Bits Bucket for September 6, 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
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bob-woodward-book-debt-deal-collapse-led-pure/story?id=17104635&page=4#.UEhSrKRYvGI
Worth a read. Ignoring commentary from Republicans (which of course would be unflattering), the commentary from Democrats seems to paint a pretty unflattering picture of Obama’s role in the debt ceiling negotiation.
If it’s all this one-sided in the book, it lends credence to the argument that Obama doesn’t have the ability to reach across the aisle to make a deal. He had his shot to make a grand bargain, and he didn’t make it happen.
You can lead an elephant to water, but you can’t make it drink.
The Republicans were not joking when they said their #1 priority is to make Obama a one term president. The tea party wing of the Rep Party was never going to allow a grand bargain, and there was literally NOTHING Obama could do to make them agree to a compromise.
there was literally NOTHING Obama could do to make them agree to a compromise.
Bob Woodward Book: Debt Deal Collapse Led to ‘Pure Fury’ From President Obama
“But at a critical juncture, with an agreement tantalizingly close, Obama pressed Boehner for additional taxes as part of a final deal — a miscalculation, in retrospect, given how far the House speaker felt he’d already gone.”
Obama overreached.
Yup …. the community organizer thought he was in the drivers seat and couldn’t resist trying to get that little bit more ….. until they hit the ditch.
Stop squabbling Darrell and Ral. Please take some time off. Let the discussion remain pleasant and more importantly real.
I only respond. And I will continue to do so as long as RAL continues his psychotic terrorist attacks.
You can’t give in to the terrorists.
“I only respond.
And I will continue to do so as long as RAL continues his psychotic terrorist attacks.You can’t give in to the terrorists.”
You don’t only respond. You always respond too much.
You can’t give in to the terrorists.
Exactly what Bush told us and asked us to go shopping.
Weird you are buying a condo, right?
I only respond to Darryl The Liars lies. And I will continue to do so as long as Darryl The Liar continues his lies.
You can’t give in to the liars.
“Darryl The Liar continues his lies.”
Name one lie.
Name one truth.
One lie: money is other people’s debt.
“Comment by mathguy
2012-09-06 11:29:10
One lie: money is other people’s debt.”
Back to this one? Really?
Okay, if not borrowed into existence, where does fiat money come from?
And the dollar, the official money supply of the USA in which all transactions are measured is…. right, a fiat money.
So, in the modern USA economy, the money is what? How is it created? What gives it value?
Darrell, again, just ignore him. He will go away. When you engage him, he gets attention for his irrational repsonses. That is what he wants. The truth and logic have no value to him….only your goat.
Sorry JingleBalls but your lies and pimping won’t be ignored either.
So go ahead and post away.
“Darrell, again, just ignore him. He will go away.”
What if he is about ten guys and quite a few gals?
Yeah, I will pick up the slack if necessary.
“…there was literally NOTHING Obama could do to make them agree to a compromise.”
That was my impression, as well. The Republicans were narrowly focused on proving the President could not strike a deal, instead of looking out for the best interests of the Nation. In particular, it seemed clear they didn’t mind kicking the economy back into recession in order to bolster their chances to recapture the WH. I sold off my meager stock holdings early last August, once the die was cast, and thusly avoided the big Republican-sponsored dip in stock prices.
Yep…+1 Pbear…
Lets set the table for future negotiations;
#1. Your a Muslim who follows the Koran
#2. You were born in Kenya and your not a legitimate President
#3. Our #1 priority is to defeat you in 11/2012
Okay, now lets negotiate a compromise…..
#4. If you can’t strike a deal with us under terms #1.-#3., that proves your presidency is a failure.
I bought DISney. So far, big, big winner.
And, of course, more BRKB. Warren isn’t dead yet!
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You got some of my buckaroos, dude, thanks to my wife & kids.
Consider the source. Woodward sold out his journalistic cred in exchange for access decades ago. I’ve wasted enough money on his “reporting”.
Can you give us an abstract, instead?
From the Wikipedia article on Confirmation Bias.
“Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.”
It’s a bipartisan phenomenon, but the response above is a poster-child example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
It’s a bipartisan phenomenon,
It’s also found in non-Democrats and non-Republicans.
BiC
Do you understand the concept of “paradox”? How about “irony”?
I do. Both of them. And I am not claiming I’m immune to confirmation bias. But it’s funny that you apparently now lump Woodward into the same category as someone like Dinesh D’Souza.
Is your opinion of Woodward different from when he came out with his book about the Nixon White House and Watergate?
Yes, my opinion of Bob Woodward has changed since 1972. But then, so has the journalistic quality of his reportage.
I made no pre-representation as to the content or accuracy of his most recent offering, but asked for an abstract to avoid giving him anymore of my money.
“Confirmation Bias”
Off topic. We were discussing how the Republican congressmen deliberately walked away from a debt ceiling deal to discredit Obama. I pointed this out last August when it happened.
No, prof, he was responding to my post with a paradoxical comment about “confirmation bias” that at once demonstrated he had no understanding of the term yet ironically demonstrated same.
“…that at once demonstrated he had no understanding of the term yet ironically demonstrated same.”
Beautifully stated…
Discount the source if you will, it is your usual response, much like global warming skeptics aren’t real scientists so you don’t have to respond to tough questions simply consider the source
Intriguingly, Cantor and Biden frequently had “private asides” after larger meetings, according to Woodward. After one of them, Woodward writes that Biden told Cantor: “You know, if I were doing this, I’d do it totally different.”
“Well, if I were running the Republican conference, I’d do it totally different,” Cantor replied, according to Woodward.
Woodward writes: “They agreed that if they were in charge, they could come to a deal.”
With the president taking charge, though, Obama found that he had little history with members of Congress to draw on. His administration’s early decision to forego bipartisanship for the sake of speed around the stimulus bill was encapsulated by his then-chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel: “We have the votes. F— ‘em,” he’s quoted in the book as saying.
Clearly Woodward’s account is in conflict with Darrell’s statement.
How is that in any way in conflict with my statement?
2 dudes that were not in a position of power, saying they’d do it differently if they were in power?
The Republicans were very clear. 1) No way were they going to agree to a deal that raised taxes. 2) No way they were going to agree to a deal that helped the president’s reelection chances.
Roll clip of the Republican primaries where ALL of the candidates said they would reject a deal that had $20 in cuts for $1 in tax increases.
The Tea Party wing of the Republican party was never going to allow a deal, no matter what Obama did.
And this angered Obama. And we’re supposed to be shocked by that?
They’re not “tough questions”. I’m just sick of responding to them– for the same reason I don’t argue with creationists.
They’re not “tough questions”. I’m just sick of responding to them– for the same reason I don’t argue with creationists.
But you do respond by attacking the source.
Just for you, Charles, all my further responses on this topic can be found here://lmgtfy.com/
“…global warming skeptics aren’t real scientists…”
Usually true, but not always.
“Consider the source. Woodward sold out his journalistic cred in exchange for access decades ago. I’ve wasted enough money on his “reporting”.
I agree with you 100%. As far as I’m concerned he could be writing for the National Inquirer.
SO, a summary of the summary.
Republicans, who are more interested in getting the president fired than they are in getting Americans hired, refused to make ANY compromise with the president.
So, the congressional leaders tried to exclude the president from negotiations in hopes that would get the Republicans to compromise.
But no, the Republicans flat out refused to budge.
And that made the president angry….
Ummmm….. It made me pretty angry too.
You forgot the part where Obama wanted to add more taxes to the debt deal they were close to signing.
Wrong.
The “more taxes” was the expiration of the Bush era cuts… which was the default since that was the law as it existed. The Republicans wanting to change the law to extend the cuts, is in fact, more cuts.
This is another stupid leftist argument. The “law” says the taxes are slated to be increased because of a compromise that they would “cut” taxes, but only for a year or two and then raise them again.
BUDGETS need to consider the CURRENT time in office. You can’t force your idea of “taxes” onto the next administration and “congress”.
The CURRENT tax structure is the Tax structure.
Any Increase is an “increase”.
You can’t say, well, the Congress before you agreed to cut taxes if we re-upped them during your time in office. You don’t have a say. They are due to increase, based on a deal we made with your previous cohorts, so if you don’t increase them, it’s a “cut”.
Why have any Government at all? Just let Obama outline how he would like government to work for the next 1000 years and make that the “law”. Then we won’t have to waste time with representative government. It will be much more efficient that way.
He didn’t forget the part about 20 dollars of cuts for 1 dollar of tax revenue still being rejected.
Sounds like a fascinating read. Check out this passage:
So Woodward’s opinion is that the new Republican majority, that had just won election based on the overriding ideas of 1) no tax increases under any circumstances and 2) make sure Obama is a one-term president, would have agreed to a compromise that raised taxes and increased the president’s chance of reelection, if it were not for a speech where Obama attacked the Ryan budget plan?
Really?
Look, here is the real story.
Republican and democratic leadership worked out a grand compromise. That compromise was taken back to the full congress. The Democratic congressional members hated the deal, but were willing to go along. The Republican congressional members, heavy with Tea Party hard liners, flat out refused to support the compromise.
So, the whole Boehner negotiation thing was a ruse?
There was also this passage:
“With the president taking charge, though, Obama found that he had little history with members of Congress to draw on. His administration’s early decision to forego bipartisanship for the sake of speed around the stimulus bill was encapsulated by his then-chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel: “We have the votes. F— ‘em,”"
Very believable quote from Rahm. So Obama in 2008-2010 doesn’t work with Republicans because he has all the power.
And then during the debt negotiations, you also have this:
“Intriguingly, Cantor and Biden frequently had “private asides” after larger meetings, according to Woodward. After one of them, Woodward writes that Biden told Cantor: “You know, if I were doing this, I’d do it totally different.”"
Does Obama have the experience/relationships to work out a big bipartisan deal?
Regardless of where fault lies for the deal falling apart, it appears as though:
1. For 2 years Obama bullied the minority with his majority, not creating a productive working relationship; and
2. Obama without that majority, failed to strike a deal on debt/deficit with the other side.
And people want to give him another 4 years to NOT make a deal?
Sorry, raising taxes on the wealthy won’t solve the problem, and he’s already failed once at a grand bargain. We can’t wait another 4 years.
And IF Romney wins (a really big IF), and he doesn’t get something figured out that works in his 4 years, I’ll vote against him in 2016.
Even if Obama failed at the grand bargain, but was holding up publicly Simpson/Bowles as his roadmap, I’d vote for him. At this point, even if it’s not the solution I would choose, we need any solution that will convince the rest of the world to buy our debt so the Fed can dial back the printing press. I have zero confidence in Obama to make such a deal.
I think the Republican leadership was negotiating in good faith. There was just no chance that the Tea Party heavy Republican rank and file was ever going to go along.
Boehner tried, but I think that he found out that his leadership position was going to go poof if he tried to actually get the votes behind the deal he struck.
Rental Watch
From the numbers coming in it looks like even if the rest of the world wanted to buy USA debt as a safe haven their capacity to do so will be restricted to lesser value dollars. I hope the world has enough ink to counterfeit all these additional currencies.
Not to worry - BB’s banks will get to their 18 leverage and the govt will be able to continue buying useless labour and materials without opposition.
Too bad they forgot about the driver’s health.
How many Tea Party Republicans are there in the House? Surely not enough to scuttle a deal if more moderate Republicans voted FOR the deal.
The point was that Boehner was willing to throw his weight behind a deal, despite the political backlash from the Tea Party. Obama, I guess not fully understanding how hard that was already, overreached.
A bit like when Obama lined up the supreme court justices and told them not to interfere with legislation (constitutional or not).
Was that when he made them give him the black power salute?
Yeah, I noted that passage on yesterday’s bits/buckets. Also interesting is:
“As debt negotiations progressed, Democrats complained of being out of the loop, not knowing where the White House stood on major points. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, is described as having a “growing feeling of incredulity” as negotiations meandered.
“The administration didn’t seem to have a strategy. It was unbelievable. There didn’t seem to be any core principles,” Woodward writes in describing Van Hollen’s thinking.”
That would be the same Bob Woodward who authored the infamous dot-com bubble-era Maestro: Greenspan’s Fed and the American Boom, right?
THERE WAS intense speculation on financial markets yesterday that the European Central Bank will cut its key interest rate by a quarter of a point this afternoon in an effort to stimulate growth across the euro zone.
While any rate cut will be aimed at boosting flagging growth in Germany, Irish homeowners will be more immediate beneficiaries.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0906/1224323653547.html?via=rel
The Bank of England will hold back from prescribing further doses of emergency medicine for the ailing recovery today amid signs the economy will return to growth.
The Bank’s monetary policy committee will maintain interest rates at record lows of 0.5% and leave the targeted size of its quantitative easing (QE) programme at £375bn as the Bank works through £50bn of asset purchases announced in July.
Most economists think the nine-strong panel will sanction further QE in November and hold their nerve today, a view reinforced by strong services data released earlier this week.
The move will come shortly after the Bank admitted that QE has increased the fortunes of the wealthiest 5% of Britons while eroding the value of many pension funds.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/06/bank-england-hold-interest-rates?newsfeed=true
Cheap money the cure to all known ills
We will look back at 2012 as the good times with low unemployment…yeah 4 more years…
Things are better now than they were 4 years ago. Obama has earned another shot. Don’t give in to your racist tendencies.
Don’t give in to your racist tendencies.
Time for someone to post about a black-on-white violent crime.
Racially motivated murder suspected at MS State.
21-year-old John Sanderson. Photo from D Journal.
A white college student at Mississippi State University was murdered last night. Police are looking for three black males seen fleeing the scene.
AP is censoring the race of the perpetrators. AP used the statement from MSU, but dropped the word “black” in the description. Tom Kent, deputy managing editor for standards and production at The Associated Press, recently confessed that AP intentionally censors the race of black crime suspects.
…
There we go! Whew! Everything’s back to normal now.
There is balance in the universe.
You asked, I delivered.
Any further research requests?
For the record my not wanting to live in a black neighborhood (I’ve descended from African ancestry… er I’m black) doesn’t make me a racist. I don’t like living around poor people (black white or otherwise) because they are the people most likely to murder me for my watch. I would love to live in a multi-ethnic neighborhood so long as everybody makes at least $300K.
“I don’t like living around poor people (black white or otherwise) because they are the people most likely to murder me for my watch.”
Same here.
“I would love to live in a multi-ethnic neighborhood so long as everybody makes at least $300K.”
We live near one of those. It might not be as fun as you think.
“I don’t like living around poor people (black white or otherwise) because they are the people most likely to murder me for my watch.”
I will add in all honesty that since I lived in such areas for maybe a quarter of my life, I speak from first-hand experience. It’s not all that much fun to constantly watch your back, but you do learn to keep your eyes open.
Because in the libtard mind, only Whitey can be Racist®
My dad (admittedly a liberal by any reasonable definition) sticks to his belief that the reason whites don’t like to live in black areas is racism. His less liberal son suspects that many whites suffer a healthy fear of black-on-white crime, whether or not racially motivated, which makes them want to live outside of majority black areas.
