Bits Bucket for March 2, 2012
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Is a 23% month-on-month shift typical in Chinese home sales?
March 1, 2012, 11:34 p.m. EST
China gets tough on rogue housing policy: report
By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China’s housing ministry signaled it will quash any defiance by local governments seeking to overturn tough restrictions on property sales, according to a report Friday in the state-run media.
The Shanghai Securities News cited an unnamed ministry official saying the central government would “show no mercy” and “absolutely” not let local governments “sing a different tune” on housing policy, according to Dow Jones Newswires and Bloomberg News translations of the report.
Local governments have been ordered to halt any moves to unwind or water down the property controls, the official was cited as saying.
Separately, the report cited Urban-Rural Development policy research center’s vice director Wang Juelin as saying Beijing had made its stance clear there would be no review of the current policy at the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) — China’s legislature — which gets underway Monday.
Meanwhile, another report Friday in the Communist Party-affiliated People’s Daily highlighted Shanghai’s apparent policy walk-back earlier this week, in which the city’s housing officials offered a “re-explanation” of rules affecting curbs that prohibit purchases of multiple homes.
Shanghai authorities had originally tipped plans to loosen restrictions on second-home purchases before reversing course Wednesday. See report on Shanghai policy turnaround.
The report cited a real-estate analyst in Shanghai as saying municipal authorities were brought to heel by a central government determined to control real-estate prices and maintain stability at the local-government level ahead of the NPC meetings.
The moves come amid signs of new life in China’s property market following a period of cooling transaction activity, with market confidence hurt by a round of price cuts in August by real-estate developers in Shanghai that prompted an angry backlash by buyers who’d paid more.
Home buyers were out in force in the Beijing in February, with municipal data showing new- and existing-home sales jumped to 9,117, a rise of 23% from levels in January.
Developers attributed the brisk activity to pent up demand from buyers sidelined in a wait-and-see mode in expectation of weakening prices.
Yuan a new loan?
March 1, 2012, 6:59 p.m. EST
China February new loans seen below target: report
By China Bureau
SHANGHAI -(MarketWatch)- China’s banks likely issued less than CNY700 billion (US$111 billion) of new yuan loans last month, the state-run China Securities Journal reported Friday, still short of market expectations of CNY800 billion.
The report cited data from the banking system as saying that banks in China issued around CNY600 billion of new yuan loans through Feb. 24.
“With the slow pace of lending, it’s very likely to miss the target of an increase in new yuan loans of CNY2.4 trillion in the first quarter,” the report cited an unidentified source as saying.
…
CNY700 billion (US$111 billion)…CNY800 billion… CNY600 billion of new yuan loans through Feb. 24.
What’s +/-CNY100 billion between friends?
the central government would “show no mercy” and “absolutely” not let local governments “sing a different tune”
I detect a whiff of fear.
So long as U.S. stocks keep going up, I say enjoy the rally and ignore possible Greek debt crisis contagion. It is all contained, folks!
March 2, 2012, 12:00 a.m. EST
Buy the market, not the rally
Commentary: Technology stocks look attractive for 2012
By John Shinal
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — It’s taken more than a decade for the Nasdaq Composite Index to trade back near the 3,000 level. Now that it has, are tech stocks a buy?
If you look at price-to-earnings ratios and earnings-growth estimates for 2012, you could make a strong argument that the answer is yes.
Given that U.S. Treasury notes are paying historically low interest rates, and fourth-quarter U.S. economic growth was 3%, stocks look more attractive than bonds right now.
That’s not to say you should hit the “buy” button this week, at the top of a four-month rally. Given this run-up COMP +0.74% , stocks will take a breather, as they always do. If the contagion from a possible Greek default crimps U.S. growth, we could see a genuine correction rather than a simple pullback.
…
Buy low, sell high.
Anecdote time! I’m in Oil City, er, more like Rust City in the U.S. Great Lakes area. City median household income is now about $32K. Our housing bubble of the 1998-2007 period expressed itself by firmly rising housing prices while jobs and population fled like we were a war zone. (1% of the population flees like clockwork every 2-3 years.) Therefore the bubble was nearly equally expressed around here in time with the nation, as a big difference between price and ability to pay.
Some friends of mine (a couple) bought a house in 2002 under the nesting instinct. The man of the couple tried to play it cool, but the woman was practically squeeing like a fangirl at an anime con. So the realtor (same person as the seller, hmm) hooked her good. The seller didn’t budge and the woman wanted the house, so the buyer guy had to take the full asking price. $140K, on a good street across from a church/school right outside the horrible city school system. He still complains about that fiasco.
Today, the house Zillows for less than $120K, although the county keeps the assessment at $140K. He’s got a good job (municipal police) and they have foster kids ($700/kid per month), so they can make it. The guy complains that he’s “poor”, but in reality his spending is huge and the family obtains about 3 times the municipal household income. (Yes, they get WIC.)
But that’s not the real problem today. One neighbor house was empty when they arrived in the neighborhood, but soon attracted some minority lady in her 60s. Unbeknownst to us, soon in addition to that home, she paid cash for a rental duplex in an okay area of the city (working class Whites). $150K. (!!!) The property record says the assessment was about $75K then. (!!! x 2) What compelled her to do such a stupid thing? Perhaps it was the $650/mo each unit was fetching in rent? Rents around here were very sticky after the bubble popped. They remain fairly high today, despite the foreclosures and constant population flight.
The problem is that now Ms Minority Lady is ready to totally jump ship and head to another state where all her family has collected. So she came over recently and tried to sell the rental duplex to my friends (the couple in the $20K underwater house) for at least $125K.
Cue: Facepalm.
We’re having none of it, but we were polite. What’s really the kicker is that with rents being sticky, vacancies are rising and are in fact historically high. Further, my city made the national news for having one of the very top vacancy rates in the nation. But even that’s not the entire kicker. The ultimate kicker is that her duplex is now empty. She’s a little hard to follow since her English is poor, but it seems that she lost her tenants… but she assures us that we can get $650/unit from this duplex. Yeah, sure.
She got rid of her realtor, for reasons that we interpret as being that he wasn’t able to find a sucker for her. And no wonder. She paid 200% ($150K) of the property assessment ($75K) in 2005, which has since fallen to about $60K; so she’s trying to “get” somebody else about the same way she was “gotten”: Double the price.
How many people are like this? How many people are this deep in hock to the housing monster? And do they think the rest of us are morons?
This is an excellent post
Regarding vacancies, when the squad left Ohio in 2009 my Lakewood Gold Coast area apartment building was less than 50% occupied. See also the numerous stories about Slavic Village, an epicenter of subprime meltdown.
Better Renter,
Your posts are top shelf.
“And do they think the rest of us are morons?”
It has been my experience that foreign born minorities (non citizen, and even many who are citizens) absolutely DO think the rest of us are morons. And who can blame them?
Since the majority seem unable to understand the nature of money, even with it staring them in the face…
yeah, wonders never cease.
“The seller didn’t budge and the woman wanted the house, so the buyer guy had to take the full asking price.”
I’ve seen that movie before!
Did Suzanne research the house for them?
cash?
Where’d she get the $150K cash?
“Today, the house Zillows for less than $120K, although the county keeps the assessment at $140K”
(Hwy50 is of mind that 2042 will not carry any personal handwritten notes … and is living today as though that might almost be a certainty.) :-/
If Any American citizen with $1400.00 $upplemental income is to believe that they cannot/shouldnot pay $622.00 to NOT live with a monthly relationship with a lord-of-the-land knockin’ with a smile x1 every month … then perhaps fear is the rule-of-the-day. But at $622.00 per month, Hwy50 thinks that some folks fears might get over-ridden with 30+pages of e$crow $peak & x2 initials
“But that’s not the real problem today.”
Mortgage Repayment Summary
Monthly Payment: $622.11
Total of 360 Payments: $223,958.02
Pay-off Date: Feb, 2042
Total Interest Paid: $67,988.02
Total PMI Paid: $2,970.00
“How many people are like this? How many people are this deep in hock to the housing monster? And do they think the rest of us are morons?”
