Bits Bucket for January 31, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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Stopped into immigrant central, a Bakersfield UHaul emporium (one of the biggest moving outlets in the country) to buy boxes this week and the manager told me that he’s seeing a marked uptick in people moving BACK into Bakersplat from out of state. “Busier than we’ve been in the four years I’ve been here.”
Up until a couple of months ago, he told me , it was just the opposite with people leaving CA in droves for “mostly to Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona.” But around November they started “flooding in” from …Texas again, Arkansas and surprisingly New York. “We can’t keep up with all the rentals” he told me.
Hurricane Sandy? Layoffs in the oilfields? These aren’t seasonal workers who drive in caravans and SUVs, these are households that rent full-sized moving trucks and vans. Not only are they coming back, they’re renting up all the empty (cheap) SFH in town, he said. From the real estate consortiums and investment funds.
The lady in line ahead of me finished the laborious paperwork to rent a truck to move her belongings out only to find that there wasn’t enough on her debit card to cover the expense. The manager say this is an all-too common occurrence there…. So I’m wondering, is the influx/out-migration dynamic beginning to shift again?
They are starting to work on the Monterey Shale (potentially big resource for CA), but an article I read noted that the BLS sold some leases in December, which doesn’t match your November timing all that well.
I think there was some work going on before that, did he comment on jobs? I’ve never really understood Bakersfield…perhaps energy explains it.
“I’ve never really understood Bakersfield…perhaps energy explains it.”
Ya think?
Bakersfield’s close-up in “There Will Be Blood”
Director P.T. Anderson’s 2007 film “There Will Be Blood” took inspiration from the oil fields of old Kern County. Anderson was hanging out in Taft and nobody noticed! I got to interview production designer Jack Fisk about Bako’s role in this critical favorite. (He really enjoyed building up and burning down an old-fashioned wooden oil derrick.)
Yes, but after the initial boom, I don’t see the next source of growth for Bakersfield…my perception was that it was a modern day boomtown. I’ve seen my share of buildings in Bakersfield that used to be occupied by XYZ oil company…who have since left town or considerably downsized.
Has there been a resurgence?
Bakersfield and Fresno = the armpits of California
Since the armpits are both taken, what does that make Stockton?
You forgot Modesto.
“You forgot Modesto.”
+1 When the Central Valley needs an enema ‘ya poke it in Modesto.
And the folks from F-No and Bakersfield infest our beaches every summer. We need a toll booth on 46 East.
Stockton is the taint.
Wait, California is going to allow fracking?
According to Wiki, Monterey Shale (CA) is oil shale. Marcellus Shale (PA/MD/WV/NY) is the natural gas fracking shale.
Oxide, they frac oil shale too, in fact that is what is going on in ND.
The money is in the liquids not the gas.
My gas lease check says otherwise.
I think what he means is given the low price for gas, the only reason that fracking is still going on is the price of the liquids, otherwise the companies would be losing money.
They are fracking natural gas 1/2 mile from my house.
All these people leasing their land for fracking are fracking stupid. The energy companies will be moved on in ten years if there are problems. And you’ll be holding the bag of health problems and cratering property values.
“Here Mr. Homeowner, just sign here, we’ll give you a couple thousand a year and you don’t need to worry your pretty lil’ head about groundwater or fumes or chemicals or your property value.”
LULZ for days.
Or maybe they just need the money?
You just have to get it through your head that not everybody is as superior or as gifted as you are.
“And you’ll be holding the bag of health problems and cratering property values.”
They’re cratering regardless.
You just have to get it through your head that not everybody is as superior or as gifted as you are.
A common problem here on the HBB. We’re a self-selected group. And, as a group, we’re pretty sharp. We can cut through BS like a hot knife through butter.
It’s important to keep in mind that there a lot of people who don’t have our skillset. Especially in the BS detection realm.
If they need money, maybe sell the property? And, God forbid, rent? It’s a far worse position to be in to have health problems, unsafe groundwater, and a cratering property value.
I guess if you’re of retirement age, who cares if the land and water are messed up in 10 yrs? But if you plan to live in the house long-term, you’re not really helping your financial matters by taking a small-ish short term pay out.
Spot on Dan. The profit is in the NGLs.
Between the water issues and the wineries, and oh, did I mention the seismic repercussions, my guess is the chances of Big Oil getting its grubby hands on what’s left of the Monterey Shale anytime soon will happen only over far too many dead bodies to make it worthwhile.
Besides, much of it has already been fracked by earthquakes, etc.
Fracking involves pumping deadly chemicals into the shale to break it up and force the natural gas/oil out.
Just breaking the shale won’t allow anything to be recovered.
Just breaking the shale won’t allow anything to be recovered.
False.
The shale could be fractured without the toxic chemicals.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-12-18/green-california-to-vie-with-texas-as-u-dot-s-dot-oil-heartland-energy
Apparently Gov. Brown fired a couple of people in government who were responsible for few permits being allowed (which some see as a sign that CA will be more aggressive in allowing exploration).
Fracking has a chance in CA for one simple reason…few people live in the areas where they want to frack.
But the few who do are heavily armed.
The idea of fracking near wineries scares me enough to drink only French wines. That is, if the wineries leave any ground water to be polluted. Paso Robles is now “mining” for water, the tables have dropped so much. Wineries get to use as much as they want. No meters.
Some may disagree, but the best Ca wine comes from the Northern Bay Area (Sonoma and Napa counties), and from the Capay Valley that Separates Napa from the Sac Valley. Nowhere near any of the fracking operations. So at least go for that before the French wines!
you BUY boxes? try going behind a local shoe store, clean, sturdy and free. Liquor stores have wine case boxes, just the right size for heavy stuff.
I got my best free boxes from a doctor’s office that had just moved into new space. The boxes for the patient records were awsome. The office manager put it up on Craigs list. Best to ask a store before taking their garbage. And sometimes it is just worth it to fork over a couple of bucks to get something new and clean.
that is why i used “shoe store” boxes, the boxes are full of…..wait for it….. shoe boxes. clean as a wistle and sturdy. YMMV
Ever try carrying two dozen 18″/3 boxes home in a sedan? The party I ship to has specific size/sanitary requirements, and the closest store with an accessible public dumpster is 67 miles away.
Sorry.
oh… I thought you were moving. I never said go dumpster diving, that’s gross.
Never bought boxes from Home depot? It’s like 25 cents a box. You spend more money in gas driving around behind shoe stores trying to find boxes than just going to home depot and buying them. Not to mention the time you save.
A: what is your cell phone for.
Who drives around looking for stuff when you can call and have them put aside?
But I live in America’s friendliest city, we are cool to each other.
Peace
Put them aside? I doubt they could be bothered.
Yeah, those shoes stores are packed with shoppers all day. lol!
Will Economic Contraction Affect Debate Over Sequester?
by Frank James
January 30, 2013 7:52 PM
Spending cuts that are part of the looming sequester could cause big job losses in the defense and other industries.
U.S. Navy/Getty Images
There are some people who viewed the news that the economy shrank toward the end of the year as a bracing wake-up call, a gloomy foreshadowing of what could happen if even bigger automatic reductions start March 1. But don’t count on it changing the dynamics of the current debate over the so-called sequester.
If Congress fails to reach agreement to stop a sequester, the Defense Department would take a $600 billion hit; an equal amount would come from other domestic discretionary programs.
Steve Bell, of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., worked on Capitol Hill for 39 years, on and off, much of that time as a top aide on the Senate Budget Committee when Republicans were in charge. He’s still in touch with people in Congress.
Asked in an interview how much his Hill contacts reacted to news that a 22.2 percent drop in defense spending led to the U.S.’s fourth quarter gross domestic product shrinking by 0.1 percent, Bell said:
…
The election is over and it’ll be almost two years before there is another election so expect some pain now and expect a gradual easing of the pain as the next election raises its ugly head.
Congress hasn’t done anything in 5 yrs. What do they do all day? They should be working on tweaking health insurance reform until they get it right. We need to vote out every incumbent. Vote in women under the age of 50, they might actually care about the future and less about their ego and being whorrres to big corps.
Mostly they raise money. Their staff spends a reasonable amount of time on constituent services.
You falsely assume that women are less likely to be corrupted than men.
I’m interested to see how Elizabeth Warren fares in this regard.
Exactly. This is bloodletting time.
It’s the only spending cuts we’re ever going to get out of this entire mess from the last four years.
This “mess” is a result of 30 years of outsourcing, 10-15 years of insourcing, a couple of wars, an aging population, and several credit bubbles to wallpaper over the structural damage. Very little of it was caused in the last four years.
Gas was $1.85 when The One took office and is now $3.50.*
* note that use of this meme requires total ignorance of other circumstances in 2008-2009 like a collapsing stock market and 700,000 layoffs a month
But it does not ignore that we have managed to have high oil prices and high unemployment and a weak economy. The amount of layoffs per month just isn’t as important as the total number of people with jobs.
Welcome to profit-taking in a needs industry. Customers can’t cut their consumption to zero; Customers can’t even cut their consumption long enough or by enough to put any oil companies out of business.
Remember the discussion of how Diet Coke packaged their diet coke in cute smaller cans at a higher price per ounce? Coke still made money even on less consumption. Gas prices are the same. Even if customers cut their demand by 50%, just double the price of gas on the other 50% of demand, and you make the same profit. As for extra supply lying around gathering dust over at the Exxon station, China will gladly take it off their hands.
My understanding is that oil prices are set globally. Drill, baby, drill would have no effect on those prices.
It depends on how much production comes from here. When the Libyan conflict took just 1.5 million barrels off the market oil prices soared, so you would not need much additional production to crater oil prices. Demand for oil is very inelastic so it takes a large price move one way or another to impact demand.
Huge difference in price based on location.
Right now, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is $97/brl. North Sea Brent is $110/brl.
Yes. Now, unlike many on the right I do not think that it is the only answer and always the right answer.
There is a finite amount of oil in this country and it should be produced when the economic rent is the highest. But I think that time is now. ND production is hitting a mesa. Fracking causes a lot of production for a few years and then a quick fall off. If energy is going to stay reasonably priced in this country, we will need to drill off the coasts and ANWR. Alternatively, we could make a major move to fuel cars with NG and frac more. In about twenty or thirty years alternative energy sources will be priced competitively.
One of the reasons, I think we should have an aggressive drilling program. I do not think oil prices will stay as high as they are now or certainly will become once alternative energy is competitive since there is no reason to believe that alternative energy costs will not continue to trend lower even after they become competitive. Oil resources will become a declining asset, we might as well use them now to try to have a better economy.
The $4 price here in CA isn’t so much a demand difference as it is a tax difference. Gas has about a 48c/gal CA gas tax on it PLUS the 9.5% sales tax. The federal tax is *only* 18c / gal. I think total tax on each gallon is around $1.
Just a quick reminder that oil prices are set mostly by the traders.
yes, a serious amount of ignorance!
