Bits Bucket for March 13, 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
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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“If you buy a house today, you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money.
But if you buy tomorrow, you will be fine.
If you buy tomorrow you’ll only loose 64.99%.
It’s important to note that we’ve ascertained that the 65% loss will be in *nominal* terms.
No.
It’s important to stress that if you buy a house today at the current massively inflated asking prices of resale housing, you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money.
Well duh, because housing is always a loss, always.
Alot [sic] of money can mean a lot of things. A ten percent loss, for example, is quite a bit different than 65% loss. The 65% was significant; why are you now saying simply “alot”. The 65% made you stand out, since everyone here agrees that prices will go down but no one else called for a 65% nominal crater.
No one else? Really? Or maybe they know housing is infact inflated by 300%+ and an 80% decline would be more realistic.
Another day but the same nonsense from Housing Jealous.
Why pay $200/sq ft for a used up 20 year old house when you can build a new one for under $60/sqft?
Why pay $200/sq ft for a used up 20 year old house when you can build a new one for under $60/sqft?
———–
That’s a 70% nominal price drop. I thought the crater was only going to be 65, now I’m confused.
Yes you are.
In what hellhole region and town?
One by one, industries get a back-stop:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-sugar-set-sweet-bailout-234800763.html
Wish honey could come down in price. But no.
With all this excess sugar why hasn’t anybody started putting sugar back into their products?
Its still hard to find soda with real sugar in it.. Not that i drink much, its just tastes so much better.
The corn lobby.
High-Fructose Death Syrup is Evil.
Drink Mexican Cokes made with real sugar.
High-Fructose Death Syrup is Evil.
———————————-
get caught with that in Japan and you go to jail.
or NYC
Follow the money: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=c
I’m a big fan of Mexican agua dulce. Which, I’m pretty sure, is made with real sugar.
Pepsi sells a line of “throwback” soft drinks make with real sugar
You can find soda with real sugar in it right before and around Passover. Start looking now. The kosher for Passover stuff has a P on it and usually says that it can be used for Passover.
Saw a youtube video about this store:
http://www.sodapopstop.com/home.cfm
The owner mentioned looking for the kosher soda from Coca Cola I think. Visited the store a few years ago. Shipped a case of mixed bottles home. They provided the Styrofoam container ( I guess they get a lot of tourist type visitors like me). Never do that again, lol, at over a $1 per bottle shelf price. Surprised how good the rose soda was though. Nowadays, I’ll drink one can of soda per a year. Coffee is my caffeine/sugar source of choice.
You can buy Coke and Pepsi and a ton of other brands with sugar all the time. Just go to the grocery store drink aisle and look at the packages. The demand and idea has been there for the past 2 or so years to stock both.
BTW, I can’t taste a difference between sugar and hfcs Pepsi or sugar/hfcs Coke in a can, assuming they aren’t lying about the type of sugar it contains. I can in bottles sort of.
Sierra Mist has real sugar. Same price as the other 2-liter bottles of 7-up, etc.
Pepsi Throwback and the Mexican Coke used to taste good. Last time I got a Pepsi Throwback it seemed like something was done to it and it tasted really bad. Perhaps they just spiked the sugar really hard.
he move would benefit companies that turn sugar beets and sugar cane into granulated sweetener, a business plied by American Crystal Sugar Co., Amalgamated Sugar Co. and U.S. Sugar Corp. The USDA wouldn’t say how many companies have received loans, or identify them. U.S. Sugar said it doesn’t have any USDA loans outstanding. American Crystal and Amalgamated didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Higher prices would hit food companies including candy giants Mars Inc., Hershey Co. and Nestlé SA, and could ultimately boost retail food prices, at a time when many consumers are financially stretched.
Sure seems like someone wants to prop up prices and inflation.
They reported higher retail sales but low and behold a large chunk of that was gas due to rising prices.
So didn’t the US gov buy crops from farmers and burn them during the great depression. Isn’t this the same thing. What the F is the USDA going to do with all that sugar. They can’t put it on the market. Are they going to store it? Give it to the third world? Let it rot and dump it into the sea that’s my bet.
This will raise food prices and make us sales look better right?
What the F is the USDA going to do with all that sugar.
USDA and their accomplices will turn it into alcohol & mix it with your gasoline, in ever increasing amounts, whether or not your car can handle it and despite car manufacturers warning against it.
USDA and their accomplices will turn it into alcohol & mix it with your gasoline
That’s what I was going to say. And I like E85.
Marge: Homer, when are you going to give up this crazy sugar scheme?
Homer: Never, Marge. Never. I can’t live the button-down life like you. I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles. Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with my cocky stride and musky odors - oh, I’ll never be the darling of the so-called “City Fathers” who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about “What’s to be done with this Homer Simpson?”
The bond debate: Buy, sell or run (2:18)
March 12 - Treasury yields have risen on signs of a strengthening U.S. economic recovery, prompting some bond investors to ponder whether it’s time to get out now with more talk of the Fed pulling back on its massive stimulus. That worry may be premature. Conway G. Gittens reports.
I’m buying. They are predicting further contraction in Europe and I still see China hitting a wall at some point. No way can the US economy expand with higher rates tax increases and cuts in gov spending.
No way can the US economy expand with higher rates tax increases and cuts in gov spending.
If the US government simply holds its spending to the level of a couple of years ago, the economy will contract, perhaps drastically and painfully. This is the elephant in the room.
If the money currently doing nothing were being used to pay people to do things, the economy would improve even with higher taxes and cuts in government spending.
It seems awfully late in the game at this point to overhaul the rules.
Fla. Democrats file bills to crack down on foreclosures
Calling Florida’s No. 1 ranking on foreclosures “shameful,” some lawmakers are pushing for reforms to the foreclosure law, hoping to help homeowners keep their properties.
At a Tuesday press conference, some Democrats in the Florida Legislature pushed for new changes to laws governing Florida’s hundreds of thousands distressed properties. They say the changes are necessary to protect homeowners from banks who have engaged in fraud.
“We are number one in the nation (for foreclosures) and that is absolutely shameful,” said Sen. Darren Soto, who is backing a number of bills aimed at changing the foreclosure process.
The bills, sponsored by Soto and other Democrats, face tough odds in the Republican-dominated Legislature. Bills sponsored by Republicans go in the other direction, hoping to speed up the state’s lengthy foreclosure process and clear out a backlog of distressed properties.
Those bills are moving through the Legislature, despite objections from some Democrats who say they favor banks at the expense of consumers.
“’We know that part of what created the problem were the shortcuts taken in the financial services industry,” said Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, D-Miami, standing in front of a group of homeowners and families.
Soto’s bills would address short sale issues, crack down on banks that use fraudulent documents and reduce the ability of lenders to go after homeowners for additional debt after a foreclosure.
…
Of course NONE of them will ever help renters by making foreclosures easier, so we can kick out the deadbeats faster and lower the cost of renting.
How hard is it to start kicking people out who have not paid the mortgage in 5 years then work backwards…..Do you really think anyone would protest and say living rent free for 5 years is OK?
Foreclosures will never help renters. The houses will just be bought up in bulk by hedgies, given a quick fix, and rented out for more $$ than the original house would fetch.
^^^^^^^^^^
YIPEEE!!!LMAO
Absolute nonsense.
No doubt.
Sinkhole opens up in Washington and jaded humor emerges
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON | Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:01am IST
(Reuters) - Washington is used to being the brunt of jokes, particularly those centered around the action, or lack of it, on Capitol Hill.
But on Tuesday, the focus moved to the Adams Morgan neighborhood, where some saw a symbol of Washington - a gaping sinkhole in the middle of a bustling sidewalk.
Unlike the fatal sinkhole that swallowed a man as he slept in his Seffner, Florida, home on February 28, or the one a golfer fell into on an Illinois fairway earlier this month, the Washington sinkhole is more on the order of a large pothole. Surrounded by yellow tape, it is about a yard (meter) square, as deep as 10 feetand sits a few miles from the White House, another frequent source of late-night television humor.
But the sinkhole quickly took on larger proportions as chatter erupted on social media.
“A sinkhole has opened in Washington D.C. Last to push their congressman in is a rotten egg,” tweeted Bill O’Keefe.
“25 ft deep sinkhole in DC today and it’s expanding. Seems like I got out at the right time. It was nice knowing you, Washington,” tweeted T.C. Sottek.
…
No big deal; whats another stinkhole in DC…
What’s the big deal? Just pour money into it.
STOXX 50 2,696.82 -15.03 -0.55%
FTSE 100 6,455.95 -54.67 -0.84%
DAX 7,956.54 -9.58 -0.12%
BREAKING NEWS
Ireland 10-Year Bond Sale Said to Draw $15 Billion Bids
Italy’s Borrowing Costs Rise at Bond Auction After Downgrade
By Chiara Vasarri - Mar 13, 2013 3:58 AM PT
Italian borrowing costs rose in the first bond auction since a credit rating downgrade last week that highlighted the economic risks of the country’s current political stalemate.
The Treasury in Rome today sold 3.32 billion euros of a 2015 note at 2.48 percent, up from the 2.3 percent paid Feb. 13 and the highest since December. The Treasury also managed to sell longer-term debt, placing 2 billion euros of securities maturing in 2028 at 4.9 percent compared with 4.805 percent when the same bonds were sold first sold to banks on Jan. 15.
Investors bid 1.28 times the amount of three-year bonds offered, down from 1.37 times last month. The Treasury also sold a total of 1.67 billion euros of 2017 and 2018 floating bonds to yield respectively 2.95 and 3.03 percent. All together, Italy sold 6.99 billion euros of debt, less than the 7.25 billion euros maximum target.
Fitch Ratings lowered Italy one level to BBB+ on March 9, saying that inconclusive parliamentary elections in February threatened the government’s ability to respond to a deepening recession and the European debt crisis.
“The evolution of market sentiment on Italy will depend crucially on how Italian politicians manage the political crisis and market expectations of Italy’s credibility around fiscal consolidation and structural reform,” economists at Barclays including Fabio Fois wrote in a note yesterday.
…
Jim Rogers: Major Crash Ahead For U.S. Investors
By TERRY WEISS, Contributing Writer, Money Morning • February 25, 2013
Despite the current stock market rally, legendary investor Jim Rogers say the U.S economy is poised for a major crash and is warning investors to protect themselves immediately.
In a riveting interview on Fox Business, Rogers warned Americans not to trust any of the positive economic news coming from world governments.
“I don’t trust the data from any government, including the U.S.,” Rogers said. “We know that governments lie to us. Everybody’s printing money, but it cannot go on. This is all artificial.”
Rogers, who for years has been an outspoken critic of the Feds policies of “Quantitative Easing” says all the money printing is creating false hope that we are in the middle of some kind of super bull market.
But in reality, he says, “we’re living in a fool’s paradise.”