Just about most of them.
Yes.
You see, despite the bureaucracy, hoop jumping, fee gouging and hidden costs, RE is really more like horse trading than anything else and if you don’t know anything about horses…
Reminds me of the beginning of “True Grit.”
Oh you certainly got that right, turkey.
I know a young couple in just such a predicament. They are currently right in the midst of a “buy and bail” plot.
You go, Amerika!
Now imagine $200K plus just for a parcel of raw land in western WA.
I can easily imagine NOT buying it.
Buy stocks now, or get priced out forever!
As regards where the stock market will be in 2046, I suggest a vanishingly small proportion of today’s MW readers will be around by then to witness it, which suggests a valuable principle of making outlandish predictions: Choose a sufficiently long-time horizon so that you are unlikely to be around to hear others laugh at how wrong you were.
March 1, 2012, 12:01 a.m. EST
Dow 13,000 now; 116,200 by 2046
Commentary: A 1995 prediction looks on the mark
By Chuck Jaffe, MarketWatch
BOSTON (MarketWatch) — My favorite market forecast of all time came in the fall of 1995, when mutual fund pioneer Bill Berger came to Boston and predicted the Dow Jones Industrial Average would rise to 116,200.
He didn’t think it would happen overnight. In fact, the 70-something founder of the Berger Funds figured the market would need until the year 2040 to reach it. (He wryly suggested that if he was proved wrong, people come find him to discuss it; sadly, he died a few years later.)
Of course, Dow 116,200 would be a far more ridiculous thought than even, say, Dow 36,000, the title of a popular-but-wrong-headed book from the bubble days of the late 1990s, were it not for one thing: As the Dow (DJIA +0.22%) touched 13,000 this week (and the Nasdaq Composite (COMP +0.74%) flirted with 3,000), it’s actually stunningly close to being on track toward making Berger’s prediction come true.
…
If there is any doubt where the latest bubble is going on (remember how nobody “knew” during the housing bubble), it is in the stock market. Half-trillion dollar vauation for Apple is the same thing as $100k/acre rural Florida real eatate.
America cannot exist without a bubble apparently.
As the Dow (DJIA +0.22%) touched 13,000 this week (and the Nasdaq Composite (COMP +0.74%) flirted with 3,000), it’s actually stunningly close to being on track toward making Berger’s prediction come true.
Amazing what can be accomplished with inflation and low interest rates. Of course we all know that this game cannot be played for 30+ more years.
Americans are snapping up new cars like hot cakes, just in time to pay $5 a gallon for gasoline.
Auto sales hit highest level in 4 years
March 2, 2012
By Chrissie Thompson
Detroit Free Press Business Writer
An improving economy outweighed rising gas prices last month to push U.S. auto sales to their highest level in four years, with demand growing across nearly all vehicle segments.
February sales hit a 15.1 million annual rate, according to Autodata, the industry’s best month since February 2008. That rate was almost 1 million stronger than last month’s pace.
Even rising gas prices didn’t discourage consumers — a trend that’s expected to continue. A gallon of regular gasoline cost an average of $3.74 Thursday, up 30 cents from the beginning of February, according to AAA.
“My question is, what is the new panic price for gas?” Nissan’s Al Castignetti said. “Whatever it is, it’s at a different price than it used to be.”
Last month’s sales blew past analysts’ predictions and accompanied better-than-expected sales gains from the Detroit Three: Chrysler’s sales rose 40.4%. Ford’s increased 14.3%. GM’s nudged up 1.1%, surpassing February 2011’s incentive-driven total.
Still, automakers and analysts say they remain cautious about the potential impact of rising gas prices. If prices at the pump edge up slowly, a strong economy should keep consumers in a shopping mood through $4-a-gallon gas — or even higher.
“Unlike last year’s gas spike and the one in ‘08, this one is coming with an increase in consumer confidence and housing data,” said Citi Investment Research analyst Itay Michaeli. “The consumer has been conditioned to expect bad things in the economy when gas prices rise. So I think it’s more about the speed with which it goes up. To go from $4 to $5 quickly, that’s going to be a problem.”
…
Go look to buy a used car and you will begin to understand why people are buying new.
Yup, used prices are sky high.
Don’t forget about cash-for-clunkers, which resulted in a near-to-mid-term reduction in the available used car supply.
Did Blue Book change?
Prices seem stable from what I see.
I bet Cash for Clunkers had nothing to do with it.
From what I have read, it had more to do with the much lower level of new car sales. Fewer new cars sold == fewer trade ins == fewer used cars on the market. Combine that with higher demand for used cars and prices rose dramatically.
FWIW, most used cars did not qualify for Cash For Clunkers. It was mostly older pickups and SUVs, and most of those were already worth more than the CFC credit anyway.
We’ll see what kind of legs this sales boom has. I would welcome it, as I will be in the market for a low mileage used car next year, an I would prefer to pay less for a used car.
I went ahead and bit the bullet and paid more than I wanted to because I don’t think we’ll have good cheap used cars again until we’ve had a few years of better new sales. I couldn’t wait that long.
The 50 year low 13 million cars sold in 2008 is putting a damper on 2012’s used cars.
17 million autos were sold in 2001 by comparison.
“keep consumers in a shopping mood”
In a 70% mood based economy, this is important.
Spin that hamster wheel sheeple, spin, spin!
Yeah, like America-the-Nation is gonna go “ALL Swiss” overnight … [laughing]
Who are buying them?
Although some news article mention the smaller, super fuel efficient cars are selling very well.
Still, 20K for an econo-box?
Who are buying them?
I suspect that the Fed Gov is doing a lot of the “snapping up”, but that’s only a guess.
Still, 20K for an econo-box?
No inflation to see here folks, keep moving…
To be fair, there are some cars in the low 10K range, but they are unbelievably crummy feeling. Also, the 20K econoboxes are bigger, more poweful and have a lot more features than the econoboxes of decades past. Still, they used to go for 15K not too long ago.
The luxury car market still has “normal” used car dynamics. Expected depreciation (per the lease numbers) on a 80K car I was looking at; 58% depreciated in it’s 3rd year of life with 36K miles. I think that’s a bit high, but about 50% of the new price for a car that’s 3 years old seems about right to me.
The “econoboxes” and mid tier cars are totally different, I’ve seen used Toyotas, 3 years old with 30-40K miles going for 70% of new. Now, do they actually sell at that price; I have no idea? But that seems to support the idea that lightly used “normal” cars are in short supply.
New car dealers used to “wholesale” anything with over $80K miles, or thereabouts. Not anymore. All of the dealers around here have “Discount Lots” that sell cars with 100-150K miles for $7-9K. With a 30 day warranty.
One result of this is that a bunch of the used car lots are closing, and the rest don’t have near as much inventory as they did in 2006-2007.
So the answer is to buy a used Beamer?
Maybe the German luxosedans depreciate so much because
1) They break often
2) Are very expensive to fix
Get a 5 series, probably the best car ever built. they dont break.
“1) They break often
2) Are very expensive to fix”
Yup and yup.
And, also, because there’s less demand for a 40K used car than a 20K used car, even if the car that sells for 40K cost 100K 3 years ago and the car that sells for 20K cost 30K 3 years ago.
And, IMHO, I think the luxury car market it more “normal”. 3 year old car historically does depreciate like a stone. It’s the lower end market that I think is out of whack, people are paying almost as much for a used car as a new one, which, IMHO, is a sign of the financial distress of many members of this country, particularly in the middle income bands. The wealthy are still paying 100K for a car and selling it 3 years after and taking huge depreciation hits. The middle class can’t afford to run those 100K cars because the cost of maintenance is outrageous, and, therefore, the market for them is very small.
The middle class are watching their budgets and buying used cars, making a “lightly used, affordable to run” car an extremely high demand item. As such, the prices have increased so much on them (used) that it’s almost laughable (20K for a 3 year old car or 30K for a new one?).
