The Housing Bubble

“I hope you all have a good and safe day and it might not be a bad idea to tell the people that you love that you love them.”

Turned into….

“Did you check if her parents were up-to-date on all their mortgage payments? Sometimes people will use a child dying as an excuse to run up their helocs.”

“Ra$h Limpbaugh$” and he’s a over-weight, loud-mouthed, blue-pill-popping male ver$ion of a certain kinda $lut.”

“Big fat bloated head
overinflated ego
shut your mouth, douchebag”

“Mr. Limbaugh’s hate
does nothing to elevate
Joe SickPAC’s logic”

* Sandra Bernhardt publicly stated her desire to see Sarah Palin gang-raped.

* Bill Maher called Sarah Palin the c-word.

* Christopher Titus said he’d shoot Sarah Palin if she ever became President.

* Bill Maher publicly lamented the fact that a bombing in Iraq had failed to claim the life of Vice President Dick Cheney.

* Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams publicly stated her desire to murder President George W. Bush.

* Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall, sometimes published by the The Washington Post, in a comic strip on July 1, 2004, labeled Condoleeza Rice “Bush’s house nigga” and suggesting decapitation of Donald Rumsfeld.

Do you ever listen to yourself?

Hypocrites.

The Boss rocks again!

Bruce Springsteen takes on Wall Street
The musician’s 17th studio album explores many of the same themes as the Occupy Wall Street movement.
By Kim Peterson Feb 21, 2012 1:14PM

Bruce Springsteen is furious at Wall Street, and he funneled that anger into his newest album, “Wrecking Ball.”

The result is a collection of songs about the destruction of the American dream. You don’t get too deep into that subject before you hit the financial crisis — and Wall Street’s role in it.

“An enormous fault line cracked the American system wide open, and its repercussions are just beginning to be felt,” Springsteen said in interviews promoting the album, which comes out next month.

It’s a dark album, layered with themes of the common man versus the bankers and fat cats. Rolling Stone was streaming one song, “Shackled and Drawn,” on its website Tuesday. The song describes how life is fat and easy on “banker’s hill,” while the working man is shackled and drawn. Here’s the video for the first song from the album, “We Take Care of Our Own.” Here’s a performance of another, called “Wrecking Ball.”

Springsteen’s work echoes some of the themes of Occupy Wall Street, and he credits that movement with changing the national conversation. “Previous to Occupy Wall Street, there was no push-back at all saying this was outrageous — a basic theft that struck at the heart of what America was about, a complete disregard for the American sense of history and community,” he said at a press conference about the album, according to the Guardian.
…

This gets to exactly why Megabank, Inc should be splintered into small, non-systemically risky pieces. Right now, we have a banking sector which extracts tribute from Main Street needed to provide its bailouts, without providing reciprocal returns in the form of competitively-priced banking services, aka taxation without representation.

Why banks care only about the 1%
Banks follow the money, and you don’t have it.
By Motley Fool Pick of the Day 16 hours ago

Activist movements like Bank Transfer Day have been instrumental in getting ordinary people to take action when banks are taking advantage of them. But as much as banks claim to want everyone’s business, the reality is that some business is a lot more lucrative than others. And when it comes down to it, banks will go to where the profit is — even if it means treating its ordinary customers worse than they deserve.

One niche in which this emphasis on high-wealth customers is obvious is in the credit card industry. While everyday Americans worry about getting a low interest rate when they carry a balance or avoiding expensive fees, venerable Wall Street financial institutions are fighting tooth and nail for customers in what Occupy Wall Street would call the 1%.
…

STORM WARNING: A stock market correction is on the way. Batten down the hatches and SELL, SELL, SELL!!!

Stocks headed for pullback
By CNNMoney staff @CNNMoney
Markets March 6, 2012: 8:33 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — U.S. stocks were poised to open lower on Tuesday, as world markets sold off amid economic growth worries in China and Europe.

Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), S&P 500 (SPX) and Nasdaq (COMP) futures were all down about 0.7%. Stock futures indicate the possible direction of the markets when they open at 9:30 a.m. ET.

European stocks fell Tuesday after the statistical office of the European Union said the continent’s economy contracted by 0.3% in the fourth quarter, compared with third-quarter growth of 0.1% in the eurozone and 0.3% in the EU.

