The Housing Bubble

After yesterday’s spirited partisan debate about the merits of Party X versus Party Y, a necessary reminder: “Oligarchy, it’s a big club & you ain’t in it”

http://www.picpaste.com/oligarchy-aKJuiSRb.jpg

Filed under: yes, you are a looser

“A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world’s largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.

The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.

“We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry,” researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin’s Humboldt University told Reuters.

“From our observations some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site,” said Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation point in some markets.

Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt’s Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook.

Social interaction was the second most common cause of envy as users could compare how many birthday greetings they received to those of their Facebook friends and how many “likes” or comments were made on photos and postings.

“Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations and socialize,” the researchers said in the report “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?” released on Tuesday.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50549322/ns/business-us_business/t/facebook-envy-making-you-miserable/#.UP_1_SfAexV

Politico - Washington, D.C.-area lawmakers brace for sequestration:

“Some of the lawmakers with the most to lose from sequestration — those who represent Washington’s suburbs packed with defense contractors and federal workers — have lost their optimism that Congress could avoid it.

A Pentagon hiring freeze, a new March deadline for sequestration and spending drama are compounding the problems faced by the U.S. military and defense contractors in already austere budget times.

“I’m not optimistic. I’m not even hopeful,” Rep. Jim Moran, whose Virginia district includes the Pentagon itself, told POLITICO. “In the next three months, six months, I think only bad things can happen. I think the president gave up his leverage, and I think this is going to be a very trying time for the country.”

His Virginia colleague, Rep. Gerry Connolly, said defense cuts have been a significant concern for the Beltway delegation since last summer, when deep, across-the-board sequestration cuts started to look more likely.

“As much as 8 percent of our GDP in the metropolitan region and in Northern Virginia could be at risk over just defense cuts,” Connolly told POLITICO. “You’ve got a lot of expertise built up over generations here in Virginia, especially in Northern Virginia, that could be also at risk. That’s lost expertise just walking out the door … on national security, homeland security, defense, intelligence.”

In the Virginia Democrats’ Beltway-adjacent districts, a shrinking defense industry would mean joblessness and economic instability.

“People know that ultimately before we get through this long sequence of crises, there are thousands of people who are going to lose their jobs,” Moran said. “The entire workforce is going to become demoralized. This is no way to run a government.”

Defense budget analyses show that as many as 200,000 jobs could be lost in Virginia, and about 100,000 are at risk in Maryland, Moran said.

“You’re going to see a real economic slowdown in Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church,” he said. “And then people in the retail services sector are going to realize how important the federal employment base and the federal contracting base are to their businesses. These are the people who buy the products they sell and the services they provide.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/washington-dc-area-lawmakers-sequestration-86628.html?hp=r5

Rush Limbaugh - Obamaism Will Fail Because Socialism Always Does:

“All of this that’s happening is going to implode, just like it imploded in the Soviet Union. Folks, socialism has never worked anywhere. It always implodes. It always fails. And Obama is nothing special. He’s not a messiah. He doesn’t have a magic wand that can turn a demonstrated failure of a system into a success. It is going to go the way of the dinosaur. The question is when, and how much damage is done in the process. It’s a question of timing.

It could be hastened if we had a little bit more political activism and leadership at the elected level, but this can’t be sustained. It can’t work. It never has worked. What’s going to happen is what Margaret Thatcher said: The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of the other guy’s money. You run out of other people’s money. Now, in our case, we can print money. Italy can’t print money; Greece can’t print money. We can. So we can continue this charade longer than other nations have been able to.

But at some point this is going to collapse on itself. The objective is to make sure the country is not permanently destroyed in the process of this happening. But this that Obama is trying, this that he wants to do cannot work. It cannot work mathematically. It cannot work politically. It cannot work ideologically. It never has. Nowhere has it ever worked at any time in human history. Obama’s way has never worked. What will happen eventually is that the beneficiaries — the people who think that they are the beneficiaries, the people who are totally relying on government — at some point (and it may not be my lifetime, I don’t know, but at some point) it’s gonna stop.

