The Housing Bubble

There won’t be hyperinflation, because the wretched refuse aren’t seeing any inflation in their paychecks.

The only inflation is food and fuel.

Fuel inflation is being held down because of lack of demand, which will fall even more with $4-5 hour gas prices.

Food prices will be suppressed/controlled, because governments don’t want starving and/or rioting people in the streets.

“We are so much worse off than four years ago.”

An economy in free fall is better than today’s economy? I might agree that we have fewer options than 4 years ago. I might agree that we are worse off than 8 years ago, but I would not agree that we are worse off than 4 years ago.

And I am not certain that we will be better off in 4 years than we are now. On top of structural problems in our economy, there are a lot of troubling signs in the world economy - bubbles in China, Australia, and India; the Euro crisis; Iran and the Middle East could come to a head in the next 4 years.

I guess we can continue the policies of the last four years. (sarcasm on)

Last 4 years? Were you born in 2008? As you know, Bush’s spending rose much faster than Obama’s while he was cutting taxes for the rich. Instead of “Guns and Butter” it was “Guns and Caviar”. (with paycuts and none of the jobs promised)

A product of adding more than 6 trillion in debt during the last four years.

“Deficits don’t matter” (Especially in elections)

That is right, we are much worse than Spain

I didn’t know they call it the “Spanish Dollar”.

The free fall ended on its own in the Summer of 2009 prior to any of Obama’s policies meaningfully starting. That is when the recession ended by the government’s own data.
Sorry recessions are normal and cyclical. Assuming that the layoffs would have continued ignores that recessions use to start and end without govenment interventions prior to the 20th century. Obama just prevented the markets from working including the housing market. Housing prices would have adjusted to a price to clear the market. Many hedge funds and big banks would have bit the dust but regional banks which sold off the housing paper and credit unions could have taken their place. You are buying the Wall Street lie that what we have done needed to be done. For them, yes, but for the middle class no.

From where I sat (and anyone remotely involved in anything other than real estate, banker manipulated businesses, or Silicon Valley), there was no recovery from the 2000-2001 recession.

My tinfoil hat theory is that the housing bubble was enabled, to camoflage the fact that our manufacturing base was being exported/offshored at discount prices.

“The free fall ended on its own in the Summer of 2009 prior to any of Obama’s policies meaningfully starting. That is when the recession ended by the government’s own data.”

Four years ago was not the summer of 2009. Ask me again in summer 2013 and you may get a different answer as to whether we are better off now than four years ago.

Knowing that the President and Congress were willing to take measures to stop the free fall may have had an impact on layoffs by giving businesses the confidence to hang onto employees even before the stimulus dollars started to flow. I can’t state that with certainty, because we can’t replay the past. Neither do I believe that you can state with certainty that government stimulus played no part in the end of the recession in summer 2009. Government stimulus started in the fall of 2008, before Obama took office.

I do find it irritating that no matter what the issue, Republican partisans will blame Democrats for all ills and claim all credit for anything good. E.g. Clinton didn’t balance the budget, the Republican Congress did. But trillion dollar deficits are all Obama’s fault. And Bush’s deficits don’t matter.

“From where I sat (and anyone remotely involved in anything other than real estate, banker manipulated businesses, or Silicon Valley), there was no recovery from the 2000-2001 recession.

My tinfoil hat theory is that the housing bubble was enabled, to camoflage the fact that our manufacturing base was being exported/offshored at discount prices.”

I would agree and include 2 unfunded wars as well. I think Bush saw 9-11 as a blow to the economy that would kill his chances for re-election unless he did a massive government stimulus. Perhaps this is the source of Cheney’s “deficits don’t matter” statement. They don’t matter to the electorate if the economy is booming.

Unfortunately, what we really needed was a deflation in real estate (not just housing) to compensate for declining wages. But where is the profit in that?

“Sorry recessions are normal and cyclical. Assuming that the layoffs would have continued ignores that recessions use to start and end without govenment interventions prior to the 20th century.”

23 years like the Long Depression (1873–96)? Politicians can’t wait that long.