Perhaps human instinct is to feel more competent at judging who is dangerous and who isn’t when dealing with those who follow your social norms?
Discrimination can go in any direction.
Racism and sexism are terms that connote a power imbalance.
Both terms -racism and sexism -have been watered down and in many cases purposefully misused so that they no longer have clear meanings.
Feel free to disagree with me on this, but I do believe that there is a not so subtle difference.
IMO, women cannot be sexist toward men, although a woman CAN discriminate against men, ie., pre-judge them all as a group.
But the use of, say, “reverse sexism” has been a sneaky attempt to discredit the idea that sexism even exists.
Discrimination is the action of FREE men and women. Nothing more.
You spend your entire life discriminating and making decisions on a personal basis as to whom you want to associate with, whom you want to “include” in your social circles, where you want to live and who you want to engage in business activities.
The younger generation has been sucessfully ‘brainwashed’ into believing that any form of discrimination that includes particular groups or “protected” classes is somehow wrong.
It isn’t wrong. The government agents just said it’s illegal under many circumstances to assure that group outcomes work out “equal”.
I.e. If there are 100 houses in an area, then 60% should be owned by whites, 20% black, 15% “hispanic”, and others, depending on the local demographics. If they aren’t, then something is wrong. The government cannot attribute the reasons for any “disparity”, other than “bigotry”, so it comes up with “programs” to make everybody equal.
This is all a social engineering program by various groups who would benefit from the programs. FREE YOUR MIND.
Discrimination can only exist among FREE people who decide for themselves what they want in their lives. Without it, you are a government controlled peon. Anti-discrimination laws are wars on your freedom.
Anti-discrimination laws are wars on your freedom.
I know, wasn’t that really stupid to give women the right to vote? Sheesh, the next thing you know they’ll pass a law saying that you can’t even pay women less money for doing the same exact job as a man. Oh wait, never mind.
IMO, women cannot be sexist toward men, although a woman CAN discriminate against men
????
Sexism is just discrimination based upon sex, just like racism is discrimination based upon race.
In your world, women are incapable of discriminating as a group, but they are capable of discriminating individually?
That doesn’t make any sense.
Unemployment?
“Conclusion:
The figure of 4.5 million jobs is accurate if you look at the most favorable period and category for the administration. But overall, there are still fewer people working now than when Obama took office at the height of the recession.”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/05/politics/fact-check-obama-jobs/index.html
I thought we were supposed to want government employment to go down.
Exactly. Isn’t lower government employment what the Republicans would have favored?
What did Obama do that the Republicans would not have done? I don’t think they have any answers, which explains why they blather on with lies.
Government employment down, and government contractor employment up.
Invisible hand of free market, et cetera…
What did Obama do that the Republicans would not have done? I don’t think they have any answers, which explains why they blather on with lies.
Really? I posted on this in a previous bits bucket regarding Republican pro-growth strategies. Exactly what pro-growth strategies do the Democrats or Obama support? What specific policies does the Obama administration propose of have in place that will expand private sector job growth and overall GDP of the US economy?
I also posted that the only reason the economy has grown at all is because of the cost of money, controlled by the FED has been so low. I posted the details of the expansion of the FED balance sheet under various QE.
“I also posted that the only reason the economy has grown at all is because of the cost of money, controlled by the FED has been so low.”
More Republican lies.
Obama’s stimulus package was a ginormous clean energy bill, says Michael Grunwald
By David Roberts
Michael Grunwald knows more about the stimulus than pretty much anyone else on the planet. (Photo by David Whitman.)
The Obama Era has been a disorienting experience for those of us attached to empirical reality. Press and popular narratives that have grown up around Obama and the legislation he’s signed bear only a tenuous relationship to facts.
Nowhere has the vertiginous disconnect been more in evidence than around the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, known colloquially as “the stimulus bill.” Hashed out during the transition and passed almost immediately after Obama was inaugurated, it served as an early test of the GOP strategy of total opposition and real-time mythmaking. Republicans understand that Americans are suspicious of government spending in the abstract but supportive of most specific spending programs, so they aggressively pushed the line that the stimulus was a gigantic bucket of government pork, doled out to politically connected cronies, spent on silly and wasteful projects, failing in its stated goals. “The failed stimulus” became one of those annoying but successful right-wing verbal tics. The media mostly went along.
…
More Republican lies.
LOL. You mean Solyndra clean energy? You mean Abound clean energy? Failures subsidized by the government…
What was in the Community Reinvestment Act?
$288 billion in [non-permanent]tax cuts.
$224 billion in extended unemployment benefits, education and health care.[this is supposed to cause "job growth"?]
$275 billion for job creation using federal contracts, grants and loans[Growth of the Federal government and government contractors]
Not much pro growth policy for private industry there… How’s that for the truth?
Exactly what pro-growth strategies do the Democrats or Obama support? What specific policies does the Obama administration propose of have in place that will expand private sector job growth and overall GDP of the US economy?
Aim tax cuts at the middle class and stimulate job growth seems to fit the ticket. Trickle down failed the emperor has no clothes.
Except that all those people who got money went out and spent it???
“Exactly what pro-growth strategies do the Democrats or Obama support?”
Although the candidates from both parties frequently remind the voters that God is on both sides, the weather during their respective conventions almost suggests otherwise.
ASIA BUSINESS
Updated September 6, 2012, 8:29 p.m. ET
Obama to Press Plan to Revive Economy
Goals Are Scaled Back From Sweeping Proposals in 2008
By CAROL E. LEE And LAURA MECKLER
[People run for cover from the pouring rain during the final day of the Democratic National Convention.]
CHARLOTTE, N.C.—President Barack Obama, in a speech Thursday accepting his party’s nomination for re-election, planned to propose goals for a second term that center on a revival of the U.S. economy.
“I’m asking you to rally around a set of goals for your country—goals in manufacturing, energy, education, national security, and the deficit; a real, achievable plan that will lead to new jobs, more opportunity, and rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation,” Mr. Obama was to say, according to advance excerpts of his speech. “That’s what we can do in the next four years, and that’s why I’m running for a second term as president of the United States.”
…
I see “the day he took office” as a far more arbitrary starting point than choosing a date where his stimulus, bailouts, and FASB157 revocation to allow companies to flat out lie about the value of the assets on their balance sheet, began to reap benefits.
We were losing 600K+ jobs a month in the 2 months between his election and him taking the oath, but EVERY SINGLE job lost from the moment he took office is on him? Oh, I don’t think so.
Yes The food stamp and deadbeat whitey president.
Geez i know white people with more soul then Ohbahma…
Why didn’t i buy a house i couldn’t pay for? I could be so much better off today and i would have gladly voted for ohbewanna
Things are better now than they were 4 years ago.
According to CNN fact checking, the economy is not better off than 4 years ago based on employment… to wit, there are fewer people working today than there were 4 years ago. Unemployment measures people in workforce. If those people leave the workforce, as many have, than the unemployment number looks better than it does “on the street”.
Bottom line, job growth hasn’t kept up with population growth and the only reason U3 has fallen is because more people dropped into u6 or out of the workforce completely.
Here’s the link from my post above, in case anyone is interested in it:
CNN Fact Check: About those 4.5 million jobs
Isn’t lower government employment what the Republicans want?
Indeed it is. Too bad for Obama’s administration he couldn’t figure out how to replace those lost government jobs with private industry jobs… maybe if he knew anything about business and economics the situation would be different.
“The vast majority of the public sector job losses have come at the state and local level, where balanced budget requirements coupled with plummeting tax revenues have caused many states to parse back the payrolls.
Since Obama took office, 636,000 state and local jobs have been cut. In 2011 alone, 113,000 jobs were cut in local schools, 68,000 jobs were cut in local government administration, and 78,000 jobs were cut in state government administration, according to a Commerce Department report.
“It’s the public sector that’s the thing contributing to that entire overall decline of jobs since he took office,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “It just wipes out a huge share of the job growth.”
But while state and local jobs evaporated, Labor Department statistics show that the federal government , not counting the postal service, has grown by 143,000 employees during Obama’s tenure, a fact that Obama’s Republican rival Mitt Romney is quick to criticize.”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/government-jobs-loss-president-obamas-catch-22/
if he knew anything about business and economics the situation would be different.
Perhaps he followed the Bain example and offshored the jobs.
Isn’t Romney’s plan to grow the defense sector? Maybe if it is through federally-funded private contracts, nobody will mistake the employment growth for “government jobs.”
Isn’t Romney’s plan to grow the defense sector?
Show me a link where Romney says he wants to grow defense. I’ve stated it before that the plan is level spending for defense…
I’ve stated it before that the plan is level spending for defense…
But we’re fighting one war and winding another down. That’s a pretty high, and currently very expensive, baseline.
If he continues that level of defense spending, and cuts taxes as he promises, we will see more and bigger deficits. But some will take their government stimulus no other way. Guns ‘n’ tax cuts (that only really help the wealthy).
BTW- You sound like a Romney campaign spokesman. Any real-world connection? Are you somehow in their employ?
You sound like a Romney campaign spokesman. Any real-world connection? Are you somehow in their employ?
Nope. Not a Romney spokesman nor in their employ. I am a registered Republican, however
And momentum doesn’t count for anything?
Sure, the economy was collapsing, and we were losing 600K+ jobs a month leading up to the day Obama took office… but EVERY job lost, starting on the day he took office, is on him and his policies?
Clinton had it right. The Republican position can be summed up as “Man we left this place a mess, but Obama has had 4 years and hasn’t finished cleaning up our mess yet.”
I like the image of Maharaja George W. Bush proudly parading along on his elephant, while poor Obama follows behind with the world’s largest pooper-scooper in hand.
“Things are better now than they were 4 years ago.”
ZIRP
QE1
QE2
Operation Twist
$ 1.3 trillion deficits
“Things are better now than they were 4 years ago.”
Not where I live.
Yeah, the bubble years were good in Florida.
“Yeah, the bubble years were good in Florida.”
For the most part 1984 when I got here through 2008 were pretty good.
He got his. Skrew you!
Imagine what FL would be like if we cut SS 20%, then switched to a voucher system for Medicare where a senior had to pay a much higher share of their healthcare costs….
AZ continues to do all it can to lure these “wealthy Boomer” into our state. I see this as a major folly if those seniors lose the SS and MC, and end up as major burdens on the state’s resources.
“Things are better now than they were 4 years ago.”
Not where I live.
Depends on where you live and what you do for work.
It’s boom town all over again in the Bay Area. This city really knows how to make itself anew.
Obama set his own measures of success. 1: Unemployment would never go over 8%, it has been there for more than 40 months and is higher than when he took office. 2: The deficit was to be around 650 billion by now, try double that.
Add to that gasoline prices doubling and over 5 trillion in new debt bringing us to 16 trillion which is greater than the GDP and has always been a huge red flag indicator of a failing country and you have a failure as a president.
So I ask what is more racist, 99% of blacks voting for a failed president just because he is black or whites saying we gave the guy a chance he failed so maybe we should try someone new and if he equally fails, we will throw him out too.
So I ask what is more racist, 99% of blacks voting for a failed president just because he is black or whites saying we gave the guy a chance he failed so maybe we should try someone new and if he equally fails, we will throw him out too.
Ironically, the entire set-up of your question is racist. What does he or the voters being black or white have to do with the measures of Obama’s success, and whether he’s achieved them? It seems you see every aspect of Obama’s presidency through a racist prism.
well, that’s not exactly true. WE see blantant racism of the black population, since they are in lock-step with Obama. yea for the “minority”.
The Latinos are a little more conflicted.
The Whites are lost.
If we could only have true racism, Obama would be gone. That would be good.
It’s a sham that racial “solidarity” amongst the so-called minorities keep him in the running.
You kill me. 200 years of whites voting ONLY for whites for president, then, ONE black person gets elected, and every black person voting for him is a racist?
Only an idiot could reason so stupidly.
IAT
Name me one city that is majority minority and is as safe as Scarsdale NY or Greenwich CT
Wouldn’t it also have to have an equal or greater median income to be a fair comparison?
NO poor people dont have to be involved in crime unless they want to…..Its all about Personal choice
Ummm…be a ghetto criminal or have some standards and morals and live among people who are not casing your home.
Pretty sure there are parts of Martha’s Vineyard that satisfy your criteria.
“Don’t give in to your racist tendencies.”
I have asked this question before to the race pimp progressives. Would you vote for a Black Neocon, a Black Libertarian or a Black constitutional conservative? Doubt it.
Well some out here do not have time for a Black Marxist who admits he wants to “fundamentally change the United States”. We have issues in this country, but the communists are not the answer.
Your statement could not be more ignorant, but I bet your progressive professors would be tickled pink, maybe even have a thrill up their legs.
That ladies and gentleman is why, as usual, I blame progressives.
I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or are truly an idiot. I think it’s the latter.
Answer the question.
Would you vote for a Black Neocon, a Black Libertarian or a Black constitutional conservative?
Obviously your answer would be no. In that case, using progressive logic, you are a racist.
If you can not understand the logic behind my post, then you sir/mam are the idiot.
Discussing jobs as the measure of a president, here on the HBB is ironic. We had a mania that spanned a dozen White house administrations and spilled over into every corner of the world. The ponzi is collapsing, it was before obama took office. There was absolutely nothing a president could do to change that reality. Things are worse than they were four years ago, except if you tilt your head just right and squint really hard it can sometimes look otherwise. Things will likely be worse four years from now, especially since we are doing everything possible to avoid dealing with the root causes of this mess. What caused the mess isn’t even a topic of the discussion!
BTW, I was interested in Clint Eastwood’s speech, which the news folks have much ridiculed as bizzare, so I found it on u tube. He stammers like he was old or something, but I thought it was lucid.
“What caused the mess isn’t even a topic of the discussion!”
Of course you are 100% correct. But nonetheless, the blame game for the Great Recession has become the centerpiece for the 2012 presidential election. I blame the Republican party planners for that, as they have tried their best to use a full-court propaganda press, replete with revisionist history, to overplay the ‘Blame Obama’ hand. So it’s no surprise to hear Joe Biden talking about the “Bain way” of looking at profit maximization strategy as a causal factor in America’s economic demise.
The Democratic Platform on Housing
Remember that HAMP alone was supposed to save 4 million homes, a recognition that the other programs counted here were completely insufficient.
HAMP currently has administered about 1 million permanent modifications, and about one-quarter of those have redefaulted.
As for “giving tax credits to first-time home buyers,” most economists agree that was a bad thing. It was a giveaway to upper-middle class individuals who bought homes, and it just brought sales forward rather than increase the pie of sales overall.
(Regarding cracking down on fraudulent lenders). The only thing that they could possibly be referring to here is the foreclosure fraud settlement. There was absolutely no accountability in the settlement. Period. End of sentence. There has been no “cracking down” on abuses in the housing market. Robo-signing still happens. MERS is still an operational entity. Servicing abuses still persist. Homeowners are still being taken advantage of, every single day.