The gravy train is going to end. They’re in for a huge shock and surprise. The low-information people are going to be stunned into reality at some point. There’s no avoiding it. Now, hopefully we can hasten this with future elections. I know that looks bleak. But at some point, everything Obama believes in is gonna go down the tubes, because it always has. Call it whatever you want: Liberalism, progressivism. It is all built on a foundation of lies.”

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/01/23/obamaism_will_fail_because_socialism_always_does

According to the Wall Street Journal, the sky is NOT falling

The Myth of a Stagnant Middle Class

Household spending on food, housing, utilities, etc. has fallen from 53% of disposable income in 1950 to 32% today

“A favorite “progressive” trope is that America’s middle class has stagnated economically since the 1970s. One version of this claim, made by Robert Reich, President Clinton’s labor secretary, is typical: “After three decades of flat wages during which almost all the gains of growth have gone to the very top,” he wrote in 2010, “the middle class no longer has the buying power to keep the economy going.”

This trope is spectacularly wrong.

It is true enough that, when adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the average hourly wage of nonsupervisory workers in America has remained about the same. But not just for three decades. The average hourly wage in real dollars has remained largely unchanged from at least 1964—when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) started reporting it.

Moreover, there are several problems with this measurement of wages. First, the CPI overestimates inflation by underestimating the value of improvements in product quality and variety. Would you prefer 1980 medical care at 1980 prices, or 2013 care at 2013 prices? Most of us wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter.

Second, this wage figure ignores the rise over the past few decades in the portion of worker pay taken as (nontaxable) fringe benefits. This is no small matter—health benefits, pensions, paid leave and the rest now amount to an average of almost 31% of total compensation for all civilian workers according to the BLS.

Third and most important, the average hourly wage is held down by the great increase of women and immigrants into the workforce over the past three decades. Precisely because the U.S. economy was flexible and strong, it created millions of jobs for the influx of many often lesser-skilled workers who sought employment during these years.

Since almost all lesser-skilled workers entering the workforce in any given year are paid wages lower than the average, the measured statistic, “average hourly wage,” remained stagnant over the years—even while the real wages of actual flesh-and-blood workers employed in any given year rose over time as they gained more experience and skills.

These three factors tell us that flat average wages over time don’t necessarily support a narrative of middle-class stagnation. Still, pessimists reject these arguments.”

We reject these arguments.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323468604578249723138161566.html?mod=hp_opinion

Democrats and gun bans and higher taxers and bigger government - it all goes together so nicely.

Can’t wait for the entire US to end up like Chicago. No law abiding citizens can own a gun except if they are politically connected.

———————————————

Gun ban said to include handguns, shotguns
UPI | January 24, 2013

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (UPI) — A retooled U.S. assault-weapons ban to be introduced Thursday was to include handguns and shotguns in addition to rifles, The Washington Times reported.

The bill, by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., titled “The Assault Weapons Ban of 2013,” was also expected to decrease the number of military-style features a gun may have before it’s considered an assault weapon to one from two, the newspaper said.

Feinstein’s bill would also create a national gun registry for the government to track lawful gun owners, the Times said.

Magazines, or ammunition storage and feeding devices within or attached to a repeating firearm, would be limited to 10 rounds, the newspaper said.

This is so wrong.

The bigger government becomes - the more corrupt it gets.

Today, all government care about is taking as much money from its citizens as possible. And rewarding those who are politically connected. For the average citizen - there is no escape.

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Checkmate: Who’s Letting Debt Collectors Terrorize Consumers
SF Weekly | Wednesday, Jan 23 2013 | Denise Grollmus

Yet Orr says her woes didn’t lead her to write a bum check at the grocery store. “Sure, we’ve fallen on tough times,” says the 54-year-old from Riverside. “But I’ve never bounced a check before in my life. I’ve always been on top of my finances.”

Accidentally overdrawing one’s bank account isn’t a crime. It is, however, a hyper-lucrative business, allowing banks to collect $30 billion a year in overdraft fees while their customers frantically swim back to the surface. Such is the bounty of faulty math.

So Orr was shocked when she received a letter from the Riverside District Attorney’s Office accusing her of fraud.

