Bits Bucket for December 30, 2012
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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New York Times - Woman Accused of Hate-Crime Murder in Subway Push:
“A 31-year-old woman was arrested on Saturday and charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime in connection with the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of an elevated subway station in Queens and crushed by an oncoming train.
The woman, Erika Menendez, selected her victim because she believed him to be a Muslim or a Hindu, Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said.
In a statement, Mr. Brown quoted Ms. Menendez, “in sum and substance,” as having told the police: “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I’ve been beating them up.” Ms. Menendez conflated the Muslim and Hindu faiths in her comments to the police and in her target for attack, officials said.
The victim, Sunando Sen, was born in India and, according to a roommate, was raised Hindu.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/nyregion/woman-is-held-in-death-of-man-pushed-onto-subway-tracks-in-queens.html?hp&_r=0
This wouldn’t have happened if they had more COEXIST stickers
Weird that she lumped muslims and hindus together. Gotta be the skin tone or the accent?
Weird that she lumped muslims and hindus together. Gotta be the skin tone or the accent?
————————–
No,no,no,
This is a perfect example of devolutionary drift.
You now have people attempting to practice racism and they can’t even get the dynamic correct.
(((shakin my head)))
This is the Jane Eliot “blue eyes/brown eyes experiement ” gone horribly wrong.
Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, they all look the same.
“A Louisiana congressman apologized after Arab-Americans criticized his comment that anyone with ”a diaper on his head” should be stopped and questioned. Representative John Cooksey, a Republican who is planning to run for the Senate next year, said on Monday in a radio interview broadcast statewide, ”If I see someone come in and he’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt around that diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over and checked.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/us/national-briefing-south-louisiana-apology-from-congressman.html
Fan belt?
Don’t most the diapers these days have pictures of Lightening McQueen or Hello Kitty on them? Plus self stick tabs.
LOL! Anyone (over the age of 18) with a Hello Kitty diaper on their head definitely needs to be stopped and questioned.
So the media is going to down play the fact that she is bi-polar and living in a shelter for the more PC angle?
From the New York Post:
Menendez was grabbed around 5 a.m. on the corner of Empire Boulevard and Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights, the sources said.
The incoherent suspect was mumbling as cops questioned her, and at one point asked where the R train was, the sources added.
Her relatives called cops last night after seeing her on the news, law-enforcement sources said.
Menendez could have a criminal background — and possibly a history of mental health issues, the sources said. She has recently been living in homeless shelters.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/suspect_in_queens_subway_push_death_UmDnQtqsVvR14xsIIA1vuM
WTF is a “hate crime” anyway? What a load of pure BS.
Me thinks the implementation of this concept didn’t happen by chance.
YMMV
WTF is a “hate crime” anyway?
According to the media / academia / political / Race Hustlers industrial complex, “hate crimes” can only be committed by whitey.
Which is why the recent NYC train incidents are so confounding. Black vs East Asian and Hispanic vs South Asian do not fit their talking point narrative…
What is the opposite of “hate crime?”
Could I defend myself by telling the judge:
“I loved my wife so much that I killed her so should would not find out (suffer) I was cheating on her”
If your lawyer is friends with the judge, I think it could work.
Hate crimes = redundant laws dreamed up by guilt ridden bleeding heart liberal academics.
I see Schumacher is advertising nationally for new housing…. get this…. it states “Get your new home for less than the cost of someones used home.”
It’s coming to your town/city. And it’s coming in a big way.
Hah.. The shadow inventory may prove to beabad idea for the banks. What happens when they realize?
I like the boyz’ odds better than ours.
The taxpayers will buy them in bulk at 2006 prices and then bulldoze them?
Don’t the builder boyz need loans from banks to build these houses?
“It’s coming to your town/city. And it’s coming in a big way.”
Dream on, no way is new construction in the bay area going to be cheaper than the existing housing stock.
He mentioned this builder yesterday. Oxide looked into it. The builder requires you provide your own lot. He is comparing the cost of just building a house to buying a house with the land included.
Good thing we have Oxide “looking into things” for us. She the same debtor that posted an internet estimating web page that got torn to shreds.
Yeah… she’s a real contracting and estimating pro.
You still have to have a lot on which to build a house. Some of them are pretty cheap. Some of them aren’t.
” The builder requires you provide your own lot. He is comparing the cost of just building a house to buying a house with the land included.”
Does that cost also include city and county fees, assessments, architect fees, etc.
“Yeah she’s a real contracting and estimating pro.”
RAL, if I were such an expert, then why would I offer a link to a website like building-cost.net? I could just take a tip from you and spout off my expert opinion with no back-up at all.
My understanding is the you are a pro. Very well. Building-cost.net uses numbers based on the National Building Cost Manual. What do the real pros use that’s better than this particular book? Please tell us. Surely you wouldn’t want some poor HBB lurker to go this awful building-cost website that I offered and get wrong information.
The Schumacher website was extremely vague about county fees and the like, instead resorting to the usual “call us and we’ll send a representative to assess the suitability of your site.” I assume that the buyer is responsible for those, and that there are fees associated with any changes to the standard plans. The houses included a full poured basement, but I don’t know about utility hookups.
Do you really believe design and construction outfits use some BS off the internet? Every vendor from CAT to APA to NEMA have their own in house estimating applications. What all of us use for putting together a bid is RS Means. Now it doesn’t take much effort to put together a bid for a damn house. They’re slapped together assembly line style. There isn’t anything to them. Nothing. Foundation walls, framed, sheathed, EFS, IFS, a little bit of mechanical and wire and we’re done. It’s not made of gold nor is it rocket science and RS Means isn’t necessary for BS work like building houses.