“The Bank of Japan says it’s going to print unlimited amounts of money… Then Mr. Bernanke said I’ll match that… I’ll print that money too. The Europeans are catching on. You’ve got money printing going on everywhere and that has never been good for anybody,” Rogers said.
Currently, Bernanke and company at the U.S. Fed is buying $1 trillion of Treasury and housing agency bonds each year. That’s about $85 billion per month against a budget deficit that is about the same level.
The real risk right now is an all-out 1930s-style currency war that could devastate an entire class of investors who have put their faith in the current economic dogma of endless bailouts and money printing.
“It cannot go on,” Rogers warns.
Rogers believes things will really get bad after the German elections this fall.
How bad?
…
things will really get bad after the German elections this fall.
Or Merkel’s coalition wins and it’s party like 1999?
Couple of interesting data points this morning;
Car sales slowing…
U.S. MBA’s Mortgage applications Index fell 4.7% last week…
B of A announced 5% cut in appraisal staff amid slowdown…
Hmmm….
Is the 3% mortgage money starting to run out of momentum ?
Are the zero interest loans not doing it anymore for car sales ?
They say the first sign of s economic slowdown is the restaurant business…Eating & drinking out are the first things the consumers shed…Anyone have a data point on that ??
My data point isn’t really based on anything official, but it seems that restaurants and bars are always coming and going.
There are just some people who have to open these places, logic and business sense be darned. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don’t.
However, I do know that you can’t get an SBA loan to open a restaurant. Because that sort of business is considered to be too risky. Ditto for veterinary practices. Also too risky.
Announcement this morning that lenders are lowering down payment requirements to try to generate more business. The well of suckers is running dry.
Or they might just be lowering requirements since the risks are now lower. You want to see a sucker ? Go look in the mirror.
That skybox anchor sure has got you angry. What’s it feel like to not have two nickels to rub together?
Or they might just be lowering requirements since the risks are now lower.
Is that why the requirements were SOOOOO low….. right before the crash?
CRATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A house in Seffner, Fla., crumbles over a 20-foot-wide sinkhole
Real Estate
In Florida, Sinkhole Risks Grow With Urban Expansion
By Venessa Wong on March 05, 2013
There must be something about Florida. In spite of regular hurricanes and alligator attacks, the state keeps growing: Its population is on track to hit 20 million by 2015, making it the third-biggest state in the union.
With all this growth comes a further quality-of-life problem: Sinkholes. Thrust into the national spotlight last week after a homeowner died when his house collapsed, the sinkhole that killed Jeff Bush wasn’t even one of the state’s 15,000 verified sinkholes, which are located mainly in central Florida and around Tampa. Plenty are unverified, according to research from CoreLogic. Springhill, on the state’s west coast, has the greatest number of verified sinkholes, with 3,145—roughly one for every 31 residents. Hernando, Pasco, Hillsborough, and Pinellas counties are home to an area known as “sinkhole alley.”
No location in the entire state can say it features zero chance of sinkholes. “Since the entire state is underlain by carbonate rocks, sinkholes could theoretically form anywhere,” according to lakecountyfl.gov. Most construction sites are not tested.
“They’re a fact of life in [many parts of] Florida,” says Howard Botts, a geographer and vice president of database development for CoreLogic’s spatial solutions group. As cities grow, requiring more water to be pumped out of the ground, it will only get worse, he adds.
From 2006 to 2010 the number of sinkhole claims in Florida tripled, costing insurers a total $1.4 billion over the period, according to a report (PDF) by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation. In response to insurers’ claims that many claims were fraudulent and burdensome to the industry, the Florida legislature passed a law limiting sinkhole coverage in 2011.
…
CRATERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!
FL isn’t the only place on the planet with sinkhole issues:
Massive Sinkhole Swallows Two Buildings in China
Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) — Mia Saini reports that a huge sinkhole swallowed two buildings in China this week. She speaks on Bloomberg Television’s “Taking Stock.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Where’s mayor Bloomberg when we need him? Where’s Obama?
This global epidemic must be banned.
Bloomberg can’t ban the sinkholes but he can restrict them to depths of 16 feet.
Bayou Corne: A really really dangerous sinkhole. You can read the text to this story but the video shares much more detail. 170 homes/families living in abject fear. Has anyone else here heard this story?
http://enenews.com/brockovich-on-sinkhole-we-have-pretty-good-indication-that-its-a-dead-area-there-could-be-an-explosion-at-any-minute-gas-pressure-is-extremely-intense-video
Mortgage broker golfer swallowed up by sinkhole.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/03/golfer-swallowed-by-sinkhole/
Global shares, euro ease on Italian debt sale, euro zone data
By Richard Hubbard
LONDON | Wed Mar 13, 2013 7:27am EDT
(Reuters) - European shares extended losses and Italian bond yields rose on Wednesday after Italy’s borrowing costs jumped at a debt sale and data showed that euro zone factory output fell sharply in January.
Italy sold 5.32 billion euros of new three- and 15-year government bonds at the auction, paying the highest yield since last December for the shorter term debt.
The subdued demand at Italy’s first debt sale since it was down downgraded by ratings agency Fitch sent the benchmark 10-year Italian bond yield up 8 basis points to 4.68 percent.
“Overall this is a weak auction result,” said Lyn Graham-Taylor, a fixed-income strategist with London-based Rabobank.
“It may be that investors have been spooked by the ongoing political uncertainty in Italy.”
Italy has been without a government since inconclusive elections late last month, raising fears over its ability to pursue much-needed reforms and underlining a Bundesbank warning on Tuesday that the euro zone crisis was far from over.
The worries over the region’s outlook was also reflected in a German auction of new two-year bonds, which sold at an average yield of just 0.06 percent, compared with 0.21 percent on February 13, demonstrating demand for safe-haven assets.
Industrial production data for January in the 17 countries added to the concerns, falling a surprisingly sharp 0.4 percent from December, according to the EU’s statistics office Eurostat. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.1 percent fall.
SHARES SLIDE
…
This was a good comment from yesterday…
“Comment by scdave
2013-03-12 07:15:20
In job rich urban area’s that have little available developable land, we may see constant low inventory of SFR’s…Higher interest rates clearly will tend to suppress prices but that could be countered by persistent low inventory …The new housing will be high density developed on major corridor’s with mass transit close by…”
We are already seeing this in my area. Almost all of the planned new housing is high-density condo high-rises next to Metro stations, intended to live nearly carless. At the moment, my neighborhood has a fair amount of SFH inventory, but by today’s standards, they tend to be run-down and small. I suspect (hope) that it will be re-discovered eventually, but demographically the millenials are still mentally clubbing in the condos and haven’t thought about yards and schools yet.
Your and scdave’s losses will be ungoogleable.
“this in my area…..condo high-rises ”
Good catch Oxy, the bubble lives! Keep us posted. We have an anticipation of what happens after the condo craze.
The rest of the country has practically stopped building anything.
They are building SFRs like crazy in the phoenix burbs again
The number of foreclosures being held off the market around Phoenix is unfathomable.
Ox Blue….this is a good sign…it shows actual thinking building high rises next to a subway or metro stains is effective use of land. If say a supermarket was in one of those high rises, and all your amenities are walking distance, the need for a car is minimal. just put a zip car location in one of the buildings underground garages and you’re covered.
Quite a few high raises in queens on queens blvd, are sitting quite empty too far to walk to the the subway, yet too far to sit on a local bus to Manhattan even though the bus stop drops you at the front door.
I think any new metro-walkable condos are in the master-plan stage rather than actual design. There is a lot of room to tear down old shopping plazas and parking lots and fill the space with high-rise offices and condo towers.
Existing condos vary from $170K crap repartments to $450K hoity toity high rises. Almost certainly, the high price ones are underwater. People can afford the payments, but they can’t sell. MD is recourse so they can’t walk either.
My zip code has had quite a bit of turnover at a steady pace for the past three years. Right now, there are some SFH on the open market (1/3 of these are pending), and an equal number of SFH in “pre-foreclosure.” Even if everything on the market now and in pre-forclosure sold, that’s less than half of what sold last year.
More SFH will go on the market, so I would guess that we’re at either the same or a slightly slower pace than last year. I don’t see a flood of inventory waiting to craaaater the neighborhood. If anything, prices are going back up. A house that I toured last January is now Pending for a price 24% higher than when I saw it.
MD is recourse but all these means is people will eventually file a Ch 7 after the f/c is completed.
If anything, prices are going back up
Keep drinking the kool-aid.
I don’t think she means they’re going up long-term, she means people are buying the load of B.S. that we’re in recovery and house prices are going “back to normal”. If so, this will be short lived in the big scheme of things. I think oxide realizes that any upswing will be erased over time. Even in the very best case, we’re looking at sideways movement in housing prices simply because of demographics. And that’s using the scenario where we print money freely and our gov’t backstops housing to the max.
“Keep drinking the kool-aid.”
Keep denying facts, I’m sure that comforts you
Prices are still falling when measured in price per square foot.
The fact is that the DC area has been flat for several years. It only fell half way to 1999 price levels and then froze. Possilbe reasons for the suspended fall aside, the DC area is still way up there in bubble territory.
http://www.blytic.com/Player.aspx?key=9599556ba52f4eff92e40a39335bbfa5
I think any new metro-walkable condos are in the master-plan stage rather than actual design. There is a lot of room to tear down old shopping plazas and parking lots and fill the space with high-rise offices and condo towers ??
Yep…On the El Camino Real from south San Francisco to San Jose…It will one day be all high density…Its already started in baby steps but will accelerate as the economy allows….
Its 40 miles of the most under-utilized land in Silicon Valley all with infrastructure & services already in place…
“that’s less than half of what sold last year…”
Are actual sales in your zip down or the same as last year?
The cranes are everywhere in San Francisco. The only SFH that are being built are in the random empty lots; everything else is condos with retail on the first floor.
I say built it. There may be a glut of housing elsewhere, but this 49 square mile peninsula needs more housing.
And we’re going to keep adding new inventory driving resale prices lower and lower.
San Francisco could use lower prices, for renters and buyers. I don’t want to live in a city that only the rich can afford to live in.
You’re going to get your wish.
Ubiquitous cranes in DC as well.
My next set of pictures will have to be of the dozen or so massive cranes I pass in the ~10 blocks from my office to Union Station. And that doesn’t even include other buildings where the crane work is finished.
A lot of the new buildings take up entire city blocks and are 10-15 stories.
The losses will be incalculable.
Just realized I’m going to be at work until probably 8pm tonight, so those pictures will have to wait
Not going to have time (or sunlight) to do a proper job.