In May, she wrote a check for $91 at an Albertson’s grocery store. A few days later, while reviewing her bank account, she noticed that the check had bounced. Orr headed back to Albertson’s to make good on her payment. But she was told that the store had already placed her in collections. It was out of the grocer’s hands.

A month later, Orr received a letter from the district attorney’s office. It inexplicably accused her of intent to commit fraud, noting that she was now eligible for “up to one year in the county jail.” The only way to avoid criminal charges: participate in the county’s “voluntary” bad-check restitution program.

“The letter really made me think I’d go to jail if I didn’t,” she says.

But the DA wanted more than $91 back. Though California law restricts the penalty on bad checks to $25, the letter demanded $333.51, which included $175 for a “voluntary” financial accountability class she’d have to take.

Orr didn’t even consider arguing her innocence. She just wanted the problem solved. So she called the phone number on the letter to make arrangements to pay in cash at the sheriff’s department. When she was told she could only send a check to a P.O. box, Orr grew suspicious.

“That’s when I asked if I was actually talking to someone in the DA’s office,” she says. “And they said no, that they were a company being paid to represent the DA.”

In fact, Orr had contacted Corrective Solutions, a private company from San Clemente. According to its website, it handles bad-check cases for 140 district attorneys nationwide — jurisdictions that oversee 65 million people, from Colorado to Florida, Michigan to Washington.

Consider it the privatizing of justice. Instead of investigating bad-check complaints, prosecutors simply pass them along to Corrective Solutions. The company then uses official DA letterhead to threaten jail time if consumers don’t pay up. Corrective Solutions also runs the “voluntary” financial-accountability classes, and prosecutors get a cut of the profits while barely lifting a finger.

Corrective Solutions didn’t respond — but the threatening letters kept coming.

“When no one wrote me back, I’d had it,” Orr says. “I’d tried everything, even calling the district attorney’s office directly. No one could help me. I just don’t see how this is right, or even legal.”

Debtors’ prisons were outlawed in 1833, when America decided it was counterproductive to imprison people for being broke. In truth, most people avoid their bills simply because they can’t pay them, not because they’re on the make.

Corrective Solutions paid handsomely for the bill. Between 2003 and 2006, the company spent more than $660,000 on lobbying. It also slathered donations on key senators like Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd, who would later leave office after accepting a sweetheart deal from a mortgage company.

The exemption essentially allowed companies like Corrective Solutions, BounceBack, and Check Diversion Program to operate above the law. They can send out notices on DA letterhead, threaten people with jail time, and rake in upward of $200 in fines per person. And it’s all perfectly legal.

Did all of California’s fruits and nuts relocate to Florida?

So much for the theory that Republicans are better at creating fiscal balance than Democrats are.

I’m surprised nobody posted this yesterday, for AZ Slim:

Toll Brothers Plans to Develop Luxury College Dormitories

John Gittelsohn (Bloomibergi 1/23/13)

“Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL), the largest U.S. luxury-home builder, is beginning development of high-end college dormitories, according to Chief Executive Officer Douglas Yearley Jr.

The dorms will be off campus, starting at two East Coast universities the company will identify later. The buildings won’t be affiliated with the schools, giving Horsham, Pennsylvania-based Toll greater control of the properties, such as managing the rent, Yearley said. They will feature such amenities as a bathroom for every resident, movie-screening rooms and gyms.”

——-
These aren’t really “dorms,” they’re off-campus apartments, meaning that they aren’t subject to campus dry laws or dry enforcement. No wonder they need a bathroom for each resident.

I wonder if people realize that high-end dorms is just another example of privitizing profit and socializing losses. The profit from this high-end value-added room and board is funneled directly to Tool Broos, but guaranteed by government-backed student loans. Well why not. Corporations have gotten the government to pay for on-the-job training for decades. You could even consider the liberal-arts degrees to be a form of people-skills training for work at Applebee’s.

That story I tried to post last weekend is finally available online:

Cover Stories
Realty’s new reality | San Diego Reader
Bunny, bunny, bunny…
By Siobhan Braun, Jan. 16, 2013

I am in a conference room at the Hillcrest Keller Williams office among roughly 75 realtors that are pretending to be bunny rabbits. A middle-aged woman places her hands in front of her face, simulating buck teeth. She shouts, “Bunny, bunny, bunny!”

