The Housing Bubble

At White House Request, Lockheed Martin Drops Plan to Issue Layoff Notices

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin heeded a request from the White House today — one with political overtones — and announced it will not issue layoff notices to thousands of employees just days before the November presidential election.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/at-white-house-request-lockheed-martin-drops-plan-to-issue-layoff-notices/

Mali to the rescue: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-mali-usa-idUSBRE90L0DR20130122

Now get back to work and pay your fair share.

If more people could do that (had Corporate America not offshored their jobs) we wouldn’t be in this pickle now, would we?

If more people could do that (had Corporate America not offshored their jobs) we wouldn’t be in this pickle now, would we?
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

Spend billions to build new refineries which will are not now since they exist on the Gulf coast and certainly not be needed in thirty years. Also they will require pipelines to bring the products to where it is demand. Does not sound like sound economics.

“Needed” was left out.

Seems like we need our refineries for the big increase in our own domestic production or else it may squeeze out our access to our own products. Also, won’t this make our retail prices compete with the international prices for refined petroleum products?

We have enough refinery capacity and it makes no sense to build one in ND and then have to ship by pipelines the products produced there. The Gulf coast has enough refineries to meet U.S. demand, it is just a question of the oil to feed them. Will it be shipped from overseas or supplied by the U.S.?

it is just a question of the oil to feed them.
The principal question is, how much will the oil costs that feeds and supports the US economy? Whether it’s produced domestically or imported, that cost is part of what is crushing or retarding the US economy. US military presence in Saudi Arabia for decades is part of this cost, but I don’t think it’s even the main part.

The Brazilians are probably less inhibited about sex than “Real Americans” and are getting it more than the lonely USA boyz who try to overcompensate with the truck nutz and whose sexual experience is most often as a rugged individualist.

Doesn’t seem to stop you from demonizing them…

I can’t quite figure out conservatism.

I can’t quite figure out conservatism.

Government intervention and entitlements in the areas we want, nothing for the people we disagree with.

Government intervention and entitlements in the areas we want, nothing for the people we disagree with.
That is close to the definition of rent-seeking.

But here we are. GWB: Term 4.

If another Democrat or Republican wins in 2016, it will more than likely be Term 5.

Who ever said George Bush was conservative?

The are just a few conservatives in the Republican Party.

The democrat party had a few of them too - last seen in the 1980s…

But here we are. GWB: Term 4.

Agreed.

The are just a few conservatives in the Republican Party.

Yet you were rooting for Mittens and his guys to win.

Compared to obama? At least there was SOME hope on SOME issue with Romney.

Oh well, we have hope and change for four more years.

Trillion dollar deficits. Gun control and gun bans. Illegals getting citizenship. More bailouts to wall street. Higher and higher housing prices. More drone attacks. Kill list of American citizens.

The 47% vote and want their cheese. Welcome to America.

Yet you were rooting for Mittens and his guys to win.

Why vote for either? Wasn’t there a libertarian candidate?

BTW, government must move fast on global warming if it wants to take credit for declining temperatures. December was only .44C above the norm compared to 1998 being .61 C above the norm and January is setting up to be even cooler. The Pacific is rapidly cooling taking the planet with it: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

Why do you always use 1998 as your comparison year, AQDan?

Some special fondness for that particular year? Or what?

I also use 420,000 of history. But the reason to use 1998 is obvious, it is the year when it became clear that we had a peak in temperatures. This peak was entirely contrary to the AGW crowd’s models that expected us to set a new record every couple of years. They used the number in 1998 to “prove” global warming and now they want to ignore it. It should not even be close according to them, at the time, we should be about .75C above 1998 by now. But if you look at the period 1978-1998 you see the following factors (1) sunspot activity high (2) PDO in warming period (3) Atlantic ocean in warming period (4) large numbers of El nino years very few la nina years.

As you can see many natural factors for warming. Despite, that AGW scientist in their models attributed vs. all the warming to co2. That is why their models have been so wrong, particularly James Hansen’s model predictions. Bottom line you can not warm 5-7 C over the next century as stated by the alarmists, until you break 1998 in a meaningful way.

Google “1998 El Nino”.

It was a very warm year because of a huge El Nino. Giant spike in the graphs. Up until recently Dan was demanding that the spike be equalled in a year with no El Nino as his proof of the existance of any warming of the climate at all. Kind of like demanding that a room be as bright as it was when 50 100 watt bulbs were on as proof that the sun has come up.