I get the see the high end/”luxury/Euro-Trash/Lexus market up close…….that’s what the passengers of bizjets drive.
They drive them until the warranty goes out, then trade them in on the latest/greatest/trendiest. They don’t give a crap about depreciation (when you have 100 plus million in the bank, why would you?).
I’m beginning to think the high end, used luxo-car may be the way to go. I’m driving a 12 year old Seville, bought cheap @ 51K, now has 164K. Paint and interior still look nice, all the electrical stuff (active suspension/traction control/etc) still works. Only thing I’ve had to buy are tires, hub bearings, brake pads, and fix the Northstar “Achilles heels” (head gaskets, upper/lower shortblock seals @ 135K).
It’s not about price, it’s about azz-kissing “service” when you get into the $100K range.
So the answer is to buy a used Beamer?
Mine depreciated just under 50% in 4 years. Frankly I was expecting a lot more depreciation than that, and it was on track to depreciate a lot more than that until something changed a couple of years ago and they stopped depreciating.
It’s not about price, it’s about azz-kissing “service” when you get into the $100K range.
You can say that again. My wife was kind of shocked at the high level of service when she bought her Mercedes. And all the masters-of-the-universe types waiting for their car complaining about how horrible it all was. She was happy to play the country bumpkin role and just sit in the cushy waiting room and watch the big screen and eat high end snacks while she waited :-).
X-GSfixr wrote: “It’s not about price, it’s about azz-kissing “service” when you get into the $100K range.”
I’ve always wondered about that. There’s only so much a car can do for you. It can be comfortable, powerful, have great handling and maximize all the other attributes of a car. You can get that for like… 60-80K. Beyond that.. what’s the car going to do for you? For a non-fabulously-wealthy person, above a certain pricepoint, the vehicle offers massively diminishing returns on actual functionality.
There is a status symbol angle of course, an indicator of success. But I’ve seen relatively modest income folks driving 500 series Mercedes sedans. So, to really prove you’ve got money, you’ve gotta move into the Ferrari/Bentley range.
“I’m beginning to think the high end, used luxo-car may be the way to go. ”
It is. As long as you can afford to run the thing. You work on jets; so I’m sure you’re familiar with a part that “should” cost 10 bucks selling for 100 because it’s “jet approved” (even if it’s the same part). The same thing exists in the luxury car world. Brakes for my last car were 2K for a full set. Not ceramic. Not really large. Not racing brakes. Just a normal set of “German” brakes. And they squeak!
Same thing with boats. “Marine” anything makes the cost go up 5-10X over what a “normal” one would cost, even if it’s exactly the same thing. People actually have caught on to this in the marine world and go to places like NAPA (that have a cross reference list) instead of West Marine for generic engine parts.
Every American is entitled to his or her viewpoint on the efficacy of bailouts. I, for one, would like to hear the Republican candidates weigh in on whether the automaker bailouts and the Wall Street bailouts were good or bad, respectively, so we know what they are likely to do in case one of them gets elected and the economy crashes again the way it did at the end of W’s time in office.
March 2, 2012 at 1:00 am
Clinton: Bailout is Obama’s triumph
At UAW meeting, former president blasts Romney stance
By David Shepardson
Detroit News Washington Bureau
Washington— President Barack Obama’s rescue of the U.S. auto industry is the crowning achievement of his first term — even topping landmark health care reform, former President Bill Clinton told UAW workers Thursday.
The ex-president’s assessment underscores the strategy of the White House, its friends and surrogates to make the $85 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, and the jobs it preserved, a linchpin of the Obama re-election effort.
It’s a campaign message that has been building momentum for more than a year: Obama made an unpopular decision that proved to be the right decision.
“I happen to think this auto industry package is the most important thing that was initiated by President Obama and the administration. I am glad they passed health care — that was just a question of waiting until we had 60 votes,” Clinton told United Auto Workers activists meeting in the capital.
“(The auto bailout) did not have to happen. The president could have walked away from this.”
The former president took Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to task for opposing the bailout.
“Every time I hear Mr. Romney talking about this, I think his daddy must be turning over in his grave,” Clinton said of Romney’s late father, George, who was a three-term governor of Michigan and chief executive at American Motors. “We could not afford to lose a million and a half to 2 million jobs.”
…
“We could not afford to lose a million and a half to 2 million jobs.”
Victory claimed over an improbable imagined outcome.
No mention of the real jobs lost, amounting to 6 million give or take. How is that to be afforded, when all our wealth is debt?
$1.3T new debt/money injected by the federal government.
It’s more like 15T they handed out to local and international banks.
“Victory claimed over an improbable imagined outcome.”
Only because Republicans were not in control.
Wasn’t Bush still the President when the first bailout out of GM and Chrysler happened?
That guy couldn’t do anything right. Still make me mad.
Right. All, ALL auto jobs in the USA would have been lost forever if GM had been allowed to go bankrupt? Have you ever seen personally what happens to a vital manufacturing company when it goes bankrupt? Try taking off the Party hat for a moment.
It all gets outsourced?
Try taking off the Party hat for a moment.
Good luck. The koolaid is stronger than the one found in Jonestown.
I find the comments here absolutely laughable. No industry “vanishes” with all the jobs. It’s never happened, but that’s the kind of hysteria you can gin up to make political sales pitches.
NISSAN, Honda, even Volkswagen build cars HERE in the US of A.
In the meantime, GM and Chrysler, i believe have assembly plants in Mexico and Canada. Ford builds cars in Germany.
These are “multinational” companies, and many of their competitors manufacture cars in America.
So will the “car industry” disappear without a “bailout”/?? NO.
Absolutely not.
Will particular UNION employees with gold ribbon benefits that can’t be paid for without a government handout lose out on some of the goodies. Most certainly.
This was PURE political pandering to the Auto workers union, and all the supporting union teams that believe ALL union workers deserve a job in perpetuity, with a pay that exceeds all “open” shops.
I won’t buy another GM car. I own an old Chevy van (my last) and a Ford Mustang. GM is a den of thieves that sells cars. Or, as they were before, a finance company that sells cars. I didn’t want to see them fail, but I don’t support government “fixes”.
“NISSAN, Honda, even Volkswagen build cars HERE in the US of A.”
You mean they assemble them. The question to ask is where do most of the high value parts come from? In VW’s case, I’ll bet a lot of the major components (engine, tranny) are made in Mexico.
This was PURE political pandering to the Auto workers union, and all the supporting union teams that believe ALL union workers deserve a job in perpetuity, with a pay that exceeds all “open” shops.
Don’t be too envious of the UAW guys. The new hires are on a much lower pay scale now. I personally like it when my neighbors have good paying jobs. It’s much better than having deadbeat neighbors who try to make a living flipping houses.
The Foriegn auto companies use mostly the same suppliers as domestic. If GM folded, all the suppliers would fold as well.
The “Just in time” methodology means foreign auto companies would have been out of parts in 1 day.
Would they start back up? Sure. In Michigan? Probably not. Mexico most likely.
“I personally like it when my neighbors have good paying jobs. It’s much better than having deadbeat neighbors who try to make a living flipping houses.”
I like it when my neighbors have “real” jobs. I used to live in a really ritzy neighborhood and none of my neighbors had a job that, as far as I could tell, added any real value to society. Real estate agents, mortgage loan people, bankers, etc.
If you can’t articulate the value you bring to a business (”What do you do for XXX”) in a sentence or 2, you probably have a BS job.
I don’t consider realtors and their ilk to have “jobs”.
There’s only about 10-15 hours of labor (total) required to assemble a car or truck.
The “real” salaries are in the design and engineering, marketing, testing, etc.
IF GM and Chrysler go blooey, how long does it take to sort things out? Remember, the only people that had any cash in early 2009 were the Chinese. Fiat only “bought” Chrysler because it was a lot smaller than GM, and had help from the US government.