You’ve been conditioned to believe it’s a complicated method of assembling materials worth their weight in gold. Far from it. You and the blog barrister(for the life of me I don’t know why she’s here and she’s suspect) cite exception after exception to substantiate inflated prices and each time you fail. “It’s the lot!” or “utilities!” you declare before you think to price lots or a site package. It’s not much money. No. It’s really not much money and when it’s all added up into a bid estimate, it doesn’t come remotely close to the price of resale housing. There is a double digit percentage difference between new and resale. And that reality is what we and other contractors will capitalize as resale prices continue their decline to a level where we are no longer competitive.
Now not to many in my business look to building houses as making a killing anymore. That was a once in a 200 year opportunity. Now it’s time to work the pricing back down and outfits like Schumacher demonstrate that. It’s happening irrespective of what you’ve been conditioned to believe. The killing (or the beating in the event we miss something in the specifications) is made in heavy construction.
Now you can continue to let your wallet get in the way of truth or not. I’m indifferent to it. But the truth will prevail.
“It’s the lot!” or “utilities!” you declare before you think to price lots or a site package. It’s not much money. No. It’s really not much money and when it’s all added up into a bid estimate, it doesn’t come remotely close to the price of resale housing.
Cool! I’ll take a 3/2 ranch on a half acre in downtown Manhattan.
Cherry pick much?
Exactly, alpha.
There is a huge difference between thinking like a builder and thinking like a buyer. For a builder, the lot has to be good enough that someone will want to live there. You don’t really care who it is as long as someone who can get a loan would be willing to do so.
A person looking to live someplace long term (especially in a city or major urban area) may have restricted their location to just a few blocks or a few blocks around each of a few subway stations or other commuter hubs.
Most of the recent buyers who have talked about their decisions have been looking at very limited locations. To compare their situation to a person who is only thinking about the cost of the finished house as compared with construction costs and ignoring the desire to live in a particular place is ridiculous. If you wouldn’t trade $100,000 for having to commute an extra 40 miles each day in the DC area, then saying that your house is worth $100K less than you paid if you compare it to a house built 20 miles further away is irrelevant. The commute represents cost and time. The two houses aren’t the same.
Okay, then just a simple A-frame cabin on the beach in Maui.
Let’s keep it cheap, it’s all going to depreciate, as people lose interest in living in urban centers and beach paradises.
That’s kind of his point, I think….
Ah, are you back to your original name?
Hmm… you’re probably right on building-cost.net. I picked a Schumacher home (Willow Creek): starts at $125K.
I tried to estimate from Building-Cost: ~$200K. That’s pretty far off, but since all I had was a floor plan, I really don’t know how far off. I chose the 4/5 quality for the finishings (1 is best). At least now I have real information.
But that doesn’t solve the land issue. You say it “doesn’t cost much.” What do the pros use to estimate the cost of the land? Is it separate software? There is a huge difference between a big developer building on six cornfields in podunk that they purchased on an option 15 years ago, and building on an buying an option to purchase six cornfields an hour’s drive from jobs, and someone buying an individual lot in a established neighborhood. Existing housing is overwhelmingly the latter. As a layman, my only tools are my tax assessment and/or market price on real estate sites. Is there some better estimator out there?
You go cherry pickers! Sign up for $700k in depreciating junk like the strawberry pickers. lmao
The “land issue”? C’mon now. That’s your red herring. It’s your issue and your entire false premise is founded on your “land issue”.
Let’s see…. Major city.
Albany, NY- Lot cost’s within a 10 mile radius? $1,000/acre.
Hartford, CT- Lot cost within 10 mile radius? $3,000/acre
Danbury, CT- Lot cost within 10 mille radius? $2500/acre.
Pittsfield, MA- Lot cost within 10 mile radius? $2500/acre.
Poughkeepsie, NY- Lot cost within 10 mile radius? $3/acre. (commutable to NYC)
You’re beyond reaching. You’re flailing at this point.
Who paid to tear down the houses on these infill lots purchased for $200 - $500 apiece (assuming 6/acre).
Were the houses built sold on the open market or subsidized in some way?
“The commute represents cost and time…”
Nobody gives a flip what your commute costs are. Bill your employer.
My lot here in the village with all driveway access, sidewalk and utility hookups is worth $10K. The mania kind of went over our heads. We’ve been in depression for a generation. The rest of you will get it eventually.
Regardless, county taxes up 14% for next year! “My rent (on my mortgaged house) will stay the same”…..dream on!
So I checked Zillow.
Schodack, NY (10 miles south of Albany): ~130,000 sq ft for $35K, or ~10K/acre. No improvements that I can see. Podunk.
Collinsville, CT (10 miles west of Hartford): Infill lot on a street of $315K houses. 87,000 sq ft for $115K, or ~$48K/acre.
Pleasant Valley, NY (9 miles northeast of Poughkeepsie). I went in the direction opposite of NYC to make sure I got a lower price. Infill lot among cheaper homes. 26,000 sq ft for $42K, or about $64K/acre. And that’s your “commutable” 50 MILES from NYC.
I’m sorry, but I’m really starting to worry about this poster.
Nobody gives a flip? Then why are houses — and rents — so darn expensive in places like Montgomery County Maryland and Northern Virginia? Hint: It ain’t the modern styling or quality of the Cold War houses.
Maybe I can bill my employer for a commute by aircraft from Watkins Glen?
I’m sorry, but I’m really starting to worry about this poster.