“…the AGW crowd’s models that expected us to set a new record every couple of years….”

So many questions! What models were those, Dan? And who is this “AGW” “crowd” you keep referring to? (”Crowd” as opposed to the miniscule handful of cranks whose discredited rhetoric you parrot daily here on a housing blog?) And why would you reference 30-year old computer models as reason to disparage the state of the discipline today? Or are you just a hack with an agenda?

The only difference between actual scientists (like James Hansen’s) predictive models and your own half-baked ravings is that when confronted with new evidence, scientists reevaluate their models. Not sure from whence this constant harping on “5-7C increase” eminates, (did you mean .5-.7C?) but it makes your trolling on this topic sound increasingly unhinged.

I REPEAT:
Land and atmospheric temperatures are just a small fraction of what comprise the data; surface temperature averages are not an accurate measure of global warming. Why do you keep insisting they are?

Maybe you should stick with history of the ME, where at least it appears you’ve an academic grounding? Your intellectual cred is taking a self-inflicted beating here….

No, I mean 5-7 C because that what the idiot Hansen predicted and many like him. We were suppose to have .5C or more increase in temperature per decade. If we are going to have only .5-.7 C over the next century global warming is not even a problem. That amount of warming would be very beneficial and a century is enough time for man and even animals to adapt, it falls within normal climate change amounts.
Yes, 1998 had a strong el nino but the AGW crowd said at the time natural factors were swamped by man made warming. Hansen you have no cred your posts show you do not even understand the issues or you have studied the predictions made at the time. Exceeding 1998 should have been quite easy. That is what even the climate gate e-mails said. Until you exceed 1998 in a major way, the predictions made by the AGW crowd are a joke. We are suppose to believe models that have been totally wrong for over 15 years going forward? That is the definition of insanity.

Polly, you really think demanding warming of about .1-.3 C is a lot when Hansen was predicting that much warming in less than five years? You look at the predictions Hansen made in 1988 and I have posted them numerous times on this blog and you will see that Hansen should resign if he had any sense of duty, he clearly missed his prediction and is an advocate not a scientist in the debate. I will say it again, I need to see .1C of warming over 1998 in a non-el nino year to make me think that AGW might be more significant that my estimate that around 90% of the GW between 1978 and 1998 was natural . Which would be about .3c of manmade warming. That is less than 1/10th of the warming that the alarmists are predicting so I hardly think that is an unreasonable request.

Besides looking at the previous posts, you can look at this one:

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba299

But the bottom line is always the same you can not have AGW without GW and we have not had that for over 15 years. All the instability was suppose to be caused by co2 raising the global temperature and we do not have that. Hansen just shows herself to be the underachieving rich brat that she was when she does not refute my articles but name calls. So I say it again Hansen you were born on second base and you think you hit a double. You were and still are the loser of your family.

My numbers are correct: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba299

As much as I would like to exchange insults since you cannot refute the links, I need to go. However, this is my final thought if man made warming only raises the global temperature .5 to .7 c over a hundred years than I will be vindicated not the James Hansens of this debate. I have asserted for over 6 years that I thought CO2 only caused 1/7 of the warming between 1978-98 and that co2 was only 1/7 of the heating agent claimed by the AGW crowd. So that number which is 1/10 of the number claimed by Hansen would be about right. Of course, that depends on whether we go into a solar minimum for a protracted period if that happens we could be much cooler in a hundred years than now. If we just go into a protracted period of twenty years of lower solar activity which is what I think is most likely than it will swamp the man made warming for twenty years.

Your website is a lobbying front funded by the Koch Brothers. The “data” you cite are a perfect example of the fallacy of incomplete information, and while I give you a smidgeon of derivative credit for your “born on second base” line, the truth is I was born on home plate and immediately set about making my way out to right field and into the strawberry patches beyond. What a shame you’re still wiping the tobacco spit off bats for the big boys in the dugout.

Historic Sudden Stratospheric Warming Continues.

Current event shatters records… research links to AGW effects on upper atmosphere and suggests Jan-Mar northern hemisphere will trend cooler than global climate models predicted.

http://theweathercentre.blogspot.ca/2013/01/historic-sudden-stratospheric-warming.html

http://web.mit.edu/jlcohen/www/papers/Cohenetal2009.pdf

layman translation: The extra heat in the lower atmosphere of the tropical and sub-tropical regions are creating continental sized ‘thermals’ that are pushing up into the stratosphere and destabilizing the arctic vortex.