In the summer of 2008, Bush’s last year in office, prices exceeded $4.25.
Currently: U.S. oil production is at its highest level since 2003 and imports are below 46%.
In reality, presidents have little to do with near-term fluctuations in gas prices.
no brains, no headaches.
The average price in 2008 was less than the average price last year. Presidents may not have much impact on short term moves but energy policies of the United States can have a very dramatic impact on oil prices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_prices
So just how did Reagan pull off fast gdp growth (including 7% in a year) and declining oil prices when we can not have 2% growth without having gasoline prices doubling?
Wait, I know drill baby drill and not printing money like a third world country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_prices
Global oil prices going down when there is a major financial crisis and the market is anticipating and/experiencing a crash in demand? And the prices recovering as the economy improves and a lot of the lost demand has come back?
Why who could possibly imagine that mechanism working? Micro is for losers, don’t you know.
“In reality, presidents have little to do with near-term fluctuations in gas prices.”
Yup, but the Fed printing money to make up for massive deficits doesn’t help any.
For any global commodity:
Weaker dollar=higher prices in dollar terms
Stronger dollar=lower prices in dollar terms
If we had a longer-term deficit plan in place (ahem…Simpson Bowles), the dollar would rise, lowering oil in dollar terms.
Unfortunately, most people don’t seem to draw any connection between deficit spending, weaker dollar, and cost of gas.
I agree, deficit spending (starting with Reagan increased spending and revenue cutting) has not been good for America. We all know this, but some how, it is all Obama’s fault.
No where did I say it was Obama’s fault that we have deficit spending.
When Bush was in office (for whom I voted 0 times), I frequently said that the only thing worse than “tax and spend” was “don’t tax and spend”.
Hell, Obama even put together a bipartisan commission to reduce the deficit!
Too bad he ignored it when it came out, has worked very little to drum up support for it on the ground, and hasn’t been able to get his own party to agree to anything substantive to reduce the spending side of the equation.
You may blame the Republicans for threatening to blow-up the bridge to try to get some action on spending reductions, but the fact of the matter is that the two big ways to help get entitlements reformed over a long period of time are 1) means testing, 2) chained CPI, and, 3) gradual increases in the eligibility ages, all three of which have little support from the Democrat side of the aisle–and I’ve seen no other proposal.
The stock market always goes up, and the Fed is indefinitely all-in. Ignore the gloomsters and buy the dip before you get priced out forever!
ft dot com
Global Market Overview
Last updated: January 31, 2013 4:01 pm
Rally stalls after US economy shrinks
By Jamie Chisholm, Global Markets Commentator
Thursday 16:00 GMT. A strong January for global stocks is finishing meekly as an unexpected bout of caution over the US economy triggers a mild retreat of some benchmarks from cyclical highs.
The more tentative mood is delivering softness in industrial commodities, a stall in recently buoyant growth-sensitive currencies, but a mixed reaction across highly-rated fixed income products. Gold is cheaper by $12 at $1,665 an ounce.
The FTSE All-World equity index is down 0.1 per cent after the Asia-Pacific region, excluding Japan, lost 0.3 per cent, the FTSE Eurofirst 300 dips 0.3 per cent, and Wall Street’s S&P 500 relinquishes just 2 points to 1,500.
There is much debate within the market over the main reason and significance of the soft patch for stocks.
Correlation is not the same as causation, but the stall for equities originated in the US on Wednesday after a surprisingly weak fourth-quarter GDP figure for the world’s biggest economy.
Risk asset bulls argue that the pause represents a healthy consolidation given that before the GDP release the S&P 500 had risen this month by 5.7 per cent, extending a rally that began in mid-November and which had taken the New York barometer to a fresh five-year high and less than 4 per cent off a new record level.
That surge has come on the back of better economic data from China and even parts of Europe, where easing sovereign debt tensions have also boosted sentiment.
…
So CBIT, what did gold do yesterday? When it comes to gold your posts are like reading newspaper and just focusing in on the deaths and then saying the world will soon be de-populated, since you don’t factor in the births. If you add all your posts together I think the price of gold should be around $10 oz since it has had all those losses.
I dunno about yesterday (an FOMC meeting day, btw), but today it is tanking…
They were up by about the same amount they are down today.
Is the sequestration talk merely a political bluff?
Yes but you’re too smart to not already know this. As polly would say, stop being purposefully obtuse.
Obtuseness runs in the family, and I have several relatives who are attorneys to prove it.
zing!
LOL!
Our meeting with the Big Cheeses to discuss the sequester has been postponed from today to next week. Keep us updated on what the chatter is among the DC boyz please.
Please note, however, that on occasion (not often) what was meant to be a bluff actually happens - just because when it comes down to it, the “getting to yes” stuff doesn’t work.
It’s called losing in chicken.
As sequestration looms, contractors don’t fret
By Marjorie Censer and Jim Tankersley, Published: January 30
The next few months could look even scarier than the last few for defense contractors already battered by federal budget cuts, thanks to the threat of automatic reductions looming in March. But industry executives had a surprising message for shareholders this week: Don’t worry about it.
In call after call with investors, officials at some of the area’s largest contracting firms refused to guess how much it would cost them if Congress allows the “sequester” to kick in on March 1. Even as their lobbyists keep warning how much the cuts would hurt the industry, the executives are projecting confidence that the sequester will not happen.
Northrop Grumman chief executive Wes Bush said Wednesday that his company’s outlook for the year projects “the sequestration is not triggered” and that Congress barely touches federal contract spending levels for 2013. General Dynamics chief Phebe Novakovic said last week that she had developed a “realistic” risk assessment for the company’s bottom line — and it, too, assumes no sequestration.
Their confidence defies the emerging consensus on Capitol Hill that Congress will not find an agreement in time to cancel or delay the cuts. It also threatens to disappoint investors in the event the sequester goes through, and it leaves thousands of Washington area contracting employees to wonder how safe their jobs are.
If the sequester cuts take effect in full, economists estimate they will destroy about 1 million jobs nationwide, including hundreds of thousands in the Washington area.
The executives do not appear to believe that will come to pass. It may be because Congress keeps averting fiscal crises at the very last minute, and because the Obama administration asked contractors last year not to issue layoff notices in preparation for cuts that were originally scheduled to begin this month.
…
This warrants reposting:
“contractors make up 70 percent of the Pentagon’s costs for delivering services”
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-14/politics/36343675_1_furloughs-or-other-actions-sequestration-civilian-workforce
70 percent, SEVENTY!
Now back to your regularly scheduled Drudge Report links pushing the meme that food stamps and Obama phones are bankrupting this country.
+1
+2
Damn those federal union employees!
Oh wait…
Phebe Novakovic (new CEO of GD) is a tough, tough cookie.
She called out some people here who did due diligence on some acquisitions over the past few years. What we weird was, Phebe was already part of the management team at GD, yet voiced no disagreement with the deals at the time.
Duh, that’s how you get to be CEO.
Ain’t no place for anyone but ‘yes’ men at the top of most organizations.
I think I’d hide my hand, too, if speaking out as an underling means someone else always gets the credit.
Why would she voice a disagreement back then unless she was sure the deal was bad and she could stop it and she would gain stature by derailing it? If she voiced concerns back then (and couldn’t do all of the above) she would have destroyed the ability of the company to say they relied on the due dilligence of the attorneys and hurt herself at the same time.
Assuming, of course, she is as smart as you say. I’ve been in house counsel. You manage your relationship with outside counsel very carefully. If you have a senior exec who is willing to listen to your warnings to keep quiet, even if it means giving up a chance to look clever in a meting, you are half way to winning.
Phebe was tabbed as the future CEO prior to these transactions. This was a planned succession. She was on first name basis with the partners and even some of the associates doing the DD.
We think she dissed the deals because it allowed her to take a push some of the (likely) upcoming bad news into the 4th qtr of 2012, which was before her tenure officially began. She officially became CEO this Jan.
It’s also interesting that in her conference call (from last Tues or Wed?) she didn’t specially a single deal she really disagreed with. She just said some things about disliking GD’s tendency to grow via acquisition. With the future of contract growth in question, it’s smart for her to diss some of the past deals to get some separation from them. Like, acknowledg the problems and move on. Kind of like Meg Whitman has done in the past yr or so.
All the Big Boy DoD and Medicare contractors have been trying to acquire companies like crazy. They’ve expanded into areas that are not really their core compentency. E.g. LMCO now does a crazy amount of healthcare IT contracting.
I think this era is coming to an end. And Phebe sees hard times ahead, might as well distance herself from the past regime. Most people don’t realize she was a big part of the past leadership, so they’ll believe that she is a fresh start.
However, I know for a fact that despite what the government contractors say, the threat of sequester is changing their long-term planning starting right now…they are delaying making any long-term decisions.
Delaying those long-term decisions is delaying the creation of jobs. Right now. Already happening.
ft dot com
January 30, 2013 7:16 pm
US outlook still clear despite shower
To predict a US recession based on the 0.1 per cent fall in annualised output for the fourth quarter is a bit like expecting rain because somebody threw a bucket of water out of the window.
Consumption, business investment and construction, the core areas of private sector demand, were robust and collectively added 2.7 percentage points to growth. That suggests the outlook for the economic weather is still fairly clear.
Most of the damage came from two categories that are notorious for their volatility – business inventories and federal defence spending – which each knocked 1.3 percentage points off total growth.
…
Whether this surprise negative GDP report looks good or bad through the rear-view mirror probably depends on whether it turns out to be a one-quarter blip, as almost all MSM-favored experts claim, or somewhat more persistent.
The only chart you need on the GDP report
Posted by Dylan Matthews on January 30, 2013 at 10:31 am
The GDP report for the fourth quarter of 2012 is, on its face, disappointing. The economy shrunk, at an 0.1 percent annual rate, the first such contraction since the recession’s nadir in 2009. But commentators are surprisingly upbeat about it. Spending and investment are still looking good, but sharp contractions in business inventory and federal defense spending sunk the overall number. Paul Ashworth at Capital Economics called it “The best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you’ll ever see.”
…
I had to take an extra long shower last night to wash of the stench from filing an amicus brief around 10pm for a client hoping to influence hud contracting policy in the area of affordable housing (read: section 8).
I got the edits back and they were minimal but some of our ms word functions were acting up and i had to recreate the table of authorities from scratch. easy but time consuming.
Briefly, the issue was whether a contract to build aff housing in one state, issued by the state housing agency, using hud money, could favor in state contractors but limiting the scope of relevant experience and giving pref to local sources. In our client’s defense, they favor the states having the discretion.
The case is in the court of federal claims, it was actually consolidated from several cases which were pending in various fed courts. Lots of interesting briefs in the case, many related to FAR and government k’s generally, not all housing related. For example, cms (cntr for medicare svcs) has a brief. It was surprising to me that no county or state agency use their own lawyers on the brief, it looks like all outside firms.
Should say “by limiting”
maybe the question should be why is the gov paying these contractors to build any housing?