How long do you think the industry (subcontracters included) would survive the chaos?
The “real” salaries in the auto industry are for the engineering, design, marketing, etc. If GM and chrysler go away,all of those jobs go to Europe and Japan, never to come back. A century of intellecutual property gets purchased by China and India for pennies on the dollar. A bunch of other industries that “piggy back” onto the auto industry become uncompetitive, because there’s no auto industry left to share costs with.
Only the US and the UK think they can throw their auto industries to the wolves. Everybody else has something called an “Industrial Policy”, and makes sustaining/developing an auto industry and the infrastructure to support one as a priority.
Our business leaders and government have done nothing in the last 20 years to make me believe they could manage a GM/Chrysler implosion or liquidation more successfully than they have managed anything else.
Daimler Benz bought out Chrysler using Chrysler’s OWN MONEY, then contracted them to buy (and continue to buy) Daimler parts at prices beneficial to Daimler; eliminated the “Plymouth” brand, then cheapened the Chrysler brand to fill the hole, and diluted the “Jeep” brand by creating a half dozen new models, many of which compete with each other.
Then sold the company to Cerebus.
The cost of the GM/Chrysler bailout was cheap, compared to the coast of bailing out the banks, and the cost to the US Government if they hadn’t.
I’d like to hear an alternative scenario, other than standardized generic “The free market is always right” dogma.
If the free market is always right, Boeing would have died in 1936.
Thank you GS fixer. I don’t want to buy my next car from China.
If the free market is always right, Boeing would have died in 1936.
I’m sure that the Japanese or the Germans would have sold us bombers and fighter planes during WW2
Mitsubishi made the Zero during WWII.
Can we stop talking about government leadership on an individual basis? As long as either of the two parties have control, crony capitalistic scams will both continue to thrive and outrage taxpayers. From now on we will make any and all government leadership references past or present as “the broken, corrupt greed Machine”.
“Comment by Faster Pussycat, Sell Sell
2012-03-01 18:13:55
I have wasted far too much of my life on Caseypedia!
It was the Housing Bubble equivalent of a reality show. A bad one that you couldn’t take your eyes off of.
It always ended with water (or wine) up the nose with me laughing like crazy.
Good times, good times.”
Greetings from Caseyville! My Afghan taxi driver gave me a wonderful recent historical overview of the Sacramento edition of the housing bubble and bust during a twenty-minute ride from the airport to my hotel. Sounds like it was quite a wild ride!
Welcome to Sacramento, enjoy your stay. I’m assuming you’re here on business as no one comes here for pleasure.
Yeah the Sac housing bubble was one hell of a ride, and the repercussions are still being seen and felt today. it’s a legacy of economic devastation, destroyed neighborhoods and broken people.
I personally know probably half a dozen to a dozen people/couples who due to ignorance and greed got slaughtered and ended up with forclosures and bankruptcies. None of these people figured out that our proximity to the Bay Area, and all the hot money flowing out of that area, was (one of) the main driver for overinflated values. Thank god I avoided that trap.
Enjoy your stay in our fair city.
It sounds like more tests of what’s TBTF and what isn’t are soon to come.
March 1, 2012, 9:25 pm
Legal/Regulatory
Greek Crisis May Test the Value of Swaps
By PETER EAVIS
A damaged plaque at Greece’s national bank. Investors may consider other strategies if swaps do not protect against losses.
Kostas Tsironis/Bloomberg News
The restructuring of Greece’s debt that is scheduled to start next week may well demonstrate how effective credit-default swaps are.
These financial instruments, which played a major role in both the 2008 financial crisis and in the European debt crisis, are meant to pay out if a company or country defaults. But the twists and turns over Greece’s debt are revealing their potential limitations for investors who hope the swaps will protect them against losses if Greece defaults.
On Thursday, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the industry body that decides whether swaps should pay out, said that Greece’s proposed debt exchange did not currently activate swaps linked to the country’s debt. But the association added that the swaps could activate at a later date.
The body’s decision reignites the debate over the usefulness of the default swaps. If Greece had simply stopped paying interest or principal on its bonds, the swaps would have paid out. European policy makers, however, decided last year to try to use a voluntary debt exchange for Greece as a way to avoid setting off the swaps. The maneuver was a brusque reminder for investors that there are ways to circumvent the conditions of credit-default swaps.
“If a sovereign, and those trying to rescue it, tiptoe around the periphery to avoid triggering the C.D.S., it may impair the effectiveness of the C.D.S. as a risk management tool,” said Bruce Bennett, a partner at the law firm Covington & Burling.
…
People thought that CDS’s would actually pay out on a default? God, people are gullible!
Poof!
Wasn’t GS made whole by AIG??
Oh you mean for the little people and their pensions.
[Should Hwy50 mention Uncle Warren's payday loan to the Goldenman$uck$, oh, bother ...]
If you scour the landscape far and wide, and loosen your definition of “city” to include Peoria, it is actually possible to find locations in the U.S. housing market where real estate is going up!
Top 10 cities where house prices are rising
House prices continue to fall nationwide, but here and there they’ve begun to turn up as Americans return to the housing market. Which 10 metropolitan areas have seen the biggest increase in the past year? The winners, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), include a state capital, a furniture-making center, and a resort that was once America’s foreclosure capital. Can you guess who they are?
…..and there are 90,000 cities and towns where prices are falling.
Realtors cherry pick an exception and call it a trend.
Why are reaItors still misrepresenting to the truth about housing to the public?
The truth is not in them?
They are veracity bankrupt?
Oh, yeah, they forgot to mention those other 90,000 megalopolises, medium-sized cities, and small towns, didn’t they? I’m sure they didn’t mean to give a biased impression or anything…
Not any more biased than your numerous and highly selective cut-and-pastes.
“Realtors cherry pick an exception and call it a trend.”
They aren’t the only ones…
These sound like areas that really have hit bottom, like those small cities in Florida where housing is under $100K. Even in the recession, there are still baby boomers retiring every day who didn’t lose their jobs and didn’t refinance their homes. And yes, they can sell the house in the northeast for less than market value and still make a hefty profit, and then have the entire country to choose where to buy cash and live frugally off SS and sell out of a sky-high DOW. For the smaller cities, you only need a couple dozen sales of the best inventory to drive up the list prices of the rest.
On the retirement note, the rumor that I heard in gov (at least my section) is that the pay freezes are starting to drive people to retire. If the gov bases retirement on high-5 instead of high-3, even more will go. Didn’t we hear the stories about people “hanging on for a few more years” about four years ago? Well, it’s been a few more years and the DOW is up, at least for the moment. We’ll see some jumping soon.
There have been a LOT of senior level feds retiring from our field office recently…
My understanding is that
DOE is pretty gray-haired and they want to get out while the getting is still good.
Back in the day, DOE was pretty good at drilling holes in the ground and then abandoning them.
DOE is pretty good at wasting money (see above holes).
DOE contracts out to the squad.
I suspect that the plan is to shrink the DOE by attrition and outsource innovation to start-ups. For those who like to beat the Soylndra drum, think about it this way: Years ago, you would never have known about a failure like Solyndra. It simply would have been just another DOE project that didn’t work (research is 80% failure anyway), tax money down a black hole. The public eye will give you more Solyndras, but in the long run you’ll get more efficient innovation.
There are any number of bills currently before Congress to mandate that all agencies can only replace at a 1 to 2 or 1 to three ratio. Works fine if you reduce the amount of work that the agency has to do and the people who retire are in the sections whose work load is being reduced. Harder if you are in a place where the work load (or at least the desired work load) is getting bigger and bigger. Our older workers have 30 or more years of knowing the tricks that people try to pull on us. Efficiency goes down without them. I don’t care how qualified the new people are. They don’t have 30 years of experience behind them.
If I go Fed it won’t be at DOE. I want to work for DCAA.
A related anecdote: a grant recipient had their audit come back full of significant deficiencies and unallowable costs. The contracting officer’s argument that the audit findings shouldn’t prevent giving more money to the recipient: “but they’re good people doing good work!”