My tinfoil hat theory is that the housing bubble was enabled, to camoflage the fact that our manufacturing base was being exported/offshored at discount prices.

+1

1873 to 1896, you mean the period where the U.S. became an industrial giant and due to deflation people that saved money were rewarded? Sorry if Keynesians do not like deflation but just the opposite of what is occuring today happened, we were becoming a manufacturing power.

“Sorry recessions are normal and cyclical.”

The 2008 financial collapse suggested that too much buffering of the economy against normal cyclical recessions can result in a massive buildup of irrational exuberance. A bubble in optimism can lead to bubbles in prices and fuel malinvestment. When all these systemic risk bubbles blew up at about the same time, the economic damage was far worse than what would have occurred with less central bank intervention to protect the economy from risk.

+1, PB.

I view Greenspan’s “buffering” efforts as similar to wildfire suppression; if you let the fuel build up, when the fire _does_ get started you are in for a far worse one.

New York is no better. When the stock market is up, NYC wants to secede from the rest of the state. When the stock market is down, Staten Island wants to secede from NYC.

And all across the country, people secede from their families when they can get a better deal elsewhere.

+1 A great place to be these days

And where, may I ask is that great place ??

Joesmith is a young lawyer in Baltimore. He is better than the rest of us mere mortals.

And he still thinks that Princeton is going to give his hypothetical offspring free tuition because there are people who go to Ivy League schools who have parents who make even more money than he and his wife do.

Oxide does make a good point that I’m in an arbitrage situation, working at a big firm in an expensive city but living in an average neighborhood in a different city. I think it’s kind of hilarious, I never implied it indicates some special knowledge. I came to the conclusion after a while that this would maximize my upside while minimizing my downside.

Polly, obviously if I make partner I won’t care if Princeton charges full tuition. However, for right now I would not assume this. I would rather assume the opposite. Assuming I don’t make partner at a big firm, or if I have to take a gov job, I absolutely do count on geting tuition assistance. Less than half of HYP parents combine for under 250k/yr in income. These kids do get money, to varying degrees.

One last possibility is going to small firm or self-employed route, where structuring my income could open up a lot of possibilities, all of which are legal. I forget whether HYP do asset checks or only income checks (my parents were high income, low asset so it didn’t come into play). Even if they do check assets, I’m sure you realize there are ways to get around these checks.

I wasn’t referring to “knowledge.”

“I forget whether HYP do asset checks or only income checks”

And there it is. I posted numerous links to the information on the Princeton website about financial aid and ran a few scenarios for you several months ago. You ignored it all.

And you’re paying 50%+.

The last rent increase our landlord gave us pushed us into paying close to 35% of our gross on rent.

Our PITI is 23%.

Our PITI is under 10% of gross. If we both get pay bumps like last yr it will be pushing down towards 5% in a few yrs. The biggest problem at that point is going to be convincing my wife not to demand a larger/more expensive house. Also the temptation to have more than one child.

I have planned ahead for these two curveballs: I plan to ramp up other forms of consumption and emphasize that these are largely possible as a result of the conscious choice to opt out of the top ZIP codes and “nicest” houses.

The last thing is, it makes a lot more sense to have a personalized, tailored space to call home. Having spent a year customizing this house, it hardly makes sense to move. When you move, you have to recreate the ideal environment. Even for athletes and movie stars, this is a pain… for normal people who don’t have a team of helpers, it’s a nightmare.

“Our PITI is 23%.”

And you got suckered and ripped off.

Isn’t it a Piti.

Our PITI is $2,170 per year.

Plus the last I of around $1,000 (forgotten).

My PITI is $840 a year. Do I win the thread?

Only if you admit to being in BF Egypt.

“Only if you admit to being in BF Egypt”

Our neighborhood diner was transformed into an Egyptian restaurant so I guess I am! Never thought of it that way ;-).

Or just plain re-fi’s.

If all those who could refinance their dwellings did, it would be a huge boost to the economy in terms of spendable dollars at higher velocity. If they were in positive territory.