I quit worrying about his sanity when I realized he was a housebuilder talking his book. Hence his inability/unwillingness to recognize that a POS vinyl-sided shanty in the exurbs isn’t equal to the same square footage well-built house in town.
You’re not even looking.
“Podunk”
Yes of course, to someone who lives in the “Real Empire”.
I think our under water debtor is being obtusely dishonest now.
Lots commutable to Albany…$2500.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Albany_NY/type-land/price-na-10000/sby-1?pgsz=50&ml=4
Lot’s commutable to Poughkeepsie and NYC. $3000
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Poughkeepsie_NY/type-land/price-na-10000?ml=4
Lot’s commutable to Hartford, CT $1900
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Hartford_CT/type-land/price-na-10000/sby-1?ml=4
Someones underwater…. and lying.
Lots commutable to Albany…$2500.
Come on, now. Is this a serious listing?
If there is demand for housing in a market, and if big profits can be made by buying land cheaply, that land is quickly bid up to a level where the profit margins are squeezed.
In most major markets (markets where builders don’t build one-off, but build 100+ home subdivisions, because people want to live there), the way housing works is this:
1. The market determines home prices;
2. Builders, knowing what they can sell a house for, then subtract all costs to construct (including permits, fees, etc.), and try to buy land at a price where they can build and make a profit.
However, there are typically more than one builder in a market, so they often compete to buy the same parcels of land…land values rise to an efficient level.
To believe that builders are going to constantly undercut the market in these places by buying cheap land and building, is to believe that markets don’t function.
If the math works in certain markets as RAL describes, the only conclusion you can draw is that few people want to live there, and so few builders are drawn to build in such a market.
1. The market determines home prices;
2. Builders, knowing what they can sell a house for, then subtract all costs to construct (including permits, fees, etc.), and try to buy land at a price where they can build and make a profit.
I’m all for competition. Hence, I’d really like to see the government exit the credit markets, so we can return to a predictable economy based on consumer’s income.
You can buy infill lots at those kind of prices in Locaville - so I don’t think his numbers are wrong. They are commutable to jobs, but are probably not in the most desirable locales. Infill lots in a more desireable locale will run 8-10K. They are much rarer because when the owners die or downsize someone will buy the house and make any necessary repairs.
Lots that are an actual acre will be 10-15k or possibly more unless it is in a very trashy area. You might luck into one where a trailer burned down and there are utilities / septic but most likely you’ll have to add that to the cost.
WRONG again Rental Pimp.
Lots like the ones I posted are cheap because “land” is essentially worthless. There is a globe full of it and only 5% of it is developed.
You better get used to this reality.
In my localville, $15,000 will get you a tiny ghetto lot, or a quarter acre (unfinished) in a half-built crappy soon-to-be-ghetto subdivision in the exurbs.
A quarter acre in a desirable, established neighborhood in a good school district would start at $50,000. $200,000+ in the most desirable ‘hoods.
My inner 10 yr old wonders why anyone would want to live in Coxsackie, NY. Or on Hazard ct in CT.
Most of those do look like good deals on lots.
Alpha, I’m confused. Why would anyone pay $15,000 for a ghetto lot when hippies buy repairable houses for 10K.
Or, are you implying that the 10K houses are barely repairable and there is a 5K demolition cost reflected in the price of the lot?
Alpha, I’m confused. Why would anyone pay $15,000 for a ghetto lot when hippies buy repairable houses for 10K.
These are different ghettos. The hippies’ area I mentioned earlier is already commanding (or at least asking) higher prices. Remember- I said they probably bought those houses for $10k- a few years ago. They’ve done a damn good job of fixing the area up.
Who is paying 15K for a lot in the ghetto? Or is this a wishing price. Are the houses being built subsidized in some way? What size and how much so they sell for? Was the owner of the lot politically connected?
I’m not being snarky just curious as in many ways Locaville is a mirror image of Slothington.
“Dream on, no way is new construction in the bay area going to be cheaper than the existing housing stock.”
Clearly, you have no idea what construction costs are. We’ll build in SF for $60/sq ft just like we do everywhere else.
Enjoy the ride down my friend. It’s always most painful for your type.
“…We’ll build in SF for $60/sq…”
Sure you will. Right after the next Great Quake.
EVERYWHERE.
You’re way over 60K in fees, studies, and permits before you even break ground, and that’s assuming you don’t run into any “special” assessments. Then there’s the cost of the land and infrastructure. And have you ever tried to get a backhoe into downtown San Francisco?
http://www.sf-planning.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=513
I see Schumacher is advertising nationally for new housing…. get this…. it states “Get your new home for less than the cost of someones used home.”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: RALiar/Pimple Watch is a housebuilder, talking his book.
And as I’ve sayd before and I’ll say it again. AlpoSlop is here to misinform, distract and obfuscate.
Why is that Slop?
Why is that Slop?
I dislike mendacity, and bullies.
You misinform because you dislike lies? mmmkay.
“I dislike mendacity, and bullies.”
Time does change people, but not usually so quick.
Counterpunch - FBI Ignored Deadly Threat to Occupiers
US Intelligence Machine Instead Plotted with Bankers to Attack Protest Movement
“New documents obtained from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security by the Partnership for Civil Justice and released this past week show that the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies began a campaign of monitoring, spying and disrupting the Occupy Movement at least two months before the first occupation actions began in late September 2011.
As early as August, while acknowledging that the incipient Occupy Movement was “peaceful” in nature, federal, state and local officials from the FBI, the DHS and the many Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Force centers around the country were meeting with local financial institutions and their private security organizations to plot out a strategy for countering the Occupy Movement’s campaign.