Asian markets declined for a second day on Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s lower target for China’s economic growth — underscoring the need to make the country’s breakneck development more sustainable.

On top of that, there are other potential stumbling blocks, including high gas prices, what appears to be a mild eurozone recession and the continent’s outstanding debt problems, said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James.

Stocks have had a good run of late, so it’s not a surprise to see some pullback.

“The market has a tendency to get ahead of itself,” Brown said, who added that economic data in recent weeks have been “consistent with a gradual recovery.”
…

How many times can the market price in fallout from the Greek debt crisis before it is fully priced in?

Wall Street set to fall on Greece, economy worries
By Edward Krudy
NEW YORK | Tue Mar 6, 2012 8:58am EST

(Reuters) - Wall Street was set to open lower on Tuesday on renewed concerns that Greece and private bondholders may not meet a looming deadline to complete a debt swap and as caution grew over the global economic outlook after recent weak data.

A group representing bondholders warned a default could cause more than 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) of damage to the region. Creditors have until Thursday night to accept a bond swap in which they would lose almost three-quarters of the value of their bonds.

Heightening tensions over Greece come a day after China cut its growth forecast and data showed the European Union is unlikely to avoid a recession. The data was a worry for the market, which has rallied largely on hopes of a strengthening economy.

“What is driving the market now is the outlook for economic growth elsewhere and, pretty importantly, the U.S. and China,” said Jack de Gan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
…

Got contagion?

Bondholder group sees 1 trillion euro Greek default risk
By Alex Chambers and Steve Slater
LONDON | Tue Mar 6, 2012 7:53am EST

(Reuters) - A disorderly Greek default would cause more than a trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) of damage to the euro zone and could leave Italy and Spain dependent on outside help to stop contagion spreading, the main bondholders group has said.

Greek private creditors have until Thursday night to say whether they will participate in a bond swap that is part of a bailout deal to help it manage its finances and meet a debt repayment on March 20.

Investors will lose almost three-quarters of the value of their debt in the exchange. Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told Reuters on Monday it was the best deal they would get and those who did not sign up would still be forced to take losses.

Analysts said the Institute of International Finance document, marked “IIF Staff Note: Confidential,” may have been designed to alarm investors into participating in the exchange.

“There are some very important and damaging ramifications that would result from a disorderly default on Greek government debt,” the IIF said in the February 18 document obtained by Reuters.

“It is difficult to add all these contingent liabilities up with any degree of precision, although it is hard to see how they would not exceed 1 trillion euros.”

If Greece misses the March 20 payment without a deal in place, this would be seen as a disorderly default and could be taken as a sign that politicians have lost control of the euro. Investors might then target other weak euro zone countries.
…

Sell in March and go away?

P.S. I see no problems with today’s futures that the PPT can’t fix by day’s end.

Index Futures:
S&P 500 1,350.50 -14.00 -1.03%
DOW 12,847 -114.00 -0.88%
NASDAQ 2,593 -23.00 -0.88%

Dow futures off nearly 100 points
Street to start off in a ditch

Worries over prospects for global growth and the outcome of Greece’s bond swap fuel uncertainty.
• Merck tweaks profit outlook | Qualcomm: Buyback, dividend hike | Safeway on 2012 | Focus stocks
• Banks, miners weigh on Europe | Russian stocks sell off by 3% | Asia ends in the red

March 6, 2012, 12:01 a.m. EST
Insiders as bearish now as last April
Commentary: Insider selling has become even more lopsided
By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — Corporate insiders continue to sell shares of their companies at a well-above-average pace.

In fact, they are behaving even more bearishly than one month ago. And that’s really saying something, since — as I reported then — their pace of selling in early February was the highest since last July, right before the bottom dropped out of the market. ( Read my Feb. 9 column .)
…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9124676/John-McCain-to-say-US-should-bomb-Syria.html

McCrazy is calling on the US to bomb Syria. Because we need more ruinously expensive and open-ended “needless foreign entanglements.”

I’ve never opened a social networking account being suspicious of the power of the relational database; vindicated.

Govt. agencies, colleges demand applicants’ Facebook passwords
http://tinyurl.com/7j9oxx7 (msnbc)

“If you think privacy settings on your Facebook and Twitter accounts guarantee future employers or schools can’t see your private posts, guess again.