The Republican platform on housing at least had the honesty to reject principal reduction. The Democrats pretend it doesn’t exist. And they certainly don’t appear to show any awareness of the continuing damage caused by the mortgage industry. Republicans mentioned that they don’t want to unfairly advantage homeowners vis-a-vis renters, and they re-upped a commitment to low-income housing. There’s absolutely nothing of that here.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/09/04/the-democratic-platforms-dishonest-nonsense-on-housing/
Surprise, surprise. The Dem platform is for more of the same. IMO this housing bubble correction will never happen until government gets out of the way and we know it takes forever for a government program to go away. We might be talking about this for decades to come.
And what is the Republican platform on housing?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/05/romneys-new-housing-plan-is-not-very-new-and-not-much-of-a-plan/
Romney won’t use the alphabet soup…
So instead of HARP, HAMP, HEAP, HELP… We can expect 123, 789, 911?
No, we can expect less government intervention in the housing market, as that intervention has done very little to actually improve housing economics.
We can only hope!
“Romney’s housing plan has four parts: 1) To “responsibly sell 200,000, government-owned vacant foreclosed homes owned by the government 2) To use “foreclosure alternatives” for those unable to pay their mortgages themselves; 3) To swap out complex financial rules with “smart regulation”; and 4) to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “protect taxpayers from additional risk.””
How is number 2 less intervention?
as that intervention has done very little to actually improve housing economics.
If high housing prices is the goal, then they have been very successful.
Ohhh, the victimhood - complaining on a “The Housing Bubble Blog” that the housing bubble means the price of housing is too high. Waaaaa waaaaaa waaaa….
How is number 2 less intervention?
Depends on how it is done. Ex. Requiring banks to use short sales instead of foreclosure process in exchange for some government assistance…
Statistics show that short sales often have better outcomes than foreclosure for everyone concerned, from the bank to the former owners.
Forcing banks to do something they don’t want to do in exchange for assistance is less government intervention than letting the banks participate in a voluntary program in exchange for some government assistance?
Forcing banks to do something they don’t want to do in exchange for assistance is less government intervention than letting the banks participate in a voluntary program in exchange for some government assistance?
As I said, much depends on what is implemented and how. Having said that, the point I tried to make was that generally “government intervention” is seen as trying to keep owners in their homes or prices higher than they would otherwise be. The example I gave would help the market to clear as opposed to gum up the market, as Obama’s policies have.
When the problem is almost universally seen as “keeping people in their homes” which policy is more likely to be attempted, regardless of party?
I’d love to see the purge that Romney talks about, but it ain’t gonna happen.
‘When the problem is almost universally seen as “keeping people in their homes” which policy is more likely to be attempted, regardless of party?’
There’s that, and we now also have a Republican party housing policy goal* of “pumping up home values.”
Wasn’t it overly-pumped-up home values that got us into this pot of stew in which we collectively simmer?
*Don’t be lazy and ask me where to find this; search today’s Bit’s Bucket for “pumping” if you want to read the story.
“Ohhh, the victimhood - complaining on a “The Housing Bubble Blog” that the housing bubble means the price of housing is too high. Waaaaa waaaaaa waaaa…”
Dude — you live by choice in one of the world’s most expensive cities, and enjoy all the rights and privileges thereof.
Get over it. (And I’m really not talking to myself here…seriously!)
“And what is the Republican platform on housing?”
The West Bank needs more housing, way more housing!
ROTFLMAO!
Oh, Jeebus, that was priceless!
Say what you will about Obama, but he hasn’t given in yet to the “BombIran” war mongering.
Although I did read somewhere that he’s begged Bibi to stop pestering him until after the election.
No banker left behind.
Commie talk!
Etch-a-sketch plan
Etch-a-sketch plan
So you like all the Democratic intervention in the housing sector, writedowns, government refis, and process changes to slow foreclosures? You want prices to stay higher on homes for sale? You like renting?
No. I had just hoped the Republicans would come up with something better.
What a dismal disappointment!
What’s better than no intervention? AS far as I can tell, a more laissez faire attitude from the government towards housing is exactly what we need.
“AS far as I can tell, a more laissez faire attitude from the government towards housing is exactly what we need.”
And AS far as I can tell, the only candidate who would have had the cojones to actually propose and follow through with such a plan is the guy the Republicans wouldn’t even allow to speak at their convention.
I don’t see a post detailing the cost breakdown for new construction at less than $50/sf (including profit). Did it get lost in cyberspace?
********************************************************
Comment by Pimp Watch
2012-09-05 06:21:24
DarrylTheLiar,
Nobody cares what a shack sold for in 2005. It’s immaterial.
You’re paying a grossly inflated price for what can be built, with profit, for far less.
Your failing effort to define the market demonstrates just how corrupt you are.
Reply to this comment
Comment by localandlord
2012-09-05 09:19:22
RAL, does your under $50/sf cost include legal labor, worker’s comp, site and utilites costs, permits?
I’d be curious to see a breakdown.
Reply to this comment
Comment by Pimp Watch
2012-09-05 09:28:08
And now you know what a 20 year old run down condo in the desert is worth.
Hint: A number far less than $50/sq ft
******************************************************
Since I’m not interested in condos or deserts I suppose it is worth zero to me but that is not the point.
The place I’m buying is block construction, so when RAL posts his breakdown showing the less than $50 a sqft construction cost, he needs to not use a stick and stucco construction.
Also, double pain windows, granite counters in kitchen and both baths, tile and wood floors not carpet.
Fridge, dishwasher, stove, over stove microwave, and new water heater all included in the $50 a sqft price.
All single core copper wiring also. None of that multi-strand or aluminum that is cheaper but causes such issues.
Since it’s obvious you’re not going to shut up about this incredible “find”, why not tell us about the upcoming assessments for common area repairs and “improvements”? You’d mentioned that other units in the building were “dumps”. After twenty years of hard use, one can’t imagine yours is the only one to have escaped structural deterioration.
Those “double pain windows” sound like a good place to start….
My aunt’s condo complex has a private road leading up to the property from the town road. Well, in Vermont, any road leads a hard life. So, cue up the wailing of the condo residents when they learn the cost of re-paving their road.
The assessment will be about two grand per unit.
“double pain” - I like the irony; no pun intended.
“double pain windows”
Oh, you poor thing!
“‘Stealth interventions’ or a ‘shock-and-awe’ approach?”
This discussion should raise questions in American savers’ minds about whether the Fed has already invoked the ’stealth intervention’ form of QE3, thereby diverting the future returns on their savings to the Wall Street army of stock traders.
Sept. 5, 2012, 1:05 p.m. EDT
Doubts remain whether ECB’s Draghi can deliver
‘Stealth interventions’ or a ‘shock-and-awe’ approach?
By William L. Watts, MarketWatch
FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) — Investors banking on the European Central Bank serving up a big bang Thursday should keep one thing in mind: It isn’t all up to Mario Draghi.
The ECB president is under pressure to put meat on the bones of a plan he broadly outlined last month for the central bank to make purchases of distressed government bonds in concert with the euro-zone rescue fund once a country has applied to the fund for help.
Yields on 2-year Spanish government debt retreated from crisis levels on ECB bond-buy hopes.
“Market participants who expect the ECB to start the new asset purchases as soon as possible are likely to be extremely disappointed as the ECB action will be linked to political developments that — given the ECB’s independence — are out of its direct control,” said Annalisa Piazza, economist at asset brokerage firm Newedge in London.
…
In Quantitative Easing we trust, provided those meddlesome Germans can be kept at bay!
Sept. 6, 2012, 7:34 a.m. EDT
U.S. stock futures rise ahead of ECB meeting
By Shawn Langlois, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — U.S. stock index futures rose Thursday, suggesting investors are confident word from the European Central Bank policy meeting later in the day will ease ongoing concerns over the fate of the euro zone.
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJU2 +0.52%) gained 0.5% to 13,117 points, while S&P 500 Index futures (SPU2 +0.50%) moved similarly higher, up 9 points to 1,413. Nasdaq-100 futures (NDU2 +0.55%) added 17 points, or 0.6%, to reach 2,785.
…
There was a pretty big DNC bounce over the past week in the Iowa Electronic Markets 2012 US Presidential Election Winner Takes All Market in Obama’s favor. If I read the graph correctly, the equilibrium trade places 2-1 odds against Romney beating Obama in the popular share of the November vote, which represents the largest lead for Obama going back to July 2011.
Of course this only reflects the popular vote; with the electoral college system, it is possible for the candidate who loses the popular vote to nonetheless win the election, especially with large states in the mix which are likely to go overwhelmingly in one candidate’s favor, such as California and New York.
This brings to mind a question: Isn’t it about time for the U.S. to scrap the antiquated electoral college system and go to a more Democratic system, such as deciding the president by the popular vote outcome?
scrap the antiquated electoral college system and go to a more Democratic system,
Good luck with that. States with smaller populations get outsized power through the electoral college, why would their senators- another area where the same states gain outsized power- ever give that up?
+1
Why would ever give that up?
would give that up if you gave them something else of equal or greater value that they want.
something else of equal or greater value that they want.
Like what?
I don’t see why they would ever do it, but if you gave them even more outsized power in the senate (like 3 senators per state no matter what your population) they might (unlikely, but might) agree to go to a direct vote for president. Likelihood? Less than 1 percent.
The smaller states would gladly take another Senator in exchange for Presidential popular vote. But the larger states would never give up their power in the Senate. IMO Senate power is much greater than Presidential power.
[sure, the Const. sets up the Presidential veto, but Congress got around that long ago by attaching pet stuff to can't-fail support-the-troops type bills. Even Obama attached the student loan provision to Obamacare.]
“The smaller states would gladly take another Senator in exchange for Presidential popular vote”
No, they wouldn’t. The small states like having outsized influence in presidential elections. More than that, people in low population states that are largely rural like their rural population having outsized power in presidential elections.
Small states do not have an outsize power. It’s the large SWING STATES that have the power. How much campaigning and election spending will be done, and promises made, in California or New York or Texas, where the outcome is already known, versus the effort in states like Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, where the outcome is not certain?
Are Vermont or South Dakota swing states? I don’t know. But I do know that no one cares.
What am I missing here?
Alaska has 2 Senators out of 100, or 2%.
If Alaska had 3 Senators out of 150, it would still be 2%.
How do they get even more outsized power?
I read it the same way on the first pass as well. I think what was meant was that the smaller states would get 3 Senators and the others would stay at 2 Senators.
Dumping the Electoral College (EC) is another of those ideas that get floated by people who haven’t really analyzed the complex implications of what appear to be simple changes. And I thought Californians had a monopoly on destructively wolfish ideas in sheep’s clothing.
Here’s one important aspect one must bring into any comparison of the EC and direct election (DC). If you have DC, a vote anywhere can cancel another vote anywhere. This, therefore, would be a disaster.
Say you have California, where democrats control much of the state government. Thus, California democrats can allow or even engage in election fraud, pumping up the numbers of votes for the democratic nominee. Now, California election officials can do that now, but, really, what would be the point. The democrat is going to win California, and so why waste energy and risk prison to pad a win that is already guaranteed?
In other words, the EC destroys the incentive of election fraud for President in every place where a party has enough control to succeed in the fraud.
In toss-up states, the parties are pretty evenly matched, so election fraud is harder.
Dumping the EC for DC is to assure we will never have another legitimate election.
IAT
“…Why would they ever give that up…?”
Because they got out-voted in the Senate by a Vice President from CA, TX, or NY?
I don’t see how the electoral college aids the small states. They still just get a number of electors proportionate to their population.
What I see it doing is moving all the focus to a handful of key battleground states.
AZ is 60-40 Republican on its worst day? Neither candidate campaigns here.
All the focus moves to FL and OH where it is 48-52 one way or the other, so a 2-3% move in voter turnout can swing an entire national election.
The electoral votes a state is given is the sum of its senators and representatives. Since the number of senators is two for every state, regardless of population, states with smaller populations are over-represented in the college- ie they have fewer people per electoral vote. A person’s vote for president in a small state is more powerful than a person’s vote in a large state.
Living in what is probably the most solidly red state in the nation, I have to say it’s nice not to be constantly bombarded with political advertisements. A recent trip to Florida showed me the flip side of that coin.
My vote is essentially meaningless- regardless of how I vote, the outcome for this state is a given. Since the electoral votes are not proportional (they’re all or nothing for this state)- it really makes no difference how I vote, or if I vote at all.
When you think about it the US is being run by a system designed for a population of about 25 million. We are at 300+ now and by any reasonable calculation we should have at least 4X more representatives at the state and national level. By refusing to expand the size of congress it makes it a lot easier for a small group of 5-10 members of each house to totally control the debate. So here we are, .002% of the population is what’s now call representative government.
“A recent trip to Florida showed me the flip side of that coin. ”
DO NOT MOVE HERE.
But if you do, let’s have a beer.
“What I see it doing is moving all the focus to a handful of key battleground states.”
Yep. Plus effectively making a Californian’s vote a throwaway, as the state is going to the Democrats come hell or high water.
Lots of needy people and government cheese will do that…
The Founding Fathers didn’t set up our structure of government to equally benefit everyone, but to be equally painful, for everyone who wished to grab power.
They were particularly aware of the lure of power from and by corporations and banks. After all, they had just won war against the biggest corporate nation on the planet and did so by borrowing from the biggest banks on the planet.
So yes, our system is quite dysfuntional. It’s supposed to be.
The electoral college,was, like many problematic aspects of the Constitution, about slavery. The writers were leery of Congress electing the President, as it would limit his independence, but the slave states didn’t want it decided by popular vote, because they had a very small voting population compared to the North. Hence the 3/5ths compromise that allowed them to count a slave as 3/5ths of a person for deciding the amount of representatives and electoral votes each state would receive- without giving slaves the actual right to vote.
In those days, a person’s vote in a small-population slave state was a lot more powerful than a person’s vote in the North.
Oh those funky founding fathers!
Delegates opposed to slavery generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state. Delegates supportive of slavery, on the other hand, generally wanted to count slaves in their actual numbers. Since slaves could not vote, slaveholders would thus have the benefit of increased representation in the House and the Electoral College. The final compromise of counting “all other persons” as only three-fifths of their actual numbers reduced the power of the slave states relative to the original southern proposals, but increased it over the northern position.
A real poll with a proven track record not a bunch of kids living in their parent’s basement betting money they do not have:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows Mitt Romney attracting support from 47% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns 44% of the vote. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.
Casino odds at Ladbroke’s: Obama 4 to 11, Romney 2 to 1.
Those darn kids!
And Five Thirty Eight shows 311.2 (Obama) to 226.8 (Romney).
“Housing is contained.”, remember?
So what happened to 2Banana’s “landslide”?
That’s just a crock of BS party operatives spew to capture the votes of the braindead slice of the electorate who choose based on which candidate they believe most likely to win.
“Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they are violent in their deaths.” - James Madison
with all due respect…i place a little more faith in Madison’s astuteness than anyone elses on this board.
Another goodie from Dolley Madison’s husband:
Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.
if you can’t when according to the rules…change the rules.
the housing bubble is a great example of that mindset.