Whats wrong with trailer parks for poor people? lets change zoning laws so they are allowed to exist.
Whats wrong with trailer parks for poor people?
Have you not seen Trailer Park Boys?
Duh, it’s so politically connected campaign contributors can make money along with the leeches who write up court filings on thier behalf to make sure they get all the government cheese they can.
Trailer parks BAD! Housing projects GOOD! what’s wrong with you dj?
I know i’m a dreamer.. why build new when there is a gut of used trailers all over our country….and if the feral animals destroy them just wheel them out and wheel another used on in. Cheap disposable………you want better well pay your own damm rent.
That’s the beauty of a trailer…they are basically disposable. Kind of like a beater car. It would make sense to use them in places where hurricanes destroy everything. Just evacuate with your critical possessions, and after the storm just wheel in another one.
Trailers attract tornados. Be carefull!
“I know i’m a dreamer.. why build new when there is a gut of used trailers all over our country….and if the feral animals destroy them just wheel them out and wheel another used on in. Cheap disposable………you want better well pay your own damm rent.”
Or find a girlfriend to pay your rent, amirite?
Q: What do you call a drummer that breaks up with his girlfriend?
A: Homeless.
I think a trailer on a lot would make a good investment, as RE things go, because it would be so easy to take it all away when you’re ready to build. Meanwhile, rent it out or live in it.
Q: How do you tell if a drummer is at your door?
A: The knock speeds up.
In CA you cant just put a trailer on a lot and live in it. Maybe in 1944.
“they are basically disposable.”
So are houses. Trailers are more easily disposed of so long as you can keep the wheels and axles under them.
And yes…. you can put up a trailer ANYWHERE in CA.
So how did you handle the obvious dormant commerce clause issues?
Our amicus was on a much narrower issue, citing only federal housing legislation and procurement/contracting legislation (e.g. CICA, GGCAA, FAR).
I don’t know the full procedural posture of all the cases that were consolidated. But the purpose of the consolidation was to address the rather narrow issue of whether funding offered via a NOFA by HUD means that states must administer the contracts in accordance with CICA. Our argument was that CICA should not apply; we distinguished “cooperative agreements” from “procurement contracts”.
If you look at 360Training.com v U.S. you can see that the distinction hinges on whether the state gov’t is using fed money to provide a service directly (this would be a procurement contract) or if the state uses the fed money to form a partnership that will deliver a service indirectly (cooperative agreement).
The key “is whether the agency’s focus is on providing a service to the ultimate beneficiaries or on assisting
the intermediaries in providing a service.” 360Training.com, Inc. v. United States, 104 Fed. Cl.
575, 580 (2012)
FGCAA not GGCAA
So Joe in layman’s terms the client is gambling lots of money on you to wedge the door open enough so he can get in and bid on the projects…..amirite?
Housing Prices Will Continue Falling
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/u-s-housing-in-fragile-recovery-wachter-says-L6ak6rFoRvaJ_xihRSJd3g.html
If you buy a house today, you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money.
What’s interesting is that since 2011 MSM reports on MoM comparisons, since that’s the only way housing looked positive. YoY, the standard metric for years wasn’t important. Now that Nov numbers are negative, MoM isn’t important and YoY is back as the key metric. Expect more if Dec is negative too.
Could it be that all the recovery callers have jumped the gun?
Sure. This time the market recovery will be different.
Hmmm, where have I heard this before….Oh yes, right here by HBB’ers talking about the market in 2007.
The market in 2007-2011 was not special or different. It fell into the tank when the bubble burst, just like every other housing bubble.
The market in 2012-2016 is not special or different. It will recover just like every other housing market recovery.
Jurow has tunnel vision to the negative, just like all the housing fools who had tunnel vision in 2007. He would do well to listen to Wachter and see what see is seeing.
The housing market I am in (Sacramento foothills) is tighter than a drum. Sales are down ONLY because there is not enough inventory for more sales to take place. Prices were up 12% in 2012 and are forecast to go up 12.5% in 2013.
I have 8 rental houses in the maket and in the last 3 years one house was vacant for 4 days. I could not be happier with my decision to invest in housing in 2008-2010. Well, O.K., my 2008 purchases were too early, but they still cash flow.
None are so blind as those who will not see. Signs of solid recovery are everywhere in California.
I think we have a different definition of solid. But in this manipulated world, yours may be better.
Until the banks release the inventory.
If you bought in 2006 for $900k in so cal, and your place is worth 500k today, and you owe the bank $800k, you just live there for free until they lick ya out. plenty of people are on their 4th yr of no payment. I know of 2, in a gated community who are laughing about it. The more than made up for losing their 10% down.
‘plenty of people are on their 4th yr of no payment.’
I work in the foreclosure business and I see all sorts of things. I could say ‘plenty’ this and plenty that, but it doesn’t prove anything. What I do see often are houses that have been vacant for 2 years or more. What I see in the new year are houses going to auction (being foreclosed) and put on the market in 2 or 3 weeks. How long from default to foreclosure, I can’t tell, but the long vacancy period is common.
‘I know of 2, in a gated community who are laughing about it.’
I know people who find great stuff in dumpsters. This affects me or us how?
A “recovery in housing” is dramatically lower prices by its’ very definition.
So you are correct. Housing is recovering quite well. With ever increasing amounts of distress, especially in California, housing will continue to “recover” to increasingly lower prices.
As a side note, you’r losses are magnificent.
What happens to markets if the U.S. is downgraded again: Goldman
January 31, 2013, 6:13 AM
Earlier this week, Fitch largely called off the alarm over the chances of a downgrade to U.S. debt. But in a note Thursday, Goldman Sachs warned investors to not get too comfortable, as a downgrade is still a remote possibility.
Goldman is sticking to its belief the U.S. debt ceiling will be lifted again this year. Even if it then becomes a binding constraint, a priority will be put on debt servicing, making a default remote.
However, the Goldman worrywarts say, ratings agencies do not want to see politicians get to brinkmanship, possibly in the form of a protracted debt-ceiling standoff ahead of the deadline. They kindly remind us that that’s exactly what happened back in August 2011, when S&P made history by cutting its triple-A rating on the U.S. even though the debt ceiling was ultimately extended in a last-minute deal.
As for what a downgrade would do to markets, which was basically the point of the Goldman note, they say any impact would be muted. Whew.
Oh, but wait. There’s another however.
“That said, should a full implementation of the sequester or a government shutdown cause a more significant hit to growth and/or expectations, the underpinnings of the S&P rebound would be challenged and the nascent equity rally and coincident bond market sell-off could well reverse,” says Goldman.
…
Did the bull market just hit a turning point?
Please stand by.
the markets can stay irrational a lot longer than you can stay solvent.
This is a sellers market for stocks and homes.
Taking profits can be the toughest decision.
When and if the Fed ever takes away the heavily-spiked punch bowl, we could witness an overnight transformation from “sellers’ markets” to “buyers’ markets” in both housing and stocks.
How do they take the punch bowl away when we will soon have 17 trillion dollars in debt to finance?
The stock market is falling up again! Today the DJIA is nearly “down” to 14,000!!
Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJI: DJIA
Market open 13,877.73
Change -32.69 -0.24%
Volume 37.29m
Jan 31, 2013 12:02 p.m.
Previous close 13,910.42
Funny CBIT
Apparently winter has prematurely ended and bears are coming out of hibernation.
Marc Faber loves the odds of a ‘big-time’ market crash
January 31, 2013, 5:06 AM
The world’s central bankers will end up behind the market equivalent of the woodshed after flooding the world with cheap money, veteran investor Marc Faber told CNBC on Thursday.
“When you print money, the money doesn’t flow evenly into an economy. It flows to some people or to sectors first, and in this case, it flowed into equities, and until about five months ago, bonds,” Faber said. “I believe that markets will punish central banks at some stage through an accident.”
The bond market could collapse, Faber said, adding that bonds have been weak considering the scope of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program. The other possibility is that stocks could end up in a bubble.
Faber, known for his “contrarian” investment approach and often bearish views on the market, told CNBC he’s gearing up for a market crash that will provide plenty of opportunity for bargain hunting.
“For the first time in four years, since the lows in March 2009, I love this market because the higher it goes the more likely we will have a nice crash, a big time crash,” he said.
…
As tragic as that club fire in Brazil was ,I can’t but wonder what the night life scene is down there ,at 2:30 AM ,to draw a crowd like that (2000).
In Upstate SC , anything going on after midnight usually involves cars with oversized rims , and all-night pancake houses that require payment up front….after the parties.In other words , a nasty crowd that parties all night and sleeps all day.
“… that parties all night and sleeps all day.”
If the climate is hot then the incentive is to sleep all day, to sleep through the heat of the day. And if you sleep through the heat of the day then you are all slept out when nightfall comes. And because you are all slept out and because it is night - and thus cool - that’s when you will be most active.
Wiki-up “siesta” for an interesting read.
Not unusual in big U.S. cities or even college towns at certain times of the year.
———————————
“parties all night and sleeps all day”
you mean the welfare crowd?
cars with oversized rims
Obama paid for those too, along with their free Obama phones
Technically the rims aren’t paid for, since they’re rentals
(yes, you can rent rims)
Yeah, it’s the welfare crowd that you’ll find in the clubs in any major city…
*eye roll*
The bouncers at these places are more discrinatory than Diogenes. The only exception is if you have money $$.
discriminatory*
Speaking of discriminatory, here’s some LULZ he could appreciate:
Q: How do you starve a ____? (insert epithet to describe 47%er)
A: Hide his welfare check under his work boots!
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
“A: Hide his welfare check under his work boots!”
+1 Gotta remember that one.
Thanks for visiting, Dick Cheney
Dinner starts at 11pm in Brazil.
As tragic as that club fire in Brazil was ,I can’t but wonder what the night life scene is down there ,at 2:30 AM ,to draw a crowd like that (2000).
In Spain, restaurants don’t start serving dinner until 9:PM, an that’s for the early bird crowd. When I was there on a biz trip we didn’t go out for dinner until 10 PM. I saw people pushing baby strollers at midnight in Barcelona.
When our Spanish colleagues came stateside, they were astonished that our restaurants began to close at 10PM and that we’d take them out to dinner at 6 PM.
It’s a different world out there.
Another thing about Spain: If you’re going out to dinner, expect it to take a while. That’s because you’re supposed to sit and enjoy the company of the people you’re with. The whole being in a hurry thing just doesn’t play there.
And don’t get itchy if you go to a sidewalk cafe and no one comes dashing over to take your order. You’re supposed to signal the waiter when you’re ready.
The whole being in a hurry thing just doesn’t play there.
In Rio you would not believe how slowly people walk down the street. It is actually funny unless you need to get somewhere.
Curiously, Mexicans aren’t quite the night owls, at least by Latin American standards.
The best show on TV, “Portlandia” covered this.
Just drive to Miami, its cheaper and you wont need a visa.
wonder what the night life scene is down there ,at 2:30 AM ,to draw a crowd like that (2000).