“haven’t thought about yards and schools yet”
That really resonated with me, but not like you’d think. I’m coming down the other side, for the first time in many years I noticed no little footsteps in the backyard snow this year and realized the kids are just too big to play in the back yard, in fact no one has set foot in our (expensive) back yard since the end of summer cookout probably 5 months ago. And they’re graduating from the local neighborhood elementary school into the more or less city wide middle school real soon. Hmm living in the “right neighborhood with a yard for the sake of the kids” was supposed to last a lifetime, not about a decade. So in about 2 years I can move out of my house and across the city to an apartment/townhouse/rented condo and the kids won’t care, they’ll just take a different bus to the same middle school, and they already don’t care about a yard, so not having one will make us all happier.
I always envisioned housing downsizing as something you do after the last kid gets a real job after college graduation, but I guess it could begin at the teen years, which for me is real soon now. Housing downsizing is something that’s supposed to be happening to me in my 50s, not around 40, isn’t it? Looking fondly at the minimal cost of renting a townhouse or renting a giant condo vs the spectacular cost of maintaining and renting money from the bank for a detached SFR I’m starting to salivate… Hard to believe I’m already in my last years of snowblowing or lawnmowing or peasant style yard work… I’m already planning ahead, why buy a new lawnmower this year, if the old one only needs to run for a couple more years at most, no point in landscaping projects if no one plays outside and we’re moving away soon anyway, etc.
I’m ahead of you on this road Vince. I haven’t owned a lawnmower for many years, and I don’t miss it. I do have a brush for the deck, but it is very low cost to operate. I don’t miss the paying of interest either.
haven’t owned a lawnmower for many years
The number of ways we’d rather spend summer weekends than mowing a lawn is incalculable.
Vince….You are experiencing what most of us raising children have…Yep, the backyard get togethers with the kids do end at about that time…Next transition for you will be when they start driving..Then you will never see them…
I live in a city and bought a SFR (very rare here as 95% of housing within a mile of me is attached product) not for the yard but so there are 40 feet of space between me and the neighbors on right/left. My block is far less dense than the next block down (duplexes) and the one after that (rowhomes). My entire block is 5 residences, the duplex block has 10, and the rowhouse blocks tend to have 12-15. Their block is full of cars jockeying for parking, whereas everyone on our block parks in garage or driveway.
Another oddity is that the people in the SFRs tend to live only 2 or 3 people to a house whereas the rowhouses in particular are packed with multiple generations/families/kids. Basically the opposite of what you’d expect if housing consumption was rational.
Are you addicted to sharing TMI?
I’m totally stealing your bike out of your garage this weekend.
Does your city have open enrollment for high school? Even less of a reason to buy in the “right neighborhood”. Lots of cities have this model these days.
The educational-industrial complex here has the “big kids/big school” model where more than 30 little neighborhood schools funnel into exactly 3 middle and high schools. It would be challenging to move in the city while remaining in the same elementary area, but no problemo to attend the same middle/high school.
The kind of place where you’ll have an elementary school with one 4th grade classroom of 20 kids, but a 500+ person high school graduating class. I graduated from the same place my kids will go, about 20 years ago, and I literally never met about half my classmates.
Hmm living in the “right neighborhood with a yard for the sake of the kids” was supposed to last a lifetime, not about a decade. So in about 2 years I can move out of my house and across the city to an apartment/townhouse/rented condo and the kids won’t care, they’ll just take a different bus to the same middle school, and they already don’t care about a yard, so not having one will make us all happier.
Yup. It’s a bit sad…we had the suburban house when my son was little. Got out to temporarily(!?) bubble sit and now it’s over…he’s in middle school and doesn’t care. May as well start looking at 55+ stuff here in a few more years.
Follow up to the Kunstler story posted the other day.
Mary Jo White faces no opposition at SEC confirmation hearing
Not a single senator voiced even slight opposition to President Obama’s pick for SEC chairman.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/mary-jo-white-faces-no-opposition-at-sec-confirmation-hearing/2013/03/12/812608ac-8b39-11e2-b63f-f53fb9f2fcb4_story.html
What’s even the point of the SEC anymore? They are Polaroid cameras in a iPhone world
Nice, BG.
Scary, and sickening.
is it finally safe to invest your nest egg in stocks after a 100% ramp up?
Mr. Market had a 100% recovery since the 2008 crash. It still needs more money?
Yes. Dow 36000 means an incalculable gain awaits you.
Dow 36,000? Try 6,300
Commentary: James Glassman reminds us of his biggest blunder
March 12, 2013|David Weidner, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — You have to hand it to the editors over at Bloomberg. They’re leading the discussion.They’ve got people talking.
Unfortunately, for them, no one is saying anything nice.
…
is it finally safe to invest your nest egg in stocks after a 100% ramp up ??
Well sure don’t you know ?? Carlyle Group just announced a buyout fund that allows a minimum $50,000. investment….Seems like they want to tap into the trillions sitting out there in those 401K funds…Bandits…
Are there higher fee rates on the 50k minimum investment accounts? That’s a very low minimum requirement. I imagine the trade-off is considerable fees.
I imagine the trade-off is considerable fees ??
Not sure but I suspect so…But, it appears that is was not the fee’s that has drawn interest from both Carlyle & KKR….The talk was they are moving down the food chain where there is a large pot of money (401K)…The reason was that the other large pots of money (Pension Funds) were harder to come buy….I suppose the Pension money is scrutinizing the investments that are made more closely also…
Yes, but for regulatory purposes, dealing with mom/pop people is a nightmare. The amount of compliance you have to do, the notices you need to send, and the liabilities you take on. Surely the fees must be higher.
One reason that that you can’t buy into Big Boy Funds without $1MM of assets (of $300k+ income for several consecutive years) is that funds have much more leeway when dealing with “sophisticated investors” or “accredited investors”.
When you start dealing with anyone below these thresholds, you don’t get to assume sophistication and compliance/regulatory/legal costs soar. I’d be really interested to see what the fees are.
or “accredited investors” ??
They did say they had to be accredited investors with minimum 1-mil net worth…
Then this is quite a different situation. Could you post the link?
The fees are probably not that bad if they’re requiring accredited investor status. A lot of the liability is off the table for Carlyle. The fees are still going to be higher than for an institutional investor or billionaire. I’m guessing they’re offering to take only 50k under the premise that someone with a couple million in the bank will eventually pony up hundreds of thousands of bucks later down the line.
Requiring a million bucks in liquid assets (RE does not count, nor do shares of closely-held businesses or cash value of insurance policies, etc.) changes the game entirely. To the legal world, it means that you can be trusted not to sh*t your pants and you’re a Big Boy that can invest in less-regulated vehicles. Anyone who can’t get accredited status is stuck with crappy 401k or IRA options where you get all the restrictions and penalties shoved up the a$# so you can get a tax benefit down the line, which might subject you to means testing and will likely be paid out under a higher tax % anyway.
Do you have a link?
Requiring 1MM in liquid assets (can’t include retirement accounts, real estate, or shares in a closely held business) is a big deal. From a legal perspective, it means Carlyle (or other asset managers) can put you into investments that have much more upside.
The only other way to get out of the 1MM liquid assets is if you have high enough income. I believe the income required is $400k/yr for 3 consecutive years for a couple or $250k/yr for an individual.* These numbers can change (and probably have changed since I took Securities Regulation). They are carefully chosen to screen out “bedwetters”, i.e. people that the PTB consider incapable of handling their own money due to lack of “sophistication”. Since the government considers these people “accredited” or “sophisticated” investors, the hedge funds don’t have to run massive compliance/regulatory operations that are very expensive. Therefore, the costs for the funds are lowered. In addition, these funds can buy all types of goodies that 401k or IRA investors can not invest in.
The 99% are left with kiddie 401k or IRA accounts.
* someone should check this, I haven’t checked on the exact #s in a while
I’m pretty sure you mean “in liquid assets” not “net worth”.
$1MM in net worth is highly subjective. What is your house “worth”? What is your 401k “worth”? What is a 529 plan for your child “worth”? These things aren’t easy to sell or value, they come with lots of strings attached.
Liquid assets is a narrower and more precise/useful definition of things. Basically, how much money could you get your hands on in a short period of time.
Liquid assets is a pretty good way to tell if someone is really wealthy or not, which is why the gov’t uses a measure like that to decide if someone is “sophisticated” enough to invest in a hedge fund. You can be “worth” a million bucks but to the gov’t you are still officially a bedwetter. I am currently a bedwetter but the Mittens Plan (TM) is in large part about becoming “accredited”.
Bill in LA and Overtaxed can probably get accredited status. It’s a worthy goal, IMO. Much better than having the biggest house on the block or other things idiots aspire to.
OK I looked up the accredited investor standards on the SEC’s site. They are convulated and apparently you *can* include your primary residence under Dodd-Frank under certain conditions (will not apply to most people, but it is a possibility). Needless to say, this is an awful policy. Have we learned nothing about equating the “value” of a house with financial sophistication? (Answer is obviously: YES.)
The income standards also seem like they haven’t increased. It’s only 200k for an individual, 300k for a couple. Has to be for 2 past yrs + current year.
Goon Squad, how has the snow been on the mountains in Denver lately? Thinking big-time of heading out your way to hit the Colorado Trail next month if trail conditions are decent.
There is no snow in Denver and it will be 70 degrees here by the end of the week. Depending on where you go in the mountains, snowshoes may not be needed at all, but microspikes and trekking poles could be useful on icy trails.
http://avalanche.state.co.us/index.php
http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/snotel/Colorado/colorado.html
Thanks. Looks too snowy for base depths still. Guess the cheap(ish) plane ticket was too good to be true. Great hike for anyone looking to get away for scenery and incredibly foot-friendly trail terrain.
Mammoth got 2′ last week; skied the whole mountain yesterday in knickers and a tee. Yee-HAH, mofos!
Ahhhh, ‘aint nothing like skiing California powder in a tee shirt.
We used to ski in Vermont (Killington) when I lived back east. I had no idea…
We tried skiing in just a tee shirt but the ski patrol told us we had to put some pants on.
Sounds like a great day on the slopes, ahansen!
Bailouts for FB’s:
“Homeowners with underwater mortgages in U.S. states worst-hit by foreclosures are leading refinancings after the government expanded programs to aid borrowers, strengthening the weakest link in the housing recovery.”
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-13/underwater-americans-skirting-default-as-harp-use-rising.html
I’m very confused. If every underwater GSE loan borrower can refi at current market rates, at expense to taxpayers, what was the reason for the food fight between Timothy Geithner and Edward DeMarco last year?
I thought the food fight was over principle reduction, not just interest rate re-fi. I’m with DeMarco on that. The moral hazard of principle reduction is far too damaging in so many ways.
As for HARP 2.0 “working,” well duh. If you take allow more dregs (25+% underwater) to apply … then more dregs will apply.
If you offer to hand dregs other peoples’ money, they will apply.
Why shouldn’t they? That’s the culture from the top corporate execs down to the lowly Obamaphone moochers.
I received a notice from my lender for a HARP 2.0 rate reduction event though I’m just below 80% LTV, but >80% according to their estimate. Who cares, I’ll take advantage of it, even though I took no action and they contacted me. Being that One West is servicing the loan, there’s got to be something in it for them.