Not for granite and stainless, but for surviving the painful but (?) inevitable revaluation of their underwater property/investment/house/home/second home.

Survival, not the teased scant modification.

Pretty big “IF”, don’t you think?

What would it take for the repeat of lax qualifying standards to repeat? Absolutely nothing.

“If all those who could refinance their dwellings did, it would be a huge boost to the economy in terms of spendable dollars at higher velocity. If they were in positive territory.”

I posted on this a while back, approximately 11 million loans date from before 2005, and have interest rates at above 4.5%. There are a lot of these loans that could be refi’d into lower rates (ie. not underwater).

I for one would be supportive of government supported outreach to these borrowers to refinance. However, this is unlikely to occur, as every refinance hurts some investor out there (bank or otherwise).

Gonna name names?

like all the HBB’ers who like to toot their own horns here

What’s that? I can’t hear you! I’m too busy running my incredibly successful internet computer thingie business, which I built from nothing with tons of my own blood, sweat, and tears. And now I want to enjoy my hard-earned success, without being taxed for my brilliance by the herd- and oh yeah, I would be twice as successful without all this burdensome government regulation.

But I might just shut it all down because of Obamacare. Just go relax on an island somewhere. It’s not worth making a bunch of money if I have to share too much of it with my deadbeat workers.

Anyway, you were saying?

Comment by alpha-sloth
2012-11-26 08:52:10 = commie talk.

Alpha,

Or maybe you could just remove yourself from one of the 10-15* worst states and conduct your business in one of the ten best states for business climate.

http://taxfoundation.org/article/2013-state-business-tax-climate-index

*couldn’t remember which Carolina you were from

And that’s why the squad will never have a successful internet computer thingie business. The syntax should be “== commie talk” not “= commie talk”.

Seattle = commie.

And our weed law is better than yours, we can grow six plants per person.

The syntax should be “== commie talk” not “= commie talk”.

It’ll still compile. If you’re lucky nobody will run into the bug until after you’ve been laid off.

As I said last week, it is the only way to sustain a consumer based economy with no wage growth.

with no wage growth.

How do we get wage growth?

New York Times piece on housing for Lucky Duckies - Mortgages - Factoring In Commuting Costs:

“Mortgage lenders do not figure in a household’s likely commuting costs when weighing loan applications, but a recent study suggests that borrowers of moderate means would be smart to calculate these costs themselves before buying (thank you Captain Obvious).

The study … looked at transportation and housing costs in the 25 largest metropolitan areas. It found that transportation costs rose faster than incomes in every area over the last decade (fortunately “volatile” energy costs are excluded from lying liar core CPI inflation).

That has added to the financial burden shouldered by moderate income homeowners, defined as households earning 50 to 100 percent of a metropolitan area’s median income. Transportation consumes 30 percent of their income, on average. Add housing costs to that and the combined cost burden rises to 72 percent.

The study also found that some metropolitan areas generally considered more affordable than New York became less so after transportation is figured in. For example in Houston, where housing development is more sprawling, transportation consumes 32 percent of income, compared with 22 percent in New York, which has a more robust transit system.

Mortgage underwriters sometimes look at a home’s location relative to where the buyer works, but in most cases a long distance between the two is only an issue if it suggests that the buyer isn’t actually going to live in the house”

30% of income on transportation? I hope to God they mean net income, as opposed to gross. I also hope that includes insurance and routine maintenance, not just car payments, tolls, and gas.

Even then, still way too much.

Even then, still way too much

Again, not everybody in Amerikwa is rich like all of us HBB’ers.

The majority of the Lucky Duckies are not creating software startup companies, are not Ivy League lawyers, are not overpaid government contractors.

The majority of Amerikwa are poor or working poor. After thirty years of trickle down and outsourcing, the future belongs to Lucky Ducky.

Welcome to the recoveryless recovery.

The study also found that some metropolitan areas generally considered more affordable than New York became less so after transportation is figured in.

The cost of commuting is major, and something many people do not fully consider.