A woman in a pink-and-black-striped sweater lifts her lanky arms above her head, giving them the appearance of floppy ears. She hops in place before yelling, “Bunny, bunny, bunny!”

A man with a microphone hushes the bunnies.

“Very good,” he says enthusiastically. The room applauds.

“That was about lowering your inhibitions,” he continues. “Moving out of that fear of this will make me look stupid is really valuable in real estate. This next game pushes that teamwork thing even further.”

He instructs the agents to break into groups of 12. One person will pretend to be a tree; two are to imagine they are something related.

“I’m the tree,” says a man in a three-piece suit. He stretches his arms, making them branch-like.

“I’m a Christmas present!” a petite woman says, rolling herself into a ball at his feet.

“I’m a little girl opening that Christmas present,” says a blonde in a tight blazer. She bends down and pretends to unwrap the woman.

A spiky-gray-haired agent to my left says with a cynical sigh, “And what exactly does this have to do with real estate?” She looks exasperated.

A nearby realtor raises a judgmental eyebrow.

Five minutes later, the announcer again hushes the room. The realtors fill the available seats. Some must stand at the back of the room.

“That game is a great example of what real estate is really about,” says the announcer. “We have no idea what’s going to happen next.”
…

Don’t tell me that Steve Jobs is dead!

San Francisco Rental Prices at All-Time High, to Absolutely No One’s Surprise

By Carly Nairn
Posted January 3, 2013 3:00 pm

As Executive Editor Tim Redmond of the San Francisco Bay Guardian noted, Bay Area rents may be “too damn high,” but both rents and home prices have continued to increase drastically, even during the recession.

The Chronicle’s chart of housing prices throughout the Bay Area shows an increase in all counties, and even though the growth in San Francisco rents last month was not quite 3 percent, the city still had a median average rent of $3,100, the highest of all counties.

Scary stuff, and Mission Local’s reports on Mission District apartments and commercial rents suggest that the trend won’t be abating anytime soon.

http://missionlocal.org/2013/01/san-francisco-rental-prices-at-all-time-high-to-absolutely-no-ones-surprise/ - 52k -

wonder how much of GDP we “spend” on these:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/9823143/Cost-of-raising-a-child-hits-record-222000.html

Lanny Breuer may be leaving DOJ after airing of The Untouchables on 1/22/13. Not sure whether this is a trial balloon to deflect blame and attention or if it’s real. Time will tell. It’s clearly not a sacking, with unnamed sources and no specific departure date. If the public reaction is this instead of this, then it might just be reported as a big mistake and things go back to normal.

Lanny Breuer, Justice Department criminal division chief, is stepping down
By Danielle Douglas, Published: January 23
Washington Post

Lanny A. Breuer is leaving the Justice Department after leading the agency’s efforts to clamp down on public corruption and financial fraud at the nation’s largest banks, according to several people familiar with the matter.

It is not clear when Breuer intends to leave his post, nor what he plans to do once he departs, but it is certain that the prosecutor’s days in office are winding down, according to people who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/doj-criminal-division-chief-stepping-down/2013/01/23/e4331e32-64e0-11e2-b84d-21c7b65985ee_story.html

No Government contractor left behind:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/us-military-preparing-to-take-gut-shot.htm

The comments to this are telling:

‘Toronto housing sales plummet 50% in a year’

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/01/23/toronto-housing-sales-plummet-50-in-a-year/?__lsa=a2a1-ee32

Something about a housing bubble brings out the nastier side, even in Canada.

Actually - that is a pretty cool house. And you never have to replace the roof!

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Have you been living under a rock? Mexican family converts 131-foot stone in desert into a home
The Daily Mail Online | January 24, 2013 | Helen Pow

Most people think living under a rock is something to avoid.

But for one Mexican family, it’s a dream come true. Farmer Benito Hernandez knew since the age of eight that he wanted to make a 131-foot rock formation in Coahuila, Mexico, his home.