We are a society living on handouts from our bankrupt government.
Squatter Nation: 5 years with no mortgage payment - CNN Money
http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/09/real_estate/foreclosure_squatter/index.htm - 60k -
Mortgage-Skipping Masters: Couple Lives in $1.29 Million Home Without Making Payments for 5 Years
By Brad TuttleMarch 05, 2012
Guess what happens when you stop paying the mortgage? For quite some time, the answer is: Nothing much. In many states, while the foreclosure process drags on for years, homeowners who have stopped paying their bills can live in the property in a situation that amounts to “free rent,” as it’s been called. One couple in Maryland may be the masters of this approach: For five years, they’ve lived in a five-bedroom, 4,900-square-foot home originally purchased for $1.29 million, and they’ve never paid a single mortgage payment on the property.
http://business.time.com/2012/03/05/mortgage-skipping-masters-couple-lives-in-1-29-million-home-without-making-payments-for-5-years/ - 75k -
Rolling Stones - Paint It Black - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQgT1vt2Wu0 - 211k -
Songwriters: Jagger, Mick; Richards, Keith; hazard
My loans delinquent but the Bank wont take it back
No payments in five years they must be smokin crack
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
They`ve got inflated rent and man that really blows
I`ve got nice neighbors here but they’re all payin’ back
Sometimes they`re pissy cause my house looks like a shack
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
They call me Deadbeat it just happens every day
I look inside myself and see my wallets fat
My loans delinquent but the Bank won`t take it back
Maybe then I’ll fade away and not have to face the facts
It’s not easy facin’ up to this late payment stack
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I started refing back in 2002
If I look hard enough into the settin’ sun
My love will laugh with me before foreclosure comes
My loans delinquent but the Bank wont take it back
No payments in five years they must be smokin crack
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
They`ve got inflated rent and man that really blows
I wanna see their face, pay em back?
Not tonight, shack is sold?
I wanna see the loan blotted out from the sky
I wanna see those payments, payments, payments, pay em back?
Yeah!
Good Times.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/us-camp….
Dear Leader, progressive, Democrat FDR had no problem rounding up U.S. citizens of Japanese descent and sending them to camps. Expect the Obama administration to stage a false-flag, burning-the-Reichstag, type event to initiate the clampdown.
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84
“Expect the Obama administration to stage a false-flag, burning-the-Reichstag,”
They already have.
Which one?
So you know too.
“Which one?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-t8PngHgWY - 199k -
Overture, curtain, lights,
This is it, the night of nights
No more rehearsing and nursing our parts
We know every part by heart
Overture, curtain, lights
This is it, we’ll hit the heights
And oh what heights we’ll hit
On with the show this is it
Holy crap! Back in the USSR!
Rejecting consumption and loosing money on depreciation:
“Nearly half of the 250 million cars registered in the U.S. are now 11 years old or older … And while many people drive older cars because they can’t afford a better vehicle, there are plenty who could ditch their old car or truck, but don’t. They like the values an old car reflects — dependability, frugality, a rejection of a throwaway, planned-obsolescence culture.
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/a/SB10001424127887324678604578342623881064316?mg=reno64-wsj
I have a Jeep, and while I COULD go out and buy a brand new shiny SUV I just can’t. My Jeep has my favorite feature: It’s paid off with the title in my safe.
When you reject consumption, the terrorists win. That’s what they told us after 9/11.
“When you reject consumption, the terrorists win.”
They already won when we lost our civil rights and they set up concentration camps and we started invading randomly selected countries. So if we’ve already lost, why not save some money? No sense throwing good money after bad.
One side effect VERY carefully not mentioned is when I was a kid my dad bought a ford falcon or something like that in the late 70s and it rusted out and fell apart in 2 years so he had to buy another car. Thats pretty much the lifestyle I saw my parents live as a kid, over and over from the 70s to the 90s, once the rust spreads up the door or something major internally breaks, you buy a new one. But my 97 saturn has no(visible) rust, will not break, will not stop working. Oh its due to croak, and I’m more that willing and able to buy another when it wears out, but the lifetime model of “buy a new car when the old one wears out” means I’m stuck with this thing for 16 years and counting. I’ve replaced the battery about 4 times, the thermostat three times, the tires like 5 times (eh, I have a lead foot) and the brake pads and disks about 2 times. Oh and a lot of oil changes. I should change the timing chain, in fact I should be on about my 2nd, but I haven’t yet (naughty me) I replaced the accessory belt and several hoses at a decade preventatively. And I did upgrade the stereo to a mp3 cd player about a decade ago (maybe a little less). Not bad for 16 years. American engineering is such an epic fail they can’t even properly value engineer to maximize profits anymore, everyone knows everything in the car is supposed to fail right after the guarantee expires, just like a Chinese made household appliance.
My car is a ‘97 too. I was wondering if I should sign it up for driver ed…
The -fixr is now laughing at all you drivers of the old and frugal.
His POS didn’t quite make 200K miles.
Bought a Dodge Challenger last month. It kicks azz.
Bought a Dodge Challenger last month. It kicks azz.
Cool. I think if a person wants new but nostalgic muscle, Dodge did the best job of capturing it.
I saw “Vanishing Point” as a 14 year old in my local movie theater. Never been the same since. Compared to the POSs my dad always bought, it was the most badazz car I’d ever seen.
(It also started the “Hot cars = naked women” association in my subconcious. Anyone who has seen the movie remembers the “girl on motorcycle” scene. As this was the first time I’d actually had a chance to gawk at a naked female, my little 14 year old mind was impressed……)
I’ve wanted a Challenger for 40 years. For any number of reasons, they’ve always been out of my price range, both when they were just “used cars” and especially for the past 25 years when they became “collectible”
My dearly departed Caddy almost got to 200K. This winter was not kind to it. It’s still drivable, but too many little things are starting to stack up (leaking radiator, CV joint boots, oil leak, inop passenger seat). This wouldn’t be a problem if I had the time, and a garage, to fix them myself, but I currently have neither. So I’m in the position of taking it to the shop and spending a couple of thousand to fix everything that’s wrong with it, and the car won’t be worth any more than it is right now.
As anyone who has been in the car market know, used car prices are crazy. I briefly considered buying a new minimalist $hit-box, but opted to spend the extra $5K, and get something I really wanted.
And the car was nice, right up to the point where it got hit by a 18 wheeler a couple of weeks ago.
I saw “Vanishing Point” as a 14 year old in my local movie theater. Never been the same since.
Speaking of which, I remember seeing Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry on TV when I was a kid. Nice chase. Sorry about the 18 wheeler incident.
Don’t tell Obama, he might propose a cash for clunkers 2.0.
I grew up in one of those consumption-rejecting families. It was a point of pride to keep a car running for at least 10 years. And the folks paid cash for all of their cars too.
I was also imbued with the idea that indebtedness was the equivalent of immorality. In other words, don’t buy things on time. Or carry a credit card balance.
Understand these things, and you’ll know why I’ve avoided things like car ownership and buying lots of other stuff. I’m also very into making and fixing things myself. And recycling other people’s castoff stuff.
WooT! That’s me…1994 Honda Civic with approximately 250K miles. Scheduled maintenance, major repairs when needed. Gets 28-30mpg commuting to/from the office. No payments. What’s not to love?
It’s always fun and cool to get a new set of wheels, but with stratospheric prices and stagnant wages it has become a low priority for me now compared to the past. The paid for car continues to purr like a kitten.
WTF? $1,200 to replace a Volvo radiator?
Get a new mechanic!
Love my 1993 Lexus SC300 with 130k miles. No plans to replace unless we win the lottery -
So much for shrinking inventory in suburban Maryland - Four new listings just showed up in the past week in my small zip code. Three out of the four were purchased in the past six years, the other one is a ‘beat up needs everything’ house. That house has ugly 70’s type wallpaper and looks like it was decorated from the set of Argo.
This really is going to be an interesting summer.
The losses in suburban Maryland will be incalculable.
“The losses in suburban Maryland will be incalculable”
You failed basic math didn’t you ?
He needs one of these:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vicinno.activity&hl=en
Still have mine. My dad bought it for me in my junior year in college, shortly before he died.
I think it was about 20 years ago. Used the hell out of it!
it’s a meme, chief.
Got two homes right across the street which should be selling soon, but I’m not 100% certain. One of them is a moldy rental property where every tenant who lived there over the past eight years only lasted a year or so. The other, just across the street from us, has one of those ginormous trailer thingees out front that you load up before moving; I have no idea why the residents are leaving, as they don’t mix much with their neighbors, or whether the home will end up in active or shadow inventory once it is vacant. Promise an update later this year.
I’ve noticed that no one buys the beaten-down outdated houses when they get listed. They sit and sit and then get delisted in the Fall.
The next year (sometimes two years later) the price drops dramatically and someone pays cash and redoes everything.
I engage in schadenfraude when these people list for, say, 200/ft2 and then play games for months, holding open houses and dropping the price in way-too-small increments. $5k reduction here, $10k reduction there. A lot of them are in bombed-out area or next to busy arterial roadways (New Hampshire Avenue is one such nightmare).
“I’ve noticed that no one buys the beaten-down outdated houses when they get listed. They sit and sit and then get delisted in the Fall.”
That’s very easily explained. The sellers of beaten-down outdated houses tend to be in denial about the 65% of the value they lost, and hence refuse to part with them at fair market value. Nobody can force a seller to face reality and lower the price to a level where a willing buyer is forthcoming. And hence these homes can be listed and delisted again for years. I’ve seen homes around San Diego go on and off the market for five years running before the seller finally faces reality and lowers the price to a level where they can move it.
I agree with you about the psychological aspect. Greedy boomers who haven’t replaced anything in a decade (or 3) see what a similarly-sized but better-condition property is selling for, but they discount the impact of quality. A lot of the RE listings for these outdated houses talk about how they were “carefully maintained” when the reality is all the bathrooms and the kitchen need to be blown up, they often have carpet and wallpaper, and the basement is a dungeon. People are deluded and RE agents will let them stay deluded so they get the listing.
This is exactly spot on. Too many “boomered” houses are hitting the market with everything needing updating. I recognize that I may not buy a perfect house but when EVERY room needs quarter sized holes repaired and painted, and EVERY door needs to be replaced…….it’s a lot more work than it needs. I’d list the MLS info, but don’t want to give the exposure.
I remember going into an open house and the kitchen was in desperate need of paint. A Realtor told me “Just $20 in paint and its as good as new!”. “Ummmm, no. It’s a lot more than that if you want to do it right. I used to paint apartments in college”.
“Nope” she said “20 bucks will do it”. My guess is they practice this a lot if the house has been Boomered. (Trademark)
Do you ever look on Maryland DAT website to see when they purchased, what they paid, and whether they refinanced?
That’s always fun.