Interestingly, one document obtained by PCJ from the Houston FBI office refers to what appears to have been a plan by some group, the name of which is blacked out in the released document, to determine who the leaders were of the Occupy Movement in Houston, and then to assassinate them with “suppressed” sniper rifles, meaning sniper rifles equipped with silencers.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/28/fbi-ignored-deadly-threat-to-occupiers/
I did not read the link you supplied. It seems too bombastic that the OM would be a so much a threat that it warranted assassination IMHO. But.I.don’t.know. I do feel we have a class warfare going on though as the natives are getting restless seeing that not having stuff or losing their stuff or realizing they may never have stuff ever no matter what they were told is causing them to say the hell with all. I know I am getting that way. May be older age kicking in. Dissatisfaction in general. Am I alone in that feeling?
Apparently not.
‘Plotted with Bankers to Attack Protest Movement’
Here’s more:
‘The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission. The documents, in short, show the cops and DHS working for and with banks to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens.’
‘The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations’ knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).’
‘As Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, put it, the documents show that from the start, the FBI – though it acknowledges Occupy movement as being, in fact, a peaceful organization – nonetheless designated OWS repeatedly as a “terrorist threat”:
“FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) … reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat … The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country.”
‘Verheyden-Hilliard points out the close partnering of banks, the New York Stock Exchange and at least one local Federal Reserve with the FBI and DHS, and calls it “police-statism”:
“This production [of documents], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement … These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
Kinda puts the NDAA and other unconstitutional measures directed toward citizens in a different light, eh?
Better get that foreign passport … it’s over.
I’m not an alarmist about this stuff, but when does one become concerned? The right to peacefully assemble and express grievances is pretty fundamental.
For myself, I don’t see another country being an option. IMO we should make sure we don’t let this country, our country, turn into something we can’t live with.
As there’s no such a thing as benevolent dictator, the benevolent powerful government doesn’t exist either. Take the power from DC, that’s the only way. Bring on the fiscal cliff, I would say….It’s a good start.
I’m not an alarmist about this stuff, but when does one become concerned?
A very good question.
I’m sure that pre WW2 Germans never thought it would get so bad under Hitler. Some Jews left early with little more than their shirts on their backs as that’s all the Nazis would allow them to take with them. It turns out they were the smart ones.
IMO we should make sure we don’t let this country, our country, turn into something we can’t live with.
I agree, I just don’t know what to do. The sad thing is that I’m not sure it’s still our country.
‘Bring on the fiscal cliff’
It’s amazing so much is being made of a cut in proposed increases. This is how I see it; it’s more conditioning of the public to viewing the government as essential to our economic survival. Just calling it a ‘cliff’ for example (coined by Bernanke, I understand). Sounds pretty bad, but it’s really saying the government has to spend even more or we’re doomed.
We’re treated to reports saying “wealthy people WANT to be taxed more, Bill Gates says so!” (How many times has he “given all his money away”, 4 or 5? Same with Ted Turner.)
No mention of the government driving the economy over a cliff. No mention of Bernanke robbing millions of savers from a normal return on past labors.
Let me ask, do you not suppose the politicians in DC are basking in the attention? The media hangs on every little statement for a sign of salvation. I wonder if we’ll be treated to cliff after cliff like the Greek situation. “They have a plan!” and stocks go up. “All is well”, until the next crisis. Then we all focus on these clowns for another week or two.
Also, Gates and Turner never give their money to the Federal government, they always give it so some charity because (rightfully so, in my mind) they fear the Federal government would waste it.
Crying for higher taxes while, at the same time, doing everything in your power to make sure you pay the lowest acceptable rate, is, IMHO, the definition of hipocracy.
Give 90% of your fortune upon death to the IRS. Then I’ll start to take some stock in what you’re saying.
Maybe Gates and Turner would give more to the government if it wasn’t used on drones and ground wars.
Ben, I do anticipate many cliffs. Now that the Republicans can no longer hold the tax cuts hostage, they intend to hold the debt ceiling hostage. Grover Norquist explicitly called on the R’s to approve only a month’s worth of debt ceiling so that they could extract more entitlement cuts with each month.
They (especially Coch brothers and Co.) want to cut entitlements , I agree with that but i don’t agree to what they consider entitlements… . Paying 14% tax of income (in my opinion) is number first entitlement and then corporate loopholes… . Yes social programs should be cut for unemployed … and welfare for families with children too, they all should go work for $ 8 an hour for brothers Coch…
Happy New Year!
Yes social programs should be cut for unemployed … and welfare for families with children too, they all should go work for $ 8 an hour for brothers Coch
Assuming there will even be jobs for these people. The real unemployment rate is about 20%. Imagine adding all those people to the workforce, who knows how high it would go? 30% UE? 40%?
“For myself, I don’t see another country being an option. IMO we should make sure we don’t let this country, our country, turn into something we can’t live with.”
It seems we pay taxes so Bancsters and 1% of fat cats like Coch brothers will “buy” FBI and CIA… to keep us where we belong…
This country more and more is getting look like Russia now. Putin is doing everything to protect “oligarchs” and Republican party in U.S. is doing the same…
“I’m not an alarmist about this stuff, but when does one become concerned?
A very good question.
I’m sure that pre WW2 Germans never thought it would get so bad under Hitler. Some Jews left early with little more than their shirts on their backs as that’s all the Nazis would allow them to take with them. It turns out they were the smart ones.