Everyone chimed in about how much cheaper it would have been to buy in the East Bay, but the cost of commuting would have almost eliminated any savings.

$5.00 a day for the Bay Bridge. Sheesh. Public transit ‘aint cheap, either. $3.50 R/T from Berkeley to San Francisco.

Not to mention the psychological cost of hours of your life spent in traffic. No thank you.

I ran several scenarios based on my own situation. The main conclusion is that the bulk of transport costs come from just owning the car, not from commuting. The only way these lucky duckies could save money on transport is if they could ditch the car entirely and ride a bike for everything.

I rode my bike to work and hauled groceries in a crate-and-bungie for almost 15 years. This is viable only if you’re young, single, rent, and live in either a very small town or a very big town with very good transport. Not a common situation for most.

I rode my bike to work and hauled groceries in a crate-and-bungie for almost 15 years. This is viable only if you’re young, single, rent, and live in either a very small town or a very big town with very good transport. Not a common situation for most.

And that’s the problem. American infrastructure is designed to promote driving, not walking or biking.

The main conclusion is that the bulk of transport costs come from just owning the car, not from commuting.

The cost of owning a car is the bulk of it, but my 2004 Honda has only 62,000 miles on it and has needed nothing except maintenance and tires and brakes in 8 years because I drive less than 10K per year. If I were on the road for 2-3 hours every day I would have worn that car out by now.

In most of Flyover, there is essentially NO public transportation.

A semi decent used car runs $5K…..insurance (liability only) for a 18-21 year old runs $1500/2K a year. A typical drive from school to work is 10 miles each way.

A kid would have to work 875 hours @ $8/hour to pay for a $5K car and insurance, never mind fuel, tags, property tax and maintenance. Hence, the indirect subsididies of the restaurant/minimum wage paying industries by the First National Banks of Mom and Dad.

Want to know why people stay at home, unemployment or not? Because most $8/jobs are a money losing proposition, when costs are calculated.

Would YOU work for a couple of bucks an hour (after expenses)? You would make more money begging/picking up cans.

Our main problem is that the wretched refuse have been brainwashed about having a “work ethic”, and don’t know how to do the math.

San Francisco = commie
Washington DC = commie

A good chunk of owning my car is for insurance. I think I have expensive stuff.

Our main problem is that the wretched refuse have been brainwashed about having a “work ethic”, and don’t know how to do the math.

So the plan worked?

Fixer, I got away with biking in a small college town. The grocery store was 1 mile away, the school was 2 miles away, the mall was an all-day operation with the meager bus system. Forget about social life or Home Depot.

Yes, Carl, the plan did work. Corporations get away with having the gov pay some of the living expenses such as food stamps, school lunches, and Section 8. Wal-Mart is famous for this.

And BONUS, making the people think it’s their own fault opens up the door to cut their entitlements too… lazy bums.

30% of income on transportation?

Have you priced new cars, gas and insurance lately? And forget about saving 50% by buying a 2-3 year old car, that doesn’t work anymore. You’ll pay 80% of new price for one of those.

0% financing sometimes makes buying a new car cheaper than a used car.

You can still get some serious depreciation on some luxury models, but on the normal, reliable stuff…no. If I were buying new I’d probably just buy a Honda Civic. I think those things are still getting the benefit of once being cheap, reliable, and an easy transplant with a Prelude motor even all these years later when none of the above may apply. They just don’t depreciate.

But I do look forward to playing with a plug-in hybrid that can power a house someday when they are cheap enough.

One of my cars is a Honda Civic. I don’t own any luxury cars and due to a lot of driving I tend to get a car every three to four years and then give my old one to my girlfriend or her son. They get many years out of them since they are well maintained.

90% of car buyers can’t get 0% loans.

Carl, what you want is a house that powers your car, not the other way around except when required by emergencies.

Most new cars have incredible reliability and gas mileage compared to 15 years ago. Too bad most people can no longer afford even a new economy car and are stuck driving the 15 year old car.