I always loved discovering Boomers who refi’d during the bubble. Even moreso when you could see they bought the house in the 60s or 70s so it should’ve been paid off years ago. They must’ve imbibed the Lereah Koolaid (TM).
The sellers of beaten-down outdated houses tend to be in denial about the 65% of the value they lost, and hence refuse to part with them at fair market value.
———————————————–
Sounds like my sister with my dads estate. She chased the market down for 2 years. She also waited too long to get married thinking: “I can do better…”
(((shakin my head)))http://oi49.tinypic.com/vymhr8.jpg
I engage in schadenfraude when these people list for, say, 200/ft2 and then play games for months, holding open houses and dropping the price in way-too-small increments. $5k reduction here, $10k reduction there. A lot of them are in bombed-out area or next to busy arterial roadways (New Hampshire Avenue is one such nightmare).
————————————-
NH Avenue as in Takoma Park? If its anything like Georgia Avenue by Aspen Hill/Wheaton I’d run.
Yes, Takoma Park and further up towards White Oak. Georgia Avenue and New York Avenue aren’t any better.
I don’t take Wisconsin Avenue much (sorry, not fancy) but I think that’s your best bet, althoughstill a major roadway. It just happens to run through some very nice areas (Bethesda and the better side of Silver Spring).
Here in Tucson, I’m noticing an uptick in “for sale” listings.
Methinks that a few of the “buy the house to rent it out” in-VEST-ors have awakened to the smell of strong coffee. And they’re not enjoying the drink o’ the java.
Or maybe it’s the fact that it is now spring and the beginning of prime selling season like it is every year not to mention anyone who bought two years ago is now sitting on some pretty nice gains.
But if there’s a surge in listings, at least some of those gains will go poof. Something about increases supply lowering prices. That’s happened around here before.
Amy Hoak, is that you?
“Or maybe it’s the fact that it is now spring and the beginning of prime selling season like it is every year not to mention anyone who bought two years ago is now sitting on some pretty nice gains.”
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!!
‘now sitting on some pretty nice gains’
I know, but it’s kinda fun, isn’t it? Like 2005 all over again.
“The herd is driven by two kinds of fear: fear of losing money and fear of losing out on gains that the other guy might be making. The second kind of fear, the fear of missing out, motivates the masses to take great risks. It is commonly mistaken for greed. Greed exists but is exceedingly rare. One in a million investors is wily and courageous enough to be greedy whereas the vast populace seethes with resentment at any friend, neighbor, or random stranger who has or appears to have more than they do, no matter how hard they worked for it. The unscrupulous populist politician taps into this deep and ever-ready reservoir of resentment for votes, quick and dirty. The statesman avoids it because the genie of resentment of the strong by the weak once released is loathe to return to captivity. Ask Chairman Mao.” - eric janszen
Hope and Change
“The afterglow of President Obama’s reelection and inauguration appears to have vanished as increasingly negative views among Americans about his stewardship of the economy have forced his public approval rating back down to the 50 percent mark, according to a new Washington Post - ABC News poll.”
http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-approval-drops-as-americans-take-a-dimmer-view-of-his-economic-policies/2013/03/12/4ddfd240-8a79-11e2-a051-6810d606108d_story.html
More evidence of the effectiveness of D.C. gun ban:
“The gun debate taking place on Capitol Hill has been filled with measured questions on the meaning of the Second Amendment and remembrances of innocents lost in suburban mass shootings. It is a conversation largely swept clean of the sort of gritty trauma that too often marks the streets of Capitol View in Northeast Washington.
Many residents of the neighborhood say it came as no surprise that America’s political system swung into action after the December mass killings at an elementary school in mostly white, middle-class Newtown, Conn. But the current political wrangling on the Hill has just served to underscore residents’ suspicions that Americans as a whole undervalue the lives lost to gun violence in inner-city neighborhoods such as theirs.
Twenty-six people died in Sandy Hook Elementary. In the District’s Sixth Police District, an area of fewer than 10 square miles that encompasses Capitol View, 19 lives were lost to gun violence last year and 55 people were wounded in the shootings. The year before that, 22 people were killed and 35 were wounded.
About 96 percent of the residents of Capitol View and the area around it in the District’s Ward 7are black. Nearly a quarter of the population is younger than 18, and almost half live in poverty, according to census figures.”
http://m.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/residents-of-violence-plagued-dc-neighborhood-feel-largely-ignored-in-gun-control-debate/2013/03/12/46321718-7f63-11e2-8074-b26a871b165a_story.html
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste” — Rahm Emanuel
http://politicker.com/2013/03/after-aurora-how-mayor-bloomberg-planned-to-make-the-next-massacre-count/
Why can’t they be honest, black people dont go to gun shows
I walk or bike through that area every day (on my way to Union Station).
There are cameras EVERYWHERE. Here’s a picture I snapped this morning: http://picpaste.com/7e3ff5cc56e7595b726d4de68a39a670.jpg
This is a fairly high crime area. Lots of gun violence, a good mix of handguns and assault rifles. About a dozen people were shot in the area a few nights ago.
Want to know how close this occurs to the Capitol? Here’s another picture I took this morning:
http://picpaste.com/6a0e5ca7471e18111988192e4b4fdd4b.jpg
Obama, Bloomberg, Feinstein, Cuomo don’t give a sh*t about black gangbangers wasting each other. They’ll occasionally take down some “collateral damage”, like the recent murder of a 6 month old girl in Chicago, but that represents no threat to the statists.
Illiterate thugs who fire their guns holding them sideways do not concern the gun-grabbers. But they are literally p*ssing and sh*tting their beds at the prospects of organized resistance to their clampdown.
James Holmes and Adam Lanza are just pawns in their game.
speaking of pis*ing and sh*tting of beds…
http://picpaste.com/538b9b553d7ae8f12af3192027b1e061.jpg
I took this the other day, have been saving it for an appropriate time
I listen to NPR every day. And listen to it knowing that it is no less biased than Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, et cetera.
BTW, every pic of DC you’ve posted has gray skies. How depressing.
The weather is the least depressing thing about DC. I would gladly take a 20% pay cut if I could work in Baltimore, but sadly the career trajectory is greatly dimished (same with any city other than NYC, as far as I can tell). The DC real estate cratering is going to be epic once the rats start to flee the sinking ship - very few white people are actually from DC and very few truly want to live in DC. Even the Smithsonian gets old after a while and is overshadowed by the casual douchebaggery that pervades most interactions in DC.
One thing about the mid atlantic (probably New England as well) - it is very windy and rainy/cloudy in March and early April, but it is worth it in May and June. The wind in March is very annoying. We’re about to hit cherry blossom season in a few weeks. Cato cleaned up their garden a few weeks ago and other surrounding buildings are starting. Lacrosse season is also getting into gear. March blows but it’s only uphill from here.
68 degrees and sunny today.
And yesterday.
Same predicted for tomorrow.
The weather really affects my mood. Living in upstate New York I would start to get crabby by the time winter rolled along: just not enough sunlight for me.
68 degrees and sunny today.
Still cool. 80 and above for me.
79 degrees here in the less-humid of the two Orange Counties -
“I listen to NPR every day.”
We’re all in this together, right?
“James Holmes”
Now THERE is a gubmin experiment gone wrong. Or maybe not, hmmm. Lanza, I’m not so sure. But you never know.
Hair dye much, plametto/palmetto? (wink)
There were some tea people and NRA supporters holding a rally the morning after the latest shooting. From what I could tell, they were claiming that if people in the crowd outside the club had been armed, there would’ve been less people shot. Of course, this means that people leaving a club at 2 AM when drunk would need to whip out their handguns and start firing away on a crowded corner on a busy street (I believe the shooting was on NY Avenue at the corner of N. Capitol Street). NY Avenue is the major artery between DC and Prince George’s County, MD.
Understand that the NRA does not speak for all gun owners. They adhere to the meme that the Second Amendment is about hunting, when it is really about armed resistance to a tyrannical government.
It was a ragtag thing, I just found it amusing, a bunch of faux tough guyz. I’m sure the protesters fled the scene shortly after I rode through, since it was getting dark and there are projects just a block of two up the street. (Very weird, place for “affordable housing” because the 900 block of N Capitol has a fancy Jesuit H.S. & then a bunch of government agencies like Gov’t Printing Office, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a few others, leading up to Union Station and then Capitol Hill itself)
I saw a supreme court justice in the Harris Teeter in that neighborhood.
Interesting, there is a Harris Teeter a block from the shooting site. And it’s not too far from the Supreme Court either.
That is the one I was talking about. 1st street NE. A few blocks north of Union Station. And it has a garage which most of the downtown supermarkets don’t have.
I’m familiar with the area where the shooting took place. I’ve been to plays at the campus nearby and to Union Market and walked the areas in between a little too. Crappy mixed with much newer and nicer. Used tires a few blocks from an grocery store that sells edamame hummus and overpriced helium balloons. Reminds me of the Times Square/Hell’s Kitchen transition back in the day.
You can see this from the photo I took - nice areas to the south all the way to the Capitol. That block is where Gonzaga Collegiate Prep is. I should’ve taken one facing the north, there are a few blocks straight of “affordable housing” that resemble cell blocks. I bike/walk that way to avoid Mass. Ave. where it hits the tunnel entrance. As I’ve said a bunch, there is a lot of construction in that corridor as well.
the 2nd amendment is really about balls; cause if you don’t got them, guns ain’t gonna help you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBnOi2-7QyI
Exactly. It’s my belief that if the SHTF that a lot of the tough boyz will head for the exits to get out of Dodge, especially those who moved their assets out of the country before it was too late.
This is unpossible!! How in the world could this even take place?!? Washington DC has solved this problem years ago by instituting strict GUN CONTROL! How can firearms even function in this harsh legal environment which forbids them to even exist?!? And more importantly, what vile evil-doers are sneaking into this peaceful haven of brotherly love from outside the boundaries of this serene district to wreak this obscene havoc upon its tranquil citizenry?!? Why, Washington DC has always been the shining example of what strict gun control legislation can bring to the table. Whatever will we do now? Quickly- call Diane Feinstein! Call Obama and Biden! Tell them to bring their magic shotguns! Call Marion Barry and all the other Washington elitist two-dimensional thinkers!
It’s hard to believe but DC’s local “leaders” are even more out of touch than our national leaders. The police state here is crazy and they want more and more of it. (To be sure, they are greatly helped by Homeland Security, Secret Service, and other federal agencies.) It is hard for me to imagine a worse mayor than Vincent Gray.
It is hard for me to imagine a worse mayor than Vincent Gray.
Marion Barry?
Bloomberg?
Because the path to Social Justice™ is looting Rite Aid:
“Police were on alert in Brooklyn on Tuesday for another round of violence stemming from a deadly officer-involved shooting.
Just like on Monday night, crowds gathered to protest the weekend police-involved shooting of what cops say was an armed 16 year-old boy.
