disagree with when it comes to the role of government in life.

I’m trying to figure out how to help a friend - rather than having the government be a middle man, to help someone I care about directly - the whole idea of “community” and whatnot.

I have a friend who is severely struggling financially. This person has about $10k in debt at the moment(yeah, not horrible compared to the average american I’m sure), no real job (though started a service business which has low overhead but doesn’t bring in much/steady income - a few hundred dollars a month). They have a college and professional degree/certification and when working make a solid middle-class income. They just haven’t been working much in the past year.

This person has quit two jobs in the past year and been terminated from a third (arguably the firing was unjustified, but a firing none-the-less that clouds one’s employment history).

Jobs aren’t too plentiful these days, though this person has been actively interviewing, but nothing has panned out in the past 6 months. As time goes on, the hole gets deeper, though with the business income and a deceased parent’s pension and some smart budgeting it’s possible this person could at least cover monthly expenses.

Obviously I can be there for moral/emotional support, but that won’t solve the financial problem. So what else could I do?

Pay off this person’s debt? Yeah, I could afford to do that, but I don’t think that’s appropriate, and wouldn’t change the negative monthly cashflow situation.

Offer to cover some of the monthly expenses? When this person suggested dropping their insurance I immediately offered to pay that, as I think that’s a huge mistake. That obviously won’t turn this person’s life around, but would help from something catastrophic happening.

Let them live with me for free or cheap rent? An option, though I’m not sure my current lease/landlord would allow that, nor sure it’s a good idea for the friendship. But I think that’s always got to be on the table - if a friend needs a place to stay temporarily I surely will oblige, and would hope my good friends would do the same.

Anyone have any suggestions? There are many facets at play here - helping stabilize a friend financially, and also helping to get them in a position to claw themselves out of a hole. Part of that is helping their outlook on the current job market, and realizing that now is the time to suck it up and be in survival mode, not be picky, and take a part time job over having no job, etc. It’s a difficult balance to try to be supportive, give “tough love”, and also lend a hand financially while not infringing on their independence.

Latest news from Tucson:

Would invest $30 million-plus in bankrupt resort in Foothills
Group seeks to buy, fix up La Paloma

Much comment merriment follows. Including this gem:

These properties are run-down and shabby establishments after Sarver’s family took the money and ran.

Took dad’s money and bought up all the RTC properties in Tucson and San Diego. Guess when you donate money to the U of A, that makes it all better.

Where is the hotel downtown Sarver and his group planned to build? His deal for the hotel was tanked due to the bankruptcy filed in 2009 by the partner in the deal, General Growth Properties (owner of Park Place).

Looks like his track record is not too great…and sell your portion of the Phoenix Suns so we can have a team with a hands-on owner.

“Fortunately for us, when our immune system identifies a cancer cell, the cancer cell can’t demand to be saved by threatening to kill the entire system. You see the irony here, of course; the cancer cell will destroy the entire organism/system if it is spared, so its threat to bring down the entire system if it is eradicated is pure self-serving artifice.” Charles Hugh Smith

if Occupy LA folks had any idea of how corrupt our City politicians are they could have made the CHANGE for the better. However, they are so clueless and out of sync with the REAL politics of LA they did nothing but sleep, exercise and protested ONLY when they heard other cities were doing so. Why aren’t they blasting the Failure of a Mayor for his ethic violations, catering only to the rich, forgetting about the poor like Skid Row and giving $1 mil to Gensler to relocate to downtown etc. Its time for Occupy LA to be evicted out of our City

The Occupy group is comprised mainly of radical teachers/students, socialists, anarchists and unionized workers and people need to know this fact. Again, be honest, it’s the right thing to do for those interested in potentially joining the movement,as i said before its a shame a good movement was hijacked…

The next financial crisis will be hellish, and it’s on its way

By Addison Wiggin
Forbes – Wed, Nov 16, 2011

“There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner,” says hedge fund legend Mark Mobius, “because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis.”

We’re raising our alert status for the next financial crisis. We already raised it last week after spreads on U.S. credit default swaps started blowing out. We raised it again after seeing the remarks of Mr. Mobius, chief of the $50 billion emerging markets desk at Templeton Asset Management.