Brazil’s party scene is late. It starts around midnight. I know a lady who’s friends lost their kids in that fire. (One of them lost 2) Nothing in that story surprises me.
Posted: 8:12 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013
South Florida in top 20 for foreclosure deals
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
South Florida ranked 12th nationally in a new report measuring the best places to buy a foreclosure, partly because a hefty backlog of nearly 105,000 distressed homes could hit the tri-county market in the coming year.
The report, released today, is the first from the Irvine, Calif.-based company RealtyTrac to rank metropolitan areas by how attractive they are for purchasing a foreclosure. Of the regions in the top 20, six are in Florida, including the Palm Bay/Melbourne area, which is in first place nationally.
RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist said the company wanted to identify places where there will be more foreclosures coming on the market because of the current lack of housing inventory nationwide.
“These are bright spots in the housing market where buyers will find more homes available,” Blomquist said.
Palm Beach County had a 5.9 months’ supply of single-family homes in December, according to the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches. There was a six-month supply of condominiums and townhomes. Traditionally, a 5.5 months’ supply is considered a balanced market.
According to the report, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties have a 29 months’ supply of homes in some stage of foreclosure but not yet listed for sale on the market. That equals 104,833 homes.
Blomquist said an increase in sales of distressed homes could weaken sale prices, a drag on surrounding home values.
“However,” he added, “because of the strengthening demand that seems to be taking place in South Florida, we’re not in danger of seeing home prices crater again like we did in past years.”
Debbie Smith, broker/owner of Home Run Real Estate west of Lake Worth, specializes in selling bank-owned homes. She said foreclosures should be listed for sale in a measured fashion.
“Release of the inventory too fast will hurt the market,” Smith said.
Best places to buy a foreclosure
1. Palm Bay/Melbourne, Fla.
2. Rochester, NY
3. Albany/Troy, NY
4. New York/Northern New Jersey
5. Lakeland, Fla.
6. Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla.
7. Jacksonville, Fla.
8. Poughkeepsie/Newburgh, NY
9. Orlando, Fla.
10. Chicago, Ill.
11. El Paso, TX
12. South Florida (Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties)
Source: Realty Trac
Ah, there y’are! The palmster would like to make a humble request, if you have the time and inclination: a song in honor of Florida’s contribution to the Gangbanger 8, Marco Rubio, to the lyrics of Phil Collins’ “Susdio” (with apologies to Phil).
I’m thinking of the refrain along the lines of “Screw, screw, Rubio”.
Very childish of me, I know. I’ll try to work on it myself, but I don’t have your knack for the lyrics. Might actually record something in the rudimentary home studio.
“Screw, screw, Rubio”
You already wrote it.
1. Palm Bay/Melbourne, Fla. - - no jobs, bad schools
2. Rochester, NY - - no jobs, high taxes, dying area
3. Albany/Troy, NY - - no jobs, high taxes, dying area
4. New York/Northern New Jersey - expensive, still has room to fall because of ties to financial sector, good schools but you can rent and still put your kids in those schools
5. Lakeland, Fla. - - no jobs, gross area, bad schools
6. Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla. - - no good jobs; is a hell hole other than a few nice areas; bad schools
7. Jacksonville, Fla. - - hell hole, no jobs, bad schools
8. Poughkeepsie/Newburgh, NY - - high taxes, long commute to NYC, price could still fall bc of ties to financial sector
9. Orlando, Fla. - - LOL, hell no
10. Chicago, Ill. - - no experience with Chi, can’t comment
11. El Paso, TX - - LOL
12. South Florida (Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties) - - old area, very few good jobs, huge shadow inventory, bad schools
“8. Poughkeepsie/Newburgh, NY - - high taxes, long commute to NYC, price could still fall bc of ties to financial sector”
This area is falling and quite rapidly in fact. Remember….. NY was late to the parabolic rise. Further, NY’s endless games at kicking the can down the road appear to be failing.
Hudson River Valley would be a great area if it wasn’t for the home prices and prop taxes. And actually the prop taxes wouldn’t be so bad if the home prices weren’t so high. (Of course, if prices fall, the counties will probably have to adjust the prop taxes upwards.
Prices are down pretty good but still falling.
“Crater!!!!11″
Yer not doing it right…. it’s like this…..
CRAAAAAAATERRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!
You can tell he’s still an amateur by the inability to carry the shift key all the way through the end of the exclamation points.
You can tell he’s still an amateur by the inability to carry the shift key all the way through the end of the exclamation points.
Another reason why I so love this place.
Thanks, Ben, for keeping this party going. And going. And going.
“inability to carry the shift key all the way through the end of the exclamation points.”
this is an internet meme, intentionally making syntax or spelling mistakes. kind of like saying “looser” or “n00b” or “pwned”.
Ah, my bad. Now who’s the amateur?
LULZ (<- is that one still good?)
joe:
Now that the new Tappan zee bridge will not have any train tracks to rockland county….it should fall faster, especially if they double the tolls
IHudson River Valley would be a great area if it wasn’t for the home prices and prop taxes
El Paso ain’t that bad.
It is across the river (creek) from Ciudad Juarez. So far they’ve been able to keep most of Juarez’s mayhem south of the river, but if that changes …
It has a very low crime rate for some unknown reason.
9. Orlando, Fla. - - LOL, hell no
You don’t want to live in a town where a “good job” is working at Disneyworld for $10/hr?
Austin, Texas?
Charlotte, NC?
San Diego, CA?
San Jose, CA?
Albuquerque, NM?
Denver, CO?
Boise, ID?
all sound A LOT better to me.
not to buy, just quality of life
Nothing in California?
ALBERT HAMMOND
“It Never Rains In Southern California”
Seems they don`t foreclose in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
They don`t foreclose in California
But girl don’t they warn ya
It`s, MERS, man it`s MERS
Out of work, I’m out of my head
Out of self respect, I’m out of bread
I’m underloved, I’m underfed, I wanna free home
They don`t foreclose in California
But girl don’t they warn ya
It`s, MERS, man it`s MERS
Will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it
Had offers but didn’t know which one to take
Please don’t tell ‘em how you found me
Don’t tell ‘em how you found me
Gimme a break, give me a break
Seems they don`t foreclose in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
They don`t foreclose in California
But girl don’t they warn ya
It`s, MERS, man it`s MERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsy0eyYE2qE - 168k -
In the same article from RealtyTrac, they also have the 20 WORST places to buy a foreclosure in 2013 (I’ve posted a link–yet to arrive)…7 of 20 are in CA…decreasing foreclosure activity, less supply.
There are a few million excess empty houses in CA.
You might get away with lying to your buyers but you won’t here.
Per the US Census, Q4 vacancy rates (data released earlier this week)
National Rental Vacancy Rate: 8.7%
National Homeowner Vacancy Rate: 1.9%
California Rental Vacancy Rate: 5.4%
California Homeowner Vacancy Rate: 1.4%
Highest Foreclosure activity in the US….. California
http://www.realtytrac.com/trendcenter/uiservices/foreclosureactivity.aspx
If you buy a house in California, you will go underwater the day you buy and lose alot of money. ALOT of money.
Population of California: 38 million (787 new foreclosures per million)
Population of Florida: 19 million (1,399 new foreclosures per million)
Population of Illinois: 13 million (884 new foreclosures per million)
Population of Ohio: 11.5 million (943 new foreclosures per million)
Foreclosure Activity Account for Month of December 2012
1. California-29,925
2. Florida-26,588
3. Illinois-11,489
…..If you bought a house in CA, you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money.
Chicago? Allow me:
10. Chicago, IL: Drive-by shootings; increasing violent crime (that will likely NOT be reversed by allowing concealed carry since how does one defend against a drive-by?); state is financially insolvent, state govt unwilling and unable to make any tough decisions to reverse this trend.
It all depends if your definition of “Chicago” includes Kenilworth, Wilmette, Evanston, etc.
Then again, I suppose houses on Sheridan Drive rarely come up at foreclosure sales…
Literal def’n of Chicago, of course. But the whole state suffers at the hands of our state legislature. You are correct, not too many Sheridan Rd. foreclosures, but still a number greater than zero. And there are some mansions that have been on the market for a loooooong time.
“Release of the inventory too fast will hurt the market,” Smith said.
Here’s the whole report from RealtyTrac:
http://www.realtytrac.com/content/foreclosure-market-report/2012-metro-foreclosure-report-7575
The gist (read for yourself if you want)…they think places like Florida/NY/NJ will be good places to buy foreclosures in 2013 because of increasing supply and increasing foreclosure activity (see the chart in the middle of the page).
They think that places in the West (CA, ID, UT, AZ, OR) will not be as good due to decreasing foreclosure activity and less supply.
The pig is largely through the non-judicial states…judicial states are finally starting to deal with their mess.
By the way, LPS came out with their December “Mortgage Monitor” today…I posted a link below…page 20 shows their state-by-state non-current loan rates…consistent with the RealtyTrac conclusion.
The pig is largely through the non-judicial states…judicial states are finally starting to deal with their mess.
Is this true? I read a recent article (Oregonian, I believe) about how lenders (on houses in OR) are actually turning to judicial foreclosure, forgoing non-judicial FCs and spending the time/money to stick it to deadbeat loan-owners.
My point is, perhaps non-judicial states are showing lower numbers of FCs not because they’ve worked through them, but because they’re choosing the alternative, which take longer, cost more, etc.
Judicial foreclosures jump in December
Realtytrac lists 91 houses for sale in the city and county of San Francisco.
There are 565 bank-owned houses in the city.
“when a court ruling and a new state foreclosure mediation program simultaneously changed legal requirements to foreclose outside the court system.”
Sounds like a big part of the choice was made for them…
I understand banks have a choice to go either way in non-judicial states. For instance on the commercial side in HI, I think states can go non-judicial, but due to a quirk in laws, you can’t get title insurance if you go that route, so practically speaking, everyone goes judicial.
In judicial states though, they can’t go non-judicial. There are a couple of exceptions that are recent that I’m aware of in NJ and IL…both of which will, later in 2013, allow more rapid foreclosure of vacant and abandoned homes.
There are also alternative methods of resolution…namely short sales, which are happening more and more.
I’m paying attention closely to one metric…non-current loans…this is the total of delinquent and homes in the foreclosure process (either judicial or non-judicial). In my view, this is the best measure of future distress that I can find. LPS tracks this by state. Judicial states just now seem to be reducing the non-current loans at faster rates, non-judicial have been reducing levels of non-current loans for a couple of years at pretty rapid rates.
As an example, Florida is still at 19.3% non-current, down 15% from a year prior (December 2012). 6 months earlier, they were over 20%, and only down 5% from the year prior. A year before that, June 2011, they were at 22.8%, and only down 3% from the prior year. Getting to double digit year-on-year reduction in non-current rates is a recent phenomenon in Florida.