What do you think was Madison’s point in that quote?
you tell me.
You posted it, while saying you put more faith in his astuteness than anybody else here. It must have some meaning to you. Let’s hear it.
It’s not my job to explain your posts, although Cantankerous is offering free research, if you need it.
there is no point…the only thing that would convince you otherwise would be if obama were to win the electoral college and lose the popular vote.
there is no point
Hmm. So your post had no point?
Well, since you don’t appear to know the origin or context of the quote you presented, from the man you claim to hold in higher esteem than anyone else here, I’ll tell you. He was pointing out the dangers of direct democracy as compared to representative democracy.
Of course there’s nothing about representative democracy that requires disproportionate distribution of representatives (or as in this case, senators and electors.) That was just a compromise we came up with to satisfy the slavers.
“He was pointing out the dangers of direct democracy as compared to representative democracy.”
As in, ‘By chance, I may not end up being in the majority that gets to choose’?
Commuters will get to help pay for QECB at the pump. Ouch!
Oil up ahead of ECB chief’s statement
Gas pumps are seen at a petrol station in Prague May 10, 2012. REUTERS/David W Cerny
By Julia Payne
LONDON | Thu Sep 6, 2012 7:45am EDT
(Reuters) - Oil futures rose towards $114 per barrel on Thursday, buoyed by expectations the European Central Bank will manage to ease its debt crisis with a new program of bond purchases.
Europe’s debt crisis and slowing global economic growth have fuelled worries about the demand outlook for commodities.
Investors hope a new ECB bond-buying program will help cut the borrowing costs of Spain and Italy, allowing the euro zone economy to begin to recover from recession.
The EU’s statistics office Eurostat confirmed on Thursday that gross domestic product in the 17 countries using the euro fell 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter.
Brent crude futures rose 88 cents to $113.97 a barrel by 7:29 a.m. EDT (1129 GMT). U.S. crude gained $1.14 to $96.50.
“The importance of Draghi is one of confidence. You have to look back at May when oil collapsed around the Greek elections,” said Harry Tchilinguirian at BNP Paribas in London.
“Following his comment about vowing to save the euro, he’s not in a position to disappoint.”
…
Ouch? Most Euro cars already get 40+mpg and most of Europe has excellent mass transit.
What’s our average? Mass transit system? There’s the real ouch. Even their freight trucks do better than ours.
They are socialist, cheese-eating, surrender monkeys. We are rugged individualists. Mass transit is only for socialists and colored people.
You can’t have a cake and eat it, too.
One of the unintended consequences of building interstate highway is the lack of mass transit system in USA.
unintended consequences
The dismantling of public transit was intentional.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy
Yeah well…auto exhaust, traffic jams and the occasional fatal collision are all better than horse crap all over the roads, right?
They are socialist, cheese-eating, surrender monkeys.
You’re describing the French. What about the Germans?
France was invaded and occupied twice in the last century by Germany and both times it took the US and it’s rugged individualists to kick them back over the Rhine…
They are socialist, cheese-eating, surrender monkeys.
You’re describing the French. What about the Germans?
The Germans are socialist, kraut-eating, war monkeys?
Hmm, hard to dispute that…
“While in camp, some of the other climbers overheard news that England had lost a soccer game to Germany. “It seems we have beaten you at your national sport”, said a German. After a slight pause Whillans replied, “Aye, and we’ve beaten you at yours…twice.” — Don Whillans
What’s our average?
In my nabe it must be pretty low, as about a third of the vehicles parked in the driveways are those huge, heavy, 4 door pickups with 400 HP engines. Another third are SUV’s and the rest are sedans.
Those make up at least HALF in my region.
“Commuters will get to help pay for QECB at the pump. Ouch!”
Taxing energy is how Europe solves their problems. Hence numerous bicycles.
Taxing energy is how Europe solves their problems. Hence numerous bicycles.
Indeed. Because it makes so much sense to make fuel and driving unaffordable for the poor or middle class… all that does is ensure the elite continue to drive their 750’s and A8’s to work while the worker drones take the bicycle, bus, or train.
Oh please. Have you seen the traffic jams in Europe’s major cities? I seem to remember seeing lots of little diesel powered cars.
And scooters. Gobs and gobs of scooters.
Scooters are for socialists and homosexuals. Real American rugged individualists drive F-350’s. With plastic testicles hanging from the hitch.
“Scooters are for socialists and homosexuals. Real American rugged individualists drive F-350’s. With plastic testicles hanging from the hitch.”
+1 Love the sarcasm!
When you see those BP feel good commercials about how great things are down in the Gulf just remember the thousands of barrels of oil dispersant they pumped into the escaping oil gusher. We will be lucky if they get even 1/2 this cleaned up before the next mega spill.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_162-57507534/apnewsbreak-tests-confirm-oil-came-from-bp-spill/
Alanis Morissette
You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn
Wear it out (the way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you’re gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend
You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn
You get bailed out you, uh?
Do you think Romney and Ryan will restore free-market principles to the U.S. housing market?
Think again, suckers!
How would “pumping up home values” square with Uncle Sam’s long-term goal of providing its citizenry with affordable housing? For instance, will affordable housing continue to only be offered on a discriminatory basis to low-income Americans and other specially-favored groups, or will everyone qualify?
This sounds more like an approach the Politburo would favor than the free-market capitalism Republicans normally espouse. Not that I am surprised, given how the Republicans don’t seem to know what they are about this year.
Romney: Obama’s Do-Nothing Approach to Housing a Failure
September 5, 2012
Mitt Romney released his own vision for ending the housing crisis this week.
Although often blamed for the economy’s unimpressive and fragile recovery, housing has largely stayed out of the presidential race, making only brief appearances on the campaign trail where the brunt of the housing bust’s destruction fell.
But amid the ongoing Democratic National Convention, Mitt Romney released his own vision for ending the housing crisis this week, slamming Obama’s “government-centric” approach as a failure.
“To address the housing crisis, President Obama rolled out an alphabet soup of more than ten housing finance programs rather than offering a real solution,” the campaign website says. “President Obama has hamstrung the economic recovery and slowed the recovery of the housing market.”
Whether or not that’s true is up for debate, but Romney has a little damage control to do of his own when it comes to housing issues.
“Don’t try and stop the foreclosure process,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on a campaign stop last fall. “Let it run its course and hit the bottom.”
Not exactly what many homeowners struggling to hang on to the roof over their heads want to hear as a solution.
…
Here’s a closer look at how Romney proposes to fix the housing market:
Sell foreclosures on the government’s books. According to the most recent data, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA have about 200,000 foreclosed homes on their hands. Instead of leaving them hanging in housing purgatory, Romney plans to “get the government out of homeownership” and “return vacant homes to productive uses” in the hopes of pumping up home values.
…
“Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and FHA have about 200,000 foreclosed homes on their hands”
Despite the freeze for RoboSigning, there were 800K foreclosures processed last year. Data appears to put us back above 1 million rate this year.
I’m not sure what % of those were FHA and GSE, but if I recall correctly, those account for something like 90% of the mortgage market over the last 5 years.
And, despite that massive inflow of new foreclosures, they have reduced their REO book by 20%, from 250K to 200K in the last year.
Of that 50K reduction, only 2,500 or so have been liquidated via the much talked about bulk sales to investors that promise not to resell for a few years.
Low interest rates have kept prices higher than they otherwise would have been. The $8000 tax credit has a significant impact on prices while it was in effect (please note that there has been ZERO talk of bringing it back).
The rest is minor window dressing. Especially when you realize how much of it was in the form of voluntary programs.
I largely agree with you.
I do think that there is quite a bit of “controlling the flow” of units onto the market. There is certainly massive government intervention to ensure there are still buyers.
I think some people were like…. OMG! There are going to be 5-10 million houses dumped into a market that has NO BUYERS, houses will crash 99%, and I’ll be able to buy up dozens of houses for pennies on the dollar. (Or that one dream house in that ideal neighborhood, where everyone wants to live, but is so small that only a small fraction of people actually can live there.)
I’m sure you remember the “once in a lifetime buying opportunity”, “cash is king”, “keep your powder dry” talk.
Well, that hasn’t materialized.
The inventory has been managed, and the government has ensured there will be buyers. Some markets are back at or below fundamental value, while many still remain above fundamental value. On national average basis, we’re something like 20% overpriced based on income, but that is largely explained by low interest rates.
We manipulated (continue to manipulate) a “soft landing” of a sorts.
I understand that has some people REALLY, really upset. I am a little less understanding of what surprises people about that. The WHOLE economy is a giant manipulation. Why would they expect housing prices would have been allowed to crash, without attempts at manipulation?
I’m sure you remember the “once in a lifetime buying opportunity”, “cash is king”, “keep your powder dry” talk.
Well, that hasn’t materialized. ”
No it hasen’t but at what future price will the bill be paid ?
The WHOLE economy is a giant manipulation. Why would they expect housing prices would have been allowed to crash, without attempts at manipulation?
That’s true. I understand that now much better than I did when this started. I think the jury is still out on whether the attempts will be successful in the long run. I have no intention of buying under these conditions, though. If they can make that which can’t go on forever go on for longer than I care, so be it.
“affordable housing”
There is a major disconnect here people! I hope that the above term is used with the connotation of ‘affordable’ meaning a return to housing basics as we once knew them, i.e. housing that the average wage earner could afford without any governmental assistance or other hocus locus. Here in the south bay area of CA ‘affordable housing means that a strawberry picker can live right next door to you in a $700K house on a $30K income while you jump through the hoop to finance the full ride on the $700K mortgage.My former neighbor a gang task force officer said that when the affordable housing percent of a neighborhood approached 20% crime in the area increased logarithmic. Gotta love social engineering.
For the record, a former, former neighbor of yours owned about 160 acres of strawberry fields where Los Verdes Country Klub (now a Trump something-or-other) used to be. Annie was a strawberry picker, too. After returning from interment during WW2 she continued to work her fields and produce stand on PV Drive South for decades –despite becoming a multi-millionaire as the land around her was developed into mansionery.
Thanks for the flashback. I spent part of my childhood in San Pedro. Most Sundays after church included a trip out Palos Verdes Drive for strawberries and red carnations. Miss that homemade strawberry shortcake
despite becoming a multi-millionaire as the land around her was developed into mansionery.”
we are on the downside of that remarkable period in America
prehaps we will watch all the millionares return to strawberry picking ?
As a matter of fact many millionares like to become farmers and grow grapes in Napa Valley.
No growth ? Become a farmer
Hey, I resemble that remark!
Privatize gains, socialize loses. Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
Bain capital receives huge subsidies and very favorable treatment from the U.S. Government. Why would Romney change that when he is elected? Remember, he built that company completely on his own…..why would he contribute anything to the infrastructure in which he operates.
He gets sub-prime financing to buy companies and if they don’t pay off the loan, he walks….after pulling out all his capital and millions in consulting fees. He is no different from all the home buyers walking away from their overmortgaged homes. It is not really a problem, except for the deep recession it leads to and the price we all pay for these activities!
He is no different from all the home buyers walking away from their overmortgaged homes.
Exactly. It’s no mystery where our middle class learned to do “leveraged buyouts” of houses, and “corporate raiding” of HELOCs. From their “betters”- the 1%ers.
The fish rots from the head.
Except the rules are different for Joe 6 pack.
Newsweek
14 of 29 major bankrupcies this year were owned by Hedge Funds. They dumped huge amount of the lossses on tax payers. One company owned by GS dumped something like 390 million to the US tax payer via Pension benefit guarantee corporation. I think it was a small airplane company.
Plan
1. Purchase Compnay using low interest borrowed money.
2. Stop making payments to retirement funds. To improve cash position
3. Sell all equipment and lease back to improve cash position.
4. Sell plants and outsource labor to improve cash position and short term profitabillity.
5. Siphon off the cash in the form of dividends and consulting fees.
6. Get rid of the company either through selling it into an inflated stock market after pumping up short term gains and loading it with debt, or declare BK and dump it on bond holders (retirement funds and conservative investors) and the gov ( via responsibility for pension shortfalls etc)
Repeat this 100 times and make a lot of money.
Damn those overpaid retirees!
Oh wait..
Repeat this 100 times and make a lot of money.
Did you copy the steps from the Bain and Co handbook? You couldn’t give a better short explanation of what they did. They were actually pioneers in the field.
Many thanks for explaining how Bain profits by subprime finance. I hope this trickles up to the Democrats, as I think it would be quite useful for them to point out how “Mitt built that.”
They also built profits by having the FDIC “forgive” a $10 MILLION obligation and also imploding a bank. (Bank of New England)
Must be nice.
Especially if you have a magical etch-a-sketch to erase all memory of where the pirate’s loot came from!
I thought it rather unusual that of all the big issues that Bill Clinton covered in his convention speech, he left out arguably the biggest issue of all: the “you didn’t build that” theme, Bain Capital, Romney’s tax returns/money etc. My suspicion is that Obama told Clinton not to, so that he could cover it himself.
Can we inflate our way out of this mess?
Inflate the prices of everything except housing and wages, yes.
Out of this mess, no.
Inflate the prices of everything except housing and wages, yes.”
Housing is inflating again so that leaves wages
Then you’ll have to explain because housing prices are falling.
Sure we can, provided the FOMC doesn’t mind throwing Grandma and Grandpa under the bus.
For now, stomach-churning volatility is chasing them out of their stock market investments and into long-term bonds. Tomorrow they will be dismayed when the values of their fixed-income pensions and long-term Treasury bond investments are steadily eroded by green shoots of inflation.
throwing Grandma and Grandpa under the bus.
But granny and gramps are part of the wealthiest generation in American history. And if the Repubs get their way, they’ll be the last generation to receive Social Security and Medicare. Maybe they should be chipping in a bit more.
Got to love that bit of propaganda misdirection.
The REAL wealth gap is ONLY between the 1% and everyone else.
Not so. That is one of the gaps. There is also the gap between Generation Greed and those coming after.
For example, you say the one percent. It used to be the top half who were doing well. Then the top 20 percent, including the yuppies. And now I don’t even think it’s the one percent anymore. Just the 0.1% are richer than they used to be, and perhaps not for long.
The top 20% ARE still doing quite well. Don’t you believe otherwise.
This article is a non-issue. You SHOULD be making more money when you get older. The real story is the millions that didn’t and aren’t because of jobs loss, illnesses, and pension failures, further illustrating the wealth has become concentrated in the hands of a fewer and fewer, no matter their age.
The 1% aren’t 20something rockstars. They ARE the older generation.
“And now I don’t even think it’s the one percent anymore. Just the 0.1% are richer than they used to be, and perhaps not for long.”
You just turned on a lightbulb in my mind. You see, the increasing wealth concentration in the hands of a smaller and shrinking share of the population — first 5%, then 1%, then 0.1%, now 0.01% — is not much different than the last gasp of a bubble when an ever-shrinking pool of buyers is chasing up prices on a declining share of the asset base. The run-up keeps escalating at an ever-increasing rate over a declining base until it self-extinguishes.