Speaking in Tokyo, he pointed to derivatives, the financial hairball of futures, options, and swaps in which nearly all the world’s major banks are tangled up.

Estimates on the amount of derivatives out there worldwide vary. An oft-heard estimate is $600 trillion. That squares with Mobius’ guess of 10 times the world’s annual GDP. “Are the derivatives regulated?” asks Mobius. “No. Are you still getting growth in derivatives? Yes.”

In other words, something along the lines of securitized mortgages is lurking out there, ready to trigger another crisis as in 2007-08.

What could it be? We’ll offer up a good guess, one the market is discounting.

And what of the derivatives sitting on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve? Here’s another factor behind our heightened state of alert.

“Through quantitative easing efforts alone,” says Euro Pacific Capital’s Michael Pento, “Ben Bernanke has added $1.8 trillion of longer-term GSE debt and mortgage-backed securities (MBS).”

Think about that for a moment. The Fed’s entire balance sheet totaled around $800 billion before the 2008 crash, nearly all of it Treasuries. Now the Fed holds more than double that amount in mortgage derivatives alone, junk that the banks needed to clear off their own balance sheets.

“As the size of the Fed’s balance sheet ballooned,” continues Mr. Pento, “the dollar amount of capital held at the Fed has remained fairly constant. Today, the Fed has $52.5 billion of capital backing a $2.7 trillion balance sheet.

“Prior to the bursting of the credit bubble, the public was shocked to learn that our biggest investment banks were levered 30-to-1. When asset values fell, those banks were quickly wiped out. But now the Fed is holding many of the same types of assets and is levered 51-to-1! If the value of their portfolio were to fall by just 2%, the Fed itself would be wiped out.”

Mr. Pento’s and Mr. Mobius’ views line up with our own, which we laid out during interviews on our trip to China this month.

http://news.yahoo.com/next-financial-crisis-hellish-way-204303737.html - 255k -

Data point: The European Central Bank is unwilling to do the massive money-printing that the US Fed is willing to do. The Fed can force inflation (i.e. an un-voted-upon tax) on US citizens, but the Europeans have unhappy experiences with its outcomes.

Draghi Urges Action on Debt-Crisis Agreements While ECB Focuses on Prices
By Jeff Black and Jana Randow - Nov 18, 2011 10:12 AM ET

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi pushed back against politicians and investors asking him to do more to end the sovereign debt crisis, expressing impatience with leaders’ failure to act.

The ECB would quickly lose credibility if it departed from its primary role of keeping prices stable, Draghi said in a speech in Frankfurt today. “Where is the implementation” of government pledges to bolster the region’s rescue fund, he asked. “We should not be waiting any longer.”

The comments suggest Draghi is unwilling to make large- scale bond purchases to extinguish a debt crisis that has spread from Greece to Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Spain, threatening to tear the 17-nation monetary union apart. While the ECB is intervening in debt markets in an attempt to lower soaring yields, it’s refusing to unleash the unlimited firepower that some governments are calling for.

“Losing credibility can happen quickly — and history shows that regaining it has huge economic and social costs,” Draghi said. Keeping prices stable “is the major contribution we can make in support of sustainable growth, employment creation and financial stability. And we are making this contribution in full independence.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-18/draghi-says-ecb-must-stay-course.html#

Students petition Gov. NOT to sign their diplomas:

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/florida-university-students-dont-want-gov-rick-scotts-signature

Awesome:

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/not-democrat-not-republican-just-pissed

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/charges-dropped-against-veteran-1223433.html

While the likes of Jon Corzine or Chris Dodd will never see the prison cell they so richly deserve, here’s the kind of “justice” being meted out to those who defend their property.

Spain 10 years up over 7 percent.

The latest evidence that governments, too, are facing a buyers’ strike came Thursday, when a disappointing response to Spain’s latest 10-year bond offering allowed rates to climb to nearly 7 percent, a new record. A French bond auction also received a lukewarm response.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/business/global/lenders-flee-debt-of-european-nations-and-banks.html