So Rent To Own is a Sharia concept?

Looks like most of the loopholes involve the lender having some skin in the game. Maybe that’s why there aren’t many middle eastern mega-banks.

“Looks like most of the loopholes involve the lender having some skin”

exactly, that way the lender is the owner of the underlying asset and has a vested interest in making sure the client can make the payments.

“So Rent To Own is a Sharia concept?”

How about that.

“Maybe that’s why there aren’t many middle eastern mega-banks”

Sure there are, but they don’t fit the Western civilization propaganda narrative.

Here’s a list of the top ten.

http://www.gfmag.com/tools/best-banks/10927-biggest-banks-in-the-middle-east-2010.html#axzz2IjF7cNM7

The religious loopholes always seem so flimsy to me. Like the electronics that help observant Jews not turn anything on during the Sabbath.

I guess using drones to kill allows people to obey the commandment not to kill.

Like the electronics that help observant Jews not turn anything on during the Sabbath.
They used to hire “Sabbos goys” to light fires for them. Wiki: Before the 20th century Shabbos goys most commonly lit (or re-lit) stoves in Jewish homes in the winter. In the 20th century, Colin Powell, Mario Cuomo, Martin Scorsese, Floyd B. Olson, and the adolescent Elvis Presley assisted their Jewish neighbors in this way.
Not all these ‘loopholes’ are flimsy, but a lot of them are.

The Shabbos goy loophole is particularly flimsy. You can’t light a fire because it is “work” and work is forbidden on the Sabbath. However, if you read the rule in the decalog, it says you aren’t supposed to work but also that your man servant and maid servant aren’t either. So if you hire someone to do something personal for you (employee is pretty much like a man servant or maid servant) then you are already violating the rule. Not an interpretation of the rule (which is where making a fire = work comes from) but the text of the rule itself.

I’ve always thought it fell somewhere between “that doesn’t sound right” and “you have to be kidding me.” Lots of legal fictions end up like that.

Designer pastas are 13.25 oz. Will that work? Go to google images for “whole wheat pasta box.” For example:

http://www.mycolombianrecipes.com/reviews/whole-grain-thin-spaghetti-with-kale-asparagus-and-lemon

(scroll down a little)

ahh yuppie pasta and 500ML of pasta sauce, just enough to grace the edges of the organic spinach pasta

Notice the recipe calls for 1 pound Barilla® Whole Grain Thin Spaghetti.

I used to love that battery-acid flavor.

Yeah, especially when it gets all up in your sinuses.

Given what that stuff does to you, maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.

I was watching a Nightly News broadcast last week where they were discussing the “obesity epidemic” and they cited Coke as “doing it’s part” to reduce the risk by decreasing it’s can/bottle sizes.

Convenient cover just in time, I’d say, lest they be accused of selling less for more.

LOL, great observation, sleepless.

If folks would stop buying processed stuff that comes in cans and packages, they’d find that the price of actual food is remarkably stable.

ahansen are you sure? Groud beef and apples are climbing up and the price of milk fluctuates so much that we use it as a metric.

Ground beef and milk always come packaged at the stores I buy from.

Apples are up this year because of weather. Last spring was warm very early. The trees came into flower early. There was a severe cold snap later in the spring that took out a lot of the fruit at a very, very early stage of development. People in souther Ontario were talking about having lost 50% of the crop of certain varieties. A lot of the North American apple crop (not all) is from areas that had similar weather issues.

There has been NO increase in the cost of apples I steal from my neighbor’s back yard. So there!

Also, my dad tells me that when he was a kid, the individual serving coke bottle were 6 ounces - and a couple of kids would share them. After a whole afternoon riding their bikes and playing outside each kid would get a swallow each.

We shared those small Cokes, and very seldom bought one. Our sweetened drinks were Kool-aid, and mom put as little sugar in that as she could get away with.
A pint of ice cream was shared 5 ways.

Getting truly unprocessed milk: 18-sec YouTube video

In the mid-Atlantic, apples were fine this year. It was the peaches that got wiped.