They were protesting the killing of Kimani Gray, who was shot by police when they say he pointed a gun at them.”
Forward
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/03/12/nypd-releases-wild-video-of-brooklyn-rite-aid-being-ransacked-during-riot/
“If I had a son, he’d look like Kimani” — President Barack Hussein Obama
Hold your applause, Dow record highs won’t last
Traders react at the end of trade at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, March 5, 2013. The Dow Jones industrial average surged to a record high at the opening bell, surpassing a key level in its recovery from the 2008 financial meltdown.
Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
Interview with Allan Sloan
Marketplace Morning Report for Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Rethinking your investment strategy after the Dow’s record high
A smart fifth-grader could compute the Dow
The Dow broke another record yesterday and is now on its longest record-breaking streak — six days — since 1998. And while that all sounds great, one man is not happy.
Allan Sloan, senior editor-at-large at Fortune magazine, is focusing instead on the four-year anniversary of the market bottom.
“The mood was suicidal, the market was crashing, people were scared,” Sloan says. “[But] I learned that nothing is forever.”
According to Sloan, today’s booming market could use a healthy dose of that suspicion.
“I am a student of history, I’ve seen people stampede up, I’ve seen people stampede down,” Sloan says. “What I try to do is to be half a cycle out of phase.”
To hear more investing tips from Allan Sloan, click on the audio player above.
Till debt do us part.
The Fed’s hair-of-the-dog debt stimulus measures are working!
Americans are getting back together…with their debt
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A car salesman fills out the paperwork as he sells a car to Tony Rojas as his friend, Steven O’brien, looks on at Rick Case Plantation Hyundai in Plantation, Fla.
Interview by Kai Ryssdal
Marketplace for Tuesday, March 12, 2013
From Quartz: America’s relapse into debt addiction is actually driving economic growth
At the end of last year, Americans were borrowing money at the fastest clip since 2008, that could be seen as the bad news. If you prefer to think of it as good news though, at the end of last year, Americans were borrowing money at the fastest clip since 2008. That’s according to the Federal Reserve.
It’s the paradox of debt — leverage, as Wall Street likes to say. According to Matt Phillips, with the business website Quartz, this borrowing is, “for the economy, in the short term, a good thing.” Phillips said this debt isn’t being used for mortgages; mostly people are buying cars with auto loans and borrowing to pay for college.
“In auto loans, there is subprime and subprime has been growing as a share of pie,” said Phillips. “If we do want to do any fundamental reshaping to the way the economy works, a necessary precondition to that is to have economic growth. And if economic growth depends on consumer debt, then as long as it doesn’t get out of control, you can argue that this is a good thing.”
Phillips says the U.S. economy is still largely fueled by debt and consumer spending — and has been for the last 30 years.
“The Fed’s “hair-of-the-dog” debt stimulus measures are working”
Now you’re messin’ with….a son of a beeech!
Millennials likely to take debt to their graves
A new study suggests Gen Y borrowers shows their repayment patterns don’t match up with past generations. (And that’s not a good thing.)
by Audrey Quinn
Marketplace for Thursday, January 31, 2013
April Lesho in her recently purchased Washington, D.C., home.
If you want to talk to someone about credit card debt, talk to April Lesho, she’s had her fair share. And she’s got the collection of financial planning books to prove it.
She shows me her bookshelf with titles like “Debt Free by Thirty,” “Suze Orman’s The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom” and “Idiot’s Guide to 401k Plans.”
Those books seemed to have worked for Lesho. She’s now the proud new owner of a house in Washington, D.C. But she hasn’t always been so careful with money.
“By the end of college, I had about $30,000 in debt,” she tells me. “I mean, I spent at will. So you know if I felt like taking a trip, I took a trip. If I felt like getting a new stereo system, I did.”
This was at the University of South Carolina, where Lesho graduated in 2001 with a degree in sociology.
“Didn’t you think it was going to catch up with you someday?” I ask her.
“I just figured,” she says, “when I got a job, I would be able to pay that off. I didn’t realize how far behind I was getting. And how long it would actually take to climb my way out of it.”
“You know, for a sociology degree, 30,000 sounds about right,” says Lucia Dunn, professor of economics at Ohio State University. Dunn says the scary thing is that Lesho’s circumstances are pretty typical for millennials coming out of college.
“They just have a lot more debt than previous generations had,” she adds.
…
Some stats from a related story on can-kicking:
“Fifty-one percent of student loans were in deferment, forbearance or belonged to students still in school as of March 2012, up from 44.3% a year prior”
Cueing the NAR-scum to pimp about “pent-up demand”. What those kidz need are $500,000 starter homes.
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2013-03-12/finance/37639755_1_american-student-assistance-eligibility-for-federal-student-default-rates
I said this last week - the real story about student loan debt is not how many people are X days behind, it’s the % of people who have graduated or left school and are not making payments for *any* reason. In a healthy economy you wouldn’t have such massive %’s in deferment or forebearance.
In a healthy economy
The majority of this country (Fancypants like yourself excluded) are living in an endless, stagflationary depression. Welcome to the recoveryless recovery. The future belongs to Lucky Ducky.
I get that the official numbers mask the real problems - stagflation sounds about right. I love when we get “unofficial” numbers like the % in deference/forebearance, because it blows the lid off of the official narrative. How can anyone look at that 51% number and not be alarmed?
On a side issue, I think that they include “students still in school” in that 51% because it provides an alternative narrative to impressionable dopes. “Well, that number includes students still in school, so perhaps it’s not so bad after all.” <–only an idiot would think this, but many people are idiots
This is all too typical for the current generation of college students. Check out some of the student apartments around the big universities. These look like the “swinging singles” complexes of the seventies with giant pools and party clubhouses. Share a bathroom; no way?
Now ask someone over 50 what kind of dorm they stayed in at a public college. My pad had two bunk beds and a gang shower for the whole floor. But, it was cheap living.
If you think the students are living high on the hog you should see where the overpaid university administrators live.
Preach it, Cracker Bob. Those apartment complexes are sprouting like mushrooms around here.
First girl that gets raped at one of those giant pool parties will sue the whole business model into the ground. Or watch something similar happen when some drunk kid sits on a balcony railing, loses his balance, and falls five stories down to the pool patio.
Beware the ides of March.
Cramer: Beware of Stocks at 52-Week Highs
Wednesday, 13 Mar 2013 | 10:03 AM ET
By: Paul Toscano
Producer, CNBC.com
Wednesday, 13 Mar 2013 | 9:00 AM ET
The “Squawk on the Street” news team reports on today’s top business headlines, including a look at whether the record rally will continue after the release of today’s retail sales numbers.
With the Dow Jones Industrial Average on track for nine consecutive days of trading gains and six consecutive record closes, Jim Cramer urges caution when investing in stocks that are leading the charge.
“I’m worried about the nine straight days,” he said.
“Look back at what’s happened since the millennium began, there have been a few instances where we’ve been able to go eight, we’ve never been able to go nine,” Cramer said. “All I’m saying is find stocks that aren’t up if you’re going to take a shot because the 52-week high stocks — Dow stocks that are at 52-week highs — don’t appeal to me as much as down-and-outers.”
Whadaya know? Turns out that stocks which rise for no reason can also fall for the same lack of reason.
I note that February retail sales happened before the sequester, and the thunderous sudden simultaneous slamming shut of federal government employees’ purses. That won’t show up until the March data, at the earliest.
March 13, 2013, 10:33 a.m. EDT
U.S. retail sales climb 1.1% in February
Higher gas prices fuel gain, but shoppers show resilience
By Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. consumers spent more at retail stores in February, and while a big chunk of change went to fill up gas tanks, they also spread their cash around in a sign they are not tapped out.
Retail sales advanced 1.1% in February to mark the biggest gain in five months, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch expected retail sales to jump 0.7%.
The figures suggest that consumer spending — the linchpin of the economy — is holding steady despite a spike in gasoline prices and higher payroll taxes in 2013. Many economists worried that spending would sag early in the year and act as a drag on U.S. growth.
The retail report is the latest in a string of data that suggest the economy is holding up pretty well. What’s more, gas prices are starting to subside, home values are on the rise again and the U.S. stock market has hit new highs. That might support further increases in retail sales over the next few months.
Yet economists also point out that the savings rate has plunged to extremely low levels and consumers may have to put away some more money in the near future to rebuild their financial cushion.
“It appears that, for now at least, consumers are willing to run down savings or take on additional credit to maintain spending,” said Andrew Grantham of CIBC World Markets. “However, with the savings rate already extremely low, it may be a matter of when, rather than if, consumers need to curtail their enthusiasm for shopping.”
…
“consumer spending — the linchpin of the economy…”
Actually consumer borrowing is the linchpin of this economy.
Refuse to spin the hamster wheel of debt consumption and be viewed as a non-conformist weirdo.
Haven’t heard much from FPSS as of late. But I have the feeling Mr Market is setting up for the kind of surprise that makes Main Street Mom and Pop investors wish they hadn’t jumped on the stock market band wagon when the market started hitting record highs and makes bond market investors happy they followed their gut instincts and assumed the crash position at the opportune moment. I believe this is roughly in line with what he predicted would happen as of last fall.
March 12, 2013, 2:06 p.m. EDT
Panic buying signals market top?
By John Nyaradi
Major U.S. stock indexes are in a buying panic, and such action usually signals market tops, not bottoms.
As the stock market continues to surge, a steady inflow of investors arrives a bit late to the party, not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to benefit from the recent stock market rally. Many of these individuals have been waiting for a market pullback, for the opportunity to “buy on the dip,” however, that dip has yet to arrive.
With no dip in sight, these retail investors have been forced to pay very retail prices in the hope that there are still gains to be made before the current rally runs out of gas. Today’s situation could be described as a “buying panic,” and today’s panic buyers have nothing to fear as long as there are more panic buyers behind them, pushing prices ever higher.
The publicity surrounding the Dow’s record-setting high of 14,286 on March 5 led to a succession of record-high closes. The S&P 500 is now within striking distance of reaching its Oct. 9, 2007, record high, and recent action has brought more than $1.8 billion into the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY +0.24%) and more than $600 million into the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA +0.16%).
…
Is it safe to ignore concerns about a Chinese real estate bubble?
Kenneth Rapoza, Contributor
3/12/2013 @ 6:05PM
Selling Frenzy In China As Gov’t Slams Housing Bubble With Tax Hike
China is determined to poke holes in its housing bubble. Nowhere is this attempt more forceful than in Shanghai, where the government introduced its first-ever property tax last year.
Something else is happening now in China housing. Investors who buy homes as a store of value, rather than as a place to sleep at night, are rushing to their realtors before the government implements a 20% capital gains tax on housing sales. Beijing introduced the new rule on March 1, but no one knows when it will go into effect.
“The new measures will have a significant impact on both demand and supply in the existing home market,” Lina Wong, a managing director at Colliers International, was quoted saying in Shanghai Daily Tuesday.