At the same time, CA is at 7.6% non-current, down 26% from the year prior (December 2012). 6 months earlier, they were at 9.1%, and down 20% from the year prior. A year before that, June 2011, they were at 11.4%, and down 18% from the prior year. CA has been at nearly 20% annual reduction in non-current loan rates now for a couple of years.
You’ll see my longer answer, but take a look at the link to the LPS Mortgage Monitor and look at page 20. That will show you where judicial states are and where non-judicial states are in terms of getting through the distress (ie. non-current loans).
Also, when later this year (I believe it will be in 2013), the number of foreclosures in CA begins to fall considerably, be cautious of anyone telling you that it is because of the new law protecting homeowners.
Look to the non-current loan rates for the truth. If the decrease in foreclosures is occurring, but there is a stagnant non-current loan rate (ie. it has stopped falling), then I think you can point to the law as clogging things up.
If, however, the decrease in foreclosures is happening with a continued fall in non-current loan rates, then I think you can conclude that it is because there is less distress in the market.
In the meantime, take comfort by friends….
California Foreclosure Activity Account for Month of December 2012
1. California-29,925
2. Florida-26,588
3. Illinois-11,489
Filed under: never let a crisis go to waste
Denver Post - Gun sales prompt Colorado Democrat to push for fees bill to be heard ASAP
“Sen. Pat Steadman said he’s frustrated that a bill requiring gun buyers to pay for their own background checks is being held up by his own party, possibly to be introduced as part of a package of gun bills.
“We should do it in a hurry. Every day that we debate gun issues under this Gold Dome, or every day it gets talked about in Washington, more and more people are going to try and make a purchase”
ASAP
in a hurry
In addition to their goals of registration and confiscation, the anti-Constitutionalists want to nickel and dime gun buyers. That’s just how they roll…
more and more people are going to try and make a purchase
Of guns or politicians?
We’re all out of politicians…
I’ll bet most of the gun buyers are hard core TABOR supporters. Those background checks need to get paid for somehow, and it won’t be through taxes.
Those background checks need to get paid for somehow, and it won’t be through taxes.
Sorry, but the background checks you’re referring to are the electronic FBI background checks… here, let me repeat that: They are electronic and instantaneous. What exactly has to be paid for?
The licensed gun dealer already had to purchase the equipment to scan the fingerprint and send it electronically to the FBI. This is nothing more than an attempt by the Democrats to raise more money via hidden fees and taxes.
And don’t even get me started on the progressive push to limit gun ownership to the wealthy by forcing gun owners to buy liability insurance…
Yup.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_22398687/background-check-backlog-colorado-gets-no-extra-funding
“Coloradans waiting a week or more for state background checks to buy firearms got no help from lawmakers Thursday, who rejected a request for more money to cut the backlog of applications.
The Joint Budget Committee on a 4-2 vote rejected the Colorado Department of Public Safety’s request for $455,784 to add 24 temporary staff, which would have helped cut a logjam in applications for the background checks that swelled to more than 12,000 by the end of December”
Apparently something is done locally, beyond checking FBI records. And thanks to TABOR, there is no money to pay for it.
What?? Here the dealer has you fill out a form, then calls down to the PD which runs the NIC check. No fingerprints are taken.
Yeah, but you’re in Montana. That state hasn’t been tamed yet.
Well, maybe Missoula, Kalispell, and Bozeman have been, but not much else!
file under: private contractors once again proving they are more efficient than eeeeevil government employees
synopsis: this is only the tip of the iceberg. private “invisible hand of the free market” contractors steal like it’s their job. this report talks about approx 2 dozen contractors being debarred, arrested, or pleading guilty. imagine how much more fraud there is that isn’t being prosecuted…
link to full article - http://news.bna.com/fcln/FCLNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=29558470&vname=fcrnotallissues&jd=a0d6f5b8v2&split=0
quote from article - Audits and investigations by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in the last three months of 2012 discovered multiple acts of contracting waste, fraud, and abuse, SIGAR’s Jan. 30 Quarterly Report said.
Existing flaws in the procurement process will jeopardize the Afghan government’s already-weak authority if they continue after foreign troops withdraw, SIGAR said.
According to the report, SIGAR recovered $310,000 in government property, saved $825,000 in contract costs, and stopped $4.8 million in fuel thefts in the fourth quarter. SIGAR investigations also reportedly led to:
• four U.S. citizens and five Afghans being arrested;
• eight U.S. citizens pleading guilty to criminal charges; and
• 16 contractors being referred for suspension or debarment after allegedly engaging in criminal activity.
One would hope that our killing fields would attract only the most honest and moral of people.
Not really. I would assume that such environments draw people with suspicious motives.
Knowing this, why doesn’t either party do anything about this from the comfort and quiet of Washington? The GOP (supposed party of small gov’t) really won’t let proper oversight happen. They also won’t allow fed gov to hire for some of these positions that are very sensitive. They’d rather ensure the work goes to private contractors at a huge profit, ensuring lots of Koch Fluffing and SuperPAC donations.
Don’t make us break out the meme list again.
A good addendum to the meme list would be a Gish Gallop of Galt Gulchers. (Lots of places pointed out that Mitt Romney was judged the winner of the 1st debate this past fall because he successfully Gish Gallop-ed.)
What’s a Gish Gallop? (from urban dictionary dot com):
“Named for the debate tactic created by creationist shill Duane Gish, a Gish Gallop involves spewing so much bullshit in such a short span on that your opponent can’t address let alone counter all of it. To make matters worse a Gish Gallop will often have one or more ‘talking points’ that has a tiny core of truth to it, making the person rebutting it spend even more time debunking it in order to explain that, yes, it’s not totally false but the Galloper is distorting/misusing/misstating the actual situation. A true Gish Gallop generally has two traits.
1) The factual and logical content of the Gish Gallop is pure bullshit and anybody knowledgeable and informed on the subject would recognize it as such almost instantly. That is, the Gish Gallop is designed to appeal to and deceive precisely those sorts of people who are most in need of honest factual education.2) The points are all ones that the Galloper either knows, or damn well should know, are totally bullshit. With the slimier users of the Gish Gallop, like Gish himself, its a near certainty that the points are chosen not just because the Galloper knows that they’re bullshit, but because the Galloper is deliberately trying to shovel as much bullshit into as small a space as possible in order to overwhelm his opponent with sheer volume and bamboozle any audience members with a facade of scholarly acumen and factual knowledge.”
“file under: private contractors once again proving they are more efficient than eeeeevil government employees”
friend started working for the DoJ. She talks about this one guy who is in his late 50s and has been working for the federal government his entire career.
he will get 1 case and take forever while she gets 10 or 11.
he does basically nothing.
another friend of mine started a government job for DC. she told me that literally only about 1 (not including herself) out of the 10 people she works with does anything.
another anecdote about the DoJ guy. he started working a “flex” schedule where he had to work 1 extra hour a day to have every other Friday off.
he couldnt’ do it. that extra hour was just too much so he switched back.
she said at the end of the day he would sit in his chair and practically fall asleep complaining about how tired he was and how hard “these long hours” were.
Has he figured out how to steal millions of dollars of government property each year? If he hasn’t figured out how to do this yet, he isn’t ready to compete with the Big Boy Private Contractors.
people pretty much suck in general…whether they are a contractor or government employee.
people pretty much suck in general
“Hell is other people” — Jean Paul Sartre
if i was a government contractor and this DoJ guy was the government employee assigned as the contract manager of my contract….steeling millions would easy.
same friend worked a case just like that…the incompetence of the governement employee overseers led to the theft…it was actually going to be part of their defense…until they settled.
“your honor…he left the cash on his desk when he went to take a leak…how could i not steal it?”
NOT GUILTY!!!
“people pretty much suck in general”
Which is why you need to design a system that can provide some oversight by a neutral party who has incentives to meet some goals, show some accountability, provide reports to congress, etc.
Congress could do this. They purposefully avoid doing this.
“Congress could do this. They purposefully avoid doing this.”
because they are in on it.
Exactly. Wiki up Darrell Issa and then ask yourself if you think he’d EVER let a defense contractor suffer the humiliation of not having double digit annual growth and huge profits.
for those of you that don’t want to wiki… Issa was *twice* indicted for grand theft auto, once in his 20s and again in his 30s. one of the times, he stole a maserati. LOL! ambitious… but also a window into how he thinks.
I thought Afghanistan had given a writ of immunity to crimes committed? What laws did these guys break and did the trials occur in Afghanistan??
And let us not forget arson and intimations of other more sinister doings that got put off onto his brother. Poor Darrell was the money stooge behind the CA recall election of Gov. Gray Davis. He actually thought the Repubs would let him win the primary (they ran Ahnode instead) and he cried bitter tears of recrimination on TV in the aftermath. I actually had big hopes for him until he sold out to them the second (third?) time around.
@ Steve - the crimes were violations of federal law here in the U.S. Afghanistan wasn’t prosecuting the crimes. U.S. has jurisdiction because the contractors are working under a US contract governed by US law.
“she said at the end of the day he would sit in his chair and practically fall asleep complaining about how tired he was and how hard “these long hours” were.
Maybe he has trouble sleeping or sleep apnea.
Many of the feds in our office are like that too. The most obnoxious ones are the ones who don’t have cell phones (mostly over age 55) who use their office phones for personal phone calls all day. We get to hear all about their stupid grandkidz and Lipitor meds. The younger employees (the ones who care, anyway) either text or take their cell phones into an empty conference room to chat.
Why do people talk so loud on the phone. There is a little mic thingy that picks up their voice just fine, but they feel they must project to the whole office.
When I’m at the airport, until boarding, I always find a somewhat secluded place to get online and make calls for work. I always “love” it, and it happens almost every time, when some jack-wagon comes within 5 feet of me screeching into his phone while I’m on mine.
Common courtesy, like common sense, is not so common.
another friend of mine started a government job for DC. she told me that literally only about 1 (not including herself) out of the 10 people she works with does anything.
A good friend works for Pima County, Arizona. She says the same things about her office.
Her husband used to work for the county and got so frustrated that he left and went to another job with one of the Indian tribes. He loves it out on the rez.
I have heard that same story from people who work at CalTrans and the administrators in the public school system. First hand stories from people who work their. They shop online, email friends, and plan their vacations 50% of the time.
I wish we could edit our posts after they go live.
Their must be away.
+1 exactly!
I’ve worked in both the public and private sectors. In my experience, there were far more slackers working in the private sector than in the public sector.
Not sure that “public” vs “private” is the issue. The bottom line is that a lot of employees suck!.
Wall Street Journal - Risky Student Debt Is Starting to Sour:
“The number of student loans held by subprime borrowers is growing, and more of those loans are souring, the latest signs that a weak job market and rising debt loads are squeezing recent graduates.
In all, 33% of all subprime student loans in repayment were 90 days or more past due in March 2012, up from 24% in 2007, according to a Wednesday report by TransUnion LLC.
In the five years through last March, the portion of all student loans that were 90 days or more delinquent rose to 11.4% from 8.8%, while the average student loan balance per borrower increased 30% to $23,829, TransUnion found.