My parents are doing exactly that, just bought a house in SW FL for 70K. Kind of hard to see how far wrong you can go with something like that.
This sure sounds to me like the real estate investment version of a dead cat bounce.
Top ten cities where home prices are rising
…
1. Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.: up 25.6 percent
Located in Lee County on Florida’s western Gulf coast, Fort Meyers, the so-called “City of Palms,” was remade as a resort destination a few years ago, and is home to miles of beaches and over 40 golf courses. Cape Coral, too, has historically been a haven for retirees. Before the housing bubble burst, it was also a hot spot for speculators: Between 2002 and 2006, Lee County housing prices soared 280 percent. During the recession, however, Cape Coral became known as Foreclosure, USA, because of the high rate of bank-seized homes. The market showed signs of bottoming out in 2009, and now growth is returning because of the low home prices.
The median home price has shot up from $86,000 in the fourth quarter of 2010 to $108,000 a year later. Still, the buyer come, from as far away as Europe, buying up real estate sight unseen, or all in cash. Housing prices are still roughly half of what they were at their peak in 2006.
Cape Coral has a long history of “investment speculation”. It was originally subdivided into many thousands of tiny lots, with no roads, no access and miles from the Ft. Myers coast. Inland, and landlocked, it was sold originally during the FLORIDA REAL ESTATE BOOM of 1925-26.
That’s how it got started.
When that crash came in 1928, it sat idle for 75 years, with an occasional sale of a lot (50 x100) in the low thousands. I can recall lots in the 1970’s and 80’s going for around $4000. Then came the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. CHEAP lots (tens of thousands of them) and buyers from up north with FREE loan money (no money down).
Houses were going up everywhere and people were buying 4 or5 of them for “resales”…..sight unseen. Prices started climbing.
There are still lots of VACANT lots, lots of open spaces and empty land and the distance to anything of interest is substantial. There are still plenty of unpaved roads. It’s like buying in the middle of nowhere. Although, it’s slowly filling up, just because of the effects of time and carelessness with money.
If you want a place that’s 40 miles from the coast and away from all the hustle and bustle of the Florida perimeters, you can buy here and get away from it all. I would expect foreigners to be buying due to the low value of the dollar and the expectation that their markets are going to crash soon, and they need to get the money out.
And, after all, it’s FLORIDA!!
At $5 a gallon for gas, expect to spend $20 everytime you head back to civilization. If you just want a place to sit in, and don’t expect to leave the house more than one a week, it’s the place for you.
Buy now.
Comment by rms
2012-03-01 20:42:03
Banking $2-3K is nothing to sneer about.
I am saving an additional $1k/mo now that the mortgage is paid-off and still one income. If my other half ever earns anything she’ll likely keep it to herself.
————
I get it. You love on one income.
What year did graduate college?
What year did you buy your house?
What year did you have your first child?
Do you see what I am getting at?
I love on one income as well.
I’m pretty sure that’s illegal in some states. Where’s that list of obscure laws again.
Love on, Blue -
Is Wall Street about to jump the shark? The key to their oligarchy is that they owned both political parties. They got a set of mild reforms and reacted as if a Bolshevik Revolution had just occurred.
If they turn on the Democrats and the Democrats win, particularly with Dodd and Frank gone, perhaps Schumer will not be able to save them.
“President Barack Obama told a gathering of Wall Street donors that Democrats can’t unilaterally stop accepting money from big-dollar political- action committees, according to two people at the event.”
“Obama was holding his first fundraiser targeting the financial services industry since he asked Congress in his 2013 budget to increase taxes on the wealthy and impose $61 billion in new fees on banks. He told attendees at the $35,800-a-plate fundraiser that he is aware his administration has lost some of its popularity among bankers and hedge fund managers.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-01/obama-seeks-wall-street-campaign-money.html
Obama should tell these banksters that he didn’t have to do the Wall Street bailout. the President could have walked away. We couldn’t afford to lose 2 million jobs for the highly talented.
He faced an interesting choice. Much of the bailout was already done, and if he changed course it would have been Great Depression II right then. But we might be better off now.
Wall Street is definately better off now, but still they resent not having more.
Could be that the Great Depreession starts in January 2013. The government spigot is due to be curtailed significantly at that time, and taxes are due to skyrocket.
Bad scenario for everyone, even this board’s trust fund babies. You might get a house for cheap, but in ever-crappier neighborhoods, including McMansionLands and old money enclaves. Be careful what you wish for.
I’ve been warning about this for months; Bernacke publicized it more heavily this week. We’ll see what happens.
How can we have a Depression right in the middle of our Recovery? That’s just impossible. Some folks are just nuts…
Methinks that the PTB will continue to play “kick the can”. This means more QE, more bailouts,more deficits, etc. Our “trading partners” might bitch that their USD based assets are drepeciating because of this, but the alternative is selling us less WalMart crap, so I expect the charade to continue until we get inflation that is so bad it will be impossible to pretend it’s not there, cheaper iPads be damned.
That’s UNpossible!
Don’t misunderestimate the improbability!
Who on this board is a trust fund baby?
Agree, Elanor. There are a few who sold out at the top and are sitting on a cash pile, a few with above-median education and are paid above median, one paid in the ~$300K range and another paid probably similar but has to live like a gypsy to do it. But nobody has the trust fund baby numbers.
Thank you, Elanor.
Further demonstration of just how out-of-touch some of the posters on this board are.
OhBaHma is such a moron…..he had a chance to prove his commitment to consumers….
Instead of making the credit card law become effective at signing or at worst 90 days..it took 18 months and in that time millions if not tens of millions of people were issued variable rate cards…..
Sheesh! Not a fan of Obama, but in some ways I gotta admire the guy. I’m not sure if it’s brass balls or delusion. I know he’s feelin’ his oats since he’s bypassed Congress completely, more or less, with his (illegal) administrative amnesty and other things. “L’etat, c’est moi!”
Not to mention stickin’ it to the Catholic Church (although they drew first blood for sure).
’tis dangerous to be an enemy of Obama. ’tis fatal to be his friend.
Anyway, Obama has managed to completely geld Congress. It’s now pretty much descended to the level of the Politburo. Bush, of course, started the job. Obama is finishing it. Which is why I call him the undertaker.
Nobody likes a person who dines with them at night and bashes them next morning No matter what WS crowd says, they would like still like Obama as President because that keeps the OWS at bay.
Realtors Are Liars®
If a Realtor told you he was a liar would he be telling a lie?
He’d be picking your pocket. Distraction is key.
Must be something about the name Ben.
http://garrisongraphics.blogspot.com/2010/08/march-of-tyranny.html - 96k
“My cartoon (click to enlarge) shows how the banking and corporate masters (crony capitalist fascists) control both major parties behind the scenes. They keep us distracted with left vs. right while giving us the illusion that voting for one of the other parties will solve things. It won’t.”
Here is one of about 10 SRRSDBV alerts I get on a daily basis.
(serial refinancing robo signed deadbeat victim) alert.
Problem is Fannie is trolling for new victims, this house is about $100k overpriced at $247,550
WOSKE Up with all the refinancing Danny?
Danny Woske has another property (JUPITER TWNST) he was using equity lipo on but it`s too much to post, so on this one I`ll just give you the judgement day.
WOSKE DANIEL G BLUE CHIP MORTGAGE WHOLESALE FUND I LLC 06/11/2009 JUD 23281 1859 20090198036 JUPITER TWNST 1 B18 L1
Now on to Danny`s other Loan sweet Loan.