It’s not the Greatest Generation retirees who would suffer from the impact of an attempt to inflate away the Fed’s problems, but rather the vast army of future Baby Boomer retirees.
“a group of 67 million people 55 and older who are so affluent that the gap between them and younger people increasingly is making the USA a nation of haves and haves-much-less”
“a group of 67 million people 55 and older who are so affluent that the gap between them and younger people increasingly is making the USA a nation of haves and haves-much-less”
the young people can all get jobs in theh medical field and get that money back. messed up huh ?
that’s the way economics works jobs chase cash
Boy, the commentary here just gets dumber all the time.
Let’s see, I’m over 55. I’ve worked for over 40 years to try and accumulate some savings and to buy a house and stuff like that.
Yea, it’s true. I have a whole lot more stuff now than when I was 20.
What a surprise.
Is this a story? Or just another wedge issue to ramp up young votes for democrat candidates?
It’s not about helping me hang onto the things I worked for, it’s about “fairness”.
20 year olds should have houses and boats and cars, too. NOW. It’s not fair to make them work for 20 years.
It’s not about helping me hang onto the things I worked for, it’s about “fairness”.
20 year olds should have houses and boats and cars, too. NOW. It’s not fair to make them work for 20 years.
From each according to one’s ability, to each according to one’s need. Right, comrade? That’s how the left entices the young… “Fairness”.
…as I was saying…
It is the only way to deal with the pensions and entitlements problems…..not to mention the debt.
Unfortunately playing with inflation is like playing fire….and you see how that’s been going lately….
The only pension and entitlement problems are that those who promised to pay want to break their promise.
TL, those who made the promise don’t care one bit. It is no problem for them. They don’t OWE the money. WE do. That is the fatal flaw of public officials and public unions…..and sub prime securitized debt. None of the participants are left holding the bag….so they don’t care….except for the working stiff who believes the money will be there….he can’t see that far.
There will be no money for to pay the obligation.
“For now, stomach-churning volatility is chasing them out of their stock market investments and into long-term bonds. Tomorrow they will be dismayed when the values of their fixed-income pensions and long-term Treasury bond investments are steadily eroded by green shoots of inflation.”
For the few I know it’s not volatility that’s chasing them it’s the war on savers. They are the one’s buying the sub $300K houses that rent flow positive for around 5% for income. If their pensions are eroded the government will take care of them or they can go back to their kids. No matter how you change up or spin the system someone will always be a the bottom and someone will always be at the top. Unless the bottom gets energized to move themselves up they will languish there. Not everybody at the top got there by birth.
If anyone thinks corporations will be doing well in an environment of high food and fuel inflation stagnant wages and rising interest rates I have a bridge to sell ya.
It would require we make major economic changes to increase wages of “the little people”.
Putting trillions of dollars into the hands of a few million people can create short-term moves in commodity prices, however short-term increases will increase supply and reduce demand, and those few million people can’t create the true end-user demand needed to maintain the price increases.
To really get inflation rolling, we’d have to figure out how to get the wages of the man on the street rapidly increasing.
Could be ending free trade. Could be a combination of moving back to a steeper tax structure and minimum wage increases. Heck, I think in the end it will take all of these things.
I don’t see any of these these changes on the immediate horizon as we’re still living under the myth that globalization and flattening tax code created the prosperity of the 80s and 90s, when CLEARLY it was massive debt/money creation that funded that false prosperity. Since we’re not moving toward policies that will permit real high sustainable inflation, I don’t see inflation on the immediate horizon.
increase wages of “the little people”
Nonsense. That would be theft from the Producers, the Masters of the Universe.
Let them eat cake.
We can inflate our way out, in exchange for an ever decreasing standard of living.
Welcome to the last 40 years.
http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html
This news could help make it easier for members of Obama’s camp to breath.
Sept. 6, 2012, 8:21 a.m. EDT
Dollar pares loss, Treasurys fall more after ADP
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The dollar pared losses and Treasury prices fell a bit more on Thursday after ADP said private U.S. employers added 201,000 jobs in August, much higher than analysts expected.
…
More signs of the Apocalypse!
“Mich unemployment agency lays off 400″
http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/michigan/Mich-unemployment-agency-lays-off-400
Help us Mitt Romney! Please help us get our jobs back.
UPDATE:
The cost to put his home together is a killer, but it is *$45,000 cheaper to buy than our prior offer on another home, and hopefully we can get them down a little on Friday, when our Buyer’s Broker tries his magic with our quotes for repairs (that should never have been). The elderly lady owner got scammed from contractors. We LOVE the neighborhood, neighbors seem great, and we will enjoy living in the house. We are elated.
(*The prior offer for $45,000 more than this home, still had a huge bill for repairs on top of that. )
Good luck. What are your metrics on this deal? Size, price, price/SF, and what is your total cost after doing $45k of work? Are you “rent equivalent” if your total investment return was 6%? Inquiring minds want to know….and what part of the country?
Seconded! Always interested in the dynamics of one decision making especially as we go forward in this uncharted territory.
Awaiting is a cash buyer. No mortgage means the rent equivalent metric is a little useless. What would you use for comparison? The opportunity cost of the cash in FDIC accounts?
The opportunity cost of the cash in FDIC accounts?”
lose money for sure in that low paying junk.
I would use dividend payers like AEP about 5%
this could change if the tax code changes dividend tax rates
always somthing to worry about
“lose money for sure in that low paying junk.”
Or lose more buying depreciating junk like housing.
The rent equivalent may be meaningless to Awaiting, but it would be useful to the rest of HBB to gauge if the house price would be on par with rents for a normal mortgage buyer.
The cost to put his home together is a killer,”
The elderly lady owner got scammed from contractors.”
I guess you will move in after repairs. How long do you think they will take ? You will need one of the big dumpsters out front they are expensive so organization is important.
Contractors all seem so busy now. I had a young guy do my balcony replacment he was pretty good.
If you add in the cost of rent to wait out all the short sales, this purchase actually saves us $10K in rent (reg sale), which we will bleed into the house and actually enjoy the money. I don’t feel like disclosing our decision metrics details, but I will say the same model went out as a flip for $475K, and we’re getting this one much much cheaper and it has a pool (for better or worse) and is in a better location. We can walk to parks, stores, and it is a really well kept up neighborhood. This is a diamond in the rough.
We will live in the back bedroom while the work is going on to save rent and keep an eye on the place.
We’re sleeping well on this decision. Cactus, thanks for the dumpster one up.
Good thing about “those big dumpsters”. They sure are the answer!
Pimp
Learn some civility or just go away.
Are you an adult?
I’ve see victims and pimps come and go here over the years.
You’re no different.
Hopefully you will be able to do the easier work (plumbing,electrical,framing,drywall) work yourself. It’s the little projects like tiling and laying wood flooring over slab that take more time and are sometimes better hired out.
Salinasron-
Good insight, thank you.That’s pretty much our plan.
Yeah, the floors are back breaking, so we’ll get some young bucks to do that stuff.
How’s your new place working out? All settled in, or lots of work left to do?
Anyone interested in a new aluminum wiring fix UL approved and beyond:
King Innovations under electrica videos “Alumiconn”. Even my EE husband liked this fix.
*Poof* That’s the sound of money going into the abyss.
+1
A big day for President Obama . The Speech will be good ,as his always are . like Presidents’ Clinton and Reagen before him , they enjoy and bask in the talking…The 2 Bushes hated to speechify , and it showed.
The questions about how well the serfs are off compared to 4 years ago , and what will happen about the 16 big T’s in national debt will be side-stepped , and ignored.
The WSJ had a good article recently pointing out the massive transfer of money to the voters . It has increased 100 fold since 1960, It practically runs the economy , with all that buying power .From food stamps ,to crop insurances to ‘disability’ payments , to corporate welfares galore. Where does all that money come from ?
We think Pres.Obama wants to increase that flow , and so does Romney if he has the chance, but to different clienteles.
Big talking points from yesterday’s early-on speechifying:
-We’re a LOT better off than we were four years ago! (Multiple tumultuous ovations from assemblage.)
-Our military veterans are Heroes! (Ditto)
-E Pluribus UNUM (Punch “umun” for the call and response to AFL-CIO, SIEU et al)
-We Saved Detroit!
-Los latinos son buenos! (Any Republican watching CSPAN yesterday was risking apoplexy)
-Being a woman is not a “pre-existing” condition!
Community Organizers take note:
The difference in energy level and enthusiasm between Republican and Democratic Conventions is almost scary.
Sounds like fun.
No fact checks? Democrats must tell truth all the time…
I only posted fact checks for the President and Vice president candidates for the Republicans. I’ll do the same for the Democrats tomorrow. Unfortunately they are on the same day, but that is the schedule.
Saw a cool analysis yesterday that some of the perceived enthusiasm gap may be because of the arenas. The Dems are in a space that was designed in part to be a music venue so more of the seats are in front of the main stage? If I can find the article I’ll post it here.
Are we better off than 4 years ago? That one will not be side stepped, but rather hammered on hard.
4 years ago we were losing 600K jobs a month. 4 years ago financial firms and mega banks were going insolvent left and right. 4 years ago, the stock market was in full implosion mode.
As for the $16T….
1) It is really $11T since NO OTHER nation in the world counts money that the government owes itself as part of the national debt.
2) Can be used to drive home the need to raise taxes on the rich.
3) The vast majority of the spending is programs put in place LONG before Obama.
4) Gives Obama a chance to point out how the Republicans refused to budge on their no-new-taxes pledge, even if it was $2.50 in spending cuts for every $1 in increased tax revenue.
AND, the best thing about the Republicans hammering on the debt and deficits…. if they do take power, it will destroy them. We will see the Republicans forced to continue the massive deficits, then see mass defection of the Tea Party wing in 2014.
The simple truth is that now that the private sector is tapped out on debt, the government is the last source of the new debt/money that our trade imbalance plagued economy needs to function. Faced with the options of continuing the $1T+ deficits, or seeing the economy plunge into depression, the Republicans will choose to continue the deficits… Then the Republican party explodes.
“AND, the best thing about the Republicans hammering on the debt and deficits…. if they do take power, it will destroy them. We will see the Republicans forced to continue the massive deficits, then see mass defection of the Tea Party wing in 2014.”
I would LOVE to see the mass defecation of the Tea Party. I might even vote for R&R just to increase the chances of that happening.
The foundation of the Tea Party is a lie that the majority of federal government spending goes to welfare. You know, that “cradle to the grave” socialism, that doesn’t include Social Security and Medicare since they paid in to that, so they are just getting back what they paid in.
In reality, 80% of the budget is the stuff the typical Tea Party rally attendee would demand be protected… DoD, VA, SS and MCaid, the 1/3rd of Medicare that goes to long-term care for seniors, law enforcement, homeland security, courts, prisons, roads, airports, Coast Guard, and of course, interest on the debt.
The stuff they’d like to cut is maybe $300-400B. 10% of spending, and 25-30% of the deficit…. And not even enough of a cut to cover the next 5 years of increases in SS and MC as the first of the boomers retire.
I think R&Rs pledge to spend more on DoD gives great insight into what the deficits would actually look like under them…. that is, as big or even bigger than we’ve had for the last 5 years.
Of course, once they are in office, deficits won’t matter again.
Backwards. Medicare is health insurance for seniors. Medicaid is health insurance for the very poor and provides long term care for seniors once they spend enough of their own resources to become very poor.
I would LOVE to see the mass defecation of the Tea Party.
Hmmm…OK.
mass defecation of the Tea Party
Don’t you mean Occupy LOL?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046586/Occupy-Wall-Street-Shocking-photos-protester-defecating-POLICE-CAR.html
So THAT’S what the TP’s (sorry) been up to this last year….
BTW, goonster, pic is not from OWS. Third notice. Please knock it off? But then, you wouldn’t be the goon squad if you did.
Yeah but it was linked from the Drudge Report so it must be true, right?
Once it became an established meme for the teabaggers, you can’t un-meme a meme
Watch me.
Maybe you can help realtors un-meme their disastrous reputation?
“Please knock it off?”
Yeah you wouldn’t want to tarnish the image of the OWS savages.
“…Maybe you can help realtors un-meme their disastrous reputation…?”
Not a snowball’s chance in Hades. How do you think they got it in the first place?
You can tell that the Democrats stomped the Republicans butts in the conventions based on how the Republicans are scrambling to reframe the issue today.
Republicans: Are you better off today then you were 4 years ago?
Democrats: Heck yeah we’re better off that we were 4 years ago. 4 years ago the stock market was in a tailspin, we were loosing 600+ jobs a month, banks were failing left and right.
Republicans: weakest recovery in history.
Democrats: Worst recession.
I think Clinton summed up the Republican convention pretty well…. Sure, we left this country in a horrid mess, but Obama hasn’t finished cleaning it up yet.
That line and the line “It takes a lot of brass to attack someone for making the exact same cuts that you propose in your plan”.
“The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.”
- Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live
“It takes a lot of brass to attack someone for making the exact same cuts that you propose in your plan”
Seriously. Could one of the Republican armchair quarterbacks who regularly posts on the HBB kindly explain what the Republicans would have done differently to avoid all the problems they blame on Obama?
Yoo-hoo Eddie, 2banana, Smitherin, anybody?
They would have cut taxes for the rich! Problem solved! God Bless America!
I liked Clinton’s “we can’t afford to give the reins to someone who will double down on trickle down.” Too bad it didn’t get more traction.
As for not done cleaning up yet: During the 2008-2009 transition, Obama listed what he wanted to accomplish and added (paraphrase) “This won’t all be done in my first year or even my first term.” That last phrase caused some consternation and calls of arrogance, but Obama knew the timescale very early on.
Around here small businesses are dropping like flies.
The rent it too high. Also, no demand.
But they can buy a house with nothing down and low rates! Tell them to turn that frown upside down and hug a realtor.
I didn’t watch any of the GOP convention cuz I don’t have TV at home. But I’m traveling and saw a little last night. I had forgotten what a windbag Clinton is.
But the Elisabeth Warren speech: I’d never heard her before or read much about her. The crowd was lapping up her version of the ‘crisis’. I guess when house prices were doubling and tripling the world was great.
It all reminded me that the real trick in politics is getting people to buy into a certain framed reality. Wall Street caused everything to go bad, Warren said, and because ‘they’ are against Wall Street, we’ve no hope without them.
Never mind ‘they’ take as much money as anyone from finance. (That’s just the first rabbit hole argument of many). What about builders, appraisers, flippers, mortgage brokers? What about congress failing to oversee the GSE’s, the Federal Reserve and interest rates? Does no one on a political stage remember the role of Alan Greenspan?
I’m not saying the housing bubble caused all the economic problems. We’ve discussed that is may be viewed as what the PTB encouraged to cover up for a lack of real jobs that had been building for decades. As was the stock bubble. But we do have a sustainability problem with this economy. We can’t vacation our way out of this. Buying and selling houses generates nothing. A whole lot of what’s considered economic ‘activity’ is just passing green paper around amongst ourselves.