Employers and colleges find the treasure-trove of personal information hiding behind password-protected accounts and privacy walls just too tempting, and some are demanding full access from job applicants and student athletes.”

http://www.azcentral.com/community/westvalley/articles/2012/01/25/20120125west-valley-youngtown-disbanding.html

“Cash-strapped Youngtown considers disbanding”

“A standing-room-only crowd crammed into a Youngtown meeting room as the town’s leaders debated disbanding their 50-year-old police force.

Some residents yelled at council members. Others wept in the back of the room. The mayor, his temper flaring, threatened to have the chambers cleared.

Three hours later, six police officers left without jobs. Each was given a month’s pay and told to hand over gun and badge.

The December move was a sign of just how desperate things have become in the northwest Valley town, as a budget shortfall endlessly chips away at public services and, perhaps eventually, the town itself.”

“The town could make further budget cuts so steep that most services are gone. It could seek to be annexed by a neighboring city.

Or it could disincorporate, ceasing to exist as its own town and returning to be a piece of Maricopa County.

It’s the first modern Arizona town or city to openly consider calling it quits because of money woes.”

“A town ordinance required that one resident in every home be more than 55 years old and that no one be under 18 years old. In 1998, the town lost a legal battle with the state attorney general and was forced to lift its age restriction.

An influx of young families and children followed. The population doubled from about 3,000 to more than 6,000 over the years, and the town catered to its new residents with playgrounds and youth-sports programs.

Crime rates rose, increasing the demand for police and code enforcement. Officers who had spent much of their time dealing with minor problems were receiving calls for domestic violence, drugs and sex crimes involving minors.

The town’s new residents weren’t as apt to keep neatly manicured lawns and gardens, spurring complaints from longtime residents.

Youngtown’s transition from retirement community to one like any other across the Phoenix area was the tipping point toward its current budget conundrum.”

Damn kids of today. Why can’t they just stay off my lawn.

As Rush et al hurry the GOP towards their demographic collapse, the Kochtopus, hoping to co-opt the next generation, turns its attention to the libertarians:

Cato Goes to War
The Koch brothers have launched an extraordinary campaign to take control of America’s most respected libertarian think tank. Will they destroy it?
By David Weigel

Charles and David Koch have been putting some of their hard-won oil wealth into libertarian causes since the 1970s. A lot of the money has gone to theoretical, academic research—Cato, the Mercatus Center,* internship programs for college students. Charles Koch had helped to found Cato in 1977, but in 1991, he bolted; the think tank wasn’t producing his kind of results. David joined Cato as Charles left, becoming a minority partner, present but not really policing the think tank’s work.

In 2009, after Barack Obama’s Democrats passed health care legislation and tried to pass a cap-and-trade energy tax, the Kochs stepped up their political activism. Americans for Prosperity, a grass-roots organizing group chaired by David Koch, helped build the Tea Party movement with conferences, bus tours, and punditry; its budget grew from $7 million pre-Obama to $40 million in 2010.

The Cato Institute had never been so directly involved in politics. Its scholars had criticized Republicans when they were in power; they criticized Democrats when they started ruining things their own way. But if other Koch-connected organizations were at war with Obama, Cato largely sat it out. When the Occupy Wall Street movement began, Americans for Prosperity denounced its “violent rhetoric.” Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at Cato, blogged a Venn diagram and wrote that “to the extent the substance of [Occupy Wall Street’s] grievance is, or can be turned to, corporations’ use of government power to win unjust power and profits for themselves, that’s a grievance I can sit in a drum circle for.” In 2011, according to Cato chairman of the board Bob Levy, the think tank got no money whatsoever from the Kochs.

On Oct. 26, 2011, Niskanen passed away. Within days, Crane learned that the Kochs would be coming after the Cato shares held by Niskansen’s widow, arguing that they were not hers to hold. A win would give them complete control of the think tank, with a supermajority to make key hiring decisions…

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/03/the_kochs_brothers_are_trying_to_seize_control_of_the_libertarian_think_tank_cato_.html

There is blood in The Street today.