Homepath Property Alert in PALM BEACH County, FL
On: Mar 03/01/12 6:21 PM
15241 97TH DR N
JUPITER, FL 33478 PRICE REDUCED
List price:
$247,550
Property Information
Location Address: 15241 97TH DR N
Legal Description: 18-41-42, N 1/2 OF NE 1/4 OF NE 1/4 OF SW 1/4 OF SW 1/4
Sales Information
Jul-2011 24629/1753 $120,100 CERT OF TITLE FEDERAL NATL MRTG ASSN
Sep-2005 19296/0127 $10 DEED OF TRUST WOSKE DANIEL G
Jul-2002 13875/1234 $260,000 WARRANTY DEED WOSKE DANIEL G
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 7/3/2002 14:47:59
CFN: 20020339303
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 13875/1235
Pages: 16
Consideration: $159,000.00
Party 1: WOSKE DANIEL G
Party 2: WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK FA
Legal: 18 41 42 POR ACRE
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 2/11/2003 12:29:57
CFN: 20030078353
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 14784/241
Pages: 5
Consideration: $25,000.00
Party 1: WOSKE DANIEL G
Party 2: WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK FA
Legal: 18 41 42 POR ACRE
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 5/4/2004 12:03:01
CFN: 20040248077
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 16899/1357
Pages: 6
Consideration: $117,000.00
Party 1: WOSKE DANIEL G
Party 2: WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK FA
Legal: 18 41 42 POR ACRE
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 8/10/2005 08:41:58
CFN: 20050501537
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 19056/1360
Pages: 23
Consideration: $325,000.00
Party 1: WOSKE DANIEL G
Party 2: MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC
LEHMAN BROTHERS BANK FSB
Legal: 18 41 42 POR ACRE
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 8/22/2005 08:52:52
CFN: 20050525347
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 19112/1899
Pages: 4
Consideration: $124,950.00
Party 1: WOSKE DANIEL G
Party 2: NATIONAL CITY BANK
Legal:
Type: LP
Date/Time: 8/28/2009 11:30:53
CFN: 20090298745
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 23416/1314
Pages: 2
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: AURORA LOAN SERVICES LLC
Party 2: WOSKE DANIEL G INDIVIDUALLY TRUSTEE
DANIEL G WOSKE TRUST
NATIONAL CITY BANK
DOE JOHN
DOE JANE
Legal: 18 41 42 POR ACRE
Type: JUD
Date/Time: 8/16/2010 09:14:12
CFN: 20100301723
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 24011/469
Pages: 4
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: AURORA LOAN SERVICES LLC
Party 2: WOSKE DANIEL G INDIVIDUALLY TRUSTEE
DANIEL G WOSKE TRUST
NATIONAL CITY BANK
DOE JOHN
DOE JANE
Legal: 18 41 42 POR ACRE
Comment by jeff saturday
2012-03-01 16:36:06
“Will Anthony Weiner be sending flowers? Will the flag be at half-staff at the ACORN offices? Are there still ACORN offices? Oh well, after reading these comments I have an even better understanding of the compassion that liberals always say they have. Breitbart leaves behind a wife and four children. And you get on me for wanting people to pay for the houses they are living in.”
In the hours immediately following Senator Ted Kennedy’s death, Breitbart called Kennedy a “villain”, a “duplicitous bastard”, a “prick”[15] and “a special pile of human excrement.”[16][17]
wikipedia
___
Is it too soon to say that I think Breibart was “a special pile of human excrement” too?
And you talk about my blood pressure?
Comment by alpha-sloth
2012-03-01 10:26:29
I will shed no tears on that one. Sometimes people are so full of anger, their hearts pop. Or else he was a pill-head- the ‘legal’ drug (especially if you’re rich), much beloved by our moralists. Time will tell…
Reply to this comment
Comment by butters
2012-03-01 11:11:40
Read before clicking submit. You just outed yourself as the one with anger. You and Breitbart are cut of the same cloth.
Reply to this comment
Comment by alpha-sloth
2012-03-01 11:33:37
Don’t make me punch my hand through the wall again!!!!
(Comments wont nest below this level)
World Net Daily story linked from Drudge has Michael Savage questioning if Andrew Breitbart was assassinated…
LMAO!!!!!!
Assassinated?! Who’d waste the cost of a bullet?
Youtube ^ | 3/1/12 | Examiner.com
A CIA secret weapon used for assassination shoots a small poison dart to cause a heart attack, as explained in Congressional testimony in the short video below. By educating ourselves and others on vitally important matters like this, we can build a brighter future for us all. The dart from this secret CIA weapon can penetrate clothing and leave nothing but a tiny red dot on the skin. On penetration of the deadly dart, the individual targeted for assassination may feel as if bitten by a mosquito, or they may not feel anything at all. The poisonous dart completely disintegrates…
They probably had to use a harpoon on Breitbart. I wonder if it was Seal Team 6?
fatassassinated?
I never much thought about it but I mostly save my feelings of happiness for someone who has died for child molestors, murderers etc. I personally did not have any of these feelings about Senator Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy. I expect I will (if I am alive) have those feelings about Michael Skakel (Kennedy cousin) when he dies. He murdered Martha Moxley who was a classmate of mine. As far as I know Breitbart had some college kids go to ACORN offices and get advise from ACORN workers on how to bring children to the U.S. so they could be used as prostitutes and were told by the ACORN workers to claim them as tax deductions. ACORN was recieving tax dollars to give this kind of advise and no longer is under that name anyway. And this is a bad thing how? The Anthony Weiner thing? Whatever, IMHO most elected officials on both sides are screwed up or corrupt in some way. Now I did not have any feelings of happiness when Senator Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy died. But I could understand how some people would.
Mary Jo Kopechne (pronounced /kɵˈpɛkni/; July 26, 1940 – July 18, 1969) was an American teacher, secretary, and political campaign specialist who died in a car accident in Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts on July 18, 1969, while a passenger in a car being driven by U.S. Senator Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy.
DeathMain article: Chappaquiddick incident
On July 18, 1969, Kopechne attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The celebration was in honor of the dedicated work of the Boiler Room Girls, and was the fourth such reunion of the Robert F. Kennedy campaign workers.[12] Kopechne reportedly left the party at 11:15 p.m. with Robert’s brother Ted, after he — according to his own account — offered to drive her to catch the last ferry back to Edgartown, where she was staying.[7] She did not tell her close friends at the party that she was leaving, and she left her purse and keys behind.[7] Kennedy drove the 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 off a narrow, unlit bridge, which was without guardrails and was not on the route to Edgartown.[7] The Oldsmobile landed in Poucha Pond and overturned in the water; Kennedy extricated himself from the vehicle and survived, but Kopechne did not.[7]
Kennedy failed to report the incident to the authorities until the car and Kopechne’s body were discovered the next morning.[7] Kopechne’s parents said that they learned of their daughter’s death from Kennedy himself,[1] before he informed authorities of his involvement.[5] However, they learned Kennedy had been the driver from wire press releases some time later.[5] A private funeral for Kopechne was held on July 22, 1969, at St. Vincent’s Roman Catholic Church in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, attended by Kennedy.[13] She is buried in the parish cemetery on the side of Larksville Mountain.
[edit] AftermathA week after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a two-month suspended sentence.[7] On a national television broadcast that night, Kennedy said that he had not been driving “under the influence of liquor” nor had he ever had a “private relationship” with Kopechne.[14] The Chappaquiddick incident and Kopechne’s death became the topic of at least fifteen books, as well as a fictionalized treatment by Joyce Carol Oates. Questions remained about Kennedy’s timeline of events that night, specifically his actions following the incident.[15] The quality of the investigation has been scrutinized, particularly whether official deference was given to a powerful and influential politician, and his family.[15] The events surrounding Kopechne’s death damaged Kennedy’s reputation and are regarded as a major reason that he was never able to mount a successful campaign for President of the United States.[16] Kennedy expressed remorse over his role in her death, in his posthumously-published memoir, True Compass.[17]
From Wikipedia,
Wasted talent. That Ted Kennedy could have had one hell of a career as a Realtor.
The ACORN fiasco was PROVEN a lie. You can google it for multiple sources.
“On Monday, June 14, a preliminary probe by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) of ACORN has found no evidence the association or related organizations mishandled the $40 million in federal money they received in recent years.