“
I was just watching a show about the Nazi takeover of Germany (the rise of the Reich). I did not realize how early the repression started. Dachau concentration camp opened in1933 for German political prisoners. The Jewish extermination started a bit later. In 1935, Jews were declared non-citizens.
Many Jews tried to get out and were rejected as immigrants by other European countries and the US. It took luck and not just smarts.
“Then we all focus on these clowns for another week or two.”
I know a lot of people who do not. Since they are not in the majority, the clowns get a pass for another season. I am not sure what is to be done, but I think that when the rivers of money run dry there will be trouble. Quite unpredictable, yet quite unavoidable.
Listened to some Hank Williams Sr music today. It’s about 50 years since his little stimulus party blew up on him.
FBI was doing this type of activity during the Viet Nam protests.
Don’t forget the huge file on John Lennon.
“FBI was doing this type of activity during the Viet Nam protests.”
+1 But they missed the mortgage fraud thing.
Except they didn’t.
From 2004
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/17/mortgage.fraud/
From 2009
http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-mortgage-healthcare-fraud-up-2009-9
…but were ordered by the DOJ to ignore and focus more on terrorism
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/04/bill-black-fiat-justitia-ruat-caelum-let-justice-be-done-though-the-heavens-fall.html
“Gretchen and Louise’s reporting exposed for the first time two underlying scandals that produced the overall scandal. In 2008, the FBI, belatedly, realized that it had improperly targeted relatively trivial mortgage frauds while ignoring the massive lenders that specialized in making fraudulent mortgages. The FBI developed a plan to reorient its resources towards the “accounting control frauds” that always should have been its priority. We now know that the Department of Justice (DoJ) deliberately, and successfully, sabotaged this effort to investigate the major frauds. We need additional investigative reporting to discover why DoJ did so.”
That this was a coordinated effort on the part of internal security forces was obvious from the first Monday after the Friday announcement that the OWS assemblage was now an illegal gathering. Within a week, similar operations to clear the streets were underway across the country in spite of individual mayors declaring them unnecessary. (Villarogosa in Los Angeles, for one.)
Reminded one of nothing so much as the National Guard response to the Moratorium To End The War in November of 1969. That, you may recall, culminated in the shooting deaths at Kent State when the National Guard fired on unarmed, non-violent student protestors. This is nothing new. It’s just that this time it got YouTubed. (And this time it wasn’t people’s lives on the line as it was with the draft, it was simply their money– or lack of it.)
Don’t forget the Bonus Marchers, early union strikers, the suffragettes, civil right marchers…
The list is long.
The Revolutionary War & etc.
I was listing only unarmed civilians engaged is peaceable redress.
The Boston Tea Party?
Fedpro
Like It Never Even Happened
The Great Housing Rebound of 2012: How the Fed Helped Sellers Beat the Odds
By Christopher Matthews
Dec. 27, 20120
http://business.time.com/2012/12/27/housing-numbers-recovery-fed/ - 84k
Yet prices fell throughout 2012.
If a serial refinancing Deadbeat lives for 5 years in a house in the woods without making a mortgage payment and no one is around to hear about it, does the Deadbeat make a sound?
Does he have a subwoofer?
LOL
“Yet prices fell throughout 2012″
Keeping pushing your lies, maybe someone will believe them.
Hey Ho Dee Doo, he is not lying. The house of cards is still sinking. This is obvious to anyone who is looking at what is going on. Not obvious to anyone who has placed their bets on the bubble reviving. What is your incentive to convince everybody that houses are going up?
Phoenix area will be interesting in 2013 in my opinion. Up 20% versus last year due to a flood of investors that are now gone. There are many houses that were bought by these investors in early 2012 in the 175000 neighborhood now listed in the 230-275000 neighborhood. But at that new price far from a bargain. The demand was certainly there at the lower price, we’ll see for the higher.
2013 what will you bring?
Once the investors rent all the properties, I think you will see rents stabilize or even drop which should cap further appreciation until the vacancy rates adjust.
That’s just it, I thought they were being bought as rentals but now I’m seeing that a lot were just people looking for a quick flip resale from 175k to 230-250 because they are back on the market so soon. Also those 175k sale price seems to be in hindsight because the houses never seemed to be on the market for average joe at that low price.
I’m not sure where all the renters are going to come from because while I think they could rent them out to cover the mortgage easily based on the low purchase price, they are asking rents far in excess of what I think is market price in the area.
2013 we’ll see.
Considering the rental market is flooded and rental rates are slipping in Phoenix…… yeah…. It’s already getting real interesting.
Get out now.
I’m watching “property wars” right now.
One guy bought a condo in Phoenix for $18k. Unfortunately, it had a nasty fire on the 2nd floor.
Most of this Phoenix “action” is in the least desirable areas, IMO. Look around Scottsdale and Tempe just north of ASU, and prices are still $130/sqft for older/smaller 3/1 and 3/2 homes. Any savings realized at the bargain periphery is soon exhausted in transportation expense. Zoom-out to the larger view of things, and household income is still lacking if you’re fortunate enough to be employed. Thus, home prices will eventually slide.
“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.”
you should buy a house today before prices go up more.
The guy is a crank, posting the same nonsense over and over.
Where can one get the Joshua Tree plug in thingie?
Joshua tree doesn’t help much if he keep using different names.
Hey RentalPimp/Mo Money…… you can’t hide.
Sorry, we’re two different people…I never use other names…
^^^^^^
lmao
Posting in bold signifies irrationality.
Poor realtard…. another liar exposed.