It took him 20 years to buy the land but as soon as he was able, Hernandez and his wife Santa Martha constructed a sun-dried brick house beneath the awe-inspiring formation.

Located about 50 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border near the remote community of San Jose de Piedras, the home is small.

But it was large enough for the couple to raise seven children over the 30 years they’ve inhabited the cave-like property.

‘I started coming here when I was 8 years old to visit the Candelilla fields and I liked it here,’ Hernandez said.

‘I wasn’t married and I didn’t have a family yet, but I liked it and I had to keep coming to put my foot in because lands here are won through claiming them.’

Though Hernandez installed a wood-burning stove, electricity is unreliable in the dwelling, which in located in the arid desert.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267386/Have-living-rock-Mexican-family-converts-131-foot-stone-desert-home.html

Strong economic growth requires strong and sustainable growth in home building. We are currently experiencing a recovery is residential building, but not a boom (1.5 to 2.0 million starts). To achieve that boom and sustain it without diving back into the problems of 2009 we must reorganize our financial institutions to reflect a basic reality: consumer banking, including mortgage lending, does not inherently earn an economic profit.

Applying the principles of the old Glass-Steagall Act to a 21st century environment, we need to recreate a thrift industry, highly regulated, admittedly subsidized, and separated in ownership, management, and basic objectives from commercial and investment banking. Please see letsfixamerica.net for a full exposition and opportunity to participate.

Socialism sounds good until you actually have to live under it.

Then it is not so fun anymore.

But it amusing seeing those who supported these policies get shafted by the very some policies that they voted for.

Sadly - most will not learn any lessons from it.

——————————————————-

Enjoy the schadenfreude!: College professors face layoffs because of Obamacare
January 24, 2012 | Derrick Hollenbeck, staff writer

The excited grins we saw in the sea of faces at Barack Obama’s second Inauguration told us we lost and the socialists won.

They made sure we understood that. Liberal talking heads on television and radio as well as in print and in the blogosphere have been taunting us since November and there is no reason to think they will stop any time soon.

Their jobs are now safe for as far as the eye can see. “..segment of Obama supporters are learning that elections have consequences and being on the winning side doesn’t guarantee good times ahead.

America’s college professors, especially adjunct (part time non-tenured) professors are “getting it” now. Harvard University’s Center for Responsive Politics has complied data on the political leanings of those who teach at America’s colleges.

It reports that on average college faculties donate to Democrats over Republicans by a rate of 4 to 1, but in some schools that rate goes up to 99% as in the College of William and Mary. “…these professors are learning real life economic lessons courtesy of the provisions of Obamacare.

The stories of colleges beginning to cut back teaching hours for their adjunct professors (the foot soldiers of America’s higher education industry), are making their way to public knowledge.

In December, only a month after he most likely voted for Barack Obama, an adjunct professor at an Ohio school, opened a letter telling him that “in order to avoid penalties under the Affordable Care Act… employees with part-time or adjunct status will not be assigned more than an average of 29 hours per week.”

The cut will cost him $2,000.00 a year, and this guy crying that he can’t afford the cut. Gee aint that a terrible thing?….

Looking for advice…
I am in cash after selling my houses in 06 and 09, I cant stand getting .25% in the bank, so I am looking for other places to move the money.
REIT’s pay over 10%, heck (TWO) is at17%
I am thinking of taking $100k and spreading it out over 10 stocks that pay over 10% divs to generate $20k + a yr!! AM I NUTS? I dont want to buy a house ( a house is not an investment). I am also going to wait to buy once the crash has taken us down 10% on the DOW. (Bob Brinker sees trouble ahead)

Any suggestions? It is only money, right?

Slim,
Congrats on the Bicycle Magazine contact. I wish you the best. You deserve it.

Japan’s new government is barely a month old, and already one of its most senior members has insulted tens of millions of voters by suggesting that the elderly are an unnecessary drain on the country’s finances.

Taro Aso, the finance minister, said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to “hurry up and die” to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care.

“Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die. I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that [treatment] was all being paid for by the government,” he said during a meeting of the national council on social security reforms. “The problem won’t be solved unless you let them hurry up and die.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/22/elderly-hurry-up-die-japanese

Dianne Feinstein - “Church-state separation. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked Roberts whether he believed in the separation of church and state as set forth in the First Amendment. She quoted President John F. Kennedy as having said in 1960, I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. … My question is Do you”

“But I believe that the gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein opens up anti-gun presser with a prayer

January 24, 2013 | 11:16 am

As Sen. Diane Feinstein opened her press conference on gun control, she invited Dean of the National Cathedral Rev. Canon Gary Hall to offer a prayer.

Hall spoke briefly before the prayer, calling for Washington legislators to stop fearing the gun lobby and fulfill their “moral duty” to restrict guns.

“Everyone in this city seems to live in terror of the gun lobby,” Hall said. “But I believe that the gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby.”

Hall said that he could no longer justify a society that allowed ordinary citizens to keep and bear “assault weapons.”

During the prayer, Hall asked God to “bless our elected leaders with the wisdom and the courage needed to bring about the changes that the people demand.”

A modest proposal: “The Global Economic Disease in 8 Points and the Cure in 4 Points”
Some good stuff here, but he lost me at this:

The citizenry will have to accept that promises issued on the basis of delusional, unrealistic projections of endless growth and debt expansion must be renounced, just as debt based on phantom collateral must be renounced.

Were these four points implemented, the re-set would be difficult but brief, as truth, trust and resilience would be restored to the political and financial systems.

I agree the citizenry will be forced to accept the limits of delusional promises, but there will be much kicking and screaming. The re-set will be far more than difficult. Survivors, if any, may work out truth and resilience among themselves as best they can. Personally, I hope for miracles.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but today marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security…

is S&P 500 http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EGSPC+Basic+Chart&t=5y
on 5th leg up?
any Elliott wave followers?

SNARP

He stole $931 and he still had more than $900 when police took him into custody? Man if you want to get away with this you are just gonna have to tip better.

Bank robber who fled via taxi nabbed after cab driver talks to authorities

By Alexandra Seltzer
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:21 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013

Authorities were able to arrest a man wanted for a Palm Springs bank robbery this month after the taxi cab driver he allegedly paid to take him away from the scene told law enforcement where he dropped the man off.

Thomas R. Stone faces a federal charge of bank robbery in connection with the Jan. 10 robbery of the Wells Fargo at 1662 S. Congress Ave. in Palm Springs.

Stone allegedly approached the bank teller’s window around 9:30 that morning, placed a backpack on the counter, demanded cash and said, “This is a robbery,” according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal complaint.

The teller handed him around $931 which Stone placed in the backpack. He fled the scene by way of a taxi cab that was waiting for him outside.

Law enforcement authorities located the cab and cab driver who then told authorities that he dropped the man off in the 2300 block of Dolan Road.

Palm Springs Police drove to Dolan Road and located Stone, who matched the description that the bank teller provided.

After taking Stone into custody, police found more than $900 in the backpack as well as a hat and a pair of sunglasses that Stone allegedly wore during the robbery.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/bank-robber-who-fled-via-taxi-nabbed-after-cab-dri/nT5yT/ -

Wow… AAPL… a lot of mom & pop investors probably bought this thing on the hype. Sad.

Remember: the real money in the stock market is not available to retail investors. The best deals aren’t publicly traded. And on publicly traded stocks the real money is made pre-IPO.

The market is insane

“The Hamptons real-estate market has not only recovered. It’s soaring past its pre-crisis peaks.

An estate in New York’s Hamptons.Sales of homes priced at $2.5 million or more jumped 98 percent in the fourth quarter on Long Island’s East End, according to the luxury realty agency Brown Harris Stevens.

Prices in some Hamptons communities have doubled, with the average home price passing $2.1 million in the South Fork. More than 90 homes sold for more than $2.5 million in the Hamptons East End in the quarter.

“A lot of the deals and bargains are gone,” said Christopher Burnside, senior director of Brown Harris in the Hamptons. “It’s been very sudden.”

The Hamptons has long been the beach playground for the New York elite, especially from Wall Street. While the market fell immediately after the crisis, it’s been fairly stable for the past two years. But the fourth quarter saw a rush of deals that are marking new highs in prices and volume.