Nearly two dozen members of Congress requested an investigation after a series of complaints against ACORN and its affiliates. The complaints included an embezzlement matter, several cases of voter registration fraud, and the release of edited and misleading videotapes, secretly made by conservative activists that appeared to implicate ACORN workers in several offices facilitating prostitution. In fact the staff in most of ACORN’s offices turned the pair away, reported the couple to the police, refused to provide them any aid, and in one case tried to convince the phony prostitute to get counseling. In no ACORN office did employees file any paperwork or do anything illegal on the duo’s behalf.”
The videographer, O’Keefe, was later convicted of BREAKING AND ENTERING A US SENATOR’S office, but just missed s felony charge by pleading to a misdemeanor of entering a federal building under false pretenses.
Damn librul feds!
Undercover video shows Acorn willing to offer tax advice for a …
Sep 10, 2009 … This shocking video shows footage inside an Acorn office where they are filmed offering ways to legitimize the tax situation of a child prostitution ring by … … Tax Deductions Work for 2011, 2012by HarborFinancial4586 views …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKn3f_HKuV4 - 123k -
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ACORN was shut down in the wake of the September 2009 release of selectively edited videos by two conservative activists including James O’Keefe using a hidden camera to elicit damaging responses from low-level ACORN employees that appeared to advise them how to hide prostitution activities and avoid taxes.[9] A nationwide controversy immediately ensued resulting in a loss of funding from government and private donors,[10][11][12] including a “defund ACORN” act passed by Congress. Following the publication of the videos, four different independent investigations by various state and city Attorneys General and the GAO released in 2009 and 2010 cleared ACORN, finding its employees had not engaged in criminal activities and that the organization had managed its federal funding appropriately, and calling the videos deceptively and selectively edited to present the workers in the worst possible light. Despite this, by March 2010, 15 of ACORN’s 30 state chapters had already closed[10] and the group announced it was closing its remaining state
——————————————————————–
Politico reports “ACORN cleared in Brooklyn: ‘No criminality’ ”
March 01, 2010 3:43 pm ET by Media Matters staff
From a March 1 post by Politico’s Ben Smith:
Kings County, New York District Attorney Joe Hynes put out a statement just now:
On September 15, 2009, my office began an investigation into possible criminality on the part of three ACORN employees. The three had been secretly videotaped by two people posing as a pimp and prostitute, who came to ACORN’S Brooklyn office, seeking advice about how to purchase a house with money generated by their ‘business.’ The ‘couple’ later made the recording public. That investigation is now concluded and no criminality has been found.
——————————————————————
Charles J. Hynes From Wikipedia,
Charles Joseph Hynes (May 28, 1935) is the current district attorney of Kings County, New York (Brooklyn). A Democrat, Hynes was first elected to office in 1989 and is currently serving a fifth term.
In 2005, in partnership with New York City and the state court system, he opened the first Family Justice Center in New York State, an all-in-one facility where domestic violence victims can meet with prosecutors, counselors, civil attorneys and clergy members, and get help changing their locks, finding new housing, handling custody issues and a wide range of related problems, all in their native languages. [NY Daily News 21 July 2005:2]
It was all proven a lie.
Do you have any idea what “scripted”, “cut” and “edited” mean?
More search results:
“Now Breitbart, the chief promoter of the ACORN sting, claims he “didn’t know” the truth about the tapes. Although he’s quick to insist it doesn’t really matter anyway.
And yes, that sound you hear is Breitbart throwing O’Keefe under the bus. Because it’s O’Keefe who Breitbart now blames for the “discrepancy” regarding the pimp hoax. It’s O’Keefe, who Breitbart once touted as a should-be Pulitzer Prize winner, who created the false impression that he walked into ACORN offices last summer dressed as a garish pimp.
In a video interview posted Monday at Crooks and Liars, Stark Reports, as well as The Brad Blog, Breitbart, filmed by blogger Mike Stark at the recent CPAC convention, claims he did not know the facts about O’Keefe’s pimp outfit. (See video below.)
Essentially, Breitbart claims he was duped like everyone else who saw the ACORN clips created by O’Keefe. He was duped because at the outset, the misleading clips contain cut-away shots filmed outdoors, which feature O’Keefe decked out in the cane-fur-sunglasses pimp costume. (Breitbart deceptively refers to the dressed-as-pimp section as the “title sequence” of the videos, but it’s really much more than that.) “
NATIONAL BRIEFING | WASHINGTON; Acorn Hires Former State Law Enforcer
By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: September 23, 2009
New York Times
Facing continued criticism, the community organizing group Acorn said it had brought in a former attorney general of Massachusetts, Scott Harshbarger, to oversee the internal review of its practices that it announced last week. Mr. Harshbarger, who was also chief executive of the advocacy group Common Cause, is at the law firm of Proskauer Rose, where he focuses on corporate investigations and defense, and on nonprofit governance and ethics cases. Acorn did not provide a specific time frame for the investigation but says it is refusing new clients in its tax, housing and benefits counseling programs until the review is complete.
Scott Harshbarger From Wikipedia,
Luther Scott Harshbarger (born December 1, 1941, in New Haven, Connecticut) is a lawyer and a Democratic politician from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Sorry, didn’t see your post until after mine was posted.
Board delay.
Good find.
Breitbart was a PROVEN PATHOLOGICAL liar and provocateur.
He contributed nothing to society except hate and fear.
And you are an uniformed, ignorant hater. If Matt Drudge links to something, then it is “news”. If Matt Drudge does not link to it, then it is just liberal establishment media propaganda.
I think it’s funny, though, how much of our GDP is driven by the “fear” industry. Whether your image, safety (or you family’s), the future, etc. - a suprising amount of marketing is driven by fear. Fear sells. Big time.
A demagogue’s wet dream.
The pinnacle of scienctific pyscho warfare techniques harnessed to sell, sell, sell!
Source U.S. Census Bureau: State and County QuickFacts.
Palm Beach County, Florida
Housing units, 2010 664,594
Homeownership rate, 2006-2010 73.6%
Median value of owner-occupied housing units, 2006-2010 $261,900
Median household income 2006-2010 $53,242
Palm Beach County sees rise in underwater homeowners
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 6:34 p.m. Thursday, March 1, 2012
More Palm Beach County homeowners were drowning in mortgage debt during the fourth quarter of 2011 as the percentage of underwater home loans increased from earlier in the year.
About 43.5 percent of all county homeowners with mortgages owed more on their loans than their homes were worth during the last three months of 2011, up from 40.7 percent during the previous quarter.
A report released Thursday by the Santa Ana, Calif.-based CoreLogic showed similar results nationally, with 11.1 million mortgages, or 22.8 percent of all home loans, in negative equity, referred to as being underwater or upside down. That’s up from 22.1 percent in the third quarter.
CoreLogic analysts blamed seasonal declines in home prices, but said there’s no rescue from underwater loans coming anytime soon.
“Negative equity will take an extended period of time to improve, and if there is a hiccup in the economic recovery, it could mean a rise in foreclosures,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist with CoreLogic.
Nationally, the mortgage debt outstanding on homes in negative equity totaled $2.8 trillion in the fourth quarter.
2 COMMENTS
deadbeats rule!!!! dont pay your mortgage..live free!!!
why is anyone paying……dont pay your bills!!!
steve
8:26 AM, 3/2/2012
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/palm-beach-county-sees-rise-in-underwater-homeowners-2210504.html
How Greece could take down Wall Street.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29411
Opinions, anyone? I’d like to think so, but something tells me that in this event, more manipulation would occur. Or have we reached the end of that line? The MF Global stuff is interesting, but I’m not the sharpest financial tool in the shed.
from the article
“Whether a “credit event” is a “default” triggering a payout is determined by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), and it seems that the ISDA is owned by the world’s largest banks and hedge funds. That means the house determines whether the house has to pay. ”
It’s good to be the king.