Maybe we’re so caught up in Us versus Them that we’re incapable of seeing a way out. So much distortion is involved in this so-called global economy that it could be impossible to fix. For instance; China. They’ve got the tiger by the tail right? So why the empty cities? All the billionaire politicians? Why do condos cost 30-50 times what people make? Same problems with much of Asia, Australia and Canada.
Here in the US, we can’t fix all these problems. What we can do is try to grasp a little sliver of reality from the sea of BS. And we can shut Wall Street down. I’d be happy to see the whole place boarded up. But it isn’t going to fix our problems, not by that one act alone. No, it’s going to take something a lot more fundamental than that. And we’ll never know what direction to take until we have a more serious discussion of what is true sustainable productivity.
true sustainable productivity
The world has 7 billion eaters. In 40 years it will have 10+ billion eaters. Anyone care to justify the capitalist model of infinite growth in a finite ecosystem?
Steady state economies is the only way to go. If that makes me a socialist, so be it. The planet will not survive capitalism. Capitalism, by definition, needs growth.
We are at an impasse. The environment might make the decision for us, in which case the discussion is will be over.
Do people think we are going to get to 10+ billion? ISTR from population biology days 15 years ago, that those who study such things expected the graph to flatten out considerably after about 8-9 billion.
That’s what I recall as well, still a lot of people though.
War famine and disease = population control for those that don’t believe in birthcontrol.
Anyone care to justify the capitalist model of infinite growth in a finite ecosystem?
You think I was kidding when I said humanity needed to expand into the solar system? Heck, even Gingrich agreed that we need to go back to the moon…
We might need to be able to move off world, but being able to will be another matter, especially since there are no viable “new Earths” in our solar system and FTL propulsion remains little more than a theory at this point. Heck, we can’t even make a fusion reactor that works. Millenia might pass before we can achieve this, if ever.
“especially since there are no viable “new Earths” in our solar system and FTL propulsion remains little more than a theory at this point.”
Very true. But we have the technology to send people/plants and livable units to Mars, just not the money or global will. Mars and various satellites in our solar system should be seen as a waiting area. Park ourselves there, colonize, possibly terraform and wait a few centuries for the technology to make long distance space travel possible. And, in the meanwhile, colonize as much of our own region as possible. I realize the ridiculous cost, but if it is our only way to survive the long game, we’d best start thinking about it.
If only a few genetic lines will survive, does the rest of the population really care that much whether the rest of the human race survives? I think humans are more motivated by making a difference in the survival of their descendants than humans in general not including their descendants.
“I think humans are more motivated by making a difference in the survival of their descendants than humans in general not including their descendants.”
Maybe. But the humans with resources will already have that taken care of. And they are the ones, theoretically, who would pay for this venture.
“But we have the technology to send people/plants and livable units to Mars, just not the money or global will. Mars and various satellites in our solar system should be seen as a waiting area. Park ourselves there, colonize, possibly terraform and wait a few centuries for the technology to make long distance space travel possible.”
It would be a whole lot cheaper to set up living units and greenhouses in Antarctica or some inhospitable deserts. Or even under the sea, for that matter.
“It would be a whole lot cheaper to set up living units and greenhouses in Antarctica or some inhospitable deserts. Or even under the sea, for that matter.”
But Mars or the moon are so much more appealing to politicians, due to the extreme combinations of excitement and stupidity involved.
’tis more exciting to talk about
Maybe it all comes down to:
Would you rather your tax money go to the jocks and rah-rahs, or to the nerds, geeks, goody-goodies, and stoners?
And Kamala Harris’s speech on the housing crisis had me cheering for Mitt.
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/09/05/kamala-harris-attacks-romney-on-housing-policy/
My wife made me turn off the radio when she started talking. I didn’t hesitate.
“But the Elisabeth Warren speech: I’d never heard her before or read much about her. The crowd was lapping up her version of the ‘crisis’. I guess when house prices were doubling and tripling the world was great.”
Quite the contrary. Warren was warning about unsustainable debt growth and risky financial innovations long before the crisis.
Your point that Democrats in general are as much in the pocket of Wall Street as Repubs is valid. However, Warren herself does not deserve being painted with that brush. She was a bankruptcy attorney and law professor before entering politics as a special appointee to the consumer finance protection thingy Obama tried to set up after Dodd-Frank.
She went to hearings, heard the shenanigans, then went public, making here enemy number one of the banksters. Her running for Senate was just firing back at the banksters that did all they could to end here career and run her out of D.C. on a rail. How DARE anyone challenge their right to privatize the profits and socialize the lossess?
“I’m not saying the housing bubble caused all the economic problems. We’ve discussed that is may be viewed as what the PTB encouraged to cover up for a lack of real jobs that had been building for decades. As was the stock bubble. But we do have a sustainability problem with this economy.”
Sounds like some of my “not making sense” and “just wanting to present a set of logical statements supporting a conclusion with the intention of persuading” has sunk in a little.
Yesterday your complaining that globalization is not even a blip on the radar this election, not admitting the housing bubble was a symptom of deeper structural problems…..
Next you’ll be saying that Keynes never said that trade imbalances could be persisted forever through unsustainable debt growth, he was simply offering counter cyclical ideas for an otherwise sound economy.
You have already been outed as a stuck property owner. Perhaps you should fess up and tell us why you also chose to pimp partisan progressive politics on a daily basis? You want the creators and protectors of all things unsustainable to keep the power.
You need ZIRP, you need FHA-HOWMUCHAMONTH financing for deadbeats and you need Keynesian Economics, all because of your get rich quick real estate schemes. Eff the long term ramifications…right? Seem to be a lot of “I got mines” posting lately.
Seriously?
How, when they have so deeply infiltrated the U.S. political process that it is impossible to regulate them or even to honestly discuss how Wall Street profits by tearing down America?
I’m not saying the housing bubble caused all the economic problems. We’ve discussed that is may be viewed as what the PTB encouraged to cover up for a lack of real jobs that had been building for decades. As was the stock bubble. But we do have a sustainability problem with this economy. We can’t vacation our way out of this. Buying and selling houses generates nothing. A whole lot of what’s considered economic ‘activity’ is just passing green paper around amongst ourselves.
Nice summation.
9 out of 10 business fail within the first year no matter the economy.
Of those remaining, half fail over the next 5 years, no matter the economy.
5 years ago, many started businesses because they could not find jobs.
Something they don’t tell you about having a small business, it’s almost as much luck and connections as is it work. My experience is that it’s more about luck and connections.
Anyone can work hard. Not everyone is lucky or connected. There’s a lot of “FBs” in business as well.
The ones I am seeing go under have been around 10, 20 and 30 years. I think Polly had it right with “The rent it too high. Also, no demand.”
Even the established businesses had their rent and demand go up throughout the boom years. Problem is the demand is gone and the rent along with gas prices and everything else has remained high and continued to go up. Wal-Mart and gas stations seem to doing fine though.
Yeah, I’ve seen rent increase bring down many businesses or force them to move.
I’m always amazed at how willing CRE owners are to kill their golden goose.
My son got a job flipping burgers for a new burger place. Not a mom-and-pop though it had that feel. It was part of a sub-chain being explored by Johnny Rockets and was called JR’s Burger Grill. They were going for more of an artsy-bistro feel. And by that I mean the order of onion rings was like 8 rings.
Was open for 2 weeks before closing for a rework and relaunch.
Guy who comes in to repair our printers is buying a pizza shop and getting out of his line of work. When I heard him say that I felt the same way I would have felt if he had just told me he was gonna start flipping houses.
I hope he does well, but I can’t help but wonder why someone would sell an established business if it’s still doing well. He told me that he called in an order and was told that he could pick it up in 45 minutes because they were very busy. When he got there there was nothing going on. Just some employees hanging around. So he’s going to have to deal with that.
Yeah, he’s got a skill he can fall back on if the need arises. I’m just worried that the need will arise much too soon.
Dang. He’s made a huge mistake.
Huge. Pizza places are literally a dime a dozen and compete strictly on cost.
Dang. He’s made a huge mistake.
Huge. Pizza places are literally a dime a dozen and compete strictly on cost.
+1 He’ll never make it unless he keeps two sets of books.
“He’ll never make it unless he keeps two sets of books.”
Or develops mob ties…
One thing people see to forget about the food business: If your food uses top quality ingredients, is prepared in a clean environment and most importantly tastes not just good but really fricken good, you can be very successful.
Just having some business sense and a desire to work for yourself is not good enough if you produce crap. The reason pizza places are a dime a dozen is because most of them produce nasty pizza.
The restaurant environment is much more competitive today due to the absence of jobs and HELOC money, you had better be producing great tasting, visually appealing, well priced food or you will be toast.
“One thing people see to forget about the food business: If your food uses top quality ingredients, is prepared in a clean environment and most importantly tastes not just good but really fricken good, you can be very successful.”
EGGZACTLY.
As a connoisseur of really good food, I’ll add that selling prepared food requires consistency. It has to the same exact ____(fill in the blank), EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. For this reason, places like Katz Deli in NYC is still in business after 100 years.
But, I thought that someone else built businesses for you…you mean it takes hard work, risk taking, and some luck?
You’re thinking of CEOs and corporate raiders who think they built the business from scratch.
And it’s not “some” luck. It’s a LOT of luck.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/steelworker-featured-at-dnc-didnt-work-for-bain/
““There’s this vampire story that Bain comes in and shows it’s teeth and sucks the blood out of the operation,” says Huselton. “It’s really quite the opposite. We went out looking for a blood donor. Bain came in, and the way I look at it actually gave us a blood transfusion.””
And with all those companies (big and small) failing, there is a big market for those failing or underperforming companies to raise additional capital to try to turn things around, and save the business.
Enter private equity…sometimes they succeed. Sometimes they fail. Sometimes they appear to have succeeded initially, only to have the company fail later.
Everyone likes to talk about how PE firms load up a company with debt only to then watch it fail, they forget that on the other side of that transaction is someone with a lot of money who believed the loan to be a reasonable risk/reward.
And if you think that PE firms must pull the wool over the eyes of the lenders in order for them to lend, don’t you think the lenders would have caught on by now, and not lent any more money to a (fill in the PE Firm Name) backed company?
It’s simply not credible to believe that Bain (and other PE firms) has been making money for decades by buying perfectly good companies, convincing lenders to provide massive amounts of debt, taking the money, and walking away to let the company fail…over and over again.
It’s an unfortunate fact that sometimes it is better to have a reduced workforce and/or partially outsourced workforce and a surviving business, than keeping all employees and having the business fail.
Since such maneuvers are not always successful, there needs to be a profit available to attract the risk capital. And further, the risk capital is ultimately provided by organizations (pension funds, endowments, etc.) that are so focused on IRR that in order to continue to attract the capital, the PE funds are focused on getting capital out of the investments ASAP…which most frequently is done by obtaining debt before a sale.
Around here small businesses are dropping like flies.
The ultimate consequence of offshoring every good paying job in sight. Lucky Duckies don’t have “discretionary income” and thus won’t patronize small businesses.
But we all know that the answer is to lower wages even more, so we’re “competitive” with the sweatshop countries. Now if we could only find someone to buy all that stuff that’s made by inexpensive hands.
Hardly a small business, but the string of really really high end retail in my nabe has another vacancy. The high end designer Italian clothes place closed and its space has been vacant ever since. Looks like they are finally getting it fitted out for a new tenant. Not sure what it is yet. But, just as they started work on that one, Barney’s closed down. They put up the window coverings saying the space is available. Deep brown coverings with turquoise writing using the right typeface for all the names of all the snooty stores you could be next to - how chic.
I wonder if they went out of business or were priced out of the space by rent increases?
As I said in my post above, I am constantly amazed at how willing CRE owners are to kill the golden goose of a steady renter with unjustifiable rent increases that are not in line with increasing profits of the leaser.
Yo, lurkey. There’s no such word as “leaser”
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?word=lessee
Oops. Spell checker fart.
“Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?”
‘Who’s responsible for the Hawaiian music in the elevators?’
Bonus points for the poster who can find where that’s from.
Simon says:
Dick Dale Lives!
Don Ho ?
Who’s responsible for the Hawaiian music in the elevators?
and the paper band around the bathroom seats in the motels . . and the billboards that say ‘la cervesa shaver con mucho gusto’ . . where’s your pride?”
R. Crumb And His Cheap Suit Serenaders.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/singin-in-the-bathtub-mw0000620225
Remember when they had elevator operators?
Yes, and gas station attendants, and telephone operators to place all long distance calls. As a kid in the late 1940’s I remember the water and sewer lines being extended into our brand new suburban neighborhood with crews of ditch-diggers (both black and white) digging and filling the trenches.
Gas station attendants still exist (in fact required by law) in NJ and Oregon. Of course they do nothing other than pump the gas while you watch, but hey it’s a job!
No, the ONE attendant first takes 5 more drags off of his cig up near the building, THEN slowly walks over with that “WTF? I was on my smoke break!” look, THEN pumps your gas…
Made me dig through my LP’s, Bluestar. Now Mysterious Mose is running through my brain….
“Remember when they had elevator operators?”
I rode with one today.
Last one I saw was in San Francisco’s Coit Tower. That guy still there, anyone?
Quick question:
It is an election year. Where are the Tea Party rallies with millions of irate people?
Or the OWS people, for that matter?
Occupy Wall Street in New York got evicted, and in the other cities, simply imploded under the weight of it’s one multiple personality disorder and utter lack of leadership.
OWS was a case-study for why an Anarchist form of government would never be able to get anything accomplished. All it takes is one person in disagreement, and a proposal is blocked?
Maybe that works when you can self-select a small group of people that already agree, but it surely doesn’t scale.
While I agree with OWS main premise, yes, it is/was perfect example of why anarchistic/purely democratic/libertarian governing bodies do not work in reality.
They showed their true colors. They were republicans after all.
The bigger question is where is OWS? It’s supposed to be OWS time or a coffe party time.
The current status of OWS, from an NPR news article.
http://www.npr.org/2012/09/02/160393442/occupy-movement-targets-charlotte-for-resurgence
Our local OWS was a microcosm of the larger version.
We spent weeks trying to narrow the focus to 3 “first” issues. What we came up with was:
1) Campaign finance reform. Constitutional amendment limiting how much any person or individual can spend in a year, getting their political opinion heard.
2) Break up the big banks. Fundamental reforms to end the too big to fail and bailouts of the banking sector.
3) End the wars, alternate fuels, homeless should be able to live anywhere, animal rights, gay rights, legalize pot, amnesty for otherwise citizenshipped, 9/11 was in inside job, end the Fed, end representative democracy in favor of anarchism, get bio-engineered substances out of our food supply, end all corporations and copyrights…..
In the end of the process, the idea of coming up with a finite list of issues was shelved, and the movement died.
Where are the blog posters who don’t pimp progressive ideology?
they are busy working
“You need to tell every voter where you live about this. It lowers the cost of federal student loans. And even more important, it gives students the right to repay those loans as a clear, fixed, low percentage of their income for up to 20 years.” - Bill Clinton
pimping debt slavery for the win.