Yes, 30% transport cost are normal these days. Much like 50% shelter costs. For those of you who have never lived in a city without just plain decent public transit, you either own a car or you die. Literally.

Carl, what you want is a house that powers your car, not the other way around except when required by emergencies.

Well…yes…but it’s the emergencies that I’m focused on.

When inflation accelerates, wages will increase nominally. However, a two percent wage increase does not cover a 4% increase in the cost of living. Of course, even these numbers will be using the government’s inflation numbers where a doubling in the memory of a computing device is counted as the device costing about half the cost, thus hiding the rising costs of the non-essentials like rent, food and energy.

Federal Reserve Crime Syndicate Bankster William Dudley said it well with his “let them eat i-pads” comment.

There is no “hiding the rising costs” for Lucky Ducky. The majority of Amerikwa are poor or working poor. Go visit Wal-Mart at midnight on the first of the month (when SNAP cards get reloaded by Uncle Sugar) to see the reality of this.

The recoveryless recovery is here.

Go visit Wal-Mart at midnight on the first of the month (when SNAP cards get reloaded by Uncle Sugar)

Here in the Centennial state they stagger the recharge day to the day of the month matching the last digit of your SS # (on the 10th if it’s 0)

“When inflation accelerates, wages will increase nominally.”

They didn’t for the last 30 years. What’s different now?

You can use this to calculate and trend.

http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html

It is also the reason that major players are starting to buy houses and renting them out. These players are tapping into 1% money to finance these transactions. Your government is waging a war against savers and for debtors. The premise of the housing bears is that housing prices can resist this force, I do not and have not for the last three years believed that housing prices can fall meaningfully under that circumstance and now I cannot see how they cannot rise in nominal terms. If people had their mortgages in gold, I would find it is still a stupid time to buy, but in U.S. fiat currency it is not.

Elections have consequences and BB was given more paper and ink due to the results.

These players are tapping into 1% money to finance these transactions

How so?

Wed Oct 17, 2012 3:39pm EDT

* U.S. two-year swap spread near record tight

* Cheap rates boost company borrowing, not hiring

* Three-month Libor falls to lowest since Aug 2011

By Richard Leong

NEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Private U.S. borrowing costs neared record lows on Tuesday in a market awash with Federal Reserve cash aimed at pinning short-term interest rates near zero.

Hope that Europe would contain its debt crisis also helped push down the benchmark rates, at which top-notch banks and companies can borrow short-term dollars, to levels last seen in the 1990s.

The bottom line is the big boys can borrow almost as cheaply as the U.S. and you have to go out to around the seven year bond to get to over 1% interest. Not hard to make a deal work with that type of deal. Not exactly apples to apples but the prime rate in April 18, 1980 was 19.5%, hard to make money in real estate with short term money back then.

Not sure if posts are real slow today or I have exceeded my allowable posts but I will try one more.

The stock market collapse primarily impacted the rich. It is ironic that many on this board are concerned with the concentration of wealth but cannot see that if the free market would have been allowed to work, a great deal of this concentration would have been eliminated. The masters of the universe over leverage themselves. Without a government bailout they would have had to go bankrupt with no possibility of recovering their wealth. We were sold that the only way out of this mess, was to adopt policies of printing money and large deficits which shifted the burden from the rich to the middle class both in the immediate term and in the future. Without the easy money the stock market would not have recovered quickly but gasoline and other prices would not have gone up either. Savers would have gotten a high return on their money since money would have been scarce as debt was extinguished by bankruptcy. People waiting to buy a house at a reasonable, in fact bargain price, would have gotten their chance. Yes, people would have suffered that were not rich but they would have been primarily people that voluntarily took on too much debt.

The nation would have learned a valuable lesson about saving vs. acquiring debt. While unemployment would have increased more initially, by now we would have been back to where we are without the private and governmental debt. Obama’s policies have served the wealthy well. Whether that is by design or accident, I do not know. However, the concentration of wealth has been accelerated not reduced under his watch and that is the bottom line.

Which part of “end of the world” don’t you understand?