Dow down as much as 175

U.S. stocks start sharply lower Tuesday as investors focus on the risk of a disorderly default in Greece and extend an equity-market reaction to China’s slashing of its official economic-growth forecast.
STOCKS AND SECTORS: B. of A., Goldman, Morgan hit financials

There’s a link in this post to a WaPo piece about a couple who has lived in a house rent-free for five years.

http://www.bubbleinfo.com/2012/03/06/free-rent-bonanza-2/

They should do seminars or something.

Satellite view of Vegas over 20 years:

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/05/10585619-satellites-see-what-sprawls-in-vegas

Hi, long time lurker, not sure where to post this, so here goes. You all are such a great resource and I’m 100 times smarter for following this blog. I owe you all a great big thanks. Now, my problem is this: I need a referral for a good estate attorney in the Boise area. It’s the usual story of how a well-thought out estate plan can go wrong in a heartbeat when the executor is incompentent and the trustee is untrustworthy. As a beneficiary living in SoCal, it’s not easy for me to resolve issues long distance. Not going to bore anyone with details (unless you ask) but I would appreciate any referrals and/or advice. Thanks all!

The Realtor is posting on facebook that Denver’s inventory is lowering and that prices are rising. I called him out on this and will repost the discussion here…

Realtors sell crack cocaine.

I found this analysis of the Maryland budget amusing. It’s a “Doomsday Budget” with draconian cuts. But overall spending will stay at current levels. Glorious doublespeak and fearmongering. I guess the politicians would be scared if they can’t continue to get the crack (money) which keeps them in office.

Maryland analysts have outlined nearly $800 million in additional budget cuts to fill budget gaps in case lawmakers can’t agree on new taxes or savings.

A big piece could come from eliminating the Geographic Cost of Education Index, which would save about $129 million. The GCEI helps areas where schooling costs more. Eliminating 500 state jobs would save another $30 million.

“This is not a scare tactic,” Senate President Mike Miller told senators Monday night.

The chairman of the Senate committee, Democrat Ed Kasemeyer of Baltimore County, says if approved overall state spending would remain at current levels, though a number of programs would be cut, to offset increases in spending in other areas.

http://wbal.com/article/87426/3/template-story/-Doomsday-Budget-Unveiled

Obama and another housing band-aid
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/6/obama-pushes-housing-plan-vets/print/

“TALLAHASSEE — Leon County Circuit Court Judge Jackie Fulford ruled against the state of Florida on Tuesday, declaring unconstitutional a 2011 law that cut state worker salaries 3 percent, or $1 billion, and shifted the money into the state’s pension fund.”

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/article1218591.ece

AUTHERS NOTE from MARKETS
Debt mountain

3:43 AM It’s exhilarating scaling a mountain but the descent is often much riskier. The same is true of scaling back a debt mountain. Chris Watling, CEO of Longview Economics, explains to John Authers, the FT’s Long View columnist, that deleveraging could still have many years to run. Indeed, the process has barely started. (5m 7sec)

Boom-Era Property Speculators to Get Foreclosure Aid: Mortgages

By Prashant Gopal - Mar 5, 2012 12:00 AM ET

The Obama administration will extend mortgage assistance for the first time to investors who bought multiple homes before the market imploded, helping some speculators who drove up prices and inflated the housing bubble.

Landlords can qualify for up to four federally-subsidized loan workouts starting around May, as long as they rent out each house or have plans to fill them, under the revamped Home Affordable Modification Program, also known as HAMP, according to Timothy Massad, the Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial stability. The program pays banks to reduce monthly payments by cutting interest rates, stretching terms, and forgiving principal.

The government’s need to protect neighborhoods from blight and renters from eviction by keeping the current owners in place is outweighing concern that taxpayers will end up bailing out real-estate investors. The program is being enlarged after less than 1 million borrowers modified loans through HAMP, compared with the administration’s stated goal in 2009 of helping 3 million to 4 million homeowners.

“When we started the program we focused on owner-occupied houses because the need was so great and we wanted to target the efforts to that group,” said Massad. “Given where we are today, more and more people recognize that vacant properties are a problem no matter how they became vacant.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-05/boom-era-property-speculators-to-get-foreclosure-aid-mortgages.html - 187k -

Just caught my first airing of a cnyrealtor.com commercial. They’re pushing 3.5% downpayments and doing chalkboard workouts of what that would cost with “record low interest rates”. No mention that most people might not be eligible for the low number they used due to FICO issues.