Because, just like “affordable housing” and the “ownership society”, higher education is good for everyone.
Does anyone wonder why the Tea Party and Libertarians came about? It starts with the government meddling in things it shouldn’t. That meddling tends to distort the very thing it meddles…
Ask a democrat the following questions: In economic theory, what does lowering the price below equilibrium of a widget do? [Answer: Increase demand] What does increasing demand do? [Answer: Create scarcity] What does increasing scarcity do? [Answer: Increase price]
So the end result of all of these government “make housing/education affordable” is to increase costs for those “consuming” what the government wants to make affordable…
The world was no utopia before we meddled as much as we do now. The reason we started meddling is because things pretty much sucked before.
Where we went off track is when we thought we could meddle our way to persisting what would otherwise be unsound economic foundation.
Example: If we need 100K new doctors a year, then helping 100K smart, young people become doctors is probably not a horrid idea. If we need 1K dejays total, then paying for 100K people to go to school to get degrees in radio communications is probably a less sound investment in our future.
Example #2: Helping poor people buy houses, when those houses are in line with historic normal measures of affordability as determined by price/rent and price/income is probably not a horrid idea. Helping poor people buy houses after the prices have detached from all fundamentals and are clearly in bubble territory, just to keep more debt/money pumping into the economy to keep your corporate profits and international trade imbalances funded… Not nearly such a great idea.
The world was no utopia before we meddled as much as we do now. The reason we started meddling is because things pretty much sucked before.
The first problem is assuming humans can change the human condition. We are who and what we are because that is how we evolved.
If humanity was meant to live in a utopia of equality, we would have evolved societies like ants or bees. That’s not to say that compassion or empathy should be ignored, rather, that government, of any kind, can’t create utopia and can’t relieve all suffering…
Slap that on a bumper sticker:
Republicans: Getting government out of the way so we can all act like the animals that we are.
I’m thinking we did a lot better than that 3700 years ago….
“To bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, so that the strong should not harm the weak.” Prologue, Hammurabi’s Code
In the 10,000 years of “modern” human history, has there ever been a society that was fair to all and was able to relieve suffering?
The answer is no. It is an impossibility because our nature, our evolution over millions of years, makes it so. Ignore the nature of people at your own risk…
“In the 10,000 years of “modern” human history, has there ever been a society that was fair to all and was able to relieve suffering?”
It is a sliding scale. Some societies are more brutal, and some more civilized.
Just because we can’t get 100% civilized doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aim for 80-90% of the way there.
Brutal: People doing what they want, because they can, regardless of effects on others.
Civilized: People doing what is best for the group, regardless of how it effects their personal advantage.
The problem with “fair” is that it is way too vague. If you are capable of beating me up and taking my stuff, it isn’t very fair to tell you that you have to work to make your own stuff. If you can afford to buy politicians to ensure the laws are made in such a way that you get to be rich while everyone else gets poor, it isn’t very fair to you to tell you that you can’t.
So we shouldn’t strive to try?
Oh my.
But you forgot about slavery. And the Geneva Convention. And no longer killing people for stealing loaves of bread. Just to name a few very important changes in the “human condition.”
No improvement? Nobody said “ignore”.
No improvement? Nobody said “ignore”.
For the most part, our ancient ancestors had the important parts of society pretty much figured out. Take a look at the ten commandments for an example of what I’m talking about… there is nothing new under the sun.
There’s theory and then there’s practice and practice… makes perfect.
For that matter, ever hear of Zoraster?
For that matter, ever hear of Zoraster?
Can’t say that I have. Learn something new [almost] every day…
In the Gathas, Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between aša (truth) and druj (lie). The cardinal concept of aša—which is highly nuanced and only vaguely translatable—is at the foundation of all Zoroastrian doctrine, including that of Ahura Mazda (who is aša), creation (that is aša), existence (that is aša) and as the condition for Free Will, which is arguably Zoroaster’s greatest contribution to religious philosophy.
The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain aša. For humankind, this occurs through active participation in life and the exercise of constructive thoughts, words and deeds…
Among the classic Greek philosophers, Heraclitus is often referred to as inspired by Zoroaster’s thinking.
Good find.
He was considered a heretic among heretics in his day. A radical’s radical. A definite threat to the status quo and the PTB.
Later killed in a religious war. (c.630 - c.550)
How many thousands of years until his philosophy became thought of as an everyday human right?
If we need 1K dejays total, then
paying forloaning money to 100K people to go to school to get degrees in radio communications is probably a less sound investment in our future.We don’t giving that “paying for” kind of help any more.
Funny……No DJ i ever knew has gotten a bank loan for the business….but equipment places like Guitar Center, Sam Ash….always seemed to have plenty of credit available for working dj’s
“…but equipment places like Guitar Center, Sam Ash….always seemed to have plenty of credit available for working dj’s…”
Informal banking. Fish processors do it, too — they like to get fish to process, so if any of the fishermen who deliver fish to them are down on their luck, they might be able to get a loan on a new piece of expensive fishing gear in exchange for a discounted offer price when they next land their fish.
I wasn’t talking about equipment, I was talking about loans to go to “schools” that advertise in the back of magazines.
“The world was no utopia before we meddled as much as we do now. The reason we started meddling is because things pretty much sucked before.”
Even though we grew from thirteen tiny colonies to a mighty nation over that period?
debt makes things more expensive for those who can afford it and more accessible to those who can’t.
Slick Willy was slinging debt slavery left and right last night. Stunningly, the glazed eyed audience shook their pom poms for it.
debt…it’s for the common good.
Don’t make the mistake that I’m picking sides. The borrow and spend pimps on the other side are equally evil.
i am not making that mistake.
It’s for the common corporate good.
There. Fixed it.
Slick Willy was slinging debt slavery left and right last night. Stunningly, the glazed eyed audience shook their pom poms for it.
Bill will be 95 someday and somebody will still be shaking it for him.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/home-builders-problem-not-enough-
After losing 70 percent of their business in the housing crash, the nation’s home builders are breaking ground again. New orders for homes are rebounding strongly, and housing starts have shown sustained growth over the past year. The demand is there; unfortunately, in some areas, the workers to build these homes are not.
correction they mean cheap illegal workers
As mentioned below, we’re all the way back from 550K two years ago, to 700K. Demographics and replacement puts a “normal” level at 1.2 million.
So, we’re back from “just under half normal” to “just over half normal”.
Peak was closer to 2.5 million.
Based on the 10 million excess, empty houses, I think the 700K is still too high. as it gives us a 20 year backlog.
Now Darryl The Liar…….
You know there are 25 MILLION excess empty houses and growing.
Thank God us construction guys are adding even more inventory.
I think it is ironic that the more prices of houses falls, the more extra empty houses there are. Imagine what will happen when prices fall another 30% in the next leg down of this epic correction. Imagine when they overcorrect after that!
Another part of watching this slow motion slinky going down the stairs is that so many houses are “mostly empty”. Prior to this bubble, common folk did quite well in about 250 ft2 per person, less maybe. An average house now is close to 2000 ft2. What’s the average occupancy, three people? Wait til that situation corrects!
There are so many other things out of whack, this could be entertaining for a very long time.
“Prior to this bubble, common folk did quite well in about 250 ft2 per person, less maybe. An average house now is close to 2000 ft2. What’s the average occupancy, three people? Wait til that situation corrects!”
There has never been a worse time to be a housewife without a maid to do the cleaning. My sister is one such individual — lives in a large home, and her husband is too cheap to say yes to a maid, even though they have low expenses and two full-time jobs to pay for one.
Wallowing in debt isn’t the only flavor of American financial stupidity.
My MIL is another such person, and she is approaching the point in life where cleaning 2000 ft2 is not only unpleasant, but not even feasible. I’m pretty sure my relatives are not all that special. What is going to happen to the prices of 2000+ ft2 homes when an army of aging Baby Boomers tries to collectively downsize at about the same time?
What will happen when the 30 somethings try to downsize at the same time as the boomers?
Blue dont think you have to worry about that….i think most 30 years olds will never accumulate enough stuff to downsize
+1.89% wall street climbs a wall of worry, it will be time to sell when retail investors buy back in , etc.
“..Stocks are rallying sharply Thursday in response to the latest iteration of a European Central Bank rescue plan. As laid out by ECB president Mario Draghi, the central bank will begin purchasing the bonds of member nations on the condition that the countries submit to outside fiscal oversight. Dubbed “Outright Monetary Transactions”, or OMT, the program would be transparent, strictly conditional and designed specifically to reduce catastrophic meltdowns caused by spiking yields.
To which market bears are saying “so what?” OMT is just another program by another central bank. It’s a promise to do something without actually doing it, much in the manner of Quantitative Easing 3 in the U.S. As skeptics see it, this is barely worth discussion let alone cause to take the S&P500 to 52-week highs.
The bearish thesis runs into trouble with any improvement in the ECB. Earnings in the U.S. are slumping in no small part due to global economic weakness. Even with China slowing precipitously, simply slowing the rate of decline in the European economy would be enough to raise the earnings outlook for the vast majority of corporate America.
Today’s market move is not simply bears getting shaken out of positions. Stocks are moving higher because investors on the sidelines are rushing into the market. Buying is across the board with old school blue chips like Disney (DIS) and Smuckers (SJM) pushing to all-time highs, and Hershey (HSY) nearly there. No one got caught short a jelly company. Hedge funds haven’t been leaning against chocolate and Avengers. This is actual organic buying by slow-moving participants.
Tomorrow is promised to no one. A weak Non-Farm Payroll number in the morning could unwind a good chunk of these gains in an instant. That said, shorting stocks on the dark hope that things will get worse than they already are is a horrific investment thesis. Mario Draghi and the ECB sparked a rally that’s picking up steam as of midday. Shoot against it at your peril.”
..
‘To which market bears are saying “so what?” OMT is just another program by another central bank. It’s a promise to do something without actually doing it, much in the manner of Quantitative Easing 3 in the U.S. As skeptics see it, this is barely worth discussion let alone cause to take the S&P500 to 52-week highs.’
So long as the global stock market investing cargo cult keeps the faith, you can expect further short squeeze rallies on the mere hint of future QE.
P.S. Don’t you suspect that stealth QE accompanies the central bankers’ hints? Why would stock prices take off like rockets on mere hints? Makes no sense…
Stocks move on both fundamentals and expectations. Stocks can move on expectation of increased income years before the income is actually realized.
If we’re going to borrow more money into existence, then the money will be spent and end up passing through corporate profits, increasing the value of the stocks of those corporations.
Unless of course all the printed money is handed to a small # of people who continue to sit on it or to speculate and drive up food and fuel prices thus decreasing money for manufactured goods and services.
Hi CIBT
I guess what I mainly think is we are in the biggest “money printing” expansion of the history of the planet. Stealthly yea maybe, I don’t watch M supply anymore I think its rigged.
Jack Boogle of Vanguard compares day to day stock market swings like this ” a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifing nothing”
pretty funny huh ?
latest buys PAAS at 14.5 bought in August ? I still have my mutual funds in stocks. Without retail investors I think its still going to go up better than cash. enticing joe retail until he can’t take it anymore and starts buying again.
I can’t help it this contrainan outlook I have.
back to work they are busing 0201 caps off my PCB’s again
”a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifing nothing”
That’s what Macbeth said just before he died.
“with China slowing precipitously….”
Commodities investors look out. The horde has been haording.
That should make individuals feel better about purchasing an overpriced house.
OT.
I just don’t see political bumper stickers or signs in my nabe. 4 yrs ago, cars and lawns were littered with Obama signs. Even there were few pockets of McCain/Palin signs.
This year nothing. Is it too early? Is it apathy? Are people wiser today than 4 yrs ago? This is looking strange.
I noticed the same thing here in N. Texas. I did a 90 mi. round trip from W. Ft. Worth to Dallas the other day and counted:
2 Obama
2 Romney
3 GW Bush
7 NRA
I’m noticing the same thing here in Tucson. Very few presidential signs from either party. But a lot of down-ticket signs.
Almost all the roadside signs in this area are for local (county) candidates. Will that change as we get closer to the election?
Ditto. I’m seeing lots and lots of local election signage, but not much of anything above state level.
I wish there was a politician I supported enough to put his sign in my yard or bumper sticker on my car.
My wife has a Romney bumper sticker.
I personally have never done political bumper stickers since that time some yahoo chased me for about ten miles along a country road when I was driving my dad’s car.
Given my tendency to honk and shout, and my need for speed, I’ve often thought I should put the bumper sticker of the guy I oppose on my car.
I don’t advise you drive around the part of the country where I used to live.
This item needs to go into the Quantum bit bucket blog I guess.
Quantum Teleportation Goes the Distance: Record-Breaking Distance of 143 Kilometers Through Free Space.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120905134356.htm
What if you could implant a small Quantum communication transceiver inside your brain and link it to a computer like IBM’s Watson? But not just the 2010 version but the Watson of 2030?
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/08/ibm-watson-making-progress-to-becoming.html
http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/supercomputers/ibm-plans-pint-sized-watson/240006666
Neat-o, jet.
YES - we have a new housing bubble.
We ARE better off than 4 years ago!
————————————–
Home Builders Don’t Have Enough Workers to Meet New Demand
CNBC - 6 SEP 2012
After losing 70 percent of their business in the housing crash, the nation’s home builders are breaking ground again. New orders for homes are rebounding strongly, and housing starts have shown sustained growth over the past year. The demand is there; unfortunately, in some areas, the workers to build these homes are not.
“The cost of housing going up very, very fast,” says Brooks. “You sell a house, and you typically could deliver it within 6 months; now the cycle time, today, with the shortage of labor it takes 9 months. Instead of being 6 months of overhead, now your overhead is 9 months overhead for the same the house, so not only has the increased cycle time effect your margin, but the increase in labor cost effects your margin.”
Labor prices in some markets have increased as high as 10 percent with the median hike at 4 percent, according to Ted Wilson of Residential Strategies. He did a survey of Dallas/Ft. Worth builders.
Sustained gains… from 550K units in 2010, to 600K in 2011, to 700K in 2012.
Remember, demographics show we should be adding 1 million households a year, and 200K replacement rate puts “normal” construction at about 1.2 million a year.
Of course, even at 700K, we’d only be burning off 500K of the 10 million excess empty houses per year, meaning that we WOULD be looking at 20 years to work off the excess, except the Boomers will be dieing off in huge numbers before then, so really, the 700K is probably unsustainable high, unless the 200K replacement rate is low, and wow that is a near record length run-on sentence.
So, we’ve creeped up from less than half normal, to just over half the normal.
As for not being able to find workers…. I’d suspect that is a HIGHLY isolated situation in just a couple isolated pockets where the construction is focused.
Good analysis.
The rule of thumb used to be that 1 million was a bad year, 1.5 million a typical year, and 2 million at big year. We had too many big years, and as a result we aren’t even up to the bad year level yet.
“We had too many big years,…”
Ya think?