The latest round of bubble bursting measures comes after home prices began to show renewed strength despite stricter bank lending to developers and second-home buyers, in particular. The government relaxed first time home buyer restrictions — lowering down payment requirements that are currently around 25% to 30% depending on the city and mortgage lender. That lit a fire under the market. Beijing is throwing extra buckets of cold water on it once again.
There was no timetable for implementation of the capital gains tax, which has technically been on the books for almost 20 years but never enforced. It is expected to replace the 1% to 2% transaction tax now levied on the price of a house.
The State Council’s determination to give the law new teeth sent a shudder through the market this week. Most buyers and sellers didn’t wait to see the fine print on when or how the tax will be implemented.
The latest ruling has sellers wanting out before it kicks in. The number of homes on the market rose 30% in Pudong New Area, a high-end waterfront district in Shanghai.
In the new home market, sales of mid- to low-end properties in the seven-day period ended Sunday rose to a 36-week high. Excluding subsidized housing, housing sales rose 20.7% from a week earlier to 312,000 square meters in Shanghai alone last week, according to Shanghai Deovolente Realty Co.
For the first 10 days of March, 412,000 square meters of new residential property were sold across Shanghai, China’s most expensive city. That’s been a year-on-year sales increase of 78.4%, according to Century 21 China Real Estate.
Whether new or used, Shanghai or Beijing, China’s housing market is going gangbusters.
In Beijing, some 9,400 homes were sold last week, up a mega 279.5% from the same period last year, the Beijing Municipal Commission said today.
Pre-owned home sales almost tripled in Beijing last week, following the latest moves by the State Council to reign in this property market. On a monthly basis, the figures represented a 140.5% increase on the previous week.
First-home purchasers, as well as those buyers looking to improve their living conditions are the two major types affected by the new policies,” Hu Jinghui, vice-president of 5i5j, a Beijing realtor told China Daily today.
A survey by SouFun Holdings Ltd, a real estate-focused website, said about one-third of potential home buyers had changed their home-purchase plans as a result of the tax.
…
South Sea Bubble warning for wealth management investors
CBRC probe into pooled funds either good news or cause for concern institutions will hit problems repaying investors in existing products
Tom Holland
As the writer of the South China Morning Post’s Monitor column, Tom Holland attempts each day to make sense of the latest developments in business, finance and economic affairs in Hong Kong and mainland China.
In his classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay detailed some of the investment absurdities of London’s South Sea Bubble of 1720.
In one case, the prospectus for an initial public offering described simply “a company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”.
It sounds ridiculous to us, but the issuer guaranteed investors they would make annual returns of 100 per cent. His office was promptly besieged by eager punters, and in the course of just six hours, he took subscriptions - and deposits - for £500,000 worth of shares. Today that would be worth HK$668 million.
It’s easy to laugh, but many of the mainland savers currently queuing up to buy wealth management products from their banks have no more idea what they are purchasing than those 18th-century Londoners. Just like their forebears, they have been beguiled by offers of high returns.
So depending on your point of view, a report yesterday in the quasi-official China Securities Journal that the China Banking Regulator Commission is to launch a major investigation into these products is either good news or deeply worrying.
Specifically, the CBRC is leaning on banks to stop pumping the money they raise selling wealth management products into common pools.
Typically the buyers of the products, which usually have maturities of just a few months, are promised an annualised return of 4.5 or 5 per cent.
That might not sound like much, but with inflation running at 3.2 per cent, it’s a lot more attractive than the 2.6 per cent interest rate paid on three-month bank deposits.
Unfortunately, from the buyers’ point of view there are big dangers when banks pool their money.
…
It is likely many of those who structured and sold the products won’t wait around to find out. As Mackay wrote of the issuer of that South Sea Bubble stock, “he was philosopher enough to be contented with his venture, and set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again”.
Buyers of mainland wealth management products may just see their money vanish in a similar fashion.
Concerns? I’m interested in the global commodities speculation bubble, which should crash when the Chinese building bubble does.
The mining boom is over in Australia. Will there be a tsunami of commodities flooding back, drowning the big easy money specs?
I wonder if this housing bubble is big enough so that even Federal Reserve Bank economists can spot it?
Prem Watsa: China Has Biggest Housing Bubble in History
March 11, 2013
By Jacob Wolinsky
Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd is out with their 2012 shareholder letter. Prem Watsa covers a variety of topics in the lengthy letter to investors. One topic mentioned is the vastly different trading environment. Watsa discusses how the trading environment has changed over the past few years and is now dominated by computers and speculators.
Prem Watsa also has some interesting comments about China. First the verbatim quote:
In the 2011 shareholder letter Prem Watsa states:
In the 2010 letter referenced by Prem Watsa he states:
Watsa has clearly not thrown in the towel on his bearish views regarding China. Jim Chanos has Watsa as an ally in terms of his belief regarding China. Pre Watsa agrees that China has the ultimate housing bubble “in history”. Prem Watsa specifically refers to a recent episode of 60 Minutes regarding Chinese ghost towns which we posted last week. Because of this fear and other reasons Watsa states that Fairfax Financial continues to be fully hedged.
Furthermore, according to a transcript from the company’s earnings call on February 15th 2013, Watsa states:
…
Take it from this sociology and gender studies graduate student: The Chinese real estate market is not in a bubble.
China’s Hot Real Estate Market Takes Broad Toll
March 13, 2013 4:00 AM
Morning Edition 4 min 3 sec
Renee Montagne speaks with Beijing-based sociology researcher Leta Hong Fincher about marriage and the property market in China. Fincher says marriage has become a complicated financial transaction involving home buying, and divorce has become one way for people to try to buy or keep multiple homes.
Economy
Surprising Weakness in Chinese Economy
Richard Silk reports China’s economy showed signs of weakness in the first two months of the year, which surprised observers expecting continued strong growth and low inflation. Photo: AP Images.
3/11/2013 10:09:55 AM
GOOG -0.28%
Roubini: No interest rate cut until 2015. Or was that an increase?
Roubini analyst sees no end to Fed QE until 2014
March 13, 2013, 4:17 AM
Reuters
The back of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
The Fed’s quantitative-easing program won’t last forever, but investors can expect it to continue for the rest of this year, with no interest rate cut until 2015.
That’s according to Christian Menegatti, managing director of research at Roubini Global Economics, who works with famed economist Nouriel Roubini, according to a report on CNBC Tuesday.
…
True or false:
March 12, 2013, 7:00 a.m. EDT
Retirement savers should ladder bonds
Timing the market rarely pays off
By Robert Powell, MarketWatch
No matter whether you’re sitting at the kitchen table with your spouse or in a board meeting at a big money management firm, it is unquestionably the question of day. With the stock market at all-time highs and interest rates rising (albeit slowly), is it time to sell your bonds?
As with all things money, the correct answer is that it depends. And it depends mostly on the reason why you are holding bonds in the first place. If, for instance, you bought bonds with a specific purpose in mind and the reasons for that purchase are still in place, then there’s no reason to dump your bonds, say experts. But if you’re trying to time the market, which we might note most experts advise against, now is probably as good a time as any to sell.
That’s right. If you bought bonds with designs on holding the bonds to maturity to fund some future expense there’s no reason to change course, especially if in the selling you might suffer a loss because of what’s called interest rate risk. The value of a bond tends to move in the opposite direction of interest rates. When interest rates rise, the value of a bond declines and when rates fall the value of a bond increases. And the longer the maturity of the bond, the more pronounced the swings in value will be when rates rise or fall.
In recent months, by the way, the interest rate on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note has risen from its 52-week low of 1.38% hit last July to 2.06% Monday.
…
HELICOPTERS
Posted by ButterflyMomto2 on March 10, 2013 at 7:52am in Chit Chat
Anyone else on the SE side of town hear all the helicopters flying at all hours of the night. This has been going on for a couple of days. Everytime they fly over it wakes us up. Uhh! Anyone know what they are doing?
Reply by Sandy Poucher yesterday
We heard them fly over the NE side of town at 3:15 AM and then again a little further away at 3:40 AM. Woke me and then I couldn’t get back to sleep - almost woke the little one (he moaned a little and went back to sleep). Ridiculous to fly so low over inhabited areas when they have the entire forest to play in. Makes me feel like we live in a war zone.
Reply by Shawna 22 hours ago
I honestly thought last night it was going to land on my house. What the heck is going on???
Reply by Row’s~mommy 21 hours ago
it is indeed government training i found out. Won’t last too much longer though
Reply by melissa 21 hours ago
Where did you here that.
Reply by Row’s~mommy 21 hours ago
They did alert them. It’s the dispatchers talking to the public that calls whose not telling whats going on. I talked to a friend there. It is the military. The public is on a need to know basis… I use a box fan so i hear nothing. It doesn’t bother me
it’s Signs!! oh no!!!!! haha
Permalink Reply by Theresa 16 hours ago
It happened last night over my daughters house, she lives in Cobblestone in Belleview
HELICOPTERS - OcalaMom
http://www.ocalamom.com/xn/detail/5051185:Comment:195984?xg_source=activity - -
Obama and Holder prepping for the next Waco.
Forward
“Obama and Holder prepping for the next Waco.”
Ah, ah, ah…. You forgot……
Valerie Jarrett and Janet Napolitano.
Well, if you aren’t marrying 12 year olds, you don’t have anything to worry about do you?
That must be why we are dronning the muslims.
They torched Waco over some bogus gun charges. The marrying 12 year olds story was spoon fed to the media to build public support for the murderous actions of the ATF. And that same ATF had no issue with gassing and burning all those 12 year olds (and younger) alive.
Right?
calm down white people, its just the ghetto bird.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRarzsKY8pw
“calm down white people, its just the ghetto bird.”
And I thought a ghetto bird was a “get-down” white woman.
If you’ve ever wondered if aids/hiv was a racket; make sure you watch the documentary “House of Numbers”.
Like the Apollo moon landings, anyone who questions the “official” aids/hiv explanation comes under blistering attack and get ejected from the funding tree.
Real names and real faces used in this one.
Quality material.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsT4GrimfLQ
Bay Area foreclosure sales at historic lows
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_22776264/foreclosure-sales-at-historic-lows-bay-area
California Foreclosure Starts Skyrocket 41.3 Percent in February
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=23020
I thirst to be thirsty in DISCOVERY BAY.
DISCOVERY BAY
March 12, 2013 9:00pm
• But longer term trend is still downward
• “Short sales have increased dramatically over the past year”
Montego Bay- Bobby Bloom- 1970 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYYiaZcuEuk - 193k -
I thirst to be thirsty in DISCOVERY BAY.
Discovery Bay is the home to $36k/yr millionaires. I know a guy there who was losing everything, wife, house, car and truck, and a ski boat. When his job went south he took his severance check, which should have been divided among creditors, and bought another ski boat — on credit. Unpaid bills rolled off his back like rain drops landing a duck; a true hustler and psychopath.