Another study, released Tuesday by credit score provider Fair Isaac Corp, found that roughly 26 million consumers had two or more open student loans on their credit report in October 2012, up from about 12 million in 2005. A majority of bank managers expect student loan delinquencies to continue to rise, according to Fair Isaac.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578273711404133732.html
Cueing the NAR-scum to keep pimping about “pent-up demand” and other fairy tales.
Welcome to the recoveryless recovery.
The future belongs to Lucky Ducky
“33% of all subprime student loans in repayment were 90 days or more past due ”
That’s an insane percentage. Collectors will be chasing these people forever. And billing the government for it. If the government was smart (ha!) they would hammer out low monthly payment plans with these people and cut out the contractors (collectors in this case).
and cut out the contractors
Commie talk!
After the collections fees are paid to contractors, there will be little left for the fed gov. This is stupid.
I don’t really trust the fed govt to do a *great* job and collecting these loans will be next to impossible anyway. What I would hope is that someone smart and objective looks at the system as a whole and comes up with a sensible traige-style response. Spread out loan payments over 25 yrs, chop the interest rates to 2%, remove the accounts from credit reporting* after a year of payments, etc.
The government has an incentive to look at the problem from a holistic perspective. The contractor has no incentive to do anything except chase loan debtors and bill the government. It’s actually better for the contractors if the loan debtors *do not* rehabilitate the loan.
* At some point, the fed gov’t has to also realize that allowing contractors to ding people’s credit, take them to court, etc. just exascerbates the problem because then these people have to pay more for everything else and have a hard time getting decent jobs. All of which means there is less money available to pay back the student loans.
triage*
I believe a surcharge is added to the debt to pay for the collection fees.
Credit reports/credit scores are not administered by the government. Thye are private companies. The government can’t make them take off the information and if they did, they would be violating the contracts they have with the lenders they provide scores/reports to.
Polly, they could stop reporting it as delinquent. This is what happens when a student loan is rehabilitated.
Right now, the gov’t let’s PRIVATE bootstrapping firms handle its delinquent collections.
And to answer someone else’s point… yes, there is a surcharge of up to 20% (or it is 19?) that can be added to student loan collections. However, the government’s contracts with private collectors often include payment of “overhead” costs and also allow contractors to collect part of the interest as well.
In other words, say a 10k loan defaults. Eventually a private contractor services it. They can add 2k, bumping the amt due up to 12k. However, if the contractor actually collects the money, it’s not like they only get 2k and the gov’t gets 10k. The contractor gets incentives, bonuses, and of course overhead costs. By the time it’s all said and done, the contractor can get a big portion of the money. And they also collect money from the gov’t for “servicing” the loans and this isn’t necessarily based on actually receiving payments from delinquent borrowers.
Government contracts with private collectors can and do specify whether and when certain things are reported to other private third parties.
The government, along with SLME, currently let private “bootstrapping” collection companies run wild with their credit reporting. In some cases causing serious privacy concerns. It’s an under-reported aspect of the financial wild west that is going to be student loan defaults. We’ll be hearing about this more and more as defaults rise.
Another education bubble story from the Times:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/education/law-schools-applications-fall-as-costs-rise-and-jobs-are-cut.xml
Whaddya mean I went into $200,000 to get my law degree from the University of CostCo and now all I can get is a public defender gig in Bunghole County, Flyover? It’s not fair!
“Whaddya mean I went into $200,000 to get my law degree from the University of CostCo and now all I can get is a public defender gig in Bunghole County, Flyover? It’s not fair!”
This actually isn’t as bad of a deal as you’d think. If you work in a gov’t job long enough and make on time payments, federal student loans are forgiven.
The solution is the consolidate the loans, spread them out for a 30 yr repayment plan, and then pay on them for 10 yrs. After 10 yrs of on time payments, BAM! they are forgiven.
When my wife went to get her MAT and become a teacher, this was the plan we followed.
I think the problem with this plan for most people would be finding a good gov’t job/career path they *want* to work for 10 yrs.
Used to be it only took one military enlistment to get them forgiven. But they were smaller back then. I don’t know if that deal still exists.
I think it still exists. One of my old housemates went into the Navy to have $40,000 (which turned into $75,000 after turned over to collections) forgiven. I’m not sure of the details, but that’s why she enlisted.
My son got his MD through enlistment and service in the Navy. So did my ex and my father, for that matter.
Why are we encouraging more people to work for the government?
Because the private sector is not hiring and offshoring?
I’m not encouraging more people to work for the gov. I’m saying that if the gov’t decides something essential needs to be done in a war zone (note: I don’t think we should be in Afghanistan or Iraq) then they should take the job seriously enough to provide serious oversight. The real waste should be trimmed. And the bulk of the waste is private contractor price gauging, theft, and purposeful inefficiencies.
Never forget: 70% of Pentagon budget goes to private contractors. The Big Boyz (GD, LMCO, Northrop, L3 Comm) are so large and *connected* they might as well be branches of the gov’t.
“Because the private sector is not hiring and offshoring?”
And we still give them handouts and tax breaks as a reward.
might as well be branches of the gov’t
L’etat, c’est moi
Why are we encouraging more people to work for the government?”
they who have the most employees wins !!
Whaddya mean I went into $200,000 to get my law degree from the University of CostCo and now all I can get is a public defender gig in Bunghole County, Flyover?
And those are the lucky ones! At a previous job, we had a SW tester (a ~$40K per year job) held by a guy who not graduated from law school, but who also passed the bar exam.
Know how we have economic sanctions against Iran?
Guess where many of our SuperPAC-donating private contractor friends obtain a lot of the fuel they supply to U.S. operations in Afghanistan?
If you guessed Iran, you win.
http://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/411490?nl_pk=9d07ff26-0986-46de-917f-4b7f3ce1f9dc&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=governmentcontracts
“SIGAR has published a litany of reports on fraud and corruption in Afghanistan, and recently appeared before Congress to testify on NATO’s failing efforts to track the fuel it supplies to the fledgling Afghan military.
In September, Sopko testified that U.S. and NATO officials in Afghanistan had shredded more than four years’ worth of financial records showing how $475 million in U.S. funding was spent on fuel for the Afghan National Army. The lack of records meant that U.S. auditors knew only how much had been spent, and could not otherwise track how much fuel was purchased, how much was used and whether fuel even reached its destination.
“We don’t know where the fuel goes. All we know is what we pay the vendor, and after that, it’s ‘Katie, bar the door,’” Sopko said Sept. 13.
SIGAR also released its quarterly review of all Afghanistan contracts Wednesday, which called on Washington decision makers to rethink their strategy and oversight before committing new reconstruction funds. The watchdog identified “problems in every area of the reconstruction effort,” including delays, cost overruns, poor construction of infrastructure projects, and U.S.-funded facilities that are not being used as intended, according to the review.
“These problems have resulted in lost opportunities and incalculable waste, but they have also presented opportunities to learn ,” SIGAR said.
U.S. lawmakers have signed off on nearly $89 billion in funding to rebuild Afghanistan, more than the U.S. has spent in any other reconstruction effort.”
Opportunities to learn, indeed. Love that quote. LOL. The government already *knows* contractors will rip them off in these far-flung, war-torn areas. But rather than have the military or federal employees handle some of these essential jobs, hey, let’s privatize them. Super efficient!!
It’s called “plausible deniability”.
Like when Cheney was CEO of Halliburton and had no idea Halliburton-France was dealing with Saddam Hussein. At least he was smarter than Rumsfield and didn’t get his picture taken shaking hands with the leader of the Axis of Evil.
…not to mention killing people in the shower from electrocutions.
‘When Vancouver’s condo king, Bob Rennie, got invited to speak to Killarney secondary students this month, he focused on what he learned as a student…mentioning developments he’s been involved with. They include the Shangri-La Hotel, the Wall Centre, the Shaw Tower, and the one he’s most proud of, the Woodward’s project in the Downtown Eastside. “I came up with a slogan: ‘Be bold or move to suburbia,’ ” he said. “I’m paid to come up with 99 ideas a day…and that was one of them that was good. We had a lineup and we sold it out in a day, and it has helped stabilize the Downtown Eastside.”
http://www.straight.com/news/345121/bob-rennie-offers-life-lessons-vancouver-students
From the comments:
‘HIgh school drop-out and Vancouver condo king Bob Rennie, summed up all that is presently wrong with Vancouver when he advised Killarney high school students ‘”Everyone in this room is a brand. All that you have is your name.” (Georgia Straight, ‘Rennie Offers Life Lessons’ Jan 24-31)’
‘The Oxford dictionary states the meaning of brand as (1) a type of product manufactured by a particular company under a particular name (2) an identifying mark burned on livestock or (especially in former times) criminals or slaves with a branding iron. Rennie has built his financial success by creating ‘lifestyle products’ that have left an indelible mark on our city. Each time I see another development permit I cringe as so often it signals the loss of another Vancouver cultural amenity and piece of Vancouver’s character-starved soul. All for the sake of another pigeonnier to house more bodies in boxes.’
‘Can Vancouver please push this self-styled realtor off his pedestal and give students a role model who doesn’t commodify life or them?!’
That guy is an idiot. Unfortunately, I believe that he’s paid his money and doesn’t have an active stake in these condoze. So if they eventually “Crater!!!!” he personally loses nother other than his dignity. And he barely has any dignity anyway.
(I hope I’m wrong and he is highly leveraged…)
I must note that I do like that he came up from nothing, being a HS drop out and not exactly “fitting in” with the building trades crowd. I hate what he represents now but admire the discipline he seems to have had over the past 4 decades.
‘I came up with a slogan: ‘Be bold or move to suburbia’
And he thinks that sold out a condo project in a day. Of course it didn’t have anything to do with mania. If I had been paid a lot of money to ‘come up with a slogan’ it probably would have been something like ‘buy one of these sh*t boxes in the sky and regret it the rest of your life’. It probably still would have sold out.
Moving on:
http://www.news1130.com/2013/01/28/vancouver-rent-prices-wont-fall-expert/
‘The city says having a little over 1,000 new units in supply will make rent cheaper over time. But Tsur Somerville with UBC’s Sauder School of Business says adding that amount of new units isn’t enough to make an impact. “In a sort of total context of total rental supply, this new rental construction is relatively small, so you know, it’s not like this is reflecting any particularly dramatic changes in the market,” says Somerville.’
“If this was a sort of a market response and a marketing increase in supply that would lower rents, and have an effect on prices as well, but the biggest piece is not resulting in some market reaction.”
So if I’m the reporter, I would ask, ‘what the hell did you just say? Have you been drinking?’ But here’s some from the comments:
‘Why does the media keep listening to this guy? says: Tsur Somerville is sponsored by the Real Estate industry. Naturally he will always be bullish on RE. He is hardly unbiased. Just look at his track record; constantly updating his predictions and flip-flopping on issues.’