I wonder how much Coke cost during those days of sharing — was it proportionally more than today? Weren’t parents were far more stingy with the allowance money back then too? (I never got an allowance, just b-day money.) Kids didn’t get enough $$ to waste on Coke. Last month I was at the mall on a Friday afternoon and was stunned at the number of 16-17 year olds, still in their plaid school uniforms, sucking down grande lattés and designer smoothies as they shopped and flirted. Was this allowance money? If they had worked an actual lucky ducky job, I can’t imagine that they would spend a whole hour (after tax) of work on a quick sugar bomb.

Back in the mid & late 50’s, we got no allowance. There were a great many pick-up jobs kids could do for spending money, some of the money came from our parents, some from other’s parents & some from more regular sources. I mowed some people’s lawns and picked cherries in the summer for 50 cents a lug. Sometimes we competed with braceros brought up from the south. Friends of mine would get hired in work gangs to be trucked out to fields to hoe potatoes. Kids delivered papers to front porches. Spending 35 cents at McDonald’s for a burger, fries and a soda pop were major outlays.

I remember 15 cent burgers at McDonald’s when I had my paper route at 14.

Seemingly no equivalent opportunity for many young people now. May lower obesity?

Why do you hate American Exceptionalism?

Recycling is for sissies!

Recycling is for sissies!

True that. I am always surprised when I go to other cities by how little they recycle. Only 20% of all SF’s garbage goes to the landfill- the rest is recycled and composted.

Coming on the heels of the city’s 2009 municipal ordinance requiring city-wide source separation of all organic materials, the first large-scale urban food waste and composting program in the country has not only helped reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions to nearly 12 percent below 1990 levels; it’s also catapulted San Francisco to a staggering, nation-leading 78 percent waste diversion rate.

Just a few years ago, a zero-waste city was considered a futuristic scenario. Now, the city by the bay is on track to be the first and only North American city to achieve this impressive goal — and it plans to get there by 2020. (http://www.alternet.org/story/155039/where_no_city_has_gone_before%3A_san_francisco_will_be_world%27s_first_zero-waste_town_by_2020)

“zero waste city”

We should suggest this for Glenn Beck’s planned Freedom Utopia city-state-thingy, the one with all the artisans and craftsman.

Do you really believe that half the country gets free cell phones?

“Do you really believe that half the country gets free cell phones?”

It was linked on Drudge and discussed on Rush/O’Reilly. Duh.

A quick looksie with google shows that there are 8 million “obamaphones”. Since 47% of the populace would be about 150 million people, it’s a pretty safe bet that most of those folks don’t have one.

those Patriot wives seem to be having a hard time with a season ending loss again.

They could start a loosers support group with Ann Romney. (But Ann might not fit in.)

“They could start a loosers support group with Ann Romney. (But Ann might not fit in.)”

It is deemed not polite to yawn in front of your conversational partner as it would give the impression that you are disinterested or bored.

http://www.squidoo.com/why-do-we-yawn- - 145k

Joe Flacco is a real estate/FIRE sector pimp. Proof:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtFbYt2yT6I

Joe Flacco is a real estate/FIRE sector pimp

He owns a lot of real estate on the playing field at Mile High Stadium (and that’s what we call it, not Invesco or Sports Authority who whoever the corporate whore du jour is)

Yesterday, I said I would not buy. Nothing to my liking based on price, location and quality of property.

I am looking through the MLS for properties to lease. I’ve sent out 13 emails this morning, got 6 replies back so far. 4 have pending applications. I will look at the other two later today.

Rents will crater by 65%! Don’t rent!

This will go on until almost all the shadow inventory is in stable hands i.e. low risk of default. By this I mean a fixed 3%-5% mortgage for an end-consumer (reno-flip or not), an investor bought rental, a cash bought safe-house for the Chinese, or a tear-down empty lot on which you can build your $75/sq ft pre-fab.

You’e a little high on your estimate. You’re really high. Shop built modules run $45/sq.

Honestly…How many hundreds of thousands did you overpay?

He also bought in a boondocks suburb. By his own admission he’s lost his 20% down payment and says that the prices are still dropping.

I think that’s why one needs to look at the bigger picture. Here in Portland, living close to the city’s core is very popular and prices and lack of inventory bear that out (1 month of inventory, insane prices). Go out 60-90 blocks and the story changes dramatically. Go out 120+ blocks and, if you aren’t bidding at 40-50% of the 2007 price, yer gonna get stucco.

very popular
equals insane prices and lack of inventory

The thing is that by buying in the boondocks he got a house for 200K that would have cost 2-3x as much in a more desirable nabe, say like Carey.