Brokers say much of that was driven by taxes. As part of the “mansion cliff,” sellers were willing to take discounts if they could close a deal before January 1, when the tax rate on capital gains was scheduled to increase.

Brokers say some sellers were willing to shave hundreds of thousands of dollars off the price of their multi-million-dollar listings in order to get a quick deal.

While those deals are gone, sales continue. Burnside said that he has 15 listings now and “I’m showing constantly.” He’s about to hire another assistant to help with all the showings and deals.

“The market is insane, I’ve never really seen anything like it.”

Great story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21176914

Assertions by “government is worthless” types, I’m finding more and more that it’s the civilian/private marketplace that is all effed up.

Promising things they can’t deliver. Committing to a project, then disappearing/not answering the phone. Balls being dropped, because staff/employees have been cut, and the remainder can only juggle so many balls at one time.

Customer contact positions filled by contractors, whose motivation seems to be suspect (try getting a personal commitment from one of them).

Nobody stocks spares/parts, they are all in regional warehouses near airline hubs, so your project comes to a screeching halt for a day or two if you run into something unexpected/unscheduled. Unless you want to pay $40 overnight shipping on a $5 part. Otherwise you wait until the part shows up, then make a second trip to the airport……a problem when it’s 25-50 miles each way.

Nobody has parts for anything over 5 years old. Nobody will even attempt to fix anything over 5 years old. If we ever get in a pizzing contest with China, they won’t have to declare war, just an export embargo……our whole aerospace/transportation industries will be shut down in about 30-45 days.

Ran into all of these issues yesterday, working on my “on the side” deals. Pi$$ed away most of the afternoon and into the evening, trying to come up with “Plan B”, because one supplier dropped the ball on “Plan A”. Pi$$ed away the rest of the evening, trying to locate a $5 garden-variety part locally.

Of the 6 plus hours I put into this, I might get paid for half of it, at best.

Another example of government destroying their economy and people.

German electric prices are up over 60% since 2000 due to “green energy” initiatives and taxes.

The consequence?

800,000 Germans can’t pay their electric bill and more and more Germans are using wood to heat their homes.

Yes - they have gone back to 18th century energy due to 21st century environmental policies.

Gee - I hope here in the USA obama gives billions more to his green energy contributors. It is the way forward.

—————-

Lomborg: Electricity prices for German households have increased 61% since 2000 – renewables blamed
Watts Up With That? ^ | January 23, 2013 | Anthony Watts

Pursuant to my earlier story today about the article in Spiegel, Bjørn Lomborg writes on his Facebook page:

Real German electricity prices for households have increased 61% since 2000. One quarter of household costs now stems directly from renewable energy. Also, the increase is *not* because of increasing production costs (which have actually slightly declined since 1978).

The increase is due to dramatically increasing taxes, most noticeably from the Renewable Energy Act (EEG). In 2013 the EEG will increase 50% to 6.28 euro-cent (5.28 cents plus 19% VAT).

In June 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel famously promised to keep EEG prices stable, but this promise has now clearly been broken. The German household will pay 24% of its electricity bill to renewables.

Perhaps this is why more people are stealing wood from German forests and likely why up to 800,000 people can’t pay their electricity bills.

———————–

Europe Today: Stealing Wood, Burning Wood

January 20, 2013 - http://nofrakkingconsensus.com

Last month, I took a six-hour train ride from Munich to Berlin. As we swept through the German countryside, I noticed a great deal of firewood.

It was piled high, close to houses and outbuildings. It was stacked in long rows against stone walls and fences. My guess is that we burn a comparable amount of wood in Canada and the US during the winter, but I hadn’t expected to see so much of it in a nation as environmentally conscious as I imagine Germany to be.

I have no idea whether burning wood is good or bad from a CO2 emissions perspective. It isn’t difficult to find a range of opinions on that question (see here, here, here, and here). I do know that residents of San Francisco get harassed for lighting their fireplaces by inspectors concerned not about greenhouse gas emissions but about air quality in general.