‘Amy says: “A real estate expert says don’t count on it”
That says it all. Another idiot trying to get his cake and eat it too. How can we trust anything these sharks say? RENTS SHOULD AND WILL FALL! If the market trends down, so do rents. If you are a sucker and a fool, then keep paying MORE rent! But as housing comes down, so should rent. It most Definitely will NOT go up. So if landlords are trying to pull yet another scam, tell them to take a hike! So tired of the greedy people trying to keep housing costs unaffordable to everyone. Time for a major correction!’
I agree that he’s a charlatan, but at the same time at least he’s capitalizing. It’s the same quality I respect in guys like Mitt Romney. They know they’re screwing people* but they’re the aggressor and has stopped them so why not? It’s not their job to protect people. And what they are doing is perfectly legal.
* not necessarily in a sociopathic way; they might believe they’re “helping the economy” or somesuch, even if other people are getting the shaft.
“So if landlords are trying to pull yet another scam, tell them to take a hike!”
Oh yes, honey, go for it. I dare you. I double dare you. If you refuse to pay the rent, they will find someone who can. Even if that someone is actually three someones or Section 8 (is there a Canadian equivalent?) someones. And when you go looking for somewhere else to live, you will find that ALL the LL’s are doing it.
“If you refuse to pay the rent, they will find someone who can.”
It’s a magical money machine. Right Ms. realtor?
It is for the LL’s. About a month after I moved out, I drove past my old place. Lights were on, drapes in the window. So yes, they DID find someone who was willing the pay the rent.
A can’t lose proposition? Really?
My old rental rent for $1,000 more per month. Sat vacant for 1 month. I think all the LL did is paint the walls.
Paid off house, pre-Prop 13. Rents for $3600 month.
Must be nice.
“Paid off house, pre-Prop 13. Rents for $3600 month. ”
The key thing about that situation is, the LL should still be fine even if rents do fall. Super lower property taxes, no mortgage payment, can use depreciation and maintenance expenses to reduce profits (and therefore taxes). What’s not to like?
In fact, the smart thing for your ex-LL to do would be to keep raking in as much as possible now, keep the house in good condition, and be prepared for a possible tougher environment in the future. Be read to lower rents to keep good tenants when/if rental rates really do start to fall.
A can’t lose proposition? Really?
C’mon now…. answer it.
After 8 yrs of Bush, with his full control of all 3 branches for 6 yrs, do any GOP members really still believe,… they are against illegal immigration AND FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE!! loL!
just saying, know your party… The spend, spend, spend… then blame the next guy. Clinton cleaned up Reagan’s mess, O is cleaning up Bush’s.
What did the GOP come up with in the last 4 yrs? Any new ideas? New policy? anything? they are toast.
Reagan implemented an amnesty program in 1986.
and…he started the deficit spending game…
“Ronald Reagan exploded the federal debt, eventually to over a trillion dollars, by cutting taxes while demanding that the nation fund a huge expansion of the military. Even the Wall Street Journal at the time was aware of the unsound nature of this Republican deficit-spending scheme. They and other newspapers warned of the “baleful effects of big [government] deficits.”
Clinton cleaned up Reagan’s mess, O is cleaning up Bush’s.
Please stop posting if you believe this $hit. Lower your koolaid intake…
Nice job presenting facts that prove me wrong. lol!
What is koolaid?
Clinton repealed Glass Steagall…that was the opening bell to the financial mess.
oh really… http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-07-28/business/35489373_1_glass-steagall-commercial-banks-biggest-banks
Couple of those fact thingys:
Blaming Carter for the massive inflation caused by the Vietnam Debacle (and Nixon’s severance of the gold standard in addressing the cash flow crisis that entailed) is like blaming Obama for the Housing Bubble. It’s disingenuous at best.
Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman’s vehement opposition to the administration’s economic strategies saw him “taken to the woodshed” over his candid criticism of “Voodoo ecomomics”. But even then, a sizable contingent of Americans knew he was speaking the truth (and went on to nominate Ross Perot as an independent candidate for POTUS.)
Reagan raised taxes on the middle class six times — twice in 1982 (including the largest peacetime tax increase in history), then again in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987 — and he STILL didn’t grow his way out of the deficits caused by his 1981 tax cut.
Prior to Reagan’s tax cuts, unemployment rate was 7.2%. Afterwards it stood at 10%. But his cronies (138+ indicted or investigated during his tenure)– including handlers, Don Rumsfield, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove — made out like bandits, looting the Treasury and dismantling fifty years worth of public-interest regulations, for the next 30 years. Reaganomics converted the US to a debtor nation and all but destroyed our international trade position.
In Stockman’s own words:
“The American economy and government have literally been taken hostage by the awesome stubbornness of the nation’s 40th president, whose phony war against spending will leave the nation with a debt of $1 trillion by the time he leaves office.”
(quote from 1987)
For most of our lifetimes we’ve seen the following pattern: Republican administrations come in and redistribute our public wealth into the private coffers of their cronies. Then Dems come in, clean it up, pay off/down the accrued public debt, repair what’s been neglected in the preceding administration. Then a Republican admin comes back in, de-regulates, siphons it all back into a few private pockets….
I hear differing views on this:
http://prospect.org/article/alarming-parallels-between-1929-and-2007
“Since repeal of Glass Steagall in 1999, after more than a decade of de facto inroads, super-banks have been able to re-enact the same kinds of structural conflicts of interest that were endemic in the 1920s — lending to speculators, packaging and securitizing credits and then selling them off, wholesale or retail, and extracting fees at every step along the way. And, much of this paper is even more opaque to bank examiners than its counterparts were in the 1920s. Much of it isn’t paper at all, and the whole process is supercharged by computers and automated formulas. An independent source of instability is that while these credit derivatives are said to increase liquidity and serve as shock absorbers, in fact their bets are often in the same direction — assuming perpetually rising asset prices — so in a credit crisis they can act as net de-stabilizers.”
http://media.yoism.org/CapitalistFools-Stiglitz.pdf
“The most important consequence of the repeal of Glass-Steagall was indirect - it lay in the way repeal changed an entire culture. Commercial banks are not supposed to be high-risk ventures; they are supposed to manage other people’s money very conservatively. It is with this understanding that the government agrees to pick up the tab should they fail. Investment banks, on the other hand, have traditionally managed rich people’s money - people who can take bigger risks in order to get bigger returns. When repeal of Glass-Steagall brought investment and commercial banks together, the investment-bank culture came out on top. There was a demand for the kind of high returns that could be obtained only through high leverage and big risktaking.”
http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/sold_out.pdf
“The overwhelming direct damage inflicted by Glass-Steagall repeal was the infusion of investment banking culture into
the conservative culture of commercial banking.”
Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman’s vehement opposition to the administration’s economic strategies saw him “taken to the woodshed” over his candid criticism of “Voodoo ecomomics”. But even then, a sizable contingent of Americans knew he was speaking the truth (and went on to nominate Ross Perot as an independent candidate for POTUS.)
Your HBB Librarian recommends Stockman’s book, The Triumph of Politics. It’s about his White House service during the Reagan administration.
Well, where’s the facts in your post? You post an opinion and then ask for people to find facts to prove you wrong?
After 8 yrs of Bush, with his full control of all 3 branches for 6 yrs, do any GOP members really still believe,… they are against illegal immigration AND FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE!! loL!
just saying, know your party… The spend, spend, spend… then blame the next guy. Clinton cleaned up Reagan’s mess, O is cleaning up Bush’s.
What did the GOP come up with in the last 4 yrs? Any new ideas? New policy? anything? they are toast.
read it again… I see some facts, might seem hidden if you read it too fast.
Reagan was cleaning up Carter’s mess. If you disagree, be sure to do a nice job representing the facts that prove me wrong.
no one cleaned up anyones’ mess…that’s why we are in this mess.
I read a compelling article years ago describing the effects on interest rates, etc. of transitioning from a asset-backed currency to a fiat currency. So coming off the gold standard has had repercussions still felt today. Passing the blame on is easy.
How soon people forget…
Persistent but unproven accusations that Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign negotiated a secret deal with Iran to prevent the release of American hostages until after the election are being revived this week with fresh accounts of meetings between campaign officials and an Iranian cleric.
oh it’s backed by something…full faith and credit…debt.
money is debt.
“money is debt.”
Darryl?
Darrell’s not here.
“Darrell’s not here.”
I know, I was attempting to make a funny.
It seems I have failed
Me, too…I was going for Cheech and Chong :-).
Got deer-antler spray?
I prefer Moose antler spray myself.
Singh admits using deer-antler spray
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP)
Vijay Singh has admitted he used deer-antler spray, saying he wasn’t aware that it may contain a substance banned by the U.S. PGA Tour.
http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/vijay-singh-admits-using-deer-antler-spray-banned-substance-013013 - -
wtf is deer antler spray…and why would anyone use it for anything else?
that’s like saying….”ohhhh…i ate horse shit…but i didn’t know it did anything”.
It’s a scam supplement.
I buy deer antlers for my dogs to chew. Dogs like them, they last forever and don’t stink up the house like hoof chews.
Antler velvet is huge business in NZ, (along with venison) and sold to Asians as aphrodisiacs — and now, apparently, to Americans as a muscle enhancer.
Washington, D.C., region ranks among worst to buy a foreclosure
Posted at 05:30 AM ET, 01/31/2013
RealtyTrac released a report today that lists the Washington metro region as one of the worst places to buy a foreclosure. While that’s bad news for real estate investors looking to snap up good deals on properties, it is good news for the area’s housing market.
“Maybe we should have named that differently,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac, with a laugh. “It’s worst from the perspective of a buyer coming into that market [to buy foreclosures]. But from a macro level and from the perspective of homeowners in the market, I think it’s a good thing because there are fewer foreclosures that you are competing against if you go to sell your home and foreclosures are not going to be weighing down on home values as much as they have in the past.”
Washington ranks in the top 25 of worst places to buy a foreclosure in the country, taking into account its foreclosure inventory (9,633 properties), inventory supply (10 months worth compared to 20 months nationwide), number of sales from January to October 2012 (9,412), percentage of all sales (13.2 percent), average foreclosure sale price ($258,556), average foreclosure discount percentage (37.1 percent), number of properties in 2012 with foreclosure filings (17,059) and annual percentage change in foreclosure activity (minus-11 percent).
The worst metro area in the country to buy a foreclosure is McAllen, Texas, followed by cities in the west, including Ogden, Utah; Las Vegas; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; San Jose, Calif.; and Honolulu.
The best places to buy foreclosures — where the best deals are to be had — are Palm Bay-Melbourne, Fla.; Rochester, N.Y.; Albany, N.Y.; New York-Northern N.J.-Long Island, N.Y.; and Lakeland, Fla.
Blomquist believes the Washington region is past the worst of the foreclosure problem that has plagued the housing market.
“There are still pockets of distress in the market that will have to be worked out over the next couple years, so it’s going to be a little bit of a bumpy road,” he said. “But mostly, I think the long-term trend is down in terms of foreclosures.”