Those Club of Rome people never give up.
March 13, 2013, 8:03 a.m. EDT
Why your standard of living will keep shrinking
Commentary: More people, scarcer resources, means less for everyone
By Satyajit Das
When completed, the Shanghai Tower will be China’s tallest building. But stiff headwinds threaten China’s economic expansion and global growth overall.
STR/AFP/GettyImages
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — The era of robust global economic growth may be ending — lowering living standards as well.
Traditional sources of growth include increasing population, sustainable and affordable resources, new markets, and improved productivity and innovation.
Richard Silk reports China’s economy showed signs of weakness in the first two months of the year, which surprised observers expecting continued strong growth and low inflation. Photo: AP Images.
While global population is increasing, much of this expansion is in poorer nations. The population of more affluent nations is shrinking, with birth rates falling below replacement levels. In developed countries, aging populations increasingly constrain growth.
…
Will the new pope be good for US housing?
At last! Someone asking THE question.
Opinion: Why California’s Exodus Will Get Worse
OpinionJournal.com assistant editor Allysia Finley on why the poor are leaving California. Photos: Getty Images
3/4/2013 1:59:54 PM2:25
your profits flipping CA coastal properties will be unheard of this day in age.
Paying retail prices for houses results in much larger losses than paying retail prices for cars.
Wonder if Allysia giggles that much in real life?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-13/blackstone-said-to-get-2-1-billion-bank-loan-for-home-purchases.html
And here comes the back-fill of debt from the original equity purchases.
Interesting piece from 1999:
The American Metropolis at Century’s End: Past and Future Influences
http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardgreen/2013/03/13/california-has-a-shortage-of-rental-housing/
Pretty self-explanatory article. Not enough housing equals higher rent.
Solution is to have more housing…some apparently think that banks releasing what they own will be sufficient…however, based on a bigger picture view of the data, IMHO they need to build a lot more housing.
With 25 MILLION excess empty housing units and outfits like us adding ALOT more new housing units, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about not enough housing.
Besides, rental rates aren’t a problem considering they’re half the cost of buying at current inflated asking prices of resale housing.
Not enough housing equals higher rent.
If renting were cheap then I’d still be a renter.
Renting is cheaper. You just can’t be honest about it.
“Renting is cheaper.”
+1 An investor can’t purchase a residential property and rent it out for a profit anywhere along coastal California. Game over!
The housing out there is perfectly ample to provide for affodability for all Americans who can afford a monthly payment. The question is whether the monopolists of Megabank, Inc will be indefinitely enabled to illegally keep it off the market in order to fix prices.
In CA, there are 55,000 homes as REO.
There are approximately 12 million households in CA.
If all 55,000 were dumped onto the market overnight, it would increase the vacancy rate by 0.46%.
The “ample housing” is not located in CA.
Do the math in Florida, and I’m sure I would come to a different conclusion.
Liar.
There are 4 million housing units in CA either in default, empty or REO.
And those are the ones I presume Megabank, Inc is illegally holding off the market.
There you go again…making up numbers of thin air again.
CIBT:
I get it.
You are pissed that values didn’t fall as far as you expected, and you are looking for someone to blame. You blame banks for a presumed withholding of inventory–and willing to believe made up numbers in support of this view. You have been critical of my detailed math, so let’s go big picture to see how silly the 4 million number is from RAL:
There are only approximately 4.4 million mortgages in the entire state. There are 55k homes held as REO (Foreclosure Radar), and approximately 7.4% mortgages that are “non-current”, or 325k loans (LPS). So that would mean that to get to RAL’s 4 million number, you need to assume that there are approximately 3.6 million vacant housing units in the state of California (presumably being held vacant by landlords, since these homes are not in the control of the banks in any way shape or form), which is approximately 26% of the 13.74 million total housing units.
If the number actually is 4 million, 10% of those are being controlled in some way by the bank, and 90% by other property owners.
Do you honestly think that 4 million REO/defaulted/vacant homes spouted off by RAL is anywhere close to a real number? Really?
You are ignoring the biggest cause of the supply shortage of CA–the lack of housing development relative to population growth over the prior 20 years, leading to a real physical supply shortage of housing relative to people who want to live here. It is our politicians to blame…for development restricting policies, processes, and agencies, like:
1. CEQA
2. Williamson Act
3. Coastal Commission
4. New attempts to make developers consider greenhouse gas emissions when going through the entitlement process
5. Individual municipalities with arbitrary permit limits
6. State exerting control over cities relative to the city’s own planning (eg, Jerry Brown, when AG of CA, teaming up with the Sierra Club to sue the City of Stockton)
7. State exerting control over developers with respect to policy driven (not safety driven) building codes (see “build it green” building codes in CA–CALgreen), which adds complexity and cost to the development process
It is RIDICULOUSLY difficult to get entitlements in CA to develop. The result has been underdevelopment of housing in CA over a long period of time–this problem did not arise overnight, and is getting worse. THIS is the source of the physical supply shortage relative to population.
You want to alleviate high home prices? Vote for people who will allow the development of more homes. Unfortunately, this will require there to be far more Republicans voted into office in Sacramento to dial back some of the state-driven restrictions…and that simply isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
So in the meantime, keep tilting at windmills if it makes you feel better.
My CA mortgage number may be low…hard to find the right data…could add number of delinquent homes by 100k or so…still same conclusion.
“Do the math in Florida, and I’m sure I would come to a different conclusion.”
The number HAS to be smaller than FL, where the population is only slightly over half the size of California’s, while the per-capita impact of the Great Recession was similar.
The vacancy RATE is far higher in Florida than California.
Should have added:
1. The 1956 Interstate Highway Act
2. Federal Housing Administration Mortgage Financing
3. De-Industrialization
4. Urban Renewal
5. Levittown
6. Racial Segregation
7. Shopping Malls
8. Sunbelt-Style Sprawl
9. Air Conditioning
10. Urban Riots of the 1960s
I left a link earlier that hasn’t made it out of sequester yet, apparently.
The items above are from a 1999 report:
“The Top Ten Influences on the American Metropolis of the Past 50 Years”
www DOT knowledgeplex DOT org SLASH kp SLASH text_document_summary SLASH article SLASH relfiles SLASH hff_0104_fishman DOT html
Foreclosure Radar updated their data for the Month of February:
http://www.foreclosureradar.com/california-foreclosures
I’ll note two things here:
1. For all the screaming about CA becoming a de-facto judicial state after their Homeowner’s Bill of Rights law, there was actually a significant increase in NOD’s filed in February following the dramatic reduction in January. As I’ve said before, the reason for the dropoff as compared to December appears even more to be due to the inability to “dual track” than the lenders choosing to go the judicial route.
2. The REO in the hands of banks continues to slowly decrease…a couple of thousand per month. It will be interesting see if this accelerates IF the flow INTO the banks slows.
As an example of what “going de-facto judicial” WOULD look like, see Oregon. This is what the numbers look like (to compare to California):
http://www.foreclosureradar.com/oregon-foreclosures
And an article from today describing the situation in Oregon:
http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2013/03/judicial_foreclosure_filings_i.html
Why the sequester is effed up…..
One of the Federal government facilities has a notice up on their site. Seems that they are closed to the public until further notice, but all of their subcontractors will continue with their building/maintenance projects.
Basically, the facilities will continue to be improved……..but the public won’t have access to them.
These guys are starting to make dictatorships look good.
Seems that they are closed to the public until further notice, but all of their subcontractors will continue with their building/maintenance projects.
——————
The gov’t agency would have to go to court and get a stop work order to stop the contractors from working. They can’t just call the contractor and nicely ask them to stop working. Private contractors are a very expensive component of the free sh*t army. Don’t let Banana fool you, private contractors cost the US taxpayer more than a trillion “Obamaphones” do.
The sequester won’t end, until the contractors start taking hits, or people start losing money because they can’t get permits, licenses, etc. Both sides are convinced they are going to “win”.
Talked with my brother in the Border Patrol. They are losing 1 day of pay per two week pay period, plus all of their “Approved O/T” goes poof.
(Approved O/T = the time allotted before and after normal shifts, to “tie in” with those shifts)
Says that just like the civilian world, the BP is trying to shove old guys out the door, and replace them with newbies getting a lot less pay.
He also gave me a briefing on the “Border Patrol/Blow Job/Cirque de Soleil” incident.
Mr. Market: ” I got your mutual fund accounts back up to where they were in 2007. Are we good now?”
Me: ” Yeah, we’re good now. Now GTFO of here.”
the evening news says there is a surge in retail sales. more BS as usual from the owned media.
MORE FROM OBAMACARE - THIS IS NOT GOOD NEWS - The Draft Copy of the Application you will fill out to apply for Health Insurance Under Obamacare has been Released. IT IS 61 PAGES LONG, IT IS HARDER TO FILL OUT THEN INCOME TAXES. ALL WILL FILL OUT THIS APPLICATION IF YOU DON’T HAVE INSURANCE, IF YOUR INSURANCE IS DEEMED NOT ENOUGH BY THE IRS. THIS WILL GIVE THEM MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU GIVE ON A CENSUS FORM. LAUGHABLE NEWS FROM THE GOVERNMENT THEY WILL KEEP YOUR INFORMATION PRIVATE, AND YOU GET FREE OR LOW COST PROGRAM IF YOU EARN AS MUCH AS 92,000 A YEAR FOR A FAMILY OF 4.
You will supply EVERY DETAIL ABOUT YOUR FAMILY, YOUR INCOME, Here are a few tips for you from the Application itself.
Use this application to see what insurance choices you qualify for
• Free or low-cost insurance from Medicaid or the Children’s
Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
• A new tax credit that can help pay your health insurance
premiums
• Private health insurance plans
You may qualify for a free or low-cost program even if you
earn as much as $92,000 a year (for a family of 4).
Who can use this application?
You can use this application to apply for anyone in your family, even if they already have insurance now.
YOU CAN STILL APPLY EVEN IF YOU DO NOT FILE A FEDERAL INCOME TAX RETURN
Here’s who you need to include on this application:
• Your spouse, if married
• Your children who live with you
• Your partner who lives with you (but only if you have children together who need health insurance)
• Anyone you include on your federal income tax return
Anyone else who lives with you will need to file their own application if they want insurance. You don’t need to file taxes to apply for health insurance.
Complete one page (front and back) for each person in your family. Start with yourself!
If you have more than 6 people in your family to include, you’ll need to make a copy of the next 2 pages and complete.
Your information is private.
• We’ll keep your information private as required by law.
• We’ll use the information on this form only to see if you qualify for health insurance.
This is the Application
http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/03/12/draft_application.pdf
This is the Booklet that tells you how to fill out the Application
http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/03/12/61_page_questionnaire.pdf
http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/news/documents/2013/03/12/draft_application.pdf
media.cmgdigital.com