WSJ - Colleges’ Bureaucracy Expands Costs:
“Like many public colleges, the University of Minnesota went on a spending spree over the past decade, paid for by a steady stream of state money and rising tuition. Officials didn’t keep close tabs on their payroll as it swelled beyond 19,000 employees, nearly one for every 3½ students.
Many of the newly hired, it turns out, were doing little teaching. A Wall Street Journal analysis of University of Minnesota salary and employment records from 2001 through last spring shows that the system added more than 1,000 administrators over that period. Their ranks grew 37%, more than twice as fast as the teaching corps and nearly twice as fast as the student body.
Across U.S. higher education, nonclassroom costs have ballooned, administrative payrolls being a prime example. The number of employees hired by colleges and universities to manage or administer people, programs and regulations increased 50% faster than the number of instructors between 2001 and 2011, the U.S. Department of Education says. It’s part of the reason that tuition, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has risen even faster than health-care costs.
The University of Minnesota illustrates the trend. Its main Twin Cities campus had the largest share of employees classified as “executive/administrative and managerial” among the 72 “very-high-research” public universities in the 2011-12 academic year, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education. Minnesota officials say the figures are misleading because not all schools report administrative spending the same way.
At Minnesota, tuition and fees for state residents have more than doubled in a decade, to $13,524. That far exceeds the average at four-year public colleges of $8,655, which also represents a doubling, according to the College Board. Private-college tuition averages $29,056, but has risen more slowly.
Administrative employees make up an increasing share of the university’s higher-paid people. The school employs 353 people earning more than $200,000 a year. That is up 57% from the inflation-adjusted pay equivalent in 2001. Among this $200,000-plus group, 81 today have administrative titles, versus 39 in 2001.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323316804578161490716042814.html
Something tells me that being a college student these days really sucks.
Look at all those administrators.
Think about all the regulation of student lives that results from all that spending.
I’m thinking that the last thing those administrators are involved with are the students and their lives. Those fine people are probably involved in endless committees that do nothing more than come up with “studies” and “advisories”. Nice work if you can get it.
$13.5K per year tuition? We have state colleges here that charge about 1/3 of that.
“Nice work if you can get it.”
As in: Go to where the money is.
If not much money is there then a certain type of person will be attracted to the field.
If lots of money is there then another type of person will be attracted to the field.
Even as an undergrad — prior to this explosion in administration — we had extracurriculars all over. Clubs and intramural sports and aerobics classes and a small career center and student government and residence hall events and escort shuttle buses and foreign exchange. I don’t see what other activities could be added without taking significant time away from studying.
That’s exactly how many feel about the local/state/federal governments.
Eventually, with all of the bad press student loan defaults are getting and the lack of jobs for college graduates, one would think enrollment would drop and layoffs would ensue. That’s the free market at work, right?
The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_csEEI4PFE - 210k
Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something
I think you’ll understand
When I say that something
I need a Workout Plan
I need a Workout Plan
I need a Workout Plan
Oh please say to me
You’ll lend a helping hand
And please say to me
I’ll get a Workout Plan
I’ll get a Workout Plan
I’ll get a Workout Plan
Back in the boom times I felt happy inside
My wife needed new boobs and so
I refied, I refied, I refied
Yeah, you got that something
I think you’ll understand
When I say that something
I need a Workout Plan
I need a Workout Plan
I need a Workout Plan
Back in the boom times I felt happy inside
We never had a Lexus so
I refied, I refied, I refied
Yeah, you got that something
I think you’ll understand
When I say that something
I need a Workout Plan
I need a Workout Plan
I need a Workout Plan
I need a Workout Plan
“I refied…I refied…I REFIED!”
You’ve outdone yourself. Excellent.
Another Jethro Masterpiece…. go Maestro Jethro!
So hows the new house Jethro?
So hows the new house Jethro?
Depreciating rapidly, one presumes?
My wife needed new boobs and so
I refied, I refied, I refied
I’m getting an amusing visual…
now THAT made me LOL
Expect nothing less from your Nobel Peace Prize president
New York Times - Drone War Spurs Militants to Deadly Reprisals:
“Al Qaeda and the Taliban have few defenses against the American drones that endlessly prowl the skies over the bustling militant hubs of North and South Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, along the Afghan border. C.I.A. missiles killed at least 246 people in 2012, most of them Islamist militants, according to watchdog groups that monitor the strikes. The dead included Abu Yahya al-Libi, the Qaeda ideologue and deputy leader.
Despite the technological superiority of their enemy, however, the militants do possess one powerful countermeasure.
For several years now, militant enforcers have scoured the tribal belt in search of informers who help the C.I.A. find and kill the spy agency’s jihadist quarry. The militants’ technique — often more witch hunt than investigation — follows a well-established pattern. Accused tribesmen are abducted from homes and workplaces at gunpoint and tortured. A sham religious court hears their case, usually declaring them guilty. Then they are forced to speak into a video camera.
The taped confessions, which are later distributed on CD, vary in style and content. But their endings are the same: execution by hanging, beheading or firing squad.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/world/asia/drone-war-in-pakistan-spurs-militants-to-deadly-reprisals.html?hp&pagewanted=all
But we are winning, right?
The more we win, the lower we sink.
Smoking a bunch of them with little model airplanes, and no fatalities of our own? Getting them so freaked out they’re going on witch-hunts, turning against their own?
The shoe is on the other foot. Now we are winning on the asymetrical warfare front- supposedly terrorism’s key to victory.
God loves irony.