Even though the region has seen improvement, that doesn’t mean that some areas aren’t still struggling. Virginia appears to be ahead of Maryland because its faster foreclosure process — most foreclosures are settled out of court — allowed it to clear out its distressed properties much more quickly. Maryland is a judicial foreclosure state, which means foreclosures are conducted in the court system. The District’s foreclosure process has stalled as a result of a 2010 law.
“I don’t know of any other metro area that straddles a non-judicial foreclosure state [Virginia] and judicial one [Maryland],” Blomquist said. “It is actually probably somewhat doing a disservice to just blanket the whole area as a worse place to buy [foreclosures] because if you look at the Maryland counties, many of them had an increase in foreclosure activity.”
Foreclosures were up 18 percent year-over-year in Montgomery County, 38 percent in Charles County and 58 percent in Calvert County. For those investors and buyers who missed out on the bottom of the market in Virginia, deals might still be had in Maryland.
While Maryland has shown an increase in foreclosure sales recently, the trend across the country has been a decline in foreclosures and an increase in short sales.
Lenders “are much more inclined to agree to short sales as an alternative to foreclosure,” Blomquist said. “I think short sales are acting as a pressure release valve for some of the backlog.…We’re seeing a big increase in short sales that are happening even before the bank starts the foreclosure process. The banks don’t even bother filing the initial foreclosure notice. They just go ahead and preemptively agree to the short sale.”
Short sales are still distressed sales, but the process is often quicker for a lender. States that have long foreclosure processes are seeing a huge increase in short sales. In Florida, which has the lengthiest foreclosure timetable in the nation, short sales were up 66 percent year-over-year in the third quarter.
Virginia saw an 11 percent year-over-year increase in the third quarter of short sales, while Maryland was up 25 percent and the District 29 percent.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/where-we-live/post/washington-dc-region-ranks-among-worst-to-buy-a-foreclosure/2013/01/30/8b4cd5c6-6b28-11e2-ada3-d86a4806d5ee_blog.html
Short sales up up up!
Foreclosures up up up!
Prices down down down!
I never bought the “DC never goes down” theory. Sure, there are areas of DC such as DuPont Circle and Bethesda which will remain healthy, but when you look towards where I live I am seeing a lot of price drops. Do I live in a suburb of DC? I guess, but being on the outer ring makes it much more elastic. There may only be a dozen miles that separates myself from healthy areas, but that’s a BIG dozen miles.
In DC Real Estate, its all about specific location, specific location, specific location.
tyson’s corner va area appears to only go up.
This was kind of discussed yesterday. Outer ring of DC suburbs is screwed–even oxide agrees with me on this. The one exception might be Laurel/Columbia (MD) area, since that is a mix of really high end stuff (certain areas of Howard County) and the rest of it is a direct line between Balt and DC. That said, I think even that area will suffer.
And you’re right–specific location matters a ton. If you need to get to a different area of the city, you could be looking at a nightmare depending which corridors you have to cross. You can’t just say “I’m 5 miles from Dulles”, it matters a lot what direction, which roads you have to take, etc. The one exception is that anything near a Metro is pretty convenient but also costs more.
This link’s for palmetto.
The “youngest and newest girls”, now that’s Hope and Change we can believe in!
http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/31/dominican-prostitute-senator-bob-menendez-likes-the-youngest-and-newest-girls/
Duh! Who likes the old ones that have working for 40 years?
It’s legal in the DR, so why the outrage? Sen Vittor from LA did the same thing and broke DC law and not a peep from the FBI.
Senator Menendez is 59 years old. The Dominican prostitutes he was with were 16 years old. And those are just the ones who spoke to the media. What’s to say he doesn’t like 12 year old girls too?
Creep factor!
A suggestion for a discussion topic: Are economists deliberately pulling the wool over our eyes by lying through their teeth, or are they really THAT STUPID, and actually believe what they preach?
What’s the old saying? It’s hard to convinve a man to stop doing what he gets paid to do?
Especially if “yes” pays more.
New LPS Mortgage Monitor out today.
http://www.lpsvcs.com/LPSCorporateInformation/CommunicationCenter/DataReports/MortgageMonitor/201212MortgageMonitor/MortgageMonitorDecember2012.pdf
See page 20 for a sense of where the shadow inventory of distressed housing is located.
Which state in the US has the highest foreclosure activity? You guessed it…. California.
http://www.realtytrac.com/trendcenter/uiservices/foreclosureactivity.aspx
If you buy a house today, you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money.
Population of California: 38 million (787 new foreclosures per million)
Population of Florida: 19 million (1,399 new foreclosures per million)
Population of Illinois: 13 million (884 new foreclosures per million)
Population of Ohio: 11.5 million (943 new foreclosures per million)
Foreclosure Activity Account for Month of December 2012
1. California-29,925
2. Florida-26,588
3. Illinois-11,489
You seem to be missing why RW posted the population numbers. California’s population the highest population of any state by far and it is literally double Florida’s, so of course there is more foreclosure activity here.
You seem to be backing up RentalPimps misrepresentations and denials of the truth wherever possible.
Why is that?
Foreclosure Activity Account for Month of December 2012
1. California-29,925
2. Florida-26,588
3. Illinois-11,489
If you bought a house in CA, you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money.
If you in foreclosure in CA, chances are you didn’t put any money down, so you aren’t really losing money.
Especially if you got cash back at closing.
The rent is too damn high. Apparently, it seems that rents here can’t go much higher.
S.F. apartment market is hot
It’s an all-too-familiar story in San Francisco.
Bridget Burton and James Monahan want to move in to a new place together rather than cram into her tiny apartment. They’ve looked at scores of apartments going for inflated prices and faced legions of competitors armed with credit reports and rent resumes.
“There are some days when I just don’t want to try because it’s so challenging,” said Burton, who works in marketing in San Francisco. Monahan, who has been living in Tahoe, is an engineer at a South Bay technology company. “You just have to hang in there, hoping for good luck.”
It may be cold comfort to apartment hunters, but a recent report says that rents have jumped so high that for now they appear to have plateaued.
“San Francisco leads the nation in terms of setting rents,” said Sarah Bridge, owner of the RealFacts apartment data service. “San Francisco seems to have reached a peak in the market at least for the moment. Rents were actually down $27 (on average for all apartment sizes) for the city from the third quarter to the fourth quarter.”
Of course, that minor moderation came only after soaring increases.
RealFacts shows that the average monthly asking rent across all size units in San Francisco was $2,741 in the fourth quarter, a steep 22 percent increase from just two years earlier.
City 2010 2011 2012
S.F. $2,240 $2,590 $2,741
San Jose 1,512 1,678 1,825
Oakland 1,525 1,698 1,961
So rental rates are falling in the bay area. Why buy when you can rent for a fraction of the cost?
Squatter takes over $2.5 million bank-owned FL mansion
Squatters in multi-million dollar homes? Yes, indeed, in the tony beachfront Boca Raton, FL.
According to Zillow property records, 580 Golden Harbour Drive sold for $2,478,410 in September of 2012. Now, not even a year later, it’s bank owned. But that bank, Bank of America, isn’t really in the property management business, which is why this giant home stood empty long, and apparently not very securely locked up. Enter Andre Barbosa– literally. The 23 year old is living in the home, claiming squatter’s rights. The Sun Sentinel reports that ”The police can’t move him. No one saw him breaking into the 5-bedroom house, so it’s a civil matter. And representatives for the real owner, Bank of America, said they are aware of the situation and are following a legal process.” And it’s not an easy process. Instead, it will involve taking Barbosa to court.
It only gets more complicated. By invoking an obscure but never rescinded nor revised Florida law, Barbosa is using “adverse possession” to justify his claim in the house, as it allows a person to move in and claim title of a property “if they can stay there seven years.” Florida has suffered more than one similar case. The Sun Sentinel makes reference to a “handful” of adverse possession claims making their way through the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office, but Barbosa’s stands out because the house he’s possessing (adversely) is so valuable. And though Barbosa is certainly eccentric, posting a sign that he is the “living beneficiary to the Divine Estate being superior of commerce and usury” on the front of the home, he isn’t stupid. He even contacted the Appraiser’s Office to alert them that his tenancy had begun, presumably as he intends to stay for the required seven years.
U.S. debt limit bill, Drafted by House Republican leaders wins final congressional approval !
ahh… i love those fiscal conservatives!
do nothing congress, is alive and well.
Stated income loans are BACK in some states!! CA and TX
70% LTV
oh boy, another bubble!
Not really.
Housing demand is still at 1997 levels and falling.
So cal. is going nuts for anything under $600k. bidding wars, well anywhere with in 30 mins of the coast. UP 25% since nov 2011, it seems. No, I am not a Realturd.
So.Cal is awash in defaults, foreclosures and sinking sales. And yes you are a liar.
I get real estate updates daily form 2 Realturds as I am always shopping for income prop. (SFR’s) Every one, i mean every one I have asked about in the last 3 mos was already under contract with multiple offers.
And one of my co-workers bro is trying to buy, cant get anything, he gets out bid ever time in south OC. $500k range.
But those are just examples of reality.
Absolutely. Inventories are at the lowest point I’ve seen since 2004 (the lowest inventory on record). Bidding wars are the norm, and prices have been rising. It totally sucks.
Got any cite on that or is it what you heard?
call a realturd, get listing, then call on the good ones as they come up and watch for yourself.
Geraldo wants to run against cory booker for senate in 2014.
This will be a hilarious and extremely expensive race. Msnbc v fox, trump and chris christie v obama and bill bradley. Many, many memes will result.
Cory will win and will also be president or v.p. at some point.
http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2013/0131/Geraldo-Rivera-truly-contemplating-run-for-Senate.-Could-he-win
Many, many memes will result
Doubtful. The memes won’t spread much beyond the NYC and Philadelphia media markets. Granted, some Senate races gave us such gems as “I’m not a witch” and “legitimate rape”, but only memes like “the 47%” got traction nationally.
The Recession is OVER!!!!! No more Jobs council
Al Jazeera America Has Received More Than 8,000 Applications
Lots of competition for just 160 positions.
Within 24 hours of posting openings for the majority of their new positions, Al Jazeera America received 5000 applications for open positions, a number that has grown to 8,063 over the past three days, a network source told BuzzFeed.
Al Jazeera caused a stir earlier this month when it was announced that the Qatar-based network had bought the struggling liberal channel Current from Al Gore for $500 million, and would use it to expand into American coverage.
It further stoked speculation in the media world when it posted 160 digital and editorial positions. The ads were placed on Al Jazeera.com and Current.com as well as other prominent job listing sites like the New York Times, Washington Post, and LinkedIn.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/al-jazeera-america-has-received-more-than-8000-ap
For those (pimp) who dont believe So Cal is on fire. Call and ask how many offers they got on this one: http://www.redfin.com/CA/Laguna-Niguel/28802-Avenida-Del-Caballo-92677/home/4883733