But if he wants to unload that house anytime soon, he’ll have to write a check at closing.

if he wants to unload that house anytime soon, he’ll have to write a check at closing.
What would have been the results of his buying in a ‘desirable nabe’?

Aye, ’tis quite the conundrum for him, but a good lesson for us. If you’re going to buy out there, underbid big time.

Yeah, I think the so called progressives will dismantle affirmative action as soon as whitey can take advantage of the system. Mark my words.

2banana, AA may be dismantlementled by the Supremes in the Fisher v. University of Texas case:

The Supreme Court is considering a case from Texas that challenges affirmative action in college admission. The case was brought by Abigail Fisher, now 22, who claims she was denied admission to the University of Texas in 2008 because of the color of her skin. Fisher, who is white, says university admissions policies favor some African-American and Hispanic applicants in a way that violates the equal protection clause in the Constitution.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/us/july-dec12/AffirmativeAction_10-15.html

I see a slow deflation of America over a period of decades.
That is my “lucky” scenario.

You want me to get into a long winded micro analysis of BSO’s chilling statements regarding the constitution. Not going to happen.

Suffice it to say that I have a problem with a President taking and oath to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States while at the same time working on the back end to undermine it. His statements in that paragraph speak volumes about his underlying Marxism and he mixes no words when he calls the Constitution a “Charter of negative liberties”.

“So, please explain how the two passages are in opposion and explain in detail.”

The opposition would be Marxism vs the type of government outlined in the US Constitution. Perhaps great legal minds can explain to all of us some of the parallels we are missing.

Not going to happen.
Likewise, getting others to adopt your point of view and perhaps to change things in a direction you would like is ‘not going to happen.’

+1 tresho.

If you want us to agree with your usual content-free screed of buzzwords instead of Polly’s analysis, you better believe you need to get into a long-winded microanalysis.

Would someone please tell this idiot that a “charter of negative liberties” deliniates rights that the government cannot regulate or infringe upon?

LMAO.

a “charter of negative liberties” deliniates rights that the government cannot regulate or infringe upon?
Too long-winded, too micro-analytic!

Exactly, Alena.

It is even right there in the text if he had bothered to read it:

“that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf…”

I have to admit that I don’t see any Marxism in that description of the Constitution (really the Bill of Rights).

“I have to admit that I don’t see any Marxism in that description of the Constitution (really the Bill of Rights).”

Seek and ye shall find?

Sorry I missed all the fun, I have to earn a living, got mouths to feed and free loaders to support.

“Would someone please tell this idiot that a “charter of negative liberties” deliniates rights that the government cannot regulate or infringe upon? ”

Ahansen, for someone that poses as an intellectual, you are failing miserably lately. His statement speaks to his view of the Constitution and his disagreement with the philosophy behind it. Any moron reading the paragraph could fully understand that fact.

“If you want us to agree with your usual content-free screed of buzzwords instead of Polly’s analysis, you better believe you need to get into a long-winded microanalysis.”

Mrs. realtors best friend and trasho,

My response to Mrs. Gboto right below my “not going to happen line” spoke volumes in two simple paragraphs, I don’t need to compile a book of twisted legalese to combat an automaton like Polly. Like most statists progressives, she over complicates simple issues and comes off as the smartest person in the room to all but the educated.

nickpapageorgio…. you’re playing with their flabby, dishonest minds.

A final note: My hard hitting commentaries must cut to the bone of statist progressives, especially the most radical among them. I am consistently attacked and called an idiot by the usual low IQ posers (yes I meant to say posers). I will be busy with a personal venture for the next couple of months, so all of you cowards can reset your JTE’s and talk among yourselves. Misery loves company.

“… I will be busy with a personal venture for the next couple of months…”
Don’t forget to flush, nicky.

P.S. It’s spelled “poseur”.

“Don’t forget to flush, nicky.”

Save that kind of talk for your abortion doctors. Don’t you have an Obama care death panel meeting to attend?

“Don’t forget to flush, nicky.”

Save that kind of talk for your ab.rtion doctors. Don’t you have an Obamacare de.th panel meeting to attend?