(Im thinking about buying some shacks and opening up some “one eighthways houses”)
Halfway Houses Prove Lucrative to Those at Top
By SAM DOLNICK
The Kintock Group, the second-largest operator of halfway houses in New Jersey, is a nonprofit agency that is financed almost entirely by government contracts. But it is run like a well-heeled family business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/nyregion/operator-of-new-jersey-halfway-houses-paid-millions-to-founder.html
But they are producers and bootstrappers! Sure, with taxpayers money, but, but, they are producers and bootstrappers!
I wonder what kind of taxes the “business” pays? Oh wait, “non-profit”. Never mind.
Good find, Spook.
I am sure your neighbors will LOVE you! Halfway house residents are simply charming!
3:40 on is pretty cool. I guess that`s how you come up with “Let it be”.
Rare Beatles jamming session jan.1969 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg9TyUVHXPk - 228k
Good find Jeff. “Let it be” is still one of my all time favs.
http://news.yahoo.com/illinois-dragging-feet-huge-pension-problem-151955718.html
I think people are getting tired of paying lavish pensions to the public sector.
Housing Demand is down to 1997 levels and falling
Posting in bold is a sign of immaturity and insecurity.
Denying the truth is a sign of a liar
OK, what is the fear of bold type a sign of?
OK, what is the fear of bold type a sign of?
People who are worried that volume is replacing reason in our debates.
Truth.
Prayer of the Debt Junkies and Underwater: Please go back up. Please go back up. Please go back up.
Meanwhile resale prices continue to fall.
We call this whistling past the graveyard. There is no housing recovery that can sustain itself, due to demographics. The baby boomer generation is retiring at the rate of 10,000 people per day. The houses they exit will flood the market and continue to drive prices down. Falling prices is the only means of recovery as there is no recovery due to inflated prices and housing demand has fallen to 1997 levels because of grossly inflated prices. The masters of the obvious will print articles telling everyone housing prices are falling again…… long after the fact.
The win-win: Rent small and cheap and pay little in property taxes. Small being 1,000 square feet or less. In large cities apartment complexes competing with other rents will have a lid on prices.
In my future I’m going to make a hobby out of paying as little in taxes as possible without cramping my style. For instance, don’t want to pay gas taxes? Ride a bike instead. Now that’s not on my list because I do like cars.
And here I’m in L.A. in the 9% state income tax bracket when I could be in Florida.
The baby boomer generation is retiring at the rate of 10,000 people per day. The houses they exit will flood the market
Where are they moving? Won’t there be a RE boom there?
Maybe even some appreciation?
They’re moving? They’ll never die? They’re immortal?
Houses depreciate ALWAYS.
$222 trillion debt and the means testing will force the wealthy boomers to sell off their houses to pay for their medical care and sustenance - they won’t be able to count on social security either.
Government does not know how much net worth a person has but does know about income. So those with huge pensions and 401ks will have to forget about medicare and social security.
Government will default on its debt that way but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I just cannot decide whether Combo is right and go 100% cash or if others are right and go 100% gold. So some of each should not hurt.
Many economic pundits are saying the next decade or two will be very slow growth, like 2% if we are lucky. But they discount outside events that might make growth come back: harnessing nuclear fusion, a cure for cancer, a cure for heart disease, and so forth. You never know for sure.
Massive deflation in housing prices will happen. The 10,000 boomers per day who are retiring - how much savings do they have? If means testing for entitlements happen, even the modest pensions and 401k incomes will mean the entitlement supplement will be trimmed down. For many boomers, this will mean they have to dump their houses to pay for catastrophic medical care - forget Obamacare - it will be bankrupt far sooner than social security and medicare.
The glut of houses of course will turn into a glut of rentals as many of them hope to hang onto some income or new owners will just rent them out. Rent prices will also come down.
Boomers who have nick nacks they can sell for cash will do so. Wine collections, jewelry, watches, furniture. They cannot easily be tracked by the government as income and will make many people pass the means test. But having plain cash is not having income. Best to not really have it in the bank in that case, but in a safe, just in case the government decides to count all electronic deposits as potential income.
Yes sir indeed.
“demand has fallen to 1997 levels…”
OK, and prices have fallen to 2002 levels. Massive government debt spending has barely managed to slow the tide. The real economy has slid beyond that, but with a steep slope in every direction. Very fragile.
Late 2003 levels…… when prices had already double and then some.
That some pretty simplistic assumptions there.
Demographics Eco.
There is FAR more involved than just demographics and this analysis is so simplistic it’s embarrassing.
For instance, you can’t retire without a pension or savings of some kind and if you can’t retire, then you need a job. Boomers took just as big as hit with each recession as everyone else and most have neither a retirement nor a job that can pay for one.
The assumption is also they will somehow magically not live in another house. That they can sell the one they have now or that even WANT to move. Boomer have kids and grandkids and it still takes more than a one bedroom apt. to have them all over.
And that’s just for starters…
Their house is a box in the ground.
Not to mention that boomers are between about 48 years old and about 66 years old…we have a ways to go before the bulk of the demographic effects take hold…which I believe will mainly be downsizing by SOME boomers.
“Not to mention that boomers are between about 48 years old and about 66 years old…we have a ways to go before the bulk of the demographic effects take hold…which I believe will mainly be downsizing by SOME boomers.”
FWIW, many late boomers “missed the asset inflation train”, so downsizing won’t be an issue; they’re already there.
Nonsense.
Peak boomer demographic was born between 1945-1951 which puts them with in 5 years of the average mortality age.
OT.
Need some advice.
Stuck home with a nasty cold and fever. Looks like it will be a couple of days at least.