I’m tellin’ ya. I’m wondering if this might not be part of the reason Greece has not been declared in default (although S&P did make such a determination).
The Greek debt crisis, and the full Eurozone debt crisis, for that matter, is all contained, I keep telling ya!
Yup. And we have the stock market bubble to prove it.
Finally! Now do we get to talk about Spain?
Please do tell…
Let’s talk about the guy who put his “dream” house as a collateral for 2 failed Wine and Tapas restaurants.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/million-dollar-foreclosure-buchanans-2-110500193.html
Maybe he should have stuck to the biz he did know.
Most small businesses fail for that very reason.
Because the owners venture into something they really know nothing about.
But they were following “the dream”, what they felt “passionate” about, as opposed to the hum drum industry they are experts in.
I have a friend who tried to compete with Starbucks with a mom-n-pop espresso shop. It made no money over 5 years. Fortunately he didn’t quit his day job, but that meant he had two jobs: Get up at 4AM to open the cafe, the head off to work to while his wife ran it, tne after work he’d head back to the cafe and satyed there until closing. They did have hired help for weekends and when his wife couldn’t be there.
He chose this because he felt passionate about “good coffee” as opposed to the nasty stuff they sell at Starbucks. He had customers, just not enough of them to make a profit. It was with a heavy heart that he threw in the towel. I honestly don’t know how he was able to do it for 5 years.
A hard lesson I’ve learned over the years is that if your business isn’t at least self sustaining after 3 years, it’s time to quit.
Another one is be sure you have enough operating for at least 3 years WITHOUT draining your main savings.
Yeah, it’s a lot of money no matter what you choose.
“Because the owners venture into something they really know nothing about.”
I agree. Another reason I’ve found is just because you’re a great chef, hair sylist, barista, mechanic, etc. doesn’t necessarily mean you can manage/run a business. I’ve helped launch many businesses since the mid-nineties and most aren’t around anymore or never met the expectations.
People used to ask why I would double expenses and halve their revenues on their financial projections that they furnished to me. I told them “just wait, you’ll see.”
I have a relative who is trying to make/sell ice cream.
He is good with numbers, but when I asked him what he is making so far, he said he didn’t know because he was too scared to find out. I did a rough estimate with him that made it out to be about $2.20 an hour for his time.
So I told him that it seems an OK idea, but he clearly has to find a way to scale up to make it worth while.
There is a manufacturer nearby that doesn’t run all the time. He is thinking about approaching them about renting their facilities. I told him that he needs to expect them to require him to hire one of their employees to supervise his use of their equipment and that he will need significant insurance to cover what happens to them (consequential damages and/or ultra quick repair) if he breaks their equipment even with supervision. I did not mention that they might require that only their employees touch the equipment.
I don’t think he wants to talk to me anymore.
“I don’t think he wants to talk to me anymore.”
I know that reaction all too well.
And remember, if you’re going to be first-time restaurateurs, by all means open two restaurants right off the bat.
You’ll make twice as much money!
___
They came seeking a less stressful life. John took a buyout package and the couple opened two wine and tapas restaurants, using their new dream home as collateral.
A word of advice to anyone thinking of opening a restaurant or bar: Don’t.
Trust me.
On nearly 2 acres in Silverthorne, Colo., the Buchanan’s house offers 6,000 square feet of living space with 6 bedrooms and 5-1/2 bathrooms. The double tandem garage fits four cars and the driveway is partially heated to melt the ice and snow in the winter.
More bedrooms than bathrooms? Entertainment EPIC FAIL.
Let’s talk about the guy who put his “dream” house as a collateral…
Arnold Schwarzenegger leveraged his home to get the movie, Pumping Iron, off the ground. In his case it was a successful bet.
Spain, that EU member state with massive overbuilding (that I saw personally in the Barcelona area) in 2007? The place with 24% UE and a contracting GDP? The place that puts the plural in PIIGS?
No problema!
Enron was just a made-up word.
We should not waste this creative word.
Ponzi-scheme based economies (pretty much the stadard of today) should be called “Enrons”.
The rules of capitalism have given way to enronism.
Rule number one: Fix your enron or we will fix it for you.
Tim Geithner is the general manager for all enrons.
Kurgman will gladly help for a nice chunk of change.
I worked at Enron.
I still marvel that we, the nation, didn’t learn the lesson then. But then, it seems we didn’t either learn from the S&L disaster, either.
It seems all we learned was those damn unions dun ruint this country!
I’m not sure what you think the lesson was supposed to be, but the lesson Greenspan learned was that when one bubble popped, lower taxes and loosen lending to inflate a new, larger one. No problem.
It is better to clean up after the bubble than to prevent it in the first place, the Greenspan doctrine.
Sure enough.
It seems all we learned was those damn unions dun ruint this country!
No, it was the teachers that screwed everything up.
And then we gave them trillions in bailouts!
Oh wait…
Inflation: Not as low as you think (as who think?)
By Kathy Kristof
February 29, 2012 1:17 PM
Forget the modest 3.1 percent rise in the Consumer Price Index, the government’s widely used measure of inflation. Everyday prices are up some 8 percent over the past year, according to the American Institute for Economic Research.
Admittedly, the purchases that the EPI tracks make up slightly less than 40 percent of the average household budget. But Steven Cunningham, research and education director at AIER, says these items are what contribute to the “sticker shock at the gasoline pump and the supermarket check-out line.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505144_162-57387655/inflation-not-as-low-as-you-think/ - 115k
This is all LIES. Didn’t you read (and comment on) my post the other day how New York Federal Reserve William Dudley said that i-Pads are cheaper and there is no inflation?
One of my favorite websites:
http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html
Toms’ Inflation Calculator
HIGHLY recommend you bookmark it and explore the Options settings.
Heavens no… Then HBB would see that — after you account for inflation — that house prices have already dropped to 2002 pre-bubble levels.
1978.
“Skye, do you think gasoline will get to $1?”
“I figure it’s the dollar that is making the trip.”
iPads are the gauge now. Don’t the idiots who write such articles know this. jeez.
Can anyone else confirm if Yahoo has disabled comments?
It appears they turned of the comments after they were flooded with negative comments over Breitbart’s death.
So did HP.
Haterz.
So did HP?
whoa
At first I thought you meant HP, then it clicked: HuffPo
apparently i should have went to Georgetown.
“i should have went”
You would not have been accepted.
Yeah! It’s I should of went.
Nice :-).
He would be if he were a trust-fund baby.
“He would be if he were a trust-fund baby.”
Fair point. The acceptance rate for legacies at these types of school is shockingly high when compared to that of the rest of the student body.
“Yeah! It’s I should of went.”
Why didn’t I think of that?!
Why didn’t I think of that?!
You didn’t went to Georgetown.
LOL
Well, for all intensive purposes, I did.
Porpoises can be very intense!
snort
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street’s biggest banks are locked in an increasingly frantic struggle with the Federal Reserve over the right to retain the jewels of their commodity trading empires: warehouses, storage tanks and other hard assets worth billions of dollars.
While the battle over proprietary trading and new derivatives regulations has taken place largely in public view since the 2008 financial crisis, the fight by JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to retain or expand their prized physical commodity operations - most acquired in only the past six years - has remained hidden.
Then in another article
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is looking to sell its metal concentrates business due to U.S. regulatory restrictions following its acquisition of RBS Sempra Commodities, and currently faces a deadline of mid-year, industry sources told Reuters.
Stamford, Connecticut-based JPMorgan Metal & Concentrate LLC, led by Chief Executive Philip Bacon, is a small part of the bank’s expanded commodities division. It is a mid-sized player in the increasingly competitive market for trading concentrate — ore that has been crushed and milled to remove waste and increase the metal component.
Seems the FED thinks some of the commodities inflation may be due to manipulation??
“Seems the FED thinks some of the commodities inflation may be due to manipulation??”
UNPOSSIBLE! I misbelieve it!
Never misunderestimate the banskters.
It’s GOOD to be the Banksta!