Nonetheless, it appears the denial phase of the housing bubble stages of grief has yet to end, and the policy goal thus far seems to be restoring bubble-era levels of overbuilding.
Or am I missing something?
Related link:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/HOUST/
You can click on a link to download the data in that graph. Here are the rough contours of the greatest housing boom and bust in American history:
Date Housing Starts
1991-01-01 798 (Trough)
2006-01-01 2273 (Peak, after fifteen year expansion)
2009-04-01 478 (Trough, after crash of 3 years, 3 months)
2012-07-01 746 (Still below 1991 trough)
Once again, Darryl The Liar gets exposed for misrepresenting the truth.
“Once again, Darryl The Liar gets exposed for misrepresenting the truth.”
Read much? These additional posters just piled on and confirmed what I said.
Quit your lying.
More inventory leads to lower prices, unless you are hanging on to the false notion that your “investments” appreciate year after year.
“YES - we have a new housing bubble.
We ARE better off than 4 years ago!”
If that’s your measure of success, I’m sure it would be met with either Obama or with R&R in office.
Where would this bill leave the taxpayers in school districts already saddled with capital-appreciation bonds?
Bloomberg News
California Treasurer Backs Law to Ban Costly Long-Term Bonds
By James Nash on September 06, 2012
California Treasurer Bill Lockyer will push for limits on bonds that have saddled school districts with debt payments as much as 10 times the principal and seek to ban those maturing more than 25 years in the future, a spokesman said.
Lockyer, a 71-year-old Democrat, will work with lawmakers next year on a bill to ban such capital-appreciation bonds, Tom Dresslar said yesterday in a telephone interview.
Fifty-five California school districts issued such bonds last year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The Poway Unified School District in San Diego County deferred all payments on $105 million in bonds until 2033. By the time they mature in 2051, the district will have paid $1 billion in interest.
“The capital-appreciation bonds need more transparency and better protections for taxpayers,” Dresslar said. “The goal is not to take away this tool for school districts. The goal is to make sure they wear protective gear when they use it.”
…
I think the better move would be to ban the “non-fully amortized” initial period.
I don’t care if you are paying them back over 100 years. I just don’t want you delaying the first payment for 30 years.
It seems like a great way for today’s parents to fund a great education for their kids, paid for by tomorrow’s taxpayers.
Perhaps I should feel a modicum of guilt for being a current beneficiary of this financial time bomb, but this was certainly not my idea.
Long term bonds are the dirty little secret of why local governments are really struggling to pay their bills and why unions and pensions are being blamed.
Pensions and debts are both to blame, to different extents in different places.
Some of those debts are “pension bonds” used to cover pension underfunding in the wake of retroactive enhancements.
Sure, but by themselves are not to blame. It’s the BIL pork that only benefited the few that really did the damage.
See the Poway example below and realize that it is not unique. Remember that other deal posted here about the sewer project fiasco?
$1 billion pays for a LOT of pension.
Got financial time bombs?
I’m happy my landlord is on the hook for this future tax liability, as it sounds like it might prove quite expensive.
How a school district’s bond went from $100 million to $1 billion
Alex Wong/Getty Images
The Poway Unified School district borrowed just over $100 million for building renovations in 2008, but because of a form of creative financing called a capital appreciation bond, the total debt is now adding up to close to $1 billion.
…
Horwich: Did district officials have any idea how they plan to pay back this enormous sum?
Carless: The way this works is it does eventually get paid through property taxes, and the thing is that there is a certain levy on property taxes that goes towards paying off all of the school district’s debt. And the hope is that the property values will rise by so much, that come 2031, when this debt has to stop being paid off, the levies that there are right now will be so much bigger and that they’ll have so much more money coming in. That can happen in the next 20 years; nobody knows what will happen, but if that doesn’t happen, that means that property taxes will spike in order to make up the difference.
Horwich: School districts everywhere are scrambling for creative ways to meet their funding needs. Is this a situation that we might see elsewhere?
Carless: Look, there’s no doubt that this has happened in dozens if not hundreds of school districts around California. I mean, we’re already finding them; we’ve been sort of broadening our scope and we’re actually publishing a piece today that shows three other local school districts that have very similar deals to Poway’s. This is a multi,-multi-billion dollar issue across the whole of the state. Tens of billions of dollars of debt out there in this type of creative financing.
Horwich: Will Carless with Voice of San Diego. Thanks a lot.
Carless: Thank you.
No worries, as by now everybody knows that California real estate always goes up.
Another thing I don’t get. Isn’t it actually the incomes of the residents that needs to go up?
The value of the house may set the property tax, but it sure as heck doesn’t pay the tax. The tax has to be paid out of incomes.
“Isn’t it actually the incomes of the residents that needs to go up?”
Perhaps an amended law of California economics needs to be set forth:
California prices of everything, including houses and labor, always go up.
By the time they mature in 2051, the district will have paid $1 billion in interest.
Principal problem solved…
The Killer Asteroid of 2036
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zazuzkO9nNk
Business Insider: Prepare For The Coming Housing Collapse Part II
http://www.businessinsider.com/prepare-for-the-coming-housing-collapse-2012-9
If you are among those inclined to believe the drivel about a housing bottom, I urge you to reread this article carefully. Also, check out the home price statistics on raveis.com. Go to your local tax assessor’s office and review the sales of the past six months. Talk to people who have actually sold their house and find out how much of a loss they had to take. See if you can find any successful sellers under 60 years old who actually profited from the sale of their house.
I believe that doing this research will cause you to reassess your optimism. Time is running out. What is the risk of keeping your home off the market until next spring? Plenty. Many major metro markets will almost certainly show signs of further weakness.
In other words;
Get what you can get for your house today because it’s going to be much much less tomorrow for many many years to come.
The link mentions that the % of REO sales in Phoenix is way down. It then goes on to assume that the REOs are still on the banks books, just not being brought to market.
The article later lists Phoenix as the 13th worst major metro for mortgage delinquency. 13th out of how many, it doesn’t say.
What the article forgets to mention is that 2 years ago when SOOOOO many more houses were REOs, we were 2nd on that list. It also forgets to mention that our delinquency is way down from that time.
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2012/05/09/arizona-mortgage-delinquency-rates.html
“TransUnion reports Arizona’s mortgage delinquency rate in the first quarter of 2012 was 6.86 percent, down from 9.14 percent a year earlier. ”
We were actually at 10% for 2009 and 2010.
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2009/05/29/20090529biz-Mortgage0529.html
Pending foreclosures (sale date set but not processed yet) is also way off, from 42K a month a year ago to 14K a month this year (per the link you posted yesterday).
So, total transactions are up, and the number of REO are way off because the delinquency and foreclosures are way off. These combine to drastically reduce the % of transactions that are REO. When I do math, and the numerator is down and the denominator is up, the answer is DUH, the number is way smaller.
And of course the people that are selling now are eating a MASSIVE loss. The market here in phoenix crashed 50+% over the last 5 years. Demanding we find a seller that hasn’t lost money now is just as moronic as the pimps that in 2008 that were telling me prices were not going to crash because there weren’t many people that had lost money so far.
Now, I’m not saying that I think Phoenix has bottomed. I would not be at all surprised if prices began falling again in the winter. I’m simply saying that the article only presents half the data, and its conclusion is based on some GIANT assumptions that are not supported by data.
If you are trying to convince me that Phoenix is in for another major drop, then you have a lot more work cut out for you.
As for other markets, yeah…. the delinquency rate in Miami is just nuts. Now there is a market where inventory is being held off the market, as demonstrated by how little prices have crashed.
You’re nothing more than a liar Darryl The Liar.
What is your motivation for lying?
He’s a Rebounder. Put his money down and leveraged up for the Powerball payoff. Debt is wealth and all that.
His children will retell stories of his debt condo investment to their grandchildren. It will be interesting! We can’t possibly have another mania like this until all direct personal memory of this one is extinguished.
Specuvestors are kind of interesting, just to grasp the mentality, to a point.
Darryl the liar isn’t a specu-debtor. He’s a bonafide paid pimp. He’ll rush in to tell you he’s not but he is…… a paid liar.
Specuvestors are kind of interesting, just to grasp the mentality, to a point.
You have to witness a CRE developer crash-n-burn. Talk about extend and pretend, fraud, optimism^2, etc., these guys sport some real cojones; an honest businessman wouldn’t stand a chance.
Anybody checked the stock market indices lately? It has to be some solace to Eddie, given what’s happened to Atlanta house prices in the last year.
“Anybody checked the stock market indices lately?”
Every time a central banker mentions quantitative easing, they rocket up. It’s a sure sign of a healthy market to see that dynamic in play.
Other than a disdain for concern about the federal debt and deficit, the author of this Marketwatch commentary has great points on Obama and the economy.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/clintons-economic-legacy-hurts-obama-2012-09-06?link=home_carousel
Indeed, the article makes great points, that by continuing on the path of Reaganomics, Clinton is as much to blame for the mess as Bush. I’d add Bush Sr. and Regan too.
Clinton loves to talk about how his term say 3 years of surpluses. Federal budget maybe, but ONLY because the debt growth in the private sector was so strong during those years.
FedRes z.1: total debt 1992 was $11.8T and in 2000 it was $18.2T.
$6.4T in new debt in just 8 years? $0.8T a year. Inflate that from 2000 to 2012 and you get $1T a year. So, even though Clinton’s government debt was smaller, his private sector debt was larger, as % of GDP.
Oh guess what… We’ve added $1T a year for the last 5 years too. Oh, but this is bad debt, because it is government debt. Private sector debt is good debt.
WRONG!!!! It is all bad debt, and we’ve the problem goes all the way back to the 1960s when we embraced free trade and flatter taxes, leading to the creation of trade imbalances that could only be funded by unsustainable debt growth that got rolling in earnest as part of Reaganomics!
It isn’t going to go away by simply changing which Republicrat is in the White House.
This is why I want to have the Republicans win, so they too will be unable to keep the economy running without the massive debt. I don’t think that WILL get us to look for the deeper cause of the debt, but I know another Obama victory WILL prevent us from looking more deeply at our economic issues.
We need both parties to fail before we can take a deeper look.
You can get odds of 2/1 for Mitt Romney to win the election in the UK; am I right in thinking the race is getting closer and is too close to call. Is this just another case of Europeans being more in love with Obama than the average US citizen?
“You can get odds of 2/1 for Mitt Romney to win the election in the UK…”
If the Iowa Election Futures suggest odds of 2-1 against Mitt Romney winning, perhaps there is a gambler’s arbitrage in there somewhere?
The casino odds are also 2 to 1 ‘against’ Romney winning- ie if you bet $1, you win $2 if Romney wins (you’ll get back $3 actually- the $1 you bet, plus the $2 you’ve won). At 4 to 11, it would require a bet of $5.50 to win $2 ( receiving $7.50 total) in the event Obama wins.
No arbitrage there. The casino odds essentially match those of the Iowa Election Futures. The free market of gambling at work.
From the article:
“It was Clinton, after all, and his Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, who pandered to Wall Street and gave them the carte blanche they sought to build huge financial conglomerates and place unlimited bets with depositors’ cash.”
Was it?
Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000
Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999
To be fair, both signed by Clinton. BUT BOTH authored by Republicans in a Republican controlled Congress. There’s your real pandering.
Selling America out to Wall Street interests has definitely been a bipartisan effort.
Was yesterday the day to buy Spanish sovereign debt?
ECB Unveils Aggressive Bond Plan to Save Euro
By DAVID McHUGH
FRANKFURT, Germany September 6, 2012 (AP)
The European Central Bank unveiled its most ambitious plan yet to ease Europe’s financial crisis with a plan to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds to help lower borrowing costs for countries struggling to manage their debts.
Large-scale purchases of short-term government bonds would drive up their price and push down their interest rate, or yield, taking some pressure off of financially stressed governments such as Spain and Italy.
“We will have a fully effective backstop to avoid destructive scenarios,” ECB President Mario Draghi said at a press conference, in which he also defended the euro currency union as “irreversible.”
After the ECB plan was announced, the yields on government bonds across Europe fell and stock markets rallied.
“This is a potential game-changer,” says Jacob Kirkegaard, research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “This is the first time the ECB has committed its balance sheet in this way. And the way it is done is politically sustainable in Europe.”
…
Too bad Draghi doesn’t have sole authority to actually fully execute this plan.
But who is going to stop him? Und sprechen sie Deutsch?
Next Wikileak, or hoax? I guess time will tell.
Claim of theft of Romney tax records includes ransom demand, trappings of a high-tech whodunit
(Erik Schelzig/ Associated Press ) - A sign outside the PricewaterhouseCoopers office in Franklin, Tenn., is seen on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012. The Secret Service said is investigating the reported theft of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s federal tax records during a break-in at the office. The company said there was no evidence that any Romney tax files were stolen.
…
“Judge Says 10 Rare Gold Coins Worth $80 Million Belong to Uncle Sam… When the Langbords gave the coins to the Philadelphia Mint for authentification, the government seized them without compensating the family…”
http://news.yahoo.com/judge-says-10-rare-gold-coins-worth-80-152750965–abc-news-topstories.html
She doesn`t look dangerous to me.
Secret Service: We‘re ’Aware‘ of DNC Delegate’s Threat to ‘Kill’ Romney
Posted on September 6, 2012 at 4:25pm by Madeleine Morgenstern
A spokesman for the Secret Service said the agency is “aware” of the video published by TheBlaze that featured a Democratic National Convention delegate saying she would like to “kill” Mitt Romney.
“We are aware of it and we will conduct the appropriate follow-up,” Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie told TheBlaze Thursday.
Ogilvie said he could not talk specifically about what kind of follow-up the agency was conducting.
In TheBlaze’s video, a woman who identified herself as New York delegate Julia Rodriguez said Romney would “destroy this country” if elected president.
“He will destroy this country completely, she said. “Romney will destroy his country…if I see him I would like to kill him.”
A representative from the New York State Democratic Committee could not immediately be reached.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/secret-service-were-aware-of-dnc-delegates-threat-to-kill-romney/ -
Top spending school districts (per pupil)
1. District of Columbia: $29,409
2. Newark, N.J.: $28,642
3. Buffalo: $26,903
4. New York City: $24,780
5. Jersey City, N.J.: $24,511
6. Pittsburgh: $22,625
7. Rochester: $20,984
8. Cincinnati: $20,860
9. Boston: $20,262
10. Cleveland: $19,354
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120906/NEWS01/309060041/Rochester-city-school-spending?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home
In the past when one country counterfeited too much of it’s currency it suffered hyper inflation and had problems.
With most countries in the world now counterfeiting can you imagine what the future holds?
Check it out! Global stock markets are rallying on Obama’s speech!!
And before the HBB’s resident Republican party operatives pounce on me, let me remind you that high gas prices and unemployment were Obama’s fault. So it stands to reason, by your own party’s moronic logic, that he also controls the global stock market.
Sept. 6, 2012, 10:51 p.m. EDT
Asia stocks join global rally
By Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Asia shares jumped early Friday … as investors looked ahead to a U.S. jobs report with optimism.
…