1. Natural remedies for stuffy nose outside of the taking steam.
2. Natural remedies for a sore throat.
3. Please recommend some mindless (but hopefully funny) movies. I gave NFL a chance, it’s not working.
Also can you get a cold an flu at the same time?
Google-up “can you catch a cold and the flu at the same time” and you get back a wiki-answer.
Google is your friend
Stop the antihistamines and caffeine. Start the Mucinex, drink Gatorade.
“Start the Mucinex…”
+1 That is some amazing stuff, IMHO.
It really is for sure. It knocks the hell out of the symptoms if you follow the instructions. Add ibuprofen and I’m 80% back to health within a 48 hours.
Cayenne pepper, spicy food, horseradish, or equivalent spicy stuff.
Tea with slippery elm bark (not everybody likes this).
Mindless movies — doesn’t necessarily have to be mindless, just stuff you’ve seen before.
Ken Burns Marathons: Civil War, The National Parks, Mark Twain, Lewis and Clark
First three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Marathons: Lord of the Rings, Pirates of Caribbean, Star Wars, Terminator, Aliens 1 and 2
Decent movies:
Braveheart
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Sideways
Nightmare Before Christmas
Talladega Nights (haven’t seen it, but apparently not horribly bad)
Wedding Singer
Up in the Air
Supersize Me followed by Fathead (they are nearly opposites)
The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast
Movies:
Some Like It Hot
Back to School
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Young Frankenstein
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Raising Arizona
Reruns of Big Bang Theory
Shrek’s Christmas Special (couldn’t stop laughing)
The Great Race
A Fish Called Wanda
Caddyshack
Toy Story
Animal House
The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
Galaxy Quest
Little Miss Sunshine
His Girl Friday
The Blues Brothers
National Lampoon Vacation
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Arsenic and Old Lace
Philadelphia Story (Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn)
The Princess Bride
Wayne’s World
Best In Show
Ghostbusters
Duck Soup
Blazing Saddles
The Jerk
Groundhog Day
Anchorman
Airplane
Spinal Tap
Hopefully this should get you started
It appears we have similar tastes. May I add:
What About Bob
Irreconcilable Differences
Knight and Day
Men in Black series, Die Hard series, and anything with Eddie Murphy.
Get well soon and don’t spread it ! -
Trading Places
Warm up a teacup of bourbon until it’s steamy- but don’t boil it or you’ll lose the precious alcohol- add lot of honey and some lemon juice, mix it up, and enjoy.
Don’t buy the bourbon that already has honey in it, it’s got to be real honey that you add (ideally local). And real lemon juice from a lemon. And real bourbon- Scotch doesn’t work, blended whiskey doesn’t work as well, nor does Rye.
Warnings: Don’t take any medicine with acetaminophen in it, if you drink this, and you really shouldn’t take acetaminophen ever, if you drink alcohol with any regularity. The combination will destroy your liver.
Man, you are very particular.
I Only have single malt scotch and blended scotch.
For today, I will drink mild to hot water with Cayenne pepper as Oxide suggested and Gargle as ahensen (and my mom) suggested.
Thank you all. Appreciated.
Found kids in the hall on Netflix. I am watching it right now. I will check out the list here some other day.
50 Helens agree mild to hot water with Cayenne pepper will give you a burning sensation tomorrow.
Grape juice, 100% purple grape juice, not the cocktail. Drink lots of it when you aren’t sipping toddies.
Scientifically proven to fight viruses.
I will drink mild to hot water with Cayenne pepper
There are those that drink hot chili pepper water when they feel down, and those that drink warm honey-sweetened bourbon.
I’m glad to say that I belong to the latter.
And I think that medical science will back me up. Nothing’s likely to kill a virus, but honey and lemon are great on your throat, and a little whiskey helps you relax and sleep through your misery. (Obviously you shouldn’t drink a fifth.)
My son gave me “Gymkata” for Christmas. I nearly peed myself. Just jaw-droppingly awful big budget action movie without a shred of irony or self-awareness. My personal nomination for the worst movie of the 80’s. (And I’m a connoisseur of such drivel.) Available on Netflix and Amazon. Best seen in the company of drunken gay boys, but stands well on its own. Sort of a “Showgirls” for chop-socky buffs. Enjoy. (And feel better soon!)
It’s a nuisance, but you really can’t beat the old country doctor’s trick of gargling with water as hot as you can stand it and as salty as you can stand it as often as you can stand it. Get it as far back in your throat as possible without swallowing. It helps to “ooooommmm” while you’re doing it. Then wrap your throat in a muffler and repeat every hour or two until you want to gag at the thought. Then do it again.
Creates a hostile environment for cold and flu viruses. Cold+ dry= bad for you. Warm+humid= good for you.
What about warm+dry?
Horrible nasty hacking cough that lasts for months.
Jesus, have you tried Brandy?
Brandy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.
Proverbs 4:20
Hot toddy even better
Hot toddy, chili tamale?
You can take all the medicines you want, but the key may be an issue of elapsed time spent being sick.
You may just have to be sick for a while because its your bodies way of forcing you to slow down.
Those super HIGH paying cafeteria workers jobs:
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/12/lebanon_county_budget_gets_fin.html
What is Cedar Haven, a hospital? Why not charge the health insurance or Uncle Sam’s USDA SNAP program for the meals?
Nursing home…..
http://www.lebcounty.org/Cedar_Haven/Pages/home.aspx
Retrials cost money.
http://www.paduiblog.com/pa-dui/lebanon-county-breath-test-scandal/