End of the world for whom? The masters of the universe on Wall Street? Wouldn’t it be terrible if this country had to rely on making things instead of printing money which enriches the top first and then what is left trickles down to the rest of society. If it was the end of the world the recession would not have ended in June 2009.

To a paraphrase one of the first multinational bankers, allow me to control the money supply and I do not care who runs the government.

I agree…just being sarcastic.

The “free market” (i.e. lack of banking regs and oversight and gelding of federal oversight agencies) CAUSED the concentration.

We don’t see the “free market” as solving anything because some of us have been around for more than a few decades and have seen the process FIRST HAND.

“Free market” means one thing and one thing only. Free to eff you up the butt without consequence.

Consider the possibility that the downhill slope may bear some symmetry with the preceding rise. 2016 may be a bit short of the trajectory.

downhill slope may bear some symmetry with the preceding rise.

I bet you think everything since the New Deal is smoke and mirrors.

Ha, the New Deal, biggest smoke and mirrors ever!

Thank God no. The biggest bubble since Tulips is no place to be.

“Real American rugged individualists die prematurely from easily treatable conditions.”

+1 LOL!

“Real American rugged individualists die prematurely from easily treatable conditions.”

Every year going out in a blaze of glory is starting to sound more and more desirable than slowly deteriorating. I’ve been thinking. Might be good to push myself in some crazy sport event until the ticker pops. I’ve heard cancer, alzheimer’s and some of the other alternatives really, really suck. So the massive heart attack that takes you out in minutes is starting to shake out as my death of choice. Then the kids can just share the paid off house.

Why should the medical community get it all?

Joe,

You give lawyers a bad name. Grow up and develop some ethics. You seem to have missed it somewhere along the way.

We had a Presidential candidate who did far worse than anything I contemplate. And justified it by pointing out what a large amount of taxes he paid, despite the low rate. He received 48% of the vote and his virtues were extolled by all the “bootstrapper” cheerleaders around our fair nation.

For the record, I wish our government would clamp down on everyone and make people decide whether they want to be American or not–if not, go become a citizen of the Caymans. I wish the Buffett rule (or some variation) was the law of the land. However, if the government can’t act like they’re serious about taxation, I don’t think I’ll have ethical qualms about whether I should set aside money for my child using the Mitt Romney Gameplan (TM).

Also, what does being a lawyer have to do with it. BiLA and Northeasterner make similar claims about avoiding/hating taxes. Is it OK for them to make these arguments because they are “bootstrappers” but not OK for me to take the same approach?

because they are “bootstrappers”

BiLA is exactly the kind of bootstrapping, rugged individualist, invisible hand of the free market, Horatio Alger, for profit, private sector, government contractor that we aspire to become someday.

And to bill Uncle Sugar at Bill’s hourly rates

Is it OK for them to make these arguments because they are “bootstrappers” but not OK for me to take the same approach?

They get slammed too, especially BiLA.

You won’t have anywhere near enough money to pull off the Romney game plan. Seriously, Joe. If you think you can, then you simply don’t have any idea what he actually did.

By law (securities), you have to have $1.5 million of liquid assets before the hedge funds can even let you read their information. You need a heck of a lot more than that for them to take you seriously. And then, guess what? If you have control over an investment account (or even an insurance policy with cash value) of more than $10,000 that is located outside the US, you have to disclose it to the Treasury Department. Every year. Which means you have to pay taxes on the realized gains. And disclose it on financial aid forms. And all that this implies. Welcome to FinCEN.gov.

“I want my child to have a lot of assets/cash… in the Jersey Islands.”

-1 Kids do better in life if one kicks ‘em off the branch empty handed to see if they can fly on their own for a while. Once they’re soaring the parent’s gifts are better appreciated and yield better results.

Nonsense.

“The truly rich don’t need no stinking insurance. They pay cash for whatever they want.”

No they don’t. They buy on credit and then stiff the creditor.

And that’s NO exaggeration.

“No they don’t. They buy on credit and then stiff the creditor. And that’s NO exaggeration.”

Just a bit of uninformed hyperbole smoke. Generalizations are almost always not… well general.