What’s more interesting to me is that some Europeans apparently feel so pinched by their heating bills that they’re now stealing firewood. The weekly German news magazine, Der Spiegel, is currently running an English-language story titled Woodland Heists: Rising Energy Costs Drive Up Forest Thievery.

We hear a great deal about Germany’s aggressive pursuit of renewable energy. What we hear less about is the fact that renewable energy is expensive. Germans reportedly purchased 400,000 new wood stoves in 2011, and have been doing so in increasing numbers since 2005.

In Greece, renewable energy policies have also been wreaking havoc. Reuters reported last September that that country’s

electricity system came close to collapse in June when market operator LAGHE was overwhelmed by subsidies it pays to green power producers as part of efforts to bolster solar energy. [backup link]

Some Greeks are apparently coping with rising prices and cold winters by felling trees in public parks for firewood.

Increasing the amount of renewable energy in the national mix is also pushing prices higher in the UK. One result: a reported 180,000 homes there had a wood stove installed in 2011 (backup link).

A UK activist organization claims that some people had to choose between heat or food over the Christmas holidays. According to another activist group, elderly people “living in the coldest homes are three times more likely to die a preventable death than those living in warmer ones.”

In the 21st century, in a country as affluent as Great Britain, it’s surely a scandal that elders are spending their twilight years cold and miserable rather than warm and comfortable.

There is no perfect source of energy. In the real world, every option available to us has pros and cons. The facts are quite simple: the more green energy our society produces, the higher the price climbs.

Unless something changes, the remarks of the blogger over at Sunshine Hours may not be much of an exaggeration:

This is your future. Huddled around wood stoves to keep warm because electricity is too expensive because of subsidies paid to rich people who own wind farms and solar panels.

So the plan here is to buy all these houses and collect rent from people who spent the last 5 years not paying their mortgage?

As prices rise, rental home investors seek new markets

Julie Schmit, USA TODAY7:56a.m. EST January 22, 2013

Major institutional investors are amassing a $10 billion war chest to pursue the single-family rental market, estimated JPMorgan Chase in a recent research report.

They’re betting that they can get distressed homes on the cheap, fix them up and rent them out, often to families who lost homes to foreclosure, and make money on home price appreciation in a few years.

The companies generally seek three-bedroom, two-bath homes in the $100,000 to $125,000 range that can rent for more than $1,000 a month, analysts say.

With $10 billion to spend, that would roughly equate to 80,000 homes, although the investment funds continue to raise money, says JPMorgan’s analyst Anthony Paolone. Nationwide, there are currently 12 million single family rentals, most owned by mom-and-pop investors, Paolone says.

The Blackstone Group, for one, has spent $2.5 billion since early last year buying 16,000 homes. It’s now adding 2,500 homes a month, it says. It’s believed to be the biggest player in the group, but most are private, so information is limited.

Colony Capital expects to invest up to $150 million a month this year to acquire single-family rentals. It bought 5,000 homes last year, it says.

Waypoint Homes, one of the market’s pioneers, expects to own 10,000 homes by the year’s end. It started four years ago in the San Francisco Bay Area and owns 3,300 homes, says managing director Doug Brien.

Like many of the big investors, Blackstone started investing in Phoenix. It next moved into California, then Atlanta, Tampa, Orlando, Chicago, Las Vegas and Charlotte.

Blackstone has accelerated its buying because home prices have risen faster than it expected, says Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s head of real estate. In some markets, the window to buy before prices rise too much “is closing faster” than in others, he says.

While investor buyers have helped prop up prices, they’re making it tougher for regular home shoppers to compete.

Tom and Cyndi Vander Ven have been shopping for a home in Atlanta since September. The retired couple, both teachers, want to downsize.

They’ve lost out on three bids so far, even though they offered more than the asking price. All of the homes got multiple offers. After bidding on one, they found out it was being considered as part of a bulk sale to investors.

They would have made more offers by now but other homes they see listed are sold “before we can even move on them,” he says.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/01/21/rental-housing-investors/1851187/ - 33k -

http://news.investors.com/business-inside-real-estate/012413-641809-big-home-buyers-energy-efficient-house.htm?ven=fox_businesscp

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