I also couldn’t help but notice CNY’s famous skyhigh property taxes weren’t included as part of the mortgage payment. They just let that nice low unencumbered mortgage-only number hang out there like there was going to be nothing else added to the payment. It remained in the background as they suggested people should call their realtor today.

That’s your cue my friend to the east: Realtors are Liars.

Clearwater’s Bayview Gardens retirement community closure uproots 140 seniors

http://www.tampabay.com/news/aging/nursinghomes/clearwaters-bayview-gardens-retirement-community-closure-uproots-140/1218473

New York Times has a pretty useful summary of the returns so far on the front page.

So far they have Ron Paul taking 41% of the vote in Virginia. I don’t remember if Virginia is winner-take-all on the delegates.

“Huge Spike in Repeat Foreclosures”

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46641784

Why buy now when you can buy later after prices crater for 65% less?

When do you all suppose the next bombardment of realtor lies will be? I mean aside from the monthly roster of rotten realtor rubbish?

Who would you like to see be the Republican presidential nominee?

Newt Gingrich 11.21% (816 votes)

Ron Paul 32.38% (2,356 votes)

Mitt Romney 33.59% (2,444 votes)

Rick Santorum 15.31% (1,114 votes)

Mitch Daniels 7.5% (546 votes)

Total Votes: 7,276

Op-Ed Columnist
Have You No Shame, Rush?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 3, 2012

AS a woman who has been viciously slashed by Rush Limbaugh, I can tell you, it’s no fun.

At first you think, if he objects to the substance of what you’re saying, why can’t he just object to the substance of what you’re saying? Why go after you in the most personal and humiliating way?

Then, once you accept the fact that he has become the puppet master of the Republican Party by stirring bloodlust (earning enough to bribe Elton John to play at his fourth wedding), you still cringe at the thought that your mom might hear the ugly things he said.

Now he’s brutalizing a poised, wholesome-looking 30-year-old Georgetown law student as a “slut,” “a prostitute” and “round-heeled” simply for testifying to lawmakers about wanting the school to amend its health insurance to cover contraception.

Sandra Fluke “goes before a Congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her?” Limbaugh coarsely ranted. “It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps. The johns.”

Isn’t this the last guy who should be pointing fingers and accusing others of taking pills for recreational purposes?
…

March 6, 2012 6:28 pm
Bernanke’s QE silence a blow to gold price
By Jack Farchy in London
Studious avoidance of the subject disappoints

Rarely could two words – or the failure to mention them – have had such an impact.

For gold investors, who had set their hearts on a fresh bout of “quantitative easing”, Ben Bernanke’s studied avoidance of the subject last week came as a considerable disappointment. In the hours after the chairman of the Federal Reserve spoke, bullion prices tumbled almost $100 an ounce.

The 5 per cent fall, gold’s largest daily drop in more than three years, has triggered a nervous reappraisal of the precious metal among some investors: how strong can the fundamentals of the market be, they ask, if a non-denial from the Federal Reserve chief can have such a marked impact?

The nervous shake-out has continued this week with gold on Tuesday dipping below its 200-day moving average, a technical indicator closely watched by traders, for the first time since mid-January to touch a low of $1,664 a troy ounce.

“When things get back to normal, then we’ll be back to looking at jewellery demand and mine supply,” says James Steel, precious metals strategist at HSBC in New York. “But right now, Fed policy is highly influential in determining the gold price.”

Mr Bernanke’s role as the pacesetter of the gold market is nothing new. His hint of a second round of QE at a speech in August 2010 helped trigger a 15 per cent rally over the following four months. The Fed’s promise in August last year to keep rates on hold for two years provided the momentum for gold to rally to its nominal record $1,920 a troy ounce in September.

Nonetheless, the extent of last Wednesday’s fall and the decline in prices since then, has surprised many investors and analysts. After all, Mr Bernanke did not rule out a third round of quantitative easing – QE3 – he simply avoided reference to it.

“There are hints that rates at the zero bound are no longer sufficient reasons for the gold price to move higher,” says Tom Kendall, precious metals analyst at Credit Suisse. “More QE is wanted.”
…