7 TRILLION dollars to bail out Wall St. is not what most people would call “hyperbole”.

‘7 TRILLION dollars to bail out Wall St’

Link to data please.

“They buy on credit and then stiff the creditor.”

I heard a talk today by a polymath academic who served on a team with top U.S. financial policymakers to develop models of financial collapse, in the wake of the 2008 episode. I asked him whether the models they developed considered bailouts and associated moral hazard issues. He looked at me like I was from Mars.

My bad.

4.6 TRILLION. More or less direct

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Total_Wall_Street_Bailout_Cost

Googled “total wall street bailout cost”

12.8 TRILLION “According to a team at Bloomberg News, at one point last year the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy”

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/economy/the-true-cost-of-the-bank-bailout/3309/

14 TRILLION overall.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/real-size-bailout-treasury-fed

9 TRILLION in emergency overnight, super-low interest loans.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/01/news/economy/fed_reserve_data_release/index.htm

Googled “total government bailout spending”

9 TRILLION in gov direct investment

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/02/04/business/20090205-bailout-totals-graphic.html

I’ve tried to use the more mainstream and more or less conservative references as the more “fringe” sources say 20+ TRILLION.

More commie talk from the land of fruits and nuts.

Yeah, I guess most people would just as well live in treeless, cemented-over housing developments and drive 3 hours to work on clogged highways while their tax dollars pay to support foreign wars that keep the black stuff flowing.

Those crazy fruits and nuts, wacky people like me who worry that my grandchildren might not ever be able to swim in the ocean because it’s too polluted…

I think he was being sarcastic.

I love how all these years, the drill-drill-drill crowd was lobbying for “energy independence”.

Now, it seems that most of this increased production we are seeing is going to be exported to China, at market rates.

Of course when the costs of dealing will polluted aquifers hits the fan, we’ll hear whining about “over-regulation”, and demands that the costs be paid/passed down to Joe Q Taxpayer.

What aquifers?

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/gwdepletion.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

“Those crazy fruits and nuts,…”

The crazy fruits and nuts people love sitting in horrendous freeway traffic, where their cars blow more greenhouse gasses per mile driven into the atmosphere than almost anywhere else on the planet…

We generate 20% of our electricity using windmills in the Centennial state. And I paid 7.9 cents per kwh last month.

Colorado how much of the 80% was coal and what price was paid for that coal power compared to the 20%?

“Even California residents have to endure higher electricity rates and the lost of businesses due to the state’s green policies.”

CA’s biggest problem is PG&P and its lobbyists.

California’s largest energy user is the Department of Water Resources. Water is heavy stuff, and it’s uphill from Tracy all the way south to the top of the Tehachapi mountains. Those penstocks you see while heading south on I-5 at the grapevine are part of a 2,200-ft lift carrying 4,500-cfs. Think power!

Colorado how much of the 80% was coal and what price was paid for that coal power compared to the 20%?

The price we pay now is pretty comparable to the pre windmill days.

It’s not working out so well with 7 billion eaters. With 10+ billion eaters it will be worse.

Anyone ever study ecology and population dynamics in college? When populations exceed carrying capacity, the population dies off in a J-shaped curve… a big, quick die-off. The big question is what is the sustainable carrying capacity of earth given our continued advancement in technology (in medicine, agriculture, etc.)?

a big, quick die-off

Which could happen from several consecutive years of worldwide crop failures thanks to Al Gore’s global warming. May not happen in our lifetime, but it could in your kids’ lifetime, which matters not to us as we’ll be dead by then.

And we’re no green hypocrite, we burn carbon like there’s no tomorrow, because there is no tomorrow. We will happily burn up your children’s future to drive halfway across the state to ski on some dumb mountain every weekend.

Yes. I told my law school classmates years ago that they would not be immuned from outsourcing. The same is true for doctors, a lot of procedures do not require direct interaction with the patient. Such as evaluating an x-ray. Also, people travel to India for medical procedures.

“Clean energy” means let the pollution happen over there.